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Keeping on the Right Side of the Law
By Val McDermid |
Just imagine trying to get a straight job when you've been a villain
all your life. Even supposing I could bullshit my way round an
application form, how the fuck do I blag my way through an interview
when the only experience I've got of interviews, I've always had
a brief sitting next to me reminding the thickhead dickheads on
the other side of the table that I'm not obliged to answer? I
mean, it's not a technique that's going to score points with the
personnel manager, is it?
You can imagine it, can't you? 'Mr Finnieston,
your application form was a little vague as to dates. Can you
give us a more accurate picture of your career structure to date?'
Well, yeah. I started out with burglary
when I was eight. My two older brothers figured I was little enough
to get in toilet windows, so they taught me how to hold the glass
firm with rubber suckers then cut round the edge with a glass
cutter. I'd take out the window and pass it down to them, slide
in through the gap and open the back door for them. Then they'd
clean out the telly, the video and the stereo while I kept watch
out the back.
All good things have to come to an end, though,
and by the time I was eleven, I'd got too big for the toilet windows
and besides, I wanted a bigger cut than those greedy thieving
bastards would give me. That's when I started doing cars. They
called me Sparky on account of I'd go out with a spark plug tied
on to a piece of cord. You whirl the plug around like a cowboy
with a lasso, and when it's going fast enough, you just flick
the wrist and bingo, the driver's window shatters like one of
them fake windows they use in the films. Hardly makes a sound.
Inside a minute and I'd have the stereo
out. I sold them round the pubs for a fiver a time. In a good
night, I could earn a fifty, just like that, no hassle.
But I've always been ambitious, and that
was my downfall. One of my mates showed me how to hot-wire the
ignition so I could have it away on my toes with the car as well
as the sounds. By then, one of my brothers was doing a bit of
work for a bloke who had a second hand car pitch down Strangeways
and a quiet little back street garage where his team ringed stolen
cars and turned them out with a whole new identity to sell on
to mug punters who knew no better.
Only, he wasn't as clever as he thought
he was, and one night I rolled up with a Ford Escort and drove
right into the middle of a raid. It was wall-to-wall Old Bill
that night, and I ended up in a different part of Strangeways,
behind bars. Of course, I was too young to do proper time, and
my brief got me out of there and into a juvenile detention centre
faster than you could say, 'of previous good character.'
It's true, what they say about the nick.
You do learn how to be a better criminal, just so long as you
do what it tells you in all them American self-help books in the
prison library. You want to be successful, then hang out with
successful people and do what they do. Only, of course, anybody
who's banged up is, by definition, not half as fucking successful
as they should be.
Anyway, I watched and listened and learned
and I made some good mates that first time inside. And when I
came out, I was ready for bigger and better things. Back then,
banks and Post Offices were still a nice little earner. They hadn't
learned about shatterproof glass and grilles and all that bollocks.
You just ran in, waved a shooter around, jumped the counter and
cleaned the place out. You could be in and out in five minutes,
with enough in your sports bag to see you clear for the next few
months.
I loved it.
It was a clean way to earn a living. Well,
mostly it was. OK, a couple of times we ran into one of them have-a-go
heroes. You'd think it was their money, honest to God you would.
Now, I've always believed you should be able to do a job, in and
out, and nobody gets hurt. But if some dickhead is standing between
me and the out, and it's me or him, I'm not going to stand there
and ask him politely to move aside, am I? No, fuck it, you've
got to show them who's in charge. One shot into the ceiling, and
if they're still standing there, well, it's their own fault, isn't
it? You've got to be professional, haven't you? You've got to
show you mean business.
And I must have been good at it, because
I only ever got a tug the once, and they couldn't pin a thing
on me. Yeah, OK, I did end up doing a three stretch around about
then, but that was for what you might call extra-curricular activities.
When I found out Johnny the Hat was giving one to my brother's
wife, well, I had to make an example of him didn't I? I mean,
family's family. She might be a slag and a dog, but anybody that
thinks they can fuck with my family is going to find out different.
You'd think Johnny would have had the sense not to tell the Dibble
who put him in the hospital, but some people haven't got the brains
they were born with. They had him in witness protection before
the trial, but of course all that ended after I went down. And
when I was getting through my three with visits from the family,
I had the satisfaction of knowing that Johnny's family were visiting
his grave. Like I say, families have got to stick together.
By the time I got out, things had changed.
The banks and building societies had wised up and sharpened up
their act and the only people trying to rob them were amateurs
and fucking eejits.
Luckily, I'd met Tommy inside. Honest
to God, it was like it was written in the fucking stars. I knew
all about robbing and burgling, and Tommy knew all there was to
know about antiques. What he also knew was that half the museums
and stately homes of England -- not to mention our neighbours
in Europe -- had alarm systems that were an embarrassment.
I put together a dream team, and Tommy
set up the fencing operation, and we were in business. We raped
so many private collections I lost count. The MO was simple. We'd
spend the summer on research trips. We'd case each place once.
Then we'd go back three weeks later to case it again, leaving
enough time for the security vids to be wiped of our previous
visit. We'd figure out the weak points and draw up the plans.
Then we'd wait till the winter, when most of them were closed
up for the season, with nothing more than a skeleton staff.
We'd pick a cold, wet miserable night,
preferably with a bit of wind. That way, any noise we made got
swallowed up in the weather. Then we'd go in, seven pound sledges
straight through the vulnerable door or window, straight to the
cabinets that held the stuff we'd identified as worth nicking.
Here's a tip, by the way. Even if they've got toughened glass
in the cases, chances are it's still only got a wooden frame.
Smack that on the corner with a three pound club hammer and the
whole thing falls to bits and you're in.
Mostly, we were off the estate and miles
away before the local bizzies even rolled up. Nobody ever got
hurt, except in the pocket.
They were the best years of my life. Better
than sex, that moment when you're in, you do the business and
you're out again. The rush is purer than you'll ever get from
any drug. Not that I know about that from personal experience,
because I've never done drugs and I never will. I hate drug dealers
more than I hate coppers. I've removed my fair share of them from
my patch over the years. Now they know not to come peddling their
shit on my streets. But a couple of the guys I work with, they
like their Charlie or whizz when they're not working, and they
swear that they've never had a high like they get when they're
doing the business.
We did some crackers. A museum in France
where they'd spent two million quid on their state of the art
security system. They had a grand opening do where they were shouting
their mouths off about how their museum was burglar-proof. We
did it that very night. We rigged up pulleys from the building
across the street, wound ourselves across like we were the SAS
and went straight in through the skylight. They said we got away
with stuff worth half a million quid. Not that we made anything
like that off it. I think I cleared 15k that night, after expenses.
Still, who dares wins, eh?
We only ever took stuff we already knew
we had a market for. Well, mostly. One time, I fell in love with
this Rembrandt. I just loved that picture. It was a self-portrait
and just looking at it, you knew the geezer like he was one of
your mates. It was hanging on this Duke's wall, right next to
the cases of silver we'd earmarked. On the night, on the spur
of the moment, I lifted the Rembrandt an' all.
Tommy went fucking ape. He said we'd never
shift that, that we'd never find a buyer. I told him I didn't
give a shit, it wasn't for sale anyway. He thought I'd completely
lost the plot when I said I was taking it home.
I had it on the bedroom wall for six months.
But it wasn't right. A council house in Wythenshawe just doesn't
go with a Rembrandt. So one night, I wrapped it up in a tarpaulin
and left it in a field next to the Duke's gaff. I rang the local
radio station phone-in from a call box and told them where they
could find the Rembrandt. I hated giving it up, mind you, and
I wouldn't have done if I'd have had a nicer house.
But that's not the sort of tale you can
tell a personnel manager, is it?
'And why are you seeking a change of employment,
Mr Finnieston?'
Well, it's down to Kim, innit?
I've known Kimmy since we were at school
together. She was a looker then, and time hasn't taken that away
from her. I always fancied her, but never got round to asking
her out. By the time I was back in circulation after my first
stretch, she'd taken up with Danny McGann, and before I worked
up the bottle to make a move, bingo, they were married.
I ran into her again about a year ago.
She was on a girls' night out in Rothwell's, a gaggle of daft
women acting like they were still teenagers. Just seeing her made
me feel like a teenager an' all. I sent a bottle of champagne
over to their table, and of course, Kimmy came over to thank me
for it. She always had good manners.
Any road, it turned out her and Danny
weren't exactly happy families any more. He was working away a
lot, leaving her with the two girls, which wasn't exactly a piece
of cake. Mind you, she's done well for herself. She's got a really
good job, managing a travel agency. A lot of responsibility and
a lot of respect from her bosses. We started seeing each other,
and I felt like I'd come up on the lottery.
The only drawback is that after a few
months, she tells me she can't be doing with the villainy. She's
got a proposition for me. If I go straight, she'll kick Danny
into touch and move in with me.
So that's why I'm trying to figure out
a way to make an honest living. You can see that convincing a
bunch of suits they should give me a job. 'Thank you very much,
Mr Finnieston, but I'm afraid you don't quite fit our present
requirements.'
The only way anybody's ever going to give
me a job is if I monster them into it, and somehow, I don't think
the straight world works like that. You can't go around personnel
offices saying, 'I know where you live. So gizza job or the Labrador
gets it.'
This is where I'm up to when I meet my
mate Chrissie for a drink. You wouldn't think it to look at her,
but Chrissie writes them hard-as-nails cop dramas for the telly.
She looks more like one of them bleeding-heart social workers,
with her wholemeal jumpers and jeans. But Chrissie's dead sound,
her and her girlfriend both. The girlfriend's a brief, but in
spite of that, she's straight. That's probably because she doesn't
do criminal stuff, just divorces and child custody and all that
bollocks.
So I'm having a pint with Chrissie in
one of them trendy bars in Chorlton, all wooden floors and hard
chairs and fifty different beers, none of them ones you've ever
heard of except Guinness. And I'm telling her about my little
problem. Half way down the second pint, she gets that look in
her eyes, the dreamy one that tells me something I've said has
set the wheels in motion inside her head. Usually, I see the results
six months later on the telly. I love that. Sitting down with
Kimmy and going, 'See that? I told Chrissie about that scam. Course,
she's softened it up a bit, but it's my tale.'
'I've got an idea,' Chrissie says.
'What? You're going to write a series
about some poor fucker trying to go straight?' I say.
'No, a job. Well, sort of a job.' She
knocks back the rest of her pint and grabs her coat. 'Leave it
with me. I'll get back to you. Stay lucky.' And she's off, leaving
me surrounded by the well-meaning like the last covered wagon
hemmed in by the Apaches.
A week goes by, with me trying to talk
my way into setting up a little business doing one-day hall sales.
But everybody I approach thinks I'm up to something. They can't
believe I want to do anything the straight way, so all I get offered
is fifty kinds of bent gear. I am sick as a pig by the time I
get the call from Chrissie.
This time, we meet round her house. Me,
Chrissie and the girlfriend, Sarah the solicitor. We settled down
with our bottles of Belgian pop and Sarah kicks off. 'How would
you like to work on a freelance basis for a consortium of solicitors?'
she asks.
I can't help myself. I just burst out
laughing. 'Do what?' I go.
'Just hear me out. I spend a lot of my
time dealing with women who are being screwed over by the men
in their life. Some of them have been battered, some of them have
been emotionally abused, some of them are being harassed by their
exes. Sometimes, it's just that they're trying to get a square
deal for themselves and their kids, only the bloke knows how to
play the system and they end up with nothing while he laughs all
the way to the bank. For most of these women, the law either can't
sort it out or it won't. I even had a case where two coppers called
to a domestic gave evidence in court against the woman, saying
she was completely out of control and irrational and all the bloke
was doing was exerting reasonable force to protect himself.'
'Bastards,' I say. 'So what's this got
to do with me.'
'People doing my job get really frustrated,'
Sarah says. 'There's a bunch of us get together for a drink now
and again, and we've been talking for a long time about how we've
stopped believing the law has all the answers. Most of these blokes
are bullies and cowards. Their women wouldn't see them for dust
if they had anybody to stand up for them. So what we're proposing
is that we'd pay you to sort these bastards out.'
I can't believe what I'm hearing. A brief offering
me readies to go round and heavy the kind of toerags I'd gladly
sort out as a favour? There has to be a catch. 'You're not telling
me the Legal Aid would pay for that, are you?' I say.
Sarah grins. 'Behave, Terry. I'm talking a strictly
unofficial arrangement. I thought you could go and explain the
error of their ways to these blokes. Introduce them to your baseball
bat. Tell them if they don't behave, you'll be visiting them again
in a less friendly mode. Tell them that they'll be getting a bill
for incidental legal expenses incurred on their partners' behalf
and if they don't come up with the cash pronto monto, you'll be
coming round to make a collection. I'm sure they'll respond very
positively to your approaches.'
'You want me to go round and teach them
a lesson?' I'm still convinced this is a wind-up.
'That's about the size of it.'
'And you'll pay me?'
'We thought a basic rate of 250 a job.
Plus bonuses in cases where the divorce settlement proved suitably
substantial. A bit like a lawyer's contingency fee. No win, no
fee.'
I can't quite get my head round this idea.
'So it would work how? You'd bell me and tell me where to do the
business?'
Sarah shakes her head. 'It would all go
through Chrissie. She'll give you the details, then she'll bill
the legal firms for miscellaneous services, and pass the fees
on to you. After this meeting, we'll never talk about this again
face to face. And you'll never have contact with the solicitors
you'd be acting for. Chrissiea's the cut-out on both sides.'
'What do you think, Tel?' Chrissie asks, eager
as a virgin in the back seat.
'You could tell Kimmy you were doing process
serving,' Sarah chips in.
That's the clincher. So I say OK.
That was six months ago. Now I'm on Chrissie's
books as her research assistant. I pay tax and National Insurance,
which was a bit of a facer for the social security, who could
not get their heads round the idea of me as a proper citizen.
I do two or three jobs a week, and everything's sweet. Sarah's
sorting out Kimmy's divorce, and we're getting married as soon
as all that's sorted.
I tell you, this is the life. I'm doing
the right thing and I get paid for it. If I'd known going straight
could be this much fun, I'd have done it years ago.
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