Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (19 page)

*

The bikers weren’t planning on hanging around. Out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of a quiet flurry of activity going on around the other van as London Ted directed the clean up in a voice that never rose but which brooked no argument.
There was the familiar whirr and bark as Scroat’s bike coughed into life and then with a crunch of gears it pulled sedately away and out
on to
the road, heading off at a
modestly
respectable pace that would do justice to a
ny
born
-
again
-
biker’s
-
mid
-
life
-
crisis
-
mobile
,
so as to avoid as far as possible any unwanted attention from the boys in blue.

Back here and now, around the back of the van, I was still taking in the fact that t
hey
had
captured
the
Loki
MC’s president as
Lumpy
and
Fruitcake
tugged him to the door of the van where Bung and Gibbo then pulled him out, letting him drop to the floor in front of them.
Lumpy
and
Fruitcake
jumped down, and with Bung shutting the van door behind them,
Gibbo and
Lumpy
dragged the bucking body
on to
the verge and even deeper into the shadows if that was possible
, while
Fruitcake
walked back towards the first van.

So what where they going to do with him
,
I wondered. If they were going to shoot him surely they’d have done that back at the house. Why bother to bundle him into the van and now drag him out here if that’s all they wanted to do?

‘Oi,’ said
Lumpy
as they dropped him again on a scrap of grass between the bushes. ‘Stop wriggling for a moment will ya? We want to talk to you.’

There was a muffled noise from within the rolled material
that was trussed up with rope,
but the movement did subside.

‘Keep still now, or chances are I’ll stick you,’ warned
Lumpy
,
as reaching down and pulling out a knife, he sawed through the
material, tearing away a flap so that we could see the man’s face as he lay at
thei
r feet.

He was wild looking, thick black hair and thick black beard surrounding a snarling and defiant face.

‘Right then
,’
said
Lumpy
,
‘
You’re the
T
roll’s president right?’

There was the sound of what sounded like swearing as the man on the floor tried to hoist himself up into a sitting position, spit what looked like blood out
on to
the ground, and curse
Lumpy
, all at one time.

His hands must be tied behind his back
,
I thought.

Lumpy
’s boot pushed him down again.

‘No one said anything about you getting up
did they?
Now answer the question, you’re the
T
roll’s P right?’

There was more swearing and then
a
sudden
whoop
of breath and a retching sound as
Lumpy
delivered a savage kick at the man’s kidney
s
.

‘Look I ain’t got time for this crap from you,‘
Lumpy
snarled, ‘You know we’ve taken out your club, and we’ve taken you, so you’re the P of precisely fuck all at the moment
, so
stop wasting my time. You were the Loki P weren’t you?’

There was
guttural
noise from the floor, but one this time of something like agreement.

‘Good,’ said
Lumpy
approvingly, ‘now we’re getting somewhere.’

There was a mumble from the floor that sounded like a question, ‘So what do you want?’

‘Want?’ asked Bung, ‘
T
hat’s easy. We
want you to deliver a message.’

‘A message, to who?’

‘Is he slow or what?’ Bung asked his companions before addressing the man on the ground. ‘The guys who sent you of course.’

‘And what do you want me to say to them?’

‘Say? We don’t need you to say anything,’ Bung said pulling his mobile out of his cut and holding it up as
Fruitcake
appeared back at his side, dangling something by his side that I couldn’t quite make out.

‘But then how am I to…?’ he began
,
but broke off in confusion as
Fruitcake
stepped forwards.

NOOOOOO! He screamed and began to thrash about wildly on the floor as
Fruitcake
calmly and deliberately began to douse him and the carpet in petrol from the can he’d fetched from the first van.

Calmly
Lumpy
and Gibbo each planted a heavy boot on either end of the bundle which held him in place no matter how he struggled and pleaded while
Fruitcake
continued to pour from the can, the fuel glistening in the dim light as it fell and the sweet familiar smell perfuming the air around us.

Oh my God I thought, turning away as Bung took a long slow drag on his cigarette, the tip flaring to a glowing red brand as he fiddled with the controls on his mobile and the video screen on the back sprang into radiant blue life. Christ
,
I can’t believe they’re really going to do it…

From behind me, as I walked away as fast as I could, t
he sloshing and glugging noise stopped with a splashing dribble as
Fruitcake
finally emptied the can
.

All I could hear from the man on the ground
by now
as I reached the van
was a low keening noise of pure terror that I knew I was never, ever, going to get out of my head.

From somewhere, as if out of a dream, or a nightmare more like,
I heard Bung’s voice.

‘
Well, you know what they say?’

‘
Fire
fucks
forensics
?’
Lumpy
suggested companionably.

‘Absolutely.’

And then
I felt the flash of heat on the back of my neck,
there was the
whoop
of petrol fumes exploding and a scream that curdled my blood and just went on
,
and on
,
and on
, and on…
until…
until
at last after an age,
it
began to
fade,
and fade and fade
and
…
stopped.

Shaking
almost uncontrollably now,
I turned back to look at them. The three men were stood there, watching as the package on the ground
continued to
burn strongly
, no longer moving, but deadly still as the flames danced and Bung shot his video.

Then at last they turned away, and began walking back towards me and the vans.

‘
Do you think they’ll get the message?
’
Gibbo asked.

‘
Guess so
,’ said
Bung, ‘just need to post it to ’
em.’

They brushed past me as I stood rooted to the spot, continuing to stare horrified at the burning remains on the ground. Even when I felt myself being grabbed by the arm and tugged away I couldn’t take my eyes off it, couldn’t break away until I was physically thrown into the back of the second van, with Bung clambering in behind me
.

He pulled the door shut behind him as Gibbo and
Fruitcake
climbed into the front and gave a double bang on the roof.

‘Now let’s get the fuck out of here before the Trumpton turn up
,
’
h
e announced, ‘
Someone’s bound to call it in
soon
.’

*

As we travelled through the night, the light from the streetlights strobing
hypnotically
over me
and across the interior of the van
as they swept though
the windscreen,
I couldn’t speak.

The horror of what I’d witnessed was just too much.
I felt as stunned as if Bung had hit me across the back of the head and not Scroat.

‘Wha…?’ I started.
I had been so absorbed in my own thoughts, unable to focus on anything else, that I hadn’t noticed that
Bung was talking to me
,
asking something that I hadn’t caught. Blearily I turned my head towards him.

‘You
all right
?’ he asked again
,
quietly.

I didn’t know what to say for a moment.

The word, ‘No,’ just fell out somehow. But it wasn’t enough. I realized I was shivering.

‘No, I’m not fucking
all right
…’ followed it shortly thereafter.

‘
Shock mate, that’s
all
it is
,’ he said surprisingly gently, ‘I thought so, y
ou
’ve
got the thousand yard stare
.’

I just looked at him blankly as he spoke.

‘It’s
all right
,’ he continued calmly, ‘I’ve seen it before, It’s something the army trained us to deal with in the guys. You’re just reacting normally to extreme stress. You’ll get over it in a few hours, or a couple of days at the most. Give it a while and your brain’ll sort itself out, deal with it, get in perspective, and you’ll be fine.’

I nodded slowly,
not hearing,
his words going in one ear and out the other.

One thing I was sure of
,
I thought. This was one thing I was never ‘just getting over.’

In the front of the van Gibbo and
Fruitcake
just kept driving in silence

And up above the van, motorway lights flashed past, one, after another, after another, after another…

*

I
spent the rest of the night bunked up in the
club’s Chertsey
clubhouse
with Bung and the rest of
the local charter, Gibbo, Lump
y,
Fruitcake
, Merlin,
Eyore
and
Shrek who were all holed up there. Sometimes I though
t
, it sounded like being on the
set of
some
bizarre
version of
Snow White and the Seve
n Dwarves.

Staring out into the darkness of the room
,
eyes wide open
,
I thought I’d never sleep.

*

Friday 19th
February
2010

And then it was daylight and I heard the unmistak
e
able sounds of Bung moving around downstairs.

Slowly I rolled out of bed, my clothes feeling all twisted and rucked up around me where I’d crashed last night. Pulling on my boots and wondering whether this place had a working shower, I slouched downstairs.

The clubhouse was in an old shop, the end of a sort of red brick terrace of half a dozen or so, with access to the flats above at the rear, and their own little slip road out front off a set of traffic lights opposite the local comprehensive.

I think it must have been the noise of school kids shouting and larking about around the entrance of the newsagents a couple of doors down that had woken me.

‘Coffee?’ asked Bung.

I nodded
,
rubbing my hair ineffectually where it was standing up on its own
.

‘
You OK
?’
he asked
.

Uh
-
huh
I nodded, not tru
sting myself to speak
yet
. Bung
signalled
to the hovering striker who headed over to the kettle as I slumped into a chair by the table.

‘
You don’t look it
,
’ he said helpfully
.