Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (20 page)

‘
What he mean
s
is, you
look like shit
,’
observed Gibbo
helpfully
who was sitting next to him.

I couldn’t trust myself to answer.

‘
He’ll
live. He’ll
be better once he
’
s had a brew
,’
concluded
Bung solicitously.

*

I sipped slowly at the scalding mug that the striker plan
t
ed in front of me. My ha
n
d had been shaking as I tipped a couple of sugars into it, and as I slowly felt the heat from the drink start to penetrate my body, I did start to feel slightly more human.

My mind shying away from what I’d witnessed in the
lay-by
, I tried to take stock of the situation. I needed to think
,
I realized. With the events of last night, things had changed. I needed to work out how and where this left me.

I was alive for a start.

I was obviously with Bung and Wibble’s crew. Which even now, after all I’d seen, had to be one up on being in the hands of those in the club loyal
to Charlie and the late Scroat
. So that was a plus of sorts
,
I decided.

After the events of last night, the threat from Loki was lifted, and from what I’d gathered from Wibble and Bung, the thinking seemed to be that Loki
was
the only club that the
Yank
s had set on the case, so presumably we all
now
had a bit of a breathing space for a while
.

Bung had said something last night about uploading his video so I guessed that was being posted online somewhere and circulated to all who needed to see it, friend, enemy, or potential enemy. You’d have to be fairly
bloody
sure of yourself to come at these boys now I thought, once you’d seen that. It might make it much more difficult for the Americans to find another striking club willing to take on the contract, which was presumably Bung’s idea in taping it in the first place.

But
on the downside,
the split in the club was now open war I guessed. With
all that that implied.

There was one thing that was
puzzling
me
however, and I was still so out of it that at first I didn’t real
i
se that I’d actually said it out loud.

‘
How the hell had Loki managed to find out about Scampi’s place?
’

It was hardly the sort of operation
t
h
a
t he would have advertised.

‘
Now that’s a mystery isn’t it
?
’
said
Bung
grinning from ear to ear
at Gibbo who looked back smugly.

It took me a moment, but t
hen I got it.

‘
Christ, you didn’t just know they were coming
,
did you Bung?’ I accused,
setting my mug down on the table in front of me and distractedly watching the steam rise from the still swirling surface
.
‘
You set
the whole thing up
. You told them
about Scampi’s lab, what it was, w
here it was
, everything
,
didn’t you?
’

That was why Bung and I had gone with Scroat’s suggestion of us hiding out with someone who was obviously in Charlie’s camp
,
I realized. That way Scroat had actually led Bung to where he wanted to be in order to be
tray it to the T
rolls. A
ll it would have taken was a
message to the rest of Wibble’s team that could be
deliberately planted to
let sli
p through third parties to the T
rolls in a way that they thought they were getting a real tip off
,
and
hey presto,
Bung and his crew were set.

‘Maybe,’ he smiled, ‘or maybe they just got lucky.’

‘Oh crap,’ I said dully, and no one contradicted me.

*

Wibble and Bung had given Scampi’s house
away
to Loki, turn
ing
it
and us
into the bait in
the
trap
in the process.

A
nd it had worked
, they had fallen for it and walked straight into the ambush that had wiped them out
.
I couldn’t fault it as a plan.
H
aving
taken out
not just Loki, but Scampi’s factory in one fell swoop
was a
major
win
-
win for
Wibble
.

A
s Charlie’s main cook, with Scampi’s operation gone, so was
Charlie’s
ready supply of local home cooked crank which would hurt his business bad
ly
until he could organize a replac
e
ment. He could do it of course, it would just be a matter of time and putting feelers out here and overseas to tie up a new supply.
It might b
e a bit more difficult now given The Brethren situation, tha
n
it would have been a short while ago, but he could do it.

In the interim though, time was money, and money was power, and a dent in that wasn’t going to help
Charlie’s
cause or do Wibble any harm at all.

And, my mind still shying away from, and trying to put out of sight, the image that was nagging at my mind like a sore tooth, having the Loki P around at the end with which to send a final horrific warning to anyone else out there who might fancy their chances, was a bonus, the icing on the cake as it were.

The trouble was, you can’t shut your inner eye can you? You can’t unsee what’s seen? You can only hope to learn to live with it,
to
dull and blur the edges and to wait until time and distance start to make its immediacy fade. And I was a long way from that point now.

‘You only took me there to set Scampi up didn’t you?’ I
pressed, looking up and into Bung’s face.

He looked back at me for a moment, as if weighing up what he wanted to say.

‘Well we didn’t know for sure where it was,
’ he admitted at last,
‘
Scroat and Charlie were keeping it good and quiet, so we needed some kind of leverage to get us invited round.’

‘
I
’m
getting a bit tired of
this
,
’ I
said,
yawn
ing and stretching
in my chair
.

‘Of what?’ he asked
.

‘Of
being used as some kind of live bait whenever it suit
s
Wibble
,
apart from anything else
,’ I told him.
The problem was, I had no idea what the hell I could do about it though.

‘
Well then, you can take that up with him
when you see him
,’ Bung told me finishing up his coffee and rising to his feet.

I sat back in my chair and looked up at him questioningly.

‘We going somewhere?’

‘
Yeah
,
soon as you’re
organized
sunshine
, we’re off.
Wibble
needs to see you
again,’ Bung
told me
.

‘So we’re back off to Bullingdon?’ I asked.

‘No
pe, he’s
at home.’

‘
He’s where
?’
I asked.

‘
He’s at home,’ he repeated, ‘
Wibble’s made bail
.’

‘
H
e’s out, but he’s tagged. So he’s at home
,
’
confirmed Gibbo.

It didn’t take long. It was only a few miles out to Woking
,
past the five ways roundabout at Horsell Common, and
on to
the huge Goldsworth Park estate of 70s and 80s houses, circled around its tree fringed lake.

‘He’s due in Court on Monday
week after next
,’ Bung explained as we drove. ‘The brief’s trying to get the case dismissed so Wibble’s
been let
out on bail pending the hearing.’

‘And Charlie?’ I asked.

‘Him too.’

‘They going to get off d’you reckon?’ I asked
. ‘I
s their barrister that good?’

‘Fuck no, they’ve got a great brief,’ laughed Bung.

‘
What’s the difference?’

‘A good brief knows the law, a great brief knows the judge.’

I just groaned.
There were times when I really couldn’t tell whether Bung was joking or not.

He
negotiated his route down the ‘Ways’ and past the ‘Closes’ until at last he turned a corner and
pulled the car up to drop me off.

‘
He’s expecting you
,’ he said
as he killed the engine
.

I didn’t move.

‘
Look
,
’
s
aid Bung,
Just go in and see
him
, If you don’t like what he’s
got
to say, well, then I guess you can always walk out again
,
can’t you?
’

I turned to look at him as he spoke and then went back to gazing at the house’s front door.
Can I now
,
I wondered
?
So how would that work exactly?

Reluctantly I pushed open the car door and stepped out.

‘You
’re
not coming in?’ I asked
,
as Bung settled back into his seat and lit a fag.

‘Can’t,’ he said simply.

I pushed the door shut and turned to face the house.

Put not your trust in princes.

*

I
don’t know what I’d been expecting but i
t was an ordinary looking house on
what was after all
a
reasonably
modern, fairly upmarket estate, a three or four bedroom semi, with a block paving drive and integral garage, down the sort of a cul-de-sac that had
warning
neighbourhood watch signs hanging
like gibbets
from every
other
lamppost.

I rang the bell
of the ordinary looking
front door as Bung sat in the car across the road
, watching and
waiting for me to go in
. Other than a discreet CCTV arrangement covering the
entrance and path
from up at roof height, it looked
just
like most of the others on the
road
. Well, come to that, some of them had CCTV and obvious alarm
systems
as well
,
so maybe it wasn’t
really
that different at all.

A
fter a moment or two,
I heard the rattle of bolts being drawn and
Wibble answered the door.

‘Hi,’ he said letting off the security chain and standing aside, ‘come on in.’

I
stepped
across
the threshold and
walked
past him
into a hallway that could have been any
other
household
on the estate
,
with
its
kids’ cycles leaning against one wall, opposite a row of coat hooks shrouded in school parkas and macs.

Just an ordinary ho
me
who
s
e
man about the house arranges for his enemies to
be
burnt alive
pour encourage
r
les autres
.