Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (24 page)

Besides which he grinned, ‘
W
ho do you want to take your chances with, us or
Charlie?’

Well, when he put it like that, there really wasn’t much choice
,
now was there?

The thing was as well, I was tempted. Even though
,
like I’d said to him, we had a deal, you broke it, end of, he was the sort of guy that you did want to trust, sort of. S
tupid as I know it probably sounds, no honour amongst thieves and all that sort of stuff, but when it came to Wibble shaking hands on a deal, you know, I actually did
respect
him. How weird was it that I had come to this point in my life where, as he stuck out his hand, I was
thinking about
trust
ing
my life to an outlaw biker, on the basis that his word was his bond?

OK, I thought, it’s not absolute. If he ever found it became necessary, for whatever reason, to default, then I
realised
he would do so. That was just
the reality of the world he lived in.

But he wouldn’t do it just on a whim. And I didn’t think he w
ould
cynically promis
e
something he had no intention of delivering.

‘So how about it,’ he pressed, ‘are you going to
trust me
or not
?’

I raised a quizzical eyebrow at that
.

‘Well, the lion, I probably trust,’ I said. And the thing was, I meant it.

‘But that’s the problem isn’t it? That’s not what old Nick would have said
and we both know it don’t we?
’

One of the odd things about bikers that outsiders often seemed to miss
i
s how straight they
a
re,
certainly amongst their own,
in terms of being honest. But it was one of those things that they t
a
k
e
extremely seriously.
It
i
s a matter of honour, and honour on their terms
i
s what really counted.

At some times and in some ways, they could probably be the most honest, if brutally so, people on the planet, if only
because it was taken so grave
ly.

Lying to a club brother was right
up
there as a deep shit issue that struck at the core of what the brotherhood was all about. When it was you and your club against the world, then you had to be damn sure of the brother standing beside you. And if you couldn’t be sure that he was telling you the truth when he looked you in the eye and spoke, then you and the club had a major fucking problem right there.

It was the same with the curiously formal levels of politeness and courtesy, although they would probably refer to it more as respect, that they showed both between themselves within the club
,
underneath the surface rough house and mutual joshing, and with full patch members of other clubs.

The bikers had made themselves a world where they all stood by their reputations and honour, both their own and of their club. So any disrespect given to either, whether deliberate or not, was to make an assault on what really mattered that had to be answered with an overwhelming response. Again it was one of the things that outsiders so often didn’t understand about bikers. As a result, people who didn’t ‘get it’
when they were dealing with the bikers
, were often running the risk of ‘getting it’ in a very different way.

I had noticed it when I’d been hanging around with Wibble, particularly when there were other clubs about. Being out with them felt like the closest I would ever come to drinking in an old Wild West saloon; some great times being had with a bunch of hard bitten characters who were seriously intent on having a good time, and if that involved lots of booze, loud tunes, some friendly and accommodating female company, heavy card games and some rough house, then so much the better.

But the other side of the coin was that it was also like entering a world of old fashioned gunslingers. You were always aware at the back of your mind that
in
the blink of an eye
everything could suddenly tip over into extreme viol
ence
. A spilt drink could suddenly lead to a massive bar room brawl; while the wrong look or wrong word given, the
merest
offence taken, particularly where it could be seen to be a
deliberate
slight
,
could suddenly lead to a deathly hush as two heavily armed men, neither of whom could back down without losing face, confronted each other with deadly intent, backed up to the hilt by all their respective club brothers present.

And so, because the implications within their own world of giving offense could be so serious, between themselves the clubs and their members tended to behave with an old fashioned civility
and old fashioned standards
. I suppose if you inhabited a world where someone could call you out as if
duelling
to the death was still the norm, it paid to pay a bit of attention to some of the niceties, depending of course, on who you were dealing with.

Now I wasn’t kidding myself here. As a civilian, I obviously didn’t count for jackshit in the club’s view of the hierarchy of things. Worse, given the history between me and the club, let alone being a journalist, I think realistically I was probably on a level with whale shit in most of the guys’ eyes.

‘
But are you really asking me to trust the fox here?
’ I asked.
‘
As I recall
the story
,
wasn’t the advice
basically that a
nyone who’s a
sensible leader couldn’t and shouldn’t feel himself bound to keep his promises if they
turned out to be
inconvenient later on?’

He didn’t seem upset, he just nodded at the reference and said,
‘
True enough.
Well I didn’t really think you were going to fall for that
one, but hey
,
God loves a tryer.
’

‘So what are we going to do?’ I asked.

‘Well,
’
he said,
‘
I’ve got a
nother
proposal for you.’

Oh right
,
I thought, let’s hear how this one is going to work then.

Then he surprised me by asking, ‘Have you
still
got
that
tape recorder thing
of yours
with you?’

‘Well we’ve gone digital these days,’ I said, ‘but yes, I never leave home without it.’

‘Great. So, whack it on then,’ he instructed, ‘I’ve got a little story to tell.’

And then he spoke into it for about five minutes. He gave his name, he gave the date, he described what had actually happened back in that
tower block
flat
last year
and a lifetime ago
. H
e told all about how I’d been set up and what Bob had been up to
. H
e described where the body was buried together with the plastic bag containing the gun and the other forensic evidence that would have the cops coming in their pants. And in all of it, he completely exonerated me, and incriminated himself, in every particular. If anyone ever heard it.

And when he’d finished, he just handed the recorder back to me and I slipped it into my pocket.

‘So here’s the deal,’ he said, ‘You get me the stuff, and
help me find what we need, and
you
arrange to
keep that as your protection. How does that sound?’

It sounded like the best offer I was ever going to get.

He was offering
me
a trade, with security, in a world where honour in an extraordinary way, mattered.

‘Deal?’ he asked, waiting for my response.

‘Deal
,
’ I said
,
taking
his outstretched
hand.

Saturday 20th
February
2010

Because of his tag, Wibble couldn’t go out, and
since
Wibble needed to look through the stuff, there was no alternative really
. T
he mountain of material needed to come to Mohammed.
And frankly, we might as well look at it
at Wibble’s house
as anywhere else.

And
he said
I could stay
at his place
,
I assumed
they had a spare room I could use.

And there was a shower, so that was
going to be a vast
improvement on my recent accommodation.

‘Is it
safe
here
?’ I asked, ‘surely Charlie would know where it is?’

‘No, I made sure he didn’t,’ said Wibble, ‘and anyway, don’t you think I’ve taken precautions?’

I didn’t go into what those precautions might be
,
but
on the way in I had noticed
a large
white
van parked
in the driveway of
the house at the entry to the cul-de-sac, and I didn’t put it past a man who’d been making money out of drugs for a good while now, not to have put some of it into sensible
local
property investments.

Meanwhile, for Fri
day night it was back to kip at the Chertsey clubhouse cum fortress before
,
w
ith Bung
in his now familiar role as driver,
on Saturday morning,
we
headed out
to collect
what we needed
.

Luckily, once I was done with writing
Damage’s quasi-
authorized biography
Heavy Duty People
I’d just boxed
up
all my files and, not having much room at the flat, had rented one of those
self-
store places with a year paid up front and a decent combination padlock, and stashed them all in there. I’d replaced my laptop at more or less the same time so the old one with all the recordings of my interviews with Damage was
there
as well.

I went in on my own
the
first time, with Bung waiting outside. That was the deal. Extracting the laptop and charger I reappeared outside ten minutes later or so.

‘Now where?’ he asked
,
as I slipped back inside the car.

‘
I need somewhere with wifi and a power socket
,’
I said,
‘
a coffee shop ought to do it.
’

‘OK,
you’ve got it.’

And so, within half an hour we were sitting upstairs at a café something or other, surrounded by women shoppers
ensconced with full shopping bags
and teenaged girls
hunched over and
texting as if their lives depended on it
. We blended in, as far as Bung could be said to blend in anywhere
, sat
behind a pair of
cappu
c
cinos
while
I got online to upload and store Wibble
’
s tale of murder and betrayal
on the ether in an email to myself,
because
the chances were,
my life
really
did depend on it.

‘Done?’ he asked as I finished, pull
ing
the USB cable out of the recorder and shut
ting
the machine down again.

‘Done,’ I confirmed, picking up my coffee cup for a final swig, ‘Let’s go.’

*

An
d so by the middle of the afternoon
I was carrying the banker
s
’
boxes of files into Wibble’s hallway and stacking them at the foot of the stairs.

‘Obviously I’d love to help,’ grinned Bung from where he remained sat in the driver’s seat
as I came back for the next load
, his elbow resting on the sill and a fag dangling from his lips, ‘but you know it’s Wibble’s bail conditions, so I just can’t.’

‘Go to hell
,
’
I told him.

‘Sorry mate, no can do that either
…
’

I just looked at him
as he grinned,
and waited for the inevitable.