Heavy Duty People: The Brethren MC Trilogy book 1 (25 page)

No
it was far better to just go for it now, and see how the pieces then fell.

There was a resigned silence, and then in a quiet voice she asked,
‘So what happened? To your bloke Cesare in the end I mean? Did he keep his kingdom?’

‘
No he didn’t. He got unlucky. He did everything he could to ensure that he was secure, except that he hadn’t allowed for the chance that he would fall sick and he was very nearly on his own death-bed when his father died. So he couldn’t control who was elected as his dad’s successor as Pope and took over the Church’s armies and that was that really.’

‘
It just goes to show I suppose,’ she said reflectively.

‘
Show what?’

‘
That you can’t always control everything.’

She was right there
too. There was even a theory that his father had accidentally poisoned both of them, but I thought that was just a nice story.

*

Butcher’s pet Spud had got his patch. Dazza saw to that.

It was the first patch I ever saw awarded with a Bonesman
’s badge already on it.

I guess they were
Spud’s rewards. It was pretty obvious what for.

10              THE TALK

The cops
pulled me in again, this time over Butcher getting it. I don’t know why they seemed so keen to get me in the frame for everything. I was thinking about telling them how I’d been on the grassy knoll.

‘
Come on son, everyone knows that you hated Butcher.’

‘
Do they really? Now who would say a thing like that? Who’s this everyone who’s so chatty?’

‘
Yeah, like I’d tell you that? Let’s just stop playing games shall we? We both know something’s building here.’

‘
Something?’

‘
First the takeover and then all those guys kicked out. Then Tiny gets it, then someone blows your mate young Billy to kingdom come and now Butcher gets blasted. It’s not looking too clever for you guys at the moment is it?’

‘
Yeah well, perhaps I’ll be able to sell the guys some life insurance.’

‘
What d’you reckon Sarge,’ the younger one chipped in laconically, ‘is that enough of a motive?’

‘
Listen, you little scumbag,’ the sergeant hissed leaning forward and stabbing the table aggressively with his finger to underline his points, ‘Like I told you before. Personally, I really don’t care if you lot take all of each other out, in fact nothing would give me more pleasure than to sit back and just let it happen. However sometimes unfortunately you just can’t mix business with pleasure, particularly if there’s a chance that this’ll get out of hand.’

He sat back in his chair with a disgusted expression on his face like
I was something that he’d just stepped in on the street, ‘Fucking car bombs for Chrissakes. Innocent people could get hurt and I don’t want that on my patch.’

‘
In fact I just won’t have it, d’you hear me, Damage? So you take a message for me. You take it to all your guys. This stops, right here, right now. Understand?’

I looked at him blankly
. ‘Are you planning to charge me with anything officer?’

‘
What? No. Not this time.’

‘
Then I’m free to go I take it?’

‘
Yes and get the fuck out of my sight. But just remember what I said.’

‘
Oh I’ll remember alright officer.’

‘
And remember to tell your mates?’

‘
I’ll let them know we’ve had another one of our little chats.’

‘
Now you do that son. You just fucking do that.’

*

‘I don’t fucking believe it. Lifted again! For fucking Butcher this time! What does he think I am, Murder Inc?’

Dazza
laughed, ‘Don’t worry about it mate. They’re just trying to wind you up.’

‘
Yeah, I know.’

‘
Are you worried about it?’

‘
Nah, course not. Just it’s a pain in the arse y’know?’

‘
Yeah, it must be,’ he commiserated, ‘Still, while they’ve got this downer on you, even more need to make sure you stay clean. No sense giving ’em any excuse.’

‘
Yeah, you’re right. Still, I’m thinking about getting away from it for a bit.’

I
’d checked the accounts, more dosh had come in, so I took a chance.

‘
Sprog and Bagpuss’re still out of it. D’ya need any more post doing out my way?’

‘
Nah, it’s OK thanks, I’ll get Wibble to take a trip up North to take care of it.’

‘
OK, it’s just I’m thinking about taking Sharon away next week, bit of a break, y’know? So if yer gonna need me that’s fine but I need to know so I can work round it.’

‘
Well OK then. Are you at prayers on Monday?’

‘
Of course.’

‘
Turning up on time this time?’

Now h
e was winding me up I knew, but all the same, there was the continual watchfulness, the hypersensitivity to detecting the merest hint of slipping commitment, a weakening of the faith and loyalty that meant I couldn’t let it go unchallenged.

‘
Yeah, give us a break will ya? I’m like late one time and it’s a hanging offence all of a sudden?’

‘
Well then, if I’m gonna need you it’ll be Wednesday so I’ll let you know then.’

‘
Chances?’

‘
Probably not, like I said, Wibble should be able to handle it this week and Sprog and Bagpuss should both be back in action next week so I’ll be back in business.’

‘
OK. Cool.’

‘
You going to the funeral?’ He meant Billy’s.

There didn
’t seem to be any reason to deny it.

‘
Yeah. He was my oldest mate.’

Dazza
nodded. ‘Yeah, you ought to go whatever. Would look strange if you didn’t.’

It was another grey morning as the hearse rolled in
quietly through the cemetery gates followed by a couple of cars although at least it had kept dry.

You
can tell a lot from the turnout for a funeral. In contrast to Tiny’s there were only a few for Billy, and nothing and no one from the club, not even a wreath. It was a family do not a club event. Family and girlfriends. And standing at the back, me.

Dazza
had put the word out about Billy’s Rebels connection, about his Glasgow trip. He was giving that out as part of Butcher’s beef with Billy. That was why guys from the club had stayed away of course. No one wanted to show up for a guy who’d been dealing with The Rebels, it was almost as bad as being a grass in some ways, not just because it was dealing with the enemy but because of the danger it meant he had been bringing everyone into. You could understand how they felt. We were ready to go to war with The Rebels as and when we ever needed to and accept whatever the consequences were. But to hear that someone in the club had risked stirring up all that kind of shit just to do some dealing of their own, well that was hard to stomach.

The family had gone for a vicar, the works. Billy
’s mum and dad were standing beside the grave. She was crying. He had been staring into the middle distance as though he was a million miles away from the here and now of the grass squelching underfoot and the smell of damp earth from the grave. As the coffin was lowered into the ground she turned and buried her head against his shoulder, her body rocking with sobs as he dragged his attention around to her in slow motion and enfolded her within his arms and let her cry. I could see his mouth move but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

It was a full sized coffin they had used, all varnished pine and brass rail and handles. I wondered how much of Billy they had actually found to put inside it. Seemed a bit of a waste really.

As the preacher droned on I switched off and carried on thinking about the situation. Dazza’s mistake I decided was in how he had done it, he’d made the mistake of not moving to base himself at the clubhouse.

He had faced a problem in taking over The Legion. With the exception of Butcher
’s cohort, we had always been a democratic club, used to being consulted, to making our decisions as a club, by vote. We had had that freedom, it was part of our club’s DNA. But then Dazza had taken over and his model was very much a top down one, of command and control, that he was in charge, that the club would work as a team and that meant we would all do exactly what he told us to.

And the problem with that was there was always going to be a potential for conflict
between the way he was going to run things and what the guys had been used to. We wouldn’t forget very quickly how our club had run; within the members from the old Legion, that memory of freedom would remain strong. So if any conflict arose, a challenge to Dazza which could call on that emotion would be a powerful force that opponents would swiftly rally round. As I saw it, that was why Tiny had had to go of course, he was the obvious figure-head or rallying point for any such challenge, and so Dazza had had to have him taken out completely, whatever story he was now spinning to the guys.

Of course, t
o really ensure peace he should have destroyed us all in such a way that we could never threaten him again. But that was very much the nuclear option and would have meant that while he might have got the territory, he would have wiped out the resources by way of bodies that came with it. And without bodies how realistic was it to think he could hold an area that big without someone else moving in?

No,
keeping most of us was a risk that he had been forced to take. But then to manage that risk it would have been best if he had based himself in the territory, changed to operating from the clubhouse so that he was very visible to the guys who were there, so he could be a living breathing, constantly visible symbol of his own authority to them, not some absentee landlord sat in his pub over in the city that unless they were part of the inner circle they only saw at every other Prayers if they were lucky.

There were lessons to be learnt there.
But they were all old ones that I had read so many times before from
The P
and knew off by heart. If you are going to hurt someone, you should crush them so thoroughly that there is no chance of them ever recovering sufficiently to be able to rise up and take revenge. And if you are not going to hurt someone, just leave them in peace and security so long as they know it is you they have to thank for this as their protector.

So
I could try playing the old club card if I wanted to, I could raise the watchword of liberty to obtain support I would need within the old Legion club to take him.

But that was just the old Le
gion guys, what about the others, how would I deal with them?

As I thought it through I decided that in
contrast with Dazza’s problems in taking over and holding The Legion, taking and holding Dazza’s charter was going to be easy precisely because he had run it like a dictatorship.

It was a much simpler question of d
ecapitation. If I could take out Dazza and his top guys then the others would follow a new leader easily enough. So it had to be a coup d’état, done hard and fast, and executed so ruthlessly, completely destroying anyone who was to be harmed, so that as the memory of it faded, the rest of the guys would carry on in peace.

The priest was winding
down the service now. I caught the ashes to ashes, dust to dust bit which seemed a bit ironic given the circumstances but no one else seemed to be giving the words a second thought.

This was going to be high stakes stuff.

I knew the theory of what I was going to need to do. I had worked out a plan as to how I was going to do it. Now what I needed were the tools with which to put it into action. And that was one of the reasons I was here today.

I raised my head and star
ed across the grave; past the mourners clustered around, yet stepped back from the gaping wound in the earth; over the green tarpaulin covering the mound of dirt waiting for the mini digger to be trundled out from the shed at the back of the field once everyone had gone, to shovel it back into the hole; to where a large figure dressed in dark clothing was standing watching the ceremony from a distance.

Our eyes met, our faces were blank. Slowly and deliberately I nodded to him and after what seemed like an age of his eyes boring into mine, Gut did the same.

The priest was done and the people by the graveside broke up into ones and twos, turning to go and walking or stumbling away from the graveside, onto the gravelled path and crunching their way in slow quiet knots to the cars waiting at the entrance.

Gut and I were still standing where we had each been during the service and it was only as the last of
the mourners reached the gate that we advanced to meet each other on the path.