Heavy Duty People: The Brethren MC Trilogy book 1 (34 page)

But it seemed obvious that the best way to make a real success and to ensure my position remained secure,
I needed to make keeping me in charge in the best interests of everyone who could possibly be a threat to me.

Make my health and security the cornerstone of everyone
’s self-interest and I’d be safe for life.

Never try and make people do what they don
’t want to, that’s a mug’s game. No it’s always far better to make what you want, be what they want to do. Then you’re just going with the flow.

And that meant firstly keeping the money flowing
. I would ensure that profits were shared sufficiently widely so that everyone was earning enough to be content and to be reliant on my operation. But I knew that in itself wouldn’t be enough. People are never content forever with what they have, there would always be someone who decides they want more.

So
I also needed to make myself irreplaceable. That way, any move against me would be seen as a threat to the others’ livelihoods. Then they would help to police each other, as a threat to me would be a threat to their own interests, and if anyone did try something on I could rely on the others for support.

I would
split the roles, so not only could no one see the jigsaw’s whole picture, but I would make sure that no one who could be a threat would be in a position to find all the pieces with which to try and put it together.

T
he only people who could be a threat to me were other club members. No outsider could hope to try to take over.

S
o I would move a lot more of the ‘doing’ to outsiders. That way the people who knew how their little bit of the scheme worked could never be in a position to try to take over. At the same time I would mainly use the club members to enforce security and obedience amongst the outsiders. Given our reputation that shouldn’t be hard.

B
y splitting these jobs between the guys it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to work out how the whole system worked as they wouldn’t be actually doing anything. They wouldn’t see the accounts, or the gear, they wouldn’t handle the traffic or the cash. They would just have to put muscle on someone when I told them to, and wait for the cash to roll through.

I
t would also distance all of us on the inside from direct contact and involvement in anything that the cops could catch. And even if they did bust someone working on the outside, you’d have to be pretty fucking stupid to even consider ratting out a member of The Brethren as your contact. Life would be nasty, brutish and short for anyone who did.

And we
would make sure that everyone involved knew it. You can work on the basis that people like you, but that’s risky and if you rely on that alone you are leaving yourself open to trouble. Like I said, if you have to choose, it’s better to be feared than liked.

But
I’d also make sure that we didn’t take steps against anyone involved in the network capriciously. When we acted I would always made sure that there was an obvious and compelling reason for it that everyone involved would know about. It’s not a question of being soft. Christ no one would accuse us of that. But it was important to avoid being hated or to have people think that they might get done over on some trumped up pretext. Either of these could make people forget their fear sufficiently to risk the consequences to work against us or betray us.

Niccolo would be my guide
in everything I would do.

Well, unlike Polly I had actually read Machiavelli, many, many times.

Should work a treat.

After all, it had done so this far.

*

It was gone eleven when, bike locked up around the side, I walked in through the back door and parked my lid on the table.

‘How did it go? What’s up? Can you tell me?’

Sharon
was an old school old lady. She knew that club business was club business and that sometimes I couldn’t tell her everything.

I hadn
’t yet decided how much I would tell her. But I had to say something.

‘
Nothing much.’

AFTERWORD

I first met Mar
tin ‘Damage’ Robertson in 1999, just after he had become President of The Freemen and therefore in practice the national leader of The Brethren’s UK charters at the age of thirty-six.

At the time,
I was researching an article on bikers for the national newspaper on which I was working. Like many outlaw bikers he was wary of journalists as a profession and so it took quite a while and an introduction through mutual contacts before he would agree to firstly a meeting, and then subsequently to being interviewed. Given his and The Brethren’s fearsome reputation, I was nervous about our initial encounter, but I soon found that whilst guarded and reserved in some ways, he was very personable to talk to, and within limits, and only to the degree that he obviously felt it within his and the club’s interests to do so, he was prepared to talk to me.

As a journalist I naturally sou
ght to stay in touch and I spoke to him on a number of occasions over the next few years.

In
2003 based on the evidence of Michael ‘Fat Mick’ Cooper who had become a police informer, Robertson, together with Matthew ‘Gut’ Gordon, who had taken over as president of the north-east charter, were convicted of conspiracy to murder Simon ‘Pretty Polly’ Pollio who disappeared in 1998, believed strangled, and whose body has never been found.

Gordon
received a much reduced sentence for turning Queen’s evidence and in a subsequent trial Robertson was also found guilty in a separate trial of the execution style murders of Darren ‘Dazza’ Henderson, Sam ‘Doggie’ Collier, Mike ‘Spud’ Williams, Richard ‘Scottie’ Green and Clive ‘Bagpuss’ Armitage on the night of Wednesday 14 September 1994. Their bodies have never been found but are widely believed to have been dumped at sea.

Robertson received life sentences
for these offences with a recommendation that he serve a minimum tariff of thirty years.

Such was Robertson
’s reputation and position within the club that police sources widely believe that despite his incarceration, he continued to be The Brethren’s de facto leader, directing operations from within prison.

Gordon
was found hanged in his cell in 2004. The verdict was suicide, although inevitably there remains speculation that he was murdered, with the finger of suspicion pointed at Robertson for directing this. Other rumours suggest that members of a Rebels’ support club were responsible.

It is
believed that Cooper was provided with a new identity under witness protection arrangements, and his whereabouts are unknown at the present time.

I
spoke to Robertson once while he was in prison after his conviction but he didn’t have much to say.

Then i
n early 2008, Robertson asked me to visit him in the Long Lartin maximum security prison in Worcestershire as soon as I could. There then followed a swift series of meetings at his request over the following three months during which I interviewed him at length and collected the information that makes up this book. During these sessions he seemed to want to be completely open with me and to answer all my questions about the events he wanted to discuss. In fact looking back through my notes and the transcripts of our conversations, it is striking that other than on one solitary occasion, I do not remember any question that he did not answer.

During one of the last of our meetings I asked him whether there was ever anything he had done about which he felt guilty and it seems
to me to be worthwhile including here what he had to say verbatim.

MR
              For what I’ve done? [Pause] No.

IP
              Would you do anything for the club?

MR
              Yes.

IP
              Anything at all?

MR
              Sure, yes.

IP
              Why?

MR
              It’s about commitment, total commitment, it’s about being part of the elite. The Angels have got it, they showed that at Laughlin
[14]
.

IP
              What about the drugs?

MR
              What about them? [Shrugs]

We sold whizz, coke, E, acid, basically anything that people wanted to buy and enjoy. We dealt in stuff that was fun and basically wouldn’t kill them so what’s the problem?

IP              You made enough money out of it.

MR
              Yeah we did. So what?

Just think, next time one of your mates has a snort at a party or your bird drops a tab at a club, someone’s had to source it for you, someone like me.

This coke and shit doesn’t smuggle itself in y’know? It takes a bit of good old entrepreneurial risk-taking and effort on somebody’s part so’s you can get off your face.

There’s demand, we take the risk and supply, and we get the rewards. Ain’t that how it’s supposed to work?

Anyway, big tobacco sells stuff that kills you and if you’ve got a pension I bet you own some of it.

[Laughs]

So who’s got the problem to be guilty about now?

IP
              OK, so you got me.

MR
              Yeah. Bang to rights. [Pause]

You know people like to think they’re so clean. But really they’re all dirty in some way or other. I suppose part of the difference is just that we don’t try and pretend otherwise.

IP              So you’re telling me you’re just more honest about it?

MR
              [Laughs] Yeah, I guess so. No bullshit from us.

IP
              So you’ve never felt guilty?

MR
              No. I did what I needed to do. It was all [pause] necessary. So no, I don’t feel guilty.

IP
              What… [Interrupted]

MR
              But if you ask me whether there are things I regret then there are a few.

IP
              Like what?

MR
              Well I regret being in here for a start.

IP
              What, getting caught or being in jail?

MR
              [Pause] Bit of both I guess. It’s tough on Sharon and my girl so I’m sorry for them about that.

IP
              But not for yourself?

MR
              No.

It’s my life. I make my choices. I don’t complain about the outcomes.

Anyway, it’s my own fault I should have done something about that wanker Fat Mick years ago. I knew he was a weak link and he knew that I knew, so he hated me for it.

So I knew that he was a threat that I should have destroyed.

IP              Why didn’t you?

MR
              Well I didn’t actually have anything on him so I didn’t want to act against him.

IP
              Why not? Doesn’t sound like you?

MR
              Because the last thing I wanted to do was unsettle everyone else. If I’d taken him out just because I didn’t feel comfortable then I risked inducing paranoia in everyone else. If I’d offed Fat Mick just because I didn’t like or trust him then everybody would’ve started to feel nervous, everybody would’ve felt at risk and then everybody would’ve become a threat.

IP
              OK.

MR
              And then there’s the fear thing.

IP
              Fear?

MR
              Yeah. Even though he hated me, Fat Mick was still too scared of me to do anything and that was the hold I had over him. The only problem would be if he fell into the hands of someone who scared him more.

IP
              Like who?

MR
              Well the plod, I guess, the way it turned out, but it could have been anyone else who got a hold over him. If it comes to a choice between fear of me and fear of the system and the time if you get caught, some guys are always going to go the wrong way.

That was the one thing I could never quite work out how to deal with. It wasn’t something that old Nick covered in
The P
[15]
so there was no help there. And in the end that’s what got me.

IP
              So do you feel responsible for being in here, for bringing this on Sharon and Lucy?

MR
              [Pause – shakes head, does not answer]

IP
              So what about the violence? The deaths?

MR
              Like I said, no, I did what needed to be done.

IP
              So you don’t regret any of the killings?