Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (27 page)

‘
So,
’
I asked,
‘
how did it go
?’

‘The man’s a cunt!’ growled Bung, as they both stomped off towards the kitchen.

You didn’t have to be a genius to work out who had got Bung’s goat I thought
,
as I finished securing the last bolt and went to follow them

The only question really was, what had Charlie done now?

*

Wibble and Bung were in full flow in the kitchen as Wibble filled the kettle.

‘Being a brother isn’t just about watching the other guy’s back, or being able to rely on him watching yours.
’

‘That’s right,’ said Bung with an emphatic thump on the table top.

‘It’s about being responsible, it’s about not acting like an arsehole and selfishly bringing down a while load of shit on everyone else. Whether it’s
cos
you get out of control in public and lash out at some civilian, or you get into big time dealing that brings the heat down on all of us, it’s all the same point. It’s about
self-
control, it’s about not putting you
r
own selfish interests above everybody else in the club.
’

‘But Charlie just doesn’t get that,’ complained Bung.

‘Because it doesn’t matter who’s done it, someone in this charter or that charter, it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference, because all that anyone will see, the cops
,
the
Press
,
the public,
the pols,
is that it’s someone with
our patch, it’s one of us, and
then
we’re all tarred with the same brush. And why the fuck should I have to put up with that shit? Why should I have to deal with everyone who wants to score assuming I’m a guy they need to approach, just because
he
want
s
to play Mr
B
ig
T
ime
G
angster?
’

‘Fuck no!’

‘And if you can’t handle that, or don’t get it, then you’ve got no place in the club.
’

‘Right on.’

*

Surprise, surprise,
it seemed
there had been a confrontation with Charlie at Court
,
I quickly gathered
.

It hadn’t been
until after the hearing
was over
of course, Charlie wasn’t that stupid. Wibble and he had gone into the dock and stood there in silence as their brief put the case to the judge.
He had talked through t
he complete lack of any evidence, from any of the miles of CCTV footage, that either of them had laid a finger on anyone, or had ever exchanged as much as a glance or a word with the rest of the attackers.

According to the brief, his clients were simply there to meet the men coming off the plane in order to return their club
’
s property to them, to
wit
, The Brethren MC patches, rockers, badges and other
paraphernalia
and memorabilia
bearing The Brethren MC’s logo
, which they had brou
ght with them in the hold
all the
Court
could
clearly
see
them
carrying.

They were not associated with the members of the other club that had launched the attack on the Americans
,
and so
the
y
had been as surprised and shocked as everyone else at this sudden and unexpected turn of events in the arrivals hall that morning.

I
suppose
the judge
wouldn
’t
have
believe
d
a word of it
really
, but given the lack of any substantial evidence that the Crown Prosecution Service could present to back up any of its case against either man, the judge really had no choice but to strike out the c
harges
and order them
to be
released.

No, it had come only once they’d emerged outside and
on to
the Court’s steps
as free men, without a stain on their characters
.

Each of them had their gang of loyalists waiting in separate knots outside the building
, each surrounded
by
a heavy police presence. The cops were unsure about what was actually going on, but they could feel the tension and hostility in the air as though it was a smell of
adrenaline
, and they were making it very plain that they wanted both sides to move on and out of there before there was trouble.

So while their respective posses were corralled by the cops
on either side of the entrance
, Charlie and Wibble eyefucked
each other
on the Courtroom steps and argued about what was going to happen next.

‘
I fucking nearly hit him there and then
,’
seethed Wibble,
‘
which would have been just what he wanted
,
the bastard, there in front of all the cops and shit.
’

‘
Why didn’t you
?’
I asked.

‘
Couldn’t afford to
,
could I
?
It w
ould have given him just the excuse he was looking for
,
and if they’d banged me up while he was free to get
organized
then we’d be really stuffed wouldn’t we? But I’ll get him for it, don’t you worry.’

‘Why
?
’ I asked,
puzzled
at what had provoked Wibble to such a reaction, ‘
W
hat did he say?’

‘He’s
said he was
going to drop the bike rules.’

‘Shit.
There’s n
o fucking way
he’ll get away with that
!’
Bung exploded.

To an outsider this
might seem a small thing. To old school
charter member
s
like Wibble
and Bung
, this was dynamite.

The bike and
the
riding was at the heart of what made the club,
well,
the club
really
.
Dropping the bike and riding qualification for membership was about one thing
,
and one thing only in the eyes of an old time
one-percenter
like Wibble. Lowering entry standards and allowing, or even actively dragging into the club guys for the simple reason that they were criminals. It was about turning a bike club into no more
than a street gang with a three-
piece patch on their back.

‘Once this is all over, we ought to just make it a rule,’ Bung
growled
, ‘everyone works, no one deals.’

‘It might just come to that,’ agreed Wibble.

‘
I blame his fucking mum,’ said Bung, ‘
Don’t you sometimes wish she’d just swallowed him instead?’

‘Yeah that was a mistake wasn’t it?’

So now it was really starting
,
I decided. This was going to be a battle for the very soul of the club, and would be as bitter as any civil war that turned a family against itself, brother against brother. It would be no holds barred, and to the death.

Tuesday
2nd March
2010

The next day, they were in the papers
again
. But only if you looked hard enough. In contrast to the splash at the time of the fight, Wibble and Charlie’s discharge rated a bare paragraph
in the home news round up
on page nine of
The Guardian
.

Under the heading,
Airport Charges Dropped,
it said
Murder charges arising out of the fight last
month
at Heathrow airport have been dropped against two bikers. Twelve other men remain in custody pending trial.

And that was it. Blink and you’d have missed it.

*

Wibble and Bung were sat at the table in the kitchen, planning their next moves
,
so I pulled up a chair and joined them. I figured I was in this
shit
, whether I wanted to be or not, up to my neck, so I might as well chip in what I could.

‘So where does this leave you, us?’ I asked, ‘I mean
,
I assume that it’s really now all out in the open, there’s no going back from this is there?’

‘No, it’s war
all right
,
’
opined Bung gravely,
‘he’s asked for it.’ Which was a bit rich I thought, considering
he was the man who’d set up the destruction of Scampi’s operation and his
murder
, while then leaving Scroat unconscious in the burning house before stealing and scrapping his bike.

‘Well we’ve not found the
dosh
we were looking for,’ Wibble said thoughtfully, ‘but on the other hand there’s no sign that Charlie’s got it either
,
so I suppose
at least
we’ve cancelled each other out on that front.’

‘So have you decided w
hat
we need to
do
?’ I asked.

‘
Well, t
here’s only
one thing
to do
,
’
he said
.

‘Which is?’

‘
Road trip
,
’
he answered with a smile, ‘Oop north lad. We need to g
o and see Toad
.’

‘Why’aye man,’ chipped in Bung
in a dreadful fake accent
, ‘and ’
em fine Geordie lasses.’

*

I could see Wibble’s logic.
Toad
was
now, however much he might not want
to be
,
the
de facto
northern P
of the club,
ever since Charlie had kicked off his claim to national leadership. Even Charlie knew he couldn’t lay claim to
be
i
ng
national head of the Freemen and still keep the pos
t
of
northern
regional P at the same time.
There was n
o way
that
the guys
were going to
wear that.
You were either in one charter or another, not both
. H
e wouldn’t be in a position to make weekly church for a start, and without that it was a complete no-go.

‘It w
ould be breaking the
club’s
rules
,’ Wibble observed.

‘Jesus
Christ
,’ I scoffed, ‘
So what? P
eople are being killed here, and you’re worrying that he might be breaking the r
ules,
for God’s sake
?
’

You don’t understand,’ he said seriously.
‘There aren’t that many rules really. There’s our ten commandments of course. They’re about how we make sure we get along together, so that everyone in the club treats everyone else with respect, watches their brothers’ backs, and no one takes the piss.

‘And they get seriously enforced, but then it’s not like anyone could be in the club and not know what they are. You’ll have seen them in action from the first time you tagged along.
’

‘So b
reaking the rules,
that’s serious shit
,’ said Bung, ‘don’t knock it.’

Or it could be
,
I told myself. At this level in the club there were politics to consider. When you
were the one who
had the power
, it seemed to me that
rules could be bent, rules could be broken
. I
t was
simply
a matter of what you could get away with in the first instance, and then what came back and bit you on the arse in the second.