Heavy Duty Attitude (3 page)

Given their reputation and history, it was going to be a pretty tall order, I thought.

 

‘We’ve got a run on this Saturday, a weekend bash,’ he concluded, giving me details of the time and the place they were meeting.

 

‘Be there,’ he said, in a serious, but not threatening, tone, ‘come out with us. See what we’re really about.’

 

I nodded to confirm that I would at least think about it.

 

‘There’s just a couple of things,’ he added, by way of an afterthought as he began to stand up.

 

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

 

‘Well first, when you come, remember you’re going to be riding with The Brethren. So don’t be a fucking wanker, don’t wear anything fluorescent.’ I looked up in surprise and he was grinning from ear to ear as though this was the funniest joke in the world.

 

‘And second?’

 

‘Pack a teddy. A fucking big one, you know, like the ones they have at the funfair? Put it on expenses.’

We shook hands. And with that and a ‘see yah then’ he was up, gathering his guys behind him with a nod and off out of the café with a hundred pairs of eyes once again surreptitiously following him, before not quite swivelling back to me as people leant over the tables in whispered conversations.

I sat back and sipped my previously untouched coffee.

 

Gradually a few more lines from back in my O-level days came to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious
And Brutus is an honourable man.

Perhaps it was just as well that we’d dropped that line of discussion before we’d got too far into it I decided. I doubted that Wibble would find the reference flattering.

Should I take him up on his offer I wondered? Would it be safe? Meeting him here in public was one thing. Riding off with him and the whole crew God knows where was something else. Talk about exposed, I thought.

But then as he said, I was exposed anywhere really if they wanted me badly enough.

 

And after all, I thought, as I swirled my coffee around in its mug.
For Brutus is an honourable man
So are they all, all honourable men –

 

Honourable, I remembered Mr Majewski saying, now that was a double edged word.

 

I sat for a while after I had finished. I don’t know why, other than that it seemed right to let them have a chance to ride off before I got up to go. It was a while before anyone new came into the restaurant and sat down in one of the free booths either side of me.
The Guardian
Wednesday 29 July 2009
Leeds shooting
2 The run
Thursday 30 July 2009

I had been a crime reporter on the paper for over ten years now. It was how I met Damage and The Brethren in the first place. I had been to talk to him when he’d first been elected President of The Freemen, and then later when he was inside I’d interviewed him extensively in the last few months before he’d died. The publication and success of the biography that had come out of those sessions,
Heavy Duty People
, had made my reputation as a writer on both crime and biker clubs. So nowadays I often talked to both the police who specialised in this field, and other clubs who spoke to me with varying degrees of wariness or enthusiasm about the prospect of publicity.

On the police side of the fence, it helped that I’d known someone who was now one of my key contacts from way back when we were both teenagers. Bob and I had been at the same sixth form college together, had both been into bikes and so almost inevitably we’d both been part of the same small town social scene of pubs, discos, parties, bored suburban kids and girlfriends for four or five years or so. All normal teenage stuff, and one of my abiding memories of him was a night when we had cycled away at the end of a party we’d gone to on our tredders so we could get pissed; and him pulling away from me into the darkness while over his shoulder all I could hear was the sound of him fondly imagining he was imitating the noise of the black and gold Ducati 900SS that he had his heart set on as the perfect bike. Which would be quite a step up from the Wetdream he had at the time.

I’d moved away after university, up to London to follow my career and I’d lost touch with the crowd as I drifted away. I’d known vaguely that he’d joined the force and every so often heard a bit about his progress; off the beat and across into plain clothes, sergeant’s exams, marriage to a Woopsie, inspector’s exams and a posting as what he apparently described to one of our mutual acquaintances as the Sherriff of Uxbridge.

And then one day about six months or so ago, out of the blue we’d just met up again. I was at a SOCA briefing, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency that seemed to fancy itself as nascent British FBI, and there he was, up in front of me on the platform being introduced.

So I made a point of grabbing him at the end of the talk before I could miss him to say ‘Hi’, and we had snatched a coffee and a catch up for an hour or so in the canteen before it closed for the evening.

It wasn’t surprising given the background we shared that biker crime was one of his areas of interest, and yes, he’d read my book. Useful background he called it. He had been particularly interested in asking what links I still had with The Brethren, and seemed disappointed when I’d told him, ‘None, and given what was in it, I probably won’t be having any anytime soon.’

Which at the time I thought was true.

We’d done some more social ‘Do you remembers?’ and ‘Whatever happened tos?’ and a bit more mutual professional quizzing and probing about ‘What do you know?’ and ‘What can you tell me?’ and that was it at the time. We were back in touch and we parted on the ‘keep in contact’ promise, which of course we both would. It was easy to see that we could be useful to each other in what we were doing.

So ever since then we had been dealing reasonably frequently. Telephone chats here, emails there, the odd meeting every now and then. Of course there was a tricky balance to be maintained on both sides in this kind of set up. For a crime reporter a link into police sources, and particularly SOCA was vital, but while he could give me background, there was a limit on what he could say about the detail of any ongoing investigation, certainly for the record. From my side of the house, not only did I have a duty to protect my sources, but I knew full well what some of them might think if I started gossiping to the cops about everything they had said.

But we were both professionals, we had both been here before and we both knew the rules of the game. We knew what we were doing, and as importantly, what the other could and couldn’t do.

So Bob was the obvious person to call once I’d got back to the office. ‘Well,’ he said once I’d finished, ‘so are you going?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, ‘I guess it depends on how safe it feels.’ ‘Do you think it might be a set up?’

‘It’s a possibility I suppose, but no,’ I said on reflection, ‘I don’t think so. Like he said, if they wanted me out of the way they could easily have done that by now. They don’t need to lure me out on some run to do it and to leave such a public trail.’

‘I think you’re probably right. If it was just a question of them wanting to settle business with you, then I’m sure they could arrange that without all this fuss.’

Well thanks, mate, I thought, that was comforting to know.
‘Unless they want to get you somewhere to do it as a group thing,’ he continued, ‘to make an example of you as sort of a public spectacle within the club.’

Jesus, he was a cheery bastard.

 

‘What about the cops? The Brethren wouldn’t want to do anything with them around would they?’

‘What cops?’ he laughed, ‘There won’t be any on site. Never are. The Brethren police their own event. There’s never any crime. Well, reported that is.’

‘Christ.’
‘So are you worried about going?’ he asked.

‘Yes of course I am,’ I exclaimed, ‘even before your jolly shit. Just because I’m invited by Wibble what guarantee is that? How can I be sure that one of the others won’t just tee off on me on sight? Wibble said there were some pretty pissed off guys in the club about what I’d written.’

‘But Wibble said he’d squashed that didn’t he? And if it’s Wibble who’s inviting you, then I guess the first question is, do you trust what Wibble’s saying?’

And it was odd but the answer to that, despite everything you might think or read about The Brethren, was yes. I think I did trust him and what he was saying. With my life? I reminded myself. Well possibly. And anyway, I thought to myself, I didn’t have to stay long. If I didn’t like the look of how things were shaping up I could always make my excuses and leave.

‘And the second question is, do you think he can really control his guys?’

Well, having dealt with Damage for so long and learnt through him how the club ran, I thought I knew the answer to that one, and I was reasonably comfortable with it.

‘Is it all peaceful now as far as your mob know?’ I asked.

‘Yes, about the big boys at least,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing serious on the radar at the moment as far as we can tell, but that’s only because they’ve got it all sewn up.’

‘What about the stuff going on up in Lincoln?’ I asked.

He seemed relaxed about it. ‘Like I said, it’s nothing to do with the big boys. Dead Men Riding and Capricorn have both got interests in the club trade out that way. There’s been a bit of turf rivalry between them for years, there always is when you get a couple of clubs rubbing up against each other and there’s business to be done. I don’t know why it’s flared up just now but I doubt it’s anything too serious and nothing for you to worry about in terms of The Menaces, they won’t be involved. A beef between two smaller clubs won’t be on their radar, it’s too small scale stuff for them.’

So Bob was confirming what I understood from my contacts as well. With the deal that The Brethren under Damage had refined with their main rivals The Rebels over turf and dealing, all was still quiet between the senior clubs at the moment. Everyone got on with making money and each generally kept their local, more junior, clubs in line in their own territories, albeit in the regions where there wasn’t a senior club presence, like around Lincoln and the Wash, there could still be trouble brewing between the local boys. But while it might make for a potential follow up story, that wasn’t my main concern just at the moment.

It was a bit odd this call just the same I thought, as I put down the receiver. Bob was a cop after all, and what’s more, one with SOCA as well. Whatever anyone else thought about The Brethren and the other outlaw bike clubs, SOCA’s view was crystal clear. The MCs were simply organised crime, full stop. So how come Bob seemed to be reassuring me about going on their run rather than warning me off, I wondered?

You would have thought a cop would only have one response to someone telling them the equivalent of ‘I wrote a book which drove a cart and horses through the rules of omerta, and now I’ve been invited to a Mafia party,’ which would be, ‘don’t go.’ But it sounded as though Bob almost wanted me to be there.

I guess he must really think it’ll be reasonably safe and he’ll be hoping I might gather some intelligence for him, I decided. After all, I knew The Brethren were one of his key targets.

Well, we’d see. It would be useful to have some bargaining chips to trade with him if I could pick anything up on the day.

 

Saturday 1 August 2009

 

Of course it was their Toy Run. I had realised as soon as I thought it through while properly drinking my lukewarm coffee after Wibble had left.

An annual event, the Toy Run was one of The Brethren’s main charity dos and an opportunity for them to present a positive face to the public who were always invited in for an open day and to see the bikes on show, and as much media as they could get to turn up. The local Brethren charters each took turns in hosting it on some kind of rota, with all the other charters riding in bringing toys with them as donations that then went to children’s charities. There would be beer tents and fairground rides during the day, a bike show and prizes, and then bands and decidedly more adult entertainment going on into the evening, as the rally turned into a more hardcore bikers’ party which would go on through the Saturday night and well into Sunday morning.

I checked on the web. There was a booking site for tickets and to register for the run campsite for those who were going for the full on experience. This year I saw it was the Cambridge charter’s turn to host. I wondered about going up into the attic and seeing if I could dig out my old tent to pack and then decided against it. I would take my sleeping bag just for show, but I didn’t have any intention of using it. I was nervous enough about being there during daylight as it was. Sticking around until after dark when the beers would have been flowing all day just seemed to be asking to push my luck that little bit too far.

The meet for the run was in West London. I followed the instructions that Wibble had given me and so I rolled into the street in Wembley at about ten to ten the next Saturday morning. The Brethren clubhouse was the end pair of a row of shabby Victorian two-up two-down terraces a little way north of the Hanger Lane gyratory. The windows were covered in steel plates painted with The Brethren’s black and red club colours, as was the front door of the further one, above which nestled a cluster of CCTV cameras covering the approaches from the front. The other front door had been bricked up so I assumed the houses had been knocked through inside somehow. A high brick wall topped with broken glass enclosed the yard to the rear which was accessed by a set of double steel gates, again in the same paint scheme, and which were, unusually I assumed, open, so that as I drew up I could see there were at least half a dozen Harleys there, parked but loaded and ready to go.