‘When was that?’
‘You’d spent the day on ditch-digging punishment after you hit Mr Large with a spade,’ Dante grinned. ‘You were muddy and smelled vaguely like a cow’s bottom.’
‘That was so awful,’ Lauren groaned. ‘It was impossible to get the stench out of my hair.’
‘You were about to restart basic training and I got sent off to Belfast before you qualified. Judging by the black T-shirt and your beautiful smile you’ve done OK since then.’
Lauren was flattered. ‘Oh aren’t you a charmer?’ she grinned. ‘You look like you’ve been hitting the weights. Do you still want to be a wrestler?’
Dante laughed. ‘It’s been a long time. I’ve even heard a rumour that some of that wrestling is faked.’
‘Get out of town,’ Lauren giggled. ‘We’re in the middle of Bethany’s birthday party,’ she continued, as she grabbed Dante’s wrist and gave him a tug. ‘Come to her room, everyone’s in there.’
So Lauren forgot all about fetching the Hoover and Dante found himself stepping into Bethany’s crowded room, bare-chested with the new black T-shirt in his hand.
‘Look who it is,’ Lauren said enthusiastically.
Some kids like Rat and Andy had joined CHERUB after Dante went off on his mission and had no clue who he was. Others knew Dante, but they’d all aged three years and it was tricky putting names to faces.
‘Oooh, a hunky boy on my birthday,’ Bethany grinned as she approached Dante. ‘Are you gonna strip for me?’
‘I was just changing,’ Dante said. ‘Lauren practically dragged me in here.’
‘This is definitely the best present so far,’ Bethany smiled.
Over by the balcony, James positioned himself behind Andy and Rat. ‘Are you boys sweating?’ he teased. ‘Because I think you have competition for your girlfriends.’
‘You’re full of shit, James,’ Andy said dismissively.
‘I’ll kick his arse if he tries anything with Lauren,’ Rat added.
Once Dante had shaken some hands and hugged a few girls, Bethany noticed that Dante had his black T-shirt in his hands.
‘Put it on,’ Bethany squealed. ‘Oh my god, you’re the black-shirt superstar!’
Dante had five girls watching as he theatrically ripped the cellophane packet open with his teeth and pulled the shirt over his head. When the shirt was on there was a bit of clapping, and Lauren and Bethany kissed Dante on opposite cheeks.
James saw the annoyed looks on Rat and Andy’s faces and whispered in their ears in a feminine tone: ‘Oh that Dante’s so gorgeous! I want to strip down to my little pink panties and let him ravish me.’
Andy gave James an angry stare and told him to shut up.
Rat’s Australian accent always grew thicker when he got annoyed. ‘Well, I’ve never had a conversation with this Dante fellow,’ Rat growled, ‘but he’s clearly a total git.’
15. DEVON
The London Brigands are the largest UK chapter with thirty-nine full-patch members, but the South Devon chapter run by Ralph ‘the Führer’ Donnington is the wealthiest and most influential. Successful property developments in the Salcombe area have made Donnington a millionaire and many long-standing South Devon Brigands are also wealthy men.
Although South Devon only has nineteen full-patch members, the chapter effectively controls two large puppet clubs: the Dogs of War based in Exeter and a three-chapter Devon and Cornwall gang known as the Monster Bunch. These have a combined total of more than one hundred full patches and up to three times that number of associates.
Wealth generated by the successful redevelopment of the Salcombe clubhouse has not stopped the bikers from engaging in criminal activity. Local police say that South Devon Brigands exercise ruthless control over the local drug trade. They own companies that provide door security on every major pub and nightclub venue in South Devon and members of their puppet gangs have been linked to a variety of crimes from organised prostitution to armed robbery.
In recent years South Devon has developed a reputation as a place to purchase illegal firearms and ammunition. Criminals from as far north as Newcastle and Glasgow are known to source weapons from South Devon. The lucrative trade and linked smuggling operations are thought to be controlled by members of the Brigands.
Police investigations into the firearms dealing activities of South Devon Brigands have been hampered by the tight-knit nature of the biker community and the fact that the Devon police are a rural force without the resources necessary to deal with major criminal activity.
In early 2006 a decision was taken to place an undercover police officer inside the South Devon motorcycle gang community. A twenty-eight-year-old officer began hanging around with the Monster Bunch. After three months he was voted into the club and in early 2007 he was made treasurer for the Salcombe chapter. The next stage of this undercover operation will be the most difficult: to infiltrate the Brigands themselves.
Excerpt from a confidential Home Office Briefing Document, written by Chief Inspector Ross Johnson, March 2008
*
Sergeant Neil Gauche had been undercover for two years under the alias Neil Smith. He rode his Harley Davidson like a pro, he’d grown his hair long and had a twentycentimetre Monster Bunch tattoo inked on his shoulder. The police had even helped to establish Neil’s criminal credentials by allowing him to take part in drug deals and setting up an elaborately faked truck robbery.
After two years living a lie Neil felt comfortable around most Monsters and Brigands, but the Führer could still put the shits up him. Presently the pair sat in the back of a silver AMG Mercedes, with a tan leather arm rest between them.
They’d pulled off a country road on to a farm track, with wheat growing high on either side. Teeth sat in the driver’s seat. The engine was off and the only sound was a gentle tap-tap-tap of something cooling down in the engine bay.
The Führer held a razor blade and Neil had no doubt that he’d be sliced open if the fancy took. The Brigands President might have grey hair and a beer gut, but after a few pints he could match any drunken teenager for craziness.
‘So you want to be a Brigand?’ the Führer asked, his words slurred with booze and his breath smelling like chips and vinegar.
‘All my life,’ Neil said.
‘Take the blade then,’ the Führer said. ‘Get that Monster Bunch shit off your jacket.’
It was a hot night, so Neil’s leather jacket was balled up on the carpet between his boots. He took the loose razor blade and used it to slice the nylon thread that he’d used to sew on his Monster Bunch patch less than a year earlier. Once a few stitches were cut, Neil dug his thumb under the patch and ripped it away.
The Führer pulled an embroidered patch with South Devon written on it. This would go on the bottom of Neil’s jacket and would mark him as a prospect. It was another step into the world of the Brigands, but he’d only earn the right to wear the Brigands logo after several months of doing the gang’s dirty work and a unanimous vote by the nineteen existing members of the chapter.
‘Thanks,’ Neil said, but as he reached for the badge the Führer pulled it back.
‘Dirty Dave said you’re a good man,’ the Führer smiled. ‘He made a lot of money on that cigarette truck you turned over together. But we had to check you out. Your background. Old schools, ex-employers, inmates at that young offenders’ institute.’
NPBTF had done an enormous amount of work building up Neil’s false background. Getting into Brigands puppet gangs like the Monster Bunch was easy, but becoming a full-patch Brigand was a major deal that involved application forms devised by the Brigands mother chapters in the United States and the attention of private investigators if there was the slightest suspicion about your past.
‘I’ve got nothing to hide, Führer.’
‘The guys we had looking into your past say that your job at the clutch centre checks out, as does your prison record and arrest sheet. They broke into your place last week and had a
rummage. Nothing untoward there either.’
Neil smiled inwardly. There had always been the possibility of a break-in, or that one of the bikers who occasionally slept over in his flat after a night’s partying would look for something to steal, so he kept the investigation notes he wrote each day along with anything else that gave a clue to his real identity behind a false panel in the base of a kitchen cabinet.
But Neil didn’t like the fact that this scene was playing out in the middle of nowhere. Why would the Führer do this out here at 2 a.m., instead of making the offer of prospect status back at the clubhouse over a round of drinks?
It was hard to judge anything when you were dealing with the Führer. He was a borderline psychopath, and Neil knew he made people squirm for the fun of it.
‘You know it’s hard looking for a man named Smith,’ the Führer explained. ‘It’s the most common name in the country. I mean, if your name is Eustace Von Hasselhoff, or even Ralph Donnington it’s pretty easy to track through the records. But there are thousands of people called Neil Smith in the country. So if you were an undercover cop, you’d probably want to pick a name like Smith, or Jones, or Edwards.’
Neil felt his heart quicken. The mention of undercover cops made him uneasy, but snitches and deep-cover police officers had caused the demise of gangs all over the world. You’d rarely spend more than a few hours in biker company without someone suggesting that a certain person was a nark or a snitch.
‘We’ve never had anyone infiltrate a Brigands chapter,’ the Führer continued. ‘Not in the UK, or abroad. And it goes without saying that any cop or snitch found in our ranks is going to suffer a slow and painful death.’
‘I’m an open book,’ Neil said. ‘I’ve been hanging with the bikers around here for two years. Anything you want to know about my life before that, just ask. You want more personal details so you can check up on me? Just ask. If you think it’s too soon for me to become a prospect I’ll wait. You know I want this, but I respect the Brigands and the need for all of your security precautions.’
The Führer twisted on the seat so that he was facing Neil. He placed a hand on each of Neil’s shoulders and pulled him forward so they were almost nose to nose.
‘Admit it,’ the Führer said. ‘You’re a cop. I know you’re a cop.’
Neil was nervous, but he managed to make a laugh. ‘You’re busting my balls. Scout’s honour, on my mother’s life, pinkie swear. What can I say, boss? I can only say it so many times. Believe me, don’t believe me. To be frank, I think the work I’ve done as treasurer of the Monster Bunch and the money I’ve earned means I deserve a shot at becoming a Brigand.’
‘You’re a cop,’ the Führer said, as he slumped back against the tan leather.
Neil was alarmed by the change in the Führer’s voice. Property deals had made the Führer into a wealthy man who could have lived comfortably off his legitimate income for the rest of his life. But he got a bigger kick out of scaring someone, whether it was a person who owed him money, or a terrified waitress threatened with a punch in the face for delivering the wrong dish. And the Führer didn’t sound like he was playing games any more.
‘It’s funny, Neil,’ the Führer smiled. ‘The cops must have taken hundreds of man hours. Writing you into the archives: national insurance, tax records, speeding convictions, criminal record bureaux. And then they screwed it all up with your bike.’
Neil jolted as Teeth took an automatic out of the glove box and pulled back the muzzle to load a bullet.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ Teeth asked, as he gave Neil his trademark gummy grin.
‘Come on Neil,’ the Führer said gently. ‘Play along with me. Why don’t you ask how we figured that you’re a cop?’
If this was for real, Neil knew he was a dead man. ‘Whatever information you’ve got, it’s bullshit,’ he said, desperately trying to keep the nerves out of his voice. ‘Tell me what it is.’
‘Three years ago there was a court case,’ the Führer explained. ‘Four stolen bikes were shipped to the UK from Canada to be stripped down and sold over here where Harleys are more expensive. Two bikers from some hillbilly gang up north were arrested, and served two years. The owners in Canada had been paid off by their insurance company and rather than ship the bikes back to Canada the insurers sold them at auction here in the UK. Three were bought by a second-hand bike dealer. The fourth was bought by the Metropolitan Police purchasing department and delivered to Hornsey police station, which just happens to be the headquarters of NPBTF.’
‘It’s a plant or something,’ Neil explained.
The Führer smiled. ‘The chassis number of the bike you’ve been riding matches the number in the auction catalogue.’
Neil tried not to gasp. Could the police really have spent all that time creating his false identity, only to send him undercover with wheels purchased openly at a bike auction?
‘I think the private investigator we hired earned his money, don’t you Neil Smith? Or should that be Leicestershire police sergeant Neil Gauche, currently on attachment to the National Police Biker Task Force?’
Neil realised there was no point pretending any more. For two years he’d lived with the possibility that his cover would be blown. He’d played out the scene a million times in his head, but now it was for real his mouth was dry and his brain as dead as a walnut.
‘Get out of the car,’ the Führer said, as he pulled his jacket open to reveal a gun. ‘I don’t want your blood all over my leather.’
Neil looked around as he stepped into the verge with the corn towering up alongside him, but there was no escape. Teeth was already out of the car and he’d be shot in the back the instant he made any move.
‘Hands on your head,’ the Führer shouted. ‘Start walking into the corn.’
Neil felt like crying as he imagined how it would pan out. He was due to report in to his handler at 6 a.m. Once his bosses knew he was missing they’d start a search. If he was left in the corn field they’d probably find the body within a few days, but more likely the Führer would already have made arrangements for a burial site hundreds of kilometres away, or to have his body chopped into a dozen pieces and fed to a batch of hungry pigs. Maybe some day they’d figure it out. Or maybe there would be a TV show about the disappearance of a heroic undercover police officer …
Neil considered his mum. She was in her sixties. She’d make a big fuss, but they weren’t close. He’d only seen her a couple of times a year since leaving for university at eighteen and he didn’t have a wife or kids. The lack of close family was one of the reasons Neil got accepted for undercover work, but he’d always seen himself settling down into less demanding police work and doing the wife, mortgage and brats thing.
The corn rustled until the trio reached a break in the planting.
‘Time to kneel, Neil,’ the Führer said, smiling at his own pun as he screwed a silencer to his pistol. ‘This is going to be a proper pain in the arse, you know? Have you any idea how much heat we’ll take when an undercover cop turns up dead?’
‘So don’t shoot me then,’ Neil trembled. ‘You’re a smart man. You kill a cop and you’ll have detectives so far up your arse you won’t be able to operate.’
‘Cop’s gotta die,’ the Führer said. ‘Anything else sends the wrong message.’
A wasp buzzed close by Neil’s head and stubbly grass pricked through the frayed knee of his jeans. Bollocks, he thought to himself as the Führer pressed the silencer against the back of his skull.
16. BREAKFAST
By the next morning Dante had stopped worrying about making friends on campus. Bethany’s birthday party made a great ice-breaker. After everyone ate cake and got yelled at by one of the campus caretakers for setting off fireworks indoors and potentially burning the building down, they headed into town in one of the campus minibuses, went bowling and finished up eating in a big group in the Nandos that opened up after Chicken Deluxe went bust.
Dante woke up late. After hi
s mission he was entitled to a week off before resuming lessons and training, but he regretted missing the chance to have breakfast with everyone else. The only people he knew in the canteen were James Adams and Kerry Chang, but they sat together reading the music reviews in the Guardian and it didn’t look like the kind of scene you were supposed to interrupt.
Dante grabbed potato waffles, bacon and a packet of Crunchy Nut, but as he sat at an empty table James called him over. ‘Do we smell or something?’
‘I thought you were together,’ Dante explained awkwardly.
‘We’re just mates,’ James explained, but Dante wasn’t convinced: James and Kerry sat with their chairs close together reading the same newspaper, and although Kerry’s arm wasn’t actually around James’ back she had it hooked around his chair.
‘No lessons?’ Dante asked, as he bit the corner off a potato waffle.
‘Free period,’ James explained. ‘We’ve taken a bunch of GCSEs and our handlers haven’t quite noticed that our schedules aren’t very full.’
‘Long may it last,’ Kerry added, as she gave James a smile and flicked crumbs off his T-shirt with her little finger.
‘Sneaky,’ Dante laughed. ‘I’m almost fourteen, so I’m guessing they’ll start me off with a bunch of GCSE courses.’
‘Most likely,’ James nodded. ‘Just avoid history. It’s all long essays and you have to read so much boring crap.’
‘I like history,’ Dante said. ‘Battles and stuff.’
‘Me too,’ Kerry agreed. ‘The thing is, James is a maths geek. He has such an easy time that he resents putting work into anything else.’
‘I think I’m screwed on languages,’ Dante explained. ‘I did intensive French and Spanish for a year before basic training, but I’ve been off campus for three years and all I’ve had are normal school French lessons.’
‘That’s rough,’ Kerry said. ‘Like, I speak Spanish, French, Japanese and a bit of Mandarin. Because I’ve learned them from when I was six I could easily pass A-levels in them and get into university without doing any hard work.’