‘What do you want to do?’ Joe asked, as he led Lauren, Dante and Anna off the bus at a stop a kilometre from the centre of Salcombe.
‘John and Lauren live about ten minutes that way,’ Anna said. ‘And their mum is always cool when I come over.’
Lauren panicked because her objective was to get into the Führer’s house. ‘I’ve driven past your house,’ she said to Joe. ‘You’ve got that cool tank on the front lawn. Can you climb up inside it?’
Joe looked awkward. ‘You can open the hatch, but it’s just a hulk. It’s all rusty and flooded with water.’
Lauren squeezed Joe’s hand and whined like she was five years old. ‘I wanna see the tank!’
Joe laughed and relented. ‘My mum’ll probably be home, but she’s cool. The only thing is, my house is kind of embarrassing.’
‘Intriguing,’ Lauren said. ‘How so?’
‘You know my dad’s the Führer, right?’ Joe asked.
Everyone nodded, it was frequently mentioned at school. ‘He’s cool in some ways, but he buys up all this Nazi shit. I mean, it’s not just the tank. We’ve got rugs with swastikas and there’s a bust of Hitler on the mantelpiece.’
Anna smiled awkwardly. ‘Freak show!’ she grinned.
‘Freak show’s what it is,’ Joe agreed.
Lauren sensed that Joe wasn’t keen, so she kissed him on the neck. ‘Nobody picks their parents,’ she said soothingly. ‘Our dad is a total idiot.’
‘Grade-one penis,’ Dante agreed. ‘Cheated on our mum four times before she finally ditched his sorry butt and moved us down here.’
Lauren’s kiss gave Joe a boost and his usual cockiness crept back into his voice. ‘OK then,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s go visit the freak show. I’ve also got X-box, and DVDs in my room and stuff.’
The busy country road had no pavement, so they walked single file until they reached the gates of the Eagles’ Nest. After a brief stop to climb on the tank the kids walked into the hallway. Joe’s mum rushed out from the kitchen. The Führer had moved to a bigger house after making a mint from the development of Marina Heights, but Dante knew Joe’s mum.
Marlene Donnington had always been heavy, but she’d gained more weight over the past five years and thick make-up and a deep sun-bed tan did nothing to improve her looks. But Joe’s mum had always been nice to Dante and her face reminded him of Brigands barbecues, shopping trips and sleeping out in a tent with Joe when he was little.
‘So nice to see some of your friends,’ Marlene said cheerfully. ‘Would you like some Pepsi and crisps, or I could make ham sandwiches if any of you are hungry? And I’m sorry to be a fusspot, but if you wouldn’t mind taking your shoes off inside the house.’
As Dante pulled off his Converse he remembered that he’d always liked Joe’s mum’s sandwiches because she used butter while his mum could only ever afford margarine.
‘Yeah I’m starving,’ Joe said.
‘I’m vegetarian actually,’ Lauren said.
‘Me too,’ Anna added.
‘Can you do some different ones?’ Joe asked. ‘Ham, cheese and pickle or whatever you’ve got, and maybe some crisps.’
‘So many of you teenagers are vegetarian these days,’ Marlene said, as she smiled at the girls. ‘I’ll bring the sandwiches up to Joe’s room.’
‘Your mum’s so nice,’ Anna said as they started up the stairs towards Joe’s room.
The house was neatly decorated and could have been the home of any wealthy executive, apart from the framed photos of bikers and the occasional bust of Hitler.
‘So is your dad actually a Nazi?’ Lauren asked.
‘Nah,’ Joe said. ‘He’s mainly interested in the history and stuff.’
‘I heard that the Brigands don’t let anyone who isn’t white in their gang,’ Anna said.
Joe pointed at Lauren. ‘It’s like she said, you can’t pick your parents. My dad has done a bunch of shit. Some of it like going on runs and the bikes and stuff is cool, but some of the more extreme stuff pisses me off.’
Dante wondered if the murder of his parents had anything to do with Joe’s opinions. Or maybe it was the standard thing of teenagers reaching a certain age and realising that their parents aren’t gods. Either way, it made Dante feel a lot better about hanging about with his old friend, but a lot worse about his prospects of wringing useful information out of Joe.
‘So this is my room,’ Joe said, as he opened up. His mess was disguised behind the doors of fitted wardrobes. He had a big bed, a cool Alienware gaming PC and a big LCD screen with surround speakers.
‘You spoiled bastard,’ Dante grinned. ‘These speakers must be so loud.’
‘Yeah,’ Joe said, as he picked Green Day’s Bullet in a Bible DVD out of his cupboard. ‘Surround sound is awesome, you wanna hear it?’
‘American Idiot,’ Dante nodded. ‘That song is fricking awesome.’
As the DVD went through its copyright warnings Lauren crashed out on a beanbag. Anna and Dante sat together on the sofa and kissed until the music started.
‘Jesus this is so loud,’ Lauren screamed, but nobody heard a word. She burst out laughing when she turned around and saw Dante jumping up and down, playing air guitar and rocking his head back and forth. His long hair flew wildly.
After turning the sound up even louder, Joe threw down the remote and jumped on his bed where he went into competition dancing even more crazily than Dante. Lauren stepped up and they held hands and jumped into the air together, high enough for Lauren’s hair to flick against the ceiling.
They repeated this until on the third jump Joe’s foot missed the edge of the bed and he stumbled sideways into Anna and Dante. Lauren got dragged off the bed and wound up crashing down on top of Joe, with Anna’s legs trapped beneath them and Dante’s funky sock in her face.
They were all giggling and trying to clamber out of the heap when Joe’s mum came into the room holding a tray stacked with four glasses, a bottle of Coke and a plate of little sandwiches and crisps.
‘Turn the music down!’ she yelled, as she grabbed the remote off the carpet and tried to find the button. When she got the volume down all she could hear was the four teenagers laughing, but also slightly embarrassed.
‘Sorry,’ Joe said, as he took the remote off his mum and pressed the mute button.
‘Mad bloody lot, you are,’ Joe’s mum laughed. ‘I don’t mind you having fun but I could hear that down in the kitchen.’
23. LONDON
Saturday morning
There were Brigands chapters in twenty-three countries. They all wore the same patch and obeyed a club rulebook set down by the mother chapter in Long Beach, California. All members had to own a Harley Davidson motorcycle and go through an elaborate recruitment process. They had to pay membership fees, attend weekly meetings, go on two mandatory runs per year and contribute generously to the club’s legal fund.
The chapters also had rules to follow. Each had to have a minimum of six full-patch members, including a president, a treasurer and a sergeant-at-arms. The clubhouse had to be permanent, with an area for socialising, an area for working on motorcycles and a bunkhouse to accommodate guests. A full-patch Brigand was entitled to enter and stay at any Brigands clubhouse in the world.
Beyond these rules, much depended upon a chapter’s wealth. There were chapters in Argentina whose clubhouses were little more than tin sheds, while chapters like Long Beach and South Devon had custom buildings, with elaborate security, air-conditioning and accommodation that was comfortable, if unlikely to impress anyone’s mother in terms of cleanliness.
The London chapter fitted between the two extremes. Its clubhouse was a canalside pub, near King’s Cross station. It was bought for a few hundred pounds in the 1960s when it was surrounded by bombsites. Now its security cameras and bricked-up windows stood out amidst low-rise offices and budget hotels. Tourists occasionally wandered off the canal path to have their pictures taken in front of the painted Brigands logo and chromed bikes
parked outside.
The London chapter had 24/7 security, with the cameras manned by an elderly biker called Pikey who lived in an attic room. Pikey had lost a lung to pneumonia and he wheezed as he leaned over a banister and shouted to the cramped bar downstairs.
‘Paki on the intercom. Says he’s here to see you, boss.’
Sealclubber stank of booze and cigarettes. He’d played poker until 3 a.m. and crashed out on a mattress on the floor of his president’s office without even bothering to remove his boots.
The steel-reinforced entrance had an electronic lock and undercover officer George Khan shoved it when the intercom buzzed. The door opened into a shabby pub, the carpet black with filth and cigarette burns. The pool table and fruit machines looked new while the bar had been ripped out to make space: food and drink were free in Brigands clubhouses, although non-members who didn’t slide paper money into one of the donation jars before leaving were liable to find themselves on the end of a fist or boot.
‘We used to have a problem with rats in here but they walked out in disgust,’ Sealclubber explained, as George stepped inside. ‘I’m gonna have to ask you to strip down.’
This kind of search was standard for anyone entering a clubhouse to do business. The two other Brigands sitting at tables across the room gave evil stares as George pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped his shorts so that Sealclubber could see there was no recording device strapped to his body.
‘Leave your keys and mobile over on the table,’ Sealclubber said. ‘Just in case.’
He then led George through a low door off the side of the room. The walls of his office were layered thick with pinned-up photographs, newspaper clippings and scrawled messages. George was horrified by the stained mattress and knocked back by the overpowering combo of cigar smoke and Sealclubber’s BO.
‘Is it safe to talk here?’ George asked, sitting in a wrecked armchair as Sealclubber settled behind the mounds of paperwork on his desk.
‘The office is locked when I’m not here,’ Sealclubber said. ‘Whole clubhouse gets swept for bugs every week and I’ve been doing business out of this office since eighty-three without any shit happening.’
George produced a bundle of cash from a Nike gym bag. ‘It’s only forty-two grand here,’ he said nervously.
Sealclubber reared forward in his seat. ‘Sixty-three,’ he growled. ‘I’m fronting you for six hundred grand and you can’t even put up a ten per cent deposit?’
‘I could have had it Monday,’ George said. ‘It’s not a question of having the money, but of moving it around so that it doesn’t get detected by money laundering controls.’
Sealclubber tutted. ‘I’m going to Devon today. I’ve told my contact that I’ll be bringing the full deposit in cash.’
‘All I can do is apologise,’ George said. ‘But I’ll make it right. You’ll have the other twenty-one thousand by Tuesday. Then I’ll pay you another five hundred for the trouble of sending an extra person down there.’
‘Five hundred plus expenses,’ Sealclubber said. ‘First-class train fare and taxis, might as well call it a grand all in.’
George knew this was a shake-down, but he wasn’t going to start an argument. ‘I appreciate your flexibility.’
Sealclubber noticed a half drunk bottle of Rebel Yell bourbon on his desk and tipped some into a filthy tumbler. ‘Your people don’t drink, do they?’
‘No, thank you,’ George said.
‘Takes all kinds,’ Sealclubber smiled. ‘You realise if I’m not going down with the full deposit your delivery date is going back a few days too.’
The CHERUB agents needed as much time as possible and these were the words George had come to hear.
‘Shit happens,’ Sealclubber said. ‘But my contacts might not be as sympathetic as I am. If you delay another payment they could bump the price, or even snatch your deposit and as far as I’m concerned that’s entirely between you and them. I’m just brokering this deal.’
‘I know,’ George nodded. ‘Once the deal is done and we have a delivery date in place I’ll start making arrangements for the transfers.’
Sealclubber grunted. ‘The next payment will be forty per cent, as soon as we agree a delivery schedule. Then the last half on delivery.’
‘I can live with that,’ George said.
‘Right,’ Sealclubber nodded. ‘I’ve got a bunch of people coming in before we set off and officially I’m not even supposed to let non-whites in here, so you’d better scoot.’
Before George stood up, he gave a fake cough, spat a piece of gum with a tiny listening device inside into his hand and pressed it against the underside of the chair. Out in the bar he saw that his keys and phone had been moved, and as he stepped into the sun he saw that someone had redialled his last call.
But the phone had been supplied by CHERUB and all the personal contacts and text messages inside it were fake. As soon as George was clear of the building he tapped in #611042# which turned his phone into a listening device.
As George walked along the canal bank Pikey and Sealclubber were talking.
‘Forty-two grand,’ Sealclubber said. ‘I’m tempted not to mention this to the Führer and keep the cash.’
Pikey sounded wary. ‘You don’t know who these Asians are. For all we know, if you rip these guys off we’re gonna have a swarm of Pakis come down from Birmingham to start a fight. Or a price on our heads.’
‘He’s barely a kid,’ Sealclubber said.
‘But who’s behind him?’ Pikey asked. ‘The only thing we know about them is that they can lay their hands on six hundred grand. Which means they’re deep in the drug trade and they’re not gonna be too scared to take on a few fat blokes in leather jackets.’
‘You’re right,’ Sealclubber laughed. ‘Let’s take our fifteen per cent and let South Devon deal with all the shit. You fancy coming down to Devon with us?’
‘Rather keep watch here,’ Pikey said. ‘Bike plays merry hell with my piles these days.’
*
Rhino turned on the charm as Chloe sat across his desk and flicked through a credit agreement set in six-point text.
‘It’s all very reputable,’ Rhino said reassuringly. ‘It’s a standard agreement between yourself and Midland Retail credit services.’
Chloe smiled. ‘So I won’t have a biker on my doorstep threatening to bust my kneecaps if I miss my payment?’
‘No indeed,’ Rhino laughed, as Chloe signed her name in a box. ‘And twice on the back,’ he added. ‘And finally we need an adult’s signature on young James’ insurance form.’
James stood in the background and broke into a big smile as a mechanic came and wheeled his new 500cc pride and joy down a ramp to have the restrictor kit fitted. ‘Make sure it doesn’t work,’ James whispered, and the mechanic gave him a wink.
‘So you just moved down here?’ Rhino asked.
‘Split from my husband,’ Chole explained. ‘I got a nice fat divorce settlement and I needed to get out of London.’
‘I hear that,’ Rhino smiled. ‘You don’t look old enough for James to be your son.’
‘You flatter me,’ Chloe answered. ‘Look at this grey hair!’
‘There’s a big bash at the Brigands clubhouse tonight. Would you be interested?’
Chloe knew it might help with the mission, but she was playing the ex-wife of a stockbroker and she couldn’t jump at the prospect of a biker party, so she hesitated.
‘Come on, let your hair down,’ Rhino said cheerfully. ‘When was the last time you went to a really crazy party?’
Chloe laughed. ‘It’s been a while and I’m guessing the Brigands clubhouse is livelier than a cocktail party in Primrose Hill.’
24. RIDE
‘So how’s your little Jap rocket?’ Teeth asked, as he stood in the staff canteen, off the mezzanine between Marina Heights’ two floors. The windowless space had a few tables and chairs, a fridge, sink and a coffee machine, but on a warm day everyone took their breaks
outside.
‘Haven’t ridden it yet,’ James explained. ‘They’re fitting the restrictor kit right now.’
‘Fitting it badly, I hope,’ Teeth smiled.
‘Course,’ James nodded.
‘Your basic salary is five an hour,’ Teeth explained. ‘Seven quid after eight at night and eight if you work after midnight. If you have a problem with your hours don’t leave it until the last minute to let me know. How does a full Saturday and a couple of evenings after school sound?’
‘I guess,’ James said. ‘What’ll I do?’
‘Everyone starts on clean-up and odd jobs: toilets, bins, litter. Next stage is serving in one of the kiosks. The top rung is working in the diner or as a kiosk manager. You get an extra two-fifty an hour for that.’
‘Cool,’ James nodded. ‘I’ve actually worked in a Deluxe Chicken before now, so I’ve got some experience serving customers and stuff.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Teeth said. ‘You never know.’
James remembered a few details about Teeth’s past and decided to flatter his new boss. ‘You look slightly familiar. Didn’t you use to be a wrestler?’
Teeth broke out in a huge smile. ‘How’d you know that?’
‘From when I was little. You were Gumdrop McGlone, on one of those early-morning wrestling shows they used to have on the sports channel. I used to lap that up.’
‘I only did three televised bouts,’ Teeth smiled. ‘You’ve got quite a memory.’
‘Do you still wrestle now?’
‘Nah,’ Teeth said. ‘I used to do holiday camps and stuff, but now I run Marina Heights and you can’t disappear for weeks at a time during the summer season. Plus I’m a few years past my prime. I ran a club for a while teaching young ’uns boxing and wrestling moves, but I turned it in. Some guy tried to sue me after his son broke his arm. Plus they brought in all these regulations and criminal checks for people working with kids, and I’ve got a bit of a past.’