Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) by Iain Parke Read Free Book Online

suffering to o much hassle from any of the other inmates. In f a ct in a place where the deput y governor had once been arrested for possession of not only coke but kiddie porn , you’d think that someone like Wibble could probably arrange to have as comfortable a time of it as he wanted to , within reason.
    ‘How d’you get on with the other gangs in here. Any trouble?’
    ‘Nah. They all know who we are and not to fuck with us. Most of the gangs you read about in the papers these days are just street gangs, local kids, no class. We’re different, we’re not about th e street, we’re about the road.’
    ‘ So w hat about Charlie? ’ I asked .
    ‘ What about him? He’ll hate it where he is. ’
    ‘ Oh, why? ’
    ‘ Well it’s Grendon isn’t it? ’ he smiled, ‘ It ’s a n ut house for nonces isn’t it? ’
    *
    ‘You know it’s interesting that when you ran, it was Ireland you chose to hide out in. Was that deliberate? Because of us I mean?’
    I understood what he was getting at.
    ‘Yes, of course. I didn’t think I wanted to try hiding out anywhere that The Brethren had a charter , which rules out just about all the English speaking world bar Ireland.’
    ‘Ironic isn’t it?’
    ‘Is it?’ I asked cautiously, unsure what he meant.
    ‘Yeah , well the way the Micks had organized themselves was a bit of an eye-opener when we started to think about where we’d go with our merger. Let’s just say it was an interesting example when we were working out what to do.’
    Given how things had developed, I could see how Wibble and Stu, and then Charlie as well , could have looked at Ireland and wondered about how the precedent that had been established there might play out over on this side of the water.
    The reason I had picked it as my bolt hole was purely and simply because it was a Brethren free zone. And the reason for that was that a number of years ago now, the key local clubs had decided to keep it that way, banding together into a confederation under which they all agreed not to patch over to any of the senior worldwide franchises . S o , since the way into a territory was through absorbing a local club, the upshot was that none of the major internationals had ever got a sustained foothold, certainly s outh of the border.
    Of course rumours that the paramilitaries had also taken a dim view of the idea of foreign clubs setting up shop and getting mixed up in local business had also helped to keep the scene nicely neutral and broadly peaceful, in terms of worldwide biker politics at least.
    From my side of the fence however I had things I wanted to know too. I couldn’t help myself, sitting there facing him, the old scribbler ’ s instinct was just too strong, too many years of asking people questions I guess , to be able to pass up the opportunity of getting the inside skinny, ‘S o what happened, ’ I asked, ‘ at the airport? What was it all about? ’
    ‘ Oh that, ’ he shrugged disinterestedly, ‘ that’ll never stick, not to me and Charlie anyway. ’
    ‘ Really ,’ I asked, ‘ why not? ’
    Despite myself, I was impressed. For a man potentially facing some of the most high profile murder charges in the country, he seemed unnaturally calm and relaxed.
    ‘ Cos we didn’t do shit ,’ he said, ‘ and the cops know it. They can search the CCTV all they like and they won’t see either of us lift a finger towards anybody. ’
    ‘ So who did? And why were you there? ’
    He shrugged as if it was the most natural thing in the world. ‘ Well we knew they’d be coming, so we just arranged to be there to meet them when they did. ’
    ‘ But you r guys attacked them… ’
    ‘ O h, but that’s just it ,’ he cut in, ‘i t wasn’t our guys was it? ’
    ‘ It wasn’t ? ’
    ‘ No .’
    ‘ So who was it then ?’ I asked.
    ‘ Chuckey’s boys .’
    I’d been out of the scene since I’d gone on the lam but all the same , even without keeping tabs on the clubs on the web, I knew