by Mick Norman
The Home of Great Cult Fiction!
FALLEN ANGELS
THE LAST HEROES QUARTET
By
MICK NORMAN
FALLEN ANGELS
THE LAST HEROES QUARTET
VOLUME ONE
Editorial Comment
Book One
ANGELS FROM HELL
About the Book
Introduction
Chapter One: See How They Run
Chapter Two: News at Nine
Chapter Three: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming
Chapter Four: Midnight Review (Two Years Ago)
Chapter Five: In the Course of a Robbery
Chapter Six: Bike Gangs Thugs Mugh Bank Manager – Rape Daughter!
Chapter Seven: The Order is Rapidly Fading
Chapter Eight: ‘Riding High Over Concrete Skyways”
Chapter Nine: ‘So full of ugly sights, of ghostly dreams’
Chapter Ten: Inter-Departmental Memo from Cuttings and Research to Special Branch
Chapter Eleven: A Beginning – A Middle – An End – In That Order
Chapter Twelve: Report of police informer, Leslie Eubin, a.k.a. Les the Ruin, a.k.a. Ruin
Chapter Thirteen: Landscape With Figures
Chapter Fourteen: The Law is for the Protection of the People
Chapter Fifteen: A Dark And Lonely Place
Chapter Sixteen: The Surprise Election – A First Appraisal
Chapter Seventeen: In My End is my Beginning
Chapter Eighteen: An Excerpt from an Essay On The Subject Of Hell’s Angels by a London Boy (14 years of age)
Book Two
ANGEL CHALLENGE
About the Book
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1: Afternoon All
Chapter 2: Another Happy Valley Sunday
Chapter 3: Ghouls Rush In
Chapter 4: Silhouetted By The Sea
Chapter 5: Ride A Black Eagle
Chapter 6: Just Because We Get Around
Chapter 7: I’m Talking, Yes Indeed!
Chapter 8: The Hapenning
Chapter 9: Problems All Day Long
Chapter 10: Across A Crowded Room
Chapter 11: Stand Up, Stand Up, For … Who?
Chapter 12: You Get The Picture? Yes, We See
Chapter 13: Do Not Pass Go – Go Directly To Jail
Chapter 14: As Dark As A Dungeon
Chapter 15: Don’t Let Your Daughter On A Bike, Mrs. Middle-Class!
Chapter 16: Going Faster Than A Roller-Coaster
Chapter 17: Some Is Winners And Some Is Losers
Chapter 18: The Sky’s Erupted, We Must Go Where It’s Quiet
Chapter 19: All Alone, All Alone, All Alone
Copyright
About Piccadilly Publishing
About the Author
Editorial Comment
We are proud to present the four books in Mick Norman’s Angel Chronicles: Angels from Hell, Angel Challenge, Guardian Angels and Angels on my Mind, in two omnibus editions. Often called The Last Heroes Quartet or The Angels Chronicles, we at Piccadilly Publishing have decided to put them under the colours of FALLEN ANGELS—thus making these classics of the 1970s Hells Angels’ culture available in electronic form for the very first time, with stunning artwork by Tony Masero.
The books were Mick Norman’s (or more precisely, Laurence James’) vision of the then future. Laurence was an editor at New English Library at a time when they were publishing biker pulp-fiction by the likes of Peter Cave and Alex R. Stuart. He was Richard Allen’s editor and dealt with some of the Jim Moffat skinhead books. On the back of these, Laurence decided to change tack—and sent in the manuscript of Angels from Hell anonymously to another editor. He stated that he only every thought of there being just the one book but NEL took up the option and Laurence went on to write three more.
Often called “trash fiction” or “low culture”, the Angel quartet actually sold over a quarter of a million copies, and has gained a cult fiction following. It was their combination of sex and violence, the anti-establishment theme of “us” against “them” which made these books a success at the time.
This fiction is not for the politically correct and is very much a product of its time. It is gritty and realistically brutal. The sex, drugs, violence and music references remain intact because it very much mirrors the attitude of the UK-based Hell’s Angels.
These novels are pure nostalgia, harking back to a time that many bikers of a certain age might identify with. Triumph, Norton, Harley-Davidson and Velocettes grace the pages.
We do not apologise for it.
Mike Stotter,
Editor
ANGELS FROM HELL
The time is a little in the future. The place is England. Repression has driven the Hell’s Angels underground. But they are still around!
Gerry Vinson wanted to join ‘The Last Heroes’. Suddenly, he found what he was looking for.
Just in front of him, appearing from the ground like a pantomime demon, was Tiny Terry.
In an age of smart suits and short hair, the Angel looked literally unbelievable. He stood a couple of inches over six feet and was big-built. His hair was shoulder-length, matted and oily. He had a full beard, partly tufted, with short lengths of greasy ribbon tied in it. His teeth were mostly broken or missing. In the centre of his chest was tattooed a red-winged skull with the words ‘Hell’s Angels – North London Chapter’
Even in the future, the Angels take some stopping!
INTRODUCTION
The time is a little in the future. The place is England. Repression has driven the Hell’s Angels underground. But they are still around!
Gerry Vinson wanted to join the ‘Last Heroes’. Suddenly, he found what he was looking for.
“Just in front of him, appearing from the ground like a pantomime demon, was Tiny Terry.”
“In an age of smart suits and short hair, the Angel looked literally unbelievable. He stood a couple of inches over six feet and was big-built. His hair was shoulder-length, matted and oily. He had a full beard, partly tufted, with short lengths of greasy ribbon tied in it. His teeth were mostly broken or missing. In the centre of his chest was tattooed a red-winged skull with the words: ‘Hell’s Angels – North London Chapter’.”
Even in the future, the Angels take some stopping!
One – See How They Run
Jerry Richardson was blind.
He was sitting on the dusty plush seat of the last train on the Dartford Loop Line. It was Thursday night, drizzling slightly, as his carriage eased out of the heights of Lewisham Station.
Jerry swayed in his seat when the train rocked, first gently to the right, then more sharply to the left, picking up speed towards the next station – Hither Green. He heard the slight change of tone as they passed over the High Street. Another couple of minutes and he’d be home.
Tonight’s meeting of the London Buddhist Society had been an unusually noisy one. A vocal minority had tried to push through a motion to send a message of support to the Home Secretary in his stand against the Permissive Socialists and all their fringe elements. Although he was opposed to all the violence in the country, Jerry had voted against the motion, saying he felt that it was contrary to the ideals of the Society to take part in active involvement in politics.
Gravity tugged him softly forwards in his seat as the driver started to apply his brakes just outside the station. Jerry picked up his briefcase and stood up.
‘I say.’ A hesitant voice – eager to do good, but afraid of giving offence. ‘This is Hither Green. Is this the station you wanted?’
Jerry nodded his thanks briefly to his would-be Samaritan and felt for the doo
r handle as the train edged to a stop.
He hardly needed his stick to help him find his way along the platform. It was familiar territory. It was nearly four years since he had moved into his digs in Longhurst Road and the whole area was now familiar to him. He could almost visualise the platform stretching ahead of him and then the long slope down to where the ticket collector would be waiting.
Suddenly his stick brushed against something that shouldn’t have been there. Over-confidence had robbed him of that edge of reflex speed that might have saved him. Before he could check his forward momentum, his knee had caught whatever it was and he fell helplessly forwards, dropping his case as he flung out his hands to try and save his face. He stumbled onwards and down, jarring his wrist and scraping his chin on the platform concrete. As his body rolled over there was a splintering crack and then he was still.
Strong hands pulled him to his feet and dusted him down, while someone else handed him his case. He heard a woman’s voice, thick with anger. ‘Those damn hooligans, tipping over the bench. The boy’s blind you know. Blind. That’s why he tripped. He couldn’t see the bench so he fell over it. Bastards! He’s blind, you know. And he’s broken his stick, poor boy. Picking on someone who can’t see. If only Hayes would do something instead of just bloody talking. Here (to Jerry) do you want me to sec you home; with your stick gone and you being ...’
‘Blind!’ interrupted Jerry, recovering himself, but still shaken by his fall. ‘Look, I’m all right now and I can get home without a stick. Would you please now leave me alone?’
The subdued mutterings of outrage faded down the platform and Jerry was left alone. He wiped the thread of blood that he could feel running down his chin, adjusted his suit, feeling a tear at the knee, and stood still for a moment, getting his bearings before he continued home.
It probably had been a gang of young thugs. Maybe he should have voted to support George Hayes and his policy of harsh reaction against the suedeheads, the terrace boys, the motorbike gangs and the long hairs. The violence and killings by young hoodlums had reached its anarchistic peak in the eighty-six deaths at the Salisbury Festival of Heavy Rock. The massive slaughter had been caused, according to the television, by rival gangs of Hell’s Angels fighting and by the death on stage of two members of an Afro group, shot, so left-wing troublemakers insisted, by army units sent in by worried politicians. Whoever started it; the blood of the gentle people had been liberally spilt in an unprecedented tribute to political paranoia.
His thoughts had carried him halfway down the steep slope. He stopped walking for a moment, his hand brushing against the chalky brickwork. The echo of his footsteps died away slowly and there was silence; or as near silence as one could get in that part of London. There was the steady hum of arterial traffic on both Lee High Road and Lewisham High Road. A crackle of voices somewhere on his left and a girl giggling. High at the edge of his hearing there was the rumble of several high-powered motorcycles. The absence of whistling meant that the ticket collector hadn’t bothered to wait for him and had taken his bicycle and rushed off home.
Jerry moved on.
Hither Green is effectively split into two by the Southern Region railway lines. The station stands high and tunnels connect the platforms to a gloomy subterranean passage which runs under the tracks and joins Staplehurst Road to Nightingale Grove. This constricting, narrow tunnel is the only way to get from one side of the area to the other. During the day it is a busy, echoing thoroughfare. At night it is a gloomy, noisesome catacomb. Late at night it is best avoided; it is then that the somewhat drunk use it to hide the emptying of their bladders. It is then that the very drunk retch up their overloads of bile and stale alcohol.
Jerry reached the bottom of the incline and stopped before turning to his right. His hand held the angle of the brickwork; if he had put out his left hand he would have touched the other side of the passage. It is barely five feet wide, seven feet high and is about two hundred feet long. He suddenly realised that the sound of the bikes was much louder.
Louder and nearer.
Jerry started to move as quickly as he could along the tunnel, nearly falling as his hand missed the wall and found only space. It was the slope up to the next platform. He was nearly halfway along.
The air around him began to vibrate with the thunder of machines and he heard the screeching of tyres on asphalt as a corner was taken too fast. He could also hear the sirens of police patrols.
Another platform entrance passed. Jerry was panicking now. If he could have thought more clearly he would have turned into one of these tunnels and he would have been safe from the impending noise.
The leading bike was right at the opening of the passage and Jerry’s breath sobbed raggedly in his throat. He knew what was licking at his heels. He had been told of the tabloid pictures; he had heard enough T.V. pundits fulminating about the social evil; he had heard the strained tones of George Hayes talking of stamping out the useless pariahs. Normal people didn’t ride unsilenced motorbikes in a pack. Although they were supposed to be outlawed, Jerry knew what the noise meant. The sweat of fear ran into his blind eyes, as he turned to face the Angels.
The rider of the first bike twisted savagely at his ape hanger, high-rise handlebars and just missed Jerry, pressed flat against the wall – paralysed like a mouse in front of a weaving cobra. The second Angel had his view blocked by the first bike and had no chance. His elbow smashed into Jerry’s shoulder and spun him into the centre of the passage. The next machine skidded wildly and a corner of the yellow teardrop tank hit Jerry high on his left thigh, cracking the femur and thrusting the screaming boy to the filthy floor. Before his head could hit the ground he had been hit by three more bikes. One crushed his right wrist and pulped the fingers of that hand. Another drove into his rib cage and caved the splintered bones into the lungs. The back wheel of that same bike gouged through the wreckage of Jerry’s chest and forced other pieces of broken rib into his straining heart. Jerry was medically dying even before the last bike made things finite by hitting the thrown-back head just under the chin with its front wheel. The vertebrae parted easily under the strain and his head bounced twice against the concrete, flopping loosely on the neck.
Amazingly, none of the riders had come off their bikes. The scream of their machines faded away in the direction of Burnt Ash Road. The body of Jerry Richardson was still and crumpled, apart from a slight residual twitching of his right leg. Soon, even that stopped.
It was nearly three minutes before anyone came to see what had happened. By then it was all over, apart from tomorrow’s headline.
Jerry Richardson had been blind. Now he was dead.
Two – News at Nine
There is still no news of the missing round-the-world yachtsman, Mike Cornelius, who set off nine weeks ago in his ketch, “Elric”, to sail round the world and through the North-West Passage along the north coast of Canada. Radio contact was lost eleven days ago. It is believed that his boat may have suffered rudder damage during the severe storms in the South Atlantic a fortnight ago.
‘Finally, we go to South London, where Neville Dempsey brings us this report from the scene of the latest in the current series of Hell’s Angels atrocities.’
The usual crowd of whey-faced onlookers, features crudely etched by the harsh arclights of the colour television cameras. In front of them is the sharp-dressed, sharp-voiced Neville Dempsey. His delivery is the traditional, clipped, portentous style beloved of all second-rate interviewers.
‘Late last night, a blind young teacher, Jerry Richardson, caught the 23.36 train from Charing Cross Station. He had been to a meeting of the pacifist London Buddhist Society. He was only a hundred yards from his flat in nearby Longhurst Road, when his journey ended.’
The camera zooms with an unwholesome relish onto the angle of the wall and floor, where an ineffectual attempt has been made to cover up a large pool of blood with sand.
‘It was here that blind Jerry Richardson ended his jour
ney (long pause) and his life. He is the most recent innocent victim of the new wave of violence instigated by the self-styled “Last Heroes” motorcycle gang and their messianic leader, Vincent Jerry Richardson was not the first person to die (pause) savagely and brutally (pause) at the hands of these thugs. Unless we heed the words and implement the policies of Home Secretary, George Hayes, he will not be that last.
‘Where are they now, these animals with their obscene oaths, their vile practices and their illegal machines? A police spokesman told me earlier today that they believed that Vincent and his dangerous outlaws have a hideout somewhere in Essex. Roadblocks set up only minutes after the Richardson killing were unsuccessful. However, extensive inquiries are, at this moment, going on in areas known to be popular haunts of the Hell’s Angels.
‘If these gangs are not stamped out, this (cut again to the spot where Jerry died) could be our blood, or the blood of your daughter. This is Neville Dempsey. News at Ten. Hither Green.’
Back to studio where complacent newsreader is putting on his best conscience-of-the-people face.
‘Well, that’s the way it looks tonight. Goodnight.’
Three – Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming
For once, the police spokesman hadn’t been too far out. It was actually in Hertfordshire not Essex, but the ‘hideout’ was only about four miles from the Essex border. It was the ruin of what had once been a training college for missionaries, in the days when the emergent nations had not yet emerged and the word of God was still a viable commodity to usher in the merchants and exploiters. Now, it stood in its own grounds, surrounded by trees, a couple of miles from the A414. It was here the ‘Last Heroes’ had gathered after the run that had reached its unexpected but exciting climax in the death of the young teacher.