by Mick Norman
‘It’s agreed then, Rat. Tell us. If you know, then we might be on a real winner. And, you’ll ride with us. Now. Come on.’
The trendy conference room was hushed as Rat hissed and whispered his tale. ‘A few years ago I knew a bloke who used to run tours for kinky tourists. Not the regular ones that were in all the papers. These were a bit, unusual. He used to take them to all the murder spots in London, and he’d read bits out of contemporary papers and things. Really horrible. The krauts loved it. More than anyone else. He gave them things that nobody else liked to touch. One of his big specialities was … what you said, Wolf, Jack the Ripper.’
‘Come on, Rat. You’re making a fucking epic out of it.’
‘Patience my young monastery friend, is one of the greatest virtues. Learn it. I’ll go through it line by line. George Yard Buildings was the scene of one of the Ripper’s killings. On Tuesday August 8th, 1888. It was in the early morning on the day after a Bank Holiday. The whore was a scrubber called, Martha … Turner, I think it was. But there’s a bit of doubt about the name. I remember that. Thirty-nine times. That’s right. A two-handed attack they reckoned. With a bayonet and with a scalpel. Thirty-nine! Slashed her body to bits. She was the first, most people reckon. But, not the last. There were round about six more. That’s it. There you are.’
‘Rat. Where the fuck is George Yard Buildings? I know Whitechapel a bit, but I’ve never heard of it. It could be anywhere and had its name changed.’
‘Sorry, Wolf. Forgot that bit. It’s now called Gunthorpe Street. Just off Whitechapel High Street.’
The Last Heroes lost that second leg. Though they knew the answer to the clue and the Ghouls didn’t. Evel really justified his presidency by winning it for his chapter.
He noticed the change in the personnel at once and the greased tumblers in his mind quickly came up with the right answer. He called Rohan over to him. ‘Look. They’ve dropped the tart. And they’ve brought in that tiny cunt what burned Alice. I wonder if that little bastard knew the clue and that’s why he’s in. Yeah! That’s got to be it. Listen brother. You and I are going to follow Rat, regardless of what the others will do. The rest can follow any of the other Heroes. They’re bound to try a diversion.’
Obvious, isn’t it? That’s what Gerry thought as well, and had laid careful plans to cover exactly that happening. He would lead three of the chapter towards Hyde Park, Rat would deliberately act suspiciously and head east, but he would try and shake off any pursuers round Bank. Whatever happened, he wasn’t to go anywhere near Gunthorpe Street. Bardd would ride slowly off and then fake a breakdown, so that he would be ignored. When everyone had left him behind, he was to ride slowly and carefully to Gunthorpe Street, pick up the marked copy of the paper and come back. Simple.
They all knew what they had to do, and Gerry knew, from past experience, that he could rely on them all to do their bit He was only a bit doubtful about Rat, but he figured that his plan was foolproof.
But, not Rat-proof!
In Evel’s head, greased tumblers had meshed. In Rat’s head, slimy cogs slowly engaged their gears. ‘I got that clue. Why should that Welsh git have all the glory? Once I shake off any tails, I can go straight there and quick back. No problems. No satin poof with lipstick on’ll have a chance of keeping up with me!’
So, Gerry, Kafka, Gwyn and Monk thrashed off westwards, followed by an equal number of Ghouls. Bardd had cunningly turned off the petrol tap on his hog so that it cut out at the very moment that the flag dropped. Cursing loudly and ostentatiously, he leaped off and poked angrily at his chromed engine. Apart from jeering at his ill-luck, none of the Ghouls took any notice at all of him.
Rat skulked around, looking suspicious – which was easier for him than for most people – and then set off eastwards. Off towards the shining dome of St Pauls. Trailing him were Evel and Rohan.
The eight members of the warring chapters who went westwards are of no further concern to us. They livened things up for the Thursday afternoon shoppers in Oxford Street and then came straight back to the offices of the ‘Leader’. Together with an anxious Melvyn Molineux, they waited for the return of Bardd with the paper.
Rat rode up past St Pauls, leaning back in the saddle, hands drooping over the bars. He could see Evel and Rohan clearly in his twin mirrors. Evel in dazzling white and Rohan in deep purple. They were only fifty yards or so behind as he reached Bank. Glancing quickly back over his stunted shoulders, Rat twisted the throttle right round. The powerful engine roared in protest at this mistreatment, but thrust forwards, rubber smoking off the roadway.
Without once looking back, he revved up Bishopsgate and then dived into the maze of small, narrow side streets between Liverpool Street and Aldgate. Middlesex Street led him into Wentworth Street, where he was held up for a moment by the traffic, and then across Commercial Street towards the end of Gunthorpe Street. He cunningly stopped in the gutter before he actually made the turn, looking round for any sign of pursuit.
The traffic was heavy, and he couldn’t see that far back. There was the usual number of local delivery lorries and trucks, a few private cars and a handful of motorbikes. None of the latter sported the dreaded Ghouls’ colours. Feeling smug and safe, Rat turned into Gunthorpe Street and cruised down it towards Whitechapel Road. Exactly on the site of the old George Yard Buildings, he saw the representative of the “Daily Leader”, waving a copy of the paper at him.
He stopped and snatched it from him, and then, chuckling happily to himself, he set off on his triumphant return journey. As he reached Newgate Street, nearly there, he saw the crowds on the pavement, thick as fields of harvest wheat. Sexy little office girls, stretching their lunch hours in the hope of catching a glimpse of one of the dread Angels. He saw them waving to him and shouting. He couldn’t hear what because of the roar of his Triumph and the noise of traffic. He waved a gloved fist at them – a gesture of victory. New Fetter Lane and he could freewheel from there. He was home.
So, how could the Last Heroes have lost that second leg?
Maybe Rat is being fractionally premature in claiming victory before he’s handed the paper in to Valentine Bergen. But, he’s so close that nothing could stop him. Could it? Yes, it could.
Go back about eight minutes to the moment when Rat paused at the opening of Gunthorpe Street and looked back. Looking for the distinctive jackets of the two Ghouls. Remember how he saw a couple of motorbikes? And how he dismissed them?
Go back a little further and you’ll recall how Rat was held up for a few moments in the traffic. During that briefest of stops, Evel and Rohan had ripped off their bright colours and ridden on, wearing plain shirts and dungaree trousers. Unseen by Rat, they had followed him down Gunthorpe Street at a discreet distance, then roared back to the ‘Leader’ by using roads nearer the river.
Coming through the back of the crowd, nobody noticed them as the little Angel strode cockily through towards the editor, his marked copy already held out. Timing his move to absolute perfection, Evel stepped out in front of Rat, when he was only six feet from Bergen, and thrust his own copy of the paper into the astonished (and delighted) man’s hands. ‘I think this is what you’ve been waiting for, sweetie.’ He turned round to the paralysed Rat. ‘One all, tiny-weenie one. Thanks for taking us straight to it.’
The well-respected man, Penn of the Yard had made it his business to be present at each start and finish and he grabbed Rat by the shoulders from behind. ‘Bad luck lad,’ he said with a ringing voice. ‘Close that. Still, three more legs to go. I’m sure you’re not going to be a bad loser, now, are you? Of course not.’ In a quieter voice, designed only for the wriggling Angel, he whispered: ‘Pull out whatever it is in your pocket, laddie, and I’ll break both your wretched collarbones. No? Wise lad. Now push off.’ Digging his knuckles hard into the little man’s back, he propelled him into the arms of his glowering president. Penn added insult to injury by calling for, and getting, ‘Three cheers for a very sporting little loser!’
Nothing was said by any of the Last Heroes and Wolves until they reached their conference room. Kafka slammed the door shut with an ominous thump. Gerry opened his mouth when Rat spoke first. ‘No. If it hadn’t been for me we’d have had no chance at all, because none of you lot got the clue. And ... and …’
‘Yes,’ the menacing monosyllable from Brenda.
‘And, I’m sorry brothers. I really fucked it up, didn’t I?’
‘Forget it, Rat. Let’s all go back to base and start getting ready for Number Three.’
Fifteen – Don’t Let Your Daughter On A Bike,
Mrs. Middle-Class!
An Extract From: ‘An Ogre For Society – An Investigation Of Incidences Of Delusional Psychoses Inspired By Youth Cults’ by Professor Norbert Offord, MA, M&E, MRN. Copyright Arkadin Press, 198–
The bikers! Not since the Viking reivers brought the sword, the brand and sudden death to English coasts has a term contained more emotive content. No Saxon peasant woman, seeing the dread longships ghosting in out of the sea-wraith, could have felt greater terror, than a solid middle-class mother who hears her daughter has been associating with the unspeakable Hell’s Angels.
Why is this? Other movements – the Hitler Jugend and some junior branches of the Ku Klux Klan, that now extinct society of brave Knights of the Invisible Empire – were far more reprehensible than these one per cent motorbike outlaws. Their ideologies were more abhorrent. The results of their passing more obvious and lethal.
Is it their growing responsive mobility? Is it the psychotic personality traumas that blossom in their wake? Or the systematised policy projection? It is almost impossible to determine the easy answers in a stress situation where there, quite simply, are no easy answers. Each man must pick the thing he loves and work out how much he values it. Because, when the chips are down and the Last Heroes or the Ghouls come riding into your small town; what do you do? Run to your house – house’ll be a’burning. Run to your wife – wife’ll be a’screaming. Run to the police – police’ll be a’hiding. Run to the Angels – they’ll just, be a’laughing.
So, stay where you are and hope the hurricane’s going to pass you by on the other side. Because Mister, hope is about all you have left to hang on to. That’s why you or your wife or your children wake screaming in the night. That is, if you’ve managed to get to sleep at all. That’s why sales of tranquillisers are higher than ever. That’s why the number of doctors in practice is dropping year by year. And the number of psychiatrists has trebled since 1965.
More and more executives between the ages of twenty-eight and forty-five than ever before are just dropping out. They are saying, in effect, ‘Fuck your job. It’s not that important!’ Each man has the right to work at what he wants.
But what about the children? Vandalism reaches towering new heights each year. Where are they to run to? Too often it is to youth cults like the Skulls or the Angels. Where they can feel secure and can be with their own kind. Until the do-gooders and moralisers can find a viable alternative for the young, then the problem can only grow worse. It is facile to lay it at the door of the under-staffed and overworked teaching profession. More blame lies with parents. Career-conscious or of such limited education themselves that they can find no way to help their children when the door opens at the top of the slippery helter-skelter. Once they are sliding down, it’s a hell of a lot harder to stop them.
All you’ve got to do is find some way of stopping them beginning the climb to the top of the slide. Make the earth seem more attractive.
How? Don’t ask me. I only write this book. They’re your children who run with the Angels. You find a way of stopping them.
Sixteen: Going Faster Than A Roller-Coaster
The third leg of the challenge beginneth here. Melvyn Molineux had read out the clue: ‘Philip and Herbert shared a flat here. Though neither had any reason to expect great things, they never found themselves out of pocket.’ The Ghouls had retreated to their room, and the Last Heroes and Wolves to theirs.
Despite his worries with Valentine Bergen, Molineux had again tipped off the Ghouls with the answer. He had so much riding on the outcome that he didn’t even dare think what might happen if the Ghouls lost. After they were out-thought in the first leg, and lucky winners of the second, it seemed increasingly obvious that he could be backing a loser. Unless he added that little something. Like, cheating.
As soon as the Last Heroes assembled, it was agreed that the chosen six competitors should revert to those chosen for the first leg. That is; Gerry, Brenda, Gwyn, Bardd, Kafka and young Monk. As they, and their reserves sat round the afromosia teak veneer table, there was a note of optimism in the air. On the way up in the lift, Kafka had told them that he had a good idea of the answer. Leaning back in his chair, blowing hash smoke rings at the ceiling, Kafka assumed the air of an elderly professor.
He placed his chewed and stained fingers together, pursed his lips and began: ‘It seems to me that the reference must be a literary one.’
Bardd interrupted him: ‘Creepy Molineux told us that this clue was going to be a literary one weeks ago. Tell us something new you big lump of lard.’
‘Quite you hot-tempered Celt, you. First, who are Philip and Herbert, who shared a flat together? The clue to this lies in a couple of rather infantile inner references. The word “pocket” and the words “great things”. Instead of “things”, suppose we substitute the word “expectations”. Great expectations.’
‘Dickens’ book. Well, wait a minute, Kafka, The hero, Pip, was Philip and Herbert was … pocket ... of course, Herbert Pocket. Brilliant.’
Kafka inclined his head at the compliment from Brenda. ‘Thank you ma’am. I am eternally obliged to you.’
Monk spoke next: ‘I remember the book. But, where the hell was their flat? It must have been near the law courts somewhere.’
Gerry turned again to Kafka. ‘Well? Where was the place?’
‘Sorry, dear boy. I mean, Gerry. I’m fucked if I can remember.’
‘We’re all fucked if we can’t.’
‘Ah. It comes back to me a little. It was near the law courts. It was one of those Inns of Court. Christ! Not one of the big ones. Get that fucking map Molineux left for us. It must be on that. I’m sure it was near Holborn somewhere.’
The map was hurriedly unfolded and Gerry took charge. ‘This is the way. I’ll find every place in that area that has the word “Inn” in its name and I’ll shout it out. If it rings the right bell, then we’re in business. Here we go. Clements?’
‘No.’
‘Let’s see. Lincoln’s Inn.’
‘No.’
‘Here’s another one. Staples’ Inn. How about that?’
‘No. I don’t think it was that. No.’
‘Here’s a small one. I can hardly read it. Barnard’s Inn.’
‘Say it again.’
‘Barnard’s Inn.’
‘Yeah. That was it. I’m sure of it, Barnard’s Inn. Where is it?’
‘Bloody Hell! It’s only about half a mile. This is going to be bloody tricky. If the Ghouls get it as well, then it’s going to be a shambles. I don’t think we can risk anyone riding decoy on this. No. I reckon there’s only one way to play this one. Like this.’
Two office workers from Barnard’s Inn were walking towards the main doors of their firm when they noticed a man standing on the steps, waving two papers excitedly at them.
‘By ’eck. What’s oop with him?’
‘Happen it’s the sun.’
‘Aye. Happen it is. No, wait on. Those papers he’s waving. They’re copies of the “Leader”. You reckon …?’
They were now close enough to the man to hear two things. One was the growing roar of powerful motorbike engines. The other was the man’s voice: ‘Get out of the way. The Hell’s Angels are coming!!’ Having said that, the man suddenly threw both copies of the paper down into the car park and ran indoors.
As the engine noise neared a crescendo,
the two workers leaped for the doors. The car park was suddenly a melee of whirling bikes and fighting, kicking men, struggling over the papers, trying to find the one that would give their side a victory.
One of the riders in blue denim gave a scream of triumph as he leaned down out of the saddle of his bike and plucked out the copy marked ‘Last Heroes’ right from under the wheels of one of the satin-clad riders. Bunching it in his fist, the bearded rider, chucked it out to another long-haired rider, circling a little away from the main band.
‘I say, William. That’s a girl.’
‘True, William. True.’
In the half hour left to them before the third race started, Gerry and Brenda had slipped away down a back stairway and carried out a quick reconnaissance of the area. Realising that this one was likely, to be a simple mad dash, there was nothing’ to do but make the most of what advantages one could. Running into a frightened junior executive of the ‘Daily Leader’ getting ready to collect the two marked copies of the paper and deliver them to the two chapters – well, that was a bonus. It took less than a minute to convince him that he was asking for a dreadful beating if he waited around once the Angels arrived. How much better if he threw the papers on the floor and let the animals fight for them. The poor bastard was in such a nervous state that he never even realised that he was talking to two of those ‘animals’.
The best thing was finding another way out of the Inn. Not marked on their map and, therefore, probably not known to the Ghouls either. The back entrance to the Inn was fairly wide, but not so wide that five determined men on choppers couldn’t make it difficult to pass for a vital minute or so. And that was just what happened.