Heavy Duty People

by Iain Parke

  And if you broke the bricks up into smaller quantities that could go in ordinary jiffy bags or whatever, they could never monitor every post box in the country to see you sticking the stuff in to send it either.

  Cash could come back in to Dazza the same way using the flats we had set up for the banking side if necessary, or Dazza could just have the customer pay it in direct into one of the acceptance accounts.

  And that’s why he’d used Billy to tie up with The Duckies. He had built his machine for getting it in, he’d figured out how to move it about, but what he needed now were customers, and customers on a national basis. He could use other guys in The Brethren across most of England but by establishing connections with The Rebels he’d got Scotland and Wales as well. By using The Brethren’s sworn enemies Dazza had built himself a truly national franchise.

  ‘OK,’ said Gut, ‘but I don’t get what you want us to do about it? We can’t go back to how it was before. You can’t leave The Brethren, you know that, not with what you now know, there’s no way Dazza could afford to let you go. And if he ever finds out what you’ve done I don’t give much for your chances.

  ‘And if we restarted, how could we hope to fight the whole of The Brethren? We didn’t think we were strong enough to take them on before and that was before we lost half the guys to ’em?

  ‘The only way would be to join up with another of the big six, like The Rebels.’

  ‘But even that wouldn’t work would it?’ I objected, ‘Dazza and The Rebels are in business together now. D’you think The Rebels would want to rock the boat by taking us on? No chance.’

  ‘We could join someone else.’

  ‘Like who? Join up with The Hangmen?’ I asked.

  ‘Go crawling to those cunts – no fucking way!’ Popeye was vehement.

  ‘If they’d have us,’ I pointed out, ‘they might not want to provoke The Brethren either.’

  ‘So we’ve no choice but to fight? Even if we can’t win?’ Popeye persisted.

  ‘Who says we can’t win?’ I asked. I had wanted them to work through things themselves before I pitched my idea. They both looked at me knowingly.

  ‘Alright Damage,’ said Gut, ‘out with it. Stop jerking us about. You’ve got a plan haven’t you?’

  ‘Might have,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Come on you old cunt then, tell your uncle Gut all about it.’

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Popeye was still sceptical. ‘Why the fuck should we trust you?’

  ‘If you want to take him on and win then I don’t think you’ve got much choice.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because I’m the guy who knows what’s going on here, that’s why. I’m the guy who knows what and where it’s going to happen. I’m the guy who knows what he’s bringing in and what to do with it. And I’m the guy who knows where there’s enough stuff hidden to enable us to take him on and win.

  ‘With me we can take him. Without me, you don’t have a fucking hope. So what’s it going to be Popeye?’

  ‘We?’

  ‘We.’

  ‘And what happens afterwards?’

  ‘I’ve thought about that too.’

  ‘I bet you have.’

  So I told them what I had in mind and they heard me out in silence.

  When I’d finished, Gut and Popeye looked across at each other for a moment, and then broke out in wide grins, Popeye too, I was delighted to see, and before I knew it we were in a three way bear hug and slapping each other on the back.

  ‘Good to have ya back Damage.’

  ‘Sorry about back then at the yard.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  One of Billy’s old contacts ran a blob shop in Sunderland. Sold poppers and more under the counter. Had stuff for the gay bondage brigade as well. Just the place to get half a dozen pairs of handcuffs in case we needed them.

  I would get Popeye to sort out a builders merchants and a hardware shop for the rest of the necessary. Might as well spread the load, beside which, made more sense that way.

  *

  There were messages on the answerphone from Dazza when we got home on Sunday. He was furious, demanding that I call him as soon as and asking if I had seen Wibble. I picked up the phone and dialled. He shouted at me to get out, ask around and meet up with him to tell him what I’d found out.

  ‘No one’s seen him. No one that’s letting on anyway. So what’s up?’ I asked, when we met a couple of hours later.

  ‘It’s that little fucker Wibble. That’s what’s up. He’s ripped me off and now he’s done a runner.’

  ‘Has he? Taken much?’

  ‘Only four fucking bricks. That’s all.’

  I gave a low whistle. ‘How d’you know he’s done anything?’

  ‘He’d not been back to me with the postage stuff as normal so I sent Sprog round his place to check. There’s no sign of life, his car’s gone and his girlfriend says he’s not been home and she don’t know where he is.’

  ‘She sure about that?’

  ‘Oh I think Sprog was pretty certain she’d told him everything she knew alright by the time he’d finished. He’ll have made sure of that.’

  He would as well I knew, with a mental apology to Wibble for what would have happened to his bird. She was quite a tasty chick I knew. I hoped Sprog hadn’t messed her up too bad.

  ‘No, he’s done a fucking runner with the gear. Now what the fuck am I supposed to tell my buyers? Shit, if I ever lay my hands on the little bastard he’ll wish he’d never been born.’

  I wouldn’t want to be in Wibble’s shoes if Dazza did ever catch up with him. Whatever story he had to tell him about what had happened, he wouldn’t have much time to tell it. And anyway, as courier, Wibble knew he was responsible for the stuff while it was in his care. That was just one of the rules of the game, the way it works, otherwise you could have couriers ‘losing’ all kinds of shit. If he’d let it go he knew that it was up to him to get it back or pay Dazza off, and without robbing a bank there was no way in hell that Wibble would be able to step up for the value of four bricks. It was one of the reasons I had been quite relaxed about talking to him in the first place.

  Chapter 11 – THE HIT

  Under cover of darkness and using their anonymous white Transit van, I took the guys to the mine on Tuesday evening. I thought it best to wait until the last minute. Again there was a risk in leaving it so late as the stuff could have been moved but I still didn’t think it was a big one, and if any of Dazza’s crew did go down there, the last thing I wanted was for them to find they had no stash. Even if they didn’t cancel the drop, they would be armed to the teeth from elsewhere.

  As before we dumped the van a way down the road, close to the nearest farm so that it wouldn’t raise any suspicion. I had brought a couple of shovels and I handed one each to Gut and Popeye as we left the van while I shouldered a roll of rope.

  ‘What are these for?’ Gut asked.

  ‘You’ll see,’ I said leaving him none the wiser, but I guess thinking that Dazza’s stuff was buried and we were going to need to dig it up.

  The reality was that they were to dig us out if the mine roof came down. I’d had a good look when I’d been in the other night and I hadn’t liked what I had seen. Things hadn’t improved any since Billy and I played down there twenty odd years ago as kids, and they were dodgy enough then. These old drifts were safe enough alright once you got properly underground. From about twenty to thirty feet in they were carved out of the solid rock, hard limestone, and so that wasn’t a problem, other than where the old guys had chipped away upwards, following a vein of ore. Then they would stack the spoil on wooden shelving above the tunnel as they went ever higher because it wasn’t worth the effort to cart out worthless rock when they didn’t need to. So sometimes these would collapse as the supports rotted away sending the deads cascading down into the tunnel below. But that was only a problem much further into the hillside than we were going.

  No it was the entrance I was
worried about. Before it got to the solid rock, the entrance tunnel was just driven through the earth and scree of the hillside, with the roof supported on timber pit props, but timbers that had now been stood with their bases in the cold running water draining out of the mine for over a hundred years, or maybe even two. In going in you were betting your life on what could be some pretty rotten timbers.

  If you knew what to look for you could see them elsewhere around the area, scars in the hillsides where the entrances to old tunnels had collapsed in over the years since they had been abandoned.

  I led them to the entrance, and they followed me underground.

  ‘Wow, SVD Dragunovs!’ Popeye sounded impressed as he yanked the lid off one of the longer boxes and peered inside.

  ‘What are they?’ I asked. I didn’t really know much about guns.

  ‘Sniper rifles, semi-automatic, integrated telescopic sight,’ he said, putting it to his shoulder and sighting out down the mouth of the tunnel, ‘supposed to be good.’

  ‘Yeah, but this is what we need for what we’re gonna do,’ said Gut, turning an AK47 over in his thick hands, ‘Kalashnikovs!’

  I had pulled a pistol from yet another box and was screwing in a silencer that had been stowed beside it.

  Popeye looked over. ‘Makarov,’ he said, ‘nine millimetre, standard Warsaw Pact side arm. He’s really got himself all the shit hasn’t he?’

  ‘He has now,’ growled Gut. ‘How much do we take?’

  ‘All of it.’

  ‘Aren’t they going to spot it’s missing?’

  ‘They won’t. And even if they did, if it’s all gone it’s a bit late then isn’t it?’

  ‘We’d risk losing the element of surprise,’ Popeye pointed out practically, ‘and they might tool up from somewhere else.’

  ‘True, but trust me. They won’t know a thing about it until it’s too late. That’s what that’s for,’ I said swinging the torch round to shine on where I’d left the rope I’d brought.

  Popeye called in some of his boys that he’d brought along and in pairs we lugged the boxes out of the mine and down to behind some bushes off the path by the low dry stone wall beside the road where they would be out of sight if anyone came by while we were working, but be easy to load when we pulled the van round. As we worked in relays Gut elected to remain with the growing stack, standing guard in the shadows of the overhanging trees with a loaded pistol, as he said, ‘Just in case.’

  Working quickly we emptied the mine of Dazza’s arsenal.

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Gut as Popeye and I together heaved the last crate to the bottom of the path.

  ‘That’s it,’ I confirmed, as I caught my breath.

  ‘Right,’ said Popeye who hardly seemed mussed, ‘I’ll get the van.’

  ‘OK,’ I said turning to go back into the woods, ‘come with me,’ I said to the bigger of Popeye’s strikers.

  ‘Hey. Where are you two going?’ asked Gut.

  ‘To cover our tracks. See you in a few minutes.’

  Back at the mine I set to work. I had checked the entrance when we first arrived, looking for rotting supports. And as I had expected I found plenty which was great because now they were going to work for us. Carefully I looped the rope around a couple of the worst looking ones on the left-hand side of the tunnel about twenty feet or so in and played the rope outside. Then I ran the free end of the rope back into the mine again, securing it to some dodgy looking supports on the other side of the passageway.

  Outside again I picked up the loose loop of rope that I had left lying on the ground and which was now connected at either end to the wooden props.

  ‘Feeling strong big lad?’ I asked, handing a length of the loop to the striker and taking in the slack, ‘because now mate, we are going to pull. On the count of three.

  ‘One.

  ‘Two.

  ‘Three.’

  And with that we both gave a mighty heave on the rope that brought it cracking taut. There was an ominous creaking from somewhere in the mine and we heaved and strained at the rope but nothing moved.

  ‘Alright,’ I said letting my grip slacken after a minute or two of fruitless tugging, ‘perhaps we need to work on it. Get a rhythm going or something.’

  ‘Yeah, sort of jerk it.’

  And so again on the count of three we heaved away, only this time we were rocking back and forth, building up a series of shorter, sharper tugs, back and forth. Not trying to drag the things out in one go, but trying to dislodge them, work them free. And then I felt something different in the rope, a vibration, a movement that had not been there before. ‘Here,’ I hissed swinging round towards where the striker was pulling on his side of the rope down the tunnel. ‘Quick! Give us a hand pulling on this one!’

  Grasping what I meant, he dropped his handhold on the rope where he was and turning round grabbed at it just behind my back, wrapping the slack around the bulging muscles of his arm and shoulder as we leant back into it like a demented tug of war team, and as we did so, suddenly it started to move. With an abrupt crack the rope went slack and we both went sprawling backwards into the mud while from down the hole in the hillside in front of us came a dark growling roar of collapsing debris.

  Once the noise had stopped I picked up my torch and cautiously made my way inside. I could only get about ten feet or so before the way was completely blocked with wet looking rock and soil. The roof had come down alright, the only question would be for how far and the only way to find that out would be to dig your way through it which wasn’t going to be a five minute job.

  Reaching down to the floor I cut the rope off where it stuck out from the entombing mud and buried the loose ends under piles of mud and stones.

  Popeye had come running back up the path from where they’d been loading the van when he heard the noise and hissed at us, ‘What the fuck was that?’

  So I showed him what we’d done. ‘Now when they came to look for the gear they’ll find the roof’s come down and they won’t be able to get at it.’

  ‘Won’t they be suspicious?’

  ‘Possibly. It’s a risk. But it’s been raining a lot recently, the grounds sodden and heavy which always makes this sort of thing more dangerous. Anyway I’ve told Dazza that people coming down these things can disturb the supports so he may just think that it’s something they’ve caused themselves. Don’t forget, they’re not expecting any trouble.’

  *

  I felt as though I was riding like a dark angel of vengeance as I headed up over the moors, the thunder of the bike rolling behind me and the darkening skies following me, the thrum of the engine and the road vibrating through my hands, the gloom of the fading moorland reflecting dully in the chrome of the engine, contrasting with the matt darkness of my boots, faded jeans, scuffed leathers, cut off, and my matt black painted open-faced helmet.

  Everyone was always at the clubhouse for Prayers on Monday evenings of course, and for parties, but plenty of us used it other times as well. There was always a striker on duty, for security, but most evenings, and plenty of days too, you’d find some or other of the guys hanging around, playing pool, spannering on bikes or just chewing the fat over a beer in the bar. I tended to look in a couple of times a week, it depended how the week was going, what Sharon was up to and whether she fancied a ride out. So when I pitched up at around eight that evening I slipped into the bar just like normal. I was deliberately early and I settled in for what I knew might be a long wait but I didn’t want to stand any chance of missing Dazza when he arrived.

  He and his crew turned up an hour or so later in a rattling convoy as an old Landie like Billy had described and an anonymous white Transit parked up outside the clubhouse. Well they weren’t on until much later I guessed so there was no need for them to be early.

  I had picked a corner in the bar where I could see through to the back of Fat Mick who was monitoring the CCTV and the main door next to him so I had a good surreptitious view of everyone who came in that evening
. Dazza was first through the door, closely followed by Spud. They must have come together in the Landie I reckoned. Then the guys from the crew van followed them in, Doggie and Bagpuss from Newcastle and Scottie from the late lamented Butcher’s crew over on Wearside. Dazza’s inner circle.

  We were in business. I was sure of it.

  Dazza glad-handed a few people. He looked relaxed, well he could afford to be. He had plenty of time, he was on safe ground, he had his guys around him and in a few hours time he was going to see the culmination of all his planning, with the first successful delivery of his gear from Luis.

  Dazza could feel he was on the brink of the big time.

  ‘Hey Damage!’ he called as he walked into the bar over the sound of Freebird on the juke box, ‘what brings you out here in the middle of the week?’

  ‘Hey Dazza!’ I could ask you the same question I thought, but I’d better not.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at home shagging that tasty bird of yours? I would be if I was you.’

  ‘Yeah maybe. But I have to give it a rest sometime you know.’

  Dazza laughed. ‘That’s a good one. Well if you ever need a hand I’m sure the guys’ll be glad to help out.’

  ‘What?’ asked Spud appearing next to him with a couple of opened bottles, one of which he handed to Dazza, ‘what Damage’s bird? Yeah she’s fit. Be glad to.’

  Reversing my hold on my bottle so I could swing it at him like a club I jumped to my feet and with my free hand grabbed Spud. With our history I could take a joke like that from Dazza. But I was fucked if I was going to take something like that from a little wanker like Spud, Dazza’s pet or not. He was a short arse and I towered above him so I bent my head to speak straight into his face.