Heavy Duty People

by Iain Parke

  I listened.

  ‘It means the guys’ll be looking up to you, looking to you to look out for ’em, to make the tough decisions. You’ve gotta be ready to lead. Are you ready for that?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘Yeah well, I guess you are,’ he said, ‘Mind some advice? P to P? I’ve been doing this a while now.’

  ‘Sure, shoot.’

  ‘As a P you’re an officer. I know you’ve been Road Captain and all but this is a step up again.

  ‘As P you’re the top of the tree. The shit stops with you, when it comes down to it, comes to a decision there’s no one else to turn to; the guys, the club, are all relying on you to do the right thing, whatever it is. Which is an honour and also sometimes I have to tell you a complete pain in the arse. But I guess you’ve found that out yourself already?

  ‘As Brethren we’re the top club. You know it, I know it, everyone around knows it. We run the show in our territory so first thing you need to do is keep on top, keep all the other clubs in line, don’t stand for any crap. But hey you know this already, otherwise you wouldn’t be standing here today like this anyway.

  ‘So all you gotta do is keep your guys tight, keep the club strong and secure and keep focused on your reputation. Your rep is what works for you. It’s what people know about you and what they know is what makes them act. Shit, your reputation is all you have so guard it tight. You can’t be everywhere at once making sure every shitbird that’s working the ground is doing it right, paying respect and kicking up, but shit, your reputation can be everywhere, breathing down everybody’s neck and working for you twenty-four seven.’

  ‘So that’s the secret?’ Perhaps he knew more than I had given him credit for, I thought. After all you didn’t get to be The Freemen P without having something about you.

  ‘Yeah. Make it your business to manage your rep and your rep will manage your business for you.’

  ‘Thanks, that makes loads of sense.’

  ‘No problem,’ he was obviously starting to think about getting going again, ‘Well now you’re P we’d better get you to meet some more of the guys.’

  ‘Yeah, that’d be good.’

  ‘OK, leave it with me, I’ll get some meetings set up. You need to meet the other Ps.’

  ‘Just so as I know, anyone I’m likely to have a problem with?’

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘This shit?’

  He smiled, ‘Nah. I don’t think so. Remember mate, it’s reputation, reputation, reputation. That’s what matters.’

  ‘And delivery.’

  ‘And delivery of course, but then you’ve shown you can deliver and what d’ya think your reputation’s like after what you guys have pulled off here? No, I wouldn’t worry too much on that score if I was you.’

  So Dazza wasn’t going to be sorely missed it seemed.

  After that he was ready to be off. We exchanged some details about how we would make contact going forwards, as we walked back to where his bike was. We shook hands and he and his guys pulled their lids back on and remounted their bikes.

  With a whirr of starter motors the bikes burst into the familiar roar of starting Harley engines before dropping back down into the burbling crobba crobba of idle as Polly turned to face me again.

  ‘Look after yourselves guys. This is your territory now, so good luck with it. Just make sure you make it work for you, and all of us.’

  And with that there was a clunk as he mashed the box down into first gear, his engine rose into a snarl and he was back off down the road the way he had come, his two guys slotting in behind for the long run back down south.

  Gut stepped forward to stand beside me as I stood and watched as the patches disappeared into the distance.

  So much for loyalty to your brothers I thought.

  What a disloyal, treacherous shit Polly was. There was only one thing Polly was ever interested in, and that was what was in it for Polly. Not that there was anything wrong with that. It’s an attitude that any leader needed. But his problem with it was his ego. He was so sure of himself that he wasn’t subtle about it at all. And worse, it only ever went in one direction. Anyone working for Polly was ultimately disposable as far as he was concerned. Loyalty as far as Polly went was a one way street, and that, I decided, was likely to be his downfall.

  Of course to a degree Polly was right. Dazza’s private enterprise and the way he had been running it just for himself, and Polly of course, was bad for business.

  If something was club business, it should be club business, after all everyone who was wearing the colours was taking the risk on this trade whether they knew about it or not. If it went down, everyone in the colours would suffer the fallout and the heat. Of course you had to keep things tight to ensure security, but at the same time you had to ensure everyone enjoyed some of the rewards. If you didn’t, it would ultimately lead to bad blood and trouble within the club between the haves and the have nots. It stood to reason. If everyone is earning off a deal, it’s in everyone’s interests to keep it sweet. Cut people out and what’s in it for them to ensure you succeed?

  And what’s more it just made sense of who we are. Polly and Dazza had forgotten what the club is about.

  That was an error I would not make.

  Gut was obviously feeling some of the same things too. As he stood there beside me he asked, without I think, ever really expecting an answer, ‘Did we just save him a job?’

  Or did we just save him his job? I wondered to myself.

  With the power and cash that Dazza would have had from his route, with his own private army of Butcher’s boys, with the guns he’d had in from the Ruskis, with even The Rebels becoming dependent on his stuff, what would Dazza have wanted next? How ambitious had Dazza been? How long would he have been prepared to continue to take orders from the existing Freemen leadership, seeing as he hadn’t even actually been let in yet?

  ‘The unarmed man is never safe from armed servants,’ I said quietly to myself.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Gut.

  ‘Nothing.’

  It was a delicate balance climbing the greasy pole. Dazza had to show himself good enough to be useful to those above him. But like any organisation, there was always the problem that if you showed yourself to be too good, at what point did you become a threat to the position of those above you?

  No, all things considered, I guessed that Polly wasn’t too upset that Dazza was gone. And as someone only new into The Brethren’s network this year he wouldn’t see me as anywhere near as much of a threat.

  Yet.

  ‘Just some old shit. Don’t worry about it.’

  *

  It was the type of riding I always enjoyed. It was very Zen somehow. The speeding solitude, with just the sound of the wind, and the mix of unthinking instinct, and fierce full mind and body concentration required on the here and now of the riding freed my mind to wander, it gave me time to think.

  Tonight was no different.

  As I rode I reflected on where I had got to and what I had achieved.

  I had had my revenge on Dazza, but more than that. Of course sometimes in business you have takeovers. And sometimes, just sometimes, you also have reverse takeovers.

  I also had his badge, his charter, his network, his business.

  And in bringing back in The Legion I had a charter filled with guys who were now loyal to me.

  Sweet.

  Now all I had to do was keep it.

  I had watched Dazza carefully over the years and over the last few months particularly. I could learn a lot from Dazza I knew. But both from his achievements and his mistakes.

  And so building on his successes I had a plan.

  I had become President through my own efforts and skill.

  It hadn’t been by luck.

  Dazza had been powerful and good. He had had strong and ruthless guys working for him, he had had the forces, the cash, the weapons to be strong and he had had a hold on lots of people that mat
tered through his business network.

  And I wasn’t handed success by anyone else for their own reasons who could just as easily take it all away again.

  No, I had seen when there had been an opportunity, and I had taken it. And I’d done so by raising and leading a group of guys who I had made loyal to me.

  What I had achieved with difficulty I thought I should be able to hold with ease.

  The old Legion club, at least the ex-Reivers, ex-Fellmen and ex-Devil’s Henchmen would be loyal to me. They were the democrats, the guys that I had successful appealed to in the name of our traditional freedoms, which I had restored to them.

  The rest of the charter, Butcher’s boys from Wearside and the remaining members of the original Brethren charter would be no problem either I knew. They had each been used to working under the direction of a single controller whom I had now replaced. Not only were they used to taking orders, Dazza and Butcher had each ensured that no one had been allowed to rise within who might pose any kind of a threat to their own authority, so there were no obvious internal challengers for the others to unite around as an alternative to our reverse takeover.

  But it seemed obvious that the best way to make a real success and to ensure my position remained secure, I needed to make keeping me in charge in the best interests of everyone who could possibly be a threat to me.

  Make my health and security the cornerstone of everyone’s self-interest and I’d be safe for life.

  Never try and make people do what they don’t want to, that’s a mug’s game. No it’s always far better to make what you want, be what they want to do. Then you’re just going with the flow.

  And that meant firstly keeping the money flowing. I would ensure that profits were shared sufficiently widely so that everyone was earning enough to be content and to be reliant on my operation. But I knew that in itself wouldn’t be enough. People are never content forever with what they have, there would always be someone who decides they want more.

  So I also needed to make myself irreplaceable. That way, any move against me would be seen as a threat to the others’ livelihoods. Then they would help to police each other, as a threat to me would be a threat to their own interests, and if anyone did try something on I could rely on the others for support.

  I would split the roles, so not only could no one see the jigsaw’s whole picture, but I would make sure that no one who could be a threat would be in a position to find all the pieces with which to try and put it together.

  The only people who could be a threat to me were other club members. No outsider could hope to try to take over.

  So I would move a lot more of the ‘doing’ to outsiders. That way the people who knew how their little bit of the scheme worked could never be in a position to try to take over. At the same time I would mainly use the club members to enforce security and obedience amongst the outsiders. Given our reputation that shouldn’t be hard.

  By splitting these jobs between the guys it would make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to work out how the whole system worked as they wouldn’t be actually doing anything. They wouldn’t see the accounts, or the gear, they wouldn’t handle the traffic or the cash. They would just have to put muscle on someone when I told them to, and wait for the cash to roll through.

  It would also distance all of us on the inside from direct contact and involvement in anything that the cops could catch. And even if they did bust someone working on the outside, you’d have to be pretty fucking stupid to even consider ratting out a member of The Brethren as your contact. Life would be nasty, brutish and short for anyone who did.

  And we would make sure that everyone involved knew it. You can work on the basis that people like you, but that’s risky and if you rely on that alone you are leaving yourself open to trouble. Like I said, if you have to choose, it’s better to be feared than liked.

  But I’d also make sure that we didn’t take steps against anyone involved in the network capriciously. When we acted I would always made sure that there was an obvious and compelling reason for it that everyone involved would know about. It’s not a question of being soft. Christ no one would accuse us of that. But it was important to avoid being hated or to have people think that they might get done over on some trumped up pretext. Either of these could make people forget their fear sufficiently to risk the consequences to work against us or betray us.

  Niccolo would be my guide in everything I would do.

  Well, unlike Polly I had actually read Machiavelli, many, many times.

  Should work a treat.

  After all, it had done so this far.

  *

  It was gone eleven when, bike locked up around the side, I walked in through the back door and parked my lid on the table.

  ‘How did it go? What’s up? Can you tell me?’

  Sharon was an old school old lady. She knew that club business was club business and that sometimes I couldn’t tell her everything.

  I hadn’t yet decided how much I would tell her. But I had to say something.

  ‘Nothing much.’

  Chapter 13 – AFTERWORD

  I first met Martin ‘Damage’ Robertson in 1999, just after he had become President of The Freemen and therefore in practice the national leader of The Brethren’s UK charters at the age of thirty-six.

  At the time, I was researching an article on bikers for the national newspaper on which I was working. Like many outlaw bikers he was wary of journalists as a profession and so it took quite a while and an introduction through mutual contacts before he would agree to firstly a meeting, and then subsequently to being interviewed. Given his and The Brethren’s fearsome reputation, I was nervous about our initial encounter, but I soon found that whilst guarded and reserved in some ways, he was very personable to talk to, and within limits, and only to the degree that he obviously felt it within his and the club’s interests to do so, he was prepared to talk to me.

  As a journalist I naturally sought to stay in touch and I spoke to him on a number of occasions over the next few years.

  In 2003 based on the evidence of Michael ‘Fat Mick’ Cooper who had become a police informer, Robertson, together with Matthew ‘Gut’ Gordon, who had taken over as president of the north-east charter, were convicted of conspiracy to murder Simon ‘Pretty Polly’ Pollio who disappeared in 1998, believed strangled, and whose body has never been found.

  Gordon received a much reduced sentence for turning Queen’s evidence and in a subsequent trial Robertson was also found guilty in a separate trial of the execution style murders of Darren ‘Dazza’ Henderson, Sam ‘Doggie’ Collier, Mike ‘Spud’ Williams, Richard ‘Scottie’ Green and Clive ‘Bagpuss’ Armitage on the night of Wednesday 14 September 1994. Their bodies have never been found but are widely believed to have been dumped at sea.

  Robertson received life sentences for these offences with a recommendation that he serve a minimum tariff of thirty years.

  Such was Robertson’s reputation and position within the club that police sources widely believe that despite his incarceration, he continued to be The Brethren’s de facto leader, directing operations from within prison.

  Gordon was found hanged in his cell in 2004. The verdict was suicide, although inevitably there remains speculation that he was murdered, with the finger of suspicion pointed at Robertson for directing this. Other rumours suggest that members of a Rebels’ support club were responsible.

  It is believed that Cooper was provided with a new identity under witness protection arrangements, and his whereabouts are unknown at the present time.

  I spoke to Robertson once while he was in prison after his conviction but he didn’t have much to say.

  Then in early 2008, Robertson asked me to visit him in the Long Lartin maximum security prison in Worcestershire as soon as I could. There then followed a swift series of meetings at his request over the following three months during which I interviewed him at length and collected the information that makes up this book. Du
ring these sessions he seemed to want to be completely open with me and to answer all my questions about the events he wanted to discuss. In fact looking back through my notes and the transcripts of our conversations, it is striking that other than on one solitary occasion, I do not remember any question that he did not answer.

  During one of the last of our meetings I asked him whether there was ever anything he had done about which he felt guilty and it seems to me to be worthwhile including here what he had to say verbatim.

  MR – For what I’ve done? [Pause] No.

  IP – Would you do anything for the club?

  MR.-.Yes.

  IP – Anything at all?

  MR – Sure, yes.

  IP – Why?

  MR – It’s about commitment, total commitment, it’s about being part of the elite. The Angels have got it, they showed that at Laughlin.14

  IP – What about the drugs?

  MR – What about them? [Shrugs] We sold whizz, coke, E, acid, basically anything that people wanted to buy and enjoy. We dealt in stuff that was fun and basically wouldn’t kill them so what’s the problem?

  IP – You made enough money out of it.

  MR – Yeah we did. So what? Just think, next time one of your mates has a snort at a party or your bird drops a tab at a club, someone’s had to source it for you, someone like me. This coke and shit doesn’t smuggle itself in y’know? It takes a bit of good old entrepreneurial risk-taking and effort on somebody’s part so’s you can get off your face. There’s demand, we take the risk and supply, and we get the rewards. Ain’t that how it’s supposed to work? Anyway, big tobacco sells stuff that kills you and if you’ve got a pension I bet you own some of it. [Laughs] So who’s got the problem to be guilty about now?

  IP – OK, so you got me.

  MR – Yeah. Bang to rights. [Pause]You know people like to think they’re so clean. But really they’re all dirty in some way or other. I suppose part of the difference is just that we don’t try and pretend otherwise.