Death Message

Putting things together as he went, Thorne fought the urge to run all the way back to Brigstocke’s office.

A death in hospital, a certain kind of death, would not have shown up on the daily bulletin. This time, the man responsible had not waited to let him know what he’d done.

Thorne opened the door and marched straight over to Brigstocke’s desk. He jabbed at the screen of his phone, traced a finger down the mysterious line on the photograph.

‘It’s the tube from a hospital drip.’

The majority of heroin coming into the UK was still controlled by the Turkish mafia based in and around the Green Lanes area, but for the previous few years their position had been challenged by Asian gangs, many of which operated from the heart of the Sikh community in Southall. If, as Ba

Martin Cowans clearly saw things rather differently. ‘I’ll live where the fuck I like,’ he said. The way Cowans’ lips twisted as he spoke told Thorne all he needed to know about the man’s racial politics.

It was hardly a revelation.

Nor was the fact that Cowans extended his precious freedom of choice to those he welcomed into his home, and that no police were on his guest-list. The Black Dogs’ president had agreed to meet instead at the club’s HQ in Rayner’s Lane, a few miles north of where he lived. The ‘clubhouse’ consisted of two ordinary end-of-terrace houses in a quiet side street, which looked as though they had been knocked through into one without the benefit of professional building advice. One half of the ground floor was crowded with mattresses and motorcycle parts. The other housed a tiny kitchen, living room and a purpose-built bar area complete with pool table, dartboard and beer pumps co

‘Nice,’ Thorne had said, as he and Holland had been given the tour.

Unusually furnished as its interior was, the outside of the building gave less away, if you didn’t count the bikes lined up in what was left of the front garden. There were enough clues, though: the reinforced steel doors; the blacked-out windows; the security cameras mounted high on the pebble-dash at front and side.

‘What do your neighbours make of this place?’ Holland asked.

Cowans flicked ash on to a scarred grey carpet. ‘Ask any of them. They’ll tell you we’re no trouble.’

‘I bet they will,’ Thorne said.

They were gathered in the living room: Holland and Thorne on tatty, high-backed chairs that looked as though they’d come from a doctor’s waiting room; Cowans and two of his friends sprawled across a selection of armchairs and settees in scorched corduroy, velour, or torn and dirty vinyl.

The room stank of stale beer and motor oil.

‘Listen, I don’t know if anyone’s given any thought to Ray Tucker’s tropical fish,’ Holland said. ‘What’s going to happen to them, I mean. Obviously he might have left them to someone, and this is just a suggestion.’ He pointed. ‘But the tank would look lovely against that wall…’

All three bikers were dressed as might have been expected. The uniform was compulsory on club premises. Thorne knew that the patches they wore on the backs of their leathers, or denim jackets – the club’s colours – were hugely important to them. He understood that they were not to be abused, and that the wearing of patches to which a biker was not entitled would be dealt with severely. He’d read of gang members being dragged from their bikes, having their colours cut off with Stanley knives, without anyone first bothering to remove the jacket.

Cowans, who only ever answered to his nickname, was pushing fifty. He was stick-thin, but with a gut on him; long hair was tied back and silvering, while his thick beard hadn’t quite turned the same colour. His younger colleagues had introduced themselves quite politely as ‘Gazza’ and ‘Ugly Bob’. Gazza was stocky, with a beard that tended towards bum-fluff, while Bob was shaven-headed and sported a thick moustache. Thorne knew that men looking not unlike Bob hung out in some of the clubs Phil Hendricks frequented, but he decided to keep that to himself.

There was much that Thorne might have found almost comical, if he hadn’t known exactly what these men were capable of. If he hadn’t been wondering which of them had entwined daggers tattooed on some secret patch of pale flesh. He nodded towards Gazza and Ugly Bob. ‘What are you two, then? Road captains? Sergeants-at-arms?’

They said nothing.

Thorne turned to Cowans. ‘And Ray Tucker was vice-president, wasn’t he?’

‘I’m not going to talk to you about individual members of this club,’ Cowans said. ‘But I’m pleased that you’ve done some homework.’

‘Oh yes.’ Thorne took a piece of paper from his pocket, brandished it proudly. ‘Printed out your rules and regulations as well. Nice website, by the way.’

‘Music’s a bit shit,’ Holland said.

Thorne looked down at the list laid out in a dramatic, Gothic typeface: the club rules and the respective fines for any breach; the cost of patches; the guidelines for general behaviour. ‘Five pounds a week subs,’ he said. ‘That’s fairly steep.’

‘You get a lot for your money,’ Cowans said.

‘How many of you are there? Twenty-five, thirty? Hundred and fifty quid a week doesn’t pay for this lot.’ Thorne looked around. ‘I’m betting there’s no mortgage on this place, right?’

‘You’d need to talk to the club’s accountant.’

Thorne nodded, like he was grateful for the suggestion. ‘So what about Ricky Hodson, then? Was he high up on the club ladder?’

‘Hoddo was a member of this club for fifteen years. That’s it.’

‘Tucker dead, now Hodson. You must be wondering what’s going on.’ Cowans and his mates didn’t look like they were wondering about a great deal. ‘He was murdered. That has sunk in, right? Whatever the hospital might have said first thing, I can promise you that. There were no marks on him – well, nothing he didn’t get coming off his bike – so my guess is suffocation, but he’s on his way across to the morgue as we speak, so we’ll know soon enough.’

Cowans shook his head, smiled as if he admired the effort Thorne was putting in. They were words he’d spoken many times before, but the voice didn’t sound quite as casual as he wanted it to. ‘I won’t talk about members of this club. I won’t talk about any outstanding or open cases or comment on any suggestion of criminal activity. I will not make a statement…’

Thorne squinted at his piece of paper in mock confusion. ‘I didn’t see anything in the rules about not talking to the police.’

Now Cowans’ smile was less forced. ‘Right. Because we’re not morons, and we don’t want to get done for conspiracy.’

Thorne looked across at Gazza and Ugly Bob. Neither of them seemed particularly sharp, but Thorne knew very well that in any organised crime gang, in any unit, having one person who wasn’t stupid was usually enough.

‘So it’s an unofficial rule, is it?’ Holland asked.

Cowans gave him a hard stare. Scratched at his crotch. ‘It’s more of a philosophy.’

‘Well, it seems a bit pointless,’ Thorne said. ‘Us coming all this way for a chat, I mean, if you aren’t going to talk to us.’

‘Nobody invited you,’ Gazza piped up.

‘Maybe you not talking is a good idea,’ Holland said.

Cowans seemed to find Holland’s rebuke fu

Bob sloped out, ash dropping on to his chest from the roll-up that had been clamped beneath his moustache since they’d sat down.

‘Very nice memorial section on the website by the way,’ Thorne said. ‘Some touching tributes.’