There were no curtains up at the kitchen window and I was able to peer inside. It was a tip. I could see the sink piled high with unwashed crockery and discarded boxes from some take away establishment, the left over congealed food already furring with a green mould. Miss Havisham would have felt at home here.
Before I left, I looked again at the motorbike. This time I pulled the tarpaulin cover off completely and straddled the machine, leaning low over the handlebars and emitting a soft brum brum noise, smiling as I did so. I toned my noise up an octave as I took an imaginary bend at incredibly high speed and then with great glee I manufactured a loud crashing sound at the back of my throat. And then there was silence and I grinned broadly.
SEVEN
JOURNAL OF RUSSELL BLAKE 1968-1970
I took great delight in working on the Darren Rhodes project on my own. I saw it as my special baby and I wanted to present the whole scheme to Laurence carefully planned down to the finest detail – pre-packed and ready to go.
I wanted to impress him.
I haunted the reference library reading up on motorbikes and even visited a couple of garages in the role of an eager teenager ready to buy his first machine, (a rich eager teenager) wearing the cocky salesmen down with my questions. In the meantime I made the odd visit to The Royal George to keep my eye on Darren. I learned a little more about him. In truth, there really wasn’t very much to learn. He was a simplistic, shallow creature, small of brain and big of ego. He lived off benefit and his pools win, with apparently no intention of seeking work. Lying in late and spending most lunch times and evenings in the boozer, his horizons were low and narrow. Occasionally he would take the bike out for a run in the afternoon. ‘I likes doing a ton on Lakely Moor Road, a nice stretch that, with no fucking coppers around,’ he was fond of repeating to his cronies. Even having a splendid bike like the Kawasaki 750 – through my researches I now knew this to be the crème de la crème of roaraway engines – he had no greater ambition than to speed at a hundred miles an hour on a quiet country road just five miles away from where he lived. His life like his ambitions was small with limited vision. It was my intention to make it much smaller and more limited.
Laurence chuckled and then took a drag on his cheroot. ‘You have been busy, Russo. Quite the worker ant.’
‘I trust you approve, sir,’ I said in my Jeeves voice, after I had explained my plan in detail.
‘Indeed I do, my man. I shall raise your wages by a penny per annum and allow you to sodomise the gardener once a week on his day off.’
‘You are too kind, but I do that already.’
Suddenly Laurence dropped the silly voice and looked serious. ‘So, we need to tell Alex. Rope him in. What d’you say?’’
I nodded. ‘I think he’ll be all for it.’
‘So do I. But if he isn’t we’ll have to dump the plan and pretend it was some kind of wishful joke thing.’
‘And then dump him.’
Laurence nodded rather glumly. ‘Yeah. It will be a pity but we can’t have a wimp queering our pitch – if you’ll pardon the expression.’
I giggled.
As it turned out, any doubts we’d harboured about Alex becoming a fully fledged member of the Brotherhood proved to be ill-founded. He knew of Rhodes through the local press and TV reports and jumped at the chance of being involved in some scheme to bring ‘the oiky bastard down a peg or two’.
In reality, the plan was destined to do more than that, but we didn’t quibble over the sentiment.
‘This calls for pints all round,’ smirked Laurence. ‘And as I managed to half-inch a fiver from my dad’s wallet this morning, the round is on me.’
It was the same night, after several pints, that we told Alex the Old Mother Black story. He listened in wide-eyed fascination. I could see that at first he didn’t quite know how to react.
‘Is this really true?’ he asked after we had finished, suspicious that we were sending him up.
‘Not if you don’t want it to be?’ said Laurence mysteriously.
Alex looked blankly at us for a moment and then, as the truth dawned on him, he smiled gently. ‘You bastards. You terrible bastards.’ He was laughing now. ‘You really did it, didn’t you? You killed the mutt. Poor old Caesary-waesary.’ His laugh had grown into a splutter and his eyes bulged in merriment as he tried to control himself.
Laurence and I exchanged glances and joined in the laughter with pleasant relief.
And so the triumvirate was formed and sealed with a pint of Tetley’s bitter. It was an historic moment which was to affect the rest of our lives.
It was very early on Sunday morning two weeks later. The month was June and even at six o’clock in the morning you could already tell it was going to be a beautiful summer’s day. The pale blue sky was clear of clouds and there was a thick, gentle warmth in the air that promised a hot day to follow. Laurence had managed to borrow his mother’s car and we had transported all our gear up to Lakely Moor Road. It was a wild whipcord of a highway which ran across the expansive moorland, rising up into the hills and cutting across into Lancashire. And it was deserted. There was no traffic at all, which suited us perfectly.
First of all we set up our tent and changed our clothes and then began adopting our disguises. For three young lads to appear much older than we were and to play figures of authority was one of the dodgier aspects of the plan. If we couldn’t fool our victim about this we were lost. Laurence was a born actor and he volunteered himself for the role of police officer. He had secured a fairly authentic looking uniform from the local amateur dramatics group costume department and even before he began applying other parts of his disguise he looked pretty impressive. He whitened the temples of his hair and applied a false moustache which he’d also obtained from the drama group wardrobe. He was, he’d told them, going to a fancy dress party in aid of the Samaritans. The jammy devil had managed to get a reduction in the hire fee as a result. Once he’d doctored the moustache and put the peaked cap on, he looked very much the part. As long as Darren Rhodes didn’t peer too closely, the illusion should work.
I’d borrowed a tweed jacket from my dad’s wardrobe and bought a corduroy flat cap to shade my face and hide my youth. Laurence applied some rouge to my cheeks to give me a ruddy aged appearance and tested me in lowering the tone of my voice until it sounded older and resonated with gravitas.
From the point of view of appearance, Alex had the easy task. No real disguise for him really, just jeans and a T-shirt, although he wore a baseball cap to hide part of his face. However, he had a pivotal role to play. Failure to carry out his duties meant a total failure for the whole scheme.
Once we were ready, Alex pinned the sign to the side of the tent, ‘Speed Bike Trials – Check In’.
And then we waited.
It was at this point that I began to panic. I began to see all the potential holes in my supposedly water tight plan. There suddenly seemed to be so many links in the chain that could lead the authorities to us. The leaflet for example. Could they trace it back to Alex’s printer at work? Anyone passing could stop to ask us what was going on and then we became evidence. Even at six thirty in the morning that was possible. What if someone had noted down the number of Laurence’s mum’s car on our way here? That was highly unlikely, I knew, and we had now driven it off the road behind some trees out of sight, but it was possible. And worst of all, what if Darren Rhodes had smelt a rat and turned up with a gang of his mates. I began to feel sick to my stomach.
I felt sweat begin to dampen my armpits. This was a crazy, shit scheme. I should never have suggested it.
Laurence sensed my unease and gave me a little punch on the arm. ‘Come on, mon ami, no long faces,’ he murmured in his Poirot voice. ‘Today we shall triumph. No other outcome is acceptable.’
‘I hope so. I don’t fancy prison food.’
Then just before seven we heard a faint droning in the air. The sound of a distant motorbike. It seemed to resonate in the pal
e sky and the skeletal trees all around us.
‘I spy Muggins,’ cried Alex pointing at a little red dot on the horizon. He was right. As the vehicle drew nearer, I could clearly identify the Kawasaki and its brutish driver.
‘Action stations,’ I snapped, although in truth there was nothing we could do until Darren Rhodes arrived.
Less than a minute later, he skidded to a halt beside the tent. ‘What’s this all about?’ he growled brusquely by way of an opening gambit, as he clambered off the bike. From one of the zipped pockets in his leathers, he extracted the flyer we had sent him and held it aloft. ‘I mean this?’
I stepped forward with my clipboard. ‘Mr Rhodes,’ I ventured, low of voice.
‘Yeah.’
‘Good man. You have come to take part in the speed trial.’
‘Maybe. What’s it all about?’
‘It explains it all on the leaflet, ’I said simply, taking it from him, retrieving the evidence. It was that easy.
I smiled indulgently. ‘This is a speed competition to see how fast you can drive in a ten mile stretch. As you can see,’ I nodded at Laurence, ‘we have the co-operation of the local constabulary in this venture…’
Laurence saluted.
‘We are testing six Kawasaki owners in the area who have bought the 750 within the last six months. Three today and three next Sunday and the rider who records the fastest time will win a thousand pounds.’
‘Why?’
‘Publicity for Kawasaki of course. The best bikes on the road.’
Darren Rhodes sniffed and looked about him. ‘Where are the others?’
Laurence stepped forward. ‘We can’t have more than one bike on the route at a time, sir. That would be far too dangerous. You’re in our 7 a.m. slot. The next rider is due at 7.30. So… er, we’d better get a move on, eh?’
‘What do I do?’
Our fish was nibbling at the hook.
‘We time you when you set off. You drive ten miles along this road and there you will see the Bike Trials finishing line. Our officials there at the other end will note down the time of arrival. Out of the six riders, the one with the fastest time will win a thousand pounds. As simple as that. That’s all there is to it.’
Rhodes sniffed again. ‘OK.’ He made a move to return to his bike, but I waved my clipboard at him. ‘Oh, sir, just before you set off, we need you to sign a few forms – an entry form and an accident waiver form. If you’ll just step into the tent, it won’t take a moment.’
Without a word Rhodes followed me into the tent. Bless his simple little brain. He’d taken everything in. Greed had overridden any other thoughts he may have had. But then again, our Darren was not a man for thoughts anyway. Laurence stepped smartly forward and held open the flap to the tent. I followed behind, giving Alex the nod. On the instant, he made a beeline for the Kawasaki.
Sadly my pen wouldn’t work and I had to leave Mr Rhodes in the tent while I went to see if the police officer would lend me his. As I returned to the tent with Laurence’s Biro, Alex gave me the thumbs up.
The forms duly signed, Darren returned to his bike. Alex took a photograph of him astride the machine, ‘for publicity purposes, sir.’ Rhodes liked being called ‘sir’.
‘Good luck,’ I cried as he revved the engine. I retrieved a stop watch from my pocket and Alex raised his arm in readiness. I shouted ‘Go!’ and Alex dropped his arm. With a screech of tyres, Darren and his mean machine shot off down the deserted road which led into the soft fold of the hills.
As soon as he was out of sight, we galvanised ourselves into action. Alex sprinted off to get the car, while Laurence and I dashed into the tent and removed our disguises. We were just taking the tent down, when Alex drove up. Within five minutes of Darren Rhodes speeding out of our lives, we were driving back into Huddersfield all singing a snatch of some pop song of the day. I can’t remember what it was now, but I do recall that I felt wonderful. I glowed with a vibrant inner warmth of pleasure.
I closed my eyes and imagined the scene: Darren Rhodes zooming along that winding stretch of open road, the bike at full throttle, the speedo well over a hundred miles an hour. I wasn’t sure what would come next: the strange noise or the slight juddering motion, a juddering motion that would grow in intensity. I tried to visualise Rhodes’ fat stupid face and his changing expression which would slide from uncertainty to concern to real terror. He would wet himself with horror, I hoped, as the wheel came off at great speed and as the bike faltered he would fly through the air like a great ugly black spastic fairy and land awkwardly, with immense bone crushing force on the tarmac. I trusted that he would scream.
That was the only flaw with my plan. We couldn’t be there to witness the wonderful climax. Still you can’t have everything, I suppose.
EIGHT
JOURNAL OF RUSSELL BLAKE 1968-1970
We didn’t have to wait long to discover the fruits of our labours. The following night I met up with Laurence and Alex in Alf’s. They were already waiting for me. Bright evening sunlight streamed in all around them so that they had turned into ethereal haloed shadows. As I approached their table I raised the local paper triumphantly. In response, they matched my action, shaking their copies of the Huddersfield Examiner in joyful greeting. We collapsed in wild laughter.
At length Alex had spread his newspaper out on the table for us all to see. We had made the front page:
DARREN RHODES IN BIKE CRASH
‘They could have called it a “Rhodes Accident”,’ said Laurence, lighting up a cheroot.
The report informed readers that:
Darren Rhodes, 32, who had only been released from prison three months ago after serving a term for robbery, was found yesterday morning on Lakely Moor Road besides his damaged motorbike in a critical condition. Detective Sergeant Michael Ripley of the West Yorkshire Constabulary told our reporter that the front wheel of the motorbike, a Kawasaki 750, had broken free and this was the cause of the accident. It had been determined that Mr Rhodes had been travelling at 120 miles per hour because the speedometer had jammed on impact. There were no other vehicles involved.
Rhodes is now in intensive care. He has suffered serious injuries to his head and legs. Surgeon Majid Lopal said that they could not rule out brain damage at this stage. They were making all efforts to save Mr Rhodes’ left leg from amputation.
‘Let’s hope they fail,’ I said, running my forefinger along the statement about Rhodes’ leg.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Alex, clinking my glass with his.
‘What puzzles me,’ said Laurence, languidly blowing smoke away from us, ‘is how a brain that small can be damaged.’
We laughed again and then fell into a satisfied silence.
It was Alex who broke into our private thoughts a few minutes later. ‘You know,’ he said quietly, ‘I can’t help thinking, it might have been even better if we’d have killed the bastard.’
Laurence gave us both a sharp glance. He leaned forward, his eyes wide with suppressed excitement.
‘Next time we will, boys. Next time we will.’
NINE
JOURNAL OF RUSSELL BLAKE 1968-1970
The euphoria we felt after the Darren Rhodes project lasted for many weeks. It was partly supported by the continuing reports in the local paper concerning his progress or lack of it. As it turned out, he wasn’t brain damaged, but he suffered memory loss and had no recollection of why he was racing along Lakely Moor Road early on a Sunday morning. However, poor Mr Rhodes did lose his leg which was a kind of compensatory bonus to us. The situation helped to buoy up Laurence and me particularly during this period, as we waited for our exam results. When they came, they were extra icing on our cakes. We got the grades we wanted and, to be honest, what we expected.
Our futures were mapped out for us. As planned, he was headed for York and I was off to Durham. Our paths, which had run in close parallel furrows for two years, were about to diverge. The sadness of this was, to some extent,
modified by the growing sense of excitement at leaving home and facing new challenges and wider horizons. ‘Leaving Huddersfield is a transportation devoutly to be wished,’ noted Laurence grandly.
Alex however grew less communicative during the late summer months. It hadn’t quite struck us that while Laurence and I were moving on in all sorts of ways, we were, in a sense, leaving Alex behind. There was no change of circumstances for him. He was to be abandoned in the dull town of his birth in the same old job with no prospect of career or life development. He never voiced these feelings but we were close enough to gradually realise what our departure would mean to him.
A week before we were due to go off to University, we had a farewell party. Laurence’s parents were off somewhere on a cruise and he had been left to look after the house. He invited Alex and me one evening for what he termed an extra special meeting of the Brotherhood. We were instructed to turn up in evening dress. Admission was by a bottle of champagne.
Strangely, at first we felt awkward with each other. We were not used to sitting around in domestic surroundings together. The house was big and impersonal and lacked the salty conspiratorial air of Alf’s place. This was Laurence’s parents’ gaff and somehow I felt as though I was trespassing. At first the atmosphere seemed to restrict our normal natural behaviour, not to mention the funereal formality of the dinner suits and bow ties. The unfamiliarity of it all seemed to place some invisible barrier between the three of us. However after a few glasses of champagne, it became easier to shrug off this feeling. As usual, alcohol released what inhibitions we had.
Laurence had provided some nibble type food and we sat around the candlelit dining table and chatted, dipping into the various bowls of nuts, crisps and prawn crackers.
We relived the Darren Rhodes episode in pleasing detail, giggling as we did so.
Suddenly Laurence leapt from his seat and opened one of the drawers in the sideboard. He extracted a large carving knife and placed it on the table. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said grandly, ‘I thought tonight we should formalise our friendship. Despite the fact that Russell and I are off to the groves of academe, while Alex stays behind to caress the cobbles of ‘Uddersfield we still remain a team. We will rendezvous in the holidays and we shall triumph again. We are brothers after all. Closer than brothers really. I thought we needed some physical act to signify this. To bind us in mind and spirit forever. We should swear to be true to each other and never, never reveal any of our secrets.’
Brothers in Blood Page 5
