The black custom painted motorcycle coasted into a clearing in the trees and its rider shut down the engine. The ground crackled as the rider rolled the big bike over the frozen mud. It was still early and the frost was thick on the ground.
The Harley Davidson looked dated but was in fact a recent model. The Sturgis Dyna FXDB, like all Harleys, looked a little old fashioned because it was low slung and the rider sat upright but close to the road. The bike appeared dirty and neglected on the surface but beneath the film of road salt and mud it was a powerful and well maintained road machine. The white and red decals on either side of the six gallon petrol tank declared it to be ridden by a “Warrior”, the Warriors being a violent offshoot of the British Hell’s Angels.
The rider maintained his distance from the shabby trailer park that was home to the Warrior’s Oxford Chapter. He didn’t want to wake anyone in the camp, at least not yet. He removed a thick leather glove and raised his left hand to look at the cheap gothic styled watch on his wrist. On each knuckle was a letter crudely drawn in blue ink, the letters spelled out the word HATE. His hand was grubby and unwashed, black oily deposits outlined his long fingernails. It was almost 6am and the camp across the clearing was silent.
Bricko, a nickname name derived from a crude comparison of his build to a sturdily constructed outside toilet, reached into his battered leather jacket and retrieved the tabloid newspaper he had purchased just minutes ago. He unfolded the red top newspaper and reread the headline; “Bikers Underage Sex Ring Exposed”, the words and pictures were credited to a journalist called Max Richmond. The sordid story was accompanied by grainy pictures and it claimed to expose the activities of the “Warriors, a notorious motorbike gang who modelled themselves on the “Hell’s Angels”. The big biker did not need to reread the article, which started on the front page before continuing over four more pages in the centre of the paper. He knew what it said by heart.
Standing at around six feet two inches tall, and with a solid stomach that hung over a straining studded belt, Bricko would have looked like eighteen stone of menace to any opposing biker gang. His long oily hair and unkempt beard did not detract from the menacing message his cold ice blue eyes sent when he frowned, and he was frowning now.
Bricko had been living in this run down mobile home park for three months but he now knew that the time had arrived for him to move on. He knew that if he removed the Warrior motif painted on his black leather jacket and replaced it with a target he couldn’t be in more danger than he was already. With a back story that linked him to the five most wanted biker gangs in the country, Bricko would have been considered the archetypal violent and transient biker. Once he had set things in motion this morning he would have to be out of here and on the road again within the hour.
The aging biker reached into his pocket and removed an ancient and battered ‘pay as you go’ mobile phone. The phone only registered a couple of bars and so he climbed off his bike and walked further into the clearing. When more bars appeared he dialled the number listed in the newspaper as being the ‘Crimestoppers’ confidential helpline. It took some time for the phone to be answered and when it was he heard a young woman on the other end of the line. She sounded bored and tired as she announced her first name. In her defence she had probably been manning the phones all night, dealing with drunks and hoax callers. Nonetheless, she perked up noticeably when she heard the deep bass voice that spoke with a thick Black Country accent. She had heard it a number of times before.
“This is Bricko. You might want to take notes.” The biker knew that the call was likely to be recorded. “I’ve just seen the newspaper article about the motorcycle gang we talked about before and I can tell you that the “Warriors” are living in an old mobile home park outside Harringford Village off the B436.” He paused while the operator took notes. “But the pigs had better be quick or the camp will be empty when they get there. Tell the paper I’ll be calling for the reward money. Remember the name ‘Bricko’”. He spelled it out and ended the call.
Having made the call, he knew he could expect the police within the hour. Bricko removed the battery and sim card from the phone and threw them deep into the undergrowth; not that there was anything on the card that could lead the police to him. Then, quite deliberately he placed the phone under the wheel of the bike and climbed back on. The engine roared into life; there was no need for quiet now. He rode over the mobile phone and into the camp.
***
UK biker gangs had proliferated in the craziness of the 1960s when their reputation for violence and disorder preceded them. Each successive summer their standing had been enhanced as they were blamed for terrorising seaside towns and quiet villages across the country. But like most worries and concerns the fear of biker gangs was largely unnecessary, fuelled as it was by anecdote more than by fact. The truth was that the bulk of the violence associated with bikers was internecine, one gang targeting another. Only rarely did this tribal conflict spill over and trouble the general population.
By the end of the millennium the majority of Hell’s Angels weren’t dissimilar to the aging hippies who were conceived at around the same time. The bikers tended to be jaded, middle aged men and women who just refused to move on and who insisted on clinging to old habits and outmoded ideals. By 2010 most gangs or chapters of the British Hell’s Angels consisted of part time members with homes, jobs and families who rode together only at weekends. After years of roaming the UK in gangs most bikers had succumbed to the luxuries of Middle England and were more likely to be found raising money for disadvantaged children, or some other charity, than raising hell. Some disillusioned Angels broke away into smaller, more extreme factions, continued to live the biker ideals and considered their ex comrades to be sell outs. That was a view held by Jonty Adams.
Jonty, christened Jonathan Derek Latimer, was raised in a bungalow in a leafy suburb of Oxford and had been a pillar of middle class young adult society until his final year at university. Celebrating the completion of his final exam and his last edition of the OSH “Oxford Student Herald” as editor, he had spent the night participating in a student drinking game and had drunk so much it was a wonder he could stand up, let alone walk home.
Jonathan was close to the digs he shared with fellow students when he spotted a young girl sitting on the kerb, crying. It turned out that it was her birthday, and she had got drunk and become immobile so her friends had abandoned her. She sat forlorn in torn tights and a black dress that concealed little. The new graduate helped her to her feet and together they stumbled towards his lodgings.
Even now, fifteen years later, he couldn’t remember the details of what happened that night. He recalled, inasmuch as he could recall anything, that they had consensual sex and that he treated her well, but the bruises on her thin body and the invisible tears to her young organs told a different story. By the time he had sobered up, the girl had been interviewed by the police and admitted to a hospital, where she had been subjected to a rape test whilst her mother and father waited outside, bemused and confused.
“She was supposed to be at a friend’s house…… we didn’t even know she owned a dress like that,” they were later quoted as saying.
Jonathan had fully recovered from his hangover by the time he picked up the local evening newspaper. He had even managed to attend his final tutorial. The lead story shook him to the core and he knew at that moment that his life was over.