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Authors: David Stuart Davies

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BOOK: Brothers in Blood
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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.’

‘What exactly do you mean?’ asked Alex.

‘I mean… I mean that we should shed our own blood as evidence of our dedication and allegiance to the Brotherhood. This friendship should neither die nor fade away. This should survive throughout our lives wherever that strumpet Mistress Fate takes us. Let’s celebrate this unique union in deed as well as thought.’

He took a gulp of champagne, slipped off his jacket and then rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt. With calm deliberation he cut the pale flesh on his forearm with the knife. He dragged the blade across the skin leaving a fine red line which blossomed and spread, the blood oozing forth down his arm and then it started to trickle on to the table. He pressed the forefinger of his right hand into the blood and smeared his cheek with it. He dipped his finger again and anointed my cheek. ‘You have been blooded, my brother,’ he intoned in all seriousness.

He repeated the process and then anointed Alex in the same manner.

For a moment I was tempted to laugh because this ‘ceremony’ seemed to me to possess all the risible characteristics of a scene from a Hammer horror film but Laurence’s solemn features in the candlelight stifled this urge at birth. He was deadly serious. His mood and attitude affected me and I found myself caught up in the spirit of the occasion.

Laurence handed me the knife. ‘Now it is your turn,’ he said.

It was only for a second that I hesitated. I knew in my heart that this was not only the right thing to do, but necessary. It was Laurence’s wish and I would obey. It was the great unifier. I spilt my own blood, anointed myself before smearing the faces of my two brothers. I cannot explain to this day the overwhelming feeling of spiritual satisfaction and rightness I felt on that occasion. The memory has stayed with me all my life. Not just the images but the whole sense of the occasion from the smell of the candles to the feel and taint of the warm red blood on my cheek.

I handed the knife to Alex who was eager to follow suit. Within moments he had shed his own blood and shared it with us.

Laurence lifted his glass and indicated that we should do likewise while he made a toast. ‘We are now brothers in life and brothers in blood. Nothing but death shall separate us.’ He looked directly at me and smiled.

Instinctively, Alex and I responded in identical fashion: ‘Brothers in blood.’

Laurence beamed. ‘Good men. And the next time we organise a caper, we shall spill someone else’s blood.’

And that’s what happened. When Laurence and I came home for the Christmas holidays, the Brotherhood set out for Wakefield with one purpose in mind: to kill. And we did. We murdered an old tramp: our Alpha Beta as Laurence called him. We followed him from a scruffy old pub and did for him on the street. We took our first life. It was the real beginning.

And I suppose that’s where my youth and my uncertain innocence ends. What follows will never equal that time. In the beginning is the joy, the excitement, the freshness. One can repeat, of course, but with each repetition comes a wearing away of the pleasure. This journal is my insubstantial aide-memoire of that time. I am so glad I have caught it, however inadequately. I need write no more…

TEN

1984

Detective Inspector Paul Snow stared at the final page for some time, his vision blurring as all kinds of disparate thoughts and images tumbled through his mind. My God, how many people had this unholy trio murdered in the intervening years! It was like some nasty horror film. And his disquiet increased as he realised that he was now a member of the cast – he too had become part of the drama.

With a groan, he closed the book and placed his hand firmly on the cover and shivered involuntarily.

PART TWO

ELEVEN

1983

The old excitement returned. It never failed to do so. As the date of their annual excursion neared, Russell felt an actual ache in his stomach, the anticipation developing like some growth within him. He knew that it was a measure of how, by contrast, the rest of his life was dull, mundane, a great disappointment. Indeed, he was a great disappointment to himself. Despite his early aspirations and ambitions, he had achieved nothing special in his life. Gradually, he had morphed into one of those dull sods he had sneered at in his youth. Without Laurence’s influence, inspiring him to dare, to reach, to grasp the challenging and the unknown, he had made the obvious choices. Out of laziness and a lack of passion for anything else, he had simply taken the easy options. He had not even moved away from his university base. He was still in Durham and for all he knew would remain there until the end. He was trapped in his own web of incompetence. He had allowed himself to fall onto the predictable middle class conveyor belt that chugged its way through all the conventionalities he despised so much.

On leaving university, he had settled for teacher training because it required no thinking or effort. He’d got his Cert Ed and sank with ease into the swamp of the teaching profession. Here he was in his early thirties with a wife and mortgage neatly chained around his neck. All other avenues had effectively been sealed off. Or so it seemed to him. He had made his rather unadventurous bed and now he would have to lie on it. The only bright spot in his life was the Brotherhood.

The annual excursion of delight.

And here they were together again. Older, wiser and keener. This year it was Bristol. Another first. Long ago they had let Laurence arrange the details. He had the flair, the knack and the ingenuity. He always provided the novelty. And this year was to be particularly special.

They were breaking new ground.

They’d never killed a woman before.

‘A prostitute, of course,’ Laurence had assured them. ‘A raddled, drug-taking tattooed slag who is of no use to man nor beast.’

As usual they had met up for drinks and dinner in a restaurant chosen by Laurence, each staying in a different hotel in the city. Over the meal they chatted in a desultory fashion, mainly about the past, rarely commenting on their other lives, their real lives. Russell was grateful for that.

They were all in their thirties now and Russell noted that the youthful bloom had faded from their faces, his included. But in discussing the night’s business their eyes blazed with the enthusiastic exuberance of old.

Laurence had planned the event in his usual meticulous fashion. Sitting back in his chair, a little cheeroot dangling from his mouth and a glass of brandy in his hand he explained the arrangements for the evening’s entertainment.

‘The red light district is heaving with tarts on Friday night, but there’s a narrow street on the edge of this area which attracts the rougher types – the older, less tasty doxies, if you get my meaning. I’ll do the initial picking up. The car I’ve hired is pretty big. You two hide in the back until the slag’s inside and I’ve driven off. She’ll no doubt give me a location where we can park up and do the business – but I’ll suggest we go back to my hotel.’ He grinned. ‘We won’t of course. You crack her on the head, Russ. Try to do it without spilling any blood, eh? Don’t want any stains on the upholstery. And then we’ll take her to a nice quiet spot by the river that I’ve picked out and we can complete the deed there. OK?’

BOOK: Brothers in Blood
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