Chapter Four
By the time I got back to the Dog, the place was already loud.
Music thumped through the walls, droplets of condensation clinging to the glass, vibrating with the deep bass.
Laughter seeped through the walls, into the potholed car park at the side of the building where Security Sam stopped the bike, tucking it into the only gap available and far too far from the protection of the cameras mounted high up on the walls.
Motorbikes filled the decaying tarmac, lining the kerb and spilling down the side street. Cars after them, mounting the grass verges, and parked up on the roadside bumper to bumper.
I slid my leg over the bike, readjusting myself after being squashed up behind Security Sam during the ride from the hospital.
“What you waiting for?” I grumbled, watching Sam nervously survey the camera angle.
“Would prefer to be under a camera,” he muttered, taking one last look at his bike before stepping in behind me.
The Harley didn’t catch the light like some of the others. Matt black, it clung to the shadows. Understated. No big, bulky fairings. Lean and efficient. Yet it pressed into the crumbling tarmac like it was ready, waiting for challenge. And that thing would answer one, for sure.
“If anyone fucks around near these bikes,” I paused, pointing to the black rectangles with the red light mounted on the side of the pub wall, “we’ll see them on there before they get a chance to do anything.”
“But the fire…” Sam started, glancing at his bike again like it was family he was leaving behind.
“Yeah. Well, we’ve got cameras now. And no one’s going to try anything when there’s so many of us here tonight.”
I glanced at the road outside the pub. At the row of cars tapering off into the darkness. Nothing moved. Even the wind had dropped, the fog rolling up the Tyne swallowing all sound.
“You can fucking stand around obsessing over your bike, Sam. But I need a drink.” My voice almost echoed in the air, hanging between us like it was unable to dissipate.
Sam must have stared at the Low Rider another few seconds.
When I heard his footsteps behind me, I was almost through the doors anyway.
Inside the Dog on the Tyne, the air was heavier. Cuts everywhere. Women too. Smoke curling up into the night like nothing had changed. Neon light probing through the swirls, refracting and twisting when it couldn’t find a way through.
On the surface, it looked like a party. A proper one.
The kind Red would’ve liked. Bikes, booze, birds, noise.
Cigarettes, even though smoking indoors had been banned in the UK for years.
None of us gave a fuck. And Red would have liked it that way.
His last act of defiance against the establishment.
Against rules and conformity. This is how we celebrated life. We weren’t mourning his death now.
I stepped inside and let the door shut behind me, pausing just long enough to take it all in.
The Kings were out in force. Fury by the bar, back straight, eyes never still.
Demon propped up on a stool, stiff, pretending to be normal, but I could see the way he shuffled slightly, his face flickering to a grimace and then back to his usual scowl.
Still injured but pretending to be the presence the club needed.
To everyone else, he looked like a warrior.
The Hand had tried to take him down. But they’d failed.
And now he was back. Immortal, like the devil himself.
Most of the club thought so too. But the ones who’d known him nearly all his life could see it differently.
The tiny unevenness in his step. The sudden pauses and slow intakes of breath.
He was still suffering. Still dragging those injuries into a war.
Beanz sat with them. Laughing too loud. Trying too hard. Hanging on every word of whatever overcooked story Magnet was telling them, half in fear he’d cop another beating. It hadn’t been us that delivered the last one. But it should have been.
Amongst the crowd, Indie moved. Shaking hands. Clapping shoulders. He was central, as always, not drinking much, talking to everyone, listening more than he spoke. Aware.
I clocked the visitors next.
Coalition clubs packed in shoulder to shoulder.
Steel Brotherhood near the dartboard. Valhalla’s Vandals taking up space like they owned it and Brie and his Angels and Demons brothers hanging around a group of women like kids at a candy shop.
A few independents I didn’t recognise straight away leaned against a pillar, here to be seen, to pay respects, to remind everyone where they stood.
The Notorious weren’t here. Neither were the Teesside Road Rats. That absence sat heavier than any words.
Women moved between the men, hands on backs, arms looped through elbows.
Some smiling, some already half-cut. Most were ol’ ladies who knew how this worked; tonight was about standing together, about showing strength.
About pretending the ground wasn’t shifting under our boots.
Some were here to see what biker they could pull. Patch hunters looking for a glory fuck.
I pushed through the crowd to the bar. A hand on a back here.
A nod there. Bikers quickly making way for me as I pressed forward.
The booths to my right were full of women.
Heidi, Emmie, Ciara. Suzy cuddled dark liquid in a half-pint glass.
Other women at the table behind. And then one caught my eye.
Long dark hair swayed as she chatted animatedly with a patch next to her.
Not one of ours. I couldn’t see his colours.
Shadows danced over the tattoos that covered her bare arms, moving in the flashing neon light like they were alive.
“Which poor fucker is Tori going after now?” I asked Magnet as I pushed my arse onto the stool at the end.
“One of the North Coast Riders.” Magnet turned his head to glance across at them. “I probably should warn the poor cunt.”
“Nah. Leave ‘im. We might get rid of her.” I waved at a prospect and pointed to the pump, watching him pull a pint too quickly, the foam filling the glass before the amber liquid had a chance and then presenting me with a pint that looked like it had been dragged through a brothel sink. “The fuck is that?” I shoved it back. “Looks like it’s been pulled by a fucking rent boy.”
I glanced up at the TV screen with a load of little squares above the bar, squinting just to make out which camera angle was which.
The car park was bottom right, the camera picking up the parked bikes, Sam’s only just in the frame, but enough that I could at least see the back wheel.
A Kings Prospect walked past, routine passes of the car park.
Our own security. Ready to raise the alarm if something happened.
My attention went back to the punters in the bar.
My eyes tracking movement, fixing on cuts.
Wondering who might be armed and who wasn’t.
And who shouldn’t be here but was. Durham Heathens hadn’t moved from a corner near the doors, no one straying far from their huddle.
I didn’t know whether they were expecting something or afraid of being kidnapped, but the whole lot of them were tense.
Around me, every laugh felt half a beat too sharp. Every cheer died a second too quickly. Conversations dipped when officers leaned in close, then picked up again like nothing had happened. A performance. One Red would’ve appreciated the irony of.
This wasn’t grief. This was vigilance dressed up as a wake. And beneath the noise, beneath the music and the clink of glasses, there was something else humming, low and constant. The unspoken question every club officer in the room already knew the answer to.
Not if something was coming.
But when.
Indie caught my elbow, a subtle instruction, and I pulled my pint off the bar, eyeing up the glass that was still too much foam and not enough lager, before following him through the door into the back corridor. Back where the noise dulled to a thud, and the air was clearer.
His eyes dropped to my side. No comment. Just a breath through his nose.
“Did you get it?” he asked.
“Some.”
That was enough to make his jaw tighten.
“They were there before you,” he said. Not a question.
“Aye.”
Indie leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. The only tell. “That supplier’s burned, then.” He folded his arms.
“Gone,” I said. “Or will be.”
Silence stretched, long and heavy. Music from the pub thumped through the plaster. Deep, vibrating laughter leaking under the door.
“Someone talked,” Indie said finally.
“Someone close,” I agreed.
He nodded once. Slow. Decisive. “We go back to the Masons.”
I felt the weight of that settle in my gut. Old debts never stayed buried.
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
“I know you will.”
Indie clapped a hand on my shoulder. Brief, solid. Then he straightened, already putting the mask back on.
“Tonight,” he said, “we drink to Red.”
I nodded. Tomorrow, we’d start counting the cost.
*****
Sophie left the hospital almost the same time as the last few nights. Back shift. 2.00pm till close. Tonight, she was late. Not enough for anyone else to clock it, but enough for me.
The doors slid open, and she stepped out, pulling her coat tight.
The night threatening, and the cold catching her off guard.
Her steps weren’t as hurried as normal. She was distracted.
Her shoulders slumped, and her bag hung low, dragging against her hip.
She stopped under the security light for a moment, head tipped back, eyes closed.
I didn’t move, only watched.
She hadn’t looked my way once since the night I’d been stitched, even though I’d pulled up every night, tucking my Triumph into the shadows so I could sit and watch.
She wouldn’t recognise me if I stood under the light and said her name.
I’d seen it in her eyes that night, nothing there but a patient, a problem, a job done.
I’d known her almost the second I saw her. Knew her hands. Knew the space she kept between herself and the world, and the way she didn’t waste words. Yet she hadn’t known me at all.
I stayed across the road, half-hidden by a parked van, watching without letting myself be seen.
This wasn’t about being close, it was about knowing.
Making sure she walked away clean. That she got to wherever she was going without anyone stepping into her space.
And it was about reliving memories from long, long ago.
Her hair still hinted at the curly mass of light-brown.
Her figure was fuller now. She’d grown into her frame from the eighteen-year-old I’d known then.
Her face wasn’t as smooth. Tiny creases at the corners of her eyes showed she smiled without me.
She’d smelled the same that night. Even though her perfume was different.
More expensive, but it still carried that undercurrent of scent that I remembered.
Someone moved behind her, and instinctively I stiffened, watching them pass without giving her another look.
I relaxed again, almost. The world had teeth.
I knew that better than most. And she was alone in the dark, crossing the car park.
I wouldn’t pull away again until she was safely in her car.
And I promised myself again tonight I wouldn’t follow her.
Wouldn’t trail behind to find out where she lived.
She moved off, shoes scuffing the pavement, shoulders hunched against the night. The light swallowed her up quickly. Too quickly.
I didn’t follow. Didn’t call out. Didn’t give myself the chance to hear my own name in her voice and know it meant nothing. I stayed where I was until the doors slid shut again, until the hospital went back to being just a building full of noise and hurt and strangers.
Tomorrow, I told myself. Just to know she was still here.