CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Drew Sayer had attended club meetings in pubs, garages, back rooms, one funeral parlour and once in a children's soft-play centre after midnight because Gareth Pike had misunderstood the phrase neutral ground.
He had never held one in a burned tyre warehouse.
It was perfect.
Nobody looking for a motorcycle club would choose it.
Six patched men stood around a folding table.
Owen Pike stood nearest the door with his injured arm still in a sling and a face that suggested the sling was the only reason he had not punched something yet.
Sam Ridley sat with a mug of tea and a bruise across his temple from Gareth's kettle.
Pete Lawson stood at the far end without a chair.
Nobody had offered him one.
Two other North End men had come from York and Beverley after Drew called. A third joined by video from a hospital bed where police were still pretending his broken ribs had happened during a burglary.
Callum, still technically a prospect and therefore entitled to no vote, sat on a stack of tyres with a dressing at his neck and listened anyway.
Leah stood beside the shutter.
No cut. No police warrant card. No official reason to be there.
Drew liked her there more than he wanted to admit.
He put Gareth's note on the table.
Then the phone.
He played the video once.
Daniel in the chair.
Blood at his shoulder.
Gareth behind him in the president cut.
The pistol strike.
I'm sorry.
The screen went black.
Nobody spoke.
Rain tapped against the metal roof.
Owen looked at the floor.
Drew said, "He's done."
Pete gave a small laugh.
Owen's head lifted.
Pete stopped laughing.
"You don't get a voice," Drew said.
"Wasn't asking for one."
"Good."
Sam drank his tea.
"You brought him," Owen said.
"Because Pete knows what Gareth did with Hale. What he did with Rigg. What he did with Venn. If anyone here thinks I'm inventing a reason to take the chair, Pete can explain how much inventing is required."
Pete looked at the table.
"Not much."
Owen's jaw worked.
"He's my brother."
Drew nodded.
"I know."
"Amy's dad."
"I know that too."
"And you're asking me to strip him in a tyre shed while some bent copper has Daniel tied to a chair."
"Yes."
Owen stared at him.
Leah watched Drew not move.
That had always been his trick.
Gareth filled rooms by force.
Owen filled them by threat.
Drew did it by making the other person decide what kind of man they wanted to be next.
Sam set his mug down.
"He's already stripped himself."
Owen looked at him.
Sam pointed at the phone.
"President keeps the club alive. Doesn't sell routes to police. Doesn't hand family over because a chief constable tells him there's a deal. Doesn't burn everyone else to keep his patch clean."
"Assistant chief constable," Leah said automatically.
Everyone looked at her.
She shrugged.
"If we're being precise."
Callum laughed and immediately regretted it when his neck hurt.
Drew almost smiled.
Owen did not.
"What happens if we vote him out?" one of the men from Beverley asked.
"I take control until Daniel is safe and Renn is finished. After that, the table decides again."
Pete raised his eyebrows.
"Not president?"
Drew looked at him.
"I said you don't get a voice."
"That was a question."
"It was a stupid one."
Sam looked at Drew.
"And the routes?"
There it was.
Not sentiment.
Business.
The reason Gareth had convinced himself every compromise was necessary.
North End moved cocaine. Had done for years. Not huge quantities compared with the men above them. Enough to buy houses, legal businesses, expensive solicitors and the kind of loyalty that disappeared if money did.
Drew had never pretended otherwise.
"Nothing moves," he said.
A man near the shutter swore.
Drew continued.
"Not one brick. Not one van. Not one bag. Until we know which routes Renn owns and which ones he's waiting to seize. Anyone moves product without the table knowing, they can go work for Redmile."
"What's left of them," Sam said.
Leah folded her arms.
"Quite a lot, actually."
Owen looked at her. "You making an arrest list?"
"No."
"Shame. You looked happy."
"I'm suspended. Happiness has been postponed."
Drew said, "Vote."
No speech.
No ceremony.
No bullshit.
"Gareth stays president," he said. "Or Gareth is done and I hold it until this is finished."
Sam put his hand flat on the table.
"Done."
The Beverley member followed.
Then York.
The man on the phone raised his hand on the screen.
Everyone looked at Owen.
Owen stared at Gareth's note.
Drew knew what he was seeing.
A brother who had taught him to ride.
A brother who had given him a patch.
A brother who had spent years making Owen believe violence was loyalty and loyalty was silence.
Owen removed the sergeant-at-arms patch from the front of his spare cut.
The Velcro made a ripping sound in the quiet room.
He placed it beside Gareth's note.
"If he comes back wearing president," Owen said, "I take it off him myself."
Drew nodded.
"Vote?"
Owen looked at him.
"Done."
Nobody cheered.
That mattered.
Drew did not want men cheering because they had replaced one problem with another.
He picked up Gareth's note and tore it again, making four pieces.
"Then we get Daniel."
Leah's phone rang.
Everyone looked at her.
She checked the screen.
Ruth Calder.
"Different chain," Drew said.
"You say that like it's funny."
"I'm learning."
Leah answered.
"Calder."
The NCA officer did not waste time.
"We found the vehicle from the river. Abandoned near Hedon. Blood in the rear matches Daniel's preliminary sample. Gareth's phone connected to a mast south-east of Hull twenty-two minutes ago."
Leah looked at Sam.
"How many places around Paull would Gareth use with industrial power and no neighbours?"
Sam did not answer immediately.
Then his face changed.
"Cold store."
Drew turned.
"Which one?"
"Old produce place near the flood bank. Gareth used it before we bought the Hedon units. Compressor still works because he rented half of it to a fish importer. Green shutters."
Leah remembered the video.
Dark wall.
Steel chair.
A green strip behind Daniel's shoulder.
She put Calder on speaker.
"Paull Cold Storage."
Calder said, "Do not go there."
Owen picked up his jacket.
Sam stood.
Drew looked at Leah.
She sighed.
"You know she means you specifically."
"I feel singled out."
Calder's voice sharpened through the phone.
"Drew. I have armed officers moving. Give me twenty minutes."
Drew looked at the men around the table.
At the burnt edge of Sam's sleeve.
At Owen's sling.
At Gareth's handwriting.
"You have ten."
"That is not how this works."
"It is today."
He ended the call.
Leah stared at him.
"You just hung up on the National Crime Agency."
"I was polite."
"You said four words."
"Efficiently polite."
She followed him toward the shutter.
"Amy stays out of it."
Drew stopped.
"Agreed."
Owen looked surprised.
Drew turned to him.
"She has spent this entire week being the reason Gareth gives for every cowardly decision he makes. She is not becoming his excuse again."
Owen nodded once.
Leah's expression softened for half a second.
Then disappeared.
"And Pete?"
Drew looked back.
Pete Lawson remained at the table.
"Sam locks him in the office."
Pete frowned.
"Bit insulting."
Sam picked up a length of chain from beside the tyre machine.
"I can make it more insulting."
Pete sat down.
"Office is fine."
Outside, rain swept across the yard.
Drew climbed into the Range Rover.
Leah took the passenger seat.
Owen and Sam followed in the van behind.
As Drew started the engine, Leah looked at him.
"Acting president."
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face did."
"My face is professionally neutral."
"Your face thinks this is funny."
"A little."
He pulled onto the road.
"Fair."
Leah looked out of the window so he would not see her smile.
Ten miles away, his brother was tied to a chair.
And for the first time in nine years, Drew Sayer was driving toward Daniel without anybody else's orders in his head.