Chapter 2

Homeward Bound.

The big cobalt blue Audi A4 S Line pulled effortlessly up towards the summit of ‘Telegraph Hill’ before descending once more, to where in the distance the city of Exeter stretched out before them partly covered in early morning mist. The morning sun that shone in an almost cloudless blue sky was now at their backs as they joined the M5 motorway.

Danny who felt suddenly hungry turned to his cousin, ‘How do you fancy a full English breakfast?’

Tom smiled, “Why not, it must be an age since I have had one, but where can we get a decent one on the motorway?”

Danny grinned and after a while, indicated to leave the M5 as the sign for ‘Tiverton’ came into view. He followed the old A38 towards Wellington past the disused filling stations that had all gone out of business in the 1970s when the M5 motorway was opened. After another two miles he suddenly pulled up at a transport café where the sign above the door read ‘Morgan’s Café’. As they walked across the lorry park Tom commented, “You always were a snob, our kid, choosing this place just goes to prove it.”

Danny smiled, “They serve the best full English breakfast you can buy in here; you just wait and see.”

They walked past a Scania truck with its big diesel engine throbbing as it was about to pull away, the window of which suddenly opened as a heavily tattooed guy shouted, “Eh, what are you doing here, Danny boy?”

Tom now looked up somewhat apprehensively as a huge guy with his arms covered in tattoos jumped down.

Danny, though, just grinned as the big guy came towards him and suddenly lifted Danny off his feet. “Will you put me down, you bloody fool, Soapy, and let me introduce you to my cousin Tom Aston?”

After shaking Tom’s hand Soapy turned to Danny and joked, “I have had an extra half an hour here, so I shall now be able to put the blame on you, if I am late boarding the ferry, so be sure to tell the Boss, will you?”

Danny answered with, “Soapy, piss off, Mark may be your Boss, but I still have the last say in what goes on.”

After chatting for a few more minutes, after which Soapy once more shook Tom’s hand before climbing back into his cab and driving off, as a farewell salute he blasted on his air horns, all the way out of the lorry park and on down the A38.

Tom commented, “I sure am glad that guy was friendly, for one moment there I thought we were back to the old days, where you got some big guy, all riled up then left me to sort him out.”

Danny laughed, “Was I that bad? Sorry if I was. Soapy has worked for me for over twenty years, he is a bit of a lunatic, but he idolizes Mark. I am sure if Mark told him to jump off a cliff he would.”

They now entered the Café, which was at this time in the morning almost empty. It was a typical truckers’ café with various adverts for the motor trade covering the walls. A woman whose hair colour had almost certainly come from a peroxide dye bottle, wearing bright red lipstick looked up from the newspaper that she was reading and called out, “Hello Danny, we do not often see you in here these days, how are you?”

Danny who had known her for many years replied, “Hello Dora, I am fine, thanks. Now, could we have two of your wonderful full English with two coffees, please my darling?”

At the use of the term, ‘darling’, Dora blushed before scurrying off to serve them. Just then a voice from across the room called out, “Darling? You must be hard up mate, if you think she is a darling.”

Danny looked around at the rough looking driver who had spoken. He saw that he had the yolk of an egg running down his unshaved chin, while his hands looked black and greasy.

Danny looked at Tom raising his eyebrows but did not give the man the courtesy of a reply.

Dora quickly reappeared with two plates of steaming hot food. Placing them down in front of them she asked, “Anything else you would like boys, just ask.”

Once more a voice from across the room called out, “What the fuck is it with you two? She does not fuss around the rest of us like that.”

Dora gave the driver a nervous look before saying, “Take no notice of him lads, it’s okay.”

This time however Tom stood up leaving his breakfast untouched before he walked across to where the guy sat, who as Tom approached had suddenly stopped eating before he finally looked up. He had at this very moment a fork full of food poised to enter his mouth.

Tom stood before him and after bending down to his level said, “Buddy, if you say one more word about Dora that I find offensive I shall shove the plate in front of you, followed by both your knife and fork straight down your greasy throat. Have you got that?”

The guy just nodded his head, with hands that shook visibly, then carried on eating in complete silence.

As they sat eating their breakfast Danny recalled in his mind the many times when he had first started his haulage business that he had stopped to eat here on route to distant places, sometimes not getting home until late at night. It had been with sheer hard work that he had made it the success that it now was.

On leaving Morgan’s café the remainder of the journey towards the Midlands went by without incident. The sky was still a pale blue without a cloud in sight as they eventually passed over the edge of Birmingham’s Spaghetti junction, then on through what was at one time the industrial heart of England. On one side of the motorway they saw ‘Fort Dunlop’ once a giant tyre plant employing over two thousand workers, but now turned into a giant ‘Travel Lodge’ motel while on the other side in the distance you could still see the remains of the massive G.E.C. Electrical factory. They both took in all these reminders of what the city that they once knew had now become, before finally ending their journey at the ‘Fair Lawns Hotel’ just outside the little West Midlands town of ‘Aldridge’.

Danny had booked them in here for two nights as the hotel was situated only three miles from where the funeral that they had come to attend was being held. This area was however nothing like Shelfield, the village, that they both had been brought up in and indeed had lived in for the first twenty odd years of their lives. Although it was, but a few miles away, now looked like it was a neglected little village standing on the A38 midway between Walsall and Brownhills, which was Danny’s birthplace. This also, though, was another town that had seen better days.

They ate in the hotel’s very up market restaurant that evening, after which they took the remains of the bottle of Californian wine that they were drinking out on to the Hotel’s terrace.

The night was still warm for September as they sat once more talking mostly about old times. “So, who will be there tomorrow”? Tom asked.

Danny finished the remains of his wine before answering, “The usual crowd, you know, all the boys from the New World, the Locker and the Kavern club will be there - Rabbi, Shaky, Jammy they will all be there to attend the fallen hero’s final show.”

Tom looked surprised. “Christ, why so cynical, Sean was our friend, or have I missed something?”

Danny poured more wine into his glass before shocking Tom by saying, “But I never trusted the bastard, Tom, that is why I am, as you put it, cynical.”

Tom shook his head, “You have lost me, son, what do you mean?”

After a pause he then added. “Is it Bridie, is that it, after all these years what this is all about, the fact that her old man accepted Sean but not you?”

Danny shook his head, “No you are wrong in thinking that. I admit I was surprised to hear that she had married him, but honest to God, it is not that. It is just that I have for years now dreaded the thought that he might have blabbed to someone about, well, you know the job. The thought of the police coming to my door at my time of life, well, I just could not stand it.”

Tom looked flabbergasted hearing his cousin say this. “What the fuck are you on? Why would he do such a thing, he would be shooting himself in the foot.”

Danny still would not let his concern drop. “But what if he left it in a will or a letter for someone, what then? Or God forbid he told his big friend, Sid. After all he hates me just as much as I hate him.”

Tom still did not look convinced, “Sid is a prick. I will give you that, but do you think even if he knew anything that he would risk fingering Mazza, he would have to have a death wish.”

Danny, though, was still concerned. “Maybe but something just nags at me. I cannot seem to get the thought out of my head. Sid, whenever I have seen him, and I admit that is not often, he always seems to make some comment or jibe about how well the four of us have done or something like that.”

Tom now placed his hand on Danny’s shoulder. “He is just a jealous bastard, so put it out of your mind.” Tom, keen to change the subject, asked, “Anyhow when is Mazza coming, you have spoken to him I take it.”

Danny nodded. “Yes, he phoned me last week. He will meet us here in the morning then go with us to the funeral.”

Tom now could not help but ask, “What is the old bugger up to now, do you know?”

Danny smiled. “Well, according to Jammy, which as we both know you must take what he says with a pinch of salt, he believes that since he split with Sean meaning he was no longer involved in the night club business, he has been for want of a better word, blackmailing some rich Arab guys that he previously had arranged to be set up with some hookers.”

Tom now almost choked on his wine, “Fucking hell, is there no end to his talents.” He was shocked but before he could comment more Danny continued, “Add to this, also according to Jammy, he has now been helping some people to remove certain people that were, shall we say, standing in the way of others making a lot of money.”

Tom now could hardly take this in. “No! You must be wrong, you don’t mean he has stiffed them for money.”

Danny nodded. “That is exactly what I mean. Although as I understand it, he now feels he is getting too old for all that kind of stuff, so he has retired to his place in the country or the wilds of Cannock Chase to be exact.”

Tom having finished his drink stared into his glass before asking, “Who the hell does he think he is, Al Capone?”

Danny’s face was now serious. “I think that looking back he always did see himself as being the Black Country’s version of the Godfather.”

With that conversation finished, both men made their way to bed, a sign that age was indeed also catching up with them both.

But once in his room and although he felt tired, Danny found he could not sleep, so he opened the mini drinks safe taking out a miniature Bushmills Irish, this being his favourite tipple, then having found a glass and some ice cubes, he added the whisky.

The room felt warm, so Danny opened the patio door before stepping out on to the room’s small balcony where he sat in the warm night air sipping his drink. After a while, as he looked out across the mist covered fields towards the Chester Road, he noticed that as the moon shone down it gave the place an eerie look. In the distance he could see the headlights of cars flickering to and fro as they passed along behind the hawthorn hedges that ran beside it.

His mind drifted back to when his involvement with Mazza had first begun, then even further back to when with his Mum and Dad he had lived at his Grandparents’ house in ‘Brownhills’ just a few miles from where he now sat.