Jeb was woken by a phone call. “I’m waiting outside,” Shaun said curtly.
Cursing, Jeb looked at the time. He’d suggested to Shaun that nine o’clock was far too early, but his boss was having none of it. Pulling on designer jeans, T-shirt and trainers, he finished the ensemble with a leather jacket. Last night’s washing-up lay festering in the sink as he lit a cigarette and left his flat.
“Shall I drive, boss?” he asked, looking covetously at Shaun’s top-of-the-range Mercedes. Jeb wasn’t insured to take the wheel; in fact no one was, but that had never bothered them. The Merc, with its cloned number plate, slipped gloriously under the DVLA’s radar.
“Later, if I have a drink,” Shaun snapped. He, too, was evidently grumpy about the early start. At the first petrol station on the A12, he insisted on stopping to buy coffee.
“I’ll have a little pick-me-up with it,” Jeb said, swallowing a couple of amphetamine tablets. “Want any?”
“Sure.” Shaun accepted them gratefully.
“You know where we’re going?” Jeb asked.
“Some northern slagheap in Birmingham. I’ve programmed the satnav,” Shaun said.
“The last and only time I went there, it was with West Ham. We lost. I never went back,” Jeb said. He had enjoyed a gratifying fight, however, and smirked at the recollection. His own group of lads had outnumbered the Villa fans they decided to tackle, and made doubly sure of avenging their team’s honour by employing knives.
“They just don’t play right, those Birmingham clubs,” Shaun observed. “We need more Academy football in the league.”
“Even West Ham don’t play Academy style any more,” Jeb said, repeating a view he had already stated ad nauseam in the White Horse, and indeed, to Shaun.
“True,” Shaun conceded. As they hit the M25, his spirits appeared to be rising. Even the traffic management system and roadworks failed to dent his bonhomie. The caffeine and speed were doing their job. The conversation shifted amicably to boxing and darts as they sped up the M1.