She hunkers down deep within the large jacket, enfolding, swamping herself in the smell, feel of her man. And looks at me kind of lost, despairing – drowning – with resignation in her voice.

“They’ve taken my Wil.”

There’s a sweet, sterile smell. Not perceptible at first – a hint, not powerful – which it takes my nervous brain a few seconds to register. The smell of clean, of tidy. No mess, no piles of junk. Just scrubbed, pine floorboards, gleaming with hours of polish. And his armchair, standing empty in the centre of the room, slippers piled neatly to one side.

The walk from the station had taken a few, long, nervous minutes. Surrey Quays a Mecca of consumer life burning bright behind me. Down, past the playing fields and the brown-brick estates, past the Union Jacks and St Georges hanging from the tower blocks, sitting next to neat little window boxes, fluttering contentedly against some old dear’s begonias.

I pass old, forgotten pubs, moving away with each minute from the land of Weatherspoons and Harvesters. Soon catch sight of The New Den, looming over the backs of the houses, a stone – or a bottle’s – throw away. See the signs – “No football colours please” – etched sigil-like over the doorways. Strange that, I think – what self-respecting football firm wears colours anyway? It’s all casual these days. No uniforms.

A small gang of kids moves towards me on the narrow pavement, pacing their territory, playing the ritual. They saunter to their own natural, faded rhythm; the music of the hunter and pack animal rolled into one. There’s four white, one black, all designer labels. Conflict? Our eyes lock for a second – heartbeat quickens – then break as the challenge is passed. Laughter. The shirt sticks to my back. I feel like a fish in a bowl, with everyone looking in.

I finally stroll past his office, full of blacks and Chinese, all windows, open plan, 50s style. A MacDonalds. His office, a joke. He holds his ‘business’ meetings there, makes calls from the phone box just outside. Laughs that gravelly laugh – blunt irony – when he tells me about it.

I come to rest in a small, modern estate, a first-time buyer’s kind of place, John Silken Lane. There’s his big brown Ford outside the two-up, two-down, the sun half-blinding me as it winks off the net-covered windows. The cold mechanical eye of a security camera returns my stare perched, wart-like, above the door.

“I’ve heard all about you. I wish I could have met you in better circumstances.” She’s apologetic, polite to the extreme. Her head hardly dares poke outside. “Sorry about all the mess,” she adds, a whisper really, hands already fidgeting for the kettle. She hits comforting routine as soon as I step inside. Make the guest feel at home/follow the familiar/everything’s normal/nothing’s changed. Except a small pile of woodchippings scattered around the front door. No, nothing you would ever notice. Normal.

Her pale features shine over the porcelain cup, the eyes meek, inky pools. I notice her fingers – thin, ivory white, anxious. An insubstantial figure, five-three, attractive in a houselike way, dark hair pouring over her shoulders. She wanders in a state of semi-shock, fag held absently, trailing stale smoke across the room. Then finds her voice, reedy, trembling, outraged – They were going to shoot her babies. I’d never have forgiven him, she says. Never. Remembers herself and smiles nervously, puts her hands back by her sides, fixes me with that imploring look.

A nightmare alright. My nerves were a wreck. God knows what hers must have been like.

Woken at five in the morning by the ‘babies’ – I see their huge kennel on the immaculate lawn, sandwiched between the carefully tended flowerbeds, hear their maniacal barking, slavering jaws working overtime behind the safety of the glass – him up and out of bed before she knows it, powering down the stairs, naked, going for the machete by the door. He’d been expecting some trouble from the Romford lot. But they break it in first. At least that’s what she thinks she remembers. You don’t know yourself at that time of day, do you? Not civilised – Why do they do that? Hears shouting, shouting, shouting. “Don’t fucking move!” over and over again. Sees a crescent of men, head to toe in black, short ugly snouts of the machine guns pressed to his head. A freeze-frame image in her brain, refusing to register. “Get that fucking dog out of the way or its dead!....Now!” The last she sees of him this naked figure, about to die, as she shuts herself and the baby behind the flimsy plywood door, cocooning herself inside the bathroom’s comforting, tiled womb...

Mind snaps back to the present: “I don’t understand about my Wil. What’s he done?”

She’s been talking a while now. Her voice is beginning to grate. We both know who he is, what he did, and wants to do. This is just a ritual, the cry of “unjust” when things go wrong. Afterall, He wants War. And now he’s been given it.

The Beast, they call him. A whirlwind who destroys everything that comes into his life. A real Midas touch. And I’m sitting in his house, this lovely, homely, open plan two-up, two-down, with its tidy shelves, pattioed garden (not a weed in sight), carefully collected bowl of coins (must be £50 in there!), the gym-cum-second bedroom with weights and punchbag, and the huge, black-iron bust of Hitler at the end of the settee, looking vainly for some signs of dirt, even unfinished washing up (there isn’t any), talking with his fiancee. The man I’ve spent seven years of my life trying to destroy. The man who threatened to put me on the end of a rope the first time I met him, who even pointed out the tree where I’d swing. Nice man. Not normal.

And I think to myself, not for the first time, what the fuck am I doing here? And what’s this incredibly nice, polite, apologetic woman, with a degree in sociology, dad who reads the Telegraph – who’d drag her away from all this if he only knew what went on – and who just likes chatting with the girls on an evening out (– why does she need to go out, she’s got the dogs, got her house, he makes the money with the carpentry, what more does she want? – ) doing with this maniac?

*

The drive through Epping Forest had been just as fucking surreal. Sitting there, the cheap plastic upholstery burning under the sun – reminding me somewhere of long journeys to Devon as a kid – uttering any old crap I could think of. Absolute super shit scared. Surrounded on all sides by silent, granite-faced men, the pungent aroma of violence tangible, straining beneath the skin, waiting for release. Figures for whom the bottle or screwdriver are as ingrained – through football, beatings and years of pure, utter shit – as eating and drinking.

It was the first time I’d met him. Going through an elaborate series of precautions, different mobile numbers, names I didn’t recognise, then driven through the flashing trees on the way to a safe house – or so I was told. No first names, just crushing handshakes from men who I still had no idea why, would want to meet me.

“See that tree there,” he growls, the tall one in the bomber, about half way through the journey. Hasn’t introduced himself, but the body language – theirs – tells me who he is. The Beast. “You fucking cross us and that’s where you’ll swing.” Baseball cap turns from my right and looks right at me. “We’re sizing it up for you,” he laughs.

*

It’s all about Respect. The ritual of Respect you could call it. That’s what it was then; them showing me who’s the boss. A play carried out from the knee cappings of Northern Ireland to the basement cells of Beirut – staring your own, short future in someone’s granite-hard eyes. No/Fucking/Mercy/

I suppose it’s about showing the other guy you’re a Somebody. About knowing he’ll push a bottle in your face without a second thought. And you’d do it to him as well. Respect. Not some word from the New York ghettos uttered by a ‘gang banga’, but very real, alive, carried by these men, born on the ugly, soulless estates and cul-de-sacs which they were now using as a base for the Struggle.

Let me tell you – white, working class, English-style Respect is just your pub/fight culture taken to its logical extreme. Respect the toughest geezer in the pub, the one who can hold his own with a pool cue or glass. Not fists, just the meanest cunt there is. Pure animal, someone who doesn’t fear (or is too stupid not to). You don’t like him, you may not even look up to him – but you fear him. And that counts for a lot in the Movement. Like fat Charlie said to me that time – you don’t think to take on those three gypsy brothers, bad blood between your family and theirs, you just get fucking stuck in, take an ashtray to the side of the head and carry on. It’s not a time for rational debate, is it? The question hangs aggressively in the air the way Charlie puts it, and I’m not going to be the one who says ‘no’.

It almost reeks on their breath – this world they live in, not mine, a place where you drink in the violence, drugs and pure ‘maleness’, as much as you swallow any beer. Bit of coke here, bit of blo’ there, other dealers persuaded by bricks, bats and ugly, hooded violence to leave the areas where many of them had spent their whole lives.

I remember my old flatmate, Keeble, way before I met The Beast, or ever started hunting him. Right fucking scumbag, as they’d say in the lingo. A Tennants Super-before-breakfast kind of man (with a degree from Cambridge somewhere in his dim, non-alcoholic/junkie past), who’d once tried to take me apart at three in the morning as I slept in my bed, after a pill binge too far – but that’s another story.

He’d spent six years stuck on some cement tower block in Stockwell, preferring the guarantee of the council flat to life on his todd. Presumably not for the great views you got of old Blighty. Got stuck in with some right dodgy characters, crackheads, guys who ripped off other dealers, that kind of quality citizen. A life of smashed windscreens, going down the chippy – to have something with the crack – and trying to stop your mate with the glassy, bulging, staring eyes, getting in the car with the young, terrified couple at the filling station, screaming for more money you uptight cunts!

I spent hours playing pool with Keeble, watching him calm the nerves with some Jellies and Pride, desperate and violent to win, whilst he told me of the squat, smoke-filled pubs, the centre of the estates trading well into the night with the latest haul – videos, Nike trainers, all the latest gear of every kind – both consumer goods and drugs. Heart of the ‘black’ economy, more business there than in the rest of the high street.

And if the landlord complains, some gentlemen pay him a visit, Keeble says, wearing his sideways smile. Except mostly they never do. They’re part of it as much as anyone else, and you’re never going to stop it, says he. That’s the way it always was and is – at least, that’s what Keeble, and a lot of the Lads, will tell you. Alien culture. Where the hate on the streets of the World Cup breeds, unchecked.

All spewing out of the manufacturer’s box as men fight for a second of power, of belonging, of being somebody in this shitty, lonely, frightening world. Yeah, you can make a lot of money doing this. Don’t look down on them, don’t make the mistake of thinking they’re poor or can’t help themselves. They can.

Except, as I later learnt, that wasn’t His world either. Which made me even more confused, and fucked everything up again.

*

Here I am, locked in with a guy who’s been boxing since the age of nine – something his mum made him do, to calm his aggression – and who’s spent his childhood from 10 up, in solitary confinement from one institution to another. Yet who doesn’t drink, hates smoking, goes red when he has to watch a stripper with the lads in the pub on collection Sunday, and has this weird, dangerous sense of honour.

I’d first heard of him back in 1991. A man with so much hatred inside him, who fills the room with sheer physical presence, that you can’t help but be intimidated. Only five-ten, but broad, with powerful arms and chest, and a washboard stomach – a brutal, squashed version of Tom Cruise. Which I know sounds weird, but is kind of appropriate too once you’ve seen him. Comes complete with dark, brooding furrows carved on his brow, short, brown hair, a rumbling voice used to guttural outbursts. A loner with dozens of followers in tow. A fanatical book reader, uncomfortable with emotion. All cocooned inside the exoskeleton of that huge green, bomber jacket.

A man who doesn’t even have to play the respect game like most of the rest – he lives it. Not the hardest man, nor the most skilled. Simply the most dangerous, as his best mate told me – You may be the world’s best kickboxer, but would you go into someone’s house at the dead of night and kill them in their sleep? Just think on that, he says, and slaps me on the back with a friendly smile, before turning back to his pint. Right.

Like that bloke fly-posting for the SWP, 1992, during the early days of the mob.

Just cruising on a cold, wet Sunday. Bored in Bermondsey. They’d seen the ANL posters, got fired up, passed the cheeky fucking students almost before they’d seen them. Right. They were going to do those soft red cunts. Reversed the car right into them. Most legged it, but one guy had his back to it all, too intent on his brush and paste job to notice, until it was too late. His first time out with the group as well. Took an iron bar to the side of the head, went down like the proverbial sack of tatties. The others put the boot in whilst our man whips out the screwdriver, stabs him 12 times in the back and the legs.

Oh, he survived all right. Once he’d got over the physical injuries. Except he had a couple of nervous breakdowns on the way and had to leave the country. Last I heard he was in Mexico. Shivered in fright just telling me about it, even three years after it had happened.

Of course, there was that other time when he fell asleep with the gun in his lap, waiting for the coppers to kick in the door, after the car chase and the Danish bombs. But I’ll tell you more about that later, eh?

What’s important, though, was as I sat in that car, watching those trees go by and surrounded by those nutters, I realised that it was mostly bullshit. Not that they didn’t do these things – they did – but that they were scared of me. Funny that. They were paranoid, watching for a tail, certain I’d set them up in some way, or was wired for sound, or part of a state conspiracy. But really it was about power – trying to make me fear the physical force they possessed, yet aware that they were now stepping into another world, a place where they had no control.

I realised I was the one with the power; the writer, journalist, enemy, but also the first one who would listen. Maybe that was why. Someone was really going to see inside them for the first time.

*

She’d been calling me since 9.30 that morning. The messages almost tumbling over one another as they leapt from the handset. We’d never spoken, let alone met. My number just scribbled on a desperate, forlorn scrap of paper she’d found in the back pocket of his jeans. Her lifeline to the outside world, I suppose. She just guessed it was me. The Enemy – but someone, the only one, not her friends or family – who would really understand what was going on.

“There’s been a bit of a problem.” Understatement.

There’d been 30 or more of them in all. Two ambulances outside, him paraded like some Roman captive, shackled, naked – bastards wouldn’t even let him put his pants on – into the waiting van. The cold morning, even on this summer’s day, shrivels him. Neighbours all out to watch, woken by the noise. Must have been over in less than a minute. I still can’t fucking believe that she got the door replaced so quick. I mean, keeping the place tidy is one thing, but that?? Five in the morning the shit hits the fan, by 10 it’s all back in place. Bizarre.

But she didn’t think so. “Yeah, what was really strange, Nick – by the way, he always talks about you, y’know? – was they were videoing the whole place after they took him. Every inch, even the loft, and the plug sockets. Everything. They were very polite after that, then just left.” Inhales deeply on her fourth or fifth ciggie. “Why d’you think that was?”

Innocence, stupidity, or deviousness? The cops don’t video your place, they take sniffer equipment in there, to find the bombs, or any trace of explosive. Round that neat, tidy, immaculate home, trying to discover where he’d put the C4. The plastic which had gone to those dozen addresses in the UK, to that famous swimming star and TV presenter with the black husband, to the Swedish Justice Minister and all those others as well. Just the start of the war, before they got out the heavy weapons...

Her movement breaks my reverie. She’s running her hand through her hair, before checking herself in the hallway mirror as she moves back into the kitchen with the cups. Washes them without a second thought, body on automatic. “They’ve given him an enemy now,” she calls through the divide. “And you know Wil. He won’t stop at nothing.”

The statement sits coldy, alien, with the rest of our conversation. “He won’t stop at nothing.” If you know Wil, that’s literally what it means. The only way he’ll stop is when he’s dead, or inside. But I’m also secretly relieved. I’m no longer the enemy. In fact, more the confidant, at least now with her I suppose. She can’t talk to her folks – or the few girls she has left she can call friends (tells me, in sad tones, how she lost her one good friend, black, when she found out who Wil was) – only me. What a weird, fucked up world, eh?

I look at her again. She’s very....well, ordinary. Not what I’d come to expect. Except you don’t really know what to expect in this game, do you? All I can say is she was a complete contrast to the others I’d met. Not your Sun-single-mother-council-slag stereotype. No rubble lying around the outside of the house (which they own), no screaming kids, endless line of boyfriends or any of that other bullshit that comes as part of the territory with the other’s wives and girlfriends. Just – dare I say it – almost a ‘Middle England’ pride.

She sees me looking at that incongruous jacket. “It’s all I’ve got left of him. He’s gone now.” The soft, polite tones calm, resigned. Almost as though she’d been expecting it. Oh, she was in shock alright, but something about her manner spoke of Fate, that this was her lot as she stood by her man. Fate had put them together, and now it would force them apart. She didn’t ask questions about it, that’s just the way it was when you were with Wil. With everyone she knew, her mum, dad, aunts, uncles. Almost as though it was something you were born with, not something you could – or would want to – change. Doomed, long suffering loyalty, as depressing as the atmosphere was surreal.

But she just keeps repeating that mantra, over and over again: “At the end of the day, as long as I’ve got them, as long as I’ve got my babies, it’ll all be alright...”

What was she doing with him? It’s not as if they have a quiet life. Well, she’s the one person who can stand up to him – and live – I suppose. And in his own way, he loves her too. Wouldn’t do anything to harm her. Would kill any other boyfriend, he tells her, but would never touch a hair on her head.

She smiles warmly when she tells me, that time he took her back to Jersey, and proposed. Dead romantic, he can be, our Wil. Took her to the beach, told her he had a special spot and – ivory cheeks turning red, coy grin emerging – she’d thought they were going to...well...do it you know? We both laugh, enjoying each other’s company now.

Except all she could see for miles around the dunes was this pillbox. Where we going Wil? You’ll see, he says, all mysterious. Couple of minutes later they fetch up against this old, dirty grey, urine-stinking concrete box, and there he is pointing out some adolescent etchings on the side of the thing. Someone’s signature – his. “Used to play war here as a kid.” Pause. “Good, eh?”

“Oh,” she says, a bit deflated, looking at his flushed smile. Well, at least he’s smiling, so better not say anything? It’s nice when he’s in this mood anyway – even if the romance isn’t quite how she pictured it...

I mean, when you were with Wil, you just accepted some things that came with the territory. Like when they’d had that blazing row, and he’d changed all the locks whilst she was asleep, and left her locked inside the house for a couple of days. Or when she’d hit him and he’d kicked her back and the baby had gone for him. Puts her hand to her small mouth and chokes back the laughter, remembering ‘Hess’ going straight for his balls, hanging on as he shrieked and kicked it, finally flinging the huge thing to the corner of the room and kicking it in the side of the head; her running for the kennel, climbing inside with the other animal, joined by the injured one soon after, hiding there for the next half hour whilst she heard all this banging and commotion coming from upstairs. Finally seen him emerging with a broom he’d fashioned into a spear, carving knife fastened to the end, stalking quietly out onto the lawn, then prodding into the dark recess, trying to get the dogs out the way so that he could grab her...them standing their ground, her shrieking, neighbours silent as ever. Must have ended alright, though? Can’t remember now. We just kissed and made up, I think...

No, it wasn’t all bad. Of course, he needed a bit of prompting now and then.

Darren had once told him to get her something from duty free, after one of the trips across to the Continent on Movement business. Why, what for? replies The Beast, genuinely dumbfounded, holding his bag of twenties and fifties. Well, because that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to do for women, Wil. Oh, says he, and they go into this cosmetics shop. Can’t bring himself to look at the perfume counter, might get contaminated or something, the cunt behind it’s eyeing him up, what does he want, bit of trouble? Darren pulls him away, then strolls off. Let him get on with it, no point being too close to him in this mood. Anyway, what can go wrong? Later, on the plane, Wil shows him what he bought her. Lovely bottle. Darren agrees, yeah, pricey...except it’s aftershave, mate. The Beast just looks at him for a while, says are you taking the piss? No says Darren, laughing inside, but knows better than to push it.

Or when they’d been in Belgium. This skin they were staying with had this lovely black bust of Hitler, huge fucking thing, solid iron, it was. Got to have that, says Wil, how much? Probably made by the score in some Turk’s sweatshop in East Germany, but the geezer ums, and ahhs, before finally relenting after a bit of hard bargaining (and knowing this crazy Englishman’s reputation from all the neo-nazi vids they played over there) settles on an extortionate price. Wil calls Jackie, tells her he’s got something for her, she’ll love it. Her all surprised, excited when he turns up, this huge box under his arm. Then turns round and pulls out this small pack of choccies, Milk Tray, which he’d just picked up in the 7 Eleven round the corner. These are for you, he grunts, mindful of Darren watching. Keeps the bust for himself (not that I’d have wanted it anyway, she sighs).

He tries, does my Wil, and I love him for who he really is, she says – the side that none of those rightwing scumbags ever see. After all, someone’s got to look after him. If I don’t, who will?

*

The phone rings. Just one call, then the machine switches on. Her voice tiny, distant, squeaking out some ancient message. Silence. Then: “Jacqueline!” A command, roar. Gravelly, echoing, familiar. “Jacqueline, I know you’re there! Answer the phone Jacqueline!”

– feel the hair starting to rise on the back of my neck –

She picks it up, nervous, happy, excited, anxious.

“Awright Wil!” she croons, quivering, nasal. Squeezes the jacket about her, hard, biting back the tears. “How ya doin’, how are ya?” she says, repeating herself over and over again. She tries to stop, to hold it back, but is unable.

Now begins the real test. She has her part to play, the supporting cast to the lead star – an unwitting role, not one she wants but which she can’t avoid – like so many of the other wives and girlfriends. ‘Support Your Man’, now showing at police stations across the land! Ten years or more of prison visits, bringing in fags, phonecards, books, collecting money for the support groups. And remaining faithful while the kids forget what he looks like, while she has to run the household, get on with life, become strong. She needs someone here, who can face up to their responsibilities, be a father, be with her – not some hero of the movement, languishing in a cell. This man she sees a few times a year growing more distant, a piece of the past, not the future.

“What’s goin’ on, what they doin’?” she gushes, barely waiting for the reply. “How they treatin’ ya?”

And all the while, I’m just staring, thinking: how the fuck did he manage to call when I was here? Talk about sod’s law. Or does he suspect? That thought doesn’t even bear entertaining.

Through the haze of panic, I dimly hear her chattering happily to him: “Yeah, oh right. You got a brief then? Where shall I bring your clothes?”

Goes quiet for a minute, intent, listening. Then says: “Don’t worry. Keep your chin up, chicken!”

Chicken??

Then she says it again. Bloody chicken?! Christ, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Talk about surreal. He’d kill me if he knew I was sitting here listening to them saying that. Have to pinch myself and look away. Delayed reaction – my God, laughter, choke it back – crawling up the back of my throat. Turn back, then away again, almost sneezing it out involuntarily. Now I could swear she’s clucking contentedly herself. But him?? The Beast? The man with no emotions, no vulnerable side?

How can I put it? One of the most violent men in Britain. Leader of Europe’s primary neo-nazi organisation. A man who associates with Satanic death cults, Loyalist paramilitaries, Danish terrorists – and more – swapping his little love names from the depths of his Paddington Green cell. There he is, dressed in his police-issue, white plastic boiler suit, probably surrounded by anti-terrorist cops, on a bugged phone. And all the while I’m listening in to this surreal private moment, half amazed, almost embarrassed, slopping the contents of the fine porcelain cup over my knee, unnoticed.

Then she turns, cradling the handset in the pale hollow of her neck, and looks at me: “I ‘ave, he’s sittin’ ‘ere!” she says, dropping her clipped Surrey English, mouth close – yet so far – from his. Holds out the handset towards me, smiling happily. “Slippery,” she says, without a hint of irony, “he wants to speak to you.”

– shit. Panic replaces the laughter. The room’s closing down on me, and I can feel the tea shifting in my guts, ready to go right through. Heart’s beating too fast, and the sweat is gathering, rancid and greasy, under my shirt –

Suddenly, I just want to get out of this claustrophobic little house. Away from these mad people and their crazy, dangerous, locked world – a place I’m being sucked into further and further, away from the mirage of the nice, safe life that all my friends lead. Self-pity wells up, and I can feel tears of frustration eating at the corners of my eyes.

“Alright Wil.” Bland. I can’t even remember what I say next. Just wanting to get off the bugged phone. His one allotted call to the outside world and of all the people, I get it. And in his place, too.

“Ah, Slippery.” Slow, pointed, dangerous. Hypnotic. Almost melancholic, yet somehow disappointed. Have I broken some unwritten law or rule? “Didn’t take you long to get inside my house...did it?” I draw in breath to reply, but he’s there first: “Don’t worry, you won’t find anything of interest. The police took it all away.”

He waits, expectantly. It’s clear I’m going to have to say something. Make a conversation. But all my thoughts are about getting away, cutting this off dead. Conscious all the while of some fat bloke from Special Branch or MI5 listening in, chomping on his chips and donut, or whatever they do, suddenly pricking up and matching my details to some file. Closing in on me.

Maybe I could just put the phone down? But I don’t.

Instead, I nervously crack a joke about having my feet up on his favourite chair, how I’m enjoying tea with his woman. Then immediately think that sounds fucking stupid. Shit, what did I say that for? That’s really going to pacify the situation!

It’s dead at the other end. Just steady breathing.

I turn and stare at the wall, calming my nerves, controlling myself, away from Jackie’s wide, unblinking eyes.

“What’s happening?” I say, filling in the silence, unable to think of anything more original, half-expecting the explosion to catch me down the phone. “Have you been charged with anything?”

Pause. Then he says, calmly: “I don’t know.” You can imagine the dark line of his thunderous brows joining, creasing as he thinks hard for a second.

“Oi, mate! What am I in here for?” Roars out to someone in the room. I haven’t even got time to register disbelief, before a disembodied voice calls back: “Conspiracy to cause explosions and endanger life.” And he just repeats it down the phone to me, all casual-like. Then carries on chatting away, like nothing’s happened.

“It doesn’t look good, does it?” What am I supposed to say? “Well, you know...” I start, then run out of sentence.

– and this weird feeling hits me, knowing that we’re chatting here like mates, but both aware of the real score –

But he doesn’t mind, just carries on: “How long do you think I’ll get? 10, 15?”

And then, to top it off – the bastard’s almost enjoying this, I could swear – he says: “Oh well, the fight has to go on, Slippery. It’s all down to you now.”

And by now I was nearly in tears. I just wanted to get off this fucking phone. Yet here’s this madman actually taking the piss out of the coppers – out of me, not giving a shit that I’m in his house, with his woman – in fact, out of the whole thing. Revelling in it.

Of course, the Rage is there – the bastards wouldn’t even let him put his pants on when they took him, he shouts, as much to the silent officers listening in as to me – but he seemed convinced this was It. The Final Call. Wasn’t moaning about his fate, as such. Almost as though he’d been waiting for it. This was his day (I later learnt he’d taunted the coppers, telling them that their Grass – the Fat Man – “was going to swing”).

And it was then I decided that was it, enough, no more. I was out of the game.

Gave her back the receiver, waited for her to finish, then told her I had to get back to the studio, as the coppers would be calling soon. She didn’t seem surprised. Just played that wan smile again, shook my hand, then changed her mind and gave me a petite hug, showing me to the sun-dappled glass of the front door – and freedom. I left, laughing.

*

6pm, north London:

Central London number, not one I recognise. It blinks angrily, incessantly, demanding an answer.

Who now? The last thing I want to do is chat to some tabloid hack about football hooligans and the bloody World Cup.

Flip open the clammy handset, weaving my way through the crowded street, swearing occasionally as I bump into irate commuters.

And it chuckles.

“Ah, Slippery.” Wha?...“I’m out.”

Stunned, silent disbelief.

It chuckles again. “You can’t keep a good man down, you know...”

Then: “Come and meet me – and bring your credit cards. I’m hungry...”

***

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