I did… Staines, Milton Keynes, Crawley, Kidderminster, Haysham, East Trilling,… away days… and the mountain of cash began to shape. But, you’ve got to have a front. The old Bill are going to come sniffin’ sure as shooting. You need chameleon image. What you can show but can’t be pinned down. They look you over, yer business could be gold, could be shite.

Repo men. Yeah… that’s what we put out. Ain’t it the way of the world though, how it turns. First you got to get it, then you’ve got to bloody hide it. ‘GOD REPOSSESSES AND SO DO WE’.

It wasn’t going to hurt me to be up to me ass in cars. Money follows money. We rented a lock-up in Victoria, got the phone in and put small ads in the trades, in the locals. Here’s what it read:

‘Cat got yer tongue

they’ve got yer car

if you want to re-possess

give us a bell

THE R.R. (RIGHTEOUS REPO).’

And fuck me, ain’t it rich, the business took off. According to the Met, there’s a car nicked every two seconds in inner London alone. Jeez we were swamped. Had to take on staff and rent more space. Exciting too, see how long it took to track and move a vehicle. Then the movie came out, Repo Man with Emilio Estevez. Business boomed. I half fancied I was a touch like Emilio meself, that broody dark shit… yeah. You figure we packed in the banks? Never happen, no way. The Doc had my number. It was my very adrenaline, the juice in my veins. Sure, I liked the repo, the cars it brought me in contact with, the money, but it was like comparing a hand job to wild sex, a spoon of shandy up against a bottle of Walker.

We figured on a few rules early. No partners, strictly a two-man operation. If it needed more, then pack it in. Trust no one. The Doc had a prayer for us:

‘God keep us smart, fast

and mobile

the rest we’ll handle

ourselves.’

Seems God was listening. Then.

We must have got Him on a good day. Thing is, I reckon He enjoys a bit of villainy too. Else how to account for the Tory party. And mostly what we got was careful. Kevin Costner as Elliot Ness in The Untouchables is urged by his wife to be careful. He says, ‘like mice at a crossroads’.