Darren was a psycho. Not the run of the mill football hooligan, a dangerous right wing fanatical lunatic psycho. He was standing in front of me, a six foot six, tattooed, cropped hair, a sixteen stone thug, his white tee shirt splashed with blood. My blood ran cold, what the fuck was I doing here?

Not the brightest knife in the drawer, Darren was Tommy Scotts enforcer, Tommy was the driving force behind National Action, and ultra right-wing proscribed organisation. The group being responsible for organised attacks on many ethnic groups, predominately brown or black races. Mostly they facilitated and organised, there were enough fascist bastards roaming the streets of East London to do their dirty work, all they did was to wind them up and point them in the right direction, adding a bit of expertise where it was needed.

“Darren, where have you been, how did you get like that, Tommy will be pissed off if you’ve been getting your face in the middle of some aggro”.

“Matter of honour Oliver, fucking Somali twat been sniffing around my sister, nothing a good beating wont sort out.”

Oliver wasn’t my real name, neither is Jason, I won’t bore you with my many identities. I’m undercover with Special Branch.

“Right, lets have those gloves, and the rest of your clothes,” I pulled out a bin liner from the desk drawer, “all of it in here, there’s one of those forensic jump suits in the locker, get that on for now, we can’t have that donkey dick of yours scaring the girls, can we. What did you use on him?”

“I took one of the baseball bats we had hanging around”

“Where is it?” I asked

“I put it in a bin” he responded.

Fuckwit I thought, he was wearing gloves, just hope he wiped it clean.

I had been working on Tommy Scott for eighteen months now and had assembled a good level of intelligence on him and the other leaders of the organisation. They were funding operations by way of a mixture of methods, some came from pub collections, some came from donations out of European groups, but this was no where near enough to finance the running costs. The rest came from crime, principally dealing in drugs. It had taken a long time to ingratiate myself at the right level in the organisation, and tonight would be the payoff.

Tommy had been cosying up with a Colombian, who was putting a large shipment of cocaine his way. This was something Tommy couldn’t leave to others.

Tonight, he would be taken along with the Colombian, with everything else we had, it should be easy to “persuade” him to work with us and round up the rest of the organisation. The team had been readied, there were already a few armed officers hunkered down in the inside of the warehouse waiting. Bloody special forces, they always had to be dramatic.

So, I really didn’t need Darren’s shit this morning. I tossed the bag to Darren, “get rid of this, get it burnt, and get some clothes, now fuck off, I want that bat back”

He left and I simmered.

Two hours later I was in Tesco’s picking up some lunch, but in reality, meeting my handler Derrick, when my phone rang. It was Tommy.

“Fucking Darren’s got himself arrested, they are accusing him of offing some immigrant, something to do with his kid sister, so I need another body to night, I’ll pick you up at seven thirty at the club”.

Not in the plan.

“It’s ok” Derrick said, “Andy and Allen are sniping, they are good shooters”.

He was smiling, I couldn’t see the funny side.

“We will have to take you in and rough you up a bit, can’t having them thinking you are a rat.”

I realised that. I wasn’t worried about our lot, it was the Colombians worried me, they tended to spray lead everywhere. Luckily it went to plan, Allen and Andy dropped two Colombian soldiers before they could cock their Uzi’s and when the troops went in the hands went up, very professional, very quick, I was proud of our guys.

They had me cooped up in a windowless interview room for a few hours, whilst Tommy was getting the full treatment. Derrick appeared; he wasn’t looking quite so chipper.

“Tommys not going to crack easily, if at all, I think he’s either prepared to take the consequences, or he’s too scared to turn. The Columbian is another case, he’s going to take the offer and go into protection. So, we are going to get a drugs ring out of this. We will keep up pressure on Tommy, at least we will have disabled the organisation a little. We have another problem though, plod want to talk to you about the death of a young Somali man, he was beaten to death with a baseball bat. They have the murder weapon, and they have a print which matches yours”

He left that statement hanging. Fucking Darren I thought. I filled Derrick in on what happened earlier, obviously Darren donkey dick hadn’t thought about who else might have handled the bat before him.

“I want to tell Tommy you are talking and spilling information, we will pull you out, and it means we have to move you into protection for a while, out of plods way. They can’t be arresting you and putting you on remand, can they?”

Fuck no I thought I wouldn’t last a day, there were too many right-wing nutters in nick ready to jump to Tommy’s orders. I could almost feel the shiv at my throat.

My wife wouldn’t come into protection, but I couldn’t stay with her and my daughter, it would have risked their lives. So, shortly after the raid I found myself in an apartment in the Bedminster area of Bristol. Food and cooking had always been my other passion, so they found me a kitchen hands job in a local restaurant. It was a dramatic change in my life, but I embraced it, and found a different direction.  Even if I could, I knew I wouldn’t go back to Special Branch, in my early thirties, that life was over.

Bristol was far enough from London, yet still a big enough city to hide in, I worked and rose through the ranks of kitchen aide to sous chef, until I became a head chef. I had no time for relationships, and I somehow, I still felt I could get my wife and daughter back. That loss was the most painful part of my new life.

I read about a vacancy in an old world type of pub in Widecombe in the Moor. I always wanted to get back to the countryside where I was born, eight years had passed since London, and I was feeling safer, maybe I could settle down there and bring may family to the village, Louise hadn’t re married apparently. At any rate I could get a dog and immerse myself in the countryside, perhaps I could take up photography as a hobby, I applied and got the job.

Derrick didn’t have a high opinion of my action. He warned me about any publicity, that might raise my head over the parapet of anonymity. I would come to wish I had taken notice.