Bonded by Blood by Bernard O'Mahoney Page A

matter: according to the tabloids, everyone who is sent to prison these days gets given their own television anyway, so Thomkins was in luck.
    I could have done without Thomkins’s problem at that particular time. The police in Basildon, although maintaining their distance, were keeping a very watchful eye on my activities. Whatever, Thomkins was in trouble and I felt obliged to help. I wouldn’t be able to keep him at my house because the police often watched those who came and went. I rang Pat, the landlady at a pub called the Owl and Pussycat in Basildon. I had sorted out a bit of trouble for her when she ran a pub in Southend. I asked her if she would put my friend up for the night. Pat asked me what the problem was. It was no good lying, so I told her Thomkins had shot somebody. At first, she was reluctant to help me, which is understandable – she had never even met the man and he had just attempted to murder somebody; the thought of spending the night alone with him must have been quite unnerving – however, in the end, she relented.
    I met Thomkins in Basildon in the early hours of the morning and took him to Pat’s pub, where he spent the night. We would decide what we were going to do in the morning when he had a clearer picture. The following day we contacted people in Bath to try and find out about Steve Woods’s condition. We learned that Thomkins had blasted a large hole in Woods’s upper thigh. It was unlikely that he would ever be able to walk properly again. His life was not in danger, but the police were treating it as an attempted murder.
    We arranged for people to pick up the gun and dispose of it, and for Thomkins to go and stay with some people in Liverpool for a few days while the dust settled. The dust, unfortunately, in Thomkins’s mind, didn’t take long to settle. Within a week, Thomkins rang from Liverpool. He told me he had outstayed his welcome and had nowhere else to go. I had a friend in Edinburgh who would put him up, but Thomkins wanted to come back to Basildon. I sorted it out with the landlady at the pub again and he returned.
    I knew Pat would not put up our fugitive for ever, so it was decided that Thomkins’s problem in Bath had to be sorted out sooner rather than later. It wasn’t going to be easy because of the nature of the offence. Trying to persuade a man who had been shot that the person who had done it was not all that bad and didn’t deserve to go to prison was going to take more than tact.
    Woods had a bit of form himself, so he knew the score. It meant our task was not impossible. I rang Billy Gillings, the man who had done the deal on Steve and Nathan’s car, and asked him if he would mediate and arrange a meeting between myself and Woods. If it made Woods feel safer, he could bring anyone he wished.
    Billy went to see Woods and he agreed to meet at Leigh Delamere motorway services near Bristol. Woods insisted that his brother, who was nicknamed Noddy, should accompany him. When he was discharged from hospital I went to the meeting on my own. The Woods brothers and I all sat down at one of the cafeteria tables. Noddy Woods started getting a bit lippy about Thomkins, so I told him in no uncertain terms that we didn’t have to sit there and discuss it. I was offering him and his brother a way out. ‘If you persist with your lip,’ I said, ‘you’ll get taken out of the game like your brother. I suggest you go and get some tea for us both, while I discuss this with Steve.’
    It was important to let him know who was in the driving seat. I told Woods that we didn’t normally do deals with people who inform on one of our number to the police but because he had suffered over a rather trivial matter we were making an exception. We were prepared to offer him £20,000 not to make a statement against Thomkins.
    Woods said he had already made a statement. I said he would be paid the money if he retracted it. Woods wanted half upfront and half on completion, but I told