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boundary. A few minutes later we crest ed a rise to see the rolling Oxfordshire countryside laid out below us , with away in the middle distance, the huge squat slumped cooling towers of Didc ot power station with the permanently rising plumes of white steam si t ting slap bang in the centre of the view.
    In the sunshine it was a pleasant run through the country villages and out across to the M40 for a short hop up to the turn off at junction 9 and on to the A41 .
    Getting in to see Wibble was much as I had expected. I knew the drill from long experience in my other , now long distant life , from when I’d been to see other prisoners, Damage amongst them, but under my own name as a journalist on the paper . T he security checks, the searches, the signing i n . The only thing that was differ ent this time was the knowledge that I was doing it using a false ID, one that had been supplied by the club, and that as far as I knew, the police still had me down as let ’ s just say someone they would like to have helping them with their enquiries into the suspected murder of Inspector Bob Cameron just six months ago or so.
    But obviously the club’s guys, w h oever they were, h ad do ne a good enough job. Bung had said the main stuff was all real and I had no reason to doubt it, certainly they all looked kosher enough to me .
    St ill , I was relieved to find they looked genuine enough to the prison officers as well as they processed me and passed me through , until eventually I was shown into a small interview room to wait .
    A couple of minutes later there was a rattling of the door lock on the other side of the room and with a nod of a guard’s head, Wibble was shown in.
    As my cover story was that I had come from Wibble’s solicitors, I had a convincing set of legal papers laid out in front of me on the table. Again Bung had sourced these for me, having them deliver ed to the hotel the previous day. The good thing about this pretence was that as a prisoner on remand, any of his conversations with his legal representatives were regarded as privileged and so our conversations would be held in private.
    God bless due process.
    Other than his standard issue prison clothes of sweatshirt and jeans rather than riding gear , and the lack of his colours, Wibble looked much the same as the last time I had seen him, the same rangy frame, the same wolfish grin , and the same piercing direct gaze.
    ‘ Hi ,’ he said pulling out a chair to sit down opposite me at the Formica table, ‘G ood to see ya again. ’
    Is it , I wondered ? ‘Well it wasn’t really my choice. ’
    ‘ Oh well, suppose it wasn’t , ’ he said cheerfully, ’as it happens, this place wasn’t really my idea either . B ut here we are though all the same. ’
    ‘So how did you find me then?’ I asked.
    ‘Well that wasn’t so difficult. Were you surprised? I wouldn’t have thought you were that dumb to think you’d actually got away with it.
    ‘Did you really think I’d just let you wander off and disappear with what you’ve got up there,’ he said , leaning over and miming a pistol with his fingers he prodded me twice at the temple.
    Then smiling again, he leant back in his chair.
    ‘You can’t hide in the countryside you know ,’ he opined, ‘t hat’s the mistake you made. You stand out in the countryside. Now it’s different in the s moke. You can hide in the cities. In town, you blend into the background ; and speaking of smokes , d id ya b ring any fags with you ? ’
    Same old Wibble I thought , always the practicalities.
    ‘ So, what’s it like in here ?’ I asked , passing over the packs that Bung had supplied me with.
    He leaned back in his chair . ‘ Here? Well i t’s not too bad I s’pose . I’ve s een worse . ’
    I was a bit surprised at that. Bullingdon had a reputation for overcrowding. But then I guess that given Wibble’s reputation and the number of other club guys in the place at the moment he wasn’t going to be