by Lee, Jane
But it was Brett who had caused these problems with our once happy family, by sleeping with Mary. It was Brett who brought a night of trouble into our home. And it was the Gran who had brought the guns back into our lives for protection. Jane was slowly slipping away.
Paul, who was five years older than me, moved in but it only lasted a year. To be honest, it all got a bit ugly. We should have never got together because we ruined a lifelong friendship. To cut a long story short, I had heard that Rosie thought I wasn’t good enough for her brother, which was hard to take coming from such a good friend. Rosie and I fell out over it, which I regret to this day. And if I could change anything that I’d ever done, I’d take back my row with Rosie because I lost the best friend I ever had that day. I also regret having been with Paul. Yes, we had our happy times for a while. We even got married. But he had three teenage girls by his ex and they hated me because they thought I was standing in the way of their mum and dad getting back together. The kids were wrong because Paul and his ex had been living separately for two years before I came on the scene. I would never come between a man and his woman. Paul had lived with Rosie for over a year after splitting up and by the time we got together he was living in his flat on his own. It didn’t matter to the kids and that simple fact doomed my relationship with Paul.
I had told him we needed to do his flat up for the kids when they visited him there. So we did it up. It wasn’t much but it was clean and homely. A proper nice flat and it was a clean place for him to see his kids. He needed somewhere like that because he couldn’t see them with his ex. But the children said they wouldn’t go up to the flat if I was there. One day the tyres on my car were slashed outside Paul’s flat so I stopped going. Lies were being told about me to everyone, even after I’d made that shithole of a flat into a home. At the end of the day, his kids weren’t babies. They were teenagers and, to tell you the truth, I’d have liked to have slapped them but I just took it all on the chin because these were Paul’s kids and I knew they were hurting over their mum and dad. I understood but they did piss me off. Still, looking back, I have to take my hat off to them. The loyalty they showed their mum was priceless and I would have done the same in their position.
To make matters worse, I started getting mail from the ex. I tried not to take any notice because she still loved him and this was her cry for help. Although I wanted to batter her, I put those thoughts out of my head because this was the mother of his kids and all that would do was make it worse for him. So I suffered it until one day I was in Prince Regent Lane in the East End, when all of a sudden the ex appeared in front of me. She had about six mates on the other side of the road. I now had a license to batter her. I never stole her bloke, I thought to myself. They split up long before I was with him. I gave her a bit of a pasting and, when I got home, the police were waiting for me. She was in hospital, they told me, and I was arrested for GBH. Would you believe it?
I told the law it was self-defence and they said Paul’s ex had written a statement against me and it looked bad. I told them she was nutty and it was all lies, and I produced the letters she had sent me. They dropped the charges. But two months later I got another letter from her saying that she and Paul were carrying on behind my back. I confronted him about it and he denied sleeping with her and I believed him. He did admit going round to her house for the sake of their kids. I couldn’t believe it. We had done his flat up so his kids could visit him, yet he was going to her house instead. I lost it. I started hitting him for just that reason. This woman had sat in a police station and written a statement against me and he was still in contact with her. He’d betrayed me and by now I knew I could never forgive a traitor. What a disappointment he had turned out to be. It was over. I’d looked up to this man, trusted him and would have died for him, and he wasn’t what I believed he was.
I knew he was hurting about our break-up but he was out of my life for good. I was gutted and sad but I knew there was no going back. But then one day I was told he had accused me of grassing him up after the police pulled him up on his bike for stealing scrap metal. I couldn’t be sure he had said it, but I had a reputation to protect. To make things even worse, by then I had got my fingers in a lot of criminal pies. I went mad. Call me what you like but not a grass. Nobody believed him but it had been said and I had to defend my reputation. If he had said it, he couldn’t have realised how far I would go to protect my name. He thought that, because I loved him, I wouldn’t blow him away. Well, sorry, I love my reputation more. I went home and got my guns. I was going to war. I was going to blow his fucking head off. I’d had enough.
I knew he was living at the flat we had done up and I set myself up in the flats opposite with a sniper’s rifle. It was an M16 carbine with three settings. Automatic, semi-automatic and single shot. I had it on the single-shot setting because I had a bullet with Paul’s name on it. I know it was mad. But I wanted to kill him. He wasn’t there and I waited for days but then I was spotted. It soon got around that it was me in the flats opposite with the rifle and now Paul was saying I was a hit woman but I didn’t care. As I said, call me what you like apart from a grass. And anyway, ‘hit woman’ had a sort of ring to it. Luckily for him, I never saw him. And I’ve never seen him since. The marriage was over. That’s one relationship I regret, as we were the best of friends all our lives and a lifelong friendship was ruined within a year. But time is supposed to heal everything and I even came to regret the way we split. I have no hard feelings towards him now. I wish him and his family all the happiness in the world. Maybe this had only been retribution anyway. I believe God pays debts without money. I was still with Brett when I slept with Paul so this was payback.
I was still OK. I had my son and we were very close. John was growing into a handsome young man. He was a lot like me in many ways. He was so loyal and his personality was amazing considering he was an only child. He didn’t have a nasty bone in his body, even though I spoiled him rotten. He had a heart of gold. Don’t get me wrong. If you mess with him, he will do you. That’s how he was, just like me. But if you were good to him, he would die for you. Everybody loved him though.
I had only given birth to one child, yet it was like I had a hundred, as John’s mates practically lived at our place. I bought him a caravan and parked it on the drive. It was like the local youth club in there. They had a stereo, PlayStation and everything they needed, and they loved it. It was better than them walking the streets, in my book. He was happy and that was all that mattered.
I was on my own though, money was short and, to tell you the truth, I was bitter. As I’ve said, I always knew there was another side to me but now it was out and here to stay, at least for a while. If there’s one thing I always tell people it’s that there were two of me. There was Jane and there was the Gran. And my advice to them was to be friends with Jane and not enemies with the Gran. Jane will love you, look after you, help you and never do you wrong. The Gran will shoot you or stab you. She will destroy you and love every minute of it. The choice was yours. It wasn’t that I wanted to be the Gran. Life just didn’t seem to let me be Jane.
I was told about a particular security guard who regularly took some £10,000 from businesses to the bank. I watched him for a couple of weeks before I took on the job. It was a success but I will be honest – I just about got away with that one by the skin of my teeth. After I grabbed the money bag, the guard started chasing me and he was not only bloody fast but seemed to have forgotten about my sawn-off. Now there was one man who did actually have balls. But I just made it to the car ahead of him and sped off. I couldn’t believe he had come after me. I mean, I hadn’t wanted to shoot him. Not really. On my jobs a shooter was just there as a deterrent. You never really wanted to use it. Anyway, I got away with it. Just.
I had just bought a car for £2,000 and I was able to pay off that debt. I paid the bloke who gave me the information and I ended up with £5,000 left over. With that I bought a kilo of speed and a kilo of puff to sell on.
I always liked puff myself, as it calmed me down – not a bad property for it to have in my case. When my world seemed like it was surrounded by barbed wire and thorns, I had a smoke and everything turned to roses and lilies. It was an illusion, I know, but sometimes, when everything is dark, who can blame you for putting the lights on, even if it’s a false light? It helped and, God, by now I needed a bit of help. Some people’s vice is drinking but mine was always puffing.
Now the Gran was really taking over because Jane couldn’t cope anymore. Everything she did just got stamped on and abused so I had to put her away where nobody could hurt her. If anybody tried to hurt the Gran, well, it would be their funeral.
6
THE BEER RAN OUT
It was a big, fuck-off weapon. It had a curved blade and a big handle because it was designed to be used two-handed, just as the Japanese samurai warriors used it.
‘That’s a lot of booze you’ve got in the back of your van,’ the customs official said as I sat behind the steering wheel of my yellow Transit van and waited to drive onto the Eurostar in Calais.
‘I’m getting married,’ I said. ‘We’re stocking up for the reception. It’s all for personal use and it’s much cheaper buying it this way.’
‘Funny that,’ he quipped back. ‘I reckon that must be the tenth time you’ve got married this month from what my colleagues tell me. You’re going backwards and forwards like a jack in the box.’
‘I keep falling for the wrong man and my plans keep changing,’ I said with a grin. I was behind the wheel and a good mate was sitting next to me in the passenger seat. She was also trying hard not to laugh. We were on the beer run. It was just like doing the booze cruise, only we were doing two runs a day, buying in bulk and selling the booze and fags to dodgy warehouses and off-licences who didn’t want to pay import duty. It was the best money I had ever made and I didn’t need my sawn-off. I felt sorry for Tracey because her husband had been cheating on her and one month before Christmas in 1995 he just did one and disappeared, leaving her and her four kids with nothing.
I had got into the beer game after one of my mates asked me to work for him. He was doing it, needed a driver and said he would pay me £50 a journey. I could do two trips a day for seven days a week if I wanted. It was good regular money so long as I didn’t get caught. I was already earning a few quid through the speed and the puff but I could always do with some more money. I was on my own now and you never knew when times would become hard again. While it’s there, grab it. I snatched his hand off.
John was ten by now and I had turned twenty-eight. Life had been hard but nothing I couldn’t deal with. At first Tracey took over at home looking after my boy while I’d do two journeys a day, seven days a week. It just went to show I didn’t mind doing some graft because it was hard. But I was supporting my boy and looking out for our future and I was happy with the work. In fact, I enjoyed it. The bloke I was working for was one of my mate’s husbands and I thanked her for trusting me with him on the road. She wouldn’t have let just anyone go with her fella but she knew I was proper. She said, ‘Jane, if there’s one person I know I can trust, it’s you.’ She asked me to keep my eye on him though and we both laughed.
The business relationship was good for the first few months, apart from the frequent occasions when I had to lend him the money to get the beer due to unforeseen circumstances. Basically, he was skint most of the time. I didn’t mind at first. But then I found out he was on crack cocaine and the money was going on his filthy habit. So I told him, ‘I’m not laying out all my money every day and doing all the work for £50 anymore. I want in on the profits and, if my money is making the profits, half of it is mine.’ He didn’t like it but he had no choice because, if I pulled my money out, he wouldn’t even have a business.
Then I found out he’d got a bird on the side. Now, I loved his missus – she was a true friend of mine who had put her trust in me. She had six kids and was living off benefits because he didn’t give her anything. In fact, he was even taking money off her to spend on crack with his other bird. I grew to hate him. I couldn’t tell his missus though. I couldn’t be the one to make her life more sad than it was already. But he knew I didn’t like what was going on. The crack had him in its grip so bad that he even lost his van over it.
I bought my own transport and before too long he was working for me. I was on a roll and life was finally being good to me. All I needed was to avoid being nicked. Tracey was still playing Mum and she did everything from looking after John to sorting out the bills, cooking and cleaning – everything really. I paid her well and she had whatever she wanted. The cash was rolling in. I was tired all the time but I was living and I was not being let down by some bloke being all mouth and no trousers.
I was not only the only women doing the beer run, I was the first. That may never go in the Guinness Book of Records but it remains a fact I am proud of. There would be 50 vans all driven by men. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t a lesbian but at this moment in time I was no lady. I was all woman though and some of the men tried to pull me. But I’d had enough of blokes by this time. It was me keeping house and home together and I didn’t want anything to rock the boat now that everything was looking like plain sailing. The blokes soon found out it was a mistake to get too friendly. I was there to do a job and get home to my John. End of.
‘Hello, darling. What’s a good-looking girl like you doing a job like this for?’ was a typical chat-up line. I would get it all the time. But I was very bitter, to say the least, and I blamed all men for the way I had been treated. I knew it was wrong but the Gran was out and in charge, and any man paying me a compliment or trying to get too friendly with Jane was likely to get the Gran answering him back.
‘Who the fuck are you talking to? What’s a fucking div like you doing a man’s job for?’ I didn’t make myself very popular but it worked. They couldn’t say a nice thing to me. They thought I was mad. In a way, I suppose I was, or at least single-minded. They usually knew from looking in my eyes that I wasn’t interested. A lot of people have said there was something in my eyes that showed I meant business.
‘Don’t look at me like that, darling,’ they would say.
‘Like what?’ I would reply. I knew very well what that look was. It was hard. I didn’t always know I was giving it. But there could be a message in my eyes. It was my gypsy blood and the life I had led. I was five-foot-seven with long blonde hair and a figure to die for. I really looked good but I was a hard bird by now and it was going to take a lot to make me melt. And, just in case any of those drivers weren’t getting the message and fancied their chances with me, I kept my samurai sword in my cab. I never had to use it though. Well, not on a driver because they just knew that one word back from them after I had warned them would result in severe repercussions.
My crack-addict mate continued to let me down by not turning up for work. But his little trips to see his other bird didn’t cause a problem once I had my operation up and running. In many ways I was glad to see the back of this bloke, as I’d had enough of his sort and how they treated women. He’d got me into the beer run – I was grateful for that – but that was about as far as it went.
I got one of my good friend’s two teenage girls to look after John indoors. They were 16 and 17 and their mum and dad were always on call if they were needed. John was loving it. He could have his mates stay and I supplied anything they needed, plus I was paying the girls a couple of hundred quid a week and they were more than happy. Things were running smooth and everyone was happy. For the first time in ages I could spend money. I was collecting antiques and I really got into it – furniture mostly. And I’d bought every bottle of champagne you could get, plus perfumes. I still had my collection of guns – all legal – knives and swords, and jewellery. And I’d bought everything myself – all the things I had always wanted but until now I could never afford. Nobody, apart from Rosie, had ever bought me anything when I was a little girl. Now my house looked like it was
an antique shop with antiques piled everywhere.
On one day off I went shopping in London at a military shop but arrived after closing time. I just knocked on the door and, when the man came to say he was closed, I pulled out a big wad of £50 notes and waved it at him. You should have seen his face. He couldn’t unlock the door quick enough. There was me in my army trousers and bomber jacket and Doctor Martens boots. I felt good with a pocket full of money. Next I went into Jane Norman in Oxford Street and, even though I don’t wear dresses, I thought they did look pretty. I bought eight dresses and two jackets and it came to over £2,000. I just put the cash on the counter in front of the startled assistants. I had a good figure in those days and those dresses looked good on me. Even after all my relationship problems, I wondered if a special man would come along and see me in them. But for the time being it was just nice to have enough money to be able to afford them.
I wasn’t the only one who was happy. John was loving it because he could have anything he wanted and, as long as he was happy, I was happy. I bought him a couple of 50cc schoolboy motorbikes and all the top games. I was spoiling the both of us. I know it sounds like I wasn’t spending a lot of time with John but I was doing what I could. I was a women living in a man’s world and I tried to spend as much time as possible with him when I finished work. But I was worn out. Usually, I would get home in the morning after a run and take John and all his mates to Southend, where I would buy them all lunch, give them money for fair rides and then I would crash out on the beach. Afterwards, John would come and wake me, we would all have dinner and then go home. It was crazy. I mean, I wasn’t sleeping in a bed, I was sleeping on Southend beach but, if meant I would have more time with my John, it was worth it. And we were all happy.
