by Lee, Jane
It wasn’t the perfect way to bring up your child but I was doing my best. He never moaned. He was the most handsome and perfect son. John and his mates even came to France with me sometimes. I paid them £30 each and they loved it because it was a bit of extra pocket money and a bit of an adventure. They worked really hard, loading and unloading. But I never let them come when they should be at school – only at weekends and on holidays. John didn’t even have to earn the money, as I gave him whatever he wanted but, being like me, he was keen to get stuck in and he worked as hard as any man I know. I was so proud of him – and still am.
The man I had started off with on the beer run soon wanted to come back to work with me when word got around about how well I was doing. But I wasn’t having it. I knew he was still treating my friend – his missus – and her kids like dogs. He was never at home and never paid the bills. I didn’t like it and I knew he thought that, because he was six feet tall and twenty stone (of fat), he could intimidate me. He tried anyway.
He came round and, before he was through the door, he started shouting about how I owed him. He thought that, because he could intimidate and scare his missus, he could do the same to me. I just picked up a bottle of spirits and smashed it across his head. He dropped to his knees and there was claret everywhere. Being hit with a full bottle is the same as being hit with a hammer but he was still screaming abuse so I grabbed another and did him again. Down he went for a second time but he got up, still shouting, ‘You mad bitch!’ and he came at me. But by now I’d grabbed my samurai sword and he turned in panic and ran for the door. At that point Tracey turned up. She took in this 20-stone idiot, blood everywhere, and me chasing him with my sword. The red mist had definitely descended. I know I might sound nutty but the people I was involved with were total villains – and he was the worst. He was off his head on crack and had no morals or honour and no loyalty to anyone. Everything I hated in a man. I wasn’t around innocent people with normal lives.
He got to his car just in time. As he slammed the door I smashed the blade straight through it. ‘Don’t you ever come back and threaten me in my home, you fat bastard!’ I shouted as he sped off down the road.
Tracey told me to get some sleep and she cleared up the mess. The next day I was on my way back to France when a mate phoned to say word had got around the East End about me smashing this bloke up with the bottles and my sword. Apparently, the coward was going around saying it was lucky I was a woman or he would have of done me good and proper. That was a mistake on his behalf. I couldn’t ignore the insult. This was just the world I was in and it was how I survived. It was mad and sad but it was life in that world. I was in danger of losing respect and then I would stop earning, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.
I had John and his mate with me in the car but I turned round and started heading for his crackhead’s house. He wasn’t there so I went to his mum’s house and he wasn’t there either but it wasn’t too long before he turned into the street in his car. I pulled out my sword and John’s mate looked a bit shocked. I mean, this sword was the business. 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 by Japanese samurai warriors.
‘What are you going to do?’ John asked.
‘Watch and learn,’ I said.
I jumped out of my van, ran to his car door and held the blade to his throat. ‘Don’t you ever come to my house again or tell people what you are going to do to me, you fat bastard!’ I screamed at him. ‘If you do, I will cut your fucking head off.’
He screamed like a girl, this 20-stone hard man. ‘Please don’t. We’ve been mates for years, Jane,’ he whimpered.
‘I’m lucky I’m a woman or you’d have done me? You pathetic piece of shit,’ I smirked at him. ‘You had better start looking at me as a warrior because I’m the most dangerous woman or man you’re ever going to meet.’ I left him there sobbing and begging for his life and got back in my van and carried on to France to do my day’s work with the lads.
John and his mate just looked at me, then looked at each other and burst into laughter. ‘It’s better than going to movies, watching you perform, Jane,’ John’s mate said. We did laugh about it. Another funny thing was that the crackhead’s brother was a good mate of mine. You may think he would be on his brother’s side in all this but he thought I had done the right thing by teaching him a lesson. I used to visit him at his home in Kent on the way back from France. I’d pop in just to have a bit of a break from the driving. ‘You done the right thing with my brother Jane,’ he said one day. ‘He needed teaching a lesson and you done that good and proper.’
After a while the beer run started to take its toll on me physically and I was starting to fall asleep at the wheel. But I wanted to keep getting the money in while the going was good. There was no way I wanted to slow down now I was on top. Like a mug, I started taking speed to keep me awake, going for days without sleep. I’m not making excuses. All I can say is that it worked. It made more sense than one of the staff at a warehouse in France I used, who tried to have me over on the money. I mean, they tried to steal from me and for a little while they got away with it. You see, they had these counting machines that checked you had paid them the right amount. There was no need, from my point of view. I would always check the amount before I left home in the morning. When I got there, I would just give it to them and they would stick it in their machine and it was always right. But one day there was a new bloke taking the money. I had given him £1,500 and he put it in the machine, then said I was £40 short. This was a first but I was tired because I’d been doing two trips a day for months now and I was lucky to get fifteen hours sleep a week. So I put this down to tiredness, apologised and gave him the difference.
But on the next trip the same thing happened. ‘You are £60 short this time,’ he said. I gave him the extra but I wasn’t amused. I knew I hadn’t made two mistakes on the trot and I was certain he was having me over. If there were two things I never got wrong, it was what I had to pay out and what I got in. But I just suffered again, although I know I should have counted the money by hand in front of him. So I took that one on the chin but I made up my mind he wouldn’t do me again.
Two of my mates counted the money with me before I left for the next trip. One at a time we each did it. And it was there, every penny. When I got to France, I gave this bloke the money and he put it in the machine and, lo and behold, it was £40 short. I already knew what I was going to do. My sword was sheathed inside my bomber jacket in the middle of my back. I reached round for the handle over my shoulder and pulled it out. You should have seen his face. I didn’t say anything. I just chopped him across his shoulder and he fell to the floor, screaming like a pig. I didn’t want to kill him but I did want to hurt him and show him what happens to lying thieves. He’d thought that because I was a woman he could have me over. The idiot. Out of everyone using the place, all the men, I was the worst and most dangerous person to have over. And he had just found that out the hard way. There were about eight men behind me waiting to be served but they just bowed their heads. Not one of them said a word to me.
My beer had been loaded so I grabbed the money, jumped in my van, where Tracey was already sitting, hid my sword and put my foot down because now I needed to get out of France. I had known what I was going to do to him but it wasn’t until I’d done it that I realised what an idiot I’d been. I mean, I was in France and I had just stabbed a Frenchman, and now I had to get back to England sharpish. Yet I didn’t regret what I’d done for a moment. I was old school and I didn’t call the police – not that I was in a position to. I dealt with it myself. That was my way. You fucked with me, I would be your judge, jury and executioner. As it was, I made it home without any problem from the police. I reckoned the guy I stabbed was about as interested in calling them as I was. And I like to think I was the last person he played that dirty trick on.
There were about 50 vans in line for the journey b
ack over the Channel but, while mine was old, it was special. The last owner had been a police officer so, accidentally on purpose, I left his name on the paperwork. I thought it might make me untouchable. What copper is going to pull another copper? As we waited to get home, the van in front of me started rolling backwards and hit us. I was with a good mate and said, ‘Look at this idiot. He’s going to hit us.’ It seemed very funny – I mean, hysterical – by the time it hit us because I was high on puff. The man got out of his van. I was nearly crying with laughter when I said, ‘You hit us but don’t worry, there’s no damage.’ I couldn’t even get out of the van I was laughing so much. But he was looking a bit puzzled.
Then he said, ‘No, love. Vans don’t roll up hill. You’ve hit me.’ That finished us off. We just couldn’t stop laughing. It was the puff. We were out of it and it was only luck that we didn’t get pulled over. The bloke just walked away shaking his head and, fortunately, laughing to himself. There was no harm done. We laughed for weeks afterwards over that.
Another time, we were on the train, fully loaded, during the day and we went to the toilet. When we got back to the van, there were about 20 men up against the van pushing it. I’d forgotten to put the handbrake on and it had rolled into a convertible BMW, denting the back end. I apologised to the owner of the car but he said, ‘That’s OK, sweetheart. My motor’s only an old peace of shit. No real harm done.’ Flash git, I thought to myself. A motor worth £25,000 and he’s calling it a ‘piece of shit’.
When we once had 500 cases of lager in the van, a friend and I were driving home and all of a sudden there was a massive crashing noise. I had fallen asleep. We had veered out of our lane and hit road cones in the middle of a section of road works – and thank God we did because, if we had stayed in our lane, we would have driven into the stationary traffic ahead and probably been killed. Instead, we were in the works lane smashing cones all over the motorway. We were suddenly wide awake and I couldn’t get out of the works lane because there were cones stuck under the van and everyone was looking. I just looked at my friend and drove right through them. It did us a favour really because we missed all the traffic and got off the motorway. But it was scary too. When we got home, we still had a cone under the van but I was so exhausted that I just went to bed.
I could only think that the Billy wasn’t working as well it had, as there is only so much your body can take before it needs rest. I was working constantly and battling through the exhaustion. It wasn’t just the money. By now people were relying on me to get their orders in. We were lucky we hadn’t died that night but the Billy took those thoughts away and it was all about getting the job done.
On the next trip the van decided to break down on the way home. It was fully loaded, we were on the M20 on a steep hill and the van was doing about five miles an hour before it died on us. We were nearly at the top of the hill on the hard shoulder when it overheated for the last time. The journey was just getting too much for the old vehicle. So we let it cool down a bit. We kept trying to start it again but it wasn’t having it. I stuck it in reverse, took my foot off the brake and let it roll backwards down the hill. We were going backwards on the hard shoulder of the M20 at about 50 miles an hour, fully loaded. It was flying – but in the wrong direction. There were lorries flying past us with drivers just gawping in amazement at how fast a Transit van could go in reverse down a hill. But we were terrified and those drivers must have been too, seeing us heading in their direction at breakneck speed. I mean, we could have veered across into their path at any second. We were in big trouble. If I couldn’t keep it in a straight line, we were dead. But, amazingly, I got it to bottom of the hill and we rolled to a stop. I tried to start it again but the engine was still dead. We could see a petrol station in the far distance across fields and hills.
I said we had to get to the garage to get some water for the radiator but my mate replied, ‘Leave it out, Jane. I’m knackered and it looks miles away.’
I told her to stop being a baby. ‘You’re a soldier tonight, girl. We’ve got a dodgy load of booze so we’ve got to get this van started and get home or we could end up being nicked.’ We climbed the barrier into the fields, walked through a forest, got to the garage and she had been right. It was a lot further than it looked. Even then we had to wait two hours for it to open. We bought loads of bottles of water and went back to the van and poured the water into the radiator. And, thank God, it started and we headed home.
What a life we were having. It was hard work and scary when we broke down in the middle of the night. But we were earning and we were surviving. That’s life, I thought to myself as we got back to Essex.
7
THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
So that is how I met my Matt – doing a drug deal for quarter of a kilo of Billy in the Kent countryside.
I hardly know where to begin telling you about Matt. It sounds like a cliche and it is a cliche but he was the love of my life. As usual with me and men, things took a turn for the worse but it is true to say that Matt is still in my heart and will be until the day I die. I can’t see any other man changing that now. I wasn’t to know when I met him on a fine summer’s day in the Kent countryside in 1995 that he would become such a massive part of my life, and that the end of our love affair would lead me to plot four murders. And I couldn’t know then that he himself would meet a violent end and throw my world into turmoil. But by now violence was becoming an occupational hazard with me. The world I was in was the only one that offered me a way to support John and, as far as I was concerned, that was the end of it.
One day, on the way back from France, I popped in to my mate’s house in Kent for a cup of tea and a chat, just to break the journey up and – wow! – there was Matt standing in the front room. He was big, strong looking and handsome, and he had an air about him. Confidence, I suppose you would call it. He was sure of himself, all right. You know, looking back now, I think it was love at first sight but, given everything I had been through with men, I wasn’t about to admit that to myself straight away. I mean, I’d only popped in for a cup of tea and my knees had gone weak and my heart was going pitter-pat. I had to fight it. I pretended not to like Matt in the beginning. As it was, I mistook that self-confidence for arrogance at first. And I’d been let down by men who thought that, just because I was a bird, they had something over on me. By now I knew different and was behaving accordingly at every opportunity. No bloke was going to dominate me just because he was male. He had to have something to back it up. I was no pushover. I wanted the love and care that so many other women had and, above all, I needed real loyalty because it was betrayal that had ruined all my past relationships.
Matt was a giant, yet as calm as you like. He was waiting for some Billy, which hadn’t arrived and, when I got there, he was having a bit of a moan. He was saying to my pal, ‘You’re bloody useless, mate. Where’s my gear? I got people to see and places to go. I can’t be sitting around here all day chewing the fat with you. Know what I mean, son?’
It was as if I wasn’t even in the room. I thought to myself, he fancies himself a bit. I wouldn’t let him talk to me like that. But at the same time, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was just about to pipe up in my mate’s defence and it was as if my mate could read my mind – he gave me a look. It was a kind of gesture which said, ‘Leave it, Jane. Don’t mess with this geezer.’ Well, I was dealing in a bit of Billy in those days and, since I could see the problem, I thought I could help him out and I knew my mate knew that. So I bit my tongue until he gave me the nod.
‘Jane here might be able to help you out, Matt,’ my mate said. Can you do my very good friend Matt here a quarter-kilo of speed, Jane?’
Well, that cheered me up straight away and I agreed, especially as I’d only popped in for a cup of tea. That was a £1,250 deal and a nice little earner. I told him I was putting £500 on top as my earner but Matt insisted on giving me £750 – well over the odds – for helping him out of a spot. I liked his style. Even
so, I told Matt I thought he was a bit full of himself. ‘But now that I’ve earned this money off you, I must say, you’re not that bad, are you?’ I joked.
‘If I’m not that bad, can I take you out then?’ he came back as quick as you like and I agreed immediately. I couldn’t see the point in pretending. I had never met a man I had felt so instantly attracted to. He was direct and I liked that in a man. He took after my own heart. We exchanged phone numbers and Matt said he would call me in a couple of days. I was excited by him. I could tell he was dangerous and cocksure. And, of course, he was a villain. But I had done the loyal mother-and-provider bit for so long that I reckoned I was entitled to bit of excitement. I was tingling all over when he left but I tried not to show it.
‘Listen, Jane, I know you like him,’ my mate said. ‘The electricity in the room as soon as you walked in said it all. But Matt is a bloody nutter so you are going to have to be careful of him. I don’t want to see you get hurt.’
I said to my mate, ‘He’s a nutter? What about me? I’m a bloody nutter too and he might need to be careful of me. Anyway, he is just the way I like them… big and good looking and with a bit about him.’ And, oh my, did Matt have a bit about him. He was six-foot-six and twenty-five stone of solid muscle. Now I know that may be hard to believe but that was him. He trained at his own gym all the time and he had muscles everywhere. They used to say he had muscles on his ears. Think of Arnold Schwarzenegger and you begin to get the idea. He had a home in Kent, near Ashford, but I think he spent more time in the gym than he did at home, to be honest. All he told me was that he came from Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland but had settled in Kent. He bought and sold expensive sports cars, dealt in drugs, had a little security operation for clubs and gigs and kept Alsatians and a rottweiler. He had his fingers in a few pies and was doing very well for himself.
