by Lee, Jane
He kept me indoors for about three months after that incident, saying I couldn’t be trusted. I wasn’t even allowed to go out to the shops. I was getting really down and couldn’t handle it. So I did a runner. I went to the house of a mate who Matt didn’t know. I knew Matt would go out looking for me. And anyone who was hiding me would find themselves in trouble too. I was gone for three days before I rang Matt and he pleaded with me to come home. I had to admit I was missing him so, against my better judgment, I decided to return. I phoned a cab, thanked my mate for letting me stay and set off for home. When I reached my house, Matt was waiting outside and I could already see he’d got the right hump. Even as the cab pulled up, I could see he was going to start on me so I told the cab driver, ‘Go, go, go! Or this geezer will kill me.’ The cab started to take off and Matt started running after us – a sight to put the fear of God into anyone. So the cabby stopped.
I jumped out and Matt ran past me, opened the driver’s door and grabbed the driver by the throat. ‘Where did you pick her up from?’ And the cabby told him. I already knew I was in trouble but now I knew I could have got my mate in the worst trouble of his life. You see, I was learning that nobody went against Matt and got away with it. Hiding his missus from him was bad news for my mate. I was losing it by now. I should have known that Matt wasn’t going to let me get away with running away. I was losing my touch. I might have bought a lot of trouble to my mate, although, in the end, it seemed to blow over.
Matt shouted and screamed at me but never hit me. He would never do that because he loved me so much. He had once grabbed me by the hair and I’d hit him over the head with a metal bar. The bar just bounced off him. I’m serious. He was a hard, hard man. He just took a deep breath, shook his head and said, ‘That hurt.’ But I felt like I had just smashed the bar into a concrete post. I knew it was just as well he loved me too much to hit me as one punch from him would have killed me. The only way to beat him would have been to shoot him and I would never have done that. I loved him and, although he was controlling, I knew it was out of the love he had for me. He would blame others and lash out at them before getting to me, and he was so proud of me. When I got dressed up and we went out to dinner, he loved it but, when the other blokes looked at me, we would start to row, as if it was my fault. He bragged to his mates about how gorgeous I was but it also made him possessive. That was the problem.
Some time later we were off in the Porsche to see some posh people he had done a bit of business with. I got a McDonald’s on the way because I was starving. When we were nearly there, he said, ‘Jane, don’t show me up. Get rid of that Big Mac.’ So I chucked it into a bin before I had even finished it. ‘And don’t talk when we’re there. Your voice is so common. Let me do the talking.’
I was shocked. He had made me feel cheap. But I agreed. ‘OK, babe. I won’t say a word,’ I said. But I was fuming. I’d had enough of being controlled by now.
We pulled up and got out of the car and this polite, posh man came over to greet us. He shook Matt’s hand and said, ‘Hello,’ and then he turned to me. ‘And who is this gorgeous creature?’
I just looked at him. ‘Don’t fucking talk to me, you ponce,’ I sneered. Nodding at Matt, I added, ‘He’s just told me I’m not good enough to speak to you so yous had better not speak to me.’ It shit him right up. Who is manipulating who now? I thought. Well, Matt just grabbed me by the hair and dragged me back into the car.
‘Shut the fuck up, you mad bitch!’ he screamed.
‘How did I do?’ I asked him, laughing my head off. ‘Common enough for you, babe? I think it went very well. I think they were very impressed and we’ll definitely be asked round again soon. Don’t you, darling?’
He was fuming but so was I. I was always very respectful to people. I treated them how they treated me and I wasn’t going to be told I wasn’t good enough. Not even by my Matt. He knew he was wrong, in his heart. And he also knew it wasn’t in me to be diplomatic. When God made me, he left that bit out. If you want to insult me, you had better be ready for what’s coming back because you can be sure that it’s definitely coming.
Then one day, early in the morning, the front door came crashing through without any warning. It was the law. Matt and I had been fast asleep. As we laid in bed Matt whispered to me, ‘You’ve got nothing in here, have you? No gear, no guns?’
‘No,’ I lied.
I had the hand guns and rifles, which I owned legally, and I had my collection of Colt pistols in the safe. Now, they were all fully legal because they were over a hundred years old and classed as antiques. And my bullet-making gear in the safe was also legal because it was made up of legal components. The police were there for about six hours and they didn’t find anything at all. But they did, at one point, ask me what was in the safe and, when I told them, ‘Guns,’ it threw them a bit. I told them I was a collector and they opened the safe and, of course, all the guns were in there. I told them they were all legal but they still took them out and said that, if they were legal, I would get them all back later on. Apart from that, they didn’t find anything so we were safe.
When they left, I showed Matt half an ounce of puff I had in my pocket and told him the police were idiots. I was just going to tell him about what was under the shed when he slapped me across the face and went into one, big time. ‘You’re the fucking idiot,’ he said. ‘I told you not to do nothing or have anything in the house but, no, you think you’re clever. What happens if you’d got caught with that half an ounce? You don’t care. Me and John, we’ll be left picking up the pieces.’ So I didn’t tell him about what was under the shed. He was mad enough already. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me, I thought.
Sure enough, I got my guns, rifles and bullet-making gear back from the police but I had to go to collect it all from Romford police station. Their arms officer said that my collection was one of the best he had ever seen. I was well impressed with that. I mean, they had seen a lot of weapons and my collection was one of the best. And they still didn’t know what was under the garden shed.
By now Matt and I were arguing 24/7 and just hurting each other all the time, even though we loved each other. It had to come to a head because I had to keep rebelling. It just wouldn’t work, mainly because I was too much of a free spirit and I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be. I couldn’t have my life ruled by a man and I couldn’t get away from him because he was too big and strong. I couldn’t shoot him because I loved him. But when he was away from me, I missed him so I got myself into a right state. And to make matters worse, him and John had become very close and John really liked him, which, of course, was good. But the rowing was not good for John. And I didn’t want my son seeing me unhappy. It just was not right. I was trying to hide it all from John but it was hard.
However, in the end, I’d had enough of him controlling me and despite everything I’d thought through so many times, I pulled a gun on him. ‘Get out now, Matt,’ I told him. ‘This is no good for either of us and it’s no good for John. I won’t let us destroy him.’
Now, say what you want about Matt but he loved my boy like his own and those words sank in. He walked away when I said that. And, let’s be honest, even a bird with a gun couldn’t have made Matt do that if he didn’t want to. So he did do the right thing. But it wasn’t to last.
A couple of weeks later I was driving to buy a bit of puff in Kent. Matt happened to see me on the road and started to come after me in one of the many cars he owned. I put my foot down but he caught me easily, cutting me up and heading me off. He got out of the car, punched in the windows of my van with his bare hands and dragged me through the window. Cars were slowing down and people were watching. He was trying to put me in the boot of his motor but I fought him all the way. Two cars crashed because they were watching us. A police van pulled up and two coppers got out and started to come over. I was screaming for help but Matt just shouted that it was a domestic and put me in the boot. They didn’t lift a finger. I couldn’t be
lieve it. Then he drove off in his car with my van abandoned on a roundabout near Ashford, in Kent, with a smashed window and the engine still running. He took me to a house I had never seen before – one of his safe houses, I guessed. I was basically under house arrest by Matt and his mates. A right old state of affairs.
He went back to get the van and I knew he might find I had a squirter (a plastic bottle with ammonia to squeeze in a fight), a knuckle duster and a joint in the glove box. The only thing out of that lot that would worry him was the joint. Drugs were a big no-no with Matt, unless it came to selling them. I wasn’t even allowed to smoke fags in front of him, let alone a joint so I would be in big trouble when he found it. But by the time he got back to the van the two coppers had called for back-up and he was quickly arrested for the knuckle duster, squirter and joint in the glove box. Not good!
His mate came back and told me he’d been nicked and taken to Ashford station. I told the mate to take me to the police station. I might not have been getting on with Matt at that moment but I wasn’t about to let him take the fall for me. So off we went. I was arrested and they let Matt out. They asked me why I’d had the weapons and I told them I was going to use them to do Matt.
‘You what?’
‘Yeah but he won’t be bothered about that,’ I said. ‘We’ve got a love-hate relationship. It’s the joint he’s going to kill me for. He is very disapproving of drugs.’ I actually wanted them to arrest me and put me in a cell to keep Matt off me. I was scared about what he might do now. Things had got out of hand, to say the least. ‘Just keep me in here,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m guilty – they are my weapons, it’s my joint so just lock me up.’ To my horror, they chucked me out of the station after giving me a good talking to. They said how grateful I should be to have a man who was prepared to take me on. They thought I was madder than Matt. I got the big speech about how Matt was a decent, hard-working man who was trying to do the best by me and how I was an ungrateful woman. Well, I could see Matt had charmed the coppers around, just like he did everyone else. I didn’t have a chance. I was an unmarried mother from the East End with drugs and weapons so they took his side. They forgot all about him putting me in the boot of his car. But I suppose me telling them I was going to do Matt with the weapons didn’t help my case!
Matt was waiting for me when I got out and I was bang in trouble. I knew that he was not amused. He took me back to the safe house, where we rowed all night long. ‘I’ve got money. All you have to do is look beautiful. That’s all I want, Janie. Is that so hard? Most women would kill to be in your position,’ he kept saying. And he was right. They would. But I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t allow myself to be controlled or imprisoned by anyone. But love is the strongest drug of all. I agreed to his terms and promised I’d go back and stay with him and not get up to anything. But I knew, even as I said it, I was lying. I loved him so much but I knew I couldn’t keep my promise. All we were doing now was hurting each other.
I was also starting to get paranoid that Matt would take John away from me, as they were really close and, every time me and Matt had a break-up, he said he was going to take John. I was so worried that I told my boy that, if he went with Matt, he would lose all his mates and Matt would lock him up in a room. John was only 11 at the time and, if I’m honest, I was a bit jealous of their friendship. They got on so well. I hadn’t realised how much I’d worried John with talk of Matt taking him until one day when he was out with his mates at the local video shop. He rang me to say there were two blokes watching him from their Ford Escort van.
‘How many of you are there, John?’ I asked.
‘There’s about twenty of us, Mum,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry, babe, you’re all right. There are too many of yous for anyone to try anything.’ Poor John. I’d convinced him Matt was going to kidnap him but, in my heart, I didn’t think it would come to that. But then John called me back. The two blokes were Irish and I started worrying because Matt had told me he’d have two of his Irish boys take John to Ireland and that I’d never see him again. So, when I heard the word ‘Irish’ from John, I panicked. ‘I’m on my way,’ I said.
I grabbed my samurai sword, jumped in my van and flew round to the video shop. I could see the van with the two blokes in it and all the kids were outside the shop. I pulled across the front of the van and blocked them in. I jumped out with my sword and asked John, ‘Are these them?’ He said, “Yes,” and, straight away, I went for the door but the blokes knew they were in trouble. They had already locked the doors. They could see me with a big shiny sword – hardly a common sight – and they were panicking. I’d gone into Gran mode. No one was taking my boy.
I lifted the sword above my head, two-handed, and smashed it as hard as I could into the windscreen. It cracked and shattered but didn’t cave in so I started smashing the van as hard and as many times as I could. I wanted to get at these blokes. They knew now that, if I got to them, they would be in mortal danger but they couldn’t drive away as my van was blocking them in. So, in a blind panic, they ground the gears, dropped the clutch and lurched straight at me. They were trying to run me over. The van mounted the pavement, I jumped out of the way and, wheels spinning and gears crunching, they sped off. I had smashed their van to pieces and, when they reached a safe distance, they stopped and one of them got out. ‘You’re a fucking nutter!’ he shouted. ‘We’re calling the police.’
Now, I had my sword gripped in both hands out in front of me and I shouted back, ‘You’re scaring the kids! Don’t scare the kids!’ They drove off.
I looked round and there must have been a couple of hundred people watching me. They were probably thinking I was scaring the kids more than the men in the van were, which was a fair point. It certainly looked like I was scaring them. I had my Gran face on and I’d got a big sword held in both hands like I was ready to chop someone up, samurai-style. They must have been thinking it was like something out of Kill Bill. All I needed was a yellow leather catsuit and it would have been. But, fortunately, no violence was required. I just told John to get in the van and we went home for a cup of tea. The incident was the talk of Rainham for a while.
Matt phoned up later that day saying he had heard about what had happened and wanted to make sure me and John were OK.
I was fuming. ‘Don’t give me, “Am I OK?”’ I said. ‘You’ve sent two of your soldiers round to take my John. Well, they came proper unstuck, didn’t they?’
‘What are you on about, you stupid cow?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you.’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ I said. That was the end of me and Matt. There was no going back now. He had frightened my boy by sending those men but it had backfired on him. I would have killed them if I had got into their van and Matt now knew it. Using my son to get at me was a no-go area. He had just crossed the line, big time. John and I were OK together. We had each other and that was what mattered the most. Matt was well and truly gone.
It was sad for me at first though. Despite everything, I really loved Matt and my heart was broken. I had more money than I could count from all the beer runs. There were more people around me than I needed, yet I was the unhappiest and loneliest person in the room. You see, everybody was your mate when you had everything, which, at that time, I did. But Matt and I were finished. I was all smiles on the outside, for the world, but in my heart and soul I was sobbing like a baby. Well, this is what you wanted, girl, I told myself. So get a grip and get back to what you do best. I had my John and I didn’t need anyone else. As long as John was OK, I was OK. And John was, as always, the perfect son.
Life went on.
8
GUNNED DOWN
I am not to question why,
I am but to do or die.
Someone from the beer run asked me one day if I wanted to do a robbery.
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘I’ve not earned for a while and, anyway, I’m bored.’
The job sounded easy. It was all set up. I was going to stick up a
delivery man who had £80,000 in cash in a bag. It was tax-evasion money from a big player who was supplying booze from the continent to off-licences. The delivery man was in on it and that was what made it so easy. The cash couldn’t go in the bank because it could have been traced, so it was to be transferred from the off-licence to a house for safekeeping. I was going to hold them up with two others while the delivery man was on the way but, since all he had to do was act like he was being robbed, it was going to be a piece of cake.
The day before the job, the two blokes who told me about it decided they didn’t fancy it. They thought it was too risky. I couldn’t believe it. ‘It’s a piece of piss,’ I said. ‘What is wrong with you? What can go wrong?’ But they didn’t change their minds. They said that, even though it looked easy, it was a bit out of their league.
They’d had a look at my arsenal of weapons and said, ‘You’re fucking crazy, woman.’
I was still going through with it. The next day I got my guns – a Colt .38 and a replica Browning pistol. The replica was to point at the bag man because he said he didn’t want a loaded gun pointed at him, which was fair enough. Just in case he was being watched by possible witnesses, it would then look as if he really was being robbed. I planned to have the real gun ready in case the owners of the cash showed up and decided to get brave.
The day of the job was a Sunday. I did my boy’s dinner, put on my full combat gear and got Tracey to watch John, as he was mates with her own boy. I planned to be home by 9pm and they waved me goodbye as I drove off on the job.
