Bonded by Blood

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  John Rollinson was a small-time drug dealer whom I had met once or twice when he had visited Raquels with Murray. He was a scruffy, overweight individual who worked during the day as a hairdresser. By night, he gave himself the rather grand title of ‘Gaffer’. He peddled drugs and sat in the quieter pubs telling anybody who would listen that he was not only a face in the Essex underworld, he was ‘the most dangerous man in the country’.

  It was John, or Gaffer, who came to Murray’s aid. Although he didn’t have the capital to settle his debt in full, Gaffer scraped together £2,000 for Murray – a generous amount by most hairdressers’ standards. Murray, who still feared Tucker was going to damage him or worse, asked me to arrange a meeting with him at Raquels so he could pay him the cash and ask for the interest agreement to be dropped.

  At the meeting, which was held upstairs in the diner, Murray pleaded with Tucker to give him more time and to drop the interest charge because he had only been able to raise two grand. ‘I will have what I owe you soon,’ he said. ‘If you don’t let me carry on dealing, I won’t be able to get the money to pay you.’

  Tucker reluctantly agreed and dropped the interest clause but said Murray must purchase all of his drug supply from him and the cost would be inflated so that his debt could be paid off sooner rather than later. Unfortunately for Murray, there was another but – Tucker had recently acquired a batch of Ecstasy pills, which had been named ‘Apples’ because they had an apple motif imprinted on them. Tucker said that they were extremely strong and people who had taken them had complained of headaches. ‘The dealers can’t get rid of them once everyone knows what they’re like,’ he said. ‘Sell them.’

  He took the £2,000 that Gaffer had given to Murray and handed the Apple Ecstasy pills to him. Breathing a sigh of relief as Tucker strode off, Murray felt safe for the moment. He was back in business: soon those extra-strong pills would be in the hands of his dealers and being distributed in Raquels. Soon, he thought, his troubles would all be over. Little did any of us know the firm’s dud cannabis and dodgy pills were the beginning of the end for us all.

  The following Friday night, I was standing at the bar in Raquels talking to Tucker and Rolfe. The assistant manager was also with us. One of the barmaids telephoned the assistant manager and asked him to go and see her because she had a problem. Tucker and I were asked to go with him to resolve whatever it was. We went to the bar near the main dance-floor area and the barmaid told us she knew that a girl in the club was under age. She had refused to serve her and now the girl was getting stroppy. We called the girl over. She looked distressed. I asked her if she had any identification so that she could prove her age.

  ‘I haven’t, my purse has been stolen,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry, if you have no ID, then you will have to leave because the barmaid says she knows you and you are under age.’

  The girl became very irate. ‘I’ve had my purse stolen,’ she said. ‘I showed you my ID on the way in, why are you asking for it now?’

  ‘You may appear to be 18, but the barmaid says you aren’t,’ I said. ‘Therefore you must show your ID or leave.’

  ‘I have had my purse stolen,’ she said. ‘There is £300 in it. My dad’s a policeman, I’m going to get him and you’ll all be in trouble.’

  ‘Look, any story you tell me, I’ve already heard,’ I replied. ‘If you haven’t any ID, you will have to leave.’

  ‘My dad’s a policeman,’ the girl began shouting. ‘I’ve had my purse stolen.’

  ‘I’m sorry, you will have to leave. If your dad is a policeman, he will understand that if you haven’t got ID we cannot let you remain here.’

  Eventually, the girl left. To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less if the girl was 17 or 18. I have always judged people on the way they behave. Most 17-year-old girls who came into the club were trying to act older than they were anyway, so were usually no trouble. It was the 30-year-old men who behaved like 12 year olds that I objected to. If the barmaid hadn’t said anything, I certainly wouldn’t have asked the girl to leave.

  At closing time, I was putting the chains on the fire doors and waiting for the staff to leave before going home myself when I heard a commotion. I thought somebody was being attacked, so I went to see what the problem was. I found the barmaid who had told me the girl was under age at the front door. The girl had waited outside the club to have it out with her and they had ended up fighting. I told the barmaid she had better wait inside until the girl had gone.

  Half an hour later, when I was satisfied the incident was over, I went home and thought no more about it. It wasn’t until some time later that I found out the truth about what had happened. Somebody who had objected to the way the girl had been treated told me that the barmaid had stolen the girl’s purse from the toilets. The girl knew the barmaid had her purse and demanded that she return it immediately. The barmaid had then telephoned the assistant manager to say that the girl was under age so that we would eject her and the accusations would cease. Leah Betts, the girl who had her purse stolen, was rightfully upset. She had waited outside the club after being ejected. She confronted the barmaid and was assaulted. Because of this incident, Leah was barred from coming into Raquels.

  Chapter 9

  On Friday, 10 November, it was business as usual in Raquels. Ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines were being sold discreetly near the top bar. Because of his financial problems, Murray was selling the drugs himself that night. A nervous teenager sidled up to Murray and asked him if he could score. Murray nodded. The teenager, a friend of Leah Betts, held the folded notes in his hand, Murray the Ecstasy pills in his. They pretended to shake hands. Murray took the money, the teenager the pills. Leah Betts’s fate was sealed. That deal was going to end her life and change a lot of other people’s.

  Unfortunately for Leah, the drugs that were purchased from Murray were the Ecstasy pills with the apple motif that had come from Tucker. The following night in her father’s home, Leah, against the advice of her closest friend who had been given a warning about the strength of these particular pills, took one, thinking it was going to give her the best night of her short life.

  On Monday, 13 November, I was filling up my car with petrol at a garage. I was thinking about Christmas, of all things: 1995 had been a bad year for the firm and myself. Once Christmas was out of the way, I could concentrate on the New Year – a fresh start and hopefully a new beginning. As I walked to the garage kiosk, I glanced at the news-stand. Every paper had a picture of a girl on the front page. Her eyes were closed, her mouth slack, agape, and there were tubes everywhere. I picked up a tabloid out of curiosity and paid for the petrol. I looked at the picture and thought to myself, ‘What a waste.’ I turned the page and a picture of Raquels leapt out at me. The article said an 18-year-old girl named Leah Betts was on a life-support machine after taking an Ecstasy pill that had been purchased in Raquels. My heart sank. I knew this was going to cause serious grief.

  When I got home, I sat on the stairs and put my head in my hands. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew I had to do something, as it was more than a possibility that the police would want to talk to me, along with Murray, Tucker, Tate, Rolfe and all of the other members of the firm. In the end, I rang Murray, but his phone was unobtainable. I tried ringing Tucker, Tate and Rolfe but, like Murray, they had obviously heard the news and gone to ground.

  Despite the problems we were now all undoubtedly going to be facing, Tate continued to rampage through Essex, drawing unwanted attention to everyone connected to the firm. He was desperately trying to locate Darren Nicholls over the dud cannabis. Tate was seething with rage and swearing bloody revenge. He rang Mick Steele, whom he knew could contact Nicholls, and explained the situation: either Nicholls pays back the money or he suffers an unimaginable death.

  Steele didn’t believe Nicholls would have the bottle to deliberately give Tate dud cannabis. ‘Fuck me, Pat,’ he said. ‘You know what Nicholls is like, he was full of himself in prison
, but he wouldn’t rob you, he’s shit scared of you.’

  Tate would not accept this and continued to rant about killing Nicholls. Eventually, Steele said he would contact Nicholls to try and resolve the problem. When he got hold of him, Nicholls told Steele that he had spoken to the dealer in Amsterdam and after explaining that the dud drugs had been purchased by a firm of ‘very heavy Essex villains’ the dealer had offered to return the money on the condition the drugs were returned to him. Nicholls had agreed. Steele explained this to Tate over the telephone. Tate, forever suspicious, insisted Steele meet him so that he could ensure Nicholls was not trying to pull ‘another stroke’. They met at the Carpenters Arms pub near Basildon, where Tate said he would pay Steele £2,000 if he would ‘chaperone’ Nicholls on the trip back to Amsterdam to recover the syndicate’s money. Rather foolishly but with good intent, Steele agreed.

  Nicholls, concerned he might get caught in possession of such a large amount of cannabis, albeit dud, decided to purchase a cheap car in which to keep the drugs. He bought a red Mark 2 Granada, loaded it with the drugs and left it in a pub car park in a village called Great Sailing in Essex.

  Nicholls breathed a sigh of relief when he heard from Steele that an agreement had been reached with Tate. Nicholls truly believed that everything was going to be OK once he had returned Tate’s money. What he did not know was that Tate had decided to rip him off in revenge for supplying the dud cannabis. Unbeknown to Nicholls, one third of the cannabis shipment had been good. Tate had sold this third for £80,000 and smashed up each block of the poor quality cannabis so that when the drugs were returned to Nicholls, he would be unable to count the cannabis bars and realise some were missing.

  With the drugs safely stored, Nicholls booked the tickets to travel to Amsterdam and then telephoned Steele to say he was ready to leave. The pair travelled from Harwich to the Hook of Holland on a ferry and then caught a train to Amsterdam. When they arrived, they made their way to Stone’s Café and met the dealer. Nicholls discussed the money and how it was going to be paid back. He said he wanted it repaid in sterling. The dealer said it would take a bit of time although he could pay it in guilders straight away. Nicholls declined and said he would wait.

  Nicholls and Steele went for a walk around Amsterdam before Nicholls returned to the bar alone later on that day, where he collected about £30–£35,000 in sterling. The dealer asked Nicholls where the drugs were that he was supposed to have returned. Nicholls assured him that once all of the money had been reimbursed, he would get the drugs back. ‘I’m hardly going to run off with a load of dud cannabis, am I?’ he told the dealer.

  Nicholls was told that there was no more sterling available that day and he would have to return the following morning. When Nicholls left the café, he met Steele and took him to the Delta Hotel, where he had stayed previously. Nicholls booked one twin room in his name and paid in cash.

  The next day, Nicholls returned to Stone’s Café but was told there was still no sterling available and he should return later. That evening, Nicholls was given a further £40–45,000, but a similar amount remained outstanding. When he returned to the café the following morning, Nicholls was told that the balance would be available within the hour. The dealer then unwittingly delivered a hammer blow to Nicholls. ‘I asked you yesterday when you are going to return the drugs.’

  ‘And I told you,’ Nicholls replied, ‘when I get the money. I’m hardly going to rip you off. It was dud cannabis anyway.’

  The dealer glared at Nicholls. ‘Two thirds of it was shit, one third of it was good. We require you to return it.’

  Nicholls realised that he had been double-crossed. The Dutch villains had intentionally supplied him with dud drugs. How else would they know what percentage of the batch was good or bad? Tate, Tucker and Rolfe had also ripped him off: they had kept and sold the good third of the haul. They had then insisted that all of the drugs were worthless. Nicholls now realised why the drugs had been broken into small pieces before being returned. He had no idea how many bars of cannabis were in the bag they had given back to him. Nicholls went back to the hotel, told Steele to get his things together, then returned to the café. Shortly afterwards, Nicholls returned with a sports bag into which he put all of the cash before telling Steele they were going home immediately.

  Nicholls was becoming paranoid after realising the Dutch dealers had deliberately duped him. He told Steele he believed they were going to have him set up to be robbed. ‘He sold me dud drugs,’ he told Steele. ‘Why wouldn’t he have me attacked now I’ve got a big bag of fucking money?’

  Steele tried to calm Nicholls down, but he wasn’t having any of it. When they reached the railway station, Nicholls leapt out into the road and hailed a taxi. ‘Take us to Ostend,’ he pleaded.

  ‘But that’s miles away,’ the driver replied.

  ‘I don’t care, just take us,’ said Nicholls. When the taxi pulled up outside the ferry terminal, the total fare was £400. Nicholls paid it without blinking. He had escaped from one dangerous situation, but he knew he wasn’t safe just yet.

  He told himself all he had to do was hand over the money as agreed with Tate and that would be the end of the matter. There was no ‘end of the matter’ if you crossed the firm. Kevin Whitaker and Nipper Ellis had been given similar worthless assurances. They had been taught a hard lesson which Nicholls himself was about to learn.

  When Nicholls and Steele arrived in Ostend, Tate was pacing up and down outside the railway station with Rolfe. They had wanted Tucker to travel with them too, but he had told them that he had made ‘prior arrangements’. The truth was, Tucker second-guessed that Tate was going to pull some sort of stroke and didn’t relish upsetting any Dutch gangsters on their home soil. When Tate saw Nicholls swaggering towards him, he turned and walked away. Rolfe sneered at Nicholls before he too turned and followed Tate into a nearby café. Nicholls looked nervously at Steele and asked him if everything was going to be OK.

  ‘Stay here,’ said Steele. ‘It’s obvious Tate is not in the mood for talking to you.’

  Steele went into the café, while Nicholls hung around outside to try and see what was going on. Through the window, he could see Barry Dorman, the car dealer, sitting with Tate, Rolfe and Steele. There were also four women present: Donna Garwood, Lizzie Fletcher and her friend, and Dorman’s girlfriend. Dorman and his girlfriend were present because Dorman had unwittingly loaned Tate £10,000, thinking it was intended for a car deal. Tate, of course, had invested the money in the drug shipment. Fearing one person may be stopped by Customs with such a large amount of money, Tate had recruited Dorman, his girlfriend and the teenage girls to travel to Ostend, where the money would be divided into smaller amounts and carried through Customs by several people rather than just one.

  When Steele came out of the café, he told Nicholls that everything was going to be OK. ‘You upset him. He wanted the money back. We have it and so he says this is the end of the matter. But be careful, you can’t trust him, his mind is messed up with all of the drugs he takes.’

  Steele took the sports bag from Nicholls and began to walk up the road slowly. Tate came out of the café, caught him up and took the bag from him. Tate walked back into the café and as soon as he did so, Rolfe and the others got up and left. Nicholls said he needed a drink, so he and Steele went into a nearby bar.

  Tate, Rolfe and their entourage booked into the nearby Burlington Hotel where the money was divided into smaller amounts. Barry Dorman took the money he was owed and returned to England immediately with his girlfriend. Tate, Rolfe and the three girls started to celebrate their windfall. During the night their smoke alarm went off and a hotel porter rushed to their room. When he arrived, Tate was drugged out of his mind. The room was wrecked and the smoke detector was hanging out of the ceiling. Rolfe promised the porter that the damage would be paid for, so he went away. The following morning, before leaving, Tate peeled £100 from a huge roll of banknotes and told the manageress they were sorry.


  By the time Tate and Rolfe had crawled out of bed, Steele and Nicholls had returned to England. The swagger was back, the attitude had returned: Nicholls thought the matter was closed. All he had to do now was dispose of the poor quality cannabis, which was still in the boot of his car. He drove to a disused gravel pit in Church Lane, Bocking, which is known locally as the ARC pit, and threw the haul into the deep water. He had never intended to risk returning it to the Dutch.

  The day Tate, Rolfe and the others returned, I was out of town. I had a court case in Birmingham I had to attend, various driving offences, nothing serious. I was banned for 12 months and fined £330. Driving back down from the court case, I heard nothing on the radio but reports about Leah’s condition and the police inquiry.

  Four addresses were raided that morning in Basildon. One of them was Tate’s flat, where Donna Garwood was living. A quantity of amphetamine was found, not a lot, just a bit of personal, but the fact that they’d raided Tate’s flat indicated the police knew the firm was involved in the supply chain. Donna was a regular in the club; Tate was a member of the firm and had only been out of prison for two weeks. It seemed the net was closing in. My big concern was that all the main players were running a mile, leaving me to face the music. So much for loyalty. I didn’t think it would be too long before they rounded us all up for questioning.

  I finally managed to speak to Tucker about Leah Betts collapsing and Raquels being named as the source for the Ecstasy that she had taken. Tucker made it quite clear that he wanted his name kept out of any police inquiry; in fact, he told me that he didn’t even wish to hear his name mentioned in the same sentence as Betts. He said he’d got the hump over Donna Garwood being arrested for the amphetamines that had been found at the flat, even though she had not been charged. Tucker said Garwood was claiming a doorman from Raquels had grassed her up. At that time, though, the police hadn’t talked to any of them. The pressure was getting to Tucker: if he was arrested over the Betts incident, he knew he would be ruined. He could see his empire crumbling and now he was panicking. A menace fuelled by paranoia was growing. Everyone was putting his or her back against the wall and somebody else’s name in the frame.