Bonded by Blood

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  ‘We’ve found a Range Rover with three bodies inside,’ he said. ‘They’ve all been shot through the head. We think it’s your mates.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you recognise this registration: F424 NPE? I am sure it’s them.’ He told me he had seen them in the car before.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’ I was confused.

  He repeated that they had found a Range Rover. Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were inside, but they had not been formally identified at that stage.

  ‘Are they dead?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re very dead.’

  The policeman asked where I was, but I didn’t answer. I said I would ring him later and put the phone down. I rang Tucker’s mobile number. It rang and rang and rang. He wasn’t going to answer. Unbeknown to me at that time, his mobile phone was still in his hand. The police had not yet removed it from his grip. Nor had they taken the body from the Range Rover. I rang home. Debra wasn’t in. I left a message on the answering machine saying I had been told that ‘those three’ had been found murdered. I told her not to answer the phone if anyone rang. I walked around London in a daze. I really couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I even began to wonder if I had actually had the conversation. Debra never did get my message. She had gone straight to the school at 3.30 p.m. to pick up the children and two detectives met her there.

  ‘Are you Bernard’s Debra?’ one asked, having walked across to her. When she said yes, he replied, ‘You and the children better come with me.’ They were put in an unmarked car. Nothing was said in front of the children, but Debra was told what had happened. The police feared a revenge attack of some type might be carried out on my family or me, so they were going to remain with them until I had been located. The police – and others – obviously thought that I was somehow connected or responsible for the murders when in fact I had been as shocked as anybody when I heard the news.

  The following morning, DS Dibley held a press conference where he told the gathered media: ‘All three men have been shot in the head twice at point-blank range. The weapon, which has not been found, is thought to be a 12-bore shotgun. The men had criminal records, including armed robbery, drugs offences and car theft, but were not convicted drug dealers. Our intelligence is that they were moving into the drug field and that’s the line we are currently trying to develop.

  ‘They were higher in the scale than street dealers. It may be that this has occurred over higher drug dealers trying to find a greater position of power. Perhaps there has been a falling out in that connection. My view is that there could be a power struggle going on. There could have been a double-cross and someone has sought retribution or it might be that they owed money and they did not pay their bill. I think these are valid theories. Because drugs offer quick money and easy money there is this power struggle among the larger dealers.

  ‘Inevitably, there are going to be incidences, such as this, occurring. I don’t think Essex is any worse than anywhere else. However, I anticipate that someone will try to fill the void these deaths have created and that there could be more violence. There has been a lot of speculation that this killing was connected with the tragedy of Leah Betts. I must say that this is pure speculation. There is nothing factual to link these men with the tragedy of Leah Betts. I am afraid if that is allowed to continue it may well divert attention from my inquiry on this murder and will take me away from the real investigation. I would appreciate it if the connection between Leah Betts and this triple murder were dropped. At this moment in time, there is nothing to suggest that they distributed drugs to Leah Betts or any of her associates.’

  When Dibley had finished, Diane Evans, Rolfe’s partner, made an emotional appeal to the public for help. ‘I would just like anyone who was with them on Wednesday afternoon or who knows anything about what happened, or has seen anything, to just come forward. We need all the help we can get.’

  That same morning, John Whomes was working at the establishment in Haverhill for the mentally handicapped where he had worked while he was a prisoner at HMP Highpoint. A contract to build an extension had been advertised and John had managed to secure the tender. John heard on the radio that three men had been found shot dead in a Range Rover. When a few hours later they were named as Patrick Tate, Craig Rolfe and Tony Tucker, John immediately telephoned Jack and said, ‘Tate’s dead. I’ve just heard on the radio he’s been shot.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, John, he was shot last year and locked up,’ Jack replied.

  ‘I’m telling you, Jack. It’s just been on the news.’

  ‘Fuck me!’ Jack replied. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  Few could believe what had happened to the seemingly invincible trio; even fewer were upset about it.

  Two days after the bodies had been discovered, Darren Nicholls answered his front door to a gypsy named Matty. ‘I hear you want to buy a shotgun,’ he said. ‘I’ve got one in my van.’

  Without hesitation, Nicholls replied, ‘OK, great, I’ll have a look.’

  The pair went to the back of the van and Matty opened the doors to show Nicholls a nine-shot single-barrelled pump-action shotgun with three cartridges. Nicholls purchased the weapon for £350.

  At that time, Nicholls had been working at Mick Steele’s home. The premises had an old barn that Steele had refurbished and Nicholls had agreed to rewire it. For reasons known only to Nicholls, he drove over to Steele’s home with the shotgun hidden in a canvas bag. When he arrived, Steele was not home, so he went into the barn to continue doing the electrical work he had started. At some stage during that day, Nicholls hid the shotgun and cartridges in Steele’s barn behind some bamboo poles before leaving for home.

  Over the Christmas period, Rolfe’s brother moved Diane Evans’s belongings from the home she had shared with Craig in Chafford Hundred to a new address in Basildon. Diane had only been in the house for a couple of days when she decided that she was going to have to do something about the machine gun Tucker, Tate and Rolfe had stored at her home.

  Diane spoke to Rolfe’s mother and she suggested that Diane bring it round to her house. Diane removed the holdall containing the gun from its hiding place and put it on the dining-room table. When she opened the bag, she saw the machine gun for the first time. She was terrified. She knew that she had to make a decision as to what she was going to do about it. She then took it to Rolfe’s mother’s house.

  A couple of days later, Diane contacted DI Florence and told him that she wanted to see him but didn’t say why. The following day, the police officer went to see Diane and she told him about the gun. Diane took him to Rolfe’s mother’s home. Mrs Rolfe retrieved the holdall from the shower room on the ground floor and put it on the dining table for DI Florence to see. Diane explained in detail how the machine gun had ended up in her possession. The officer asked if either of them had handled the gun and when both said they hadn’t, he took it away to be examined.

  As the New Year dawned, the management at Raquels decided to close the club. Publicity linking it to the death of Leah Betts and the Rettendon murders had dramatically reduced trade. The firm had lost its leaders and a prestigious door, and the end was in sight. On 13 January 1996, rival firms, aware that Tucker’s vice-like grip had slipped from running the drug deals that went on in the clubs he supplied security for, took advantage of the free market brought about by his death. Tucker’s dealers in Club UK had fled with Murray after Leah had collapsed but were soon replaced by others wishing to make their fortunes.

  Andreas Bouzis, a 19-year-old boy of Greek descent, purchased an Ecstasy pill outside the club and took it while he was queuing up to enter. Shortly afterwards, he died. The tablet he had taken exacerbated a congenital heart defect. The club was closed down in the aftermath of his death and Tucker’s once-powerful door firm was finally no more.

  On 25 January, I had another meeting with DCI Storey, who said he wanted me to make a statement i
n relation to the Leah Betts incident. He could see that I was still struggling with the very thought of it. The murders had added additional pressure to my thought process, and so he told me to go away and think hard before I made my decision. For two or three days, I wrestled with my conscience. But I knew what I had to do, this nightmare had to end sometime. I realised that if I wanted to shed the criminal make-up I had worn for so long, the only decision that I could make, which would not allow me to return to my criminal associates and lifestyle, would be to agree to cooperate with DCI Storey’s request. I contacted him and we arranged to meet at Maldon police station.

  I will never forget sitting in that room, which overlooked a row of quaint shops. Below, people were going about their everyday business and I sat there watching them while I talked about the deaths of young people. I sat astride two worlds. I knew which one I wanted to inhabit. I made the statement. The door to my previous life was closed firmly behind me.

  My former friends would never have me back now that I had assisted the police. As the Betts and Rettendon investigations got under way, villains fearful of being implicated in either matter began informing on their rivals to deflect attention away from their own illicit businesses. The police were inundated with anonymous tip-offs: some factual, some outright lies.

  Because of the amount of trouble Nicholls had caused drug dealers over the dud cannabis, it was not long before his name and, by association, Mick Steele’s were given to the police as persons somehow involved in the Rettendon murders. When the police researched Steele and Nicholls, they learned of Steele’s drug importation conviction and Nicholls’s boasts to undercover officers that he would blow people’s heads off if he were ever ripped off. When they discovered both men had been in prison with Tate, they decided that Nicholls and Steele would be worthy of further scrutiny.

  Instead of arresting Nicholls and Steele, the police set up an elaborate sting to try and find out what, if anything, they had done. Nicholls was put under surveillance and Steele started to receive menacing telephone calls. These were made from Belfast by two undercover officers who claimed to be members of the IRA. It’s incredible even to consider that officers who are paid to uphold the law in a civilised country are permitted to make threats to suspects in any of their inquiries, but that is exactly what these officers were sanctioned to do. The first call came just after the news at nine o’clock on Thursday, 15 February 1996. The voice was that of a softly spoken Irishman, who said he had been trying to track Steele down for weeks.

  The caller said his name was ‘Billy’ and that he and his brother ‘John’ were part of an organisation that had worked closely with Tate. Unbeknown to Steele, Billy explained, all the drugs he had smuggled for Tate were destined for Ireland. When the enterprise had started up, Billy and John had been led to believe that supplies would be reaching them on a regular basis. With that in mind, they had invested a lot of their own money in the venture. Now, with Tate dead, the brothers had found themselves severely out of pocket and totally out of stock. Billy’s initial question was simple enough: would Steele be prepared to supply them with the drugs directly?

  Up until that point, Steele had said no more than ‘Hello’. When Billy had finished talking, Steele simply replied, ‘I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about, mate.’ Then he put the phone down.

  The second call was made two days later. ‘Pat owed us £40,000,’ ranted Billy. ‘We want our fucking money. Where is it? This isn’t a fucking game.’

  Steele remained calm. ‘I think the police have got it. Why don’t you talk to them?’ Once more, he hung up.

  Since Billy didn’t appear to be getting anywhere with Steele, his brother, John, decided to have a go. When Steele picked up the phone for the third call, John hissed, ‘We want our money or you’ll be sorted out just like Pat was.’ The threats became more sinister. Steele was warned that his car would be blown up, but he just listened rather than inflame the situation by arguing.

  Eventually, Steele grew tired of being threatened about Tate’s money and said, ‘I haven’t got a clue about it. Now then, I wonder what’s happened to it. Perhaps I’ve got it under my floorboards, eh?’

  John, laughing, replied, ‘Now there’s a thing.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘There’s a thing. Have you?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got floorboards, for a start; I’ve got a concrete floor,’ Steele replied.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And I wish I did have that sort of money about me because I’d be a very happy man.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now then, what I want to say to you—’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Is the fact that you keep ringing up here; I mean, every fortnight or so.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I mean, your Billy, was it? Billy, was it, on the phone making all sorts of threats? You know, like I said, I’m one of these people, I’m a little bit laid-back. Nothing really worries me.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And Billy was saying to me he’s got A levels in – what is it he said? – A levels in whacking people, I think his expression was. I honestly don’t give a fuck.’ Steele replaced the receiver.

  The calls became more and more frequent and the threats more and more serious. Billy and John talked about the recent IRA bombing at Canary Wharf, implying they were members of that terrorist organisation. ‘You’d better watch your back,’ John told Steele. ‘The ceasefire has gone, Mickey, and your ceasefire’s gone.’ During one of the calls, Billy said, ‘You’re going to have to emigrate one day, that’s the only way. I’m going to have to follow these matters up.’

  Steele’s response was short and to the point. ‘Why don’t the pair of you just fuck off and bother someone else.’

  A few days later, Sarah Saunders received similar threats from Billy and John. Sarah, fearing for her safety and that of her young son, immediately reported the threats to Basildon Police. Their response brought Sarah little comfort. The contact number Billy and John had given Sarah, they said, was the number of a well-known IRA bar in Belfast. Billy and John, they added, had been identified as known members of a major terrorist cell that had recently moved to mainland Britain. They had been tracked entering the country, but the officers watching them had now lost them. Sarah was naturally terrified but almost as soon as the threatening calls had started, they stopped.

  Chapter 12

  On Friday, 1 March, I was asked to attend South Woodham Ferrers police station, where the Rettendon murder inquiry team was based. DS Saunders and DC Chapple led me through the back to an interview room. In the corridor outside was a storeroom and on the door a sign read: ‘Risk of health hazard, Rettendon exhibits’. In that cupboard, behind that door, were my friends’ clothing and personal effects, no doubt soaked in their blood. I don’t know if I had been shown it deliberately for effect, or if it was a mere coincidence, but it made the whole horror story real.

  When the detectives sat me down, they asked me about my military career, adding that the gunman had executed the trio with ruthless efficiency. ‘Someone who knew what they were doing, Bernie. An ex-military man, perhaps?’ I said I knew what it looked like, but I had not murdered my friends. I was told that I had to understand that a lot of people believed I was involved. ‘Even if you didn’t pull the trigger, Bernie, you had good reason to see the back of them. They were threatening to shoot you. Maybe it was a case of you or them? You could have done it out of fear.’

  All the time they were ‘chatting’ to me, I was aware that one of the detectives kept his gaze fixed firmly on my eyes, as if he was looking for a reaction. When they had finished their ‘chat’, which had lasted for an hour and forty-five minutes, they said they would need to see me again. They gave me their names and numbers on a piece of paper – ‘Just in case you remember anything, Bernie,’ they said – and told me to go.

  As we walked past the storeroom again, I felt myself reaching out to touch the door. Tucker’
s thick gold neck chain with its solid-gold boxing glove, I knew, would be in there. He always wore it. I imagined it caked in blood and the police having to clean it before they returned it to his loved ones. These morbid thoughts saddened me and made me feel deeply depressed. I found it hard to accept that I would never see them again, though I felt annoyed at myself for feeling sorry for them. Those three bastards would have murdered me at the drop of a hat. How on earth did we arrive at all this?

  The detectives couldn’t resist a parting shot. ‘Keep your head down, Bernie. You know some people think you had a hand in this and they aren’t happy.’

  It wasn’t a threat. I knew as well as they did it was a fact. Whether they actually cared about my well-being was another matter. When I got outside, I had an urge to run, to get away from this bloody mess, but I thought the detectives would be watching me from the police station windows, so I walked around the corner before running to the nearby gymnasium car park where I had left my vehicle – I was still on the 12-month driving ban I’d picked up in Birmingham. I felt stupid. I felt hunted by the police and hunted by the people who, according to the police, were plotting my murder. For others in the murky drug world I had left behind, it was business as usual.

  Twenty miles away in Braintree, Darren Nicholls continued to use his suicide jockeys to import cannabis. He had also become heavily involved with an Essex detective. One day, he had been in the Sailing Oak public house having a drink when somebody tapped him on the shoulder. A voice said, ‘I know you’re a drug dealer.’ When Nicholls turned around, he saw DC Wolfgang Bird looking at him with a big smirk on his face. Nicholls had never spoken to the detective, but he knew who he was because their paths had crossed twice in the past. The first time had been in that very pub. DC Bird had lent his car, a Ford Escort XR3i, to three friends, who had crashed it and one of them had ended up in intensive care. Nicholls and a group of his friends had mocked the detective about the incident. On the second occasion, in the same pub around Christmas time, Nicholls had seen DC Bird unloading bottles of spirits from the boot of his car and taking them into the pub. Enquiries by Nicholls among the regulars revealed the detective was a friend of the landlord and supplied him with booze he bought cheaply at police auctions.