Essex Boy

by Steve 'Nipper' Ellis; Bernard O'Mahoney

  When they eventually left, I went back into the flat and found a note that Tate had left for me. It read, ‘Don’t let me lose all respect for you, Nipper. I am trying to help you. Please get in touch.’

  I rang Tate and asked him how trying to kill me was ever going to help me.

  ‘You kicked my fucking door in, you prick. I watched you. I was only going to kill Tucker before today but now you’re all going to die.’

  Tate didn’t answer and the line went dead. I ran out of the house and hid in an alleyway opposite my flat. Moments later Tucker’s Porsche pulled up and he and Rolfe got out and walked down the alley to the rear of my home. I remained where I was, waiting for Tate to pull up in his vehicle but, after a few minutes, I concluded that he must have gone home. The hour had arrived for Tucker and Rolfe to die.

  When I had cut the barrel off my shotgun, I had tied a length of rope to the stock so that I could sling it over my shoulder and hide it under my jacket. As I entered the alleyway, I practised opening my jacket, letting the shotgun fall and then swinging it up from my side into the firing position. Fuck knows what film I had seen such a motion in, but it was extremely slick and effective. In my left hand I clutched the 2.2 revolver, which was loaded and ready to fire.

  As I reached the rear of my flat I saw that Rolfe was in the process of stealing my motorbike leathers from the garden shed. I could hear loud banging and thought that Tucker must be in the shed trying to break the padlock off my 750 Suzuki motorcycle but this stopped as I approached. I decided to hide behind a nearby garden gate and wait for the two of them to step into the alleyway where they would have little or no chance of escape. As Tucker walked out of my garden with Rolfe immediately behind him I emerged from my hiding place with a weapon in each hand.

  Tucker was visibly shocked and could only manage to utter, ‘Nipper. Nipper, you cunt.’

  ‘Fucking Nipper. Fucking Nipper,’ I shouted. ‘Have some of this, you mug.’ I pulled the trigger of the handgun, while aiming at Tucker’s head, but it failed to fire.

  Rolfe dropped my motorbike leathers and ran. Tucker, to my amazement, fell to the floor and began making a pathetic whimpering noise interspersed with pleas of, ‘No, no.’ I pulled the trigger again but the gun failed me once more. Tucker realised that he had an opportunity to escape and so got to his feet and ran. As he did so I pulled the trigger again and on this occasion the weapon fired. I have no idea where the bullet went but it failed to find the intended target as Tucker continued to flee the scene. I ran after Tucker and Rolfe and opened fire with the shotgun. They immediately vaulted a hedge and began running through people’s gardens in an effort to escape me.

  I did manage to unleash two more shots but I was chasing the duo as I did so and my aim was, at best, poor. I have to admit that I was more scared during this encounter than I had been when Tucker had threatened to sever my limb. I had been like a man possessed with murderous intent when I had tried to shoot the bastards and when it was over the extent of my own rage terrified me. I knew it was not over yet, though; I would have to kill them before they caught and killed me.

  That night Tucker’s business partner, Bernard O’Mahoney, rang me and offered his assistance. He said that Tate and Rolfe had been to Raquel’s nightclub, in Basildon, looking for me. Tate had told O’Mahoney that if I did turn up he was to let me in, ring him or Tucker and keep me there until they arrived.

  ‘They are going to top you, Nipper. They are telling everybody that you grassed them up for an incident in a 7/11 store,’ O’Mahoney had warned. ‘If you want somewhere to lay low, I have people up north you can go to. Alternatively, if you want to stay in Essex I can try and talk to them.’

  O’Mahoney offered to meet me but I told him in no uncertain terms that he was too close to those three bastards to trust. I wasn’t aware at the time that O’Mahoney’s offer of help was genuine. I later learned that he thought no more of the trio than I did, but I was so paranoid through fear that I wouldn’t have trusted the good Lord himself if he had appeared and offered to assist me. This was one battle that I was going to have to fight and win alone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  *

  Unlike Tucker and Tate, I do my best to carry out any threats that I make and, the following night, I shot Tate at his bungalow in Basildon. The only regrets I have are that the bullet smashed his arm rather than his head and I didn’t manage to shoot Tucker and Rolfe too. When Tucker heard about Tate being shot, he hid in his house and telephoned Rolfe to come to his aid.

  ‘He has gone fucking mad and shot Pat. Get yourself over here and bring a gun because I think I’m next,’ Tucker whined.

  When Rolfe arrived, Tucker made him search the area around his house before he dared venture outside his front door. When Rolfe informed Tucker that I didn’t appear to be in the vicinity, they raced to Basildon hospital in Rolfe’s car. Sarah Saunders was already at Tate’s bedside and she later told me that Tucker had been laughing about me trying to shoot him and Rolfe, and boasted that I would have to be killed for what I had done. I am still alive today, those three are not. Enough said.

  The morning after I had shot Tate, my girlfriend was taken to Basildon hospital by two of Tucker’s gofers and shown the damage that the bullet had caused. Tate was lying in bed drugged out of his mind, shouting, ‘Your fucking boyfriend did this. Tell him if he doesn’t give himself up to us, everybody he cares about will pay.’

  Trembling with fear, my girlfriend was then taken to the premises in Basildon where Tate’s prostitutes operated from. No reason was given to my girlfriend for this visit but she was asked if she was currently employed, the implication being that she could be forced into prostitution if she didn’t divulge my whereabouts. Fortunately for her, she was not troubled again after being dropped off near her home.

  Later that evening, I was contacted by my friend Malcolm Walsh who told me that Tucker wanted me to know that he intended to kidnap one of my sisters and torture her until I agreed to give myself up. My sisters were aged five and fifteen at that time and I was naturally horrified and incensed. Malcolm apologised for passing such a message on to me but said he had only done so because he thought that considering the state of mind Tucker was in he may well have carried out his threat.

  ‘He was drugged up, saying he was going to cut your sisters’ fingers off one by one,’ Malcolm said. ‘He was almost crying with temper; the guy is a fucking arsehole.’

  I purchased a double-barrelled shotgun, drove to my father’s home and, after explaining what I had been told, gave him the weapon. My father and I picked my sisters up from school and after packing several suitcases they headed to a hotel in Ipswich. Saying goodbye to them was extremely difficult; I don’t mind admitting that I cried. I truly believed that I was going to have to kill Tucker or be killed myself. A grave or a prison cell. My future prospects were hardly mouth-watering.

  I knew that Tucker would be going to visit Tate that evening and so I decided to lie in wait and shoot him. I drove to Basildon hospital and put on a ridiculous-looking cheap plastic mackintosh. If I was going to have to lie in bushes or out in the rain for some time, I wanted to at least remain dry.

  Vehicles were pulling up at the visitors’ entrance and dropping passengers off before driving to the car park, which was some distance away. I thought it unlikely that Tucker would drive himself when he had so many minions at his disposal, and so I decided to stand outside the main entrance of the hospital and shoot him as he got out of his vehicle. I dread to think what I looked like as I marched up and down the concourse growling, spitting and staring at the occupants of every vehicle that pulled up.

  ‘Nipper, Nipper,’ a voice called out. ‘What the fuck are you up to?’ I spun around to find a man I knew named Jason Smythe laughing at me.

  Pulling the shotgun from my coat I began saying, ‘Tucker, fucking Tony Tucker. I am going to blow his fucking head clean off.’ Jason stopped laughing and begged me to put the weapon away.

  �
�What has he done to you? Please go home, Nipper. You’re in no state to be out here,’ Jason said.

  I didn’t realise it at the time but Jason was right. I was in such a hyped-up state of anger and frustration that I was actually weeping. Jason told me that the police were looking for me everywhere and I would be wise to get into my car and go before somebody telephoned them. Both Tucker and Rolfe had made formal complaints to the police about me attempting to murder them and Tate had told them that it was me who had shot him. Grassing bastards. They didn’t mind bullying and intimidating people, but when they feared for their own safety they had run to the police for protection. Before getting into my car and driving away, I thanked Jason for advising me that I was now wanted not only by Tucker and Tate, but also by the police.

  I think that I suffered some form of mental breakdown that night. I was weeping for my family, shouting obscenities that only I could hear and laughing at the images of Tate and Tucker’s bullet-riddled bodies that swarmed through my head. The most powerful emotion was fear for my family and so I decided to take a drastic course of action in the hope of saving them. I telephoned Tucker’s friend Carlton Leach and asked him to meet me.

  ‘Tucker’s going to hurt my sisters if he can’t catch and kill me. I know that if he catches me I face a terrible death, so I need your help,’ I said.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Leach replied.

  ‘I want you to shoot me. I can’t let them hurt my family and I can’t face being caught. It’s my only option, but I can’t do it myself,’ I said.

  Leach fell silent for a few moments before telling me that he couldn’t possibly do such a thing. He said that Tucker was out of order for threatening my family, but all he could do was try to talk him out of it. ‘I’ll ring him and ask him to leave your family alone. I don’t think he will listen but I will try to make him see sense,’ Leach said.

  About an hour later, Leach rang me back and said that Tucker had given his word that my family would be left alone but I was going to have my arms and legs hacked off.

  ‘Tucker said that he wants to see you in a wheelchair,’ Leach said.

  ‘Well, tell Tucker he is a fool, because if he leaves me alive, I will somehow get hold of a gun and blow his big fucking head off.’ I replied.

  I was still distraught and Leach, to his credit, suggested that I call him back the following morning after he had talked to Tucker face to face rather than over the phone.

  ‘He may listen to me and leave you alone. All I can do is ask,’ Leach said.

  The following morning, I rang Leach and he invited me to his home. Fearing it was a ruse so that Tucker could catch me, I drove around the streets near to where Leach lived looking for familiar vehicles. When I finally entered Leach’s home, I was armed with a pump-action shotgun and my revolver, which were secreted under my plastic mackintosh.

  Leach told me that he wanted no part in my dispute with his friends but he didn’t want to see either me or them getting hurt. Sitting on the sofa, I looked like a fucking chameleon, my eyes darted from door to door, window to window and room to room. I was still unconvinced that Leach had not lured me to his home so that Tucker could catch me. At one stage I jumped up from the sofa, pulled out my revolver and began looking in the other rooms, checking that the patio doors were locked and searching under the stairs.

  Leach sat in the lounge shaking his head in disbelief. ‘They have really got to you, haven’t they, Nipper? I promise you that this is not a set-up,’ he said.

  Leach asked me if the gun I had in my hand was the one that I had used to shoot Tate. Rather than admit my guilt to a man I knew had made a statement about a gunman shooting his car up, I just laughed, thanked him for his assistance and left. Later that day I rang Jason, who I had met outside the hospital the night before. I mentioned that I had been to visit Leach and he said that he knew. When I enquired how he could possibly have known, Jason said that Leach had telephoned him and said that, in the state of mind that I was in, I was a liability running around with loaded guns. Jason claimed that he had then been asked by Leach if he could lure me to a quiet location out of town so that I could be ‘taken care of’. ‘Stay away from them all, Nipper. You’re playing roulette with your life,’ Jason warned.

  I had become so paranoid I didn’t even trust Jason and so I decided to ring the root cause of all my problems: Pat Tate. I am not sure what his blood pressure was like before I rang but he was in danger of suffering a heart attack by the time we had finished talking. The call started in a civil manner; I reminded him how friendly we had once been, but when I suggested that drugs had destroyed him he began screaming incoherently down the phone.

  ‘Shut up, you fucking idiot. I am going to come up to that hospital and put one in your head,’ I said before hanging up.

  Tate was in no doubt that I would carry out my threat, the lump of lead in his arm bore testament to the fact that my word was my bond. Tate immediately rang Tucker and pleaded with him to bring a gun to the hospital for his protection. It wasn’t the brightest idea that Tate had ever had. The hospital staff were already tiring of him and his visitors taking illegal drugs and being unnecessarily loud. When a prostitute had been found giving oral sex to Tate, he had been moved to a private room off the general ward. This move had made matters even worse because Tate’s guests ignored the official visiting times and partied well into the night, every night.

  One morning, while Tate was having the dressing on his wound changed, a nurse making up his bed discovered the loaded gun that Tucker had supplied under his pillow. The police were called immediately and Tate was arrested for possession of a firearm, ammunition and a quantity of various drugs. Since Tate was still on licence from his ten-year sentence for the Happy Eater robbery, he was immediately returned to prison. I spent every hour of every day and night searching for Tucker and his sidekick Rolfe. Only one thought occupied my troubled mind; find the bastards and kill them before they kill me or a member of my family. It was Tucker that I really wanted to execute, but if Rolfe happened to be with him then he could have some lead as well, but ironing him out was not a priority; his death would be nothing more than a bonus.

  Rolfe had recently purchased Tucker’s house, as he had put it on the market after moving up the property ladder, courtesy of his lucrative drug-dealing business. It was so lucrative, in fact, that even after moving Tucker could afford to pay Rolfe’s mortgage in return for his chauffeuring, drug distribution and general skivvying services. Tucker and Rolfe both lived in the Chafford Hundred area, which was then a new housing development near Essex girls’ heaven – the Lakeside shopping centre. They were aware of the vehicle that I drove, so if I was going to ambush them I would have to replace it. I bought an old Volvo from a friend of mine in Southend: it started, it ran, it was cheap; but beyond that there’s nothing positive that I can say about it.

  Driving towards Tucker’s house I passed a large pub on a roundabout called the Sandmartin. As I turned off the roundabout I noticed a black Porsche 928 parked on a grass verge. Glancing at the registration number as I drove past I saw that it was the unmistakable TT9 plate belonging to Tucker. My heart began to race as the adrenalin surged through my body. I had found Tucker’s vehicle and knew that he would not be far away. I pulled over and reached for my pump-action shotgun. My task was distasteful but I knew that I would not hesitate to carry it out. I couldn’t see anybody sitting in the Porsche and so I got back into my car, drove a further 100 yards and parked.

  I knew that when Tucker returned to the vehicle he would have to drive towards me, unless of course he did a three-point turn in the road. That would take time and so either way I would have an opportunity to shoot him. I decided that as he approached me I would stand in the road, blast his windscreen out with the shotgun and then, when he had stopped, I would empty the handgun into his body and head. I sat motionless in my car for ten to fifteen minutes, my eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror. I dared not avert them for a split second just in
case my target got into his car unnoticed.

  After an hour or so, I began to wonder if Tucker was going to return to his car, so I decided to get out and look for him on foot. I secreted the shotgun in my jacket and walked around the surrounding streets, but he was nowhere to be seen. As I returned to my car I heard Tucker’s Porsche roar into life. I ran as fast as I could, jumped into my vehicle and gave chase. My car was no match for Tucker’s high-powered machine and soon I was watching in despair as his tail lights disappeared into the distance. Just as I was giving up hope of ever cornering my prey I drove past the Esso service station at the Lakeside shopping centre and saw Tucker’s Porsche parked at the pumps.

  I circled the garage and could make out a large man at the rear of the vehicle, presumably filling it up with petrol. I couldn’t shoot him on the garage forecourt because there were too many cameras and knowing my luck of late I would probably miss, hit a petrol pump and engulf half of Essex in a ball of fucking flame. ‘Shit, shit,’ I said to myself. ‘I’ll have to let him have it when he pulls away from the garage.’ As the Porsche drove away from the forecourt I pulled in behind it and placed the shotgun on my lap. Initially, heavy traffic allowed me to keep up with the vehicle but as soon as the Porsche hit a long stretch of open road my car was left behind in a cloud of smoke.

  The following Saturday night, I put on a baseball cap, a pair of nerd glasses and drove to Tucker’s home to await his arrival. I knew that he usually stumbled in just before sunrise but I wanted to secure a good parking position from where I could launch my attack. The last week had really taken its toll on me. I don’t mind admitting that I was scared. In fact it was more than that; I was absolutely terrified.