Hitman, Gangsters, Cannibals and Me

by Donal Macintyre

  The issue of the custody of the dogs was threatening to further disturb his peace of mind. He phoned Desmond to demand that he return his beloved pets.

  ‘You stole them dogs. You’re an evil man, Dessie. I want them back. I’ve found out where you live and I’m coming to confront you for my dogs, Desmond,’ Adair told him.

  ‘Let’s see what happens, eh?’ said Desmond.

  ‘You see? There you go – “let’s see what happens.” What are you going to do? Are you going to kill me?’

  ‘Put it this way, Johnny: would you feel safe in my company again? I don’t think you’d be safe at all, Johnny.’

  ‘I don’t want no violence; I know you’re an evil man. I know what you’re capable off. But I don’t want to confront you to face something like that; I just want my dogs back, Desmond,’ Adair pleaded.

  ‘The only time you’ll get your dogs back is when I’m six feet under.’

  ‘When you’re six feet under?’

  ‘I told you about that time when I was sitting in my Mazda outside your door and I said to myself, “If he moves from that house, what I have in my hand down the side door panel, he’s going to get shot with.”’

  ‘You see, that’s using violence, Desmond. Why?’

  ‘It’s not. It’s self-defence, Johnny.’

  ‘You’re an evil man, Desmond. You’re a convicted drug dealer, Desmond. You’ve stolen my dogs and then you’re threatening to kill me if I come face-to-face with you or eye-to-eye with you. I am asking you, Desmond. I’m not threatening you, I’m begging you, Dessie. I’m even begging you. Would you please give me my dogs back? I’m offering you £3,000 for the safe return of my two dogs, Shane and Rebel. The two dogs that I dearly love, Desmond.’

  ‘Can I answer?’ Desmond asked.

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘No deal.’

  ‘Well, Dessie, I’m coming to your door. I know where you, live Desmond. I just want my dogs back,’ said Adair.

  ‘You know where I live? As far as I’m concerned Johnny, all negotiations are over. There will be no more social. It’ll be every man for himself, John,’ Desmond told him.

  ‘Well, Desmond, I’ll be coming to your door, looking to get my dogs back. I’m not coming with a threat of violence: I’m coming with £3,000 in my pocket now, Desmond. I’ll see you soon, OK? Cheerio, Desmond.’

  In the meantime, Johnny considered offering a home to a lonely abandoned soul at a nearby dog shelter. Like many prospective dog owners, he seeks characteristics in the dogs that he sees in himself. I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps he should have bought a piranha. He prowled around the cages.

  He patted a dog and said, ‘This one looks very scared.’ I don’t know why he was surprised.

  One of the wardens came over to Johnny to see how he was getting on. ‘Some of the staff seem to think you look a bit like someone – Mad Dog or something,’ she said, obviously completely unaware of who she was talking to. There were quiet whispers from her colleagues in the background, who were clearly better informed about his track record. Johnny let it pass and left the shelter, still hoping to retrieve the long-lost Shane and Rebel.

  * * * * *

  Good afternoon, and welcome to this tour of Belfast. On this tour, we’re going to bring you through areas that you’ve probably seen on the news and read about in the newspapers. OK folks, we’re just bringing you into the Shankill area. Here you’ll see the colours red, white and blue. Now, a Loyalist is someone who is loyal to her majesty the Queen and to the crown of England. This area in particular at one time was run by a man, a man you’ve probably all heard about – Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair. Johnny Adair controlled this area with an iron fist.

  Adair enjoys the limelight, but even he was surprised to learn that he’s become a tourist attraction. Despite being in exile, he still commands the car-crash notoriety that once filled the front pages of Northern Ireland’s newspapers.

  Now, if you look straight out the window, you’ll see a large UFF mural. If there’s such a thing as a good mural, this is it. If you watch the gunman’s eyes and his weapons as we leave the area, both the eyes and the weapon follow you the whole way round this area. Just to your left-hand side here, you’ll see some blank walls. These walls all had murals on them which were commissioned by Johnny Adair when he was the leader of the UFF. When he was moved out of the area, local people had the murals painted over. He actually lived in this street, if you look just down on the left-hand side here. It’s called Boundary Way. They even took the nameplate off the street itself. Since then he hasn’t been back again. If he came back to the area, I think there would be a lot of friction.

  The tourists were enjoying their history lesson. They had no idea that the camera that was recording these words would shortly film Adair returning to that very spot.

  Just a few years previously, this area had erupted into a chaotic murderous feud between opposing Loyalist factions. Adair’s group was ultimately run out of town.

  He hated being in enforced exile and still clung to the idea of humiliating those who wanted him dead.

  ‘Six of the so-called brigadiers wanted me dead. To date, two of those are now themselves six feet under, but Johnny Adair is still standing. And Johnny Adair will return home soon,’ he told me emphatically. ‘What greater insult to them, than to return to their doorsteps and my old haunting ground – they would go fucking mad …. Whoever laughs last, laughs the longest,’ Johnny told me. Jonathan joined in on cue to make his own resolve clear: ‘And what goes around, comes around,’ he said.

  I wanted to test Adair on his desire to go home. Was he, despite his new tattoo, all talk and no action? He had said that he wished to return but had made no plans or effort to do so. I suggested that we go in through Dublin Port by car, and drive up to Belfast before doing a kind of dawn raid on the Shankill. This was a dangerous trip but I figured that the Police would get wind of it and follow us, so we would have an unwitting security detail to keep an eye on us.

  Over a game of pool, and with military precision, Johnny hatched his plan to complete the 600-mile journey from Troon to Belfast via Holyhead and Dublin. ‘Let’s hope I don’t come home in a coffin …. It could cost me my life if they catch me. I have no doubt that they would kill me if they see me,’ he said. We planned to use safe houses and decoy cars but we didn’t know if this would be enough.

  ‘If you go back to Northern Ireland you will be shot dead – simple as that,’ Former Detective Jonty Brown, the man who had put him in prison years previously, had told him directly. Naturally, this played on Adair’s mind, particularly when Brown drove the point home by saying: ‘I’d say they’d be queuing up to whack you.’

  It didn’t halt the march of the plan, however. We were to travel across the border by car and go directly to a safe house. From there, we would organise Johnny’s visit to the Shankill.

  Adair was distinctly sheepish as we boarded the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin. This was a side of him I hadn’t seen before: the bluster and bravado were replaced with a nervous hush.

  When we arrived in Dublin, I increasingly saw fear in his eyes. He wasn’t cool under pressure and became agitated and twitchy. I wondered if he was feeling the same terror that he had inspired in so many others over the years. In a way it was good to see that he was human, and I was confident that he would escape unharmed. Yes, he was facing death threats there upon his return, but we would be gone within an hour, probably before his enemies even knew he was there.

  Before we left Dublin, I decided to bring Adair into the city centre to the birthplace of Irish Republicanism – the GPO, headquarters of the leaders of the 1916 Rising. But Johnny showed little interest and certainly didn’t want to linger to soak up the atmosphere.

  ‘How does it feel to be in Dublin?’ I asked him.

  ‘Rotten,’ he laughed.

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘there are 2,000 retired IRA activists here. Is it a dangerous place for you to be?’

  �
��Well, let’s get out of it,’ he said. And off he scarpered to the car.

  He was unmoved when we crossed the border into Northern Ireland. As we drove into Belfast, I said to him, ‘Johnny, you’re home.’ But he said nothing.

  Our producer, David Malone, was driving erratically through the streets of Belfast, which were unfamiliar to him. Our retired killer was upset that David wasn’t quite following the directions as instructed and became more and more irritated. ‘Just to your right. No, no, no, go on round,’ he said, his voice rising. The conflicting directions did not help matters. ‘Go you round! See, you don’t know what you’re doing with your driving,’ Adair said, becoming really furious with David. I was becoming scared of Adair at this stage and the tension in the car only made David drive even more chaotically.

  ‘You don’t know what you are doing. Do what I say. Turn right around,’ Johnny instructed.

  I spotted a Police car in the rear-view mirror. Adair saw it too, and was beginning to really lose his temper now. ‘Just right round. Come on! No, down there!’ Adair shouted, as if David was ever going to outmanoeuvre the Police in our tiny rented car.

  ‘See what I mean? You haven’t a clue,’ he lamented. Young Mad Pup remained silent. ‘There’s a car following us. We’ll go left again and we’ll see,’ Johnny said, nervously watching behind him. ‘If he goes left, go straight up, for fuck’s sake.’ Adair thought someone was out to take him down.

  ‘I told you to go left, David. Go right!’ To give David his due, he remained the coolest in the car. Having a terrorist as a backseat driver is not covered in the driver theory test. Suddenly, a siren cut through air. ‘Who’s this? Cops, is it?’

  It was the cops. The former brigadier continued his instructions: ‘Just drive up there, the further away the better.’

  The Police car sped up to us and indicated for us to pull over. ‘Just stop here. For fuck’s sake, stop!’ Adair shouted at David, exasperated at his lack of experience as a getaway driver. I was more than a little concerned by this turn of events.

  ‘Fuck’s sake! That’s us fucked now,’ said an agitated Johnny. I took some little pleasure in seeing him at the end of his tether.

  The policemen came to the front of the car. I picked up my camera and started to film, hoping that this might distract them from pulling us all in for a night. Adair was perfectly entitled to be in Northern Ireland. He wasn’t breaking any law by being there, but the Police could nonetheless make life difficult for him and for us, too.

  ‘Hello. How are you?’ an ever polite David said to the young officer.

  ‘Could you turn that off for a second?’ the officer said to me, pointing to the camera.

  ‘I reserve my right to film,’ I said, ‘as a journalist.’

  The officer didn’t bother to challenge me. He looked into the back of the car, where Johnny and Jonathan were sitting, but passed no remark.

  ‘Could you step out?’ he asked David.

  He checked his licence and then allowed us to go. We drove off. If he had recognised the key players in the back of the car, he hadn’t let on.

  Adair was perspiring.

  ‘Do they know it’s me?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said David. ‘Well, they didn’t say, but I think they know.’

  ‘Well, [if] they know, do the UDA know?’ Johnny wondered. ‘My fear is: will the Police leak to my enemies that I’m in the country?’

  Whatever the answer, there seemed to be little fallout. We went to the safe house to gather our thoughts and prepare for a dangerous stroll down Adair’s memory lane.

  The following morning, three years after his exile, he returned to the community he had once ruled over.

  ‘This is where I used to live, where I was exiled from,’ he whispered as we drove into the estate. ‘This was an area I loved and a people I loved.’

  It was 7 a.m. on 29 December and we hoped that most of the estate would be peacefully asleep. I saw a curtain move but I didn’t tell Johnny: I didn’t want to spook him. As we moved through the darkness of the post-Christmas morning among the terraced houses and the murals, a pathetic picture began to emerge. ‘I used to be a god here – I feel a distance to it now,’ he said.

  For years he had longed for it, but now this place had left him feeling empty. With his head sunk deep into his jacket, he had the look of a broken man.

  He gave it about five minutes and then decided he wanted to visit the Maze Prison, a real home-from-home for Mad Dog. Along the road, graffiti made him wince: ‘Adair wife-beater’. Adair had been convicted of assaulting his wife, Gina, who he had been with for 23 years. He had left her bruised and battered, after attacking her in a park following an evening spent at the pub. He admitted his guilt and had been fined for the assault.

  With the pressures of his life, they were almost certain to eventually split. In recent years, Gina Adair has battled ovarian cancer and they remain in regular contact.

  He spent many years at the Maze and famously even met Mo Mowlam when she was Northern Ireland Secretary. The inimitable Mowlam managed to charm even Johnny Adair and persuaded him to reconsider his opposition to Loyalist political representatives entering the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement.

  Now mothballed and rusting, the H-Blocks were a shadow of their former selves.

  ‘The video of choice [here] was porn. We would view porn movies, get drunk, and the prison authorities would supply us with disco lights,’ Adair remembered, almost fondly. He urinated against a concrete prison wall and then took a moment to express an extraordinary thought. ‘If I was a Nationalist, I would have probably joined the IRA,’ he told me. Naturally, by his own account, he would have been on the Army Council.

  This was enough nostalgia for Adair, and there was a sense that time was running out. He made a break for the airport and flew to Glasgow. When he arrived there, he was pulled in by the UK Police and questioned for four hours. They couldn’t understand why he would be flying in from Belfast, where the threat to him was so acute. With his record and reputation, this is probably something he has to expect for the rest of his life.

  * * * * *

  The UDA have now officially completely decommissioned their weapons. However, Adair claimed to me that he alone knew the whereabouts of many weapons and he asked me to contact the arms decommissioning body. I wasn’t sure if he was just feeling out of the loop and trying to feel important again. This was certainly not a role I wanted to assume. It was with some embarrassment that I contacted the body and met with them at the most bombed hotel in Europe: the Europa in Belfast. The commissioners were grumpy and taciturn after travelling from all over the world, and they didn’t hide it from me. They even thought I was secretly recording the meeting, which of course I wasn’t. I played it straight, figuring that more guns off the streets couldn’t be a bad thing. ‘He claims to have weapons and wishes to hand them over. If you want to play, he will play, but understand that if you don’t play ball, he will just say he was confused and you won’t get the guns,’ I told them.

  The commissioners listened and brought the offer from Adair to the Irish and British governments for consideration. Not long after, news came back from the decommissioning body: ‘Adair is not entitled to protection under the legislation. If he wants to hand over a gun or guns he would do so as a civilian. They, naturally, would be tested and he might be held liable for any crimes associated with the weapons.’

  I told them that I had a feeling that Adair’s memory would now prove to be faulty and that he would quickly decide that he didn’t know where the guns were. And that’s exactly what happened.

  * * * * *

  I last spoke to Adair on the phone about a year ago. He was well and still spoke about himself in the third person. But my last substantial conversation with him face-to-face was in the window seat of a motorway café in Berlin.

  ‘What’s going to happen to the man that takes you out?’ I asked him.

  ‘He will probably be celebrated in so
me dingy pub with about half a dozen drinking in it,’ Johnny replied.

  ‘Until Nick the Nazi comes over to take him out?’ I suggested.

  ‘Well, Nick says if anything happened to me, he would most definitely come and do something about it,’ he said.

  I think he is still surprised by the devotion of his Nazi followers, but welcomes the support all the same.

  ‘What will be on your tombstone?’ was my next, rather macabre question. ‘Will it be “Johnny Adair: freedom fighter, volunteer, gangster”?’

  He took a deep breath and glanced around the room before locking his gaze on mine.

  ‘Johnny Adair: from volunteer to brigadier. Quid separatum est – simply the best,’ he translated the Latin loosely.

  ‘That’s the end of the road, Johnny,’ I said, bringing our conversation and our time together to a close.

  ‘The final chapter is yet to be written, Mr MacIntyre.’

  I thought there was a sinister emphasis on my name that did not rest well with me then. And it still doesn’t.

  12

  MADAME MAC

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