Half an hour later a car turned up outside the office and one of the boss’s bears hustled me into the back seat. We headed north to a small hotel in the village of Pangbourne on Thames. I was shown to a room at the back of the hotel and told to wait.
Ten minutes rolled by before the boss walked in.
With two bears in tow, he walked up to me and, knuckleduster in hand, cracked open my chin. I went down like a lump of clay and the bears played football with me for five minutes.
‘Stop,’ came the boss’s voice.
The football stopped and I was dragged back onto a chair.
‘Giles is out. You are in. The whole of London is yours but pull another trick like that without my permission and you’ll join Karl Marx up at Highgate Cemetery.’
With this he left and, with three busted ribs, a snapped wrist and a busted jaw I took a taxi back to London — stopping off at Gerry the Fix’s gaff for some emergency medical repairs.
How’s the clock? Eleven thirty nine and four seconds.
So there I was kingpin in London. Top of the tree and not yet thirty. I took to the new job with a ruthless streak that earned me the nickname ‘the bastard’. Unoriginal but accurate.
I was now earning more in a week than some of my old school friends would earn in a year. I kept Spencer as my number two, split London into five areas — north, south, east, west and the city — and put a body in place for each. I drove the organisation hard and turned it from an opportunistic, street-fighting mob into a sophisticated business. We embraced technology and the financial markets and turned from petty loan sharking to money, drugs and sex.
I lost four of my best men in early 1991 to a hit and run by a gang who came up from the south west with ambitions to knock me over. We repaid the favour by wiping out the entire gang. Most people will have heard of it. We crashed a turboprop with thirty people on board as it took off from Bristol airport. Sabotage was suspected but never proven.
In the summer of 1993 a money laundering scheme that had doubled our income in the previous six months went tits up in a bad way. The financial authorities sent in the heavy mob and they were the Andrews Liver Salts to our digestion. I lost six of my best men to Wormwood Scrubs for sentences ranging from three to eight years. I escaped by the skin of my teeth but my card was marked.
By now the police were wise to us in a big way but I was careful to give them little reason to talk to me. London was now over three quarters of the total income of the group and I was pushing to take control of the rest of England. I reckoned we could triple our income if I had the steering wheel.
Of course you can see what’s coming. Sadly so could the boss. I was no longer a valued asset. I was becoming a serious risk to his command.
One sunny Tuesday a blue Ford Escort parked outside my townhouse in Chelsea at five in the morning and, as I left the front door two hours later, it exploded — taking out half a block of London ’s most expensive real estate.
I should have died but, as I left the house, I bent down to tie a shoe lace. The initial blast wave caught me in the backside and threw me into the basement well that sat beneath my front door. Out of the way of the main explosion I survived but was rendered deaf in one ear and suffered second degree burns to a fifth of my body. I had more cuts and bruises than could be counted and my Rolex was branded into my wrist. To this day I still carry the imprint of a watch on my skin.
I spent three months in hospital, all the time fearing that the boss would finish the job. But he had gotten sloppy in his old age and word was everywhere that he was behind the failed attempt on my life. He went to ground. I might have been known as ‘the bastard’ but at least I was a fair bastard and rule number one in our game is don’t shit on your own doorstep.
Two days before I left hospital a young man called Greg McAllister took a walk in Hyde Park with his pet Labrador. It was a routine he had been repeating for a fortnight and, as he had done for the previous fourteen mornings, he uttered a polite good morning to an old man in a jogging suit flanked by two human four by twos. Only this time he took a small pistol from his coat and emptied the gun into the old man before running off.
I was now in charge of the UK and had no intention of stopping there.
Chapter 19
Sometime after I left hospital I was given a copy of Little Caesar starring Edward G Robinson to watch while I was laid up. Robinson plays Riko, probably one of the best known gangsters in movie history. I loved the movie. No — I adored the movie. Robinson became a bit of a role model. He took no shit.
There is a scene where he suspects that one of his gang is feeling guilty and about to go to confess all to the priest. Riko’s solution was to gun the gang member down on the steps of the church. I must have watched that movie a hundred times and I made it clear that I no longer wanted to be known as the bastard or Jock — and soon I was the new Riko.
People thought I was off my head but I loved it.
I had just entered my fourth decade and was one of the main players in my game. Life was sweet and I set about making myself comfortable. I called Martin down from Glasgow and put him and Spencer on the day to day stuff.
I thought Martin might object. After all he had happily grown roots in Glasgow and, apart from the odd phone call, he had been a stranger. He surprised me by jumping on a train and joining me.
I muscled up with bodyguards that were smart enough to know how to defend me and thick enough to do it regardless of the danger to themselves. I bought a pile in the country and adopted the landed gentry motif with consummate ease. Shotguns, wellies, hounds and a Land Rover Defender — I was lord of the manor — in true Only Fools and Horses style. I probably looked like a tit but I didn’t care — the money was rolling in and I was well smart enough to keep things on an even keel. At least I thought I was.
Eleven forty eight and twenty seven seconds — time flies when you’re telling a good story.
For five years I made hay and rolled in the folding stuff for fun. I had the sense to stay out of Ireland but Wales and Scotland were mine. The north east of England held out for a while but a face to face (by face to face I mean fifty odd on each side) in South Shields and we sorted it out.
I know I wasn’t the only criminal in the country. I was one of thousands but I was nearer the top of the tree than rolling in the manure at the base of the trunk.
A year later Carl Dupree rolled up at my manor. He stood on my lawn, took out a spray can and wrote in six feet letters, bright red six feet letters:: ‘The End.’
That’s when things got weird and I mean plenty weird.
Chapter 20
The sun rose on the red lettering on my lawn as three gardeners cut out the turf and replaced it with less offensive grass. Dupree had done a runner of extraordinary speed and grace. I didn’t know his name that day but I vowed to find out double quick. I ordered Martin and Spencer to the mansion and told them they had twenty four hours to find the man on the lawn and bring him to me.
They left, heads held high — the way they walked boosting my sense of well being. I would have the bastard in front of me in less than a day.
Three days rolled by and my blood pressure rose by the hour. I ranted and I raved. I screamed and I threatened. I blew a fuse, put in a new one and blew it again. All to no avail. Dupree had gone to ground and no one seemed to know who he was or where he had fled.
The lack of progress was starting to hurt. I had been dissed in my own home and I seemed powerless to act. That sort of story can gather legs and kick you in the nuts. I put thirty grand on the man’s head and let it be known that whoever brought him in would also get a boot up the promotion tree.