Breaking Out

by Janice Nix

  I saw emotional dependence in other women too. It was as if they weren’t real in their own eyes. And if you aren’t real, it doesn’t feel as though your body can be yours. You don’t know that you have choices about who is, or who is not, allowed to touch you, or sleep with you, or be with you. You don’t understand that you have rights – the right to decide how to live and where to go and what to do. Deciding means thinking and planning, judging from your past and looking forward to your future. But when you’re lost and feel so hopeless that you don’t care what happens to you anyway, then you’re drawn, again and again, to men who make all your choices for you. Men who are looking for a woman to control.

  So how do you help someone protect themselves? I wondered. How do you teach them that their body is theirs, or that their feelings matter? You can’t fix the chaotic lives they lived when they were children, the mothers and fathers who beat them or neglected them or left them or were never there at all. You can’t repair their lack of opportunity, the poor school attendance that meant they failed all their exams. You can’t take away the poverty and violence and alcohol and drugs. All I could do was teach them how to love themselves more. And I could try to deal with the criminal record, because that’s what was making a decent life in future much more difficult to find.

  I wanted to help Naomi. And as I wondered how to start, Dorothy Johnson gave me plenty of ideas. When I first saw her tapping technique, I’d no idea at all what was happening. She’d been called in to give a demonstration on a training course I did.

  ‘What’s on earth is this?’ I asked her. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It’s called acupressure.’ Dorothy was tapping gently on the arm of a volunteer sitting in a chair. ‘If you learn to do this, you can calm yourself down when you need to.’

  I started off a sceptic, but I soon became a fan. Pretty soon, I invited Dorothy and her team – called the Ministry of Empowerment – to teach relaxation skills at the women’s group.

  This wasn’t pampering criminals. It wasn’t indulging people whom society should punish. It was the start of the process of mending broken lives.

  If you’ve kept yourself numb for a very long time, perhaps with alcohol or drugs, it’s frightening when your feelings return. Sadness, guilt and anger can seem overwhelming. It’s very important to be kind to yourself. You need to start in little ways, and then go on from there. We only had two hours a week, for twelve weeks. Sometimes it seemed like being sent to clear up after a hurricane – when all we had was a dustpan and brush. But at least we started sweeping.

  Naomi joined in with the activities we offered in the group, but she didn’t really listen. Then she disappeared for a while. She rang me up, months later, to tell me she was pregnant. After that, I never heard from her again. I asked her probation officer for news, but she’d heard nothing. Naomi was gone.

  I hated that feeling of unfinished business, but by then I was used to it. She wasn’t the only client who drifted away. I regretted every single one, and questioned myself over and over about why it had happened. Could I have done more? Could I have said something that connected? Could I have found a way?

  All I could do was try harder. Use every scrap of knowledge I had gained to try to help the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.

  NOVEMBER 1991

  ‘You got a dress for the party, babe?’

  Scully smiled at me across the dinner table. We loved to relax at Langan’s in Piccadilly. That evening, as usual, the food and wine had been exquisite.

  ‘Babe?’ he said again. ‘Janice? Is everything okay?’

  It wasn’t. For weeks I’d been listening to his plans for his fiftieth birthday, struggling not to put a downer on the whole idea. I knew he was excited, but my doubts were growing stronger every day.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I answered. ‘You just bet. I got a party dress. I’m sure you’ll approve.’

  He chuckled, but I knew I hadn’t fooled him.

  ‘It will be a nice evening,’ he said gently. ‘And I hope it’s a new beginning for you too.’

  ‘What d’you mean, babe?’

  ‘The start of a happier time. I know how hard it’s been for you since Sabrina.’

  He’d held me in his arms while I screamed my loss and pain. We never bothered talking hearts and flowers – for us, there was no need. It was real.

  ‘A new start sounds pretty good.’ I tried to smile. ‘No point dwelling on the past.’

  When Sabrina learned that I knew what she had done, she ran away. She ran all the way to Canada, to stay with a relative in Toronto. I don’t know what she thought I’d do, but she didn’t need to fear me. I wouldn’t have hurt her. Whatever she deserved – she had two children, and they at least were innocent. She’d made her choices. Karma will come knocking at her door. I tried to make peace with the event.

  Meanwhile, Scully kept on planning his party. He’d hired a community hall in Peckham for a full sit-down dinner to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. He’d got a huge firm of caterers in. There was a champagne bar – and just in case the bar ran dry, a van on stand-by stocked with even more liquor. Hundreds of guests had been invited – major players, anyone who was anyone at all. A party for underworld royalty.

  And that was the problem. Up to now, although his actions were known and his name was respected far and wide, the man himself had always worked in shadow. His party would bring him into the light. I couldn’t understand why he wanted to do it. I was sure it was a terrible mistake.

  ‘I’m going to arrive in a chauffeur-driven Rolls,’ Scully told me.

  We were in his office in Stockwell. As usual, his desk was inches deep in paper – invoices, receipts, scaffolding job requests.

  ‘You are joking! Arrive in a what?’

  ‘You know – a nice car. With a chauffeur.’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Can I just be honest with you?’

  ‘Of course, darlin’.’ He looked up from his accounts. His voice was mild and calm as always.

  ‘It’s just too much,’ I told him.

  ‘What’s too much?’

  ‘All this business with the chauffeur!’

  ‘Why is it too much?’

  ‘Because it’s making you conspicuous. And that is something you have never been.’

  He bristled. ‘Well now – half a century is a conspicuous birthday.’

  ‘Maybe for a business man. Maybe for an ordinary person. But that’s not what you are.’

  ‘I am an ordinary business man, Janice, and this is my business.’ Scully gestured around his office. He was getting annoyed, which wasn’t like him.

  ‘Your business works when you stay below the radar, not when you ride round Peckham in a Rolls!’

  ‘It’s just a birthday party, babe!’

  I’d made him angry. But he told the truth to me no matter what, and I would do the same.

  ‘Scully – have your party. Just tone it down a bit, that’s all. Forget the Rolls. Cut the guest list. Don’t put yourself on offer.’

  We fell silent for a moment. Such a serious disagreement was a shock to us both.

  ‘Look – I didn’t mean to be rude,’ I said to him. ‘But I am really worried and I want you to listen. You’ve always been a simple man – keep it that way. And what about your plans for retirement? This is not the time to draw attention.’

  But Scully didn’t listen. And in the end, I went along with his plans – I just couldn’t bear to disappoint him. I drank a lot of champagne and I dressed up to the nines in the blingest gold-sequinned dress you ever saw. I wore gold Pinet shoes with sky-high heels and a gold baseball cap with dollar signs on it. That outfit told anyone who looked at me that I was Mama J – a boss in my own right. I knew how happy Scully was at the party, and I pushed down my feelings of unease. But by then it was too late.

  One December night in 1991, the party blazed into life. The whole place was off the chain. There was fresh lobster and platters of oysters. The ch
ampagne flowed. There was live music and dancing. There were hundreds of guests – Rye Lane and Peckham High Street were rammed with Mercedes and BMW convertibles. Just around the corner was a Rolls-Royce Corniche belonging to the art dealer who’d sold Scully a piece for one of his houses.

  But I spotted some other vehicles too, just up the street. I knew police surveillance when I saw it. Scully’s birthday had attracted just the sort of attention that I’d feared. Mikey Shoes noticed too. He came up to me, frowning with concern.

  ‘You realise the old bill are here?’

  ‘Yes, I saw.’

  ‘They’re clocking every high-powered car that comes down this road. Names – faces – numberplates …’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Does the big man know?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said grimly. ‘God knows what he’s thinking.’

  ‘This is not good, Janice. Not good at all.’

  Just before three in the morning, I stepped outside. The night was cold and still. The music and laughter of the party didn’t carry very far. I lit a cigarette, and set out up Melon Road. My heels tapped the icy pavement. My breath hung in clouds. I came up to the first surveillance car with its two silent coppers, and tapped on the window.

  A youngish, fair-haired man wound it down.

  ‘You guys must be cold out here! And bored! You’re missing the party!’ I teased them.

  ‘Not sure what you’re talking about, love.’

  ‘Wanna step inside and get a drink?’ I asked them.

  ‘That’s okay, Goldie. We don’t want to come.’

  ‘So what you parked here for?’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘We like sitting in cars.’

  ‘Gwaan sit!’ I laughed.

  ‘Enjoy your party night, Goldie,’ he said to me.

  I waved to them over my shoulder, and tapped back up the steps. I didn’t realise at the time that his words had been a warning.

  One week later, my mobile rang early in the morning. Sleepily, I picked it up from my side table.

  ‘Janice?’

  In a second, I was fully awake.

  ‘Glen? What is it?’

  ‘They’ve just gone with Scully.’

  I felt sick. That bloodclart party.

  The big man was under arrest. Glen and I didn’t need to talk about what would happen next. We knew what we must do. Word on the street would quickly link us both to Scully – if we weren’t linked already. Party time was over. We were going to be raided. We needed to prepare.

  Scully knew who had informed on him. He told me this a few days later, when I visited him in Belmarsh. ‘Someone dropped the 10p, Jan,’ he said. He meant someone had grassed. He didn’t tell me who. As always, he responded with calm.

  When he was picked up, he’d had half an ounce in his pocket. He’d realised that police were approaching, and quickly dropped the half into the gutter. But the informer had given the address of a safe house in Brixton. He had work stored there. That location wasn’t widely known. Whoever talked was close to him. Very close.

  Scully was remanded in custody. After his arrest, the police took their time. The hammering and smashing on my door came in early February, first thing in the morning just like always. This time, Nadia knew nothing about it. She was on a sleepover with a friend – and by the time she got home from school next day, I’d got the place looking almost normal. The police found nothing. I always went home clean.

  But the surveillance went on.

  ‘Babe, mind what you’re doing. They know you’re on my right hand. Take a break,’ said Scully on my next visit to Belmarsh. He was giving me an order.

  We both knew what was coming. For a long time, we’d been on the ride – but this was time to pay. He told me to be patient and keep calm. He was facing time, and the authorities would confiscate everything of his they could find. His plan was to sit tight and do his bird. But I was in real danger. I had to lock up shop. I halted operations.

  I looked out of my window next morning and saw an unmarked car parked in the road. I was uneasy as I left to do my shopping. Driving through Brixton, I felt raw and exposed.

  Suddenly, my life was strange and empty. In the daytime, I could keep myself busy doing jobs around the flat. In the long, quiet evenings I drank more than I usually did, but it didn’t help me sleep. Night-time was the hardest – I lay awake for hours, going over operations in my mind. Where might I have left incriminating material? We stored cash in lock-up garages right across south London. Had I checked that all the lock-ups were secure? Was it safe to do so now? How much more did the informant really know?

  My sentences for stealing had been short – each one just a few weeks inside, so long I made sure that my behaviour was good. After that first dark time in Holloway, it had become just a dreary routine – a nuisance, the petty price for having what I wanted. But a stretch of many years would be – for me – a different, dreadful story. When I thought of it, fear enveloped me.

  The cops were still a few steps behind. But the gap was closing fast between the things that they knew and the things that they could prove. Her Majesty was coming to collect.

  Or was she?

  By the middle of March, my sense of danger was fading. I’d been raided, after all – and nothing had been found. So they had nothing on me – or at least, there was nothing they could prove. Perhaps I’d been too worried, too panicked, when they made their move on Scully.

  Doing business in London was still far too risky, so I stayed out of town. Shoes and I drove down to Bristol, to the Black and White cafe. Boxing carefully, we took just half a ki from one of our garage lock-ups. The sale went smoothly. When we got back to London, it was late. Just as I always did, I contacted Krystal. We met, and I left the money with her. I went home clean.

  A few days later, I headed for Northampton to pick up some merchandise from Diego. Afterwards we followed the same careful routine. I went home clean as always. Everything was quiet.

  By now it was late March. Two jobs had gone off without a problem. I was still uneasy, but I had things to do and people who were counting on me. A couple of weeks later, I went back to Northampton. I picked up another lot of work and headed home. On the way, I took a call from Mikey.

  ‘Hey Janice – you been shoe shop? I want a three and a half, yeah?’

  ‘Sure, babe. But it’s going to be tomorrow now.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  I left the merchandise with Krystal that night and told her to bring it to me early in the morning. We met at Sainsbury’s on Dog Kennel Hill. In the ladies’, I separated out three and a half ounces and returned the rest to Krystal for safe-keeping. It was only a short drive to deliver Shoes his goods. As I pulled out of the car park in the bright morning sunshine, my mobile rang again. It was Mikey.

  ‘Janice? It’s me. Can you come round later on today? ’Bout four o’clock? Something just came up.’

  I thought for a moment. It was early on a Saturday – no danger of a raid. Raids took place in the small dark hours of the morning. To keep the goods in my possession until later was a risk, but it was only a small one. And Mikey was a friend.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘No problem.’

  I took his three and a half ounces of cocaine back to my flat. I put them in a Kurt Geiger shoe box in a cupboard in my hall. They were only going to be there until the afternoon. For the one and only time in my life, I broke the first rule. I didn’t go home clean.

  Once I’d put the merch away, I woke up Nadia and took her shopping in Knightsbridge. We had a lovely morning, then headed for home with her new dresses. She was happy and excited because Uncle Terry, my brother, was coming down from Leicester. He rang while we were driving to tell us he’d arrived and let himself in – he had his own set of keys to my flat. A few minutes later, Gill called, inviting me to lunch. We fixed to meet at Chelsea Harbour. I just had time to see her and still get to Mikey’s later on. I called Terry back and he told me he’d take Nadia fo
r pizza – her favourite lunch. Everyone was happy.

  It was a bright, cold day in spring. The air was clear and fresh. I ran upstairs to say a quick hello to Terry. Then I kissed Nadia goodbye, stepped out of my front door and headed for Chelsea.

  Suddenly, I heard the roar of engines. Screeching tyres. Three cars cornering fast, then pulling up outside.

  A raid.

  It can’t be, I thought, not at this time. I stopped dead still on the first floor landing. It seemed impossible – unreal. Then I remembered – that shoebox. That Kurt Geiger shoebox.

  A crackle of radios. A volley of slamming car doors. Crunching footsteps on the gravel. A shattering crash as the entry to the stairwell was shouldered open.

  ‘Go! Go!’ Men dressed in black and white came charging up the stairs. They were onto me in seconds. There was no time to run back to the flat, grab the shoebox, flush the package away or throw it out of the window.

  I stepped back against the wall. It was instinctive, as though I believed that I might fade into the cream coloured paint. Perhaps the police would run right past me, playing out some other shadow story. In that story, they’d rip my flat apart but they’d find nothing. There’d be nothing there to find.

  ‘Suspect’s here!’ ‘We’ve got her!’ they barked into the radios.

  ‘Roger.’

  As they grabbed me, up above I heard my front door bursting open and a terrified shriek. It was Nadia. Terry’s voice yelled out, then dropped into sudden silence. ‘What the fu –?’

  They marched me back upstairs, and shoved me through the front door.

  ‘Nadia!’ I shouted to her. ‘Baby, it’s okay!’

  But it was not okay. It couldn’t have been further from okay, because of what was in that shoebox.

  I didn’t hear Nadia reply. Perhaps her answer was drowned out by the static. It was hard to tell how many cops were in the flat – could be six or seven or more. The corridor was narrow and they jostled roughly past me as their search got under way. Right ahead I could see two of them tearing up the kitchen.