by V E Rooney
“Those plants…” she said in a low voice.
“I know, they’re special plants.”
“They’re against the law, that’s what they are. They’re banned. People can go to jail for having them.”
“How can plants be against the law?”
“Never mind! They just are!”
“So why does she have them then? And why do you both smoke that stuff if they’re against the law?”
“That’s none of your business!”
Mum looked at me again, looking exasperated.
“I wasn’t going to tell anyone, Mum, I swear!”
“You’ve got no fucking business going anywhere near that stuff. You keep away from it from now on, do you hear me?”
Expressing gratitude for an accident of birth negates the randomness of it and plays into all that ‘written in the stars’ shite that people like to come out with when they want to present themselves as fulfilling a destiny determined at birth.
That said, having had plenty of time to toss and turn the events of my life around in my head, it becomes clear to me that my end would not have come about without my beginning. It is piecing together everything that happened in-between and the choices I made which determined my path and has led me to this point, where I feel the need to write this. What would have become of me if I had been born to different parents in different circumstances? In another place, another country?
The what-if game is a form of escapism, a way to justify my actions and myself and reassure myself that I am a person who had no choice but to do what I did. It’s a very easy game to play but it’s also futile. Sure, in some parallel universe somewhere, I am a good person with good intentions, living a life of good deeds, selflessness and stoic dignity. In this universe, however, my choices have cast me as someone who is morally bankrupt, feared and hated. I can’t pinpoint a single event, or a turning point, or some catalysing moment that changed my course. There was no conscious decision, no epiphany, no self-determined and aware choice that I made where I said: “This is what I’m going to do.”
I think it was an accumulation of moments or experiences, an unseen (at least to me) chain of events in tandem with the unwitting grind of my circumstances at that time, that gradually converged and determined the choices that I made, which in turn defined the course of my life.
I mean, that’s what you’re asking, isn’t it? When was the moment when I said to myself, you know what? Think I’ll become a drug dealer.
I don’t believe in fate or destiny or any of that ‘written in the stars’ bollocks. I believe that your life is determined by the choices you make. Sure, some people find it a lot harder than others to choose how their lives will turn out. A scally like myself would find it very hard to enter the top tier of upper class society, in just the same way that Prince William would find it very hard to renounce his right to the throne to become a male stripper in a go-go bar.
Received wisdom would say that a working class girl, from an impoverished single parent family in one of the most deprived council estates in the country, would not go very far in life. Received wisdom would smugly say that this girl would end up exactly like all the other girls on the estate, and that her life would be defined by squeezing out more underclass babies, interspersed with visits to the dole office and watching crap on daytime television.
I managed to swerve all that and became a huge success in my trade, making more money than I knew what to do with, which afforded me access to a network of high-level contacts all over the world, including politicians, bankers and celebrities. I completely transcended my humble beginnings. In a perverse sort of way, I took Thatcherism to the extreme.
That’s really what you want to know, isn’t it? How did I become the UK’s most notorious drug dealer?
PART TWO
Anonymous, Merseyside Police:
Sean Kerrigan’s criminal career began in his early teens. He started off as a petty thief but was soon working as a drugs mule for some of the known dealers around Toxteth. Over time, he established himself as a major player on Merseyside, responsible for several armed robberies and small-scale drugs deals. But no one could have predicted that he would make the leap to becoming a major importer and distributor.
Anonymous, HM Customs & Excise:
Sean Kerrigan first came to our attention in the mid 1990s. We received intelligence stating that he was the organiser of several large-scale Ecstasy importations into the UK from Holland. But Kerrigan was careful. He never came into contact with the drugs themselves. His organisation was tightly run and despite our painstaking efforts, we couldn’t find enough evidence to go after him.
Solicitor for Simon Hamilton-Bain:
My client categorically denies any links to, or knowledge of, Alison Reynolds or Sean Kerrigan. He neither met them nor spoke to them at any point. Any insinuation that my client was involved in the criminal activities of either of these two individuals will be met with the strongest possible legal action.
Anonymous, Merseyside Police:
Kerrigan was well connected, cautious and above all, cunning. We knew that he was behind several incidents of criminal activity but gathering evidence on him proved to be nigh on impossible. He always managed to stay one step ahead of us. There were suspicions that he might have been receiving tip-offs from people inside the force but these were never proven.
Anonymous, HM Customs & Excise:
From what we know, it seems that once Kerrigan linked up with Alison Reynolds some time during the early 1990s, his organisation began to generate serious amounts of money. The consensus is that she helped to plan and execute several large-scale drugs importations, thereby taking Kerrigan’s organisation into the big time, dealing with some very big players.
Anonymous, Merseyside Police:
Alison Reynolds may as well have been a ghost. We had no records on her. Once she became a part of Kerrigan’s crew, she basically overhauled his entire operation, in effect becoming the crew’s accountant and chief money launderer. Kerrigan may have been the boss but it was Reynolds who was the brains behind several of his deals. That much is clear.
Spokesman for former Home Secretary Peter Kenwood:
Lord Kenwood will not dignify these scurrilous allegations with a response.
Anonymous, HM Customs & Excise:
Our position was that Reynolds and Kerrigan were ours. But then the Police made a catastrophic error.
Anonymous, Merseyside Police:
If Customs had only shared their intelligence with us, this whole mess could have been avoided.
Alison Reynolds:
While the Police and Customs were busy waggling their dicks at each other, we were busy sneaking Charlie through the docks.
7. MISSION STATEMENT
I am self-aware enough to know the damage I have done, the lives I have destroyed and the enemies I have created. I brought this all on myself. And you know what? I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.
8. COMPANY BACKGROUND
So I had inadvertently conducted my first drug deal aged eleven years old. In the aftermath, Janice reiterated what Mum had said, that I was not to get involved as it was too dangerous and she didn’t want me letting people into the flat when she wasn’t there. I protested that I had made the punter wait outside, but it made no difference. This was grown-up stuff and I should leave it alone.
It was coming up to Christmas 1984. Janice’s fella Douglas was coming over from Jamaica for the holidays, although Janice didn’t sound too thrilled about it when I overheard her and Mum chatting in our kitchen.
“Bastard,” I heard Mum say.
“I know, he’s a cunt,” Janice spat. “He’s a cunt and a lying cunt. I’m talking to him on the phone and he’s going, ‘no, there’s no one here, babe,’ and all the while I can hear that fucking slut giggling in the background. I was like, ‘Doug, I know you’ve got that slut there,’ and he’s going, ‘no darling, it’s just the radio,’ and I’m going, ‘do you think I’m fucking soft
or something?’ I’m telling you, when he gets here I’m gonna take a sledgehammer to his bollocks.”
“Well, at least the twins will be pleased to see him,” Mum said, trying to placate her.
“The stupid bastard can’t even tell which one is which. He just goes, ‘yeah, princess, that’s lovely, princess’. You know why he calls them both ‘princess’, don’t you? Because he can’t remember their fucking names, that’s why.”
Doug arrived a week before Christmas. I heard the twins bombing down the stairwell to greet him, screeching and whooping with every step. “Doug-LAS! Doug-LAS!” Mum and I poked our heads out of our front door and down the stairwell to get a good look at our temporary Caribbean neighbour. Lucy and Lauren were bouncing up each step ahead of a tall well-built guy with a beard, a mid-height Afro and with skin twice as dark as his daughters. He came ambling up the stairs hauling a couple of suitcases.
“How are you doing, my princesses?” he laughed. By this time Janice had come to her front door.
“Oh look, it’s the creature from the black latrine,” Janice said. Mum and I stifled our giggles as we stood in our doorway.
Doug had possibly the deepest and gruffest voice of any adult human male anywhere on the planet. I swear, the floor shook when he spoke. It sounded like a grizzly bear had learned how to speak English with a Jamaican accent.
“Ah Janice, sure you know how to make me feel welcome,” he said, as he flashed a wide, gleaming smile at her.
“You’re about as welcome as crabs, gobshite,” she hissed at him as the twins ran into the flat. “Speaking of which, if you’ve caught anything from that slut…” Janice slammed the door shut after Douglas sauntered into the flat.
That evening, Janice threw an impromptu pre-Christmas party in her flat to herald Doug’s return. Mum and I trooped next door to find the place already buzzing with friends, friends of friends, punters and whoever had tagged along with them from whichever pub they’d been drinking at beforehand.
As ska and reggae blared from Janice’s bass-heavy speakers, a steady stream of visitors trooped into the maisonettes carrying six-packs of lager, stout and cider, bottles of rum and whiskey, welcomed with a lingering smell of joints being passed round indiscriminately. People were spilling out of her front door and onto the stairwell where tendrils of cannabis smoke hung in the air like vaporous blue ghosts. At one point as I mooched on the stairs, someone asked me where Janice’s toilet was but he was so monged it sounded like he was having a stroke, an impression which was reinforced when he tried to stand up but slipped off the step he was sprawled on and fell smack-bang on his arse to the amusement of everyone watching. Everyone was in a happy mood, even Janice, despite her face-like-a-bulldog-chewing-a-wasp expression she had worn on Doug’s arrival.
Lucy, Lauren and I were in the lounge with the adults, trying to out-dance each other to the sound of One Step Beyond by Madness, taking care not to bump into increasingly monged partygoers, Mum was busy chatting to some of her mates from the Boffin pub up the road and Doug and Janice were huddled in a corner whispering lovey-dovey stuff to each other. I have to hand it to Doug, the man could charm the knickers off a nun. Several female partygoers made a beeline for him the moment Janice had her back turned or was out of the room. At one point Janice called me over to Doug and informed him of how I had made a sale on her behalf. Doug’s eyes widened and then he let out a sonic boom of laughter, put his arm around my shoulder and said, “My girl, you have a good business brain on you.” Janice shushed him, saying, “don’t be giving her ideas!” before comically wagging her finger at me.
Occasionally their conversation would be interrupted by a succession of people wanting to speak to either Janice or Doug, and then either one of them would disappear to the bedroom-cum-greenhouse for a few minutes before returning. Business was booming among the partygoers, it appeared. Joints would be rolled, breaths inhaled, and exclamations of “oh fuck me, that’s nice” to “it’s really heavy but really mellow at the same time” to “how much for a kilo?” would signal approval.
Mum and Janice had made no effort to get me or the twins to go to bed, but I had to admit defeat at around half past midnight and so I tiptoed next door, mindful of the straggle of partygoers who had fallen asleep on the landing and in the stairwell. I got into bed and pulled the duvet over my head to muffle the booming bass reverberating through the floor.
The morning after, I was unsurprisingly up before everyone else. During the early hours I heard Mum let herself in, stumble in the hallway and collapse in her bedroom. Experience told me that she would start to feel vaguely human in about three hours, so I made breakfast for myself and took in a glass of orange squash for her, leaving it on her bedside table. She was on the bed fully clothed, flat out on her back and snoring. I watched some shite on telly for a bit and then there was a knock at the front door. It was Janice. Judging by the state of her – eyes like pissholes in the snow, hair like a nest of hedgehogs and last night’s smudged eyeliner giving her the look of a demented badger – she had also had a heavy night.
“Hiya love,” she croaked, “is she up yet?”
I heard Mum’s bedroom door open. “Jesus fucking Christ, my head’s splitting,” Mum said behind me. Janice brushed past me into the flat. Mum beckoned to me. “Make us a cup of tea, love.” They went into the lounge. As I waited for the kettle to boil, I could pick up snatches of their conversation drifting into the kitchen.
“I can’t keep going like this, you know, it’s going faster than I can grow it,” said Janice.
“Mmmm.”
“I’m having to knock people back, can you believe that?”
“Mmmm, yeah.”
“I said to him, what are we gonna do? It’s not like I can magic up an extra room.”
“Mmmm.”
The conversation turned into an indiscernible rally of mmmms and yeahs as I entered the lounge bearing two cups of tea. Janice attempted something resembling a smile before giving up halfway through. “Aw, you’re a lifesaver, cheers babe,” she said as she placed the cup on the table in front of her before rubbing her eyes open. I returned to my seat on the carpet in front of the telly. Mum turned to me and said: “Oi, you, make yourself busy, we’re talking.”
“Like I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said wearily. Janice snorted with laughter. “Oh come on, she’s more grown-up than we are,” she chuckled. Mum huffed before slurping her tea. “Go on, tidy up that pit of a room,” she said. There was no point trying to argue with Mum when she was hungover. Experience taught me that as well. I left the room and straight away Janice picked up her conversational thread, so I hovered out of sight behind the lounge door but close enough to hear.
“You remember last night, what Doug said?”
“Oh, about going to London?” Mum replied.
“No, well, I mean, that’s still on, but no, the other thing.”
“Oh yeah. I don’t know, you know.”
“You said yourself you could do with the money. And this is the God’s honest truth, Clare, I wouldn’t trust anyone else with this.”
“I know, but…”
“It’s not like you don’t know anyone, is it? You’d easily get rid of it, extra pennies in your pocket. No one would ever know. Well, Ali would know, but let’s face it, Ali knows already, doesn’t she?”
“Where the fuck would I put it? I can hardly grow it on the veranda, can I?”
“They wouldn’t take up that much space to start off with. You said yourself you’ve been meaning to clear that junk in the spare room.”
“Can’t you make more space for them in yours?”
“No, that’s the thing. Doug said there’s a risk of cross-contamination or something like that and it affects the quality and he doesn’t want the strains getting mixed up. Doug reckons this new stuff is so good that people are paying out top whack for it.”
Mum paused. More tea slurping.
“What about all the lamps and all that sh
it?” Mum asked.
“You only need one lamp and then once the first plant’s grown, you can start selling, and get the money to buy more gear in. That’s how I got started.”
More tea slurping.
“I’m warning you now though, I’ve never fucking even picked daisies before so fuck knows how it will turn out,” Mum said.
Janice laughed. “Look, it’s a piece of piss. Getting them started off is the hard bit, once you’ve done that they pretty much take care of themselves. I’ll show you the ropes and soon you’ll be rolling in it.”
So that is how Janice persuaded Mum to become an extension of her greenhouse next door and grow a new type of cannabis seed that Doug had smuggled into the country from Jamaica. With regular visits from Janice, who passed on her horticultural wisdom to Mum, those seedlings blossomed into a couple of healthy plants, which soon became four plants, which soon became six plants. Mum was free to keep half of the profits for herself and she seemed happy with the arrangement.
It wasn’t too long before Mum had built up her own steady roster of punters. Besides the occasional visitor to Janice’s flat, who were all known to her and vouched for (even the gormless twat I first served), often, Mum and Janice would go out to make deliveries, to pubs, to friends and other people on the estate. I was obviously not allowed to tag along on these deliveries but sometimes of an evening they would bring me and the twins to the Boffin pub up the road, plonk us at a corner table with a few bottles of cola and some bags of crisps and leave us to entertain ourselves while they mingled with the clientele.
The Boffin is the stuff of legend. Built sometime in the early 1960s in a traditional lounge and bar design, it was the cornerstone of the estate and was every bit as rough as its surroundings exemplified. Outside, the windows of frosted reinforced glass, which probably hadn’t been washed since the pub was built, were covered with wire mesh grills. A garish coat of orange all-weather paint coated the outside brickwork, layered with graffiti, residue from smashed pint glasses and fuck knows what else which had been smeared on it. To the rear was a car park with a tarmac surface that looked like it had been poured quickly off whichever stolen lorry had been commandeered, with no bay markings and plenty of broken glass scattered about. On the top of the Boffin, on the rear roof, cement had been laid around the top perimeter brickwork with shards of broken glass wedged into the cement to form a primitive anti-burglar defence, reinforced with a ring of barbed wire and a couple of ravenous Alsatian dogs on long chains prowling around and barking at anything that moved.