Mr Benn had, of course, switched his allegiance from the Shannons to Ferris. That did not mean he was in an opposition camp, because Ferris knew the family from way back, especially Pawny. While they might not have been bosom buddies, there was at least a mutual respect. But the Shannons began wondering what Lobban might be saying about them. They already had to contend with one troublesome and dangerous gang from Springburn and did not want another in the form of Ferris coming at them from another of their flanks. Ferris had a lively and youthful team of men he trusted around him. Among them were Bobby Glover, who sometimes ran the Cottage bar in Shettleston, and Joe Hanlon, a one-time neighbour and friend of Tam McGraw and his wife, and a useful amateur boxer.
Lobban had evidently given Alex a glowing CV. One day in early summer Hanlon and Glover turned up, asking for a chat. They turned the conversation to a suggestion that he might want to enlist in the Ferris ranks. Perhaps it was his much admired and sought after army weapons background that had attracted their interest.
* * *
I think my army background was one of the reasons for Ferris’s interest, but by that stage Lobban thought that I was capable of doing pretty much anything and that I could be trusted. He obviously spread the word and convinced others that I would be a good asset to the team. He showed up a couple of times with Bobby, probably for Bobby to check out for himself what Lobban said about me, but on each occasion I told them, no chance. It was nothing personal against Paul. My loyalties were to my brothers. However, I knew Paul would have liked me to link up with him.
Lobban was trying to make a name for himself. Joe Hanlon hated him because I believe people like Joe and Tam saw through the Mr Benn charade of having so many varied personalities. One hour he might compliment somebody to their face, the next put them at risk by spreading lies about them. I was always a couple of steps ahead of him.
One time he showed up at our home and demanded £1,000 from money I had been holding for Pawny. Bobby Glover had driven him. It was the same car in which the two and Joe would take a very tragic journey in the not too distant future. I sent Lobban packing but not before he tried yet again to persuade me to become part of Paul’s firm. A condition would be my severing links to Pawny and Tam. That was unthinkable, and he was told where to go. But the decision came to bite us in the behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre was one of the bloodiest episodes in American gangland history. On Thursday, 14 February 1929, seven men, most of them belonging to a gang headed by Adelard Cunin, better known as Bugs Moran, were lined up against the wall of a garage in Chicago, Illinois, by two bogus policemen and machine-gunned to death. The murders were on the orders of rival gang boss Al Capone, who was determined to wipe out Moran’s crew, known as the North Side Irish gang. The incident has been featured in films and books, even songs. In mid-1991, Alex Shannon and his family decided to stage an audacious remake in Glasgow.
St Valentine’s Day had passed, but then they reasoned the date hardly mattered if the attack was successful. Their targets were seven members of the Springburn Mob who had been causing aggravation for so long and seemed to be growing stronger each day. The plan was simple. The enemy base was the Spring Inn, but they also showed up at the Talisman from time to time. Where they were didn’t matter. The Shannon gang would just walk in and start firing in the direction of the foes, spraying bullets everywhere. Years earlier when workmen were digging the foundations for the Spring Inn, they had discovered running water and this gave the pub its name. The Shannons promised themselves that it would now run with blood. Among themselves, they talked about the attack as a turkey shoot – the chance for a group to take advantage of a situation in which it was impossible to lose.
Blink McDonald would not be joining them. He did not even know of the massacre plan because he was in prison in England and would not be released for more than a decade. But his friend Frank Ward, always ready for a fight and with a grudge to settle, had started to run with the Shannons. Frank’s main argument was with the McGoverns. They would not be in the Spring Inn and by now the Shannon family had no issues with Tommy, Tony and the others. The Shannons would not embark upon a turkey shoot if there was a prospect of a McGovern being targeted. Frank knew this but told himself the targets were friends of his enemies, which justified his involvement. Tam McGraw was also a friend of the McGovern family, but McGraw had his own issues and there was money to be made. He would stay out of the dispute and the fallout from it.
What would be the Godfather’s stance? Big Arthur was waiting to be joined by his eldest son. He might be tempted to side with the McIntyres, but in most fights the Godfather tended to wait and see which side was likely to get the upper hand or whether there was an opportunity to score against Paul Ferris. Until then, there was little likelihood of his involving himself in a bloody scandal that would have the effect of seeing police turning the east end upside down and smashing a whole series of lucrative rackets, which had been one effect of the Ice Cream Wars. What the Shannons had was not exactly a secret weapon, but an indirect foot in the Godfather’s camp. One of his close relatives had for a time taken advantage of the house in North Carbrain by hiding out there for a while. The Shannons regarded that piece of help as small beer, but it had been appreciated and now they could rely on the man to keep them informed of any likely affiliations Arthur might have with their opponents and in which direction, if any, he was likely to move.
The Shannons and their cohorts kept in constant touch by telephone. Good soldier that he was, and conscious especially through his experiences in Northern Ireland of the importance of a good communications network, Alex insisted on ensuring everyone was up to speed with the plan. The advantage of the telephone was that one man could talk to another without prying eyes being able to discover they had been in touch. These conversations had included discussing the finer points of the massacre, like stealing enough cars to carry the gunmen and finding getaway drivers. But these were comparative irrelevancies. In the end, it was settled that the entire Shannon team would just walk in, guns blazing, and take out the entire McIntyre crew in one go.
Since his move to the Ferris organisation, Lobban had been seen less and less. In a sense, his self-imposed transfer was hardly a surprise. Following his escape from Dungavel, Lobban had needed somewhere to stay. Glover and Hanlon had briefly helped him out, and Paul, who had met Tootsie while both were in prison together, had given him the use of a flat in London to which he had access. He had then moved back to Glasgow, sharing not only a home with Bobby Glover and his wife but also their food and even money. They gave him their trust, made sure he was safe from recapture and wanted for nothing. All three benefactors would come to learn the cost of their kindness.
Alex trusted Lobban less and less. He was bouncing backwards and forwards, initially keeping both ends open, running up to Paul but coming back down to the Shannon brothers. And as the months went on and things were getting worse, they were seeing less of him.
The plan for the hit on the Spring Inn was complete but for one crucial factor, without which it could not go ahead. In total, the Shannon side needed six or seven guns, so each man could be tooled up. Their resources, however, were limited. Getting guns was not so easy as it was popularly believed to be. A few years back, even small-time gangsters with the means to pay could make a telephone call and within a couple of hours a delivery man would call and leave a grubby plastic bag with a deadly weapon wrapped inside. Arnold McCardle from Anniesland, Glasgow, for example, was a recognised expert in modifying and building guns for underworld clients, among them members of the Daniel family. Arnold, known as ‘the Armourer’, dealt with clients he knew. He urged discretion from his customers, but his days of freedom were running out. The troubles in Northern Ireland were also eating up an increasing number of guns from Scots with sympathies for the various factions.
While there was no weapons famine in Glasgow, there was a shortage. The Shannon side had
two or three but needed more. There was only one man they felt they could go to for help: Paul Ferris.
The brothers, accompanied by Angie’s brother and a friend, went in search of Paul or Lobban, who they now looked on as a go-between as opposed to a reliable member of their team. They guessed that if Paul was about he would most likely be in either Bobby Glover’s Cottage bar in Shettleston or Margaret McGraw’s busy Caravel at Barlanark.
Arriving at the Cottage bar, Tam volunteered to pop in first to see whether there was any sign of Paul. He was only gone a few seconds when he returned to tell Alex and Pawny that there were only a few people in, but not Paul or any of his team, and that they’d better head to the Caravel. They knew Tam’s brief appearance would have created a stir. This wasn’t Shannon country and the grapevine would be buzzing with gossip.
No sooner had they clambered back into the motor than the telephone at the Caravel was buzzing.
‘Tam Shannon just put his head in here.’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Dunno. He was asking if we’d seen Paul or Bobby.’
‘Who’s with him?’
‘The brothers.’
‘What do you reckon the Shannons want with Paul?’
‘Dunno, Tam just said they were looking for him.’
At the Caravel, there was still no sign of Paul Ferris.
There was no need for the brothers to ask if he was likely to appear. They knew word of their enquiry would have reached the right ears. So they sat down by the pool table to have a drink, watch and wait. Most of the sidelong glances were at Alex. Tam’s was a known face and Pawny had had friendly dealings with some of the Ferris crew in the past, but when Alex first left the army and took to the streets with his brothers, he had been a relatively unknown entity. Word then spread, and before he knew it he was becoming the main threat, the principal weapon in the Shannon armoury. For that reason, he suspected the strangers sitting a few feet from him would be asking one another what he was doing there and telling each other to keep an eye on him.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then Joe Hanlon walked in. Alex remembers that Joe, a young man with an occasionally odd sense of humour, was wearing an enormous coat, so bulky that it was obvious from the shape and size of the bulge beneath it that he was trying to hide a shotgun. It would have been expected because the Shannons had turned up in their territory. But it was the first sign something was not right.
As Joe was standing there, Bobby Glover put his head around the door and said, ‘Paul’s round the back and wants a quick word with you.’ Tam, Pawny and Alex jumped up and went out the front door, leaving the others with their drinks. They made their way around to the back of the Caravel and suddenly there were people jumping out from everywhere. There were about ten of them waiting to meet the brothers and dressed, it appeared, not to thrill but to kill. Clearly, they thought they were trying to set up Paul to be shot. Guys were reaching into their pockets and under their coats, and at that Gibby jumped out in the middle of them all and started shouting, ‘No, stop, stop. There’s nothing going down here. Look, Tam, Ally, Paul’s wanting to speak to Pawny. There’s no offence meant. Tam, Ally, there’s nothing against you, but he just wants a few words with Pawny. Leave it at that just now.’ Alex was learning not to trust Lobban.
* * *
Now, Gibby knew Tam was a livewire. And he hated Tam with a passion. But the feeling was totally mutual. Had he said Paul wanted Tam on his own, we would have really thought something was going down, but when he asked for Pawny, me and Tam just said, ‘Not a problem.’ We went and sat in our car because we weren’t keen on going back into the bar, especially with Joe standing there hanging onto his shotgun. We could see a wee red Ford Fiesta with Paul in it. Pawny climbed in beside him, the two men shook hands and Pawny told us afterwards that Paul was sitting with a handgun with a silencer on it on his knee. Paul was his usual polite self and said he was sorry to do all this, but these days you just don’t know who you can trust. He had £50,000 on his head, so he really did have to watch what he was doing. He said, ‘My people told me you were all up here asking about me and I thought, “Hang on a minute, what’s going down here?” I apologise if anything has happened, Pawny. What can I do, how can I help you?’ That made Pawny feel more comfortable, so he told Paul about us and the Springburn Mob, saying that it had gone on long enough. ‘We’ve had a think and decided to go ahead with the whole lot,’ he told Paul, ‘but we need six or seven instant access guns. Can you help us out?’
He went on to describe what we had planned. ‘We just want to walk into the Spring Inn when we know they’re all there and wipe them out in one go.’
Paul must have thought it was a crazy idea, but he probably understood why we wanted to go down this road. When your back is to the wall, then the only thing to do is to come out fighting. Nevertheless, if it went ahead, it would see all of us locked up for the rest of our lives. Yet he didn’t hesitate for a second.
‘Aye, definitely, I’ll see what I can do,’ was his response. ‘I’ll help you out as much as I can.’
They shook hands once again and wished one another the best. When Pawny rejoined us, we collected the other two from inside the bar and drove off.
As the weeks went by, no weapons ever came our way, resulting in the entire plot going pear-shaped, even though Paul had said he would help us. We surmised that maybe he believed we had indeed lost the plot, but I also think Lobban played a part in Paul’s final decision not to help. He was still making out to anybody who would listen that he was a member of our family, as good as a stepbrother to us. Despite all that sentimental talk, the fact remained he loathed Tam and would have been more than happy to have seen him killed. He probably thought that without guns from Paul to protect us and take out the Springburn crew there was a better chance of Tam being murdered or jailed. I think he drip-fed Paul all this bile about Tam, while making out to us he was doing his best to help us get what we needed. I don’t think he was slagging me because as time passed he would turn up at our house with Bobby Glover and tell me he had spoken to Paul again about the guns. And while Bobby was there, he would again invite me to join Paul. ‘Come up some time and I’ll introduce you to everybody,’ he kept promising, but I never had any intention of taking him up on the offer. By that stage, I had made up my mind to get away from this sort of scene and go back into the army.
I had a lot to think about at that time, one concern being the continuing worry that Lobban would try to kill Tam. Mind you, we would do our best to take him out as well.
But I had to think about Angie, too. She had told me she was pregnant again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
From his plush palace in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti, President of Iraq, dictator and mass murderer, ordered the invasion of the neighbouring state of Kuwait because of a dispute over an unpaid loan and the price of oil. Corporal Alex Shannon had avidly followed the build-up to the one-sided conflict from his base at Glencorse Barracks. The terms of his enlistment meant he was required to give one year’s notice of his intention to resign. He had done so in January 1990 and was therefore due to leave the army at the beginning of 1991. In August 1990, Iraqi troops steamrollered their way into Kuwait, looting, pillaging, devastating towns and oilfields, bringing international condemnation and the certainty of retaliation. A coalition of more than 30 countries rallied to rout Hussein’s armies. Britain and the United States would play the major roles. As his leaving date grew ever nearer, Alex was forced to sit back and watch as regimental colleagues and friends in Germany trained for desert fighting. He desperately wanted to share their excitement for the forthcoming battles. ‘Send me back to Germany so I can go to Iraq and I’ll sign back on,’ he told his superiors. But the answer was no – corporals in the British Army do not dictate terms to officers. When he said that he was getting out, then, his response was met with silence.
In December, with only a few days to go until he was scheduled to
quit, the Royal Scots deployed from Germany to Saudi Arabia as an armoured infantry battalion. From there, it prepared to push into Iraq. Desperate to join in, Alex tried again to be transferred back to Germany, but the response was the same. Helplessly, he listened as barracks gossip and ordinary conjecture implied units of the SAS had been dropped behind Iraqi lines to hunt down deadly mobile Scud missile launchers. He remembered his meetings with the SAS guys on the Brecon course and longed to be with them. He felt as though he was a schoolboy forced to remain at home while he watched his mates play a thrilling cup final in front of his window.
In January 1991, the coalition moves kicked off in earnest, just as Alex was taking off his uniform for the final time and heading for gangland. Operation Desert Storm began with an aerial bombardment of the interlopers and then the various allied forces, the Royal Scots among them, smashed their way towards Baghdad. It was a war fought in front of the media. Families could sit at home and almost have a seat on the fringes of the battlefields, with bullets, blood and shells whizzing around their living rooms. In between rounds, television teams chatted with and filmed the protagonists, many from Scotland.
For Alex, it was hard sitting watching soldiers who were his mates being interviewed in Saudi Arabia, then Iraq. He struggled to cope and began missing not only his friends but also the regiment itself. He wanted back in, but he’d made his choice. Instead, as each day passed he was drinking, taking drugs and trying to do his bit in the house to help Angie. The only thing he had in common with his mates now, even though they were going down different paths and doing different things, was that just about everything they both did was dangerous. In the early days of serving out his notice, he’d had no worries or concerns; now he did.
The Underworld Captain: From Gangland Goodfella To Army Officer Page 18