by Joe Carter
It was a particularly dark night, and I noticed that there was no moon to illuminate the evening’s cloudless sky. I felt a little cold as I parked my car on the hill close to the pub, yet still far enough away that I could take in the surroundings on my short walk to the front door. From the number of cars I had noticed driving into the car park at the rear, the pub seemed very busy for a Thursday evening. I sucked in the night air, and as I exhaled I noticed that it was cold enough to see my breath in front of me.
As I strolled down the hill to the pub, I could hear the one-sided heated conversation of a man who was clearly speaking on the phone. As I got nearer, I saw that the voice belonged to a man who was dressed in a blue Barbour quilted jacket with the collar up. As I passed him and deliberately paid him no attention, I knew that this would be the man that I was about to meet.
The pub was packed, and unbeknown to me it was the very popular weekly quiz night. It didn’t take me long to establish that it was being taken very seriously. My presence, as I surveyed the bar for Ricardo, was an unwelcome disturbance to their concentration. Particularly when he shouted over to me above the voice of the quizmaster: ‘Over here, Joe. In the snug away from this boring mob.’
I heard a few muttered tuts and sighs, but I knew that no one would be brave enough to say a word to Ricardo. I squeezed past the packed tables and chairs of the enthusiastic quiz teams, and joined him in the snug. It was like a secret room – a lovely, warm, inviting place to while away the hours, just big enough to squeeze about twelve people into.
I shut the door behind me, and along with it the commotion of the quiz. There was a wood burner sat against one of the walls, with its panelled glass doors open and a couple of huge logs gently crackling in the heat of the embers. There were only two other men, aged about seventy years old and sat at a table playing ‘crib’, not taking a blind bit of notice of Ricardo or me. He gave me a huge affectionate slap on the back and shook my hand. He was in dialogue with the barmaid as to whether they had any Stone’s ginger wine. She pulled a green bottle off the top shelf and poured it into three tumblers, which already contained large measures of what looked like brandy or scotch.
We chose to sit in a tiny corner alcove; it had a curved wooden bench seat with embroidered cushions sat on top. It was private and intimate, an ideal place for a subtle conversation. Ricardo told me that his mate, Ray, had arrived but was making a couple of phone calls and wouldn’t be long. I asked him what we were drinking as he handed me the large tumbler. He explained it was a Courvoisier and Stone’s – he described it as a ‘knock out’. A few minutes later, the guy I recognised from outside crashed through the door, cursing as he sat down opposite me. ‘Some people really take the piss.’ He took no notice of me as he spoke to Ricardo. He grabbed his tumbler and swirled the three cubes of ice around in the glass before taking a swig. ‘Fuck me, that’s got a kick.’ He then looked at me, and with a huge grin on his face, held his hand out across the table and said, ‘I’m Ray, and you must be Joe. Good to meet you.’
Without hesitation, Ray went straight into a sales pitch. I listened to his offers of coke, ‘Mum and Dad’, ‘green jackets’ and ‘trainers’. It was a little surreal, and I wondered what Ricardo had told him before the meeting for him to be so upfront about his activities. I knew immediately that I liked Ray. He was a warm, open and interesting person, and I knew that I’d get on with him. I let Ray finish what he had to say, and then I looked from him to Ricardo, and back to Ray. I then said, ‘Can we slow down a bit? There must be something in the air here because we don’t know each other. You seem spot on and Ricardo speaks highly of you, but can we have a drink and get to know each other before we jump into bed together?’
There was a brief silence before Ray said, ‘You’re right, that was a bit full on for a first meet.’ He chinked my glass. ‘Here’s to getting to know each other. Let’s call it a bit of foreplay.’ He then laughed out loud at his own joke.
Ray and I talked and joked and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. Ricardo was a spectator for most of the evening, but had achieved what he had planned to do. He had ‘intro’d’ Ray to me, and I felt it had all the hallmarks of a long relationship.
Nineteen
Ray and I wasted no time getting to know each other. It was a fact that the two of us got on really well; we both liked each other instantly. We spent most of the weekend after we met in each other’s company, much to the disgust of Emma. We went to a number of pubs together and talked about many different things. I knew that Ray had been in prison before, and also that he’d been a successful legitimate businessman, selling houses. He now earned his money as a full-time criminal, however. He had no legal form of income and led a very comfortable lifestyle. He lived in a decent three-bedroom house with his partner, Chloe, and their children, and they had the appearance of normal, happy family. He was about my height, in his mid-thirties and in reasonable shape, although he wasn’t a gym-goer. Ray liked a drink and was a very sociable character – he was a happy person, or at least he was when we were in each other’s company. I knew that he took cocaine, as he apologised for his runny nose and was always asking for tissues or pulling a scrap of toilet paper from his pocket to wipe it. He was embarrassed about this.
Ray knew everyone, and his phone never stopped ringing. When we were out, he would constantly take people to one side for a private conversation. I let him get on with it, and never asked any questions about what his business was. I had no doubt that Ray was a busy criminal and had his fingers in many pies, but I had made a conscious decision that I would wait until Ray brought up criminality. He knew from our conversation in the snug that I thought he had been a bit full-on with his approach to me. I wondered in my head how long it would take him to offer me a trade or a commodity. I also knew that he was dying to ask me a bucketful of questions.
The following Thursday, a week after our first meeting, I was dropping Ray off at his house. Just as he was getting out of the passenger seat of my car, he got back in and shut the door. He slumped back into the seat, sighed, shook his head and said, ‘My pal’s getting a nice bit of sniff tomorrow. I wondered whether you fancied coming in with me on it?’ I could see that he was stressed about asking me, so I didn’t want to prolong my reply.
‘Ray, how much are we talking about, and do you trust the fella?’
A huge smile spread across his cheeky face. He vouched for the guy, who he said lived just around the corner, and we agreed for the first trade that I’d buy an ounce for £1,600. I could see how relieved he was. We said that we’d meet the following evening, at the pub at the end of Ray’s road at 7 p.m.
The next night, Emma and I drove up to the pub, which was very modern and sat on the edge of a private housing estate. It had a happy balance between families enjoying a meal and the customary Friday-evening drinkers. Emma grabbed some seats while I went to the bar and ordered drinks. Ray came into the pub with his phone squashed to his ear as he shook a few people’s hands. I ordered another pint of lager without asking him, and as I walked over to join Emma, he told me the fella would be ten minutes. We all sat down, and Ray was genuinely interested in Emma and the shop and told her that Chloe was dying to meet her.
I said to Emma that Ray and I needed to pop out for five minutes to speak to someone. She was expecting this and said she needed to ring her mum anyway, so she’d make the most of the time. I felt bad leaving her alone in the pub, and explained that to Ray on the way to my car. He directed me to a block of brand new flats that sat on the perimeter of the estate. We parked the car and I told Ray that I didn’t want to meet any new faces just now, so I’d wait at the door whilst he went in. We were buzzed into a ground-floor flat, and Ray told me that the fella wanted this done in the next ten minutes as his ex-wife was dropping off their son for him to look after for the weekend.
The trade was done in seconds, and once back in my car Ray showed me two identical plastic bags, each with a solid block of white powder in. He held
both up and asked me to choose which one I wanted. I told him I didn’t mind, so he handed me the closest one. Ray said that he wanted me to let him know what my thoughts were on the gear. I told him that if it was shit gear, it would be the first and last trade we’d be doing together.
I dropped him at home, thanked him, and then rang Emma and told her that I’d pick her up outside the pub. Ray and I had just completed our first criminal transaction together. I hoped it would be the first of many.
Emma and I spent the weekend visiting many of the bars that she had struggled to visit on her own. It was a lovely area, and the people were so much friendlier than the Londoners I was used to. We made sure lots of people saw us together, and she couldn’t understand how I managed to talk to anyone and everyone, wherever we visited. I wanted people to know about Emma’s shop and the fact that she was open for business. We also visited a number of local estate agents and registered our interest in purchasing an executive house in the area.
On the following Monday, I met up with Ray and we chatted about the quality of the gear. He told me that people couldn’t get enough of it locally and he’d had repeat customers. I explained that I thought it was OK but nothing to get too excited about – at best a six out of ten. But Ray didn’t dwell on the quality of the cocaine for a second. He had a more pressing matter, and asked me if I fancied some ‘Mum and Dad’. I knew that there was plenty of MDMA powder about at the time, but people were uncomfortable with it. Criminals weren’t sure what price to knock it out at, how severely to cut it, and how best to take it. There were also varying qualities – some quite dirty in colour and probably from home-style labs. Others came as a clean white powder. However, the best quality I had seen was a brownish crystal, a bit like amber, that formed a white powder when you crushed it.
I asked what Ray thought about Mum and Dad. He said he preferred to stick to the bestsellers, but that there was a new market for this. He told me that the guy who had it was an eccentric academic, and he’d phoned him last night to say he had some new gear that was ‘the bollocks’. I agreed to go around and see the fella with Ray later on.
That evening, we met for a quick pint before Ray directed me to a Victorian terraced house. We went down a side alley that led to the back of the house, and walked through a small, gated courtyard. We climbed three or four concrete steps leading to a green wooden back door that was ajar.
As we got to the top step, a tall, skinny, bare-chested man in his early thirties jumped out. He had a plastic-handled carving knife in his right hand, and he made a very loud growling noise in an attempt to scare the two of us. His eyes were like saucers, and he had a number of tattoos across his chest and stomach. I couldn’t help noticing that it looked like there was chocolate spread dripping off the knife. He was convinced that he’d scared the two of us and couldn’t stop laughing. Then he opened the door wide to let us into the chaos of his kitchen. He went to shake my hand, but I pulled it away to allow him to lick the chocolate sauce off his two middle fingers. I settled for a nod of my head instead, and ‘Alright, mate.’
We walked through the kitchen into a dining room, where the man asked us to sit at the table. I could see piles of music books stacked on an armchair in the corner. I watched the bare-chested man, who said his name was Jeremy, walk back through the kitchen to a room I presumed was the bathroom. He came out holding a Tupperware box that had a red elastic band round its outside. As he placed it on the table I could see that it contained what looked like large amber bath salts. He shook the box and said, ‘Ray, you have to have a go on this, it will fuck you up proper.’
Jeremy was enthusiastic about his merchandise. He grabbed a clean spoon and took one of the crystals out of box and crushed it into a virgin white powder. He asked us both to give it a go. In unison, we declined. I knew that this looked like ‘top end’ gear, so I asked Jeremy to sort me out an ounce. He grabbed a set of scales and carefully weighed out twenty-eight grams. He then got a clear bag, cut off the corner to form a triangle, placed the crystals inside and knotted the end. He handed me the bag and asked for £800 in exchange, which I gave him.
He pointed down to the white crushed powder from his demonstration and said, ‘Gentleman, can I tempt you?’ Again, both of us declined. Jeremy continued: ‘Under those circumstances, it seems a shame to waste it.’ He took a cut straw from his jeans pocket and snorted the powder. Then he told us it was a pleasure doing business, and Ray and I went to walk out together. As we got to the kitchen door, Ray said he’d see me in the car, as he wanted a quick chat with Jeremy.
I had a little smile on my face as I walked down the steps and through the yard; I knew Ray would be taking a ‘cut’ off Jeremy for the introduction to me. I sat in the car a few minutes until he returned to inform me that there was as much of the Mum and Dad as I could move. He also asked if I was going to ‘see him right’ for making the introduction. I laughed at him, and he said, ‘What now?’
I told him to open the glovebox, and watched the smile on his face as he took a hundred pounds in £20 notes and put them in his jacket pocket. I was pleased with the evening’s work, and I had no doubt that I’d just bought a very high-purity ounce of crystal MDMA.
Twenty
Emma locked up, and we linked arms and walked the short distance from the shop to the café. She talked non-stop about the customers that had stepped into the shop throughout the day. She was excited and enthusiastically described each and every character that she had met during the day. Her face beamed and she could not get her words out quick enough.
I looked at her and tried to concentrate on her every word, but it was difficult for me to take it all in. If I was honest, I was more interested in the reason that Ray wanted to meet me at the café. He had phoned me earlier in the day and asked to meet me there at 6.30 p.m. It was now 6.10 and I only had a few minutes to explain the situation to Emma.
I squeezed her hand and told her what a fantastic job I thought she was doing. I truly meant it – she was so natural at what she did. I told her that Ray was coming at 6.30 and I wasn’t sure what he wanted to talk about. I asked her to go to the ladies after about ten minutes, as Ray was unlikely to discuss business in front of her. I also said that if I asked her if she’d got the DVDs for me, that was the time for her to say she’d left them in the shop and to leave Ray and me alone for fifteen minutes.
Emma understood this, and recognised the importance of my relationship with Ray. It was in no way a slur on her, it was the way Ray and I conducted our business. I’d told Ray that Emma thought I was back on the straight and narrow and that she didn’t want me going back to my old ways. I’d told him that I wanted her to believe that I was a straight-goer now, and that if he was ever asked by her, he would confirm that I was behaving myself. I had said that Emma saw this as a new start, a clean slate, an opportunity for the two of us to build a future together. Ray knew the script, and if Emma was with me, he was very discreet in his conversations. But he also knew that she wasn’t stupid, and he was almost schoolboy in his responses when she would say, ‘I hope you two aren’t up to no good?’ I could see he had lies written all over his face when he answered her. Emma understood, and she played her part to perfection. I knew Ray liked her, and he was always courteous and polite around her.
At 6.30, he bounced through the café door with a huge beam on his face; he was one of life’s happy people. He greeted Emma and gave her a big kiss, joking that this must be my idea of taking her for a romantic meal.
Everyone in the café knew that Ray was there, as his voice was always that little bit louder than everyone else’s. I think he thrived on being the centre of attention – this was his personality, it was in his make-up. He sat down opposite the two of us. Emma was holding my hand on the table in front of him, and I saw him glance down at this and then straight into my eyes. We made small talk and arranged that we would – together with Ray’s missus, Chloe – all go out on Saturday evening for a meal and a few drinks.
E
mma took this as her cue to excuse herself. I laughed to myself as she walked towards the ladies. I knew there was no chance whatsoever that she would allow herself to sit on the toilet seat in there, not in a million years. She would have to wash her hands over and over, and pray that no one else needed to use it.
Ray used the time wisely: ‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of her. But I wanted to know if you’d be interested in a bit of metalwork.’ He held his hand on the table in front of me in a gun shape. ‘I’m meeting the fella that’s got it at seven thirty.’
I said I was definitely interested but that he should only ring me when he actually had it in his lap, and then I’d come and meet him later to collect it. Ray told me it had a ‘shusher’ and it came with seven or eight bits of ‘food’. He said that I knew the fella that he was meeting, and we could sort the ‘paperwork’ out later. Sorting out the money was always the critical part. He said it would be about two and half bags.
I told him to say when Emma came back that maybe me and him could have a pint down the ‘office’ about nine o’clock, but that he shouldn’t ring me unless he definitely had the ‘thing’ with him.
Emma rejoined us, and as she went to sit down Ray made his excuses and got up from the table. As he went to walk out, he turned around and said he’d call me later for a pint down ‘the office’. Whenever Ray and I spoke on the phone about meeting at our pub, we referred to it as ‘the office’. It was a pub we had made our own – a place we felt safe in, somewhere we discussed our ‘business’ together.