I Own You

by Dawn McConnell

  Coming into contact with dangerous individuals was only part of the hazard of working in my hotel. In fact the biggest danger at The Cavendish was fire. Whether it was by accident or arson, the number of fires at The Cavendish was frightening – and worrying about the threat of fire kept me awake at night. Frequently, there would be rows between residents and some stupid bugger would throw a lit cigarette into his neighbour’s room, hoping to burn him to death. Then he’d actually fall asleep in his own room, not thinking for a moment that the fire might engulf him too. Or burn the whole bloody building down for that matter!

  Our fire extinguishers were used on a daily basis. All the staff got used to running up the stairs to put out fires, either set deliberately or caused accidentally by drunks falling asleep with lit fags, or by the Bunsen burner of a heroin addict catching fire to the curtains. Even the residents got used to putting out each other’s fires.

  Thankfully, I employed a brilliant team of sixteen staff members who all knew the kind of people we were dealing with and, together, we became like a little family. The things we saw in our daily work, the difficult situations we had to handle, made us all very close. Stuart was hardly there at all – only at the weekends when he came in to skim the tills. He certainly never showed any concern for me or the environment I was working in.

  And, as sad as it sounds, death became a daily occurrence – either from heroin overdoses, old age or asphyxiation from solvent abuse. During the daily handover, from one shift to the next, we had a series of questions to run through with the person taking over. One of those questions was: ‘Any deaths?’ It was that common, I once counted six deaths in a week.

  One day, about six months after I took over, a resident’s girlfriend came running to reception when I was on shift.

  ‘Help! Please help – ma wee lad is dead!’ she wailed.

  Bolting up the stairs, I arrived at their room. All the walls were painted purple and there were no belongings at all, just a bed in one corner and a Bunsen burner in the middle of the floor with tinfoil smouldering away. It was a typical junkie’s room. They sold anything that they could get their hands on, even their own clothes, so junkies never had any possessions. The man’s body was on the bed, naked save for the needle sticking out of his groin.

  ‘Help him,’ the girl shrieked. ‘Please help him. He’s gonnae die! Gi’ him mouth to mouth. Please!’

  I stared at his naked, limp, skinny pale body – he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old – and all I could see was his massive erection. He was dead, that was for sure, for his eyes were open unblinkingly and fresh vomit had collected in his mouth and over his torso. No doubt he’d overdosed from a lethal cocktail of heroin and prescription methadone.

  ‘I’m sorry, love, I can’t do anything for him,’ I said gently. ‘He’s gone now. He’s gone.’

  Then I left her crying over her dead boyfriend to phone the ambulance. Sadly, this was all too often the way we found our heroin-addicted residents. For the most part they were zombies, harmless individuals too stoned to threaten anyone, only ever looking for their next hit, unaware that every hit could be their last.

  Another time, the cleaner reported a terrible smell coming from what she thought was a blocked toilet on the second floor, and that a large amount of flies had gathered outside Room 73.

  I exchanged a fearful look with Laura, the other girl on reception with me that day. We both knew who occupied Room 73. The tenant was a young man called Ted who had fallen from an oil rig whilst up working in Aberdeen and had epilepsy to add to all his other physical injuries. Now Ted’s face was also disfigured from banging into the rig on the way down and he struggled to walk with all the pins in his hips, dragging his left leg behind him. He didn’t like people to see his disfigurement so he generally kept himself to himself. He had no family, no friends, no one who cared for him or his existence. Even so, we liked Ted, he was a dignified soul, a true young gentleman, and he had become part of our little community. We exchanged ‘good mornings’ with him every day when he hobbled downstairs for breakfast. I checked with the other staff – nobody had seen Ted for four days.

  So on this hot day in July Laura and I went up to Room 73, full of fear and dread. When we got to the room, there were flies crawling out from under the door, up the door and over the carpet. After knocking a couple of times we unlocked the door and entered the south-facing room. The heat and stench hit us both at the same time. I could taste death in the air, it was that strong.

  Ted was propped up in the corner of the room against a radiator that was on full blast, facing a closed window. The July sun beat down on him, as it had probably done for the past four days straight. It was baking hot and the flies were everywhere so we quickly covered our mouths with our sleeves and opened the window. Now, up close, we took a good look at Ted.

  Oh my God, there is nothing left of his face!

  His face and body were completely infested with thousands upon thousands of maggots. Bodily fluid seeped out through his clothes and his eyes were now just hollow spaces with maggots feasting inside. His whole rotting body seemed to be visibly moving as the maggots writhed and crawled over each other. When Laura touched his head, it fell forward revealing his skull, maggots gorging on his brain with half his flesh still stuck to the radiator. We both screamed and ran as fast as we could out the room and down the stairs. After calling the authorities, Laura and I both took a stiff drink of whisky. We agreed: it was the most horrifying and gory sight we’d ever encountered.

  But, incredibly, despite the deaths, the violence, the fires, the arrests and the unmanageable clients, The Cavendish was actually a terrific success. The social community we’d fostered within the hotel made our guests fiercely loyal and many stayed with us for years.

  The wealth that it generated, meanwhile, significantly affected the lifestyle of us so-called newlyweds. Within a year, Stuart and I had traded in our old house for a new six-bedroom pile in a posh part of town with electric gates and a beautiful big garden. For cash! In fact, we bought everything with cash – top-of-the-range cars, expensive holidays, artwork and investment flats to rent out. By now we had built up our joint property portfolio to thirty flats, bringing in around £12,000 every month.

  Money definitely made my home life easier. Stuart still controlled all my movements with threats and coercion, but now he had ‘secured’ me with the marriage and the cash was free-flowing, my husband was generally a contented man. The more I brought home, the happier he was, and he liked to flash the cash and show Glasgow that he was still a force to be reckoned with. Don’t get me wrong, I was still scared of him, still cowed by his nasty temper and sadistic threats. I was warned over and over that if I stepped out of line or disobeyed him, he would ‘destroy me’, and not just financially. He would cut all my hair off while I slept and throw acid in my face so that nobody else would ever want me, but as long as I could make money for him, the actual violence simmered below the surface. So cash became my friend too. It cemented us together in appearance and security and, looking back, I can honestly say these days were the best in our marriage. I was out to prove to everyone that I was a great big success and not a loser like everyone had assumed, and showing the world that we had succeeded financially was important to me.

  One weekend in 1994, we took the train down to London and I picked out a new, top-of-the-range Ferrari for £76k, paying for it in £50 notes, sourced from two weeks’ work at the hotel.

  ‘Can you give us a day to complete this transaction?’ asked the very posh salesman. I agreed and that weekend Stuart and I stayed in one of the best hotels in Mayfair. The following day, I picked up my car.

  ‘What did you need the extra time for?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘Well, to be perfectly honest with you, Miss McConnell, we had to check the serial numbers on the bank notes. There was a . . . ah . . . ahem . . . bank robbery two days ago in Cirencester and of course we were obliged to ensure that the money was not obtain
ed illegally. So sorry for the delay!’

  When I told Stuart later that day, we both laughed about it. I certainly didn’t have any qualms about how we were making our money. I worked hard to earn an honest living. Certainly, I was at the hotel almost every day and worked from first thing in the morning till midnight most nights, which meant the only time I got to see Callum was when I took him to school in the mornings. Stuart was the house-husband, the man of leisure; a position he felt he had earned now that he was in his late forties. He took Callum to school and tennis and in his eyes that made him a good father. But Callum wanted more from him and often used to ask him to do activities with him, which he refused.

  ‘Callum, I am not the type of father who does stuff with their kids,’ he scoffed. ‘If you think kicking a football around makes someone a good father you are wrong.’

  I bitterly regret now that I didn’t get to spend more time with my son when he was growing up – he was always asking to see me more and I felt constantly guilty. But in my mind I had to give him the best of everything. I was the breadwinner and he depended on me financially, and I couldn’t be a home mum too. Hannah was still helping us out and I just hoped that he was getting the attention he deserved from his dad.

  I knew Stuart was cheating the taxman but in that regard, I didn’t have any influence. I knew enough by now to know he wouldn’t appreciate any interference from me in his affairs. I was just the workhorse and that’s the way Stuart liked it. I was never the licensee of the bars, I was just an employee and Stuart set up lots of different companies within the hotel so that they fell under the tax threshold for everything. Besides that, the rest of it was cash, which of course wasn’t declared. So when Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs (HMRC) came knocking, which they did several times, I was well versed in how to respond. Stuart had put the fear of God into me, saying he would destroy me if I came between him and his cash.

  ‘I only work here,’ I told them each time. ‘You’ll have to write to the director of the company.’

  They would write to Stuart at one of his many companies, he would ignore their letters and eventually he would liquidate the company, taking all its debts with it. Then a new company would spring up to take over the business. It was a corporate maze and none of the authorities managed to solve it. The only asset was the hotel and since Adam owned that in an offshore Panamanian company and rented it to Stuart’s ‘shell’ companies, there was no way of pinning either of the Kelly cousins down. No company accounts were ever done, no government agency paid. It was a labyrinth.

  Of course, Stuart knew this was a complicated operation to explain and that this left him vulnerable. It was bound to unravel one day. I mean, how could he live such a lavish lifestyle and pay no tax? We flew first class all over the world, we sent our son to private school, we owned a big house, for God’s sake! It didn’t make sense.

  So he told me on several occasions: ‘If anything ever happens to me, there are bearer shares in the safe. That’s your inheritance. That’s the key to realizing my assets.’

  The money he had squirrelled away from both the taxman and his ex-wife had been put into a company called Mayfair Holdings, managed by his cousin. Mayfair owned tons of property, apparently, including several blocks of flats and offices and Stuart estimated that he and Adam had a joint wealth of over £7 million. This, he told me breezily, gave him a private income of around £1,000 a month. Mayfair was where he’d hidden his wealth, but it was all under Adam’s control and if I needed access to the money after he was gone, I was to go to Adam.

  But as he boasted of the set-up, there was something that didn’t quite add up in my mind. If Stuart jointly owned £7 million of assets, why did he only get £1,000 a month from the rents? We now owned a tenth of that jointly and we were bringing in £12,000 a month from around £850,000 worth of investment. Something stunk. I had watched Adam at work before and I knew he wouldn’t think twice about screwing Stuart over, but questioning Stuart on this was taboo – he wouldn’t hear a word against his cousin.

  If it all went wrong tomorrow, there were the bearer shares: that’s all I had to know. Other than that, Stuart hoarded large amounts of cash in our home just in case he had to make a quick getaway. It all sounded very dramatic, very far-fetched to me, but Stuart was dead serious.

  ‘If you have to get out of town, never use a credit card,’ he warned. ‘Fly under the radar.’ Stuart had secret panels all around the house where he hid rolls of £50 notes. If anything happened, Stuart said he could get to the airport, get on a flight and lay low abroad for a year on his savings. The respectable middle class had savings accounts in banks, insurance policies and investments. Not us – we had wads of cash hidden in our wardrobe and in our curtains.

  My parents finally sold their hotel in 1996. They got a much smaller sum than they had anticipated but the money didn’t matter – not now I was so wealthy. I bought my parents a lovely flat nearby and they were grateful when I told them they could stay rent-free so they could enjoy their retirement. Given that Stuart and I were doing so well, I felt I owed it to them to give them some measure of comfort in their old age, especially now that Dad was in a bad way physically. He was constantly out of breath, and instead of booze, he was now sustained by a cocktail of different pills. But instead of staying at home to rest or put his feet up, Dad came to The Cavendish every day.

  Each morning at around 10.30 a.m., a motley collection of shoplifters, junkies and drunks bustled past my dad on the hotel steps as he slowly hauled himself up with the bannister, stopping every two or three steps to catch his breath and rest. Now twenty-seven, I’d watch this scene unfold from the CCTV behind the reception desk and then, unable to bear it any longer, I’d run out of the hotel lobby to help him up the last few steps.

  ‘Dad, it’s okay,’ I’d say, taking his arm. ‘Here, let me help you.’

  All day long he’d sit there in reception, silently reading the paper and drinking tea. I was always rushed off my feet so I often didn’t have time to stop and chat. Why is he here? I always wondered. He came every single day and stayed for hours. Why? What does he get out of it?

  I might have been smart when it came to business, but I was still a poor student of human behaviour. By the time I worked it out, it was far too late.

  Chapter 17

  Last Fight

  ‘Bloody hell, Dad, what’s wrong with your toe?’ I exclaimed when I saw Dad’s foot one Thursday morning in early October 1997. I was due to start work at the hotel in an hour and I’d popped into their flat to offer my mum a lift into town for her weekly trip to the hairdresser’s. But when I came into their kitchen, I was met by the sight of my dad, still in his pyjamas, with his left foot propped up on a stool in front of him. His big toe was completely black.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he sighed. ‘It’s really sore. It’s been like this for a couple of days now.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to go to the doctor,’ I said.

  Mum, who had been fussing around us, getting her hat and coat from the hallway, suddenly interrupted: ‘When?’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to take him now,’ I replied, flicking through their phone book to find the number for their doctor, an old family friend.

  ‘But what about my hair appointment?’ Mum said irritably. ‘I’m going to miss my hair appointment.’

  ‘You go if you want, Mum, but I’m phoning the doctor.’

  I could tell at once this was serious. Dad was a sick man and he’d lost so much weight in the last few months, his face was gaunt and his oversize clothes hung off him. More recently, he’d been diagnosed with diabetes. The doctor was there within half an hour and the moment he saw Dad’s toe, he called an ambulance.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad!’ I smiled at my father, who seemed shrunken in his six-foot-one-inch frame. There was real fear in his eyes now; something I had never seen before.

  ‘Well, bloody well thank you, Dawn!’ Mum muttered to herself, shaking her head, angry at having t
o cancel her hair appointment. ‘Thank you very much!’

  I followed behind the ambulance in my car and then met Mum and Dad in A & E where we were shown through to a bed. It didn’t take long before a young doctor came round. He examined the toe, asked my dad a few questions then went away to check his files.

  When he returned a few minutes later, it wasn’t with good news.

  ‘Okay, Mr McConnell. I’m afraid this is gangrenous. You’ve nicked your nail here – you see? – and it’s become infected. Now because of the diabetes, the veins in your toe have collapsed and the infection has spread. In other words, the toe died because the blood flow stopped.’

  Dad looked at me with wild-eyed alarm. Gangrene was a common problem for diabetics because their veins collapsed, which meant they couldn’t heal after small infections. That was why so many lost arms and legs. I tried to put on a brave face but, inside, I was scared for my father.

  ‘We need to take the toe off really quickly because it’s blood poisoning and we can’t let it spread,’ the doctor went on. ‘I’ve booked you in for surgery early this afternoon.’

  Dad didn’t say a word; Mum covered her mouth with her hand and looked away, as if she couldn’t bear to face my father.

  ‘It’s going to be fine, Dad,’ I said reassuringly, squeezing his hand. His eyes were full of fear, it was too much for him to take in. Is this why he hadn’t gone to the doctor sooner? I wondered. Had he suspected his toe was dead? Instinctively, I looked at the clock – it was nearly midday and I needed to get to the hotel.

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go to work right now,’ I told Mum. ‘But I’ll arrange some cover and I’ll be back later on. It’ll be fine. I promise. It will all be okay.’

  For the rest of the day, I was busy with the hotel and hardly had time to think about my dad’s operation. It was only when I returned to the hospital at 5 p.m. that I recalled the scared look in his eyes. He’ll be fine, I told myself. My dad was such a strong man, a war veteran and a warrior! He could survive anything.