by David Leslie
Malaga was a favourite target of Scots intent on sitting in the sun, putting themselves through the pain barrier for a quick tan to impress neighbours and workmates. It was also the centre of a thriving trade in Moroccan hash. In no time, Ross and Glackin had stowed away 40 kilos in the seats and were on their way home, literally sitting on £100,000. The enterprise ended at Dover when a Customs search uncovered the contraband and the pair were each jailed for three years.
Back out of prison, the two friends were undaunted by their earlier failure and in 1992 were back in Malaga, where they met up with a Mancunian known as ‘Big Ted’, who was one of the principal suppliers of hash along the coastal region. They were determined to try another run to Glasgow in an even-more-heavily packed car and set off, despite warnings by Big Ted of the dangers of trying to cross mountain passes in a clearly unsafe motor. Forced to turn back and admit defeat, they met with Big Ted again, who sympathised with them and then arranged to have their supplies smuggled into the UK by lorry. Realising the foolhardiness of persisting with the 3,000-mile round trips between Malaga and Glasgow, the smugglers sought help in their native city.
Others came into the enterprise, thinking up ways of making the racket more successful. It was decided that the cars would be used to shuttle between Malaga and Disneyland Paris, where they would be met initially by transit vans and later by buses into which the hash would be loaded then driven back to Scotland. By now the operation had really taken off, but changes would be necessary after two of the cars were stopped entering France packed with hashish.
Three male Scots caught – William Hassard, John Lyon and John Templeton – were each jailed for three and a half years, while a woman who had taken the place of a fourth was also arrested but escaped thanks to an audacious plot in which a passport belonging to a lookalike was smuggled to her. Even that setback did not deter the gradually growing gang, but as the venture became more lucrative, its very size brought with it new problems into which Hannah would find herself drawn.
Had Hannah but known it, her catalogue area had at one time been so close to the street where her daughter lived that the two women could easily have bumped into one another. No one can ever say whether that happened; however, what is certain is that the strange story Peter had told about her daughter and the hospital almost took on a tragic reality.
In 1993, Isobel was aged 23, and it was a miracle she survived to reach her 24th birthday. There had been boyfriends, flirtations, crushes and brief romances, but such was her happiness at home that she was content to remain in the embrace of her family. Love, however, and marriage, lay around the corner.
She had begun a new job, and while she enjoyed it hugely and was getting to know her new colleagues some noticed she appeared unwell. Isobel brushed away their worries, anxious that her new employer should not think she was a malingerer, even though she admitted to herself she felt ill, experiencing a tightness in her lungs and nausea. She carried on, but her breathing became increasingly difficult. Finally, she collapsed.
When she recovered, she told concerned colleagues she thought she had asthma and was sent home. In bed that night, she began sweating profusely and felt so weak she was unable to stand. The following day, she could only crawl around the house and it was evident that what had been imagined as a bad dose of influenza was something considerably worse. The family GP was called. The doctor took a blood sample and hurried off to have it tested. Forty minutes later, he returned with an ambulance, emergency checks having shown severe deficiencies.
Isobel was taken to Hairmyres Hospital, where, years earlier, Peter had told Hannah her daughter was to be found. She was given a blood transfusion, but after a series of tests doctors declared they were unable to find the cause of the problem. They told her she appeared to be on the mend and sent her home, where she promptly fainted and had to be returned to Hairmyres. She remained there for nine days, her condition gradually worsening, while just a few miles away the woman who had given her life struggled for survival in a different way, seducing a portly businessman and selling mail-order catalogues.
On her ninth day in hospital, laboratory tests revealed the nature of the mystery illness that had baffled the Hairmyres staff. Isobel had fallen victim to a rare disease, where antibodies produced naturally to attack germs become treacherous and instead turn on the kidneys and lungs. When she began coughing up blood, the doctors knew that kidney failure was inevitable. She was transferred immediately to the larger Monklands Hospital, with its specialised kidney unit, 15 miles away in Airdrie. Next morning, doctors carried out a blood-purification procedure called plasmapheresis, though an inevitable process had already begun and within weeks her kidneys had failed. This was a major catastrophe. One possible outcome of this was the need for a kidney transplant. Isobel was given dialysis, which does the filtering and cleaning work normally done by healthy kidneys, until her body showed signs of recovery, aided by oxygen, steroids and chemotherapy.
It was a long process and Isobel was to remain in hospital for many months, during which time she would have cause to ponder about her natural mother. The disease is frequently hereditary, and earlier in the treatment process doctors had needed to know the medical history of Isobel’s family, including whether the disease had struck previously. It was also thought at an early stage that a transplant was inevitable and doctors had asked if a blood relative would be able to provide a match, were he or she willing to make the sacrifice. They said that if this was not possible, it might mean Isobel needing to spend an ever-increasing part of her life hooked up to a dialysis machine.
In reply to the nurses’ questions about any history of kidney failure in her family came the reply, ‘I don’t know.’ Staff were at first inclined to think their patient’s lack of interest was caused by her condition, which left her tired and lethargic, but once she was able to gather her thoughts and reveal the truth, it left the medical team with a major headache should a transplant be required.
It also gave Isobel food for thought. ‘For the first time in my life, being adopted became relevant and I began thinking and wondering about who my natural parents had been. I wondered what they looked like, where they lived, how they were and why they had given me away. It was at that point that I kind of thought about them and began to ask myself if they thought about me. But I’d grown up without them and once the doctors told me a transplant would not be needed, they faded to the back of my memory. I’d never known them and now there would be no need to find them.’ But there would be. Later.
EIGHTEEN
DEL BOY
Her past had dealt Hannah Martin more than her fair quota of unhappiness, but she could still enjoy a joke. An amusing quip could come in very useful when trying to persuade an undecided customer whether to sign up for a catalogue, and often it proved the key to being invited inside instead of having the door closed in her face.
She had learned, as she tramped the bleak Glasgow streets, when to introduce humour and when it was time to be sympathetic, although there were occasions when she found it difficult not to break out in laughter at some of the hard-luck stories she was forced to hear. The case of the wedding dress was one such situation.
Calling one night early in 1994 on a house in Nitshill, a notoriously violent area to the south-west of the city, an attractive, brown-haired and buxom middle-aged woman answered the door wearing the uniform of one of the emergency services. After explaining why she was there, Hannah was invited to step inside, offered a comfortable seat and a coffee. It was quickly obvious that here was a sure customer, her host indicating that her working pattern often meant shopping had to be done at a rush, whereas having a catalogue would allow her to choose clothing in particular at leisure. Asked if she had children, the woman replied in the negative. ‘I don’t have a husband either, although I’ve been married three times,’ she went on to tell her visitor.
‘Perhaps fourth time lucky,’ suggested Hannah, with a smile, looking up as she completed the agreement f
orm for her newly found customer.
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. Not with my luck.’ It was a remark that begged explanation. There was no doubting she was in the mood to talk.
Recognising a fellow female whose relationships had brought pain and hurt, Hannah was content to hear her out. ‘You’ve had bad luck with men? I know the feeling.’
‘Not this feeling, I guarantee it.’
‘Go on.’
‘My first husband discovered religion after we’d been married four months. He went out boozing with his pals one night and announced when he came home he’d decided he wanted a career change. I asked what sort of new career and was told he wanted to see the world as a missionary. I thought it was the drink talking and that he’d have forgotten all about it when he woke up the next morning, but he hadn’t.
‘Next thing I knew, he said he was sorry, he’d made a mistake and was joining a religious order. He said he wouldn’t stand in my way if I divorced him, so that’s what I did on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. While we’d been courting he could think of nothing but sex and having a good time, and he ended up a monk, preaching somewhere in South America.
‘I waited six years before chancing marriage again, meeting somebody I thought was a really nice chap at a singles’ club in Glasgow. He was a hospital porter and had a great sense of humour, and a roving eye. I didn’t mind that because there was no indication it went further than that. Then one night, for a laugh, we went with some friends to a gay bar in the city centre and saw this character dressed up to the nines in an evening dress. He had on a wig, make-up, earrings, the works. It was obvious he was a man; I don’t know what he’d stuck down the front, but they were enormous.
‘My husband couldn’t take his eyes off them. It was embarrassing. Next thing he had the transvestite, or transsexual, or whatever he was, sitting on his knee and they were snogging. My husband kissing another man! I couldn’t believe it. Our friends thought it was hilarious.
‘After we got home, all he could talk about was the gay bar and what a wonderful place it was and how we must go back. I told him, “It’s disgusting and so are you,” but his mind was made up. Every time we went out, we’d end up there, or at some bar where men were dancing with other men and women with women. He used to make some excuse to leave me on my own and I’d see him all over some character covered in stubble and mascara. I told my parents, and my dad – who was in his 60s, bless him – said he’d knock it out of him. But all that happened was that he walked out and I got a letter from his solicitor asking for a divorce. So it was good riddance.
‘Somebody suggested I should go for counselling and I joined this group for people who’d had marital problems. We’d sit around talking about them and how they’d affected each of us. One of the guys seemed really sympathetic towards me. He told me his wife had gone off with one of his friends. Naturally, I was wary, but I thought he was a kindred spirit, a fellow sufferer.
‘The inevitable happened. I fell for him, he moved in with me and we got hitched – just a quiet registry office ceremony, nothing flashy. One night we were having a sort out when I came across my dress from the first wedding. I was all for chucking it away but my husband said it was so pretty we should keep it. Well, things went along fine, or so I thought. We went everywhere together, even when I did the shopping and bought clothes. I used to boast about him, and one evening after a friend and I had been out for dinner I told her I wanted her to come home to meet him. When we got in, it was late and he wasn’t up, so I thought he must be asleep and was apologising when he flounced down the stairs, bold as brass, wearing a wedding dress. He even had my tights, make-up and jewellery on.
‘My friend burst out laughing and I burst out crying. It was so humiliating. I asked him what the hell was going on and in front of my friend he asked if we thought he looked pretty. I was screaming at him to get out and trying to belt him with my bag, and anything else to hand; he was trying to fend me off and kept telling me not to damage his dress. My friend was rolling around on the floor, in tears through laughing.
‘That night I wanted to kill the bastard. He got the message and cleared off, taking the dress. The worst for me was the shame. I realised he was just a pathetic fairy. Marry again? Not me, dear.’
Hannah left the house wondering if she had been dreaming. She had heard some crazy stories lately, most recently one on the news about an American called John Wayne Bobbitt. His wife, Lorena, had complained he was selfish because he refused to give her an orgasm, so one night, while he was asleep following a row, she used the kitchen knife to cut off the end of his penis. She drove off and threw it from her car window but police, called to her screaming husband, found it and surgeons stitched it back on. In the courts, Lorena was found not guilty of malicious wounding. Hannah wondered what might have happened to the man in the wedding dress had he been Lorena’s husband.
She was still laughing inwardly at the story of the dress the next night when she arrived at Thornliebank in Glasgow to track down more business; however, her cheerfulness soon withered as it began to pour with rain. This was more than an early spring shower, she thought, as raindrops dripped down her neck and she found herself wading through puddles.
Arriving on Clova Street and knocking at the door of a corner house, she wondered if she was seeing things. The man who stood before her was the double of one of her television favourites, David Jason, Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter in the popular comedy series Only Fools and Horses. Short, dark-haired and pleasant, this homeowner was clearly impressed that someone should come calling in such weather and invited her in. And so it was that Hannah was introduced to Graeme Mason, unsurprisingly known to his pals as ‘Del Boy’.
In light of subsequent events involving Hannah and Mason, it is impossible to reconcile their apparent views of one another; however, there is little dispute about that first meeting. Mason remembers his initial reaction: ‘I was at home one evening, it was chucking it down with rain outside and I was doing the dishes, or something of that nature, when I heard a knock at the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone and when I opened it, there stood this woman looking extremely bedraggled and soaking wet through.
‘I asked her, “Are you selling something?” and when she said yes, she was from Kays catalogues, I said, “Well, I’m not going to buy anything, but if you want to come in and try persuading me otherwise, then in you come.” I was into the selling game myself at that time, flogging curtains, I think, and so I suppose I had a certain degree of sympathy for her. She was a sort of sales soulmate, I suppose. In she came, and I told her to go and get dried in front of the fire, while I offered her a cup of tea or coffee. But she said she drank neither, only juice, so I got some for her. I even gave her a towel to dry her hair. She told me her name was Hannah and she came from Bellshill. We had a chat about selling and how she was doing. That was how it all began.’
Hannah would later recall her version of events. ‘Graeme Mason was all chat and asked me in. In next to no time, he signed up for the catalogue. Because he was talkative and friendly, I asked him if he could get me some other names, and he said he would. He got me the details of his daughter, a friend of his by the name of John Balmer and someone else, so with that one call I’d almost made half of my quota for the night. It was a great start and we spent a bit of time gossiping and asking about one another.
‘Then he asked, “Why don’t you come back round here when you are finished?” So off I went, feeling good and thinking that when I got back to Bellshill I’d tell everybody I’d met Del Boy Trotter. When I’d done enough calls, I went back to his house and he asked if I’d like to go out for a drink with him. I said I didn’t drink but would be happy to go with him to the pub. And off we went.’
The sellers of curtains and catalogues called in turn at a couple of local drinking houses, the Thornlie Arms and the Cuillins Bar. Both were owned by John Healy, regarded by friends as a hard-headed businessman and by enemies as simply a hard man, a gangster, someo
ne who should not be crossed.
Brother-in-law to Thomas ‘The Licensee’ McGraw, Healy had a fearsome reputation. It would be said of him when, in the future, he disappeared from the area that lawlessness broke out within it and only ended with his reappearance. He knew Mason well and, as it would emerge, had recruited Del Boy for a business venture of which Hannah would become a part.
That night she and Healy – fit, muscled and, she guessed, in his late 30s – were introduced. They exchanged polite pleasantries and he seemed impressed when it was explained how she made a living. He recognised she and Mason had only just met and the publican left the pair on their own. Hannah thought Healy masculine and interesting and was instantly attracted to him but, much later, when asked, would deny the extent of what developed into a firm friendship.
As they talked, she showed a natural curiosity when Mason explained that he salvaged goods for a living. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked.
‘Well, I buy up stock that’s been salvaged or saved from something like a fire, or from a company that’s gone bust and the stuff has been left to rot. I sort out the good from the bad. Selling on the good stuff at a real bargain price to some wholesaler, or even somebody running market stalls, is dead easy. It’s astonishing how quickly you can dispose of damaged stock.’
‘You do this from your home?’
‘No, no, I have premises in Shawlands, not far from here.’
That evening, when they returned to Mason’s home in order that Hannah could collect her car and drive back to Bellshill, he once more invited her in for coffee. As they chatted, for the umpteenth time that night she could not avoid a fascination with the physical similarity between Mason and the television character whose nickname he had been given. Even the patter of the pair had a quirky similarity.