His sighed: ‘Do you wanna go to the cinema? Or do you want to go and pick up twenty-eight grand?’
We went to Birmingham.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MEAN STREETS
‘You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.’
GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI, 1832
As we drove down the M6 to Birmingham, Frank explained the story behind the cash he was going to collect. Frank’s great friend and partner, who I’ll call Nad, a big, lovable rascal of a lad, had been approached by a couple of Frank’s former associates. They wanted to do a drug deal and to cut Frank out. Nad didn’t kick off when they made the offer. He went along with it. They paid him £60,000 for a delivery of cocaine that never existed. He then gave them the finger and split the money, minus £2,000 in expenses, with Frank.
Nad was powerful enough to get away with it. He told them it was a lesson: ‘You deserve it. Nobody goes behind Frank’s back.’
We met Nad briefly and collected the money in a blue, zip-up gym bag. Afterwards, Frank said, ‘Right, we’re not travelling back up in that car. Wipe it clean, we’ll ditch it.’
We did, and grabbed a taxi back to Blackpool, at a cost of £150. Frank rounded it up to £200 with a tip. He had the cash and as far as I could see he hadn’t broken the law per se. All we were doing was collecting cash that was due to him. It was nothing to do with me. The worst that could have happened if we were stopped by the police would be that the money was confiscated. I wasn’t taking any risks myself.
With the cash under the bed, I booked a holiday to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. It wasn’t that brilliant but it didn’t matter; we just wanted to relax and escape the aggro that was building up around Frank. We had lots of sun and sex and I got pregnant again. I’d bought about half a dozen pregnancy test kits and I left them lying in the bathroom. He came in and sat on the edge of the toilet seat and looked at it then he shook his head: ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to be a father.’
I smiled. ‘Of course, you will. I’m pregnant.’
He still didn’t get it. I showed him my boobs, which were hard, the veins standing out. ‘That’s a sign, proof. I am.’
He was fantastically happy, but prospective fatherhood didn’t stop him getting up to no good. He wanted to get into the nightclub business and needed a lot of funds. He thought if he invested in this, he’d get that, and finally he’d have enough. Money he’d given for others to invest had vanished in schemes that had gone wrong. It put him in a corner.
‘Marisa,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to do something to try and get some cash to make it legitimately. I’ll do that and then stop.’
He went to Holland to organise a drugs deal and it was arranged I’d pick him up in our BMW convertible when he returned to Leeds. I just had time to do that and get back to collect Lara from school. Frank was asleep in the car as we got to a roundabout. I saw a police car and then another and another pulling up behind us. There were cars ahead of us as well.
‘Frank! Frank!’ I started nudging him. ‘Wake up. There’s too many police here.’
As I shouted at him a Vauxhall Vectra flashed its lights in front of us. We were being ordered to pull up. It was awkward because as you come off that motorway junction there’s nowhere to park. The cop cars stopped us at the worst possible spot and stopped the traffic either way on this busy highway. The queues lengthened as we sat in our car. People were staring, slowing down more to have a good gawp.
The police wanted our documentation, then said they were going to search the car.
Frank said: ‘For God’s sake. You know who I am. I’ve just done nine years. You really think I’m going to have something in my car? You’re not going to find what you want in there.’
But they found lots of goodies. A hat in a huge box for me. And sex toys from Holland – a maid’s outfit and crotchless knickers and body stockings.
I was in hysterics and told Frank, ‘I’m not wearing that! You kinky sod.’
He was laughing but embarrassed.
The coppers were angry and embarrassed – there wasn’t anything they could get us on. We were both recent Cat A prisoners, held at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Surely there had to be more than sex toys in the boot? But there wasn’t. They said we had to show up at Poulton Station with our driving licences and insurance and let us go.
Frank was a free man. There were no conditions on his release and he could go anywhere he wanted. Clearly he was being watched, though. The police had been tipped off and knew he’d been to Holland. They believed he was arranging a drug deal and they were right. He’d met up with Mr Big and negotiated a profitable exchange. But the Dutch deal went down the drain because his ex-partner Mark McCall put a spanner in the works and bad-mouthed Frank to the guy in Holland, who called it all off. That made Frank very mad. Things were happening. I wasn’t very happy. I was pregnant, after all.
One night, one of Frank’s friends, Craig Mirfield, who was only in his twenties, was gunned down. He was shot by a bullet that was meant for Frank. Craig, who had three children, was part of Frank’s gang.
There was another gangster in Leeds apart from Mark McCall who didn’t like Frank and wanted him out of the way. He threatened what they had. They were greedy and didn’t want to share. They were fearful of Frank’s reputation as he was a lot stronger than them. They were deadly enemies in the middle of an already-escalating drugs war on the streets of the Yorkshire city. And they sent someone to find Frank and kill him. The shooter found Craig instead. The gunman was coked out of his head and targeted the wrong vehicle. He jumped out in front of Craig’s van and shot him through the windscreen. Craig died instantly.
Frank felt absolutely awful that this lad had been shot because of him and he gave most of the £28,000 to Craig’s family. I was very upset about the whole situation but I wasn’t going to leave Frank. He was my man. But it was tough knowing the danger he was in, and worrying about the problems it could cause for us all.
In March 2000 one of my Italian family was released from jail on a technicality. A false passport was never a family problem and he travelled over to England. My relative still had contacts in Spain and onwards with the man known only as ‘The Sultan’ in Morocco. He thought so much of me he offered Frank an unprecedented deal. He would get them to supply hashish and Frank would only have to pay after he marketed it. The suppliers trusted my family so much they would deliver the drugs with nothing upfront. That was a massive gesture. Nobody else would do that.
If Frank had to mess about, go illegal, this was a more protected option. I only encouraged it because I so desperately wanted Frank to get away from the madness going on with the Yorkshire gangsters. We’d heard they’d put a price on Frank’s head, just as had happened to my dad.
It reminded me of the Mafia wars I’d witnessed, armed men in territorial battles. I pleaded: ‘Look, if you’ve got to do something, why do it in Leeds? Who cares? They’re all idiots. They are nobodies. You could be better than them if you wanted to.’
Frank dug his heels in. He had to prove a point. When they killed that lad, Frank went off the rails. He completely lost it, didn’t care any more. I was upset because we had a baby coming and I’d thought we’d be able to move away from all this, to have a new life, a family life.
All he would say when I saw him was: ‘I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.’ He was distant with me and I knew he was wheeling and dealing and up to stuff he wouldn’t talk about.
It was the Easter holidays 2000 and we were going to spend the weekend in Leeds at the De Vere Oulton Hall Hotel. It was to be a romantic getaway, all posh and candlelight. I was nearly three months pregnant. School was out and Lara had flown to Italy to stay with her grandma, Bruno’s mum, and to go with her to visit her dad in jail.
It was Friday evening. Frank was coming back home and we were going to drive across to the hotel together the next day.
He rang me about 8 p.m. and said, ‘Ti amo.’
‘Are you all right? Are you coming home?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Try and come home. I want to see you. I miss you.’
‘Right. Right. Right.’
I watched television, but he didn’t appear. I rang him about 11.30 p.m. and the mobile kept ringing. I went to bed but woke up with a start at 1 a.m. and called him again. Still no answer.
What’s happened? What was he doing? He wouldn’t usually do this. He would let me know what he was doing. I fell back asleep and next morning I phoned his brother John, angry and worried: ‘John where is he? What’s going on with him? He could be dead in a ditch for all I know.’
‘Marisa, don’t worry. I booked him a hotel room last night. He was either going to use it or not. I’ll go and find out.’
I called Nad but he was in Birmingham and thought Frank had come home to me.
I was getting angrier with Frank for messing me around but at noon John called: ‘I can’t find him. Get yourself across here.’
We had a massive Mitsubishi 4x4 but I didn’t want to take it on the motorways so I took the back roads. I had just reached Preston when the phone rang. It was an Irish friend of Frank’s: ‘Marisa, I’m so, so sorry to hear about Frank.’
‘What you do mean? What have you heard?’
‘Oh!’ He paused, surprised. ‘Oh.’
‘I think you’d better tell me now. What are you talking about?’
‘He got shot last night.’
I felt dizzy. I felt sick. I burst out crying.
‘What are you saying?’
‘Well, Frankie got shot last night.’
‘I’ve got to ring John. I’ve got to ring John.’
I rang John: ‘He’s telling me that Frank got shot last night. What is going on?’
‘He doesn’t know what he’s on about, he’s an idiot. Just get yourself across here.’
I was driving with tears streaming from my eyes, and half of me was thinking, ‘Maybe he’s got it wrong,’ but the other half was in shock. I don’t know how I drove there but somehow I got to John’s. As I was getting out of the car John walked over, his face red and his eyes raw. Raw, red raw.
I kept thinking in my head: ‘No. No. No.’
He came to the car door: ‘Marisa. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’
There were others around and they grabbed hold of my arms and sort of frog-marched me into the house. I collapsed on the settee crying and crying and crying. I thought my heart had been cut out. They were all in shock but trying to help me because I was carrying his baby. I was the most vulnerable at that moment.
Frank’s sisters and several other people arrived. A police family liaison officer was there, and everybody was uncomfortable because they didn’t want her around. She wasn’t much help anyway.
I broke down: ‘I’m never going to wash his clothes again. I’m never going to cook for him. Oh my God. He’s never going to see our baby. He knew. He knew he’d never be a father.’
That fatal Friday, Frank and a younger lad had gone to the home of one of his enemies, a grand palace of a place with big security gates. And guards. They had gone to put the frighteners on the gangster trying to intimidate Frank. One of the reports said they were on a ‘punishment raid’. Nobody will ever know exactly what Frank’s intentions were that night in April 2000. There were many demons, real or imagined, unsettling him. He was a tormented soul.
It was pitch black and a man appeared in the grounds, a seventeen-year-old who looked much older. A single shot blasted off at him. It caught the teenager in the leg. All hell broke loose, lights and alarms and shouting.
Frank and his mate sprinted through the gardens and up to a six-foot-high fence. Behind it was a walkway, a tight squeeze between a caravan and a garage. Frank told the lad to watch him climbing over and then follow. At his back, the lad got over the fence with the gun in his hand.
He jumped down with the gun and a shot went off. The fatal shot.
Did this lad aim and shoot to kill Frank?
Frank had a lot of enemies who wanted him out of the way at any cost.
Was it an accident? The gun had apparently jammed the day before. So was it dodgy? It’s still a big question mark for me.
With whatever intention the bullet was fired, it struck Frank right in the back of his neck. Above his protective clothing. More questions. A freak shot? The work of a sharpshooter?
Frank got up, staggered a few steps down the road and fell to the ground. He cried to the lad: ‘Help me!’ But the lad ran off. An ambulance took Frank to Leeds Royal Infirmary where he died at 1.15 a.m. That’s the time I woke up at home. When I startled myself awake, I swear to God, I had this weird feeling that Frank was there with me.
The lad ran off and has never been caught. No one has ever been done for Frank’s death. John, Frank’s brother, had a chat with the lad. He was very upset about it all and said that ten minutes before it all happened Frank had been saying, ‘I’m so happy. My girlfriend is having a baby, and life is wonderful.’ He swore it was an accident and John and Frank’s father let it go at that.
The police never arrested anybody. Frank’s death is in some computer file now. The night he died a few of the policemen in Leeds went out for a drink to celebrate.
When I drove home after Frank died I felt my whole life crumbling. We’d been together outside for just six months but it was such a serious relationship. Psychologically, I’d taken a kicking, and I knew our unborn child would soon be kicking too.
There were a few of the split-seconds we all have in our lives when I thought it might be better for the world if I was out of it – but I had Lara to pull me back from that silly idea.
I always believed in survival. I’d never give up.
Now I had a little bundle inside me letting me know the fight for life was still on.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BORN AGAIN
‘Farewell to the monsters, farewell to the saints Farewell to pride.
All that is left is men.’
JEAN PAUL SARTRE,
THE DEVIL AND THE GOOD LORD, 1951
I screamed out all the pain of Frank’s death and the anguish of the weeks that followed it at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Blackpool on 21 October 2000. My waters had broken and I refused any anaesthetic when our baby started arriving. Little Frank took six hours to be delivered and we did it together on gas and air, the most natural way. I needed to feel the pain as he was born. I called him Frank for I wanted him to know about his dad, who was not perfect but had a side that was good and kind and loving.
His dad’s funeral in Leeds had been difficult. There were lots of people, some of them strangers to me, even members of his extended family. It was a day in the twilight zone.
Some folk had put flowers at the post where Frank fell when he was shot. A few of the messages talked about the 1990 American film King of New York in which Christopher Walken plays a big-time gangster who gets out of jail and pursues a vendetta against his criminal competition. So that’s what they thought.
With young Frank and Lara to worry about, I turned my thoughts away from the underworld power struggles in the north-west of England to my own extended family at home, in Italy and beyond. I was the one on the outside trying to watch out for the interests of an astonishing assortment of characters and deal with the continuing Mafia machinations.
Valeria Vrba, the glamorous and determined survivor, was living in Slovakia with her daughters Etienne and Giselle, who was my sister. She’d escaped the authorities but was very much a wanted woman because, along with me, Valeria was important in the movement of our money around Europe, Holland, Switzerland, Germany and Spain. Valeria had corrupted several women in the banks in Geneva and Zurich and those women had testified against her to save themselves some years in jail.
There was a lot of money in those accounts and I would love to know who kept it. Did it go into somebody’s pocket? Wherever
it went, Valeria was in the frame for laundering millions in a string of currencies.
When I talked to her from Blackpool, I advised her to get a lawyer to sort out her situation but she said it would be too expensive. Only half a dozen or so years earlier I’d have given her the money without batting an eyelid but now I simply didn’t have it. I told her she should get out of Slovakia and go to a country where she would be safe from extradition but she didn’t listen to my warning. She was sending Etienne once a year to visit her father, Mario the Sicilian, in Brazil unaware that he still wanted revenge on her and my father. He had waited and waited for the most hurtful and, for him, the most perfect time. In 2000 he found out that Etienne was flying out of Vienna Airport and that Valeria would be there to see her off. She could have sent her brother or someone else but it was only about an hour’s drive across the border from her home and she wanted to see her daughter off safely.
She was arrested by the Austrian police acting for Interpol after Mario described her exact movements for them. Etienne flew to Brazil and has never returned. No one has heard from her or anything about her ever since. Valeria was extradited to Italy, leaving six-year-old Giselle with her grandma, just as I had had to leave Lara with my mum.
There were a few months when no one knew where Valeria was. I couldn’t get hold of her and I didn’t know what the hell had happened to her. Eventually Dad found out on the prison grapevine that they’d thrown the book at Valeria. They had it all in taped conversations between her and Swiss women bankers. She was jailed for eighteen years.
So Giselle was one of the increasing number of people I had to worry about. Mum had suffered a lot with her health and had to have heart surgery. She was still able to help me with babysitting and school runs but we were finding it a struggle to live on the little money we had coming in. I tried to get jobs, even stacking shelves in the supermarket, but with my criminal legend I never got any employment. There’s not a lot of call for Cat As.
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