Gangs (13 page)

‘So then I just pop out my piece, point it at the man head and start talking raw: “You can’t rob me, none of your friend can rob me, man will die if you wanna rob me. You’re a pussy, I’m a coldblooded Yard man.” Then they started to realise who I was and they start to respect me. They were saying, “Cool, everything cris.” I got my stuff. That’s the closest I have been. I know in their hearts that they wanted to rob me but I would have killed them all if I had to. And once they knew who I was, it was no longer necessary.

‘You see, I had a bad reputation because of the people I was dealing with. When I started to sell more and more I had to go to bigger and bigger people, people others were afraid to deal with. I got introduced to some of the real Dons, some white men, Irish, who were bringing untold amounts of coke into the country and selling it to everyone. One man took me to his home and on the table in the living room was just pure coke, a mountain of drugs. I was good business for them, and he said to me, “If there is anything you want, just ask. If a man messes with you just tell us and we will eliminate him.”

‘So people knew not to fuck with me. I was in the Black and White café one time when a lot of man was robbed. These people, black but British, came in with Balaclavas and shotguns and started taking people tings. I stood up and wait for my turn to be robbed but no man touch me. At first I wondered why but later I found that because of the man I was dealing with I had been branded. The robbers didn’t want to get involved because they knew that somewhere down the line they’d get it back.’

Seemingly safe from other dealers, it was the police who finally brought the curtain down on Michael’s world as he returned to a girlfriend’s house one morning. ‘I had a lot of women as well as my baby mother – I lived all over the place. I was at one of my women’s yard and I had just come back from the laundry – I like to wash my own clothes. I threw them on the bed and told her that she should iron some. Then I heard a knock at the door.

‘Now, a lot of cops in the area knew me but they didn’t know exactly what I was up to, or I didn’t think they did. So whenever they passed me by I would just say, “Look, it’s the Bill,” and laugh because of the television programme.

‘The girl called out, “Who is it?” They called back, “It’s the Bill.” I thought, Gawd! I was thinking, What’s this? I went to make my way out the back but when I look out the window I could see more policemen waiting for me. I knew I could never make it.

‘The girl look at me, a bit confused, like, then she opened the door. These men come in and held on to me and said, “You’re under arrest, suspected of being an illegal immigrant and of being involved in drug-trafficking.”

‘But these men were fools. They didn’t bother to search the flat. I had an excess amount of cash, about five grand in fifties, twenties and tens under the pillow along with a large amount of drugs. But they never found them. My girl took the money and threw the drugs out once I had left. I was caught on the Tuesday and I was back on the plane to Jamaica on the Thursday.

‘And now I am back and I have nothing. I never sent no money home, I never had no bank account. I had a excess amount of jewellery, nice gold chain and bracelet, diamonds, nice ting, but they took them all from me. The problem with us Jamaicans is that we grow up with nothing, and when we get something, we don’t know how long it will last so we use it THEN! Straight! So now the only way I can get the life I want to live is to go back. Back to England. Back to Bristol. So that’s what I’m going to do.’

Michael had promised to get in touch as soon as he returned to the UK and said that he’d happily introduce me to some of the main players in and around St Paul’s. The weeks, months and years went by, and I heard nothing. Eventually I decided that the time had come for me to check out the Black and White café for myself.

I arrived in Bristol a week after the police had placed armed foot patrols on the streets for the first time to prevent a potential bloodbath between the city’s indigenous drugs gangs and a new influx of Jamaican dealers who were fighting for control of the hugely lucrative crack trade.

The move marked the height of hostilities between the two factions. During the 1990s the city’s drugs trade was entirely in the hands of a local gang known as the Aggi crew (the name was taken from the surnames of the founding members) but in 1998 six of them were jailed after being caught with more than £1 million worth of crack cocaine.

The vacuum that followed was filled by the Yardies – men like Michael Andrews – who not only picked up from where the Aggis had left off but also brought new levels of sophistication to the local drugs scene.

Instead of holding wraps of crack in their mouths, the street dealers operating in the area around the café placed the drugs in old Coke cans or milk cartons, which would then be left in the gutter. After handing over their money, customers would be directed to the nearest can. Suddenly there was no way to arrest the dealers – none had any drugs on them. Dealing on and around Grosvenor Road became so open that it quickly reached epidemic proportions.

There were knock-on effects too. To prevent their merchandise being swept away, the dealers started intimidating the council’s utility workers. In at least one case a street-sweeper had a gun jammed up against his head. Refuse collections halted altogether in many areas, as did road repairs (dealers were also hiding drugs in the cracks in the pavement). The dealers then turned their attention to the workers attempting to install CCTV systems until they, too, gave up. Within weeks Stapleton Road, another notorious strip, had become known as the ‘street of fear’ with dealers, prostitutes and muggers operating with virtual impunity. In a seven-month period, 915 crimes were recorded along a 150-metre stretch.

To boost their numbers the Jamaicans also set up an immigration scam. By the time police discovered that a college set up in St Paul’s was bogus, more than three hundred Jamaican ‘students’ had been granted long-term visas and entered the country. One year later, forty-five of those ‘students’ had been charged with drugs offences, eleven with weapons charges, one with rape and another with attempted murder. A further 121 were being detained on immigration offences while 148 remained on the run. Some of those still being sought are known to have committed several murders back in Kingston.

The Jamaicans also set up two money-laundering operations, one based in a greengrocer’s and the other in a local takeaway restaurant. Between them the two premises helped transfer more than £7.5 million to Kingston, the result of an estimated 75,000 crack deals. Some of the money was being used to buy property, the rest to fund new drugs consignments to the UK.

Despite numerous police initiatives the drugs keep on coming and there is no solution in sight. ‘We have made more than eight hundred arrests in the past eighteen months but on the streets the problem remains as bad as ever,’ Detective Chief Inspector Neil Smart tells me. ‘We’ve been very successful in the number of dealers arrested but because there’s such a demand for drugs, if we go in and arrest six, ten, twelve dealers, there will be others. Each arrest takes my team off the street for several hours. Most of the time, the dealers are being replaced within minutes.’

One single event took the situation in Bristol from bad to worse. Three weeks before my arrival several key members of the Aggi crew were released from prison on probation and emerged eager to take back their turf. Within five days of their release, their faces hidden by Balaclavas as they brandished the guns they had stashed before going inside, they made a tour of local bars including the Black Swan, the Malcolm X Centre and Lebeqs and announced that they were back and taking over. They offered the Jamaicans a deal: they could stay and work in St Paul’s, but they’d have to pay a tax of at least a hundred pounds per person per day.

Then, as a final mark of disrespect, the Aggis stormed into the Black and White café and robbed every person at gunpoint. As they handed over their money and possessions, the Jamaicans, a loose alliance of several gangs including the Hype Cru, the Mountain View Posse and the Back to Back gang, told the Aggi crew that they would not be paying them a single penny and that the only way to resolve the argument would be with guns.

And so it was. The next night one of the Hype Cru was shot through the back of the knee, then one of the Aggis was shot in the shoulder in a revenge attack. Then the Aggis began attacking the Hype Cru’s street dealers, kidnapping some, pistol-whipping others and always stealing whatever drugs and cash happened to be lying around.

A few days later, in an attempt to draw the Jamaicans out into the open for a gun battle, they made their way to the roof of the council flats opposite the Black and White café and began firing giant fireworks towards the front door in an attempt to start a blaze that would have forced the occupants to evacuate. It failed and the Aggis retreated, but everyone at the Black and White café knows it is only a matter of time before they try again.

The air is thick with the cloying smell of cannabis and the wooden floor is vibrating with the sounds of hardcore reggae. A dozen people are milling about close to the pinball and video poker machines at the back of the place, while the main room is dominated by two snooker tables, both of which are in constant use. According to my sources the players, often as not, are the main dealers: packets of crack are taped to the base of each table, allowing easy access but frustrating police efforts to link the drugs to particular individuals.

For a split second everyone stops and stares at me – a new and unfamiliar face entering a tight-knit and often paranoid community. I march confidently up to the nearest snooker player and tell him I’m looking for Steve, the owner. The man I’ve asked has short dreadlocks poking out of his head at all angles, a roll-up hangs from the corner of his mouth and the whites of his eyes have that soft yellow glaze that mark him out as a long-time pot-head. He looks me up and down, leans on the end of his cue, then jerks his thumb towards the kitchen area where a few members of staff are milling about. Satisfied that I’m not a rival dealer or an undercover cop, everyone ignores me and goes back to their business.

I reach the kitchen counter and learn that Steve is not around but might turn up a little later. I flick through the menu, order some goat curry and spend a little time playing the video machine. Trying my hardest to blend into the background, I’m hoping to see a little action take place.

It takes a while before I realise it is going on right before my eyes. Subtle handshakes, pats on the back and other gestures are all part and parcel of the routine of exchanging drugs and money. It’s all done so carefully and so skilfully that it’s easy to see why the owners have such a hard time stamping it out. Within half an hour I see half a dozen deals, though I have no idea if crack, heroin or cannabis is being sold. I also notice that a couple of the dealers appear to be wearing bullet-proof jackets. No one here is taking any chances. Particularly the police.

That same afternoon they launched a series of raids on the homes of the Aggi crew who, as a result of breaching the conditions of their parole, face being returned to prison. It’s a short-term measure at best. In some cases, it will be only a matter of months before the gang members are released again.

Out of change and full of surprisingly good curry, I head back on to the streets. Walking along I avoid making eye-contact with the people standing at every corner. These are the lookouts. Every now and then they move, whistle or give off some kind of signal. Around thirty seconds later a police patrol car will drive past. No one seems too worried – even if the police see something it takes them way too long to respond. Normally they would get on their radios and have back-up in place in seconds but the local gangs have obtained so many scanners that the officers are forced to communicate on their mobile phones instead, a process that takes considerably longer.

As night falls a party starts up in a house at the end of an alleyway just off Drummond Road. Three men in black T-shirts, with thick gold chains hanging from their necks like glittery nooses, eye me suspiciously as I walk past. Music pumps out through the walls so loudly that I can feel the paving slabs under my feet vibrating in time with the beat.

As I walk down Pemberton Street into Brunswick Square a girl climbs out of a nearly new silver saloon car and stands on the side of the road as if she is waiting for a bus. I’ve stumbled into the heart of the red-light district – a bright yellow sign warns that cars passing through the area are likely to have their licence numbers recorded – and as I walk past she catches my eye. I keep walking.

Nowhere in Bristol is the power of the crack trade more apparent than in the vice world. Police estimate that the city’s two hundred prostitutes each spend an average of £1100 per week on the drug, creating a thriving market worth more than £11 million.

I pass more ladies of the night, some of whom proposition me, some of whom do not. I’m almost at the end of the square when a youngish-looking girl steps out from the shadows in front of me. ‘You after a bit of business, love?’

She’s pretty but looks pale and unwashed. She is wearing an oversized coat, a black crop top that exposes her midriff, and a faded denim skirt covers the tops of her bare, battered legs.

‘Maybe. How much?’ I ask.

‘It’s twenty-five for a blow-job but you have to wear a condom. A fuck is forty with and sixty without.’

‘I’ll give you sixty, but to be honest, I’m more interested in talking than fucking.’

‘You what?’

I explain that I’m a novelist and that in my latest book one of the characters spends time in a red-light district and that I’ve come down to the square to carry out some research. My little lie is a calculated move: experience has taught me that if people think something is destined to be turned into fiction, rather than kept as fact, they are far more likely to open up.