Gangsters' Wives (8 page)

Then, when I was coming to the end of primary school, my parents decided they’d had enough of rising prices and – ironic though it seems now – soaring crime levels in Britain. They decided to move to Marbella on Spain’s Costa del Sol, where they believed a better life awaited us.

I went to Spanish school when we moved and got on well, becoming fluent in a very short space of time. We all settled in and though, as a traditional bolthole for UK criminals, it wasn’t the promised land it might have seemed, the weather and the beach lifestyle made up for the downsides.

Being fluent in Spanish – not as common as you’d think amongst the notoriously insular British expat community – meant that when I left school I had little trouble finding work. I was offered a job in an upmarket property company specialising in top-end real estate.

One day I was in the office, air conditioning on full to guard against the blazing heat outside, when the door opened. In walked a tall, dark-haired, immaculately dressed man in his early thirties. I was only eighteen, in fact it was my birthday that very day, but even so I realised from the gleaming black car he’d pulled up in, and the gold Rolex watch on his wrist, that here was someone of importance.

He wanted to rent a house, he told me. Somewhere private. As we began talking and I started showing him photographs, I became increasingly aware of how attractive he was, with his soft Irish accent and ready smile. His name was John and, although he was fourteen years older than me, I was young and easily impressed by his clothes and obvious wealth, and flattered by his interest in me.

After that first meeting John went away on holiday, but as soon as he got back he called me up at the office. I was thrilled, particularly when he came to pick me up at my parents’ house in a sleek sports car before whisking me off for champagne cocktails. I felt like I’d been plucked from obscurity and straight onto the set of a movie. This was what being adult was all about and I loved it.

I was so smitten with John that when he asked me to move in with him on our third date, I didn’t hesitate. At that time I didn’t know what he did. I hadn’t asked him. Growing up on the Costa del Sol, you learn never to question people too closely about how they make their money.

Of course I knew there was something not quite right about him. From the beginning it was obvious he didn’t go out to work from nine to five every day. He seemed to spend most of the day at home, then he’d come to pick me up from work and we’d go out, but there would be telephones ringing all the time, and he’d keep going off into corners to talk to people. I knew that often he’d go out somewhere after dropping me off.

But I was so young, I didn’t really care about what he did. I was more interested in the lifestyle he enjoyed and the astonishing fact that someone like him could be interested in me. Of course, now I know that what he saw in me was someone naive enough to be moulded into whatever he wanted and young enough for her loyalty to be bought, but at the time I thought his attention meant I was somehow sophisticated and glamorous.

I gave up work when I moved in with John. It was his idea, but I didn’t put up much of a struggle. At eighteen, when you’re given a choice between getting up at seven to go to work and staying in bed before spending the day shopping or having lunch, there’s really not much contest. I didn’t see it as giving up my independence – he said he wanted us to spend more time together and he had plenty of money, so why not?

It wasn’t long before the subject of how he made his living came up and I discovered he was a drug smuggler, although I didn’t realise at first how big-time he was. I’m ashamed to say it now, but I didn’t really think that much of it when he told me. By that stage I was so in love with the guy I’d have overlooked anything. I’d never experienced anything like that before. Coming from such an ordinary family, he seemed so exciting, I was able to push everything else to the back of my mind.

I never really agreed with drugs, but I could justify what he did by reasoning that if he didn’t do it, someone else would. He always told me that he didn’t create the demand, he just supplied it.

I was completely swept away by him. I’d never been with anyone before who jetted off to New York for the weekend, and flew first class and kept champagne stacked in the fridge like it was bottled water. I was wilfully blind to what it all meant and where it all came from.

The first months together passed in a whirl of shopping and partying. I was just living in the moment. I was so in love, I didn’t really see or care what was going on around me. The sheer excess was dizzying. Every three weeks we’d fly off somewhere for the weekend to go shopping, usually New York. And we’d go on fantastic holidays to places I’d never even heard of. One day, he told me he had a surprise for me and took me outside and there was a brand new Mini Cooper sitting in the drive. I hadn’t even passed my test!

But it wasn’t just about the money – in fact in many ways I preferred him when he was in one of his ‘down’ periods and we’d stay in, just the two of us, and he could be himself. But he was insecure, and that made him flash his money around. It took me a long time to realise that his way of winning friends and relation-ships was to buy them. In fact, after we split up he’d say ‘but I took you on fantastic holidays’ as if you can measure love by how much you spend on someone.

But all that was in the future. In the beginning I was won over by the whole package of him. And part of that package was the drugs thing. I’d love to say I tried to stay out of that side of his life, but I didn’t. I became involved in his world bit by bit until I was in it right up to my neck. I didn’t even think about it.

It started because he used to stash drugs and money in the house. I’d find cash hidden in the wardrobes, in the car, even in my boots. After a while, that starts to become normal. I think because I was so young, he trusted me. He knew I would basically do what he told me, without asking too many difficult questions. And me speaking fluent Spanish was another major advantage. He started taking me into meetings with him so that I could translate. I’d sit there talking about times and shipments and hundreds of thousands of euros, without even blinking. Before long, he was sending me to meetings on my own, to talk on his behalf. I was so blind I thought that was something to be proud of. I felt pleased that I was contributing something. John paid for everything, so it was my way of giving him something back.

Other evenings, he’d ask me to count cash for him. I’d sit in a locked bedroom surrounded by bundles of notes, steadily counting hundreds and thousands of euros as though they were small change. I didn’t get a buzz from it. It just felt normal – something I did to help out, like you’d help out behind the counter if your man was a shopkeeper.

The problem was that John’s livelihood made it very difficult for us to have friends. He didn’t trust anyone anyway, so he had no close friends, only people he knew through ‘work’. And as I wasn’t allowed to give people my number or have friends back to the house because he was so paranoid about people knowing where he was, I gradually became alienated from most of the people I knew.

We’d still go to see my parents, and John would be so charming they’d always be reassured that I was having a wonderful time. When they asked what work we both did, we said ‘property’. That was our explanation for everything, even though we didn’t know the first thing about it. He showered them with expensive presents and took them out to the best restaurants – I wasn’t the only one who turned out to be easily bought. But to give them their due, they thought I was happy. And so did I to start with.

The changes happened so gradually, I hardly even noticed them. It made sense at first that I hardly saw my friends. John was convinced the house and the phones were tapped, even the mobiles, so I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody unless I used a payphone. And they certainly couldn’t have my address or number.

I was also a bit embarrassed. My friends knew me and my situation. They’d have taken one look at my house and my new designer wardrobe and they’d have known something wasn’t quite right. I didn’t want anyone disapproving of me.

My sense of alienation got even more pronounced after John fell out with one of his so-called ‘partners’. I found out about the disagreement in dramatic style. We’d gone out to get the Sunday papers. I’d nipped into the shop, still in my slippers, while he waited outside in the car. When I came out, there was this big brawl going on in the street with lots of cars pulling up. Then this guy who John had had a falling out with suddenly appeared, pulled out a gun and pressed it to John’s head. I could see his hand shaking. Funnily enough, I’m now quite good friends with this guy, but at the time he was furious and I was terrified.

I started screaming at him, ‘What the hell are you doing?’, and as he turned to me, John took the opportunity to jump in the car and tear off. It took me a few seconds to fully comprehend that he’d just left me there on my own. This other guy just looked at me – a really awful look. Then he drove off too. I was left standing in the street in my slippers, clutching the newspapers, my mouth hanging open. I didn’t know whether this guy had gone off to kill John, I didn’t know how I was going to get home. In the end, I rang my dad and said, ‘Dad, there’s been a bit of an argument.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, John already phoned me. I’m on my way.’ He picked me up and dropped me off at the house. By the time I got in and found John sitting on the sofa, I was fuming. ‘Thanks a lot for leaving me,’ I spat at him.

After that we had to leave the coast for a bit. It turned out John and this guy had done a drugs deal where he felt John had ripped him off by a few hundred thousand euros. Marbella wasn’t safe for us, so we went inland for a few months. I quite enjoyed that period. It was just the two of us, and we couldn’t go out much or spend much because we had to keep a low profile, so it was a really quiet, almost peaceful time.

But inevitably we drifted back to the coast, and John got back to ‘work’. Again, I quickly became embroiled in his deals. Sitting talking to gangsters about quantities and shipments became second nature. I used to joke to John that if we ever split up I could be a great drug dealer in my own right. I had all the contacts and I knew everything about that world.

I didn’t really think about being caught. It sounds crazy but I never thought it could happen to me. John always told me: ‘If you get caught, say “no comment, no comment,” and they’ll let you go.’

I did all sorts of things for John. I was the only one he trusted so I became his right-hand man. I carried money for him, stuffed in my boots. I was one of a convoy of cars that used to go out scouting for police before big meetings or drop-offs. The two of us regularly debugged our house from top to bottom – we’d get bug detectors and go through room by room – I’d do the bedroom and the bathroom, he’d do the living room and the kitchen. We were a team.

It sounds so far-fetched now, but at the time it seemed normal. Don’t forget, my whole adult life started with John, so I didn’t know anything else. If he said ‘can you ring so and so, I need to get some money off them’, I’d say ‘no problem’ and I’d do it.

I was just so young and so won over by the lifestyle that I never really thought about the moral aspects of it. John and I never touched drugs, John hardly even drank and didn’t even smoke cigarettes, so it was easy to separate off that side of things. To me it seemed so straightforward. For half an hour’s work you get something like 300,000 euros. Why would you do anything else?

Even if we only worked now and then, given that type of return we were still very well off. John had a separate bank account from me, and I never knew how much money he had, but I knew he was worth quite a few million.

The money just didn’t seem real to me, once there were that many noughts on it. To me, it was just a way to fund the lifestyle I’d become used to. I’d say ‘I need some new trainers for the gym’, and there was never any question. I got that first Mini before I even passed my test, and it just sat in the garage gathering dust. When I did get my licence, there were different cars there all the time. I’d drive a Porsche one week and an XR5 the next. We’d go into BMW and they’d treat us like royalty. They all knew us. We’d buy two cars at once. We’d order them straight from the factory and pay a rate every week so that it looked like a ‘normal’ purchase and we didn’t have to do any big transfers.

There were times we had so much money we were moving house every few months just for the hell of it – we wanted an infinity pool, a tennis court, this and that. The last villa had a gym upstairs and if John was working out in it, I’d have to phone him to call him down for dinner, the house was that big.

Looking back, our spending was out of control. We’d walk past a showroom window and I’d say, ‘I quite like that Golf’, and he’d just go in and buy it for me. Or he’d say, ‘Do you want a watch? What kind of watch do you want?’ I’d say, ‘I don’t know. Any watch.’ Now I’ve got a Tag, I’ve got a Cartier, I’ve got a Rolex.

Or I’d say, ‘Oh, look at those lovely Louis Vuitton bags’, and it would be: ‘What colour do you want? Why don’t you get it in all the colours?’ Then the next minute it was a Jimmy Choo bag I was after.

Though I didn’t notice at the time, John was very controlling. That’s obviously why he picked someone so much younger than him – he knew he could shape me into the person he wanted me to be.

Even when we went out shopping for clothes, he’d try to manipulate me. We’d walk in somewhere and I’d ask him if he liked something and he’d say, ‘Not really’. Then I’d put it back. I desperately wanted his approval.

I wasn’t afraid of him because I never did anything to upset him. There were never arguments because I did everything to please him.

As the years went on, our domestic situation became increasingly unhealthy. It was just me and him. He didn’t trust anyone so he didn’t really have any friends. We were together 24/7. We ran out of conversation. We ran out of everything. I lost myself completely. I simply didn’t know who I was any more. But it’s only now that I can see how destructive the situation was.