Gangsters' Wives (17 page)

The arguments grew worse and worse and he ended up dumping me twice in one year. What silly bitch gets dumped twice in a year?

We were living in Leytonstone in this huge house I’d redesigned, and we had an argument and he said, ‘That’s it. I’m gone’, and he packed his bags and left. He’d left behind £5000 in cash and I thought ‘whoopee let’s party’. I invited friends round and we had a ball.

My friends were great – they never dictated what I should do but they were there for me when they needed to be. They’re smart enough to know that they couldn’t have told me to get out of that relationship before I was ready. They all knew I was bright enough to work it out for myself.

Looking back, Mark probably had another woman even then, but I didn’t know about it and, like a fool, when he came knocking, I took him back. But I was determined things were going to be different. I’d already invested some of the money I inherited from my dad in a property on the south coast and I decided I wanted to move there permanently. Make a clean break. I’ve always lived my life like it was some kind of novel – playing up the excitement, not thinking it was too real. But then you have a kid and you realise you have to get some security into your life. The plan was I would move with Mae and then Mark would join us eventually. I certainly didn’t see it as leaving him. He even helped with the moving in August 2006.

It was Christmas Day of that year when I realised things weren’t quite going to work out that way. I’d had a few drinks, and was sitting there with my little girl when he rang up. I thought he was phoning to tell me when he was arriving but instead he told me he’d met someone else and was leaving me.

I went crazy. I lost it. I’m not proud of myself with my daughter sitting right there. But, hell, Christmas Day is not a great time to tell your wife you’re leaving her. He had gone to rehab by that time and all I could think about was how he’d finally got himself straightened up – just in time to leave me for someone else.

It took me a while to get over that. I still have trouble. I look at my daughter, who’s fourteen, and I think, You know what? No matter what, it was worth it, just for her. But I can’t help looking back and thinking what an idiot I was.

I look at my life and ask where it came from – this crazy psychotic streak. I had a normal upbringing, finished school, got my education. What made me take the course I did?

I love to write, and in a way my whole life has been like a novel. I make things happen so that I can go home and write about them afterwards. My first boyfriend said that to me: ‘You know what, you can’t wait for things to be over so you can look back on them.’ And it’s true. I’ve wanted my life to be stranger than fiction. I’m an excitement junkie, an adrenalin junkie. I can’t help it. But now I’m trying to rein that in.

These days I just want an easy life. I’m tired of drama. I’ve got a new boyfriend, Simon, who has helped me see what a nice man can be like and I think to myself: Why on earth did I give that guy seventeen years? That’s what gets me bitter. But you know, I have my little girl. And apart from my finances, which are dire, I’m actually happier than I’ve been in my entire life.

Mark is trying to go legitimate now and leave all the gangster stuff behind. He’s going to college and has even talked about becoming a drug counsellor. He’s still with the woman he left me for and if she thinks the sun shines out of his ass, that’s her look out.

Me, I’m a lazy bitch and I don’t like to work, but I’ve got to find a way of making some money. And I will. But this time I’ll do it on my terms. The thing is, I am bright. I have a brain.

I will go forward and I will be OK. The difference is that I won’t ever try to fit my life around someone else’s. From now on, whatever I do to myself is what I choose to do to myself. I feel good.

If ever there was a murder that divided a community it was that of Viv Graham, one of the North-East’s best known hard men. Enormously strong and powerfully built, Viv was a legend in his own lifetime. More than just muscle for hire, he came to run security in Newcastle’s nightclubs as well as providing protection and running a debt-collection service. To his detractors, he was an underworld crime boss who’d served time in prison for violent assault and who ruled by fear, but those who knew him tell a very different story. To them, Viv was a gentle giant, a rough diamond who conducted himself and his business according to a vigorous moral code. His supporters insist he abhorred mindless violence, put himself out to help those weaker than himself, and took a heroic stance against drugs – a stance which eventually got him killed. The men who pumped three bullets into him at close range in a North Tyneside street on New Year’s Eve 1993, have never been found, despite a wide-scale police search. Viv’s fiancée at the time, Anna Connelly
,
is still upset by how Viv was portrayed in the media following his death and agreed to appear in this book, despite her objections to its title, only in the hope of setting the record straight. Now a fifty-year-old grandmother of four, Anna’s customary warmth and humour are strained only when she remembers those bleak days after the shooting …

Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t consider myself a gangster’s wife. Despite all the rubbish that was written after Viv was killed about him being an enforcer who’d made millions from protection money, he was no gangster. Sure, he was no angel but he was a big guy with a big heart and I miss him every single day.

I first met Viv in 1987. He was on the door of a club and he chatted me up as I went in with my sisters and cousins. I told him I was married but he offered me a drink and my sister said, ‘You might as well get a vodka from him.’

After that we’d go every week and he’d buy us drinks. He was nice with a big, wide smile and lovely teeth. And he was big, you know? He wasn’t quite six foot, but he had a fifty-six-inch chest from working out twice a day. As soon as you got talking to him you realised he was one of those really kind and generous people, but because of his size and his job, people who didn’t know him could be wary.

My marriage wasn’t that good by this stage. My husband was a roofer. I’d thought he was the person I’d be with for the rest of my life, particularly after we had children, but we’d been going through rough times. Then someone told my husband I’d been seen with Viv and even though I hadn’t yet gone out with him at all, there was a big fight. A few weeks later we separated.

When Viv found out I wasn’t with my husband any more, he came to see me and asked: ‘Will you go out with me on your own now
without
your family?’, because every other time he’d seen me before then I’d been with my sisters.

When we first met, he wasn’t well known. He was just the big guy who used to ask people to leave the bar if they were causing trouble. Gradually, as he took over responsibility for running the doors in more and more places in the area, his reputation grew.

It’s funny because I always used to think I’d marry a farmer. I grew up with my brother and three sisters in Daisy Hill, Newcastle where I’ve lived all my life. We had an ordinary upbringing but always kept animals and I thought I’d grow up, meet a farmer and have loads of horses.

But then in many ways, Viv was like a farmer. He was from the country and he loved animals. He was also very close to his family, who were lovely.

When I went out with Viv, I felt completely protected – like nothing bad would ever happen to me. He was such a gentleman. He’d pull out chairs for me to sit on, and hold doors open. And he was so good with the children – mine and his own that he had in previous relationships. No matter where he was he’d travel so he could see them every day.

I fell completely in love and we got engaged. It wasn’t terribly romantic, mind – we were in Malta and he just bought me a ring. We got on so well it seemed natural we would marry one day.

Despite his fearsome reputation, Viv was never hard or nasty. In fact he used to worry that he was too softhearted, and truthfully he was very soft. If he ever punched a man, he’d make sure one of his friends was standing behind him to catch him when he fell. And then he’d stay with him until he came round. He didn’t want to hurt anyone.

He was sometimes sent to collect debts and he’d ask these people to pretend he’d clouted them, and then he’d say, ‘Please pay up or I really will have to clout you next time.’

But because of his size and his strength his name got around and that’s how he came to run the security in our area.

All the things that have been said about a Geordie Mafia are ridiculous. Viv wasn’t even really on the wrong side of the law. In fact the police spoke well of him. He made their job easier because he kept order in the clubs and wouldn’t tolerate drugs. That’s not to say he didn’t have any problems with the law, but never about organised crime.

He got into a fight – just one hard man from Gateshead fighting another. That was the kind of fighting Viv understood. Because of the fight, he was sent to jail in 1989 and was there for eighteen months. I was disgusted. I gave him the engagement ring back when he went into prison, but he didn’t want it. He threw it aside. I refused to go to visit him there even though the mothers of his children used to go. He even had sex with one woman when she went to visit and she got pregnant. That boy is now sixteen or seventeen.

Despite the other women visiting, Viv still wanted me to come. His mam came to see me and pleaded with me to go and see him, but I told her: ‘I’m not visiting any jail.’

When he came out Viv came straight round to see me. I got such a shock. I said, ‘Why are you coming round here? Go with the mams of your children. I’ve got children of my own to think about’. He said, ‘I just want to be with you.’ Then his mam and dad came round again to plead on his behalf and I gave in.

He had to make some changes, mind. He was a gambler and he used to go out all night gambling. When I objected, he started gambling during the day and stayed home at night. He also stopped seeing any other women. I made sure of that. I was completely convinced by the changes he’d made. He never left my side and we did everything together. I knew he was calling in to see his children, but there was nothing hidden between us after that stretch in prison.

Viv’s security business was lucrative and we had a great lifestyle. He would buy me anything I wanted – as long as it wasn’t too revealing – dresses costing hundreds of pounds. He was so generous and he loved seeing me happy.

He didn’t bother what other people thought of him. He’d think nothing of nipping to town to buy me makeup or underwear. And he wouldn’t just get you one lipstick, he’d get ten. My family – my sisters and brother – loved him. He was a genuinely nice man.

We started to make plans for the future and talked of moving to the countryside. My daughter had a horse, and we had dogs so it made a lot of sense. That was our long-term dream.

When the drugs scene started, things got very difficult. Viv was taking the drugs off people coming into the club and flushing them down the toilet. That’s when the violence started – when he took on the dealers. But he knew he had to take control. He knew he had to keep one step ahead of the dealers. He was never scared for his safety. He never rang for company or for backup. He really believed he was invincible – and I came to believe it too.

He was killed because of the drugs. It was a hatred thing against him, because he took such a strong stand against drugs coming into the clubs.

In 1991, we started getting anonymous phone calls saying he was going to be shot and killed. The first time it happened, I was really scared and called the police. Viv said I shouldn’t have done that, but I was terrified. After that the phone calls continued, but you know the more calls you get, the less you actually believe it’s going to happen. Then gunmen came and shot the windows of the house, which really scared me and I called the police again.

Viv tried hard to find out who was responsible, but then it all went quiet again, and once more the fear wore off. We just thought nothing would harm us. Viv didn’t take drugs or drink. He was phenomenally strong because he trained hard and worked out every day. It was an adrenalin rush for him. But it was also a social thing. The guys on the doors would all train together. He was a bit of a legend in the gym because of his strength. As his business grew, he didn’t really have to be there in person – the doormen would ring him if there was a fight breaking out and he could be there within minutes.

At around this time, he started taking steroids, maybe it was his way of dealing with this new threat. The steroids changed his personality and made him quite a lot more aggressive and angry. He quite liked that because sometimes he felt he was too soft for the doors. He didn’t have a lot of confidence in that way. At home he’d be bad-tempered because of the steroids. He wouldn’t take it out on me or the kids, but he’d pull the doors off and things like that. Then the next day he’d have to replace them.

But then he developed a bad abscess in his backside in June 1992, probably from injecting steroids with a dirty needle. He nearly died. I got really mad with him and asking him why he was risking his life. I told his dad and he went completely berserk. He told him: ‘You don’t need them, son, you’re a big lad.’ After that, Viv stopped completely. He cared so much about what his mam and dad thought.

It was New Year’s Eve 1993 that Viv was killed. We’d been at home with friends or visiting family most of the day. Then at around four p.m., Viv had driven his Ford Sierra to Wallsend High Street to have a drink with friends in the pub.

He rang me at five or six p.m. to ask if there had been any phone calls. I told him there had been a few where someone had hung up. He said he was going to buy some dog food and then come home. When Viv came out of the shop where he’d bought the dog food, he found his car window smashed and it was while he was peering inside that they shot him.

A witness heard someone shout ‘Happy new year’ and then ‘BAM!’ It was a Magnum that shot him. Three shots hit him – in his groin and his armpit. One bullet hit a major artery in his groin.