Wild Thing (12 page)

Witnessing their anguish forced me to hide my own – a task that I don’t mind admitting was at times unbearable. I could not bring myself to go into the bedroom I had shared with Jean. Once the children were asleep in bed, I would go downstairs, lie on the settee and endure a disturbed night’s sleep. Images of Jean betraying me in our home would flood my mind, torturing me. If it wasn’t for the children, I don’t know how I would have found the strength to get through the ordeal. I was heartbroken. To make matters worse, the DHSS refused to give me any money because they said I had not paid enough national insurance contributions. After two or three weeks there was no food in the house. My shoes had holes in, which I covered over with cardboard cut from boxes I found at the back of a local shop. My parents could see the trouble I was in, so they brought around hot meals for the children and me.

Approximately ten months after Jean had left, a letter arrived from a solicitor, stating that Jean was seeking access to the children, as she wanted to take them on holiday. I couldn’t quite believe the audacity of her. This was not the Jean I had known and loved. How could she walk away from her own children, not bother to tell anyone where she was and then, ten months later, send a letter inviting the children on holiday as if nothing had happened? I telephoned the solicitor who had sent the letter and demanded to know where Jean was, as I needed to speak to her. The solicitor refused to tell me anything other than the fact I would be taken to court and ordered to give Jean the access she had requested if I didn’t agree to it now. I may have sworn at him – it’s hard to remember because I was so angry. Either way the line went dead.

I consulted a local solicitor about the matter, and he advised me that opposing Jean’s application for access to the children would be futile. ‘The courts are always sympathetic towards mothers when it comes to children,’ he said. ‘My advice is you take this on the chin and comply with her request.’

With a heavy heart I contacted Jean’s solicitor and told him that I would agree to let her take the children on holiday for two weeks. I still had no idea where Jean was living, so I asked my solicitor if he could find out where my children would be going on holiday. I needed to know if Jean was going to pick them up and, if not, where I was going to have to drop them off. A few days later I attended my solicitor’s office. Reading a letter from Jean’s solicitor, he said that her parents were going to collect the children from my home and take them to Surrey. ‘More than that I am not at liberty to divulge, Mr Martindale,’ he said. The letter he had been reading lay on his desk. I could see from the letterhead that Jean’s solicitor was based in Leatherhead, Surrey. There would be no reason for her to travel to a distant town to employ a solicitor, so I guessed that was where she must have been living. At last, after ten long months, I knew where my wife and her lover had run away to.

My initial thought was to travel to Surrey and vent my anger on Smith, but if I were imprisoned, which I surely would have been if I had got my hands on him, my children would lose their father. I decided that, while the children were on holiday, I would sort out some form of employment and start a new life for us all. The house we had once called home held too many painful memories for me, so I decided it would be better for us all to move to another area. I telephoned my old friend Ray Todd in London and explained that I needed somewhere to stay for a couple of weeks while I looked for a flat and sorted out some work. ‘You’re in luck, Lew,’ he said. ‘The spare room is still empty. You and the children can have it if you want to.’ I thanked Ray and told him I would be in London soon.

The day the children left to go on holiday with Jean was very traumatic. The three of them stood in the hallway sobbing their hearts out, pleading with me not to let them go. I did my best to reassure them that everything was going to be OK, but I wasn’t even convincing myself, and the children could sense it. A loud knock on the front door signalled the arrival of Jean’s mother. When I opened it, she stood there, ashen-faced, and not a word was spoken. I looked over her shoulder to see her husband sitting bolt upright in the driver’s seat of their car. I glared at him, but he stared straight ahead, too embarrassed or too scared to even acknowledge me. ‘Make sure my children return home in two weeks’ time,’ I said. ‘Make sure they are safe and make sure Smith doesn’t go anywhere near them.’

Jean’s mother didn’t reply; she just led the children out to the car and they all got in. Billy, Glynn and Joanne were still sobbing uncontrollably as Jean’s father pulled away. Some things we witness in life remain etched in our memories for all time. The expressions on my children’s faces as they drove away in that car all those years ago still haunt me today. I have no doubt they always will. I did not know if I was ever going to see them again, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. For the first time in my life I felt powerless.

As soon as the children had gone from my sight, I stepped into the street and slammed the door shut on a home that represented a life that was no more. I had understandably fooled myself by temporarily believing there was a way our family could be reconciled, but harsh reality had destroyed any illusions about that dream. I knew in my heart that I had to consider a future for myself and the children that would not include Jean. Today I had to start laying the foundation-stones of the future.

Not all of my problems were difficult to resolve. The family pet was a 28.5-in-long ferret, which weighed 6.5 lb. Sniffer, as we called him, was so big that a lot of people thought he was a rare breed of dog. I don’t think the good people of London town knew much about these creatures, but in Lancashire most families had a ferret, a whippet, or both. I couldn’t leave Sniffer, as there was nobody at the house to feed and water him. There was only one thing for it: I would have to take him with me. I put Sniffer in a plastic bread bin and caught the train to London. Ray had agreed to meet me at Euston station. When I alighted from the train, I walked towards him, but Ray didn’t seem to recognise me. ‘Hello, Ray,’ I said when I reached him.

‘Fucking hell, Lew! What’s happened to you?’ Ray asked.

My hair had grown past my shoulders since Jean had left, and I hadn’t taken much care of myself. I knew I was just using the fact that I couldn’t afford haircuts and new clothes as an excuse. Jean’s betrayal had hit me harder than I realised. I hadn’t really come into contact with many friends since she had left, so nobody had commented on my appearance. Ray’s reaction made me even more determined to get my life back on track. ‘I have had a rough time, Ray,’ I replied, ‘but I will be OK.’

Ray gave me a bundle of bank notes and said, ‘This is from the lads at the Room at the Top. It’s not a lot, but they wanted to help out.’

I was really touched by this gesture. I asked Ray to wait a moment while I went to a phone box to ring Peter Koster and the lads, as I wanted to thank them for helping me. When I got through to Peter, he wouldn’t listen to my words of gratitude. ‘Don’t worry about all of that,’ Peter said. ‘Everyone is looking forward to seeing you back at the club. If you feel up to it, you can start work tomorrow night.’

I hadn’t yet left the station and I had already addressed the problem of money and employment. ‘Thank you, Peter,’ I replied, ‘and thanks to all of the lads. I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.’

I had never had such generosity from relative strangers bestowed upon me before. Unbeknown to me, there was more to come. When I arrived at the club for work the following night, all of the staff came out to welcome me. Mr Clive Bednash, the owner, pulled me to one side and said, ‘You look like the wild man of Borneo. Take this money and go and get yourself a haircut tomorrow.’ A bundle of cash was pushed into my pocket and Mr Bednash walked away.

Mr Goddard, the general manager, then approached me. ‘Great to have you back, Lew,’ he said. ‘Go to Hyman’s tailor shop in East Ham tomorrow, tell them you need a suit making and the bill is to be sent to me.’

The warmth and humanity these people showed me genuinely choked me up. I shall never forget their friendship at a time when I was in such real need. Peter Koster explained to me that during my absence he had employed other door staff to cover my shifts. ‘I can’t just sack them, Lew,’ Peter explained, ‘so I can’t give you more than a couple of nights per week at the moment.’

I told Peter that I understood his dilemma. A former Room at the Top doorman named Neville Sheen had, I was told, recently taken over the security at a club called Cinderella’s near Brighton. I telephoned Neville and asked him if he could give me any additional shifts. ‘For you, Lew, no problem,’ Neville replied. ‘I have got two nights a week for you if you want it.’ I now had eight shifts to work during the two weeks the children were away on holiday. At least when they returned I’d have a bit of money, regular employment and somewhere new for us to live sorted out.

Cinderella’s turned out to be a real battleground. A large travellers’ site was nearby, and the younger members of its community used the club dance floor as a boxing ring to sort out their differences. Neville was an instructor at a gym owned by British karate team coach Ticky Donovan
OBE
. He was about 5 ft 10 in., weighed about 13.5 st., had tons and tons of bottle and a heart like a lion. Neville was, to say the least, a very competent and confident fighter.

The week before I had arrived at Cinderella’s, Neville had beaten the shit out of one of the travellers, and repercussions were expected. Some of the doormen were talking about burning the travellers’ caravans, but Neville would have none of it. ‘There’s women and children in those caravans,’ he said. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

On my first night at Cinderella’s one of the travellers ordered a beefburger at the bar and then refused to pay for it. I was alerted to the problem when the traveller began shouting and about 30 of his friends gathered around the bar. ‘You either pay or you go,’ I said when I reached the man.

There was an uneasy silence as the traveller eyed me up and down. ‘There’s too many of us,’ he said.

A ginger-haired giant traveller named George, whom I later learnt had an awesome reputation as an unlicensed fighter, walked over and stood between us. ‘You’ll pay now,’ he said to the man, ‘and then you and your friends will leave.’ The money for the burger was handed over and the man left with his friends in silence.

Unfortunately the young travellers didn’t stay away. Every night they would return, breaking into cars outside the club or causing trouble with customers as they arrived or left. To be honest, if it wasn’t for Neville I wouldn’t have remained there; it was a real dive.

I preferred working at the Room at the Top, but even that attracted its fair share of retards and nutcases. On my second night back there a customer alerted me to a man who was threatening people with a combat knife at the bar. When I went over to investigate, I saw a tall lad in his 20s, who was covered in tattoos, prodding people with his finger. I assumed he was either drunk or on drugs, but when I got closer I realised he was neither. ‘I’m going to fucking cut you,’ he was saying to a man as I came within earshot of his threats. Dave Maxwell, a member of a very well-respected Essex family, was standing nearby and shouted, ‘Watch him, Lew! He has got a blade!’

I grabbed at the man’s back pocket as he went to pull a knife from it. Fearing he would get his hands on the weapon first, I butted him so hard in the face that I split my own head open. He lay on the floor, the knife by his side. I picked it up, then dragged him by the leg out of the main club and into the kitchen. I threw him on a steel table that the chefs used to prepare food. ‘Wake up, you cunt,’ I said, slapping his face. ‘I don’t want you to miss this.’ As soon as the man began to regain consciousness, I held his throat and threatened to cut his face off with the knife. It’s funny how wankers who carry knives no longer like them when they are in other people’s hands.

‘Please don’t cut me, sir. Please don’t cut me,’ he whimpered.

‘Cut you?’ I replied, laughing. ‘You overestimate yourself, son. You’re not even worth beating. Have this instead.’ I head-butted him full in the face again and he passed out. The chef had been shouting at me throughout the incident about blood, bodies and the hygiene implications of a murder taking place in his kitchen. He was of course right; visions of customers complaining about pieces of a tattooed face in their soup brought me to my senses and I calmed down. I picked the man up, took him to the lift and dumped him in it. Mickey the Claw pushed the button and we descended to the ground floor. I dragged the man into the street and dumped him outside the department store Harrison Gibson. I think that shop has had more bodies dumped on its doorstep than charity shops have had bin-liners full of second-hand clothes dropped outside. I got in my car, put the knife, which I still have to this day, in my glove box and went back to the club to get cleaned up.

Following this incident I became friends with David Maxwell. He is a genuine no-nonsense but polite man, and certainly not the kind of guy that people can take liberties with. Two or three years later David was charged with the murders of two men: David Elmore, a nightclub bouncer, and his friend James ‘Jimmy the Wad’ Waddington (so named because he always carried a thick wad of money around with him). The two men had disappeared on Valentine’s Day 1984. According to staff at a Turkish restaurant called the Kaleli in Station Road, Barking, there had been a scuffle in the restaurant, after which the two men had been bound hand and foot, attacked with a ceremonial sword that had been stolen from a sports club, throttled to death with a tablecloth and dragged out. Brian Wilson, who gave evidence at David’s Old Bailey trial, claimed Elmore began to recite the Lord’s Prayer, and when he reached ‘Thy will be done’ he was interrupted by one of his attackers, who said, ‘You’re dead right, son.’ The murders were alleged to have been carried out following a long-standing feud between Elmore and his family and the Maxwells. In one incident Mickey Maxwell had been struck in the head with an axe. In January 1985 the jury found David not guilty of both murders after just one hour of deliberation. ‘I am off to celebrate with my family,’ he told reporters. ‘I have been held in prison since March for crimes I had nothing to do with. The jury accepted what I told them about prosecution witnesses lying through their teeth. We had only got the word of the police that these two men were murdered in the first place. The only reason that I can put forward as to why the staff at the restaurant implicated us is that they have something to hide and they wanted a fall guy.’