Authors: Kate Kray
The stylish black vase on the brightly-lit dressing table contained what must have been close to 50 large-headed, deep red roses. She opened the small card, and read its simple message: ‘Love you. Johnny.’ Her heart sank. She didn’t want anything for him any more.
But then she noticed, next to the stool in front of the dressing table, an exquisite bouquet of enchanting, pure-white Calla lilies. Rosie felt her heart jump… and not because they were her favourite flowers, but rather because she guessed immediately who they were from.
Sure enough, the card read,‘ Make me proud, Andrew x.’
F
or the ordinary man, being sent to prison is the most disorientating event they will probably ever experience. In one cruel swipe, every routine, every material comfort, and every friend and family member is suddenly whipped away from them. For most men, it’s like being suddenly transported to another planet. But not for Johnny Mullins.
For Johnny, prison was just an inconvenience, a hazard of the job. For him, it was just a matter of pushing his cushy lifestyle to the back of his mind, and concentrating on his new reality. Right from the start he was determined that this new world, with its different noises and different smells, would not turn him into ‘just another inmate’.
For most convicts, from the moment they enter prison they don’t have to think for themselves. They are told exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. Some are, actually, very suited to this regimented existence, and find themselves comfortably morphing into robots. But for Johnny it was still a dog-eat-dog world, just like it was on the outside. After all, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you lock a thousand men into one building for years on end, it’s going to be like a bomb waiting to go off.
HMP Maidstone might have been full of hard-nosed cons, but as soon as a prisoner arrived, it was in his interest to remember that all men are not created equal. There was a strict pecking order. Right at the bottom, there were the scumbag outcasts – the child molesters, the rapists – who no one wants to be associated with. A few rungs up from them were the middle-men – petty thieves and two-bob merchants, mostly. They weren’t scumbags exactly, but they weren’t tough guys either. In fact, they were insignificant. The further up the ladder, the more complex the hierarchy became. But, at the top, it was the ‘governors’ that ran the prison – the murderers, the bank robbers… in short, the gangsters. But, above everyone, was Johnny Mullins. He was the top dog, the daddy. He ran the jail, and everyone inside knew that.
Not that that was much comfort for him. After five years inside, life for Johnny had become tedious and monotonous, and he was becoming increasingly shorttempered. The slightest incident could send him into a rage. Sure, he was the big cheese – he wouldn’t have it any other way – he was the muscle, and he had complete control of the drugs that were dealt on the inside, but he was also fed up to the back teeth with prison life. Every day on C Wing was just like the one before, and just the same as the one that would follow it. Nothing
ever
changed.
The main event of the day, breakfast, had just started. Johnny stood on the landing, leaning over the hand rail, watching the inmates jostling for position, as they waited to be served their fry-up… if you could even call it that. He never had to queue for anything or anybody, as his food was normally delivered to his cell. But today there had been some delay or other in getting the hotplate onto the wing, and, as the time allocated for breakfast was nearly over, the prisoners were getting agitated.
‘Get a fucking move on!’ one of the prison guards shouted. He shoved a prisoner in the back, hard, and watched him fall against the con standing in front of him.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ yelled the second man. ‘You’ve made me drop my sausage!’
The sausage rolled across the filthy floor, picking up dust and ash in its grease, before coming to a halt amongst a collection of cigarette butts. Johnny watched in amusement as the man held out his tray for another one.
‘That was the last one,’ said the officer serving, ‘there aren’t any more.’
A deathly silence fell along the line.
‘What? No more sausages?’ someone gasped.
‘I ain’t ‘aving that!’ said the con. ‘I’m
entitled
to a sausage, and I
want
my sausage. I want it
now
!’
The officer who had started this whole debacle, who was now leaning against a wall and chatting, looked over and snapped, ‘Never mind about your sausage. Move along.’
But the con was not giving up. ‘I ain’t fucking moving. I know my rights,’ he sneered, banging his tray on the hot plate.
Things were turning ugly. Johnny had seen full-blown riots blow up over less. But, as he watched from the safety of the landing, he knew that none of the inmates would dare start anything without his say so. They knew better than that… and so did the guards. In a strange reversal of fortune, Johnny had found himself in the role of peacekeeper. Sure enough, one of the officers looked up at Johnny, as did the cons. Johnny shook his head and the message was clear: ‘Leave it’.
Johnny walked slowly and deliberately along the landing, down the wrought iron staircase, and towards the hotplates. As he approached, everyone moved out of his way. He walked up to a particularly mean-looking inmate – Dominic, who had arrived less than a month ago and was in for GBH. He very slowly picked up the sausage from Dominic’s metal tray, all the time staring him in the face. Then he turned, and handed it to the disgruntled con. For a full minute, no one said a word. Johnny looked into the faces of his fellow prisoners, daring them to challenge him, but nobody uttered a word. No one had the bottle.
Closing the door to his cell behind him, Johnny went over to his bunk, sat down, looked around at the four grey walls, and sighed. He thought back to how everything had gone so wrong, and how he had ended up in prison in the first place.
Years ago now, on a trip to Las Vegas, Eddie and Johnny had been introduced to a drug cartel called the Sinaloa, which came from an area in Mexico notorious for its gangsters. They had quickly struck a deal and, in no time at all, they were flying huge shipments of cocaine from Mexico to the south of Spain. From there, the powder was transported to Essex by light aircraft.
These planes flew in the shadow of the commercial flights around Stansted Airport, and, because of their size, were undetected by radar. Once they were above the Essex countryside, parachutists would exit the plane, free falling to the ground at speeds in excess of 125 miles an hour. Strapped to each jumper was their precious cargo of between 30 and 40 kilos of pure cocaine. The ‘Halo Club’ – as the brothers had dubbed the parachutists – were all ex-military, but nevertheless a jump from 10,000 feet, without oxygen, and deploying the canopy at the last minute, was still extremely dangerous. Johnny and Eddie used this method for years, and these occasional drops had netted them a small fortune.
Then, one night, the parachute of one of the jumpers, Marcus King, failed to open properly and, spiralling out of control, he was sent crashing into an electricity pylon, knocking out electricity for much of Billericay and the surrounding area. Due to the excessive weight of cocaine that the brothers had insisted they carry, the unfortunate jumper broke his back, along with his cheekbone, right shoulder, three ribs, and two fingers on his right hand.
Not wanting to spend the next decade in prison, the recently-disabled parachutist turned supergrass, and sang like a canary. Both Johnny and Eddie were implicated, but Johnny decided that it made no sense for them both to go down – after all,
someone
had to run the business – so he took the rap.
In the hope of getting a reduced sentence – if you can call 18 years a reduced sentence – Johnny pleaded guilty to drug importation. After all, Johnny told himself, with good behaviour, he’d probably be out in eight to nine. Pulling in every favour that they could, and paying £250,000 in backhanders, Johnny got down-graded from a double A-category inmate to simply A-cat.
But 18 years is still 18 years and, although he’d already served five, Johnny was feeling the pressure. To make thing worse, he was bombarded with radio, television and press reports about Rosie’s role in the forthcoming series of
My Fair Lady
. He loved her. He’d always loved her. He might not have always known it, but being inside has the effect of stripping away all the superficial crap in life, and leaves you with just the essentials for comfort. So Johnny’s feelings for Rosie, and of course dear little Ruby, had become something of an Achilles heel.
Now, five years down the line, the only thing Johnny wanted, the only thing he really craved, was normality. He wanted Sunday afternoon barbecues, to mow the lawn, and to look up at night and see the stars. He wanted to feel Rosie’s warm embrace. He wanted to see Ruby grow up. He wanted a family Christmas. In short, he wanted all the things he used to have but never appreciated.
Looking at the picture of Rosie on the pin board above his bed, Johnny sighed. The sound was so pitiful, he felt suddenly angry.
Pull yourself together
, he said out loud.
Then another gruff voice spoke inside his head. It was his Eddie’s.
‘One and a half
million
quid.’
Funny how quickly thoughts of cutting the grass, Sunday barbeques, and a family Christmas could disappear. £1.5 million worth of liquid cocaine did that for Johnny.
T
wo days into filming, Rosie had her first day off. Andrew called to invite her to dinner, to discuss the rushes, the first rough edits of the footage that had been shot. Rosie’s immediate reaction was that she must have done something wrong, that she wasn’t good enough, and Andrew was going to tell her that they were going to reshoot… or, worse still, re-cast.
It was just after eight when Rosie walked into the restaurant on the Fulham Palace Road in southwest London. A grand piano was the focus of the seating area, and with its pitched ceilings and large windows, the restaurant had an unusual, but undeniably welcoming feel. Rosie looked over at the kitchen, in full view in the back of the room, where large bowls of dough and sinks of ice holding the catch of the day were proudly on display. Next to them stood wooden-topped tables, floured and prepared to roll and cut fresh pasta, and baskets of fresh mushrooms ready for trimming.
I could get used to this
, Rosie said to herself.
Rosie handed the maître d’ her coat, and turned to see Andrew winding his way through the tables, his eyes fixed on her. She suddenly felt breathless and shaky.
‘Rosie!’ Andrew said warmly, reaching out and taking her hands. He kissed her on both, reddening cheeks, before leading her to their table.
‘A glass of champagne?’ he offered, as the maître d’ seated them.
‘Lovely, thank you.’
The maître d’ nodded his approval, and scurried off to get their drinks.
Rosie looked around admiringly. ‘This is a wonderful place,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been here before.’
‘It’s one of my favourites,’ Andrew told her.
A slightly uncomfortable silence was eventually broken by Rosie. ‘You said you had something to discuss?’
For a moment, it appeared as if he couldn’t remember. ‘Yes, of course,’ he finally said, sitting up a little straighter.
‘Is it about the rushes?’ asked Rosie, in a nervous whisper. ‘Is that what you wanted to talk about?’
He nodded thoughtfully. After the champagne had been delivered, he leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table, and in a low and intimate tone said, ‘The rushes were fantastic, absolutely wonderful.’
He raised his glass and looked into Rosie’s emerald-green eyes. ‘Congratulations again.’
‘Thank you, Andrew. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that.’
‘Here’s to you… and Eliza Dolittle.’
‘To Eliza,’ said Rosie, feeling a swell of pride, tossing her hair to the left.
As the first sip of the deliciously cold champagne touched her lips, Rosie felt almost drunk with relief that there wasn’t a problem with her performance. Her mood had instantly changed, and she was suddenly aware of how lucky she was to be sitting in such a sophisticated restaurant, with such a wonderful, sophisticated man. This had been Rosie’s dream for so long, and now that she was living it, it felt
so
right. She could hardly remember the last time that something had felt this good.
This was such a welcome change, Rosie thought, to Johnny and his Neanderthal ways. A good night out to him, she recalled, was a trip to the local steak house for a 16-ounce rib eye steak, washed down by a couple of bottles of house wine and half-a-dozen vodka and tonics… ‘VATs’, he used to call them. And as for the company – Eddie and sometimes Hate-’em-all – this was so refreshing. She shuddered at the recollection.
‘There is another reason,’ said Andrew, ‘why I asked you here for dinner tonight. I think you’ve handled the press very well, and I’d like to think that the publicist dealt with your “revelations” professionally.’
Rosie nodded in agreement.
‘Well, if I was your agent, I’d say that now is the time to start raising your profile, both professionally and personally. To make the most of this opportunity, it’s important that you’re seen in the right places, with the
right
people.’ Andrew’s eyes darkened slightly. ‘If I can be so bold, that means no more bad boys.’