Mafia Princess (18 page)

I was in England. And free in England. I looked around at the green fields and trees and they were all blurred by the tears in my eyes. I got on a train north, counting every minute until we reached our destination. I caught a taxi from the station to Mum’s house and rang the bell.

‘Who is it?’ she called.

‘Father Christmas,’ I replied.

But I was the one getting the present. Lara came running to the door and gave me a huge hug, and that was the only
gift I ever wanted. I couldn’t stop staring at her as she showed me all her favourite toys and clothes and chatted about her friends and what they were doing at school. That night I sat and watched her for ages after she went to sleep. I couldn’t get enough of just looking at her.

The next day I got some funny looks when I took her to school. It had been in the papers that I was freed in Italy. Someone told Radio Lancashire I was home and the local papers wrote about me. Hordes of journalists were on the doorstep but I said nothing to them.

They wrote their so-called ‘interviews’ anyway. One guy reported in the
Sunday Mirror
that I had a nice bum so I didn’t complain about the quotes he used that I hadn’t given. I wasn’t interested. I hadn’t said more than a couple of sentences publicly until I decided to clear the air and tell the true story with this book.

But I talked to Frank.

I’d never heard his voice ‘live’, only on the tapes he sent me. He was in Hull prison and got permission to ring me at Mum’s house. It was weird and awkward. But wonderful. There was kismet about it. I’d been arrested on 1 June 1994 and he was arrested on 1 June 1990, for the raid on the Blackpool jeweller’s.

He said he wanted me to visit but as he was a Cat A I had to be vetted, and I wouldn’t easily get a visiting order. I wasn’t in hiding. The UK authorities knew I was back. I had no money because all my assets, including my house, had been seized. I was on benefits, I’d applied for and been given
a council house. I was in the system. The Italians were the only people who could make trouble because I’d served my time in England. I took the risk and applied for vetting.

Frank told me he was going to court again for breaking a prison guard’s jaw. The first time I saw him in person he was behind a bulletproof screen. I met his family, his brother John and his dad’s wife Debbie, in Leeds and went to the Hull court with them. Frank looked around the court and we locked eyes. It was the first time we’d ever seen each other in the flesh. He looked tired but nice, although I’m sure the warder who’d had to have his jaw pinned back together wouldn’t agree. Frank did it but was found not guilty as there was no evidence.

It was November before I was given clearance to visit. By this stage he was in maximum security at Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire. As a Cat A he was segregated in a closed-in area with a special officer on guard. When I first saw him, he was shaking with nerves and I was nervous as well. He looked pale and he’d lost some weight. He gave me a hug and a kiss. Not a proper kiss – we were still getting to know each other – but I could smell his skin, and I liked the smell.

I was wearing a figure-hugging chocolate knitted dress. I’d gone on a sunbed before the visit. My hair was long and blonde and nearly to my bum. I tried to make the most of what I had available.

We talked and talked, not about anything important, but just because we could talk to each other without a tape. We kissed at the end of the visit and that’s when it began. I went
to see Frank every week after that. He’d act up and be moved from one place to another. He used to hate the young officers coming in and telling him what to do with no respect, so he’d kick off. They put him in jail all over England, in with nonces, with the sex offenders, and down in the cages, with the highest security possible. The only place he didn’t go was Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight – but he’d been there in the past. Wherever, whenever there was trouble, Frank’s name would be on it. They hated him in that system. They absolutely hated him. He was almost as notorious as Charlie Bronson.

When he wasn’t kicking off, he was writing to me or phoning me. We carried on like that until 15 October 1999, a Friday morning, when he was released from Doncaster prison. He wanted me to go and pick him up at 7 a.m. I’d bought him a rose but I accidentally left home without it and had to turn back and then I was behind schedule. When I got to the prison Frank was waiting outside in the cold in only a white T-shirt and trousers. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t watch him come out.
He
was waiting for
me
! I felt terrible. I gave him a hug and a kiss and said sorry to be late:

‘I went back to get your rose,’ I explained.

He was laughing. He always had a quiet smile, a twinkle in his eye that told you when he was happy. This morning it was as if he’d showered in glee. I didn’t think anyone could grin that much. He opened the boot of the car to put his stuff in and there was a big bunch of flowers for me. He’d got his cousin Dennis to buy them and hide them in my boot!

It was only 8 a.m. and I drove to a motorway service station where there was a hotel and café. He tucked into his first ‘free’ full English breakfast in years. We looked at each other, took photographs, hugged and kissed, but that was as far as it went. Later he told me: ‘I was dying to take you into that hotel, but I felt it was too cheeky.’

I wanted him as well but my period had come on the night before, which was a blow. I knew I wanted to have a baby with Frank – I’d come off the Pill with that in mind – but for that morning I had to put seduction out of my mind. It was sexual stalemate.

On the drive to my home we stopped at his brother’s in Leeds. John had bought him a whole new wardrobe, nice tops and jeans, and he gave him £2,000. And then friends and relatives arrived to give him a big homecoming welcome, which made him feel overwhelmed.

He dozed and talked on the drive to Blackpool and my council flat in Poulton. On the Saturday we got up late and, like a little boy, he wanted to go to a toy shop. He bought Lara loads of stuff and then got himself a remote control car, an American Warrior Wagon that cost a couple of hundred quid. It seemed this armed robber was just a big kid.

When we talked about having a child together, he said he’d always wanted to become a dad but thought it wouldn’t happen. He’d had a girlfriend Nicola for a long time before he went inside and they left it to nature but she never got pregnant. He thought it was him. I said we’d see what happened, and the very first month he was home I got
pregnant. Frank told everybody instantly – exactly what you don’t do. Three days after the positive test I started bleeding as though I had a really bad period. It was a miscarriage. I was distraught and Frank was as well, but the doctor said there was no reason not to try again.

Anyway, we were a family with Lara. Frank began spending four days a week with us and the rest of the time over in Leeds. All his friends and family were there. He liked going to a café at Roundhay Park, and once the DJ Jimmy Savile walked in, all loud and cigar smoke. Frank and his mates were sitting chatting and Jimmy Savile looked around and asked, ‘All right, the Leeds Mafia. Are the gangsters in?’

Little did he realise that they were. Frank replied, ‘If you want to keep running your marathons, Jimmy, you’d better sit down and shut up.’

Apparently, Jimmy Savile went a little pale and did both.

The problem was that Frank had come out to a lot of gang tensions and rivalry. When he went into prison he’d had a partner called Mark McCall who completely dropped him and didn’t help while he was inside. Frank could have grassed him up but he didn’t, and Mark made a lot of money. When Frank got out, Mark wasn’t happy about him coming back to Leeds. Frank wanted to go it alone, and have nothing to do with Mark. He told him: ‘I’ve let you be for nine years. You’ve made your money, you never bothered with me. You never bothered with my family. You haven’t looked after me, nothing. I’m out now. I’m trying to get on with it. You leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.’

It didn’t happen that way, though. The situation started getting heated. I knew things weren’t good when Frank started wearing a bullet-proof vest. It was a wake-up call for me. Did I really want to be involved in the gangster lifestyle again and risk getting caught up in crime myself? I couldn’t face getting caught and being taken away from Lara. I’d said to Frank in our letters in prison, ‘I don’t want to get involved in anything like that again. I don’t care if we live on a rubber dingy at the end of the pier, I don’t want that life.’ And I meant it. I had to keep my nose clean now.

On my thirtieth birthday, in February 2000, we were planning to see a movie rom-com called
The Love Letter
and then have dinner. I was getting ready when Frank telephoned.

‘Right, we’re going to Birmingham.’

‘You what? I thought we were going to the cinema.’

His sighed: ‘Do you wanna go to the cinema? Or do you want to go and pick up twenty-eight grand?’

We went to Birmingham.

‘You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.’

GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI
, 1832

As we drove down the M6 to Birmingham, Frank explained the story behind the cash he was going to collect. Frank’s great friend and partner, who I’ll call Nad, a big, lovable rascal of a lad, had been approached by a couple of Frank’s former associates. They wanted to do a drug deal and to cut Frank out. Nad didn’t kick off when they made the offer. He went along with it. They paid him £60,000 for a delivery of cocaine that never existed. He then gave them the finger and split the money, minus £2,000 in expenses, with Frank.

Nad was powerful enough to get away with it. He told them it was a lesson: ‘You deserve it. Nobody goes behind Frank’s back.’

We met Nad briefly and collected the money in a blue, zip-up gym bag. Afterwards, Frank said, ‘Right, we’re not travelling back up in that car. Wipe it clean, we’ll ditch it.’

We did, and grabbed a taxi back to Blackpool, at a cost of £150. Frank rounded it up to £200 with a tip. He had the cash and as far as I could see he hadn’t broken the law per se. All we were doing was collecting cash that was due to him. It was nothing to do with me. The worst that could have
happened if we were stopped by the police would be that the money was confiscated. I wasn’t taking any risks myself.

With the cash under the bed, I booked a holiday to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. It wasn’t that brilliant but it didn’t matter; we just wanted to relax and escape the aggro that was building up around Frank. We had lots of sun and sex and I got pregnant again. I’d bought about half a dozen pregnancy test kits and I left them lying in the bathroom. He came in and sat on the edge of the toilet seat and looked at it then he shook his head: ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to be a father.’

I smiled. ‘Of course, you will. I’m pregnant.’

He still didn’t get it. I showed him my boobs, which were hard, the veins standing out. ‘That’s a sign, proof. I am.’

He was fantastically happy, but prospective fatherhood didn’t stop him getting up to no good. He wanted to get into the nightclub business and needed a lot of funds. He thought if he invested in this, he’d get that, and finally he’d have enough. Money he’d given for others to invest had vanished in schemes that had gone wrong. It put him in a corner.

‘Marisa,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to do something to try and get some cash to make it legitimately. I’ll do that and then stop.’

He went to Holland to organise a drugs deal and it was arranged I’d pick him up in our BMW convertible when he returned to Leeds. I just had time to do that and get back to collect Lara from school. Frank was asleep in the car as we got to a roundabout. I saw a police car and then another and
another pulling up behind us. There were cars ahead of us as well.

‘Frank! Frank!’ I started nudging him. ‘Wake up. There’s too many police here.’

As I shouted at him a Vauxhall Vectra flashed its lights in front of us. We were being ordered to pull up. It was awkward because as you come off that motorway junction there’s nowhere to park. The cop cars stopped us at the worst possible spot and stopped the traffic either way on this busy highway. The queues lengthened as we sat in our car. People were staring, slowing down more to have a good gawp.

The police wanted our documentation, then said they were going to search the car.

Frank said: ‘For God’s sake. You know who I am. I’ve just done nine years. You really think I’m going to have something in my car? You’re not going to find what you want in there.’

But they found lots of goodies. A hat in a huge box for me. And sex toys from Holland – a maid’s outfit and crotchless knickers and body stockings.

I was in hysterics and told Frank, ‘I’m not wearing that! You kinky sod.’

He was laughing but embarrassed.

The coppers were
angry
and embarrassed – there wasn’t anything they could get us on. We were both recent Cat A prisoners, held at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Surely there had to be more than sex toys in the boot? But there wasn’t. They
said we had to show up at Poulton Station with our driving licences and insurance and let us go.

Frank was a free man. There were no conditions on his release and he could go anywhere he wanted. Clearly he was being watched, though. The police had been tipped off and knew he’d been to Holland. They believed he was arranging a drug deal and they were right. He’d met up with Mr Big and negotiated a profitable exchange. But the Dutch deal went down the drain because his ex-partner Mark McCall put a spanner in the works and bad-mouthed Frank to the guy in Holland, who called it all off. That made Frank very mad. Things were happening. I wasn’t very happy. I was pregnant, after all.

One night, one of Frank’s friends, Craig Mirfield, who was only in his twenties, was gunned down. He was shot by a bullet that was meant for Frank. Craig, who had three children, was part of Frank’s gang.

There was another gangster in Leeds apart from Mark McCall who didn’t like Frank and wanted him out of the way. He threatened what they had. They were greedy and didn’t want to share. They were fearful of Frank’s reputation as he was a lot stronger than them. They were deadly enemies in the middle of an already-escalating drugs war on the streets of the Yorkshire city. And they sent someone to find Frank and kill him. The shooter found Craig instead. The gunman was coked out of his head and targeted the wrong vehicle. He jumped out in front of Craig’s van and shot him through the windscreen. Craig died instantly.

Frank felt absolutely awful that this lad had been shot because of him and he gave most of the £28,000 to Craig’s family. I was very upset about the whole situation but I wasn’t going to leave Frank. He was my man. But it was tough knowing the danger he was in, and worrying about the problems it could cause for us all.

In March 2000 one of my Italian family was released from jail on a technicality. A false passport was never a family problem and he travelled over to England. My relative still had contacts in Spain and onwards with the man known only as ‘The Sultan’ in Morocco. He thought so much of me he offered Frank an unprecedented deal. He would get them to supply hashish and Frank would only have to pay
after
he marketed it. The suppliers trusted my family so much they would deliver the drugs with nothing upfront. That was a massive gesture. Nobody else would do that.

If Frank had to mess about, go illegal, this was a more protected option. I only encouraged it because I so desperately wanted Frank to get away from the madness going on with the Yorkshire gangsters. We’d heard they’d put a price on Frank’s head, just as had happened to my dad.

It reminded me of the Mafia wars I’d witnessed, armed men in territorial battles. I pleaded: ‘Look, if you’ve got to do something, why do it in Leeds? Who cares? They’re all idiots. They are nobodies. You could be better than them if you wanted to.’

Frank dug his heels in. He had to prove a point. When they killed that lad, Frank went off the rails. He completely
lost it, didn’t care any more. I was upset because we had a baby coming and I’d thought we’d be able to move away from all this, to have a new life, a family life.

All he would say when I saw him was: ‘I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.’ He was distant with me and I knew he was wheeling and dealing and up to stuff he wouldn’t talk about.

It was the Easter holidays 2000 and we were going to spend the weekend in Leeds at the De Vere Oulton Hall Hotel. It was to be a romantic getaway, all posh and candlelight. I was nearly three months pregnant. School was out and Lara had flown to Italy to stay with her grandma, Bruno’s mum, and to go with her to visit her dad in jail.

It was Friday evening. Frank was coming back home and we were going to drive across to the hotel together the next day.

He rang me about 8 p.m. and said,
‘Ti amo.’

‘Are you all right? Are you coming home?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Try and come home. I want to see you. I miss you.’

‘Right. Right. Right.’

I watched television, but he didn’t appear. I rang him about 11.30 p.m. and the mobile kept ringing. I went to bed but woke up with a start at 1 a.m. and called him again. Still no answer.

What’s happened? What was he doing? He wouldn’t usually do this. He would let me know what he was doing. I fell back asleep and next morning I phoned his brother John, angry and worried: ‘John where is he? What’s going on with him? He could be dead in a ditch for all I know.’

‘Marisa, don’t worry. I booked him a hotel room last night. He was either going to use it or not. I’ll go and find out.’

I called Nad but he was in Birmingham and thought Frank had come home to me.

I was getting angrier with Frank for messing me around but at noon John called: ‘I can’t find him. Get yourself across here.’

We had a massive Mitsubishi 4x4 but I didn’t want to take it on the motorways so I took the back roads. I had just reached Preston when the phone rang. It was an Irish friend of Frank’s: ‘Marisa, I’m so, so sorry to hear about Frank.’

‘What you do mean? What have you heard?’

‘Oh!’ He paused, surprised. ‘Oh.’

‘I think you’d better tell me now. What are you talking about?’

‘He got shot last night.’

I felt dizzy. I felt sick. I burst out crying.

‘What are you saying?’

‘Well, Frankie got shot last night.’

‘I’ve got to ring John. I’ve got to ring John.’

I rang John: ‘He’s telling me that Frank got shot last night. What is going on?’

‘He doesn’t know what he’s on about, he’s an idiot. Just get yourself across here.’

I was driving with tears streaming from my eyes, and half of me was thinking, ‘Maybe he’s got it wrong,’ but the other half was in shock. I don’t know how I drove there but somehow
I got to John’s. As I was getting out of the car John walked over, his face red and his eyes raw. Raw, red raw.

I kept thinking in my head: ‘No. No. No.’

He came to the car door: ‘Marisa. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’

There were others around and they grabbed hold of my arms and sort of frog-marched me into the house. I collapsed on the settee crying and crying and crying. I thought my heart had been cut out. They were all in shock but trying to help me because I was carrying his baby. I was the most vulnerable at that moment.

Frank’s sisters and several other people arrived. A police family liaison officer was there, and everybody was uncomfortable because they didn’t want her around. She wasn’t much help anyway.

I broke down: ‘I’m never going to wash his clothes again. I’m never going to cook for him. Oh my God. He’s never going to see our baby. He
knew.
He
knew
he’d never be a father.’

That fatal Friday, Frank and a younger lad had gone to the home of one of his enemies, a grand palace of a place with big security gates. And guards. They had gone to put the frighteners on the gangster trying to intimidate Frank. One of the reports said they were on a ‘punishment raid’. Nobody will ever know exactly what Frank’s intentions were that night in April 2000. There were many demons, real or imagined, unsettling him. He was a tormented soul.

It was pitch black and a man appeared in the grounds, a seventeen-year-old who looked much older. A single shot
blasted off at him. It caught the teenager in the leg. All hell broke loose, lights and alarms and shouting.

Frank and his mate sprinted through the gardens and up to a six-foot-high fence. Behind it was a walkway, a tight squeeze between a caravan and a garage. Frank told the lad to watch him climbing over and then follow. At his back, the lad got over the fence with the gun in his hand.

He jumped down with the gun and a shot went off. The fatal shot.

Did this lad aim and shoot to kill Frank?

Frank had a lot of enemies who wanted him out of the way at any cost.

Was it an accident? The gun had apparently jammed the day before. So was it dodgy? It’s still a big question mark for me.

With whatever intention the bullet was fired, it struck Frank right in the back of his neck. Above his protective clothing. More questions. A freak shot? The work of a sharpshooter?

Frank got up, staggered a few steps down the road and fell to the ground. He cried to the lad: ‘Help me!’ But the lad ran off. An ambulance took Frank to Leeds Royal Infirmary where he died at 1.15 a.m. That’s the time I woke up at home. When I startled myself awake, I swear to God, I had this weird feeling that Frank was there with me.

The lad ran off and has never been caught. No one has ever been done for Frank’s death. John, Frank’s brother, had a chat with the lad. He was very upset about it all and said
that ten minutes before it all happened Frank had been saying, ‘I’m so happy. My girlfriend is having a baby, and life is wonderful.’ He swore it was an accident and John and Frank’s father let it go at that.

The police never arrested anybody. Frank’s death is in some computer file now. The night he died a few of the policemen in Leeds went out for a drink to celebrate.

When I drove home after Frank died I felt my whole life crumbling. We’d been together outside for just six months but it was such a serious relationship. Psychologically, I’d taken a kicking, and I knew our unborn child would soon be kicking too.

There were a few of the split-seconds we all have in our lives when I thought it might be better for the world if I was out of it – but I had Lara to pull me back from that silly idea.

I always believed in survival. I’d never give up.

Now I had a little bundle inside me letting me know the fight for life was still on.