Mr Nice: an autobiography (12 page)

‘I don’t know. I just don’t have any money to set myself up. I’d need a flat in London, a car other than my beaten-up Hillman, operating expenses, all kinds of things, let alone money to live on.’

‘Howard, I don’t know about you and Ilze. But Richard and I are not going to carry on pretending to be living with
and loving each other. We’re separating. My family has money. His family has a lot more, and they will certainly make sure that Emily, their granddaughter, will be properly provided for. I’m going to move to London. My parents will rent me a flat and buy me a car. You can stay there anytime you want, use the car, and if you need to borrow a couple of hundred pounds to set up a business, I couldn’t think of a better investment for me to make.’

In a whirlwind of love, romance, and unlimited possibility, Rosie, her baby daughter Emily and I moved to a maisonette in Hillsleigh Road in the expensive part of Notting Hill. Richard would visit and play Go. We have remained very good friends. Ilze would also visit, and although we both felt somewhat betrayed by each other’s infidelity, we remained on the very best terms.

During my postgraduate year at Oxford, I had met and liked a friend of Graham’s called Charlie Radcliffe. He was from an aristocratic background, had an enormous collection of blues records, chain-smoked marijuana, belonged to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and had been busted for forging a staggering quantity of first-class counterfeit United States $100 bills with the words ‘In God We Trust’ replaced by an anti-Vietnam war slogan. He worked then for Robert Maxwell’s publishing company, Pergamon Press, in Headington, just outside Oxford. Now Charlie, too, was living in London, and when he heard of Graham’s bust, he tracked me down to get what news he could. I told him what I knew and mentioned the possibility of my being asked to sell Graham’s hashish in his absence. I asked if he could help me out by either selling some or getting hold of Jarvis, whom Charlie knew quite well. Charlie was eager to make some money but explained that he had a partner, Charlie Weatherley, who would have to be involved. I had met Charlie Weatherley a few times when he was an undergraduate at Christ Church. He was now a heavy hashish-consuming biker and, when not pushing his
Norton Commando to the limit, listened continually with amusement to the Grateful Dead. He was a joy to be around. Charlie Radcliffe and I decided that the simplest and fairest arrangement for all concerned was that Jarvis, the two Charlies, and I form a syndicate to market Durrani’s hashish. My initial responsibility would be to receive the hashish from Durrani and store it at Hillsleigh Road. Jarvis and the two Charlies would sell the hashish to their various dealer connections. I would then be expected to take the money to Durrani after splitting the profit four ways. We were ready. All we needed was the hashish.

No hashish materialised. Durrani never got in touch, and Graham was released after serving a six-month sentence. Throughout that six-month period, however, partly because of the conveniences provided by the Hillsleigh Road maisonette and partly, I’m sure, by the continual hope of Durrani coming through with large amounts, our newly formed syndicate operated as arranged with hashish from other sources. Through these dealings, I became acquainted with Duncan Laurie, a major hashish importer who had set up the Forbidden Fruit chain of Sixties boutiques in the King’s Road and Portobello Road, Lebanese Joe, the person responsible for Graham’s knowing Durrani, and James Goldsack, David Pollard’s dealing partner. Essentially, I was making money and connections by sticking Rosie’s neck on the line and mercilessly using her accommodation, car, and telephone. But I was also able to buy a few pounds of hashish at the best prices, and these I would sell in quarter-pounds and ounces to university dealers and friends in Oxford, Brighton, London, and Bristol, where my sister was doing a French degree. My new career had begun. Trading in cannabis would remain my active profession for the next eighteen years.

My views on cannabis differed in some ways from those of Jarvis and the two Charlies. They were far more radical than I and tended to see hashish as a new meaningful currency
capable of overthrowing the fascist overlords. They wished hashish to remain illegal. It gave us a means of living and salved our rebellious consciences by fucking up the establishment. We were true outlaws: we didn’t really break laws, not real ones; we just lived outside them. We didn’t pay tax because we didn’t want our money being used by the armed forces to kill innocent foreigners and by the police to bust us. We just wanted a good time, and we worked hard and took risks to get it by supplying a badly needed service. I went along with most of this but couldn’t begin to condone the punishing of those who wished to smoke marijuana and, therefore, could not logically condone the illegality of the hashish trade.

Graham had hatched up several plans while incarcerated. Some were hindered by his inability to enter Germany without first paying his rather hefty fine. I agreed to take £5,000 of Graham’s money to Frankfurt to give to Lebanese Sam. He would then take care of the fine. Currency restrictions made it illegal to take more than £25 out of the country, so I stuck the money down the back of my trousers and checked in at Heathrow. A couple of policemen did an unexpected anti-terrorist passenger search. Before I had time to realise the danger I was in, I had been incredibly inefficiently searched and motioned through the boarding gate. I didn’t feel relief. I just felt a bit dazed and confused.

On the way back the next morning, I hid the receipt for the fine payment and £300 generously given me by Sam in my sock. I bought some duty-free perfumes for Rosie. Customs stopped me at Heathrow.

‘Where have you come from, sir?’

‘Frankfurt.’

‘Is this all your luggage?’ he asked, pointing to my small briefcase and plastic bag of perfume bottles.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you buy these perfumes duty-free?’

‘Yes, at Frankfurt airport.’

‘Do you realise, sir, that it is illegal to buy duty-free items if out of the country for less than twenty-four hours?’

‘Yes,’ I lied.

‘How long have you been abroad?’

‘Two days,’ I lied again.

‘Would you mind opening your briefcase, sir? I would just like to have a quick look.’

The briefcase contained only my used airline ticket, a toothbrush, and a book appropriately entitled
The Philosophy of Time
.

‘Travelling light, sir?’

‘I stayed at a friend’s house. I didn’t need to bring anything.’

The Customs Officer picked up my used airline ticket and looked at the dates.

‘I thought you said you had been gone for two days. This ticket shows you left London last night.’

‘Yes, two days: yesterday and today.’

‘Would you come this way, sir?’

The Customs Officer led me to a cold, breeze-blocked room.

‘Let me see your passport. Thank you. Would you mind taking off your clothes?’

‘Of course I mind.’

‘Mr Marks, if you have no contraband, you have nothing to fear.’

‘I have no contraband, and I have nothing to fear. But I’m not taking my clothes off.’

I was beginning to worry about the £300 in my sock. If it was illegal to take £25 cash out, then it surely must be illegal to bring in twelve times that amount, or was it?

‘Then you leave me no choice. I will hold you both for attempting to smuggle perfume into the United Kingdom and on suspicion of carrying other contraband. You either let me strip-search you now or the police will do so when I put you in their cells.’

‘I’ll take the second option.’

‘That’s up to you. There is another alternative. You declare what contraband you have to me and hand it over. If I accept your declaration as true, we’ll deal with the matter without strip-searching.’

‘I’ve got £300 in my sock,’ I stupidly confessed.

‘Show me.’

I took off my shoe and sock and gave him the bundle of fifteen £20 notes and the fine-payment receipt.

‘Did you take this money out of the country, sir?’

There didn’t seem much point admitting that fact.

‘No. A friend gave it to me in Frankfurt. I didn’t know what else to do with it. Is it illegal to bring back money, too, if I’ve been away for just a short time?’

‘No, Mr Marks, bringing sterling into the country is not illegal, but taking more than a certain amount out of the country is. Why did you put it in your sock? So we wouldn’t see it?’

‘Just for safe-keeping, I suppose.’

‘Is this receipt also in your sock for safe keeping? What is your occupation?’

‘Well, I’m sort of unemployed at the moment, but usually I’m a teacher.’

‘Who is Kenneth Graham Plinston?’ he asked, looking at the name on the receipt.

‘Just a friend, really. He owed some money in Germany and asked me to sort it out.’

‘You always pay off his debts? Are you that well paid a teacher?’

‘No, I used his money. It was his friend who gave me the money in Frankfurt.’

‘What was his friend’s name?’

‘Sal.’ I knew I had to lie on that one.

‘Italian, is he?’

‘I think so.’

‘Just one moment, Mr Marks.’

The Customs Officer left with the receipt. After several minutes, he returned with a senior official-looking man in plain clothes.

‘Good morning, Mr Marks. I’m with Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise Special Investigative Branch. We are going to charge you the duty on the perfume you bought. In the matter of the £300, we can’t touch you. Here it is. We know your friend Mr Plinston. We know how he makes his money. We trust you aren’t going the same way. Stick to teaching.’

Graham seemed totally unperturbed when I got to his house and gave him the receipt and report of my brush with the law.

‘I don’t think there’s much to worry about there, Howard. We’re friends, and that’s that.’

‘I’m not worried about it,’ I said. ‘I’m just telling you what happened. I really couldn’t care less.’

‘That’s good. Howard, something’s just come up. Would you like to make quite a decent sum of money by doing a couple of days’ work in Germany driving some hash around to various friends of mine?’

‘Graham, I’ve never driven abroad. I can’t imagine driving on the wrong side of the road.’

‘There’s always a first time.’

‘Maybe, but it shouldn’t be when I’ve got dope in the car.’

‘Couldn’t you hire someone, Howard, to be your driver? I’ll be paying you plenty.’

‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure I could do that.’

‘Okay, Howard, I’ll call you from Frankfurt in a few days when I’m ready.’

Neither Jarvis nor the two Charlies were interested in venturing from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It was too much of a disruption. However, Charlie Radcliffe’s attractive lady, Tina, had a New Zealand friend called Lang. He had years of all kinds of smuggling experience and was in London looking for work. He was
more than happy with the German proposition. We agreed to split profits.

Lang and I met Graham in Frankfurt airport. Graham explained that a ton of Pakistani hashish was in a lock-up garage. The assignment was to rent an appropriate vehicle, go to the garage, load up the hashish, deliver some to a group of Californians in a predetermined lay-by, some to a couple of Germans in Frankfurt, and the rest to a group of Dutchmen at a pre-arranged location in the middle of the Black Forest. Lang and I would be paid £5,000 between us.

We rented an Opel estate car with massive space for baggage. The lock-up garage was in an expensive suburb of Wiesbaden. Inside the garage were twenty 50-kilo wooden boxes with ‘Streptomycin, Karachi’ stencilled on each. The smell of hashish was overpowering. We loaded up the Opel, covered the boxes with a rug, and drove to the lay-by. A couple of Cheech and Chong look-alikes were waiting in a large saloon car. We pulled up alongside. One of the Californians jumped out and opened the boot. Lang and I opened the back of the Opel, and the three of us transferred five of the twenty boxes to the saloon. We shook hands. The saloon car drove off.

The Dutch and Germans were not ready to receive their hashish. Lang and I had to kill a few days. We drove the Opel from Wiesbaden, along the banks of the Rhine, to a village called Osterich. There we checked into a hotel, curiously named, in English, The White Swan. We wined and dined and broke into one of the boxes. We got stoned.

The day before the rendezvous with the Dutch, we took a boat down the Rhine to Wiesbaden. Lang wanted to get some English newspapers. While we were crossing one of the city’s main streets, a car came quickly round the corner, shot the red pedestrian light, and almost knocked Lang over. In a moment of understandable anger, Lang hit the back of the car with a rolled-up newspaper. The car screamed to a halt. A huge red-faced German jumped out of the car, ran over to
Lang, gave him a tremendous thump across the head sending his glasses splintering on the road, ran back into the car, and drove off. It was all over in seconds. Lang was barely conscious and was blind without his glasses.

‘You’ll have to drive tomorrow, mate,’ was all he said.

The rendezvous with the Dutch was at a remote but accessible clearing in the Black Forest. With fear and apprehension, I drove the hashish-filled Opel into the country’s wooded depths. It took no time to adjust to driving on the other side. We got to the clearing. There was no one there. After twenty minutes, two Volvos arrived. Inside one was Dutch Nik, whom I’d once met at Graham’s. Inside the other was a man who introduced himself as Dutch Peter. We gave them thirteen boxes.