Wild Thing (25 page)

I picked up my son’s bicycle and told him that he would have to come home with me. I was fuming, but I thought it best to let the situation calm down, as we all lived in the same street and I didn’t relish the thought of enduring unnecessary neighbourly disputes. The rest of the day passed without incident, so by the time I was ready to go to work I assumed the row had been forgotten. I had, after all, no reason to expect a visit from the foul-mouthed woman or her husband. It was her appalling behaviour that had caused the incident, not mine. To be on the safe side, I told Margaret not to open the door if anybody was to knock on it. Margaret, a woman who hated any sort of trouble, assured me that she would telephone either me or the police if anybody came near the house.

While at work, I was tempted to ring Margaret, but I decided against doing so. The children would have been in bed, and I would only have made Margaret more anxious. By 1.30 a.m. I had not heard anything from home, so I assumed that the matter was over. The club closed at 2 a.m. and the last punters were generally out by 2.30 a.m., so it must have been around 3 a.m. when I finally pulled up outside my home. I opened my car door, got out, bent down to remove the keys from the ignition and was struck over the head with a metal bar.

Blood poured down my neck and face. I turned and punched my assailant as he went to take another swing at me with the bar. He fell backwards into the car but swung the weapon again, striking me in the side of the head. I grabbed him by the throat, head-butted him three times as hard as I could in the face and he fell to the floor, releasing his grip on the bar as he did so. I bent down, held my assailant’s head with both of my hands and repeatedly smashed it into the paving stones. I totally lost control. When his body went limp, I stuck my index finger in his eye and gouged it out of its socket, leaving it hanging on his cheek. As I went to stand up, I felt a blow to the back of my head. I instinctively turned around and saw that the mouthy woman from earlier was attacking me with a house brick. After hitting me with it two or three times, she dropped it and then kicked me in the eye, which started to bleed profusely. Clearly intending to cause me serious injury, the deranged woman then took her stiletto shoe off and began beating me with the heel. I was still not standing fully upright, so I pushed the woman over and, in an act of spiteful revenge, continued pounding her husband’s head on the pavement.

As this was going on, a white transit van entered the road and the woman ran in front of it, screaming, ‘He’s killed my husband! He’s killed my fucking husband!’ The van screeched to a halt, and the woman began shouting at the driver, ‘Get the police! My husband has been murdered!’ The woman ran into her home, and the van driver accelerated off down the road. I stood up and looked down at the man, whom I was convinced I had killed.

Moments later the sound of sirens filled the air and blue flashing lights cast eerie shadows around the street. A police officer approached me and asked me what had happened. I gave him my version of events and was then ushered into my flat. A petite blonde WPC came in a short while later and said, ‘The man outside in the street is not dead. His wife is distressed and thought the worst. He is in a bad way and has been taken to hospital.’

Rather foolishly I blurted out, ‘I don’t care if he is fucking dead. In fact I wish I had’ve killed the cunt.’

I went outside and saw that the police had erected bright lights, which illuminated the scene. I was advised by a police officer to go to the nearest hospital and get my wounds attended to. I was still in shock, so instead of going to the hospital, I went to see my friend Ray Todd in Stratford.

‘Fucking hell, Lew. What’s happened to you?’ Ray said when he answered his door. My hair and clothing were matted and drenched in thick congealed blood. I told Ray about the fight, and he urged me to attend the hospital. I said I would once I had been home to check that Margaret and the kids were OK. I don’t know why I wanted to return to my home, because I had only just left it. The only explanation I can give is that I may have been in shock.

As soon as I drove into the road where I lived and got out of my car, three unmarked police cars sped towards me and screeched to a halt, blocking my path. Eight or nine officers jumped out of the cars and began shouting, ‘Stand still! Stand still!’ I remained where I was and seconds later was informed that I was being arrested for Section 18: wounding with intent. The officer asked me to remain calm. ‘This may end up as a murder enquiry,’ he said. ‘A man is currently under observation in the critical care unit and may have a blood clot on his brain.’

At Forest Gate police station my clothing was taken from me and I was given a white paper suit to wear. A doctor was called to examine me, and he said that I was suffering from concussion and should be taken to hospital immediately. After various tests were conducted at the hospital, I was stitched up, given the all clear and returned to the police station later that morning. Around lunchtime I was taken out of the cells to be interviewed. I was informed that the man had suffered various lacerations, a broken nose, a broken jaw, a broken cheekbone, a fractured skull and had lost an eye.

I gave a frank and fairly honest account of what had happened. I told the police I regretted that the man had suffered such serious injuries but I was, after all, literally fighting for my life after a totally unprovoked attack. The officers reminded me that I had said that I wished I’d killed him, before returning me to the cells. ‘We will talk to you later when we have an update on his condition,’ they said, before slamming the door.

After an hour or two I became desperate to urinate, but there was no toilet. I pressed the cell bell, but nobody came to see me, so I began kicking the door and shouting, ‘I need to use the toilet!’

Eventually an officer did come to my aid, and I was moved to a cell that had a toilet in it. When the officer left the cell block, I heard a man shouting, ‘Lew? Is that Lew Yates?’

‘Who the fuck is that?’ I called back.

‘It’s Bryn, Brynmor Lindop,’ the man replied.

Bryn asked what I was locked up for, and I said, ‘I can’t discuss it. You know those cunts eavesdrop on prisoners’ conversations.’

Bryn said he understood, and I heard no more from him until later that day, when he shouted out to me, ‘Goodbye, Lew.’

I assumed he was being released, so I called out, ‘Goodbye and good luck, Bryn. Have a pint for me.’

Two days later I was charged with Section 18 wounding and released on bail. When the matter came before the courts, I was rightfully acquitted.

As soon as I got out, I telephoned Bryn to see if he was OK and to explain what had happened to me. Bryn laughed and said he had been arrested for a similar matter. ‘Your attacker picked on the wrong guy, and I did too, Lew,’ he said.

Bryn explained that a man had been hassling his wife, and after making extensive enquiries, he had been given his address. Bryn had driven around to the man’s home armed with a baseball bat. He had got out of his car, walked up to the front door, knocked and waited for the man to answer. Crack! As soon as the door had opened, Bryn struck the man in the mouth with the bat. He then continued to club the man as he lay on the floor screaming and spitting out teeth. Having made his point, Bryn then got into his car and drove away. The man was later found unconscious in a pool of his own blood and taken to hospital. A neighbour had taken the number of Bryn’s car, and he was subsequently arrested. Bryn, as usual, denied everything and was bailed. It turned out that the man Bryn was really after lived next door to the man he had assaulted. When the intended victim heard what had happened to his innocent neighbour, he left the area without even taking the contents of his house with him.

Bryn was jack of all trades but, sadly, master of none. He worked the door at various clubs, collected debts, sold firearms and got himself involved in any scam that was going. In later years he acquired a yard in Docklands, which he took me to see. He showed me where he had several different guns, complete with ammunition, hidden away. Bryn explained that he had recently got involved in a new venture: stealing plant and machinery and exporting it to Africa and the Republic of Ireland. Sadly, Bryn’s home life was affected by his unorthodox way of earning a living, and his long-suffering wife eventually divorced him. The divorce settlement, which strongly favoured his wife, resulted in Bryn being declared bankrupt. In an effort to rebuild his life and modernise his business, Bryn enrolled on an unemployed person’s computer course at Ilford and got involved in dubious deals, taking more risks than he normally would have considered taking. I warned him to be careful, but he was never going to listen.

When Margaret gave birth to our son Lewis, her pleas for me to give up working on the doors became even more persistent. I argued it was the only profession I knew and it paid well. ‘You won’t be able to do it forever,’ Margaret replied. ‘Time will ensure that.’ I knew Margaret was right, but how could I walk away from a job that paid so well without having anything to fall back on? Like Brynmor the unorthodox lifestyle I was leading was destroying my relationship with the woman I loved. Walking away meant, in my mind, that all of the villains I had ejected and barred would come back into the club. They would think they had won, and defeat was something I didn’t wish to contemplate.

I gave Lautrec’s doorman Paul Dobson a lift to his girlfriend’s one night after work and, after dropping him off, headed home via Wanstead Flats. It was approximately 3.30 a.m. as I passed the City of London Cemetery and turned right to drive up Capel Road. Just after the Golden Fleece pub there are several sleeping policemen in the road, so I slowed down to drive over them. These particular traffic-calming devices are exceptionally high, so I was forced to select first gear in order to pass over them safely. As I reached the second sleeping policeman, the window immediately behind my head exploded, and a split second later the opposite window blew out. To my right was a line of trees, and I saw a figure with what appeared to be a rifle to his shoulder. I put my foot down on the accelerator and sped away from the scene. Some bastard had just tried to murder me.

I drove to my home to pick up a .303 rifle that I had stored there. Margaret got out of bed to find out what I was up to, and when she saw me grab the gun, she began to shout and scream. ‘For God’s sake, Lew, what on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she cried. ‘This is madness, absolute madness! Please don’t leave the house with that.’

My temper was preventing me from listening to or seeing sense. I barged past Margaret, who was trying to stop me from leaving, jumped in my car and headed back to Capel Road. I ran around Wanstead Flats, ducking, diving and charging towards bushes like some sort of deranged war hero. ‘I’ll kill you! I will fucking kill you!’ I shouted at the darkness. God knows what the Wanstead Flats perverts thought of the madman running around the park with a rifle.

When I returned home, Margaret was sitting in the lounge. ‘This has got to stop,’ she said. ‘The children and I cannot live like this any more.’ I knew Margaret was right. I was either going to lose her, get locked up or get murdered if I didn’t change the way I was living my life. I sat down with my wife, and we talked about the future for hours. Margaret was terrified that the person who had tried to shoot me would return and succeed on the second attempt. I assured her that wouldn’t happen. When you work on the doors around London and Essex, there is always some nutcase prepared to blow you away for saying the wrong thing or looking at them the wrong way. The following day they have usually calmed down, sobered up or come down from a drug-induced high, and the matter is forgotten. I had no idea who had tried to shoot me or why, and despite making numerous enquiries I never did find out.

I eventually agreed to give up working on the doors, but I told Margaret that I couldn’t do it overnight. We decided that we would leave London and I would start up my own business – doing what, I wasn’t sure, but I was confident that I could come up with something. In the meantime I would continue to work on the doors. We needed an income to sustain ourselves and to secure a mortgage for a new home. Within a month we had found and purchased a home in a village called Manea, in Cambridgeshire. It felt as if a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Margaret was happy, I was happy and the children were overjoyed. There was no way we would have ever allowed them to play unsupervised on the streets of the East End, but here in Manea we could open the front door and let them play in the nearby fields without having to worry. It felt so right being away from London and the dangers that inner-city life poses.

I was still working at Lautrec’s, but I had begun to look at the possibility of breeding dogs for a living or selling mail-order boxing equipment. Before I could do either, disaster struck. It started while I was weight training. Sweat was pouring out of me, and I felt incredibly weak. My initial thought was that I may have contracted a flu-type virus, but as the day went on, my condition deteriorated. I went into work, but I spent the night huddled around a radiator, sweating, shivering and unable to focus on anything. When I got home, I was so weak I had to crawl up the stairs to bed using just my hands. I had no idea what was wrong with me, and the doctors were unable to diagnose my problem. I diagnosed the illness myself by chance. I was watching a programme about round-the-world yachtswoman Clare Francis. She said that she had suffered from an illness called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME, or ‘yuppie flu’). She explained that it caused her severe disabling fatigue that had not been relieved by rest. Other symptoms she described included debilitatingly low energy levels, painful muscles and joints, disordered sleep, gastric disturbances, poor memory and concentration, neuropsychological complaints and painful lymph nodes. ‘That’s what I have got,’ I said to Margaret.

The doctor was called the following day, and after several tests were done, my suspicions were proved to be correct. I went from being an extremely powerful man to somebody who had to drag himself across the floor because he was too weak to stand up. With no income I was forced to tell Margaret to sell everything we owned in order to keep the wolf from the door. It was two long years before I was well enough to return to work. Our worldly possessions consisted of the beds we slept in, the chairs we sat on and a tatty old Sherpa van that we had been forced to keep because we lived in such a remote area. The vehicle was in such a state that members of the travelling community used to wave at me, thinking I was one of them. I didn’t care where I worked, but I knew I had to do something to bring some sort of quality of life back to our home. I telephoned everybody I knew, and soon afterwards I was offered a job, back on the doors.