One night, Curtis came into The Grafton and used his favourite line on Andrew: ‘Are you still taking all the lumps, whilst Stephen’s taking all the money?’

Curtis feared my intelligence more than my physical prowess. He knew that I was a very intelligent guy, which is why he wanted to weaken me by turning Andrew against me.

Other than that, things seemed to be going pretty well. I’d even got myself a new lieutenant called Robin. This was the same Robin I’d rescued the coke for in the ‘Case of the Missing Kilo’. He’d fallen on hard times and now drove me around in a silver Mercedes. Any time we were going to sort out some serious problems, he was the guy who’d carry the tools. Andrew, Aldous Pellow and I usually travelled point in one car, whilst he drove behind in a separate vehicle with the guns. To get him back on his feet, I made him a partner in my drug deals. I was selling Class As, and he was selling Class Bs, but we pooled the profits.

Soon, I found out that Robin had been chipping me on the weed. He was actually making £250 on a kilo but was telling me that he was only making £200 and pocketing the extra £50. Now, people may say, ‘Well, it’s only £50,’ but, as businessmen like Philip Green and Bernie Ecclestone will tell you, if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves. Robin’s scam had me down by £5,000.

As well as the dough, this hurt me personally. The French philosophy on friendship is simple: friendship is like a clean piece of blotting paper with no marks on it – brilliantly white and unblemished. However, if you blot your copybook, even with a little black mark by chipping me, I will get revenge. I will cover the sheet completely and turn it into a sheet of black carbon paper. And just remember, when it comes on top and I’m standing in your bedroom at the witching hour sporting the Devil’s horns and a sacrificial pentacle, that it was you who opened the floodgates. I didn’t start it. Second, if you’re doing me out of what’s mine, I won’t moan and I won’t cry, but I will plot and scheme to get you back – behind your back, so you don’t know when it’s coming. This is something that I always tell anybody at the start of a business relationship or a new friendship – just so that they know the rules.

The following morning, I got up and went to Granby Street. Peter Lair walked up to me very purposefully and, completely out of the blue, said, ‘Was that your weed last night?’ I’d not long been up, so I was a little slow, but I quickly regained my street wisdom, realising that whatever he was talking about could be an earner.

‘Yeah, it was my weed,’ I replied, not having a fucking clue what he was on about. However, he knew by my delayed reaction that it wasn’t mine. That just goes to show what a fraction of a second can mean on the street.

Apparently, the night before, Lair had robbed 150 kilograms of weed off a young guy called Nazim. Curtis had had something to do with it as well, and they must have done it after I’d seen them at the club. During the taxation process, Nazim had told them that it was my weed in a bid to scare them off, or at least to cause them to have second thoughts. Me being me, and them being them, if I had said yes that morning – ‘Yes, that’s my weed and you better give it back’ – it would’ve been returned, no two ways about it. This was because we had a mutual, grudging respect. Even though the weed had fuck all to do with me, if I had been on the ball I could have convinced them that it was mine and got myself 150 kilograms for nothing. However, I was a bit slow on that chilly ghetto morning, and Lair had got one over me.

Nonetheless, this little scenario ended up putting me in touch with Nazim, who was always backwards and forwards between England and Holland. He told me that he could bring us over some Class A – some cocaine – from Holland, score it for 16 grand a kilo and split it into ounces when it landed here, selling each one for a grand – that’s 35 grand for a kilo. As a result, we’d make 19 grand profit on a kilo.

I said to Nazim, ‘That sounds all right. Let me get some partners to put together a parcel, and I’ll be back.’

This was a good opportunity for me to bury the hatchet with Curtis and Lair. I thought that if I offered them a split of the profits of any deal I put together, we could be mates and they would let me join their firm. But as students of history will know – appeasement always leads to more war.

Enter the scene, Harry Sheen. Harry Sheen was an old-time wheeler-dealer who loved to make money any which way. Robin had told me that he was looking to invest a bit of graft, so, later that day, I met up with him and he introduced me to Harry. Remember, I was keeping my eye on Robin, because he’d been chipping me on the weed, but I had a little plan in mind. To be honest, I was gutted about Robin’s betrayal, because I’d got close to him. When a mutual friend called Jimmy Fizz confirmed my suspicions, it was even worse. I knew I had to settle the score; at the end of the day, business is business and progress is progress.

We decided to put together a kitty of 100 grand – 50 from Harry, 25 from me and 25 from Robin – and do a little tester with Nazim. Immediately, Harry started to play the role of godfather, telling me how it was all going to go. Already, I was thinking, ‘When this thing lands, I’m taking it all. Robin’s been fucking me.’ While Robin and Harry were playing the big-time Charlies, I was thinking, ‘You think I’m a dickhead, but I’m going to show you what I’m all about.’

Ringmaster Harry decreed he would take 50 per cent, Robin would get 25 per cent and I would get 25 per cent. Even though I was the one that would be turning the merchandise into money – because I was good at selling it – he was still getting the lion’s share. Listen to the deal that this fucker thought he could make me wear: it was my contacts that were bringing the gear over, I was putting up half the money, I was liquidating the parcel into gear and Harry wanted to give me 25 per cent, while all he was doing was sitting on his arse or taking his dogs for a walk. I thought, ‘Yeah, right.’

Before long, the parcel arrived, secreted in a tyre. It got delivered to Nazim as per the plan. Then we switched to the secret phase two of the op. I called Andrew John in to tax Nazim, snaffling all the gear before it was handed over to Harry.

Phase three was down to me. I went to see Harry and said, ‘Look, Nazim’s been kidnapped again, and the money’s gone missing. I’m not suffering a monetary loss. I want compo.’

I made Harry give me another £25,000. I can remember him sitting in my house in Garston. He knew that he was being had over, but he didn’t want to make trouble with me, because he knew how it went. Later, I caught up with Robin in a flat we had and told him the same story. Of course, he didn’t believe it, so I told him the truth: that I was taxing the gear and the cash, and I wanted some more money off him as a fine – again, £25,000.

As he was handing over the money, he asked me why. I said to him, ‘Look, Robin. I’ve been splitting thousands with you on the Class As, but you’ve been chipping me, mate, and this is the payback.’ I also explained why I had fucked Harry: he’d tried to take the piss out of me on the deal. I said, ‘Do I look fucking stupid? My colour doesn’t wash off. It’s not fucking green underneath. It’s black right through to the bones.’ Harry just thought I was a knobhead nigger bouncer.

So, that night, I went to a meeting with my real partners – A.J., Curtis and Lair – to divvy up the loot, which was a gesture by me to win them as trustees. However, I sensed tension in the air. We had about £100,000 worth of coke and £50,000 in cash. Thirty-seven and a half grand each for a day and a half’s work – not bad. Curtis was saying nothing but watching everything. Andrew was being half cocky, flexing his muscles to show off to Curtis and Lair, trying to prove that he was not just my underling. Lair was being neutral and civil but was carefully monitoring the play – to see which way it was going to go – so that he could jump on the winning side.

I had always given Andrew room to express himself. Foolishly, he’d made the mistake of misconstruing this love as fear. He suddenly made his bid for power and announced, ‘Let’s keep Frenchie’s share. He’s always taxing everybody else, and now we’re going to do it to him.’

Lair and Warren didn’t say anything to this. They were leaving Andrew to carry the lot. Andrew’s contempt for me was partially down to the power games that Curtis had been playing with him. Curtis feared me because I was too similar to him. He didn’t want me on his firm in case I usurped him from his throne. Curtis was also envious of my ability to read a situation and steer the outcome to my benefit. I was a past master – Tiger Woods. So, Lair and Warren were seeing if Andrew could really put me under manners. I had the ability to turn from happy and jovial to a cold-blooded, calculated killer in a nanosecond – from smiley to vicious in the blink of an eye.

So, I looked at Andrew and said, ‘Do you really think you’re man enough to keep my money? Do you really think you’re man enough to take my goods? Cos if you do, feel free to do it.’

Unbeknownst to him and the others, I had taken the precaution of bringing my best friend with me – a gun, perched firmly in the small of my back. Before I’d got to the meeting, my spider senses had told me that there might be a problem.

This was also an opportunity for me to see if I was real or false. To this day, nobody has stood in front of me and called me a cunt. I had no worries about Curtis, because I knew he wasn’t going to get physical. Peter Lair was an incredible street fighter, but I didn’t have any fear in my heart for him, either. But I was actually wary of Andrew. Not scared, just wary. However, I knew that if Andrew started to get the better of me, Peter Lair would join in and kick me to death. They would actually kick me to death. Andrew had become caught up in trying to impress his new masters, cos they’d convinced him that they were going to make him a millionaire. They would think nothing of killing me. Shit like that happens every day.

I looked at A.J. again and said, ‘If you take my stuff, you’ll never live to enjoy it. You’re a big, strong guy, Andrew, so I won’t give you a chance. I’ll come out of the shadows, and you won’t fucking see me. You understand? I will not give you a chance. So, give me my fucking money, give me my fucking goods and I’ll be on my way. Otherwise, let’s do what we are going to do.’

Up until that point, Andrew and I had been brothers. You couldn’t get a fiver between us. No good could come of this. He looked at me and gave me a cold stare. Our eyes were locked. By not blinking an eye, we were saying, ‘Who’s got the biggest cock here? Who’s got the balls? Who’s gonna be the number-one-all-the-way-negro here?’ The true mark of a warrior is facing up to something that you’re afraid of, something that evokes fear in you. If you don’t face a moment like that, you’re nothing but a coward and a bully. So, I was unflinching, and I could see he was realising pretty quickly that 30-odd grand wasn’t worth going to war over. Suddenly, he said, ‘I’m only joking, Ste. Here’s your stuff, mate.’

However, we all knew it wasn’t a joke – it was just a way out. I snatched the goods from him. It was all over, but I went away with a feeling of dread in my soul. Something had gone wrong in there. He had broken the brotherly bond, and I would no longer be able to protect him. What would become of him?