‘Stephen, a man of your stature,’ they would say in their pitch. ‘A man of your money could easily pull off a deal like this. If we just do this, or we just do that, we can all make a lot of dough.’

Nine times out of ten, the schemes would be rejected, but every now and again something with serious potential would appear on the horizon. It was a bit like that telly programme Dragons’ Den, except that the ‘candidates’ coming before me and my partners weren’t budding inventors – their proposals didn’t involve a self-cooking-egg machine or a new type of underwear. These people were hardened fucking heroin traffickers and cut-throats of every description. Their schemes usually involved underwriting drug deals, tying someone up and torturing them or blowing up a house with a hand grenade. Venture capitalism for sure, but hard-core villainous at the same time.

One thing that definitely differentiated our dragons’ den from the telly version was that if you tried to double-cross our little panel of experts, you wouldn’t be getting out of the fucking den. Never mind a telling off from Duncan Bannatyne – you would be stripped naked, sexually abused with a broom handle and singed by the full force of the Devil’s flames on the hairs of your balls – from a red-hot Rowenta. We were real fucking dragons – no back chat was tolerated. It was a true test of a man’s entrepreneurial spirit to come before us with a business proposal.

Our crew was doing pretty well financially. We were working out of an office called Wear Promotions, which served as a front for all our illegal activities. On the panel of our little firm was the cream of the criminal elite in the UK. On my right was Whacker – international dealer extraordinaire who had recently returned after being on the run. And on my left was the Rock Star, the legendary underworld taxman, drug baron, enforcer and general all-rounder. We had a boardroom where we would hold court, entertaining a steady stream of freelancers and their hare-brained ideas. One such guy went by the name of ‘the Jackal’. He’d been on the periphery of the firm doing odd bits and pieces, and no matter how much he took the piss you couldn’t help but like the guy, cos he had the gift of the gab. He could sell snow to Eskimos and sand to Arabs – he was that kind of guy.

One day, he came into the dragons’ den and told us that he had a Turkish connection. That meant only one thing – heroin. ‘I can get cheap gear out in Turkey,’ he said. ‘But the only problem is that I haven’t got the funds to buy it, nor the means to get it back here. That’s where I need your help, Stephen, with your contacts and all that carry on.’

I sat there thinking, ‘Well, we’ve obviously got some good contacts in Europe and South America, but we haven’t got any transport from Turkey. That’s not one of our areas of operation.’ Just like one of the real dragons, I was ready to declare myself out and give it a pass. However, like any good businessman, you can’t just make decisions unilaterally – you’ve got to consider the other directors.

The Rock Star was in the boardroom with me. At that moment in time, he was going through a dry spell and was a skint dragon. The Jackal’s Turkish connection could just be the key to getting a bit of pocket money for him, so we decided to take a punt. We told the Jackal that we’d be prepared to dip our toe in the water. No big parcel – no 100 kilograms or anything like that – just a few bits to start off with. We told him we would put up a kitty of 20 grand as our part of the bargain. That would get us four kilograms of top-grade Turkish heroin. By the time we got it back home, it would be worth 25 grand a kilo, so you’re talking a 100-grand return on the original 20-grand investment. That was a 400 per cent profit.

I reckon if drug dealers went on the real Dragons’ Den asking for money to fund shipments of gear, the dragons would be falling over themselves to sign up. Who could blame them?

Anyway, we green-lighted the Jackal deal and started to sort out the details. Whacker and me put in ten grand each. Although the Rock Star had no money, we would let him ride free, as he was a mate. Originally, the Jackal had wanted us to fund the purchase of the heroin and organise the transport back from Turkey, but we negotiated hard with him. We agreed to put the money up for the gear, but it was his problem how he got it back to us. Take it or leave it. He wasn’t going to a get a better deal anywhere else.

The Jackal came on board. He said that he had a route worked out to Turkey and back. Our end was to get him the money and a suitcase with a false bottom. It was going to be a brazen job. Basically, he was just going to crash the borders – mule himself up and go for it. If he wanted to do that on a ten-grand hit from me with a 40-grand return, well he could go right ahead. I was prepared to throw that stone, because it was a good deal for me.

This guy wasn’t called the Jackal for nothing, and it wasn’t because he was a dog – the underworld equivalent of a low-down rat. It was because he was as devious and had as many personalities as the character played by Edward Fox in the film The Day of the Jackal. He was a slippery guy – an extremely cunning fellow who could outwit anyone. Peter Foster had nothing on this guy.

So, we knew we had to keep an eye on him. We knew that at any given opportunity he would try to fuck us. He knew that we knew, but he was playing the old gambit, the one they always rely on: pretending to fear the wrath of the Devil. ‘I wouldn’t try to fuck a man like you, Stephen,’ the Jackal would say.

When I heard something like that from a criminal, I knew that they were thinking about fucking me. It’s like when a guy says to you, ‘You can trust me.’ Immediately you start thinking, ‘Oh, fuck that, he’s going to have me off at the earliest opportunity.’ It’s like when a football commentator says, ‘Neither team looks like scoring today,’ and the next minute somebody whacks the ball in the net. It’s that kind of scenario.

Anyway, we gave the Jackal the money. He headed off to Turkey, did the deal and called us to say that he was on his way home. I don’t know exactly what happened in Istanbul, but he called us from Paris to let us know that everything was OK – that he’d got the goods and was just waiting to get from France to the UK. So far, so good.

We waited for the next call. Sure enough, the next time he checked in with us he was in Kent. Good news. He was making good progress and everything was sound. As far as we were concerned, it was a done deal. Or was it?

Instead of relaxing, I knew that this was exactly the time to watch out for any shenanigans. Look at it from his point of view. He’d just landed back on sovereign terra firma and all the hard work had been done. He’d been carrying a suitcase worth 20 grand, and its value had suddenly shot up to 100 grand just by virtue of its location. Better than that, he was still 300 to 400 miles away from us and the drop, so he wasn’t exactly in our airspace. From experience, I knew that this was the point when temptation might kick in – this 300-to 400-mile window in which he might see an opportunity to fuck us.

Lo and behold, he phoned us again and terrible things had happened to him. He’d been dragged through a hedge backwards and only had one kilogram left out of the original four. He gave us some cock-and-bull story about being in a safe house where three of the kilos had gone missing, but he’d managed to save us one by the skin of his teeth.

Over the years, I’ve learned with experience never to tell anybody that they’re a liar over the telephone. Especially if they think you’ve bought the story and they are willing to come and bring you something to limit the damage. Let them come to you. Don’t say, ‘You’re a fucking lying cunt. I know you haven’t been robbed. You’ve got the gear, and I’m going to kill you,’ because they’ll go to ground. Play the dumb nigger: ‘Is that what happened to you? Bad one, la.’ Give them sympathy: ‘Well, the world is a terrible place, kidder. I’m not surprised so many unfortunate circumstances have befallen you.’ Be reasonable: ‘Well, if that’s what’s happened to you and you’ve saved a kilo, then at least our exies [expenses] are covered.’

I knew that was exactly what the Jackal was thinking: that he’d give us the original value of our investment back so that we could sell it for 25 grand. We’d get our twenty-grand investment back plus five grand on top for a little drink. We wouldn’t have been out of pocket, and he’d be thinking, ‘If they’re not down, they won’t be that angry.’ He was banking on us quickly forgetting the escapade and moving on to the next candidate. That was the reasoning behind it. I can’t even remember the whole story he gave us, but we brought it on board for the time being and got together for some crisis talks.

I said to the Rock Star and Whacker, ‘He’s got the gear, right? He’s going to bring us only one kilo, but I say we take it and accept everything he says.’

The Rock Star said, ‘No, no, fuck that. Stick a fucking gun in his mouth, and he’ll tell me where everything is.’

I replied, ‘Well, maybe, maybe not. The gun might go off, he might die and then we’ll never find our gear. We don’t need to do that. All we need to do is copy what the police and Customs do to us. Set up surveillance. Follow him and let him take us to the stash. He’ll lead us to it, I guarantee you. He’ll go straight to whomever he’s working with, and they’ll have the rest of the stuff there.’

The Rock Star gave me one of his long, hard looks, which meant he was not actually in agreement with my decision not to beat the Jackal up immediately. But he trusted my judgement as far as the bigger picture was concerned, especially on financial issues. In the past, in a crisis situation like that, he had tended to take his own counsel. He wouldn’t listen to me because he thought I was a bit reserved and too apprehensive to go in all guns blazing. Now he was willing to defer to my more businesslike way of handling things.

In a football analogy, I’m a defender. In a boxing analogy, I’m a counter fighter. The Rock Star was the exact opposite – an attacker. He always went on the offensive. It was the only way he knew.

He gave me one of his long looks and said, ‘OK, Stephen, but you fucking better be right. Simple as that. You better be right.’

I looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘That’s my money, isn’t it? And I’m going to be right.’

I got the Jackal to come to our offices. He came into the boardroom and put the one kilo onto the table whilst delivering his tale of woe. After each twist and turn in the story, we would say ‘Bad one, bad one’ and ‘Get away’. All the time, we were feigning compassion, as though we were three fucking Rupert the Bears.

Anyway, after the heart-rending finale, which finally accounted for the mysterious disappearance of the gear, we all put on a brave face, and I said, ‘Anyway, all is not lost. We’ll sell this kilo, get our exies back and you’ll even get a little drink for all your trouble. We’ll get between 22 and 30 grand for this single kilo, so there’s a few grand to go round.’

The Jackal looked at me, watching my every move and trying to read me. As he was older than me, I knew he’d pick up a molecule out of place. You’ve heard of double devious, well this guy was quadruple fucking devious. Nonetheless, I am a good poker player. I enjoy going to the casino and was getting pretty good at cards at that time, so I kept my poker face on. None of us were about to give anything away.

Throughout the meeting, I was thinking about the surveillance we had set up outside. As soon as the Jackal left us, he would be trailed to his next destination. Then it was game over. The surveillance team consisted of the Rock Star’s brother, a friend of Whacker’s and some of my counterparts. The plan was to trail him in three cars, using a rotation strategy. That meant the Jackal would always have a different car behind him. Even for someone as on top as him, it would make it difficult for him to suss us out.

In the end, it transpired that he had gone to a tower block in the Everton Brow area of Liverpool. As soon as he went into the building, our surveillance team deployed a foot patrol to follow him.

If you’re going to follow a black guy who doesn’t want to be followed, use white people – it’s common sense. Better still, use a white woman or a single white mum with a baby. Just get her into the lift behind your target, have her sit there petting the baby and get her to see what button he presses. Then you’ve got his destination. End of story. She can then press the button for a floor higher than him. Women are the best for following drug dealers, because men tend to dismiss them. They’re looking for geezers all the time. You see a bird pushing a pram and it doesn’t even appear on your radar. Police use the technique on a regular basis. They get their families to sit in the back of the car when they’re trailing you. I’ve had it done to me. You clock the car and think, ‘There’s a guy driving, but there’s his bird, and he’s got the kids in the back. He’s not following me.’ But they are – Special Branch tactics.

When we used the same techniques, I called it surveillance reversal – using the measures that were used on us but to our benefit. It’s all well thought through stuff, but I consider myself to be a bright fellow, so there’s no problem on that score.

Our spy observed the Jackal getting out of the lift on the fourth floor. As the door closed, our single mum also noticed that he’d gone into flat 23. Done deal. As soon as she rang through with the info, I phoned the Rock Star and said, ‘I guarantee the gear’s going to be there.’

The Rock Star started jumping around, saying, ‘I’m fucking going in now. I’m bursting the ken. I want to see his face.’ The Rock generally took things worse than I did. All I was interested in was retrieving the goods. I didn’t want to beat anybody up, if at all possible. Of course, I had a heater on me, just in case. As far as I was concerned, the Jackal was just one less person to share the goods with once I had them back. Under the rules of engagement, he was no longer entitled to anything.

To save a drama, I phoned the Rock Star to stall him. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Tell you what. Leave it for like half an hour, and we’ll go in together.’ I knew full well that I would be on the plot in the next 15 minutes. All I wanted to do was get the stuff and get off without any problems.

When I’m going into a potentially hairy situation, I always have a right-hand man with me. In this case, my right-hand man was an old pal called Wallace. He could lean on a steel door and it’d immediately fall in. We got to flat 23, and I listened through the letterbox.

I said, ‘He’s in there, Wallace. I know he’s in there.’

‘Are you sure?’ he replied.

‘Yeah. Deal with the door.’

Wallace was six feet one inch and around twenty-two to twenty-four stone – a man mountain. The door flew off its hinges and fell down flat on the floor. We were right over it and inside the flat within one and a half seconds.

When you burst a ken, it’s like American marines storming a house in Iraq. It’s all over in seconds, and you rely on your speed, aggression and mobility to catch your target totally off guard.

The flat was a typical high-rise abode, with a long corridor behind the steel-plated front door. Inside, there were internal doors on either side of this long hallway and a living room at the end, like the cross on a capital ‘T’. We started to kick open the doors. The bedroom on the left – clear. Bedroom two on the right – clear. Kitchen – clear. Living room at the end – clear. It was a fucking mystery. The Jackal had done it again. He’d outfoxed us.

But hold on. There was one place left to search – the khazi. Wallace and I slowly moved towards the door. I tapped it with my toe, and it creaked open slowly. Lo and behold, there he was – the Jackal himself – sitting on the toilet, like an emperor on his throne, having a shit.

The best news was that right next to him – resting on the side of the bath – was a briefcase containing the missing three kilograms of heroin. Nothing had yet been said because of the extraordinary nature of the situation. So far, the Jackal had just looked up at me with a quizzical look in his eyes. Then he spoke: ‘Fucking hell, Stephen, it’s you.’ I knew exactly what had been going on. He’d been sitting there, having a shit and nursing the three kilograms, thinking, ‘I’ve done it. I’ve pulled off the perfect stroke, and I’ve got the 75 grand. I’ve had one over on Frenchie. Oh, this is lovely.’

Not quite. Rewind a bit. Imagine you’re on the toilet, having the best shit in the world, with three kilograms by your side, and you’re thinking how great you are. Suddenly, the door crashes in, and seconds later the guy you’ve just fucked over is looking at you sitting on the khazi. I was laughing as the shit poured out of his arse in terror, and there was nothing he could do about it.

I’d been in situations like that many times before. In my experience, the first thing a guy would try and do is make a run for it – jump right through a window, anything to get away from the Devil. However, there was nowhere for the Jackal to go. Wallace was standing behind me in the tiny bathroom, swaying from one foot to the other like King Kong, and I looked like one quarter of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. There was no way out.

I pegged my nose with my fingers to avoid the smell, leaned over the bath and scooped up the gear. ‘Thank you very much,’ I said. ‘That’s mine.’ I handed the gear to Wallace and told him to take it to the car.

At that point, the Jackal thought his life was over. He had studied the book of underworld revelations and knew that the Devil always took revenge – mercilessly. I took out my Colt .45. Already, I could see the scenes-of-crime pictures flashing through the Jackal’s head: grimy bathroom, blood-spattered B&Q tiles and shit all over the place – a horrible and degrading death. What a way to go!

I took a step towards him. His lip quivered; his eyes were wide open. The smell of fear had now replaced the fumes from the faeces. I cocked the gun and leaned over his right shoulder as though heading for the back of his head. Instead, I followed through to the cistern, scooped up the toilet roll with the barrel of the gun and handed it to him. ‘You’ll be needing this,’ I said. ‘Because you’re in deep shit.’ With that, I was gone.

In the meantime, half an hour had passed. The Rock Star phoned me. He was all pumped up. ‘Are we ready to go, lad?’ he asked.

‘I’ve already been in and done it,’ I said. ‘I’ve got your gear, and I’m coming home with your share.’

The beauty of the Rock was that once he was sure the money was secure, all his aggression would subside in an instant. His attitude would change, and he would say, ‘Well, who are we selling it to, and when am I getting my money?’ This was where Whacker would come into his own and was why I liked him so much. We would give the gear to him, and he would have our dough 48 hours later. This was because Whacker was one of those kids who could knock everything out and get the cash in dead quick. Everybody loved him for that.

These days, the Jackal and I are mates again. We always have a laugh about that little caper. To this day, he tells everyone, ‘I once tried to rip Frenchie off. But he caught me with my pants down.’