Free Bonded by Blood by Bernard O'Mahoney

told him that there was absolutely no chance of that. Thomkins and I met Yasmin the following day and she gave us £20,000 in cash. We took the money to Leman Street police station in the City, pushed it over the counter and asked for our friends to be released. The officer at the desk was gobsmacked. He didn’t know how to proceed, so Thomkins and I were kept waiting for hours while inquiries were made.
    We were taken into a room and asked where the money had come from. We told the police a family friend had lent it to us. In the end, the officer said they were going to refuse it. Bail would be granted only if it could be shown that the money had been in an account prior to Steve and Nathan’s arrest. After making several frantic phone calls, we found someone who was able to do the necessary and the following morning Steve and Nathan were released on bail.
    It was becoming increasingly clear to me that people in the drug trade were operating on borrowed time. To be successful, a drug dealer has to make it known to as many people as possible that they have gear for sale: it’s no good them standing in a nightclub with 500 Ecstasy pills in their pockets and keeping the fact to themselves. The more people you tell, the more pills you sell: the trade-off is that the chances of being arrested rise dramatically.

Chapter 4
    Back at Raquels a new manager named Mark Combes had taken over and an agreement was soon reached that the way forward was to have rave nights. This new music culture that was sweeping across the country was going to replace the three hours of chart music and five slow dances at the end of each night, interrupted at regular intervals by morons trying to fuck or fight each other, which had been the format at Raquels for years. There was no place for violence on the rave scene – all the kids were into the fashionable ‘peace and happiness’ thing. To the revellers, Raquels was now trouble-free. Most of the violence was behind the scenes or away from the premises.
    When word got round about the proposed change at Raquels, Mark Combes was soon approached by a promotions team from Southend who were very professional and very successful. They were, at the time, hiring out a club in the Southend area that didn’t hold enough people to fulfil the demand they had created. The promotions team was looking for larger premises. A deal was struck and a date was set for them to begin.
    The following day a man named Mark Murray came into Raquels and asked to speak to me. He told me that he sold most of the gear in the clubs around the Basildon and Southend area and had heard that the promotions team from Southend was coming into Raquels. He asked me if we could come to a financial agreement that would allow him to sell drugs exclusively in the club.
    I rang Tucker and he asked me to tell Murray that he could have his deal. The ‘rent’ for operating in the club would depend on the amount of drugs he sold per night. If the club became busy because of the rave nights, then the deal would be adjusted accordingly, making the sale of drugs more lucrative for all involved. For now, both parties agreed to see how things went. It was going to be the door staff’s job to ensure there was no trouble from other dealers and also that an early warning of any police presence would be given.
    On Friday, 25 July 1994, Raquels opened its doors for the first house and garage night promoted by the team from Southend. It was absolutely packed because this type of event was rare in a violent town like Basildon, where peroxide blondes, cheap drinks and drunken nights were the norm. We kept all those types out and for those not involved in the politics it really was an enjoyable night.
    There was no trouble among the customers and the atmosphere in there was fantastic. It’s hard to describe. You could feel the music, it was so loud. It was hard to see anything because of the darkness and smoke, but already there was a feeling of unity