Essex Boy (24 page)

Embarrassed, but in agreement, Alvin told Boshell in front of everybody that his invitation to stay had been withdrawn. Despite Kate and Kevin having only been introduced to Boshell earlier that evening, they felt deeply sorry for him.

‘Don’t be like that,’ Kevin said to Alvin. ‘He’s just got out of jail and has nowhere to go.’

‘Fuck the cunt,’ Alvin replied. ‘If you’re so fucking worried about him, you take him home.’

Rather than leave Boshell roaming the streets Kevin invited him to stay at his flat until he found a place of his own. Once installed in Kevin’s home, Boshell appeared to have been in no hurry to resolve his housing problem. He would hang around the flat all day and ponce drinks from me, Kevin and our friends in the Woodcutters Arms at night.

It took a month for Boshell to secure his own accommodation, and that was only achieved with the assistance of Alvin. Ever prudent, Alvin had employed jobless Boshell initially as a labourer for the building company that he owned. However, once Boshell had become financially dependent upon Alvin he was easily coaxed back into selling cocaine, Ecstasy and cannabis for him. To avoid any large quantities of these drugs being found at Alvin’s home, he had decided it would be a good idea to provide Boshell with his own flat, from where the drugs could be stored and distributed. Alvin paid the £350 deposit required on a flat in Elmsleigh Drive, Leigh-on-Sea, and Alvin’s entire stock of drugs moved in later the same day. Every weekend Boshell would visit the pubs and clubs that litter Southend seafront, plying Alvin’s illicit substances.

On Friday and Saturday nights, the town was awash with revellers and so Boshell had no shortage of customers, drinking partners or pretty girls to choose from. He would flit from bar to club to bar feeling something that he had never felt before – important. Everybody, it seemed, wanted to be his friend, not because they liked him but because the drugs he was selling were of good quality and reasonably priced. Having experienced hard times himself, Boshell was not unknown to give drugs to people on credit so long as they promised to pay him the next time they met. The chance of a drug debt being honoured, which was agreed in a nightclub when both parties were pissed, is about as likely as world peace.

Boshell didn’t help himself or me by acting out his fantasy of being a gangster to impress the steady stream of females he was constantly trying to seduce. He would supply them with free pills, free lines of cocaine or peel off notes from a wad of Alvin’s drug money to buy them drinks. Many of my regular customers flocked to him for freebies or, at worst, discounted drugs. I warned Boshell that he was fucking things up for both of our drug businesses but he refused to listen. Before Boshell knew it, he was accumulating numerous small debts that amounted to him owing Alvin one large one. Tensions between the two men were becoming more intense, not only because of Boshell’s playboy lifestyle, but also because of Alvin’s own excessive cocaine use. He believed that he had become somehow invincible and treated everybody he met with contempt. Alvin’s change in character was of great concern to Boshell because he knew what he was capable of when angry. He did his best to please Alvin but stories of Boshell handing out Alvin’s drugs and cash did not help to reduce the gulf that was growing between the two men. To be honest, I was pleased that Alvin was having a go at Boshell because the distribution of free drugs ceased and I started making money again. I am not naive, and I am definitely not going to say that things returned to normal because I know more than most that ‘normal’ does not exist in Essex. Something, somewhere was just waiting to give.

After spending an enjoyable evening at the Chameleon nightclub in Southend, two girls named Lisa and Donna started to make their way home. As they passed TOTS nightclub Lisa was grabbed around the waist by a man who laughed and said, ‘Hello, Nicole.’ It wasn’t a case of mistaken identity; people had often remarked upon how much Lisa resembled the Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman. The person who had accosted Lisa was in the company of another man named Sean Buckley and a female, who walked off as soon as she saw what had happened.

‘My name is Dean Boshell,’ the man said as he released Lisa’s waist and held out his hand. After talking for half an hour in the bitter cold, Boshell invited Lisa and Donna to join him and Sean for a drink at his home.

When they arrived at Elmsleigh Drive, they went up to Sean’s flat, which was above Boshell’s in a converted house. Boshell began to play Eminem CDs on the stereo and told the girls it was his favourite music because he loved gangster lyrics.

In a statement made later to the police Lisa said: ‘After a while Dean said to me, do you want some Charlie? I didn’t really know what he meant by this. He then got up and disappeared down the stairs to his flat. When Dean came back up, he was holding a clear plastic bag, which was about the size of a 2lb bag of sugar. He held it up and said, “That’s Charlie. You know, coke?”

‘It was then that I realised that he was holding a bag of cocaine. I wasn’t at all comfortable with this. He then put a line of powder on the table, rolled up a ten-pound note and snorted it up his nose. Sean did the same but Donna and I refused to have any of it. I also noticed that Dean had a big roll of cash, about £600. I don’t know why but he did tell me that this was not his money. Dean asked me if I wanted to go down to his flat. I agreed and left Donna with Sean. There wasn’t a lot in the flat; he had a mattress for a bed, a three-piece suite, a TV and a video. Dean did wear nice clothes though; they were all designer labels and he also wore a thick gold chain and a krugerrand sovereign ring. Dean went to have a shower and I went into the kitchen to make a coffee.

‘As I looked around, I saw a further three bags full of white powder on top of the freezer. These were the same size as the bag Dean had brought up to Sean’s flat earlier. I don’t know a lot about drugs, but I do know that the amount of cocaine that Dean had must have been worth a lot of money. When Dean came out of the shower, we both sat on the settee and had a cuddle. Dean was initially stuttering but very soon relaxed as he started to talk normally.

‘I asked Dean about the cocaine and he said that while serving a prison sentence for burglary he had been bullied by two men who had forced him to deal drugs for them. He told me that one of these men was called Chris. Dean explained that these people used to smuggle pills into the prison for him hidden in the butts of cigarettes, which he would then have to sell to other inmates.

‘Dean said that he wasn’t happy with the situation but he didn’t have much choice, other than to go along with their demands. When he was released from prison, Dean said that the people he had been forced to work for had tracked him down and made him continue to sell their drugs. That is how he came to be in possession of so much cocaine; it belonged to these people. Dean was under extreme pressure. He said that they were blackmailing him and they had threatened to harm his brother. I remained with Dean until Sunday morning and then I went home to have a shower and get changed. I did return to his flat later that evening. At half-seven I put a pizza in the oven. I remember the time because I had to keep my eye on the clock to make sure that I didn’t burn it.

‘A moment later there was a knock at the door and two men came in. By this time I had sat down to watch the television. Dean said, “Excuse me for a minute, I’ve got some business.” I got up to go to the toilet and as I did so I noticed one of the men putting a bag of white powder into his pocket. I didn’t mention this to Dean when they had gone but he did tell me that he had to do his business because he was £600 in debt to his landlady.

‘Later that night, I went home but Dean and I spoke to one another on the phone every night thereafter. The following weekend, Dean picked me up from my home in a cab. We went to Clouseau’s pub, had a few drinks and then went back to Dean’s flat. When we sat down, Dean really opened up to me. I was quite shocked by how emotional he was. He said that he was stuck in a situation that there was no way out of. He started crying, saying that he was suicidal and that he wanted to get a gun. He kept saying that he had a problem that he desperately needed to sort out and that he was really frightened. “I need to face up to this and get it sorted,” Dean said.

‘It really upset me to see just how distressed Dean was. Unfortunately, he refused to go into detail about just what his problem was. The following morning, I went home.

‘During the next couple of weeks, Dean would text or telephone me at all sorts of silly hours. He would either be stoned, drunk or both. Sometimes he would be fine with me, but other times he would say that he needed help or that he missed me a lot. He would say things such as, “I am stuck in a situation that I want to get out of,” or “I am going to have to deal with this problem so that I can settle down with you.” The next time that I saw Dean was in the Chameleon nightclub. He was really off with me and moody. I wasn’t happy with his attitude at all so I left the club and went home. At about 0300 hrs Dean telephoned me. I told him I was unhappy about the way he had behaved and he apologised. I never saw Dean again. However, he did continue to text and telephone me.

‘One text I received said, “Miss you. I am not a liar. You are special. I need to sort business out once and for all. Be in touch.” I did try to phone Dean back but he did not answer his phone.’

The story that Boshell told Lisa about being forced to sell drugs for a man he had met in prison named Chris was, in part, true. He was selling drugs for a man he had met in prison but his name was Alvin, not Chris. The only Chris that Boshell had encountered while in prison was ex-Essex Boy Firm member Christopher Wheatley. He had been released from his seven-year sentence for drug dealing around the same time as Boshell. On 14 November 2000, two weeks before Boshell met Lisa, Chris had collapsed with heart failure after a particularly strenuous workout at a Southend gym. He was rushed to Basildon hospital but pronounced dead on arrival. The cause of his death was determined as bronchial asthma. Chris was no angel but he was a good friend of mine and highly respected throughout Essex. Percival and I both attended his funeral, which I don’t mind admitting was an extremely emotional event. Boshell had been lying when he told Lisa that he was working for, and being threatened by, Chris, but he was certainly afraid of somebody.

Not long after Boshell had met Lisa, Alvin kicked his front door down in a cocaine-fuelled rage and beat him up. Boshell was admitted to Southend Hospital suffering from a severely swollen testicle, but he refused to say how he had been injured. Alvin later told the police that he was responsible for inflicting the injury during a bit of horseplay while Boshell was working for him as a labourer on a house extension.

‘It was lunchtime and my wife had dropped off some sandwiches for me,’ Alvin said. ‘Dean grabbed a sandwich without asking, so I grabbed him by the bollocks. I took it off him and he ended up in hospital. I was only fucking about. He rang me the next day and said that his bollocks were hurting. He had a couple of days off work and then he admitted himself to Southend Hospital. I remember going up to see him. I took him in a phone and a McDonald’s meal. I remember that he stayed in there for a few days and then he rang me and said that he was staying with some girl.’

Excuse the pun, but Alvin was talking bollocks. If the remains of Boshell’s front door were not evidence enough for some people, Alvin’s boasts in the Woodcutters Arms about how he had kicked Boshell senseless certainly should have been. If Alvin’s explanation is to be believed, then Boshell’s behaviour, when he was eventually released from hospital several days later, can only be described as puzzling. Instead of returning to his old haunts and continuing to work alongside Alvin, Boshell moved out of Leigh-on Sea and into Southend.

The thousands of pounds’ worth of cocaine and the wad of money that he had shown to Lisa just weeks earlier were suspiciously absent. Boshell had walked into a cafe on Southend seafront and asked the man behind the counter if he could offer him any work.

‘I will do anything,’ Boshell pleaded. ‘I will wash up, clean the tables or cook the food.’

Halil Osman, the man Boshell had spoken to, knew that the cafe proprietor was short of staff because his uncle, who was also employed there, was on holiday and another member of staff had just given his notice. Boshell was hired and given the menial task of washing up. He was told that while he worked his probationary period he would be paid cash in hand. The hours Boshell worked were long and extremely tedious. He would start his shift at 1600 hrs and wash dishes and cutlery until the cafe closed at 0300 hrs or 0400 hrs in the morning. For working five night shifts, Boshell was paid the princely sum of £70; hardly the sort of money a one-time well-to-do drug dealer would toil all night, five times a week, to earn.

It cannot be argued that Dean Boshell was trying to make a completely new life for himself, free of drug dealing and the influence of Damon Alvin. Having received his first pay packet on Saturday morning, Boshell told his work colleagues that he was having dinner with a friend the following day. However, at approximately 1700 hrs on Sunday evening a tired and hungry-looking Boshell entered the cafe with an unknown male companion. The proprietor gave Boshell and his friend a portion of chips and they sat down together to eat them. After ten minutes the pair got up, walked out of the cafe and disappeared along the seafront. Nobody has known who that man was until now. Damon Alvin told me that he had found out quite by chance where Boshell was working and had gone to visit him to discuss the money that Boshell owed him for drugs.

‘The little mug was dishing my gear out free to his mates and women in clubs, and making out he was a big shot,’ Alvin said. ‘He owes me fucking thousands and if he thinks that I am going to forget it he is mistaken. I have told him I either want the cash or he will have to work for me to pay it back.’