Essex Boy by Steve 'Nipper' Ellis; Bernard O'Mahoney Page B

release me.
    ‘Fuck him. If he’s going to nick me, let him do it,’ I said.
    The officer tried to bend my wrist so that I would get into his car but I stood firm and told him that he was wasting his time. Tucker and Tate were glaring at the officer, who looked to his colleagues in the hope that they would back him up but they were having none of it.
    ‘Consider yourself lucky,’ the officer said as he unlocked the handcuffs and freed me.
    ‘There’s nothing lucky about it,’ I replied. ‘You wanted me to get in your car and I refused. Now you want me to go home, I have decided that I want to get into your car.’
    Hands up, I was being an arsehole, but I was out of my head on acid and acting the fool. I opened the rear door of the police car and climbed in. Fortunately for everybody concerned, including myself, a fleet of police vehicles converged on the scene and an inspector ordered that I be taken away immediately to the nearest police station.
    Tate and Tucker were released without charge but I was detained in the cells overnight. After nine hours in a police cell coming down from my acid trip, I was interviewed by the arresting officer. It was all rather informal; he asked me what I had been drinking to get into such a state and why I had been so keen to be taken into custody.
    ‘I think my drink may have been spiked,’ I lied. ‘As for wanting to get arrested, the truth is I didn’t. I was merely trying to attract your attention so that you wouldn’t nick my mate Tucker.’
    At the end of the interview, I was released without charge and warned about the dangers of leaving one’s drink unattended in pubs and clubs.
    That night I was at home with Tate when the phone rang; it was Tucker and he claimed that he was coming around to see us but he couldn’t find the flat. Tate and I looked at each other in complete bewilderment as we both knew that Tucker had visited my home on numerous occasions and knew exactly where I lived.
    ‘He is probably out of his head but he will find us eventually,’ Tate said. Ten minutes later, Tucker was hammering on my front door and when I opened it he rushed past me into the lounge. Shouting and swearing, Tucker claimed that he had just been involved in a fight with three men and had to abandon his car. Tate and I armed ourselves and asked Tucker to take us back to his vehicle so that we could find the culprits. We all got into Tate’s car and drove to a street named The Ridgeway. Tucker told us that he had stopped to ask a man for directions, the man had been rude to him and so he had got out of his vehicle and hit him. Two other men had then attacked Tucker and he claimed that he had knocked one of them out. Fearing he would be overpowered, Tucker said that he had decided to run rather than stand and fight.
    When we arrived at the scene of the alleged altercation, Tucker’s vehicle was parked at the side of road. It was locked, which I thought was odd if he had really got out of it in haste to fight. The three men he said that he had fought were also suspiciously absent. Tucker got into his vehicle and followed Tate and me back to the flat. I asked Tate what he made of Tucker’s story but he didn’t reply, he just looked towards the heavens and blew hard.
    As soon as we were in the flat Tucker and Tate began snorting cocaine. I asked them not to do it in my home but neither of them took any notice. As the night wore on, I was asked what the police had said to me when I was questioned about the food fight and when I told them the truth they immediately looked at one another.
    ‘Isn’t that grassing?’ Tucker asked Tate.
    ‘What the fuck are you on about? I have never grassed on anybody in my life,’ I replied.
    Tucker explained that when I had said I was trying to prevent him from being arrested I had mentioned his name and therefore I was grassing.
    ‘Oh, fuck off. It was a bun fight in a shop, not the Great Train Robbery. They arrested me and haven’t even