Читать книгу Ultimate Hard Bastards - The Truth About the Toughest Men in the World - Kate Kray - Страница 13

I’d heard about Johnny through the prison grapevine. Often, his name would crop up in conversation, but I’d never actually met him. In September 1999, I saw a small article in the Sun newspaper. There was a photograph of Johnny Adair being released from the Maze prison under the Good Friday Peace Treaty. He was the 293rd prisoner to be released and, as he walked, or should I say strutted, from the Maze, he looked every bit as dangerous as I’d heard he was.

I decided to include Johnny in Hard Bastards because he fitted the criteria: he demands respect and has a fearsome reputation, but mainly he can have a ‘row’.

It’s one thing to decide to put someone in a book, but then I’ve got to find them and convince them to take part.

I certainly didn’t want to put word out on the street that I was looking for Johnny, or indeed that anyone was looking for him. I know from experience that dangerous men are extremely paranoid.

Usually, if I want to contact a villain I make a call or two and I’ll have the number in my hand within hours, but Northern Ireland is not my manor. However, it was amazingly simple to find Johnny Adair. I rang Directory Enquiries and asked for numbers of political parties in Belfast. The operator gave me five or six different organisations and I started to make my calls. I explained each time that I was a journalist and wanted to speak to a man called Johnny Adair.

Instinctively, I felt that what I was doing was not ‘politically correct’, but I needed to find Johnny. There was a wall of silence. Every answer was the same, a curt, ‘You won’t find him here. You won’t find him there.’

Then I struck lucky. A lady I spoke to shiftily gave me a number and then hung up. I telephoned the number and asked to speak to Johnny Adair. A man with a strong, gruff Irish accent answered, ‘What do you want him for?’

I explained who I was and that I was writing a book. The voice on the line became softer, no longer hostile.

He introduced himself as Matt Kincade and said that he had read a couple of my books while serving time in the Maze prison and that Johnny Adair was a friend of his.

The whole exercise had been like looking for a needle in a haystack, and hopefully I’d found it! Within days, Johnny was in touch, but was reluctant to commit to any firm meeting. It was all very cloak and dagger. I told him I would travel to Ireland on 11 November. He gave me a telephone number and told me to ring it when I arrived. With that tiny snippet of information, I booked my ticket on the early-morning flight from Luton to Belfast.

My Easyjet flight to Northern Ireland was delayed – damn, I didn’t want to be late. I was going to meet Johnny Adair, or ‘Mad Dog’ as he is known. I sat on the plane waiting for take-off. I was fed up, it was the one interview I didn’t want to miss.

My friends and family had warned me not to go. They all said the same; that I was getting in too deep. I’d heard wild stories about Johnny Adair kidnapping Catholics and chopping them up. Each story was more bizarre than the last. I didn’t take any notice; to me it was all just hearsay.

Then I heard it from a good, reliable source that I really shouldn’t go; it was too dangerous and I was getting out of my depth.

Being the flippant fool that I am I just replied that I wasn’t Catholic or Protestant, but in actual fact I was Salvation Army. I’m a sunbeam, so as far as I was concerned, I was quite safe – or as safe as I could be.

We landed in Belfast on a cold, grey November morning. I made my way to the Stormont Hotel by cab. I was apprehensive, unsure what I was walking into. Maybe everyone had been right after all, and I was putting my life in danger needlessly. My minder stayed close to me the whole time and the photographer said nothing through fear.

When we reached the hotel, we ordered coffee in the lounge area and I rummaged in my briefcase for the small scrap of paper with the telephone number that Johnny Adair had given me. A deep Irish voice was waiting for my call. My instructions were to wait; Johnny would ring my mobile phone at 10.00am sharp. On the button, my phone rang – it was Johnny.

From the start, he was paranoid. He thought it was a set-up and said that if I wanted to speak to him then I was to go to the Shankhill Road.

I said no; I was a girl, I’d come to his back yard, and it was only right that he came to the Stormont Hotel to see me. He laughed, ‘I’ll be there in half-an-hour.’

I waited outside the hotel for Johnny to arrive. I’m used to dealing with paranoid men and I wanted to put Johnny at ease and, more than anything, to show him that it wasn’t a set-up and his life wasn’t in any danger. I told the photographer to wait inside and my minder to stay close.

Half-an-hour later I noticed a car circle the hotel. I watched it drive round once, and then again, before pulling up in front of me. Driving the car was a huge man. Sitting next to him was Johnny Adair. He climbed from the car, his eyes scanning everywhere. His minder did the same, his hand inside his jacket. Johnny walked towards me, his greeting warm and sincere. I introduced him to my minder, and he introduced me to his. Johnny’s accent was so deep that I had difficulty understanding him.

‘This is Winker,’ he said, pointing to his minder.

‘Sorry?’ I answered, with a puzzled look.

‘Winker … this is Winker.’

I shook his minder’s hand and said, ‘Nice to meet you, Wanker!’

For a moment there was a deathly silence. My minder looked away in horror. Winker’s face could have curdled milk. Johnny Adair roared with laughter and from that moment on the ice was broken.

In the beginning, the Irishman wanted to do the interview in the back of a car while it drove around the city streets of Belfast, but I convinced Johnny to go inside the hotel.

As we walked through the car park, a police car drove past. Johnny stopped dead in his tracks and glared at the patrol car. The officers inside looked at Johnny. I saw the panic in their eyes. Johnny stared daggers at them. They looked away. Johnny shot a glance at his minder and they both smiled.

We settled in the hotel foyer and ordered our coffees. I sat with Johnny on a sofa while our minders and the photographer sat some distance away.

Before he agreed to be in the book, Johnny wanted to know what it was all about. I explained about the book and showed him some of the other photos of a couple of men who were already included. In a strong Ian Paisley accent he said, ‘I’m not a gangster. I’m not a fighter. I’m a soldier of war – a fucking terrorist!’

The entire time I was in Johnny’s company, I felt that at any moment something could happen. I didn’t quite know what, but it was extremely dangerous being in his presence. His eyes flickered around the room all the time, scanning and surveying, watching everybody’s move – as did his bodyguard.

We started to talk and he became a little more relaxed until somebody sat behind me. His piercing blue eyes widened with alarm. He motioned to Winker. Suddenly they were on alert.

‘Do you know the man sitting behind you?’ he whispered.

I glanced over my shoulder and shook my head. It was obvious that Johnny was now uncomfortable. He never took his eyes off the man and Winker stayed close. He may have thought the man was from the security forces, the IRA or just a hitman who’d come to kill him.

It all seemed a little far-fetched until Johnny took his hat off and showed me the hole in the back of his head, the size of a 50p piece. Two months earlier, he’d been shot in the back of the head at a UB40 concert.

Then he lifted his sweater and showed me a hole in his side and one in his leg. He had been almost cut in half in another attack and there has been over ten attempts to kill him.

As Johnny talked and his story slowly unravelled, it was a tale not about money, or a grudge – Johnny Adair was fighting for what he truly believed in, which was for peace in Northern Ireland. I told him it was difficult for me to understand, because all we are used to seeing on the mainland are the atrocities that are committed in Ireland.

Before going to Northern Ireland, I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about Johnny Adair. But I didn’t expect him to be as ‘normal’, or as warm and friendly as he was. Everyone expects terrorists to be gun-toting thugs, but that’s not the case. Johnny spoke with great intellect. There was no malice or bitterness in his voice. It was the cool, controlled way in which he spoke that made him so utterly terrifying. He was normal – just like you and me. Before I went to Northern Ireland, I really hadn’t known what to expect, but I wasn’t prepared for the Johnny Adair that I met.

At the end of the interview Johnny agreed to have a photograph taken outside Stormont Castle, where the peace talks were taking place. We left the hotel and stood on the kerb, waiting to cross the busy main road. There were four lanes full of traffic. Every car in the four lanes stopped to let Johnny cross because they had recognised him. It was unbelievable. This is the power he has in Ireland.

Johnny was very amicable until the photographer asked him to turn his head and look at the castle. He refused. Johnny still wasn’t sure if it was a set-up. After the photo shoot, Johnny Adair was whisked away by his minder as quickly as he’d arrived. This is his interview.