Gangsters' Wives by Tammy Cohen Read Free Book Online Page B

name never came up. It was just Howard who was mentioned. Howard kept thinking that by paying Tom more and more money he could keep them away. I didn’t trust Tom and thought he was just taking the money off Howard. Howard wouldn’t have it. Tom wouldn’t do that to him.
    The problem is, Howard is completely narcissistic (although at the time I failed to recognise it). He thought no one would ever grass him up and no one would ever catch him out. He really believed he would never be caught, so even knowing that he was being watched, he still carried on making deals.
    He had made friends with the infamous Lord Moyni-han in the Philippines. Even though he was told that Moynihan was secretly working for the DEA, Howard carried on dealing with him. How crazy is that? That’s what I mean about him being an egotist. He simply couldn’t believe he was being set up. Howard even sent Moynihan over to see my brother Patrick in Miami to talk about money laundering. Patrick hadn’t been involved in anything dodgy for years but that’s what led to his arrest and to all of us being arrested because, before that, Craig Lovato – the DEA agent who had made it a personal crusade to hunt Howard down – couldn’t get any state to bring the charges against us. They had to find a crime in a particular state. By Moyni-han being introduced to Patrick, it gave them the evidence they needed to bring charges in a Florida courtroom. I have never been able to understand why Howard put Moynihan in touch with Patrick and never said ‘Oh, by the way he’s working for the DEA’.
    The arrest, when it eventually came on the 25th July 1988, was horrific and unexpected. In the period leading up to it, everything seemed to have quietened down. There weren’t too many phone calls from Tom. Howard had actually said ‘That’s it, I’m not doing any more’. I thought finally his smuggling days were over. But suddenly the police were swarming over my Mallorcan house and the children were caught up in a horrific nightmare.
    ‘Mummy, this is the worst day of my life,’ Golly told me. She was only seven and didn’t understand what was happening.
    I believed I would be released later that day. I thought it was a mistake and I’d be out. I was stunned when I arrived at the police station in Palma and was told that though I had committed no crime in Spain, I was to be held awaiting extradition to the US. I was being accused of involvement in a series of cannabis importations totalling 700 tons and dating back to 1970, when I was just fifteen. I was flabbergasted.
    I didn’t think they could possibly convince a Spanish court to extradite me. I kept thinking they’d let me out. The lawyer was also convinced they’d release me. When I found out I was going to be moved from the prison in Palma where I was being held to Madrid, leaving my children behind in Mallorca in the care of my younger sister Masha and her boyfriend, I just couldn’t believe it.
    It was awful. You can’t describe it. You feel so helpless. You’re the mother, you’re meant to be there looking after your kids and you’re not.
    My lawyer in Mallorca had gathered witness statements to prove what kind of mother I was and why the children would suffer if I was separated from them for an extended time. I still have the handwritten letter from the headteacher at the children‘s school which avows: ‘My judgement of Mrs Marks is very clear: she is a most caring parent who has devoted her personal attentions and very considerable skills and intellect to the upbringing of her children, intellectually, morally and socially.’
    And yet none of that seemed to carry any weight. There’s an expression ‘pain in my heart’. I never knew what it meant until I was arrested and sent to prison. Then I had it all the time – twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
    I was taken to the notorious Yeserias prison in Madrid. Howard was in Madrid also, at the top security jail, Alcala-Meco.