The club had garish maroon-coloured furniture and urinals shaped in the form of lipstick-laden huge mouths, which brought lots of laughs from patrons but did not help their aim. The nightclub was run by a flamboyant nightclub identity, Ernie North. The former flower and grocery salesman at Romford Market had bought himself a title on eBay—Lord of the Manor of Cosselley. The underworld figure was a bootlegger who liked to be called ‘Lord North’.

Haut began spending time at the club. The guards were former Russian soldiers hired by North on his many trips to Moscow for his vodka importations and other dealings. Haut liked the club’s demi-monde atmosphere and struck up a friendship with North. They had much in common. Both had enemies who had tried to kill them, and they both liked the company of attractive women. Magic and North’s adjoining You There! club had them in abundance: a foreign legion of escorts from Russia, Eastern Europe, France and several other countries.

Haut increased his attachment to North by exchanging fifty thousand pounds worth of VAT receipts he had accumulated over several deals for cash. It worked for both. Haut had much needed money. North needed the receipts for tax purposes. Haut saw the transaction as yet another ‘act of God’ to supply him with the means to proceed with his plans, similar to the way he had overcome his five million dollar debt owed to Australian banks when he claimed God told him to ‘tell jokes’. This kind of financial deliverance had been witnessed by many of Haut’s friends, family and business partners. He had become the Houdini of the mining world.

Haut further endeared himself to North during a court case when the City of Westminster tried to shut down the club due to noise violations. Haut proved in court, with tapes and pictures, that the noise that had upset locals at night was not from the club but food sellers rattling their carts along the road. The magistrate dismissed the council’s claim.

The Magic club was mainly a hangout for Russians and Eastern Europeans: some local suited and seedy types; older women wearing fur coats; and showgirls in red outfits and feather-adorned hats. The young women seemed to make themselves ‘available’, discreetly enough, for men who wished to spend more time with them after hours. Haut was happy not to venture more than fifteen metres from his apartment to be in this haven of exotic and erotic femininity.

He found the women from Russia, Poland, East Germany and elsewhere accommodating. Haut, however, was less enamoured with the free and easy attitude to drugs, particularly cocaine. He observed a covered sugar bowl on the bar counter, topped up with cocaine, which was used by some customers.

North informed Haut, ‘Its place at da bar is in case of a police raid, in which it could be claimed that someone, a customer, must have left the drug there.’