Janique | 1
2024-04-22 00:35:49
<p>When ex-Bunny girl Jayne Gaskin spots the desert island of her dreams for sale online, she decides to risk it all. Trading in their English village home, Jayne and her family relocate to their own private paradise, just off the coast of Nicaragua. And a reality TV crew follows them to film a new show, <em>No Going Back</em>. But soon they all discover that paradise has its secrets. The locals claim the island belongs to them, and it’s been sold illegally. Jayne’s not leaving without a fight. A fight that will soon turn deadly.</p><p>Hosted by Alice Levine.</p><p>Listen to The Price of Paradise on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting <a href="https://wondery.com/links/the-price-of-paradise/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wondery.com/links/the-price-of-paradise/</a> now. </p>
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Midnight in Paradise.
Endless stars and hot, humid nights. A remote island off the coast of Nicaragua. An island that's been home to an English family from Hampshire for the past seven months. And for Jane Gaskin, this island has become her dream, her destiny. There's no going back, she says.
Even if it all goes wrong, and they end up penniless. But now, as Jane looks at her three children and her partner, Phil, it's clear that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Gaskin family is huddled together in a small fishing boat in the middle of the night, dressed in soggy pyjamas, shivering. And looming over them, three masked men. Just an hour ago, Jane was putting the kids to bed, cleaning their teeth, before they all crawled under their mosquito nets to sleep.
When an armed gang threw open the door and marched them off their island and onto this boat. But what is it they want? Jane and Phil don't know. She squeezes her daughter's hand as one of their kidnappers raises his gun. You need to get us a million dollars or someone will get hurt.
Jane locks eyes with Phil. A million? They don't have that kind of cash. It feels hopeless. And that's when she spots what her husband is up to.
Phil is turning a soggy box of matches over and over in his hand. Staring at Jane with a look she recognises. Get ready, Phil whispers. For what? Jane asks.
As one of the kidnappers bends down, Phil grabs a jerry can from the corner and rips off the cap. Phil hurls his arm forward and fuel showers down over their captors.
Then he reaches into his pocket and strikes.
The boat ignites into a ball of fire.
Jane grabs the kids and they leap overboard.
Phil can see his hand is on fire, but he keeps pouring more fuel into the boat. Flames engulf two of the men. Then, as the fire rages, he drops the can and throws himself into the water. His burning arm extinguished in the shallows.
Phil scrambles onto the shore and catches up with Jane and the children. as they all race into the darkness. Nobody dares look back. But they're not free. Not yet.
As the family run through thick mangroves, scrodging gunfire, one thought is racing through all their minds. How did their island paradise turn into this nightmare?
From Wondery, I'm Alice Levine, host of British Scandal, and this is the Price of Paradise.
Have you ever wanted to start again? Quit your job, leave town, build a brand new life somewhere new? You could hand in your notice to the boss you have always hated, bid goodbye to friends you've outgrown, and the obligations of extended family could be a thing of the past. You could sprint into the sunset in search of your own slice of paradise, whatever that may be. I have to say I've been tempted to hit the reset button, not because of the friends and family bit, obviously, love you all, call you soon, sorry, I haven't replied to your text, but particularly on a grey winter's morning, on the London underground, nestled in a stranger's armpit, sweating profusely in my outside layers.
Yeah, I think about my choices, sure. Well, this series is about two women who decided to do just that, start again, leave their old lives behind, and risk everything to follow their dreams. They just happen to have bigger dreams than me. This is an informal disclaimer to let me off the hook, there will be moments in this story where you want to pull off your headphones and stamp on them, and maybe cry out on the bus or in the car, no, and there might even be some swearing, both in the programme and possibly in your car, because a lot of things that happen involving both of these women are pretty extreme.
The first woman is ex-bunny girl, Jane Gaskin. I think to understand Jane and all the wild things that happen to her, sometimes because of her, you need to understand where she's at when this all starts. And that's in January 2000,, the beginning of the new millennium. Jane has just survived the millennium bug, good for her, and she's just made the mother of all resolutions, to leave absolutely everything she's ever wanted to leave behind, everything she knows in England, behind. This is episode one, Janique.
At home, in a picture-perfect New Forest village in the south of England, glamorous mum of three, Jane, is perched at the kitchen table, a mug of tea, beside her, staring at her computer screen, waiting to surf the World Wide Web. It's late morning, and she's wrapped in a fluffy dressing gown, her dyed red hair piled up in a bun on top of her head, listening to the familiar chirrup of the modem dialling up. Ah, those were the days. She's visiting tropicalislands.com, and it's like a portal to another world.
Now the World Wide Web has landed, suddenly you can buy almost anything online. Most people are surfing eBay for knock-off shoes and second-hand cars, and, you know, looking at images of other things. But this, this is something else.
Eventually, the blank browser fills with cartoon images of desert islands, and one particular picture catches her attention. It shows a string of tiny islands called the Pearl Keys, the one she's staring at is called Line Key. At the top of the page, in bold type, it proclaims, Your own kingdom in today's developed world.
It looks like a riot of colour and sunshine. Miles of empty beaches, swaying palm trees and shining sand. Heaven.
Jane's first thought is, wow, this looks wonderful.
Jane looks across at the pile of dishes in the sink. She thought she'd be happier here, after her divorce, in the house she shares with her partner, Phil Gaskin. Phil is an interior decorator, and he's transformed the place into the home of her dreams, with a custom pink kitchen and glitzy bathroom. It's very... Jane.
But the problem is, when she steps outside, she's still in dreary, old England. A place Jane's desperate to leave, where her bright clothes and bold personality feel somehow too brash for the muted Hampshire countryside, and its conservative values.
Jane's never really felt like she quite fitted in to this quaint village, with its old-fashioned thatched cottages, and even more old-fashioned residents. And now, in the words of the great Freddie Mercury, Jane wants to break free.
She looks back at the computer screen. She scrolls down the web page. Lime Quay. It's off Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast, wherever that is. And then she gets a surprise.
If she sells up in England, she realises, she could actually afford it. She checks the price again. Oh my God, I'm going to buy it, Jane thinks, as she closes the browser.
But Jane isn't the only internet explorer who's stumbled upon tropicalislands.
com. Other prospective buyers across the world are dialling in with similar dreams. And in London, a young TV researcher has made the same discovery.
James Christie Miller is sitting under the strip lights in his office, having shotgunned some time on the one communal, internet-enabled computer. Honestly, it was the Dark Ages. He's looking at the same islands and puzzling over the price tag.
They seem really, really cheap. These are a couple of hundred grand, which seems like a steal. So you're thinking, what's going on? There's something going on here.
This is James's first job in telly, working on a new reality show and a new reality TV series for Channel 4.
. The previous year, Big Brother had been an unexpected sensation, sitting alongside other new formats in the schedule, like up-and-coming property show, A Place in the Sun. But this new series is aiming to capture the best of both worlds. Real life meets aspirational escapism, a guaranteed hit. Well, that's what they've pitched.
The show will follow a handful of plucky British families who've chosen to escape the rat race to start new lives elsewhere. The challenge is how to find them.
James taps out an email to the address listed on tropicalislands.
com and a man called Peter Sokos replies. James asks Peter to let him know if any Brits get in touch. If they do, could he tell them about the TV show and pass on his number? All he can do now is wait.
Then, one day, a few weeks later, the phone rings. Is this Channel 4?? Hi, yes, this is James. I'm the researcher. This is Jane Gaskin.
My family just bought an island in Nicaragua. Can we talk about your TV series? We're in Harrods. How soon can you get here?
We dropped everything and she had us. She was creating a scene, creating a moment.
She was creating a scene, creating a moment.
Harrods, the glitziest department store in London. A golden escalator flanked by Egyptian sphinxes transports shoppers into a store which famously once gifted Ronald Reagan a baby elephant. To my memory, I have never been given an elephant or any wild animals, but I do have a Harrods carrier bag from about six years ago which someone gave me a tin of Christmas biscuits in. and that is how premium we're talking. Rope handles, need I say any more.
Today, a doorman in a green and gold double-breasted jacket and a peaked cap nods at James and his producer, Billy, and pushes the door open. James looks up at the crystal chandeliers glinting over diners in Harrods restaurant, then down at his scuffed trainers and regrets his sartorial choices. There's a table of ladies in their 60s to his left, some American tourists to his right, and there, in the centre of the room he instinctively knows, is the woman who summoned them here, Jane Gaskin, flanked by her partner, Phil.
The Gaskins stood out like a sore thumb. They were not typical Harrods clientele, and so there were lots of bemused, slightly perplexed, slightly frowning faces and this kind of chaos that the Gaskins brought.
Jane's three children, aged 8 to 13 are bickering around the table and Jane, well, she's just impossible to ignore.
Jane looks like Jessica Rabbit, meets Weird Barbie, like if Bratz doll did, like a kind of Pamela Anderson limited edition range. She's tiny, very curvy, like a little doll. There's something about Jane that's really compelling. She's clearly really intelligent and she's in charge.
That is a lot of references, James. Quite the mood board. But he's not entirely wrong. Jane's dressed for the winter weather if this was winter in a Bond movie. White Afghan coat, matching fur hat, thick eyelashes.
Sitting next to her is Jane's adoring partner, Phil Gaskin, dressed, confusingly, in baggy army gear and a sort of Indiana Jones hat.
Philip is kind of, he looks a bit rangy. He's bald. He's a bit shifty. He was always wearing his fatigues. He looks like a bit of a wheeler dealer.
James heads over with the series, producer and director, Billy Paulette.
Jane made a beeline for Billy. I think she recognised that he was the senior guy, so therefore I'm going to play him.
Billy is ready to check them out.
I warmed to them immediately. Phil was very funny, very self-depreciating, very British with a dry sense of humour.
Billy, who's in his late 30s, is looking dapper with his cropped black hair and designer polo shirt. But, unlike James, this is not his first rodeo and he knows that getting on the good side of the Gaskins is going to be key. This is what we call in the TV biz, a schmooze. If they agree to be filmed, it's Billy who's going to be spending months on a desert island with them. So he's watching closely, getting the measure of them.
They got on well together. They didn't argue. They were quite funny together and quite loving, and they were a tight little unit.
A tight little unit with a leader.
Clearly it was Jane's dream. She was a driving force. I certainly got the impression that Phil absolutely adored Jane and would do anything for her. I'm not saying he was dragged there, but if Jane's dream had been to move to a cottage in Scotland, I think Phil would have followed her.
And Billy knew he would have to follow them too, despite the fact that neither he nor the Gaskins knew much at all about the Mosquito Coast.
Naive Westerners to come and buy islands and think they can live there. It's insane, really, the whole thing.
It's January 2001 and the Gaskins are preparing to move. They've agreed to let Channel 4 follow them as they swap Britain for Nicaragua, umbrellas for insect repellent. The cameras are there to capture Phil's last-minute prep, which includes stocking up on food he expects to miss on the other side of the world. It's one last chance to savour the excitement and exquisite delights of great British cuisine.
There's pie with egg in it. You can't get that in Nicaragua. Pork pie with egg. Trifles with cream on. Love them.
I've got to put some weight on in case I get ill. I've got the rest of my life to go on a diet.
Ah, the classic pork pie and trifle combo. Who wouldn't miss that?
As Jane stands in the kitchen filming her last interview, she looks excited to leave England behind. The TV show will be called No Going Back, and Jane agrees.
There is no going back, no. Not for me. I mean, as I said to Phil,
I don't care if we're penniless and it all goes wrong. I'm not coming back here. That is a fairly bold commitment before you've even arrived, Jane. But she makes it clear that if Phil wants to come back, he is on his own. Phil accepts the implications.
That's divorce, then, isn't it?
Ah,
the romance of it all.
At Gatwick Airport, Phil wrestles to control two trolleys stacked with 10 suitcases full of all their worldly goods. Jane follows alongside in her white Afghan coat. I have to say, not my first choice for a desert island. Personally, I'd go for Gore-Tex and a head torch, but maybe there's a dry cleaners on the mainland. We don't know.
Walking through the departure hall, the TV crew catch Phil's feeling of foreboding as his bleary-eyed family set off for an entirely new life.
I suppose I should be feeling really excited, but I just feel apprehensive and worried that I'm doing the right thing, taking these children all the way over there, out to this island.
As for producer Billy, he's thinking it's probably a little too late for Phil to be getting cold feet.
It was dawning on him just the gravity of the whole situation and what they were doing.
This is the point in the story where my stomach lurches. I know this feeling when you've made a decision and it feels like it's too late to turn around. It feels like it's a runaway train. you are not in control. I just want to take Phil aside and say, it's okay.
If it's not for you, call it off. Listen to your instincts. Go home. Jane will understand. But it's too late.
This is their new life.
I sat in the car then at about three o'clock in the morning and I started to worry and think, what the hell am I doing here? What am I doing here?
What the hell, indeed.
All five of the Gaskins are crammed into a panga, a long, low wooden boat with a powerful outboard motor which thrashes through the Caribbean Sea. It's a two hour boat ride to the island and TV crew, Billy and Will, have wrapped the filming kit in bin bags and strapped it down with rope. It's a hopeful attempt to protect it from the sea spray, but it's not going to be easy.
The engine's so loud, you can't talk to each other. You just got to sit and grab hold of something. You shouldn't move. I made the big mistake of moving. That was a big mistake because you just hit a wave and right on my back.
Whereas the three Gaskin kids are loving it, tasting the salt in their wide grins. Phil is holding on tight and Jane, well, Jane looks serene, her tangerine hair billowing behind her in the wind. As they traverse the 25 miles of coastline to reach the island, around dense rainforest and tangled mangroves, night begins to fall. But their driver knows these waters well. Slowly, a shape emerges on the horizon.
Soon, the panga drifts expertly to shore. This is Lime Cay.
When the sun rises, the full beauty of their tiny tropical paradise is revealed.
I'd seen pictures of the island, but you really don't get an idea from a photograph. And what struck me first was just how small it was. You can see right through it to the other side. It looked like a cartoon island and in the middle of it was this tiny white shack.
I can give you a tour of the shack if you like. So you walk inside. That's the tour. It's Lime Cay's only building and it is a far cry from their four-bedroom home in Hampshire. The children race around the island, hardly believing it's home.
Splashing in the crystal waters, dashing through the coconut palms and feeling the warm coral sand between their toes. To Jane, it feels like her destiny.
Jane feels a kind of peace. She's done it. She can give her children a proper childhood full of adventure and joy. They're finally free. The only citizens of their own tropical island.
As the sun begins to set, Jane takes Phil's hand as they stare out into the endless horizon. I think we should call it Janique, she says. And just to give you the etymology on that, that's part mustique, part unique and a dash of Jane.
It was Jane's island, ultimately, her little kingdom, where she could be Jane and nobody else could criticise her.
Janique is beautiful, there's no question about that. But it's rugged and it needs work. There's no running water and no mains power. The cabin sits over the sand on stilts, with a single room housing, a tiny kitchen and one bed. Further along the beach, the TV crew, Billy and Will, are busy pitching their tents.
This will be their island home for the coming months. Phil gets to work, stringing hammocks across the cabin. Harassed as he does so by the island's most populous residents.
Millions of sandflies. They're a constant nipping and really irritating. They didn't seem to bother Jane, and they bothered me up to a point, but they really bothered Phil. Phil would walk around the island covered with his trousers tucked into his socks and with his shirt buttoned up to the collar and then buttoned down to the wrist as well. He absolutely hated them.
While the flies force Phil to be a rather buttoned up Brit, in contrast, Jane's approach to dressing is more minimal.
Jane walking around her island, topless, didn't seem out of the ordinary at all. We weren't shocked or surprised. It was just Jane. It wasn't a flirtatious thing. She wasn't showing off to us.
It was something that was entirely normal for her. I think, had I asked her to cover up, she would have said, no, this is me and it's my island, and I'll do what I want.
Topless on your own private island is one thing, but topless on your own private island with a Channel 4 film crew in tow, slightly different. But, as Phil keeps on reminding them, they're not in the New Forest now. New rules apply and they need a plan for their new life. So, before stepping on shore, Jane and Phil have been on a quick shopping trip to the mainland.
It seemed like they were just going to buy some coffee and milk down at the local supermarket. But here we were in a gun shop buying a whole load of guns to defend themselves.
Not your typical day out shopping, because Phil and Jane have heard something rather concerning. That drug runners have been using line key, sorry, Janique, as a stop off point. So his and hers firearms. it is. Their place in the sun is about to become a place with a gun.
But Phil's not too bothered.
I want to make a big ban.
For a lady, I think it might be a little tough.
This is heavy.
If I see those Colombian drug smugglers out there and they're coming for me and there's a gun,
I want to shoot. Shoot 10 of them.
Yeah, well, I can get them all with this.
And truth is, he might have to. The rumours that Phil's heard about his island are all true. It sits right on a kind of cocaine highway. The notorious Columbia-Miami drug route. And on Janique, as night envelops the island, it's not long before things start to feel a bit creepy.
When it gets dark on the island, it really gets dark. I mean, it's pitch black. And the silence. Every noise was accentuated because of that silence.
I would last literally one night. As for Phil, almost straight away, with hardly any time, to familiarise himself with his new arsenal, he's reaching for his gun.
The engine stops, which was quite worrying. Phil loaded the gun.
Oh, shit. They're actually coming onto the island.
Slowly, Phil creeps through the trees towards the noise. Billy's just behind him.
There was just an undercurrent of nervousness on the island. There was always a sense of heightened tension.
At this point, if you were Billy, you must be thinking, life is too short. I was thinking, I could be filming some newlyweds buying their first house in Brighton for a nice gentle property show. And I'd be home in time for tea.
But tonight, they're in luck. The boat turns and leaves.
Stand down, Phil. It's just a fishing boat. A false alarm, this time. But it won't be long before the Gaskins reach for their guns again.
Understatement of the year. But Jane and Phil have a lot of work ahead of them. The island's still barely habitable for their small family. And Phil's got grand plans.
They were talking about starting a dive centre. But it was clear that not only had they never dived before in their lives, but neither of them could swim.
Billy, Billy, Billy, don't get bogged down in the detail. I'm not worried if Phil's not. And he's not. He's thinking about what the island could eventually be. The first diving resort in the whole region.
He finally seems excited for the future.
I have plans in my head about how I want this to look and where I'd like it to be. It's the creation of something from nothing. that is the bit that is giving me the interest.
In the spirit of his favourite home renovation series, Phil estimates the build will take six months on a fairly meagre budget. And Phil's impatient to start the build. Mapping out lines in the sand. Imagining the marketing campaign.
Dive into Janik. But it appears that Jane and Phil have slightly different priorities.
There's nowhere to sleep. The cases are everywhere.
Everything needs sorting out.
There's a pile of washing up. Everything's filthy and needs completely redoing. And what's he doing?
Round the beach,
gathering glass bottles.
But what f*****g person can do f*****g either?
Stop finding f*****g s**t round the beach!
Love Island. This ain't. Phil's vision for the dive centre is rustic. Simple huts with shared bathrooms. Jane's is a bit more luxe.
She insists each chalet should have its own toilet. And Phil's frustration soon boils over.
A toilet per person. Will that make you happy? Let me see. now. We're going to have 24 toilets here.
24 basins. 24 pumps. You're an absolutely crazy woman. You've always had the most expensive taste in the whole damn world. You're trying to go the maximum route to spend the most amount of money.
Jane makes it clear she is not impressed with Phil's tone. Why do you shout?
Because you're talking about spending more money. We haven't... I don't understand. God, I know you don't understand. You'll only understand when we've got no money left.
I don't understand. And that's when we can go back and live in a nice council house in England.
I can't personally wage.
With a voice like that, that's just where you belong, honey.
Jane and Phil do agree on one thing that they could do with some help. And so they've been in touch with Peter Martinez. He's a Nicaraguan lawyer in Bluefields, the nearest big town, and the local fixer for all the foreign buyers on the islands. He seems to be well-connected and he says he can get them anything they need. And what they need now is some help.
A builder, a security guard and a right-hand man. for Phil. Martinez has just the guy. All three in one. Teodoro.
Teodoro is tall and good-looking with thick, dark hair. Billy's heard he's an ex-guerrilla trained in Cuba, which is nice.
The thing I noticed about him as well were the eyes, really. And I'd interviewed quite a lot of gangsters in the past and it was always the eyes that get you. They were a light brown, sort of hazel-y colour, but they were sort of dead. He smiled and he laughed, but it was quite an unnerving smile and laugh. He would chuckle but end up staring at you.
But Jane and Phil sort of want scary and sinister. That's the job brief. When you're on an island which is often used as a holiday inn by armed drug smugglers, bedside manner just doesn't seem that important.
He's built like a heavyweight boxer. He's big and lean. You instantly knew that he was ex-military, just because the way he carried himself.
His burly presence reassures Phil, and for a time, he and Teodoro make good progress, converting the cabin into a more tolerable family home. But Billy is less convinced.
I remember thinking he could probably snap me like a twig.
So, to recap, in the cons, column, petrifying and potentially volatile. In the pros, column, teaches the kids how to open a coconut with a machete. So you win some, you lose some. After weighing it all up, the pros have it. And so Phil and Jane embark on a diplomatic mission to try and make Teodoro feel a little more at home.
on Janik. Their attempts to bond are quite sweet really, if a little awkward.
We come to talk to you because you look lonely.
You are part of the family. You have to talk to us.
Teodoro laughs uncomfortably.
You don't have to sit here. You can come and be in the house and be with us. You don't have to stay on your own here.
As they all get to know their new hire, they begin to understand what Billy felt. instinctively, that Teodoro's life has been a violent one. He tells the Gaskins he used to hunt tigers at night, and his stories grow darker every day.
Jane and Phil used to talk about how he told them he'd kill people and enjoy drinking their blood.
OK, OK, I can see. Out of context, that sounds bad. But let's not jump to conclusions. We've all had weird hobbies. Maybe it's lost in translation.
Maybe it's a joke. Either way, Teodoro's on their team, so the Gaskins don't have to worry. And Phil, who's delirious from staying up all night scanning the horizon for incoming drug boats, knows he might need him. Any moment now.
Coming up on The Price of Paradise.
You don't fire at people in that area without some kind of consequence.
He said, yes, ma'am, he's dead.
There's pure cold-blooded terror running through me. When that guy's dead, he's in a tomb. I know he's in a tomb.
At that moment, I felt I went into a deep black hole.
Everyone seemed stunned, I think, about what had happened, because it seemed straight out of some terrible film.
From Wondery, this is the first episode of The Price of Paradise. A note about this podcast, not everything was captured on film at the time, so we can't always know exactly what was said in every moment. In places, our script is based on the testimony of our interviewees and all other sources available to us. The Price of Paradise is produced by Forest Sounds and is hosted with additional writing by me, Alice Levine. For Forest Sounds, our producers are Ella Cattle and Aaron Keller.
The assistant producer is Valeria Rocker. The managing producer is Anne Fitzgerald. The production coordinator is Nina Abdullah. The researcher is Tom Cass. Executive producers are Pete Sale and Jeremy Lee.
For Wondery, our producer is Theodora Leloudis. Our managing producer is Rachel Sibley. Our consulting producer is Brian Taylor-White. The production assistant is Imogen Marshall. Music composition by Ian Chambers.
Sound design by Joe Richardson and Ian Chambers. Our sound supervisor is Marcelino Villalpando. The music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frisson Sync. Archive material from No Going Back, courtesy of Ricochet and Channel 4.. Executive producers for Wondery are Michelle Martin, Jessica Radburn, Marshall Louis and Jen Sargent.
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