Читать книгу Doing the Business - The Final Confession of the Senior Kray Brother - Charles Kray - Страница 10

THE REGAL WAS IN ERIC STREET, just off the Mile End Road in the heart of the East End. Before the War, it had been a cinema, but by the early 1950s it had become a derelict and rundown, fourteen-table billiard hall. In April 1954 the Kray twins had hoped for better days, too. Just demobbed from the army, they had served nine-month sentences at Shepton Mallet jail for desertion. But they were young enough and ballsy enough to feel resilient, and brash enough to ask for help — especially from the family.

They were a staunch family, the Krays, and would always help each other out of trouble. This time it was Charlie’s turn to fork out.

He was not known as being very generous when it came to lending money — he was more the borrowing type himself. But his brothers were different, so uncharacteristically he dipped his hand deep in his pocket to get them started in one business deal or another. It was probably this supportive gesture by Charlie that led the twins to involve him later on when they began to dominate the gangland East End.

But the twins didn’t have much success — not, that is, when it came to regular up front dealing. Their intention was to achieve, but without any definite goal in mind they drifted aimlessly from one deal to another. So with plenty of time to kill and little money in hand, they turned to petty thieving — and even did a little firebombing or two for the local heavy mob who were trying their hand at protection and extortion. One day they would steal a truck load of goods, the next it would be dealing in stolen documents. Sometimes they would cheat the local bookmaker. It was a case of anything goes for Ron and Reg Kray — and they loved it!

Hanging around, at loose ends, they heard about the Regal. A few visits there confirmed to them that it might be possible to turn the place around, to improve its fortunes. Apart from its derelict air and no-hoper clientele, they knew for sure that it had possibilities.

Their takeover bid was slow but unstoppable, an echo of how they would come to operate in the East End throughout the fifties and sixties. Reg would play billiards in the hall with his pals, while Ron held court for his friends and acquaintances. He was a charmer, Ron, flamboyant and witty, quite eccentric. The violence at the Regal, which had always been there, escalated during the first few months of their attendance. As they became regulars, so did the brawling — and damage to the billiard hall.

The aggression around the place got so bad that the manager bought an Alsatian dog to help protect his property — and himself. It didn’t help; the animal had fireworks thrown at it, and the dog soon went mad. By the summer of 1954, the manager had had enough too. He was ready to quit.

Ron and Reg made the owners an offer; one they couldn’t refuse. For £5.00 a week, they would take over running the hall, confident that they could do it smoothly. No one would mess with them, they’d make sure of that. They’d keep the money from the tables, and the takings from the refreshment bar would be split between the owner and the twins. It was all cut and dry, no angles, no messing. And it was to become their first really successful business operation — and legitimate at that — run entirely by them, their way.

In 1954, aged twenty-one, Ron and Reg were just getting to establish a name for themselves in London’s East End. The Regal was the start of it all. They were at the beginning of what became a run. And it was only natural that other young men would want to flex their muscles, to test them out. To find out how tough they really were. The violent eruptions that had increased with their presence were an attempt to suss them out.

If the three years in the army had done just one thing for the Kray twins, it was to have made them fitter and tougher than ever. Their reputation as hard men spread like wildfire in their patch around the Mile End Road. The twins were not to be provoked. No one willingly messed with them. You don’t fight them, they fight you.

When the Regal was refurbished and reopened by the Krays, it became an overnight success. Packed to the roof with their mates, old and new, and their mates’ mates, it was the happening place in the East End. No one wanted to miss a night there. With the place so full of so many friends and relations every night, there was no room for strangers. Other gangs stayed away. Sensibly. And violence and aggression was becoming rare.

What finished the violence at the Regal once and for all was what happened to a Maltese gang, also from the East End. They made a big mistake one night when they decided to call by for their protection money. It was just after the billiard hall had reopened. Now it’s a joke to think of anyone mad enough to try to extort money from Ron and Reg, but their reputation at that stage was slight.

A number of Maltese gangs operated in the Mile End Road area in the 1950s. They were well established and confident. Confident enough to call on Ron and Reg at the end of a long hard night.

Alone in the Regal, the twins were stacking chairs. Immediately they sensed trouble. The Maltese strolled casually around the hall, striking the smooth green baize of the new tables and examining the cues in a detached but menacing way. Eventually, the gang leader approached the twins. Before the word protection was fully out of his mouth, he was out of the door with his mates, flattened.

‘Protection from what?’, Ron had replied as he lashed out at them with a cutlass.

Seconds later, Reg drew out a knife, and the battle that followed would have been bloody and fatal if the Maltese gang had not fled in terror.

Cool as ever, Reg Kray was heard to comment, ‘They’ve not got a lot of bottle, these continentals, especially when the knives come out.’

Other incidents followed, but nothing major ever happened again there. An occasional fight that flared and died down as abruptly as it had started. The East End was a tinder box, but Ron and Reg kept a firm grip on the sparks that might set it alight. The word was out. The Regal was a peaceful club where you could enjoy a bevvy with your mates; it wasn’t a place to start trouble. In a different way, though, it did just that.

The twins got the lease on the Regal renewed for three years. They now had a base from which to operate and somewhere they could meet their old friends and contacts. Charlie Kray watched it all happening. How the billiard hall became a meeting-place for young tearaways and villains, even old friends from the glasshouse in Shepton Mallet. They all somehow found their way to Eric Street.

Charlie didn’t like it, but he simply had to put up with it. The Regal soon became one of the places in the East End to discuss and plan such business activities as robbery and burglary — quite openly. It was just the beginning: the Kray twins were starting to discover that crime can pay.

Reg Kray handled all business arrangements at the Regal. Where he could he kept it in the family — his uncle Billy served behind the bar. Reg took the Regal and its spin-offs very seriously. If someone wanted to dispose of stolen goods, then Reg would deal with it. He’d find a contact, someone to negotiate a sale. He’d even arrange storage of the merchandise at the Regal until a buyer could be found.

But it wasn’t just the goods Reg dealt with; he’d arrange to look after specialist tools and equipment, used on jobs by local villains. He’d hide them away, sometimes under the benches at the Regal, but always at a price.

The scale of the villainy escalated; soon they were hiding guns. And Ron, it was known, had an arsenal of fire-arms. It had started with knives. He was fascinated by them and had also begun to collect cutlasses, of which he had a huge collection, including swords, sabres and bayonets. Anything with a blade. He would sharpen them from time to time in the back yard at Vallance Road. He would spend hours happily honing them on an enormous grindstone.

His gun collection was also vast, most of which was hidden under the floorboards, upstairs at Vallance Road. He didn’t consider why he collected them or what he wanted them for. What was obvious was that it had become an obsession.

What was also becoming an obsession was the need to stay in control, to keep the Regal running their way. According to their rules. Sometimes this backfired.

As the months passed, business at the Regal flourished. Takings at the tables and the bar peaked, and the crowds kept on coming. While Reg was in charge of business, Ron had set himself up as entertainments manager. It was an informal arrangement, but it included the role of bouncer. One evening when Ron was holding court as usual from his chair, a gang of young men came. They were just another East End gang looking for trouble. And it was Ron’s job to deal with it.

Ron was always fearless. His instant reactions always operated from this blind aggression. Fiercely he picked out one of the youths, and dragged him off to one side to frisk him roughly.

As he searched, he brushed down the boy’s legs and yelled out, ‘You should have known better than to come in here with weapons.’ He looked furious and triumphant.

It went very quiet in the hall. The silence in the eye of the hurricane. The thunderous rage to come was palpable. Everyone held their breath for what felt like a long time, knowing that something had to give. And give it did. One of the youths asked cautiously if he could have a quiet word with Ron.

They went off behind the bar and in an audible whisper the youth said, ‘He’s wearing leg-irons — he’s partly crippled. It isn’t a sword.’

The timebomb had been defused, and Ron, this time, was able to laugh it off.

But looking after business meant taking care of real bother, and Reg was equally at home with this. He would deal with disorder directly, famous for his trick cigarette punch. He practised it for hours on a punchbag, determined to perfect his technique. It worked. He would offer a cigarette with his right hand and then hit out at the other man’s jaw with his left. He broke a lot of jaws in his time, including that of a local trouble-maker by the name of Tony Schnyder.

Schnyder was always hanging around the Regal, often up and down the nearby New Road area of the East End, where the rag trade was centred. His trouble was negotiable but complicated by the fact that he carried a gun. He took great pleasure in showing it off to all and sundry; it was a big part of his image. He liked to create the right impression: I’m tough, so don’t mess with me. And part of this involved bad mouthing the Krays.

‘Is that Tony Schnyder, the big tough guy?’

The buzz went round the Regal. Schnyder had just been felled by a swift right hand, which had cracked his jaw. The injured man collapsed on to the floor in agony, blood pouring from his mouth. Reg Kray had just had enough of his brash talk. In the bar, Schnyder had made one too many remarks within hearing distance of Charlie and Reg and now he had had to answer for his big mouth.

‘He doesn’t look very tough to me,’ someone sneered. ‘He walks through the door, and he’s carted out feet first.’

A ripple of disdainful laughter and chat washed around the room. Schnyder did not find the incident at all amusing. As he scraped himself off the floor and crawled out into the street, he had revenge fixed in his head. Staggering down the street, he drew no comments. This was a common sight all around the East End. What was not common was Schnyder’s next course of action: he had decided to report the incident to the police.

Involving the law was to break an unwritten East End code: Thou shalt not talk to the police. If you brought in the law, you lost your reputation and credibility. The Krays didn’t slag off the police, but they didn’t talk to them much either -unless they had to, in which case they were pointedly polite. But to go to them for help with East End business — never. There’s loyalty, always, to your own kind. Schnyder knew this, but he was angry and humiliated enough to break it.

As he neared the police station, he was lucky that he met Georgie Woods, a man with a web of connections in the East End, a man whose word counted. Woods cautioned him about taking his grievance with the Krays to the law.

‘That would be stupid,’ he said. ‘Forget it. Straighten it out some other way. Involve the law and you’ll lose your reputation.’

Schnyder knew he was right. That night there would be no trouble with the law at the Regal. That would come later. For now the policy was to keep one step ahead and out of trouble.

The Regal had become the centre of attention, a hangout and the focus for a gang of youngsters who were regulars. This was the start of the firm, the inner circle of young men about the East End, up to tricks. There was always some excitement there. When there wasn’t, then Ron would organize a trip outside the manor to make some. It was good to be on the firm, you could do what you liked if you stuck together. You tried not to fall foul of the law, but you fought for your patch. Any way you could — clean or dirty. You were ready for anything or anybody.

Ron had read everything there was to read about Al Capone and the Chicago gangsters. Capone became a real hero to him. Ron even began to copy his style of dress and tried to organize the firm along military lines, as Capone had done. He became known as the Colonel. Always immaculately dressed, he would sit in his favourite seat in the smoke-filled billiard hall where he was in his element. To make the atmosphere even more thick, Ron liked the crowd to smoke as much as possible — sometimes even asking them to smoke more if he thought there wasn’t enough of a fug.

Ron would often surround himself with young men at the Regal, just as much as he would attract women when he was out and about. A lot of people, men and women, found Ron attractive. He was a flamboyant person, gregarious and generous with those in his circle.

He’d told his brother Charlie that he liked men and women equally; his preference was bisexuality. Charlie found this hard to swallow. How could someone as manly as his kid brother -a man’s man even — a hard nut, macho and unbeatable, want to have sex with another man? To fight with them, yes, to spar with backchat and jokes, to hang out and play pool, but not sex.

Charlie could never get his head round this. It was a gulf that was unbridgeable and came to represent something that stood between them that would never mend. Although family ties kept them together, Charlie would never feel really close to Ron and was never able to reach the intimacy of affections that existed between the twins. He remained and was often treated as an outsider, and this spilled over into their business deals. Charlie often went it alone.

In the summer of 1954, Charlie Kray was involved in his own business. He had set up a travel company that specialized in all-in holidays to the south of France. With two good friends, Stan Davies and Lenny Bearfield, he’d tour-drive a minibus to the Villa Roches Roses in St Raphael.

In the villa, which he’d leased for the summer, he put up his guests. The villa had been occupied by troops during the Second World War, first by the German occupying forces and then by the Allies. It was now a solid source of income for its owners, with whom Charlie became friends, as he did with many of his clients. One of whom he never forgot.

Vic Streeter was a big man, six foot three in his bare feet, with a face threaded with scars and a prominent broken nose. He’d obviously seen tough times, but he was a real gentleman — and, as it turned out, a policeman. Vic was a talented rugby player, a skill that was put to the test against the French Navy who were billeted nearby, looking for a one-off friendly. Charlie was enlisted into Vic’s team along with Stan and Lennie, and they beat the French at a game one Saturday afternoon in the main football stadium in St Raphael.

Years later Charlie and Vic were to meet in very different circumstances, at the West End Central Police Station. It was 1968, the year when the three Kray brothers were arrested by Detective Chief Inspector Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read, who’d been leading an inquiry into their activities for some time. The officer in charge at the station that day was none other than Vic Streeter. He booked them without saying a word to Charlie.

Once locked up, Vic Streeter came down to the cells to talk to Charlie. He hadn’t wanted to speak upstairs, it wasn’t appropriate and might have proved embarrassing for any of them. But he’d never hidden his friendship with Charlie from his fellow officers. It was common knowledge that he and Charlie knew each other, and it was an acquaintance that did neither of the men any disfavour. Vic was an honest policeman and a good man, and his association with Charlie reflected well on him.

Honesty and goodness were qualities that Charlie understood, but with which he hadn’t had much truck by the late sixties, embroiled as he was with the increasing corruption of the firm. The ties of East End family were binding, they were strong and unbreakable. At that point, they had broken Charlie.

Business at the Regal was profitable, and, apart from a little assistance given to the local criminal fraternity, it was on the level. It had to change.

By the end of 1954, the Kray twins had built up a considerable reputation around the Regal in Eric Street, which had spread to include Mile End. In particular, this had got up the noses of three local dockworkers who unofficially ruled Poplar and the Mile End Road. But dockers had an unbeaten reputation for toughness themselves. To be a docker you were at the top of the heap. A real man’s man, a tough-gut who took no shit from anyone. The time had come for a showdown.

The challenge to the Krays came in the form of an invitation to join the dockers for a drink at one of their locals, a pub in the Mile End Road. This was language that the Kray twins understood. They often invited men for a drink, only to beat the living daylights out of them when they turned up. Fight dirty, fight tough, keep on top. Don’t let the bastards grind you down. The buzz was that the dockers wanted protection money from the twins; they could have done worse than to have heard the story of the Maltese efforts in that direction.

Ron and Reg were both extremely strong. Their early boxing training and their tough military service had seen to that. Although neither man was what you’d call big — Ron stood five feet ten and weighed in at twelve stone, Reg was slightly smaller at just over five feet nine and eleven stone -they made up for in grit and iron determination what they may have lacked in size. They never, ever held back in a fight and always gave it their best, 100 per cent. They had rules of their own and had never been defeated in any conflict.

Even though most of their adversaries were often much heftier than them, they had never lost a battle. Well, they were looking forward to winning the war in Poplar, anticipating it with a grim pleasure and unshakable confidence. Much like their first bout in the ring at the funfair, all those years earlier. Only this time it was really for real.

The meet was to take place early on a Sunday morning. On the evening before, they went out on the town with some of the firm. The others were anxious for them. They were about to take on three ex-heavyweight boxers with reputations to match. The twins didn’t seem that bothered, anyone would think it was just another night out, getting ratted and laid, followed by a regular Sunday down the Regal.

Sunday did find the twins at the Regal, clearing away glasses and empty bottles, brushing down the green baize of the billiard tables — everything as normal. They were early risers anyway. Work done, the place was filling fast. Though crowded, it was unnaturally quiet with anticipation. But the twins behaved no differently from any other Sunday morning. As the appointed time approached, they calmly put on their jackets and walked slowly but resolutely along to the Mile End Road.

The three dockers were drinking light ale in the private bar of the pub, and apart from them the place was empty. Only a barman to take their order. As their drinks stood on the counter, one of the dockers reached over to pass them along the counter to Ronnie.

‘Here you are, sonny. You’re just about old enough for a shandy,’ he said.

This was provocation enough. All hell broke loose. The barman retreated to the safety of the public bar. He heard the fight rage for a matter of minutes. When everything had gone quiet, he walked back into the private bar. So confident was he that the dockers would win outright, he uncapped three bottles of light ale and carried them through on a tray.

The scene that faced him is now legendary. Two of the dockers were sprawled unconscious on the floor, and the third man was just about conscious but obviously in a terrible state. There was blood and glass everywhere. He watched as Reg had to drag his brother off the third docker.

Ron never knew when to stop and without Reg’s intervention would almost certainly have killed the man. They pushed by the barman, frozen in shock and fear for himself, brushed down their suits, straightened their ties and walked casually out of the pub as if they’d just been in for a swift half.

The story soon became a part of gangland folklore in the East End. Don’t mess with the Krays was the message. They’re different. They had reached a turning-point in their status in the east London fraternity — there was never to be any going back.

If what the dockers offered were protection, you could keep it. Ron and Reg knew the time had come for them to move in, to exploit the situation. The brawl with the dockers was the second time they had been asked to pay protection money, and it was the second time they had come out on top. Enough was enough. It was glaringly obvious that they should come up with their own plans to muscle their way into the lucrative protection rackets. They were rife in the East End, and Mile End and Poplar were theirs for the taking. They’d fought for them and won.

From now on the Regal would no longer function simply as a legitimate business venture. It would be the operational base for Ron and Reg and other members of the firm. From there they would arrange the collection of their pension, as they called the protection money. From there they would, as Reg says to this day, supply a real and necessary service to their customers.

Reg believed that the firm should protect their clients from rival gangs, who didn’t operate in such a fair-minded way as they did. They would be peacekeepers — at a price — and customers had to pay that price, regardless. It was a good investment.

Protection was rife in the 1950s and still remains big business in any major city. The idea is simple enough: an organized gang or firm offers to protect businesses such as clubs, pubs, restaurants and amusement arcades for a fee. Some of these premises attract violence, especially at the weekends, when people would go out and get blitzed on booze or drugs and want to rampage through the place, tearing it apart. Heavies were needed to stop this happening. Other places were threatened by rival gangs, whose unwanted attentions would need frightening off. These businesses were pawns in the gangs’ games, but still in need of protection.

Whatever the situation, if any business approached by the firm refused to pay up, then they would soon find that their place of business would be burgled, torched, or just busted up. Business proprietors were over a barrel, between the devil and the deep blue sea. They paid up.

Whether ethical or not, the Krays prided themselves on providing a form of order in the East End. And they felt they were scrupulous and fair. Businesses were guaranteed safety and they generally had to pay protection money once, and not in various amounts to any number of rival gangs, each operating the same scheme. In that sense they were the best. Although they played on people’s fears, they were fearless themselves and unbeatable.

They provided a service that was unrivalled. Trouble was dealt with quickly and quietly by the twins, or by members of the firm acting on orders from them. They were always adamant that violence was to be used only as a tactical weapon, and in particular only against rival gangs and troublemakers. Nevertheless the threat of violence was the hub of the protection business. It never went away.

Reg Kray believed that the protection rackets, as they existed in the East End of London in the 1950s, were an ugly form of business. When the twins devised their own system, they wanted to give it a form of dignity and went out of their way to stress its advantages to their customers. They likened their system of operations to that of an insurance company. To them the protection racket was a business with something to offer, not something for nothing or extortion. They were quite prepared to supply a service and called it doing the business, which they did very diplomatically. Rarely did they demand money directly or violently.

The firm offered two forms of protection: nipping and pension. If you were on the nipping list, the Krays or one of the firm, would nip into a shop or pub and nip out again with a token, consumable payment, such as a crate of gin or cartons of cigarettes. Anything that they might use then and there, themselves or to hand out to their family and friends. Generosity opens doors and stores up favours.

Or they might spend an evening in a pub or club, standing drinks for everyone and anyone. At the end of the evening, with a word from the firm, the bill for the night out would be torn up and the evening’s entertainment paid for courtesy of the house. Sometimes a gold watch or pair of gold cufflinks engraved with RK would be left as security for a loan to the firm. A week or so later someone from the firm would call; Reg or Ron needed his cufflinks for a special outing. The question of the loan was never raised again.

The twins particularly liked this form of payment. It was the way friends operate, saying, ‘Forget it, this one’s on me,’ or ‘Your money isn’t any good here.’ To Ron and Reg, it made the scheme more acceptable and dignified. Always say please and thank you, even when you’re thieving it. With no money changing hands, no one got their hands dirty. In return, the twins emphasized that they were always on call to help. Just give us a call. Mates doing each other a good turn.

The pension list was altogether more businesslike. The arrangement would be worked out in advance by Reg. He based it on turnover. It was a percentage of the weekly takings and always strictly cash. Collection would be made on the dot, at a fixed date and time. The pension was where the real money was made, especially with those businesses that operated illegally, such as unlicensed gambling houses, clubs or bookies. No one could ever complain to the law. It was a watertight earner, though sometimes not just in cash terms. Occasionally, the twins liked to gamble and took a share in the business itself, instead of a cash payment. By the mid-sixties they’d expanded to about thirty share interests. It was boomtime.

The twins’ nose for business was unbeatable, but once or twice someone would slip through their net. One such was Peter Cook, entertainer and club owner. He was approached by Ron and Reg at the opening of his London club. Never ones to miss a commercial opportunity, as the Krays mingled and downed a few glasses of champagne, they approached Peter Cook with an offer he couldn’t refuse. Or so they thought.

The conversation began with the infamous opening gambit, ‘Don’t you think you need …’?

Cook’s reply was direct — and probably simplified by the fact that, at that time, he’d never heard of the Krays. He told them straight — he wasn’t in need of any protection. If any trouble cropped up, one of London’s largest and busiest police stations was right next door. Without losing face, the twins left as soon as they could. It was not a story ever to remind them of.

Failures were not that common in the firm, but as with every other business venture, they happened. Like any insurance company, the Krays were asked to cough up from time to time.

This happened with a car dealership, in the early days of their protection, towards the end of 1955. The twins had more car dealers on their books than they’d had hot dinners. They knew exactly the strings to pull to get you a motor. It was all legal and above board, except that you didn’t keep up your payments. You could bank on keeping it for a couple of years, the repossession from the finance company took that long at least.

On some occasions you didn’t need a deposit, but what had gone wrong this particular time was that a used car had been sold to a customer — and it had broken down the next day.

The man wanted his money back. Full stop. No excuses. When the dealer refused, the customer said he’d be back the following day — with some friends from south of the river. They were going to rough up the dealer and try to get the money back. As the dealer had been paying protection money to the twins, he called them up at the Regal and explained the situation.

Ron got really excited. At last a chance for some real action with a south of the river gang. He sent along a minder to babysit the dealership premises, who was to phone him at the billiard hall as soon as the gang turned up. But he was to be disappointed. The client showed on his own, full of apologies for how he’d behaved the previous day. With this climbdown from the customer, the dealer relaxed, and the two men started to sort it out in a friendly way.

Making friends was not on Ron’s mind when he stormed in ten minutes later, not aware of the new found common ground. Following the principle of shoot first and ask questions later, he emptied his gun, a Luger automatic, into the astonished customer.

Dressed in a Capone-style overcoat, he looked every inch a gangster. Fortunately, Ron was always a terrible shot, and the first bullet missed from point-blank range. Nevertheless one bullet lodged itself in the customer’s leg, and he writhed on the floor of the office in considerable pain.

Once he’d cooled down, Ron took stock of the situation and realized he had no enemies there. But possibly to hide his embarrassment or perhaps just in a blind fury that there was no opportunity of a shoot-out in the Wild West of the East End, he stormed off much as he’d arrived — unannounced and unexplained. Mopping up was left to Reg, as it often was. He made sure that the wounded man didn’t talk. He visited him in hospital and had a friendly chat. Reg could be very persuasive.

The twins were nearing their twenty-second birthday, with the firm a successful and thriving outfit. The Regal had proved an excellent base from which to develop their business activities, and the twins took advantage of any good idea or crooked scheme for making easy money. Even this early on it was clear that neither Ron nor Reg believed it possible to make a substantial living out of a legitimate business operation although they had turned the Regal round into profit, legally. Both twins felt sure that there was much more to be made from illegal or criminal activities.

One of the drawbacks of a life of crime came, however, when Ron was eventually arrested for grievous bodily harm and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on 5 November 1956. He wouldn’t be back at the Regal till the spring of 1959. Reg had been able to smooth things out for him in the past, but this time he couldn’t help his brother.

The tables were turned in 1960, when Reg landed an eighteen-month sentence in Wandsworth Prison for his apparent involvement in a shady protection deal. Reg had accompanied a man called Shay on a visit to a shop in the Finchley Road, north London. Shay had been paying Ron Kray for the use of his name in some business deals. Reg was there to help Shay, but Shay had not filled him in on all the facts. At the shop, Shay asked the owner for £100 and said that if he didn’t pay up, he’d be cut to pieces. At this critical moment, the police appeared from the back of the premises, arresting and handcuffing both men on the spot. Ron, himself out of prison now, was powerless to help get Reg off his conviction.

Through his friends and acquaintances at the Regal, Ron had established a network of his spies all over the Bethnal Green and Mile End areas of East London. The system worked well, and nothing escaped the attention of the Krays. Ron lived up to his name of the Colonel and ran the firm in a very strict fashion. Those who did well were rewarded; those who didn’t were dealt with most severely.

The information gathered by Ron’s spy network helped to form the basis of rackets that ran and ran — for the next fourteen years, until the twins’ arrest and imprisonment on 9 May 1968 — and were only slightly interrupted by their spells in prison. Most of these schemes still operate somewhere in Britain, only the names of the protectors have changed. The game goes on and probably will for decades to come. Some things just can’t change.