Читать книгу Doing the Business - The Final Confession of the Senior Kray Brother - Charles Kray - Страница 12

BOW ROAD WAS DESERTED on a miserable winter’s night. Bone cold with a drizzle that fell like a fine mist, cutting visibility by half. It was impossible to see across the road, the houses on either side were quite invisible to each other. On a street corner, two men had been hanging about for a while, only the occasional flare from their lighted cigarettes breaking the gloom from time to time. In that part of town, at that time of night, under those conditions, you jump to conclusions. Filthy weather for dirty business.

The truth couldn’t have been more different. That piss awful night, when only fools and villains might be out, Charlie and Reg were on a mission, but with no trouble in mind. The Kray empire was expanding. They wanted more outlets. A suitable building to house their new club. This is what had brought them out on a night that would have been better spent shooting pool and chewing the fat. A few drinks and jokes with the lads.

It was a huge and impressive-looking building with a large, adjacent car park. Ideal for a club, somewhere the punters could drive to in their cars. No problems with on-street parking. The house stood several stories high, and although in need of considerable refurbishment, it seemed pretty much right. Charlie and Reg mentally mapped out how it would be as they reccied in the dark, flashlights picking out the best and the worst bits. The only snag, as Reg saw it, was the large building on the opposite side of the car park that faced directly on to the main road: Bow Street Police Station.

Clubs opened and closed regularly in the West End. But a club on Bow Road, in the heart of the East End, would it really take off? Is this what people, staunch East End family people, wanted? Charlie and Reg had discussed it on and on. In the end it had come down to Charlie’s faith in Reg’s business sense.

Charlie had been chuffed when Reg asked him to join him in his latest business venture. Of course, with Ron banged up in prison for three years, it was only natural that he’d keep things in the family and ask his big brother. But Charlie was still encouraged. Blood was thicker than water, but so much of it had been spilt one way or another that you could never be sure.

Charlie only got involved in the business end of things. He liked to enjoy himself and keep a low profile. This was the way he did things. Ron’s enforced absence meant that Reg was more accessible to him. Separate from his twin, Charlie knew he had a million times better chance of getting on with Reg. Running the club would be much easier with just the two of them; threesomes could be difficult, especially as the twins made such a dauntless pair. Stuck like glue and more than the sum of their parts.

Charlie was on to a good thing, and he knew it. Ron’s being away for the next two years would give him and Reg a good crack at getting the club off the ground. Not necessarily megabucks, but good clean money, maybe with a bit of an edge on the side. A touch of the criminal fraternity but mostly straight up.

Spring 1957 saw the opening of the new club. Reg was still in his early twenties, but he found himself at the hub of the thriving Kray empire. And alone, with Ron inside. Charlie would help him. Of course he would. Plans had to be made quickly to secure the lease of the building, and Reg set the ball rolling in the only way he knew how — with raw, determined energy. There was never any time to waste for Reg. He was always well fuelled and became, with a good sense of direction, unstoppable.

Reg had got money to fund the new club from various sources. He’d done his sums carefully. With the money in hand, Charlie didn’t want to know where it’d come from. He just wanted to get in gear and get going, get the show on the road.

He had been back to the house with Reg to inspect it by daylight. Yes, Reg had done his homework and come up with a good investment opportunity. Why should Charlie worry? There was even a bonus. They had taken on the lease with sitting tenants in the upper storey.

‘I thought they could act as caretakers,’ Reg said. ‘It’s good to have people living in,’ he continued, and added without a hint of irony, ‘There’s a lot of thieves around.’

Neither of them was interested in the day-to-day details of the refurbishment, but one thing that grabbed Reg’s instant attention was any fine tuning on the fitting out of the gymnasium he’d insisted on installing. They had ordered a punchbag, a maizeball, weights and assorted weightbuilding apparatus, a sweatbox and a speed ball. Complete with a full size boxing ring, it would be a knockout in every way. All that was left to do was to decide what to call it.

The solution was simple. It was Charlie’s idea. Everyone around town called this area of London the Wild West. The East End was a lawless land, just like the early days of the Wild West in America. Yet it had its own laws and code of ethics. They were rigid and inviolable. Don’t shit on your own doorstep came high on the list. Never steal off your own, be it cars, cash or wives. Don’t accept the lawless — the craziness of drug dealers and ponces.

Inspired by all of this, Charlie came up with the name: the Double R Club. A cowboy, lone plains’ drifter tribute that was equally applicable to his brothers: Reg and Ron.

On a Wednesday evening in 1957, the Double R opened its doors for the first time. It proved an overnight success. Big Pat Connolly and Tommy the Bear Brown were taken on as doormen.

Hiring them all fitted in with how the Krays operated, playing largely on fear. Tommy the Bear was a pussy cat in a bear suit, a huge, gentle giant, whose bark was worse than his bite. In fact Tommy rarely, if ever, even spat or snarled. He didn’t have to. He was a scarecrow frightener, part of the Kray twins’ furniture. But if he didn’t work, then Charlie and Reg knew how to look after themselves. They were always there to defend themselves when push came to shove.

Connolly and Brown were on the front line. And they looked the part. Both big and ex-boxers, no one got past the door without their approval. Those who were allowed in were warned not to cause trouble. It was a house rule: no trouble. If there were any disputes, they would be settled well away from the Double R.

Punters tended at least to follow the letter of the law. After all, the Krays were supplying a service, a nice place where a bloke could take his wife or girlfriend for a good night out without the risk of fights or shootings or bother of any other kind. In-house entertainment was good, too, with Fred Merry, a famous fifties pianist. He and his drummer played every night of the week. The audience were encouraged to participate. On stage there was a full-height microphone for anyone who cared to sing, though, later, Queenie Watts was taken on as the house voice.

Reg knew all the tricks in the book when it came to giving people a good time. He was always open to anything that would make the club more professional and up to date -and capitalize in every way. He wanted to attract people in, give them a good time and show the West End establishments a thing or two. There are some things money can’t buy. Personal credibility thrived in the East End, even though the West End could boast flash cash flows.

The arrival of the jukebox at the Double R was all part of this. It kept the place humming. Customers played it during breaks in the live music and danced to the latest sounds. There was even room to jive, twist, rock and roll, or just plain old-fashioned cheek to cheek.

Club hours were from three in the afternoon to eleven at night sharp. This was the same every day of the week. After-hours drinking was discouraged, except behind closed doors for family and close friends. Weekends were always busy, and it soon started to attract so-called respectable customers from the West End. Local villains mixed with celebrities. Everyone loved it. Sybil Burton, Barbara Windsor, Jackie Collins would all drop by to enjoy an evening out and take time to chat with Reg or Charlie. Men with money started to show, looking for excitement. Reg was only too happy to oblige.

Life was good. Reg and Charlie had made a success of their business venture together.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing. Trouble, when it started, normally broke out during the day, especially the afternoons.

This was when most of the new customers came by. It was just such an afternoon, when Charlie was serving behind the bar, that three brothers walked in. They’d enrolled and hence been vetted in the usual way, so they got past Big Pat Connolly, no trouble.

Reg was standing at the bar with a gin and tonic in his hand, chatting. It was quiet, even slow, mid-afternoon. One of the three men invited Reg to have a drink with them. Reg refused. The man ignored him and said he’d buy him one anyway.

‘You’re having a drink,’ the man ordered. It was a stupid remark. ‘I’ll get you one, and you will drink it.’

He didn’t let up. The intruder ordered a gin and tonic for Reg, which Charlie prepared and put on the bar counter with his hand held out for the money. Calmly Charlie put the note in the till, rang up the cash register to give the man his change. The man held out the gin and tonic for Reg.

Without a word and as the sound of the cash-register bell died, Reg hit the man hard on the jaw with a vicious left hook. It laid him out flat.

It was then that Charlie joined in, to assist his brother, and before they knew what had hit them, the three brothers were bundled up and thrown out bodily into the street.

The regulars just carried on as normal. Most of them hadn’t even moved from their seats and were sitting drinking and chatting as if nothing had happened. All of a sudden, with the men now well out of earshot, Reg turned on Charlie.

‘What do you think you are doing?’ he yelled.

‘What d’you mean?’ Charlie replied. He was surprised by Reg’s reaction. ‘I came to help you, of course,’ he continued.

‘No, you don’t,’ Reg screamed. He pointed wildly. ‘You stay there — behind the bar. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself and those three fellas.’

Reg had been insulted by Charlie’s chipping in like that, as if he, Reg, couldn’t handle things himself. He had his reputation to protect. Charlie should have known that.

It went all quiet for a moment in the bar, until someone started to laugh. When Reg realized he’d made his point and reasserted his dominance, he managed a laugh too. The situation was defused. For the time being. But it was always a delicate balance with the Kray twins’ sensibilities.

Reg’s fierce and fearless attitude to danger, physical and emotional, was something that the regulars at the Double R talked about for years to come. His reputation as a tough guy was well earned. He didn’t suffer anyone gladly, although you’d often never know it until you got hit. But, he didn’t always use his fists to make his point. With more minor upsets during the evening he would sort them out quickly, negotiating. He was very good at that, Reg.

There was one particular incident that happened when Violet and old man Charlie were round the club. Queenie Watts had just started singing there, and they’d heard a lot about her, how good she was and so on. They would have come by anyway, so proud were they of their sons’ achievements there, but she was the specific draw that evening.

Violet was sitting in her favourite chair by the bar with old man Charlie, enjoying Queenie’s performance, when a big man, well over 6 foot, got up on stage and grabbed the microphone. He started singing rude songs but was soon shouted off by the other customers: ‘We want Queenie. Get off. We want Queenie.’

Reg spoke one word, quietly, in Charlie’s ear: ‘Trouble.’

It wasn’t until the man, obviously the worse for drink, walked up to Violet and tried to get her to dance with him that Reg made his move. As the drunk grabbed his mother, the entire club went quiet, and all eyes were fixed on Reg.

Without a change of expression, Reg walked straight over to the man and knocked him to the floor with his favoured left hook. Charlie then took over and dragged him out of the club, past the front desk and outside into Bow Road, where he dumped him unceremoniously in the street.

‘Don’t come back,’ he warned. ‘Just keep away, if you know what’s good for you.’

Outside on the pavement, the man had begun to come to. He was confused. What had happened? He couldn’t remember. Charlie hung about for a bit and told him. The man was genuinely apologetic — and embarrassed — he didn’t know what had come over him. It must have been the drink talking.

Eventually the two men shook hands, and in the months to come the drunken stranger became a club regular. But he took care to behave himself.

It was incidents like these that reinforced the idea of the club as neutral territory. As long as you did things the Kray way, you could come along, but you had to toe the line when on club premises. The Double R became a place where members of different gangs could meet without fear of trouble, and this earned it the nickname, Switzerland — neutral territory. The Krays had started to provide a service for all comers but always on their terms. They ruled OK or all out.

Reg had started to become a bit of a playboy, spending his time up West with young ladies. This was something new for him. When Ron was around, they didn’t make much time for women. Or rather, as an apparent womanizer, Ron didn’t actually take much interest in women.

Reg, on his own, operated differently. Charlie let him get on with it. He was married. Other women weren’t on the agenda. Live and let live. Reg’s behaviour wasn’t his business. But ironically, with the two brothers getting on so well, the only area of disagreement between them was to become Charlie’s wife Dolly.

Charlie had been married for years and had two children. He, Dolly and the kids lived in Stepney. Charlie made great efforts to keep out of trouble. Anything criminal and he was out of the way. It was going on all around him, but he wasn’t interested. But, it wasn’t this that got up Reg’s nose, it was Dolly.

Reg just didn’t like the way that Dolly would act. With the Double R, you’d think she owned it, the way she went on. It caused a lot of animosity. To top it all, Reg got the idea that Dolly was carrying on behind Charlie’s back, having an affair with one of the regulars at the Double R. Years later, when Charlie was in prison, the affair did come out, it was public knowledge. And no surprise to Reg, who’d suspected it all along. Reg really disliked Dolly.

The Dolly problem did interfere in Charlie’s relationship with Reg, but on the whole they got along fine, particularly because both agreed not to let Dolly interfere with their business arrangements. Charlie was as shrewd as Reg when it came to business. He urged to Reg to expand, to invest in more clubs, including gambling halls, and car dealerships. The adjacent car park often served as a showroom for the car dealing.

Reg acquired the Wellington Way Club in spring 1957. Here members could play blackjack, rummy and faro. Reg even started illegal bookmaking in a back room at the club. They made good money. And it was all in and around the same part of the East End. Their budding empire was easy to get to and to run, by keeping it so much together. It looked like nothing could stop them. Everything Charlie and Reg started turned to gold. With strict rules of conduct for the clubs and for themselves, they got on well with everyone, even old enemies.

Billy Hill, in the 1950s one of the old bosses of the London underworld, of the West End in particular, had begun to give Reg and Charlie a few good ideas, tipping them off with inventive investment opportunities. Billy Hill and Jack ‘Spot’ Comer were self-styled kings of London’s underworld from the forties, but by the time Hill started handing out advice to the Krays he had taken himself into retirement.

Charlie and Reg appreciated Hill’s help. Hill, in turn, needed his protégés, heirs to his business. He also wanted someone he could trust to keep an eye on the remaining business interests he still had in London. Through him the Krays became involved in all kinds of business, though their preference was certainly for the legitimate or at least semi-legitimate deal. Billy Hill was a shrewd operator, who had been successfully running protection for more than a decade.

Hill introduced Reg and Charlie to the West End of London, particularly to the gambling clubs. He had been a man of influence there and was still not without his contacts. The Krays’ visits to Soho with Billy Hill were a real eye-opener as to where the real money could be found and made. With changes in the gaming rules about to be instituted, Charlie and Reg knew it was an ideal time to get involved. And the ideal place would be the Double R. Prosperity, fame and a life of ease, without crime or at least almost so, seemed within reach. Charlie and Reg were on their way. There was, however, one major obstacle: Ron.

Ron had been inside for two years, and Reg and Charlie had made the most of this time. They’d had a good two years. But, it couldn’t last for ever and Ron would be out soon. He had made a fleeting visit to the Double R during his escape from Long Grove Hospital, where he’d been sent during his prison sentence. It was a plan that had been engineered by his family and friends. That visit had been brief and unremarkable in terms of running things. Once Ron came out for good, though, in 1959, and joined them at the club, everything changed for the worse.

Ron started to take over. He would invite his friends to the club, and he was uninhibited about spending the ‘house’ money. He enjoyed the club, and he behaved as he always had. He would run up a bill and have it wiped clean at the end of the evening, just like one of his protection deals. But this was his home patch, not some protected public house or drinking club.

Ron’s behaviour became a real problem. He was out of prison and a bit out of his head. Not at all well. He was very moody, up and down. No one could handle him. His paranoia was knife-edge and high, and one of his beefs was the way he thought Charlie had taken his place with Reg. Although Reg had tried to explain to Ron the practicality of his and Charlie’s business arrangement, Ron was not prepared to understand or even to listen. He thought both Reg and Charlie had been disloyal to him. For a while he wouldn’t have much to do with either his twin or Charlie, spending much of his time away in the country, in Jersey or just out.

Reg and Charlie wanted to get on with their lives. To make more of what they’d started with the Double R and their new business deals. The living was good. It was legal, or near enough, and they had no problems with the law. They didn’t want trouble, full stop. They had made a truce with all the other gangs to try to secure peace. But Ron soon changed all this.

Ron caused major fall-outs with other gangs, and he began to rule the roost again, in much the same way as he had done before his sentence. He stirred everyone up. He wanted fame, and he wanted to fight for power. That was Ron’s way. Reg and Charlie could only sit back and watch everything they built up together dissolve right in front of their eyes.

If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em. Reg felt this way. Ron’s influence was too strong for him to resist, and before long he was following his twin’s example. Reg began to take less and less part in the running of the Double R along the lines he and Charlie had established. It was the beginning of the end. No one could control Ron, and eventually he won. Violence, which had been a rare occurrence at the club, became a regular, nightly event. It got even worse when one night someone tried to shoot Reg as he was shutting up for the night. And then the police took to raiding the Double R all the time.

One such raid occurred early on a midweek evening. The police poured into the club on the pretext of checking the customers’ membership. When Ron saw the police enter the club, he rushed up on stage and stopped the music. Fred Merry had been entertaining a few early evening customers with some old favourites.

Ron snatched the microphone from Fred and announced, ‘I’m sorry about this. It’s a police raid.’

He paused for a moment, before adding, ‘Since none of these gentlemen is a member, they will be leaving very soon. We are not allowed to serve non-members here!’

Ron just had to have his little joke, at any expense.

The police were there to search the place. They didn’t know what they were looking for — they were just looking. Reg really got mad when some of the police raced up the stairs to the gymnasium. It was in use by regular punters, just men training who didn’t have any edge to them other than boxing. It was a popular training establishment for many champions and boxers alike, men such as Barney Bill, Ken Johnstone, Tommy McGovern, Terry Allen and from time to time even Henry Cooper. They didn’t like interruptions at the best of times.

Reg got so furious as he watched the gym, his pride and joy, overrun by the law. He took off his jacket and sprang into the boxing ring, yelling, ‘Come on, then. If this is what you really want. If any of you young officers want any trouble, then just come here. Then it’ll be all legal.’

It was clear that Reg wasn’t just mouthing off. He meant every word. No one took his challenge and, ignoring him, the police left the club as abruptly as they’d arrived.

For that evening at least, there were no more uninvited guests at the club. But things could really only get worse. And they did. After three years in operation, they were refused a spirits licence and had to close down.

Over the preceding year, the police had shown increasing interest in the club, and it had been under police surveillance for some time — from the time when Ron had first been on the run from Long Grove Hospital. With Ron around full time, relations with the law had gone from bad to worse. But the final nail in the Double R’s coffin had come when Reg had refused to help the police to find Ronnie Marwood.

Marwood had killed a policeman, and it was common knowledge in the East End that Reg Kray knew where he was hiding. Reg blankly refused to help with their enquiries, not because he was a good friend of Marwood but because he could not bring himself to inform to the police. No grassing was an important part of his code of ethics. He wouldn’t budge. It would have been unthinkable.

Reg’s silence annoyed the police, but they couldn’t break it. What they could do was to return the disfavour.

When the Double R’s licence came up for renewal, they refused it. There was a distinct difference in attitude between the law that ran the East and West Ends of London. In the West End, money talked, bribery worked, and problems were ironed out with hard cash. In the East End, however, any slight disagreement was dealt with quickly and harshly by the police. One of their favourite secret weapons was to withdraw or refuse a spirits licence. It was highly effective.

Maybe it had something to do with respect or regard for people of influence. Maybe it was the lure of a large wad of notes in their hands. Maybe it was a more fluid society with greater social mobility than the East End. Whatever the reason, a lot more police bribery and corruption occurs in the West End.

The Double R was forced to shut its doors. It was a sad occasion, especially for Reg. The club had been his baby, his idea in the first place. He had put a huge amount of effort and energy into it and had made it very successful. The gymnasium had been a major part of it. Reg was immensely proud of his achievement, but it all had to go. Ron Kray, the Colonel, had woven his spell and made sure of that.

There was one loose end that remained to be tied. Down in the club cellars there was enough booze to open an off-licence. But that wouldn’t be the Krays’ style, to do something so obvious — or so legitimate. Instead, they boarded up the windows of the Double R and held a huge party for all their family and friends. They drank and partied for days until all the spirits, wine and beer had gone, every last drop. They’d been stopped for the time being but had fun ending it. They’d be back in business before too long. That much was certain.

With the closure of the Double R there was no longer any neutral territory in the East End, where rival gangs could try to settle their scores without resorting to violence. There was no longer any club where a man could take his wife without fear of fighting or drunkenness interfering with their night out. There was no longer a hope for Reg and Charlie Kray to run a purely legitimate business. They had shown themselves capable, but Ron hadn’t allowed this to develop.

Charlie and Reg had been driven back underground. If the Double R had carried on, then maybe they would have found some way of integrating Ron — of controlling his unfocused energy. Of bringing him out of himself — and in with them — above ground and within the law.

Ron hadn’t wanted that. He wouldn’t try for the straight and narrow. He remained complicated, difficult and wanted to operate only on his terms. From here on it became the laws of the Wild West that reigned supreme in the ever expanding frontiers of the East End underworld.