Читать книгу The Twins - Men of Violence - Kate Kray - Страница 7

I’d rather die standing than on my knees, begging to be released.’

Ronnie Kray

I woke up with a start. For a moment I had no idea where I was. I remember looking at the small alarm clock that stands on the bedside table. It was 3.35 am. I took a sip of water and lay back down. Then, suddenly, I saw my dad standing in front of me. He looked young. He was wearing his checked overcoat, the one he always wore when I was a child. I didn’t understand. I was puzzled because my father had died a year before. I studied my dad’s lovely face. I remember clearly asking, ‘What are you doing here, Dad?’

Dad smiled. A familiar smile. One that I had missed so much.

‘I wanted to see you,’ he answered.

I was puzzled. ‘But you are dead.’

Dad smiled and explained. He said that, yes, he was dead, but he never left me. He said that when I suddenly start thinking of him, for no reason at all, that’s when he is with me. I can’t usually see him but, he said, he makes himself felt inside my head.

I asked him, ‘How come I can see you now?’

He answered, ‘Because you are dead, too.’

At first I was shocked, then I was glad. I was with my father and I loved him.

I wanted to kiss him but I was afraid to, in case he got upset. Before his death he used to cry over the slightest little thing. But dad was happy.

‘No … no, it’s all right, nobody cries here.’

So I put my arms around him and cuddled him tight. I have always maintained that is what arms are for — cuddling.

Then I saw Ron. He looked great. He was wearing a Prince of Wales checked suit. His hair was jet black. I gasped, ‘Ron. You look brilliant. You look so young.’

He didn’t look like the Ron I knew. He looked more like the glamorous photos I had seen of him. He laughed and explained that after death, if a spirit wants to return to their loved ones, then they usually manifest themselves in the form of when they were at their happiest. In his case, it was in the 1960s. But Ron being Ron, he wanted me to pass on a message to Reggie. I promised that I would. He said, ‘Tell Reggie that I’m all right and that it is smashin’ here.’

He insisted that I got the message right. As usual.

At that point, my dad told me that it was time I went back. He said that it wasn’t my time yet. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with Ron and my dad. They said that it wasn’t possible. I miss my dad so much and I know he loved me. I was his little girl and I remember that whenever I went out in the evening when I was a teenager, my dad would always leave the landing light on until I got home safely.

Dad smiled at me. He looked at peace.

‘I’ll leave a light on in heaven for you,’ he said.

I kissed him goodbye. Then I kissed Ron.

I opened my eyes and I was back in my bed again. I sat up in bed. I wasn’t frightened. I felt calm but wide awake.

I always knew that it would take death to free Ron and Reg. How could it have been otherwise? No criminal in the history of Britain was more famous. They were celebrities. They were friends with members of the government; even members of the royal family could be seen in their clubs.

I’ve been asked so many times, why were they never freed? The answer is simple: they got too close. Too close to the establishment; too close to becoming untouchable. Even when they were nicked they knew it was coming. Why? Because Lord Boothby, a peer of the realm and good ‘friend’ of Ronnie, tipped them off.

If they had continued to get away with it for another couple of years, perhaps they would have become untouchable. They would have been so far removed from the crimes they committed it would have been impossible to trace anything back to them. Even in their heyday, Ron could walk into a pub, kill George Cornell, and tell everyone he’d done it, safe in the knowledge that nobody could touch him for it.

The twins set the standard for organised crime in Britain. They were glamorous and nobody, before or since has achieved the same level of sophistication. Look at the gangs nowadays. They don’t have the profile or the glamour of the Krays. Not a chance. Their crimes were vicious, yes; some would say barbaric. Even in prison, Ron could strike fear into the hearts of the toughest men around him. In Parkhurst one time, he was sitting having his dinner with a bunch of other cons, when somebody noticed he hadn’t eaten his greens.

‘Not eating your greens then, Ron?’ asked the con. Ron was silent for a few seconds, then he lifted up his metal tray and with a single sweep used it to slice off the con’s nose.

But it wasn’t their violent nature that sealed their fate. The bottom line was that they were far too famous …

When I was married to Ron, I used to visit him or phone him every day. I talked to him about being free all the time, and he always used to say, ‘Don’t worry about me Kate. Just help Reggie get free.’ Ron knew he belonged in Broadmoor. He knew he needed his medication. If he was feeling ill in the head, he’d say to me, ‘Kate, I can’t see you for a few days.’ He was sensible like that. All he wanted was for Reggie to get out.

By the time Reg was freed, he only had a few weeks to live. In my eyes, that was no act of kindness; that was an act of cruelty, to say to a dying man, ‘This is what you’ve missed for the last 32 years; now you’re dying, so you’ll never have it.’

Not that it would have bothered Reg. I can hear him now, being told he was going to be let out: ‘About fucking time, too!’ And he’d have been right. They could have released Reggie years ago, and if they had I’d have known where to find him every day: in Broadmoor by Ronnie’s side, not on the streets causing trouble. Reg would never have gone back into organised crime.

Ron, on the other hand, was a different matter. I asked him once what was the one thing he’d do if he was freed. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say — go down the East End, perhaps, have a drink with some friends. No. The one thing he wanted to do was to have a walk in the park and stroke a dog. After he’s shot three people, that is!

I spent so long talking to Ron, and Reg too — that was all we could do — talk. So much crap has been written about them, I think it’s time, now that they are gone, to set the record straight. In this book you will find stories about Ron and Reg from my time with them, but also tributes and anecdotes from members of the firm and others who knew them closely.

I want to tell the truth about them. They were violent men. Nobody knew that better than me. I’ll never forget the time Ron had the hump with me, and he told a friend of his, Mick, to kill me. Mick laughed and said, ‘Ron, you’ve got more chance of me killing you than Kate.’ Next time I went to see him after that, of course, I was all cocky — ‘Ha, you see, even Mick won’t kill me!’

Ron just held my hand and said in his quiet voice, ‘No, Kate. If I wanted to kill you, I’d just ask one of the nutters in here to do it on their home leave. They’d do anything for me.’ That soon wiped a smile from my face.

I’ve been on a visit with Ron and a couple of faces, and one of the guys would say something that upset Ron. You would never have known it to look at him. He just kept smiling and said, ‘I want you to leave now, ‘cos I want to have a word with Kate.’ They shook hands, and the geezer left thinking Ron was his best mate. Then Ron turned to the other face, and with a glint in his eye and in his quietest voice, he said, simply, ‘Kill him.’

And in the next breath he’d change his mind. But that was Ron.

Oh, he could be a nasty bastard, alright, and he knew it. But there was a softer side to him that few people ever saw. Sometimes on a visit I’d start crying, and Ron would never quite know what to do. He’d wipe the tears off my face, and nine times out of ten he’d end up wiping the mascara everywhere so I looked like a panda. Then he’d send me off to the bathroom to compose myself. When I came back, he’d apologise and say, ‘It’s the German in me, Kate. I’m sorry.’ Kray was a German name, you see.

I don’t want to pretend that they weren’t violent men. But there was far more to them than that. When you think about it, they were just a couple of ragamuffins from the East End who did something with their life. Show me a person who hasn’t heard of the Kray twins. It takes a certain kind of tenacity to become that famous, but at the end of the day they could hardly even read or write. Imagine what they would have achieved if they’d been educated …

I hope this book presents a rounded portrait of Ron and Reg Kray. When I used to talk to Ron, he’d tell me all his secrets, and say, ‘Pay attention, Kate. One day all this will make a good subject for one of your books.’ So much of what he told me I had to keep quiet until him and Reg had passed away. But I know they wanted the truth to be told. Now, at last, it can be.