20.

October 1967: ‘Jack the Hat’

The death of Frances caused a severe deterioration in the psyche of Reg Kray. Ron dominated him more than usual now that Frances was out of his life and the only way that Reg could get through each day was to drink. At first it was to get over the death of his young wife – but then it became a habit. Ron had won the battle of the minds and Frances was out of his brother’s life – forever.

But Reg just couldn’t forget – and he couldn’t forgive. In the main he couldn’t forgive himself for not seeing it, for not being there for her, for not understanding her plight as a gangster boss ‘moll’. He had put her up on a pedestal and then he had shot her down in flames. It wasn’t Ron who caused her death – it was him, Reg Kray, and no one else.

Reg was in a daze. He spent his time boozing and talking about Frances. Everything he did reminded him of her – and every time he took a woman to bed he remembered his wife and he remembered the pain he had caused her. Reg didn’t have problems with other women – he didn’t care for them, he didn’t love them. Frances had been different.

Things went from bad to worse as Reg tried to look for something to take his mind off things – and the only way to do that was to shoot his way out. He had his back against the wall and it was time to move, to show he was the equal of his brother in toughness and brutality. It was time to kill.

The first man he shot was a friend called Frederick. If he was willing to shoot his friends, then what about his enemies? The Firm and other gangs now began to fear Reg more than Ron, who had already achieved his ‘button’ and therefore had nothing to prove. Everyone knew he was a killer; everyone knew he was a paranoid schizophrenic.

Frederick wasn’t exactly expecting to be shot. Some months earlier he had said something not too pleasant about Frances but he was sure that Reg had forgotten all about the incident. Unfortunately for him, Reg Kray had a long memory and he wouldn’t let sleeping dogs lie.

One evening, after a huge drinking session, he got one of the Firm to drive him over to Frederick’s house. A woman opened the door with a hoard of screaming children in tow. Reg caused a fuss – swearing at the woman and trying to enter the house. The noise attracted the attention of her husband, who approached the top of the stairs leading down to the hallway. As he strolled quietly down the stairs Reg Kray drew a gun. The children hid behind their mother and their mother hid herself in the darkness of the hallway as best she could. Reg raised his gun and fired.

Frederick fell down the stairs. He had been shot in the leg and was in agony as the blood started to flow and melt into the carpet. Reg was dragged away and into the car. No one had expected the shooting, but they knew they had to get Reg away and let him sleep off the effects of the booze. As soon as Reg was tucked away in a safe house, Charlie was called on to pay Frederick a visit.

Charlie drove over to the house expecting the worst, fearing that Frederick was dead. But Frederick was only wounded and Charlie quickly found a friendly doctor who could repair the leg and help Charlie to repair the situation. As they put Frederick back to bed, Charlie stuffed some notes into his hands. ‘No talking, no police,’ was all he said. It was enough. The police were never informed of the shooting.

Ron heard about his brother’s night out and once more applied the pressure. ‘You can’t kill anyone – you haven’t got the bottle!’ he would scream.

Reg continued to carry a gun – and he continued to shoot people. But every case was covered up by the Firm and in particular Charlie, who earned himself the nickname ‘the Undertaker’. Relationships between the brothers were at their lowest level. Never before had they had to deal with Reg like this: he was now constantly drunk, day and night. The Firm were used to Ron and they had learned how to appease him and to control him. But Reg was different. They were twins, all right, but sometimes they seemed as different as chalk and cheese.

By October of 1967 Ron had decided that they needed to get rid of Leslie Payne. Payne knew too much. He knew their Mafia connections, he knew their crooked games and he knew how they got their money. Ron had totally lost confidence in his one-time loyal business manager. It was decided the only thing to do was to kill him. Then he couldn’t talk to the police, he couldn’t tell of their scams and he couldn’t embarrass the Krays.

The man he chose for the job was pill-pusher and pill-taker Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie. Thirty-eight years old, McVitie was a real villain. He had an unpredictable streak that made him uncontrollable, and he was prone to sadism and masochism. After carrying on with another man’s woman once, he had his hands smashed to warn him to ‘stay away’. But it didn’t help. Only a few short weeks later, with hands still bandaged, he was back on the streets looking for action.

McVitie was feared by women. Once he had thrown a woman from a car speeding along at 40 miles per hour. Her back was broken. She was too scared to talk to the police – she knew McVitie would kill her. She never talked to ‘Nipper’ Read and she never told the truth about her ordeal. McVitie was an outcast, on the fringe of the London gangs. This, then, was the unlikely man Ron Kray had chosen for the killing of Leslie Payne.

Ron and Reg had a meeting with McVitie. They gave him the money, a down payment of a hundred pounds with another four hundred to follow, after the event – and they gave him a gun. Two weeks later though, the job was still not done and the twins were beginning to worry. When Reg handed over another fifty pounds to McVitie Ron went berserk. Ron was right to be furious, for soon he and his brother became the hunted – and not the hunters.

In late October Jack ‘The Hat’ turned up at The Regency, shotgun in hand, looking for the twins. ‘I’m gonna shoot the bastards!’ he screamed. As luck would have it, the twins weren’t there that day and Jack walked away, the unused shotgun still in his hands.

On 28 October the whole Kray family were gathered for Violet’s birthday bash at a pub in Bethnal Green, when some news on the East End grapevine reached the twins. Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie was due any moment at The Regency. Reg left the celebrations at around 11 o’clock and went on the prowl.

At The Regency Reg settled down for the wait, but McVitie never showed. Reg continued to down the drinks and was soon pleasantly intoxicated. With no McVitie to confront, he gave his gun to Tony Barry, the manager of the club. ‘Keep this for me.’ he told him as he left the club and returned to his mum’s party.

Ron decided on urgent action. Immediately he sent Ronnie Hart, their cousin, over to The Regency to get Reggie’s gun back. ‘Tell Tony Barry to bring it back himself,’ he told him. A party was quickly arranged in a flat in nearby Everling Road in Hackney. It was a place they often used, so everyone knew it and no one would be suspicious. Ron then sent Tony and Chris Lambrianou out to find Jack ‘The Hat’ and bring him to the flat, telling him there were girls and booze galore.

Tony Barry arrived with the gun and then quickly left. He wasn’t about to get himself involved in a shooting. Reg now had his gun and was beginning to get his courage in the form of the booze and words of encouragement from his brother. ‘Now it’s your turn,’ he told a bewildered Reg. ‘It’s time to get your button!’

Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie was not difficult to find – and he didn’t appear to worry about being invited to a party by members of the Firm. When Tony Lambrianou parked his Ford Zodiac outside the house, McVitie was the first one down the stairs and into the basement flat. Tony and Chris Lambrianou followed close behind. There was no way out for ‘The Hat’.

Ron Kray was the first to greet him. ‘Fuck off, Jack,’ he shouted as McVitie rushed past him and his ‘boys’ and into the sitting room. ‘Where’s the girls?’ screamed McVitie in response. Suddenly it all became very clear. This was no party and no friendly gathering. This was a set up.

Reg Kray stood face to face with Jack ‘The Hat’. They stared intensely at each other, neither saying a word. Ron shouted at Reg to kill him there and then. ‘Shoot him!’ he screamed. Reg pulled out his .32 revolver and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Jack stood there for a moment, not believing what was happening. The members of the Firm also stood in silence. They were used to Ron carving people up, or even killing them. But this was Reg, the businessman of the two – the sane one.

Reg tried and tried again. Each pull of the trigger produced a ‘click’ and nothing happened. Jack ‘The Hat’ soon realised his predicament. He rushed for the back door, but was stopped by the Firm. He even put his hand through a glass window, trying to get out of that basement flat. There was nowhere to hide.

McVitie shouted his head off as he tried to subdue Reg Kray. But it didn’t help.

‘Be a man, Jack’ said Reg Kray as he pocketed his gun.

‘I’m a man, but I don’t want to fucking die like one!’ he blurted out, hoping for a reprieve. But McVitie knew there was no escape. Reg Kray had already grabbed a kitchen knife and held it up, ready to plunge it into the face of his adversary. The end was nigh.

Reg Kray stabbed McVitie in the face and neck. He did it again and again, until blood poured from the wounds and soaked into the carpet of the sitting room. Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie slumped into a heap on the floor – he was dead.

Ron Kray told his ‘boys’ to leave, they had seen enough. Tony Lambrianou was told dispose of the body. The only one then left at the flat was Albert Donaghue, who was told to get rid of the blood whatever it took. The twins wanted no sign of blood and no sign of a corpse. No body: no crime.

Tony Lambrianou and his brother Chris drove the bloodied remains of McVitie down to Kent, where a friendly fisherman fed the body to the fishes. It was a regular way of getting rid of bodies, along with the pig farm, the incinerator, the funeral parlour and the garden centre. Charlie Kray, the ‘Undertaker’ was sound asleep at the time, otherwise he most certainly would have been asked to dispose of the body.

At his trial Charlie Kray was accused of disposing of the body of McVitie. He may have been good at getting rid of bodies successfully, but McVitie’s was not one of them. When the police eventually got around to searching the flat, they found minute traces of blood under the newly-carpeted floor. Albert Donaghue was no good at cleaning and the link to McVitie was established.

Throughout the first 20 years of his sentence Reg Kray would not admit to the killing of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie. He even tried to get other members of the Firm to take the blame and confess to the killing – but no one did. It was a senseless murder by a man driven almost insane by booze and by the loss of his wife. There was though, in the end, only one man to blame for the killing – Reg Kray himself.