The early hours of Sunday 29 October 1967. The ringing of the phone shattered the silence of my bedroom. I reached out for the receiver and grunted, ‘Hello.’ It was Harry Hopwood.
‘Something’s happened,’ he said. ‘It’s very urgent. You’ve got to come over.’
‘What?’ I asked sleepily. ‘It’s three in the morning.’
‘Ronnie said you’ve got to come over. It’s very urgent.’ Harry sounded very worried.
‘I’ll get over as soon as I can,’ I said. I put the phone down, wondering what could be so urgent that Ronnie would get Harry Hopwood to ring me in the middle of the night.
As I drove to Hopwood’s house my mind ran riot with vivid imaginings. But nothing could have prepared me for the horrific revelation waiting for me at 14 Ravenscroft Street, Bethnal Green.
A distant cousin of ours, Ronnie Hart, opened the door. His face was pale, his expression worried.
‘What’s going on?’ I demanded to know.
Hart motioned with his head to a back room. ‘They’re in there. You better ask them.’
I strode into the back room: Ronnie and Reggie were sitting in two armchairs.
I looked at Ronnie, then at Reggie. My heart raced with apprehension. ‘What’s going on that’s so important at this time of the morning?’
‘We’ve done McVitie,’ Ronnie said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I knew Jack McVitie. He was a small-time villain, who was always shouting his mouth off about what he’d done or was going to do. He was bothered by his baldness and always wore a hat to cover it. He was called Jack The Hat.
He was also a crank; everyone knew it. For weeks he’d been slagging off the twins saying what he was going to do to them. One day they collared him and warned him he was heading for a lot of trouble. Shortly afterwards he went into The Regency, high on drink or drugs, armed with a shotgun, and started shouting that he wasn’t scared of anyone – the twins included. He was warned that he was going too far. But he said he didn’t care.
I stared at Ronnie. ‘What do you mean, you’ve done McVitie? How bad?’
‘We’ve killed him,’ was all Ronnie replied.
I couldn’t believe what I’d heard, couldn’t take it in. My heart raced faster; my head pounded. I could understand teaching McVitie a lesson. But, murder?
‘You’ve done WHAT?’
‘It’s true,’ Reggie said.
Between them, they told me the story: they’d all been to a party, Chris and Tony Lambrianou, their pals from Birmingham, Ray and Alan Mills, Ronnie Bender and Ronnie Hart. Someone told the twins McVitie had been shouting his mouth off in The Regency again and Ronnie arranged for him to be brought to the party in Stoke Newington. Things had got out of hand.
‘That’s lovely,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Well, that’s it. You’ve gone over the top this time. End of story.’
Typically, Ronnie said, ‘Well, it’s done now. That’s the end of it. He had it coming anyway.’
‘He’d been mouthing himself off about what he was going to do,’ Reggie chimed in.
Hopwood came in with some tea, and I drank some quickly to calm myself. I glared at the twins.
‘Nice,’ I said sarcastically. ‘You have somebody over. Now you ring me up at three in the morning.’
‘The Old Bill are going to be buzzing,’ Ronnie said.
‘So? What’s that got to do with me? I wasn’t involved. I wasn’t there.’
They said nothing.
‘What’s happened to him?’ I asked.
They shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ Ronnie said. ‘Somewhere in South London, I think. The Lambrianous have taken him.’
I shook my head slowly from side to side. I didn’t know what else to say to them; but I did know I wasn’t involved and didn’t want to be. I decided to stay out of it and let them sort it out themselves, so I left the house and went home. Dolly woke up as I went in. I made up some cock and bull story about the twins having a row and told her to go back to sleep. There wasn’t much sleep for me. Since the Cornell killing, police pressure had been stepped up. With a second East End murder they would go potty. I’d been woken up from a dream and dragged into a nightmare from which there would be no escape from the ghost of Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie.
As I lay there, it struck me that I didn’t know how McVitie had met his death. I hadn’t asked. And the twins hadn’t told me. They never liked talking about their rows.
Later that morning Ronnie and Reggie changed their clothes and set off for Hadleigh, in Suffolk, where we had spent our evacuation. They took Ronnie Hart with them and left Ronnie Bender to clean up the flat in Evering Road, where McVitie had met his death.
The twins and Hart spent a week away, keeping on the move among the villages and hamlets of the pretty east coast country. They kept in touch with me by telephone and were relieved to hear that Jack The Hat’s disappearance did not seem to have caused any undue police activity. When they returned they were buoyant and overjoyed, carefree almost. The only thing they could talk about was this fabulous Victorian house they had found in Bildeston, a few miles from Hadleigh. It was set in eight acres, with stables, a paddock and a stream running along one boundary. It was called The Brooks and it was on the market for £12,000. The twins snapped it up.
Mum and the old man, who had moved from Vallance Road to a tower block in Bunhill Road, not far from the Bank of England in the City, did not need much persuading to move to Bildeston and for the next few months The Brooks was the centre of the twins’ lives.
They spent thousands doing it up and Ronnie took great delight in giving children from the village the run of the paddock, including a donkey which they could ride. Christmas was celebrated in style, with lashings of food and drink, and Mum and the old man were as happy as they had ever been, surrounded by family and friends in a house that surpassed their wildest dreams. The ugly face of villainy seemed a million miles away: a brief glimpse of a strange face in the village or a car cruising past the house were the only reminders that the police were still interested in us.
That period of the twins’ lives was hardly idyllic, but the atmosphere was quiet and peaceful and they loved it. For two young men with a couple of corpses on their consciences they were remarkably relaxed. Far from worrying about being arrested, they started talking about retiring from the London scene and becoming country gentlemen.
It was the calm before the storm. For when the twins returned to London early in 1968, the East End was buzzing with rumours that the law had been busy and it wouldn’t be long before the Kray Firm was nicked. Typically Ronnie and Reggie laughed in the face of the impending danger. They honestly believed that they were invincible and that no one would dare ‘grass them up’. I advised them to go away for a few months, maybe longer, to take the heat out of the situation but they just said, ‘Why should we run away? This is our home. No one can touch us.’
Every night they drank in the Carpenter’s Arms with their Firm, oblivious, it seemed, to all that was happening around them. Night after night, drinking, drinking, drinking. It seemed to prove something to them: if you went drinking with them, you were a lovely bloke. I did not go drinking every night, with them or anybody. I knew what was looming and I didn’t want to get involved. During the day, I kept myself busy with my coat factory and theatrical agency. At night, more often than not, I’d be at home with Dolly and the kids.
But one night I had to see the twins about something and went to the Carpenter’s Arms.
All the Firm were there, as usual, sitting around like bit-part actors in a bad gangster movie. Ronnie started having a pop at me; mocking me for never drinking with them, for being hen-pecked, ‘under the cosh’.
Then Reggie started putting in his twopenn’orth on the same theme and I lost my temper – ‘went into one’, as we say in the East End.
‘See this lot here,’ I said, my eyes sweeping the Firm sneeringly. ‘They hang round you. They love whatever’s going on. They love the violence. They love being bloody gangsters.’
‘You’re a nice bloke,’ Ronnie said, taken aback. ‘All these nice guys…’
‘Nice guys!’ I yelled, feeling all my anger at what was going to happen to us welling up inside me. ‘You know what’s going to happen?’
I glared at Ronnie. ‘You’re going to get nicked.’ I glared at Reggie. ‘And you’re going to get nicked. And I’m going to get nicked, too.’
I glared at the Firm. And they sat there, their mouths open, shocked at dear old Charlie, good old, quiet, straight Charlie, losing his rag.
‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ I said, my voice rising. ‘You see all these clever Jack the lads here? They’re going to give evidence against you. And I’m going to have to stand there and take it all. For you.’
The twins stared at me disbelievingly. I don’t think I’d ever shouted so loudly and been so angry in front of people before.
Finally Ronnie found some words, ‘You’re being disloyal, Charlie,’ he said.
‘No I’m not,’ I said. ‘I don’t owe any of them any loyalty at all. They’re your mates, not mine. But I can promise you this. You won’t get any loyalty from them when the Old Bill gets lively. They’ll grass you up as fast as you like.’
I didn’t care that the Firm was there. Big Pat Connolly was all right except when he’d had a few and Bender was a bit of a laugh. But the rest I wouldn’t give two bob for. I didn’t give a monkey’s what anyone thought. My views on them and what they would do to the twins was long overdue anyway.
Yuka Stuttgart was a ravishing blonde Swiss beauty who had earned the title Playboy Bunny of the Year in 1966 under her Playboy name, Surry Marsh. She looked me up in London at the suggestion of Joe Kaufman, and when the Leicester club opened she was the perfect partner for me. She turned out to be something else, too – the unwitting catalyst that brought Diana and me together.
The club was bustling with activity that September night. Everyone was done up to the nines and no expense had been spared to give the club a champagne launch. I walked into the club proudly, the sumptuous Surry Marsh on my arm. Heads turned; knowing smiles were exchanged.
Later, Diana came up to our table to serve something. She motioned her head towards Surry, engaged in conversation with someone on the other side of the table. ‘I must say you have beautiful friends,’ Diana said quietly.
I grinned. ‘Yes. She’s very attractive.’
Diana’s eyes twinkled. ‘Well, you’ll enjoy yourself there, even if the club’s not up to much.’
I laughed. I admired her sauce. She always saw the positive side of situations.
And although it was a flippant remark, just a bit of harmless nightclub banter, there was something in Diana’s warmth and friendliness that I found appealing and, in a way, exciting.
Surry and I spent the night together in Leicester and returned to London the next day. The following week I went back to the club, Di accepted my invitation to go for a drink and the affair began. After the dreariness and monotony of marriage to Dolly I found Diana’s exuberance and love of life exhilarating and refreshing. She was so much fun she didn’t have an enemy in the world, although she was having a very bad time with her husband who had beaten her up a few times; but she kept her unhappiness to herself.
Chemin-de-fer games were all the rage then and Trevor and I opened a new club in Coventry. I had to spend my Wednesdays there, but that didn’t stop Diana and I seeing each other. She would ring the Leofric Hotel to find out if I’d checked in, then get a taxi from Leicester after work at the club.
Diana was such an attractive creature that she was never short of admirers. One of them was Con Cluskey, a member of the Bachelors singing group, which was appearing in Coventry at the time. Con was mad about Di; he would tell me so every time we had a drink. And he was always wanting Diana to dance with him. Happily for me, Di preferred my rough-edged Cockney and didn’t fall for the Irish blarney. Those mid-week spells together were joyously happy for Diana and me – welcome breaks from our respective homes where we were less and less content. But as our feelings became deeper, the need to see more of each other grew. When, early in 1968, Diana said her marriage had got so bad she was going to leave home, I knew the time had come for me to make a similar decision.
It wasn’t easy with the increasing activity around the twins. Diana was no fool, but she was blissfully innocent of any kind of villainy and I was worried she might hear bad things about the Krays and associate them with me. As tactfully as I could, I explained that the twins had been involved in the odd bit of trouble and had given the name a notoriety. I warned her that it was possible something might happen. Diana, bless her, told me not to worry: she knew me well enough to know I wasn’t a villain and that was enough for her. She didn’t care what people thought.
Relieved, I decided to tell Mum about the woman I wanted to share my life. But just before I was going round to see her, something happened which I had to put before everything else.
Reggie was having a drink in the Carpenter’s Arms one night when two plain-clothes policemen walked in. Reggie told the barman to give them both drinks. They accepted, then asked to speak to Reggie privately. Reggie said, ‘What about the toilet?’ and they all went in there.
The two men said they were well aware what went on with fit-ups; sometimes they agreed with them, sometimes they did not. They had just come from a meeting where it had been decided to set somebody up. And this time they did not like it at all.
Because the person who was going to be fitted up was me. And everyone knew I was straight.
The plan, they told Reggie, was to plant drugs in my car, then stop me on some pretence. Reggie asked why they wanted to put me into the frame; the cops said the powers that be were upset at some of the things I’d done to get the twins out of trouble. They told Reggie to tell me to make sure my car was secure whenever I left it.
Before they left, Reggie offered them money for the tip-off but they refused, saying that if they took it he would think that was the only reason they had come, when in fact they had come because of the principle. It may be hard for Reggie to believe, they said, but it was true.
After the pub shut, Reggie rang me. He didn’t want to talk about it on the phone but asked me to go round to his place very early the next morning.
When I heard what it was all about I went spare. I rang a friend on the Sunday Pictorial, Norman Lucas, and told him the whole story. I told other people, too, and I told them to tell their friends. And then, just in case that didn’t make the Old Bill think again, I fitted my car with the most sensitive alarm system I could afford; it was so sensitive, the wind set it off one night!
I’m happy to say that, in the end, the fit-up never happened.
Thank God for coppers with principles.
Mum, as usual, did not criticize me when I finally told her about Diana. She listened intently as I explained that it was over with Dolly, that I’d met someone else who was everything Dolly wasn’t, and then she said if that was what I really wanted, she would like to meet Diana. Whether she was tempted to tell me what she knew about Dolly and George Ince I don’t know; she didn’t say anything. I arranged to bring Diana to the flat the following Wednesday then I walked out along Bunhill Row in the late April sunshine feeling cheerful, and a little light-headed. Telling Mum had made a huge difference; had made it all right in a way. She was going to love Diana.
But Diana couldn’t come to London the following week because one of her children fell ill. I was disappointed; I’d been looking forward to introducing the two women I loved deeply. But I wasn’t too bothered. There was no rush. I would go to Leicester, as usual, next Wednesday, 8 May, and bring Diana back with me. Seven days wouldn’t matter.
Sadly, it was to be nearly seven years before I saw Diana again.
They came for me that Wednesday at 6 A.M.
The doorbell rang and there was heavy knocking on the front door. Dolly sat up in bed. ‘What’s that, Charlie?’
I put on a dressing gown and shuffled sleepily downstairs. I opened the door to the full extent of the safety chain. I didn’t get a chance to ask who it was or what they wanted because three plain-clothes detectives shoved against the door, breaking the chain.
‘Hold up,’ I said, suddenly wide awake. ‘What’s wrong?’
They all closed in on me so that I couldn’t move.
‘Let’s go in here, shall we?’ one of them said. They ushered me into the lounge. One of them eased me into a chair; another took the phone off the hook.
My eyes went from one to the other searching for a clue to what it was all about. All I could think in my confusion was that they were not Metropolitan Police, and that they were probably armed.
By now Dolly had come down with Nancy, wondering what all the fuss was about. Then Gary appeared, looking bewildered. They all stood there, looking at me, hoping I’d tell them what was going on.
I looked at the senior officer and demanded to know what I was supposed to have done to warrant my front door being broken open at six in the morning.
He said I was being arrested on a charge of conspiracy to defraud. I stared at him in shock. I’d never defrauded anyone in my life, was all I said. They cautioned me that anything I said would be taken down and might be used in evidence against me. I decided to say nothing else. There was nothing to say: the allegation was utter nonsense.
They told me to get dressed as they were taking me to the nick. The three of them stood watching as I washed. I wanted to shave, but they told me not to bother. Then, after I’d dressed, Dolly made some tea and we all stood around drinking it and making polite conversation like strangers at a vicar’s tea party. Finally one of the officers said we were leaving and produced a pair of handcuffs. He asked me to hold out my hands. Flabbergasted, I said, ‘Are you joking?’
He ignored me and tried to put the handcuffs on me. But they were too small and he couldn’t fasten them. I told him not to be daft; I didn’t intend running away. But the officer wouldn’t give up and kept pinching my flesh, trying to get the cuffs locked. The top man looked put out, but finally told his colleague not to bother.
I told Dolly and the kids not to worry: I would be back as soon as I’d sorted it out at the police station. Then I was escorted to a police car, a copper on either side holding the sleeves of my jacket.
About an hour earlier, more than a dozen police had got out of the lift on the ninth floor of Braithwaite House, Bunhill Row. They padded stealthily to Number 12. One of them smashed the door with a sledgehammer then they rushed in, pistols at the ready. Some of the men darted into Ronnie’s bedroom; the rest went into Reggie’s.
Ronnie woke up with about ten guns pointed at his chest. He reacted with customary coolness. ‘I’d be careful with those,’ he told them. ‘One of them might go off.’
They told him to get out of bed slowly and he said sarcastically, ‘What do you think I do – sleep with a bloody machine gun?’
Reggie was in bed with a young woman and Ronnie in another bed, with a young boy. Both were naked, and the police ordered them to get out and stand there while the room was searched. Reggie asked if they could put some clothes on. He was told no. He was angry, not only at being arrested, but also because the girl was being degraded. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t just take him out of the room and leave her alone.
Suddenly the caretaker of the flats came up. He was shocked at the broken door and the mess inside. He made some protest and asked what was going on. A couple of the officers told him, ‘Fuck off.’
About half an hour later Ronnie and Reggie were driven to West End Central police station.
As they left the flat in handcuffs, Ronnie looked at the once-beautiful Chinese carpet Mum adored. It was littered with dozens of cigarette butts stamped out by the dawn visitors.
Getting into the Rover I was not unduly bothered, because my conscience was clear: I was not guilty of fraud and that was that. When we got to Bow Street nick I’d call my solicitor and put things straight.
However, as the car pulled away from the house in Poplar I had a slight feeling of unease: police wanting to arrest someone on a charge of fraud did not force open doors early in the morning and treat the suspect as though he was going to shoot his way out of trouble.
And I knew I was right when the car roared past Bow Street nick and kept heading west. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘You’ll know soon enough,’ one of the officers said brusquely.
As we sped through London’s sleeping streets in silence, one thought kept coming back to me as my mind reeled with the possibilities of what lay ahead: whatever it was had better be sorted out quickly, because today was Wednesday and I was going to Leicester to see Diana.
I was thinking about her as the Rover swung into West End Central police station in Savile Row.
Inside it was bedlam. Dozens of police were racing around in organized confusion; giving or receiving orders, asking or answering questions, taking notes, speaking on the telephone. I had little time to take it in because I was hustled into a waiting room at the rear of the station, but I did get a fleeting glimpse of some familiar faces that confirmed what I’d begun to suspect: I had been dragged out of bed by something far more serious than an allegation of fraud.
Within minutes, a sergeant read out a charge and cautioned me. The charge had something to do with American bonds and was a load of nonsense. I asked for permission to ring a solicitor, but was refused. All my possessions had been taken from me at home, but I was searched again. Then I was put in a cell. It was now about 8 A.M.
Over the next few hours, there was a lot of rattling of keys, slamming of doors, and raising of angry voices as other cells filled up and people were questioned. Through the tiny bars of the cell’s solid door, I saw a lot of faces I recognized: members of the twins’ so-called Firm and other East End characters, including Limehouse Willey and Harry Hopwood. The procession seemed endless, and highly significant.
Two faces I didn’t see were those of Ronnie and Reggie. When I finally did see them, it was nearly two days later- at 3 A.M.
I was taken from my cell into the charge room and there they were, looking as rough as me: dirty, scruffy, unshaven, and red-eyed through lack of sleep. Ronnie was in a shirt because the police had not allowed him to put on a coat. He asked if I was all right. I would be, I said, if someone would tell me what was going on.
Then all the rest were brought in and senior officers started taking particulars. Sitting at one desk, with inspector’s pips, was someone I’d known for years, ever since he was a constable on the beat. He was a terrific rugby player and once, when we both found ourselves in the South of France, I played with him against the French Navy in a stadium at St Raphael. He was plain PC Vic Streeter then, but now he was Detective Inspector Streeter and he was sitting behind a desk taking down my details. We didn’t mention the past.
I then had to stand before a young bloke at a typewriter, who asked daft questions such as: ‘Do you have blond hair?’ ‘Have you got blue eyes?’ I had not been through anything like that before and I didn’t like it; besides, tension and lack of sleep had made me short-tempered. Finally I could stand the bloke’s inane questions no longer and snapped, ‘Do you need bloody glasses or what?’ He shut up.
You could almost feel the tension in that small, crowded room. It needed something to break it and, of course, it was Ronnie who provided it.
Everyone’s particulars had been noted and the law were wondering what to do with us, when Ronnie suddenly called out, ‘Nipper!’
Detective Superintendent Read turned round. ‘Yes, Ronnie?’ he answered, respectfully.
‘Any chance of a bit of bail?’ said Ronnie, po-faced.
The whole room cracked up.
Read coughed quietly. ‘Er, I don’t think so, Ronnie,’ he said, fighting to stop himself laughing.
‘Just thought I’d ask,’ Ronnie added with a grin.
Early on Friday morning things started to happen: it was orderly and purposeful, with no sign of Wednesday’s confusion. I was taken from my cell, closely guarded by two coppers, and ushered into a Black Maria at the back of the nick. I had never seen inside one of those forbidding vehicles and I got a shock. A narrow passageway ran along the centre of what was a converted large van; on either side of the aisle were small cubicles – rather like tiny dog kennels – which allowed the prisoner to stand or sit but little else. Once inside the cubicle the prisoner was cut off from the outside world except for a restricted view from a small window.
When we were all inside, the Black Maria moved out of the yard and the sirens started. They howled deafeningly during the whole journey down Regent Street, around Piccadilly Circus to the Strand and up Bow Street to the magistrates’ court, opposite Covent Garden Opera House. Through my tiny window I caught sight of startled pedestrians rushing to get out of the way of the high-speed van and its escort of motorbikes and cars.
It was an elaborate, costly pantomime.
At Bow Street, the twins and I and several others were charged with a number of offences from petty larceny to conspiracy, all of which were merely holding charges that were later dropped.
During the lunch break, we were all shepherded into a large room and left on our own. Something wasn’t quite right; I sensed it and so did the twins. Then I realized that a door on the other side of the room led into a corridor which, in turn, led to the street.
‘This is a get up,’ I said. ‘They’ve put us in here deliberately. They want us to make a run for it.’
I could picture the newspaper headlines: Dangerous Gang In Dash For Freedom. Everyone agreed with me and we just sat around in that room waiting for someone to come in.
When Read arrived Ronnie couldn’t resist it. ‘We’re still here, Nipper,’ he said. ‘Sorry about all your little Firm waiting outside with their guns. You must think we’re silly.’
For the twins, hearing they were being remanded in custody came as no surprise. To me, who had never been inside a jail, it was a great shock. But it was nothing to the humiliation I felt during my first few hours in Brixton Prison in South-West London. I was ordered to strip totally naked in front of two prison officers, then subjected to a most intimate search. I couldn’t believe they seriously thought I’d had the foresight to insert money, tobacco or cigarette papers in my rectum, which, I learned, some forward-thinking prisoners do prior to being sentenced. I was told to take a bath. The water was tepid and just nine inches deep, but I attacked my body vigorously and thankfully. I hadn’t seen soap or water for three days.
I was then allowed to put on my clothes and was shown into a room, where Ronnie and Reggie were sitting. They seemed in good spirits and Ronnie took great delight in telling us what he’d said to the armed copper who had disturbed his sleep three days before. I was not able to share their light-hearted approach to our predicament; I had businesses on the outside that would not run themselves. I had children who needed me. And what about Diana? But at least the twins and I were happy on one score: Mum and the old man were miles away from the aggravation, safely tucked up in that comfortable house amid the tranquillity of the Suffolk countryside.
We were not allowed to spend long together. We suspected the room was bugged so we kept our conversation to trivialities. Whoever was listening quickly got bored and we were taken to separate cells.
As the massive door clanged behind me, I looked at what was to be my home for the forseeable future: an expanse of painted brick wall around a rectangular area about 11ft by 6ft. To my right was a bed, a stout, tubular steel and wire contraption hinged to the wall. In the far corner an enamelled bowl and jug stood on a triangular table; underneath this was a Victorian-style bedpan. To my left there was a sturdy wooden table with a matching chair.
That was it.
I sat on the bed and thought, and my thoughts were about my kids, and Dolly and Diana, and Mum and the old man, and when I’d exhausted all my thoughts about them I thought about myself and then I started to think about freedom.
It was the first time it had been taken away from me and it was a bad, bad feeling.
I had always believed in justice. If you did wrong, then were caught and found guilty, you were punished. If you hadn’t done anything wrong, you had nothing to worry about. I knew about police frame-ups, of course, but in those first few distressing days in custody I did not think for a second that anyone was out to get me, to stitch me up. Sitting in that cell, day after day, all I could think was that it was a mistake; a massive mistake that had put me temporarily behind bars but a mistake nonetheless. Someone, somewhere would realize that soon, and I would be released, with a suitable apology, to continue earning an honest living on the outside.
I saw the twins every day; we were allowed to take exercise in a small yard for half an hour each morning and we discussed the situation. They were still fairly relaxed and confident: they felt, as I did, that the charges made against them were nonsense and would be thrown out through lack of evidence. Although they had serious problems over the killings of Cornell and McVitie, both were convinced the police would not be able to prove they were responsible. I was not so sure but, from a personal point of view, I was not bothered. Even if someone did come forward to testify that Ronnie had shot Cornell, how could that affect me? I wasn’t there. Even if the truth about McVitie came out, how could I be implicated? I’d got a phone call in the middle of the night after the event and knew it had happened; but I’d gone back to bed and left the twins and the others to get on with it. I told the twins this as we took our daily stroll, but they were uncompromising: they said I’d have to take my chance with them and seven of the Firm who were also on remand.
The days rolled into weeks as the machinery of the law moved ponderously along. The monotony of prison life was relieved by interviews with solicitors, noisy, high-speed journeys to Bow Street, and visits by Mum, the old man, Dolly and the children. I was tempted to write to Diana but always decided not to. We had a future together, I was sure of it; but that, like everything else in my life, had gone up in the air. How could I make long-term plans when I had no idea what was going to happen tomorrow? In that cell I thought about Diana a lot. I knew she would have read what had happened and secretly hoped she would get in touch one way or another. But I wouldn’t, couldn’t, blame her if she chose not to. Leicester was only 150 miles away, but the world in which she moved was a million light years from the one I was now in. How could Diana possibly begin to understand what was going on if I didn’t myself? How could I possibly blame her if she had written me off as an exciting, but closed, chapter of her life.
Through the small, heavily barred window high above me, I stared at the blueness of the summer sky and found myself thinking yet again of the appalling injustice: innocent until proven guilty, cried the statute of our beloved, jealously guarded democracy. So why was I here? Why was I being treated like a criminal? Why was I incarcerated behind a massive steel and wood barricade as though already tried and convicted by the courts?
Slowly, my anger turned to bitterness and then, as I saw and heard what was happening around us, I started to worry.
With the twins and members of their Firm locked away on charges that could be thrown out later, Nipper Read got to work on the big stuff. He needed key witnesses – members of the trusted Firm – to betray the twins, to go over to the other side to help put them and others away on the more serious charges. He needed more statements, more damning documents and, with the twins removed, so was the desire to stay silent. With the fear of retribution gone, the men with a lot to say were free to say it, to do deals to save themselves. As London sweltered, first one then another Judas stepped forward to buy his freedom with a pocketful of lies. Now the spider’s web was finally spun and out of the labyrinth of tiny, crowded dockland woodwork came the insects, creeping and crawling to the spider, and their names were Ronald Hart and Albert Donaghue and William Exley and Jack Dickson and Leslie Payne and A. B. Cooper and Billy Elvey.
Still the twins were optimistic. Still they had that air of invincibility, the confidence that when it came to it they wouldn’t, couldn’t be charged with murder. Even when we were put in a specially built two-floor cage, they didn’t appreciate the significance of Donaghue, Hart and Dickson being excluded. Even when they heard that visiting friends were intercepted at the prison gates and warned not to have contact with us they didn’t see the danger signals.
They were prepared for imprisonment on the lesser charges, though. At one of the early Bow Street hearings, Ronnie was so uninterested in the proceedings that he actually fell asleep during someone’s testimony. When I heard the gentle rumble of his snoring I nudged him and told him to wake up. But Ronnie merely grunted, ‘Leave me alone. I’ve got two clever brothers – you listen to it,’ and went back to sleep. Suddenly the magistrate noticed and asked if Ronnie was all right. I said I thought so, and nudged Ronnie again. He opened his eyes and thanked the magistrate, saying he felt fine. But about ten minutes later he dozed off again. Later he said he knew they were going down so why should he listen to it all?
Then the twins were charged with murdering Frank Mitchell. The big man’s body had never been found after he vanished in December 1966, but Albert Donaghue had told the police the twins had arranged for him to be killed. The charge came as a shock, naturally, but the twins were still surprisingly nonchalant about their worsening predicament. They pleaded not guilty.
My barrister, Desmond Vowden, had given me real hope of getting bail at the next Bow Street hearing. Not one of the conspiracy or fraud charges against me had much substance, he said, and he was confident the magistrate would take a lenient view. My spirits soared; justice was smiling on me, as I always knew it would in the end. The prospect of freedom – albeit a conditional one – dominated my thoughts for the next few days.
At Bow Street, the twins and I were always kept in separate cells, but when we arrived for the next hearing they put us in one together. There, too, was another Mitchell: Charlie Mitchell. We’d known him for years. He was sitting at one end of the cell, away from the twins, and when I walked in he put a finger to his mouth and said, ‘Don’t speak too loudly. It’s bugged.’ Then he came up to me, saying to the twins, ‘I’m going to say something to Charlie. He’ll tell you later.’ He whispered in my ear, ‘You may hear something you think is terrible. But don’t do anything about it because there may be a reason for it.’ I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but he said, ‘Don’t puzzle it out. Just remember, I told you.’
A few minutes later, the cell door opened. An inspector said, ‘Charlie, we’d like to see you a minute.’ I went outside into the corridor. The inspector was joined by another officer, who said, ‘Charlie, we’re charging you with the murder of Frank Mitchell.’
My mouth fell open. ‘You’re what?’
As we were speaking, Mr Vowden came along the corridor towards us. I told him what had happened. He was kind and sympathetic, saying he knew I’d had nothing to do with any murder, but there was nothing he could do until it came up in court. He did say he wished he could have taken a picture of me at that time because I would have been found not guilty by the look on my face.
I was gutted. For apart from the horror of facing a murder charge, my much cherished hope of bail was gone.
I went back into the cell and told the twins what had happened. They were stunned. Charlie Mitchell said it was diabolical; he was choked for me, he said. Fortunately, this trumped-up, stupid charge was thrown out at Bow Street for lack of evidence.
The cage made life bearable for us as the months rolled on: the beds were more comfortable and there was a TV room which we were allowed into, two or three at a time. But we were not allowed any contact with other prisoners. Nor were we allowed to go to church on Sundays. Security around us was elaborate and efficient, but we managed to find out a lot about what was going on. One new item that filtered through was that Nipper Read was visiting Brixton in various disguises for his growing Kray dossier.
The months rolled on and on and then, hard though it was for us to believe, it was Christmas. Mum and the old man, who had sold The Brooks and returned to London permanently, sent in as much food and drink as allowed, although money was beginning to be a bit short. It was my twentieth wedding anniversary but Brixton Prison is far from ideal as a venue for such a celebration. As the festivities passed and we moved on to yet another New Year, I thought of Diana. Had she, I wondered, followed through that decision to leave home? Whatever had happened, I hoped she was happy.
And then it was 7 January and the Old Bailey was set for the trial of the century. The cockney canaries had sung their hearts out to Nipper and his men. And when the twins and I, with seven members of their so-called Firm, emerged from the cells into the famous No. 1 Court that morning it was not to face the relatively innocuous charges of conspiracy to defraud but varying charges of murder and complicity in murder.
Ronnie was charged with murdering George Cornell, in The Blind Beggar, on 9 March 1966. Reggie was charged with killing Jack McVitie, in Blonde Carol’s flat, in Stoke Newington, on 29 October 1967.
And I was accused of being an accessory to McVitie’s murder. To be more precise, that I helped dispose of the body.
I was apprehensive, of course. Who wouldn’t be? But I was relieved, too. Eight months in prison had knocked my self-confidence, left my nerves in tatters, and almost wrecked my spirit. Now, the nightmare was nearing its end. Twelve ordinary citizens, and a fair-minded judge, were going to see through all the lies and deceit and set me free, I was certain of that.
Justice, I’d always been told, must not just be done, but must be seen to be done. That cold winter’s morning, I couldn’t wait for the world to see it.