Me and My Brothers

by Kray, Charlie

  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.