Me and My Brothers

by Kray, Charlie

  Ronnie knew Kate was seeing this guy: she had shown him a photograph and he nicknamed him ‘gypsy boy’. What Ronnie did not know was that Kate saw the relationship as far more than merely a sexual fling; she viewed it as some predestined romance that was written in the stars. As she writes: ‘With Pa it was different. Sometimes in life I’m sure you’re fated to be with someone and that’s how it was with me and Pa.’ Can you imagine how Ronnie felt reading that? This was his wife gushing, not about some fancy-free bachelor who had swept her off her feet, but a married man–with a wife and child!

  By exposing herself as some sex-starved bimbo with little regard for anything but her own sexual gratification, Kate ridiculed not only Ronnie but herself. How many other prisoners’ wives, I wonder, would have had the gall to talk publicly, and in colourful detail, about adulterous trysts in out-of-the-way restaurants and sexual romps in hotels? Kate seemed positively proud and unconcerned about the effect it would have on Ronnie.

  I could hardly believe it when I read: ‘We didn’t rush into bed with each other. We wanted it to be special…we booked into a hotel in Brighton…but didn’t pounce on each other, we wanted to save it. We didn’t want it all over in a few minutes…I was excited. Everything in me wanted this man, Pa picked me up his arms and laid me on the bed…then, very slowly, he undressed me and we made love all night. The next morning I felt great…I would have been happy to stay in that bed for a week…’

  What was it Ronnie had told her? Don’t flaunt your relationships. Kate was not merely flaunting, she was revelling in it, gloating almost, in every sexy memory. And to make matters worse, she was happy to see the more salacious bits of her book serialized in a national tabloid newspaper.

  Kate rubbed Ronnie’s nose further into it by revealing she went to California on holiday with lover-boy and took him to a marriage guidance counsellor to try to cure his jealousy. But it was Kate’s graphic description of her own appalling, maniacal behaviour in the middle of a busy street that caused Ronnie to flip.

  According to her book, Pa was drunk, and infuriated her by breaking a pair of sunglasses and chucking them out of the car Kate was driving. She screeched to a halt, went round to the passenger side, opened the door, then kicked Pa in the face. He got out, forced her against a van, and she stabbed him with her car keys. She drove off, but was so angry she turned round and drove into him as he walked up a hill. Apparently, that was not enough, because she turned round and drove into him again.

  ‘Then I went really mad,’ she writes. ‘There was a wooden stake lying by the side of the road. I picked it up and began to beat him…I’m not a violent person, but something in me snapped. By now, the police had arrived and they pulled me off him. Good job, too. I think I could have killed him…’

  Kate says she was arrested and taken to a police station. But she gave a false name because she did not want Ronnie to hear about it. ‘He would have been livid at me for making such an exhibition of myself,’ she says.

  Oh, really! If she was worried about upsetting my brother, Kate could easily have kept quiet about that degrading episode and neither Ronnie, nor anyone else, would ever have known about it. As it was, she wrote about it in detail for book buyers and millions of newspaper readers to see.

  Not surprisingly, Ronnie had made his own mind up what to do about a woman he now viewed as a tart.

  ‘I knew I was right–the girl’s a wrong ‘un,’ he said, as soon as we’d sat down in Broadmoor’s visiting hall that afternoon in September 1993. ‘I’m divorcing her.’

  I just sat there, saying nothing, just trying to keep the smile off my face. Ronnie had been stewing on what was in the book and wanted to get it all off his chest.

  ‘She’s taken a right liberty. I’m in here and she’s out there and I told her I was happy for her to go out and enjoy herself. But she’s showed me up and made me an idiot–a laughing stock.’

  What bothered him most was not getting rid of Kate, but what she would say if she saw any pound signs.

  ‘She’s the type of girl who’ll tell more lies if there’s money in it,’ Ronnie said. ‘She doesn’t care. God knows what she’s going to say next.’

  He said he was writing again to Robin and, the next day, another letter went off, pleading: ‘Can you ring my doctor to arrange to see me. Unless Kate stops her book that is diabolical I’m going to divorce her.’

  Robin rang me to say that, at last, he had been given a date to visit Ronnie–the following Friday 29 September. But, two days before, he received another letter–the seventh in just two weeks–that was extremely worrying. Ronnie’s paranoia was such that he genuinely believed someone at the hospital did not want the visit to go ahead and was planning to sabotage it.

  The letter said: ‘If anyone rings you and says I’ve cancelled the visit, believe it only if it is Stephanie…’ (Stephanie King is a Nottingham housewife, who was acting as a sort of unpaid secretary to the twins.)

  In the event, the visit never happened because, the very day Ronnie’s letter arrived, he was taken to Wexham Park Hospital, in Slough, suffering from what was thought to be a mild heart attack. He was still anxious to put right the two books, however, because he wrote to Robin again: ‘I am in hospital. Can you come to see me next Wednesday morning. I may have angina.’

  The next day, Ronnie wrote yet again, and this time the plea was desperate: ‘Can you come to see me any day, any time…’

  Ronnie was taken back to Broadmoor on the Saturday and insisted on seeing Robin the next afternoon. Robin got a shock when he saw Ronnie. He was normally immaculate in a pressed suit and tie, but this day he was wearing ill-fitting jeans, a rumpled green and mauve rugby-type shirt. He apologized for being scruffy, saying his best clothes hadn’t been sent over from the special care unit, where he had been sent after attacking Kiernender.

  When Robin phoned me, my first question was: ‘What about Ronnie’s heart attack?’

  ‘The doctors told him his heart is okay–very strong in fact,’ Robin said. ‘Apparently, Ron had all the symptoms of a heart attack, but it wasn’t. He hasn’t even got angina.’

  ‘What’s his mood now?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘He’s very positive. He’s always bounced back when his health has gone down, and he says he’ll bounce back this time. But he told me the thought of death did occur to him when he collapsed. He said he felt terrible.’

  ‘Was he scared?’

  ‘He said he’d never been scared of dying because he believed in reincarnation and often dreamed of who he was going to be in future lives.’

  Something that was bothering Ronnie, however, was a rumour that he was so depressed he had lost the will to live. That was rubbish, Robin said; although Ronnie was bored stiff at the moment, he said he still found life interesting and always managed to enjoy himself.

  Ronnie was at pains to stress he was not going ‘all nutty and religious’, but he was convinced God had saved his life in hospital.

  ‘How come?’ I asked.

  Robin said: ‘All Ron said was that God performs miracles–like a baby coming out of the womb, and a caterpillar changing into a butterfly– so who is to say God didn’t perform a miracle and deem he should recover?’

  I had to smile; that was a side of Ronnie the public did not know. All the tabloids ever talked about was the evil gangland killer with a thirst for violence.

  ‘What does he want you to do about Kate?’ I asked.

  ‘Make it public that he was divorcing her because of the way she had embarrassed and humiliated him,’ Robin said. ‘And to make it clear that he is a humble man, with principles, not the flash, arrogant, rude, ignorant idiot she’s made him out to be.’

  I could understand Ronnie’s anger. Contrary to what many thought, he was very considerate about other people and their feelings. And he did care about what people thought of him. In his eyes, Kate had betrayed his trust and made a fool out of him. The marriage had been going downhill and her tatty, downmarket book, with its
even tattier content, was the last straw.

  He was definite he wanted nothing more to do with Kate and asked Robin to tell Stephen Gold, the family solicitor, to start divorce proceedings immediately. I was euphoric. I had reached a point where I couldn’t stand Kate. I’d thought she was genuine and she had turned out phoney. I’d thought she was good for Ronnie, and she had turned out bad. Like Ronnie, I wanted nothing more to do with her.

  The mistake Kate made was thinking she could manipulate Ronnie into shoving Reg and me aside so that she would have him all to herself. She believed she was clever, one step ahead, but she was stupid to think that. Blood, as they say, is thicker than water and in times of crisis a family sticks together, no matter what rows they may have had. Ronnie was incensed about her behaviour, but he was beside himself with rage that she had belittled me in such a cruel, unjust manner.

  During the marriage, our friends were nice to Kate, but she has lost the respect of everyone. No one has any time for her.

  She revelled in being Kray, basked in the limelight the name gave her, and spoke, seemingly with authority, about the family in general. But, really, she knows nothing about us.

  I often think what our dear mum would have made of her and her avaricious ways, but Kate was not the sort of girl you take home to mother. She wouldn’t have been mum’s cup of tea, in any situation, but as a daughter-in-law–forget it. As for the old man, he had a very strict Victorian outlook and he would have gone spare at the damaging drivel Kate was allowed to get published.

  As anyone who has met me knows, I’m an easy-going guy who tries to be friendly and respectful to everyone. But I have to admit I would find it hard to have anything pleasant to say to my brother’s ex-wife should I be unlucky enough to set eyes on her.

  As 1993 drew to a close, I had little time to dwell on Ronnie’s troubled mind; my own emotional and financial crises were building up. Some business deals I’d been counting on had broken down and I was strapped for cash. To make matters worse, Diana could not tolerate our domestic situation any longer and was making it clear she wanted me out of the flat and her life so that she could make a fresh start.

  Things came to a head in December when we had a blazing row and she insisted I left. I told Judy and asked if I could move in with her. She would never have been the first to suggest it, but she wanted me under the same roof and readily agreed. Like me, she felt a sense of relief now that the move had been forced on us.

  Those first days in Limpsfield Road, being part of Judy’s family, were very strange. I didn’t know what to talk to her children about, but I wanted them to accept me into their home so much that, whenever I went out, I would come back armed with all kinds of sweets, chocolates and Cokes. When Judy came home and we sat down on our own to watch me telly, I would start chatting non-stop. It was a sort of nervousness, I suppose, and, finally, it got up Judy’s nose.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Charlie,’ she said one night. ‘Stop talking so much. You don’t have to talk all the time. Relax.’

  It gave her the opportunity to get something else off her chest, too. ‘Charlie,’ she said, gently but firmly, ‘something else you don’t have to do, and what I don’t want you to do, is spoil the kids. I don’t want you buying them everything they want all the time.’

  I saw her point immediately. The relationship was very important to both of us and she felt it essential to lay down certain ground rules to prevent problems arising later between us. Having just got out of an unhappy marriage, she did not want to waste time on another relationship if it was not going to work. And I felt the same, for different reasons.

  Two of those ground rules were (a) that we would both be faithful to each other and I would never lie to her; and (b) that the children’s discipline was Judy’s responsibility, unless their behaviour directly affected me, in which case I would be expected to reprimand them.

  It was a calm, clear-the-air discussion that made us both feel better. And, after a lovely, relaxing stay-at-home Christmas with the kids, Judy and I celebrated the arrival of 1994 with optimism for our future together.

  I did not feel good about the way I had handled things with Diana. All I could hope was that time would heal the hurt and bitterness she felt at my betrayal.

  Chapter Nineteen

  One evening in March 1995, I got a phone call that frightened the life out of me: Ronnie had collapsed and had been taken to Heatherwood Hospital, in Ascot. I asked what was wrong, but nobody knew.

  The following morning, as I was preparing to leave for the hospital, someone rang me to say that Ronnie had been taken back to Broadmoor. I couldn’t understand it; if he had been ill enough to be rushed to hospital, why had he been taken back to Broadmoor so quickly? Surely the doctors had not had enough time to determine what was wrong with him?

  A couple of days later, I was given even more cause for concern: Ronnie had taken another turn for me worse and had been taken to hospital again. I drove to Ascot immediately, with Laurie O’Leary, one of Ronnie’s dearest and much-respected childhood friends.

  We found Ronnie in bed in a tiny room, now watched by not two male nurses, but three. Some joker obviously thought that, after twenty-seven years, Ronnie had hatched an escape plot!

  Typically, Ronnie said he was all right, but would we, please, take all the medical bits and pieces off him.

  ‘You have to have them,’ I said. ‘They’re there for a reason.’

  He looked at a monitor, registering his heartbeat. ‘I suppose that’s really a tape recorder as well,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘You’re unwell. No one is recording what you’re saying. They just want to find out what’s wrong with you.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, not very convincingly.

  We talked for about an hour, but Ronnie was getting tired, so we got up to leave, saying we would be back in the morning.

  As I walked out, I noticed Ronnie pull Laurie towards him and whisper something in his ear. When we were in the car, Laurie said: ‘You want to know what he said?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  ‘He said: Look after Charlie, Lol. I don’t mean physically, you know what I mean.’

  Laurie did not know. Neither did I. But I’m convinced that Ronnie’s weird, but amazingly accurate, sixth sense had told him he would not be seeing us again.

  For the following morning, 17 March, Ronnie was dead.

  I was told, not by Broadmoor medical staff, but by my friend Robin McGibbon, who had received a call from a TV news reporter, asking if it was true that Ronnie Kray was dead.

  When Robin rang me, I was shocked, but refused to believe it. It’s just another Kray rumour, I told myself; if Ronnie had died, I would be the first to be told. If not me, it would be Reg, who would have contacted me before anyone else.

  But Broadmoor confirmed that Ronnie was, indeed, dead. ‘Oh, yes,’ I was told, matter-of-factly. ‘He died at 9.07 this morning.’

  I was devastated. Then I was angry. ‘Are you telling me my brother died this morning and I wasn’t notified?’

  ‘I am very sorry, Mr Kray. The news was put out before we had an opportunity to call you.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ I said. ‘What’s Reg going to do now?’

  I put me phone down. There was nothing more to say. No matter how bad I felt about not being told, it was not the point right now. I had to speak to Reg. Fighting back my tears, I dialled Maidstone Prison.

  The usual procedure is to leave a message for the prisoner, who rings back on his phone card, but when I explained why I wanted to speak to Reg, someone fetched him from his cell and he took the call in an office. He was so choked, he could barely talk.

  ‘I’ve heard,’ he said.

  ‘How?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘I was walking along the corridor just now and one of the cons said he’d heard it on the radio.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that. What was there to say?

  ‘Wouldn’t you have thought t
hey would have told me if anything happened?’ Reg said. ‘I asked Broadmoor on Thursday morning if I could visit Ron because I had a feeling something was wrong. But they told me he was all right and not seriously ill enough to warrant me going. They said if anything changed, someone would ring Maidstone.’

  ‘I know how you feel, Reg,’ I said. ‘I feel the same. I was just getting ready to go to the hospital when Robin rang to tell me.’

  ‘How did he know?’

  ‘A TV station rang him.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! I think it’s disgraceful. We should have been the first to be told.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now.’

  ‘Poor Ron. Do you know how he died? Was it natural causes?’

  ‘I don’t know, Reg.’

  ‘I need to know how he died, Charlie. Anything could have happened. They could have done anything to him.’

  Suspicion about Ronnie’s death was not something we needed right now. We were both too emotional.

  ‘We’ll have to talk about it later,’ I said. ‘Now isn’t the time.’

  I didn’t want to speak any more. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I knew Reg did, too.

  ‘Reg, go and do your own thing,’ I said. ‘I’ll be down to see you tomorrow. We’ll talk about it all then.’

  I put the phone down and poured a large measure of whisky into a tumbler. I drank it down fast and then the tears started to fall.

  I could not stop crying for two hours.

  The following morning, I drove to Maidstone Prison with Laurie and Robin. We were shown into a private room, where we waited for Reg to be brought up from the cells. When he came in, he and I fell into each other’s arms. Neither of us said a word, we just stood there, hugging each other, crying quietly.