CHAPTER NINE
END OF FREEDOM
BY THE MID-1970S I was one of the country’s most wanted men, with a colourful career in the business of crime behind me. I was back in action, big time, after the manslaughter disaster. I was also under pressure, trying to keep the firm running while the Old Bill tried everything to get me off the streets.
I heard that they were going round, talking to their ‘snitches’. They camped at the scenes of crime, working out what was rumour and what was fact. They went around talking to people who handled or supplied guns. They were tapping phones and watching houses; they took pictures to see who went in and out. That police intelligence was spot on – I have to give them 10 out of 10 for that. There was a lot of rumour about what I was doing at the time and they pressed hard for the truth. I still managed to stay a step ahead as they gathered their evidence.
In fact, they just pulled me in once, while they looked for proof. I was charged after a complaint from a guy who said he’d been kidnapped over the disappearance of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.
This was a priceless historical document. The Americans had a copy, the British had one, and the Japanese had the other.
The Old Bill said a cleaner had taken it from the Japanese Embassy and sold it on to someone else. The police then said that I kidnapped this ‘someone else’ and made off with the document. They said I sold it to the American Mafia because I’d come across them in prison during my manslaughter sentence. The story went that the document ended up in the hands of a dealer in America. I was charged with armed robbery, kidnap and endangering life.
Evidence was flimsy, to say the least. I stood trial at the Old Bailey and was found not guilty.
On leaving the place, I went into the Wig and Pen pub and the firm were all there. The coppers were having a game of darts, and one of our boys walked up and wiped the scoreboard. He wrote: ‘Robbery Squad 0 / BC 1.’
The coppers were really pissed off about losing the case. My solicitor came over for a drink and said, ‘If I were you, Mr Cummines, I would go overseas and not come back for a very long time. The word around here is that they are going to severely nick you.’
By that time I had done so many armed robberies that I thought if I was going to get nicked I may as well carry on. I reckoned that if they found out about one bit of work, they would find out about all the rest.
I was a man under extreme pressure. And the Old Bill still wouldn’t leave me alone. Finally, instead of keeping an eye on me, they decided they needed to ask me a few questions. That was the word on the street, so I made myself scarce.
Sure enough, my picture appeared everywhere, and I had to be extra careful. The armed robberies continued, but I had other pressing matters on my mind. My dad was ill in hospital suffering from a brain tumour. He was in his seventies, but I’d thought he would still have plenty of life ahead of him.
I sneaked into the hospital with my brother Frankie, and I was lucky to get inside. The Old Bill was everywhere. I believed that they weren’t going to nick me – they were going to shoot me.
I caught the attention of a tiny dark-haired nurse, who realised who I was straight away. She showed me a photo of myself and said, ‘We were told, if you came here, to call the police straight away.’
I opened up my coat, showed her a .45 revolver and warned, ‘If you phone them there will be a lot of dead and injured people in here.’
‘OK, do us a favour then,’ she said, with a cute smile. ‘Here are a couple of patients’ gowns. Could you and your brother put them on?’
I shook my head as the bizarre situation unfolded: two armed robbers strutting around in silly-looking gowns? Anyway, that’s what happened and we roamed around the hospital wearing them.
Most of the time, we just stayed with our dad and talked to him. He was drifting in and out of consciousness, so we couldn’t have a conversation with him; we just told our dad that we were there.
After three days our mum appeared and told us: ‘Go away and get cleaned up and have a shave. I’ll sit with him.’
We needed a break, really, and Frankie said he needed a pint. We found a local pub. Frankie had his pint and I had my usual bitter lemon.
As we sat in the corner, working out how to get back into the hospital, the pub door flew open and our niece ran in.
‘I thought you might be in here,’ she said with a sob. ‘Your dad has gone.’
I was heartbroken. I hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye. It was as if he’d waited for us to go, so he could be with Mum when he died.
Frankie went up to the bar and bought me a double vodka and lemonade. ‘I know this is a one-off. Get that down you.’
Not long afterwards, still mourning my dad, a bright and sunny summer morning proved to be as grey a day as I can remember. The sun beamed down on that Sunday morning in 1978 – and the rest of the day proved to be even hotter.
I’d heard that the Old Bill were rounding up members of my firm; I’d heard that they were crashing into houses, looking for me again. I had to get out of the country, pronto.
I decided to stay in the Royal Scot Hotel at King’s Cross under a false name until the heat died down. Sitting in my room, the phone rang and kept on ringing. No one was supposed to know I was there. After an hour or so of torture from it, I decided to answer it.
‘Freddy here,’ my brother said, sounding out of breath. ‘They’re really gunning for you this time.’
‘Is that a joke?’ I snapped. ‘Well, I’m gunning for them as well. We can’t talk on the phone. Come round to the hotel.’
I put down the phone and waited for Freddy. As I sat in the hotel room, flashbacks from my life filled my head. I’d been the centre of attraction wherever I went, but now I was the loneliest guy in the world. Still in my mid-twenties, all I could think was: ‘Is someone going to grass on me? Is someone going to shoot me?’ My world had no meaning. I had money and I had the accolades, but I had to live with myself, in that room on my own, because the Old Bill was looking for me.
There were only two ways that this was going to end: I was going to be shot dead, or I was going to do a lot of bird. Then I realised there was another option.
I thought, ‘Fuck this,’ and I put the gun in my mouth.
I knew that if I was prepared to whack other people, I had to be prepared to do it to myself or spend thirty years in jail. And I didn’t want to be buried alive in that concrete tomb. I was quite prepared to pop myself. I said earlier that, in my world, you had to be prepared to take your own life.
I felt the cold steel of the trigger. I took a last deep breath and closed my eyes. I thought about my family and friends, and everyone who had been so loyal to me all of my life.
The knock at the door came just in time. I put the gun down, opened the door and Freddy rushed in, bursting to give me updates.
‘I’m being deadly serious, Bobby,’ he spluttered. ‘Most of the boys have been nicked and it’s only a matter of time … you’ll need an exit visa, and sharpish.’
Freddy was my eldest brother, with twenty years between us. He wasn’t really involved in our heavy jobs, but he was an absolute diamond for sussing out the word on the street. He knew who had been nicked, when they’d been nicked and even had a guess at the likely charges.
He used to be a fireman, but had to give up his career after being badly burned. We felt sorry for him, as he was just doing odd jobs, and brought him into the firm. He had no criminal record, so was ideal to ferry guns around for us.
I told Freddy my plan: ‘I need to do some more work, and then I’ll disappear. The Bank of Ireland in Holloway Road should do us nicely. I’ll call on a few people from the manor, if they haven’t been nicked, and we can do a bit of work.’
‘You need to get tooled up,’ Freddy reminded me. ‘Ernie will sort you out.’
Ernie was ex-military and kept a substantial armoury in his house. It was normal for us to visit him and add to our collection of shooters.
Freddy continued: ‘I put in your order for an Uzi. I don’t know much about those.’
‘It’s a sub-machine gun.’
‘A machine gun?’ Freddy laughed. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I’m deadly serious,’ I said, with laughter the last thing on my mind. ‘It’s compact and easy to maintain and repair. The Israeli Mossad intelligence people used it. They’re smooth as silk to use.’
‘Do the others know about the machine gun?’ Freddy asked, growing more curious by the second.
‘Well, I told Tony the Greek and he asked me if I was declaring war on society. But it’s just a more efficient way of doing business.’
I didn’t want to talk any more to Freddy about machine guns. I intended to concentrate on the difficult day ahead.
Freddy was the go-between, really, for getting me the gun, as he and Ernie were drinking pals and things had developed from there. Everything had been sweet, with no problems, and I assumed that normal service could be expected. Ernie had been a reliable tool merchant – supplier of weapons – and I guessed all was well.
‘Let’s do it,’ I replied, trying to shake off any nerves about the day ahead.
As it happened, I had been due to collect a couple of hand guns – and the Uzi, if ready – from Ernie on that Sunday morning, anyway, so Freddy and I grabbed a cab to the top of Ernie’s street, which was just around the corner from the Enkel Arms.
Everything seemed normal for a Sunday morning: an old lady collected milk from her doorstep; a couple of blokes had their heads under the bonnet of a rusty Cortina; and a group of stray dogs sniffed their bits and prepared for foreplay.
I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
We walked up to Ernie’s door and I pressed the bell with my usual three rings to let him know it was me. I couldn’t wait to see and feel the Uzi sub-machine gun.
If you watch those American TV cop shows you’ll know exactly what to expect. All hell suddenly broke loose. A SWAT team – all in their intimidating outfits – surrounded us, pointing their machine guns and shouting at the tops of their voices.
It turned out afterwards that the police thought I would shoot at them, which explained why they were so heavily tooled up. Why did someone say that? Firing a gun at the Old Bill is the same as signing your own death warrant.
‘Keep your hands where we can see them or you will be shot,’ a stern voice yelled.
‘Don’t make any sudden moves,’ I whispered to Freddy. ‘They’re serious. They’ll shoot.’
‘Lie on the ground,’ the SWAT leader ordered, at the top of his voice.
‘Fuck off,’ I answered angrily, although I was in no position to argue. ‘Can’t you see I’m wearing an expensive suit?’
‘Put your hands on the bonnet of that car,’ he yelled, ignoring my concerns for the suit. ‘I repeat – any sudden move and we will shoot.’
Freddy and I both put our hands on the warm bonnet of a police Volvo, which still had its blue lights flashing and engine running.
I have to say those guys were professional. Within seconds they had my jacket off and handcuffs on. I was searched from head to toe and, fortunately, had nothing to declare. Freddy endured the same treatment.
‘You’re nicked,’ one of the formidable team yelled out.
When we were both sitting comfortably, the top-of-the-range Volvo whisked us off to Holloway nick.
As we drove along, I thought to myself: ‘If my guys were trained like that, I could have robbed the Bank of England.’ Credit where credit is due: they were shit-hot at the kidnap game and lived up to their reputation as thief takers. I was just miffed that I was the thief being taken.
We just assumed that the coppers had had a tip-off. The possibility of being grassed up didn’t enter our heads: that just did not happen inside a firm.
The next thing I knew I was in a cell at Holloway police station with a copper outside. He had instructions not to let anyone in apart from members of the SWAT squad. I was in there for hours. Freddy had a cell of his own, along with other members of the firm, but I was the main target.
As I sat there, I suddenly realised that I was the happiest guy in the world. It was all over. It was as if an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was happy because it had ended. I’d been living in a whirlpool of insanity, not knowing where I was going. I’d been just a machine doing the business.
By the time I was nicked, in that instance, I’d lost myself; I’d lost my own personality. I was paranoid, totally paranoid. Everywhere I went, I had guns around me. I even had guns under the bed – pump-action shotguns and all that — and I seemed to have weapons everywhere.
I always wondered when an armed copper was going to whack me because I’d done a lot of armed robberies. I didn’t want to be found in a gutter with a bullet in my head. I felt I was worth more than that.
I sat in the cell, feeling that my arrest had been a blessing in disguise.
I also knew that someone else would take my place on the manor, that even younger businessmen would take up our roles. And I thought: ‘Just let them.’ The trouble with some people involved in villainy is that they don’t know when to let go.
I reckoned that my time was up. I’d been ‘at it’ since primary school, served a spell in a detention centre for possession of a sawn-off shotgun, endured five years inside for manslaughter, and now faced a much longer stretch.
As all of those thoughts packed my head, a detective inspector and a sergeant came into the cell. ‘Nice to see you, Bobby. Come with us and let’s have a talk.’
I wasn’t expecting those guys to be so nice! I walked into the interview room while all my crimes raced through my head. What did they have on me? Which mistakes had I made? Did they know about this robbery or that robbery? Were they going to charge me?
The DI sent out for cups of tea and offered cigarettes around while I sat and just looked at them, saying nothing.
The DI broke the silence: ‘Bobby, you have been well active and I’m going to send you down for at least thirty years.’
‘I’ve heard that one before,’ I answered, imagining that his evidence was thin, as usual.
‘I know,’ the DI countered as his expression suddenly turned grim and he leaned forward. ‘But this time I have you fucking bang to rights. I have a statement that puts you well in the frame and a member of your firm is willing to testify.’
I tried not to change my expression and stared straight back at him. What was he on about? Member of my firm? I said nothing.
‘I don’t have to give you any verbal or fit you up,’ the DI continued. ‘I’m going to play this right by the book because I have you now. I really do have you now.’
I decided to remain silent. I really couldn’t see anyone in the firm talking.
He put his hands on the table, gave me a deep frown and continued. ‘Just to show you good faith, like a condemned man, you can have your clean clothes and your aftershave brought in. You can even order your own takeaway so that you don’t have to eat our canteen shit, and the taxpayer doesn’t have to foot the bill.’
I almost winced as he laid it all on the line, but I still managed to remain expressionless.
‘Even your bird can come to visit you, Mr Cummines. No matter what you do or what connections you have outside, nothing is going to help you. One of your firm is singing like a canary. We have other evidence, too. We have the guns, dates, times, places and faces. We know when you did each bit of work and it’s all watertight. So please enjoy your stay with us.’
What could I say after that little lot? It wasn’t worth uttering a word because, according to them, I’d been stitched up good and proper.
I was escorted back to the cell and left on my own again. However, true to the copper’s word, my girlfriend, Valerie, appeared, a bit later.
‘You all right, love?’ I asked, straight away.
‘Yes,’ she answered, as her eyes welled up with tears. ‘But they’ve been to our house and t
hey took photos of things. They took some of your clothing and all that away, but said I could bring in your change of clothes, fags and toiletries.’ She paused for breath and gave me a solemn look. ‘There’s something else.’
‘Oh?’ I asked, wondering what else could lie in store after such a horrific series of events.
‘They said you’re going away for thirty years.’
‘They’re talking absolute bollocks,’ I heard myself hissing. ‘They said that just to frighten you. They have nothing. We’ve been here before and I’ve walked away. Who else has been nicked this time?’
I was taken aback as she rattled off a list of names. Everyone in the business of armed robberies seemed to be on that list. The names even included people on the fringes, who’d supplied hideouts.
It was looking like the work of a grass, after all.
I started to become really concerned. What unnerved me most was the way the coppers were behaving. They were acting like gentlemen, not threatening to bang up wives or have kids taken into care. They weren’t trying to do deals, and weren’t trying to give me a load of verbal rubbish. It could mean only one thing. Those bastards did have it all in the bag, and my fucking party was truly over.
I kept wondering who the grass could be.
After the coppers had charged me with a long list of armed robberies, one of them said, ‘There are people here who think that the Japanese document job was too big for you. I always thought you did it. Will you tell me?’
I just smiled at him.
Just before we went to court, my brief told me: ‘Bobby, you’re not going to walk away from this lot.’
Those words were all he needed to say. He was no mug and he had already got that earlier murder charge reduced to manslaughter. He’d also successfully defended me on several armed robbery charges in the past. When he told me about my desperate plight, I knew the Old Bill had fucked me good and proper.
We appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court for the charges to be read out and pleas taken. There were so many of us that they processed us in lots of four. Of course we all pleaded not guilty.
I Am Not A Gangster Page 11