by Bobby Teale
The talk in the Walthamstow pub turned to where we were going to go now. People started moving to a flat up the road above a parade of shops owned by a regular at the Chequers, a brewery driver called Roland Tarlton, who had set up an improvised bar in his front room with space for thirty or more revellers to carry on drinking. However, soon after a group of us arrived, his wife came in from her night shift and started screaming for us all to get out. You couldn’t argue with her and there was a baby in the next room.
So then Reggie turned to David and said, ‘Right, Dave, we’re going to stay round your house tonight. We can’t go near the East End. You’re a straight boy. The Old Bill don’t know your place.’
Alarmed, David said quickly, ‘You can’t. We’ve only got two rooms. My kids are there. And Christine has got another baby on the way.’
But David couldn’t stop them. The Krays insisted on bringing everyone back to his family flat in Moresby Road. We didn’t know it then but we’d all be trapped there for weeks.
I got there with Alfie, David and Reggie at about one in the morning. All of a sudden there’s a knock at the window. I look up and there’s Ronnie. I didn’t know what David had told Christine about what was happening. But I knew she would not be pleased. He must have given her some old chat. Then Ronnie demanded: ‘Can’t she get up and make us some food? I’m starving!’ So David had to ask Christine to make some cheese sandwiches.
Alfie was sent out to get more booze even though by now it was the middle of the night. He’d done that a lot over the last few years, coming back from Madge’s way after hours with crates of the stuff – gin, whisky, beers, tonic, cigarettes. Madge had told him one time: ‘Where’s the money? What does Ronnie think I am, a fucking charity?’
Christine started trying to get some sheets and blankets together, but it was ridiculous. There were so many of us there was no room to move. There were about ten, twelve people sleeping on the floor.
That first night Ronnie and Reggie started arguing so badly that Alfie and David had to dive in between them. Eventually Reggie said, ‘Fuck you, I’m going,’ and went out with Nobby Clark. It wasn’t very long before he came back.
Meanwhile Ronnie announced: ‘I want to have a bath.’ David told him Christine was in bed and he’d have to walk through the bedroom to get to the bathroom. It was not what you might call ideal. David also explained to Ron that they had an old-fashioned heater that would take a while to warm up. Ronnie put half a crown in the slot and waited. To us it was all completely mad, but I realised then that for Ronnie this was just an ordinary night.
People were coming and going after that. Ronnie came back in after his bath and after Reggie had returned with Nobby he and Ron started arguing again. It was like we were dreaming.
The next morning David was woken by Ronnie putting his head round the door and asking, ‘Can Christine make me some tea?’ It was about 8 a.m. but he’d been up with the sparrows. He then informed David: ‘We’re going to have to stay here for a bit.’
David looked scared and told him, ‘The Old Bill will come round. They’re bound to. I’ve got my wife and children here. I don’t want it, Ron, I don’t want it.’
Ronnie said, ‘Listen, Dave. Dead men can’t speak, can they?’ We all heard that.
So we all got up and had some tea. We needed more supplies – cups, plates, food, everything. Christine and David were allowed out to the shops in Upper Clapton Road but not without one of the children staying behind as a hostage. ‘They won’t come in while the kids are here,’ Ronnie said. He meant the police. He said that twenty times at least.
He was clever like that. Christine was terrified. Then our eleven-year-old younger brother Paul came round the next morning from our mum’s house nearby to see Christine and the kids without knowing what he was walking into. He wasn’t going to be allowed to leave.
Ronnie had taken a pencil and piece of paper from one of David’s kids’ little notebooks. He’d made some sort of list and was constantly scribbling on it. I managed to see it and realised it was full of the names of people he wanted to get shot of.
There was a rival firm in Clerkenwell. Someone from that was going to go. Leslie Payne, the money-man, was also on the list. They had fallen out big-time by now. There were people from south London. Ronnie would leave the list around for a day, then the next morning he would tear it up and start again. He couldn’t put any of our names on it as we were all in the house with him.
Ronnie seemed quite relaxed on the surface. He seemed to trust us all. But if one of us wasn’t around for a day or two, he would want to know the reason why. We all knew exactly where we stood.
Insane as he was, Ronnie was completely in charge.
CHAPTER 10
THE TURNING POINT
THE DAYS PASSED. I was now very aware of Ronnie’s ‘dreaded list’. I realised that the list contained the names of people that he wanted to kill; that he was going to kill. As soon as I saw it, I knew something had to be done. The Krays were out of control. They had the East End buttoned up too tight and someone had to undo it. And, slowly, I realised that someone had to be me… It took just one moment for the scales to fall from my eyes. All the Colonel’s ‘glamour’, if he ever had any, was as nothing now. I had spent the last six months fawning on them both, being so flattered that the twins seemed to think well of me. Now I’d heard Ronnie boasting about how good it felt to kill. And now he and Reggie were hiding behind children. I felt physically sick.
But what could I do right there and then? We were all effectively hostages, with David’s wife Christine and their two young kids. Also there was our eleven-year-old brother Paul. Now all of us were in the power of this paranoid schizo and an armed mob who would do whatever they were told to do.
Ronnie knew it. We were all like his human shields. He knew the police were never going to come in shooting because of all the kids being in the place.
But there was something else that happened in that flat, too – something that would make me act in a way that would change my life for ever.
It was the third or maybe the fourth day. Ronnie announced that he wanted Paul to sit on his lap. I told Christine under my breath that if Ronnie made a move to the bedroom for what he’d call a ‘lie-down’ with Paul I would shoot him dead there and then. I could only imagine what he had in mind for my little brother. The room was dark so I went to the kitchen and got my own gun, a 9mm, from where I’d left it on the top of the fridge. Christine saw me and, hearing the click of a bullet going into the chamber, she grabbed my arm and started pleading, ‘No, no, Bobby! Please not here, not in front of the kids!’
But I’d made up my mind. I loaded a full clip. If Ronnie made a move on Paul, that would be his last. I was intending to unload the gun on him. Christine grabbed my arm, still begging me, ‘Please, please don’t do it!’
I said something like, ‘OK, Chris, it’s OK.’ But it wasn’t OK, not in the slightest. I hid my gun under my coat and, taking a deep breath, I pushed by her and stood in the doorway of the living room. Ronnie started to walk towards me until we were face to face with each other. He had his arm on Paul’s shoulder. He told me he was just going to lie down for a few minutes. I didn’t move out of the way. He could see I was not going to put up with it so he said: ‘Bobby, you silly boy, I just need to lie down.’
But he did not push by me, as I thought he would. He just stood there and talked on, with his eyes half-closed. And then, after what seemed to be the longest time, he turned and went back to the couch and sat down, putting Paul on his lap again. He closed his eyes, and seemingly went to sleep. I went and sat next to him and now I had my gun out under my coat, pointed at his heart, with one bullet in the chamber and the safety off and my finger firmly on the trigger.
I intended to empty the six bullets into him if I had to. I also knew that if I did let Ronnie have what was coming, I would not get out alive. The Firm all had guns on them. Scotch Ian Barrie, Albert Donoghue, Ronnie Hart, Scotch Jack D
ickson, loads more of them – they were all in the place. They’d shoot me down before I could make it to the door. Not to mention how I would get Paul out alive. Well, I waited, but Ronnie didn’t move. Thank God. He must have sensed something.
Then suddenly Paul got up and went into the kitchen. Ronnie turned away and appeared to forget all about him – and me. He waved at Paul and said something like ‘Nice boy’. Remember, Ronnie was always doing this – acting on some mad impulse then going off in another direction. It was like the time he’d told me and Ronnie Hart to go and kill someone and then forgot all about it.
But this wasn’t like that. He had made a move on Paul and he would surely do so again. Maybe he wouldn’t back off next time. Now I really did know I had to do something.
I made some kind of excuse that I had to go outside for a while. I think I said my mother needed help in clearing up the flat. Ronnie would appreciate me going out to help our mum. My stomach was churning but I had made up my mind what I was about to do, even though I could hardly believe it myself.
I phoned Scotland Yard from a phone box near my mum’s flat at Cedra Court. You had to put pennies in when you got an answer. Inside it smelt of piss, stale sweat and fag-ash. I’d get to know that smell pretty well. Mixed with the smell of my own fear.
It was an old-fashioned dialler. The number was famous – it was in all the TV police shows and on the radio. Whitehall 1212.
The switchboard answered. In went my coins. One, two, three, four. Big old pennies. My hands were trembling.
I asked to speak to Mr Butler. I didn’t know his full name, but I knew he was an old enemy of the Krays. He had first got on the twins’ case in 1960 as a Flying Squad detective investigating clubland rackets and the Double R in particular. I knew he was someone important at the Yard.
The woman at the other end of the line said: ‘We have two Mr Butlers. Which one do you want?’
I was so nervous I couldn’t speak. For a second, I was sure I’d been followed. I hung up in a panic and – not knowing what else to do – went home to see my mum, who welcomed me with tea and affection as ever. She never knew exactly what was going on and we would never worry her with the uncomfortable truth, although she must have known some of it.
I sat in the kitchen and had a cup of tea and we talked, mostly about Dad and how she was going to leave him. God bless dear old Mum. We had heard her talk this way so many times before. I would always say something like: ‘You should, Mum. You’ve put up with him for far too long.’ But I knew she would never leave him.
Eventually I drained my cup of tea and said, ‘Right. I’ve got to go and do some stuff.’
I gave Mum a kiss and out the door I went, back to the phone box where I had funked phoning the police a little while before. I was going to have another try.
This time I would do it. It had started raining, just a light drizzle. I got the Yard on the phone and asked again for Mr Butler, saying this time that it was ‘regarding the Krays’. It sounded so heavy, so official, as if someone else was saying that, not me.
‘Oh, you must mean Superintendent Tommy Butler,’ said the female operator.
‘Yes, him,’ I said.
After a short time a gruff male voice came on the phone and said, ‘What can I do for you?’
Taking a deep breath, I said the seven words that would change the course of the rest of my life. ‘I have some information about the Krays.’
He said, ‘I’ll set up a meeting, just wait a minute.’
I suppose he was recording the call. About a minute or two later he came back on the line and said, ‘Can you get to Bouverie Street just off Fleet Street by two this afternoon?’
‘Yes,’ I answered.
He told me to walk down the right side of the street from Fleet Street and asked what I would be wearing. I said a blue raincoat, and he said, ‘We will see you at two this afternoon then.’
‘OK,’ I replied, and hung up.
It was about one in the afternoon and I had just about enough time to get from where I was to Fleet Street. All the time I was thinking: ‘What if I’m being followed?’ So much was going on in my head. I could not stop seeing images in my mind of all the people in David’s flat. I thought that perhaps I should just turn around and forget the whole thing. But I knew that if our family was to make it through all this, this was the only way it might work. As soon as I felt I was not being tailed, I finally walked down Bouverie Street with all its newspaper offices.
I turned my raincoat collar up, not because it was drizzling, but because I wanted to hide my face. I think it just made me look more conspicuous. That’s how it felt. I felt like everything about me was screaming this man is going to grass up the most violent criminals in London. Look at him, what a mug. He’s signed his own death warrant.
There was one man I could see on my side of the street, but he was some way away. As I looked over to the other side, I could see three men walking parallel to me and looking over at me. Then one of the men crossed the road and started heading towards me at the same time the man on my side of the street neared. Soon the two men were on either side of me. This was it. My heart was pounding.
One said to me: ‘Did you phone?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
They asked me to open my coat. The two men started to help me off with it in the middle of the street with the other men over the road, just watching. I still couldn’t quite believe what was happening. By now, it was raining hard, and drops of water were running down the back of my collar, icy little rivulets, like sweat creeping down my spine. I’d get to know that sensation very well.
The two men searched me from top to bottom and walked me to a car a little way away on the other side of the street. One opened the back door and told me to get in.
It was a mid-size black car. A Rover 3-litre I think. There were two men sitting in the front seats. As I got in the back, one of the men from the street came and sat next to me and closed the door. I was wet and holding my raincoat and in a bit of a shock at the turn of events. The man in the front passenger seat turned to me and held out his hand, saying ‘I’m Tommy Butler.’ I shook his hand. He said, ‘And you are…?’
I said, ‘I’m Robert Teale. Bobby.’ Then he asked me what I wanted to tell them about the Krays.
I said, ‘I know a lot, I have a lot to tell.’
Tommy Butler stared at me, appraising me. ‘Do you know anything about the Cornell killing?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Who killed Cornell?’ he asked directly.
‘Ronnie Kray.’
‘Do you know that for a fact?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Where are the Krays now?’ he asked.
‘In my brother David’s flat.’
‘What’s the address?’
I told him – 51 Moresby Road, Stoke Newington – and who else was in the flat with them, namely most of the Firm members, my brothers Alfie and David, my younger brother, Paul, only eleven years old, David’s wife who was pregnant and David’s two very young daughters.
‘A lot of people are coming and going, and they are armed to the teeth,’ I told him. There were at least two shotguns that I had seen, one of which was a pump-action repeater. The Firm were certainly tooled up with handguns. And, although I certainly wasn’t going to tell the police this, I too had a gun.
‘Our family are all very afraid,’ I said. ‘Ronnie has got a list of people he intends to kill.’
Butler asked, ‘Are any of my men on the list?’ After a moment I said, ‘No.’
I told him that Ronnie wouldn’t let the young children leave because he’d said that the Old Bill wouldn’t come in with guns blazing with women and children in the flat. I also explained that David had told Ronnie that he did not want any of them to stay at his place, but Ronnie had said, ‘We are staying anyway and that’s that,’ or words to that effect. Then I said to Tommy Butler: ‘Just be careful when you raid the place because of Christine and the kids
. Please.’
Butler sat there for a while, mulling over my information. Then he said, as if he hadn’t heard a word of what I had just told him: ‘We had no idea how powerful they are becoming. They are hard to keep track of when they move all the time. Everyone is so terrified of them that we can’t get anyone close to them to work with us.’
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at so I said: ‘I’ll be leaving now,’ and went to get out of the car. I felt like I’d said everything I needed to say.
‘No, not yet,’ Tommy Butler said, restraining me. ‘We need you to let us know what’s going on.’
I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. ‘Aren’t you going to arrest them?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not as easy as that. We need more information.’ Then he asked me, ‘Will you go back in and get us what we need?’
What had I done? Maybe I was stupid to think one call, one meet would be enough. I don’t know what I really thought when I first went out to make that call to Scotland Yard. But by the time I’d made it, I really believed that they would raid the flat in Stoke Newington, arrest the Krays and the rest of the Firm and that my family would be safe.
I thought for a minute and said, ‘I will as long as all my family are kept safe and left out of it.’
Butler said nothing for a minute and then he answered, ‘OK, I promise we will do everything we can. So don’t you worry. But just remember you are doing a very dangerous job for us. Be very careful or you will be dead.’
As if I needed telling.
Then Butler continued, pointing to the man sitting next to me, ‘This is your contact. His name is Joe Pogue. Memorise his name by thinking of the word “rogue”. Now you need a code name that you will remember.’
I decided on the name ‘Phillips’. I chose it as a tribute to the man who had been so kind to me when I was starting out: Commander Cecil Filmer, who I used to call ‘Phil’.