The Profession of Violence (38 page)

It was du Rose who called the conference on the twins. He knew that something must be done about them now if they were ever to be caught; as a policeman he also knew that a point arrives in all police investigations when one must cut one's losses. There had been blunders, but despite them all, the law still had some firm advantages. Nipper's plan for using Cooper at the nursing home had not worked, but Cooper on his own could still provide crucial evidence. There was the evidence of Elvey; there were the suitcase and the crossbow, and Payne could give the facts about the long-firm frauds. Maybe the case was flimsy as it stood, but these were serious charges, certainly strong enough to ensure that the twins would be remanded without bail when charged. This would immediately unlock the safety clause from Nipper's mass of statements; his undercover witnesses could make their statements openly and add their evidence to the charges against the twins. From then on everything would depend on how much more the police could rapidly uncover.

Superintendent Harry Mooney felt that once the twins were safely behind bars he could persuade the barmaid of The Blind Beggar to give enough evidence to convict Ronnie of murdering George Cornell. Apart from this the police still had little to connect the twins with any of their major crimes.

It was an uncomfortable gamble Nipper had to take. The twins had shown their cleverness in the past at dodging firmer evidence than this. If they did again Scotland Yard, as one detective put it, ‘might just as well put up the shutters and go home for good'.

On the night of 8 May 1968 none of the police from Tintagel House went home. John du Rose and Read had been there since early afternoon. With them were the other senior officers on the case – Superintendent Donald Adams who had supervised the paperwork. Superintendent Harry Mooney, who performed much of the investigation, and Read's assistant. Chief Inspector Frank Cater. Soon after dark, fresh police began arriving from the regions: more than sixty of them, all with their cars and two-way radios, none of them knowing why they'd come. Strict security was enforced. Once they had parked their cars they were conducted to the big main office with the view of the river; they were served sandwiches and coffee, and then locked in. No private telephone calls were allowed; they were warned they would not be getting any sleep that night.

Soon after midnight the main conference began: John du Rose announced that the three Kray brothers and their gang were to be arrested at dawn. Some might be violent and the police must be prepared. The success or failure of the operation would depend on making sure that everyone on the police list was rounded up at once. In all there were twenty-six names to be accounted for.

Nipper spoke next, standing on a filing cabinet; he was crisp and lucid, very different in his young man's way from the old-style Yard man, John du Rose. He was in his element as the perfect staff officer allocating duties and outlining the whole complex operation. Twenty-four separate addresses across London had to be raided simultaneously. Since early morning the Krays had been under constant observation. At that moment they were in a nightclub in the West End. When they went home central control would be informed. Provided nothing unexpected happened all the arrests were to be synchronized for 6.00 A.M. No member of the Firm must be allowed to warn another. Once arrested they would be brought immediately to West End Central Police Station.

Nipper had had index cards prepared with photographs of all the wanted men, along with their addresses and particulars. These were distributed among the raiding-party. Somebody asked who would be going for the twins. That, explained Nipper Read, was a privilege he was reserving for himself.

The twins were entertaining Kaufman. They started drinking at The Old Horns pub off Bethnal Green Road at 9.00 P.M. It was a gala night. Ronnie was anxious to show Kaufman the two sides of London, the beery
bonhomie
of the East End and the bright lights of Mayfair. Kaufman was happy to be back in London, but both twins appeared preoccupied. There had been rumours of fresh trouble from the police. Reggie suspected Cooper of betrayal since his Soho office was still heavily guarded by police. Reggie's girl was on holiday in Spain; rumour had it that the affair was over.

At closing time, as they all left their private bar at The Old Horns, none of the Firm noticed the courting couple in the back of the car parked opposite; a detective and a policewoman from Tintagel House hard at work keeping the twins under observation. But at the Astor Club Reggie was jumpier than usual: when a photographer insisted on taking flashlight photographs of him and his guests he became aggressive. Ronnie calmed him down. Ronnie was happy. It was 5 A.M. before Tintagel House had its report that the twins and the Firm had just left and were on their way home.

Nipper was armed when they smashed in the door at Braithwaite House two hours later and rushed in for the twins. It was not necessary. Both were fast asleep, Reggie with a girl from Walthamstow, Ronnie with his latest fair-haired boy. Read had the handcuffs on the twins before they had really woken up. His was the first car back to West End Central.

When Nipper Read hauled the twins from their beds on 9 May 1968 their power was by no means over and the police were taking a considerable gamble. Thanks, largely, to Alan Cooper there was sufficient evidence about the crossbow and the murder suitcase to keep the twins and all the Firm in prison on remand, and make sure they came to trial before a magistrate. That was all. The police possessed no proof of murder yet; much of the existing evidence connecting them with the bond deals and frauds was complex and obscure, while Cooper on his own was a distinctly shaky witness for a major trial. Nobody needed to tell Nipper Read what this meant. On the existing evidence, the twins might get five years apiece if the police were lucky; and if they weren't, there was nothing to prevent them repeating their performance at the McCowan trial and once again emerging from the court scot-free. Recognizing this, the police began the last and crucial stage of their investigation.

They had the few weeks before the preliminary hearings to clinch their case and persuade their major witnesses to talk. They knew exactly who they were, but had to be able to assure them that this time the twins were finished. Otherwise, as one old cockney put it, ‘if people talk to the police and the twins get off again, they'll have to send the plague carts into Bethnai Green and shout, “Bring out your dead!”'

With so much at stake the police meant business. A top Scotland Yard detective talked of ‘driving the Krays and all they stand for into the ground'. To do this the Yard was finally prepared to use its full resources, and the investigation had the highest backing. Through contacts in the underworld, warnings were sent out that the police would tolerate no nonsense on the Krays' behalf from other criminals. Witnesses were offered round-the-clock protection. The police were set to crack the Kray twins' ‘wall of silence' and challenge time-honoured myths of East End villainy – the idea that East Enders never ‘grassed', that there would be a terrible revenge on those that did, and that the police were a common enemy.

Their task was not going to be easy, and at this stage the twins appeared confident and in high spirits. Since their arrest they were both in Brixton Gaol, but even here there was a lot they could do. As they were still technically innocent they had more privileges than other prisoners. They wore their own clothes, and could have alcohol and cigarettes and food brought in from outside. This helped to keep up their morale and, more important still, they both were allowed as many visitors and letters as they wanted.

As a result the two of them maintained something of a court in Brixton. They were celebrities as well as prisoners. The warders treated them with definite respect, and the twins managed to make it seem that they were still the centre of a rich and influential world. Most days Violet would organize cold chicken dinners and a glass of wine for them and for each member of the Firm. Actors and pop singers wrote to them, boxers and film producers came to visit them, and all the time the twins seemed calm and unconcerned about the future. Although the key members of the Firm were nearly all in prison too, there were enough old friends visiting Brixton to ensure that their messages were circulated round the East End. Soon the twins' confident demeanour seemed to be having its effect.

‘The law may think they're clever,' said one old lag who visited them, ‘but those twins can still run bloody circles round 'em. You'll see. The twins have got so many strings to pull, so many important people they can ruin, that in the end you'll find that Scotland Yard won't dare go on with it. The twins have had their plans in readiness for years. In three months they'll be back amongst us. And they'll remember who their friends were, mark my words.'

There seemed a chance that he was right. Why else should the twins appear so cheerful at a time like this? For most of May people in Bethnal Green who knew them seemed to be waiting to see which way things would go.

There were naturally a lot of rumours – most of them in favour of the twins. From Brixton they were hard at work directing what they called their ‘propaganda war' against the enemy. But soon there were clearer indications that the Krays were losing their last battle. For some time one of their strongest cards had been the presence of two of the most powerful members of the Firm at liberty. Their young cousin, Ronnie Hart and Scotch Ian Barrie, who was with Ronnie when Cornell was murdered, had both escaped the 6 A.M. arrests on 9 May. Both were considered dangerous, and the knowledge that they were free must have scared many of Nipper Read's potential witnesses. There was a strong rumour that the twins had specially arranged for them to avoid arrest to guard their interests. They were reported to be armed and in secret touch with Brixton.

Hart was the first to go – the police found him hiding miserably with his girl-friend in a caravan. He confessed everything without a struggle. Then a few days later Barrie was spotted in the East End. He was drunk, broke and lost without the twins. Like Hart he put up no resistance. With these last members of the Firm in gaol, the idea of the twins' ‘reprisal force' was quietly forgotten. People began to doubt the existence of the 'emergency plans' the twins had always claimed to have prepared for their arrest.

Criminals are realists. During these first few weeks after the twins' arrest, the con men, club-owners, racketeers who for years had provided their regular income had prudently been honouring old arrangements. Now they were forgetting them. So were the wealthy businessmen with whom the twins had ‘banked' their money for emergencies like this. The vast amounts of money that the twins had taken had been squandered. Nothing was in reserve. The house in Suffolk was made ready to be sold, and then came the ultimate indignity – the twins applied for legal aid for their defence.

When the trial opened on 6 July it began before the Metropolitan Chief Magistrate at Old Street, Mr Frank Milton. Legally the purpose of this preliminary hearing was to discover if there was a case for the twins to answer at a superior court. But both the twins and the police were set to make these hearings something of a demonstration from the start. For the police this took the form of a massed show of force reminiscent of the precautions the Italian
carabinieri
mount for an important Mafia trial in Palermo. The court was in a state of siege, with police everywhere. Witnesses were closely guarded and produced in court from secret hideouts. The twins and their supporters were whisked straight from prison in a high-speed convoy, guarded by outriders and an elite task-force of police. It was a compliment of a sort to the legend of their power. The police were treating them like a hostile force still capable of challenging the State.

In response to this the twins decided they would waive the traditional ban on reporting from these preliminary hearings. It was a gesture. ‘We want the world to see the diabolical liberties the law's been taking,' Reggie said. They also wanted their publicity. Once the case started it would soon be clear that they did not have much else. The ‘driving of the Krays into the ground' had started. Nipper Read had gone to town, and the twins soon knew it.

Set-faced, unsmiling in the front row of the dock, they found themselves up against something they had never faced before – denunciations from their former friends who had ‘gone over to the enemy'. One of the first was a man called Billy Exley, one-time lightweight boxer, thief and bodyguard of Ronnie's. His abrupt appearance in court was carefully stage-managed and most dramatic. The twins had no idea that he had turned against them. As far as they knew Exley had stayed absolutely loyal. Before he appeared in the dock the prosecution had announced that the next witness was suffering from an acute heart condition. A chair was placed in the witness-box, along with a microphone. Then in shuffled Exley, looking deathly pale. The twins watched, stony-faced, and in the hush that filled the court Exley began his evidence on how he used to run their long-firm frauds.

But his appearance meant considerably more than what he said about the frauds. He seemed to speak with difficulty. The court was warned he might drop dead any moment, so that his words seemed like the voice of conscience from the tomb. It was impressive that a man like Exley felt an obligation to recant before he died and name his former friends as evil men. What must have shocked the twins was the thought of all their other secrets he could reveal to the Law. Exley knew the truth about Cornell. Exley was the man who stayed on guard at Vallance Road armed with a shotgun on the night of the murder. Exley had helped to guard Frank Mitchell. If the police had him on their side, they must already know far more than had seemed possible when the case opened.

But the police had more than Exley, and in the days that followed it was clear that the Krays' wall of silence had collapsed. Forgotten victims, former accomplices trooped through the witness-box. The underworld was talking. From this point on the twins knew there were no secrets they could count on keeping. Most dangerous of all for them was the surprise appearance of the frightened barmaid from The Blind Beggar. Previously she had failed to identify Ronnie on the identity parade held after Cornell's murder. Since then Superintendent Harry Mooney had won her confidence and managed to convince her that she had nothing to fear from telling what she saw on the night of the killing. Now in the witness-box she claimed that the twins had scared her into silence, but in fact she had clearly recognized Ronnie and Ian Barrie as the men who fired the shots.