Bringing Down the Krays (12 page)

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 Dickson, 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’.

Now it truly was time for me to leave. I looked at the faces in the car and wondered again: ‘What the fuck have I got myself into?’

Joe Pogue gave me a number to memorise so that I could call at anytime. ‘Stay in touch,’ he said. I left the car and walked back to Fleet Street with a few men standing on both sides of the street just looking at me.

I kept my head down and moved as fast as I could without running. I felt the men on the street were trying to see my face. I knew, or thought I did, that the Krays had paid informers within the police – but had no idea how high they went. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t hide. I’d crossed the line. And now I must go back into the jaws of it and most probably get myself killed. I was in a daze.

I got a bus going towards Islington but needed more time, so I got off and started walking. Then I got a cab to Stoke Newington, got out in the High Road and walked the rest of the way to Moresby Road. I thought I was being watched all the way.

I finally got to the door of my brother’s flat. I couldn’t see a soul around. I tapped on the window and a face peeked out so fast I didn’t see who it was. The door was opened by Christine, who didn’t say a word but gave me a look of utter helplessness. In I went. The place stank of booze, smoke and sweat. After being out in the fresh air, I wanted to get out again straight away. But I knew I couldn’t. I was back in it. I would have to stay in it. Surely they must know.

And there’s Ronnie, sitting in one of David’s chairs: ‘Hello Bobby, had a nice little outing have you? How’s your mum?’

CHAPTER 11

MORESBY ROAD – AND A TRIP TO DARTMOOR

SO NOW THE
Firm are all holed up in a tiny flat with women and children as their protection. My brother David was perhaps the most terrified of all of us. His family was so caught up in it, how could he not be?

After my meeting with Butler it quickly became apparent that the police were watching us. There was a garden at the back of David’s flat and the Old Bill were by now all round us. One day a copper casually knocked on the front door to ask David if his wife and family were all right, as if he were just passing. Ronnie was in the bath while this was going on. He was always in the bath at David’s place as he didn’t have one at home. But when David asked Ronnie what we were going to do, he just said: ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He was so confident, so sure that they wouldn’t come in if David’s wife and the children were there.

There was still a lot of coming and going. The twins needed to know who’d been in the Beggar that night, who’d seen Ronnie, who was saying what to who, who to put the frighteners
on. They needed information. And there were policeman in their pay who’d tell them all of that.

David had to go out for food and fags. One time he and Christine went down to the shops in Upper Clapton Road with one of their children, and passed a policeman standing outside in the street. He nodded in recognition at them, smiling and asking how they were. They just nodded and smiled back at him before going back to the flat. There were always one or two of the Firm staring at us too. Then there would always be one or two police at the shops pretending they were buying cigarettes. What would we do if they got an order to come in after us?

On the fourth or fifth night there was a knock at the front door. When that happened, we were always told to get away from it and go in the kitchen. This time it’s a copper. So Christine has to open it. Ronnie and Reggie and the rest of them were all in the front room, ready for a shoot-out. Someone had a shotgun loaded and ready – there were plenty of guns. Ronnie started gesturing at Christine to get rid of him. The policeman told Christine that they’d heard there’d been a robbery in the area and was just checking up that everyone was safe. ‘You all right?’ he asked Christine. Christine must have been terrified but answered, ‘Yes, I’m all right. Everything’s fine.’ It was like something from a film.

The policeman said: ‘Well, we’ve had a report, but as long as you’re OK, I guess that’s it.’

Once the policeman had gone, Christine started to break down, sobbing and crying, begging David to do something, get them out of it. But David was in an impossible position. What
do you tell your wife if the Kray Firm decides to come round for tea?