didn’t.
Alfie had a bit more of a clue. George Cornell was some face who’d done rough stuff for the Richardsons, the scrap-dealing brothers who ran crime in south-east London with a sadistic ruthlessness that outdid even the Krays. His real name was George Myers. The word was he’d once beaten the shit out of Ronnie in a fist fight, the only one who ever had. TheChristmas before there’d nearly been a shoot-out at the Astor Club when Cornell was supposed to have referred to Ronnie as a ‘fat pouf’. For him to come drinking in Whitechapel had been taking the piss.
Reggie was sitting in the front passenger seat complaining about why Ronnie had to do Cornell. Reggie was always moaning about what Ronnie had or hadn’t done. The way he went on, it was like it was some domestic tiff.
So where are we all supposed to go? I was thinking. Nobody’s saying.
David’s driving very carefully, looking out for the Old Bill. Reggie says, ‘Where are we going to go to now?’ We all remain silent. Then Reggie tells David, ‘Go up Lea Bridge Road way.’
The Krays had no hide-outs, whatever anyone might have suggested later. It was all far less planned than that. We were heading out of the East End, up Cambridge Heath Road, back past Cedra Court and David’s flat in Moresby Road, past the dark Hackney Marshes and on into the suburbs. Nothing much else was moving; the streets were as quiet as a graveyard.
David thought he knew where we were going. He’d driven the twins this way before. It was a place called the Chequers in Walthamstow High Street, a favourite of the twins, run by an ex-policeman called Charlie Hobbs. There was a poker club called the Stow, round the back.
Reggie was still mumbling away, complaining that Ronnie ‘should have organised this better’. The twins never organised anything. Everything happened because there was no fear of the consequences. Both of them acted on their impulses.
We got to Walthamstow and went into the pub. The governor glanced up at us and quickly opened a flap in the bar counter, and we all marched into another bar room that wasn’t normally used. Ronnie was already there too and he came towards us when he saw us enter. It was very chaotic in there. The calmest one was Ronnie. At least it seemed to be.
He asked us as we came in: ‘Do you want a drink?’ I suppose at that moment, we could have used one.
While we had driven Reggie, Ronnie had been driven to the Chequers by Scotch Jack Dickson, so I found out a little later. We all gathered in the back room. You could feel the tension and excitement fizzing in the air. Everyone was talking at once and no one was making much sense. The radio was kept on in the background so we could listen to the news bulletins.
Ronnie went into a lavatory and changed his clothes and started to wash his hands in a sink. When I first saw him that evening he had been wearing a dark suit, shirt and tie. Now he looked more like a clown with a pullover too small for him and trousers too short. He had put on some of Alfie’s clothes and looked absurd. If Ronnie had been a woman, he’d have been a size sixteen, while Alfie would have been a ten. So now he looked like Max Wall in his trousers.
We all gathered in an upstairs room when we heard on the radio there were road-blocks all over the East End and that someone was being rushed to hospital after a shooting in the Blind Beggar Pub on Whitechapel Road, just down the street from where we’d picked them up at the Widow’s. There was laughing and whooping when they all heard that. The Firm were revelling in it, with Ronnie as the ringmaster.
Ronnie said: ‘I hope the bastard’s dead.’
At midnight the radio news came on again, telling us again that a man had been shot. This time it said he had died in the ambulance. Everyone started talking excitedly and I heard Ronnie say: ‘Always shoot to kill. Dead men can’t speak.’
So what the fuck had actually happened? Eventually it came out in
Alfie had a bit more of a clue. George Cornell was some face who’d done rough stuff for the Richardsons, the scrap-dealing brothers who ran crime in south-east London with a sadistic ruthlessness that outdid even the Krays. His real name was George Myers. The word was he’d once beaten the shit out of Ronnie in a fist fight, the only one who ever had. TheChristmas before there’d nearly been a shoot-out at the Astor Club when Cornell was supposed to have referred to Ronnie as a ‘fat pouf’. For him to come drinking in Whitechapel had been taking the piss.
Reggie was sitting in the front passenger seat complaining about why Ronnie had to do Cornell. Reggie was always moaning about what Ronnie had or hadn’t done. The way he went on, it was like it was some domestic tiff.
So where are we all supposed to go? I was thinking. Nobody’s saying.
David’s driving very carefully, looking out for the Old Bill. Reggie says, ‘Where are we going to go to now?’ We all remain silent. Then Reggie tells David, ‘Go up Lea Bridge Road way.’
The Krays had no hide-outs, whatever anyone might have suggested later. It was all far less planned than that. We were heading out of the East End, up Cambridge Heath Road, back past Cedra Court and David’s flat in Moresby Road, past the dark Hackney Marshes and on into the suburbs. Nothing much else was moving; the streets were as quiet as a graveyard.
David thought he knew where we were going. He’d driven the twins this way before. It was a place called the Chequers in Walthamstow High Street, a favourite of the twins, run by an ex-policeman called Charlie Hobbs. There was a poker club called the Stow, round the back.
Reggie was still mumbling away, complaining that Ronnie ‘should have organised this better’. The twins never organised anything. Everything happened because there was no fear of the consequences. Both of them acted on their impulses.
We got to Walthamstow and went into the pub. The governor glanced up at us and quickly opened a flap in the bar counter, and we all marched into another bar room that wasn’t normally used. Ronnie was already there too and he came towards us when he saw us enter. It was very chaotic in there. The calmest one was Ronnie. At least it seemed to be.
He asked us as we came in: ‘Do you want a drink?’ I suppose at that moment, we could have used one.
While we had driven Reggie, Ronnie had been driven to the Chequers by Scotch Jack Dickson, so I found out a little later. We all gathered in the back room. You could feel the tension and excitement fizzing in the air. Everyone was talking at once and no one was making much sense. The radio was kept on in the background so we could listen to the news bulletins.
Ronnie went into a lavatory and changed his clothes and started to wash his hands in a sink. When I first saw him that evening he had been wearing a dark suit, shirt and tie. Now he looked more like a clown with a pullover too small for him and trousers too short. He had put on some of Alfie’s clothes and looked absurd. If Ronnie had been a woman, he’d have been a size sixteen, while Alfie would have been a ten. So now he looked like Max Wall in his trousers.
We all gathered in an upstairs room when we heard on the radio there were road-blocks all over the East End and that someone was being rushed to hospital after a shooting in the Blind Beggar Pub on Whitechapel Road, just down the street from where we’d picked them up at the Widow’s. There was laughing and whooping when they all heard that. The Firm were revelling in it, with Ronnie as the ringmaster.
Ronnie said: ‘I hope the bastard’s dead.’
At midnight the radio news came on again, telling us again that a man had been shot. This time it said he had died in the ambulance. Everyone started talking excitedly and I heard Ronnie say: ‘Always shoot to kill. Dead men can’t speak.’
So what the fuck had actually happened? Eventually it came out in
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