Doing the Business - The Final Confession of the Senior Kray Brother. Charles Kray
to be inspected and checked, even by a sniffer dog, before Reg could be safely put inside. They were taking no chances with their prize prisoner.
The van was quickly on to the M11, and then the M25 around London, to the west. At around 11.00am the warders were hungry so they pulled into Winchester Prison, a scheduled stop for lunch. The meal was the usual thing, something good for the warders, something not so good for the prisoners, but Reg couldn’t eat much — he kept on thinking of Charlie. He wanted to get there fast — at any cost.
The white van, complete with its occupants, made the ferry at Porstmouth early in the afternoon and by mid-afternoon they had reached St. Mary’s Hospital and the dying Charlie. Reg had endured the entire trip handcuffed to two warders, except for a brief interlude when waiting for the ferry, where he was allowed to smoke a cigarette or two while one wrist was freed. On this first day he was allowed to see Charlie for around 45 minutes, still handcuffed to the two warders, one on each side — plenty of time for a quick chat and a few words of encouragement. Charlie hugged his brother, nothing could dent the Kray spirit, but his legs were already beginning to turn black, and the feeling had gone. Reg was under no illusions — it was all true. At 73 years of age, Charlie hadn’t long to live.
The usual words came from trusted hospital sources — Charlie was ‘comfortable and cheerful’ although he had become ‘extremely unwell’. And Parkhurst Prison let it be known that Reg Kray, once gangland crime boss and now a pensioner of some 66 years, was a welcome visitor — he could stay and use Charlie’s cell until his brother was well enough to resume his sentence, or until …
Reg couldn’t even manage a smile for the cameras as he left the hospital. He was smart enough though, shirtsleeved, white casual jacket carefully placed over his arm, not getting in the way of the handcuffs, and the customary blue jeans. Sources at the prison told reporters that the reunion had been emotional — ‘Both men are old,’ they said, ‘and they know they haven’t got long left.’ Reg settled into Charlie’s old cell, and waited. It had been a long day!
The following week passed slowly and painfully, apparently with no end in sight. Charlie was fighting the toughest fight of his life. After all those fights, after surviving all those years, after already witnessing the death of his mother, his father, his brother Ron — was it now to be Charlie’s turn? He didn’t give up easy — he fought every inch of the way. But there was no quick fix, no easy option, no way out.
The speculation grew as Reg Kray waited for his brother to die. Was he just taking a break from Wayland Prison, spending a few quiet weeks on the Isle of Wight, just for the sheer fun of it? Was he manipulating the situation just to get a few more columns in the press, using brother Ron’s favoured media tactic? Well, let me assure everyone — there was no way in hell that Reg Kray wanted to be in Parkhurst, it brought back so many memories, and none of them pleasant. Imagine having to spend all that time — some two weeks in all — in your brother’s cell, waiting for him to die. It was one of the worst experiences of his life.
The news was brought to Reg on the evening of 4 April — Charlie had died peacefully in his sleep at around 8.50pm that evening. Reg Kray was alone in his cell, alone in his thoughts — he was the last Kray standing!
He had already made his peace with Charlie earlier in the day, but it was a one-sided conversation — Charlie was so far gone that he couldn’t even manage the blink of an eyelid. He told him that they had not always seen eye to eye, that he was dissatisfied with some of the comments that Charlie had made. He told him that he hadn’t always been straight with Ron and himself — about the T-shirt deal, where he had kept all the money for himself; about the film deal, in which he accepted the unacceptable and paltry figure of £300,000 since he needed the money urgently to pay off his debts; about the problems it had caused when he was arrested for the cocaine bust, hence spoiling Reggie’s own chances of getting out on parole. Reg Kray had much to complain about, but through it all he bore Charlie no malice — they were family and that counted for much; now it could all be forgiven, once and for all time. There was more he would have liked to have said, personal things about the past and the present, but the circumstances weren’t right for such a conversation — being constantly handcuffed to two prison warders, always there and always listening, was far from the private, intimate environment necessary for such words.
But Charlie couldn’t hear him. He was fading fast and everyone knew it. His legs were now black, his breathing difficult — it was just a matter of time and, after 73 years time, was all Charlie had. The hospital had only recently issued a new statement to the press, saying, ‘He has had heart problems and respiratory problems. His condition is giving cause for concern.’
Reg had returned to Charlie’s cell, a lonely and embittered man. Soon he would be the last of the Krays — the sole survivor of the gangland wars, the ageing Godfather of UK crime. But, in reality, he was simply a lonely pensioner, waiting for death.
The rush to Charlie’s bedside was too late — he’d died. All the good intentions in the world would not bring him back. Reg couldn’t help his twin brother Ron, who had died at the hands of his beloved cigarettes, and he couldn’t help his older brother Charlie when he really needed help — before the cocaine deal and well before it had all started to go downhill, when Charlie’s son Gary died of cancer. This had been the turning point for Charlie — losing Gary was like losing his reason for living. He idolised his son, they were inseparable. But what made matters worse for Charlie was the fact that he couldn’t afford to bury him — Charlie Kray was broke, with little chance of employment, with only a few friends around him, with only a fearful dread of what the future held. It was Reg who had stepped in and saved the day, paying for all the funeral arrangements. But it was more than money that Charlie was in need of — he needed a reason to live.
The cocaine deal had been Charlie’s last hope, but doing a deal with undercover policemen was not the foundation needed for good things to come and a solid future. Champagne Charlie Kray was just an old time rogue, going nowhere — fast!
Reg wept and wept that first night. There was much to think about — the past, the present, the future. And there were the funeral arrangements to consider. Reg had pulled out all the stops for Ron’s funeral, five years earlier — should he do the same for Charlie? Or should he play it low key, and try to placate any inquisitive Home Office officials, keen to keep the last Kray in jail? He was urged by many to play safe — have a quiet ceremony with none of the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the funeral of his twin brother. But Reg Kray is no ordinary Eastender — he had already decided that first night in Charlie’s cell. It was to be the real McCoy, something to satisfy the fans, to remind people of the Kray legacy. Charlie Kray would be buried with honours — and everyone would know about it.
Reg couldn’t forget these past few weeks with Charlie. ‘I visited him twice a day, once in the morning and then a long session in the afternoon,’ he told the press, always eager to please. ‘He looked terrible,’ he told them, ‘he was just lying there on his back sucking in air from an oxygen mask. He was breathing really heavily and he was out of it.’ Reg paused for a moment. ‘It was heartbreaking, his chest was going up and down and he couldn’t hear me.’
But the crowds would hear, the East End of London would hear, the entire country would hear — from Reg Kray, as he laid on the accolades and praised his brother. ‘I’ve been through so much and, even though it has been hard coping with the loss, I have remained strong in mind,’ he told friends. ‘But it has been so sad to lose Charlie — prison was not the place for him, he was too old to endure it.’
The funeral service was held on Wednesday, 19 April, at Bethnal Green’s St Matthew’s Church. The idea was to bury Charlie, but it soon turned into a tribute to Reg. All the usual suspects were there — Mad Frankie Fraser, Tony Lambrianou, Freddie Foreman, even previous arch rival for the position of criminal boss of London, Charlie Richardson, turned up to pay homage. So too were the police — some 200 or more of them. They lined the route, checking the stretch limousines as they passed by, waiting for a sign of a break by Reg and seeing which villains they could identify among the mourners’ Who’s Who? But I for one definitely think that the two helicopters flying along the route, in the skies above the East