Pretty Boy - If I Come After You Beware 'Cos Hell's Coming With Me. Roy Shaw

       Acknowledgements

      Ray Mills – who supported and visited me throughout my prison years.

      Bertie Costa – who stood like a man when we were tried for murder.

      Barbara – who helped open my eyes when I was released from prison.

      Eric Warne – we were pals since school.

      Joe Carrington – who promoted my last three fights.

      Sharon – my former girlfriend and still a friend.

      Terry Garwood – computer wizard.

      Freda Bolton – for all her hard work and dedication.

      Bobby Reading, John Sabeani, Patsy Gutteridge, Micky May, Colombo, Math twins, Paul Whitworth, Charlie Bronson, Danny Chippendale, Joe Lazarous, Bobby Howes, Rod ‘John Conteh look-alike’.

      I would also like to thank all my friends in and out of prison who supported me throughout my boxing career, there are too many to mention by name but I would like to ask them just one more favour: BUY MY BOOK … OR ELSE!

       Introduction

      I ARRIVED AT THE HOME OF ROY SHAW, known as the hardest man in England, on a hot summer day. I looked around at the security protecting his property; closed-circuit cameras monitored my every move. I pressed a small buzzer and waited. Almost immediately, a voice growled over the intercom, ‘Who is it?’

      I waved into the security camera and smiled. ‘It’s me, Kate Kray.’

      The heavily barred electric gates swept majestically open to let me through. Standing on the driveway was a shiny red Bentley Corniche with a personalised number plate. Next to it was a royal blue Mercedes sports. If that doesn’t just about say it all, then what does?

      Although this was the first time I’d been to Roy Shaw’s home, we’d met before on 6 November 1989. The reason the date is so prominent in my mind is because it was the day I married Ronnie Kray, and was the day I was introduced to Ron’s world – the underworld.

      Each and every one of the 200 guests dressed in wide-shouldered suits introduced themselves to me in turn. I met them all – hoodlums, bank robbers, enforcers, murderers – but one man who introduced himself was different from the rest, I could feel it the moment I met him. His name was Roy Shaw. I knew instantly he was a formidable man, extremely menacing and very, very dangerous.

      We met on the odd occasion at benefit nights laid on by gangsters for gangsters who were doing time. I never got into an in-depth conversation with Roy, it was more a case of a kiss on the cheek, a hug and ‘How’s the Colonel?’

      The last time I saw Roy was at my husband’s funeral in March 1995. On that sad day, there were over 50,000 mourners pushing and shoving for a better view of the cortége. Security was tight, and amid the mayhem I noticed Roy Shaw pull up in his Bentley alone. He got out and was dressed in an irridescent electric-blue suit. He straightened his tie and walked towards a wall of security men. As he approached, they stepped back, parting like the Red Sea to let him through. Not one of them challenged him – they daren’t.

      Three years on, I arrived at his home to interview him for a book I was in the middle of researching about the toughest men in the country. As he showed me into his lounge on that hot, sunny afternoon, I sat on his sofa and sipped an ice-cold drink and listened as he started to unravel his harrowing life story. The more I listened, I became convinced that Roy Shaw was a cut above the rest in the violent dog-eat-dog world in which he lived.

      It was a story that needed to be told, and within a week the contracts were signed and I began to write Roy’s story as he told it.

      As each day, and then each week passed, and as the interviews progressed, we slowly peeled away the layers that Roy had built up over the years to protect himself. There was layer upon layer of madness, sadness, indifference, hate and, most of all, anger, that needed to be resolved. Roy went through the gamut of emotions, reliving the highs and lows of his life. He laughed at times, and cried, and was embarrassed by neither.

      As we stripped away the protective shell, for the first time in his life Roy bared his soul. There were times when he had difficulty in expressing himself, and understanding why he was such a violent, angry young man.

      But that’s just it – there were no reasons. I would like to be able to say he was so violent because of something specific, an underlying problem or a justifiable motive – but I can’t. There is no justification, none whatsoever, for Roy’s violence, and he would agree. He doesn’t blame his childhood or society, and doesn’t try to avoid the truth, because the buck stops with him. Roy laid down his own boundaries for himself and never overstepped the invisible mark, or allowed anyone else to. He has his own priorities which have made him strong, and he has examined his own experiences, good and bad, very carefully, and learned from them.

      Every Wednesday and Friday I visited Roy at his luxurious home in Essex. He was always ready and waiting for me with a smile. His greeting was always the same, warm and sincere, but looking into Roy’s face, and particularly deep into his eyes, Roy’s unique character blazed through. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, his eyes are cold and expressionless, and would look more at home on a great white man-eating shark. They’re small and are closely set above a corrugated nose. Roy appears to stare with an unnerving intensity into a secret world of hostility and hatred.

      Everything about Roy spells violence. His shoulders start