Pretty Boy - If I Come After You Beware 'Cos Hell's Coming With Me. Roy Shaw
and bulges under his silk shirt when he moves. How he looks, and how he actually is, I found to be a contradiction in itself.
Roy is always a pleasure to be with. He has endearing qualities that, for whatever reason, men of today rarely possess. He is one of the old school, and knows how to treat a lady. He would open doors and step back to let me through, take my coat for me, watch his Ps and Qs in order not to offend me, because it’s not tough or clever to be uncouth. In short, he’s a true gentleman.
The first day I interviewed Roy, he asked me what I liked to drink. From then on, he always added it to his shopping list. Somehow, I always had trouble imagining Roy Shaw pushing a shopping trolley around Marks & Spencers. But he does. Every week. And each time, he’d buy me something special – a cherry or a chocolate cake – which he’d serve on a monogrammed tea plate with the initials ‘RS’ emblazoned on the edge in gold.
I teased him one day by asking him if he’d stayed at the Royal Swallow hotel. He laughed and told me not to be saucy. You only have to scratch the surface to discover that Roy has a dry sense of humour, like the time when he told me he had bought a memory book. When I asked him why he’d bought a memory book, he said that he’d become quite forgetful. He added that it had cost him about £200. I asked to see the book, particularly as it had cost a small fortune, but he shrugged, laughed, and said he’d forgotten where he’d put it. We shared a number of these light-hearted moments while writing his chilling and disturbing story.
Initially, Roy found it difficult talking about himself. He was shy and awkward with me, but after a couple of visits he relaxed and started to open up. He’d protected himself for so long and had never let anyone get close, or see him vulnerable and exposed.
As we were writing this book, he regressed back to childhood and relived every moment, and while talking we stumbled across what I believe to be the trigger for Roy’s deep-rooted anger.
He was badly bullied as a boy, and his father was killed when he was ten. That’s when he had his heart ripped out, leaving him, as some would say, heartless. Roy never dealt with his grief, and from that day on, he pulled up the shutters, battened down the hatches, and cocooned himself in his own world, never allowing himself to be hurt again.
Word on the street soon spread that I was writing Roy’s biography, and everyone had their own story to tell about him, each tale more violent than the last. After describing each violent episode in minute detail, most would whisper, ‘But don’t tell Roy I told you.’
I have written five crime books and I write regularly for a crime magazine, so no amount of violence fazes me. I’ve become hardened to it. It’s true of most cases I’ve researched that there are usually only one or two incidents in a book around which everything else revolves; the rest is descriptive colour, or padding. What makes Roy Shaw’s story different is that no padding was required. In fact, I had to water down instances of sheer brutality because I don’t believe in writing about violence for violence’s sake.
Boys will be boys and men will be men. They all like to poke fires, chase girls and fight. If the truth be told, the majority of men only fight once in a blue moon, if at all. Roy has had a fight almost every day of his life. It comes as naturally to him as breathing.
What is missing from this book, because words do not do them justice, are Roy’s many gestures. On numerous occasions during our conversations, he’d leap up from his seat and demonstrate with clenched fists exactly how he’d whacked someone, or emphasise the venomous thrust when stabbing a victim. But he never did this to brag or show off. It was simply so I could get it exactly right. It was then I saw Roy Shaw come alive when he re-enacted his many murderous acts.
Roy says he is a businessman now and has retired from his profession – violence. The word ‘retirement’ is not applicable to men like Roy; it’s more suited to accountants or lawyers. Gangsters don’t retire – they’re more like legendary cowboys, slowly fading away into the background, because you can never retire from what or who you really are. Roy Shaw is an enforcer and always will be.
At the end of writing this book, I asked Roy if there was anything he wanted to say to the men he’d hurt or the boxers he’d punished in the ring. Perhaps he’d like to take the opportunity for a word or two of regret, explanation or apology? Roy pondered on that thought. I looked into his piercing blue eyes, waiting for some words of wisdom:
‘Mmm .. yeah …’ he nodded. ‘Fuck ’em.’
Kate Kray 2003
I’M KNOWN AS A RUTHLESS BASTARD and I am a ruthless bastard. The whole of my life has been fight, fight, fight. It’s what I am, a fighter. Some people can talk their way out of a problem, while others manipulate or buy their way out. Me – I fight my way out.
I didn’t set out to get a reputation, that was never my intention. I didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and decide on a life of crime, it just crept up on me and before I knew it, I was a ruthless bastard. I admit I enjoy the respect shown to me because of my reputation. Writing this book has made me think that maybe the respect I thought I’d earned was shown to me because I demanded it through fear. There is a fine line between the two and it’s only now I realise the difference between earning respect and demanding it.
I’ve never thought about writing my autobiography. In fact, it never entered my head until a funny little blonde sort called Kate Kray asked me. Kate phoned and arranged to visit me because of some book research she was doing.
I agreed and before I had the chance to change my mind, Kate had dotted the ‘I’s and crossed the ‘T’s and my signature was on the contract.
At first, I found it difficult to talk about my life, as I’ve never been able to confide in anyone. Even at the best of times, I find it difficult to express myself and my innermost feelings.
I’ve never been able to understand the reasons why I was so violent and, to be honest, I still don’t fully understand it. But when you’re forced to analyse yourself and look deeper, you find answers, even though you’ve never asked the questions.
I don’t regret the life I’ve led, not for one moment. We’re all in charge of our own destiny, I just regret wasting all that time behind bars, because you only have one life and shouldn’t waste a moment of it because you will never get out of it alive.
One of the reasons I agreed to write this book is this: if it helps stop one young tearaway, just one, from going down the road I went down, then it would all be worthwhile. It would be my way of putting something back into society instead of taking it out.
If I can pass on anything from my experiences to a young up-and-coming villain, it’s this: you gain very little, but lose so much, by trying to be something you’re not.
Some things are precious and should be guarded and cherished at whatever cost, like freedom, love and life. I lost my freedom for 15 years in prison, I lost the loves of my life through my inability to conform, and I’ve taken life with a total disregard for anyone.
I can categorically state that it’s not big and it’s not clever to go to prison. I’m not going to preach or stand on a soapbox, patronising youngsters by telling them not to commit crime. I can’t offer them any words of wisdom, just the benefit of my own experiences. But at the end of the day, it’s their decision, and theirs alone.
There are only three possible outcomes which you should be aware of before embarking on a life of crime, and it doesn’t matter who you are or who you think you are, nobody, and I mean nobody, is untouchable. Make no mistake, if you choose the road I walked down, then you will suffer one of these three consequences:
ONE
The most likely. You’ll spend the best part of your life languishing in a stinking prison cell, surrounded by two-bob drug dealers, paedophiles and, your worst nightmare, the prison queens.