Bringing Down the Krays by Bobby Teale

how crazy Ron was going.
    If Ronnie was getting more unpredictable by the day, Reggie seemed to know exactly what he was doing. On 19 April 1965, he married Frances Shea. It was a huge deal, the East End wedding of the year. The fashion photographer David Bailey took the wedding snaps. They went to live Up West to start with. That lasted a couple of weeks before Reg moved them to the flat in Cedra Court directly below Ronnie’s, which he had specially done up with smart modern furniture.
    But Reggie wasn’t happy. And nor was Frances. As my brothers witnessed it, Reggie would take Frances out at night to some club where the Firm were – and all the talk was of villainy. She’d just stare into space. David said he thought she was just permanently terrified. Reggie would come back to Cedra Court and just leave her on her own, while he went upstairs to where Ronnie was partying.
    She cried her eyes out night after night. Mad Teddy could make her laugh, and Alfie and David could cheer her up. But she hated the Firm and hated Ronnie. The Shea family knew and they loathed Reggie for it. In the end she left Reggie after eight weeks.
    David caught some of the storms. One night Reggie came round to his flat with Dickie Morgan for a drink. They came knocking on the door about two o’clock in the morning. David was asleep, but he got up and found them a bottle of gin and sat down to talk. Dickie went home after a while but Reggie and David sat up together after he’d gone. Suddenly Reggiestarted to cry, saying, ‘You know what, we’re going to get a lot of bird when they get us.’
    David told him, ‘Look Reg, why don’t you get out of it? You’re well-known, you’ve got a few quid, why don’t you and Frances get away by yourselves?’
    Reggie looked back at David, and said, ‘I can’t do it, Dave. I can’t. I’m a part of Ronnie, and he’s part of me. I know it, I can see it. If he goes down, so do I. We’re going to do lots and lots of bird. I know Ronnie’s losing it but I can’t do anything.’
    He stayed that night and David took him back to Vallance Road in the morning. Reggie asked him not to say anything about what had passed between them to anyone: ‘Keep this just between us,’ he told David. But Reggie’s marriage was over before it had even started. Ronnie had made sure of that.
    Meanwhile, I had met a girl of my own. Her name was Pat Reader. She came from a wealthy, influential family on the island. We decided to marry quickly. But there would be trouble ahead.

CHAPTER 7
    PUPPIES AND FLOWERS
    SO WHO WERE the Krays? Were they the loveable charity promoters the press depicted them as? Were they part of the new working-class aristocracy of pop stars and photographers? Certainly they were getting their photos taken with all the right people. The twins had always courted celebrities because they thought being in their company brought respect. Ronnie’s madness was deepening but his craving for fame was growing too.
    One night Ronnie told David: ‘Come over this evening, you’re going to meet Sonny Liston.’ He was the heavyweight champion of the world, here in London on a European tour. So David went over to Vallance Road to pick him up. There were crowds of people in the street and loads of photographers. The twins wanted to be respected, not just feared. That’s what all that charity and celebrity stuff was about, all those photographs of them with boxers, singers and film stars – all that trouble to make sure the press were tipped off when there was some gift to a kiddies’ hospital. David and Ronnie went with Liston to the Grave Maurice in Whitechapel Road. God knows what he made of that.
    The US big-fight game was crooked. So Ronnie asked him whether he would take a dive. Liston said: ‘I’m one of eleven kids. The gangsters put me on a pedestal. Who am I going to look after? Them? Or the mug punters?’
    Then David drove Liston to the Cambridge Rooms, a pub on the Kingston Bypass that the