The Black Widow

by Linda Calvey

  “HELP ME! PLEASE! HELP ME!”

  There was a policeman close by in the park. He sprinted over. The contrast between the bloodshed in my kitchen and the normality of people going about their business in the outside world hit me, and I almost fainted. I was hysterical.

  The officer spoke urgently into his radio. “12.28. It’s murder.”

  Everything became a blur. Time seemed elastic, those seconds after the shooting seemed like hours. I had no idea who was coming and going. Soon there were helicopters buzzing overhead, police sirens cutting through the air, policemen speaking in hushed, urgent tones around me. I was whisked off to the local nick, where a hot coffee was placed in my shaking hands as my house was fingerprinted from top to bottom. I tried to sip the scalding hot liquid, but my body was trembling all over, and all I could do was sit and wait for the tremors to die down.

  The officers couldn’t have been kinder, ringing my brother Terry and asking him to bring in another set of clothes for me, reassuring me that the killer would be found, to which I said nothing. I declined a solicitor. After all, I was a witness to a murder, not a suspect.

  My face and hands were swabbed, and once I’d changed into fresh clothes, they carried out tests on the clothes I had been wearing, to check whether I’d handled a gun. They came back negative, of course. I hadn’t handled a gun. They treated me properly, as an unwitting witness to a grotesque killing. All the time, my mind was whirring, trying to work out why Danny had taken it upon himself to kill Ron. Had Brian told Danny that Ron was going to kill my son? Perhaps my kindness towards Danny had been misinterpreted, and he saw killing Ron as a way of getting rid of his rival? Had Brian asked Danny to get rid of Ron for Brian’s own sake, so he could get me back on his release?I had absolutely no idea, but I knew that, finally, I was free to go my own way, to live my own life at last. My son was safe. I was safe. My nightmare with Ron was over.

  I signed my statement the next day.

  “He burst in just after we got back to my house. He was wearing black and had an Irish accent. He might have said he was from the police, but it’s all blurry, I was so shocked that I tried to hide in the corner of my kitchen, so I didn’t see him properly.”

  “And you have no idea who it was who killed him?” the man asked.

  “No. I’m sorry. Ron had many enemies, you understand…”

  I stopped talking deliberately, leaving a gap I hoped the officer might fill with his own theories about the many people who might have wanted Ron dead.

  Even though I knew exactly who had shot Ron, I didn’t say a word. Grassing someone up was the worst of crimes in the underworld. It was dishonourable, a betrayal of the crook’s code. Danny had saved my son. That meant I would never betray him. He’d been the one to take out the psychopath who had threatened to kill Neil. I would never grass up the man who did that. I had too much to thank him for. Ron Cook was a violent, controlling thug who ran serious armed robberies, profited from despair and misery, and who had killed before. There was no way I’d give Danny a life sentence for removing him from this world.

  The officer looked at me. I didn’t blink as I returned his gaze.

  “There you go, all signed, thank you, officer.”

  Back at Shelley’s, I found out that Neil and Mel had actually been together, sharing a ciggie a few streets away, when the police helicopters swarmed overhead. Neil would often stay over at Kirkham Road, where Mel was living, as well as at my house in King George Avenue, and he’d been there drinking and messing around when the area erupted with the sound of cop cars squealing and sirens blazing.

  “We were outside smokin’ a joint when these helicopters started flyin’ in circles over our heads. We thought they’d come for us!” Neil said, as we sat in the safety of Kirkham Road that night. “My mate said they were flyin’ over my house. That’s when my phone went, and someone said, ‘Look, somethin’s happened.’ I asked what, and he said, ‘Ron’s dead.’ ‘Fuckin’ what?’ I said, and he replied, ‘Yeah, he was killed in your house.’ That’s when I knew the shit had really hit the fan.”

  “It’s heavy stuff, Mum,” Mel added.

  We stared at each other.

  What could I say? A man had been murdered in my home. There was nothing I could do to reassure my family, except to tell them we were lucky not to have been involved. I don’t think I had really taken in the fact that Ron, an untouchable, invincible gangland boss, was dead. It didn’t seem real. I had been increasingly fearful of him, for good reason, and having that weight lifted from my shoulders was a sensation I knew I would grow to like, once the trauma of witnessing the attack had dissipated.

  Two weeks later, there was a knock at my door.

  I opened up to find a lone policeman standing on my doorstep.

  “Hello Mrs Calvey, we’d like you to come back to the station, please. There have been some developments in the investigation, and we need to talk to you again.”

  I frowned. “What’s this really about?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about, Mrs Calvey,” he replied. “I’m sure you’ll be home again soon. But bring some clothes and overnight things, just in case.”

  Bemused, I gathered my stuff and went out to the car with him.

  We arrived at the station.

  “You’re Linda Calvey, the Linda Calvey?” A different officer had been assigned to me from the kindly man who had taken my statement.

  “Yes, I’m Linda Calvey.”

  “Wife of Michael Calvey, who died during an armed robbery?”

  The copper’s face was set hard. Gone was the concern, the support for a murder witness. The tables had turned, and I wasn’t sure why.

  “Linda Calvey, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Ronald Cook.”

  I was dumbstruck. Out of nowhere, I had gone from traumatised witness to prime suspect. I felt utterly betrayed.

  I was questioned under caution in a small room at the back of Canning Town nick. This time I had the duty solicitor by my side.

  “Why didn’t you tell us you were the Linda Calvey who caused all that grief when your husband was shot dead?” they questioned me.

  I ignored them. “You know I didn’t kill Ron, because your tests all came back negative.”

  “Which tests were those? That’s funny. None of our officers remember any tests,” the officer replied, sitting back in his chair, his arms crossed in front of him.

  “The ones that showed I hadn’t picked up a gun,” I said, impatiently.

  The officer just looked back at me, shaking his head. There was a second officer with him, sitting directly opposite me.

  “What’s goin’ on? The test results were given to me, I can swear it,” I said, my head buzzing. This wasn’t right. Why was he shaking his head? Where were those results? Was he denying their existence?

  “Why didn’t you say that Daniel Reece had been in your home? We found his fingerprints in the house. And we know he was on leave the weekend Ronald Cook was killed. Perhaps you and Daniel planned to kill him together…?”

  “I’ve told you already that I didn’t think it was important. I picked him up from Verne Prison on the Friday and took him to his son’s grave. He came back to mine for dinner, then I dropped him at his mum’s. I haven’t seen him since.” I was sticking to my story that I didn’t know the murderer, even if it meant that suspicion fell upon me.

  “I’ve told you everythin’ I can remember,” I continued. “Ron picked up the milk bottle, then I heard the loudest bang as the street door was kicked open. The one place you won’t find Danny’s fingerprints are in my bedroom. So if you think we were havin’ an affair, you’re wrong. Go and look. Why would I murder someone in my own house? In my kitchen? It doesn’t make any sense. Who on earth would say to someone, ‘Come to my house and do a killing’?”

  Nothing I said made a difference. Once the poli
ce knew who I was, my reputation as the Black Widow, gangster’s moll, went before me. They assumed that because I ran with wolves, I’d become one.

  “You planned it all along. It was a contract killing. You paid Daniel Reece £10,000 to murder Ronald Cook.” This time the officer almost snarled as he confronted me with the lies they’d concocted.

  “Who says that?” I retorted.

  A brief silence ensued, and the interview was terminated.

  By now, I knew I was in serious trouble, but I also knew I hadn’t done what I was accused of, so I was quite blasé about the whole thing. I was innocent. Justice would prevail… Wouldn’t it?

  I was taken from Holloway Prison to a court in Stratford, where Danny and I met with our solicitors. We’d both been charged with murder.

  Danny looked gutted. “You ’ave to tell them it was me and be a witness for the prosecution, Linda.”

  “I can’t do that, Danny. I know why you came in and did it. You saved my son, and so I can’t say it was you,” I replied. “If I say that, I’ll be condemning you to 20 years in prison. I can’t take your freedom from you. I’m sure we’ll both get Not Guilty, so let’s go to court and take our chances.”

  I was gambling our lives on the 12 good men and women who would hear our case. Our lives were in the jury’s hands.

  “Listen,” Danny whispered to me. “I promised Brian Thorogood I’d do it. Brian knew that Ron killed Mickey, but he also told me he was frightened for you with Ron comin’ out before him. He said you had a terrible life with Ron, and everyone knew what Ron was like. That’s when I said I’d do it, I’d deal with Ron.” Danny rubbed the back of his head absent-mindedly.

  I realised, of course, that Danny had also tried to save me from the pain of losing a son, so I wouldn’t go through what he had gone through after losing his own son.

  “I prayed for somethin’ to happen to him.” My voice was low. I hadn’t prayed for him to be murdered, but I couldn’t deny the relief I felt when Ron died.

  “Go and tell them it was me,” Danny pleaded one last time.

  I shook my head in response. “Never.”

  Chapter 24

  Black Cap

  November 1991

  Number One court at The Old Bailey was alive the day Danny’s and my trial began. Reporters crammed into the benches on one side, notebooks in hand, lawyers darted between the prosecution and defence counsel, people lined the gallery, family members shouted encouragement.

  I stepped up into the dock, and the room went silent.

  “To the charge of murder, how do you plead?” Mr Justice Hidden said. The members of the jury, 12 blank-faced individuals, looked over to us. A sea of heads across the court room turned our way.

  “Not Guilty.”

  “Not Guilty.”

  Danny and I stood together, the Black Widow and the alleged hitman, the real Bonnie and Clyde – or so the prosecution would have the court believe. Truth and lies. Facts and fiction, all rolled together.

  With those pronouncements, our trial began. I had been driven to the court only yards from St Paul’s Cathedral in a van that had been graffitied with a hangman’s noose and the word “Murderess”. It is still hard to explain what was going through my mind. I felt completely numb. I hadn’t really expected my case to get this far, let alone to take place in the highest court in the land. The allegations of a contract killing, of me paying Danny £10,000 to kill Ron, were just so ludicrous that I’d laughed them off.

  I wasn’t laughing now. I was terrified, shocked, still reeling from the images of Ron’s corpse ingrained in my mind. One minute, I was sure I’d be cleared. The next, I was convinced it would go the other way. My thoughts jumbled around my head. I’d practised what I would say, the description of the killer and what he said, so I wouldn’t implicate the guilty man, my friend Danny Reece.

  Would it be enough to keep us both out of jail? My barrister had urged me to tell the truth, to say it was Danny who fired the fatal shot, but I wouldn’t consider it. What Danny had done was worth more than any possible prison sentence I could get. He’d saved my son from almost certain death. Ratting on the man who did that was out of the question. Even though standing in front of that judge and jury was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, I knew I wouldn’t waiver. I’d asked my children to keep away as I didn’t want them to experience the character assassination I knew was coming.

  As we drove, flashlights from press cameras popped in my face. Those images were splashed all over the national newspapers: a woman with blank terror on her face, pale-faced, with eyes open wide as if to ask, what is happening to me? The press didn’t see it that way. They relished my nickname, taking the view I was a brash, bleached-blonde, cold-hearted killer.

  As my van pulled into the precincts of the court, I heard shouts of “Murdering Bitch!” and all sorts of obscenities from the large crowd gathered outside. Holding my head high, I stared back at the people trying to photograph me, trying to catch a glimpse of me inside the van. The pictures that were printed of me were awful. My blonde hair looked brassy in the cold flashlight as I stared at the photographer in dumb terror.

  I’d also decided not to tell the court about the true nature of my relationship with Ron. I felt it gave me the motive the prosecution was looking for. If I’d painted him as the man he was – vicious, jealous and possessive, a man I was scared of, who had said he would kill Neil for looking too much like his father – then it would’ve given me a reason to plan his death. By lying to the prosecution, by saying that everything was rosy and we were madly in love, what motive could I possibly have to kill the man who kept me? I had no proof of Ron’s crimes towards me: how he decided everything about my life, how he called the shots, attacked me physically and manipulated me emotionally. How could I possibly bring that up now? The jury would assume I was lying, even though it was the truth. I look back and wonder whether those times were enlightened enough to understand the concept of domestic abuse, how a partner could control another down to the lingerie they wore or the people they spoke to.

  No stone was left unturned as they painted a picture of my life as the wife of a notorious, dead armed robber. No part of becoming the same as Mickey, taking up the shotgun myself, was left out. I was painted as a wicked woman, an evil seductress who had Mickey, Brian, Ron and now Danny caught in my web.

  I couldn’t look at my family while my character was torn to shreds. Shelley was there every day. It must’ve been terrible for her, seeing her older sister in the dock, hearing what I’d been up to in minute detail.

  Over those four weeks I gave the version I’d given the police, only leaving out the crucial fact that Danny had, in fact, killed Ron. Our forensic expert testified that I couldn’t have held the gun. My arms would’ve needed to be eight feet long, as my back was turned at the time the second bullet was fired.

  The pathologist confirmed that the gun had been angled above Ron’s head when it was fired. They’d tested Danny’s clothes and found the residue left when a gun is fired. They also discovered that it was a jacket I had bought only days earlier, because I felt sorry for him going on home leave without any smart clothes.

  I was asked again and again: why didn’t I tell the police that Danny had visited me before the shooting?

  My only reply was that I hadn’t thought it relevant.

  Each afternoon, I was taken back to my cell in Holloway. I was confident I’d be walking out of that court room with my liberty by the end of the trial. After all, there was no evidence of the supposed contract killing, no evidence of any money changing hands, no motive as to why I’d want to kill Ron – and yet there I was, standing trial for a murder in cold blood that I hadn’t committed.

  It came down to who I was: the Black Widow, a woman who would stop at nothing, even murder, to get what she wanted. The court heard that Danny had fired the first shot, intending to kill Ro
n, but had lost his bottle, at which point I’d apparently grabbed the sawn-off shotgun and blasted away Ron’s skull myself.

  I’d apparently shouted “Kneel, KNEEL!” before gunning my lover down.

  I’d been calling for Neil, as a neighbour testified.

  After four long weeks, the jury went out to deliberate. We waited all day long inside the Old Bailey precincts. It was agonising.

  On the second day, the jury came back in the afternoon to ask for a gun expert.

  “If Linda Calvey was standing where she said she was when the fatal shot was fired, would she have seen what she said she saw?”

  The prosecution couldn’t answer this, but the police jumped in. They said that, luckily, they had a gun expert in the courtroom.

  I never found out the officer’s name. He stood at the bar and lied, blatantly.

  “If Linda Calvey was standing where she says she was, then she would not have been able to see what she said she saw.”

  I’d seen a hazy puff of black smoke when that gun was fired. That was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  The jury, satisfied, went back out.

  I knew then our case was lost. 20 minutes later the verdicts were in, though it wasn’t a unanimous decision.

  Again, the court fell silent. I squeezed Danny’s hand, and took my last breath as a free woman.

  “Guilty.”

  “Guilty.”

  The room swam in front of my eyes.

  The place erupted. I heard shocked voices, someone shouted something at the jury. Danny visibly sagged beside me. I looked down at my barrister, who shook his head.

  A hush settled.

  The judge reached to his side and placed a black cap onto his wig. My knees almost buckled beneath me.

  “You have both been found guilty of the murder of Ronald Cook. There is nothing I can do but pass you directly to the Court of Appeal.”

  Then, to me, he said, “The only sentence I can pass on you is life, but I can give you the recommended minimum tariff of seven years.”