Dennis Nilsen - Conversations with Britain's Most Evil Serial Killer (14 page)

Soft drugs were now an important and integral part of his life. He found they helped both his emotions and his ability to think. Instead of making him paranoid, as they frequently can, he says they would enable him to be tranquil and meditative. When he got high, he could think back and ‘see’ his victims in an almost peaceful state.

But, when off them, an opposite state of mind would, apparently, often bother him. He says his crimes might ‘intrude’ on to him with ‘periodic reminders’. If someone’s
face put in mind a victim, for instance, he might become physically sick. Nilsen talks as though he liked to put his offending past into a mental box marked ‘emotional breakdown’ and doing so was easier when he was ‘out of it’.

It wasn’t just the drugs that helped Nilsen cope with his past. The whole atmosphere of prison helped. There were people everywhere to whom Nilsen could compare himself and not come off so badly. On his wing was Archibald Hall, a serial killer butler who, in old age, had become an avuncular figure. And, for a while, Nilsen found himself locked up with the ‘country’s most violent prisoner’, the man who had changed his name to that of the actor Charles Bronson, whose violent assaults on staff had turned an 11-year sentence into seemingly indeterminate incarceration. Nilsen marvelled at his physique and spirit.

Much more terrible than Hall or Bronson was Ted Paisnel. For 11 years, Paisnel had roamed the island of Jersey at night, dressed in rubber and chains, raping women and children. Now he seemed just an ordinary bloke. In fact, the most incredible thing about him – that his wife had stood by him all this time – seemed almost reasonable.

Towards the end of the year, Nilsen experienced the last ‘romantic’ relationship he would have, or at least talk about, in prison. It was a sex-offender whom we’ll call Peter Chapple. He was 34 and good looking, although emotionally stunted. Chapple was serving a sentence for having sex with teenage boys. Before talking about their relationship, Nilsen makes some remarks about Chapple’s character that are revealing both about his ability to judge others and also how he saw himself at the time. Nilsen says that Chapple would
prefer to divert himself in activities like maths and computers than take part in the ‘risky world of adult emotions’. Nilsen, with his own preference for books, saw himself as emotionally superior.

Even though Chapple was emotionally immature, he was still one of the most powerful personalities on his landing. Initially, Nilsen’s attraction to someone with such a strong character might seem odd. The way he had chosen his victims had indicated, after all, that, typically, he would seek out those with weaker wills for company. In this instance, one reason for the attraction, other than looks, soon becomes apparent. Nilsen was drawn to the fact that Chapple was an instinctive musician. This was a skill Nilsen greatly coveted. For his 43rd birthday, Brian Masters had bought Nilsen the cheap Casio electronic keyboard he’d asked for. Now he wanted to learn to play it.

After hearing Chapple demonstrate how it worked, Nilsen immediately decided they should write a musical together. He would be the wordsmith and Chapple the composer. Nilsen had taken charge of the relationship, and also shown his potential partner what a creative force he was. The plans stalled a week later. After two sessions trying to come up with musical ideas, it became apparent that Chapple couldn’t compose. Nilsen emphasises that he was still desperate to do
something
creative. He proposed putting on a comedy revue. No one, however, wanted to be in it.

Undeterred, Nilsen started submitting poetry for prison magazines, and composing on his keyboard. He tells us that he had his eyes on the prestigious Koestler Awards for artistic achievement in prison. But whereas Nilsen’s plays and art
were of a good amateur standard, the quality of his music couldn’t match his desire to produce it.

In 1990, Nilsen was transferred to Full Sutton Prison, a relatively new maximum-security facility in Yorkshire. Many prisoners objected to his presence. Nilsen says in
History of a Drowning Boy
that, when he arrived, he was made to feel about as welcome as a ‘dead pig in a synagogue’. He describes violence, too. One night, two hooded men burst into his cell with a bowl of boiling water into which sugar had been dissolved to make it boil hotter. He picked up the only object to hand, a battery for his keyboard, and threw it in their direction. Being unco-ordinated, it hit the wall above them. Still, it made them drop the water.

The next day, he was transferred to the segregation unit. He spent virtually the whole summer there. Afterwards, he was told he was going to be part of the trial for the Vulnerable Prisoner Unit scheme. VPUs were being set up in various prisons across the country to protect prisoners who might become a target from others, such as terrorists and policemen. In practice, the VPUs were mainly used for sex-offenders; in Nilsen’s words, ‘ghettos for nonces’. He didn’t enjoy the company he was now keeping. The prisoners on the VPU were a concentration of the facility’s least popular inmates. As such, it isn’t hard to believe some of his allegations. Despite being segregated, Nilsen says at mealtimes he saw human faeces in the custard, and razors in the pies.

The following year (1991), he was moved to the VPU in Albany on the Isle of Wight. It was a 1960s-built prison that later specialised almost entirely in ‘vulnerable prisoners’.
The regime was austere – there was no cell association, and evening association in the common room was by rota. Nilsen was sent to work in a wood mill, a far cry from the education, drama and art he enjoyed. This was labour and damn hard. If Nilsen had once expressed a desire to suffer to atone for his crimes, he didn’t like the reality of the wood mill one bit. Constant arguments with the guards and instructors earned him spells in the segregation unit. As in Brixton, he would refer to it as ‘the punishment block’.

While Nilsen was settling into life in the VPU, the prison reformer Lord Longford asked if he might start visiting. Longford sought to bring redemption. He was a devout Roman Catholic who fearlessly sought out the most unpleasant cases to whom he chose to bring his message. In particular, Longford had become famous for visiting the Moors murderer Myra Hindley. It was his belief that she should be granted parole on the grounds of her religious conversion.

As much as Longford preached forgiveness, his religious beliefs also made him highly intolerant of homosexual practices. But despite this, Nilsen’s accounts of Longford are warm. He is so pleased to have been the recipient of so much attention he initially sets Longford’s religious beliefs aside. Eventually, though, Nilsen found those beliefs to be incompatible with his own, and he says he amicably asked him not to come any more. The peer is characterised as ‘saintly’, but with a body and face which looked like they’d ‘been pickled in alcohol’. For his part, Lord Longford’s diaries describe Nilsen as aloof and strange, but admirable in how he busied himself with positive and constructive hobbies. Longford was also struck by Nilsen’s odd sense of humour,
remembering one comment by Nilsen to him one day: ‘You might have met the queen, but I know lots of queens.’

Nilsen’s view on Longford was, no doubt, positively affected by the latter’s defence of Nilsen’s intrinsic ‘humanity’ in a newspaper interview with Brian Masters. The way Nilsen tells the story, Masters had again been speaking about him in those terms he liked the least – as some kind of demon – and Longford had replied by saying that he believed that everyone had a human soul.

Although Masters was still visiting Nilsen, privately Nilsen was feeling increasingly resentful towards him. The bitter tone of the manuscript suddenly changes, however, when Nilsen describes hearing of a street attack on Masters. Nilsen wants the reader to feel, despite everything, he still perceives Masters as a fundamentally kind man. He is appalled, he says, that the horrible attack might be connected with anything he could have said or done. It wasn’t – in fact, it was a simple mugging.

But Nilsen now was no longer reliant on Masters as the sole constant in his life. He had just ‘met’ the best friend he was ever to have, Jonny Marling, details of whose identity have here been changed. He was of medium height, dark-haired and lived a normal, suburban life. Marling had obtained Nilsen’s address from the Prison Service, having first become fascinated by the story he read in
Killing for Company
. In response to Marling’s open and enquiring letters of introduction, Nilsen decided to try to make their friendship work. The serial killer and the suburban family man exchanged a flurry of letters, often running to both sides of seven or eight pieces of paper.

The subject of one of the first was what to make of the
American psychiatrist, Walter Powlowski, who, in May 1992, asked Nilsen to write a ‘sexual history’ to assist him in a study on serial killers. This project soon fizzled out. However, in July, a British sociologist asked for a similar essay. Nilsen started … and kept writing. That summer, he remembers in
History of a Drowning Boy
that he was also approached by a producer from Central TV who wanted to interview him. They asked him if he had written anything. He had. The first draft of his ‘writings’ was typed with such force that the keys almost went through the paper. It opens with: ‘This is a narrative compilation including what I believe to be the salient features of my sexual history.’

His sex life, proper, began as he drifted through his late twenties in London.

O
ne scene dominates the many ‘real-crime ‘documentaries that have been made about Dennis Nilsen: Nilsen and another man are pictured enjoying last drinks in a smoky bar in London’s West End. It’s the late 1970s. The street outside is wet and Piccadilly’s neon lights reflect in the puddles. Inside, we see a close-up shot of Nilsen’s rum and Coke. The imagery serves to illustrate how Dennis Nilsen’s twenties and early thirties were dominated by alcohol and casual liaisons.

A similar picture emerges in one chapter of Brian Master’s book,
Killing for Company
. It is called ‘Police and Civil Service’. Here, however, the depiction is partly created by use of Nilsen’s own accounts. His contributions emphasise his sensitivity to the superficiality of the gay scene. These are described as his ‘lonely years’ where ‘everything was transitory. His words had a bizarre effect on some who read these passages.

After publication of
Killing for Company
, the number of
men and women who wrote to Nilsen steadily rose. These letters now exist in a private crime archive where I was invited to view them. Most were from highly emotional, young women. One correspondent opened with the words ‘I am not a crank …’ and another reassured Nilsen with the words ‘it’s not very nice feeling lonely and different’. There were also a few who seemed to be so taken with the idea that a sensitive young gay man could find himself so totally estranged from society they appeared to overlook what he had actually done. A fair few young men even attached photographs of themselves.

Many of these people were, probably, themselves emotionally disturbed. Yet that, in itself, doesn’t explain why Nilsen’s life story touched such a chord. It seems it was the manner in which he had
described
his loneliness that had the effect. The elegant way he wrote – or possibly plagiarised other’s words – made people feel his sentiments were authentic. ‘Anonymous sex,’ he said in
Killing for Company
, ‘only deepens one’s sense of loneliness and solves nothing. It’s like compulsive gambling. Sex in a natural place is like the signature at the end of a letter. Written on its own, it’s less than nothing. Signatures are easy to sign, good letters far more difficult.’

It wasn’t just sad, lonely individuals who were fascinated with Nilsen’s story. In 1988, ITV’s
South Bank Show
aired a film of a ‘modern ballet’ called
Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men
. The press release said the dance was loosely based on Nilsen’s life and explored ‘interwoven notions of loneliness desire and trust’, and that ‘society’s homophobia often results in tragic consequences’. Almost a decade later, a ‘cult’ gay
author, P-P Hartnett, would publish a book entitled
Call Me
, in which he explored the loneliness of those who exploit contact adverts in search of transitory affection. Hartnett corresponded with Nilsen while he wrote it, inviting the killer to comment on the emotional content.

Later, Hartnett even helped with the first edit of
History of a Drowning Boy
. In long hand-written letters, Nilsen would give detailed explanations of how he felt the work should be completed. That handwriting is instantly recognisable. It is tight, slanted and the pen is pushed so hard it almost goes through the paper. His handwriting closely matches characteristics the Israeli graphologist Anna Koren has observed in ‘schizoid murderers’: angularity, pressure, tension and a tendency to cover the entire page. Schizoid personalities are usually considered to be emotionally cut off, often very sensitive and sometimes exhibit a rich, vivid imagination. Much the same could be said of the better prose Nilsen used to describe life in the late 1970s.

On 7 November 1972, Dennis Nilsen, then 27, caught the train from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and changed on to the London express. He was full of optimism as he looked out of the window from the smoking car.

As he travelled south, Nilsen reflected on the two-month break he had just spent in Strichen. There had been an unpleasant incident at his brother Olav’s house. The film
Victim
, which had themes of homosexuality and blackmail, was being shown on the TV. Olav had taken every opportunity to direct barbed comments about ‘poofs’ and ‘queers’ towards his younger brother who sat there red-faced
and fuming. As he looked out of the train window, he still felt enraged.

Then, during the rest of that long trip he took stock of how things had gone for him. It pleased him that many of those he had known seemed to have reached their plateau, whereas he felt he was moving on. But, for the most part, the Broch just made him feel sad. He remembered walking around his childhood haunts, starting with the bleak, bare Mormond Hill. Then he went to the river where old Mr Ironside had died. Later, he walked to the grave of Brian Strachen, who had been killed in a motorbike accident. The grave of his grandfather Andrew Whyte was just across the way. As he looked around him, he must have been struck by the ephemeral nature of human life. He felt it was exactly the right time for him to go to where he might have a future.

Nilsen’s first task on arriving at King’s Cross was to install himself in temporary accommodation. He found a room in a hostel and the next morning contacted the army career advice service. At its south London offices, the careers officer suggested he might be suited to a role as a prison officer or policeman. The idea of being a prison officer was an instant turn off.

He then contacted the police careers service in Victoria Street. By the end of the week, he was walking through the door at the recruiting office at Harrow Road. While his drinking may well have exerted its toll on his mental health, physically he was in good shape. He walked through the medical, and the Met Police said they were happy to take his army certificates in lieu of O-levels. Everything in his written test and interview indicated he was suitable.

By December 1972, Dennis Nilsen was living in a single room in the Metropolitan Police training school at Hendon Police College, near Colindale, a north London suburb that sits at the foot of the M1. The once attractive Georgian-style building was beginning to show its age and would soon be knocked down and replaced by a purpose-built block. Still, if the old buildings were decaying, some felt they had collegiate charm.

Life as a probationary police officer started with a 16-week induction course. For almost four months, Nilsen was taught the basics of being a constable. On theoretical side, there was government, law, powers of arrest, traffic regulations, police regulations and court procedure. Even more important was the practical instruction: how to investigate; the basics of first aid; how to subdue criminals; and, of course, how to be courteous with the public.

Nilsen wrote to his mother telling her all about his exciting new life. Betty Scott was not only proud but immensely relieved. She had been worried about how unsettled Dennis had seemed during his visit. Olav told her what had happened at his house and Betty had heard how one night Dennis had got into an argument with some local boys in the Station Hotel. It had ended with him being pushed over and humiliated. She had been concerned Dennis might have been on the slide. But now he was going to be a policeman, so surely that would see him back on track.

It may well have done, if there had been other positive influences. But in the end, joining the police did nothing to help wean Nilsen off his increasing dependence on bizarre masturbation fantasies. The force just supplied a new set of
people from whom he felt alienated, which, in turn, left him able to drift further into his secret life. Partly, the problem came from the fact the environment was still too macho. But it was also because Nilsen’s sexual thoughts were, again, directed at colleagues. This manifested itself physically in swimming lessons that started in the first week at Hendon.

Being able to swim was a requirement of the job. But Nilsen was utterly afraid of water. In order not to draw attention to himself, he claimed to be a ‘weak swimmer’. Like others in his position, he was put down for lessons until he was ready for the life-saving classes. Later, these would involve towing a colleague, who would pretend to be unconscious, to the side of the pool. The fact the bodies were so inert played straight into Nilsen’s specific sexual fixation. He would invariably become physically aroused, and often needed to find excuses to stay in the water until he had calmed down.

Such episodes were an early sign he was going to have as much difficulty settling in here as in the Army. This time, however, he was less bothered. Now there was a whole city of people out there for him to meet. All he had to do was find the right ones, and soon he found out where to start looking.

Nilsen’s induction into gay London life began, ironically, in a ‘girlie’ bar. One evening, in the Section House, Nilsen found himself falling in with a group of young probationers who had decided to go off on an adventure in Soho. In Windmill Street, one young police cadet decided to show off by using his warrant card to get them all into a strip club. Nilsen,
uninterested in the girls inside, soon made an excuse to leave. In the street outside, he was convinced he saw Sir John Gielgud talking to a young guardsman. Nilsen mentioned it to his colleagues, along with the fact that he was convinced that many guardsmen were gay.

Nilsen records in
History of a Drowning Boy
that the next day, no doubt in response, the Training Officer giving the following address: ‘You can spot a queer a mile off because they all wear white polo-necked sweaters, red corduroy trousers and Hush Puppies, and they hang about in Earls Court.’ That evening, Nilsen says he took a Tube train ‘and checked the [Earls Court] High Street, for an “interesting” pub’. He describes a smoky, dark establishment with frosted windows:

By 10.00 in the evening, Nilsen found himself being invited by the young man back for a coffee at his, only a few blocks away. The flat was up a long flight of stairs and, at the top, he was surprised to find a wife and baby in the kitchen. The man put his finger to his mouth and hushed Nilsen, motioning that they should tip-toe to the spare room. But the short, sturdy woman had seen them and chased them out. Undeterred, Nilsen hailed a cab and told the man he was going to come back to
his
place. The 16-week course at the Police Training College was almost over, and he was sure that he could get away with having a ‘drunken friend’ crash over in his small room. He propped a chair up against the door to make sure no one could get in and, in the morning, he got up extra early to sneak the man out.

Instead of feeling more comfortable about sex, however, such encounters seemed to make Nilsen more aware of how society only just tolerated homosexuality. In his essay ‘The Psychograph’, Nilsen describes the attitudes he’d become used to: ‘In the military, as in the country as a whole, homosexuality was considered to be a serious criminal offence [it was legalised in 1967]. In the Judeo-Christian Western world, the idea of “unnatural sexual practices” remained an unspeakable vice performed between moral degenerates. Genuine expressive love between two consenting males was dismissed with curt terms such as “buggery”, “sodomy” or “indecency”.’

The cumulative effect of such attitudes – from Fraserburgh, the Army and the police – had left him with a very significant residue of guilt. The result was that when he did start meeting other gay men, rather than looking for a long-term partner, he
was invariably attracted to other people whose primary objective was simple, physical gratification. It was lonely, but at least easy to keep separate from his work life.

In the spring of 1973, Nilsen passed the initial set of police exams with a ‘high’ mark. He was then posted as a probationary officer to Willesden Green near Wembley. As a probationary constable, Nilsen was required to learn on the job. He would go out on the ‘beat’, both in a pair and, later, alone. Like many of Nilsen’s stomping grounds in North London, his ‘patch’ of Willesden Green was a shabby suburb. The tree-lined avenues contained substantial Edwardian and Victorian houses, which, on closer inspection, turned out to have been split into flats for the poor, often Irish immigrant, community.

Nilsen was given a mentor called Peter Wellstead, who believed young probationers would benefit from experiencing the uglier aspects of policing right from the outset. He started with the morgue. Before proceeding into the actual mortuary, the probationers were given a briefing in the corridor. They were then let in three at a time.

Nilsen wasn’t bothered. He was confident he had seen enough exploded bodies in Aden to be able to detach himself. Inside the room, things were every bit as grisly as they had been warned. There were metal trolleys with dead bodies cut open from the neck to the navel. The back of the heads were sawn open, exposing grey folds of brain matter. The other trainee needed to be sick; Nilsen was unaffected.

Something else happened in that room, however, to make Nilsen realise quite how disturbed his sexuality had become.
On one slab was a 12-year-old girl. Smooth, slim and blonde, Nilsen thought how she looked like a little boy. As she was being wheeled around, her dead hand flopped out next to the assistant’s, an old man with a slight hunchback. Nilsen became aroused, and looked away. But he couldn’t stop imagining the old assistant abusing the unblemished ‘passive’ body.