by Jason De'Ath
“Does he ever stay in your flat?”
“Sometimes, yes. He sleeps on the sofa. What murder?”
“Are you expecting me to believe that you are unaware of the Marsholm Wood murder?”
“Not really; I mean, yes, I’m not really aware of it. I don’t read the papers – they’re depressing.”
“Okay, Miss Deneo, if you say so. I’m afraid we will still need to search your shop and flat. Is there anything you would like to tell me, now, before we tear up the floor boards?”
“What! No! Is this really necessary?”
“Calm down, Miss Deneo – it’s just an expression; we don’t quite have the authority go that far - yet. Nonetheless, it would be in your interest to be forthright, Miss Deneo.”
Denise threw her arms in the air: “Do what y’u like” she conceded angrily.
The search of the premises took over five hours, but revealed nothing of value in connection to Jameson; however, they did discover a few items which they suspected may be stolen goods, which was a good excuse to get Deneo down the
Yard for questioning. Sitting in the interview room, she appeared decidedly uptight: it was unclear whether this was because she had something to hide or just wasn’t used to police stations. Ackroyd and Cambridge sat down and gave Deneo an unsettling stare.
“I haven’t done anything!” she blurted defensively.
“Well, that’s what we’re going to decide, depending upon your answers to our questions.” informed Ackroyd.
“I want a solicitor.” she snapped.
“We can get you a solicitor, but we’re not really interested in you, Miss Deneo. What we are interested in is what you can do to help us with our investigation into Arthur Jameson.”
Deneo noticeably relaxed upon comprehending her true purpose for the police: “What do you want to know?” she asked acquiescently.
Late that afternoon, Ackroyd was taking a reflective break in his office with cup of coffee containing a measure of malt whiskey – which he kept in the office filing cabinet – when he received a phone call from Dickie Paris:
“Hello? Ackroyd?”
“Yes.” responded Ackroyd with slight irritation at Paris’ disrespectful tone.
“I’ve ‘ad a visit from our friend. ‘E’s gettin’ scared; ‘e ‘eard about the raid on the antique shop. ‘E wants to meet up – today.”
“Right... So, when and where?”
“Do y’u know the billiard ‘all in Romily Road?”
“Where’s this?”
“Soho.”
“Can’t say that I do, but I’m sure we’ll find it.”
“‘E wants t’meet outside at eight-firty.”
“Right, we’ll be there; you best make the meet as planned, otherwise he’ll know you grassed. We’ll pick up your misses and daughter as well, just in case things go tits up. Don’t mess this up.” insisted Ackroyd, putting down the receiver before Paris could react.
Ackroyd immediately set about organising the ambush. Three plain-clothes detective constables would loiter in the area and await Jameson’s arrival, while four uniformed police officers would be waiting in a Black Maria parked in a yard in Old Compton Street, just around the corner. When Jameson put in his appearance, two of the DC’s would arrest him and the other would alert the boys waiting in the van to descend in force, thus ensuring an uneventful containment of their objective.
At precisely 8.30 PM, Dickie Paris entered Romily Road and approached the entrance to the billiard hall, clocking the detectives standing around solicitously at various locations along the street. Paris stopped outside the door and surreptitiously surveyed the surrounding pavements in search of Jameson, but he was nowhere to be seen. Paris waited uncomfortably; ten minutes passed and still there was no sign: they had begun to think that he had been tipped-off or spooked en route, until suddenly Arthur appeared from within the billiard hall, tapping Paris on the shoulder, nearly precipitating his ageing friend to have a heart attack.
“Shit! Arthur!” exclaimed Paris.
“Sshh, keep it down...” complained Arthur, at which moment the DC’s closed in.
“I was expectin’ y’u to be outside.” countered Paris shakily just as DC Pawson grabbed Arthur’s arm.
“Arthur Jameson, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder and attempted murder...” announced Pawson putting hand cuffs on Arthur’s wrists. Arthur was so shocked that he just meekly submitted; Pawson read him his rights and DC Alger joined his colleague to assist in the determined escorting of their prisoner. Meanwhile, Paris was so stunned by the two consecutive incidences that he stood impassively for several seconds like a disconnected onlooker, before abruptly deciding that he should appear startled and pretend to make a run for it, whereupon he rather unconvincingly allowed two uniformed constables to apprehend him. Jameson was bundled into the police van with three police officers for company, while Paris was marched off to be placed in the waiting unmarked car, used by the detectives.
Sitting in the van, Jameson did not come across as a vicious killer; though a little gruff and clearly rough around the edges, he was otherwise – at least superficially – quite mild mannered. Strangely, he’d dyed his hair a striking reddishbrown colour, which wasn’t exactly inconspicuous.
“I’m an innocent man, officer.” he pleaded to Pawson.
“Then you’ve nothing to fear; now you have your chance to prove it.” contended Pawson.
“I’m afraid I’m gonna be framed-up f’r this.” he continued to argue, but no one was listening. Jameson remained silent for the rest of the journey to Scotland Yard. On arrival he was swiftly transferred to a secure interview room, where he was left under guard for about half an hour; the constable inside the room had been instructed not to converse with the prisoner – a deliberate ploy on the part of Ackroyd, intended to unnerve the suspect. When Ackroyd did eventually show up, (along with DS Cambridge,) Jameson was markedly agitated, immediately jumping to his feet confrontationally. However, the intimidating presence of the three police officers – Cambridge in particular – quickly diminished his indignance.
“Sit down, Arthur.” instructed Ackroyd with quiet authority; “Are you still pleading innocence?” he enquired.
“Yes sir: I am.” Jameson emphatically replied.
“Would you be willing to provide biological samples for analysis?”
“Sorry, sir, I don’ understand.”
“Would you be prepared to provide samples of hair, saliva, blood – that sort of thing?”
“Yes sir: I’ve got nufin’ to ‘ide. Whatever y’u want.”
“And would you be happy to take part in an identity line-up?”
“Yes, whatever y’u want.”
“Do you have an alibi for the night of the 30th of July this year?”
“I do sir, but I can’t use it.”
“Why not?”
“I was in Liverpool, stayin’ wiv some frien’s that’re wanted themselves, sir. They’re dangerous men, an’ they chucked me out when they saw me, cos they ‘eard I was wanted f’r that murder.”
“When was this?”
“Las’ Sat’rday, sir. I went back to ask ‘em if they’d ‘elp me, but they didn’ wanna know.”
“Where were you on Saturday the 31st of July?”
“Still in Liverpool.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Only the same people, sir... It’s jus’a coincident that business wiv the Verona: I never left them cartridges.”
“Do you, or have you ever, owned a gun?”
“No sir. I don’ ‘ave no use f’r a gun.”
“I see that you’ve dyed your hair, Arthur. Any reason for that?”
“No sir. I dye me ‘air a lot.”
“Okay. I think, before we continue, we’ll have you processed and samples collected. Then we will arrange for the identity parade. Is there anything else you want to say at this stage?”
“I wanna solicit’r.”
Meanwhile, in separate
interview rooms, Dickie Paris, Mary Paris and Carol Paris were all being questioned and were being highly accommodating. Though their testimony was essentially circumstantial in nature or bordering on hearsay, and not therefore especially damning, most of it was notably detrimental to Jameson’s case.
Jameson spent a restless night in the cells at the Yard. His solicitor arrived the next morning at 7 AM and gave him the standard brief, which Arthur had heard so many times before. Then at 9 AM he was notified that the identity parade would take place at 10 AM at the Yard: Ackroyd was pinning everything on this – the case against Jameson hinged upon whether Vera Fable could successfully pick him out of the line-up. Ackroyd was determined that there would be no pantomime antics with singing this time – they would each read two short passages taken from the beginning and end of the abduction statement given by Vera; they were: “I’m a desperate man - this is a stick-up” and “shut up – I’m trying to think”. The eleven volunteers making up the line were brought in from a local RAF station and were chosen on the basis that they had some similarity to the identikit image and were of similar proportions to Vera’s description. This time it really was going to be organised in a military fashion.
The cell door unlocked and a uniformed sergeant stood in the opening giving Arthur a rather judgmental stare: “Right
– come on lad, it’s time.” he announced, almost as though he were taking him to the gallows, which of course was the one thing that wasn’t likely to happen given that a parliamentary bill to abolish capital punishment had been approved by the Lords just ten days prior to the murder, all but irreversibly sealing the end of the death penalty. Nonetheless, the graveness of the situation still hung heavily over Arthur, who would face a life sentence if convicted.
Arthur met his solicitor [Mr Graham] in a room adjacent to the identity parade room, where he could change clothes if he wished; Mr Graham advised him to do so, as the volunteers were all wearing lighter coloured suits and jackets. However, there was little they could do about the hair colour, which would stand out like a sore thumb. Mr Graham had attempted to insist on everyone wearing some sort of hat, but Ackroyd was having none of that on the basis that the gunman did not wear a hat and that Jameson’s hair was so unlike that described for the gunman that it might actually give him an advantage, if anything. There was also nothing that could be done about the fact that only two of the volunteers had blue eyes.
Arthur hesitantly chose number 4 as his position in the line-up and they all took their positions in an orderly manner befitting members of her Majesty’s armed forces. Everyone waited sullenly for Vera to be wheeled in by her designated WPC. She was manoeuvred in front of the first man, where she stood up with the aid of crutches; she then proceeded to work her way very slowly along the line, giving each man’s face a critical examination. At the end of the first pass, she requested that they read the prepared passages, each in turn. Jameson was becoming noticeably uneasy; a bead of sweat ran from his forehead down the full length of his face to then drip off the end of his slightly pointed chin. They each spoke the passages in somewhat robotic fashion – only Jameson had a manifestly cockney accent. Vera was still wavering, however and requested another pass; Mr Graham made a gesture to Ackroyd to indicate that this would be the last one he would sanction. Vera hobbled along the line once again, stopping for a second in front of Jameson and similarly, volunteer no. 9. At the end she turned to Ackroyd, took a deep breath and stated simply: “Four; number four.” Jameson visibly wilted. Outside of the parade room, Vera half collapsed back into her wheelchair, her courage finally failing her. She looked up at
Ackroyd and nodded: “It is him... I’ll never forget those eyes – or that aftershave.”
Arthur Jameson was subsequently charged with the abduction and murder of Gregg Mason and, the abduction, rape and attempted murder of Vera Fable; whereupon, he was effectively carried by two policemen back to his cell, where he was left to sweat prior to the intense interrogation to come. Sitting within the four walls of the tiny whitewashed cell, he stared aimlessly into the oblivion of his tortured mind. Though no stranger to that environment, the circumstances were something that he had never imagined having to face; life imprisonment was not something he dared to contemplate. His thoughts quickly sought refuge in reminiscences of happier times.
PART THREE
Antecedents
Chapter Twenty
(1939 – 4 May 1965)
Arthur’s father, Ernie Jameson, was working as a plumber for the Water Board when the 2nd World War broke out, which meant he was deemed to be in a reserved occupation and exempt from conscription; he subsequently joined the ARP, which was almost as dangerous as going to the front. He married his long time sweetheart Patricia Stokes on the 4th November 1939, two months after the start of the war; Arthur was born on the 2nd December 1940 at his aunt’s house in 25 Union Road, Wembley, where his parents were living at that time. When the V1 rockets started bombarding London in June 1944, Arthur’s pregnant mother evacuated with him and his two year old brother to the Surrey countryside.
The immediate post-war period was an anomalistic phase in modern British history, especially for the children of the late forties and early fifties. In London the adventure playgrounds of the time were the bomb sites that littered the city; health and safety was only an embryonic concept, such that children could run free through the debris of devastation, to play their own game of War. There was a new sense of freedom, despite the continued rationing and the loss of so many loved ones; the old world was being rebuilt socially and economically and the new world promised a growing emancipation from the rigid order of the past century, ushering in the notion of youth culture which was to develop with exponential vigour in the sixties, and beyond. This was the universe that Arthur Jameson was born into.
But, the rocking 1950’s was an austere period; anything seemed possible, yet for most ‘anything’ was still frustratingly out of reach. Arthur was never satisfied to merely accept what society offered him, not when so much more was available to those prepared to take it. Throughout his school years he was perpetually restless with the restraints of the old world values that still persisted for the greater part, becoming an increasingly rebellious non-conformist, which inevitably brought him into conflict with the establishment. In another life he could have channelled his anger into popular music or an innovative modern art; unfortunately he possessed no particular discernible talent and, being of relatively low intellect, had very poor prospects of succeeding at any legitimate endeavour. Compounded by a lack of basic diligence and an insatiable urge to indulge in the vices of the darker side of life, he was always destined to come into conflict with the rules of society and the laws that governed it. It was also probably not unreasonable to presume that the ‘bang on the head’ that he had suffered in his youth did nothing to improve his mental constitution.
Prison life provided a diverse range of experience, from a sense of supreme safety to one of extreme vulnerability; there he discovered friendships, useful contacts and new criminal skills, but this was punctuated with periods of great fear, intense social and physical violence, and the constraints of losing one’s freedom. The latter made an indelible mark upon Arthur’s inner character, as well as his outer persona; prison was no holiday camp, except for the utterly masochistic. However, despite the constant threat of imprisonment, Arthur was driven to partake of the social underworld, believing there was little that he could offer honest society, nor little that it could offer him.
In the March of 1965, Arthur emerged from Wandsworth Prison, a free man once more, determined not to return – but not by going straight. Within a couple of weeks of release, while visiting a club in the East End, he ran into a familiar face in the guise of Richard “Dickie” Paris, who was working as a doorman that night. They quickly renewed their friendship and struck up a sought of criminal alliance, whereby Dickie effectively managed much of Arthur’s corrupt activities; as a result, Arthur become (in e
ffect) an honorary member of the Paris family.
Arthur’s primary source of income came from burglary, but he supplemented this by acting as a middle man for more high profile criminals wanting to launder money or dispose of stolen goods; or performing the role of their illicit bagman; he also had reputation for being a skilful driver and car thief, both of which were another source of income. However, Arthur didn’t hold on to his money for very long, squandering a lot of it on expensive clothes, gifts for “girlfriends”, prostitute usage and living out of hotels. But his worst vice was gambling, which he enjoyed through a variety of outlets: casino’s (legal and illegal), horse and dog racing, and his greatest folly of illegal poker games. When Arthur wasn’t in prison, he lived quite a high life, and when the money dried up, he just resorted to breaking into the affluent homes of the suburbs. Unfortunately, Arthur was not the most intelligent of burglars: he didn’t conform to the use of gloves, believing that it looked suspicious if seen wearing them in the street or if stopped by the police; instead he advocated the use of a handkerchief to wipe down any surfaces he happened to touch, except he wasn’t particularly adept at it, often leaving a collection of incriminating prints. In fact, the Sussex Constabulary were currently holding fingerprint evidence belonging to Arthur, in relation to an armed robbery conducted that April, where Arthur had supplied the getaway car; but, without a suspect to match them against [Arthur wasn’t known for this type of crime], they had been unable to make use of this evidence, thus far. As it was, by May 1965, Arthur was starting to consider abandoning house breaking – it having gotten a little dangerous of late, with several close scrapes involving occupants – and so was now in the market for some other major source of income, possibly including armed robbery.
May the 4th 1965 was a Tuesday: Arthur had managed to persuade Carol Paris to go on a date with him, despite her father warning her to steer well clear of him. Carol was almost like a sister in many respects and they had always hit it off; Carol would regularly cut and dye Arthur’s hair, which he liked to vary in a bid to confound any descriptions given by his victims or witnesses. She had resisted Arthur’s latest advances for several weeks, knowing full well that he was already dating someone else. But on this occasion, she fancied a night out away from the Paris’ suffocating flat and therefore agreed to visit the cinema with Arthur to see the Hammer adventure film ‘She’, (starring Ursulla Andress, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Bernard Cribbins).