Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller

by O'Connor, Sean

  Heath returned home and continued studying. He went to Luton again to take his second Navigation Test on Tuesday 11 June. Spooner records that on this day, Heath brought another young woman to a Marylebone hotel that he had also met in Luton and spent the night with her. They didn’t have sex as the woman was menstruating at the time and according to her, Heath was not resentful.19

  At around this time, Heath also ran into Moira Lister, his ex-wife’s schoolfriend and neighbour, who had by then left South Africa and become a successful ingenue on the London and Stratford stages. She had recently secured a season with Kay Hammond and John Clements’ company at the St James’s Theatre. Meeting by chance at the exclusive Milroy Club, Heath asked Moira to join him for a drink. When she asked how Elizabeth was, he told her that she had been killed in a car crash on the Pretoria Road. Moira was shocked by the tragic death of her friend but also bowled over by Heath and his ‘ice-blue eyes’:

  I can distinctly remember my reaction was, ‘Well, you are so attractive and now a widower with a beautiful little boy – I wouldn’t mind marrying you!’20

  Heath took her contact details in his address book and said he would take her out to dinner one evening. Some weeks later when they met at the Bagatelle restaurant, Moira thought him ‘charming, gay [with] absolutely nothing salacious about him’. He behaved ‘impeccably’ throughout the evening, drove her home and kissed her on both cheeks before saying goodnight. When she later heard about the murders, Moira couldn’t believe that Heath was responsible.

  I still found it impossible to equate the savage abnormal sex murders he had done with the charming man who had taken me out on the town.21

  The week following ‘V’ Day, Heath received some news that was to devastate him and might well have been the trigger for the events that would lead him to kill.

  He was told that the fact that he had been previously dismissed from the RAF would make him ineligible for a ‘B’ licence. Though he had passed his exams and practical tests, he would not be able to receive his licence. Consequently, he would never be able to fly as a commerical pilot. All of his plans for the future, the efforts he had put into his examinations and the money his father had lent him had come to nothing. Desperate, he wrote another of his impassioned letters to the Minister of Civil Aviation begging, as ever, for one more chance:

  Should the licence be witheld it will mean utter ruin for myself and those dependent upon me, as I have staked everything on this one chance. Issuing or witholding the licence means the difference between a decent future or a future of poverty, misery and the continued payment for misdeeds of the past. Your decision, sir, will give me the one last chance I need to make good. This licence literally means everything to me. It means the chance to regain my self-respect and give my child a decent start in life. I can only prove my words by actions, but should this chance be given me I would pledge my word that I will commit no misdemeanour, however slight, in the future, and I should be everlastingly grateful . . . I have paid the penalty demanded by law for my misdeeds, which can hardly be described as criminal. Stupid and foolish, yes, but I submit that it would not be just should I have to suffer for the remainder of my life.22

  The letter was typical of Heath – outlining his extenuating circumstances, promising not to misbehave, claiming to be foolish but not bad. But there was no reply from the Air Ministry. Neville Heath, the golden-haired flyboy was finally brought to earth. This time he was grounded – for good.

  On Saturday 15 June, Heath was drinking at the City Club in Raquet Court, Fleet Street where he met Harry Ashbrook,23 a journalist for the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail. They had been introduced by a mutual business acquaintance. Heath said that he had recently been demobilized and was now arranging to fly planes abroad. He had mentioned that he was planning to fly to Copenhagen the next week to discuss the purchase of some planes with the Flying Club there. By coincidence, Ashbrook was also planning to travel to Copenhagen and was about to sort out his passage with Transport Command. Heath suggested that he could probably get Ashbrook there quicker and cheaper. He would need to hire a Procter plane from an air company that he knew well from his student days, Marshall’s of Cambridge. Heath showed Ashbrook a copy of that week’s issue of Flight magazine, which had an advertisement for Marshall’s in the small ads section. The flight would cost £25 return, which Ashbrook thought was very reasonable.24

  Heath mentioned that he had married but then divorced. He was now married again and his wife was living with her mother in Nottingham. Ashbrook noted Heath’s caterpillar badge – he seemed a trustworthy, reliable character. But the whole negotiation was, of course, bogus, as Heath knew that he wouldn’t be able to fly at all without a ‘B’ licence.

  That evening, Heath met a young Wren who had only recently been demobilized at a dance in Chelsea.

  Her name was Yvonnne Symonds.

  On Sunday 16 June, Heath was at Merton Hall Road in the morning and went out to lunch with Yvonne at about 12.30 p.m., then spent the night with her at the Pembridge Court Hotel. After he had waved Yvonne off on the Worthing train from Paddington Station on Monday evening, Bessie Heath was sure that her son was in the kitchen at Merton Hall Road when she and her husband went to bed at 10.30 p.m. On Tuesday, she believed that he left the house about 8.30 a.m. to go and take the second part of his examination and to organize his passport for the flight to Copenhagen. This trip to Copenhagen he also mentioned to the staff at the Pembridge Court Hotel. He did not return to Merton Hall Road on Tuesday night.25

  Heath rang his mother on Wednesday morning and said, ‘I think I’ll just nip smartly home and collect my laundry.’ He returned to Wimbledon, having been to the Air Ministry, and told his mother that he had passed his ‘B’ licence. This must have been an extraordinary relief to Bessie Heath, as she knew that getting the ‘B’ licence represented hope for her son’s future – a job, security, independence. It was only later that she discovered that this was a lie.

  People have said that in not telling me his application had been refused, Neville was just betraying those traits of cunning and deceit with which his character has been blackened. That is not true. He lied because he did not want to hurt me by telling me of his failure.26

  Following his rejection by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Heath’s parents’ feelings were very much in his mind as they ‘had sacrificed a great deal to give [him] this chance’.27 He told his mother that he was going to the Air Ministry that afternoon to get his ‘B’ licence and his passport and was then going to pick up a Proctor plane which he was going to fly to Copenhagen. He had lunch and packed his suitcase. He was dressed in a grey double-breasted pin-striped suit that had been made in South Africa, with a cream shirt, brown suede shoes and a dark brown trilby. His brother Mick hailed a taxi for him from Wimbledon Station at about 2.30 p.m.

  On the doorstep, for the last time in his life, he kissed his mother goodbye.

  At Victoria the next morning, after having spent the Wednesday night at the Pembridge Court Hotel, Heath met Harry Ashbrook at the Grosvenor Hotel that joined the station platform and told him that he planned to pick up the plane from Cambridge on Friday. He would then fly to Elstree from where they would expect to fly to the continent on Saturday or Sunday, if customs formalities could be completed. Ashbrook noticed that Heath carried his flying helmet and goggles. It was sunny in the early part of the day, so Heath wore a pair of RAF-issue sunglasses. At lunchtime, they went to the Cock Tavern in Fleet Street, which was famous for its good food. Here they bumped into an acquaintance of Ashbrook’s, Leslie Terry. Terry, a restaurant owner, was also a petty criminal as well as a drinking companion of the journalist Gerald Byrne. He had sixteen convictions for shop-breaking, receiving stolen goods, larceny and for living on immoral earnings. In August 1946, he was also to receive a three-year sentence for the manslaughter of a woman.28 Terry was typical of the shady characters that peopled the pubs and clubs of Heath’s drink-orientated night-time world. Heath wondered
if Terry would do him a favour and lend Ashbrook some money?29 Ashbrook needed to borrow £50 in all, £25 to pay Heath for the trip to Copenhagen, as well as another £5 that Heath wanted to borrow and £20 for Ashbrook himself. Terry phoned the nearby Barclays Bank in Fleet Street and arranged to cash a cheque for £50. He collected this at 4 p.m. and went back to the City Club where he gave the cash to Ashbrook. Heath was given his £30 and said he was going directly to Cambridge. He would contact Ashbrook when he returned on Friday. Ashbrook left. Heath immediately called for drinks at the bar.30

  That day Terry had pulled off a big business deal and was in the mood to celebrate. Heath had something to celebrate, too, with £30 burning a hole in his pocket. When the pubs closed, Heath and Terry went to Anne’s Club to continue drinking until it was opening time again at 5 p.m. They carried on drinking at the various ancient pubs along Fleet Street between the Law Courts and the decimated area around St Paul’s: the Falstaff, the Cheshire Cheese and the Cock Tavern. Heath drank beer steadily, though ‘apart from a slight flush he showed no signs of drunkenness’. At around 7 p.m., the pubs in the area started to run out of beer – Heath’s favoured drink. In order to carry on drinking, Terry suggested that they should drive over in his car to one of Heath’s locals in Knightsbridge where, Heath said, they could get all the ale they wanted.

  When they arrived in Knightsbridge at about 7.30 p.m., Terry drove past the Trevor Arms and suggested that they stop there for a drink. Once inside the pub, Heath introduced him to some RAF officers that he knew and they got into a round, Heath and the other officers drinking beer, Terry drinking whisky. After four rounds of drinks, Heath left the others and went to join a girl he recognized at the bar, Margery Gardner.

  I had not arranged to meet her . . . Margery was only a casual acquaintance. In the last two or three weeks I had seen her several times in the Nag’s Head. Sometimes I saw her too at clubs I belonged to. Her friends seemed to be a very queer set – a bit ‘arty’.31

  Leslie Terry had noticed that Margery had been on her own at the bar for a while, so as it was his round, he offered to buy her a drink. Heath then introduced them. They remained together for about an hour, then Margery said she’d like to eat. Heath asked Terry if he would like to join them, but Terry said he had an errand to sort first, but where would they be later? Leaving the pub, Heath told Terry that he and Margery would be dining just down the road at the Normandie Hotel. Terry got into his car, but as he was driving, realized that he’d been drinking too much – they had, after all, been drinking solidly for seven hours – so he decided to go home.

  Consequently, Heath and Margery dined together alone. They then went for last orders at the Panama Club. Heath realized he’d left his flying helmet at the Normandie, but would go back for it the next day.

  It was after midnight when we left the Panama, taking a taxi to Notting Hill Gate. Margery Gardner was still with me when we reached the hotel, but I don’t remember asking her to stay. The last thing I can recall is going to one of the rooms at Pembridge Court Hotel – number four – undressing and getting into bed. There were two beds, and Margery Gardner was in the one farthest from the window. I put out the light. I am not certain whether I remember waking when the light went on again. But that was my first thought – the light was on. I was sitting on the floor of the room. Of what had happened in that period I had no recollection. But I saw the result. There was the body of a woman on the bed.

  I had no idea what to do. There were stains of blood on me, so I bathed in the bathroom on the next floor, going back to the bedroom to shave and dress. I was confused in mind but it would be wrong to say that I was panicky. I noticed particularly how steady my hand was when I was holding the razor. Packing a suitcase, I went by taxi to the Normandie Hotel, where I had left my flying helmet the night before and from there to Victoria. It was too early for breakfast but I got some coffee. My instinct then was to go away, anywhere. It was not flight exactly, for already I found it hard to connect myself with the sight I had just seen in the bedroom. Everything seemed like a dream or a nightmare. I wanted to get away where things were light and bright and different. So I went to Brighton.

  I felt ill. After having some breakfast on the front I was better and went for a walk round the town. It was just an aimless stroll round places I used to know and eventually it took me back to the railway station. Then I phoned Yvonne Symonds. I had known her in London as a very attractive girl and I think she recently took a degree as Master of Arts. We had lunch together that day and the next; I spent the night at an hotel on the front.

  By this time I wasn’t thinking much about Pembridge Court. It was not a sudden shutting off of consciousness about it. All there was to remember was the wakening on the floor. It did not seem to be me in any way except that I had seen it. So I could still lunch and laugh and enjoy the company of friends, as I did at the Blue Peter at Angmering. An old friend whom I met at Worthing suggested spending an evening there and I took Yvonne. We met several RAF types who were known to me.

  Next day I found my name staring from the pages of the papers. I thought more about it then.

  I was not afraid but I wanted to get out of Worthing.32

  Whilst Heath was awaiting trial, Leslie Terry was keen to benefit from his very brief association with the most wanted man in the country – selling his own story to the press and negotiating a deal for Heath himself. He lamented the fact that he had suggested that they should go looking for more alcohol once the pubs had run dry in the West End. ‘[Heath] certainly wouldn’t have met [Margery] on that fatal night if we hadn’t set off, at my suggestion, in search of beer,’33 he said.

  By the time Margery had met Heath at the Trevor Arms, Leslie Terry estimated that Heath had already drunk twenty-four pints of beer.

  Heath and Margery had then gone on drinking for another four hours.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rogue Male

  22 JUNE – 7 JULY 1946

  I suddenly feel I can’t stand anything any more – the boredom – hopelessness. I miss the war . . . I need excitement, I need things crashing against me, violence; the quiet will kill me.

  Elizabeth Taylor, A Wreath of Roses, 1949

  At 3.47 a.m. on Saturday 22 June a telegraphic message was expressed to all police divisions in England and Wales stating that Neville George Clevely Heath also known as James Robert Cadogan Armstrong was wanted for interview. ‘He is particularly fond of the company of women and is a frequenter of drinking clubs and bars.’ The police were also keen to trace the taxi driver who had picked up Heath and Margery outside the Panama Club and driven them to the Pembridge Court Hotel and they asked the press for help in trying to trace him. Every cab rank in London was checked by the police.

  At the same time, detectives kept a special watch on 21 Merton Hall Road in case Heath tried to contact his parents. They were also given a warrant from the Home Office to intercept any letters or telegrams that were sent to the house.1 All hotel managers and boarding-house keepers in the London area were asked to keep a look-out for a man answering Heath’s description, particularly anyone carrying a flying helmet or wearing RAF sunglasses. Across the capital, railway stations, bus and coach depots were under police surveillance. Because of Heath’s flying abilities and his familiarity with airfields, Scotland Yard worried that Heath might have already flown abroad.

  Journalists started to follow leads in the Chelsea and West End drinking dens frequented by Margery and Heath. A picture of the two protagonists quickly began to be consolidated in tabloid form – the handsome ex-RAF playboy and the bohemian artist/extra. These early stories printed in newspapers over the weekend were to dictate how Margery in particular was depicted throughout the hunt for Heath and his subsequent trial: ‘Bound Film Extra Murdered in Hotel’; ‘Police Watch House in Film Extra’s Mystery Death’. Margery was presented very much as a Chandler-style vamp with the words ‘film extra’ or ‘bohemian’ used euphemistically for a woman of easy morals. Though
Margery may only have worked as a film extra a few times and very much as a last resort, this image stuck.

  Having read the Daily Mail that Saturday morning, in Sheffield, the Wheat family solicitor Ralph Macro Wilson rang the local police at 10 a.m. and told them that he thought that the murder victim was the daughter of a client of his.2 The police immediately rang Reg Spooner at his office in Hammersmith and he advised the Sheffield police to interview the Wheat family as soon as possible.3

  Margery’s younger brother Gilbert was working at the time as a teacher at St Anselm’s School in Bakewell, but he travelled to Sheffield to accompany his mother to the police station that Saturday evening. They were joined by Macro Wilson, who was not only their solicitor but also a trusted family friend and godfather to Margery’s daughter. Mrs Wheat was extremely distressed and throughout the interview she was anxious not to discuss the more bohemian aspects of Margery’s life, but Macro Wilson encouraged her to be as frank as possible. Gilbert also supported his mother through the gruelling three hours of intimate questioning.

  Marjorie’s on-off lover Peter Tilley Bailey and her husband Peter Gardner4 were also interviewed by the police that Saturday. Like many of Margery’s associates, as Spooner was discovering, both had criminal records5 – and both had alibis. Gardner’s record made reference to his unstable psychological state, which was confirmed by Mrs Wheat. Margery had frequently spoken or written of her husband’s ‘mental’ behaviour. He told the police that he and Margery had split amicably because of her drinking but that they had never really argued. They continued to meet casually and he would occasionally (he claimed) lend her money. Much of what he said was at odds with Margery’s letters to her mother and Mrs Wheat’s recollections of what Margery had said about their dysfunctional relationship. Peter’s statement reads very much as if he was attempting to distance himself from Margery; according to him they got on very well, there were no arguments between them, she did not associate with other men, and she had a drink problem, not him. In reality Peter was later to die of cirrhosis of the liver caused by his alcoholism. Many of Margery’s associates confirmed that they had never seen her drunk.6 Peter was very clear that he had a secure alibi for the night of her murder – drinking with friends in a pub. He was also aware that Margery had recently been associating with Peter Tilley Bailey.