by Russ Coffey
In January 1968, Nilsen returned to the UK and was posted to the 1st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Seaton Barracks, Plymouth. Being back in familiar surroundings quelled his wilder fantasies. Besides, with no locks on the doors, he couldn’t carry on masturbating in front of mirrors. Instead, he just spent more time watching TV. But despite home soil helping to normalise Nilsen’s sexual mindset, two incidents from that time are revealing. The second was, in fact, in all probability, another crucial step on the path towards becoming a killer.
The first happened in the barracks in Plymouth one Saturday night. Nilsen was watching late-night TV. In a dormitory down the corridor, some young privates had smuggled in a local barmaid. As Nilsen walked down to use the toilet, he heard a whimpering sound. With a mixture of curiosity and concern, he popped his head round the door. He was appalled to see his comrades were taking it in turns to have sex with the girl. Cowardice, however, stopped him intervening. Instead, he just went to bed, saying nothing. The next day, he considered he had failed the girl. But although he says he was ashamed, he also clearly took some pride in the fact that he could consider himself a good, compassionate man, unlike those others who had been involved in the attack.
This story may also have been included to prepare the reader for the next new confession. Nilsen’s first sex attack was callous and opportunistic. It shows that by the age of 22, he had lost any compunction about serious sexual assault. This incident he describes may not have quite matched the ‘fantasy ritual’ that later would characterise the killings, but the fact that the victim was unconscious is significant. Nilsen’s behaviour before and after also showed he’d now managed to compartmentalise sexual matters completely from the rest of his life. Where sex was concerned, there were no limits.
It started when a chance conversation at his barracks revealed that he and a young private, Frank, were to be sharing a long train journey to Bristol (the details have been changed for obvious reasons). They decided to travel together and, once the train pulled away, started drinking in the buffet car. When their money ran out, they moved on to their supply of beer cans and whisky. As the train drew level with Coventry, the young man passed out. Nilsen realised that he had an advantageous position. He carried the half-conscious man to the toilet and propped him so the man’s head was lolling around the toilet seat. This gave him an idea for how to knock him out. He started to let the man’s head smash against the toilet bowl. Then he undressed and orally abused him while inserting his finger into his anus. All the time, Nilsen had an erection and contemplated whether he might rape him. People, however, were banging on the door. ‘Fear took over and I hurriedly washed him and washed the stain on his jacket,’ he says. After it was over, Nilsen was able to carry on as if nothing had happened.
Later, during this period of leave, Nilsen decided to go up to Scotland to visit his family. Once occupied with family business, the sexual assault hardly seemed to exist for him. He was pleased to hear his sister Sylvia had married the son of one of the local dairy farmers. Still, he was a little concerned that, at 16, she was a little young to have got hitched. But at least she had got out of the Broch – they had emigrated to Toronto, Canada. His brother Olav, meanwhile, had married a Geordie girl. Nilsen was glad to see that his older brother had only got as far as working in a nearby factory.
Betty Scott would later tell reporters how she remembered Dennis being keen to impress with his cooking and seeming in good spirits. In the evenings, he would be quieter, retiring to his room, as was his custom, to write poetry. No doubt, at other times he would have talked excitedly about how he would be returning to Germany. There was a short stint in Cyprus to see out and then he was off to West Berlin.
One thing Nilsen didn’t say was that he had heard the city had begun to re-establish its pre-war reputation for decadence and hoped this might include homosexual possibilities. When Nilsen arrived a month later, he was stationed at the Montgomery barracks, set in woodland in the Spandau district near the border. The 24-year-old corporal’s predictions seemed to be partly correct. There was both more drink going around, and more sex. It was not, however, the sort he was seeking. ‘The lads’ encouraged Nilsen to visit a prostitute one night.
The brothel was in a central location, probably of the sort where two or three girls were set up in a small flat. Nilsen was afraid of what his friends would think if he refused, so he went along with what everyone else was doing. The girl would have seen him as no different from many other drunken customers. She aroused him with her mouth, before getting on top. Nilsen was then, more or less, a passive participant. He was pleased that he managed to ejaculate. It proved that to him that he could, at least, be bisexual. But still, he says, he had no particular inclination to repeat the experience, especially when sober.
The homosexual opportunities he had hoped for did not materialise in Berlin. This posting did, however, give him the opportunity to take up a hobby that had long fascinated him. On his NCO’s pay packet, he had found that, almost without trying, he was saving money. Then, one afternoon, presumably in the Friedrichstrasse near Checkpoint Charlie, he saw an 8mm movie camera for sale. On an impulse, he bought it. He subsequently started to film everything he saw. He even took his new toy to an anti-Vietnam demonstration, where he filmed the authorities tear-gassing the protestors.
When he told his colleagues about what he had been doing, they laughed at him. It would have been an odd thing for any British soldier to be doing but, in his case, it was just another sign of his peculiarity. In Nilsen’s mind, however, he was a colourful ‘outsider’ figure. He imagined how he might be portrayed in a movie, getting up to all kinds of crazy schemes. The next week he wrote to the Ministry of Defence asking to film Rudolph Hess in Spandau. But although their reply implied they thought him a little mad, nothing more was made of it.
Briefly, Nilsen sounds as if he might have been quite happy. For a while, he put his deepest sexual preoccupations out of his mind and just enjoyed the opportunities afforded by travelling with the Army. In January 1970, at the age of 24, he was sent to Bodenmais ski resort in Bavaria. Here, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were taught alpine skills as part of their complete combat training. The ski school was based up around an old mountain farmhouse overlooking the Zeller Valley and Nilsen’s job required him to cater for 30 officers and NCOs in a large and spotlessly clean kitchen. Nilsen felt that the locals liked him, but he was disturbed because there was still simmering Nazi sympathy there.
There were also frequent opportunities to socialise. All the time Nilsen was mixing with the locals, he never betrayed his innermost sexual feelings. He describes one evening as an example. There was a beer festival taking place, and one night he went to a party at a Biergarten belonging to a local character called Hans. Hans loaned Nilsen a pair of Lederhosen to wear for the evening. One of the local girls flirted with Nilsen that night. He thought she looked a bit like Natalie Wood and was delighted when she kissed him on the verandah. It provided perfect cover for his real thoughts which were fixed on a young private. He was pleased to have fooled everyone. ‘I’m a better actor than Rock Hudson ever was,’ he boasts.
After Bavaria, Nilsen was soon transferred to Fort George in Inverness-shire, only 70 miles from his birthplace. The barracks practically adjoined the battlefield of Culloden Moor where the Jacobite rebellion was quashed in 1746, something that Nilsen would most probably have been aware of, and might have been frequently inclined to lecture others about. But while this may have wound up his colleagues, no one could complain about the quality of Nilsen’s work. He had become an efficient and reliable cook, reaching Grade B. In August 1970, Nilsen was then transferred across the Cairngorms to Ballater where the Queen’s Royal Guard (Balmoral) was based. Despite his proximity to Strichen, however, Nilsen never took the opportunity to visit his family.
Nilsen’s last posting in the Army should have been the most convivial and relaxing of his career, as it was for most of those posted to the NAT
O Ace High signals station at Maybury on the Shetland Isles. The military base was located at the southerly tip of the largest island. The dramatic beauty spots of Sumburgh and Fitful Head were nearby. In this small community, the locals and the servicemen – mainly signals engineers – mixed freely and everyone knew everyone else’s business. Eligible women outnumbered the bachelors, and there was a lively dating scene. Nilsen’s disastrous crush on a young Welsh soldier, however, started a chain of events that would lead him to be cast into bedsit life in London, romantically frustrated, and without any supportive influences.
Corporal Nilsen spent almost two years at Maybury. During this period, he saw himself as a romantic, artistic figure. He talks as if he was now comfortable in his sexuality but frustrated by the lack of opportunity. Without any outlet for his sexual desires, he says he divided his spare time between filming the areas of natural beauty on the island, like Fitful Head, and joining the drinking crowd at the Maybury Club.
Others remember things differently. One such contemporary, now in his sixties – we’ll call him Rob Ferrier – was a 26-year-old NCO when he met Nilsen. He first emailed me in 2005 after seeing my Sunday Times magazine piece online. Knowing I had read Nilsen’s book made him curious to know what Nilsen had said about Maybury. He also wondered just how much of Nilsen’s material I believed.
Some days later, we spoke for the first time on the phone. ‘Having been stationed with the bloke, and having seen documentaries, I have often been struck how much journalists assume what he says is actually true,’ he told me, adding, ‘I would advise anyone writing about him to take his autobiographical claims with a large pinch of salt.’
Ferrier is a jolly, slightly grizzled character with the build of a former rugby player. He has a good memory, and his recollections are consistent with many details found in History of a Drowning Boy. However, when I wrote to Nilsen to ask him what he remembered of Ferrier, his reply was, ‘Who … and exactly what … is he?’ Could he really not remember, or did he not want anyone else to challenge his version of events?
Ferrier recalls Nilsen’s overriding characteristic at 25 years of age being immaturity. He remembers him constantly trying to impress and says he had a ‘very low tolerance to alcohol which he would still consume at every possible opportunity’. Nilsen also had one particularly irritating habit – he would jump out from behind bushes and wave his movie camera at courting couples behind the Maybury Club. Yet, although people considered him a bit awkward socially, nobody guessed he might be homosexual. Ferrier even asked me whether it might be possible that Nilsen resorted to gay sex because he was such a failure with women. It seemed strange to many that he was such a flop with the girls – he wasn’t bad looking, after all. Most concluded that he drove them away though a combination of poor personal hygiene, clumsy manners, and a habit of becoming intoxicated after half a pint.
Nilsen’s own recollections of his drinking and socialising during this period are again confused with his sex dreams. He describes one incident that took place in the spring of 1971, where he says he was given a ‘Micky Finn’ or spiked drink from a local who then interfered with him while he slept. It reads like a carbon copy of the incident involving ‘Fat Hans’ and what he hoped he’d do to him. Ferrier was bemused when I asked him about this. He says there could have only been one possible candidate and he could never have been audacious enough.
When Nilsen’s mind wasn’t on sex or work, it was on his home movies. Whether or not he spent as much time filming nature and or creating dramatisations involving friends as he claims, he definitely did become a projectionist at the Cine Club. His enthusiasm resulted in his being sent on the short Services Kinema Corporation (SKC) course at Beaconsfield. After a fortnight, he returned, qualified to set up the 16mm cinema equipment. But now that he knew a little, he started to tell others what to do. His manner and interference exasperated everyone.
The story was the same in the workshop where soldiers were encouraged to practice hobbies. One afternoon, he tried to work a large piece of mahogany on a lathe without first centring it. When it came off, he almost knocked out the instructor. Worse was to come with his pets. A shop in the island’s capital stocked exotic animals. Nilsen’s first purchase was a Mynah bird, which he let fly freely around the room he shared with a colleague. A senior officer, the next day, told him to return it. Some months later, he replaced it with a mud turtle he named Napoleon XIV (after the band that had had a hit with the novelty song ‘They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Ha’). Initially, he kept it under his bed in a piece of polystyrene packing covered by mud and water. Ferrier told me: ‘The smell was atrocious! At this stage, the RSM gave up. He was approaching retirement. Nilsen’s roommate was less than amused. Nilsen used to feed the beast lumps of raw meat. He would wait until the Cook Sergeant was out doing the daily shop and sneak it into the kitchen, where he would feed it on the food prep table.
‘His sense of humour was such that he’d challenge people to try to take the meat from the turtle. It would sit there with its foot/flipper pinning down the chunk of meat. Nilsen would make comments like, “I bet he’d prefer some fresh flesh, like from you!” He’d make such comments to visiting women.’
Corporal Nilsen would also try to make himself seem more intelligent than others by ostentatiously referring to the books he had recently read. On one occasion, this was a collection of the Marquis de Sade’s writings. He delighted in trying to shock others with it. But when Ferrier quoted it back to him a month later, he says Nilsen struggled to place what was being said. Most of the ‘boys’ thought him a pseudo-intellectual.
Nilsen did, however, earn some respect for his natural artistic flair. Photographs he had taken hung in the clubhouse for years after he left. He remained, however, much more interested in moving pictures. After a short stint back in Scotland catering for the Signals engineers, he returned to the Shetlands in the spring of 1972 and spent much of his spare time with his movie camera. He shot the annual Viking festival and the seas and skies by the cliffs of Fitful Head. Then, in May, he met someone with whom he felt he could share his artistic passions.
Terry (his name has been changed) was actually just a homesick, naïve 18-year-old, easily dominated by older and more forceful personalities. He was small, with blond hair and was youthfully handsome. Nilsen liked to teach him to use the projector and to take him to the local beauty spots to act out little scenes. In his autobiography, Nilsen remembers, ‘We worked, played and walked the sheer scenic beauty of the high, rugged cliffs and the golden stretch of Quendale Bay. I filmed him running, jumping, and in the full range of usual situations.’
Some of these scenarios apparently involved Terry playing dead, and Nilsen talks about how he would review the footage in the evenings. ‘I was certainly excited by a passive image of him. There was no gore or anything like that involved. Afterwards, when he was not around, I would watch all the footage of him and afterwards needed to go to the bathroom and masturbate.’
Cross-country running gave Nilsen another excuse to spend time with Terry. At 26, despite the smoking and drinking, Dennis was in good physical shape. He would challenge Terry to long cross-country races. After a sprint finish to one run, they both collapsed on the grass. Lying and panting, Nilsen patted Terry on the chest. For him, it was a sign of intimacy and unspoken understanding. But just as Terry was beginning to find Nilsen annoying, the latter was beginning to become obsessed.
After drunken nights at the clubhouse, Nilsen would sidle up to Terry and pretend to have passed out. His hope was that Terry would touch him to revive him. One night, when Terry was drunk, homesick and apparently on the verge of tears, he took the opportunity to hold the young Welshman’s hand. The fact that Terry didn’t immediately remove it confirmed to him that there was an understanding between the two. He asked him into the Laundry Room, and says in his autobiography, ‘As we were coming to the Laundry Store, I suddenly said to him, even taking myself by surprise, “We can go into the L
aundry, as I’ve got the only key. We won t be disturbed.” He replied, “I don’t know what’s happening.” He pulled himself away and darted out of the outside door. “God,” I thought, “You’ve really done it this time … you’ve lost him for good.”’
Nilsen says he had a cigarette and then went to look for him. He was sitting, dejected, on the grass outside. The morning, he says, brought a ‘drifting apart’ which continued until their relationship ‘exploded briefly’.
It started when Nilsen became convinced a Signals Sergeant was a closet homosexual trying to steal Terry away. Nilsen’s anger and jealousy grew. He calls it ‘a fissure in my life’ and says that ‘tremors were beginning to register on the obvious seismograph of my temperament’. He decided to confront the sergeant outside the hotel. Full of drink, he directly accused him of being homosexual and in love with Terry. Rob Ferrier told me he also remembers this night. Nilsen had turned up at the hotel drunk, and started ranting incoherently.
The next day, Nilsen then went to Fitful Head to contemplate a suicide bid by throwing himself off it. He came down and went to bed. Two days later, he decided to challenge Terry to a fight. He says, ‘I wanted him to see that I was hurt and angry. After I taunted him, he came at me with flying fists. He wrestled me to the ground. With blazing eyes and no words, he put his hands around my neck. I stared mutely at his wild expression and saw the red fever in his eyes … It was all finished. It was not the only thing that was over. I had already decided that I would let my current time in the Army expire without enlisting for a further three years … I could see no workable future for a homosexual in the British Army. There comes a time when we outgrow living out of a military kit bag and moving around like a gypsy.’