Killing For Company
Page 1
CONTENTS
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Brian Masters
Praise
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
1 Arrest
2 Origins
3 Childhood
4 Army
5 Police and Civil Service
6 Victims
7 Disposal
8 Remand
9 Trial
10 Answers
Postscript
Appendix
Bibliography
Notes
Copyright
About the Book
On February 9th 1983 Dennis Nilsen was arrested at his Muswell Hill home, after human remains had been identified as the cause of blocked drains. Within days he had confessed to fifteen gruesome murders over a period of four years. His victims, all young homosexual men, had never been missed. Brian Masters, with Nilsen’s full cooperation, has produced a study of a murderer’s mind which is unique of its kind.
About the Author
Brian Masters’s work is eclectic, to say the least. His prize-winning study of the multiple murderer Dennis Nilsen, Killing for Company, is now recognised as a classic. More recently he has published The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer. His biography of John Aspinall involved living with gorillas, and his history of all twenty-four ducal families of Britain, The Dukes, is a source of reference and amusement. He has written the only complete biographies of Marie Corelli and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. He is also a well-known journalist and reviewer.
Also by Brian Masters
Molière
Sartre
Saint-Exupéry
Rabelais
Camus – A Study
Wynard Hall and the Londonderry Family
Dreams about H.M. The Queen
The Dukes
Now Barabbas Was A Rotter: The Extraordinary Life of
Marie Corelli
The Mistresses of Charles II
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
Great Hostesses
The Swinging Sixties
The Passion of John Aspinall
Maharana – the Udaipur Dynasty
Gary
The Life of E.F. Benson
Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance (Edited and Translated)
The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer
On Murder
Getting Personal
‘A comprehensive and compelling account’
Financial Times
‘Masters has written an extraordinary book, and his achievement has been the ability to recount horrific details without descending to the lurid sensationalism of the instant books and Fleet Street reports’
Police
‘Brian Masters has given us a full, well-ordered, dispassionate account of Nilsen’s life and crimes’
The Times
‘A compelling and remarkable book … through Masters’ fine writing the reader suspends his nausea for the crimes, and concentrates with Nilsen on his motives and himself’
The Listener
‘Quite brilliant in its assimilation of the facts … KILLING FOR COMPANY is a book that needed to be written, and has been executed with extreme skill and good sense’
Time Out
‘An important book which screams to be read’
New Statesman
‘The book is a perceptive and at times coldly brutal assessment of Nilsen’s psychology’
Daily Mirror
‘Brian Masters can rest assured that the job he undertook with such obvious doubts was one worth doing’
Spectator
‘Simultaneously gripping and repellent … I feel confident in believing that I will not read again in 1985 a more fascinating and repulsive tale, be it fact or fiction’
Literary Review
‘Without any doubt one of the most remarkable, complete and most humanely informative accounts of a murderer’s mind ever achieved … the book is far superior to any previous English book of its kind and deserves to serve as a model for all future attempts in this genre’
New Society
KILLING FOR
COMPANY
Brian Masters
For
Juan Melian
and Beryl Bainbridge
and also David Ralph Martin
I have now a guilt and punishment complex. I am convinced that I deserve everything that a court can throw at me.
– D.A. Nilsen, 13 April 1983
PREFACE
This has been in many ways a disturbing book to write, and some will no doubt find it an unpleasant one to read. Dennis Andrew Nilsen, having started life unremarkably enough in a fishing community in Scotland, at the age of thirty-seven admitted to the wilful murder of fifteen men over a period of four years, thus becoming the biggest multiple killer in British criminal history. This book attempts to show how such a calamity could occur.
The courts have already dealt with Nilsen by imprisoning him for life. In this there can be but scant comfort for the families of his victims, who must forever wonder why their sons were cut down before they had time to grapple with life’s problems in their own way, in order to satisfy the obsessive needs of a stranger who has been adjudged sane. With this in mind, there can be no ambiguity about the moral response to his crimes.
By examining in detail Nilsen’s life and attitudes, his emotions and reflexes, it might be possible to reach an understanding, albeit a scrappy one, of one dark and mysterious aspect of the human condition. That, at least, is my purpose. Any faulty interpretation of the facts is entirely my own responsibility.
I have used the biographical method to build a portrait of Nilsen before the crimes were committed, in the hope that one might discern clues in his life which point to the simmering of a latent conflict. As the biographer must select, I have given special weight to these ‘clues’, which were insignificant or unnoticed at the time but which assume gravity in retrospect. It is not until Chapters 6 and 7 that the murders themselves and the disposal of bodies are related. These are followed by a chapter on Nilsen’s behaviour on remand in Brixton Prison, an account of his trial at the Old Bailey, and a final chapter on the various possible explanations for such gross distortion of conduct offered by psychiatric, philosophic and theological inquiry. My own amateur explanation is offered in conclusion.
I have tried throughout to be neither indignant nor exculpatory, but objective. I am aware that this aim is rendered difficult in two respects. Firstly, I grew to know Nilsen very well during the eight months preceding his trial, and this personal contact must necessarily have some hidden influence upon my own attitudes; I can only hope that, being aware of the danger, I have managed to avoid it. Secondly, my account of Nilsen’s life is derived largely from his own words and reflections, written for me at great length in his prison cell. Wherever possible, I have corroborated his memory by researches in outside sources, and there are large sections (for example in Chapters 2 and 10) which owe nothing to Nilsen’s own writing. Moreover, though he has given me full and extensive information, he has had no control over the text, and I have been free to discard or expand, to make my own assessments and draw my own conclusions.
Nilsen’s co-operation has, I believe, been an advantage rather than a chain. It is extremely rare for a murderer to talk about himself as frankly and as extensively as Nilsen has done. In the nineteenth century Lacenaire revealed something of his motives in print. The Düsseldorf sadist, Peter Kürten, spoke openly to Dr Karl Berg in 1929 and their conversations appeared in a short book. Latterly, the American murderer Theodore Bundy has speculated about his crimes (while still maintaining his innocence) to two journalis
ts. Most recently Flora Rheta Schreiber has examined in depth the case of Joseph Kallinger in her book The Shoemaker. But Nilsen is the first murderer to present an exhaustive archive measuring his own introspection. His prison journals are therefore a unique document in the history of criminal homicide, and afford us some opportunity to enter the mind of a murderer. He knows that some of his revelations are so candid as to be horrifying, but we must wonder whether, without them, we should ever be able to determine what forces operated to disfigure his emotional grasp of the world about him. And if we cannot so determine, then we are left with the miserable conclusion that a man becomes a murderer merely by chance.
A number of other people have helped me in the compilation of this narrative, and to them all I should like to express my gratitude. Dennis Nilsen’s mother, Mrs Scott, has patiently shared her contemplation of a painful subject, and his step-father, Adam Scott, has been a source of strength to her and, by extension, to myself. Nilsen’s two successive solicitors, Ronald Moss and Ralph Haeems, have been unfailingly courteous and helpful at times when they themselves were under strain. Detective Chief Superintendent Chambers and Detective Chief Inspector Jay have given me much co-operation and encouragement. Colin Wilson shared his allusive ideas on the subject of murder and directed me towards several useful books. The staff of the British Medical Association Library were constantly helpful. Juan Melian has listened to my reading the text for many hours and made helpful suggestions. My agent, Jacintha Alexander, has worked tirelessly to see the project through, and my editor, Tom Maschler, has curbed my excesses and consistently suggested improvements, some of which I accepted gratefully; if I did not accept more, that, I suspect, is my loss. Professor John Gunn and Dr Pamela Taylor were of particular assistance in pointing me towards some specialist journals, while Professor Robert Bluglass and Professor Keith Ward kindly responded to my request for advice. For sustaining encouragement, I must thank Michael Bloch, Selina Hastings, Ian Romer, Stephen Tumim and Beryl Bain-bridge.
I should like to express my gratitude to Messrs Chatto & Windus and to Miss Iris Murdoch for permitting me to quote one paragraph from The Philosopher’s Pupil.
Others who have asked to remain anonymous include psychiatrists, social workers, and friends. My gratitude to them is not less for being addressed collectively.
Brian Masters
London, 1984
1
ARREST
The north London suburb of Muswell Hill is middle-class, residential, and almost intolerably placid. No events disturb its peaceful, thoughtless routine; there are no marches in the street, no pickets on the corner, rarely even the sound of a police and ambulance siren. The inhabitants of Muswell Hill get into their cars every morning, drive to work in central London, and drive back home at night. Their wives prepare dinner. They sometimes entertain. They enjoy a gin and tonic and pride themselves on knowing a little more about wine than the average supermarket shopper. And their weekends are spent gardening. Gardens are very important in Muswell Hill. As the name implies, it sits on relatively high ground overlooking the London basin and enjoys good, fresh air and full exposure to sun. Many of the roads slope, climb and undulate, making them unattractive to cyclists but enticing to the leisurely walker. More than one street is called ‘gardens’ rather than ‘road’. One such, Cranley Gardens, has given its name to a kind of sub-district of Muswell Hill, marked on maps of London as a focal point. Cranley Gardens itself is long, fairly wide, bright and cheerful. You could quite easily imagine children disporting themselves with skipping ropes along the pavement, except that Muswell Hill mothers do not approve of children playing in the street.
The houses of Cranley Gardens, built before the First World War, are semi-detached and stylish, with pointed roofs. Mostly painted white with beams and woodwork picked out in another colour, they are separated from the street by noticeably pretty front gardens, well tended and self-consciously aware of their charm. Gently they compete with each other. Except for one. The garden of Number 23 is woefully neglected, dank and brown without a splash of colour, overgrown and entangled by weeds. Even a daffodil would find it hard to thrust its way through to the sunlight. The house behind, too, is not in keeping with the rest of the street. White and pale blue, it looks rather scruffy, in need of a wash, lacking in the sparkle which emanates from neighbouring houses of the same shape and size. It looks haggard and forgotten.
While most of the houses in Cranley Gardens served their original purpose as family homes, Number 23 did not. At the beginning of 1983 it had for many years belonged to an Indian woman whose address was given as New Delhi and who may never have seen it since the day she bought it. The house was divided into six flats and bedsitting-rooms, and managed by Mr Roberts of Ellis & Co., an estate agent on Golders Green Road. Turnover of tenants was rapid and frequent, so that it was easy for the landlady and her agents to fall into the habit of neglect. No one was proud of the house, or gave it any attention. The stairs and hallways were unpainted and shabby, even unlit, for nobody took care to replace lightbulbs, and one had to use a torch in the winter months to find one’s way upstairs.
In February 1983, there were five people living at 23 Cranley Gardens. Two rooms on the ground floor were occupied by Fiona Bridges, a barmaid at the Royal Oak pub in St James’s Lane, Muswell Hill, and her boyfriend Jim Allcock, a builder. Miss Bridges had been there since the summer of 1982, and Mr Allcock had joined her some months later. Another bedsitting-room on the ground floor was shared by Vivienne McStay, a dental nurse from Wellington, New Zealand, and Monique Van-Rutte, a youth welfare worker from Holland. It was a room actually sandwiched between the two rooms let to Fiona Bridges, as she had taken over an extra room from a previous tenant who had moved out. Monique and Vivienne had moved in on 28 December 1982, and so had been tenants for only five weeks.
Nobody was living on the first floor, which had been vacant for some time, but right at the top of the house was an attic flat of two rooms, kitchen and bathroom, occupied by a civil servant and his dog. He had been in the house longer than the other tenants, over a year by now, but none of them knew him at all well, or had exchanged many words with him. Jim Allcock had lived downstairs for two months before he even saw him. Monique and Vivienne had been to his attic flat once for coffee and a chat, which was unusual, but no friendship had evolved from this. Judging by letters left in the hall on the ground floor for ‘Des Nilsen’ they had assumed his name was Desmond. But they had not asked. In fact his name was Dennis Andrew Nilsen, and he was an executive officer at the Jobcentre in Kentish Town, London. He simply preferred to be called ‘Des’. The dog, a black and white mongrel bitch with a bad eye, was called ‘Bleep’. The only time you could be sure to see Mr Nilsen was in the morning before he went to work at 8 a.m., or on his return at 5.30 p.m., when he would invariably put Bleep on the lead and take her for a long, healthy walk, after being left in the flat for hours. The mutual devotion of man and dog was obvious to behold, and not a little humbling. If one were tempted to feel sorry for this lonely, rather distant man, who appeared to have no friends, one remembered the dog and her loyalty. Yet there was always a lingering hint of despair about him.
Dennis Nilsen was tall and slim, slightly stooped, with shoulders that tended to jut forward, and thick brown hair. He habitually wore dark trousers and a pale grey tweed jacket, blue shirt, dark blue tie. Though clean and tidy, he was obviously not prone to sartorial vanity, for his wardrobe was severely limited. One rarely saw him wear anything new or different, except perhaps a scarf which might suddenly appear. He wore rimless spectacles and was clean-shaven. Now thirty-seven years old, he was good-looking enough for one to judge he had been handsome when younger. A wide, generous mouth with a full bottom lip was spoilt only when he laughed, revealing uneven teeth, brown at the edges, which could do with some attention from a dentist. But that would be cosmetic, and vanity was not in Mr Nilsen’s character. He struck one as sincere and straightforward, for there was nothing
shifty in his eye. Unlike many people who avert their glance after a few seconds’ concentration, Dennis Nilsen would look directly at you, and you would feel the penetration of his gaze. There would be little point in trying to dissemble. He had, too, a firm and honest handshake.
None of this was apparent, of course, to the other inhabitants of 23 Cranley Gardens, who had virtually no knowledge of the aloof tenant with the dog in the attic. But his colleagues at work were aware of his qualities. In his eight years as a civil servant he had interviewed hundreds of people looking for work, where his direct approach was a valuable asset. He was never known to shirk his duties, but would rather undertake a workload which would make less addicted colleagues tremble. Work did indeed appear to be an obsession with him, and some wondered whether his life might hide some crucial emptiness which work attempted to fill. In addition, he had until recently taken on the unpaid duties of branch officer for the civil service union (C.P.S.A.) and seemed to relish the responsibility. In any dispute with the management before an industrial tribunal he would always support the workers’ cause with the passion of a born advocate. He quickly had gained the reputation of a ‘trouble-maker’ because his labours on behalf of the underdog would often make the dispute more acrimonious than it had been before. No one questioned his motives, only his manner. He was so articulate and fluent in debate that it was difficult ever to win a point against him. His intelligence and his powers of marshalling essential arguments were admired, as was his capacity for organisation. His sense of equilibrium was secretly deplored; there appeared to be no allowance made in his mind for the virtues of compromise. He was later to call himself a ‘monochrome man’, all black and white with no gradations between extremes. Dennis Nilsen was also known at work for an anarchic, surprising, and often hilarious sense of humour.