The Council of Civil Service Unions co-ordinating committee asked Nilsen to appear on Robin Day’s programme ‘Question Time’ with a prepared question on the subject of government cash limits. At the coffee and sandwiches reception before the show the producer indicated that he wanted Nilsen’s question to be put forward, but in the event it was not called, and Nilsen’s raised hand was lost in the forest. Although he is in the programme, he is uncharacteristically mute.
Nilsen was a delegate at the C.P.S.A. National Conference, held for one week in Southport in May 1980. He stayed, along with everyone else, at the Queen’s Hotel, having first made arrangements for his dog, Bleep (from whom he was now rarely separated), to be cared for by a colleague in Orpington, only to discover to his chagrin that guests at the Queen’s Hotel were allowed to keep dogs after all. The conference was the usual mixture of drink, talk, and bed-swapping, and Nilsen was noticed for his contribution to the first two and his scrupulous avoidance of the last.
Dennis Nilsen had made a mark, but it was not the kind of reputation which pleased those in authority. In their view, he was volatile and excitable, and although they could not fault his work (indeed, he worked harder than most) they discreetly decided that his time for promotion would be passed by and unaccountably forgotten. They may well have been influenced by his strident union activities; on one occasion, the Metropolitan Police catering office had sent to Denmark Street an urgent request for sixty casual catering workers, which alerted Nilsen to the possibility of a substantial turn-out of police to counter a mass picket by steel-workers. His response was to warn the steelworkers’ union, claiming that on an issue of principle he could not, as a trade unionist, simply sit on the fence.14
The question of Nilsen’s promotion had first arisen in 1978, after four years of service, at which point his Job Appraisal Review had reported that he ‘was considered unsuitable for promotion because of personality and attitude, and that his basic ability was not in question.’ Nilsen’s response to this was to point out that the civil service was afraid of intellectual initiative and enterprise: ‘Sometimes a personal submissiveness can provide an opportunity for advancement in the face of limited personal ability.’ He was not, and never would consent to be, submissive.
On the contrary, he fought with ever-increasing vigour to break, bend, or divert the rules which he seemed to think were being applied for his personal chastisement. In June 1981 he asked to be present at a District Manpower Committee meeting to observe, in his capacity as a union official, management decisions in the making. The committee secretary, Mr J.C. Cole, refused the request without giving reasons. Nilsen wrote back immediately demanding to see the minutes of the meeting which had denied his request. In the same month, he applied to be transferred to the Overseas Workers Section at Denmark Street (otherwise known as the Aliens Section), as it was the only department in which he had not so far served. This, too, was refused, in a letter signed by the manager, Iain Mackinnon, which stated ‘your manner in relationships with your colleagues is usually outspoken and often overbearing. I am concerned that – despite your undoubted desire to provide an effective service to our customers – your manner with the public on Overseas Workers Section might cause offence.’ The remark infuriated Nilsen. To the district manager he wrote, ‘I challenge the validity of this smear and libel against my record,’ and went on to say, quite correctly, that in seven years of public service at the Jobcentre he had not been the subject of a single complaint from a member of the public. He could not see that to deal with the sensitive issue of employment for foreigners not only commitment would be called for, but great tact as well. In this he was deficient.
Meanwhile, the time had again come round for his appearance before a promotion panel. He wrote to the area personnel manager, Mr T.A. Jones, asking to know ‘what there is about me which prevents you from recommending me, as my recommending officer, for an opportunity to present myself before an Executive Officer Promotion Panel’, adding the postscript that he, Jones, might as well admit that responsibility lay with the secret annual staff reports which had consistently slandered his reputation. These reports, he maintained, placed overriding emphasis on the loyalty of a civil servant, interpreting ‘disloyalty’ as any dissidence from officially accepted views and any vocal adherence to union policy. Invited to appeal, he declined with some petulance, saying that ‘principles are of more lifelong value to personal progress and development than promotion or financial gain.’ Once more, he added a sting of sarcasm which revealed how deeply emotional were his reactions to ostensibly professional matters. ‘I must admit’, he said, ‘that official attitudes and treatment of me over the years have not left my health unaffected.’
Nilsen took some pride in his unpopularity with managers, a small price to pay, he thought, for his integrity. The man he blamed most was the district manager, Mr Cole, who, he suspected, interpreted his controversial union activity as a ‘defect in attitude’, and his homosexuality (which was not unknown at the office though never flaunted) as a ‘defect in personality’. He further intimated that enthusiasm and an inquiring mind were officially deemed dangerous qualities in a civil servant. A passage in a revolutionist’s handbook earned his especial approbation and was circled in red: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.’
Nevertheless, Nilsen relented enough eventually to appeal against the decision of the promotion panel, and at his interview he managed to convince the personnel officers without being submissive and without curbing his sour anger. To the question, what had he done best in the year, he replied, ‘I repelled the temptation to resign the service.’ What had he done least well? ‘Maintaining the will to survive (mentally) after seven years of continuous, monotonous clerical tedium, i.e. being kept employed in the most basic trainee duties.’ He admitted that his character contained a nonconformist element and suggested that this would lie dormant if he were given more demanding duties. When asked what improvement might be expected from his senior officers, he said, ‘It is idealistic to expect some managers to deflect their energies from serving self, their careers and cosy world and start serving the spirit and aims of this public service.’ As for improvements in himself, he thought that he should ‘try not to seem to belittle others in response to their opinions on all matters’.15
Those at least were the written answers to be completed before interview. One must assume that he was more amenable in discussion. A measure of his conspicuous gracelessness as well as the qualities which it concealed is attested by a personal letter which Mr Mackinnon sent to Nilsen before his appearance. ‘We’ve had our differences in the past’, he wrote, ‘and we’ve had our differences this week, but I stand by my belief that you are “fitted for promotion”. I hope you do yourself the justice of making a real go of it.’ He continued:
Think what the panel knows of you, and how to counteract it. They will have quite serious doubts about your ability, but if you can show them your enthusiasm, your desire to help and to provide a good service, your intelligence, your concern for efficiency and your good ideas, you will impress them, and at the very least make them look critically at the evidence of the Annual Reports.
If, at the end of the day, you are unsuccessful, you will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you did your best (‘within the confines of the system’, if you like). Unless you do that much you cannot seriously claim to have been ‘thwarted by the system’.
I wish you luck (the best of us needs luck!) and hope that you succeed.
The letter was signed ‘Iain’ and was obviously sincere, though it looks as if Nilsen was expected to fail yet again.
In the end he did not. The promotion panel was impressed by his honesty, frankly eager to rid itself of this troublesome thorn, and doubtless aware that it could not reasonably delay Nilsen’s promotion any longer in view of his evident ability. The
y raised him to the status of an executive officer after a probation of nearly eight years.
Nilsen made a desultory application to be appointed chief clerk at the Opposition Whips Office in the House of Commons (without of course telling anyone at the Jobcentre). This was refused in a one-sentence reply. On leaving Denmark Street, he was presented with a gold pen and cigarette lighter by colleagues who remembered his sense of fun and ignored his bossiness.
On 28 June 1982, he was posted to the Kentish Town Jobcentre where his superior officer was a young woman of charm and elegance, Janet Leaman. He and Miss Leaman quickly formed a close professional relationship which was the most satisfactory of his civil service career, based upon mutual trust and respect. In order to learn his new responsibilities in the shortest time, he declined to take leave that year, and threw himself into the work with a relish which surprised the people at Kentish Town. He was a finance supervisor, a post supervisor, an accommodation and premises officer, and much else besides. It was the busiest period of his career so far, and the one which held most promise for the future. His quick temper was on the whole forgiven in view of his obvious eagerness to do well and his constant willingness to stay after hours. When a flood occurred at Kentish Town, he was the only member of staff to volunteer to stay behind with Miss Leaman to mop up the damage. The next day she gave him a packet of cigarettes as a gesture of gratitude. He was totally astonished.
Nilsen had both purpose and respect and one would have thought that his meandering progress towards the age of thirty-seven had at last found direction. It is interesting, however, that Miss Leaman felt sorry for him as soon as she saw him, although she could not exactly say why, and she naturally never told him. Neither she nor anyone else knew that his life had long since been engulfed by a nightmare.
Even before he moved to Kentish Town, colleagues had noticed that Nilsen was working to a degree which implied that he dared not allow himself the luxury of time on his hands. He was meticulously efficient. If he was required to take leave, he would do casual work at Dinah’s Diner in Endell Street, helping in the kitchen. Or, on a day off, he would turn up at the office with his dog. It seemed he could not keep away. His demeanour was confusing; he could be abrupt, short-tempered, impatient, and driven by a need to talk without pause, or even better to argue. He was passionate in debate. When aroused, he could be woundingly sarcastic. On the other hand, he was at times docile, generous and kind. He brought into the office a birthday cake for a colleague whom none thought he liked, not through any desire to attach himself to a celebration (on the contrary, no one else realised there was a birthday), but because he sensed the man was a ‘loner’. There was also the time when he displayed unsuspected compassion by bringing into the office an injured bird which he kept for three days until it was well enough to fly off. There were plenty of occasions when he generated real laughter. On two points everyone was agreed: he was secretive, and he was erratic.
When he went home to 195 Melrose Avenue, Dennis Nilsen’s world shifted focus. First of all, there was the dog, Bleep, to attend to. At least twice a day he would walk the length of Melrose Avenue, with its stunted, pollarded trees scarcely able to hide the sky, and take a brisk walk in Gladstone Park, exchanging small talk with the other dog-owners on like journeys. Occasionally, there would be instead an excursion to the enticing wildness of Hampstead Heath. Back home, he would pour himself a drink and watch a great deal of television lying on the floor with the French windows open and the burgundy red curtains billowing in. The stereo system played a large role in the evening’s entertainment as well; with headphones, Nilsen would listen for hours to Elgar, Mahler, Britten, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, or some sophisticated pop music (Rick Wakeman, Mike Old-field, and the strange hypnotic ‘Oh Superman’). When the weather permitted, he would spend a lot of time keeping the garden tidy, weeding and mending fences.
There were some visitors and there were some lovers. The original pair of bunk beds had been converted by Nilsen into one large platform bed, up near the ceiling, where strangers or acquaintances would collapse after too much rum, with some mild sexual activity perhaps in the early morning. A sporadic visitor who was neither a lover nor just an acquaintance, but someone who made a point of calling in at intervals over a number of years and therefore represents one of the only friends who did not eventually drift away, was Martin Hunter-Craig. Nilsen trusted him and allowed his aggressive self-confident exterior to melt in his presence. The bombast and the garrulity subsided, Nilsen mellowed. Another who kept in touch with frequent chatty letters was Alan Knox, in Aberdeen, who stayed with Nilsen whenever he was in London.
Nilsen made one final attempt to introduce some kind of permanence into his chaotic emotional life. Steven Martin, picked up at the Golden Lion where many ‘rent boys’ hang out, came to live with him for about four months. A good loving relationship developed which expressed itself not only in sexual intimacy but in little domestic gestures, as when Martin fixed a light in the dog-kennel for Bleep’s puppies. The friendship could not endure, as Martin was yet another young man without roots or responsibilities who would not curb his wanderlust. Nilsen was deeply hurt when Martin was unfaithful, and he asked him to leave. ‘I always sadly regretted his leaving. He could perhaps do better elsewhere. I had nothing much by way of luxury to give. Just me.’16
Another man who stayed for a while was Barry Pett, followed by a succession of short-term flat-mates who never showed any wish to linger. Stephen Barrier was contacted through an advertisement in the Adam Bureau, and stayed for ten days. In September 1978, when Nilsen went to attend the Branch Chairman’s School at Guildford for a week, he foolishly gave his keys to a man from Liverpool who was living in West Hampstead and whom he had met at a pub. The idea was that this man should go to the flat once a day to feed the dog in its kennel, change its water, and so on. Nilsen did not feel he could ask the neighbours upstairs because there was much ill-feeling consequent upon his having barricaded the access to the garden, which he continued to keep for his exclusive use. When he came back from Guildford, he found that the dog had been well fed but that his film camera and projector had been stolen and his meters forced and emptied. The experience left him morally dejected.
More and more, Nilsen took refuge in the private fantasies of his mirror fetish, which in the course of 1978 developed sinister refinements:
I put talc on my face to erase the living colour. I smear charcoal under my eyes to accentuate a hollow dark look. I put pale blue on my lips. I rub my eyes to make them bloodshot. I have put three holes in my old tee-shirt. I make a mixture of cochineal and saffron to synthesise blood. I soak the ‘blood’ into the holes and the liquid stains my shirt and runs down my body. I lie, staring-eyed, on the bed in front of the mirror and let my saliva foam and drip from my mouth. I stare in fascination at the shot body of me in the mirror. I step outside myself in detached imagination. There is another imaginary person in the room who finds my body out in the woods. I have been executed and left there by the S.S. I am a French dissident student. The other person, an old hermit who lives in the woods, drags my dead body back to his old shack. He is wearing rags and he decides that I have no further use for clothes and begins to strip my limp body. He is speaking to me as though I were still alive. He pulls my now naked body off the bed on to the floor. He washes me. He ties my penis and puts some wadding in my anus. He sits me on a chair then he puts me over his shoulder and carries me back into the woods and buries me. Later he returns and digs me up and takes me back to the shack. He masturbates me and my penis comes to life and I ejaculate. It is over. I tidy up the room, replace the mirror and have a bath. I turn on the T.V. and call the dog over to me. She wags her tail unsure of her reception. I reassure her and she jumps on to the bed and makes herself comfortable. I watch T.V. She goes to sleep. I must be in love with my own dead body. I am quite sober – it worries me.17
One night he met three young men in Kilburn High Road and took them home for a drin
k. All three stayed the night. When they had all fallen asleep, Nilsen got up, closed all the doors and windows, and placed a jacket over the oil-stove. Having sprinkled the jacket with water, he lit the stove and stood back as the room filled with smoke. He then nonchalantly took the dog into the garden. One of the men woke up, whereupon Nilsen sprang into action, flung open all the windows and assumed the role of gallant rescuer. It was an odd but not an isolated incident. Martin Hunter-Craig had similarly woken up one night to find the room full of dense smoke.
The last person to stay at 195 Melrose Avenue before fantasy exploded into reality was Paul Dermody, who spent two weeks with Nilsen in November 1978. Nilsen’s compulsion to talk was edged with panic – ‘He talked at me not to me,’ says Dermody, who added that he thought the only real friend Nilsen had was his black scruffy mongrel dog.18 Nilsen himself confirms this. He loved the dog and treated her like his child; ‘as soon as I reach for her metal chained lead Bleep becomes frantic with excitement’.19 They even went together on demonstrations and on the picket line. Once a week she was given raw egg in a bowl. There was a day when she drank from his beer and showed signs of intoxication, an adventure she never repeated. Over the years she produced scores of puppies and had been known to kidnap kittens in response to their cries. In Gladstone Park one day she carried in her jaws a tiny sparrow which had fallen from its nest, and presented it to Nilsen; he tried to keep it alive with an eye-dropper, but it was far too young to survive, and was buried in the garden in a band-aid tin with a little note. Many of Bleep’s dispatched pups were also lying in that garden.
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