Bible John's Secret Daughter

by David Leslie

  The men and women of the division began attending the city dance halls en masse, complaining that skipping around the floors required a considerably higher output of energy than pounding the beat. It was just as well from the point of view of hall owners that the police turned out in force because custom dropped off dramatically. Women were too scared of meeting Bible John, while men were terrified of being accused of being the mass murderer. Some with a passing resemblance to the suspect were questioned so often and cleared that they were eventually issued with cards declaring they were not the killer.

  Everyone, it seemed, had his or her own theory as to who the killer could be. One suggestion was that the police should examine closely the Hell’s Angels during their monthly forays into Glasgow in search of a rammy and in some cases a woman, preferably willing but on the odd occasion likely to have her protestations ignored. It was pointed out that the mysterious murderer seemed capable of vanishing into thin air after each of his crimes, just as the bikers would disappear south when their night’s jolly was at an end. Could Bible John be a biker?

  Likewise people wondered if he had travelled from afar to the Barrowland simply to select a victim when the mood took him. Then, once the evil deed was done, hotfooted it until the next time. What, then, did he get up to in between the slayings?

  In the middle of what was now a triple-murder inquiry, the morale of the hunters was further lowered by an announcement that while homicide rates in England and Wales were up by 20 per cent, Scotland had seen an astonishing rise of 165.5 per cent. Who knew what the explanation for this was, but with Bible John on the loose there seemed every likelihood that the differential would increase even further.

  The police called on nearly 700 dentists in the Glasgow area, asking each to check their records and see whether any of their patients had a dental pattern that matched Bible John’s. Not all were happy at what they considered an intrusion into patient confidentiality, but the detectives were convinced the oddly shaped teeth of their quarry were a giveaway. A man could hide what was in his mind, he could cover scratches on his body, but without using some home-made device to rip out a tooth or two he could not avoid showing his incisors each time he opened his mouth.

  This last request produced some unfortunate results when men already overly conscious of their appearance found themselves at the sharp end of a police investigation in which a handful who were tall and thin had to account for their movements on the nights of the murders. In one especially memorable case, a young man who had recently joined the Glasgow police was sitting at home about to tuck into breakfast after a particularly cold and galling nightshift pounding the city streets. Colleagues he did not recognise hauled him off to be questioned on the grounds that they had been told by his dentist that his teeth had a likeness to those of the killer. By the time he returned home, his breakfast was cold and the hot-water bottle a kind mother had placed in his bed equally chilly.

  And then there was the State Hospital in Carstairs, Lanarkshire. This establishment, steeped in mystery, held at the time, and still does so today, men and women deemed a potential danger because of their mental conditions. They were classed as patients rather than inmates but that made no difference to the public perception. Not all had committed crimes, but the majority had shown imagination in devising methods of inflicting pain and misery. There were killers of children, beasts who tortured and murdered, deranged teenagers, sickening paedophiles. Whenever a particularly awful crime was carried out and there was no obvious culprit, the word ‘Carstairs’ would be mentioned. People wondered: had the killer been a patient?

  Everyone had his or her own theory about who Bible John could be. One suggestion that probably deserved further examination was the idea that the killer was a schizophrenic, suffering from a mental illness that can lead to swingeing changes in a victim’s personality. Some believe a major cause is childhood abuse, a subject not given the concentration in the 1960s that it is now. There have been countless examples where schizophrenics have murdered, their victims ranging from total strangers to the closest family members.

  What those who worked with the mentally disturbed would discuss privately were the references to Bible John quoting religious passages. Many schizophrenics appear to have an obsession with the Bible, often almost to the extent of allowing biblical sayings to become the rules that direct their actions. To a schizophrenic, ‘an eye for an eye’ can mean just that. Was Bible John abused as a youngster, in the sense that he was forced to study the Bible until it warped his thinking and caused his brain to direct his actions away from what is looked on as normal behaviour? Certainly schizophrenia would account for what seems to have been the remarkable changes in the character of Bible John, first behaving with immense charm, then brutally and bloodily slaughtering his victims, then vanishing into oblivion, or was it back into respectability?

  It is possible this was an ordinary man from the outskirts of Glasgow who chatted happily over the garden fence with his neighbours at weekends, took his wife and children on family holidays to the west coast, had friendly arguments about football with his workmates and went to church on Sundays, then for no clear reason he would suddenly snap and murder in cold blood. A feature of schizophrenia is that outbursts are rare and it may have been that only the man’s closest family were aware of his condition. Families will often put themselves at great risk to protect loved ones from being unmasked as criminals. In the case of Bible John, it is a distinct possibility that those around him suspected he was the killer but decided to stay silent rather than face the undoubted shame and humiliation of being associated with a murderous madman.

  They would not be alone in making mistakes. It was suggested that a man questioned several times and arrested for rape was found to have a Bible in his car, smoked the same cigarettes as Bible John and had a close relative who had once had a hole-in-one at golf. He was known to have mental problems, but there was not enough evidence against him.

  Neither the extensive and intensive dragnet nor a £200 reward succeeded in producing an arrest, although the detectives did say after interviewing a distraught Jeannie that they would like to speak with a man from Castlemilk – ‘Castlemilk John’, the fourth passenger in the taxi who had hopped out almost as soon as it set off. In light of his sharing the same Christian name as the prime suspect, it was hardly likely he would come forward. The odds of him returning to the Barrowland, or any other dance hall, for that matter, in the foreseeable future were remote indeed. But the significance of Castlemilk was not lost on the folks living on McKeith and Landressy streets. Someone motoring from the Barras – or more likely going on foot, as the car population was not as prolific then as it is now – and heading for Castlemilk would very probably pass through their area. A man seeking a prostitute, for instance. Or simply seeking a woman; any woman.

  As Hannah Martin, aged 20, read the newspaper reports and headlines about the man everyone was calling Bible John, her mind flashed back to the incident three years earlier that might have happened on London Road, certainly near to it. She wondered about the stranger who had come so close to killing her. She remembered the biblical saying but, hard as she tried, could not recall the exact words.

  But then Hannah had other things on her mind.

  SEVEN

  THE GODFATHER

  As the killer of the three women was becoming a much-talked-about figure, so was another individual whose name was frequently being linked to matters where violence was involved. Arthur Thompson was born in Springburn, Glasgow, in September 1931 to decent hard-working parents, Catherine and Edward. By yet another of the bizarre coincidences that would become such a part of Hannah Martin’s life, her mother Jessie was a distant relative of the Thompsons. Hannah and Thompson would never meet, but in different ways both would be influenced by Bible John.

  As a teenager, it was obvious Thompson was bigger and broader than most of his contemporaries – something he was well aware of. He enjoyed the profits such a physica
l advantage brought and one of his first jobs was humping boxes of fruit and sacks of potatoes at Glasgow fruit market, building up muscles that soon had him a night job as a doorman. Among the spots where he planted his feet firmly apart and stared down would-be troublemakers was at the Barrowland. City businessman Morris Mendel had taken a shine to the young heavy and used him to guard his clubs and bars. He also had another task for young Thompson: to help in the disposal of stolen property, mainly clothing. Thompson, though, wanted to be his own man.

  First, he had to overcome problems with the law. Officers must have thought him an easy touch when he dropped his keys outside a bank he had robbed in the north of Scotland, a spot of carelessness that earned him a three-year stretch behind bars and a reputation as a bungler – although those who held these views made sure they were aired out of his earshot. Free at last, his liberty was short-lived, as he found himself going down for 18 months in 1955 for extortion. Still, Thompson was a coming man, although it would be a while before he was given the title of ‘the Godfather’.

  Back in the outside world, he took over a scrap-and-demolition business, using bribery to win contracts and find out which properties were listed to be knocked down. He then branched into security, employing strong-arm tactics to take over at least one thriving shop in Glasgow. He had connections among firearm suppliers and he was one of the first to recognise the fortunes that could be made through dealing in drugs.

  Arthur, it was said, used to visit London from time to time to carry out contracts on behalf of the much-feared Kray Twins, Ronnie and Reggie. The story goes that he used some of the money the Londoners paid him to buy a gaming club on Glasgow’s North Hanover Street and started up a prospering and totally illegal money-lending racket, charging extortionate sums to customers, many of them businessmen who needed another hundred pounds or so to continue playing at his tables. They invariably lost and found themselves being charged 50 per cent interest a week. Failing to pay was unthinkable. It brought visits from brainless thugs who threatened dire consequences or, worse still, Thompson himself. One man who omitted to pay his debt to Thompson was crucified, nailed to a door as a lesson to others. Among his customers were young housewives married to errant or spendthrift husbands who left them with nothing to feed and clothe their children. To Thompson these women would go, begging for a few pounds to tide them over. Mostly he would take pity on them and pull out his wallet, reminding them when repayment had to be made and how much it would be. The more attractive he would order to call on him ‘personally’, as he would say, ‘so we can sort something out’. This would involve a visit a week later to his club, or to the shed he called his office at his demolition business – the venue was irrelevant. What mattered was that they would be offered the chance to dispense with the interest on the debt by performing a sex act on Thompson or, if he saw them as especially attractive, having full sex with him. But no matter how energetic their performance, when they left they would still owe the original loan.

  With the money rolling in, Thompson could afford to pay for prostitutes, but he rarely used them in Glasgow for fear of his wife, Rita, getting to know. In London, armed with the Krays’ money, it was a different matter: he had money to splash about and lavish on attractive women. He could pay for the best, but sometimes payment was not necessary, the Twins providing him with a female for free. Thompson’s visits did not go unnoticed by the police in the capital, who enquired of their counterparts in Glasgow details about this enforcer from the north, informing them of the fact that he appeared to have a liking for women.

  On his home territory, Thompson enjoyed the hordes of smart women who danced at the Barrowland. He became a regular at the dance hall, surveying the talent on offer and passing on lewd comments to the cronies and sycophants, many much younger than himself, who accompanied him and hung on his every word. Thompson’s own favourites were those who were married: taking them to bed made not just the women his conquest but also their menfolk, to whom, in his mind, he had dealt the ultimate insult.

  He was not the most handsome of men, but his reputation as a kingpin in Glasgow’s violent underworld seemed to attract women. It may have been that in Thompson they saw the power that women sometimes crave and that some believe is to be found in criminals. Then again, his money was a magnet that drew towards him even those professionals who would amongst their own class loudly cast scorn on the idea of associating with a thug.

  His success also brought with it the inevitable consequence that gangsters must face. In 1966, Thompson started up his car outside his home on Provanmill Road with the aim of giving a lift to his mother-in-law, Margaret Cameron Harrison. As the car moved off, a bomb planted under the engine blew up, killing Margaret and badly injuring Thompson. He was convinced he knew who was behind the assassination attempt and later that year drove his Jaguar at a van carrying Arthur Welsh and James Goldie, who both died. He was charged with their murder, although he was acquitted by a jury.

  Awaiting trial, he was visited in an interview room at Barlinnie prison by his lawyer, who had with him an exceptionally pretty woman in her 20s, with breasts even more substantial than the solicitor’s fees. On the pretext of seeing another client in the jail, the legal eagle left both on their own, a move for which Thompson had been well forewarned and was prepared, as was his guest. Later, Thompson would boast he was the first man to have a conjugal visit in a prison in Scotland.

  His voracious appetite for women had become a talking point among the criminal fraternity, many of whom looked on Thompson as an enemy. So, two years later, following the murder of Patricia Docker, he was questioned by police.

  A former officer remembered visiting him: ‘Thompson was an obvious candidate to be quizzed. Family apart, he regarded women as objects for his own personal pleasure and there had been tales circulating that some to whom he’d loaned money and had refused to cooperate sexually when they couldn’t pay up had been given a very heavy slapping about. His name was thrown into the hat as a suspect, but at the time so were scores of others whose only crime was to have offended some business rival. It wasn’t only him we were interested in, but those who knocked about with him. He made it clear he had nothing to do with Pat: didn’t know her and gave the usual spiel about being appalled by an innocent woman’s murder. If he knew anything, he said, he would be the first to help the police. No one believed him, but there was no evidence linking him to the murder either.’

  Thompson might have felt his luck had run out that year after he was arrested following a burglary on a clothing warehouse and jailed for four years. He spent part of that time at Peterhead prison in Aberdeenshire, at the time used to hold men looked upon as the elite regarding major crime and violence but now predominantly home to sex offenders. While he fumed and paced the floor of his cell, Jemima and Helen died.

  Thompson had the perfect alibi but that did not stop police visiting him and asking about the freeloaders and lackeys who had followed him on his excursions to the Barrowland. He was shown the artist’s impression of the man the police were also now unofficially calling Bible John and asked to look back and think about whether anyone he knew matched the description and picture. Once more, helpful and courteous to the police as he would always be, he appeared to give the questions considerable thought but announced he was as baffled as they. That would not stop him, however, he assured his visitors, putting the word about that he was in the market for information, which he would instantly pass on should anything useful come his way.

  If big Arthur was in any way surprised to find the police visiting him, his shock was nothing compared to that of a gang of council cleaners who found themselves whisked off the street one evening and into a police station to be quizzed about their movements on the night Patricia Docker died. They had been working a late shift, picking up overtime in the area around the Barrowland, and detectives wanted to know if they had seen or heard anything unusual. They were released along with their brushes and barrows after a few hours.
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  After Arthur’s release, with the Bible John mystery still unresolved, he would be visited once more at a bar he ran in the centre of Glasgow called the Right Half and to which young men were known to call before heading off to the Barrowland. But his vacant expression answered questions more effectively than any reply. Thompson doubtless hoped this was the last time his womanising would interest detectives dealing with murder.

  If so, disappointment was headed in his direction.

  EIGHT

  FAMILY SECRET

  Within days of the police releasing the detailed description and rumours of the killer’s religious utterances spreading, the expression ‘Bible John’ had become part of everyday language. Tall, slim men would think twice before uttering an expletive that could be vaguely construed as blasphemous. In churches and chapels throughout the west of Scotland, parishioners eyed preachers suspiciously, looking for a telltale sign that might link any one of them to the killer.

  Drinkers in bars and hotels would furtively eye the man sitting next to them, first to see if what lay in their glass was alcoholic, knowing of the suggestion by police that Bible John might be teetotal, and second to check if his teeth were out of alignment. Mothers who had once threatened wayward children with the promise, ‘The bogey man will get you,’ now warned, to startling effect, ‘Bible John will come for you if you don’t behave.’