Dennis Nilsen - Conversations with Britain's Most Evil Serial Killer

by Russ Coffey

  While Nilsen was settling into life in the VPU, the prison reformer Lord Longford asked if he might start visiting. Longford sought to bring redemption. He was a devout Roman Catholic who fearlessly sought out the most unpleasant cases to whom he chose to bring his message. In particular, Longford had become famous for visiting the Moors murderer Myra Hindley. It was his belief that she should be granted parole on the grounds of her religious conversion.

  As much as Longford preached forgiveness, his religious beliefs also made him highly intolerant of homosexual practices. But despite this, Nilsen’s accounts of Longford are warm. He is so pleased to have been the recipient of so much attention he initially sets Longford’s religious beliefs aside. Eventually, though, Nilsen found those beliefs to be incompatible with his own, and he says he amicably asked him not to come any more. The peer is characterised as ‘saintly’, but with a body and face which looked like they’d ‘been pickled in alcohol’. For his part, Lord Longford’s diaries describe Nilsen as aloof and strange, but admirable in how he busied himself with positive and constructive hobbies. Longford was also struck by Nilsen’s odd sense of humour, remembering one comment by Nilsen to him one day: ‘You might have met the queen, but I know lots of queens.’

  Nilsen’s view on Longford was, no doubt, positively affected by the latter’s defence of Nilsen’s intrinsic ‘humanity’ in a newspaper interview with Brian Masters. The way Nilsen tells the story, Masters had again been speaking about him in those terms he liked the least – as some kind of demon – and Longford had replied by saying that he believed that everyone had a human soul.

  Although Masters was still visiting Nilsen, privately Nilsen was feeling increasingly resentful towards him. The bitter tone of the manuscript suddenly changes, however, when Nilsen describes hearing of a street attack on Masters. Nilsen wants the reader to feel, despite everything, he still perceives Masters as a fundamentally kind man. He is appalled, he says, that the horrible attack might be connected with anything he could have said or done. It wasn’t – in fact, it was a simple mugging.

  But Nilsen now was no longer reliant on Masters as the sole constant in his life. He had just ‘met’ the best friend he was ever to have, Jonny Marling, details of whose identity have here been changed. He was of medium height, dark-haired and lived a normal, suburban life. Marling had obtained Nilsen’s address from the Prison Service, having first become fascinated by the story he read in Killing for Company. In response to Marling’s open and enquiring letters of introduction, Nilsen decided to try to make their friendship work. The serial killer and the suburban family man exchanged a flurry of letters, often running to both sides of seven or eight pieces of paper.

  The subject of one of the first was what to make of the American psychiatrist, Walter Powlowski, who, in May 1992, asked Nilsen to write a ‘sexual history’ to assist him in a study on serial killers. This project soon fizzled out. However, in July, a British sociologist asked for a similar essay. Nilsen started … and kept writing. That summer, he remembers in History of a Drowning Boy that he was also approached by a producer from Central TV who wanted to interview him. They asked him if he had written anything. He had. The first draft of his ‘writings’ was typed with such force that the keys almost went through the paper. It opens with: ‘This is a narrative compilation including what I believe to be the salient features of my sexual history.’

  His sex life, proper, began as he drifted through his late twenties in London.

  6

  ADRIFT IN LONDON

  ‘The psychological struggles and rages had festered for years.’

  DENNIS NILSEN, IN A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR

  One scene dominates the many ‘real-crime ‘documentaries that have been made about Dennis Nilsen: Nilsen and another man are pictured enjoying last drinks in a smoky bar in London’s West End. It’s the late 1970s. The street outside is wet and Piccadilly’s neon lights reflect in the puddles. Inside, we see a close-up shot of Nilsen’s rum and Coke. The imagery serves to illustrate how Dennis Nilsen’s twenties and early thirties were dominated by alcohol and casual liaisons.

  A similar picture emerges in one chapter of Brian Master’s book, Killing for Company. It is called ‘Police and Civil Service’. Here, however, the depiction is partly created by use of Nilsen’s own accounts. His contributions emphasise his sensitivity to the superficiality of the gay scene. These are described as his ‘lonely years’ where ‘everything was transitory. His words had a bizarre effect on some who read these passages.

  After publication of Killing for Company, the number of men and women who wrote to Nilsen steadily rose. These letters now exist in a private crime archive where I was invited to view them. Most were from highly emotional, young women. One correspondent opened with the words ‘I am not a crank …’ and another reassured Nilsen with the words ‘it’s not very nice feeling lonely and different’. There were also a few who seemed to be so taken with the idea that a sensitive young gay man could find himself so totally estranged from society they appeared to overlook what he had actually done. A fair few young men even attached photographs of themselves.

  Many of these people were, probably, themselves emotionally disturbed. Yet that, in itself, doesn’t explain why Nilsen’s life story touched such a chord. It seems it was the manner in which he had described his loneliness that had the effect. The elegant way he wrote – or possibly plagiarised other’s words – made people feel his sentiments were authentic. ‘Anonymous sex,’ he said in Killing for Company, ‘only deepens one’s sense of loneliness and solves nothing. It’s like compulsive gambling. Sex in a natural place is like the signature at the end of a letter. Written on its own, it’s less than nothing. Signatures are easy to sign, good letters far more difficult.’

  It wasn’t just sad, lonely individuals who were fascinated with Nilsen’s story. In 1988, ITV’s South Bank Show aired a film of a ‘modern ballet’ called Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men. The press release said the dance was loosely based on Nilsen’s life and explored ‘interwoven notions of loneliness desire and trust’, and that ‘society’s homophobia often results in tragic consequences’. Almost a decade later, a ‘cult’ gay author, P-P Hartnett, would publish a book entitled Call Me, in which he explored the loneliness of those who exploit contact adverts in search of transitory affection. Hartnett corresponded with Nilsen while he wrote it, inviting the killer to comment on the emotional content.

  Later, Hartnett even helped with the first edit of History of a Drowning Boy. In long hand-written letters, Nilsen would give detailed explanations of how he felt the work should be completed. That handwriting is instantly recognisable. It is tight, slanted and the pen is pushed so hard it almost goes through the paper. His handwriting closely matches characteristics the Israeli graphologist Anna Koren has observed in ‘schizoid murderers’: angularity, pressure, tension and a tendency to cover the entire page. Schizoid personalities are usually considered to be emotionally cut off, often very sensitive and sometimes exhibit a rich, vivid imagination. Much the same could be said of the better prose Nilsen used to describe life in the late 1970s.

  On 7 November 1972, Dennis Nilsen, then 27, caught the train from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and changed on to the London express. He was full of optimism as he looked out of the window from the smoking car.

  As he travelled south, Nilsen reflected on the two-month break he had just spent in Strichen. There had been an unpleasant incident at his brother Olav’s house. The film Victim, which had themes of homosexuality and blackmail, was being shown on the TV. Olav had taken every opportunity to direct barbed comments about ‘poofs’ and ‘queers’ towards his younger brother who sat there red-faced and fuming. As he looked out of the train window, he still felt enraged.

  Then, during the rest of that long trip he took stock of how things had gone for him. It pleased him that many of those he had known seemed to have reached their plateau, whereas he felt he was moving on. But, for the most part, the Broch just made
him feel sad. He remembered walking around his childhood haunts, starting with the bleak, bare Mormond Hill. Then he went to the river where old Mr Ironside had died. Later, he walked to the grave of Brian Strachen, who had been killed in a motorbike accident. The grave of his grandfather Andrew Whyte was just across the way. As he looked around him, he must have been struck by the ephemeral nature of human life. He felt it was exactly the right time for him to go to where he might have a future.

  Nilsen’s first task on arriving at King’s Cross was to install himself in temporary accommodation. He found a room in a hostel and the next morning contacted the army career advice service. At its south London offices, the careers officer suggested he might be suited to a role as a prison officer or policeman. The idea of being a prison officer was an instant turn off.

  He then contacted the police careers service in Victoria Street. By the end of the week, he was walking through the door at the recruiting office at Harrow Road. While his drinking may well have exerted its toll on his mental health, physically he was in good shape. He walked through the medical, and the Met Police said they were happy to take his army certificates in lieu of O-levels. Everything in his written test and interview indicated he was suitable.

  By December 1972, Dennis Nilsen was living in a single room in the Metropolitan Police training school at Hendon Police College, near Colindale, a north London suburb that sits at the foot of the M1. The once attractive Georgian-style building was beginning to show its age and would soon be knocked down and replaced by a purpose-built block. Still, if the old buildings were decaying, some felt they had collegiate charm.

  Life as a probationary police officer started with a 16-week induction course. For almost four months, Nilsen was taught the basics of being a constable. On theoretical side, there was government, law, powers of arrest, traffic regulations, police regulations and court procedure. Even more important was the practical instruction: how to investigate; the basics of first aid; how to subdue criminals; and, of course, how to be courteous with the public.

  Nilsen wrote to his mother telling her all about his exciting new life. Betty Scott was not only proud but immensely relieved. She had been worried about how unsettled Dennis had seemed during his visit. Olav told her what had happened at his house and Betty had heard how one night Dennis had got into an argument with some local boys in the Station Hotel. It had ended with him being pushed over and humiliated. She had been concerned Dennis might have been on the slide. But now he was going to be a policeman, so surely that would see him back on track.

  It may well have done, if there had been other positive influences. But in the end, joining the police did nothing to help wean Nilsen off his increasing dependence on bizarre masturbation fantasies. The force just supplied a new set of people from whom he felt alienated, which, in turn, left him able to drift further into his secret life. Partly, the problem came from the fact the environment was still too macho. But it was also because Nilsen’s sexual thoughts were, again, directed at colleagues. This manifested itself physically in swimming lessons that started in the first week at Hendon.

  Being able to swim was a requirement of the job. But Nilsen was utterly afraid of water. In order not to draw attention to himself, he claimed to be a ‘weak swimmer’. Like others in his position, he was put down for lessons until he was ready for the life-saving classes. Later, these would involve towing a colleague, who would pretend to be unconscious, to the side of the pool. The fact the bodies were so inert played straight into Nilsen’s specific sexual fixation. He would invariably become physically aroused, and often needed to find excuses to stay in the water until he had calmed down.

  Such episodes were an early sign he was going to have as much difficulty settling in here as in the Army. This time, however, he was less bothered. Now there was a whole city of people out there for him to meet. All he had to do was find the right ones, and soon he found out where to start looking.

  Nilsen’s induction into gay London life began, ironically, in a ‘girlie’ bar. One evening, in the Section House, Nilsen found himself falling in with a group of young probationers who had decided to go off on an adventure in Soho. In Windmill Street, one young police cadet decided to show off by using his warrant card to get them all into a strip club. Nilsen, uninterested in the girls inside, soon made an excuse to leave. In the street outside, he was convinced he saw Sir John Gielgud talking to a young guardsman. Nilsen mentioned it to his colleagues, along with the fact that he was convinced that many guardsmen were gay.

  Nilsen records in History of a Drowning Boy that the next day, no doubt in response, the Training Officer giving the following address: ‘You can spot a queer a mile off because they all wear white polo-necked sweaters, red corduroy trousers and Hush Puppies, and they hang about in Earls Court.’ That evening, Nilsen says he took a Tube train ‘and checked the [Earls Court] High Street, for an “interesting” pub’. He describes a smoky, dark establishment with frosted windows:

  In one bar there were lots of men in leather pants, jackets and caps and they were of all ages ranging from young men to proto geriatrics with white, short hair. A lot of them seemed to opt for the straight ‘Kojak’.

  I transferred myself to the bigger bar which was crowded out. I knew instantly that it was a gay bar because everyone looked you up and down and passed on the appropriate comments to one another. ‘Oh, look at her, nice dish (arse) … Do you think she’s butch or bitch?’ etc.

  It was a bit unsettling the first time and I didn’t know what to expect or what to do. I was not in on the special language of the thriving gay subculture. What I didn’t know was body language and, after I fortified myself with a couple of stiff drinks, I was chatting to a slim, young man who was eyeing me up.’

  By 10.00 in the evening, Nilsen found himself being invited by the young man back for a coffee at his, only a few blocks away. The flat was up a long flight of stairs and, at the top, he was surprised to find a wife and baby in the kitchen. The man put his finger to his mouth and hushed Nilsen, motioning that they should tip-toe to the spare room. But the short, sturdy woman had seen them and chased them out. Undeterred, Nilsen hailed a cab and told the man he was going to come back to his place. The 16-week course at the Police Training College was almost over, and he was sure that he could get away with having a ‘drunken friend’ crash over in his small room. He propped a chair up against the door to make sure no one could get in and, in the morning, he got up extra early to sneak the man out.

  Instead of feeling more comfortable about sex, however, such encounters seemed to make Nilsen more aware of how society only just tolerated homosexuality. In his essay ‘The Psychograph’, Nilsen describes the attitudes he’d become used to: ‘In the military, as in the country as a whole, homosexuality was considered to be a serious criminal offence [it was legalised in 1967]. In the Judeo-Christian Western world, the idea of “unnatural sexual practices” remained an unspeakable vice performed between moral degenerates. Genuine expressive love between two consenting males was dismissed with curt terms such as “buggery”, “sodomy” or “indecency”.’

  The cumulative effect of such attitudes – from Fraserburgh, the Army and the police – had left him with a very significant residue of guilt. The result was that when he did start meeting other gay men, rather than looking for a long-term partner, he was invariably attracted to other people whose primary objective was simple, physical gratification. It was lonely, but at least easy to keep separate from his work life.

  In the spring of 1973, Nilsen passed the initial set of police exams with a ‘high’ mark. He was then posted as a probationary officer to Willesden Green near Wembley. As a probationary constable, Nilsen was required to learn on the job. He would go out on the ‘beat’, both in a pair and, later, alone. Like many of Nilsen’s stomping grounds in North London, his ‘patch’ of Willesden Green was a shabby suburb. The tree-lined avenues contained substantial Edwardian and Victorian houses, which, on closer inspection, turned
out to have been split into flats for the poor, often Irish immigrant, community.

  Nilsen was given a mentor called Peter Wellstead, who believed young probationers would benefit from experiencing the uglier aspects of policing right from the outset. He started with the morgue. Before proceeding into the actual mortuary, the probationers were given a briefing in the corridor. They were then let in three at a time.

  Nilsen wasn’t bothered. He was confident he had seen enough exploded bodies in Aden to be able to detach himself. Inside the room, things were every bit as grisly as they had been warned. There were metal trolleys with dead bodies cut open from the neck to the navel. The back of the heads were sawn open, exposing grey folds of brain matter. The other trainee needed to be sick; Nilsen was unaffected.

  Something else happened in that room, however, to make Nilsen realise quite how disturbed his sexuality had become. On one slab was a 12-year-old girl. Smooth, slim and blonde, Nilsen thought how she looked like a little boy. As she was being wheeled around, her dead hand flopped out next to the assistant’s, an old man with a slight hunchback. Nilsen became aroused, and looked away. But he couldn’t stop imagining the old assistant abusing the unblemished ‘passive’ body.

  That night, he went out again to the gay pubs of Earls Court, a west-central London area also known for its Australian population. He was beginning to appreciate the freedom he now enjoyed. The following night, he again went to the pub; and then the night after that. Frequenting gay bars, such as the Coleherne, became his main method of looking for pick-ups. He found the idea of cruising public toilets and cinemas seedy and disgusting. Although extreme, his actual sex life was, by the standards of many on the gay scene, reserved. As we’ve already seen, according to one of his accounts, he claims not to have experienced penetrative sex until the age of 27.