Murder Most Fab

by Julian Clary

  I worried terribly about my mother, and prayed that reporters weren’t camped outside the cottage in Cherry Lane, making her life a misery. After a fortnight or so, she came to visit me. She looked smaller and wide-eyed. I knew it must have been strange for her to venture out of Kent. She was wearing a pretty lace blouse with an oatmeal cardigan and a russet hemp skirt. People looked at her as she skipped towards me, their eyes lingering on her feet. Bless her, I thought. She was wearing red wellington boots, covered with authentic Kentish mud.

  ‘I haven’t seen you for ages!’ was her greeting. ‘Why haven’t you been home to see me, you naughty boy?’

  ‘A bit tricky at the moment,’ I said. ‘I’m in prison, Mother.’

  ‘Still, it seems very nice here,’ she said, beaming around the visitors’ hall as if it were a dormitory at Eton. ‘I can see lots of nice men with tattoos for you to make chums with.’

  ‘How’s Grandma Rita?’ I asked. ‘Is she any better?’

  ‘Oh, no, dear. She refuses to get out of bed. What a carry-on. She’s got bedsores and …’ she lowered her voice ‘… there’s a terrible smell, like rotting meat. Who knows what’s going on under that eiderdown?’

  ‘Shouldn’t she be in hospital?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, yes. But she’s terribly worried the doctors might make her better. They’re known for it, apparently, and it’s not what she wants right now.’

  ‘She wants to die?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she’s looking forward to it. She could do with a change.’

  ‘Is she conscious?’

  ‘Well, she speaks and moves her head about, but it’s not very interesting. I’d say she’s on a par with Gyles Brandreth.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, no, precious! Gyles has only himself to blame.’

  ‘I mean about Grandma.’

  ‘At least she rallied enough to arrange your legal representation. Grandpa was very high up in the Masons — he had to sit on Prince Philip’s lap in one ceremony, he told me. Anyway, she made a few phone calls and got you the best lawyers emeralds can buy. I believe this Mr Lipsmack charges a great deal of money. Let’s hope he gets you off.’

  I felt deeply depressed by all the trouble I was causing. ‘I’m sorry, Mother. I can’t tell you what a ghastly mess it is. I feel terrible about bringing you to a place like this.’

  ‘You’re not to worry about me. A nice man from the Daily Mail drove me here.’

  I covered my eyes with my hands. ‘No, Mother. There are no nice men at the Daily Mail.’

  ‘Well, this one is!’ she said indignantly. ‘He’s giving me a lift home too, with his photographer friend.’ Leaning towards me, she whispered, ‘So. What they want to know is … did you do it?’

  I had no idea how to reply. I had pleaded not guilty, but I knew I was guilty of something. I just didn’t think it was murder in the way that everyone else seemed to think it was. And as whatever I said would be printed in the Daily Mail, I had to choose my words carefully.

  ‘I’ve lost everything,’ I said. ‘Catherine’s waltzed off with all my money.’

  Alice shrugged. ‘Life’s easier without too many material possessions. Remember how we used to be?’ For a fleeting moment, she looked sad.

  I was glad when she left. It was too painful to know that my actions were intruding on her charmed life, exposing her to snooping hacks and cruel gossip. Whatever else I managed to wriggle out of, I would always be guilty of that.

  The person I most wanted to hear from was Tim. I was desperate to explain to him that, although the brick I had been carrying that night had had his name on it, I had aborted any plan to kill him. He was to have been spared and I was, if he thought about it, his saviour.

  It had come out in the press that we had been lovers, though, mercifully, my connection to his father remained hidden. I suppose Sammy hadn’t spilled the beans on that one. I wondered if Sophie would still marry him, and whether his career could survive the revelations. I had so many questions. But there was no word.

  All I could do was wait for my trial date.

  ‘I’m quietly confident,’ Richard Lipsmack said, when he came to visit and discuss the case. ‘There’s no real evidence — or, at least, the prosecution hasn’t revealed it yet. There were no witnesses to any of the murders and the disappearance of Miss Baxter with all your money works in our favour. It gives the distinct impression that you’ve been framed. I don’t think any jury could convict you beyond reasonable doubt of the murders of Bernard Cohen and Juan Castinello. The only difficulty is George Hillington. His death was considered at the time to have been murder and the case is still open. You’re an obvious suspect, I’m afraid, and your confession doesn’t help matters, but without any actual evidence … Well, let’s just say they’ll have to work hard to make a case stick. I’m a bit of a python once I get going in the courtroom, and I’m feeling mighty puckish.’ He gave a thin-lipped smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  The few weeks I’d spent in prison had been enough to convince me that I really didn’t want to stay any longer than I had to.

  I needed to get out, explain myself to Tim, find Catherine and sort out my life. I spent the hours in my cell thinking about Tim and trying to come to terms with our separation, Catherine’s monumental betrayal, and my future behind bars. I was also suffering from drug and alcohol withdrawal. If I began to weep, as I sometimes did, Nango would kook over from his endeavours on the bucket and say something I presumed to be sympathetic in Albanian. Once he reached across, offering the hand of friendship, but as he rarely washed it, I turned over on my bed to face the wall, snubbing him in the interest of hygiene.

  A few weeks later I heard that Grandma Rita had died and I was not allowed out to attend her funeral, which depressed me even more . I had to wait until my mother’s next visit to hear all about it.

  ‘How are you coping?’ I asked, as we sat across from each other in the visitors’ hall.

  ‘I’m fine! The funeral was a great success. The whole of Blackheath must have been there. Who’d have thought she knew so many journalists?’

  ‘Oh. Are you enjoying the attention?’

  ‘Well, it’s never been so busy in the village. They’ve had to order extra sausage rolls in the shop, and the pub has to be booked in advance for lunch, these days.’

  Had it been someone else I might have imagined they were putting on a brave face for me, but my mother’s excitement was genuine. I blessed her for it. It made things so much easier for me. ‘I really meant, how are you coping now that Grandma’s dead?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ she answered. ‘Such a good innings. Sixty-three, you know.’

  ‘It’s my fault, Mother. We both know that.’ I began to cry uncontrollably. ‘I am … so sorry!’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said my mother, incredulous. ‘I’ve inherited two and a half million. Isn’t it glorious? I’m going to have crazy paving. And I’m thinking of buying the field at the back of the cottage for the sparrows to play in. It’ll be nice for them to have somewhere to stretch their kegs.’

  I sniffed and dried my eyes.

  ‘Oh, yes, and she left some bits and pieces to you. Not much. Some of Grandfather’s things. Remind me to bring them in to show you one of these days. Not a penny, though. She said money hadn’t done you any good so far.’

  Apart from my mother and Mr Lipsmack, I had no contact with the outside world. My existence had shrunk to the prison routine and my dismal surroundings, and I sank deeper into a dark, murky depression. I lay on my hard bed for days at a time with my eyes closed, willing my heart to stop beating or my lungs to stop their pointless activity. When you reach rock bottom, it is but a short hop to thoughts of suicide. If I’d had access to any of Catherine’s pills I would have swallowed them all, and if I’d been anywhere near a volcano I’d have dived in head first. As it was, my means of killing myself were limited. I even considered drowning myself in Nango’s bucket but
fortunately he was never off it for long enough. That was how full of self-loathing I was.

  My depression continued during the months I waited for a trial date. From time to time my mother came to see me and chatted away, oblivious to my condition. Otherwise, there was no trace of my once-glamorous life. No one from the showbiz world showed their face. You’d think I’d done something terrible, like go out with Ulrika Jonsson.

  I had a fleeting romance with an armed robber from A Wing, but it only amounted to a fumble in the gymnasium and, comforting as it was to feel the warm throb of an erect penis, I really couldn’t be seen with his sort.

  Then a visit from Richard Lipsmack brought devastating news.

  ‘You’d better prepare yourself, Mr Debonair. According to the prosecution, your friend Catherine Baxter handed over some vital evidence before she disappeared. Detective Inspector Anderton received through the post a key for a left-luggage box at Euston Station. Further investigations revealed a rather dusty sports holdall, containing various paraphernalia, including the strap for a Louis Vuitton bucket bag, soiled bedsheets, degraded latex gloves, used condoms and the rotten remains of an orange.

  These are all being tested for DNA but the prosecution is confident of finding enough evidence to link you to George Hillington’s murder. In fact, they’ve dropped the charges with regard to the other deaths in order to pursue this.’ Richard looked at me wearily, aware that my chance of achieving a ‘not guilty’ verdict had seriously diminished. ‘I might also, at this juncture, remind you of the recorded confession and the original correspondence from the deceased, known as Georgie, passed over by the prosecution’s witness, Mr Samuel Heyward, who, I might add, may well have to face charges himself for not revealing what he knew at the time of the original investigation. However, that need not concern us.’

  ‘Things aren’t looking good, then,’ I said gloomily.

  ‘Not particularly. And Miss Baxter appears to have left a signed statement attesting to her knowledge of your guilt.’

  I was dazed by the extent of Catherine’s perfidy. Clearly she had never taken the holdall containing the evidence of Georgie’s murder to the incinerator. She had thought ahead, rather brilliantly, and made sure she kept it safe. She must have been planning my eventual downfall even way back then. But why? I had only ever been a friend to her. She had double-crossed me in a spectacular fashion, throwing me to the dogs.

  The Jezebel!

  And yet … a small part of me couldn’t help being amused by what she had done — the thoroughness of the operation and the style in which it had been executed. The neatness of the stitch-up and the campness of the fleecing were so clever.

  Catherine was a star, and even as I came to terms with the fact that my life from now on was likely to be lived behind bars, somewhere inside I managed to cheer her on her way. She was my kindred spirit, after all. Even in these, the worst of times, she could still make me laugh.

  I had lost everything. The only thing I had more of was fame. Times being what they were, my starring role as a serial killer tipped me into mega-stardom. Adding infamy to fame is a powerful mix (see Roman Polanski, Mary Queen of Scots, et al.). When the trial at last began, it was hard not to feel important as I heard the helicopter hovering over the courtroom and the prison, or as I was blinded by an electrical storm of flashbulbs whenever I emerged. Photographs of me in prison would be worth thousands and the shot of me in the prison van achieved iconic status. The big-budget true-crime special on my life was, I heard, already being cast.

  But by the time the trial arrived, I was already weary of it all. I’d thought Songs of Praise was boring, but legal matters nearly sent me into a coma. I spent five weeks in court listening to forensics reports, witness testimonies and psychiatric theses. My bored expression was reported as callous, and my stifled yawns during a pathologist’s description of Georgie’s injuries were considered an outrage.

  Perhaps the worst day was when Sammy took the witness stand. He appeared frail and gentlemanly, and his description of my visits to Castlenau Gardens made me sound like a cash-hungry home-help, out to exploit two harmless pensioners. Georgie came across like a kindly vicar.

  ‘He wouldn’t have harmed a fly!’ said Sammy, wiping a tear from his eye.

  I hardly recognized his description of the manipulative old queen I’d known and serviced for so long.

  Catherine’s part in encouraging the murder of Georgie could not, of course, be verified and the prosecution laid the full blame for everything with me.

  ‘How convenient,’ drawled the eminent QC for the Crown, ‘that Miss Baxter is not here to confirm your account of events. I cannot suggest that you disposed of her in the way you have of anyone else who stood in the way of you and fame or fortune, but she has simply disappeared. Who can blame her, though, for taking flight and extricating herself from an existence entwined with that of a killer? She must have been frightened for her life.’

  Naturally Richard Lipsmack objected vociferously to this appalling piece of supposition and blatant leading of the jury, but the damage had been done. It was lodged in the minds of the twelve good men and true that I’d probably done her in too.

  Lipsmack tried to make the case that I’d been framed by Catherine, whose disappearance and theft of my possessions made her look more than a little shifty, but the fact that I had willingly signed the transfer papers went against this version of events. The DNA that linked me inextricably to Georgie’s deathbed, however, was unarguable. Lipsmack parried with the defence that I had been unhinged at the time, subject to suggestion from Catherine, that she had plied me with drugs to make me submit to her will and urged me on in order to get her hands on the loot. I had also been horribly abused by elderly punters like Georgie, and was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. I hadn’t been responsible for my actions at the time of the killing. As I listened to his wonderfully smooth, persuasive and articulate argument, I was utterly convinced that he spoke the truth.

  We changed my plea to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. It was my only chance of escaping a life sentence .

  ‘Johnny Debonair,’ concluded Richard Lipsmack, with a timely quiver in his voice, ‘is a man more sinned against than sinning.’

  At last the trial was over. As I was led into the dock for the last time I was aware of a movement in the public gallery. I looked up and saw my mother waving. ‘Yoo-hoo!’ she called cheerily. ‘You look gorgeous, poppet!’

  The judge told her to be quiet in no uncertain terms. ‘Any more disruption and I shall have the public gallery cleared.’ Then he began his summing-up. He left the jury in no doubt as to where the facts pointed. They clearly agreed with him. Within twenty minutes I had been convicted of murder and sent down for life. Typical.

  I was aware that all eyes were upon me. Should I remain emotionless, bow my head or go for the full Ruth Ellis? In the end I turned to the jury and smiled. It was not out of insolence, as would be reported, but because there was a fit young businessman type among them. We had enjoyed the occasional roll of the eyes during the duller testimonies and the odd half-smile, and it was my way of saying goodbye. I would miss his twinkling eyes and crisp, quality shirts. Gay men such as me are indefatigable, unable to resist cruising even in a court of law, even with those who convict us of murder. We can’t help ourselves.

  As I was led away, I could hear the crowds baying for my blood outside the courtroom. Hanging was too good for me, apparently. No one seemed to understand my point of view. The press were sharpening their pens, ready to have a field day. I was a fallen angel, a rotten apple, the devil incarnate. I had fooled everyone and now I would pay.

  I was driven from the Old Bailey in a prison van, hollered at and battered on the outside by the general public until I was delivered to Pentonville Prison.

  I was processed by the screws, given a rectal examination (during which I made a joke about not losing your wristwatch, but no one laughed), showered, then given some
clothes and a number.

  ‘Follow me,’ said a tubby screw in black, who looked like an extra from Emmerdale.

  I was dazed and exhausted, still to come to terms with the prospect of life in prison. I followed him for what seemed like hours, through sundry locked doors, along corridors and past cells where inmates screeched and cackled obscenities at me, promising they would see me soon and I would be sorry.

  Abruptly the screw stopped, turned to his left and sorted through his keys. ‘In here,’ he said unceremoniously, and opened the battered steel door.

  As I walked through into my cell, he guided me with his hand on my shoulder. I was, it seemed, at the end of my spectacular journey. I had travelled from nothing to the dizzy heights of fame and fortune and now here I was, the lowest I could possibly be.

  Then he came up close and put his lips to my ear.

  ‘Catherine says, “Hello,”’ he murmured, and left. The door clanged shut behind him. I was alone.

  I’d thought that Catherine had abandoned me but I was wrong. Everywhere I went, people whispered her name to me. In the dining hall I received extra helpings, with a muttered ‘From Catherine.‘ When I was alone in my cell at night, there would be a tap and the door would open. A covered dish, containing delicious smoked salmon and quails’ eggs, with a warm hollandaise sauce, would be passed to me: ‘From the kitchens at the Mirabelle, with Catherine’s compliments.’

  On Christmas morning I even found half a gram of cocaine under my pillow, wrapped in a crisp fifty-pound note.

  Screws would breathe her name in my ear as they pressed books, poems, CDs and other little luxuries into my hands. One day I went into my cell to discover a comfy new mattress with a nine-tog duck-down duvet and pillows encased in fine, antique linen.