Killing For Company

by Brian Masters

  Though promiscuous, he was surprisingly puritanical and prudish about his sexual activities. Unlike many men in his position, he could not bear the idea of sex in public (lavatories and cinemas), and he berated the very life he was leading. Anonymous sex, he wrote, ‘only deepens one’s sense of loneliness and solves nothing. Promiscuity is a disease. It’s like compulsive gambling; you know what you will lose, but you go on nevertheless.’8 Or again, ‘Sex in its natural place is like the signature at the end of a letter. Written on its own, it is less than nothing. Signatures are easy to sign, good letters far more difficult.’9

  Nilsen continually placed himself in circumstances where he was bound to be disappointed – as if, indeed, his self-esteem was so low that he felt intuitively, though not overtly, that he deserved no better. Meanwhile, his fantasies with the mirror in his room developed more bizarre qualities; he could explore these fantasies without fear of being misunderstood or undervalued, either by himself or by others:

  In the lonely years I became more and more ‘into myself’ and expressed my fantasies of physical love on my own body. I would jealously not allow others to enter that body. Only I would enter that body. My most fulfilling sexual feasts were savoured with the image of myself in the mirror. To detach this image for identifying it directly with me, it evolved from being an unconscious body into a dead body. I was constantly frequented by the dead image and body of Des Nilsen. The dead Des Nilsen seemed right as the dead Andrew Whyte seemed right all those years ago.10

  Only thus, he says, did he reach a state of ‘emotional and physical perfection’. Even more perversely, the fantasy would sometimes depict him hanging by the wrists or strapped to the wall and violated. It was by no means clear how the imaginary violator could be anyone but himself.

  If this unhealthy state of mind seems to suggest a confusion of identity and a distortion of the narcissistic impulse, they were not assisted by a shattering piece of news which Nilsen received from Norway. The probate officer in Bergen wrote to inform him that the father he had never met had died and his estate had been divided. Dennis Nilsen inherited a little over £1,000 from a stranger who had married three times since he divorced Betty Whyte and who had ended his days in Ghana. Dennis suddenly realised he had half-brothers and sisters scattered who knew where, whom he would probably never see. More important than this, however, was the revelation that the dead man’s name was Olav Magnus Moksheim, alias Nilsen. Moksheim is a very rare name in Norway, borne by only a few families in and around Haugesund. It was not explained why Olav Magnus had felt obliged to invent for himself a new identity, but the effect of the news upon Dennis was fundamental; already uncertain where he belonged or why his private imaginings were so peculiar, he felt he was now not even the man he had thought himself to be. His one certainty evaporated overnight, and he found that his name should have been Dennis Moksheim.

  The legacy from his father had nevertheless a beneficial effect upon his material circumstances. He was tired of living in one shabby room, and longed for a self-contained flat with a garden. Now perhaps he would have the wherewithal to indulge this ambition. At the same time, he found someone who was more than ready to share it. One evening in November 1975, outside the Champion pub in Bayswater Road, he saw a young man being pestered by two older men, intervened, and took the man home with him by taxi to 80 Teignmouth Road. The young man’s name was David Gallichan, and he was aged about twenty, blond, with earrings and a hint of make-up. He was living in a hostel in Earl’s Court and had spent much of his young life wandering aimlessly from one person to another. His home was Weston-super-Mare. Gallichan was unemployed and totally without ambition. He stayed that evening with Nilsen, and they agreed the next morning that they would try a permanent relationship together. After one night’s acquaintance it was an excessively stupid move, but Nilsen was full of his plans to have a ‘home’ and more or less kidnapped the first person he thought would fit inside it. As for Gallichan, anything was better than the hostel; he passively allowed himself to be persuaded. Nilsen did not stop to think that they were totally unsuited.

  The landlady had no objection to David Gallichan staying a couple of nights while they looked for a flat. Nilsen contacted the accommodation agency opposite Willesden Green underground station, and was told that a ground floor flat with garden was available at 195 Melrose Avenue on payment of one month’s rent in advance. Both men went to see the flat and decided to take it on the spot, although it was supposed to be furnished and was in fact merely scattered with a few bits and pieces. With the legacy from Norway, Dennis would supplement this bare minimum and try to build a domestic décor. They brought their few belongings to Melrose Avenue and settled in. As Gallichan was receiving additional benefit, an inspector from the Department of Health and Social Security was sent to inspect and approve the accommodation.

  The most attractive part of the flat was the long garden at the back, which was then little more than a vacant patch of ground piled high with rubbish. They set about removing tons of debris and throwing it over into the wasteland far to the rear of the house, building a fence, laying a stone path, planting trees and shrubs and vegetables. Almost all the work had to be done by Gallichan, as Dennis was at the office in Denmark Street five days a week. Nilsen agreed with the landlord’s agent that they should have exclusive use of the garden, as it was they and only they who had paid any attention to it. The other tenants of the house showed not the slightest interest or inclination to help, until the garden began to take shape and look decent, with apple and plum trees in blossom (as they still are to this day), at which point they voiced their resentment that they should be excluded. Nilsen blocked off the alley at the side of the house to make sure no one could get through (his own access was through french windows in the flat). This private use of an extensive garden would later prove to be simultaneously a crucial advantage and a devastating liability.

  From the Palace in Wonderland pet shop in Willesden High Road, Nilsen bought a kidney-shaped plastic fish pond for £10, and sank this into the garden one weekend. From another pet shop in Willesden Green, David Gallichan bought a tiny black and white bitch puppy, or more precisely asked Nilsen to buy it. Nilsen was cautious, telling Gallichan that a dog was a responsibility and could not be cast aside at will, but Gallichan would not be deflected and proudly carried the dog home tucked into his jacket. On hearing the noises emerging from within the jacket, Dennis christened the animal ‘Bleep’. It became ‘their’ dog, and together with the garden helped to cement a fragile domestic relationship.

  From Teignmouth Road, Nilsen had brought a budgerigar called ‘Hamish’ (whose only words were ‘piss off’), and the menagerie was made complete by the acquisition of a female cat whom Gallichan discovered outside the house as a kitten and then adopted. She was called ‘D.D.’, presumably after Dennis and David. Gallichan not only worked on the garden, but painted the interior of the flat, which, when the walls were hung with reproduction Canalettos, a large fridge was installed and comfortable armchairs were added, made a warm and cosy abode. There is a film taken of 195 Melrose Avenue at this time which shows how pleasant it was and how starkly it differed from the squalor of Cranley Gardens where Nilsen was arrested years later. The contrast is not merely a trivial one of domestic decor, but a fundamental expression of psychological health; the happy atmosphere of the Melrose Avenue film dates from a time (1976) before Nilsen’s personality finally disintegrated, while the shabby, neglected flat which police discovered at Cranley Gardens was the home of a man who had in the meantime become a habitual murderer.

  While he shared a flat with David Gallichan, Nilsen did not wander through the pubs of the West End. He spent almost all his spare time at home. He bought a small typewriter on which to do his union work in the evenings, and they had a large and comprehensive record collection, a film projector and a screen. With the animals, they constituted a ‘family’.

  The relationship was none the less fragile because it was relen
tlessly artificial; Nilsen had invented it, and Gallichan, now nicknamed ‘Twinkle’, passively allowed himself to be part of the invention. There was no deep bond of affection between them, and though sexual relations did take place on occasion, Twinkle was remote and uninterested. (They had separate single beds.) Probably his very passivity was a subconscious attraction to Nilsen, or the relationship could not have lasted the two years that it did. Meanwhile, Twinkle continued to find partners elsewhere, and to take his friendship lightly. Nilsen paid most of the bills and made all the decisions, even after Twinkle found himself a job as a buffet assistant at the Traveller’s Fare in Paddington Station, spending his own earned income touring the homosexual bars in the evening. Gallichan’s parents drove up from Weston-super-Mare one Sunday to have dinner, and expressed satisfaction that their son had apparently stopped roaming and settled down. Also Nilsen’s half-brother Andrew Scott dropped in once with his German wife. These were agreeable signs of normality, but they never penetrated below the surface. Similarly, when Nilsen took Twinkle to the office Christmas party in Denmark Street, it was a demonstration that he was no longer alone, that he too, contrary to everyone’s belief, had someone to bring with him. The personal appearance of young Twinkle predictably raised a few eyebrows, particularly with management personnel, which increased Nilsen’s defiance proportionately; he was not the sort to apologise for a man’s right to dress as he wished. After that, there were many who divined for the first time that Nilsen might be at least bisexual; if he was asked directly, he confirmed it, then went on to talk about something else.

  In April 1976, Nilsen suffered from acute stomach pains. Investigation indicated probable gall-bladder trouble, but he would have to wait two months for an operation. During those two months of discomfort, Nilsen became increasingly irritable, berating Gallichan for his stupidity, and many rows flared up over trifles. He was operated on by Dr Kirk at Willesden General Hospital on 16 June 1976, and a gallstone was removed. In the week and a half that he stayed in hospital he was visited once by Gallichan, and that was after a telephone call to summon him. Nilsen’s hopes that their commitment might endure began to fade. Gallichan’s gentle and shy nature was not equal to bridging the chasm which existed between them on every level of intellect and interest, and he grew tired of Nilsen’s arrogant nagging.

  Both men started to bring home strangers, causing resentment to hang in the air. A youth of seventeen whom Twinkle brought back ended up, after excessive drinking, in Nilsen’s bed, and was left there by both of them when they went their separate ways to work the next day. The boy then forced the gas and electric meters and took the cash.

  One incident deserves mention for its uniqueness. Nilsen met a Swiss girl called Elisabeth whom he took back to 195 Melrose Avenue for sex. Their love-making proved entirely satisfactory and confirmed Nilsen’s belief that he could perform the sexual act with a woman just as pleasurably as with a man. To be actively bisexual, rather than homosexual, did not set one so much apart from one’s fellows, and he did not go out of his way to disguise the love-bites he had as trophies to show at work the next day.

  Tensions at home multiplied to such an extent that it was clear the relationship must come to an end. Nilsen in a fit of anger demanded that Gallichan should leave, whereupon, in the summer of 1977, Twinkle packed his bags and moved off in search of a new protector. Gallichan’s version is that he left spontaneously, which would certainly have offended Nilsen to the core, as he considered Gallichan his inferior intellectually and his dependant socially. To be ‘deserted’ by such a man would be the deepest insult. At any rate, Nilsen’s one attempt at a sustained relationship had failed, and he was left with the conviction that he was probably unfit to live with. He thereupon channelled all his affection into caring for Bleep, all his lust into anonymous late-night meetings, all his self-pity down the neck of a bottle, and all his abundant energies into work. Work became an obsessive substitute for an empty life, and since he seemed unable to convey his concern for individuals in any way which they understood or could accept, he would devote his concern to the nebulous concept of mankind in general.11

  Nilsen claims that he became involved in trade union politics by accident, ‘through shame and embarrassment of my colleagues when, while all the machinery of democracy was given to them, they remained largely apathetic.’12 At the Annual General Meeting of the Denmark Street branch of C.P.S.A. no one would consent to stand for the post of branch organiser, so Nilsen volunteered. Motivated by a strong social conscience, he quickly became immersed in the task and it was not long before he was branch secretary.

  Working at the hotel and catering Jobcentre it was not difficult to grow indignant at the blatant exploitation of waiters and kitchen assistants by restaurants and hotels alike. The profession is notoriously underpaid, and few proprietors resist the temptation to employ foreigners, many without work permits, who are content to work long hours for a pittance rather than be exposed and deported. In other words, the Denmark Street branch came into contact regularly with some of the lowest-income workers in London, and their plight could not fail to influence anyone who was already predisposed to think that society reserved its harshest treatment for the downtrodden. Nilsen’s enthusiasm did not endear him to the management, who looked askance at the anti-government badges he sometimes wore, and though he sought to maintain ‘total freedom to judge each issue on its merits, according to conscience and experience’,13 they could not help noticing that his conscience invariably found in favour of the workers.

  Nilsen was furiously active in many disputes at the end of the 1970s, an involvement which effectively delayed his chances of promotion. His constant presence on picket lines was an embarrassment, his call to arms offensive to those who prized caution, including many other union officials. He was altogether too keen, too impulsive, too angry; they wondered what deep irritations fed his manic eagerness.

  The Garners Steak House dispute of 1977, provoked by the unceremonious dismissal of black and immigrant workers, was the first to excite Nilsen’s commitment. He was photographed on the picket line in Oxford Street and verbally assaulted by a lady who had the misfortune to advise him that a couple of years in the army would do him good. Capital Radio contacted him for an interview (word of his vigour in argument had already spread) and he arranged to do a broadcast with Jane Walmsley. But the management intervened and forbade any identities to be disclosed; it was against the Department of Employment’s policy to permit any of its employees to speak qua employees. But Nilsen’s influence prevailed in so far as Denmark Street refused to fill vacancies at Garners Steak House until the dispute was resolved, which it was after some months, though not to the advantage of the dismissed workers. Nilsen thought they had been betrayed by the apathy of people prepared only to fight for themselves, not for others.

  In September 1978 Nilsen applied to attend the C.P.S.A. Branch Chairman’s School at Surrey University and was accepted. This was a heady time, mixing with highly-placed union officials in the bar (Kate Losinska, Penny Judge, Len Lever) with the delicious freedom to express contentious views in the knowledge that they would be heeded (no newspapers held in front of the face here!). The established union officials at the top of the hierarchy were less to Nilsen’s taste than the revolutionary radical young people who converged upon Guildford. Nilsen was now thirty-three, but the army had delayed his maturity with the result that he was now experiencing that rush of uncompromising idealistic excitement that normally assails one at the age of twenty. He had found his place; he knew where he belonged; he stayed with the youngsters and disdained the elderly moderates.

  A long series of industrial disputes not directly involving the civil service union (such as, for instance, the Talk of the Town dispute) brought Nilsen out in a supportive role, distributing leaflets, picketing, persuading with his increasingly dogmatic rhetoric. It was remarkable how unable he was to see any aspect of a question other than the one he supported. Compromise and consensus w
ere anathema to him, and in this he displayed both the Buchan gene of stubbornness and his own gloss of dangerously simplistic rigour. Fudging the issues and ‘making do’ would no longer be admitted; 1978 saw the birth of the ‘monochrome man’, the man of extremes and opposites, the Manichaean double-headed monster.

  The ultimate dispute was the one which concerned the civil service itself. On 25 November 1980 the Conservative government scrapped the 1974 Civil Service Pay Agreement, provoking fury throughout the country. All the unions called for an afternoon walk-out and march to demonstrate feelings. Coincidentally on the same day the Denmark Street branch was celebrating its golden anniversary (fifty years) with a party attended by Members of Parliament, top hoteliers and other dignitaries, munching canapés and giving speeches. Dennis Nilsen caused consternation by leading a walk-out of eleven staff members in protest against government policy.

  The civil service pay dispute aroused Nilsen to the point where he came perilously close to antagonising even his supporters. In a circular to all members, he appealed for the strength of character to stand against ‘the gutter principles and practices of a totally discredited employer’ (i.e. the Conservative government), and while his zeal was applauded, some resented the implication that if they disagreed they must lack essential ‘strength of character’. Dennis Nilsen was no diplomat; he was impatient of the strategy whereby an important objective was attained by subtle means. In another circular designed to galvanise the entire workforce into the right attitude to win the campaign, he made the mistake of criticising those employees who continued to co-operate with management. ‘These are the parasites’, he wrote, ‘who are amongst the first in the line to grab the wage benefits which have been hard won on the personal principles and sacrifice of trades unionists whose financial commitment is for the good of all staff.’ This was not far removed from saying, ‘I have given you my all, don’t let me down,’ a disguised plea for personal affection which had quite the opposite effect. When the ‘parasites’ did not come flocking to his side, he could not understand why.