Murder Most Fab (41 page)

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.