Dennis Nilsen - Conversations with Britain's Most Evil Serial Killer (18 page)

Nilsen didn’t just apply the concept of the psychograph to himself. He started to use his theories as a way of describing the workings of other killers. One was Jeffrey Dahmer, about whom Brian Masters was in the process of finishing a book. On the surface, Dahmer’s crimes, around Milwaukee in the USA, were carbon copies of Nilsen’s. He was another gay loner, who brought men back and killed them in perversely ‘affectionate’ ways. Nilsen, however, doesn’t like the comparisons that many have made. His analysis of Dahmer is full of quibbles that any similarities between them are superficial. He wants it known he didn’t keep
trophies, or regularly take photographs, or have desire to eat any human flesh.

Nilsen also pours scorn on Masters’ book,
The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer
. He writes in
History of a Drowning Boy
: ‘I certainly got no clearer recognition of Dahmer the man from reading it. Dahmer’s aberrations were sculpted in society’s response to his malforming “psychograph”, which trapped him in an impersonal fantasy life. His genetic uniqueness had succumbed to the battering of a lack of psychological nourishment. In early years, he had become so removed from tactile and emotional contact with his fellow creatures that his condition became ingrained by volition of combined circumstances acting throughout his life.’

An incident from Master’s promotion of his book on Jeffrey Dahmer proved the catalyst to end the ongoing contact between killer and author. In May 1994, Nicky Campbell from BBC Radio 1 interviewed Masters about his unusual relationship with serial killers. Towards the end of the interview, the conversation moved from Dahmer to Nilsen.

Nilsen doesn’t say
exactly
what it was that he objected to so much – now, however, that was almost beside the point. More than anything, Nilsen was incensed at the way Masters had taken ‘possession’ of his life story. He mentions feeling a surge of annoyance about being what he calls ‘Masters’ commodity’. Now, he felt, was the time to terminate their strange relationship. He did it with a phone call.

Despite being a Category A prisoner, Nilsen was allowed to use a phonecard. Whereas now prisoners may only call people on approved lists through an operator, in those days, Nilsen says, prisoners allowed to use the phone could call
straight out. Nilsen’s first telephone call in 11 years was to the Garrick Club in London where Brian Masters was a member. When he was put through to a bar steward he asked him to find the author and say ‘Des’ was on the phone. Masters was chatting with actors Keith Waterhouse and Rodney Bewes. When the steward told him who was calling, Masters nearly spilled his drink, fearful that Nilsen might have escaped. Nilsen appears to have enjoyed making Masters uncomfortable and informed him that he wanted to end their ongoing relationship. Masters told me that this ‘came as a relief’.

In 1994, Nilsen had been a convicted prisoner for just over 10 years. He may have no longer had any contact with his family nor Brian Masters, but he did have Jonny Marling and other correspondents. Moreover, despite frequent disagreements with the authorities, he knew if he behaved himself, theoretically, after another 15 years he would have been eligible to apply for parole.

In the back of Nilsen’s mind was always the thought that one day he might be able to taste freedom. Any such flickers of optimism, however, were extinguished in the summer of 1994 when rumours spread about a change in the law that was going to allow the Home Secretary to set ‘whole-life tariffs’. Previously, all sentence-setting was the preserve of judges. But in December 1994, Michael Howard, the Conservative Party’s Home Secretary, drew up his list of those who would be subject to the principle of ‘life meaning life’.

The passage in
History of a Drowning Boy
that deals with this is full of bravado. Nilsen proudly informs readers that his
reaction to seeing his name there was stoic. He apparently doesn’t want people to think his emotions could be so easily affected by acts of others. More revealing about his psychology, however, may be how he describes reactions to the only woman on the list, the Moors Murderer, Myra Hindley. Nilsen comments on the public perception of her, and the feelings of her victims. His words show a disturbing perspective: ‘It also seems that some relatives of the cruelly murdered children have themselves been contaminated by perpetual active hatred of the hated object. Hate is not a very healthy foundation on which to build anyone’s life. It’s a sad indictment of the progress of the human spirit when the relative of a victim can announce, “Hate is all I have”.’

Even though Nilsen’s words are grotesquely offensive, it is likely he isn’t really thinking about Hindley’s victims at all. By condemning the ‘hate’ he sees directed at Hindley, Nilsen implies that he feels any hatred similarly directed at him is also unfair. Throughout his writing, Nilsen frequently talks about other killers in terms that sound like a projection of feelings about his own case that he has difficulty approaching directly. Many years later, for instance, he observes that the Soham murderer, Ian Huntley, may have been far more ashamed that he could be aroused by two small girls than he was about killing them. And Nilsen says that Huntley, Brady and Hindley – in fact, most multiple murderers – could only kill because they were totally devoid of empathy for their victims. Interestingly, Nilsen may not have been forming this opinion without some first-hand evidence – in 1999, the
Daily Star
reported that Nilsen had had some correspondence with Ian Brady.

After discussing Hindley and the other killers on the ‘whole-life tariff’ list, Nilsen ends with a declaration of how in tune with morality he feels he has again become. He seems suddenly uncomfortable about how his previous words might be perceived: ‘Personally, I will not be pleading for release in my own case because the pain my actions have caused will only terminate with the deaths of the sufferers. When the pain of life touches me, I force myself to think of the pain of my victims (including relatives) and that brings me back to learning how insignificant my suffering is.’

Although Nilsen has never appealed his sentence, in 1992 and 1993 he started thinking about it. Among working drafts for
History of a Drowning Boy
are some scribbled notes entitled ‘Appeal Papers’. There were no thought-through plans of action, but he did devote a number of sheets of A4 to discussing – seemingly just to himself – how he exaggerated his confessions at the time of his arrest under what he says was pressure from Jay and Chambers at Hornsey Police Station. He then speculates as to whether, by bringing this to the attention of a court, he might persuade them to reduce his sentence to manslaughter.

Such musings, however, were short-lived. Ironically, just at the time he was thinking about whether an appeal might ever be possible, his descriptions of life sound like the words of a man who was becoming comfortably institutionalised. Indeed, throughout 1994, Nilsen’s life sounds more like a man at college than a Category A prisoner. He describes an almost never-ending series of hobbies and extra-curricular activities. Nilsen says he contributed a column to a magazine
for inmates called
The Insider
, under the humorous moniker ‘Nilsen, The Pink Panther’ (as distinct from Donald Nielson, The Black Panther).

There were also regular contributions to a small circulation adult comic called
Bozo
, described as the ‘the mad uncle of
Viz
’. Elsewhere, he acted in a play, John Godber’s
Up ’n’ Under
. Nilsen’s aspirations as a visual artist were satisfied when his friend Jonny Marling sent in a large canvas. The result was a large oil painting-cum-collage called ‘Bacardi Sunrise’ which included a cut-out photograph of a naked youth.

Marling had now been a regular visitor for some years. When a visit wasn’t possible, they would sometimes exchange tape recordings. Nilsen would send recordings that showed progress with his new favourite hobby – writing music on his electronic keyboard. His rudimentary musical doodles were given grand names like ‘Symphonic Suite’, and ‘Nilsen’s Prelude’.

The relaxed atmosphere abruptly changed on 9 September 1994. Life at Whitemoor was turned upside down in the prison when six IRA prisoners from the Special Secure Unit escaped. When they were apprehended, a pistol was retrieved; it had been used to shoot a dog handler. Semtex was discovered in their property.

The authorities reacted to the breach with a massive
clamp-down
. Special searches were conducted on every prisoner. In Nilsen’s room, the guards found copies of two soft-core gay magazines,
Vulcan
and
Him
, that Nilsen enjoyed. He was livid. ‘The establishment reeked of active homophobia,’ he
moaned, adding, ‘Their attitude had not changed since Wakefield in the mid-80s.’

Some years later, stories about Nilsen’s belief that gay pornography in prison was an equalities issue would become national news. In April 1995, however, the
Daily Mirror
felt they had better stories to run. They printed a three-part series. First was a story about Nilsen’s grief over a dead budgie; then they showed photographs taken by warders in Nilsen’s cell on a disposable camera sent in by Marling; finally, they published a long piece about a pilot scheme in Albany that had included Nilsen in its testing procedures. It involved the deployment of a Penile Plesythmograph (PPG) machine which was used as part of the Sex Offender Treatment Programme. The
Mirror
’s story was headed ‘250
JAIL PHOTOGRAPHS TURNED ME ON TO GIRLS
’.

The PPG technology was not originally intended to be used on sex offenders. It was pioneered by the Czechoslovakian military in the 1950s to ascertain whether conscripts who claimed to be homosexual to avoid national service really were what they claimed to be. The device works by attaching two bands on the body: a strain-gauge on the penis to measure engorgement, and a cuff on the finger to measure sweat. A series of images are then shown to the patient to determine the trigger of sexual arousal. The images include controls – images of ‘appropriate’ sexuality – and scenes depicting ‘deviant’ interest. Along with polygraphs, or lie detectors, the PPG is considered an extremely important tool for offender rehabilitation.

The
Daily Mirror
reported that while the tests were being set up, Nilsen had quipped, ‘I suppose I’ll have to pay you for
this.’ Once completed, he complained, ‘You should be paying me for this – it’s rubbish.’ When the results came back, Nilsen mocks them by saying that they were so off target they indicated he was primarily attracted to middle-aged women. As for the pictures intended to arouse paedophiles, he said they were ‘so boring I couldn’t concentrate’.

Nilsen simply wasn’t prepared to enter into the spirit of the programme. But still, in
History of a Drowning Boy
, where Nilsen talks about the PPG machine, his observation are humorous and, probably, perceptive. His says that while the images were presented to him, his mind was wandering off. If his fingers were sweating, he tells his would-be readers, it was probably because he needed a cigarette. He wondered if other subjects simply became turned on by having a female psychiatrist ordering them to drop their trousers before placing a cuff on their penis.

Nilsen had considered the PPG machine to be the stuff of fiction, and not even particularly good material. Still, such experiences and, no doubt, also stories he would hear from fellow cons, contributed to an idea that he might try to write fiction himself. Around this time, he had heard that his
pen-pal
P-P Hartnett had given up his day-job teaching to become a full-time writer. How hard, he wondered, could it be?

What Nilsen started to write was, quite incredibly, the premise for a serial-killer movie. It involved a fashion photographer called Sed Neslin. He owned an old Securicor van, into which he had fitted a lever from the cab which could divert exhaust gases to the back. In spring and summer, he would go and cruise up and down motorways looking for hitch-hikers, both male and female teenagers, whom he could
lure with promises of taking modelling pictures. He would bundle old junk on to the passenger seat, so he could have an excuse that it was essential to travel in the back. The cargo area of the van was sound-proofed against screams, and whatever sounds might have still penetrated were blocked out by tapes he would play of ‘The Laughing Policeman’ and ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’. At his home, Neslin has a studio in his basement with a preparation table in the middle, with vices to hold bodies and cosmetics to apply to them. He photographs the bodies in all kinds of poses before packing them into his freezer.

‘Cynics,’ Nilsen writes, in apparent ignorance of how utterly appalling his story is, ‘will say he [Nilsen] is planning his next crime.’ Nilsen was now, however, thinking of himself as much as a writer as a murderer, and he was encouraged to do so by others. He would soon even see his name appear alongside Edgar Allan Poe, P D James, Truman Capote and Norman Mailer when Ruth Rendell published an excerpt of his essay, ‘The Psychograph’, in an anthology she had edited. It was on the subject of why people murder and was called
The Reason Why: An Anthology of the Murderous Mind
(1996).

In the summer of 1996, the former television newscaster Gordon Honeycowmbe rekindled an earlier interest in writing a study on Nilsen’s crimes. Honeycombe had been a familiar figure to British audiences first from 1965–77 as an ITN newscaster. From 1984–89, the 6ft-4in Cornishman presented the news bulletins on ITV’s new breakfast show,
TV-am
. On screen, with his prominent receding hairline, he
looked authoritative, if slightly stern. Off camera, he was a hearty character with a successful sideline as an author. One of his most successful books had been about Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum, being published just before Nilsen’s arrest. In April 1983, Honeycombe wrote to Nilsen suggesting that he might consider supplying him with information to help him write a study on the case. Nilsen asked his solicitor Ronald Moss to reply that he would rather have Masters write about the case.