The Wicked Mr Hall (16 page)

We drove north, reaching the Highland country in the early afternoon. We drove past fields, forests and streams. I was looking for somewhere that seemed ideal, when Mr Scott-Elliot awoke from one of his interminable sleeps and said that he needed to relieve himself. I helped him out of the car and watched as he walked away from the roadside to the cover of some nearby trees. I signalled Kitto to get out of the car. Together we walked up behind the urinating old man. I wrapped a scarf around his neck, and started to strangle him. He managed to get his fingers under the
material, and pulled with all his might to keep his breathing free. His strength surprised me. Kitto, bloody fool that he was, just stood there and watched. The old man struggled, I lost my grip and he fell to the ground. I put my foot across his throat and barked at Kitto: ‘Go and get the spade from the car boot!’ When he returned, I told him to hammer Scott-Elliot’s head with it. The spade crashed down on to the old man’s skull, killing him. We dug a shallow grave within a copse of trees, and buried his thin, frail body. I remember saying: ‘He put up more of a fight than I thought. He must have drawn strength from his noble Scottish ancestry’.

Back in the car, we started the long drive back towards Newton Arlosh. Kitto and Mary were now truly my accomplices. We had all dipped our hands in blood.

T
he Highland countryside is particuarly beautiful, and we took a break at Aviemore and booked into the Red McGregor Hotel. Mary and Kitto went straight to the residents’ bar and started drinking. I left them, and went to another hotel. My life, my entire life, was running and rerunning in my head. I thought of my childhood, life with my mother and father in Glasgow. I had been a bright student, my teachers had expected me to succeed. I cast my mind back to Anne Philips, she, too, had thought that I had promise. I remembered Jackobosky, the young Polish captain and the first man to release my, until then dormant, homosexuality. With his hand and head between my legs, he had stirred a drive that would help to shape my life. If I hadn’t loved having sex with men, David Wright would still be alive. I truly believed that if I hadn’t killed him, I would never have killed anyone. I was fifty-four
years old when I shot him. All of my life I had steered clear of violence. Violence was for idiots. I was a thief, a top-class thief. For every prison sentence I’d served, there had always been a release date. If I ever appeared in front of a judge again, I would go to prison for the rest of my life. The rest of my life!

Esther Henry came into my mind, the thrill of robbing her – me and John, jewels and money filling our laps as we drove south with every police force in the country chasing us. Me, drinking with the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall, agreeing with him that thieves were so obvious. They had been different days. We knew that if we were nicked, we would be treated well in prison. And once we’d done our time, we’d just get out and start all over again. The Chief Constable of Edinburgh had shaken hands with me. Who would shake my hand now? I had murdered an old man. They would think me a monster. This wasn’t what I had wanted. I poured the brandies down my throat, but the power of the alcohol was no match for the despair that filled me. I would only feel safe when I was out of the country, somewhere without an extradition treaty. South America perhaps?

After a while I wandered back to the hotel. Mary and Kitto were still in the bar, both quite drunk. Mary was loud and drawing attention to herself. She told me that she had been making phonecalls to her old friends in Kings Cross, boasting of the high life she was living. I told her not to make any more calls – didn’t she realise what we’d done? The danger we were in? She was an accomplice to two murders, one before the act and one after. She could be
looking at 10–15 years, as could John Wooton. I was in the most dangerous situation of my life, and surrounded by fools. I went to my room. Their company irritated me.

Aviemore is a beautiful, picturesque town. We decided to stay on for a few days. I took Mary up in the ski-lift and we drank in the fabulous views. As long as I was outside and busy, I could ignore the dark thoughts that were filling me. We played at being holiday-makers for a few days, before driving back to Newton Arlosh.

Leaving Mary at the cottage, Kitto and I returned to London and cleared the Scott-Elliot’s home of jewellery and antiques. I visited one of my London buyers, and my former employers’ property was transformed into my money. Back at the cottage, in our absence, Mary had again been on the phone, drinking and swanning around the village in her mink coat and jewels. She was now becoming an embarrassment. I told Kitto that I wasn’t going to go to prison for life, on account of some cheap prostitute, no matter how long I’d known her. He agreed. We discussed whether we should kill her. I suggested that I talk to her, make her realise the gravity of the situation. She would have to change her behaviour and adopt a lower profile. Before we finished our conversation, Kitto said: ‘If she’s awkward, I’ll just fuck her one more time and then kill her.’ I left him and went to Mary.

The conversation didn’t go too well. She was adamant that she was going to keep the mink: ‘For God’s sake Mary, the mink is evidence, it has Dorothy Scott-Elliot’s initials sewn into the lining. If you return to your home in Kings Cross wearing that mink, how long do you think it
will be before the police question you about where you got it? I’m going to cut up the coat and burn it. I’ll buy you another one in London, one that doesn’t connect you to a murder.’ To my relief, she relented. I informed Kitto that he could most certainly fuck her, but he wouldn’t have to kill her. Feeling slightly more at ease with the situation, we returned to Sloane Street and took more valuables from the Scott-Elliots’. My thoughts were now all focused on getting as much money together before questions started being asked about the whereabouts of the elderly socialites. Once again, we returned to the cottage.

Mary was still wearing the mink, parading around the village and attracting attention. I couldn’t believe she was being so stupid, after everything I’d told her! We argued again about the coat. She had changed her mind and wanted to keep it. I told Kitto that Mary would have to go, she was going to get us all caught. He said he would have sex with her one last time and then kill her. I left him to do what he had to do.

As the evening wore on Kitto and Mary, who had both been drinking, vanished into one of the bedrooms. I sat in the sitting-room and contemplated my future. At about 3.00am Mary walked in, wearing nothing but the mink and a pair of high heels. ‘Have you ever made love on a mink?’ she asked. I looked at her, she was drunk. I answered: ‘No. I never have.’ Laying her precious coat on the floor, she lay down and waited for me. I needed some release and I have long found that physical release equates to mental release. This would calm me down and lower my blood pressure. I mounted her, and pumped away. We had sex time and
time again. Until everything was gone. Until there was no more. My balls were empty and, physically, I was nearing some sort of state of relaxation. I poured myself a brandy while Mary showered.

While Mary was showering, Kitto came in. He whispered to me: ‘What should we do? Should we kill her?’ I didn’t know why he was saying this. Earlier, he’d said he was going to fuck her and then kill her. It didn’t surprise me that he hadn’t. He was a weak character – weak, lazy and greedy.

Mary came out of the shower. I said: ‘Mary, the coat’s going. You can’t have it, it’s too dangerous.’ She sat down and poured herself a drink: ‘I’m keeping the coat. I’ll be careful where I wear it, but I am keeping it, it belongs to me.’ When she had gone to shower, the coat had been thrown over the arm of the settee. Picking it up, I walked to the fireplace where a roaring coal fire burned. She started screaming: ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ I felt my temper rise. I’d had enough of this fucking coat. Our lives were on the line! Two important people, my employers, were dead. Soon questions would be asked and an investigation could start at any time. We had robbed, fraudulently taken from their bank accounts, and my fingerprints were all over the house. I had a criminal record longer than most people’s arms. And this stupid, stupid Irish bitch was prancing around in a dead woman’s coat, a coat that cost thousands of pounds and had no right being on the back of this stupid cow.

‘Mary!’ As I shouted, I dropped the coat and picked up the poker that was leaning against the fireplace. I turned in
one movement. Kitto was alert, he grabbed Mary’s arms pinning them, and her, to the chair.

I smashed the poker over her head. Mrs Scott-Elliot’s wig fell off and Mary fell to the ground. The blow had knocked her out. The wig had cushioned the impact preventing flesh wounds, so there was no bleeding. I got a plastic bag and put it over her head, tying it at the neck. We sipped our brandies and watched her suffocate. Ten minutes later, I checked for her pulse. She was dead. Mary, my old friend, whom I had known for almost ten years. I regretted having to kill her. Before this I’d always liked her, she had a heart of gold, did Mary.

I dressed her in men’s clothes. I took a tie, without a label, and looped it around her wrist. We’d make the police think that this was some kind of lesbian murder. We put her in the boot of the car.

The following hours ticked by slowly. We waited for morning. Sleep was impossible. If you drive in the middle of the night, your chances of being stopped by the police are increased. If you don’t want to be stopped, wait until the light early morning traffic has taken to the roads, then join it.

We drove over the Scottish border and searched for somewhere isolated. I considered burying her near Dave Wright’s body – fitting really, two prostitutes together. I dismissed the idea because, this close to Christmas, the Forestry Commission would be out on patrol, watching for Christmas tree thieves.

We drove around and, eventually, by mid-morning we found ourselves on a deserted country lane near the village
of Middlebie, in Dumfries. We took Mary’s body out of the boot and tossed her over a hedge. From the hedge, we went down an embankment and put her in a small stream. There was no time for burials. She would just be another unidentified dead body – food for the fish.

John Wooton knew of the murder of Mrs Scott-Elliot, he also had an inkling of the fate of Mr Scott-Elliot. But only Kitto and I knew of the murder of Mary Coggles. There was now a strange atmosphere between the two of us.

So the three became two, our mutual friend, the woman who had introduced us, was dead. We had murdered her. Kitto wanted to be a successful criminal, I wanted out, so we went back to Sloane Street, and took everything of value and sold it. We cleared the house of all its valuables. Three carriage clocks alone were worth £75,000. I sold them for £30,000. We took all the paintings, the furs, the china, silver, everything. I knocked it all out. We were rich. All I had to do now was clear the bank accounts, stocks and shares, which would take more time, as forgeries would have to be concocted and paid for. Bogus phone calls would have to be made. Once we had these it was Heathrow, and retirement in the sun.

Sadly, that wasn’t how things worked out. Two unrelated and, in the grand scheme of things, trivial incidents would turn our lives into the nightmare that they became.

Kitto and I never talked of Mary’s death. If we did it was: ‘Well we had to do it, she was a liability.’ I was creaming in the money for the Scott-Elliot’s valuables. With the owners dead, we lived in their house. It was the high life – we visited the best restaurants and went to shows in the West
End. Once the financial transactions were complete, we’d vanish into thin air.

My half-brother Don was a dirty, unkempt tramp and, we suspected, a nonce. A few years before, my ex-wife Ruth had said that she thought she had seen him ‘touching’ a young schoolgirl. Don was seventeen years younger than me. He had just been released from a prison in Cumbria, a three-year sentence for housebreaking. With his mother no longer alive, and him penniless, he headed straight for Lytham, and John’s house.

John phoned me at the Scott-Elliots. Don worried him, he didn’t really want him in the house. He asked for my advice.

Every single time I had been in trouble, which, being a lifelong professional criminal, was often, I had always been able to rely on John. He was a stalwart, a rare breed, a friend I could rely on without reservation. He was the man my mother loved. Our friendship had an almost cerebral quality. John was strictly heterosexual, I was promiscuously bisexual, yet I never loved a man the way I did him. We were soulmates, cut from the same cloth.

After Kitto and I arrived at Lytham, I told John: ‘There’s no way that he’s going to stay here and fuck your life up for you. He’ll have to go.’ My first thoughts were now of murder. It was becoming the easy solution.

I brought Wooton up to date on everything that had happened. I needed John. When I had money that I wanted held, he would open an account for me, when I went incommunicado, he was my communication with the outside world. His value to me, leaving aside our friendship,
was invaluable. Don would put all this at risk. John lived in a nice area where the neighbours knew nothing of his past.

I considered getting Don drunk, and just walking him into the sea, drowning him. In the end, I did drown him, but not in the Irish Sea where a washed-up body would cause police inquests. I drowned him in my holiday-let cottage at Newton Arlosh. I drowned him face down in the bath.

‘John, I’ll take care of it, I’ll invite him up to the cottage. Kitto and I will put him to rest.’ John just said: ‘Be careful, Roy. Be careful.’

Dirt under his fingernails, unshaven, slovenly, I hated having my half-brother near me. He filled me with contempt. He was scum, lowlife scum. The skinny child of a miniscule Army major. We didn’t even have the same father, and he had none of my mother’s characteristics or nature. Lowlife, nonce, ponce, scum, I was going to kill him. I would wait for the right opportunity.

The right opportunity came on our first night at the cottage. We were all slightly drunk. Don kept asking me how much I was worth. Obviously, Kitto and I had plenty of money. Don was out to impress, he thought of me and Kitto as a team, and he wanted to join.

He said that a friend of his in prison had told him how to do a ‘Tie up’ using only six inches of string. He wanted to show us. I got some string from the kitchen, Don cut it into two three-inch lengths. He took his shoes and socks off, then lay down on the floor. He folded his legs up to his arse, and asked me to tie his big toes together. Then, looping his arms over his feet, he asked me to tie his
thumbs together using the remaining bit of string. I did. ‘See, impossible. You can’t get out of it!’ I looked at him, he was laying on the floor like a trussed-up chicken, with a stupid smile on his face. He thought this little trick would impress me, make me want to have him along to work with me – him, a stupid tramp!

Kitto and I looked at each other. I went into the bathroom and poured some chloroform on to a cotton-wool pad. When I went back into the sitting-room, Don was asking Kitto to untie him. Kitto was waiting for me, he knew what we were going to do.

I knelt down at his right side, Kitto at his left. I grabbed his head, and held the chloroformed pad over his mouth and nostrils. He struggled. He was fighting for his life, but Kitto held him and after some moments he lost consciousness.