Читать книгу The Wicked Mr Hall - The Memoirs of the Butler Who Loved to Kill - Roy Archibald Hall - Страница 11

After climbing up an embankment and over an advertisement hoarding, I found myself penniless on a deserted street in the Carlisle suburbs. I have a good sense of direction and, facing north, I started up a slow jog. There were ninety-six miles between my home city and the ground that my feet were pounding. Now I was really on the run. I ran on in the dark for hour after hour. Exhausted, I slept briefly in the doorway of a village church. The bitter cold and hunger made any further rest impossible, so I continued to run.

As daybreak dawned, the loneliness of that long bitter night receded. With the relief of daylight came the danger of recognition. I wanted to get myself off the open road as quickly as possible. There was little traffic, but each vehicle that passed filled me with a sense of dread. Would this one be a police car? South of Glasgow are the coal-mining fields of Lanarkshire. Workers from all over the border regions were picked up by pit buses and transported to the fields to start their early morning shifts. It was such a bus that rattled down the northern road on which I was walking. Waving frantically, I stopped it. The driver was a gnarled old man, who had probably once earned his wages underground in the same way as his passengers.

A well-dressed, if bedraggled young man must have seemed a strange sight in the early morning light. I told him that my car had been stolen north of Carlisle, that I had walked for most of the night and was desperate to get to Glasgow to report the theft. All of my money had been in the car. With a terse generosity he motioned his head to one side, a non-verbal communication that allowed me to board the lumbering but warm bus.

Knowing that my parents’ house was out of bounds, I headed for the home of a criminal friend. I lay low to contemplate my situation. I knew that my mother must be anxious, so I sent a message through my friend telling her that I was in good health and close by. Against my judgement, she was adamant that she must see me. After a few days I reluctantly agreed. We organised a journey involving buses, trams and the subway. If she became suspicious of anyone or anything, she was to abandon the meeting and return home. I waited in a shop doorway some yards from where the bus dropped her off. I scanned the faces and people around her. All seemed well. As my mother approached, I stepped out of the doorway. Together we started the short walk to my refuge. I noticed the strangers immediately standing almost opposite my safe house. One was considerably older than the other, an odd pairing to a criminal that could mean police. Still walking casually, my arm linked with my mother’s, I kept my eyes on the strangers. The young one crossed the road and walked swiftly in our direction. I saw, in the quick glance he threw us, that he had observed both our faces. His quick stride took him past us, I listened for some change in his footsteps. Apart from distancing, none came. For the briefest moment I felt that we were safe. Then, the older man slowly crossed the road. I felt my mother’s grip on my arm tighten. Gradually we approached each other. I knew in my heart that with my mother beside me I could not run. If I did she would be arrested, taken to the station, questioned and maybe held. The professionally dressed, middle-aged man was now almost upon us. Without staring I sensed his movements. The first thing I knew about the man behind me was his hand on my shoulder. In the same instant, the older man in front of us grasped my mother’s arm and identified himself and his colleague as police.

British justice stinks! My mother was a forty-four-year-old woman with a young child to care for, she had never been in trouble with the police in her life and her only crime was maternal protectiveness. The presiding judge sentenced her to twenty-eight days in ‘Duke Street’, Glasgow’s Women’s Prison. I was sentenced to eighteen months. I won’t say that I didn’t mind being sentenced, because I did, but I could accept that this was the natural course of things. I was a criminal. My mother was not.

Barlinie was one of Britain’s toughest prisons and the worst that Glasgow had to offer was behind its bars. The warders were brutal. Groups of them would dish out beatings for the smallest contravention of any one of the many rules. I was young and vulnerable. I kept my head down, kept myself to myself and I learned the lessons of prison life. I served that first sentence unobtrusively and quietly. I don’t make moves unless I’m sure of my ground. It is part of my nature and inherent in most survivors. After serving two-thirds of my sentence I was released, but not rehabilitated. The twelve months spent inside the walls of Barlinie had been my second schooling.

Glasgow no longer suited my tastes, the pickings in London were that much richer. The day after my release I caught the night train south. I drank in Soho, a fascinating area. The bars and cafés were frequented by socialites, theatre people, artists, thieves and gangsters. It was uniquely Bohemian and that was to my taste!

I tried calling Vic Oliver a few times, but he had moved on. Que sera! I visited some old haunts. At one in Belgravia, I bumped into Terence Rattigan. It must have been two years since I’d last seen him. He was still writing hit plays. It was nice to see him and, from the way he acted, it was obvious he was pleased to see me. We chatted and had a couple of shots of brandy. He lived close by, and had only popped out to replenish drinks. He told me that he was giving a dinner party. I jokingly suggested he should have hired me to ‘wait’ on his table. I told him of my time at the Glenburn Hotel, that I was very good at such things and had natural talent.

The tone of the conversation changed. He became serious, whispering his comments. Would I accompany him home? He wanted me to do something special. Would I serve his guests? He would make it worth my while. The thing was, he wanted me to serve after-dinner port with a difference. He wanted me to do it in the nude. I was to approach the dining table with everything hanging out. He wanted me to titillate his friends.

I have few inhibitions. I would make money and useful contacts. Later I might rob them, who knew what might happen? Before the end of the evening, I was sure my ball bag would be empty. I agreed.

After swallowing our brandies, we walked the short distance back to his flat. It was spacious and luxurious. God knows how much he was earning. He had a small kitchen staff of two waiters and a cook. I was told to wait in the kitchen until the appointed time. I had undressed and was wearing only a bathrobe. While I waited, I drank brandy at the kitchen table.

When my cue came, the cook slid the bathrobe from my shoulders and placed a tray with a decanter full of port in my hands. I entered. For a naked body the temperature was not warm, and my penis was not at its most glorious. In fact, because of the chill and my nerves, it was limp and bloodless, a shadow of its usual self. I approached the table and as I poured the first glass, I felt a hand cup my balls and give them a loving squeeze. With each glass that I filled, different hands caressed me. The blood streamed into my cock – you could have hung your hat on it. Rattigan’s dining-room was mirrored wall to wall. The men who weren’t looking at me directly were staring into the mirror. Hands slid up and down my body. The fingers of the rich and privileged probed my arse and I smiled and served. This beat leaning up against a bar daydreaming. As they touched me, I wondered who I’d be able to rob, and who I wouldn’t.

I was open to everything and, in time, everything would happen to me. This was just another day.

I took a flat in central London and, as the many commuters travelled into the city to work, I travelled to the suburbs that they had just emptied and robbed them. I had been leading the city life for just under a year, when I was arrested on a burglary charge. I asked for fifty other offences to be taken into consideration, and was sentenced to two years. I was taken to HMP Wandsworth, in South West London. In Wandsworth, I met many people who would remain lifelong friends. In Wandsworth I met John Wooton.

In 1948 prison time was hard time. You were not allowed to speak to a warder unless he addressed you first. You had one bath a week in five inches of tepid water, you dried yourself with a piece of coarse canvas cloth. At night you sat in your cold, dank cell sewing mailbags. The bags secreted a black, sticky resin, which would eventually cover your hands.

It was no place for the faint-hearted. All my life I had abhorred violence. Although no victim, I was not a natural fighter. Words were my weapons. During exercise one day, my Scottish accent attracted the attention of a big English con. Taller, heavier and older than me, he decided he wanted to fight me – his reason being that he didn’t like the way I spoke. In prison, if you can avoid using your slop-out pot, you do. As the exercise period was finishing, I took my chance to use the toilet. The English con followed me. His intent was clear and, barging into me, he raised his fists. The voice of John Wooton prevented that first punch being thrown. He said, ‘Why don’t you try me? I’m more your size.’ Aged 34, Wooton was ten years my senior. He was tall with dark hair and an athletic build. In his youth he had done some boxing and he ‘shaped up’ to the would-be bully. This man had wanted a soft target, someone to beat, someone to take his anger out on. He left the toilet without saying a word. He never bothered me again. For John and myself, it was the start of a friendship that would shape both our lives. Years later, this most trusted friend would marry my mother, making him my official stepfather.

Wooton and myself were cut from the same cloth. Neither of us was typical of our backgrounds. We both moved easily in middle- and upper-class circles. John was no more a typical Londoner than I was a typical Glaswegian. We would work together, but in 1948 our time had not yet come. Before Wooton would come Johnny Collins. Collins was an East End thief, two years older than myself. Now he was a typical cockney – he loved going to the dogs, gambling, womanising, and boozing. On his right cheek he bore a scar, which he said was inflicted by Jack Spot, the so-called King of the Underworld who preceded the Kray twins as possibly the most feared man in London. Collins release date was some months before mine and close to Christmas. Before he left he made a promise to see me alright for 25 December. Although difficult to escape from, the prisons of post-war Britain were nothing like the security-conscious places they are today. There was no barbed wire on top of the walls, nothing was alarmed, there were no perimeter fences. If you could somehow scale the walls, you could quite feasibly get to the exterior doors and windows of the prison itself. There was a glassless, but barred window to the tailoring shop. Stacked next to the bars were rolls of cheap cloth, which were used for prison uniforms. On the day before his release, Johnny pulled me to one side and told me of his proposal. On one of the days leading up to Christmas Eve, he would scale the walls, cross the wasteground and, reaching inside the bars of the tailor shop window, he would leave me some Christmas cheer to share with our mutual friends.

As the time approached I would deftly slip my hands in between the rolls of material to see whether he had been as good as his word. There was nothing on the twenty-first, nothing on the twenty-second or twenty-third. As Christmas Eve dawned, my hopes were fading fast. Many men make promises on the inside only to regain their liberty and adopt an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ policy. I considered Johnny’s to be just one more empty promise. But at 11.30 that morning, as I slipped my hand between the rolls of cloth, my fingers touched a package. The last hand that touched that package had been Johnny Collins’. He had come through. His word was good.

Later he would tell me how he and a friend had borrowed a builder’s open-backed van. They had an extended ladder, blankets and torches. Together they scaled the wall, flipping the heavy wooden ladder over from one side to the other. The friend stayed with the ladder and carried a torch to guide Collins back to him. Taking the bag of presents Johnny crossed the wasteland, then sticking close to the wall, made his way to the tailoring shop window.

That night in our cell, a small group of us sat around the open package. He had left us cigarettes, tins of fruit, salmon, biscuits and two bottles of the finest Scotch whisky. Jack Spot had allegedly seen fit to put a razor to Collins’ face, but that Christmas Eve five smiling cons raised their tin mugs to the East End villain, who was probably the world’s most unlikely Santa Claus.

I have many memories of that first Wandsworth sentence. Chirpy Downes was another Eastender, his cousin Terry Downes was a famous boxer of the time. We were in the prison chapel one sunday morning when the Chaplain delivering his sermon said: ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, and acted as a child.’ With his head bowed, Chirpy said: ‘You still are a child.’ It wasn’t said in a loud voice, it was just a disgruntled con letting slip a sarcastic remark. As we filed out of the chapel at the end of the service, a screw stopped Chirpy in his tracks. He told him he was putting him on punishment for insolence. Chirpy grabbed hold of him and a fight ensued. Later that evening a group of warders with batons entered Chirpy’s cell and beat him badly. He was taken to the punishment block where he was put in solitary on rations of bread and water. After a few days, he was taken to the prison laundry. There waiting for him were twelve warders and the prison doctor. He was forced to take off his shirt and, after having a wide leather belt fastened around his waist to protect his kidneys, he was strapped to a large timber triangle. Out of his vision, one of the warders was handed the ‘cat o’ nine tails’. Chirpy would never know which prison officer beat him. The ‘cat’ is a barbaric flogging implement. It has a short handle from which hang nine strips of knotted leather. After each lash, the prison doctor would check the prisoner’s heartbeat. The ‘Cat’ would strip the skin from a man’s back. On top of the beating, flogging, solitary, bread and water and loss of wages, Chirpy lost remission time, increasing the length of his sentence.

The experience of prison hardens a man, providing justification for the crimes he is going to commit.