“Get
out you fucking evil bastard” I shouted ”Get
out of my house.” Incredibly Gerry still came on not retreating but trying
to stab me. Thick jets of blood were spraying from the gaping wound in his
arm as I drove him out of the front room and into the passageway towards
the door. It was dark in the passage and I held the knife extended,
stabbing, driving him towards the door. Then his back hit the end wall and
groaning he slid down it.
“You fucking bastards” his last words mixed with blood gurgled from his
lips as died.
Suddenly I was aware of the terrible pain in my hands and I realised that
I was bleeding. As I staggered back along the passage I was aware that I
was covered in blood. I entered the front room and looked at my hands,
both were pumping blood from deep wounds. I felt my body could detect no
other wounds.
Suddenly I heard a shout “ Mickey” Kenny's voice raised in alarm then “
You fucking bastard” and the sound of blows. I staggered back into the
hallway and there was Kenny a knife in his hand plunging it, again and
again into Gerry’s inert body that lay sprawled at the end of the passage.
“ He’ dead Kenny, he’s dead.” I shouted.
“ Fucking bastard” replied Kenny stabbing him again and again.
“Kenny he is dead” I said again reaching for the light switch. The light
revealed the carnage and sprays of red blood still trickling down the
walls.
Kenny suddenly stood up and in the light I saw that he was red with
blood from head to toe. “Thank God that you are alive Mickey. I thought
that it would be you”
I looked at him and started to shiver and returned to the front room
with Kenny following.
“Are you sure that he is dead?” Kenny said anxiously.
“Kenny I killed him. He was already dead when you stabbed him.” I replied.
Kenny stood there a big knife red with blood still in his hand.
Realising this it slowly released it and it dropped to the floor.
“Mickey, Mickey” came Sandra’s voice. Then she too entered the room a
horrified look on her face. “Is Gerry dead? Are you all right?
“Yes I am all right” I replied.
“What shall we do now?” Kenny asked.
I realised that both of them were looking at me expecting me to take
control and this snapped me out of the state of shock that I was in.
“I think that we ought to get rid of his body before it gets light” I
said making a snap decision. I could not phone the police because I did
not trust them.
As we pulled Gerry Hawley’s body down the stairs the head bumped making
a noise as it hit each step. He was a big guy and manhandling his inert
mass was not easy.
“Sandra you go out and open the rear door of the car. Me and Kenny will
carry him across the pavement and it will look as if he is drunk” I said.
The pain shot through my hands as with an enormous effort we pulled
Gerry’s inert body to an upright position and got our shoulders under his
arms. “Okay Kenny” I said and we walked the dead man across the pavement,
his feet dragging, and pushed him into the rear of the car.
“You will have to drive Sandra” I said my hands are really hurting.”
Kenny sat in the back with the dead man and I sat beside Sandra in the
front passenger seat. “Epping Forest right off our manor that will be a
good place to dump him” I said.
We drove across London and onto the North Circular Road. There was not
much traffic on the road that time of night and we made good progress. We
saw a police car but they did not give us a second look. Soon we were
driving along one of the roads that runs through Epping Forest.
“As soon as you see a road that leads into the forest turn off “ I
ordered.
“There’s one” Sandra exclaimed and turned into it.
“Okay keep driving get deep into the forest commanded” . The headlights
lit up the road and the trees lining it while I stared into the dark night
looking for a suitable place to dump his body. Suddenly I saw a clearing.
“Stop and back into here but make sure that you don’t get bogged down.”
“See us back Kenny” I ordered and Ken jumped out of the back and guided
Sandra into the clearing.
We pulled Gerry’s body out of the car and as it slumped onto the wet grass
I became aware that it was raining. “Take all his clothes off” I ordered
and stood there in the rain as the body was stripped bare except for a
pair of underpants. I had told them to strip the body bare because the
police might identify the body by the clothing but I did not say anything
about the dead man’s modesty and instead got back into the car. We drove
home silently and when we got there I walked up the stairs with an effort
feeling exhausted.
My hands were throbbing with pain now and Sandra ran a hot bath for me.
As I gingerly lowered myself into it the water became red with blood.
Sandra came in with a towel and dried me and bandaged my hands. “Come
on Mickey you go to bed” and she led me up to the bedroom and put me in
where I coiled up in the foetal position and exhausted I fell off to
sleep.
I awoke in the morning and just lay there for a moment. I was alone in
the bed and then thought of a bad nightmare that had happened last night
then I became aware of the pain in my hands and took them out of the bed.
They were bandaged and stained with blood that had steeped through the
cloth then I realised that the events of the night before had been all too
real. The house was silent and I got up and looked in the kid’s room and
it was empty. I walked down the stairs and someone had stuck most of the
broken wooden banisters back into place. I walked downstairs and all signs
of last nights previous struggle had gone, blood washed of walls, carpets
gone and replaced. I walked into the front room and there was Sandra
asleep on the settee a bucket of red stained water by her side. I walked
out of my flat and across the landing into Kenny’s. No one was in the
front room and I walked up the stairs and looked in his and my sister’s
bedroom. There was Kenny asleep in bed. I decided not to wake him as it
was obvious that he and Sandra had stayed up all night cleaning up all the
signs of last night’s battle. They had done a very good job and I felt
proud that I had such loyal friends around me who came to my aid in times
of dire need. I tip toed silently into the kitchen and made myself a cup
of tea. It was difficult as my hands were hurting so much but I managed
with some difficulty. I sat down and sipped at my tea and started thinking
of the events of the night before. “Why had I panicked and dumped Gerry
Hawley’s body in Epping Forest where it was to be found and examined by
forensic scientists?” What a stupid fool I had been. I had panicked when I
had needed a clear head and others had looked to me for guidance. If I had
planned to kill Gerry then it would have been simple. I had large vats of
acid over at the film processing laboratory and I could have dissolved the
body. It would have been simple. Suddenly I knew that we had to return to
Epping Forest and get the body and take it to the laboratory. I jumped up
and went out of the kitchen and into Kenny’s flat.
I hated to wake him but time was of the essence. I shook him and he woke
up his eyes wide.
“Kenny it is all right it’s me” I said
“What’s going on? Kenny said still half asleep and rubbing his eyes.
“Kenny sorry to wake you but I panicked last night and I made a bad
mistake. I know now that we should have taken the body to the lab and
dissolved it in acid then they would never discover it. He had so many
enemies that they would not know where to start looking.
Kenny sat up in bed “What shall we do then?” he asked.
“Let’s go back and get the body! It was right off the road and in a
slight hollow in the ground and the long grass would make it invisible
from the road. Come on Kenny let’s go. By the way where are Kath and the
kids?”
“She took them up to Mum and Dads” Kenny replied.
I knew that my sister Kath would tell my Mum and Dad what had happened.
I expect that I would have told my Dad myself anyway. “All right Kenny
then we can go over now I’ll go and get some clothes on.”
“All right” he said getting out of bed. “I will be down in a minute.
But do you know what I am glad that you killed that cunt because he would
have killed you.”
“He would have killed all of us!” I replied.
“How do you know that?” Kenny asked his face contorted with fright.
“Because he said so he said that he was going to kill all us big headed
bastards” I replied.
“But why was it because he was a nutter on acid?” remarked Kenny a look
of disbelief on his face.
“No he had a gloating look on his face as though he was going to enjoy
murdering us all but I think that he picked up the hit. All of us knew too
much, me you and Sandra. I don’t think that he was on acid. Just said that
to frighten me.” I pondered. “But come on let’s go we can talk in the
car.”
Sandra was still asleep on the settee and I hurriedly scribbled a note.
“Have gone out with Kennv Will be back in a couple of hours, love Mickey.”
Kenny drove over to the North Circular destination Epping Forest as we
drove I noticed a sign for Chelmsford. Fucking hell!” I exclaimed I didn’t
know that this was the way to Chelmsford. That is where me and Gerry
became pals.”
“Became you minder you mean!” exclaimed Kenny.
“Yeah, that’s the worst thing that I ever did but on the other hand
Chelmsford was a really heavy place. When I walked round with Gerry no one
ever gave me any aggravation.”
“You sound as if you like the cunt!” remarked Gerry. “I have always
fucking hated him. He threatened Kath once “said Kenny.
“You never said anything to me and neither did she” I said in surprise.
We were on the North Circular now and I noticed that we were doing
seventy. “Slow down Kenny we don’t want to get a pull now.”
Kenny eased back on the accelerator and remarked. “No I did not want to
cause a row. She was frightened of that cunt and so was I. You should
never have brought him into the house.” Kenny said accusingly looking at
me fiercely his nostril flaring and his brown eyes liquid with emotion.
I knew that he was right then all this never would have happened. Yes
but I thought that he was just a hard man who I could use over Soho.”
“Yeah but when you found out that he was an evil bastard you still had
him around.” Kenny observed.
“No I did not Kenny! I challenged him to a straightner even though I
thought that he would muller me. “I objected. That was so I could tell him
not to come up the house anymore. You don’t think that I wanted to fight
him. Do you?”
“Yeah but you still kept him on the firm and he was still your man.”
“Yeah and if I had fucked him off he would have been our enemy.”
“Looks like he became our enemy anyway! Why was that?”
“I don’t think that he liked taking orders from anyone and he was
fucking jealous of everything that I had.” I put my thoughts into words.
We were nearing the turning now where we had dumped Gerry’s body. “Here it
is it is the next turning” I said and Kenny turned into it. “Look you just
drive and I will look for anything suspicious. Okay?”
Kenny did not answer but just drove looking at the road ahead.
“We are almost there now I said while noticing that the forest looked
very different by day and that one could see much further into it. It is
just round the next bend I think but if Old Bill is there don’t look, just
look straight ahead.” I held my breath and as we turned the bend I noticed
the red and white tape and police vehicles immediately. “Drive on” I
muttered urgently, trying to look at the road and not glance from left to
right. The phrase “A criminal always returns to the scene of the crime”
passed through my head and I held my breath as we passed the crime scene.
Soon we were out of danger and no one had stopped us. “Fuck it! I
exclaimed. “They have found it all ready. How the fucking hell…?
“Just our fucking luck” Kenny muttered “I wonder if they will be able
to identify him?”
“Of course! By his prints” I observed.
As we drove back to London we discussed what the next step would be.
“Let’s get rid of the knives , the shotgun and any incriminating evidence
at our place then go up to the flat and clear up any evidence that Gerry
was ever there,” my mind was racing and I still thought that we had a
chance of not being tied in with Gerry’s killing.
Later that afternoon we got all the weapons I had secreted around the
flat and had taped under tables, hidden behind pictures and so on and the
sawn off and driving over to Kennington Oval we dumped them into the waste
bins in the council flats by putting them down the chutes. As the shotgun
rattled its way down I thought of some dustman discovering it in the
rubbish. We had wiped everything clean and I was relieved that we were
destroying all the evidence of the killing.
However the alley next to our house was full of evidence, blood stained
carpets and our dustbins full of it. I thought of shifting it but then the
dustmen we due tomorrow and we left it.
The next day Sandra, Kenny and I all sat at the table eating our
breakfast. There had been nothing on the television about the discovery of
a body in Epping Forest and I went out to get the papers. I bought them
all and returned to the flat and we all searched through the papers. Then
I spotted it.” Here it is I said excitedly “Unidentified body found in
Epping Forest.” Everyone crowded around the breakfast table with
excitement.
“So he is really dead!” Sandra exclaimed.
We all laughed but I knew what she meant and I realised that I was
elated to know that he was dead myself and in some strange way nothing
mattered anymore because we had come so near to Death, stared it in the
face and defeated it. “Yippee!” I exclaimed “He is as fucking dead as a
door nail.” I was so glad to be alive,
“Will you go up to Mum and Dad’s to collect the kids? Me and Kenny have
something to do but I will see you up there later.”
Kenny and I drove up to the flat in Streatham and parked outside. Then
we walked up the drive and I put the key in the lock and we went in. I
took a sheet off the bed and placed it on the floor. Dump all his stuff
into here” I said to Kenny. As we took all Gerry’s belongings and threw
them into the sheet I reached on top of the wardrobe and as my hand
touched objects I got a chair and stood on it. On top of the wardrobe I
discovered a pair of spectacles, a club hammer, a cheese wire, some rope,
and a drawing
I stepped down off the chair and showed the stuff to Kenny before throwing
it all into the sheet.
The drawing showed some junkies fixing up, hypodermics, women being
tortured and a snake crawling through the eyes of a skull. “Fucking hell
look at this!” I said handing it to Kenny.
“Yeah he was a sick fucker all right I reckon he would have had his
idea of fun torturing us and cutting us up alive.” He shivered “I hate to
think what he would have done. Do you reckon he would have killed the
babies as well?”
“He said “I am going to kill all of you big headed bastards” but we
will never know but I reckon that is what he was going to do. Get rid of
us all,”
As we searched the place I noticed what looked like bloodstains and
even some on top of a door. “I don’t know what went on here but nothing
would surprise me with that evil cunt. He did say that he slashed a
queer’s arse. Perhaps it is his blood?” I surmised.
“Yes that was a peculiar thing to do. Perhaps he was queer. He always
wanted to hang around you.”
“But he was as hard as nails” I objected.
“But some of them are. Look at Ronnie Kray.”
“Yes I know and Lawrence of Arabia and Harry Sheriff a guy that I knew
in the Ville. Fucking hell he was a hard bastard. But Gerry was not just
hard he was evil” I said with regret “Or it would not have turned out this
way.”
“Yeah but perhaps it was meant to be Mickey and I am so glad that you
fucking killed him. But how you did it I don’t know. I mean he always beat
us when we were practising martial art. He always used to hurt, me even
with the body armour on.”
Actually I did not know how I had triumphed over Gerry in that mortal
struggle but I had discovered something about myself, that I could do
extraordinary things when imminent death stared me in the face. “Fuck
knows perhaps it was because he was over confident and under estimated
me.” I said as I thought of Gerry’s smirking, confident face when I fought
back as though he did not feel my blows at all. And the surprised look on
his face when I wounded him.
We drove over to Whitehorse Lane to the lab in the East End and outside
the workshop behind a locked gate we made a pile of Gerry’s personal
things and set light to it. We stood there watching his suits, shirts, and
the other things burn. An old lady who lived next door opened the curtains
and looked out. I smiled and waved and she disappeared behind the net
curtains. All that was left was the top of the club hammer, the cheese
wire and his spectacle frames. As I smashed them with my heel I felt a
strange feeling as I destroyed the evidence of Hawley’s existence on
Earth.
As we drove back to South London we finally reached Brixton and a queue of
traffic at the lights facing Coldharbour Lane brought us to a halt. It was
a sunny day in May and we had the windows down. I rested my arm on the
window as we sat at the lights.
“Hello Mickey” said a voice suddenly. “Oh what have you done to your
hands?” It was Coloured Pat from Streatham and she was leaning right into
the car as we stood at the lights.
I was flustered and I remembered that I had promised to see her again
“I had an accident” I explained. “Cut my hands on some glass. That is why
I did not come up to Streatham to see you.” I noticed Pat’s flat mate
standing behind her on the pavement.
“We came down to your flat but you were out” Pat said.
At that moment the lights changed to green. “Don’t go to my flat because I
am staying at with my parents until my hands heal up.” I managed to say as
we drove away.
“What a bit of bad luck she saw my fucking hands” I muttered as we
drove towards Clapham Park and my parent’s house “She went to the flat as
well. Fucking hell I hope that they don’t go there again. Old Bill will go
there when they find out he was staying there.”
“Who is going to tell them” Kenny questioned me glancing sideways as we
turned into Kings Avenue from Acre Lane.
“Barbara the hooker, she was his girlfriend. They will go round Soho
asking questions. That’s where they will find out” I said gloomily.
“But she does not know who you are and you used a false name to rent
the flat.” Ken observed parking outside my parent’s house.
“Well even if she does not they will find out that he was my minder.
Everyone knew him
Round the West End.
I rang the doorbell and I heard my father running down the stairs. He
opened the door and I saw that he had tears in his eyes. We hugged each
other as Kenny shut the door.
“All right Dad?” Kenny said as he walked up the stairs.
“Yes I am all right” he said.
“Kath told us what happened. You know that it had to happen Mick. He
was a bad bastard. Joey told me all about him. He had done lots of
people.”
“Well you did not tell me what Joey had said and anyway it’s done now
and I have to try and avoid being nicked.”
We walked up the stairs and as we walked into the front room where
everyone was congregated my Mum got up and kissed me and looking down at
my bandaged hands. “What have you done to your hands Michael?”
“They got cut in the fight Mum but I won so don’t worry” I said
laughing. “I am lucky to be alive.”
“He is dead then, Gerry? “My mother said in a low voice.
“Yes and good job” I said nonchalantly.
“But wont they get you?”
“Yes even if they find out it was self defence, Look at this and I
undid the scarf that I had tied around my neck to hide the bruises where
Gerry had tried to strangle me. Then I took my shirt off to display the
two big sets of teeth marks in my back”
“Good God this man was an animal. Why didn’t you get rid of him after
Joey had told you?” exclaimed my father
“I did get rid of him” I joked laughing.
Sandra was sitting on the floor in front of the fire a protective arm
around Laura and Billy as Kathleen nursed her little baby. They looked at
me without speaking.
“Michael how can you laugh at such a thing” asked my mother a serious
look on her face.
I slapped my thigh the tears of merriment coming to my eyes. “Why didn’t
you get rid of him” I repeated still laughing. Come on lets have something
to eat I am starving.”
Laura and Billy were still watching the television and had not noticed
the conversation
We all sat around the table upstairs in the kitchen and as we ate
together and drank wine I felt really happy as though I had never
appreciated life fully before.
My father spoke “What if…
But I put up my hand to stop him. “Look everything is going to be all
right Dad. Don’t worry.”
I suggested going back to our flat to Sandra but she said “You know I
could not. He was killed there. I am going to see my sister in Wales with
the children”
“Why? We will have to go back sooner or later. It will look suspicious
if no one is there if the police visit us. It will look as if everyone has
run away. I will go back on my own tomorrow.”
“How could you sleep there?” Sandra asked Sandra.
“Easy” I replied he can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
The next day I drove past the flat on recce and the burglar alarm was
ringing. I knew that the police were inside and I drove back to my
parent’s house. On the way I stopped at a chemist and bought some plastic
skin. My father came to the door immediately and as I followed him
upstairs I said “The police are in there and I am going to go back and
bluff it out.”
We went upstairs into the kitchen where I gingerly removed the bandages
from my hands. My hands were cut down to the bone the left across the
upper palm and the right on the back of my fingers. Kath had dressed my
wounds and applied some Savlon and they were healing well but the healing
process had drawn my hands into a permanently cupped position and I found
it impossible to straighten them. The blood soaked bandages lay on the
table.
My father said “That looks bad Michael. You ought to go to hospital.”
My mother who was watching anxiously said “Your father is right.”
“I know that he is Mum but I can’t. I have got to go back to the flat
and try and bluff it out.” I said.
“What if they arrest you?” my father asked.
“Well then I will take it from there. Don’t forget that I will keep
schtum about the license and that Moody is head of the Murder Squad. I am
sure that I will get some help. Don’t worry and look after my business
with Sandra while I am away.”
My Mum started crying and hugged me.” I’ll be all right Mum.” I
reassured her.
“Dad put this stuff on my hands.”
As we walked down the stairs and stopped at the front door we embraced
as though parting for long time. “Don’t worry Dad. You will have a
licence. Just keep everything ticking over until all this is over”
The burglar alarm was still ringing as I pulled, up large as life
outside my home, and noticing the front door was opened I walked in and up
the stairs. The place was crawling with police and the first one I met
asked “Who are you?
“I live here” I answered, “What’s going on?”
“Is your name Michael John Muldoon?” Came the question.
“Yes it is” I replied confidently.
“Follow me Sir please” ordered the detective and as we got to the top
of the stairs and entered my flat. He said.” Here he is lads. Michael John
Muldoon.”
Everyone looked at me in surprise and one of the detectives asked. “Can
you turn off the burglar alarm Michael?”
29 October 2007
I was taken to Brixton Police Station and locked in a cell. I was given
a cup of tea and the inspector in charge of the station told me someone
would be arriving from Epping to pick me up. I had kept my hands in a
normal as possible position and a scarf around my neck to hide the
bruises.
Then the Inspector opened my cell door” Show me your hands, the palms
please Michael.”
The request astounded me because I could not work out who could have
told them about the wounds on my hands. I slowly raised my hands and
showed the Inspector the palms.
He nodded and said “Thank you soon Michael. We will be moving you soon”
then shut the door.
Alone in the cell I paced up and down wondering he knew about my hands.
The cell door opened again and I was put into a police van and driven
across London. When I got out the other side I put in a cell again. I
realised that I was in Epping Forest Police station.
After being locked up a few hours I heard footsteps approaching and two
detectives unlocked the door.
“The governor wants to see you” one of them said.
I was glad to get out of the cell and the detectives took me to an
office where I came face to face with a grey headed man who looked to be
in his fifties. The room was crowded with several detectives. Who sat
around or lounged against walls.
The grey headed detective fixed me with a pair of pale blue, grey eyes.
“I am Inspector Albert Wick stead known as the Old Grey Fox. I have solved
every murder that ever came my way. The best thing that you can do is to
tell me everything that happened and why you killed Gerald, Joseph Patrick
Hawley.”
I just stared at Wickstead and said. “I want to get my solicitor
present before I answer any questions” I answered.
Wickstead gave me a hard look. “If you co operate with me then I can
help you.”
I just stared back at him aware that all the detectives were scribbling
the dialogue in their notebooks. I knew from experience that they had two
notebooks and they would write up the official ones together later.
“Tell me where your wife and children are” Wickstead demanded.
“I don’t know” I replied.
“Michael you are not being co operative and that is not going to help
you” said the Old Grey Fox.
“I am not saying anything until I get my solicitor” I replied.
“All right who is your solicitor?” asked Wickstead.
“His card is my wallet. They had taken all my possessions away from me at
Brixton. I had two solicitors, one bent and a straight one for my business
my limited company Nestville Photography Ltd. I decided to use the
straight one.
“Michael you can go back to your cell for a bit. Take him back to his
peter lads.” Two detectives accompanied me back to the cell.
I paced up and down, my mind a mass of thoughts of what I was going to
say or do. I had lost track of time as the police and stripped me of all
possessions, scarf around my neck even the bootlaces from my shoes. I
looked around the cell. There were bars on the windows and one could not
see out, a filthy toilet in the corner which stank and every time I had a
piss I was assailed by ammonia and had to turn my head to one side, the
bed was a block of concrete on which a thin brown mattress one which lay
three old grey blankets, the meagre light encased in thick glass and
protected by a metal bars was high in the ceiling, a table top recessed
into the wall and a wooden block fixed to the floor served as a seat, On
the walls prisoners had written graffiti like “All coppers are bastards”,
“Tony GBH” or ticked off the days the days that they had spent in custody.
Footsteps approached again and the door opened and the same two
detectives stood there. “Come on the governor wants to see you again” one
of them said.
Wickstead sat in his office in the same chair and gestured for me to
sit down saying “Sit down Michael” while the team of detectives sat around
with their notebooks ready then he produced my phone book a waved it from
side to side.
I wondered whose telephone number he had found. Alton and Moody’s
numbers as well as other bent coppers and contacts were in there but were
written in a simple code.
“Now I may be able to help you if you co operate and tell me how and
why you have the names of certain high ranking and other ranks police
officer’s names in this book. Give me them all on a plate Michael and you
can walk.”
“I am saying nothing” I replied.
“Come on Michael don’t be silly. I know what is going on at Scotland
Yard and it is more important than the death of a gangster. Give me the
all the names on a plate and I promise that you can walk. We have your
wife in custody now. Think of her and your children because if you don’t I
will charge you and her with murder and convict you and both of you will
go down for life.
“You are wasting you breath” I replied.
“I can go up the Yard and find out what is going on myself but I prefer
for you to tell me about all the corruption that you are involved in
yourself.”
“You had better go up to the Yard yourself then” I replied grinning,
knowing that I something that he wanted badly.
Later that night they brought in Sandra. I heard her crying then I
shouted out in a loud voice. “Sandra it’s me Mickey. Don’t tell them
anything. Keep schtum.”
Footsteps approached the door again and the two detectives escorted me
to Wickstead’s office again and when I had sat down Wickstead said”We have
Sandra now and I am giving you one last chance to help her and yourself.
All I am asking is that you give me all the corrupt police officer’s names
you were dealing with and I will let you and Sandra walk out of here
tonight. If not you both will be charged with murder.”
I just looked at him staring him the eyes and replied. “I’ll tell you
what. You send all your firm out and we can talk.”
Wickstead’s face changed because he thought that he was going to get
the information that he wanted.
“All right lads all out for a moment” a few of the team gave me dirty
looks as they filed out but I did not care. Then I was alone in the office
with Wickstead.
“Let me walk and I will give you ten grand cash” I said. I had been
saving up to pay for my record to be destroyed.”
Wickstead looked at me and said. “I don’t know what you have heard
about me but I am a straight copper”
I knew by his reply that he was lying and replied “I don’t fucking
believe you.”
His face became angry and he shouted Come in lads I have had enough of
Mr Muldoon.”
Back in the cell I shouted “Sandra can you hear me and heard a faint reply
echoing through the thick walls. I went to a heating pipe that ran through
the back of the cell and tapped on it. Sure enough she tapped back.
“Sandra tell them nothing. Can you hear me?” I shouted at the pipe at the
top of my lungs.
“Yes all right” came her muffled voice.
The door opened again and the two detectives were outside again. “Come on”
they commanded.
They took me upstairs this time so I knew that this was going to be
something different. Two people were in the room. One was Wickstead, the
other a tall, spinsterish looking woman in her forties or fifties dressed
in a thick tweed jacket and long skirt.
I was told to undress to my underpants and I did so.
Then the woman said. “I am doctor Tuck and I am going to examine your
body.”
I thought “Well my wounds will look good in my defence and prove that I
was attacked.”
The doctor made a thorough examination of my body, looking at my hands, my
throat that was still black and blue, my bloodshot eyes, and my back.
“Look at the teeth marks” I said “and the bruises around my throat.
“Yes I am making a thorough report on every mark on your body.”
“Thank you doctor” I replied respectfully.
At the end of the examination Dr Tuck quickly pulled the waistband of my
underpants forward and glanced down at my penis that lay flaccid. Then
gave the same quick glance at my buttocks. Her inhibited behaviour told me
that she had never known a man.
Then she took out a huge syringe and stuck it into the vein in the crook
of my arm and took what looked like a half pint of blood.
I saw the sly look of the Old Grey Fox as she took my blood.
The next day I was taken to the hall of the police station and Sandra
was there and my solicitor, Wickstead and his team.
Sandra and I embraced and she started to cry “Mickey they tried to rape me
last night, they forced me down on a bed and put their hands up my skirt.”
I held her shaking body and looked over her shoulder at Wickstead’s team
and said to them “You fucking scum” but I could do nothing. “Was Wickstead
there?”
“No he was not. Just seven of those bastards” she sobbed.
“I’m sorry Sandra I am helpless at this moment and I can’t do anything “ I
said knowing that I had to control my anger and if I attacked them they
would just deny that they had touched her and use my attack as proof that
I was a violent man.
“I’ll get you bastards” I threatened them and I meant it because at that
time I thought that I would be acquitted of murder and a verdict of self
defence brought in by the jury.
My solicitor approached me and said “Keep calm Michael.”
Then Wickstead came out of his office carrying a piece of paper.
I hereby charge Michael John Muldoon with the murder of Gerald Joseph
Patrick Hawley…”
Sandra screamed and my solicitor took notes.
“I am not guilty” I said
Wickstead continued “I hereby charge Sandra Joyce with the murder of
Gerald Joseph Patrick Hawley….”
Sandra screamed and fainted. We were then put in prison vans and taken to
court.
In court the magistrates read out the charges of murder and I noticed
that in front of the dock were a row of detectives. This was unusual and I
realised that the Old Grey Fox was trying to make me look a dangerous man.
The police had to establish a prima facie case and as the witnesses gave
their statements and came into the witness box, one by one I was surprised
that Coloured Pat was one. She looked over at me in the dock and smiled.
Sandra standing next to me in the dock whispered “Who is she?”
“Just a model” I whispered back.
She looked at me not believing me I knew. The last thing I wanted now was
a row about my infidelities.
The police solicitor started to cross examine Pat and he asked her a
question”And when Muldoon was round your flat you said that he pulled out
a little round tin, a pipe and a knife. What was in that tin and how big
was the knife”
Cannabis resin was in the tin and I had a Japanese knife in a wooden
sheave, with a four inch blade that I used to cut it with, stick it on the
end and burn it. I knew that The Old Grey Fox wanted Coloured Pat to give
evidence to this effect so that he could show at my trial that I carried a
knife and that I used drugs.
Pat smiled at me again and answered. “There was tobacco in the tin and the
knife was a small penknife to clean his pipe” she said with another broad
smile.
I saw Wickstead angrily approaching the police solicitor who then said to
the magistrate that “The Crown hereby withdraw this witness as hostile.”
And Pat flounced out of the dock.
I learnt from the statements read out that Wickstead had found Barbara and
gone to my rented flat in Balham and found a note from Coloured Pat and
her telephone number. I cursed my luck and then realised how they had got
onto me so quickly and knew about the cuts on my hands.
An army officer had identified Hawley’s body saying “Yes that’s my boy”.
Gerry had a parachute tattooed on is arm by had never mentioned that he
had been in the Parachute Regiment. “Funny,” I thought because most guys
would have boasted about that. I thought again how lucky I was to survive
a mortal struggle with Gerry a guy that was obviously a trained killer.
We were all remanded in custody. I was taken to Brixton Prison and
Sandra to Holloway. I cursed the Old Grey Fox for his inhumanity in
charging Sandra with murder and asking for her to be remanded in custody
even though he knew that we had two children. In Brixton Prison reception
my finger prints were taken and my charge read out and numerous questions
were asked about where I had been to school, previous offences and so on.
It was dark when the process of “induction” was completed and I was lead
to the Hospital Wing by a screw.
As we entered the hospital the prison officer, after unlocking several
doors with a rattle and banging of keys began chatting to me as we climbed
the stairs. He spoke in a kindly avuncular fashion. ”Don’t worry Muldoon
look through that glass” We had stopped outside a door through which one
could see about thirty hospital type beds, which were all occupied except
one, which I guessed was to be allocated to me. “Everyone in there is on a
charge of murder and there in Ward Two next door is thirty remands waiting
on the same charge. Quite a lot get off. Don’t worry we know Hawley and we
know you. He was a bad one! Best of luck lad.”
“Thank you Sir” I said politely as he unlocked the door and led me into
Ward 1. There was a prison officer sitting at a table and with a report
book open in front of him which was lit by a small desk top lamp.
“This is Michael John Muldoon” he said to the observation officer and
giving me a wink he walked away unlocking the door as he went. The ward
was dimmed and one or two prisoners had on bed lights and were reading
books. I stood in front of the table in silence as the screw who wore the
white jacket of a medical officer started to enter my details in the book.
I could hear the departure of the kindly old screw that had brought me
here echoing, as he unlocked and locked doors making his way out of the
prison hospital.
“That is your bed over there Muldoon” said the observation screw, looking
up his face illuminated by the desk lamp “Get your head down. Breakfast is
at eight o’ clock.”
I walked over to my bed and pulled back the covers and noticing a recess I
entered and was pleased to find showers and toilets as well as washbasins.
I returned to my bed and taking a towel from my kit I returned to the
recess and got into the shower. I felt dirty after a couple of days in the
police cells. I thought of Sandra and the looks on the faces of the
detectives who had sexually assaulted her and tried to rape her. Anger
flooded through my body as the hot water flooded down on me carrying away
the dirt, sweat and frustrations of the last few days. I knew that some
men thought that models who posed in the nude and in porno photos deserved
to be raped. I thought that when I got out I would go down Epping way and
find out their local pub and do a few of them. Fantasies of punching and
beating them flooded through my mind as I came out of the shower room and
climbed into the hospital bed. I looked over at the observation screw who
was glancing over at me and writing something in his book. “Big Brother is
watching me” I thought and wondering who all these other people had killed
I closed my eyes and exhausted I quickly dropped off to sleep.
Awake in the morning I got out of bed and went to the recess. Most of the
other inmates of Ward 1 were awake and the recess was full with people
brushing their teeth, shaving and so on. I had a shave, brushed my teeth
and went into the showers.
Then I heard the arrival of the kitchen detail who announced their arrival
with a banging of pots and trays that were being unloaded from the four
wheeled trolley on which they transported the food. I queued up and took
one of the plastic trays with compartments and filed past the kitchen
detail who served out the food. Porridge, scrambled egg, jam and bread and
joined the other inmates who were sitting at a long table in the middle of
the ward eating their breakfast. I noticed six youths who appeared to be
mates and one of them said to me.
“Who did you kill mate?”
“I am charged with killing a gangster but I am not guilty” I replied
This brought chuckles from the group of youths. “We are charged with
killing a poof on Wimbledon Common but we never done it.” The youth
replied with a laugh.
While the conversation was going on I glanced over at the observation
screw who was watching intently and writing in the Observation Book.
I remembered reading in the papers about a “Queer Bashing Gang” on
Wimbledon Common and I guessed that this must be them.
“What’s your name? Mine’s Wally” said the youth.
“Mick, call me Mick” I answered.
This brought a snigger from the gang.
“Why don’t you fucking shut up so I can eat my breakfast in peace, always
fucking yapping.” said one of the other inmates, a muscular, dark curly
headed inmate whose face was red with anger.
The gang stopped talking immediately and I knew that they were frightened
of the angry guy. I guessed immediately that he was a bit of a bully.
After breakfast the kitchen crew returned to collect the dirty trays and
everyone dispersed around the ward, some sitting beside their beds and I
quickly gathered that inmates were not allowed to lie on, or get into bed
during the day. Some sat around reading books, others playing board games
or writing letters.
I returned to my bed and noticed that the bed next to mine on the left was
occupied by a studious looking fellow who was reading a book on the
Ancient Greeks. I went over and spoke to him.
“Good morning! My name is Michael I wonder if you could lend me one of
your books to read” I asked gesturing at several books he had lined up on
his bedside locker.
“My name is Simon” he answered offering his hand which I shook. “Certainly
old chap. Take your pick” he answered.
“Thank you” I replied looking through his book titles and selecting a Joan
of Arc.
“What are you in for?” I asked Simon who had rested the book he was
reading on his knee and who obviously wanted to talk.
Simon looked up sadly and replied. “I killed a milkman.”
“Well why did you do it? You don’t look like a person who goes around
killing milkmen.” I questioned.
“I don’t know why I did it. I am ill my doctor says.”
“Tell me all about it” I asked interested in why Simon, a meek and mild
looking man, had turned into a killer.
Simon looked at me and then started to talk. “I had just gone to the
supermarket in Kings Road, you know in Chelsea and on returning to my flat
I saw the milkman leaning on my car. I said to him. Do you mind not
leaning on my car? And he just grinned at me and made no attempt to get
off it”
Simon became silent thinking back. “Go on tell me what happened next” I
said encouraging him to continue.
“Are you sure that you want to know the grisly details? Simon asked.
“Yes I won’t be shocked I promised.
I asked him politely to get off my car again but he made no attempt to do
so and just kept grinning in a defiant way. Why I don’t know because I
thought that it was quite a reasonable request that I was making
“What happened next “I asked.
Ironically Simon was looking for sympathy and I was supplying it because I
wanted to know why he had killed a milkman.
“I was filled with rage and I went indoors and took a meat knife out of
the kitchen and went outside walked up to the milkman and plunged it into
his heart. He died instantly sliding down my car onto the pavement lying
there in a pool of blood. I went back inside and called the police.” Simon
looked at me waiting for my re action.
“Well I think that your solicitor is right in saying that you were ill at
the time.
Simon smiled sadly again. “He said that he is entering a plea of
diminished responsibility
And that I will go to a special hospital for a few years before being
released into the community when I am better.”
“Were you under a lot of strain at the time?” I asked.
“Yes my wife had left me and I was depressed.”
“Oh well you were suffering from depression at the time.” I said
“Muldoon visit” the observation screw shouted. Someone will come for you
in a minute.
I rushed in the recess to check out my appearance and got ready for the
visit.
I was ushered into a “visiting box” with a glass sheet in between the
visitor and one’s self.
I sat down on the seat which was a plank of wood that folded down and
heard my name being called then my father walked into the cubicle from the
other side. We stared at each other through the glass. I noticed a tear in
my father’s eye.
“You all right Michael?” he asked.
“Of course Dad look I am going to get off it was self defence.
“Yes but you can’t always predict the outcome I have been told. I have a
message for you. Thank you for keeping schtum and if anything goes wrong
and you are found guilty of manslaughter you will get three to five
years.”
“Okay Dad got the message” I said managing a laugh through the glass.
“By the way they have got Kenny and I suppose he will be coming in here to
join you soon.
“I will get over to see Sandra tomorrow at Holloway.”
“How is Mum taking it all” I asked.
“Oh she is worried about you but you know what women are like always
worrying.
“I am having Woodleys send in the papers. There is a story in one of them
where it says that the dock was ringed by armed police.”
The house where I had been brought up and where my parents still lived was
just around the corner from the prison and Woodley’s was our local
newsagent. My father did not have far to come to visit me.
“Yes the Old Grey Fox is trying to make out that I am extremely dangerous.
It is the publicity that he wants. He kept on asking me for the names of
bent coppers. He wants to make a name for himself.
“He did not arrest Kath and she is round home looking after the children.
Laura and Billy keep asking for you and Sandra and we have told them that
you had to go and see someone who was ill in Australia.”
A screw came up behind my father and said “Visit over.”
Back in the Ward I read all the papers that my father had sent in to me
and one mentioned that the police thought that it was an underworld
killing and that one of the attackers might be a woman”
The next day Kenny came in and they put him in Ward 2 but I met him on the
exercise yard.
We embraced and I was so glad to see him and we began walking round the
hospital yard with fifty or so other killers.
“Kenny” I said. “I am working out a story. They know that I was in a fight
because of the cuts on my hands and the marks on my throat. And they will
have a lot of other forensic evidence. Why don’t we say that we were in
the flat with Gerry that evening and a gang burst in with knives and
started stabbing him? All the forensics would be covered.
“Why don’t we just tell the truth?” Kenny asked.
“Because then you might get found guilty of murder even if I got off.” I
replied. “He had loads of enemies.”
Kenny then showed me a small cut on his palm. “I got a cut too.”
“How did you get that?” I asked.
I don’t know but it is only small. I must of done it myself when I was
stabbing him. I went mad.” Kenny said.
“Well I reckon that you would be found guilty because you could not prove
that he was all ready dead when you stabbed him.” I observed.
Kenny’s eyes widened at my remark and he began to realise the predicament
that he was in.
“If I told the truth I would be acquitted but I am grateful for your help
and I don’t want you suffering for something that happened because of me.”
“Fucking hell Mickey I did not think that it was going to turn out this
way” Kenny said his voice filled with regret. “So what shall we say then?”
“We will say that we were in the flat with Gerry and the front door was
picked and several people ran into the flat. They took our ignition keys
and took Gerry away in our car. They returned the car and we found it
outside the next day
A screw was calling out “Exercise over.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow Kenny. Don’t worry. We will be all right.”
I was in the Daimler Dart with four motorcycle outriders and we never
stopped at any red lights but with a blare of sirens we drove non stop at
high speed across London. I was in the back handcuffed squashed between
two of Wickstead’s team. Wickstead was in front speaking to the driver.
All the detectives were high on adrenalin as the driver stepped on the
accelerator and drove on the crown of the road. The Dart had high
acceleration and the escort discussed its performance and how fast it
could go from nought to sixty in so many seconds.
One of the detectives turned an excited, leering face towards me and said.
“You are a VIP now Michael.”
I stared straight ahead without answering because by now I hated Wickstead
and his team of scumbag would be rapists and I knew that they would
“verbal” me by adding incriminating statements in the notebooks they would
write later conspiring together. Also it was obvious what the Old Grey Fox
was doing to me driving me across London at high speed. He wanted to make
me into a dangerous villain who needed high speed escorts and stand in a
dock that was ringed by armed police officers.
There were highly dangerous people on remand in Brixton Prison but they
all went in the Black Marias that delivered prisoners to courts all around
London and the rest of the country each day and Kenny and Sandra were
taken to the same court each day in the usual way.
As the Cavalcade roared its way through town people going to work stopped
and stared wondering who was inside the Daimler Dart with its outriders
with flashing lights and wailing sirens. He must be a very dangerous man
that was for sure. Wickstead knew what he was doing and I knew.
This charade was repeated each time I had to appear in court and the
newspapers were full of it. The Old Grey Fox was a brilliant publicist and
he was out to convict me hook or by crook.
I hated the escorts across London and ironically looked forward to
returning to Brixton Prison and the Ward.
Kenny and I were walking around on exercise the next day and who should
appear but the Pig. I was glad to meet someone from the outside world that
I knew and I embraced the Pig on the Exercise Yard and was surprised to
smell alcohol on his breath as well as seeing him here
I exclaimed in surprise “What the fuck are you doing here?”
The Pig’s little red beady eyes lit up and his porcine features broke into
a sly grin.
“Got nicked for a bit of Tom! Old Bill got me bang to rights just as I was
trying to sell it. I think that it was a ready eye.” The Pig shuffled
around the ring of the Brixton Hospital Exercise Yard.
“You did everyone a favour taking out that evil cunt Gerry. They are
celebrating you in Town Mickey.”
“Really who said that I killed him?” I question the Pig.
“Well didn’t you? The Pig questioned me a cunning look on his face his
eyes darting around. He leaned towards me sycophantically, rubbing his
palms together like he was washing them.
“As it happens I did not. It was a little firm who broke into my flat.”
“Go on” said the Pig encouragingly.
I glanced at Kenny and mouthed the word “grass” and turned to speak to the
Pig. I instinctively knew that he had been put in the Hospital to pump me
and find out what he knew. “Gerry was my pal and my minder. Why would I
want to kill him?”
The Pig looked at me and said “But you fell out with him Mickey that is
the story going around the West End. He was in a club with his girlfriend
the brass nail Barbara, slagging you off.”
The Pig looked at me slyly/ “Yeah there’s lots I know Mickey. I don’t want
you to go down son and anything I can do to help you I will do.”
I smiled at the Pig then knowing that he was playing a double game. He was
a police nark but also a double agent who wanted to be on the winning
side. “Well what did he say about me then?”
“He said that you were an arrogant big headed cunt.”
“But he was probably pissed and people get jealous of people like me who
have everything that they don’t have” I said.
“Mickey everyone is happy that cunt is out of the way. He was a fucking
torturer! Hung a guy up by his thumbs with wire and whipped him with
barbed wire. You know where he market traders keep their barrows. You
would not get long for killing him. What happened then?”
“What are you doing in the Hospital anyway?” I countered.
“I got ulcers Mickey and I have to have a special diet and my medicine
every day.” The Pig rubbed his hands together and his face assumed a sad
expression begging for sympathy.
“You poor old cunt” I said slapping him on the back. Anyway I am really
glad to see you.” I said meaning it because I was getting information
which I could use in my self defence and I could feed him my alibi which
he would relay back to Old Bill. I think that the Pig really did want to
help me but had to pretend to Old Bill that he was narking for them.
“So who fucking killed Hawley?” asked the Pig again.
“A little firm smashed their way into my flat, four men and a woman. There
was a battle, they stabbed Gerry and I got these trying to help him.” I
held up my hands which were heavily bandaged the dressings being changed
on a regular basis in the Prison Hospital. “Fucking hell my flat was
smashed to pieces, banisters ripped out and that beautiful carpet I got
from you ruined with claret all over it.”
“Don’t worry Mickey I get you all new stuff when you get off at the trial.
What did the girl look like? It could have been his old girlfriend Pamela
Spencer whom he scarred for life. The Old Bill came over Soho and the Club
Squad was asking who had seen her,”
“What do you mean scarred for life?” I asked. “Who is Pamela Spencer?”
“She was a club hostess another fucking hooker who Hawley had working for
him. He put a knife up her cunt and ripped her up to her tits. He only got
a couple of years the cunt. Should have got a ten at least.”
As soon as the Pig told me about Pamela Spencer I knew that Gerry had lied
to me about GBH on two coppers and it was GBH on this Pamela and it was me
writing on his behalf that had got him a light sentence. I kicked myself
mentally! What a naïve fool I had been. “Fucking hell he did not tell us
this. Did he Kenny” I said turning to Kenny.
“He was a vicious, violent cunt I fucking hated him.” Kenny said.
“Well I did not know all these things and no one told me. Why didn’t
anyone tell me?”
“Because they thought that you knew and if Hawley had found out he would
have cut them up or even killed them. Mickey you are going to get plenty
of help believe me son. He chivved about twenty people up town, him and
Scotch Peter. Even the Twins would not have him working for them.” The Pig
turned to me. “You deserve a medal my son.”
“But I did not kill him” I protested. Perhaps it was this Pamela Spencer?”
“What did she look like? Asked the Pig quizzically his face acquiring that
cunning look.
I had already given a description to my solicitor of the mythical woman so
I had to say “Dark long hair with big tits.” Even though I guessed that
Pamela would be a bleached blonde.
“No but she could have been wearing a syrup” supplied the Pig.
“Exercise over” shouted the screw.
“I’ll see you on the Yard tomorrow. What cell you in?” I asked the Pig as
we walked back into the hospital.
“I’m on the One’s” answered the Pig. “I’ll see you tomorrow.
As we walked up back towards our wards Kenny turned to me and said. “Do
you really believe that he is a wrong ‘un?”
“He is a double agent and he has been stuck in here to find out what he
can and he will tell them what we have said but, on the other hand he is
giving us loads of useful info like this Pamela Spencer episode. I will
call her as a witness and obtain photos of her wounds when they were
freshly done from the records office. It looks like we are off with her in
the dock Ken”
I gave Ken a playful dig in the gut as we went into our different wards.
He was smiling broadly and I had not felt so happy since I had been
nicked.
When I got back into Ward 1 I started to do a few press ups and sit ups.
The Observation Officer looked over and wrote something down in his book
but he did not tell me to stop so I started to do it every morning before
the Midday meal, the main meal of the day when dinner was served.
It was not long before Wally and two of his mates Ginger and Hoppy came
over and asked if they could join in.
“Okay” I said. “I will train you if you work hard.” From then on I had
three or four hospital inmates that would work out with me. If they messed
about I told them off and they usually trained hard and after a few weeks
I could see their muscles growing. I did enjoy training people; it was
part of my nature which gave me a certain type of satisfaction. The
Observation Officers made plenty of notes in the Record Book and even
noted when prisoners did not do their daily workout. There was usually a
period when the Observation screw popped out of the ward for five or so
minutes, probably to go to the staff toilet or for a smoke and I would get
Wally to keep watch while I read the Observation Book. I knew that the
screws took short courses various medical subjects but the notes that they
wrote on the prisoners showed a certain power of observation and analysis.
I was please to be described as “polite, intelligent and a leader.”
“Psst” Wally would warn me that the “obs screw” was coming up the stairs
and we were quickly back in our places by the time he returned.
I made a habit of finding out what people were in for and who they
killed and for the most part they were not villains but ordinary straight
people who had cracked under the strain of every day existence. One was
Bill who tried to joke about what he had done but I knew that this was
merely a defence mechanism to hide his remorse about the day that he had
cracked.
He was sitting in a chair and when I asked him why he had killed and he
came out with it in a jocular fashion. His audience was me, Wally, Ginger
and Hoppy and everyone was attentive.
“It was my fucking neighbour; we had been rowing for years about him
cutting my trees that hung over his garden wall.” He stopped.
“Go then tell us.” Wally encouraged, “Tell us all about it.”
Bill gave another laugh that came out in a rather strangled way and the
Queer Basher’s started to giggle. Wally’s pimpled red face was screwed up
with tears of laughter in the corner of his eyes and he wiped away a tear.
Bill got a bit peeved at this and protested. “I’m not going to tell you
then if you take the piss.”
“Oh go Bill we are not taking the piss” said Wally.” Are we boys?” This
denial brought fresh bouts of giggling from the youths.
“”That’s it. I am not going to tell you what happened” he protested
angrily.
“Okay boys I want to hear Bill’s story so shut up and if you don’t want to
listen then go back to your own beds.” I said with authority. Noting that
the Observation Officer was scribbling rapidly in his book.
Bill continued and the Queer Bashers shut up and began to listen
attentively.
“He did not just trim my trees he butchered them. Cut them off so they
looked like cripples. Sawed them off brutally, maiming them deliberately.
I loved those trees, I did loved them me and the missus too. But that
bastard hated trees. He did not have any in his garden only a tidy stupid
lawn that he trimmed every day. I argued with him all the time about it
for years and he keeps talking about the leaves that fell from my trees,
then one day it was the last straw.” Everyone was listening intently now
leaning forward nor wanting to miss a word. Bill looked around at his
audience and licking his lips he continued.
“I was having a Jimmy Riddle and looking out of the toilet window when I
saw him. He was up on a ladder sawing away at my favourite tree, a big
Walnut. He was cutting off a huge branch. I saw red and it was like I was
watching myself. I went and got my twelve bore and stuck it out of the
window. The last thing that I remember was my neighbour looking at me and
saying no.” Then I let him have it both fucking barrels blasting him off
the tree. He fell like a dead duck he did. “Bill started to laugh but the
sound turned into gurgles and then he rushed off into the recess trying to
hide the tears that had welled to his eyes.
“What the fuck is the matter with him?” said Wally.
Often I wondered what the purpose of the Observation Officer was and I
assumed that if someone knew that their behaviour was being observed and
reported then they would just act normally all the time. However after a
time I discovered that one can only act for a limited amount of time and
the average time spent in the ward was six months awaiting trial. I knew
most of the inmates in the ward by their first and second names after a
couple of months and I observed that most did the same thing every day.
One particular pair of friends was Sidney and John who would settle down
to a game of chess soon after breakfast and this went on for most of the
day and often into the early evening. Sidney was an accountant who had
killed his wife during an argument and John had done the same thing and
like most of the people on murder charges it was their first offence. It
seemed that villains were careful not to kill in the Sixties although
society was getting more violent with the Krays and other Sixty’s
gangsters starting to use guns.
Sidney was an accountant and John an office worker and whenever they spoke
to me or anyone else they were very polite.
“Good morning Michael” Sidney would say at the breakfast table.
“Yes good morning” John would join in.
I would answer back politely “Good morning to you both.”
Sometimes this would bring imitative “Good mornings” from the “queer
bashers” who would attempt to imitate a middle class accent.
One morning Sidney and John began arguing during their daily game of
chess, voices were raised and I notice the Observation Officer begin to
write in his book. Suddenly Sidney jumped to his feet and began to beat
John about the head with the chess board using quick hard blows. Blood
began to spurt and the “Obs Screw” pressed the alarm bell. There was a
thunder of feet up the stairs and the “Heavy Mob” came running into the
ward prepared for action. By this time John had slumped from his chair
onto the floor under the rain of incessant blows from his chess partner
Sidney. A pool of blood slowly spread out from John’s head across the
wooden floor.
The screws dragged the screaming Sidney away. He was tall and thin with a
balding head and glasses and so innocuous looking one would think that he
would never hurt a fly. A stretcher party arrived and put the equally
innocuous looking John on to a stretcher and carried him away.
A cleaner then arrived with a mop and bucket and mopped the blood from the
floor, squeezing the blood into the water until it became a diluted dirty
maroon. “Got any tobacco mate?” he asked me.
I didn’t smoke but always kept a few ounces in my locker drawer to use as
prison currency. I pulled out a half and ounce of Black Bell and gave it
to the cleaner who was an ordinary prisoner on remand.
“Here thanks mate” he said.
“What are you in for? I asked.
“Commercial burglary mate. Always commercial mate I never rob houses.”
I noticed the “Obs Screw” writing in the book.
I noticed that the working classes never admitted to robbing their own
kind but it was acceptable to rob people in the social classes above one
who they assumed were affluent.
It was exercise time and I met Kenny and the Pig out on the Brixton
Prison Hospital Exercise Yard.
“I am going to tell you something really important now Mickey and I don’t
want you ever to say I told you. Joey sent you a message.”
“Joey good old Joey. What was it?” I asked eagerly.
“Have you ever heard of Charles Manson?”
“Yes that guy in American who supposed to have sent his disciples to kill
Sharon Tate.” I answered.
“You were going to be the British Manson. That is where they got the idea
from.”
“Who are they?” I wanted to know.
“Joey did not tell me that yet and he thinks he knows who hired Gerry
because he was in the Log Cabin the night that Hawley was slagging you off
and he spoke to him.”
“Tell me what else Joey found out.” He said that Gerry had agreed to kill
everyone in the house and give you LSD to make it look like you had a bad
trip and murdered everyone.”
I remember now that Gerry had told me that he was tripping and kept
putting his hand near to my wine glass but I had been paranoid and kept my
glass away from him.
“Fucking hell Mickey. The kids as well” Kenny exclaimed loudly.
The Pig said in a low voice “Kenny keep your voice down the screws keep
notes of everything that they over hear.”
I knew that I had to call Barbara as a witness because she was with Gerry
in the club the night that he was heard slagging me off.
“Thanks Charles I’ll never forget the info you gave me and no one will
ever know that it came from you. When I get out I will bring plenty of
girls round to your flat.” I said as we walked round and round the
exercise yard in circles going no where.
“ Oh thanks but did you kill him or not?” the Pig asked.
“No I told you that it was the gang” I said.
The Pig turned to me and said “All right son. I’ll be out in a few days
and I won’t see you again until after the trial. I will only get a carpet
so with time spent on remand that is eight weeks. But if I need to see you
then I will write for a VO or give Pat a message.”
“Pat” I said in surprise.
“Yes Pat” the Pig said with a smile I see her now and again and she sends
her love and said that she will be down to see you.”
“Exercise over” the screw was shouting.
“See I told you that he was an evil bastard” Kenny said as we walked up
the stairs from the exercise yard. I noticed that his features had gone
white.
“Kenny we are still alive and he is dead” I commented reassuringly.
“Yeah thank God you fucking killed him” Kenny said an intense look on his
features.
“See you tomorrow brother” I replied going into Ward 1.
I got the Sunday newspapers and flicked through them to see which one I
would read first when a story in the News of the World caught my eye. It
was about an RAF flight sergeant. With beating heart I turned to the page
because I knew that it was about the RAF plot I had used with his wife in
the blue films, I read quickly through the prose. Court Martial for
dishonourable conduct and bringing the uniform into disrepute.
Dishonourable discharge and eighteen months in prison which would have
been longer if he had not refused to “give away the secrets of the Vulcan
to Michael John Muldoon a pornographer who had been blackmailing him and
threatening to expose him and his wife if he did not hand over the
secrets.” My mind reeled as I realised that the Old Grey Fox was going to
extreme lengths like making up this story about me. I read on and read
“Muldoon is believed to be a spy working for Czech intelligence and is now
awaiting trial for murder.” I could not believe what I was reading and I
realised that however fantastic the story was the jury was likely to
believe that I was a Czech spy. The Old Grey Fox was fitting me up like
the proverbial kipper!
The prisoner’s favourite paper is the News of the World and soon the ward
was buzzing with the story and Wally was the first to come over to me.
“Here Mickey is it true that you are a spy?” asked Wally his face
belligerent.
“Don’t be silly Wally. I have never been to Czechoslovakia. I am a
pornographer not a fucking traitor. My Dad fought in the Second World War
and was wounded. I am patriotic and would never sell my country’s secrets”
I protested vehemently.
“Then why does it say it in the papers.” Wally said in a threatening
manner and I saw his pimply face reddening with anger. And an image of him
beating a homosexual to death with a lump of wood on Wimbledon Common
flashed through my mind.
“Wally I swear on my children’s lives that it is all lies” I protested/
I realised what had given Wickstead the inspiration to invent the story
that I was a communist spy. He had read my record. When I was being
discharged fro Borstal in the Fifties the Army turned up with a recruiting
sergeant and most boys were inducted into the Army unless they had some
physical defect. Borstal Boys were hard and fit and had already been
trained to march and drill and as such were the perfect soldiers. I did
not want to go in and had made up the story that I was a card carrying
member of the Young Communist league. I was found unfit to serve. I
thought that I was very clever at the time but the Old Grey Fox was
inspired to write the communist spy lies.
The months were going by and it was only a few months to go to the trial
in December. Then one morning the screw said “legal visit for you
Muldoon.” I was ushered into a room where the legal visits took place and
a guy dressed in a suit and a public school tie greeted me.
“I am your junior counsel and will be preparing your defence for senior
counsel at the trial.”
He started asking me questions one of which was” Now these dildos found in
you and Sandra’s bedroom. Whose were they, yours or your wives?”
“Neither they were props for the films and photos that I took” I replied.
It was true that Sandra and I used them in our sexual games but why should
I tell him?” I thought.
I started to go over my defence story but he held up his hand to stop me.
“Look just read through all these documents that are to be presented to
the court by the prosecution and then I will come and see you again” he
replied.
Back in Ward 1 I sat by my bed and began to read the documents. As I
read them I became more and more despondent and upset. The Old Grey Fox
was suggesting that I did not live with my wife and children but in the
Balham flat with Gerry most of the time. He was suggestion was that I was
not a family man but a homosexual. He had he said found my blood group on
the top of a door and on a towel in the Balham flat where Gerry had
stayed. He also disproved my story about the gang breaking into my
Stockwell flat and taking away Gerry by the large amount of my blood found
in the front passenger seat of the car where I had been sitting on the
drive over to Epping Forest. But most damning of all was the pathologist’s
report. Blows delivered with extreme force showed intent to kill. The
person delivering the blows appeared to be left handed. It was true that I
wrote with my left hand and I remembered this had been observed by one of
Wickstead team when I signed a document handing over my diamond ring to my
father.
The detective’s words came back to me. “Oh you are left handed Michael are
you?”
I realised the significance of that question now and it was obvious that I
was being fitted up. But ironically even though I wrote with my left hand,
my right arm was the strongest and for physical tasks I always used my
right. But as I read on I was shocked to find that the bruises around my
neck and the teeth marks in my back had been deliberately omitted by Dr
Ivy Tuck the pathologist. I thought back and remembered this tweedy,
spinsterish looking woman who looked the picture of respectability and
honesty. Why had she done this and told lies and given false statements
against me in an attempt to convict me in a murder case. It was damning
and my main defence and the proof that I had been attacked had been
deliberately omitted.
I sat down on the chair and covered my face with my hands. Why had she
done this? Could it because I was a pornographer? Or perhaps Wickstead had
told her that I was a communist spy stealing the secrets of the V Bombers
and that she was patriotic and thought that she was serving her country by
convicting me. I looked at the report again and the words hit me harder
each time that I read. “Why had she given false evidence against me? Why?
Why?” the question kept on going through my head and I could not find an
answer. I read the report again and again.
“Hawley had been killed on his feet by the first or second blow to the
heart, delivered with a force intended to kill.” A huge wound in his left
arm delivered with a force intending to kill, his throat slashed and stab
wounds in his back some eighty nine in all. Eighty nine it was a lie and
ridiculous! Kenny had stabbed him more than once but not eighty nine
times. When they had weighed Hawley he was only eleven stone! I knew that
they had weighed him when his body had been drained of blood and that he
was twelve to thirteen stone of solid muscle. “The body had been washed
and blood had been found in the bath drain” in Stockwell. I knew that
Gerry had not been washed but that I had sat in the bath and it was the
blood from my own hands. In fact it was the rain in Epping Forest that had
washed him. The report was just lie after lie after lie. I thought "What
chance have I got of a fair trial?”
Gerry’s convictions for violence had been omitted to and all it said about
his past offences was three offences for petty larceny when he was young.
Whereas I now knew that he had one for GBH on Pamela Spencer, Demanding
money with menaces and malicious wounding. He was a Catholic and a
churchgoer and a hard worker! The report it was absolutely false.
Then there was the coloured photographs Hawley lying there with open
gaping wounds in colour. They were shocking and I dreaded to think what
the jury would think. I then thought long and hard and I decided to tell
the truth with exception of one thing. I knew that if I told the whole
truth and the jury believed me I would be acquitted but Kenny my
brother-in-law might get life.
The next day on the exercise yard I told Kenny what I was going to do. He
too had read the prosecution documents and was shocked at the lies and
distortion contained therein.
“Kenny I am going to admit killing Hawley because I stand no chance
otherwise. I killed him with the first or second blow while he was facing
me, on his feet and attacking. The only problem is what you did after he
was dead.”
Kenny’s face had turned white and I turned to grasp his arm and reassure
him. "Kenny I want to keep you out in order to run the business. What one
does after the point of killing in self defence does not alter the fact
that one killed in self defence. I am going to say that I went berserk
after I killed him in self defence and stabbed and stabbed at his inert
body because I was in a state of shock. This way you will be acquitted and
if I am not acquitted of murder and it goes wrong I have been told I will
get three to five for manslaughter. I will be out in one to three and a
half years with remission.
“All you have to admit to is helping me dump the body. Look I will call
Pamela Spencer to prove that he was violent and his other girlfriend
Barbara to prove that he really hated me. We stand a good chance.”
“Are you sure that you will say that?” Kenny said his brown eyes wide and
slightly tearful.
“Kenny you came to my aid in my time of need and I appreciate that. You
are my best friend, married to my sister. I am going to get you off. There
is no sense in us both going down.”
I wrote a letter to my solicitor telling him that I wanted to see him
urgently. When he came I apologised for telling him lies and said that I
did not trust the police to give me a fair trial and that is why I did not
admit killing Hawley in self defence. I told him about the lies and
omissions in the pathologists report and told him that I would need to
call Pamela Spencer and Barbara in my defence. It was no surprise to me
that the police informed him that both these women could not be found and
that they believed that they had left the country. I realised that the Old
Grey Fox was playing a game and that anything useful to my defence was
omitted or destroyed and lies were told, false evidence invented in order
to convict me. With this in mind I instructed my solicitor to hire a
private detective on my behalf to find the two women and to retrace
Hawley’s movements and actions before he took up the contract to kill me.
I had to start fighting back and play the game of finding evidence myself
because I knew that the Old Grey Fox would only destroy evidence in my
favour.
Received another letter from Sandra this morning and although we knew
all prisoners’ letters were read by the prison censor but we still wrote
torrid scripts about the sexual games we would play when we got out. This
time there was an enclosure. I took out the small form and at the top it
said “Visiting Order” evidently husband and wives who were incarcerated
were allowed one visit every three months.
The visiting day arrived and I was escorted from the Hospital Wing to a
Black Maria which stood waiting in the prison courtyard. The van was empty
except for me and inside the van was a row of steel boxes on either side
of a passage that stretched the whole length of the vehicle except for two
seats at the front for the driver and another prison officer. The convicts
called these vehicles “meat wagons” because they carried our bodies around
like meat. It was a hot day in August and I felt the heat as soon as the
screw opened one of the small cubicles and locked me inside. There was no
room to stretch one’s legs and the seat was a plank of hard wood. Inside
the metal box I soon began to sweat and wriggle around uncomfortably on
the hard seat. At the side of the box was a small aperture through which I
could catch a glimpse of the outside world. The pavements were full of
people hurrying along on their way to work or school. Some of the females
were pretty and wearing mini skirts and my eyes lingered on them desiring
them and I cursed being locked away like some dangerous beast. I passed
places that I knew well like Brixton where I grew up, then the Oval
Kennington. As the Black Maria made its ways across London sometimes a
pedestrian would look at the sombre vehicle and remember sitting inside
one themselves, some tried to see inside but the thin slits of glass
frosted halfway up made it impossible. My neck began to ache from
straining to see a world that I had been part of so recently but was now
only able to glimpse uncomfortably through a small aperture from inside a
steel box. Now we were crossing the river Thames and incredibly passing
through the West End, Tottenham Court Road evoked a pang of sorrow that
shot through my body as I realised that I might not see these places for a
couple of years. Three to five I had been promised for keeping my mouth
shut and I knew that it was true because my junior counsel had said that
the judge would give me three to five years -confirming the promises of
the OPS- if the jury brought in a verdict of manslaughter. I looked out of
the slit of the window and we were now passing through Kings Cross and
going up the Caledonian Road. I had shaved, showered and washed my hair
this morning ready to meet my beautiful wife Sandra and I was getting
excited now about seeing her again, holding her close and kissing her and
I closed my eyes seeing her on the screen inside my head.
The Black Maria had stopped now and we were pulling up outside the
notorious Holloway Prison about which I had heard so much from other
prisoners, lesbian screws and male screws who manhandled and sexually
assaulted the inmates when they got the opportunity. I expected a lot of
the stories were true as they were consistent and told my different
prisoners, some of whom had wives in Holloway or who had served a sentence
there. The van was pulling into the prison now and through the small slit
of a window I caught my first glance of a female warder. She had short
hair cut like a man and immediately I sensed that she was a lesbian so it
was true that a lot of the staff were lesbians but I suppose that it was
only natural that homosexual women would be attracted to a job where they
were surrounded by females.
The van had entered the courtyard of Holloway now and come to a halt. The
escort screw got out of the front of the vehicle and unlocked the back
door and I felt a breath of fresh air enter the ot steel box in which I
was locked.
The screw unlocked my box and said “Okay Laddie out you get.”
I rose to my feet with difficulty because I was stiff and my limbs and
buttocks ached from being confined inside the steel box on the journey
from Brixton to Holloway. I walked along the narrow passageway and got out
into the courtyard blinking in the bright sun.
“This way Laddie” the screw said and as I followed him across the open
yard female prisoners shouted and whistled their approval. “ Oh yes fuck
me please and “I would love to suck your cock darling” I looked up at the
rows of windows and saw prisoner’s hands protruding from the small windows
of their cells and knew that they had climbed up or were standing on
tables to catch a glimpse of me. “Oh ain’t he lovely girls” screamed one
prisoner and this brought a chorus of whistles and more lewd remarks.
We now reached one of the cell blocks and the screw rang the bell which
was unlocked with a rattling of keys and the banging of two barred, metal
doors. I was escorted up the stairs and into a room in which there was a
table with two chairs.
“Sit down there Muldoon” said the female screw and I sat down.
The escort screw said “you have got twenty minutes officially but I may
make it longer if you behave yourself.”
“Thanks guvnor” I replied using the address that most prisoners used to
show respect and to curry favour with their captors.
The female screw sat down on a seat and stared at me with curiosity and
funny enough she also looked like a dyke with short hair and no make up. I
found her to be completely asexual and just did my best to ignore her. I
supposed that she would be there throughout my visit sitting so close she
could hear what I was saying. Suddenly I heard the rattle of keys,
jangling of key chains and the unlocking of steel doors and my heart
missed a beat as I knew Sandra was coming.
Suddenly the door open and she entered with a female screw. I looked at
her and tears came to my eyes uncontrollably as I took in the picture of
Sandra who had changed beyond all recognition from the beautiful slim girl
of twenty into an obese female whom I barely recognised.
“All right Sandra said the female screw you can start your visit now.”
Sandra rushed across the small visiting room and as I rose to meet she
threw her arms around me. I stared down into her brown eyes and saw the
face of the woman that I loved, still beautiful but whose features were
surrounded by fat and bloated by Diazepam and Largactil the “liquid cosh”
that had destroyed many a fighting man that the authorities were unable to
control. I knew that it slowed down the metabolism and over a period of
time made people fat.
I showered Sandra’s bloated face with kisses and tasted the salt of our
tears as they mixed together. I could not stop the lachrymose flow and I
felt Sandra’s body shake as sorrow racked her body.
“Sit down now will you both” said the imperious voice of the female screw.
I looked over at the unsympathetic face of the butch screw and guided
Sandra onto the seat. But Sandra was unsteady on her feet and almost fell
and the visits called through the bars of the door
“ Sandra Muldoon is in a bad way.”
As I sat there holding hands across the table looking at the sobbing woman
my tears dried up and I regained my composure.
“Sandra you will get off at the trial, I have been told by my counsel and
solicitor and you will be out for Christmas. It is only a few weeks away.”
I reassured her.
The sobbing stopped now and those melting brown eyes I knew so well began
to light up. “Do you think so Mickey? But what about you?”
“Look it was self defence and I have decided to tell the truth at the
trial. I was frightened before but now I am not afraid to say what
happened.” I said explaining that I had dropped the gang story.
Just at that moment the rattle of key chains heralded the entrance of a
female screw in a white jacket carrying a beaker of pink liquid which I
guessed was Largactil.
The female hospital screw who had a kindly face and wore a bit of make up
extended the small plastic beaker toward Sandra saying “Here you are
Sandra, take your medicine and you will feel better.”
Sandra took the beaker of pink fluid with a shaking hand and drank it down
greedily with one gulp then squeezed my hands and looked into my eyes.
“I’m better now Mickey it was such a shock seeing you again after all this
time. You look so handsome and I can’t wait until we are back together
again.”
“Sandra you look beautiful I can’t wait too, but it won’t be long now just
a few weeks until Christmas and our case comes up then we will be free. I
have all these witnesses to call and when the jury hear what Gerry was
like I am sure that we will get off.”
“Visit over come on Sandra.” ordered the visits screw. “You have had half
an hour.”
The time had passed so quickly. I stood up and going around to the other
side of I held Sandra close and kissed her goodbye.
This time I never cried as she clung to me and was prised away by another
two female screws that had entered the visits room and led away sobbing.
As I crossed the Holloway yard walking back to the waiting Black Maria the
cacophony of screams, whistles and lewd remarks reached a crescendo and I
waved up at the cell windows feeling like a pop star sexually desired by
uninhibited women.
Anthony Merry gave me the documents and looked at me through the
spectacles he always wore which reduced his eyes to sharp little circles
with an expectant look on his face. “What chance do you think I have
getting off?” he asked.
He was charged with the sex murder of a young woman. I did not like him
but I was interested in everyone’s case. I read his case and after reading
for a few minutes it was obvious to me that he was guilty of a very
unpleasant murder. He had battered the woman’s head in with a hammer and
in doing so had become splattered with her blood. He had got rid of all
his clothes probably by burning them. However there was one article that
he wore that he could not burn, a pair of boots. These boots had been
found out on a motorway and were identified as being his by forensic
evidence namely particles of skin, hairs and so on that proved the boots
were his and indeed he admitted that they were his and on the boots was a
fine spray of blood that was identified as the victim’s. He had some
bizarre explanation for dumping his boots and it was obvious to me that he
was guilty.
I handed Merry back the documents and said “I think that you are guilty as
hell!”
My frankness dismayed Merry and he replied. “I am not guilty and I have
a famous QC, Sir Quentin Hogg and it is his last case at the bar.”
I thrust the documents back into Merry’s hands because as soon as he told
me about his famous QC and his last case at the bar I had an intuitive
feeling that he would be acquitted in the adversarial game played in the
English courts. I walked away disgusted feeling that English Law did not
place that much importance on discovering the truth and that anything
could happen, and did happen, in the court room. A lot depended on the
cleverness and cunning of one’s defence. I never spoke to Merry after that
but sure enough when he went for trial he was found not guilty. His QC who
had tremendous authority in the court cross examined the pathologist in
the dock and asked her a simple question. She had done some tests in a
forensic laboratory and one of them was a blood spatter test where she
simulated the hammer blows to produce a fine spray of blood similar to
that found on Merry’s boots. Her verdict was that Mary’s boots were
covered in blood because he had beaten someone to death with a hammer.
However when cross examined by the venerable QC he had asked her Was it
beyond the bounds of all possibility that when you carried out your blood
spattering experiments that a draft of air carried some fine particles of
blood that had become airborne and contaminated Merry’s boots that were in
the same room?
The pathologist answered that it was not beyond the bounds of all
possibility and Merry walked free!
I realised that the adversarial game could acquit the guilty and find the
innocent guilty and a lot depended on how much money one could spend on
the top people in the legal profession and corruption, bribery and the
threatening of witnesses and so on. I used to think quite naively that
murder trials were different and that one got a fair trial but now I knew
how stupid that opinion was.
The private detective I had hired was finding out lots about Gerry, his
movements and violence that he had been involved in. He found a certain
Larry that lived in Clapham South who Gerry had put into a wheelchair. He
had broken into Larry’s flat at night and broken his legs with a club
hammer.
He also confirmed that Gerry was saying that I was a “flash cunt” and that
he was going to “do me” when he had got drunk in a nightclub. Barbara his
girlfriend was present but she had been paid to go abroad and she was
probably in Spain. He had confirmed Hawley’s’ mutilation of Pamela Spencer
but she was refusing to appear as a witness because she had been
threatened. Another thing that the detective had discovered was that
Pamela Spencer had been the prime suspect before me and that when she had
been arrested she had a loaded Smith and Wesson revolver in the dashboard
of her car and when asked why she had it she replied “It was for that
bastard Gerry Hawley.”
I thought that “if only she had got him first.”
The detective was discovering that now Hawley was dead lots of Soho
characters were willing to tell what they knew about him. It was obvious
that he was one of the most violent gangsters ever to inhabit the Soho
scene. He had robbed Charlie Chester’s casino at gun point, fallen out
with the Krays and lifted up one of their gang and smashed him down on top
of their car, In another incident he had tried to put protection on Bobby
Cannon’s Rehearsal Club in Archer Street and in a bizarre ritual of
violence had slashed Bobby Cannon across the forehead and cut the tattoos
of the arms of Bobby’s minder. Worst of all he supposed to have poured
petrol through the letter box of an Indian family rang the doorbell and
when it was answered put a match through the door burning the whole family
to death. As the detective sent in all these reports through my solicitor
I dreaded to think what would have happened to me and my family if I had
not have survived that mortal struggle.
I would have become the British Manson living for ever more in infamy I
knew that.
I thought that I now would be able to prove the truth about Hawley in
court and that the jury would hear this and realise that he had attacked
me. I did have convictions but none for violence.
Time was passing quickly now and I would soon be appearing at the Old
Bailey.
“Visit for Muldoon” called out the visits screw. I was not expecting the
usual visit from my Mum or Dad today and wondered who it could be. I sat
in the small cubicle waiting for my visit and who should walk in but Pat.
“Hello Mickey! How are you?” she said sitting down.
I looked at her through the glass at her long brown hair that reached down
to her waist, her firm breasts thrusting against her sweater, her
beautiful face and stared into her large liquid brown eyes wishing that
the glass that separated us and prevented me touching her was not there.
“Pat you look beautiful” I said.
She smiled at me through the glass. “Mickey Jimmy told me that you did it.
You know killed that guy Gerry. Is it true?”
“I looked at Pat wondering whether she would ever stand up in court and
give evidence against me and it did not matter anymore because I was going
to admit killing Hawley at the trial.
I stared into Pat’s eyes and answered “Yes I did kill him in self
defence.”
Pat’s expression changed to one of shock and I realised that she had not
believed that I had killed someone. Being a killer whether you killed in
self defence or not horrified people I had come to realise that.
“Mickey I love you” Pat blurted out tears streaming down her face.
I was surprised at her outburst and I found it strange that she could love
me after having sex with so many other males but then females are always
difficult to understand. But then that I realised loved her too and other
women too like Rita and Susan as well as my wife Sandra.
“I love you too Pat” I said and we stared at each other through the glass
of the visiting cubicle.
The next day I had another visit from my Dad. “Michael they are asking
me what you are going to say at the trial?”
“I am going to tell the truth except for one thing and that is I going to
say that when Kenny came running in to help me that he did not touch
Hawley and that I did all the stab wounds. I am going to say that I killed
him in self defence but that I went berserk afterwards. Perhaps Gerry put
some acid in my drink or something.”
“But that will make the jury more likely to convict you!” my Dad said.
“But it does not alter the fact that Hawley was killed in self defence
while on his feet attacking me from the first or second blow. What
happened after he was dead does not alter the fact that I killed in self
defence.”
“They have told me that you cannot mention pornography at the trial at all
so how are you going to explain everything hat happened and that Hawley
was being paid to kill you?”
“Dad when the jury hears how violent he is then they will realise that he
attacked me. I will say that he tricked his way in by telling Sandra lies
and started arguing with me and so on. This private detective has found
out lots of proof that Gerry was an extremely violent man.”
“Michael why don’t you just tell the truth that Kenny did all those stab
wounds?”
“Because he only tried to help me Dad and he might get found guilty of
murder or manslaughter if I did. There is no need for us both to go down
and you can keep the business running for me until I get out. I have been
promised three to five and three and a half years is the longest that I
can do if it all goes wrong.”
“Tell them that I will keep schtum, no matter what happens” I said.
“Okay, Mum sends her love and Laura and Billy. Michael I hope that you are
doing the right thing. You have to think of your children you know”
I was escorted to the Whitechapel Hospital to meet my defence pathologist.
I remembered visiting Fat Bill here before he died and wondered what he
would think of the mess I had got myself in now. I knew for one thing that
if he was alive then he would be doing everything in his power to help me.
The defence pathologist James Cameron was waiting inside a room in the
hospital and the first thing that he did was to tell the two screws that
had escorted me here to take off my handcuffs.
“Take those off please” he said with a cut glass accent.
“Good morning Michael” he greeted me and shook my hand.
“Good morning” I replied.
“Call me James” he added with a smile. “Now these teeth marks where
exactly were they?” he questioned me.
“Up the top of my back James but they have disappeared now” I replied.
James pulled out a piece of apparatus and said”This is an ultra violet
lamp and if you are telling the truth it will show up those teeth marks
plainly.”
“Really! That’s good” I exclaimed with a smile, hope rising eternal in my
heart.
“Now take off your shirt and vest” he ordered.
I stripped to the waist and he shone the ultra violet lamp onto my back
while I prayed that traces of the teeth marks would still be there.
“Yes I can see them quite clearly two sets of teeth marks” said James a
touch of excitement in his voice.
“Thank God!” I exclaimed in excitement my heart beginning to beat faster
in my chest.
“Now let us have a look at that neck” he said.
James Cameron shone the ultra violet light onto my neck.
“Yes strangulation marks are quite clearly visible” he said writing down
the information in his note book which lay open on the table.
“Oh brilliant” I exclaimed. “I wonder why Dr Tuck chose to ignore them
because they prove that I was attacked.”
James looked at me and nodded but did not comment on my remark but he knew
that Dr Tuck had obviously falsified her evidence and being a pathologist
himself this must have had a profound effect on him and made him realise
that there was a conspiracy to convict me.
Then James took a ruler and marked the edges with ink, turning to me
holding it as if it was a knife he said. “Now what position where you in
when you grasped the knife he asked.
“I was lying back against the stairs. I did not see the knife but heard
the click as he released the flick knife and glimpsed the flash of metal.
I grasped the blade by instinct. Like this” I replied grasping the ruler
in the same way that I had Gerry’s knife. “Then I head butted him.” I
said.
“Now open your hands” James ordered and opening my hands revealed lines of
ink that almost matched the livid scars on my hands.
“Amazing” I exclaimed pleased at the result that would obviously make a
big impression on the jury.
“I have something interesting here to show you and he took a box from out
of his bag and opened it. Inside was a human hand tattooed with the
letters ACAB and I was shocked at first until James smiled and said. I
removed it to do some tests. Interesting isn’t it.
I knew that the hand was Gerry’s and seeing his large tattooed hand
brought back memories of that fateful night.
On the journey back the image of Gerry’s hand stayed in my mind and
reminded of a film called the Beast with Five Fingers about a disembodied
hand that had horrified me.
But I was feeling happy again now and with the new evidence the defence
pathologist had found I reckoned that I stood a good chance of being found
nor guilty.
Kenny and I sat in the visiting cubicle waiting for our visitors then
Kathleen my sister walked by waving to me and saying “Hello” as she
visited Kenny then Gordon entered my cubicle. I was surprised because I
had been expecting one of my parents.
“Hello Mickey” Gordon greeted me “How is everything?”
“Oh I am okay man” I replied not long to go now and I will probably be out
soon please God.”
“But what is going to happen at the trial Mickey there has been all this
shit in the papers about you about the porn and especially the story about
you being a communist spy. People believe all that crap man.”
“I know Wickstead made it all up. He found out that Ii got out of National
Service by pretending that I was a member of the Young Communist League.
Gordon laughed. “That’s a good one Mickey!”
“Yeah I thought so at the time. He got the idea from reading my record” I
said
“Yeah people were asking me whether you was a communist spy. The stupid
cunts” Gordon exclaimed giggling.
“He went round tracing all the contacts he found in my phone book even
you.” I said staring at Gordon through the glass.
“Yeah the fucking pig was trying to put all sorts of things into my mouth
about taking drugs and so on but I denied everything. He even asked me if
you were queer! What a fucking cunt this guy is. Yeah and he went round to
see Chris who is queer we know an
