The Butler Did It (Chapters 3&4)

8/6/2019 The Butler Did It (Chapters 3&4)

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Paul Pender The Butler Did It - Chapters 3 & 4

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Chapter 3 True Crime and Other Fictions

All this happened, more or less.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

I hope this book is difficult to categorize. I am suspicious of categories, the easy

pigeonholing of the exotic. Theres always the tendency to spray-paint the Bird

of Paradise to make it look like a pigeon. We try to domesticate and make

palatable that which is beyond our comprehension.

Roy was a rare bird of exotic plumage, albeit a bird of prey. He challenged my

complacency and I hope he challenges yours, as only very good or very bad

people are capable of doing.

Inevitably, I suppose, this book will find itself in the True Crime section of the

bookstore, a section I have to admit I rarely visit. Can this be true crime when

its based on the unreliable memoirs of a pathological liar and filtered through

the prism of an author whose primary job is to invent stories?

Before I am Freyed alive by Oprah, like the author ofA Million Little Pieces, let

me say this in my defence. This book is Roys truth as filtered through the

prism of my truth. It is not a prison diary. Its a prism diary.

Can we call it a work of faction and move on?

The writer is a kind of gardener, pruning the tricky thorns of reality so that we

can appreciate the fragrant beauty of the rose beneath. Most stories we take as

true have had a thorough going-over with the secateurs.

True crime, that subset of the true story, is a notion which belongs to the old

Newtonian world where the author is a detached observer, objectively recording


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the facts. It is a truism of the New Journalism that the journalist is part of the

story. We now live in the Einsteinian Universe where the experimenter is part

of the experiment, crucially affecting its outcome.

What follows, then, is primarily an account of the extraordinary life and times

of one of Britains most colourful and charismatic career criminals - but it

would not be complete without a small but significant aspect of the story being

my own part in the matter.

Roy and I had many discussions about truth, so let him have the last word on

the subject. When I asked him how much of the story he was about to tell me

was true, he shrugged and quoted the Bible: What is truth, asked Pilate? And

would not stay for an answer.

He puffed on his cigar and added his own Biblical gloss:

What did Pilate do? He washed his hands. See, son, Pontius Pilate was a busy

man. He didnt have time to decide on all those big questions about truth and

lies. Me, Ive got all the time in the world. OK, Pontius Pilate was a cowardly

bastard, Ill give you that. But Ill say this for him. He was clean. I respect a

man who takes care of his personal hygiene.

As he spoke, a whiff of his pungent aftershave wafted its way towards me as if

to prove his point.


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Chapter 4 Roy the Boy

The child is father of the man William Wordsworth

So, Roy, I said crisply as I consulted my background notes, trying to be brisk

and business-like, You were born in John MacLean Street in Govan and you

grew up in Glasgow. You were christened Archibald Thompson Hall, son of

Archibald Hall senior and Marion Hall (nee Thompson). You grew up in Govan

on Glasgows south side. Is that correct?

He looked suddenly pained. Had I said something to upset him? He stared hard

at me. A cold, impenetrable, implacable, murderous stare. When he spoke, it

was in a threatening whisper.

This was my first exposure to scary Roy and to the look which I came to know

as the Stare of Death. It was a stare capable of turning the blood to ice. The

friendly face gave way to the furious face and suddenly it felt like the friendly

face had been a mask all along.

He spoke coldly and deliberately, accentuating each syllable as if each word

were a sentence. Dont. Call. Me. Archie! Dont. Ever.Call. Me. Archie! OK?

OK, I said, not being one to disagree lightly with a murderer.

My father was big Archie and I was wee Archie. Wee Archie - that's what they

called me, Wee Archie, or worse Wee Erchie. Can you believe it?

I could, but I tried to look like I couldnt.

They would say, Is Wee Erchiecomin out tae play? Wee Erchie do ye want a

game of fitba'?

As if I could possibly be an Erchie! He winced at the memory.


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OK, I told myself. I got the message. No more Archie or Erchie. Roy it would be

from here to eternity.

I decided to change the subject.

So Roy, you went to school in Jordanhill and Pollokshields. What are your

memories of school?

He puffed on his cigar, reflected for a moment, and replied,

I loved books and learning, but I wanted to be out having adventures, in the

real world where exciting things were happening. I found my classmates and

lessons a bit boring. I suppose I was just too intelligent.

He said that with no hint of irony. For him it was a given. And frankly I think

he was right. All the evidence suggests that he wasa very precocious child.

The man who was once that child now puffed on his cigar and said,

I did learn one thing, though, that was to serve me well all my life.

What was that, Roy?

I learned about the sun and the wind. The teacher told us the Aesop fable

about a man who was wearing a heavy coat, and the wind said to the sun I can

make him take his coat off, and the sun replied, No you can't, but I can.

The wind blew and blew, but the man just pulled his coat tighter to his body.

The wind got tired of blowing and gave up. Then it was the sun's turn. The sun

gave a great big smile and the man felt warm and good and took his coat off

right away.


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The teacher asked us what we thought the story meant. The class went silent.

One boy put his hand up. Stupid little fucker, I think his name was Tommy,

said it means you should never go out on a hot day with your coat on, Miss!

After a puff or two on his cigar Roy continued, Well that obviously went down

like a cup of cold sick, so Miss Corrigan asked if anyone else had a better

explanation of the storys meaning. For me it was obvious. I put my hand up

and said Miss - it means that if you want to obtain something, it's better to do

so by smiling at people and being nice to them instead of shouting at them and

being nasty. In other words charm works better than force, Miss.

Miss Corrigan beamed at the bright little boy and said, Exactly, Archie. Charm

is the key to life. As I look around me I can see that it is in short supply in

these parts. You, however, have it in abundance. You could do very well here if

you didn't keep disappearing.

Thank you, Miss, he said almost feeling guilty that he was already dogging off

from school to expand his education in other areas. But he didnt have

anything to worry about. He had Miss Corrigan wrapped around his little

finger. Just by smiling like the sun.

I asked him if there was anything else of value hed taken from school.

He said, Yes, there was a poem which foretold my life.

Puffing on his cigar he continued, Its spooky, but I often think you can foresee

your whole life in something that you experience in childhood. The weird thing

is that you know at the time its something of enormous significance to you,

even if you cant explain why. To other people it is of no particular importance.


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I asked him to elaborate.

There was a poem in our reading book. To the other kids it was just a daft wee

poem, but I read it again and again, feeling it was some sort of omen predicting

my future. How did I know that as a kid? I cant say. Its a mystery, but its

true. It did predict my future.

He proceeded to recite the entire poem from memory. I quote it briefly for the

clues it gives us to the character of Roy, man and boy, and because of the

importance he attached to it.

I'm a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;

I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;

I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;

I love to sit and bay the moon to keep fat souls from sleep.

O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,

Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!

The poem was Lone Dog by Irene Rutherford MacLeod, he helpfully informed

me, as he added, Thats all I got from my education a poem and a fable. But

thats all I needed.

I asked him if he had many childhood friends. No, I didnt, he replied,

My father said I was anti-social. He was always trying to get me to make

friends by forcing me to go to the Boy Scouts, but I was too much of a loner. He

made me go along a couple of times. The scoutmaster was the usual sweaty

wee pervert in khaki shorts. In my book all scoutmasters should be arrested on


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suspicion of being pedophiles. Theyre all guilty till proven innocent. Do you

know what Baden- Powell called his autobiography?

No, I said.

Scouting for boys!

He laughed uproariously, slapping his thigh in delight.

If you ask me, every scoutmaster spends his life scouting for boys. Anyway, the

wee wanker who ran our troop asked us to collect stuff from outside the scout

hall that began with each letter of the word Scout. I brought in some

crabgrass, for the letter c. He said Thats no good, Hall, thats grass. Theres

no g in scout.

I said No sir, itscrabgrass. He laughed and said I was being ridiculous and the

other boys laughed too, the brownnosing wee fuckers. That was my first

experience of finding out that the proles dont like you to be clever. So fuck

them, thats what I say. I had no interest in being a scout or a prole. After the

crabgrass incident I never went back. But I took their motto to heart: be

prepared. Essential if youre contemplating a successful life in crime.

I asked him if he got on well with his father, after whom he was named. I

hesitated to use the offensive term Archie again.

He took a puff on his cigar and said, My father was an upright, honest, God-

fearing hard-working man. In other words a fucking loser! He was a devout

member of the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

Members of that church are worthy and righteous people but they are rarely

described as fun-loving. The doctrines of Calvin and Knox are not normally


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associated with the pursuit of carnal pleasure and sensual excess which were

at the core of Roys personal philosophy. Nor does his lifelong lust for sex,

diamonds and the glittering prizes of the material world feature prominently in

the Scottish Presbyterian book of prayer, which walks the primrose path of

asceticism and self-negation.

Roy wanted to indulge his senses every bit as much as his Presbyterian father

wanted to deny them. When he spoke of his dad, venom dripped from his lips

like ash from the cigar which he was now smoking.

My father worked at the Post Office in George Square, sorting the mail. He was

a pious man. Fond of church-going and Bible reading. He believed in the Good

Shepherd and all that Christian shit.

I take it you dont believe in it then, Roy?

Dont make me laugh, son. Theres no such thing as a goodshepherd. What

does a shepherd do? First he fleeces you, then he sends you to the fucking

slaughterhouse. All that Good Shepherd shit was invented by the ruling class

to keep the proles in their place. Its a slave mentality. Dont be a lamb, son. Be

a lion!

He warmed to his theme. All religions are there to keep you down, son. They

all tell you to deny your senses. Fuck that! Trustyour senses. Back in the

Sixties I picked up a badge from some hippy cunts stall at a flea market in

London. All it said was Trust Lust. You could live by that motto. I havelived

by it. Sight, sound, taste, smell, touch - the senses are all weve got. Thats

what I believe in, and thats what the Pope believes too. Every time he catches


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a cold he gets a team of the worlds best doctors round him. Hes in no fuckin

hurry to meet his Boss.

Fascinating as his observations on Christianity were, I wanted to get back to

the topic. I asked him to tell me more about his relationship with his father.

He did his back in carrying mailbags. Ill tell you the difference between my

father and me. He spent his life emptying his mail sack. I spent my life

emptying my ball sac. When my mother wanted to annoy him she would call

him a second class male.

Roy smiled at the very mention of his mother. I get my wit from my mother, he

said with characteristic modesty.

She was a wonderful woman. Different class. She worked as a waitress in the

Malmaison restaurant at the Central Hotel. She was a whole lot better than the

people she served. She was far too good for them!

Roy spoke of his mother with a reverence he reserved for her alone. He became

emotional as he remembered her. I came to realise she was the only person in

his life whom he loved unconditionally. This filial devotion was surprising, even

touching, in a man capable of murder, but as he spoke, something, or

someone, was niggling away at the back of my mind: Roys devotion to his

mother reminded me of some other mummys boy, someone who carried a

photograph of his mother with him wherever he went. It took me a while to

recall who that loving son was. Then I remembered. It was Adolf Hitler.

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The Butler Did It (Chapters 3&4)