Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller Read Online Free Page A

away from the Panama Club down Old Brompton Road. Given the convenience of her flat they would have to be travelling for something specific to justify a taxi ride. Heath’s suitcase, of course, was at the Pembridge Court Hotel with everything it contained. Heath then directed Harter to Pembridge Gardens in Notting Hill, which was just under two miles away. Harter observed that Margery ‘seemed to be in a drunken stupor’ and when Heath opened the door of the cab for her to get in, she had walked to the other side of him ‘as if she didn’t know where she was’. Heath looked around for her asking, ‘Where the hell are you?’ Once they were safely in the cab, Harter noticed that Margery was lying back and Heath had his arm around her.
    According to Peter Tilley Bailey, Margery had never spent a night away from her flat since they had been together, so this was the first time she was to do so. It was also the first time she had been observed in an extremely drunken state – this perhaps exacerbated by her feelings towards Tilley Bailey as well as the large amount of cash that Heath had been spending at the bar.
    After about ten minutes, they arrived in Notting Hill and Harter turned his cab into Pembridge Gardens.
    ‘Whereabouts do you want?’
    Heath told Harter, ‘This will do.’
    Margery said nothing and ‘appeared not to notice what was going on and she did not seem to hear me’. Harter pulled up about fifty yards short of the Pembridge Court Hotel on the left-hand side. Heath got out of the cab first – his face illuminated by the light of the meter. He went to help Margery out of the cab. After about a minute, he got her out on the pavement where she stood ‘as though in a stupor and had no interest in anything’. Heath left her and turned to Harter.
    ‘How much is that?’
    ‘One shilling and ninepence.’
    With the precision of a very drunk man trying not to appear so, Heath slowly counted out 2s. and 2d. (a small tip), fumbling with his change under the meter light. Once he had paid the cab, Heath put his arm around Margery’s waist and the couple walked the fifty yards ahead towards the Pembridge Court Hotel, effectively holding each other up. Harter watched from his cab as they disappeared through the gate outside the hotel and up the steps to the porticoed entrance. This was the last time that Margery Gardner was seen alive by anyone other than the man who killed her.
    Earlier that evening, back at her flat in Bramham Gardens, surrounded by her own artwork, Margery had left an exercise book in which she had been writing (in pencil – she had pawned her typewriter) the first few chapters of a novel about a girl called ‘Julie’, not unlike herself – or at least, Margery’s own vision of herself. Autobiographical in tone, the story poignantly articulated Margery’s hopes and disappointments.
Julie had not been with us more than a couple of weeks before she knew all the bars, all the cafes, all the clubs. She had green eyes and dark hair that fell on her neck and shoulders like a hood . . .
People really liked her to talk to. She was fresh and vital – different, amusing too, and she was innocent. She had girl friends, although she got on better with men. She was bold and reckless in those days, finding her feet and her own values – and her mistakes.
Always new places, new faces, for Julie was out to conquer the world. And she did conquer the world. At least she conquered one bitter bit of London. It was that bit of London by the river.
‘What are you doing with your life?’ She would open her eyes and say, ‘Enjoying yourself for the first time. Finding a dream that is real.’ 19
    But Margery Gardner’s dream wasn’t real. As with much in her life, the story was never finished and like her existence itself, brought to a tragic, abrupt end.

PART TWO
    Neville George Clevely Heath

PART THREE
    Group Captain Rupert Robert Brook

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    Detective Constable Suter
    6 JULY