Freed From Behind The Paywall: A Real Life Murder Story - Part Two of Four
Vivien Leigh
Continued from last Thursday’s post.
In spite of their separation, Rod still often came over to Stuart's flat, where he spent time on computer dating sites - Gaydar usually, or MSN Dating & Personals - showing off to Stuart the other men he had sex with or was planning to meet.
One evening in March 2004, Rod called Stuart on his mobile as he made his way to meet yet another man he had encountered through the internet. Roddy - Stuart usually called him Roddy - was walking towards Southwark Cathedral along Borough High Street at about 6pm, just as the dusk was gathering.
I can see him. Standing outside the cathedral. He was giving Stuart a commentary on his new assignation. He's gorgeous. He's just over there. I've got to go now. See you. Bye! He hung up, leaving Stuart feeling irritated and - he had to accept - jealous. Which is what, he suspected, Rod had intended.
Rod never spoke to Stuart again about the man he met that night, which was unusual. Rod talked about all his lovers to Stuart or Charlotte, and more often than not to both of them. But this one was different.
Without Stuart or Charlotte's knowledge, Rod had for some time been advertising on an S&M website that he was looking to be someone's 'slave'. If they had known what he was doing, they would both have been surprised. Rod had been mildly curious about S&M when he was with Stuart - nothing more than what Stuart called 'schoolboy stuff' - but Stuart wasn't interested and Rod hadn't pressed it. Not even after they split up did Stuart ever see marks or bruises on Rod's body.
Rod was an unlikely devotee of S&M. He was squeamish. The sight of blood made him queasy. He couldn't even look at a broken fingernail, and Stuart was later convinced that Rod's attraction towards masochism was rooted in self-hatred. He was sure that Rod saw his separation from Stuart as a deep rejection. Rod had been abandoned and he was lonely and now he was punishing himself. The self-hatred, thought Stuart, was all mixed up with Rod's upbringing, in particular his relationship with his father. He had constantly sought approbation from his father, but he felt that he never received it.
Rod was six when his father gave up commuting to his job as a banker in London and moved the family from their West Sussex home to a fruit farm in East Sussex. Rod and his sister moved from their exclusive private school to the local state primary. They were bullied when they first arrived, partly for being incomers, partly for being 'posh'. Rod was a generous boy, but also precocious and selfish. He was an 'I wanter', his sister told me. Always 'I want, I want'. He was a spoiled boy. His mummy spoiled him. Even so, his sister remembers it as a happy childhood. Their mother cared for them; she was an old-fashioned housewife. Their father read to them every night. They felt secure and loved.
Their provincial life was made more interesting by the presence of their neighbour, the film star Vivien Leigh. She had separated from her second husband, Laurence Olivier, in 1960, and afterwards used the house next to the Halls' cottage as a retreat. Leigh was 48 when Rod first met her, but the first time she opened her kitchen door to find Rod and his sister standing there nervously clutching their autograph books and Brownie cameras, he thought she looked about 14.
Leigh befriended the children. They would go often to her immaculate house to play with her huge puppet theatre. The dining-room walls were lined in green silk and hung with oil paintings. She pointed out the Picassos and the Van Gogh, and explained the background to each painting. Among them was Augustus John's unfinished portrait of her: Olivier had halted the sitting after John developed too great a passion for his subject.
Rod's sister remembered playing with Leigh's make-up in her dressing room - Rod was amazed that anyone should have a room in which to do nothing other than get dressed - and he went fishing in her pond. He was the only person, Leigh told him, allowed to do so. It made him feel very special. They were also allowed to ride in her grey Rolls-Royce, driven by her liveried chauffeur, with Rod waving out the window like royalty. When Princess Margaret came to visit, Leigh told them in advance so that they could stand at the gate and wave.
Rod was in his mid-teens when he started to suspect he was gay. James Reeves, the blind poet and novelist, lived near the school and had requested volunteers to read to him. Rod was among the boys who visited Reeves at home and they formed a close friendship.
When Rod was 16 his sister asked him about a local girl he had been linked with. Rod started to cry. But I'm in love with a boy.
He didn't tell his parents he was homosexual until years later, and only because they were bound to discover anyway, after he founded the Gay and Lesbian Society at the University of Edinburgh. Rod's father had felt physically sick when he found out his son was gay and, although a loving father, he never came to terms with Rod's homosexuality. According to Stuart, Rod never recovered from the realisation that his father could not accept him for what he unalterably was.
Rod started to receive the text messages at the office in April 2004. He couldn't hide them from Charlotte, because Rod didn't normally 'do' text messages. He thought it was something more suited to teenagers. Now he was getting them - sometimes as many as six or seven - every day. Charlotte asked him who they were from. He'd say, No one you know. You wouldn't approve anyway.
Charlotte kept pushing. In the end, Rod gave in and said, It's this guy I'm seeing called Ozzy. He's 20 and he's beautiful. He said Ozzy was a Muslim who wasn't yet 'out', and - only half-jokingly - he believed Ozzy's family would kill him if they found out about the relationship. Charlotte, who in her own way loved Rod as much as Stuart did, told him to keep away from Ozzy.
Rod kept receiving texts. It seemed there was a problem between him and Ozzy, because some of the texts were threatening. One said, pointedly, that Ozzy knew where Rod's mother lived in Sussex. Another suggested that Rod's clients might like to know what it was he did in his private life. Then, a few weeks later, Rod came into the office, agitated. He sat down in front of Charlotte's desk. I think I've pissed that Ozzy off. Someone's got hold of my Gaydar profile and made it look like I'm a paedophile.
Charlotte asked how Ozzy could possibly have known his password. Rod made a face as if to say, You're going to shout at me for this. Then he said, I was in the shower and Ozzy said he didn't have a profile on Gaydar so could he borrow my login.
Charlotte told him once again to have nothing more to do with Ozzy. Maybe you're right, said Rod.
That was the last Charlotte heard about Ozzy until one Friday a few weeks later in May. She and Rod were going to a lunchtime reading of a play in the West End, and Rod said to Charlotte, You'll never guess who phoned me and confessed to that Gaydar thing. It was Ozzy. He wants to come and see me tonight.
Charlotte said, I hope you're not going to see him.
Rod replied, Well, he's 20 and he's beautiful.
Ozzy called a few more times later that afternoon. Rod was too busy to speak to him, but in the end he took one of the calls.
Afterwards, Rod told Charlotte that he had made an arrangement for Ozzy to phone him at 10.30 that night but would not be seeing him, adding, as he left the office, You know you've talked me out of a shag tonight, don't you? And he laughed.
When Rod didn't appear at Charlotte's engagement party the following night, she wasn't concerned, although she was disappointed. Stuart, who had been invited, was also absent. The next day, Charlotte, beginning to worry when she had still heard nothing from Rod, called Stuart, but he diverted her calls. He hadn't been in the mood to go to the party, and now he wasn't in the mood to make excuses.
At about 5pm, Charlotte rang Rod's sister, who was looking after her mother, who had suffered a series of severe strokes and was now an invalid. Rod's sister had been worried about her brother since the last time she saw him a few weeks before. She knew he wasn't happy. He had said to her, I don't much like myself at the moment.
He told her about the dates he'd been arranging on the internet. She warned him to take care, fearing the dangers of his meeting up with strangers for sex. He said he didn't like what he was doing, but he was addicted to it.
Before Rod left on that occasion, there had been an odd exchange when he had insisted on discussing his will with her. He wanted to amend it. His sister told him not to be so silly, talking about death at his age. He was, after all, only 53. Now, here was Charlotte, ringing to tell Rod's sister that he could not be found.
His sister decided to phone Stuart. Stuart said, If anyone is going to go round there, it ought to be me, meaning to Rod's flat in Southwark. Charlotte told Stuart to make sure he went with someone. He took a close friend, Andy Philips.
End of Part Two.