Illustrated in Gloomy British watercolor, grey skies and terrace houses style
Dennis Didn't Want to Be Alone
A Story About a Civil Servant with a Plumbing Problem
Dennis worked for the civil service in London. He had a tidy desk and a gray raincoat and a dog named Bleep. He went to work. He came home. He had dinner alone. He watched the telly alone. Dennis was terribly, terribly lonely. And lonely people sometimes do very strange things to keep the loneliness away.
Dennis Nilsen worked as a job center officer in London. He was deeply introverted and had difficulty forming lasting relationships.
Dennis would invite young men home for drinks and a warm meal. They were often men who had nowhere else to go: runaways, drifters, people who wouldn't be missed quickly. 'Stay a little longer,' Dennis would say. And then he made sure they did. Dennis hated saying goodbye more than almost anything.
Nilsen targeted young men who were vulnerable or transient. Most of his 15 confirmed victims had limited social connections.
At 195 Melrose Avenue and later at 23 Cranley Gardens, Dennis kept his visitors for a good long while. He would sit with them, talk to them, watch television with them. He cooked for them. He found the arrangement quite comforting. His visitors did not share this feeling, being as they were no longer able to share any feelings at all.
Nilsen killed at two addresses over five years, retaining victims' remains and performing domestic routines around them.
The problem with keeping visitors so long in a flat in North London is that the neighbors begin to notice things. The smell, mainly. Dennis tried to solve this with a large pot. He tried the garden. He tried flushing. The drains at Cranley Gardens blocked up in February 1983. A plumber came. A plumber found something that was not a drain blockage.
A plumber named Michael Cattran discovered flesh and bone in the drains. This led directly to Nilsen's arrest.
When the police knocked on Dennis's door and told him what the plumber had found, Dennis said: 'It's a rather long story.' It was. Fifteen victims long, in fact. At trial, Dennis was very cooperative. He wrote extensively about what he had done and why. He seemed almost relieved to have company that could talk back. Prison is very good at providing that.
Nilsen confessed readily and wrote detailed accounts of his crimes. He was convicted of six murders and two attempted murders and died in prison in 2018.