Nine people were sitting in the snug of the Plumbers Arms that Thursday. It was November 7, 1974, a cold night, drizzling rain. Far across the city, an IRA bomb went off at Woolwich along the Thames. One person died and 28 were injured, not the first nor the last victims of terrorism. In fact, bombs had been going off in and around the capital for weeks, and Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Labour government, serving with the smallest of parliamentary majorities, seemed powerless to prevent it.
The Plumbers Arms was calmness itself—the usual mid-week crowd keeping themselves warm out of the November cold. The landlord, Arthur Whitehouse, chatted to his customers and poured the drinks.
All that changed at just before 9:45 PM. The door burst open to Whitehouse’s right and a small, almost bird-like woman staggered across the threshold. It was difficult to tell what color her hair was because it was matted with blood that ran in grotesque rivulets down her face, onto her shoulders and trickled down to the floor. Blood spots appeared on Whitehouse’s floorboards before he had the presence of mind to dash round from behind the bar, catch the falling woman and ease her gently down onto an upholstered banquette seat near the door.
The woman wasn’t screaming, but she was hysterical, her eyes wild and disoriented, trying to marshal her thoughts, gasp for air, and get help. “I’ve just escaped from a murderer. He’s still in the house. My children, my children.”
Mrs. Whitehouse rang the police—the time-honored number of 999. “Hello. Emergency. What service do you require?” An ambulance was the answer—and the police.
They arrived at 10 PM: Two coppers on a routine sweep of quiet, respectable Belgravia on a routine, quiet night. Two coppers from C Division, its headquarters at Gerald Road just around the corner. At the wheel of his police van, Sergeant Donald Baker squealed to a halt outside the pub. His partner, Constable Philip Beddick, dashed in. The injured woman was covered in dish towels, and the Whitehouses and their customers crowded around. An ambulance was on its way, from St. George’s Hospital at nearby Hyde Park Corner, and the woman had enough presence of mind to tell the publican her name. She was Veronica Bingham, the Countess of Lucan, and she lived 30 yards away, at Number 46 Lower Belgrave St.
No need for the scream of tires or a blazing siren. It was quicker for the police to get there on foot. 46 was on the same side of the street as the pub, the last house before the addresses change to Eaton Square that runs along a T junction. The house was like all the others on the street, with four steps up to the front door and railings to each side. To the right, more steps led down to a half basement. The whole place was in darkness and the front door was locked. Baker tried the basement door—that was locked too.
Murder Scene
46 Lower Belgrave St.
Two burly coppers could probably have shoulder-barged the front door, but they used a credit card and slipped inside. Ahead stretched the hallway, leading to the stairs. Baker flicked the light switch. Nothing. He sent Beddick back to the van for a flashlight.
Alone in the house, Baker was careful. He had his hardwood nightstick in hand, but he had no idea what he might be facing. One by one, he checked the doors off the hall. All the rooms were empty and in darkness. The only light came from a small cloakroom fronted with a drape. He slid the drape back and saw blood on a washbasin; there was more on a lampshade in the hall, and as his eyes became acclimatized, he saw sprays and splashes over the walls and ceiling.
Baker doubled back and opened the door to the basement. Again he tried the light switch and again it didn’t work. Slowly, carefully, he edged his way down the stairs, and his feet crunched on broken crockery on the basement floor. Here, thanks to the street light coming in through the venetian blinds, he saw pools of blood and bloody footprints leading to the back door. The door was open and Baker went out into the night, secretly glad of the fresh air. There was a small garden and a high wall all the way around with a wooden trellis above that. No one could have left that way.
The sergeant retraced his steps and took the stairs to the upper floors. A bedside light was burning in the main bedroom and a bloody towel lay across the pillows. On the next floor, as he clicked open another door, he found a little boy, 7-year-old Lord George Bingham, fast asleep. In the next room, his little sister, 3-year-old Lady Camilla, was sleeping too. Across the room, standing by her own bed, was 10-year-old Lady Frances. She asked Baker if he had seen her mummy and her nanny.
The Lucan House at 46 Lower Belgrave St.
When Beddick finally arrived with the flashlight, Baker took it and left the constable with the kids. The sergeant went back to his search, now more properly equipped. In the hall, he saw a lead pipe, about 9 inches long, bent and wrapped in bloody surgical tape. A light bulb lay on a chair in the basement. It had clearly been removed from its socket, and Baker replaced it. The full glare of the basement light told an appalling story. The room was a kitchen, but it was also a murder scene and a charnel house. There was blood everywhere and smashed tea cups, some bits still lying on a tray. In one corner was a canvas US mailbag soaked with dark blood. Baker eased open the top and felt inside. A female arm flopped out, to be remembered, photographed and documented by the crime scene officers later. He didn’t know it yet, but Sergeant Baker could now answer the question little Lady Frances had put to him. He had found the nanny: Sandra Rivett.
Plan of the basement showing the attack sites on both women
In 1974, crime scene investigation was not what it is today. DNA evidence was still 11 years in the future, and some of the confusion of what happened that night in Belgravia was undoubtedly caused by careless policemen trampling blood and brain tissue from one part of the Lucan house to another. The Metropolitan Police (the “Met”) were fortunate, however, because the Home Office pathologist routinely called to suspicious deaths was Keith Simpson, a legend in his own lifetime. The man had an awesome reputation stretching back to the 1940s and the Second World War. This was to be one of his last cases, but age had not dimmed the intensity of his scrutiny at all.
Sandra Rivett, he discovered, was in her late twenties, 5 feet 3 inches tall, with dark hair. She was well-nourished and bore no sign of disease. She was not a virgin and had given birth. Her body had been doubled up in the mailbag after death and there was no sign of sexual assault—almost the first thing a pathologist looks for in the violent death of a young woman. She had bruises on her forearms from trying to parry the powerful blows that had killed her. Three blows had smashed into her face, two bounced off her neck and four had crashed into her scalp. There were marks on her cheek consistent with a punch or slap. Her killer had then grabbed both arms and thrust her into the bag. She had actually choked to death on her own blood. As for the murder weapon, Baker had all but stumbled over it in the hall upstairs—the bandaged lead pipe.
The first detective on the scene was Sergeant Graham Forsyth from Gerald Road Criminal Investigation Department, but he was one of many, including the divisional surgeon who had been called to give his official verdict that Sandra Rivett’s life was extinct. Forsyth got the basics from Lady Frances. Mummy and daddy didn’t live together any more, but daddy had been at the house that night, together with mummy, who was covered in blood. Daddy lived at 5 Eaton Row.
The house, now lived in by Veronica Lucan, is in a narrow mews, a side street of converted stables, directly behind Lower Belgrave St. and Forsyth went round there. The place was in darkness and locked, so Forsyth found a ladder, smashed an upstairs window and climbed in. At that stage, he didn’t know that the tenant had sublet the flat to a friend, Greville Howard, but of course, Howard wasn’t home. Neither was the tenant himself; John Lucan, Frances’ father and Veronica’s husband, had vanished into the Belgravia night.
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