It was a bit of a privilege to watch Seawoll work. He wasn’t nearly so intimidating with the suspects as he was with other policemen. His interrogation technique was gentle – never chummy, always formal but he never raised his voice. I took notes.
The sequence of events, as we reconstructed them, was depressingly familiar but on a larger scale than we’d seen before. It had been a mild spring Sunday afternoon, and St Martin’s Court had been moderately crowded. The Close itself is a pedestrianised alleyway that has access to three separate stage doors, the back entrance to Brown’s and the famous J. Sheekey’s Oyster Bar. It’s where the theatre staff go for a coffee and a crafty fag between performances. J. Sheekey’s is a thespian landmark, which isn’t surprising if you sell food late at night within walking distance of the most famous theatres in the West End. Sheekey’s also employs uniformed doormen in top hats and black frock coats, and that’s where the trouble started that afternoon.
At two forty-five, about the same time as I was sitting down for tea with Oxley and Isis, six members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness entered the Close from the Charing Cross Road end. This was a common route for the bhaktas, the aspirant devotees to the god, as they traversed from Leicester Square to Covent Garden. They were being led by Michael Smith, his identity later confirmed through fingerprint evidence, a reformed crack addict, alcoholic, car thief and suspected rapist, who had lived an unblemished life since joining the movement nine months previously. ISKCON, as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness likes to be known, is aware that there is a fine line between drawing attention to yourself and provoking active hostility from passers-by. The intention is that through dancing and chanting in public, potential converts may be attracted to the movement, and not to provoke an angry confrontation. Thus, ‘dwell time’ in a particular locality had to be judged carefully to avoid trouble. Michael Smith had proved particularly good at judging what the devotees could get away with, and that was why he was leading the saffron crocodile that afternoon.
Which was why, according to Willard Jones, former Llandudno lifeguard and lucky survivor, everyone had been surprised when they came to a halt outside J. Sheekey’s, and Michael Smith said he wanted to hear some noise. Still, making a noise and attracting attention was what they were on the street for, so they started making a noise.
‘A harmonious noise,’ said Willard Jones. ‘In this age of materialism and hypocrisy, no other form of spiritual realisation is as effective as the chanting of the maha-mantra. It is like the genuine cry of the child for his mother …’ He went on like this for some time.
What was not harmonious was the cowbell, which Willard Jones knew was a genuine cowbell because his father and brothers were genuine failing Welsh hill farmers. ‘If you’ve ever heard a cowbell,’ said Jones, ‘you’d realise that they are not designed to be harmonious.’
At approximately two fifty, Michael Smith produced a huge cowbell from somewhere about his person and started ringing it with great sweeping movements of his arm. On duty as uniformed doorman that day was Gurcan Temiz of Tottenham via Ankara. As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance threshold for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there’s no point complaining that it’s a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is ‘taking the piss’。 Ringing a huge cowbell outside the restaurant and disturbing the patrons certainly constituted taking the piss, so Gurcan stepped up to remonstrate with Michael Smith, who clubbed him repeatedly with the bell around the head and shoulders. According to Dr Walid, the fourth blow was the one that killed him. Once Gurcan Temiz was on the ground two more devotees, Henry MacIlvoy of Wellington, New Zealand and William Cattrington of Hemel Hempstead rushed over and proceeded to kick the victim. This didn’t cause the damage it might have, because both devotees were wearing soft plastic sandals.
At that point an incendiary device exploded behind the bar inside J. Sheekey’s. The clientele, despite being a mix of thespians and tourists, evacuated the premises in an orderly but rapid fashion. Those that went out the back fire exits dispersed via Cecil Court; those that went out the front streamed past the bodies of Gurcan Temiz, Henry MacIlvoy and William Cattrington, who were already dead. Most registered that there were bodies and that there was blood, but they were all vague about the details. Only Willard Jones had a clear view of what happened to Michael Smith.