New revelations that Lord Lucan ended his days on a beach in Goa were quickly scotched this week, but our enduring fascination with the man continues, writes Rosita Boland
Like Elvis, it seems that Lord Lucan will always be with us. The pair of them should have been called Lazarus, they've had so many resurrections. Since his disappearance in 1974, Lord Lucan has been "spotted" gambling in Botswana, hiking up Mount Etna in Sicily, visiting a bank in Switzerland, fishing in Canada, driving through South Africa in a Toyota Landcruiser, and having a burger in a roadside diner in Tennessee - possibly on his way to a rendezvous with Elvis.
This week, Lord Lucan popped up in hippy-dippy huggy-druggy Goa, India. The Sunday Telegraph ran a two-page extract from a book called Dead Lucky: Lord Lucan, the Final Truth, by ex-policeman Duncan MacLaughlin. "Is This Lord Lucan? The end of the most baffling disappearing act in British history," the front page declared with happy histrionics. Lucan, MacLaughlin maintained, had been living in a Goan beach shack all those years since 1975, dying there in 1996.
MacLaughlin had pictures to back up his claim - shots of an ageing bearded man slumped in a rocking chair in Goa, given to him on a tip-off by an enterprising small-time drug dealer he was once chasing. When he looked at the photographs in England, MacLaughlin convinced himself they were of Lucan. He writes excitedly in his book: "Christ! I said to myself. I'm looking at history here." MacLaughlin was particularly taken by the "broad aristocratic forehead" of the man in the picture, which he saw as a type of giveaway X-marks-the-spot; clearly, in his view, a high forehead belongs exclusively to the physiognomy of the titled.
On the strength of the picture and a few half-baked stories from source "Mark", who had been in Goa 10 years previously, MacLaughlin hopped on the plane and headed to Goa, along with Mark, who may simply have been looking for a free plane ticket all along. They returned to the beach where Mark had played backgammon with the bearded man and found people who had known him. They told the pair that the man in the picture was Barry Thomas Halpin, known locally as "Jungly Barry", who had died in 1996 of liver failure due to chronic drinking.
His former landlady, Cecilia Pareira, offered this comment of her old tenant. "Once, one of his visitors produced a cutting from a British paper which had an article on Lord Lucan and a photograph. I saw it over his shoulder and remarked: 'That looks like you!' And he nodded and said, 'That's right, I'm Lord Lucan!'"
Funny enough, MacLaughlin's response to this was not: "And I'm Father Christmas!" It was instead to write his book, and announce to the world he had found out where Lord Lucan had been hiding. Neither did he think Lucan's choice of hideout a teeny bit peculiar. For those unfamiliar with Goa, it's the Temple Bar of Asia, with quite a few extra bells on. You go there specifically to be noticed, thus making it one of the most unlikely places in the world a man wanted for murder would want to spend his fugitive life.
Odd as it may sound, the man "masquerading" as Barry Thomas Halpin a.k.a. Jungly Barry, was no other than indeed one Barry Thomas Halpin, an erstwhile folk singer and dropout from the north of England, whose picture was instantly recognised by his friends. The Guardian pointed this out two days after the original story with undisguised merriment. "Lord Lucan? Er, no. It's Barry," the front page crowed happily.
Richard John Bingham, seventh Earl and third Baron of Lucan, born on December 18th, 1934, vanished from public sight on November 7th, 1974. Two months after his marriage, Lucan's father died and he inherited the family title and oodles of dosh. He called his daily excursions to London's Clermont Club, where he gambled heavily, "going to work", which proves that the rich really are different.
It's quite possible that some of the money he was putting on the gambling tables came from the denizens of Castlebar, from whom he was - and still is, should he care to turn up in person - historically entitled to claim ground rent. When not at the Clermont, trying his luck at backgammon and bridge, he could be found "working" at the races. Apparently, he was a pretty good gambler, hence the nickname, Lucky Lucan.
By 1974, he was separated and lived apart from his wife Veronica, who was suffering from various physiological disorders. The couple had three children; Frances, George and Camilla. The children lived in London's Lower Belgrave Street with their mother and nanny, Sandra Rivett. On the night of November 7th, Rivett was supposed to be having a night off, and thus not in Belgrave Street. Fatally for her, she changed her mind about the time she wanted off, and thus it was that she was murdered in the basement of the Belgrave Street house, where she had gone to make tea for Lady Lucan.
Lord Lucan had apparently mistaken Rivett for his wife. He killed her with a piece of lead piping; an eerily nasty real-life version of Cluedo, a board game then enjoying a 1970s revival of popularity, in which eccentric characters in a posh stately house get murdered with various weapons, including lead piping. When Lady Lucan went to see what was keeping the nanny, she too was assaulted, but survived.
While Lady Lucan fled for help, Lord Lucan simply fled. He called on friends in Sussex later that night and then dropped from sight forever. His car was found abandoned at the port of Newhaven. No body has ever turned up, and despite dozens of conspiracy theories, if anyone knows what really happened him, they're not telling. Lucan was officially declared dead in London's High Court in 1999, but there are many who believe he's still out there somewhere, living it up.
Time does odd things to murderers. Some become ever more sinister and notorious, like Myra Hindley. Others, like Lord Lucan, become something of a running joke, despite the fact he committed a horrible crime. Key in "Lord Lucan" into Google and some 16,500 references instantly pop up. The now seemingly comic resonance of his name emerges in some very strange ways. Three of Google's first 10 references are for porn sites advertising "Lord Lucan Celebrity Feet", where a person with a foot fetish is encouraged to do interesting things.
Also online is a website www.whereislordlucan.com, run by a bona fide private investigator, Ian Crosby, which offers $100,000 to the person who can tell him where Lucan went after his last sighting in East Sussex. "The claim for the reward must be supported by irrefutable evidence," he writes. This leaves Duncan MacLaughlin, who remains convinced that himself and Mark got their man, out of the reward scenario, as the pictures he has are not of Lucan.
MacLaughlin's publisher, John Blake, maintains that he stands over his author's credibility, saying: "Lord Lucan may have taken Barry Halpin's identity when he died." This is a convenient theory, as it is one which can never be tested. Any hopes of possible DNA testing of the dead Halpin - assuming his family would allow it to start with - is out of the question, since he was cremated.
Not many mysteries remain unsolved forever. Some day, the true story of what happened to Lord Lucan will almost certainly emerge. Meanwhile, the more offbeat characters among us will continue to keep an eye out for that distinctive "aristocratic forehead".