Shaking a little as she talked,Julie explained that she was only allowed to tell me so much and would only be able to answer certain of my questions. As it is,much of what she could tell me is still unpublishable. She looked frightened and worn out as she told me about Jeremy's gruesome plans and how they had developed several months before the shootings. At the time,however,she hadn't taken him seriously,thinking he was just venting his frustrations over what he saw as his parents' unjustified attempts to control his life,even to the extent that his mother,he said,had threatened to cut him out of her will in favour of the twins if he didn't toe the line. One of the conditions set down by his mother was not having Julie to stay overnight in the cottage his parents had provided for him. As far as his mother was concerned,sex before marriage was "a sin in the eyes of God"-or certainly in the eyes of the local community. The Bambers had offered to set Julie up with a little flat in Colchester,where their son could visit her instead. She actaully lived in South London,where she was in teacher training. There was no doubt in Julie's mind that June's ceaseless proselytising was steadily driving Jeremy crazy. What made it worse for him,really fuelling his hatred and almost certainly putting a nail in their coffin,was the fact that June idolized the twins;in her eyes,they could do no wrong.
That was all very well,I thought,but why kill them? Did she know that?
At this point Julie's friend Liz joined in. She said that money was very important to Jeremy but when he was encouraged to resume working on the farm,the shortage of it really began to rancour,especially when,in his opinion,he put in very long hours. She added that he felt very embittered by the feeling that he was not being given the just recognition and reward for his efforts. Jeremy was paid about eighty pounds a week,an average farm manager's wage at that time-which included the cottage and car-but for the kind of lifestyle he wanted to lead,that wasn't enough. He wanted to be out every night,drinking champagne and and getting in on the London club scene;to have a flat in London,like his sister;take his friends out to dinner and go abroad,much as his father was free to. Jeremy had once said to Liz that it was very important to have money when you were young but also resented having to ask his parents whenever he needed it. With this restriction,Jeremy turned his mind to more illegal resources:mail-order marijuana-which he either grew himself or smuggled in from Amsterdam when he went there(hence the envelopes of cash mentioned earlier)cheque-book fraud(in which the girls had been involved but had since repaid the defrauded amounts in full)and breaking and entering.
