Thornwyn

by Laurence Todd

  Clements shook his head, looking bewildered. “I don’t buy it, Rob. There’s gotta be something more than being gay making him resign as an MP. He must have stood down because whoever was blackmailing him knew something else. I know a few MPs from both sides of the House who’ve done much worse things than being gay, and it wasn’t always consensual either, but they’ve still got their seats in the palace of varieties down the road.” He laughed knowingly. “But I’m keeping those secret until my autobiography comes out.”

  What Clements said made some sense. Why hadn’t Sampson just called Thornwyn’s bluff and come out? It would probably have caused a small political earthquake for a day or two but, once settled, would have removed Thornwyn’s hold over him and allowed him to continue serving as an MP. Life would have progressed and he’d have continued his climb up to the political summit. Was it really as he’d supposedly said, that his wife and child would have been lost to him? Or was Clements correct in his assumption about there being something else in the background preventing him? I remembered Thornwyn saying a few hours earlier I didn’t know the bigger picture.

  Clements had more to say. “I was told he’d assured the party Chief Whip he wasn’t gay when the rumours first started, and what was being said was just scurrilous gossip spread around by his political opponents. I heard this from my contact at the Guardian, who’d heard it from an MP he’s friends with, so that could be one reason why he kept the closet doors closed. I mean, lying to the Chief Whip in private’s no biggie, is it? MPs do it all the time. Profumo lied to the whole House from the floor of the Commons, but Sampson didn’t do anything like that.” He drained his second beer. I wasn’t even halfway through mine.

  “What else do you know?” I asked.

  “That’s it, really. There’s probably more gossip out there somewhere, though.” He had an evil grin. “You wouldn’t believe how incestuously gossipy reporters are, particularly the political hacks in the lobby. Sampson had a few friends in the lobby. I can ask around, see what else is known, if you want.”

  I took him up on the offer. I told him to be discreet, make out it was for a story his magazine was preparing and certainly not let on it was for someone in Special Branch. He said he’d do it after the weekend because tomorrow he was going on a demonstration against selling arms to despotic Middle East regimes and probably wouldn’t see too many of his journalist friends there.

  “Oh, yeah, when Special Branch photographs me, can you ask them to get me in left side profile? That’s my photogenic side.” He laughed again.

  I thanked him and left.

  Walking back along Whitehall toward Westminster tube station I had the same feeling I was being followed. Nothing I could pinpoint, but then I saw the same woman from earlier on the other side of the road also walking towards Parliament Square, making sure she stayed slightly behind me. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but something inside me

  said I was being tailed. There was something in her mannerisms making me think she wasn’t just taking a mid-evening stroll in central London.

  I stopped outside the Red Lion, a popular Westminster watering hole for politicos and journalists, pretending to be looking at the tariff listed on the door. In the reflection of the glass, I saw the woman across the street also stop and wait by the bus stop. I entered the pub, went into the bar and looked across at her. I didn’t recognise her. I waited a few more moments, then went back outside.

  I walked fast to the corner of the road, then sprinted a few yards and, at the nearby Tesco Express, ducked into the shop and waited inside by the door. Ten seconds later the same woman came past, walking quickly and looking anxiously towards the tube station. She quickened her pace. I stepped outside and followed her into the foyer of the station. She was looking around when I walked past, gently nudging her as I did.

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” I said jovially. “You got the right time?” I looked at my watch, then at her. For a split second our eyes locked. I’d clocked her and she knew it. Without a word she turned around and walked away, and without telling me the time.

  I was being followed. Why?

  T W O

  Saturday

  I was reading the post-mortem report concerning the suicide of Paul Sampson. As he’d been an MP it was easily accessible from his file.

  The facts of the case were straightforward and not in dispute. His wife, Martha, had gone into the bedroom around 11 pm and found her husband lying in bed. She’d thought initially he was asleep but, as she had gone to turn off the bedside lamp, she’d noticed his eyes were open and his pupils were dilated. She’d also noticed his chest was barely moving and his breathing was erratic. She’d felt for his pulse but had struggled to locate one and, when she had managed to, it had been very weak. She’d immediately dialled for an ambulance and one had arrived inside six minutes. He’d been taken to a nearby hospital. The medical team had recognised the signs, his stomach had been pumped and a considerable number of very strong prescription-only sleeping pills had been extracted, mixed in with a quantity of a rather good cognac. The mixture of alcohol and strong sleeping pills, coupled with the time elapsing between the estimated ingestion of the pills and alcohol and his wife finding him, had meant Paul Sampson had lapsed into a coma and, according to his doctor, Radeep Singh, there was the very real possibility of permanent and irreparable brain damage. He’d died the next day without ever regaining consciousness.

  The only fingerprints on the pill tub and cognac bottle belonged to Sampson and there was no suspicion of any foul play. The coroner had recorded the cause of death as a suicide. No note had been found. It was noted there was no history of suicide in his family, nor any history of mental illness. The family GP had confirmed the issuing of the prescription for the sleeping pills and this wasn’t considered to be suspicious.

  Questioned by police, Martha Sampson had said her husband had been suffering from a very deep depression since standing down as an MP and was often morose and seemingly devoid of any real purpose in his life any longer. Asked what he’d been doing since leaving the House of Commons, she’d replied he’d largely spent his time just sitting in his study and looking out the window at the garden. He’d made no contact with any of his parliamentary colleagues and had refused all requests for interviews from the media, even from friendly journalists he’d known for years, though he’d maintained contact with a couple he’d regarded as personal friends rather than just writers.

  The report did not make for happy reading. Paul Sampson had been only forty-three when he’d taken his own life. But for his being pressured by Thornwyn to come out or be named in the media, he would have been justifiably confident of many more years as a top Tory MP and, if Clements was to be believed, securing a top Government position and possibly a seat in the Cabinet. The file didn’t mention anything about blackmail or any speculation as to his sudden resignation as an MP.

  There was no mention of any suspicions about his sexuality either. Sampson was listed as being married with a seven-year-old daughter, Jade. Tilling’s name wasn’t mentioned anywhere. As a parliamentary under-secretary Sampson would have had to undergo positive vetting before entry into ministerial life, which made me wonder how thorough the vetting had been. Either Sampson and Tilling had been very careful indeed – and, according to Thornwyn, they had false driving licenses for ID purposes – or the vetting had been poorly conducted.

  Could Clements have been right in suggesting Sampson was under other pressures than just to come out? There was no doubt he’d left a glittering career behind when he’d resigned and now he’d left everything behind. I was unsure whether the coroner’s report had included everything.

  I needed to talk to someone who knew him well, and the obvious candidate was Geoffrey Tilling. He would know more about Sampson’s state of mind in the months leading up to his resignation and his premature death, and there was nothing indicating he’d been interviewed concerning Sampson’s suicide.

  There was no answer from t
he phone in Tilling’s flat. I checked with the duty officer at the Home Office and found Tilling was in his office. I decided to try him there.

  The Home Office no longer has its grand Whitehall base. After being relocated around the corner in Petty France for a while, it’s now to be found in Marsham Street, in the very heart of political Westminster, near to Parliament and the main parties’ headquarters. I walked there from the Yard and, inside at reception, showed my ID and asked for Geoffrey Tilling. A call was placed to his office.

  He appeared a minute later. He was about five foot eight and had dark layered curly hair on top but cut very short around the sides in the modern style, and he wore earrings and wire-rimmed glasses. I guessed his age at around forty to forty-five. He was dressed casually as it was the weekend, beige chinos and a dark open-collared floral shirt with no tie. He was also wearing sandals with no socks. If I’d not known better I’d have assumed he taught drama or art. The woman behind the reception desk nodded towards me. He looked at me with seeming curiosity, as though I were an abstract work of art he couldn’t begin to understand.

  “You wanted to see me?” He sounded very upper-middle-class, his enunciation definitely the product of an expensive education.

  “DS McGraw, Special Branch,” I identified myself. “Where can we talk?”

  “Why do you need to talk to me?” His eyes narrowed.

  I didn’t reply. No one spoke for four seconds.

  “Not here.” He sounded nervous. “Let’s go for a walk. Do you like St James’s Park?”

  We left the building and turned right. We walked in silence to the park. I noticed his eyes were firmly fixed ahead and at no time did he even look in my direction. He had an intense expression, like he was focusing on only one thing and was walking with a purpose in mind.

  At the tea stall where I occasionally came to buy lunch I bought teas for both of us and a cake for him. We found a park bench.

  I was taking in the surroundings. I loved this park. The Whitehall buildings in view were almost magisterial in design and it was always something to hear Big Ben chiming. Small wonder tourists from everywhere flocked here to photograph history. The park itself was beautiful and when the sun was shining and there was very little breeze on a Saturday, like today, there were plenty of people around: dog walkers, joggers, tourists, families on a day out in town, plus a group of schoolkids sitting excitedly on the grass whilst two teachers looked at a map and pointed towards Buckingham Palace.

  Tilling was just staring at his cake. I was wishing I’d bought something to eat, as seeing him look at the cake was making me hungry. We sat quietly for several seconds.

  “Actually, I can guess why you want to see me, can’t I?” he finally said. He looked determined as he spoke.

  “Can you?”

  “I think so. You want to talk about Paul, don’t you?” He turned to face me. His face had hardened and he had a firm steely glint in his eyes.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “I suppose you’re like that other cop, the one extorting money from Paul. Now he’s dead, you’re going to blackmail me, aren’t you? That other cop said this wasn’t finished, so I’ve been waiting for someone to approach me and tell me how much their silence is going to cost. Well, I’ve got news for you, sunbeam: I’m not paying you a fucking penny and I’ll take whatever consequences come, so you can just fuck off, alright?” He looked and sounded defiant. “You’re getting nothing from me.”

  I’d not heard an expletive pronounced so well for a long while. I hadn’t been called sunbeam often, either. “Good for you, Geoffrey, but that’s not why I wanna talk to you.”

  His eyes opened wide in surprise. For a couple of seconds I think he stopped breathing.

  “I already get paid. I just wanna hear your side: what you know about Paul Sampson being blackmailed, why he stood down from Parliament, things like that. I’m not here to blackmail you.” I hoped I sounded reassuring. “Though I might make you pay for the tea and cake if I don’t like your answers.” I smiled, trying to lighten the mood.

  His defiant expression changed. He exhaled and looked relieved. He sat back against the bench, produced a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. Was he crying? He blew his nose.

  “Sorry,” he eventually said, his voice choking with emotion. “I’ve been expecting someone in authority to get in touch with a blackmail demand ever since Paul died, because that other policeman said it was gonna happen.”

  He did some yoga-style deep breathing exercises for a few moments.

  “It’s alright, I’m okay now. What did you want to ask me?”

  For the next fifteen minutes, he told me about his relationship with Paul Sampson. They’d met six years ago when Sampson, an MP since 2001, was introduced to him at a meeting they were both present at. Tilling was a Grade 8 rank, so he was there as a junior ministerial advisor. They’d become friends and gradually Sampson had become more comfortable in his presence. How they had discovered each other’s sexuality wasn’t mentioned, and I didn’t ask, but they’d become lovers soon afterwards and had been together, albeit covertly, until Sampson’s relatively recent death.

  They’d kept their relationship clandestine because Sampson came from a very devoutly religious family who saw homosexuality as a sin against God; they would not have understood his desire to be with a man, rather than the woman he’d married, and would have cut him off. His wife, Martha, was the daughter of a leading industrialist: the production director at Bartolome Systems, manufacturers of weapons guidance systems which were sold to the UK Government as well as governments abroad. Her father would have taken Sampson for everything if he’d left Martha for another man, and he would have ensured Sampson would never have seen his own daughter again.

  “Paul had too much to lose if he came out,” Tilling said, sorrowfully. “He wanted to, his secret life was killing him, he was under so much pressure, but it would have cost him everything if he had. That cop Thornwyn, he’d found out about Paul’s background, and he used it to extort money from him. He’d asked Paul how much it was worth not to tell his family. I told Paul, I’m not worth this sacrifice, I’m really not, but he wouldn’t hear it. He paid up so we could be together,” – he sounded choked and was swallowing hard – “and the pressure finally became too much for him.”

  “Who else knew about you and Paul?”

  “Just a few trusted members of our community; that’s it, really. You can understand why we didn’t exactly shout it from the rooftops,” he commented ironically. “Despite all the legislation and what the courts say, sadly we still live in a world of small minds, people like Paul’s family. Laws will never change their righteous brand of bigotry. You ever read The Crucible? His family regards homosexuality in the same way the puritans regarded witchcraft. Inclusion was a term they refused to acknowledge. Be straight or be cast out.” He almost smiled as he spoke, staring into the far distance, as though addressing a much larger audience than just me.

  “What was going on in Paul’s life at the time he resigned?” I asked. “Did he really just resign from politics because of being blackmailed? Surely he’d not have to endure that much if he came out. Some publicity in the press and then it’d all be over. I think there’s more to this than you’re telling me, much more. If there is, you should tell me. That’s why I’ve come to see you. His suicide’s being investigated.”

  I was hoping Tilling wasn’t offended by my challenging his account of the situation. I could understand Sampson’s desire to avoid losing his family and that he’d hoped to maintain his position in the machinery of Government. But I was finding it difficult to believe, in today’s inclusive Conservative Party, that being faced with coming out in public to extricate yourself from being blackmailed would be a reason to commit suicide.

  Tilling sat silently for some time, still staring into the far distance. After a while he took out a tissue and dabbed his eyes. Then he started crying quietly. He wiped tears from his cheek.

  “Sorr
y about this.” He sniffed. “It still hurts.”

  “I imagine it does. Take whatever time you need.”

  He sobbed quietly for about a minute, occasionally dabbing his eyes with the tissue. People were walking past and a few cast furtive glances. I wondered what they thought about what they saw: two men sitting together on a park bench, one crying. Would they think we were a couple in the process of breaking up?

  “He loved working over there.” He nodded towards Whitehall. “He loved being at the centre of the political machine, being involved with the big decisions of state. He liked being sounded out by journalists and enjoyed being interviewed on politics programmes and, when he stood down, the hole in his life was immense and obviously nothing filled it.”

  He sipped his tea but didn’t touch the cake.

  “Paul was the love of my life,” he said sorrowfully, more to someone else than to me, in a low voice suggesting he was choking up. “I’d never met anyone like him before and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. That bastard Thornwyn.” He started crying again, this time more forcefully.

  I’d never sat next to a man crying about lost homosexual love before and was unsure what to do. I sat and waited. I wondered briefly whether he’d yet to fully grieve for his lost partner. He stopped crying.