“Earlier today, you said you thought Paul Sampson was murdered,” I said. “Is that just a guess on your part or do you know this for a fact?”
“Who knows?” He sighed resignedly. “I know how it’s all supposed to have occurred. Paul was supposed to have drunk a whole bottle of some kind of cognac, but he never drank spirits, he only ever drank wine. He couldn’t handle anything as strong as cognac.” He looked bemused, shaking his head. “He took the occasional sleeping pill but nothing like as strong as the ones he was supposed to have taken. It just doesn’t make sense.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Living a double life, having to hide in the shadows all the time, it really got him down. That’s partly why he liked ecstasy. It took him out of himself, took him to another place, it helped energise him. He was always happy whenever we did ecstasy.” He smiled as he reminisced about Paul Sampson. “It lifted his spirits and he enjoyed life a lot more. You ever had sex using ecstasy?”
I had to admit I hadn’t.
“It’s wonderful, especially if it’s with someone you love. There’s nothing quite like it on this earth.”
Tilling was looking around as he spoke. He was smiling, probably thinking of happier times under the influence of a mind-altering stimulant with his lover.
“But all the thrill went when that swine Thornwyn began squeezing Paul for money. The feeling he could blow the whistle at any time played on Paul’s mind constantly and he couldn’t focus on anything. He began to lose interest in everything. Things between us were not good at that time, but I stood by Paul. He was worth it.”
His voice choked up. I wondered if he’d been bottling up his feelings and hadn’t opened up to anyone yet. He clearly had unresolved issues to deal with.
Time to ask a direct question.
“What I don’t get is, why didn’t Paul either go to the authorities, tell them about the blackmail, get Thornwyn off his back, or just come out and admit his sexuality in public? Surely this would have defused the whole situation. He’d not have had to resign, he’d still be alive. You guys’d still be together.”
Tilling pursed his lips and nodded a few times. He smiled enigmatically.
“Easy for you to say, a white hetero male.” His voice hardened as he looked at me. I got the impression he didn’t like what he was seeing. “Relationships are simple for people like you. Never having to bottle up your emotions and your love for someone. Everything’s out in the open for you. Paul’s life would have been ruined had he done that. I told you earlier, he’d have lost his family, his career, everything he’d worked hard to achieve, and he didn’t want to lose it. I told him I’d walk away if that’s what it’d take to put his life back in balance, but he broke down when I said that, begged me not to leave him as I gave him the only real happiness in his life, apart from his daughter, little Jade. The thought of losing access to her was too much for him.”
He began crying again. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I remained standing. He sobbed for a few minutes, then drained his wine glass. He refilled it again. I wasn’t sure alcohol was the answer to his grief, but then neither was milk.
“If he’d thought he could’ve counted on his wife’s support, that would’ve at least been a help, and he’d have seriously considered it. But Martha’s as homophobic as they come, probably as much as Thornwyn. I met her once at a BBQ at their house, the only time I ever went there. God, she’s a ghastly woman, a social-climbing status-seeking upper-middle-class bitch of the worst kind.” His words were drenched in acid. “I’ll tell you the kind of woman she is. She used to tell people one of her uncles was a colonel in the army. You wanna know where? The bloody Sally army, that’s where.” He laughed at the memory for a moment.
“Do you know the play Abigail’s Party?” he continued.
I said I’d heard of it but hadn’t seen it. This, along with not drinking wine plus the bewildered way I’d looked at the artwork on his walls, probably marked me down as an uncultured pleb in his eyes.
“The lead character, the repulsive Beverly Moss, is her role model.” He stated this with quiet satisfaction. “If he’d come out, she’d have ruined him in every way possible. I couldn’t even go to his funeral, you know that?” He sounded sorrowful.
“Did she know he was gay?”
“I don’t think so.” He paused and looked upwards. I followed his eyes and noticed someone had painted a religious image of a deity on the ceiling. “No, Paul would have told me if she knew about him. I suppose if there are any positives about his death, at least he’s free from her claws. God forgive me for saying that.” He crossed himself.
“What about his work in Government? What do you know about that?”
“Not much, really. He didn’t talk much about it. It was just something he did. I’m not much interested in politics, so we didn’t talk about it.”
“What, never?” I was surprised.
“Occasionally, we’d talk about some meeting he’d gone to and who was there, or perhaps about something he’d got to do next day, but, no, we didn’t really talk that much about it.”
“You’re a Grade 8 civil servant. You’d come into contact with junior ministers and the like a lot of the time, yet you’re saying you and Paul never discussed politics or his work?”
“No.” He shook his head carefully. “Very seldom. We attended the same meetings occasionally but not that often. We had other things to talk about. We had a life we wanted to build. That was much more important.”
“Standing down as an MP and resigning was quite a dramatic step. Had he given you any indication he was thinking about this?”
“Not to me, no. I was as surprised as anyone when he told me.” He shuffled about on his cushion for a moment. “He withdrew into himself. Wouldn’t talk about anything. I didn’t even see him the last few weeks of his life because he was at home all the time. The last time I spoke to him, he said he had things he needed to think about and he’d be in touch soon. I thought about visiting but his unspeakable wife probably wouldn’t have let me into the house. Then, when I heard about what he’d done . . .”
His voice tailed off. I knew what he meant, though not how he must be feeling; that I had no idea about. I’d never had and lost any clandestine relationship.
“And I’ve just been waiting for someone to come along and tell me I was to be tapped for money,” he said resignedly, “which is why I was so hostile towards you this morning. I thought it was you, you see.” His voice was now beginning to sound slurred and he mispronounced a couple of words as he spoke, with hostile sounding like hoshstile.
From his loud sighing and shaking his head, I could see he was shutting down. He put his glass on the coffee table and closed his eyes. He wasn’t focused. I wouldn’t get any more from him in this state. I told him I’d probably be in touch again and left him to his Saturday night misery. I wondered if he’d even heard me leave.
Paul Sampson had ostensibly committed suicide because the pressure of keeping his sexuality secret and the blackmailing from Thornwyn had become too much for him; he’d taken his own life whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed. I was convinced this was the situation and I was also convinced Thornwyn was directly responsible.
There was something else, however. I was finding it difficult to grasp why keeping his homosexuality secret could have led to suicide. Even professional rugby players, in that most macho of sports, had come out, declared their homosexuality and continued to play the game exactly like before. In the USA, baseball players and American footballers had come out to hardly any adverse reaction.
No, there had to be something else and I was convinced Thornwyn was either directly implicated or else a main player behind the scenes. I was no psychologist but I was finding it hard to accept a life and career as promising as Paul Sampson’s could be thrown away because of blackmail, given the times we now lived in.
I thought about whom I’d known when I’d served in Thornwyn’s team and who I thought cou
ld be trusted. I’d heard a couple were under suspicion of having helped him in his endeavours.
Driving back home I went through the team in my mind and decided my safest bet was probably Larry Jasper, who’d been a DS in the team when I’d joined. He was reliable and honest and I couldn’t imagine him with his hands in anyone’s pocket.
At home I obtained details for him from Special Branch files. He was now a DI in Surrey, based in Egham. I called his mobile phone.
“Rob, fucking hell, mate, how are you?” he exclaimed after I told him who was calling. He sounded surprised to hear me. We chatted briefly for a moment about what we were doing and where we were based.
“What about ol’ Thornwyn, eh?” he began. “Christ, he’ll go down for the big one, no question. Did you know about all this?”
“No, I didn’t. You?”
“Same, though I had some strong suspicions.”
Interesting he’d had suspicions things were not right in the team. Had I really been that naïve when operating in Thornwyn’s team? Had things been happening under my nose and I’d not spotted them?
“I wanna ask you something,” I said. “I’m looking into something where Thornwyn’s name has come up. I can’t go into details but it’s likely he didn’t do all this on his own. I’ve been told there’s two others in the squad we were in who helped Thornwyn and I might need to talk to them. You have any idea who they might be?” I assured him of my total discretion regarding what he could tell me.
“I’m not gonna speculate on that one, Rob. I’ll just tell you one thing. Paine and Turley, remember them? I’ve heard on the grapevine they’ve both been suspended from duty. Did you know that?”
“No. No, I didn’t.”
John Paine and Brian Turley were the two officers in the team who worked the closest with Thornwyn and had served the longest with him. Now I thought about it, I should have realised who they were when Smitherman told me two others were being investigated alongside Thornwyn. In fact, it’d been Turley who’d informed the rookie DC McGraw about Thornwyn not using his own money to settle a restaurant bill and how it’d all soon be made clear to me. I should have seen this one coming; further evidence of my naivety.
“So, what about you? Any of this crap flying about hit you yet?” he asked.
“Not so far. I’m good at ducking,” I said with a laugh. I didn’t mention I’d been given a clean bill of health by the IPCC. “You?”
“I transferred out to Surrey when I got promoted, just before you did. I knew there was something going on and I wanted out before the shit really hit the fan.”
“Such as what?”
“This is in confidence, right? I got your word?”
I agreed he had it.
“Turley once offered me a share of what they’d taken from some dealer somewhere. There was a major bust and, as well as drugs, they found a lot of money, fucking thousands it was. They turned the drugs in but the money was never reported. I can only assume they split it up. I didn’t take their money and, soon after that, I put in for a transfer. They were getting brazen about how much they were raking in. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I’ve heard from my boss IPCC wanna talk to me about it, so I’m keeping my head down for the moment till all this passes over. Anyway, what’s up? Why are you asking these questions?”
“I’m calling ’cause I wanna know if you know someone named Bernie. He was one of Thornwyn’s informers.”
“Bernie the Buck? Yeah, I know the scrote. Horrible little bastard. We pulled him in once when we raided some shop looking for illegal firearms but Thornwyn let him go, said he was an informant and it’d been his tip we’d acted on. Why d’you need to know about him?”
“His name’s come up in something the Branch is investigating, and Thornwyn’s in Belmarsh, so I can’t exactly ask him, can I?” I tried to sound light-hearted.
“Thornwyn used to meet him in a pub up by Chalk Farm,” Jasper said. “Local boys know him and what he does but he gets left alone. He lives round that way. I don’t know where, though.”
“Which pub?”
He told me. I knew the pub and where it was. I also had an informer in the area I decided I was going to put to good use.
T H R E E
Sunday
It was just after nine and I was driving through sunny Hertfordshire. It had been an easy ride as there’d been next to no traffic leaving London and I was making good time. I wanted to know more about Paul Sampson, so I was going to Berkhamsted to talk to Sampson’s wife. I was hoping to hear from her what she knew about Sampson’s last months alive and what her thoughts were concerning his taking his own life. I was also curious to see if she really was the middle-class harridan Geoffrey Tilling had made her out to be.
The Sampson residence, just off the A41, south of the town, was a testament to serious money: a large, detached five-bedroomed property with a substantial garden front and back. There was a large garage to the side of the house, capable of accommodating two vehicles side by side quite comfortably, and one of the cars in the garage was a top-of-the-range Land Rover. There was an ornamental pond in the front garden with a statue of someone or something I didn’t recognise in the centre. I parked on the road, walked down the garden path to the front door and rang the bell.
The door opened and I was greeted by Martha Sampson. I introduced myself, showed ID to her and she admitted me into her home. She took me into the lounge to which was attached a conservatory which, at first glance, was probably bigger than my flat and, with the large patio doors opened, was bathed in bright sunshine. The room smelled of gardenia and was very tastefully furnished.
She invited me to sit. I did. She sat opposite, knees bunched tightly together and looking very prim and proper. I guessed she was around forty. Wearing jodhpurs and a beige waistcoat over a white shirt, she was dressed as though she was about to go horse riding and she looked like she’d be part of the local twinset and pearls country clique, assuming Hertfordshire had one. She had shoulder-length brown hair, tucked behind her ears, and, even though she was smiling, I formed the impression she was really thinking, What the bloody hell do you want? She began by asking me that very question, though worded more politely.
“Special Branch’s investigating something where your late husband’s name arose. I can’t explain exactly what, you understand, but it concerns his work at the Home Office. Did he ever talk to you about his work when he was still a parliamentary under-secretary?”
“No. He couldn’t, you see. Bound by the ministerial oath as well as the Official Secrets Act. I’m afraid I’ve no idea what he did in office.” She spoke in well-modulated tones which made me think of Cheltenham Ladies’ College.
“What about after he stood down? Did he talk about it then?”
“No.” She shook her head. “He never shared that part of his life with me. He didn’t talk much at all, actually, particularly in the last few years. Afterwards, when he’d resigned, he just sat in his study and moped.”
“Were you surprised when he stood down as an MP? Had he talked to you before he made his announcement about it?”
She paused for a moment. “It came as a complete shock when he told me what he’d done. He left his London flat in the morning a minister of the Crown, went to his office and wrote a letter to the PM resigning his office and, just after that, stood down as an MP, and not long after . . .” She shrugged her shoulders and looked straight at me and didn’t finish the sentence. I knew what she meant. “I couldn’t understand his decision to throw it all away. I still can’t. It came as quite a shock, I can tell you.”
“Apologies if this sounds insensitive, but do you have any idea at all why he stood down and soon afterwards took his own life? I’ve heard he was an effective minister and highly rated in his party.”
“None whatever,” she replied instantly. “He was an effective minister and, so far as I knew, he loved his life as a politician, and all the perks that went with it. He loved being interviewed on
TV and talking to journalists. It was a big deal for him when he got to go on Radio 4’s Today programme, answering questions on behalf of the Government, because it’s the flagship politics show. Anyone who’s anyone listens to it. He loved travelling and representing the Government and being thought of as a Government spokesman, especially when he took questions in the House.” She briefly smiled at a happy memory. “But he threw it all away and I’m afraid I don’t know why.”
“And it was you who found him, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” She looked solemn. “I went in to say goodnight and found him in an almost comatose state. I called the ambulance to get him to hospital, but . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“Had you ever suspected he was suicidal?”
“No, never.” She was adamant.
“Had he given any indication this was what he was thinking?”
“Not to me, and from the conversations I’ve had with a couple of his colleagues, he’d not spoken to them either about what he was planning. They were as shocked as I was when they heard what he’d done.”
“The coroner’s report said something about how, when his stomach was pumped, they found he’d been drinking cognac.”
“Yes, he had.”
“I’ve been given to believe he never drank spirits, only wine. Why would he suddenly develop a taste for expensive cognac? Did he go out and buy it?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head.
“I’ve also been told the pills he took were much stronger than the ones he normally took for sleeping. Where would he have got those from?”
“Again, I don’t know. Why are you asking me these questions?” She stared directly at me, looking concerned. “I’ve already spoken to the security people.”
“As I mentioned earlier, the Branch is looking into something relating to what he was doing prior to resigning his position and standing down. Anything pertaining to his state of mind is of interest to our investigations.”
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