High society (35 page)

BIRMINGHAM CENTRAL HOSPITAL

O
nly one figure was sufficiently newsworthy to intrude briefly on the media feeding frenzy engulfing the Paget family and Samantha Spencer and her associates as they moved towards the libel action brought by Peter Paget against his accusers. That figure was Tommy Hanson.

Tommy was unconscious, in the coma in which Goldie and his henchman had left him a couple of streets away from the brothel in which Jessie was imprisoned. For a week the identity of the unconscious man had remained a mystery. The man in the coma was clearly not the man whose clothes he had been wearing. He was a thief who had mugged a passerby, taken his clothes and credit cards and paid for a prostitute on the strength of them before falling foul of some gang of toughs or other. Now, as the unconscious man’s bruises and his swollen face began to heal, the nurses began to notice an increasing resemblance to the country’s most famous pop star, who had also been famously reported missing on the day after the unconscious man had been admitted to hospital.

That Tommy, the press reported. Muggings, prostitutes? What would he get up to next?

PARKINSON, BBC TV CENTRE

M
y next guest is never out of the news and seemingly never out of trouble. Only three months ago he was a guest on the first programme of this series, having been arrested for Crowd-surfing down Oxford Street. Now he faces charges of a much more serious nature. It seems that Tommy Hanson held a man at knifepoint, stole his clothes and his money and used the latter to visit a brothel. He is currently remanded on bail and he’s with us tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, Tommy Hanson.’

The applause that greeted Tommy was as warm as ever. The public still loved their Tom, and why wouldn’t they? Anybody who could surprise and entertain them as consistently as Tommy did was fine by them. Besides, as always Tommy played it beautifully. No cocky swagger this time, instead naughty-boy body language and please-forgive-me eyes. He stood at the top of the stairs for a full minute while the applause, which had been warm to begin with, grew and grew. Tommy worked the crowd with nothing more than his eyes, eyes that said it all…I’m sorry, but I’m mad, me, what can I tell you? It’s tough being a tortured boy genius, but I promise I’ll try to be good.

After a few brief words of greeting, Michael Parkinson got straight to the point. ‘Tommy. What the hell did you think you were doing?’

‘Parky, I screwed up big time, but I’ve come on here to tell the world why I done it. First an’ foremost, I ‘ave t’say a public sorry to the bloke I pointed the knife at…’

‘And I believe he has already accepted your apology.’

‘For sure, Parky, for sure. We’re mates because I told him why I done it an’ got his little kids in to see S Club.’

‘And why did you do it, Tommy?’

‘Eh, straight to the point, Parky. I like that, that’s why you’re the king.’

‘Well, I do my best.’

‘And fair play to you.’

‘So why did you do it, Tommy?’

‘Love, Parky. I done it for love.’

‘You mugged a man for love?’

‘Yes, I did. Let me tell you ‘ow it ‘appened.’

‘Please do.’

‘I’d been stitched up by this journo, see, the one who done all that crap about me winning Pop Hero ‘cos I give a couple o’ hand jobs t’the judge, which I in’t denying but that’s not why I won, right. Plus, I’m not gay even though there’s nowt wrong wi’ being’ gay. I just in’t, that’s all. Least I in’t till I’ve ‘ad three tabs o’ sextasy, that’s for sure.’

‘In vino veritas, Tommy. In vino veritas.’

‘Eh?’

‘It means that wine or in this case drugs often reveals the truth about a man.’

‘Yeah? Well, I’ve ‘ad more drugs than they’ve got at Boots, an’ the only thing they reveal is the tosser in the man, which is what I’m saying, ‘cos that’s exactly what I done to that Pop Hero judge.’

Tommy took a sip of water while Parky and the audience applauded his good-humoured honesty.

‘All right, so you’d been stitched up,’ Parky reminded Tommy. ‘What next?’

‘Well, I chucked a total mental and stormed out into the night, didn’t I? Just buggered off inta a Brummie Saturday night and ended up getting the crap kicked out o’ me. Honest, it were like Trading Places or whatever. I wake up, nobody can recognize me, I’ve got no phone, no money, me office an’ all that is closed, me manager wouldn’t ‘ave ‘card the phone anyway ‘cos Sundays he’s always got ‘is ‘ead stuck between the pendulous breasts of a busty model…So that’s it, I ain’t Tommy Hanson superstar any more, I’m Tommy Anonymous street kid, an’ that’s what I’m gonna be till the following morning…’

‘Amazing.’

‘Yes, Parky, amazing an’ horrible. Really, truly horrible. If anybody out there wants any proof that kids don’t beg on the streets for fun, just give it an hour or two. It were absolutely terrible, Parky. Cold, filthy, terrifying.’

‘Is that why you mugged someone, because you were cold?’

‘No way, Parky, no way. Listen, mugging that bloke took every ounce o’ courage I ‘ad. I were more scared than ‘im, I swear. It takes something very special to push a bloke to do somethin’ like that and in my case it were love.’

‘You met someone, on the streets?’

‘Yes, I did, a girl called Jessie, the loveliest girl I ever saw or ever will see…’

‘What happened? How did you meet?’

‘I were trying to nick her coat.’

‘You tried to mug her too?’

‘No! I just thought it were an empty coat in the doorway. But it weren’t, it were Jessie, an’ when them big dark eyes looked up at me in that Marks an’ Sparks doorway I knew I was gone, an’ I was, an’ I still am. But let me tell you, Parky, that girl had the toughest life you can imagine. She were abused at home so she ran away, right? Came to London, starving, homeless, got picked up by a pimp, who introduced her to smack and that were that. Just seventeen an’ a junkie prossie. Y’see this is why that Peter Paget bloke’s so right. The whole criminal drug subculture is a trap, man, it’s a trap for the weak and defenceless. Once Jessie were hooked there was nowhere for her to go but to the people that abused her…’

‘You support Peter Paget?’

‘Yeah, I do. If he’d ‘a been around a few years ago Jessie would never have ended up like she did.’

‘And where did she end up?’

‘In a brothel in Brum, right, but get this. She actually managed to kick smack on her own while she were workin’ as a whore and then she ran away. That’s when I met her, Parky, while I were a street kid for a day. I met her an’ she shared her food and her coat wi’ me.’

‘And you fell in love with her?’

‘Yeah, I reckon I did. At least I swore t’God I were goin’ to ‘elp her find a new life. The day we spent together sittin’ in a KFC an’ then in doorways was the most important of my life. It were the day I discovered that there are more important things in the world than Tommy Hanson…almost everything, in fact.’

‘But you lost her.’

Tears welled up in Tommy’s eyes. ‘Yes, I did. Her pimps found her an’ took her back, and I followed her to where they took her. But I were a street kid, remember. There was no way they’d ‘a’ let me through the door o’ that house they put her in…’

‘And that’s when you stole another man’s clothes?’

‘I had to, Parky. The girl I loved ‘ad been stolen away.’

‘And you went into the brothel?’

‘Yes, I did, but they’d already give her a needleful o’ scag, and she were just totally monged out, selling her body, so I tried to grab her and run and they beat me up bad and that were the end of that…’

‘You were in a coma for a week.’

‘That’s right, and when I come out, after the judge released me on bail, I got all my people, right? I’m on the phone Tiny management team sayin’ I want all my people right here right now. So I’ve got like an army o’ people, two coachloads, one muscle the other brains, an’ I’m in front in a white stretch ‘cos when I save her I want it t’be like a cowboy on a white horse, an’ we drove through Birmingham an’ I went back to that house to get my Jessie an’ also all the other girls which I knew was what Jessie would want…But when we got there it were empty, Parky. Because o’ the beating I’d took an’ the fact that the last credit card transaction ‘ad been from there, the police went an’ had a look at the place an’ it all broke up because the blokes what run establishments like that one know how to keep their exits covered. They just moved on, takin’ Jessie with them. I’ve lost ‘er, Parky. She’s gone, evaporated, disappeared into the air. Except I know she’s out there somewhere an’ I intend to find her. I will, Parky, I’ve given up me career, I’ve kicked the booze an’ drugs, this time for real. I’ll take whatever the law wants to throw at me for mugging that bloke and I’ll find Jessie if it takes me as long as I live.’

Some of the women in the audience were moved to tears at Tommy’s anguish. Even Parky dabbed at an eye.

‘Good luck, Tommy, and when you find her come and see us again, all right?’

A BROTHEL, BIRMINGHAM

P
erhaps the person who was moved most of all was the madam of Goldie’s premier brothel, which while having changed location remained essentially the same institution as it had been before. The madam, whose name was Nina, was passing the dull hours during which the sad, haunted-looking clients came and went, by watching Parkinson. And with growing astonishment she recognized the distraught superstar on the screen as the bruised and cocky jack the lad who had tried to buy one of her girls on a stolen credit card and had been beaten senseless for his pains. Nina could scarcely believe the truth as it sank into her slightly stoned and brandy-raddled brain. Goldie and his boys had nearly killed Tommy Hansonl There was a girl working upstairs with whom Tommy Hanson was in love. As Nina struggled to get her mind around the scale of her discovery she heard footsteps. One of Goldie’s boys was approaching. How fortunate she had been that he had had to go to the lavatory at the exact time when Tommy had been describing Jessie’s story. It was just possible that the penny might have dropped for him as it had done for her.

How fortunate also that the girls who sat about waiting for clients spoke no English and were too out of it to bother much with Nina’s nine-inch portable TV anyway.

Nobody knew the truth but Nina. Quickly she turned the television to another channel, thrilling plans already forming in her mind.

CAMBRIDGE TECHNICAL COLLEGE

T
he moment Peter Paget mentioned to Charlie Ansboro that he was not the first victim of Samantha Spencer’s obsession with older men the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary had seen that it was the knock-out punch that would bury the scandal for good. He spun the story carefully, placing just a hint of it with a trusted ex-colleague who was currently working for The Times. The journalist had traced the disgraced ex-Professor of Politics and Modern History’s story in exactly the same manner as Peter Paget had done, reviewing back issues of the Cambridge Evening News. Perhaps not surprisingly, ex-Professor Crozier had been cautious of the press at first but after a little persuasion had poured out his story eagerly.

‘She ruined me, there’s no doubt about that,’ he said. T have no idea whether Peter Paget had sex with Samantha Spencer or not, but I did and I have never for one moment denied it. I am not proud of the incident. I was thirty-seven and in a position of authority, but she was an intelligent nineteen-year-old, and what I did was not a crime. We made love only twice, but she claimed I had harassed her. She claimed numerous private tutorials had taken place during which I coerced her into sex. This was a complete lie. I have always followed a policy of never taking private tutorials, and she had no supporting evidence whatsoever. Nonetheless, in the atmosphere of the time everything she said was believed and everything I said was dismissed.’ The man from the newspaper murmured sympathetically while being inwardly thrilled. ‘As I say, I was ruined, and I now teach as a lecturer at a technical college,’ the ex-Professor continued. ‘The stigma of harassment has hung over me to this day. Now I see that this damaged girl is at her tricks again. What’s more, her victim on this occasion is a very important man, a man who may just be in the process of changing society for the good. Those are the stakes. My disgrace is unimportant, except, of course, to me and my loved ones. But if Samantha Spencer succeeds, through some wounded sexual pride or some misplaced sense of filial betrayal, in bringing down Peter Paget, she may very well succeed in bringing down an entire generation with her, a generation that will be forced like previous generations into the hands of criminals.

THE EDITOR’S OFFICE, A NATIONAL NEWSPAPER

P
aula Wooldridge was almost too upset to speak. Milton, on the other hand, was beside himself with glee. The awful weeks during which Paula had been the toast of the newspaper, bestriding its narrow confines like a colossus, were over. The sensational effort to bring down Peter Paget, which had begun so stunningly promisingly, had collapsed in ignominy. The paper was discredited, the financial cost would be huge, and Milton as a loyal employee was absolutely delighted.

‘It’s still three to two,’ Paula protested, but even she did not sound convinced.

‘Yes!’ her editor yelled. Three to two…and let’s just look at those five witnesses, shall we, you fucking idiot! On our side we have two cynical commies, both habitual drug-takers, one a dealer — ’

‘Oh, come on. Dealer? Who hasn’t sold a wrap of charlie to a mate?’

‘Brilliant! And perhaps you’d like to make that point to a libel jury, Paula.’

‘Sammy’s friends are entirely ordinary, respectable, professional — ’

‘I don’t care what they are, you bloody fool! I care what they look like, and the rest of the media have made that decision for us. They look like a couple of sharp-operating, coke-snorting, posh snob bastards, and everybody hates them. Then, queen of the bunch, you have your darling Sammy, an embittered, emotionally retarded, tit-flashing slapper of an ex-employee — ’

‘Tit-flashing slapper!’

‘Yes, tit-flashing slapper! They’ve dug up so many topless shots of that bird I’m sick of the sight of them.’

‘These days lots of girls go topless when they’re on holiday.’

‘And of course they all flash them about at student parties, don’t they, Paula?’ This was Milton, who had been privately delighted when a rival paper had unearthed shots of Samantha at a May Week Ball obliging some fellow student’s camera by popping one of her breasts out from the front of her strapless evening gown. ‘Five of her Cambridge boyfriends have come forward so far, Paula. They all have the same story: nasty little cockteaser, egged them on, then watched them squirm.’

‘On top of which, the broadsheets are getting in on the act. Did you see yesterday’s Times?’

Paula had done but she pretended otherwise.

‘They’ve got this fucking old Professor of Politics who reckons your precious Sammy has been in the business of destroying her seniors before…’

The editor hurled the newspaper down, the front page of which carried yet another sexy photograph of Samantha Spencer, although in deference to the serious journalistic traditions of that newspaper it was not a topless shot. Milton had brought along his own copy of the rival paper and quoted the headline eagerly. ‘Paget not first victim of unbalanced graduate.’ He smirked. Professor Crozier’s intervention had been a bombshell, and Samantha Spencer’s entire psychologically disturbed history suddenly became public knowledge. Medical reports were leaked, anonymous therapists spoke out.

‘So that’s your three witnesses!’ The editor shouted directly into Paula’s face, flecks of his spittle falling on her glasses. ‘Two druggy lefties and a fucking father-fixated bunny-boiler. They, on the other hand, as you so rightly point out, have only two witnesses, witnesses who just happen to be the two most popular people in the fucking country! Paget, a man who took on his own party and the entire parliamentary establishment to alert society to the dangers it is facing. A man who risked contracting Aids in order to protect teenaged girls from a drug addict’s needle, a man whose lovely wife stands behind him…Plus…plus Cathy Paget, media star numero uno. The one who first caught the attention of the world by demolishing…who was it? Remind me again? Oh yes, of course, it was you, wasn’t it, Paula? You, the embittered nasty old hack who just happens to be the person who produces this ludicrous drugs and sex conspiracy against her father now. Cathy Paget, giant killer, the little girl who taught the press a thing or two about honest dealing, out of the mouths of babes and fucking sucklings!’

‘You know she’s been offered a record deal,’ Milton added, ‘and they want her to join the Newsnight team to give a youth perspective.’ Milton could not conceal his glee in imparting this thrilling information, information which, had Paula not heard it already, would have been a knife to her heart.

The editor hardly even heard what Milton had said. ‘So, Paula, we have the most trusted and popular politician in the country plus the most trusted and popular fucking person in the country saying that they were at the pictures together watching a Tom Cruise movie on the night when your bunch of sad acts claim he was sitting in Islington snorting cocaine and shagging birds not much older than his daughter. Tell me, Paula, bearing in mind the British public’s natural love of a conspiracy theory, given their almost pathological suspicion of the press, given the fact that you’ve spent the last five months attacking Paget, given that, as Cathy Paget so succinctly pointed out, her dad does not look like a fucking cokehead! Who do you think the jury are going to believe?’

‘All I know is that I trust Samantha Spencer.’

‘Do you? Well, I’m delighted to hear it — ’

‘And I believe that when the libel jury gets the chance to hear the detail of her story they may well trust her too…’

Paula’s editor was suddenly more surprised than angry. ‘Excuse me! You don’t actually think we’re going to let this go to fucking court, do you?’

Paula was horrified. ‘You mean…you’re going to settle?’

‘Of course we’re going to fucking settle! Haven’t you been listening to me? If we go to court we’ll get killed. A halfway competent brief with Cathy Paget in the dock will run rings round us! It’s damage control now. We’re going to offer half a million plus an abject apology — ’

‘Apology! But…but that means…I’ll be disgraced. You’re throwing me to the wolves.’

‘Well, the apology’s not going to look particularly sincere if we still see fit to employ such a monumental and immoral fantasist as yourself, is it?’

‘You mean…’

‘Yes, that’s it, Paula. You’re fired. Now fuck off.’

‘Yes, fuck right off out of it,’ Milton added, somewhat redundantly.