Thornwyn

by Laurence Todd

  Fourteen minutes later I entered the Clarence. Clements was already there, sitting against the counter with a full pint. I didn’t believe it was his first either, and the empty glass next to it confirmed my suspicion.

  I’d gone off duty the moment I’d turned off the car engine, so I graciously allowed him to buy me a hideously expensive pint of Peroni as it was now 8.25 pm and I was thirsty.

  “Let’s talk over there.” I picked up my beer and nodded to an unoccupied corner.

  The thought struck me as I sat down that I felt more comfortable with Clements every time we met up. He was good company and I nearly always learnt something when we got together. He was well connected politically and beginning to make a name for himself in political journalism. The biggest issue I faced was ensuring my boss, his father-in-law, never found out a real friendship was developing here.

  “You’ll like this,” Clements said. “A week last Saturday, I was in Trafalgar Square waiting for the demo to start, and I could have sworn I saw you walking fast through the square. I did a double take but whoever it was had gone. Didn’t half look like you, though.” He laughed.

  I didn’t bother explaining it probably was me as I was pursuing Gillian Redmond. “So, what have you found out?” Straight down to business.

  “I’ve spoken to a couple of people in the know and heard a few things, but this is all off the record, right? You don’t let on where it came from?”

  “Only to your father-in-law.” I grinned.

  “Right, Paul Sampson,” he began, looking very serious. “I talked to my friend on the Guardian, asked him what he knew about Paul Sampson. They’d done a few pieces about him, so I guessed he could help. He asked around amongst the people he knew and called me back. We met up and he introduced me to one of his contacts, and don’t ask who either ’cause I’m not telling you.”

  I nodded my assent to that.

  “Guy agrees to talk after my friend vouches for me, said I was reliable and I could be trusted to be discreet. This bloke works for one of the main Sundays, been a political reporter since before Lloyd George, knows everyone in the political establishment who’s worth knowing as well as having good sources in the intelligence community. Even said he’d read some of my work and liked what I’d written.” He grinned. “He said he knew Paul, known him since he became an MP. Used to talk to him regular in the House. Sampson was always available to talk about issues his paper was interested in. Thought he was a good constituency MP and all that. Sampson had a safe seat in Hertfordshire where they weigh the Tory vote rather than count it. This bloke wasn’t at all surprised when he was put into the Government even though he’d not been an MP too long, as he’s highly intelligent and well connected, and was expecting him to reach the Cabinet at some point.”

  “What did he mean, well connected?”

  “Knows all the right people in the right places. Comes from a good family, married well, used to work for a prestigious arms company as a sales executive, father-in-law’s a director of the same company, you know the kind of thing. The company he worked for, Bartolome Systems, is also a big contributor to Tory party funds. No surprise there.”

  “Married well?” I queried.

  “Yeah. His wife’s family’s riddled with military people; uncle’s a major-general, her dad’s ex-military and her brother’s currently a major in the army somewhere. She’s got another relative who’s the Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire, whatever the fuck one of those is,” he sneered. “Her dad walked into a top job at Bartolome when he left the army. And they say the old boy network doesn’t open doors anymore.”

  “Sampson stayed with Bartolome after becoming an MP, didn’t he?”

  “He did, yeah. When he became an MP, rather than lose him and his wide range of connections, they offered him a non-executive directorship. Someone with MP after his name and able to make connections for the company would be a bonus for the firm.” He snorted with disdain. “It never ceases to amaze me there’re still intelligent people out there who believe having MP after somebody’s name is meaningful.” He shook his head and laughed at his own cynicism.

  As Clements spoke a thought flashed through my brain. Sampson had supposedly been blackmailed by Neville Thornwyn. I’d been told recently Thornwyn had been involved in a theft of weapons from a firm now owned by Bartolome Systems Ltd. Sampson had worked for this firm and been a non-executive director. Thornwyn was also a shareholder in the same firm. Could these all be linked in some way?

  The look on my face must have suggested there was nothing at all contentious about what he was telling me. Clements recognised it.

  “This is just background,” he said. “There’s some interesting political stuff as well, though.”

  “Like what?”

  Clements leaned forward.

  “Apparently, shortly before Sampson stood down from the House,” he said softly, “this political reporter bloke and him met up for a spot of lunch. Sampson wanted somewhere private rather than their usual Westminster haunts, so they go someplace quiet.”

  “Why was this?”

  “Sampson confided to this guy he’s gay and has been living a double life for quite some time. He also said he was being blackmailed by someone, he didn’t say who by and the guy doesn’t know. Sampson was anxious about that but, just for good measure, he also said he’d been informed he was about to appear before the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee and he was really worried.”

  This made me sit up and take notice. Smitherman had alluded to this. “Why’s that?”

  “The suspicion was he was involved in breaching the ban on selling weapons to certain organisations on the Government’s proscribed hit list.”

  I knew what this list was. The British Government, like all others in a democracy, maintained a register of all organisations it had proscribed, meaning anyone joining or acting on behalf of these organisations was committing a criminal act just by so doing. This also meant UK firms were banned from doing business with such organisations because of their links to, or active supporting of, terrorism. Whilst the UK had a long and ignoble history of selling arms to nations where the record of promoting and enforcing human rights was suspect, to say the least, the official line was that the Government would only grant the necessary strategic export licences to reputable firms if it was certain the weapons or military equipment would not fall into terrorist hands, or the Government receiving them gave an undertaking not to use them on the civilian populace of their own nation. In reality the situation was very different. But, economically speaking, the sale of weaponry earned many billions for the UK revenue, which was why, despite the hand-wringing, governments of all political persuasions in the UK agreed to selling arms and military hardware.

  “He worked for an arms manufacturer, though, didn’t he?” I asked.

  “True, but what he was suspected of had nothing to do with the official business of Bartolome Systems. Most of their business is with national governments. The committee was going to look into allegations made against Sampson of involvement in obtaining weapons and getting them into the hands of those who couldn’t obtain them through the usual commercial channels.”

  “How’d he do that?”

  “Story goes, he went to an arms fair in Abu Dhabi two years ago, ostensibly as one of the British Government’s representatives, putting the case for why people shopping for their military hardware at this event should buy from firms in this country. He went with the S of S, the Secretary of State for Defence. At that time, before he was reshuffled across to the Home Office, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary at Defence and involved in weapons procurement. Made sense, given his commercial background. But Sampson’s also a director of Bartolome Systems, and the firm does business in the Middle East, so it couldn’t hurt to have someone like him batting for them, could it? That’s why Bartolome Systems were happy for him to go out there to the arms fair and, whilst there, see if he could put in a good word for them, rustle up a l
ittle business.” He paused to drink some beer.

  “Do I sense a but coming here?” I ventured.

  “You do indeed. Leaving aside the fact it’s a classic breach of the ministerial code of practice, lobbying for a private firm whilst on official Government business: at the arms fair, he gets linked up to people who’re looking to acquire weapons but who can’t get them in the normal way, if you get what I mean.”

  He raised his eyebrows to see if I did. I did.

  “You mean groups involved in terrorism?”

  “Correct. I mean, you’re someone like al-Qaeda or Hamas, no Western business is gonna sell arms to you, is it? Not without getting all kinds of flak from their security services or their governments.” He shrugged, almost indifferently. “So they have to get their weapons through other means. And one of these is to have an in with an arms company based outside their country. Someone who can get weapons for them but make it appear like it’s all legitimate and above board; someone in a position to obtain the necessary licences to export such hardware and not raise any suspicions.”

  I thought about this for a couple of moments. “Sampson became the in for a terrorist group?” I wasn’t sure I was going to like the answer Clements gave.

  “So it would appear. He was doing business with a firm MI6 later confirmed was essentially a front for a terrorist organisation. Bartolome Systems gets duped by one of its own directors.” He smiled broadly, lapping up the company’s discomfort.

  “Duped? What, you mean taken in?”

  “Yup,” he said, delightedly. “Through Sampson, Bartolome thought it was dealing with a reputable firm when it agreed in principle to supply weapons to them once the export licences were in place, but in reality it would have been supplying weapons which’d end up in the hands of a militant Islamist fundamentalist terrorist group. The company they dealt with was channelling anything they could acquire through an intermediary to a terrorist group. You know the group Muearada?”

  I nodded. “I’ve heard of it.”

  “It fosters a global jihadist mentality. It’s a very anti-Western group, known to have killed a few journalists and other Westerners it’s encountered. This is the group behind the beheading of that American journalist last year. Anyone adhering to this lot is a committed jihadist, no question.”

  I was trying to take in how the director of a company like Bartolome Systems Ltd, a reputable UK arms manufacturer and a major player in the supply of military hardware and weaponry to the British Government, amongst others, could have been stung in so audacious a manner. Was Muearada that persuasive or was Sampson so negligent that he hadn’t known whom he was dealing with? I thought about this for a few moments.

  “How could Sampson be taken in like this? He’d worked for Bartolome for years. Surely he’d know the market and who his main competitors would have been,” I ventured. “And if he didn’t he’d have their bona fides ascertained first before they were sold anything.”

  “This guy thought that as well. But Sampson told him, and this is the key factor, Bartolome’s teetering on the edge of bankruptcy; has been for a while. It’s haemorrhaging money all over the place and so it was taking contracts anywhere it could get them. There was no due diligence check, evidently because Sampson was in Abu Dhabi representing Government. The firm Bartolome was dealing with through Sampson offered a contract worth close to twenty million, and Bartolome accepted what Sampson had negotiated for it. The Government’s got lots of rollover contracts with Bartolome for continuous resupplying of equipment and armaments, and the firm would drop the military right in it if it went broke. So this capital injection would have been most useful, especially as they were going to pay upfront in one tranche.”

  It would indeed. Given how sensitive some of the military hardware that Bartolome supplied to the armed forces in the UK was, everything from missile guidance systems right down to flak jackets, for the company to go out of business would have been catastrophic for the armed forces and the Government.

  If all this was correct, Sampson had much more to be concerned about than the financial aspirations of a venal police officer. MI6 would also have had him in their sights.

  “So, what’s happened since then?” I asked.

  “It’s all been hushed up. Can you imagine the embarrassment if this ever sees the light of day? When MI6 found out about it, they got it stopped. They slammed the lid on the whole thing and screwed it down tight. They made sure no strategic export licences were ever issued. No arms ever left the country and Bartolome’s ended up scraping king-size dollops of egg off its chops.” Clements was clearly pleased at the company’s misfortune. “Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving arms company.”

  I sipped some beer whilst taking in what Clements had told me. Paul Sampson’s father-in-law was a director at Bartolome. Had he been a party to this decision?

  “Did the board of directors know about this?” I asked.

  “Preparations were being made for the agreement to go ahead, so you have to assume they did. You could hardly arrange for a sale of this magnitude behind their backs, could you?”

  “And Bartolome’s still in financial schtuck?”

  “Not sure. I was told, behind the scenes, it’s engaging in all kinds of financial restructuring trying to keep afloat.” He drained his beer glass. “Bartolome’s worried about this. If news of this gets out, and it hits the company’s share price, that’d mean real trouble for the firm. Probably for Government as well.”

  I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting when I had arrived to meet Clements, but I’d not been expecting to hear this. Had Sampson been acting rashly, albeit with the best interests of the company in mind, or was there another agenda involved?

  “And all this is on the level?” I asked.

  “It is, yeah.” Clements nodded his agreement. “Completely.”

  “Really?” I was sceptical.

  “According to the guy I spoke to, that’s what happened.” Clements sipped his beer. “This guy’s got good connections in the security services and he was told this by his contact inside MI6, someone he’s liaised with for years. MI6’d received a tip-off from the CIA about arms and other hardware about to be sold by a British company being likely to end up with Muearada. They told this guy because news’ll leak out sooner or later, some rumour or other about the company being in the shit or Sampson’s role in it when he was still a Government minister. Everyone in politics and the media knows it’s almost impossible to keep something like this quiet for too long. Private Eye probably already knows and is just waiting for the right time to publish it,” he said, confidently, “so MI6 wanted to be sure, when news of this leaks out, it’ll at least be reported by a journalist who knows the basic facts and whom it trusts to tell the story appropriately. It’s classic news management; you anticipate something happening, so you prepare for it, and if it doesn’t happen, you’ve at least covered your bases. He wouldn’t have told me this unless his contact there had verified it.” He was adamant.

  “Which company was Sampson dealing with?”

  “Company’s called Endgame. It’s based here, in London, though I don’t know the address. Quite a shadowy firm, I’m told. I’m gonna try looking into it. Maybe there’s something there we can write about.”

  I thought about what I’d heard for a few moments.

  “One thing I don’t get,” I said. “Sampson was in Government when he went to Abu Dhabi. That means he’d travel with a sizeable entourage, a security detail, and quite possibly a couple of advisors, top civil servants who’d smooth the way in the initial negotiations with whichever host government they were dealing with. He wouldn’t be going alone.”

  “Very likely,” Clements agreed.

  “Yet, somehow, Sampson ends up doing business with this Endgame firm. How’d he be able to negotiate with a firm like Endgame if he was there in a Government capacity?”

  “You’re asking me? I look like a fucking diplomat?” Clements laughed. “I’ve
no idea but, however he did it, MI6 tumbled what he was doing. The issue was gonna go before the Intelligence and Security Committee as he was at the arms fair on Government business. I’m guessing it’s to see if any other Government people were involved and whether there were any conflicts of interest. I wonder if the Defence Secretary knew about this,” he mused.

  I took stock of what I’d heard. “Sampson’s now dead. What’s the situation now?”

  “That I don’t know. This guy didn’t say. I got the impression he doesn’t know either. But it’s obvious the spooks are gonna keep this buried if they can. Someone in Government involved with a firm like Endgame and Bartolome close to the financial rocks? What do you think?” he asked rhetorically.

  It was difficult imagining Sampson having any sincere belief in the objectives of a group like Muearada. Yet it would appear he’d been involved in attempting to procure arms and other military hardware for them. It raised the question of whether he was acting alone in this or whether he was acting on behalf of someone else inside the world of arms procurement.

  If what Clements had just told me was true, it would have placed Sampson under an inordinate amount of pressure, especially if he intended to protest his innocence in the matter. Would he be able to prove he was innocent? Even though any investigation would have been behind closed doors, there was no guarantee some word of its deliberations wouldn’t have been leaked to the media at some point in the proceedings. Given he was also being blackmailed by Neville Thornwyn about his sexuality, I could imagine Paul Sampson living the last period of his life experiencing very considerable anxiety.

  What did Thornwyn know about this? Had he somehow been made aware of these allegations against Paul Sampson and been using them as leverage against him? Could this be why Sampson had refused to declare his sexuality in public?

  I’d drifted off into my own world for a few moments.

  “There’s something else as well, Rob.” Clements looked solemn. “This bloke doesn’t believe Sampson committed suicide either.”