Tom Bower
MAXWELL
THE FINAL VERDICT
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.WilliamCollinsBooks.co.uk
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2012; updated version published 2020
Copyright © Tom Bower 1996; 2020
Cover photograph © Getty Images
Tom Bower asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Information on previously published material appears here.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780007292875
Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780007394999
Version: 2020-06-08
To Sophie
You are my teacher and all my life you have tried to demonstrate the principles underlying every action or inaction … Above all, you have given me the sense of excitement of having dozens of balls in the air and the thrill of seeing some of them land right.
KEVIN MAXWELL, written to his father in 1988
The Maxwell Foundation will be one of the richest of its kind in the world.
JOE HAINES, 1988
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
Introduction
1 The Autopsy – 9 November 1991
2 The Secret – 5 November 1990
3 Hunting for Cash – 19 November 1990
4 Misery – December 1990
5 Fantasies – January 1991
6 Vanity – March 1991
7 Flotation – April 1991
8 A Suicide Pill – May 1991
9 Two Honeymoons – June 1991
10 Buying Silence – July 1991
11 Showdown – August 1991
12 ‘Borrowing from Peter to Pay Paul’ – September 1991
13 Whirlwind – October 1991
14 Death – 2 November 1991
15 Deception – 6 November 1991
16 Meltdown – 21 November 1991
17 The Trial – 30 May 1995
Epilogue
Notes
Company Plan
Dramatis Personae
Glossary of Abbreviations
Index
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
On 12 May 1989, Peter Jay signed a short letter marked ‘Private and Confidential’ addressed to George Potter OBE, a director of Control Risks, one of Britain’s leading private detective agencies. Jay, the chief of staff to Robert Maxwell, thanked Potter, a former police officer, for ‘your letter and for the time you gave to meeting me and preparing it’.
Potter’s letter had described his surveillance of ‘the location and the levels of background radiation in the area’. Potter was referring in cryptic fashion to a surreptitious reconnaissance mission which he had undertaken around my home in Hampstead, north-west London. He continued: ‘Extremely sophisticated equipment does exist which might overcome the technical problems. Its acquisition would cost an estimated £50,000.’ The private detective was describing a scanner which would emit rays capable of penetrating my home and ‘reading’ the contents of my computer’s hard disc.
Wisely, Potter cautioned Jay about the problems. First, the detective wanted to be paid in advance the £50,000 for the equipment and also some fees. Secondly, Potter warned, he had ‘reservations as to the possibility of obtaining the evidence you require and the ability to keep the operation covert’. The detective’s concerns were understandable. A van carrying the scanner would be parked at the bottom of my garden in a narrow service road used by the Hampstead postal sorting office. Remaining unobtrusive for long periods would be difficult.
Jay, who had once basked in the glorious description as one of Britain’s ‘cleverest men’, was not slow to grasp Potter’s cautionary tone but was sensitive to the dissatisfaction that this report would cause his demanding employer. Little had been achieved since, one month earlier, he had received a briefing from Tony Frost, an assistant editor of the Daily Mirror, following his investigation around my Hampstead home.
Frost had accurately noted my address and identified my car, before reporting that ‘neighbours say his working hours are “rather erratic” with frequent trips away’ and that I ‘spent “a full working week” at the offices or studios of the various TV companies who commission his work’. Curiously, he noted that my newsagent ‘seemed to know Bower quite well’. After alluding to my financial status, Frost observed that my road is ‘typical