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Authors: Lynda La Plante
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They’re not interested in us – we’re not rich or famous enough. Now, if it had been a murder, we might have made the front page departing from Sir William Benedict’s mansion!’
Chapter Four
O n that evening’s news programmes William did not come across well. Blustering, he denied any knowledge of Maynard’s sexual predilections, and refused to be drawn into any discussions on weird sexual practices. He said he was saddened by the death of a friend, and hoped people would remember Andrew Maynard as a young, highly intelligent, well-meaning man. When asked whether he had removed any items from Maynard’s home, he remained silent.
The press had a field day. They printed exclusive interviews with Maynard’s cleaner, Mrs Skipper, and his secretary, Sara Vickers. Both women spoke of Maynard’s private life in a way that was easy to embroider. William’s next few days were beyond his worst nightmare. The affair mushroomed and dragged in people from under every stone of his own past. A photograph of William with his arm around Maynard appeared on the front page, an innocent photograph, with four other people cut from it to make it appear over-affectionate, if not loving. Headlines screamed, ‘GAY MP’S SUICIDE’, and further details of Maynard’s life appeared, more photographs of him taken in seedy nightclubs, and on beaches. Where they came from was a mystery, but they kept appearing, and William constantly featured in one doctored picture or another. The trouble the press took to make it appear thatWilliam was the lover over whom Maynard had slashed his wrists was beyond belief. His first wife, Lady Margaret Pettigrew, gave an exclusive interview for one of the Sunday colour supplements headlined ‘My Husband – The Adulterer’. She had waited twenty years for her revenge and she took it with relish.
William’s humiliation did not end with her revelations. His second wife, Katherine, the mother of his two children, jumped on the bandwagon with equal enthusiasm. It was as if the two women had got together to destroy him. In a double-page spread in one of the tabloids, Katherine painted him as a mean, vicious, brutal man who spent his days trawling the streets for nubile flesh, neglecting his two children in favour of prostitutes.
Every day brought another outrageous defamatory onslaught, another person creeping out of the woodwork to tell their story. Maynard’s suicide was beginning to take second place to the hounding of William, as if his death had simply acted as a catalyst. William could do nothing but look on with stunned helplessness. None of the sexual slanders was true, but the fact that he had indeed used a few girls made it impossible to sue.
In any case his lawyer, Brian Sutherland, appeared frightened for his own reputation. William felt as if he was hitting his head against a brick wall. ‘For God’s sake, yes! Yes , I’ve hired a few call-girls over the years, but who hasn’t? It doesn’t make me some insatiable sex addict! If I’m not a homosexual, I’m a lusting pervert. Something has to be done to stop them printing these lies about me.’
Sutherland was one of the most respected lawyers in England. He warned that if, as William had admitted, he had occasionally used call-girls, then to bring a massive and costly lawsuit against someone as powerful as Humphrey Matlock, the proprietor of the newspapers, would end in catastrophe: ‘. . . the reason being, William, that any one of the girls you’ve known in an intimate way could be tracked down and offered money to refute these denials of yours. And as you have admitted, albeit in the privacy of my office, that you have occasionally used theservices of certain illegal agencies for, ah, intimate massages and so on, you could not swear otherwise on oath.’
William interrupted, ‘But no more than any other man has, for fuck’s sake. Name me anyone you know who hasn’t,’ he snapped.
‘That, old fellow, is not the issue,
Chapter Four
O n that evening’s news programmes William did not come across well. Blustering, he denied any knowledge of Maynard’s sexual predilections, and refused to be drawn into any discussions on weird sexual practices. He said he was saddened by the death of a friend, and hoped people would remember Andrew Maynard as a young, highly intelligent, well-meaning man. When asked whether he had removed any items from Maynard’s home, he remained silent.
The press had a field day. They printed exclusive interviews with Maynard’s cleaner, Mrs Skipper, and his secretary, Sara Vickers. Both women spoke of Maynard’s private life in a way that was easy to embroider. William’s next few days were beyond his worst nightmare. The affair mushroomed and dragged in people from under every stone of his own past. A photograph of William with his arm around Maynard appeared on the front page, an innocent photograph, with four other people cut from it to make it appear over-affectionate, if not loving. Headlines screamed, ‘GAY MP’S SUICIDE’, and further details of Maynard’s life appeared, more photographs of him taken in seedy nightclubs, and on beaches. Where they came from was a mystery, but they kept appearing, and William constantly featured in one doctored picture or another. The trouble the press took to make it appear thatWilliam was the lover over whom Maynard had slashed his wrists was beyond belief. His first wife, Lady Margaret Pettigrew, gave an exclusive interview for one of the Sunday colour supplements headlined ‘My Husband – The Adulterer’. She had waited twenty years for her revenge and she took it with relish.
William’s humiliation did not end with her revelations. His second wife, Katherine, the mother of his two children, jumped on the bandwagon with equal enthusiasm. It was as if the two women had got together to destroy him. In a double-page spread in one of the tabloids, Katherine painted him as a mean, vicious, brutal man who spent his days trawling the streets for nubile flesh, neglecting his two children in favour of prostitutes.
Every day brought another outrageous defamatory onslaught, another person creeping out of the woodwork to tell their story. Maynard’s suicide was beginning to take second place to the hounding of William, as if his death had simply acted as a catalyst. William could do nothing but look on with stunned helplessness. None of the sexual slanders was true, but the fact that he had indeed used a few girls made it impossible to sue.
In any case his lawyer, Brian Sutherland, appeared frightened for his own reputation. William felt as if he was hitting his head against a brick wall. ‘For God’s sake, yes! Yes , I’ve hired a few call-girls over the years, but who hasn’t? It doesn’t make me some insatiable sex addict! If I’m not a homosexual, I’m a lusting pervert. Something has to be done to stop them printing these lies about me.’
Sutherland was one of the most respected lawyers in England. He warned that if, as William had admitted, he had occasionally used call-girls, then to bring a massive and costly lawsuit against someone as powerful as Humphrey Matlock, the proprietor of the newspapers, would end in catastrophe: ‘. . . the reason being, William, that any one of the girls you’ve known in an intimate way could be tracked down and offered money to refute these denials of yours. And as you have admitted, albeit in the privacy of my office, that you have occasionally used theservices of certain illegal agencies for, ah, intimate massages and so on, you could not swear otherwise on oath.’
William interrupted, ‘But no more than any other man has, for fuck’s sake. Name me anyone you know who hasn’t,’ he snapped.
‘That, old fellow, is not the issue,
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