Then my big break came. Around Christmas time. In the tabloid spirit of a bumper Xmas exclusive, it’d turn out to be the best present I ever had. What made it was its beautiful synchronicity. In one fell swoop, I would be able to show the Sunday Mirror what I was made of with a belter world exclusive. Simultaneously putting two fingers up to the Screws. By robbing one of their own stories from under their noses. Whilst fucking off Rupert Murdoch and his cronies at the same time. Not forgetting Her Majesty The Queen. Disgraced red-top hack Graham Johnson – come on down!
The saga began when my old mate Roger ‘the Dodger’ Insall was unexpectedly jettisoned from the Screws for unknown reasons. I don’t know what had gone on, but it had something to do with a paedophile story he’d been working on in Sri Lanka. Roger had been secretly investigating Arthur C. Clarke for being a nonce.
Arthur C. Clarke was one of the world’s best-selling writers – 2001: A Space Odyssey etc. He was also host of ITV’s Mysterious Worldshow. Synchronistically, the popular paranormal programme had also been the inspiration behind Rebekah’s brainwave to find the Beast and Lord Lucan et al. Somehow, it all made sense.
In addition, Arthur was also one of Rupert Murdoch’s mates. A ‘guru’ in fact. After having come up with the theory behind the self-regulating geostationary communications satellite. Which of course inspired the Dirty Digger to invent Sky.
Consequently, the Screws wouldn’t run Roger’s paedophile story about one of Murdoch’s mates. For obvious reasons, in case the proprietor got pissed off. Underlying this dilemma, there were even spookier simultaneous phenomena.
Coincidentally, Roger was also feeling some heat off the Beast fallout. Even though they were old mates, Steve had taped Roger up saying bad things about the News of the World. In addition, to boost his tribunal case, Steve Grayson was claiming that one of Roger’s old stories was a spoof, denied by him. Oh dear! Part of a legal tactic to prove a culture of fabrication at the Screws. The upshot was bad blood between Roger and NoW Editor Phil Hall. One day on the bridge of the Death Star, Roger’s NI career was asphyxiated by remote. To get revenge, he handed over the Arthur C. Clarke tip to the rebel alliance.
Immediately, I was dispatched to Sri Lanka to stand it up. My first foreign – very exciting stuff. But super-gravity-folding-in-on-itself levels of inner star pressure to boot. The problem was, by the time I arrived in Colombo, I had less than 24 hours to stand it up. But like the SAS, I was expected to be dropped anywhere, anytime in the world and sort it out.
First, with Roger’s help, I tracked down some rent boys who claimed that Arthur C. Clarke had fondled them up at a seedy table tennis club where Big Fat Westerners played with the beach boys. Penniless, powerless destitute caste. Who’d been bummed senseless by Arthur and his harem.
But their testimonies weren’t enough. Plus no time for a big investigation. Saturday morning. The desk were screaming down the phone for copy. Whole paper riding on it. Everything fucked if it didn’t work. Only one thing for it – to blag a confession out of Arthur himself.
Bombed it round to his pad. But he was playing the old soldier. Laid up in bed with a muscular disease. His servants wouldn’t let me in. I told them to give the great white chief man a message – that I’d come all the way from London to congratulate him on his knighthood. Stroking his ego was the only way forward.
This was the icing on the cake, by the way. We’d been tipped off that the wank-on-the-biscuit, shape-shifting secret rulers of the world were gonging Arthur up the following week. In the New Year’s List. Prince Charles was coming to Sri Lanka himself. To do the honours. Once again the synchronicity was sublime. In the finest of Fleet Street traditions, the big plan was to fuck the whole thing up. For all of the nonces and their Establishment cronies. All at do with a paedophile story he’d been working on in Sri Lanka. Roger had been secretly investigating Arthur C. Clarke for being a nonce.
Arthur C. Clarke was one of the world’s best-selling writers – 2001: A Space Odyssey etc. He was also host of ITV’s Mysterious Worldshow. Synchronistically, the popular paranormal programme had also been the inspiration behind Rebekah’s brainwave to find the Beast and Lord Lucan et al. Somehow, it all made sense.
In addition, Arthur was also one of Rupert Murdoch’s mates. A ‘guru’ in fact. After having come up with the theory behind the self-regulating geostationary communications satellite. Which of course inspired the Dirty Digger to invent Sky.
Consequently, the Screws wouldn’t run Roger’s paedophile story about one of Murdoch’s mates. For obvious reasons, in case the proprietor got pissed off. Underlying this dilemma, there were even spookier simultaneous phenomena.
Coincidentally, Roger was also feeling some heat off the Beast fallout. Even though they were old mates, Steve had taped Roger up saying bad things about the News of the World. In addition, to boost his tribunal case, Steve Grayson was claiming that one of Roger’s old stories was a spoof, denied by him. Oh dear! Part of a legal tactic to prove a culture of fabrication at the Screws. The upshot was bad blood between Roger and NoW Editor Phil Hall. One day on the bridge of the Death Star, Roger’s NI career was asphyxiated by remote. To get revenge, he handed over the Arthur C. Clarke tip to the rebel alliance.
Immediately, I was dispatched to Sri Lanka to stand it up. My first foreign – very exciting stuff. But super-gravity-folding-in-on-itself levels of inner star pressure to boot. The problem was, by the time I arrived in Colombo, I had less than 24 hours to stand it up. But like the SAS, I was expected to be dropped anywhere, anytime in the world and sort it out.
First, with Roger’s help, I tracked down some rent boys who claimed that Arthur C. Clarke had fondled them up at a seedy table tennis club where Big Fat Westerners played with the beach boys. Penniless, powerless destitute caste. Who’d been bummed senseless by Arthur and his harem.
But their testimonies weren’t enough. Plus no time for a big investigation. Saturday morning. The desk were screaming down the phone for copy. Whole paper riding on it. Everything fucked if it didn’t work. Only one thing for it – to blag a confession out of Arthur himself.
Bombed it round to his pad. But he was playing the old soldier. Laid up in bed with a muscular disease. His servants wouldn’t let me in. I told them to give the great white chief man a message – that I’d come all the way from London to congratulate him on his knighthood. Stroking his ego was the only way forward.
This was the icing on the cake, by the way. We’d been tipped off that the wank-on-the-biscuit, shape-shifting secret rulers of the world were gonging Arthur up the following week. In the New Year’s List. Prince Charles was coming to Sri Lanka himself. To do the honours. Once again the synchronicity was sublime. In the finest of Fleet Street traditions, the big plan was to fuck the whole thing up. For all of the nonces and their Establishment cronies. All at once. Put a bomb under the fucking lot of them. In one great, big, massive piss all over their weirdo parade. But was our dynamite good enought to do the job?
Needed to think fast. The timer was ticking. Got it. Jumped in the cab to the nearest flower shop. A street vendor with racks and racks of exotic Triffid-like bouquets. Bought the biggest, pinkest, most expensive bunch flowers on the stand. Virtually cleaning him out and filling the backseat of the cab. No camped-up predatory nonce in the world is going to refuse a bunch of bloomers. Or at least that was my Carry On-style tabloid view of these affairs then.
It worked. The serfs granted me an audience. On his bed, Arthur looked like death warmed up. Reminding me of when I was at the agency and I had to front a serial paedophile on his death bed. Like an old Nazi, the man then had stubbornly refused to confess. But old Arthur C. Clarke was too cocky for his own good.
I opened up with the pleasantries, tape whirring in my suit pocket, now drenched in the jungle heat.
‘How you doing? . . . Aren’t you great? . . . Isn’t it nice that Prince Charles is coming to see you next week? . . .’ etc.
But the pressure was on – the Desk screaming down the phone. I knew I only had a few minutes. So I hit him straightaway. Between the eyes like Carlos the Jackal.
‘By the way, Mr Clarke,’ I asked, using the old Columbo trick again. ‘Just one more question – what’s all this I’ve been hearing about you touching up underage boys down at the taboo club?’
At first, Arthur said it was just scuttlebutt from unreliable rent boys. Fair enough. But as I reeled off the names and claims of one witness after another, the old fox was forced to concede.
Like of all these satellite-inventors, he thought he’d use his somewhat powerful intellect to chicane his way out of it. But this wasn’t the Royal Society. This was a newspaper with a reading age of 14. Arthur’s argument was that it was acceptable for him to have sexual relations with young teenage boys because in Sri Lanka the lads mature faster. The sun. The jungle. Hairy chests, whatever. I pinned him down to the age that he considered fair game – 14. Bingo! That was that. Bye-Bye, Dick-Head. I didn’t even stick around to hear the end of the hypothesis. Within minutes I’d left the room. Throwing the flowers on the bed. Desperately in search of a phone to ring my copy in. Mission Accomplished.
The following week, Arthur C. Clarke refused his knighthood out of shame. Causing Prince Charles considerable embarrassment and face-saving relief at the same time. For years afterwards, he denied underage sex. Every six months he’d pop up on the World Service saying that he’d been turned over. His cronies in the corrupt Sri Lankan police backed him up. But he never sued. Even getting some apologists in the broadsheets to publish a denial. Boasting that he’d called in a favour from Rupert Murdoch. Allegedly promising him that the reporter responsible would never work again in Fleet Street. But by then I think Rupert was just humouring him. I returned home to a hero’s welcome – and got offered a staff job with a big fat contract on the spot.
