High society (25 page)

THE HYATT REGENCY, BIRMINGHAM

T
he Home Secretary was on fine tub-thumping form.

‘My friends. My comrades. Great issues require great men and great women to face them. This party has produced many such people but none greater, I suggest, than Peter and Angela Paget, whom you see beside me here tonight!!’

The conference simply went berserk. A mile or two up the road at the NEC, Tommy Hanson himself had scarcely received a bigger reaction. Nonetheless, the Home Secretary thundered on above the tumult. He was not being left out of the loop for anyone. ‘Her Majesty’s Minister for Drugs! His wife and their two lovely daughters. A British family! A Labour Party family. A family who have together faced the worst that our ruptured and fragmented society can throw at them and yet have remained a shining example to us all. Together they embody all that we believe in when we employ that much misunderstood and misapplied term ‘family values’. It takes a man armed strong in honesty to pursue the course that Peter has taken, from being a lone voice in the wilderness to being the leader of a national crusade. Peter Paget is armed strong in honesty! His stake in the drugs war is his family, his beautiful daughters, his lovely wife! And there can be no higher a stake than that.’

Sitting behind their parents, Cathy and Suzie Paget squirmed. They had agreed to accompany their parents to this conference, but they had not expected such star billing. They thought that the Home Secretary was a bit of a tosser. What was more, they knew that this had been their father’s opinion until he had been invited to join him in the Cabinet.

‘Friends, comrades, representatives from the worlds of business and the media. I give you the Right Honourable Peter Paget, MP, Minister for Drugs!’

The cheering was thunderous. The whole ballroom shook with it. The entire audience rose to its feet in one great mass of cheering, waving humanity. And at the back, standing at the very back, amongst the people for whom no chair could be found, amongst the waiters and runners and the other parliamentary assistants, was Samantha, not waving, not cheering. Tears in her eyes.

‘Ah yes. Yes, indeed-ee-do,’ said a soft voice behind her. ‘The perfect family man…not.’

The voice had spoken almost into her ear. There was no other way that Samantha could have heard it above the furore, so when she turned round her nose almost touched that of the speaker. A woman. A journalist, in fact.

‘Hello, Samantha. My name’s Paula.’

‘I know who you are. You’re the one who’s always so mean to Peter. What did you just say? What did you mean?’

‘Just that it must be very hard for you, all this, Samantha. Now that things have gone so well for him. To see him scuttle back to his wife like this.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

Paula smiled. ‘You don’t have to lie to me, Samantha. I know, you see. Did he tell you he loved you? Of course he did. Lots of times, I expect…Look at him now. Whose shoulder is his arm round? Not yours, my darling, not yours.’

Paula knew it was a risk to adopt such a direct approach with so little real information and no proof. But try as she might, she had been unable to get any further in her pursuit of Peter Paget’s private life. But when she had seen Samantha’s face just then, seen the pain that rippled across it as the Home Secretary eulogized Paget’s perfect family life, she knew that the proof lay with the girl and that the time was right to strike. Paula knew a besotted, jealous, agonized young woman when she saw one. ‘He’ll never leave her, you know. He’s used you, that’s all.’

‘I…I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Please go away. I want to listen to the speech.’

‘Fine, not a problem, I’ll go, but I’ll just leave you my card…If ever you want a sympathetic ear…‘ Paula produced her card. ‘Like I say, stay in touch, and if ever you want to start screwing him instead of his screwing you, I’m your girl.’ And with that Paula melted away into the crowd.

Samantha hardly saw Paula leave. Her eyes were too wet with tears. It did not draw attention to her, though, as so many people in that hall had tears in their eyes. Peter was giving the performance of his life.

‘Comrades. The Home Secretary mentioned my family. He mentioned the fact that like many of you here today I have teenaged children. Two girls. But right now I should like to tell you the stories of three very different girls, three of the many stories I’ve encountered since first I began my campaign. Picture young Jessie, a teenaged runaway, gone to London because of abuse at home in Scotland. I met her at a drop-in centre at King’s Cross. A bright girl, beautiful, articulate and addicted to heroin. Addicted because the evil predator who took her in gave it to this innocent and vulnerable seventeen-year-old prior to pressing her into a life of prostitution. What a brilliant plan! Foolproof! Sanctioned by Parliament, no less! Jessie has no choice but to cooperate with her abuser, for he is her only source of heroin. She has no choice but to walk the streets because it is the only way she can hope to earn enough to pay the exorbitant prices that this illegal substance commands. For Jessie it is a case of either whore or steal! And for a small, frail, pretty teenager it is obvious where she is going to end up. In the backs of strangers’ cars, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. Many times a night. Courtesy of Her Majesty’s Government! The law is her pimp. Make no mistake. We here today are directly responsible for her plight. For we make the laws that create her abuser!’

When the applause had died down, Paget continued.

‘Recently, burdened somewhat by my own private fears, the fears that have resulted from my accident with the addict’s needle, I returned to the King’s Cross drop-in centre. I was determined to see young Jessie again. I had some idea of explaining to her that we were now both victims of the drugs war and that perhaps we might draw strength from each other’s plight. I hoped that somehow or other I could provide a catalyst for her to seek help or perhaps return to Scotland and face her problems at home. Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that Jessie had disappeared. The people at the centre had not seen her for some time and nor had any of the other habituees to the centre who knew her. Where is she now? Nobody knows. She’s gone. Lost. Either dead or out there somewhere in the cruel night existing at the mercy of the underworld. Seventeen years old, ladies and gentlemen. Seventeen years old and lost to us!’

Peter Paget turned and looked at his daughters. It was not a cheap trick for the cameras. Like all who listened to his speech, he could not help comparing the story he was telling to the good fortune that he himself enjoyed. Cathy and Suzie smiled at their father, no longer squirming and self-conscious but proud, proud to be part of something so important, so fundamental.

‘Let me tell you about another girl,’ Peter continued. ‘Sonia, a young woman from this very city of Birmingham. I know where she is. Oh yes, so do all of you who read the papers. She is currently rotting in a Thai jail! Eighteen years old, her life effectively over, and why? Because she was stupid? Yes, of course. Because she was criminal? That I don’t argue with. Sonia did a wicked and foolish thing, she agreed to smuggle drugs in exchange for a thousand pounds and a week in Bangkok. But Sonia was also bored. She was naturally adventurous, she was also extremely young and impressionable. She lived in a culture where she and all her friends took drugs every weekend, where the law was and remains entirely in disrepute. A joke, something to be ignored. She fell in with rich and cunning men, men grown fat on the profits of our stupid laws. They flattered her, gave her drugs, seduced her into their service. Promised her one thousand pounds from an operation that they knew would net them many tens of thousands! I should like to remind you here today that whilst we know where Sonia is, we don’t know where the men who entrapped her are. They, as always, have escaped. They, and all their comrades in crime. We rarely see them, we never catch them, their power grows daily. They are invisible while the results of their wickedness — Jessie, Sonia — are all too visible! I have written personally to the King of Thailand and have hopes of obtaining mercy for Sonia, but she is only one, and her like will never be truly free until we remove the laws that promote their abuse.

‘Let me now mention the story of Natalie, a girl from Salford, another heroin addict. I don’t know her — she’s just one of many thousands of similar addicts who live outside the law. Her story was brought to the attention of the world simply because her boyfriend Jason, who robbed and burgled every single day to feed their mutual addictions, happened to steal from the home of a celebrity’s aunt. He was caught trying to pawn the pop singer Tommy Hanson’s Brit Awards, and when he led the police to the hovel he shared with Natalie, it was discovered that these two addicts had a baby, Ricky. A baby who was dying of neglect and whom the police arrived too late to save. The social services had been aware of Ricky and had attempted to help Jason and Natalie with him, but as the parents’ lives drifted further and further into direct conflict with authority they disappeared from view, taking their baby with them. Just another story. Just another statistic. Without the tenuous connection with celebrity, Natalie, Jason and Ricky’s story would never have been heard. On the subject of celebrity, I’d like to bring your attention to the life of one other young woman. Emily Hilton-Smith — you’ve all heard of her — she was a wild child, an ‘it’ girl. She’s here today, having come at my invitation.’ The eyes of the gathering and the lenses of the cameras focused on Emily, who was attending the meeting with her mentor from Narcotics Anonymous. Her glamorous clothes and perfectly smooth bronzed legs had already been the focus of much attention.

‘Emily wrote to me,’ Peter continued, ‘in support of my campaign. She explained that although she no longer took drugs and hoped never to do so again, she had been in their thrall for ten years. Ten years, ladies and gentlemen, and large quantities. Jessie, the King’s Cross heroin addict I was telling you about, told me that she had her first hit of the drug only months before we met. Sonia took Es only at weekends. I don’t know how long Natalie was addicted, but I doubt it was as long as ten years. And yet while Jessie, Sonia and Natalie’s lives are ruined, Emily sits here with us today, a picture of glowing health and beauty! And why is that, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll tell you why. Because she could afford her drugs, and when she needed help she was a part of a society that was able to give it to her. She was protected by her family and friends. While her addiction was certainly supplied by criminals, she didn’t need to steal or whore to pay for it. She was able to avoid sinking into the squalor that engulfed Jessie and Natalie! Ladies and gentlemen, I abhor the effects of many drugs and wish sincerely that people were not tempted to take them, but I say to you here tonight that in the vast majority of cases it is not drugs that kill people! Look at Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Emily Hilton-Smith, Tommy Hanson! It is the law that kills people, because the law turns addicts into criminals.

‘How pathetic is our society, ladies and gentlemen! How utterly debased our culture! How petty our priorities and our resolve when year after year we allow the streets to be flooded by the likes of Jessie, the prisons filled with Sonias and the hospitals and cemeteries filled with baby Rickys. And yet we have not the courage or the intelligence to pull the rug from beneath the feet of the entire rotten network that creates these tragedies!

‘This party has never been afraid to take tough decisions and we have never taken a tougher one than that which we are joined here together to endorse. Tough! But also easy, easy in that we have no choice! Just as in the past right-thinking men and women had no choice but to proceed towards universal suffrage, universal literacy, universal health care and universal welfare benefit, today we have no choice but to move towards universal sanity and face down the demon of worldwide organized crime! We must have the courage to acknowledge that which is self evident! We can deny it no longer. You don’t like it. I don’t like it. As the father of teenaged girls I would rather it was any other way! But the fact is that the only option that offers even the remotest chance of success in the battle against drugs is to bring them under government control. Our control. Let us take these dangerous substances out of the hands of the criminals and place them firmly in the hands of the Home Office and the Exchequer! Let us be the first but certainly not the last nation to legalize drugs! Not to decriminalize a few, or even all — that way leads to further madness, a confused, half-baked policy which the criminals will exploit — but to legalize all of them and legalize them now!’

That which had been unthinkable merely months before had now become government policy and would, considering the size of the government’s majority, not to mention the sympathetic ears on the opposition benches, shortly become law.

It was all much more difficult than Tommy had imagined. Gemma had not wanted to be pulled, and it had taken all of Tommy’s wiles even to coax her back to his hotel, let alone up to his bedroom.

Nonetheless, he had managed it. The impossibility of Tommy’s sitting exposed in a hotel bar had given him the excuse he needed to suggest that they seek sanctuary in private. The bar was particularly crowded that night because of the Labour Regional Conference dinner taking place at the hotel. Tommy was of course a magnet for politicians looking for photo opportunities and he had been invited to join the Home Secretary and Peter Paget, his old friend from Parky and the Brits, for a private drink. Under normal circumstances Tommy might have been interested. Like everybody else in the country he had heard of the Paget Bill and now that he understood it he supported it.

But Tommy was not a politician, he was a rock star, and when it came to a choice between Jigging with suits or cracking onto a beautiful girl, there was no choice. However, even though Gemma had agreed to accompany Tommy to his room, she was suspicious, very suspicious.

‘Look, I’m not going to just sleep with you, Tommy. Believe it or not, some girls don’t.’