It was odd to hear Robert Maxwell's sonorous voice all over again on the BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning. For more than a year - beginning on Boxing Day 1989 when he called to ask me to be editor of the Daily Mirror until March 4, 1991, when I departed - there was barely a day when I didn't receive several calls from "the publisher" as he liked to call himself.
I soon learned to be most wary of him when he was overly courteous or solicitous: it was usually a prelude to an outburst of anger. In the extracts played by the BBC, there is only one moment when his voice begins to rise but he is clearly controlling himself because he does not lose his temper. Nevertheless, the menace is clear, as is the hypocrisy. He talks of refusing to sign a document because it has "the force of law". Yet he had by that time already broken the law by switching millions of funds from his employee's pension funds in order to pay off mounting debts incurred by his private enterprises.
The broadcast ends with a phone call made at 4pm on November 4, 1991 - the day before Maxwell's body was found floating in the Atlantic. The BBC reporter Zubeida Malik comments: "For those who believe his death was suicide the tapes give nothing away as to his state of mind."
Then we hear Maxwell, speaking from his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, talking to a caller who, I presume, is a lawyer. He says: "The trouble with that third paragraph is that it lacks some credibility... It needs to have inserted the words, several main disposals are in the process of negotiations... I want to have this thing wrapped up today..." He concludes with the order: "For release first thing tomorrow morning."
I agree that, at the superficial level, it reveals nothing of Maxwell's intentions. It is a typical Maxwell phone call in which he deals with a relatively minor matter, the wording of a letter, as if it is of global significance. He was too often a micro manager rather than a macro strategist. However, it does chime with what we already know about that final day in Maxwell's life from witnesses, such as the crew and other callers. He was unusually calm. He appears rather weary. As anyone who dealt with Maxwell regularly will tell you, he dealt in a very benign manner with that lawyer.
It does not shake my belief that Maxwell committed suicide by jumping overboard, as I wrote in my 1992 book, Maxwell's Fall (copies still available on Amazon for 1p).
So why have these tapes just emerged? It appears that Maxwell's former director of security, John Pole, was contacted by the producers of the coming BBC2 drama, Maxwell. He then decided to hand over about 72 hours of the tapes he made - on Maxwell's express orders - from 1989 onwards. By that time Maxwell was suffering from paranoia, obviously due to his own wrongdoing, and had the phones of his senior executives and editors tapped.
Pole later told me that he had refused to allow Maxwell to listen to some of my phone conversations because they were so hostile to Maxwell. But I have reason to think some were played to him because Maxwell inexplicably seemed to know where I was going on one occasion before I had told him.
I have been unable to reach Pole today to ask him whether he ever gave the tapes to the British authorities in the aftermath of Maxwell's death.
As a former detective chief superintendent, Pole would surely have recognised that they might have thrown light on the mystery. On the other hand, there was no inquest and no British-based investigation into the manner of Maxwell's death, so what was Pole supposed to do with the tapes?
When, or if, he gets back to me, I'll ask him why he has waited 15 years to share this stuff with us. Meanwhile, I hope the BBC finds its way to broadcasting more of this fascinating taped archive.
