20. Death on the Thames: An Assassin in London (Ep 1)

The Rest Is Classified

Goalhanger

History

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

How do you get away with murder in the heart of London? And which weapon would you choose to avoid arousing suspicion? Georgi Markov was a Bulgarian dissident writer wanted by the Eastern Bloc for spreading anti-regime messaging across Western Europe. He'd fled to London and begun working for the BBC World Service, the US-funded Radio Free Europe and West Germany's Deutsche Welle. A satirist at heart, he used his platform to criticise the Bulgarian Communist leader, Todor Zhivkov, making fun of the authoritarian president and calling for the liberation of his home country. But, was Markov walking a dangerous line that could lead to his untimely demise? Find out as David and Gordon tell the mysterious story of the Bulgarian writer and his suspicious death on Waterloo Bridge. ------------------- Order a signed edition of David's latest book, The Seventh Floor, via this link. ------------------- Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.nordvpn.com/restisclassified It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Email: [email protected] Twitter: @triclassified Assistant Producer: Becki Hills Producer: Callum Hill Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale ups, online, in person, and on the go.
0:22.0	Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you.
0:24.5	Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:29.8	There's some nutter in Cubicle 3 says he's been shot.
0:34.3	That was too much.
0:36.4	That was too much. That was too much.
0:38.3	Too much.
0:39.3	There's some nutter in Cubicle 3 who says he's been shot, the nurses said.
0:51.3	He was sat up.
0:52.3	His wife was there.
0:53.3	I got the impression he was a little annoyed.
0:56.1	He had already told his story to the GP. He had already told it to the nurses and now he was having
1:00.4	to tell it to me all over again. Then he just paused. And he said to me, I'll never forget it.
1:06.5	I've been poisoned and there's absolutely nothing that you can do. It was just the way he looked
1:12.0	and the way he acted. I thought, well, I will take you seriously and examine you and see what I can
1:16.4	find. And when I examined him, I found he had a small, almost pimple-like lesion on the back of
1:22.0	his right thigh with an area of swelling which looked like he had been stung by a wasp or a bee. Well, welcome to the
1:29.2	rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera. And that was Dr. Bernard
1:34.5	Riley describing the scene in September of 1978. He was called on as a junior doctor to the
1:40.3	night shift to South London Hospital to examine a patient, and the man lying in the
1:45.7	hospital bed was a man known as Georgie Markov.
1:49.9	That's right, David. This is a story of poisoning and assassination. Now, we've got used to
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -39 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goalhanger, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Goalhanger and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.