Admist seemingly bogus allegations by harpie Heather Mills that Paul McCartney beat her during their nearly four year marriage and was abusive to his beloved ex-wife Linda, Paul McCartney has paid 200,000 pounds, or over $380,000 USD for 20 hours of audiotaped interviews with Linda. Linda McCartney became good friends with Peter Cox, with whom she collaborated on a vegetarian cookbook published in 1989. Cox was in possession of the taped recordings he made with Linda in preparation for the book and had signed a legal agreement in 1998 that he would keep them private. He was forthcoming about their existence, though, and said that he would reveal details of his friendship with Linda if compelled to by a court of law.

Cox recently handed over the tapes to Paul in exchange for the exhorbitant sum of cash in a “secret” meeting that took place in a London restaurant. Paul tried to evade trailing journalists on his way to the meeting, but didn’t shake The Daily Mail, which reported on the incident in its Sunday edition:

Linda is said to have cried on tape and to have revealed intimate details of her married life on the tapes to Cox, who was her dear friend and confidant. She is even said to have considered leaving Paul.

The recordings - which his second wife Heather Mills wants to use as part of her divorce claim that he was abusive towards her - were handed over to Sir Paul during an extraordinary cloak-and-dagger meeting in a Central London cafe.

Sir Paul bought the tapes from literary agent Peter Cox, who made them with Linda when he was co-authoring her 1989 book Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking.

The two men met up in Eat in Soho Square on Wednesday morning and spent almost half an hour together as the ex-Beatle poured his heart out about his marital troubles in full view of their astonished fellow diners.

Customers in the cafe told how they overhead Sir Paul claim that Heather has demanded an £80million divorce settlement - the first time anyone in the divorce has revealed what she is actually asking for.

“Everyone recognised him the moment he walked in,” a customer said. “There was a bearded guy waiting for him and they took the table next to me. Paul didn’t seem to be worried about who was listening or he wouldn’t have spoken the way he did.

“He started off talking about what great kids he had but the subject soon changed to Heather and that was when he became very agitated and upset.

“I remember him saying that all she thought about was money and that she had asked for £80million. He said something like, ‘She is going to take me for £80million, because we now know it’s for £80million. All she thinks about is dollars’. He even drew dollar signs to emphasise it.”

Sir Paul also repeatedly branded his estranged wife a liar, adding: “Everyone knows she is a liar, she even lied in her autobiography. Everybody knows that…”

Sir Paul was dressed in a stylish dark suit with a crisp white shirt underneath, according to one diner.

She added: “He came in and was very friendly to everyone. I remember him asking the Polish waitress were she was from. The bearded guy was carrying this huge white envelope, and when they sat down together he put it down next to Paul and said, “This is for you”.

“Paul immediately picked it up, broke the seal and began rummaging inside. Then he turned to the bearded guy and said something like, ‘We must keep this out of the papers…’

“He said, ‘She’s (Heather) not at all nice, or at all compassionate, she just wants the money’. He drew the dollar sign in the air again. Then he said something like, ‘She wants it all, but no, we’ll try to find a way to sort it out’.

“Paul said he was trying to put it all to the back of his mind but said he was ‘entrenched’ by it.

“He did this thing with his hands, with two fingers pointing at each other, saying how they were so at odds with each other.

“Paul said he had tried to remain on friendly terms with her after they separated but then said she ‘flipped’.

“He said, ‘I was prepared to settle things amicably but suddenly Heather turned and something happened to her after that. She has told so many lies like the one about me being a drunk - just because I sometimes go to pubs. It’s all a pack of lies you know, that I am stingy - that’s another one‘.”

The diner added: “Paul said, ‘When she wrote her autobiography she lied, you know, we all know that. Saying I was a drunk and that I used her. It’s not true. She lies and lies. Then it all goes on and on with her playing up to the papers.

“‘And it’s all c**p and rubbish. If she doesn’t get what she wants she’ll pick a fight. It’s all lies that she has told her solicitors and all I can do is to try and keep calm. It’s just my luck to have all these problems. I am really miserable, bullied actually. It just p***** me off, it is such c**p. I am being described as a b****** and it’s just not true’.”

She added: “He said no one had told him what Heather was really like when he married her. He said his daughter Stella was the only one who warned him. Then he said, “She (Heather) really hates Stella“.”

The diner said that soon afterwards Sir Paul announced that he had to go to a meeting. She added: “He left with the big envelope the other guy brought in and I saw him get into a people carrier waiting up the street.”

Linda succumbed to breast cancer in 1998, and is said to have never spent a night apart from Paul in the 30 years she was with him. Paul’s relationship with Linda is generally considered beyond reproach, and nearly everyone thinks Heather Mills is the guilty lying party in his recent divorce. This latest news makes it seem as if McCartney had something to hide, and indeed Cox has said that Linda often had to borrow five or ten pounds when they were out together because Paul didn’t give her even a little bit of cash to spend. No one’s marriage is perfect, though, and Paul might be buying the tapes as insurance in case Heather decides to use any of his wife’s intimate chats with a friend against him.

Paul told the BBC on Saturday that he doesn’t hold grudges against anyone, and that he’s understandably sad, but that life goes on and that he’s optimistic about it. He said “When you are going through difficulties, I think the thing to do for the sake of all the people concerned is to keep a certain dignity and remember that it is a private affair.”

Heather’s first husband claims she beat the crap out of him (thanks Agent Bedhead for the tip), and her own father says that she’s a liar and that he believes Paul. If anything went on in Paul’s first marriage, it was probably the normal problems that every couple has. I’ll choose to believe a beloved rock legend over an ex prostitute and porn model any day, and hopefully the courts will agree with me.