Samuel Winters

Samuel Winters is retired MI5. He was the secret contact for Robert Foster in Nine Whispered Words, and made a played appearance in The Lion and the Unicorn.

Character Background
At the time of The Lion and the Unicorn, Winters is said to be seventy-four. "The details of his career are, for obvious reasons, unclear, but it is relatively common knowledge amongst his acquaintances that he mostly did a desk job, correlating information and coordinating field agents, but occasionally found himself in sticky situations. He worked through some of the tensest phases of the cold war, and the few tales he has told suggest that he survived at least one fierce internal witch-hunt, got into a scrape with the CIA, and helped to talk MI6 leadership out of an assassination attempt."

He is the father of Elsie Winters. His wife, Lillian, died of cancer in approximately 2004.

He is friendly with Christopher Moore through introduction by his daughter with whom he has spent a lot of time investigating the Finch notes and quipus he recorded. Also noted to be friends with Cátia Cardoso, and probably Andrew Dawson and Christopher Thomas.

The Lion and the Unicorn
At the start of the mystery, it is known that Winters was recently poisoned - apparently deliberately - with arsenic, and almost died. Most people think it had to do with some grudge held from his earlier career. This is not the case.

Three attempts had been made on Winters' life prior to this including being shot at and having a loose chimney pushed over him as he walked by, all carried out by Dr Adam Reid. Winters was very much aware of Reid's involvement although it is not known if he was aware of Reid being blackmailed (by Cátia Cardoso) or that the the ultimate reason for the attempts on his life was his investigations of Twist which Twist wanted an end to.

'[Edit: DETAILS NEEDED - It is thought that Samuel Winters murdered Adam Reid after confronting him at his house. Was there anyone else there?]'

He even arrived to the expedition dinner with a small amount of blood on his clothes but this went apparently unnoticed by everyone at the time.

'[Edit: Other things happen. Winters is still very sharp, perhaps more than anyone expects him to be.]'

In the culmination of a second elaborate scheme to "Stop Samuel Winters" cooked up in desperation by Cátia Cardoso and involving the unfortunate Christopher Thomas, Winters commits suicide.