“They said they would like me to have some tests,” Conlon recalled. It all began with the news that Litvinenko had been fatally poisoned with a radioactive isotope, and the investigation began to zero in on the places he had spent his last hours before falling ill, Conlon said in an interview at the Piano Bar in Kensington, a small, second-story lounge where he now plays two nights a week. no better place to be,” was a runner-up in the jazz and blues category in this year’s UK Songwriting Contest. His “A Sad and Lonely Man,” which recounts a man “walking the streets at night. There, he said, he began writing songs, and some of them seemed to strike a chord with others. The settled, easygoing musician became anxious, afflicted with high blood pressure and subject to frequent “panic attacks.” Convinced that no one wanted him in the bar anymore, Conlon quit his job and moved briefly to the Caribbean. All 17 people received doses of polonium high enough to pose a potential, if faint, threat to their long-term health, the British Health Protection Agency says.Ĭonlon has come to look at his life in terms of what happened before, and what happened after, the night he sat at a table just vacated by Litvinenko. Those cases include Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, employees at the bar and healthcare workers at the hospital where he died. All the neighbors were saying, ‘What’s going on?’ ” said Conlon, 44, who was diagnosed with a significant, but not necessarily health-threatening, exposure to polonium.
I had people from the Health Protection Agency with Geiger counters in white suits going through my house. system, everything I sing through was contaminated. It got worse: Even though it had been through the dishwasher, Conlon’s coffee cup had also held Litvinenko’s tea.
Not long after, Conlon, an Irishman known for his ability to glide from Elton John to Frank Sinatra with ease, learned that the table had been occupied moments before by Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who died after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. That cup of coffee has given him countless sleepless nights since. Chatted with the barman, stretched, strolled over and started tickling the keys.
Sat down at one of the tables for a cup of coffee. One night a little over a year ago, Derek Conlon showed up as usual for his gig as the piano player at the Pine Bar in Mayfair.