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Show me the money, Honey

He was, he told the bemused friend, not a bad man: he said he was worried that Heather was trashing him behind his back.

'I don't want people to think I've been nasty and horrible to Heather — because I haven't, I really haven't,' he said earnestly. Then, as suddenly as he had arrived, the former Beatle was gone.

Nor was his unannounced appearance a one-off. Several of Heather's friends in London and on the south coast, where she now lives have been mystified to receive similar late-evening visits or phone calls.

The message is always the same: that McCartney is determined not to be painted as the villain in a divorce battle that has suddenly exploded into bitter and very public antipathy.

The weekend saw another flurry of revelations that illustrates just how far relations between the warring couple have sunk. McCartney, it is alleged, has frozen their joint bank account after discovering that his wife has withdrawn around £1 million in one month. He also changed the locks on their London home.

And in a sign of the pettiness now infecting proceedings, Paul is said to have instructed his solicitors to send Heather a legal letter after her nanny took three half-empty bottles of cleaning fluid from his Sussex farmhouse to clean Heather's nearby office.

Friends have revealed that the simmering tension between them came to a head in a shouting match when Heather flew by helicopter to Dorset last week to be fitted for a new artificial leg.

When she emerged from her appointment to return to Sussex, she was told by the pilot that Paul had banned the chopper from landing on the helipad in the grounds of his home.

The helicopter had to divert to Lydd Airport, 11 miles away, leaving the formidable Lady McCartney boiling with rage.

It is hardly surprising, then, that the 64-year-old singer's attempts to win hearts and minds among those close to his wife have so far failed. Indeed, one of Heather's close friends launched an astonishing attack on him.

'Paul's side are playing mind games with Heather,' the friend said. 'They are trying to crush her, to knock her into submission; to make her feel small and worthless so she will accept anything he deigns to offer her in the divorce. 'But Heather is a fighter — she has had to fight all her life. And if you put her in a corner and trap her, she is not the sort of person who will roll over.'

Strong stuff and further evidence, if it were needed, that the situation between the two camps in this messy and increasingly grubby drama are already in a state of all- out war. Witness the details of McCartney's divorce petition and his citing last week of his wife's 'unreasonable behaviour' for the breakdown of their four-year marriage.

At the same time, his claims that she was 'argumentative' and 'rude to staff' during their marriage were leaked, along with his assertion that she has reneged on a deal to take £30 million in exchange for a quick and painless divorce. Sir Paul, it is claimed, now believes his former love is a 'gold digger' who has finally 'shown her true colours'.

As their latest skirmishes became public, one Sunday newspaper reported recently that on Tuesday when Heather arrived at McCartney's house in St John's Wood, North London, to collect their two-year-old daughter Beatrice, she was informed she was not welcome inside.

Instead, she was told to meet Beatrice in nearby Regent's Park.

Following the hand-over, she walked with her daughter back to the house — only to discover the locks had been changed.

It is said that Heather called a locksmith to have the locks changed back, but one of Sir Paul's security men stepped in to stop the workman carrying out her instructions.

Meanwhile, a furious Heather, who was pictured looking gaunt and thin at Madonna's Wembley concert on Thursday, hit back by announcing that she intends to file her own counter-claims in Britain and the US as she demands a share of her husband's £825million fortune.

What an ugly mess, and a far cry from their joint declaration when they separated in May that they were determined to stay friends for the sake of Beatrice, followed by McCartney's angry denial that Heather had married him for his money.

Just what has changed? And why does the divorce of the pop legend and his 38-year-old wife now look set to become one of the bloodiest and most expensive in British legal history? More importantly, how much will remain of McCartney's reputation when the dust finally settles?

What is beyond question is that Lady McCartney has reacted with unbridled fury to her husband's sooner-than- expected divorce petition.

Heather is said by friends to be 'utterly flabbergasted' that details of the petition have become public. Amid a febrile atmosphere of suspicion, her camp claim that someone among McCartney's friends leaked the details — along with those golddigger claims — in an attempt to discredit her.

At the same time, sources close to Heather have said that her husband's attitude towards her has hardened significantly in recent days.

They revealed that Heather, who normally takes care of their daughter at Paul's farmhouse on his 160-acre estate in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, is required by the star to leave the house before he arrives home to take over caring for Beatrice.

'Paul calls when he is coming to take over and she has to leave the premises before he gets there,' said the friend.

In recent weeks, Heather has had to drive an hour-and-a-half to the £2 million art deco beachfront house in Hove in which she was living. This week, however, she moved into a £500,000 converted barn 15 minutes from his home.

According to her friends, shortly after their split, Heather had asked McCartney if she could take up residence in one of the many properties dotted around his huge estate. This was to avoid being plagued by photographers at her seafront home.

Sir Paul, they allege, refused, telling his estranged wife: 'Sorry, we're not married any more.'

They say he has also withdrawn the bodyguard who used to shadow Lady McCartney wherever she went. Now she is given a minder only when she has custody of their daughter.

Friends say that Heather's predicament was brought home to her a fortnight ago in Brighton, when she was being followed by two motorcycle paparazzi who, she claims, have jostled and harassed her since the separation.

Heather, who lost part of her left leg when she was run down by a police motorcyclist in 1993, was in a taxi being pursued by the photographers when the taxi driver suddenly pulled over and ordered her to get out.

'The taxi driver told her he couldn't have his car chased because they were going to cause a crash,' said a friend. 'So he just dumped her on the street. Heather said to him "What am I supposed to do now?" but he said: "That's not my problem." '

Mills, who underwent painful 'revision amputation' surgery on her damaged leg two months ago, was forced to walk the three miles back to her Hove home.

Few, of course, have much sympathy for the domineering Miss Mills when it comes to the demise of her marriage to Sir Paul, whom she met in 1999 — one year after the death of his first wife, Linda, from breast cancer.

The former glamour model was accused six weeks ago of once working as a £5,000-a-time prostitute for rich Arabs. T

It should be stated for the record, however, that Miss Mills has announced she intends to sue those former prostitutes who made the Sunday newspaper claims that she was a hooker — albeit 'when she has finalised her divorce'.

All of which goes some way to explain why Heather has sanctioned her friends to hit back in the losing PR battle she is fighting with her ex.

One friend says: 'Heather can't win because everyone loves Paul. He is a former Beatle, for God's sake. How do you compete with that?

'Nobody who knows Heather will deny that she can be difficult, and her lack of humility is a major character flaw. But the idea that she walked all over Paul during their marriage is rubbish.

'Paul has spent 40 years being fawned over by everyone he meets. He is surrounded by 'yes men' on his payroll and he is utterly used to getting what he wants. He likes to control everything around him.

Another subject they fought over was money. 'Heather couldn't get her head round the fact that he was so mean with his money, and she wanted him to give more to the landmine and animal charities they both support.

'He was very generous with his time and earned £2.5 million for Heather's charity Adopt-A-Landmine, but she wanted him to use his own fortune as well.