Paper Money (12 page)

in the jaundiced eyes of cynics like Arthur Cole, as a poor boy made

good: more plainly than if he had worn a cloth cap and cycle clips.

Cole arrived in the editor's office on the dot of ten o'clock, with his

tie straightened, his thoughts marshaled, and his list typed out. He

realized instantly that that was an error. He should have burst in two

minutes late in his shirtsleeves, to give the impression he had

reluctantly torn himself away from the hot seat in the newsroom

powerhouse for the purpose of giving less essential personnel a quick

rundown on what was going on in really important departments. But then,

he always thought of these things too late: he was no good at office

politics. It would be interesting to watch how other?

executives made their entrance into the morning conference.

The editor's office was trendy. The desk was white and the easy chairs

came from Habitat. Vertical venetian blinds shaded the blue carpet from

sunlight, and the aluminum-and-melamine bookcases had smoked-glass

doors. On a side table were copies of all the morning papers, and a pile

of yesterday's editions of the Evening Post.

He sat behind the white desk, smoking a thin cigar and reading the

Mirror. The sight made Cole yearn for a cigarette. He popped a

peppermint into his mouth as a substitute.

The others came in in a bunch: the picture editor, in a tight-fitting

shirt, with shoulder-length hair many women would envy; the sports

editor, in a tweed jacket and lilac shirt; the features editor, with a

pipe and a permanent slight grin; and the circulation manager, a young

man in an immaculate gray suit who had started out selling encyclopedias

and risen to this lofty height in only five years. The dramatic

last-minute entrance was made by the chief sub-editor, the paper's

designer; a short man with close-cropped hair, wearing suspenders. There

was a pencil behind his ear.

When they were all seated, the editor tossed the Mirror onto the side

table and pulled his chair closer to his desk. He said: "No first

edition yet?"

"No." The chief sub looked at his watch. "We lost eight minutes because

of a web break."

The editor switched his gaze to the circulation manager. "How does that

affect you?"

He, too, was looking at his watch. "if it's only eight minutes, and if

you can catch up by the next edition, we can wear it."

The editor said: "We seem to have a web break every bloody day."

"fit's this bog-paper we're printing on," the chief sub said.

"Well, we have to live with it until we start to make a profit again."

The editor picked up the list of news stories Cole had put on his desk.

"There's nothing here to start a circulation boom, Arthur."

"Its a quiet morning. With luck we'll have a Cabinet crisis by midday."

"And they're two-a-penny, with this bloody government." The editor

continued to read the list. "I like this Stradivarius story."

Cole ran down the list, speaking briefly about each item. When he had

finished, the editor said:

"And not a splash among '. I don't like to lead all day on politics.

We're supposed to cover every facet of the Londoner's day," to quote our

own advertising. I don't suppose we can make Strad a million-pound

violin?"

"It's a nice idea," Cole said. "But I don't sup pose it's worth that

much. Still, we'll try it on

The chief sub said: "if it won't work in Sterling try the million-dollar

violin. Better still, the million dollar fiddle." "Good thinking," the

editor said. "Let's have a library picture of a similar fiddle, and

interviews with three top violinists about how they would feel if they

lost their favorite instrument." He paused. "I want to go big on the oil

field license, too. People are interested in this North Sea oil--it's

supposed to be our economic salvation." Cole said: "The announcement is

due at twelve-thirty. We're getting a holding piece meanwhile."

"Careful what you say. Our own parent company is one of the contenders,

in case you didn't know.

Remember that an oil well isn't instant riches--it means several years

of heavy investment first."

"Sure," Cole nodded.

The circulation manager turned to the chief sub.

"Let's have street placards on the violin story, and this fire in the

East End--"

The door opened noisily, and the circulation manager stopped speaking.

They all looked up to see Kevin Hart standing in the doorway, looking

flushed and excited. Cole groaned inwardly.

Hart said: "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think this is the big one."

"What is it?" the editor said mildly.

"I just took a phone call from Timothy Fitzpeterson, a Junior Minister

in the--" "I know who he is," the editor said. "What did he say?"

"He claims he's being blackmailed by two people called Laski and Cox.

He sounded pretty far gone. He--"

The editor interrupted again. "Do you know his voice?"

The young reporter looked flustered. He had obviously been expecting

instant panic, not a crossexamination. "I've never spoken to

Fitzpeterson before," he said.

Cole put in: "I had a fairly nasty anonymous tip about him this morning.

I checked it out--he denied it." The editor grimaced. "It stinks," he

said. The chief sub nodded agreement. Hart looked crestfallen.

Cole said: "All right, Kevin, we'll discuss it when I come out."

Hart went out and closed the door.

"Excitable fellow," the editor commented.

Cole said: "He's not stupid, but he's got a lot to learn."

"So teach him," the editor said. "Now, what's lined up on the picture

desk?"

RON BIG GINS was thinking about his daughter. In this, he was at fault:

he should have been thinking about the van he was driving, and its cargo

of several hundred thousand pounds' worth of paper money-soiled, torn,

folded, scribbled-on, and fit only for the Bank of England's destruction

plant in Loughton, Essex. But perhaps his distraction was forgivable:

for a man's daughter is more important than paper money; and when she is

his only daughter, she is a queen; and when she is his only child, well,

she just about fills his life.

After all, Ron thought, a man spends his life bringing her up, in the

hope that when she comes of age he can hand her over to a steady,

reliable type who will look after her the way her father did. Not some

drunken, dirty, long-haired, pot-smoking, unemployed fucking layabout--"

"What?" said Max Fitch.

Ron snapped back into the present. "Did I speak?" were muttering," Max

told him. "You got something on your mind?"

"I just might have, son," Ron said. I just might have murder on my mind,

he thought, but he knew he did not mean it. He accelerated slightly to

keep the regulation distance between the van and the motorcyclists. He

had nearly taken the young swine by the throat, though, when he had

said, "Me and Judy thought we might live together, like, for a while,

see how it goes, see?" It had been as casual as if he were proposing to

take her to a matinee. The man was twenty-two years of age, five years

older than Judy--thank God she was still a minor, obliged to obey her

father. The boyfriend--his name was Lou--had sat in the parlor, looking

nervous, in a nondescript shirt, grubby jeans held up with an elaborate

leather belt like some medieval instrument of torture, and open sandals

which showed his itchy dirty feet. When Ron asked what he did for a

living, he said he was an unemployed poet, and Ron suspected the lad was

taking the mickey.

After the remark about living together, Ron threw him out. The rows had

been going on ever since.

First, he had explained to Judy that she must not live with Lou because

she ought to save herself for her husband; whereupon she laughed in his

face and said she had already slept with him at least a dozen times,

when she was supposed to be spending the night with a girlfriend in

Finchley.

He said he supposed she was going to say she was in the pudding club;

and she said he should not be so stupid, she had been on the pill since

her sixteenth birthday, when her mother had taken her up to the family

planning clinic. That was when Ron came near to hitting his wife for the

first time in twenty years of marriage.

Ron got a pal in the police force to check out Louis Thurley, aged

twenty-two, unemployed, of Barracks Road, Harringey. The Criminal

Records Office had turned up two convictions: one for possession of

cannabis resin at the Reading pop festival, and one for stealing food

from Tesco's in Muswell Hill. That information should have finished it.

It did convince Ron's wife, but Judy just said that she knew all about

both incidents. Pot shouldn't be an offense, she declared, and as far as

the theft was concerned, Ron and his friends had simply sat on the

supermarket floor eating pork pies off the shelf until they got

arrested.

They had done it because they believed food should be free, and because

they were hungry and broke.

She seemed to. think their attitude was totally reasonable.

Unable to make her see sense, Ron had finally forbidden her to go out in

the evening. She had taken it calmly. She would do as he said, and in

four months' time, when she was eighteen, she would move into Lou's

studio apartment with his three mates and the girl they all shared.

Ron was defeated. He had been obsessed by the problem for eight days,

and still he could see no way to rescue his daughter from a life of

misery--for that was what it meant, without a shadow of doubt. Ron had

seen it happen. A young girl marries a wrong '. She goes out to work

while he sits at home watching the racing on television. He does a bit

of villainy from time to time to keep himself in beer and smokes.

She has a few babies, he gets nicked and goes inside for a stretch, and

suddenly the poor girl is trying to bring up a family on the Assistance

with no husband.

He would give his life for Judy--he had given her eighteen years of

it--and all she wanted to do was throw away everything Ron stood for and

spit in his eye. He would have wept, if he could remember how.

He could not get it out of his mind, so he was still thinking about it

at 10:16 A.M. this day. That was why he did not notice the ambush

sooner.

But his lack of concentration made little difference to what happened in

the next few seconds.

He turned under a railway arch into a long, curving road which had the

river on its left-hand side and a scrap yard on the right. It was a

mild, clear day, and so, as he followed the gentle bend, he had no

difficulty in seeing the large car transporter, piled high with battered

and crushed vehicles, reversing with difficulty into the scrap yard

gate.

At first it looked as though the truck would be out of the way by the

time the convoy reached it.

But the driver obviously did not have the angle of approach quite right,

for he pulled forward again, completely blocking the road.

The two motorcycles in front braked to a halt, and Ron drew the van up

behind them. One cyclist heaved his machine onto its stand and jumped up

on the foot plate of the cab to shout at the driver The truck's engine

was revving noisily, and black smoke poured from its exhaust in clouds.

"Report an unscheduled stop," Ron said. "Let's work the routine like the

book says."

Max picked up the radio microphone. "Mobile to Obadiah Control."

Ron was looking at the truck. It carried an odd assortment of vehicles.

There was an elderly green van with

"Coopers Family Butcher"

painted on the side; a crumpled Ford Anglia with no wheels; two

Volkswagen Beetles piled one on top of the other; and, on the upper

rack, a large white Australian Ford with a coach line and a new-looking

Triumph. The whole thing looked a bit unsteady, especially the two

Beetles in a rusty embrace, like a pair of copulating insects. Ron

looked back at the cab: the motorcyclist was making signs at the driver

to get out of the convoy's way.

Max repeated: "Mobile to Obadiah Control.

Come in, please." We must be quite low, Ron thought, this close to the

river. Maybe reception is bad. He looked again at the cars on the

transporter, and realized that they were not roped down. That really was