Paper Money (26 page)

shifting patterns on the dry earth.

Felix said she was uninhibited, but of course he was wrong. She had

simply made an area in her life where constancy was sacrificed for the

sake of joy. Besides, it was no longer gauche to have a lover, provided

one was discreet; and she was extremely discreet.

The trouble was, she liked the taste of freedom.

She realized that she was at a dangerous age. The women's magazines she

flicked through (but never actually read) were constantly telling her

that this was when a woman added up the years she had left, decided they

were shockingly few, and determined to fill them with all the things she

had missed so far. The trendy, liberated young writes warned her that

disappointment lay in that direction. How would they know? They were

just guessing, like everyone else.

She suspected it was nothing to do with age.

When she was seventy she would be able to find a lively nonagenarian to

lust after her, if at that age she still cared. Nor was it anything to

do with the menopause, which was well behind her. It was simply that

every day she found Derek a little less attractive and Felix a little

more. It had reached the point where the contrast was too much to bear.

She had let both of them know what the situation was, in her indirect

manner. She smiled as she recalled how thoughtful each had looked after

she had delivered her veiled ultimatums. She knew her men: each would

analyze what she had said, understand after a while, and congratulate

himself on his perspicacity. Neither would know he was being threatened.

She emerged from the copse and leaned on a fence at the edge of a field.

The pasture was shared by a donkey and an old mare: the donkey was there

for the grandchildren and the mare because she had once been Ellen's

favorite hunter.

It was all right for them-they did not know they were getting old.

She crossed the field and climbed the embankment to the disused railway

line. Steam engines had puffed along here when she and Derek were gay

young socialites, dancing to jazz music and drinking too much champagne,

giving parties they could not really afford. She walked along between

the rusty lines, jumping from sleeper to sleeper, until something small

and furry ran out from under the rotting black wood and scared her. She

scampered down the bank and walked back toward the house, following the

stream through rough woodland. She did not want to be a gay young thing

again; but she still wanted to be in love.

Well, she had laid her cards on the table, as it were, with both men.

Derek had been told that his work was edging his wife out of his life,

and that he would have to change his ways if he was to keep her. Felix

had been warned that she would not be his fancy piece forever.

Both men might bow to her will, which would leave her still with the

problem of choice. Or they might both decide they could do without her,

in which case there would be nothing for her to do except to become like

a girl in a novel by Francoise Sagan; and she knew that would not suit

her.

Well, suppose they both were prepared to do as she wished: whom would

she choose? As she rounded the corner of the house she thought Felix,

probably.

She realized with a shock that the car was in the drive, and Derek was

getting out of it. Why was he home so early? He waved to her. He seemed

happy.

She ran to him across the gravel and, full of guilt, she kissed him.

KEVIN HART should have been worrying, but somehow he could not summon up

the energy.

The editor had quite explicitly told them not to investigate the Cotton

Bank. Kevin had disobeyed, and Laski had asked: "Does your editor know

you are making this call?" The question was often asked by outraged

interviewees, and the answer was always an unworried No--unless, of

course, the editor had forbidden the call. So, if Laski should take it

into his head to ring the editor--or even the Chairman-Kevin was in

trouble.

So why wasn't he worried?

He decided that he did not care for his job as much as he had this

morning. The editor had good reasons for killing the story, of course;

there were always good reasons for cowardice. Everyone seemed to accept

that

"It's against the law" was a final argument; but the great newspapers of

the past had always broken the laws: laws at once harsher and more

strictly applied than those of today. Kevin believed that newspapers

should publish and be sued, or even arrested. It was easy for him to

believe this, for he was not an editor.

So he sat in the newsroom, close to the news desk, sipping machine tea

and reading his own paper's gossip column, composing the heroic speech

he would like to have made to the editor.

It was the fag-end of the day as far as the paper was concerned.

Nothing less than a major assassination or a multiple-death disaster

would get in the paper now. Half the reporters--those on eight-hour

shifts--had gone home. Kevin worked ten hours, four days a week. The

industrial correspondent, having taken eight pints of Guinness at lunch,

was asleep in a corner. A lone typewriter clacked desultorily as a girl

reporter in jeans wrote an undated story for tomorrow's first edition.

The copy takers were arguing about football and the sub-editors were

composing joke captions for spiked pictures, laughing uproariously at

each other's wit.

Arthur Cole was pacing up and down, resisting the temptation to smoke

and secretly hoping for a fire at Buckingham Palace. Every so often he

would stop and leaf through the sheets of copy impaled on his spike, as

if worrying that he might have overlooked the big story of the day.

After a while Mervyn Glazier sauntered across from his own small

kingdom. His shirt was hanging out. He sat down beside Kevin, lighting a

steel-stemmed pipe and resting one scuffed shoe on the rim of the

wastepaper basket.

"The Cotton Bank of Jamaica," he said by way of preamble. He spoke

quietly.

Kevin grinned. "Have you been a naughty boy too?"

Mervyn shrugged. "I can't help it if people ring me up with information.

Anyway, if the bank ever was in danger, it's out now."

"How do you know?"

"My tight-lipped contact at Threadneedle Street.

"I have looked more closely at the Cotton Bank since your call, and I

find it to be in excellent financial health." Unquote. In other words,

it's been quietly rescued."

Kevin finished his tea and crumpled the plastic paper cup noisily. "So

much for that."

"I also hear, from a quite separate source not a million miles from the

Council of the Stock Exchange, that Felix Laski has bought a controlling

share in Hamilton Holdings."

"He can't be short of a few bob, then. Is the Council interested?"

"No. They know, and they don't mind."

"Do you think we made a big fuss over nothing?"

Mervyn shook his head slowly. "By no means."

"Nor do I."

Mervyn's pipe had gone out. He tapped it into the wastebasket. The two

journalists looked helplessly at each other for a moment, then Mervyn

got up and went away.

Kevin returned his attention to the gossip column, but he could not

concentrate. He read a paragraph four times without understanding it,

then gave up. Some large piece of skulduggery had gone on today, and he

itched to know what it was, the more so because he felt so close to

understanding it.

Arthur called him. "Sit behind here while I go to the lav, will you?"

Kevin walked around the news desk and took a seat behind the news

editor's bank of telephones and switchboards. It gave him no thrill: he

had the job because, at this time of day, it hardly mattered. He was

just the nearest idle man.

Idleness was inevitable on newspapers, Kevin mused. The staff had to be

sufficiently many to cope on a big day, so they were bound to be too

many on a normal day. On some papers they gave you silly jobs to do just

to keep you busy: writing stories from publicity handouts and local

government press releases, stuff that would never get in the paper. It

was demoralizing, time-wasting work, and only the more insecure of

newspaper executives demanded it.

A Lad came across from the teleprinter room, carrying a Press

Association story on a long sheet of paper. Kevin took it from him and

glanced at it.

He read it with a growing sense of shock and elation.

A syndicate headed by Hamilton Holdings today won the license to drill

for oil in the last North Sea oil field, Shield.

The Secretary of State of Energy, Mr. Carl Wrightment, announced the

name of the winning contender at a Press conference overshadowed by the

sudden illness of his Junior Minister, Mr. Tim Fitzpeterson.

The announcement was expected to provide a much-needed fillip to the

ailing shares of the Hamilton print group, whose half-year results,

published yesterday, were disappointing.

Shield is estimated to hold oil reserves which could ultimately amount

to half a million barrels a week.

The Hamilton group's partners in the syndicate include Scan, the

engineering giant, and British Organic Chemicals.

After making the announcement Mr. Wrightment added: "It is with sadness

that I have to tell you of the sudden illness of Tim Fitzpeterson, whose

work on the Government's oil policy has been so invaluable."

Kevin read the story three times, hardly able to believe its

implications. Fitzpeterson, Cox, Laski, the raid, the bank crisis, the

takeover--all leading in a great, frightening circle, back to Tim

Fitzpeterson.

"It can't be that," he said aloud.

"What have you got?" Arthur's voice came from behind him. "Is it worth a

fudge?" The fudge was what the public called the Stop Press.

Kevin passed him the story and vacated his chair. "I think," he said

slowly, "that story will persuade the editor to change his mind."

Arthur sat down to read. Kevin watched him eagerly. He wanted the older

man to react; to jump up and shout

"Hold the front page!" or something; but Arthur stayed cool.

Eventually he dropped the sheet of paper on the desk. He looked coldly

at Kevin. "So what?" he said.

"Isn't it obvious?" Kevin said excitedly.

"No. Tell me."

"Look. Laski and Cox blackmail Fitzpeterson into telling them who has

won the Shield license.

Cox, maybe with Laski's help, raids the currency van and gets a million

pounds. Cox gives the money to Laski, who uses it to buy the company

that got the oil license."

"So what would you like us all to do about it?"

"For Christ's sake! We could drop hints, or mount an investigation, or

tell the police--at least tell the police! We're the only people who

know it all--we can't let the bastards get away with it!" "Don't you

know anything?" Arthur said bitterly.

"What do you mean?"

Arthur's voice was as somber as the grave.

Hamilton Holdings is the parent company of the Evening Post." He paused,

then looked Kevin in the eye. "Felix Laski is your new boss."

FOUR P.M. THEY SAT DOWN in the small dining room, on either side of the

little circular table, and he said:

"I've sold the company." She smiled, and said calmly: "Derek, I'm so

glad." Then, against her will, tears came to her eyes, and her icy

self-control weakened and crumbled for the first time since the birth of

Andrew.

She saw, through the tears, the shock in his expression as he realized

how much it meant to her.

She stood up and opened a cupboard, saying: "I think this calls for a

drink." "I got a million pounds for it," he said, knowing she was not

interested.

"Is that good?"

"As it happens, yes. But more importantly, it's enough to keep us

comfortably well off for as long as we're likely to live."

She made gin-and-tonic for herself. "Would you like a drink?"

"Perrier, please. I've decided to go on the wagon for a bit."

She gave him his drink and sat opposite him again. "What made you

decide?"

"No single thing. Talking to you, and talking to Nathaniel." He sipped

his mineral water. "Talking to you, mainly. The things you said about