The Fourth Estate (43 page)

In a quarter of
an hour she’ll reappear and tell me I have a conference call with London and
Los Angeles. And if she’s really cross with me, she throws in Tokyo for good
measure.”

Kate began to
laugh.

“Let’s hope you
last the full hour. You’ll never believe what she comes up with after an hour.”

“To be honest,
Mr. Townsend, I wasn’t expecting to be given more than fifteen minutes of your
time,” Kate said, as she looked back down at her questions.

“You’d begun to
ask me about the Continent,” prompted Keith.

“Oh, yes,” said
Kate. “It’s often reported that you were devastated when Alan Rutledge resigned
as editor.”

“Yes, I was,”
admitted Keith. “He was a fine journalist, and had become a close friend. But
the paper had fallen below 50,000 copies a day, and we were losing nearly E
100,000 a week. Now, under the new editor, we have returned to sales of 200,000
copies a day, and will be launching a Sunday Continent early in the new year.”

“But surely you
accept that the paper can no longer be described as ‘the Times of Australia’?”

“Yes, and I
regret that,” said Keith, admitting the fact for the first time to anyone other
than his mother.

“Will the Sunday
Continent follow the same pattern as the daily, or arc you going to produce the
quality national newspaper Australia so desperately needs?”

Keith was
beginning to realize why Miss Tulloh had won her award, and why Bruce thought
so highly of her. This time he chose his words more carefully. “I will endeavor
to produce a paper that the majority of Australians Would like to see on their
breakfast tables every Sunday morning. Does that answer your question, Kate?”

“I fear it does,
Mr. Townsend,” she said with a smile.

Keith returned
the smile. It quickly disappeared when he heard her next question.

“May I now turn
to an incident in your life that has been widely covered by the gossip
columns?” Keith reddened slightly as she waited for his response. His instinct
was to end the interview there and then, but he just nodded.

“is it true that
on your wedding day you ordered your chauffeur to drive straight past the
church only moments before the bride was due to arrive?”

Keith was relieved
when Heather marched into the room and said firmly, “Your conference call is
due in a couple of minutes, Mr. Townsend.”

“My conference
call?” he asked, brightening up.

“Yes, sir,” said
Heather. “Sir” was a word she resorted to only when she was very cross.

“London and Los
Angeles,” she said. She paused before adding, “and Tokyo.”

Very cross,
thought Keith. But at least she had given him the chance to escape. Kate had
even closed her shorthand pad.

“Rearrange it
for this afternoon,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure which of the women looked
more surprised. Heather left them without another word, and this time she
closed the door behind her.

Neither of them
spoke again until Keith said, “Yes, it’s true. But I’d be obliged if you didn’t
refer to it in your article.”

Kate put her
pencil down on the table, as Keith turned and looked out of the window. “I’m
sorry, Mr. Townsend,” she said, “that was insensitive of me.”

“ ‘Just doing my
job’ is what reporters usually say,” said Keith quietly.

“Perhaps we
Could move on to your somewhat unusual, if not to say bizarre, takeover of 2WW”

Keith sat up in
his chair and relaxed a little for the first time.

“When the story
first broke in the Cbronicle – on the morning of your wedding, incidental ly-Sir
Somerset described you as ‘a pirate’.”

“I’m sure he
intended it as a compliment.”

“A compliment?”

“Yes. I assume
he meant that I was acting in the great tradition of pirates.”

“Who did you
have in mind?” asked Kate innocently.

“Walter Raleigh
and Francis Drake,” replied Keith.

“I suspect it’s
more likely to have been Bluebeard or Captain Morgan that Sir Somerset had in
mind,” said Kate, returning his smile.

“Perhaps. But I
think you’ll find that both sides ended up satisfied with that particular deal.”

Kate looked back
down at her notes. “Mr. Townsend, You now own, or have the majority
shareholding in, seventeen newspapers, eleven radio stations, an aircraft
company, a hotel and two coalmines.” She looked back up at him.

“What do you
plan to do next?”

“I’d like to
sell the hotel and the coalmines, so if you happen to come across anyone who
might be interested...”

Kate laughed.
“No, seriously,” she said, as Heather marched back into the room.

“The prime
minister is on his way up in the lift, Mr. Townsend,” she said, her Scottish
accent even more pronOUnced than usual. “You are, as you will remember,
entertaining him for lunch in the boardroom.”

Keith winked at
Kate, who burst out laughing. Heather held open the door and stood back to
allow a distinguished- looking gentleman with a head of silver hair to enter
the room.

“Good morning,
Prime Minister,” Keith said, as he rose from his place and stepped forward to
greet Robert Menzies. The two men shook hands before Keith turned round to
introduce Kate, who was trying to hide in the corner of the room. “I don’t
think you’ve met Kate Tulloh, Prime Minister. She’s one of the Gironicle’s most
promising young reporters. I know she was hoping to get an interview with you
at some point.”

“I should be
delighted,” said Menzies. “Why don’t you give my office a call, Miss Tulloh,
and we can fix a time?”

For the next two
days Keith was unable to get Kate out of his mind. One thing was certain: she
didn’t fit into any of his well-ordered plans.

When they had
sat down to lunch, the prime minister had wondered why his host was so
preoccupied. Townsend showed little interest in his innovative proposals for
curbing the power of the trades unions, despite the fact that his papers had
been pressing the government on the subject for several years.

Townsend wasn’t
a great deal more articulate the following morning, when he chaired the monthly
board meeting- In fact, for a man who controlled the largest communications
empire in Australia, he was amazingly uncommunicative. One or two of his
fellow- directors wondered if he was going down with something. When he
addressed the board on item seven, his proposed trip to the UK for the purpose
of taking over a small newspaper group in the north of England, few of them
could see much point in his making the journey. He totally failed to convince
them that anything worthwhile could possibly come out of it.

Once the board
meeting was over and the directors had dispersed, Townsend returned to his
office and remained at his desk going over papers until Heather finally left
for the evening. Fie checked his watch as the door closed behind her. It was a
few minutes past seven, which reminded him how late she normally worked. He
didn’t pick up the phone until he was sure she wasn’t going to return, then he
dialed the three digits that would put him straight through to the editor’s
desk.

“Bruce, this
trip I’m about to take to London. I ought to have a journalist along with me to
make sure that if the story break,, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”

“What are you
hoping to buy this time?” asked Bruce.

“The Times?”

“No, not on this
trip,” replied Townsend. “I’m looking for something that just might make a
profit.”

“Why don’t I
call Ned Brewer at the London bureau? He’,, the obvious man to follow up any
story.”

“I’m not sure
it’s a job for the bureau chief,” said Townsend. “I’m going to be traipsing
round the north of England for several days, looking at print works, meeting
journalists, trying to decide which editors to retain. I wouldn’t want Ned to
be away from his desk for that length of time.”

“I suppose I
could spare Ed Makins for a week. But I’d need him back for the opening of
Parliament – especially if your hunch turns out to be right and Menzies does
announce a bill to curb the powers of the trades unions.”

“No, no, I don’t
need someone that high-powered. In any case, I can’t be sure how long I’ll be
away. A good junior could do the job.” He paused, but Bruce made no helpful
suggestions. “I was impressed by that girl you sent up to interview me the
other day,” he said. “What was her name?”

“Kate Talloh,”
said Bruce. “But she’s far too young and inexperienced for something as big as
this.”

“So were you
when we first met, Bruce. It didn’t stop me from offering you the job as
editor.”

There was a
moment’s silence before Bruce said, “I’ll see if she’s available.”

Townsend smiled
as he put the phone down. He couldn’t pretend that he’d been looking forward to
the trip to England, although he knew the time had come to expand his horizons
beyond Australia.

He looked back
down at the pile of notes that littered his desk. Despite a team of management
consultants trawling through the details of every newspaper group in the United
Kingdom, they had only come up with one good prospect.

A file had been
prepared for him to consider over the weekend. He turned the first page and
began to read a profile of the West Riding Group. Its head office was in Leeds.
He smiled. The nearest he’d ever been to Leeds was a visit to the Doncaster
racecourse when he was at Oxford. On that occasion-if he remembered
correctly-he’d backed a winner.

NEWS CHRONICLE

25 OCTOBER 1951

F
inal Poll Gives Churchill the Lead “AND
HOW WILL you be paying, Mr. Armstrong?” asked the estate agent.

“It’s Captain
Armstrong, actually.”

“I’m sorry,
Captain Armstrong.”

“I’ll pay by
check.”

It had taken
Armstrong ten days to find suitable accommodation, and he only signed the short
lease on a flat in Stanhope Gardens when the agent mentioned that a retired
brigadier was living on the floor above.

The search for
an appropriate office took even longer, because it needed to have an address
that would convince Julius Hahn that Armstrong had been in publishing all his
life.

When John D.
Wood asked what price range he had in mind, a very junior agent was handed the
assignment.

Two weeks later,
Armstrong settled on an office that was even smaller than his flat in Stanhope
Gardens. Although he couldn’t altogether accept the agent’s description of the
308-square- foot room with a lavatory on the floor above as ideal, perfect and
unique, it did have two advantages. The Fleet Street address, and a rent he
could afford to pay-for the first three months.

“if you’ll be
kind enough to sign on the bottom line, Captain Armstrong.”

Armstrong unscrewed
the top of his new Parker pen and signed the contract.

“Good. Then
that’s settled,” said the young agent as he waited for the ink to dry. “The
rent for this property is, as you know, Captain Armstrong, E

10 a week,
payable quarterly in advance. Perhaps you would be kind enough to let me have a
check for El 30.”

“I’ll send one
of my staff round with a check later this afternoon,” said Armstrong,
straightening his bow tie.

The agent
hesitated for a moment, and then placed the contract in his briefcase. “I’m
sure that will be all right, Captain Armstrong,” he said, handing over the keys
to the smallest property on their books.

Armstrong felt
confident that Hahn would have no way of knowing, when he rang FLE 6093 and
heard the words “Armstrong Communications,” that his publishing house consisted
of one room, two desks, a filing cabinet and a recently installed telephone.
And as for “one of my staff,” one was correct. Sally Carr had returned to
London the week before, and had joined him as his personal assistant earlier
that morning.

Armstrong had
been unable to give the estate agent a check immediately because he had only
recently opened an account with Barclays, and the bank was unwilling to issue a
checkbook until it received the promised transfer of funds from Holt & Co
in Berlin. The fact that he was Captain Armstrong MC, as he kept reminding
them, didn’t seem to impress the manager.

When the money
did eventually come through, the manager confessed to his accounts clerk that
after their meeting he had expected a little more than C217 9s. 6d. to be
deposited in Captain Armstrong’s account.

While he was
waiting for the money to be transferred, Armstrong contacted Stephen Hallet at
his offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and asked him to register Armstrong Communications
as a private company. That cost him another £10.

No sooner had
the company been formed than another unpayable bill landed on Sally’s desk.
This time Armstrong didn’t have a dozen bottles of claret to settle the
account, so he invited Hallet to become company secretary.