‘I work for a corporation, in their legal department. I’m here seeing my boss who lives in Paris.’
‘Was that why you ran off so fast from the station, to see the boss?’
‘Yes. Have you painted many portraits?’
‘I’ve sold one or two. Are you married?’
He paused. At last he said, ‘I am, in a way.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I have a wife.’
‘At home?’
He nodded.
‘Children?’ she asked.
‘There’s a baby at home.’
The pictures flooded into his mind. Alice screaming, telling him she was pregnant, he trying to calm her, to hide how horrified he felt, saying how pleased he was. You idiot, you bloody idiot, she’d shouted, sitting on the bed. It’s not yours. Don’t you understand? It’s not bloody well yours. He wasn’t altogether surprised. He knew she’d been up to something. When she said this he felt pleased, relieved. Now he was free, free of the mistake they’d both known they’d made only a few weeks after they married. Whose is it? he’d asked. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, she’d cried. Just help me get rid of it, you’ve got to help me get rid of it. But when he had she’d refused even to see the doctor. I can’t, I can’t kill it, I won’t – and she’d called him a murderer. He should have left then but he hadn’t. He’d go after the baby was born, he’d told her. She’d just nodded. But he hadn’t. He was still there. Pathetic, Alice called him.
‘The baby’s not mine,’ he said.
‘Whose is it?’
‘Someone at the office.’
Anna was watching his face. ‘Why do you stay with her? Do you love her that much?’
‘God, no. I meant to go. I shall soon.’
‘I don’t think I want to hear any more.’ She lifted her glass slowly. ‘I’m in a Paris with a married man – and I’m getting tight.’
With the coffee she ordered Crème de Menthe, iced. ‘What my father called a tart’s drink.’ She looked around the restaurant, savouring the blue plumes that rose from the Gitane cigarettes. ‘That bloody, condescending secretary,’ she said as she drank the liqueur. ‘I don’t want to go back to the hotel yet.’
As they collected their coats Godfrey asked the coat-check girl where they could go for a drink, a bar, with music. The girl looked at them sourly and wrote on a piece of paper. In the taxi he showed it to the driver.
They were led down some narrow steps, he holding her arm, to a dimly lit circular room with tables against the walls, mostly unoccupied. In the centre there was a dance floor. A small band played on a dais and a middle-aged woman sang huskily into a microphone, trying to sound likes Edith Piaff. Godfrey pointed to a table at the back in the corner and ordered white wine. ‘All right?’ he asked. Anna nodded. By the time the wine had come the singer had sat down to desultory applause.
‘Not so different from the Village,’ Anna said. ‘Perhaps not so noisy.’
A few couples took to the floor. Two women in dark suits began to dance together.
‘Your friend at the restaurant had a sense of humour,’ Anna said watching them.
‘Do you mind?’ Godfrey asked.
‘Not unless they ask me to dance.’
‘Shall we?’
‘What would your wife say?’
‘She wouldn’t care.’
‘Don’t let them cut in.’
They danced for a few minutes, then sat and drank more wine. One of the two women dancing together smiled at Anna over the shoulder of her partner.
Anna looked away. ‘One of the dykes made a pass at me,’ she said. Suddenly she put her hand to her head. ‘Oh, God, I feel dizzy. The bloody tart’s drink. Take me home. I must get home. Take me home.’
In the taxi she leant against the side of the car away from him, moaning, ‘The damn woman, the bloody secretary. June swore I had the commission.’ She began to weep.
At the hotel he helped her across the foyer. He collected both their keys and guided her to the lift.
‘Telephone, M’sieur,’ the hall porter called after them. ‘Second time, asking for you. They say it’s important.’
The lift doors opened. ‘What’s my floor?’ Anna asked, leaning back against the wall of the lift.
He looked at her key. ‘Second.’
She snatched it from him. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘Leave me alone. I’m all right, I’m all right.’ Then she changed her mind. ‘No, wait. Press my floor number.’ He leant in and pressed the button. The lift doors closed.
He ran back to the desk, took the telephone and heard the angry English tones superimposed on the South African voice. ‘Lacey? Is that you? Where have you been? You have been out all night. The Chairman wants you – at once. The car will be at the hotel in five minutes.’ The line went dead.
Wilson greeted him silently at the lift door and led him to the Chairman’s room. Digby Price was in his shirtsleeves in an armchair. On a small table beside the typescript were a decanter and a tall glass.
Godfrey was left standing, Wilson beside him, facing the Chairman.
‘The seller has given us twenty-four hours,’ the Chairman began. ‘After that he takes it to the Telegram. And I want it. As you’re here, I suppose you’d better have your say.’
‘There are several references and innuendoes which may or may not be accurate and—’
The Chairman interrupted him. ‘If you mean the parts about sex, the editor says they’re not defamatory but if they are, then they’re true.’
‘A jury might disagree that they are not defamatory, sir. Where the defence is truth, or justification, the burden of proof is on the defence.’
‘I know that. But none of those women would dare. They’d look ridiculous. We’ll put a team on to them to check them out. Unearthing sex affairs, young man, is a question of money. It never fails – if you offer enough.’ He poured himself some whisky from the decanter. ‘What do you say about the politicians?’
‘The innuendo in respect of one or two is that they’re homosexuals and—’
‘McClaren and the woman Minister? Stuff that. What else?’
‘The innuendo about the Minister of Defence Procurement, suggesting he was up to disreputable business dealings with an industrialist—’
‘Ministers usually are, and this Minister more likely than most. Leave him to me. I’ll deal with him.’
‘If he sues and the defence fails, the damages and costs could be very large.’
‘He’s a crook,’ Price said shortly.
‘It could be difficult to prove that he—’
‘I don’t altogether care if we can’t. It’s a damn good story, him and Sleavens running a racket. But Tancred won’t dare. We’ll get the proof we need because, as I said, he’s a villain and a crook. If he tries it on,’ Price continued, ‘we’ll take him on.’ He turned to Wilson. ‘Corruption in the Cabinet! News Universal exposing bribery of a minister. The News performs a public service. How’s that for circulation, eh, Wilson?’
‘Indeed, sir, indeed.’
‘If the defence fails, sir—’ Godfrey said.
‘The public’ll think there was something to it, that the story was true but we couldn’t prove it – legally. That we failed on a technicality. But the mud will stick and I intend to fling it. Especially at that bastard Tancred.’
‘May I suggest we get an opinion from a barrister practising at the libel bar?’
‘No, I’ve told the editor to print this weekend, in three days’ time.’ He looked at the clock above the fireplace. ‘Now in two days’ time. It’ll be in copy on Thursday.’
‘There is a considerable risk and—’
‘Risk! What’s newspaper publishing about, young man, if it isn’t about risk, taking chances, giving the public what they want? The downside is what – a few thousands in damages? But it won’t come to that. This is a true bill. That bastard is corrupt. I know it and soon the public will know it. I’ve waited a long time
to get him and now I shall. I’m going to expose him and, even if I fail, there’ll be kudos, sympathy because we couldn’t technically prove what the public knows is true. That right, Wilson?’
‘Quite right, sir.’
‘So what does it add up to? If the women or their lovers sue, ridicule. If it’s Tancred, we’re a public-spirited newspaper playing our proper role in a democracy – exposing sleaze in public life. Win or lose, it’ll be the end of Tancred. Even if we lose the verdict, we won’t lose readers.’ He looked at Wilson. ‘Do you agree, Wilson?’
‘I do,’ Wilson replied.
‘And as an extra bonus, we stop the Telegram from getting it.’
‘There are the other ministers, apart from Tancred,’ said Godfrey.
‘I’ll take care of that.’ The Chairman looked at Wilson. ‘I don’t want those minnows coming in and muddying the waters when I’m after the big fish. Perhaps it calls for a visit to a nice country house in the Buckinghamshire countryside?’ He grinned at Wilson. Then he went on, ‘It’s Tancred I’m after and I’m going to get him. We’re in the middle of a circulation war, sonny. Now go back to London on the first train.’
‘The six thirty-seven,’ said Wilson, looking at the clock over the chimneypiece. ‘Four hours’ time,’ he added with satisfaction. ‘Waterloo eight forty-six. He’ll be in the office by nine.’
The Chairman rose and waved a hand in dismissal. Wilson closed the door behind Godfrey.
‘Is the decision to print the whole manuscript quite unexpurgated, exactly as it is?’ Wilson asked the Chairman.
‘Except what he writes about me. We can’t have that, can we?’ Price grinned.
‘No, sir, certainly not.’
‘And, as you guessed, I’ve cut the reference to the PM.’ Digby Price rose to his feet. ‘That little extract about the PM is the reason for my trip to Buckinghamshire, to Chequers – to have a little talk. I want to persuade him to make sure that none of his other ministers sue. I don’t want any of those clowns bringing actions. I want a clean run at Tancred. Just him.’ He paused, looking into the fire. ‘Tancred. I want Tancred.’
When Wilson had gone, Price stayed in his chair drinking whisky, still staring into the fire. He was thinking of the iron bars, the door clanging behind him and the brick walls of the cell. The heat and the filth and stink and the dark faces, and the hands clutching at him, flinging him to the ground, tearing off his clothes. And what they had done to him.
That had been Tancred’s doing. Tancred had been responsible for that.
Back at the hotel, Godfrey went to Anna’s door and knocked. There was no answer and he knocked again. When there was still no reply he went to his own room and spoke on the telephone to the night porter, asking to be put through to the room of Mlle James. ‘She’s given instructions she’s taking no calls,’ the man said. ‘She’s taken the telephone off the hook.’
He scribbled a note. ‘I have to leave Paris on the first train. I do hope to see you again.’ He wrote the address and the number of his office, and pushed the note under Anna’s door.
When Godfrey got to the office, Spenser was in Manchester, due back later in the day. Godfrey wrote a short memo on the meeting in Paris. Later he was summoned to Spenser’s office. ‘I spoke myself to the Chairman last night,’ Spenser said. ‘He’d already made up his mind. He’s cut the reference to the PM. Did you say your piece?’
‘I tried to.’
‘Well, it’s his newspaper.’ Spenser looked out of the window. ‘And his money.’ But not all of it. Some of it, he thought, is mine. I, too, have an investment in News Universal.
Far below he could see men still working on the Jubilee Line station. The journalists were happier now that the line was operational. The Telegram was in Battersea, much easier to reach. But morale was still poor at News Universal. Yesterday there had been two more defections to the Telegram, both from editorial, both experienced sub-editors; one from Sports, the other from the City page. They’d been offered nearly double their salary at News. It was part of Ogilvy Grant’s campaign to seduce away News’s best people. The war was getting nastier.
He turned back to Godfrey. ‘He told me on the telephone he’d read the manuscript. Do you think he had?’
‘He didn’t let me say much. He kept repeating that he wanted to get Tancred.’
Spenser looked at Godfrey. ‘He and Tancred,’ he said. ‘That goes back. It’s been like that ever since I’ve known him.’ He began to walk around the room.
‘The Chairman even seemed to want Tancred to sue,’ said Godfrey.
That’s now, thought Spenser. When it’s then, he could think differently. Lose badly and there’d not only be the damages to pay Tancred; there’d be the damage to the group’s prestige. Massive damages on top of massive costs added to the blow to News Universal’s reputation could even put in jeopardy the existence of the whole group. That morning, before the copy was set and before even the copy editor had read it, Spenser had been on to his broker. His instructions: to sell, discreetly, a block of his holding in News Universal. The stock was in the name of a nominee. No one would know who was selling. Just a precaution, Spenser thought, in case the war was lost.
‘Our job now is damage limitation,’ he said as he continued to prowl around the office, stopping now and then to look down from the window. ‘What’s your opinion of Mordecai Ledbury?’
‘They say he’s the top man in libel cases. I’ve never heard him in court.’
‘I have. Effective but sometimes too bellicose, alienating juries, quarrelling with the judges. The media generally don’t like him. He’s gone for too many proprietors and bullied too many editors but in this instance I think he’s the man for us.’ Spenser paused, looked again at the miniature figures thousands of feet below. ‘I shall retain him. If I can get him.’
‘There are several not very polite references to him in the diary,’ Godfrey interjected.
‘That’s because of a case some years ago when Ledbury cross-examined some young friend of Richmond’s. I’ve authorised cuts of the references to Ledbury.’
Price himself, the PM, now Ledbury, Godfrey thought. Only these three to be cut from the manuscript.
‘Ledbury’s another of the Chairman’s pet hates but I shan’t let that stop me from retaining him.’ Spenser sat at his desk. ‘Prepare me an analysis of the extracts of the diary with a list of all those who might have grounds for suing.’
In the afternoon Oliver Goodbody, patrician, very tall and white-haired, greeted Ralph Spenser at the door of the imposing room of the senior partner in the firm of Goodbody & Co., solicitors. It was a book-lined room looking on to the gardens in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. As soon as he had sat in the chair opposite Goodbody, Spenser began, ‘News Universal has bought the serialisation rights in the diaries of your late client, Francis Richmond, from a young actor, Job Streatley.’
‘I expect you had to pay a stiff price. He’s a greedy young man.’
‘We accepted the manuscript after you confirmed that Streatley owned the rights.’
Goodbody nodded. ‘He has the rights. He’s Richmond’s heir and gets the whole estate. As I told your secretary on Monday, the rights to all Richmond’s writings were bequeathed to Streatley. So that includes the diary that the young man stumbled on, although I doubt if Richmond ever intended it should be published. There was only one other bequest, which concerns part of the property where Richmond lived, a studio annexe. A five-year occupancy was left to a young woman, an artist from New York. The young man did not like that. He wants to dispose of the property immediately. I expect that was one of the reasons he was keen to raise cash from the diaries.’
‘The Chairman has decided that the first extract will be published on Sunday. We’re taking a risk since it included references to individuals who may not like what is published about them. If any sue, we shall defend every action vigorously and I want to put in place the legal team to defend the newspaper in the event of any writs.’
‘Very sensible.’
Spenser met Goodbody’s eye over the desk. ‘I wish to retain, as leading counsel, Mordecai Ledbury. I believe you know him well.’
Oliver Goodbody joined his fingers together under his chin and smiled slightly. He began to understand the purpose of Spenser’s visit. Mordecai Ledbury had many enemies and few friends, at least few men friends; Oliver Goodbody was one of the few. ‘He’s a difficult man, a very difficult man,’ he said, his eyes fixed on Spenser’s gleaming tortoiseshell glasses.
‘There have been several cases in the past, libel actions when Ledbury has been pretty severe about News Universal and my Chairman, Mr Digby Price.’
Goodbody nodded.
‘Nevertheless I am anxious to retain him,’ Spenser went on. ‘I consider he’s the right man in this instance for News Universal.’
Goodbody shifted his glance and looked out of the window. ‘Ledbury’, he said at last, ‘is very particular about whom he represents. The rule of the Bar the cab-rank rule that obliges counsel to accept any brief offered, he often avoids by demanding exorbitant fees – or even by pleading ill health. He’s a cripple, you know.’ Spenser nodded. There was a pause, then Goodbody continued, ‘He has pronounced likes and dislikes, of institutions as well as individuals. So you may have difficulty.’
‘There is one further matter,’ Spenser went on. ‘I have decided that in this matter we shall not use our regular firm of solicitors. I would like to retain your firm as the solicitors acting for the Corporation in respect of all or any actions brought against News Universal arising from the publication of the Richmond diaries.’
Oliver Goodbody, his fingers underneath his chin joined almost as if in prayer, switched his glance back to Spenser.
‘The retainer’, Spenser said, ‘will be payable even if no actions arise and none come to trial. I had in mind a level of fee commensurate with the standing and distinction of your firm and that of the Corporation.’
The Richmond Diary Page 4