Paper Money

by Ken Follett

  In the lee of the viaduct was a hut made of old wooden doors supporting a tar-paper roof. The men would be in there, huddled around an electric fire, drinking tea and smoking nervously.

  Everything was right. Tony felt elation rise in his belly as instinct told him it would work. He climbed out of the crane.

  He deliberately kept his voice low, steady and casual. "This van doesn't always go the same route. There are lots of ways from the City to Loughton. But this place is on most of the routes, right? They got to pass here unless they want to go via Birmingham or Watford. Now, they do go daft ways occasionally. Today might be one of those days. So, if it doesn't come off, just give the lads a bonus and send them home until next time."

  Jacko said: "They all know the score."

  "Good. Anything else?"

  The three men were silent.

  Tony gave his final instructions. "Everybody wears a mask. Everybody wears gloves. Nobody speaks." He looked to each man in turn for acknowledgment. Then he said: "Okay, take me back."

  There was no conversation as the red Fiat wound its way through the little streets to the lane behind the billiard hall.

  Tony got out, then leaned on the front passenger door and spoke through the open window: "It's a good plan, and if you do right, it will work. There's a couple of wrinkles you don't know about--safeguards, inside men. Keep calm, do good, and we'll have it away." He paused. "And don't shoot nobody with that bleeding tommy gun, for fuck's sake."

  He walked up the lane and entered the billiard hall by the back door. Walter was playing billiards at one of the tables. He straightened up when he heard the door.

  "All right, Tone?"

  Tony went to the window. "Did pally stay put?" He could see the blue Morris in the same place.

  "Yes. They've been smoking theirself to death."

  It was fortunate, Tony thought, that the law did not have enough manpower to watch him at night as well as in the day. The nine-to-five surveillance was quite useful, for it permitted him to establish alibis without seriously restricting his activities. One of these days they would start following him twenty-four hours a day. But he would have plenty of advance notice of that.

  Walter jerked a thumb at the table. "Fancy a break?"

  "No." Tony left the window. "I got a busy day." He went down the stairs, and Walter hobbled after him.

  "Ta-ta, Walter," he said as he went out into the street.

  "So long, Tony," Walter said. "God bless you, boy."

  8

  The newsroom came to life suddenly. At eight o'clock it had been as still as a morgue, the quietness broken only by inanimate sounds like the stuttering of the teleprinter and the rustle of the newspapers Cole was reading. Now three copytakers were pounding the keys, a Lad was whistling a pop song, and a photographer in a leather coat was arguing with a subeditor about a football match. The reporters were drifting in. Most of them had an early-morning routine, Cole had observed: one bought tea, another lit a cigarette, another turned to page three of the Sun to look at the nude, each using an habitual crutch to help him start the day.

  Cole believed in letting people sit down for a few minutes before setting them to work: it made for an atmosphere of order and coolheadedness. His news editor, Cliff Poulson, had a different approach. Poulson, with his froglike green eyes and Yorkshire accent, liked to say: "Don't take your coat off, lad." His delight in snap decisions, his perpetual hurry, and his brittle air of bonhomie created a frenetic atmosphere. Poulson was a speed freak. Cole did not reckon a story had ever missed an edition because someone took a minute out to think about it.

  Kevin Hart had been here for five minutes now. He was reading the Mirror, with one hip perched on the edge of a desk, the trousers of his striped suit falling gracefully. Cole called out to him. "Give the Yard a ring, please, Kevin." The young man picked up a telephone.

  The Bertie Chieseman tips were on his desk: a thick wad of copy. Cole looked around. Most of the reporters were in. It was time to get them working. He sorted through the tips, impaling some on a sharp metal spike, handing others to reporters with brief instructions. "Anna, a PC got into trouble in the Holloway Road--ring the nearest nick and find out what it was all about. If it's drunks, forget it. Joe, this fire in the East End--check with the Brigade. A burglary in Chelsea, Phillip. Look up the address in Kelly's Directory in case anyone famous lives there. Barney--'Police pursued and arrested an Irishman after calling at a house in Queenstown Street, Cam-den. ' Ring the Yard and ask them if it's anything to do with the IRA."

  An internal phone beeped and he lifted it. "Arthur Cole."

  "What have you got for me, Arthur?"

  Cole recognized the voice of the picture editor. He said: "At the moment, it looks as though the splash will be last night's vote in the Commons."

  "But that was on the television yesterday!"

  "Did you call to ask me things or tell me things?"

  "I suppose I'd better have somebody at Downing Street for a today picture of the Prime Minister. Anything else?"

  "Nothing that isn't in the morning papers."

  "Thank you, Arthur."

  Cole hung up. It was poor, to be leading on a yesterday story. He was doing his best to update it--two reporters were ringing around for reactions. They were getting backbench MPs to shoot off their mouths, but no Ministers.

  A middle-aged reporter with a pipe called out: "Mrs. Poulson just rang. Cliff won't be in today. He's got Delhi belly."

  Cole groaned. "How did he catch that in Orpington?"

  "Curry supper."

  "Okay." That was clever, Cole thought. It looked like being the dullest day for news in the month, and Poulson was off sick. With the assistant news editor on holiday, Cole was on his own.

  Kevin Hart approached the desk. "Nothing from the Yard," he said. "It's been quiet all night."

  Cole looked up. Hart was about twenty-three and very tall, with curly fair hair, which he wore long. Cole suppressed a spasm of irritation. "That is ridiculous," he said. "Scotland Yard never has a completely quiet night. What's the matter with that Press Bureau?"

  "We ought to do a story--'London's first crime-free night for a thousand years,' " Hart said with a grin.

  His levity annoyed Cole. "Never be satisfied with that kind of reply from the Yard," he said coldly.

  Hart flushed. It embarrassed him to be lectured like a cub reporter. "I'll ring them back, shall I?"

  "No," said Cole, seeing that he had made his point. "I want you to do a story. You know this new oil field in the North Sea?"

  Hart nodded. "It's called Shield."

  "Yes. Later on the Energy Minister is going to announce who has got the license to develop it. Do a holding piece to run until we get the announcement. Background, what the license will mean to the people who are bidding, how the Minister makes up his mind. This afternoon we can sling your piece out and leave a hole in the paper for the real news."

  "Okay." Hart turned away and made for the library. He knew he was being given a dumb job as a kind of punishment, but he took his medicine gracefully, Cole thought. He stared at the boy's back for a moment. He got on Cole's nerves, with his long hair and his suits. He had rather too much self-confidence--but then, reporters needed a lot of cheek.

  Cole stood up and went to the subeditors' table. The deputy chief sub had in front of him the wire service story about the passing of the Industry Bill and the new stuff Cole's reporters had come up with. Cole looked over his shoulder. On a scratch pad he had written:

  REBEL MPs TOLD "JOIN THE LIBS"

  The man scratched his beard and looked up. "What do you think?"

  "It looks like a story about Women's Lib," Cole said. "I hate it."

  "So do I." The sub tore the sheet off the pad, crumpled it, and tossed it in a metal bin. "What else is new?"

  "Nothing. I've only just given out the tips."

  The bearded man nodded and glanced reflexively at the clock hanging from the ceiling in front. "Let's hope we
get something decent for the second."

  Cole leaned over him and wrote on the pad:

  REBEL MPs TOLD "JOIN LIBERALS"

  He said: "It makes more sense, but it's the same count."

  The sub grinned. "Want a job?"

  Cole went back to his desk. Annela Sims came up and said: "The Holloway Road incident came to nothing. A bunch of rowdies, no arrests."

  Cole said: "Okay."

  Joe Barnard put down the phone and called: "There's not a lot to this fire, Arthur. Nobody hurt."

  "How many people living there?" Cole said automatically.

  "Two adults, three children."

  "So, it's a family of five escaped death. Write it."

  Phillip Jones said: "The burgled flat seems to belong to Nicholas Crost, quite a well-known violinist."

  "Good," Cole said. "Ring Chelsea nick and find out what was taken."

  "I did already," Phillip grinned. "There's a Stradivarius missing."

  Cole smiled. "Good boy. Write it, then get down there and see if you can interview the heartbroken maestro."

  The phone rang, and Cole picked it up.

  Although he would not have admitted it, he was thoroughly enjoying himself.

  NINE A.M.

  9

  Tim Fitzpeterson was dry of tears, but the weeping had not helped. He lay on the bed, his face buried in the damp pillow. To move was agony. He tried not to think at all, his mind turning away thoughts like an innkeeper with a full house. At one point his brain switched off completely, and he dozed for a few moments, but the escape from pain and despair was brief, and he woke up again. He did not rise from the bed because there was nothing he wanted to do, nowhere he could go, nobody he felt he could face. All he could do was think about the promise of joy that had been so false. Cox had been right when he said so coarsely, "It was the best night's nooky you'll ever have." Tim could not quite banish the flashing memories of her slim, writhing body; but now they had a dreadfully bitter taste. She had shown him Paradise, then slammed the door. She, of course, had been faking ecstasy; but there had been nothing simulated about Tim's own pleasure. A few hours ago he had been contemplating a new life, enhanced by the kind of sexual love he had forgotten existed. Now it was hard to see any point at all in tomorrow.

  He could hear the noise of the children in the playground outside, shouting and shrieking and quarreling; and he envied them the utter triviality of their lives. He pictured himself as a schoolboy, in a black blazer and short gray trousers, walking three miles of Dorset country lanes to get to the one-class primary school. He was the brightest pupil they had ever had, which was not saying much. But they taught him arithmetic and got him a place at the grammar school, and that was all he needed.

  He had flourished in the grammar school, he remembered. He had been the leader of the gang, the one who organized playground games and classroom rebellions. Until he got his glasses.

  There: he had been trying to remember when in his life he had felt despair like this; and now he knew. It had been the first day he wore his glasses to school. The members of his gang had been at first dismayed, then amused, then scornful. By playtime he was being followed by a crowd chanting "Four-eyes." After lunch he tried to organize a football match, but John Willcott said: "It's not your game." Tim put his spectacles in their case and punched Willcott's head; but Willcott was big, and Tim, who normally dominated by force of personality, was no fighter. Tim ended up stanching a bloody nose in the cloakroom while Willcott picked teams.

  He tried to make a comeback during History, by flicking inky paper pellets at Willcott under the nose of Miss Percival, known as Old Percy. But the normally indulgent Percy decided to have a clampdown that day, and Tim was sent to the headmaster for six of the best. On the way home he had another fight, lost again, and tore his blazer; his mother took the money for a new one out of the nest egg Tim was saving to buy a crystal radio kit, setting him back six months. It was the blackest day of young Tim's life, and his leadership qualities remained stifled until he went to college and joined the Party.

  A lost fight, a torn blazer, and six of the best: he could wish for problems like that now. A whistle blew in the playground outside the flat, and the noise of the children ceased abruptly. I could end my troubles that quickly, Tim thought; and the idea appealed.

  What was I living for yesterday? he wondered. Good work, my reputation, a successful government; none of these things seemed to matter today. The school whistle meant it was past nine o'clock. Tim should have been chairing a committee meeting to discuss the productivity of different kinds of power stations. How could I ever have been interested in anything so meaningless? He thought of his pet project, a forecast of the energy needs of British industry through to the year 2000. He could summon no enthusiasm for it. He thought of his daughters, and dreaded the idea of facing them. Everything turned to ashes in his mouth. What did it matter who would win the next election? Britain's fortunes were determined by forces outside its leaders' control. He had always known it was a game, but he no longer wanted the prizes.

  There was nobody he could talk to, nobody. He imagined the conversation with his wife: "Darling, I've been foolish and disloyal. I was seduced by a whore, a beautiful, supple girl, and blackmailed . . ." Julia would freeze on him. He could see her face, taking on a rigid look of distaste as she withdrew from emotional contact. He would reach out to her with his hand, and she would say: "Don't touch me." No, he could not tell Julia, not until he was sure his own wounds had healed--and he did not think he could survive that long.

  Anyone else? Cabinet colleagues would say: "Good God, Tim, old chap--I'm terribly sorry . . ." and immediately begin to map out a fallback position for the time when it got out. They would take care not to be associated with anything he sponsored, not to be seen with him too often, might even make a morality speech to establish Puritan credentials. He did not hate them for what he knew they would do: his prognosis was based on what he would do in that situation.

  His agent had come close to being a friend, once or twice. But the man was young; he could not know how much depended upon fidelity in a twenty-year-old marriage; he would cynically recommend a thorough cover-up and overlook the damage already done to a man's soul.

  His sister, then? An ordinary woman, married to a carpenter, she had always envied Tim a little. She would wallow in it. Tim could not contemplate that.

  His father was dead, his mother senile. Was he that short of friends? What had he done with his life, to be left with no one who would love him right or wrong? Perhaps it was that that kind of commitment was two-way, and he had been careful to see that there was nobody he wouldn't be able to abandon if they became a liability.

  There was no support to be had. Only his own resources were available. What do we do, he thought wearily, when we lose the election by a landslide? Regroup, draw up the scenario for the years of opposition, start hacking away at the foundations, use our anger and our disappointment as fuel for the fight. He looked inside himself for courage, and hatred, and bitterness, to enable him to deny the victory to Tony Cox, and found only cowardice and spite. At other times he had lost battles and suffered humiliation, but he was a man, and men had the strength to struggle on, didn't they?

  His strength had always come from a certain image of himself: a civilized man, steadfast, trustworthy, loyal, and courageous; able to win with pride and lose with grace. Tony Cox had shown him a new picture: naive enough to be seduced by an empty-headed girl; weak enough to betray his trust at the first threat of blackmail; frightened enough to crawl on the floor and beg for mercy.

  He screwed up his eyes tightly, but still the image invaded his mind. It would be with him for the rest of his life.

  But that need not be long.

  At last he moved. He sat on the edge of the bed, then stood up. There was blood, his blood, on the sheet, a disgraceful reminder. The sun had moved around the sky, and now shone brightly through the window. Tim would have liked to close the wi
ndow, but the effort was too much. He hobbled out of the bedroom, and went through the living room into the kitchen. The kettle and the teapot were where she had left them after making tea. She had spilled a few leaves carelessly over the Formica work-top, and she had not bothered to put the bottle of milk back into the little fridge.

  The first-aid kit was in a high, locked cupboard, where small children could not reach. Tim pulled a stool across the Marley-tiled floor and stood on it. The key was on top of the cupboard. He unlocked the door and took down an old biscuit tin with a picture of Durham Cathedral on the lid.

  He got off the stool and put the tin down. Inside he found bandages, a roll of gauze, scissors, antiseptic cream, gripe water for babies, a displaced tube of Ambre Solaire, and a large, full bottle of sleeping tablets. He took out the tablets and replaced the lid. Then he found a glass in another cupboard.

  He kept not doing things: not putting the milk away, not clearing up the spilled tea leaves, not replacing the first-aid tin, not closing the door of the crockery cupboard. There was no need, he had to keep reminding himself.

  He took the glass and the tablets into the living room and put them on his desk. The desk was bare except for a telephone: he always cleared it when he finished working.

  He opened the cupboard beneath the television set. Here was the drink he had planned to offer her. There was whiskey, gin, dry sherry, a good brandy, and an untouched bottle of eau de vie prunes that someone had brought back from the Dordogne. Tim chose the gin, although he did not like it.

  He poured some into the glass on the desk, then sat down in the upright chair.

  He did not have the will to wait, perhaps years, for the revenge which would restore his self-respect. However, right now he could not harm Cox without doing worse damage to himself. Exposing Cox would expose Tim.

  But the dead feel no pain.

  He could destroy Cox, and then die.