Paper Money

by Ken Follett

  "So long? He was much older than I, of course, but he knew that, like his ancestors, I came from Warsaw."

  Fett nodded. "The first Nathaniel Fett crossed Europe with a bag of gold and a donkey."

  "I did the same journey on a stolen Nazi motorcycle and a suitcase full of worthless reichsmarks."

  "Yet your rise was so much more meteoric."

  It was a put-down, Laski realized: Fett was saying We may be jumped-up Polish Jews, but we're not half as jumped-up as you. The stockbroker was Laski's match at this game; and with those spectacles to hide his expression he did not need the light behind him. Laski smiled. "You're like your father. One never knew what he was thinking."

  "You haven't yet given me anything to think about."

  "Ah." So the small talk is over, Laski thought. "I'm sorry my phone call was a little mysterious. It was good of you to see me at short notice."

  "You said you had a seven-figure proposal to put to one of my clients: how could I not see you? Would you like a cigar?" Fett got up and proffered a box from a side table.

  Laski said: "Thank you." He lingered a little too long over his choice; then, as his hand descended to take a cigar, he said: "I want to buy Hamilton Holdings from Derek Hamilton."

  The timing was perfect, but Fett showed no flicker of surprise. Laski had hoped he might drop the box. But, of course, Fett had known Laski would choose that moment to drop the bombshell, had created the moment for just that purpose.

  He closed the box and gave Laski a light without speaking. He sat down again and crossed his legs. "Hamilton Holdings, for seven figures."

  "Exactly one million pounds. When a man sells his life's work, he is entitled to a nice round figure."

  "Oh, I see the psychology of your approach," Fett said lightly. "This is not entirely unexpected."

  "What?"

  "I don't mean we expected you. We expected somebody. The time is ripe."

  "The bid is substantially more than the value of the shares at current prices."

  "The margin is about right," Fett said.

  Laski spread his hands, palms upward, in a gesture of appeal. "Let's not fence," he said. "It's a high offer."

  "But less than what the shares will be worth if Derek's syndicate gets the oil well."

  "Which brings me to my only condition. The offer depends upon the deal being done this morning."

  Fett looked at his watch. "It's almost eleven. Do you really think this could be done--even assuming Derek's interested--in one hour?"

  Laski tapped his briefcase. "I have all the necessary documents drawn up."

  "We could hardly read them--"

  "I also have a letter of intent containing heads of agreement. That will satisfy me."

  "I should have guessed you would be prepared." Fett considered for a moment. "Of course, if Derek doesn't get the oil well, the shares will probably go down a bit."

  "I am a gambler." Laski smiled.

  Fett continued: "In which case, you will sell off the company's assets and close down the unprofitable branches."

  "Not at all," Laski lied. "I think it could be profitable in its present form with new top management."

  "You're probably right. Well, it's a sensible offer, one that I'm obliged to put to the client."

  "Don't play hard to get. Think of the commission on a million pounds."

  "Yes," Fett said coldly. "I'll ring Derek." He picked up a phone from a coffee table and said: "Derek Hamilton, please."

  Laski puffed at his cigar and concealed his anxiety.

  "Derek, it's Nathaniel. I've got Felix Laski with me. He's made an offer." There was a pause. "Yes, we did, didn't we? One million in round figures. You would . . . all right. We'll be here. What? Ah . . . I see." He gave a faintly embarrassed laugh. "Ten minutes." He put the phone down. "Well, Laski, he's coming over. Let's read those documents of yours while we're waiting."

  Laski could not resist saying: "He's interested, then."

  "He could be."

  "He said something else, didn't he?"

  Fett gave the embarrassed little laugh again. "I suppose there's no harm in telling you. He said that if he gives you the company by midday, he wants the money in his hand by noon."

  ELEVEN A.M.

  16

  Kevin Hart found the address the news desk had given him and parked on a yellow line. His car was a two-year-old Rover with a V8 engine, for he was a bachelor, and the Evening Post paid Fleet Street salaries, so he was a good deal wealthier than most men aged twenty-two. He knew this, and he took pleasure in it; and he was not old enough to discreetly conceal that pleasure, which was why men like Arthur Cole disliked him.

  Arthur had been very ratty when he came out of the editor's conference. He had sat behind the news desk, given out a batch of assignments in the usual way, then called Kevin and told him to come around to his side of the desk and sit down: a sure sign that he was about to be given what the reporters called a bollocking.

  Arthur had surprised him by talking, not about the way he had barged into the conference, but about the story. He had asked: "What was the voice like?"

  Kevin said: "Middle-aged man, Home Counties accent. He was choosing his words. Maybe too carefully--he might have been drunk, or distressed."

  "That's not the voice I heard this morning," Arthur mused. "Mine was younger, and Cockney. What did yours say?"

  Kevin read from his shorthand. "I am Tim Fitzpeterson, and I am being blackmailed by two people called Laski and Cox. I want you to crucify the bastards when I'm gone."

  Arthur shook his head in disbelief. "That all?"

  "Well, I asked what they were blackmailing him with, and he said, 'God, you're all the same,' and put the phone down on me." Kevin paused, expecting a rebuke. "Was that the wrong question?"

  Arthur shrugged. "It was, but I can't think of a right one." He picked up the phone and dialed, then handed the receiver to Kevin. "Ask him if he's phoned us in the last half hour."

  Kevin listened for a moment, then cradled the handset. "Busy signal."

  "No help." Arthur patted his pockets, looking for cigarettes.

  "You're giving it up," said Kevin, recognizing the symptoms.

  "So I am." Arthur began to chew his nails. "You see, the blackmailer's biggest hold over a politician is the threat to go to the newspapers. Therefore, the blackmailers wouldn't ring us and give us the story. That would be throwing away their trump card. By the same token, since the papers are what the victim fears, he wouldn't ring us and say he was being blackmailed." With the air of one who comes to a final conclusion, he finished: "That's why I think the whole thing is a hoax."

  Kevin took it for a dismissal. He stood up. "I'll get back to the oil story."

  "No," Arthur said. "We've got to check it out. You'd better go round there and knock on his door."

  "Oh, good."

  "But next time you think of interrupting an editor's conference, sit down and count to one hundred first."

  Kevin could not suppress a grin. "Sure."

  But the more he thought about it, the less chance he gave the story of standing up. In the car he had tried to recall what he knew of Tim Fitzpeterson. The man was a low-profile moderate. He had a degree in economics, and was reputed to be clever, but he just did not seem to be sufficiently lively or imaginative a person to provide blackmailers with any raw material. Kevin recalled a photograph of Fitzpeterson and family--a plain wife and three awkward girls--on a Spanish beach. The politician had worn a dreadful pair of khaki shorts.

  At first sight, the building outside which Kevin now stood seemed an unlikely love nest. It was a dirty gray thirties block in a Westminster backstreet. Had it not been so close to Parliament, it would have become a slum by now. As he entered, Kevin saw that the landlords had upgraded the place with an elevator and a hall porter: no doubt they called the flats "luxury service apartments."

  It would be impossible, he thought, to keep a wife and three children here, or, at least, a man like Fitzpe
terson would think it impossible. It followed that the flat was a pied-a-terre, so Fitzpeterson might have homosexual orgies or pot parties here after all.

  Stop speculating, he told himself; you'll know in a minute.

  There was no avoiding the hall porter. His cubbyhole faced the single elevator across a narrow lobby. A cadaverous man with a sunken white face, he looked for all the world as if he were chained to the desk and never allowed to see the light of day. As Kevin approached, the man put down a book called How to Make Your Second Million and removed his glasses.

  Kevin pointed to the book. "I'd like to know how to make my first."

  "Nine," said the porter in a patiently bored voice.

  "What?"

  "You're the ninth person to say that."

  "Oh. Sorry."

  "Then you ask why I'm reading it, and I say a resident lent it to me, and you say you'd like to make friends with that resident. Now that we've got all that out of the way, what can I do for you?"

  Kevin knew how to deal with smart alecks. Pander, pander, he told himself. Aloud, he said: "What number's Mr. Fitzpeterson in?"

  "I'll ring him for you." The porter reached for the house phone.

  "Just a minute." Kevin brought out his wallet and selected two notes. "I'd like to surprise him." He winked, and laid the money on the counter.

  The man took the money and said loudly: "Certainly, sir, as you're his brother. Five C."

  "Thanks." Kevin crossed to the elevator and pressed the button. The conspiratorial wink had done the trick more than the bribe, he guessed. He got into the elevator, pressed the button for the fifth floor, then held the doors open. The porter was reaching for the house phone. Kevin said: "A surprise. Remember?" The porter picked up his book without replying.

  The elevator creaked upward. Kevin felt a familiar physical sensation of anticipation. He always did just before knocking on a door for a story. The feeling was not unpleasant, but it was invariably mixed with a trace of worry that he might not score.

  The top-floor landing was graced with a token square of thin nylon carpet and a few fading water-colors, tasteless but inoffensive. There were four flats, each with a bell, a letter box, and a peephole. Kevin found 5C, took a deep breath, and rang the bell.

  There was no answer. After a while he rang again, then put his ear to the door to listen. He could hear nothing. The tension drained out of him, leaving him a little depressed.

  Wondering what to do, he walked across the landing to the tiny window and looked out. There was a school across the road. A class of girls played netball in the playground. From where he was, Kevin could not tell whether they were old enough for him to lust after.

  He went back to Fitzpeterson's door and leaned on the bell. The noise of the elevator arriving startled him. If it was a neighbor, maybe he could ask--

  The sight of a tall young policeman emerging from the elevator shocked him. He felt guilty. But, to his surprise, the constable saluted him.

  "You must be the gentleman's brother," the policeman said.

  Kevin thought fast. "Who told you that?" he said.

  "The porter."

  Kevin came at him fast with another question. "And why are you here?"

  "Just checking he's all right. He didn't turn up for a meeting this morning, and his phone's off the hook. They ought to have bodyguards, you know, but they won't, these Ministers." He looked at the door. "No answer?"

  "No."

  "Any reason you know of he might have been . . . well, ill? Upset? Called away?"

  Kevin said: "Well, he rang me up this morning and sounded distressed. That's why I came." It was a very dangerous game he was playing, he knew; but he had not lied yet, and anyway it was too late to back out.

  The policeman said: "Perhaps we should get the key from the porter."

  Kevin did not want that. He said: "I wonder if we should break the door down. My God, if he's ill in there . . ."

  The policeman was young and inexperienced, and the prospect of breaking a door down seemed to appeal to him. He said: "It could be as bad as that, you think?"

  "Who knows? For the sake of a door . . . the Fitzpetersons are not a poor family."

  "No, sir." He needed no more encouragement. He put his shoulder to the door experimentally. "One good shove . . ."

  Kevin stood close to him, and the two men hit the door simultaneously. They made more noise than impact. Kevin said: "It's not like this in the movies," then bit his tongue--the remark was inappropriately flippant.

  The policeman seemed not to notice. He said: "Once more."

  This time they both put all their weight into it. The doorpost splintered and the female half of the lock came free, falling to the floor as the door flew open. Kevin let the policeman go in first. As he followed him into the hall, the man said: "No smell of gas."

  "All-electric flats," Kevin said, guessing.

  There were three doors off the tiny hall. The first led into a small bathroom, where Kevin glimpsed a row of toothbrushes and a full-length mirror. The second stood open, revealing a kitchen, which looked as if it might have been searched recently. They went through the third door, and saw Fitzpeterson immediately.

  He sat in an upright chair at his desk, his head in his arms, as if he had fallen asleep over his work. But there was no work on his desk: just the phone, a glass, and an empty bottle. The bottle was small, and made of brown glass, with a white cap and a white label bearing handwriting--the kind of bottle chemists use to dispense sleeping pills.

  For all his youth, the policeman acted commendably fast. He said: "Mr. Fitzpeterson, sir!" very loudly, and without pause crossed the room and thrust his hand inside the dressing gown to feel the prone man's heart. Kevin stood very still for a moment. At last the policeman said: "Still alive."

  The young constable seemed to take command. He waved Kevin toward Fitzpeterson. "Talk to him!" he said. Then he took a radio from his breast pocket and spoke into it.

  Kevin took the politician's shoulder. The body felt curiously dead under the dressing gown. "Wake up! Wake up!" he said.

  The policeman finished on the radio and joined him. "Ambulance any minute," he said. "Let's walk him."

  They took an arm each and tried to make the unconscious man walk. Kevin said: "Is this what you're supposed to do?"

  "I bloody well hope so."

  "Wish I'd paid attention at my first-aid classes."

  "You and me both."

  Kevin was itching to get to a phone. He could see the headline: I SAVE MINISTER'S LIFE. He was not a callous young man, but he had long known that the story which made his name would probably be a tragedy for someone else. Now that it had happened he wanted to use it before it slipped through his fingers. He wished the ambulance would hurry.

  There was no reaction from Fitzpeterson to the walking treatment. The policeman said: "Talk to him. Tell him who you are."

  This was getting a bit near the bone. Kevin swallowed hard and said: "Tim, Tim! It's me."

  "Tell him your name."

  Kevin was saved by an ambulance in the street. He shouted over the noise of the siren: "Let's get him onto the landing, ready."

  They dragged the limp body out through the door. As they waited by the elevator, the policeman felt Fitzpeterson's heart again. " 'Struth, I can't feel nothing," he said.

  The elevator arrived, and two ambulance men emerged. The elder took a quick look and said: "Overdose?"

  "Yes," the policeman said.

  "No stretcher, then, Bill. Keep him standing."

  The policeman said to Kevin: "Do you want to go with him?"

  It was the last thing Kevin wanted to do. "I should stay here and use the phone," he said.

  The ambulance men were in the elevator, supporting Fitzpeterson between them. "We're off," the elder said, and pressed the button.

  The policeman got out his radio again, and Kevin went back into the flat. The phone was on the desk, but he did not want the copper listening in. Maybe there was an ext
ension in the bedroom.

  He went through. There was a gray Trimphone on a little chipboard bedside unit. He dialed the Post.

  "Copy, please . . . Kevin Hart here. Government Minister Tim Fitzpeterson was rushed to hospital today after attempting to commit suicide point paragraph. I discovered the comatose body of the Energy Ministry's oil supremo after he had told me comma in a hysterical phone call comma that he was being blackmailed point par. The Minister . . ." Kevin tailed off.

  "You still there?" the copytaker demanded.

  Kevin was silent. He had just noticed the blood on the crumpled sheets beside him, and he felt ill.

  17

  What do I get out of my work? Derek Hamilton had been asking himself this question all morning, while the drugs wore off and the pain of his ulcer became sharper and more frequent. Like the pain, the question surfaced at moments of stress. Hamilton had begun badly, in a meeting with a finance director who had proposed a schedule of expenditure cuts amounting to a fifty-percent shutdown of the entire operation. The plan was no good--it would have helped cash flow and destroyed profitability--but Hamilton could see no alternatives, and the dilemma had made him angry. He had yelled at the accountant: "I ask you for solutions and you tell me to close up the bloody shop!" Such behavior toward senior management was quite intolerable, he knew. The man would certainly resign, and might not be dissuaded. Then his secretary, an elegant unflappable married woman who spoke three languages, had bothered him with a list of trivia, and he had shouted at her, too. Being what she was, she probably thought it part of her job to take that kind of maltreatment, but that was no excuse, he thought.

  And each time he cursed himself, and his staff, and his ulcer, he found himself wondering: What am I doing here?

  He ran over possible answers as the car took him the short distance between his office and Nathaniel Fett's. Money as an incentive could not be dismissed quite as easily as he sometimes pretended. It was true that he and Ellen could live comfortably on his capital, or even the interest on his capital. But his dreams went beyond a comfortable life. Real success in business would mean a million-pound yacht, and a villa in Cannes, and a grouse moor of his own, and the chance to buy the Picassos he liked instead of just looking at reproductions in glossy books. Such were his dreams: or such they had been--it was now probably too late. Hamilton Holdings would not make sensational profits in his lifetime.