CHAPTER TWENTYTHREE - DEALT OUT
Charlie Archell listens to the closing moments of Hunter's transmission and laughs harshly. He was seated in a comfortable armchair on one side of a coffeetable in his office, with Terry Manning and Martin Scott on a sofa facing him, and Elektron's recorder-receiver was surrounded by coffee cups and plates scattered with biscuit crumbs.
‘Well, well. Richard has done us proud, really cornered the bastard.’ His eyes were hard. ‘Now we wait for the phone to ring.’
‘Goodman?’ Manning fidgeted. He wanted to light a cigarette, but Archell was a strictly non-smoking man.
‘No chance.’ Archell levered himself to his feet and walked to the door, to speak to somebody in his outer office. ‘Diana, I'm out to everybody except Jim Small, however desperate they sound.’
He returned to his armchair and glanced at his watch. ‘I'd give him about twenty minutes. Sam will try here first, then he'll get really panicky.’
The door opened as he spoke, and a girl looked in at him. She was tall and green-eyed, redhaired and willowy, and much admired and coveted both by all the unmarried men working for Financeday, and a number of their married colleagues as well. ‘I've got the Home Secretary on the line, Lord Archell. He says it is very, very urgent.’
Archell looks triumphant, and wags his finger briskly. ‘I'm out - especially to Sam Goodman. Tell him I can't be reached.’
The girl closes the door, and Scott glanced at his watch. The world was moving on whilst they sat and pondered, and Saturday's paper needed planning.
Manning notes his movement and clears his throat. ‘What now, sir?’
Archell looks thoughtfully at each of them in turn, and then glances at his own watch. ‘We've got twelve minutes still to go.’
A moment later his office door opened again. ‘Now I've got the Prime Minister on the phone, sir.’
Archell beamed triumphantly, got to his feet and walked to his desk. He waited for a moment, as though counting to himself, and then picked up the receiver. ‘Yes, prime minister?’
He listened, nodding judiciously. ‘Yes, I do know. He took an ingenious little machine with an inbuilt transmitter with him to record his interview. I have the receiver here in my office - the interview came through as clear as a bell.’
He listened again, and made a face. ‘He’s called Hunter, prime minister. Hunters do tend to set traps.’
Archell's voice was courteous, but a little mocking, and he was plainly enjoying himself greatly. A fresh pause, and he waved a forefinger round and round in an imaginary circle, as if winding an imaginary wheel, and his voice turned a little weary. ‘Yes, prime minister, I'm fully conscious of my responsibilities. But I also own a newspaper, and it’s a good story, one of the best we've had for a long time.’ Now he looked grave. ‘I understand Hunter also wants to write a major feature, based on files supplied to him. They go back a while, but Sam's outburst seems to have brought them pretty much up to date.’
A fresh silence, and Archell repeated his winding motion. It was plain that he felt he had the upper hand, and planned to exploit it for all it was worth. Then he spoke again, and his voice took on a note of triumph. ‘We're thinking of putting him on the front, prime minister, and giving him a page inside. Apparently his feature is all ready to roll.’
He listened for a moment, and then began to smile, and now his voice had lost all deference, and was transmuted subtly into the voice of a master. ‘Well, of course, prime minister. We live in a world where all things are possible.’
He listened again, nodding from time to time, and then replaced his telephone slowly, and now he was smiling triumphantly. ‘Well, well, well.’
Manning and Scott were both on tenterhooks.
‘He's going to call an emergency Cabinet meeting.’ Financeday's chairman had the look of a man who can make and break governments at will. ‘He's running scared, really scared. I imagine Sam will send me written confirmation that we have been awarded the new franchise within the hour.’
Manning was now well-nigh desperate for a cigarette. ‘What about Hunter?’
Archell was silent for a moment. He was already moving on beyond Hunter into higher spheres, but Hunter's interview and feature plans remained potent bargaining counters. He took a deep breath. ‘Hold him. We'll have to sideline him if the franchise comes through.’
‘And if it doesn't?’
‘He goes on the front.’
‘He won't be happy.’
‘To be sidelined?’ Archell's jaw tightened. Important plans were on the verge of being triggered and set in motion, and every piece of his jigsaw must now fall neatly into place. ‘I don't suppose he will. But somebody is going to help me make it up to him. He'll see sense in the end.’
Manning and Scott listened, and both looked doubtful. Hunter had a major scoop, and was not the kind of man to let it slip through his fingers.
Scott spoke for the first time. ‘We might have tears, sir.’
Archell dismissed the thought. ‘I don't think so.’ His voice grew in confidence. ‘I'm going to help make him a very prosperous man, Martin. He'll see sense, even if it hurts a wee bit.’ He beamed. ‘Scoops come and go, my friend. But prosperity lasts for life.’
Hunter bounded out of the Mercedes as it stopped in front of the Financeday building. He was carrying the story of a lifetime, and it would spell out his name in stars. He danced on air as he waited impatiently for the lift to decant him into the newsroom - he had his intro sizzling at the tips of his fingers, and he would crucify Goodman, and make the pompous little bastard wish he had never been born. He raced to his desk to power up his screen, and waited impatiently for his menu to flash up - Goodman's days as a Cabinet minister were numbered, and he would never shout at a journalist again.
He had already begun typing when he notice someone was standing beside him. He waved impatiently, making brusquely dismissive signs: he was busy, starting a story to beat all stories, and he would not be disturbed. But the newcomer refused to move. Hunter looked up angrily, he was in no mood to trade pleasantries or polite chat, even if the prettiest girl in the building wanted to make eyes at him. Then he stopped. He was looking up at Martin Scott, and something in Scott's eyes boded ill.
‘What's up?’
‘Terry's coming down to have a word with you.’ Scott was refusing further eye contact, and it was an ill omen.
‘Did it come through?’
‘Loud and clear.’ Scott shifted uncomfortably. A messenger had just delivered a package from the Home Office, and Archell had sent down word to spike both Goodman and Hunter's feature for raisons d'etat. But he knew for certain that the diplomatic niceties of top table political bargaining would cut no ice with this man.
‘And?’
‘It was a good piece.’ Scott spoke reluctantly. He was just a news editor, the lowest branch on a newspaper management tree, and Archell and Manning could do their own dirty work. ‘You trapped him nicely.’
Hunter felt righteous rage well up and boil inside him. ‘Is that all you can bloody say?’ His jaw set hard, and his eyes were the eyes of a killer.
Scott began to back away in alarm, and then paused as he glimpses a figure hurrying towards them. ‘Here's Terry now. Ask him.’
He turns away, and was gone, scurrying back to his desk, making urgent signs at Naismith. He needed a drink, and he must get straight out of the building and into the nearest pub and drown his conscience. Somebody else could defuse Hunter, if Hunter was to be defused, and take all the flak. Spiking Goodman would spike a brilliant tale, and stain a nasty tarnish on Financeday's laurels. But it was not for a humble news editor to bite a feeding hand.
Manning looked down at Hunter, and for a fraction of a second his heart bled with sympathy. The man had shafted Goodman, well and truly, and it was a tale crying out for publication. Then he took a deep breath. He had a job to do, and he must do it.
‘I'm sorry, Richard.’ His voice was hard, and adamant as cast iron. ‘Goodman had been spiked, and your feature with it. Jim Small had been on the blower to Charlie, and the chairman wasn't prepared to torpedo the Government.’
Hunter listened blankly. This was not possible, just not possible. The world had taken leave of its senses, and he was caught up in some kind of nightmwere. A myriad thoughts, pictures, images, raced through his mind, and he looked deep into Manning's eyes.
‘Terry, you can't do this to me.’ His voice was pleading, virtually on the brink of tears.
‘I'm sorry.’ Manning's eyes were unrelenting. ‘Charlie wants you to go up to the sixth floor so that he can tell you himself.’
Hunter got reluctantly to his feet. Cradock was dead, and Goodman humiliated, seemingly all to no purpose at all. He left his screen running, with just a single line of copy: ‘Documents released today show the Home Secretary played an active part in trying to put Britain under martial law thirty years ago.’ Now he was uncaring: everything had turned to dust and ashes, and he had no interest in going on. He followed Financeday's editor slowly, walking like a condemned man on his way to a scaffold. He had already heard his doom, and Archell could only deliver confirmation.
Archell was already waiting for him as he stepped out of the lift, with Manning at his shoulder. It was a signal mark of honour, because Financeday's chairman normally left his desk for no employee. But Hunter stared straight through him - he was now hard ice, cold as the dead of night, and he had come for justice.
‘I'm sorry.’ Archell returned his stare, measure for measure. He had a hard job to do, but he must do it. ‘Jim Small said you'd destroy him.’
Hunter was implacable. ‘You've done a deal.’
Archell nodded slightly: he could not deny it.
‘You think more of your bloody pocket than you do of your paper.’
Archell winces. He had been a newspaperman himself in his time and the memory was still with him, even if he had moved on. He took a deep breath. ‘I had no choice.’
Hunter was silent for a moment. Somehow they were both ridiculous, standing glaring at each other like this. He wanted to strike Archell, to slap him across the face, but he could find no violence; he wanted to weep, but he could find no tears. He thought of Goodman, and Cradock, and Cradock's daughter, and he knew that he was finished: drained and empty, and that he would never write another line as long as he lived.
Archell stepped back. ‘Come and sit down for a moment. I want to talk to you.’
Manning made to follow them, but Financeday's chairman shook his head. ‘No, Terry, leave this to me.’
Hunter moved blindly, stumbling across the thick pile of Archell's carpet to stand dejectedly in front of his desk. Archell walked to a cabinet in the corner of his office, took out a bottle and two glasses, and poured one glass nearly full, with a generous measure in the other. He held out the nearly full glass to Hunter.
‘Drink this.’
For a moment Hunter was tempted to pitch Archell's whisky straight in his face. Then he raised the glass slowly to his lips to empty it.
Archell had barely sipped at his own glass. He raised an eyebrow and held out the bottle, but Hunter shook his head. He had surrendered, he could do no more.
‘Sit down.’ Now Archell's voice was sympathetic, almost fatherly. He waited for Hunter to take a seat on his sofa before seating himself, and took another sip of whisky, marshalling what he would say. Then he spoke slowly, making his words count word for word, full value. ‘Your interview was brilliant, quite brilliant. You mousetrapped Goodman, and you've effectively put paid to his days as a Cabinet minister: I'm sending a copy of your CD to Number Ten, and Goodman is going to be the laughing stock of Whitehall. But...’ He paused, and sipped again. ‘But the world doesn't start and end on the front page of Financeday.’
Hunter nodded bitterly. ‘Your deal.’
Archell's eyes were unblinking, but his silence was an assent. He took a deep breath. ‘It's more important. The franchise will help us more than cutting Goodman's throat.’
‘What about Cradock?’ Hunter knew that the cards had been cut and dealt, but some atavistic urge drove him on to hear his full penalty.
‘Cradock was history without Goodman. You know that, Richard.’
Hunter nodded wearily. Archell was telling him nothing but the truth, even if the truth was a sharp knife, driving deep to the core of his heart. Cradock had died, and he was dead to absolutely no purpose at all, and it was fate. For a moment he searched for a way out, a counterplay, but all his exits were blind alleys. He tried one desperate throw. ‘I'll go to the Wall Street Journal.’
Archell shakes his head. ‘Too parochial and too old, Richard. You know that yourself. Goodman would only make half a column, if that. You'd have to write a book to bring Cradock back to life.’
‘And serialise it in Financeday.’ Hunter's voice was bitter.
‘Perhaps.’ But Archell's tone made it clear that he was probing beyond the very furthest bounds of possibility. ‘However you might like to try your hand at something else.’
Hunter looked at him quickly. Archell's whisky had begun to cloud him a little, but he was still sharp enough to spot a signal.
‘I've had lunch with Jack Cosgrave. He wants to manage a bond issue to finance setting up the franchise, and he's after our pension fund. He's a sharp man, and he could do us good. But I want to make sure he uses somebody I know and respect and trust.’ Archell made his voice slow and deliberate, because he wanted his message to ring very clear.
‘Me?’ Hunter listened, and he was a frozen waste. He wanted to reject what he was being offered, but knew that he had no will of his own any more, no independent volition, and that he could not. He had given way, and a plot had been laid, and people had settled his future behind his back, and he was past caring. He could write Cradock into a book, using his Wonders profits and Elektron cheque to pay the way. But he no longer had the will. He was spent, and finished, and his writing days were over.
‘You'll be on his board inside a twelvemonth. I told him that he got you and our business as a package. In two years you'll be a power in your own right.’ Archell's voice was coaxing, and gently persuasive. Hunter was a good man, a bright man, and a trustworthy man, and he had been defeated through no fault of his own. He was due compensation, and it must be of the very best.
Hunter nodded wearily. He was lost somewhere between a dream and a nightmwere, and nothing seemed to make sense any longer. ‘What will I do?’
Archell shrugged. ‘Learn your way around the City, learn how to manage money, how to run a business.’ He smiled suddenly: he knows that he had carried the day, and that only details remained. ‘You'll be following in my footsteps - I made it from writing to managing. So would you.’
Hunter was silent for a moment. He had surrendered, and he was lost, but he was still a man, and he must march out with bayonets fixed and flag flying. He must also have time to lick his wounds, for he was certain that Cosgrave would be loud, and patronising, and thoroughly overbearing. ‘I'll need a holiday first.’
‘Of course you will.’ Archell settled back in his chair and rubbed his hands briskly. He was really very pleased with himself: he had won the franchise, he would have a man in Cosgrave's back office, everything would roll forward smoothly along a golden path, and he would sleep with a clear conscience. ‘We'll give you a couple of months on full pay, and wrap you up a nice little leaving package. You'll step out of here very comfortably, and you'll be a better man for it.’