Goodfellowe MP

‘The only good politician …?’ a voice beside him suggested.

Corsa turned to find another guest, an elegant woman in her early forties, smiling at him mischievously.

‘I’m sure we all retain a considerable regard for them. In their proper place,’ he offered cautiously, unable to resist the conditional. He knew her, he thought, but couldn’t place her.

‘That proper place being swinging from a lamp-post by their testicles, according to some of your editorials.’ She held out her hand. ‘Diane Burston. I don’t think we’ve met.’

‘We have, in a way,’ Corsa returned, at last recognizing her. ‘You’ve graced the business pages of my newspapers on many an occasion.’

Diane Burston was a phenomenon. A woman who had risen to the highest ranks of the oil industry on merit and on the basis of her extraordinary financial skills. It wasn’t enough any more simply to be a good oil man, not in an industry forced to spend so much of its effort trying to climb out of the holes which a previous generation of eager executives and ill-controlled prospectors had dug for it. Rusting oil platforms, misplaced oil terminals, sinking oil tankers, oceans of oil pollution; suddenly the oil companies had become about as popular as anthrax. And in the game of damage limitation a handsome feminine face coupled with an astute financial mind had proved to be powerful assets.

‘Grace is scarcely a word which springs to mind when I think of some of your coverage,’ she continued, still smiling but with lips which had taken on the suppleness of etched glass. The eyes were like diamond drilling bits. She seemed surrounded by an air of exceptional intensity and turbulence, a battlefield, not a territory to be entered by those of uncertain spirit. ‘Your City Editor on the Herald is one of the most prejudiced and poorly informed commentators I’ve ever encountered.’

‘Surely an exaggeration.’ He was smiling, as he did habitually, with expensively burnished teeth and lips that were a fraction too thick. But the smile never reached his eyes. They remained restless, in constant search of advantage. Di Burston offered none.

‘What else can you expect from a man with his background?’ she continued.

‘You. mean the BBC?’ Corsa offered, curious as to where this was leading.

‘Before that. Before the BBC.’

Corsa’s puzzlement increased. He had no idea where his City Editor’s origins lay. The man was simply another of the phalanx of young, aggressive journalists brought in over the last three years to replace the older, perhaps more experienced but endlessly more expensive journalists he’d inherited from his father. ‘You’re telling me you didn’t know that until eight years ago he was a publicity director for Greenpeace?’ There was an edge of advantage in her voice. First blood to the girls.

Corsa, unsure of his next line, turned to examine the view from the window. She was inspecting him, and under pressure he became uncomfortably aware of the genetic Corsa tendency for the waist to spread and the hair to retreat. Early stages, in his case, only a couple of pounds and a few strands, but enough to remind himself every time he looked in the mirror that there was so much more still to do, and so little time to do it.

She came to join him, her voice dropping until it had reached a conspiratorial, almost seductive register. ‘You call yourself an entrepreneur, a man of free enterprise, yet you throw open your pages to every bunch of tree huggers who can plaster together a press release. Eco-warriors, New Age nonentities, the menopausal middle-class. Anyone who would rather crawl than drive, or choke on coal dust rather than live within a thousand miles of a nuclear power station. They shout, and you give them a front page. The bigger their lie, the better your coverage. It’s a war out there. Seems to me you’ve chosen the wrong side.’

She had drawn near to him now, in the lee of the heavy sash window, close enough that he could smell her. She was playing with him. He didn’t object.

‘The public has a right to hear both sides,’ he offered, grasping at a cliché.

‘And businesses like yours and mine have a right to make a living. Do you really think we can all survive by selling air cake and nut burgers?’

‘So what are you suggesting should happen?’

‘In my case, what I’ve already decided is going to happen. As from next month I’m pulling all my advertising from your newspapers.’ She allowed the news to sink in. ‘You know, Mr Corsa, I spend tens of millions of pounds every year on building my company’s image. And all I get for it is hate mail – thanks to you and your limp organs.’

‘You’re taking this very personally,’ he replied, his manhood under attack.

‘But of course I am,’ she breathed softly. ‘Just as I took it personally when your City Editor attacked my pay and pension package, even though it’s still considerably less than yours. Touch of double standards, do you think?’

Corsa made a mental note to find a new City Editor. The present incumbent was proving all too tiresome. His staff were there to serve their proprietor and paymaster, not to provide an excuse for giving him a public thrashing. He stood in silence, gazing out from the first-floor window across the broad expanse of Horse Guards. The bell above the arch chimed the hour.

‘What do you think that would be worth?’ she enquired, indicating the great gravelled parade ground which was used once a year to Troop the Colour and for the remainder as a car park for civil servants. ‘Move all the bureaucrats and retired admirals out and sell it for development?’

‘That’s outrageous.’

She shrugged. ‘Look at it another way. That’s about sixty million pounds.’

Slowly Corsa began to laugh, genuinely and almost with affection. He’d lost every single round of this contest with his elegant new opponent, and somehow he didn’t seem to mind. Something was stirring inside, the germ of an idea which unwittingly she had planted and which, although as yet dimly seen, might yet reshape his world. Or at least rebuild his cliff.

‘Ms Burston, you leave me breathless. And defenceless. I surrender! But before you put both me and the advertising budget to the sword, do you think we might discuss this further? Over dinner?’

‘Are you after my body or my business?’

‘Both if I can. Business, if I have to choose.’

‘I didn’t think newspapers encouraged adultery amongst public figures.’

‘One of the few advantages of my lonely job is that, in this dog-eat-dog world, there is a degree of solidarity enjoyed between newspaper proprietors which ensures that our private lives remain, by and large, just that. Private. A sort of mutual nonaggression pact.’

The diamond bits in her eyes had begun to sparkle. ‘I think we had better stick to business.’

‘That, too, would be my pleasure.’

‘At least for the moment …’

They had left the police station by the back entrance. Fewer staring eyes that way. And it brought them out by the ornate cast iron lamp-post, complete with Royal insignia and griffins, to which Goodfellowe had manacled his bike. The lamp-post was still there, directly beneath the busy windows of the police station, but the wheels of the bike were not and neither was the bell nor saddle. The basket had a hole in it the size of a boot. Goodfellowe picked up the remains, cursed, and morosely let them fall once more to the pavement.

Yet again Jya-Yu burst into tears. ‘I’m so sorry. My fault.’

‘If what you tell me is true, then it patently wasn’t your fault. Don’t worry. We’ll find a way.’ He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘Anyway, where’s your uncle? Shouldn’t he have come?’

‘No, no,’ she protested. ‘Uncle be busy in shop, on his own now.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘I do not want to cause trouble for Uncle Zhu.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

She would only give a shake of her head.

‘Tell me, Jya-Yu, what was in those packets? What was the powder? The police will know soon enough. Was it cocaine?’

‘Never. Not cocaine!’

‘Then what?’

‘Uncle say it was tiger bone.’

‘You mean, an aphrodisiac?’

‘A gentleman’s pick-me-up.’

‘That’s a controlled substance, isn’t it? Was it tiger bone?’

She looked tormented. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘If it wasn’t, you have no problem.’

She shook her head. ‘If it is not, and it is known that Uncle is selling tiger bone which is false, it will be even worse. Great loss of face, great loss of business.’

‘You’re not serious. Tell me it’s not true.’

‘But of course,’ she protested. ‘You see, tiger bone is ancient Chinese cure, helps open up gate of life in man. If it makes man feel he is better lover, then he is better lover. Like alcohol, but without the, you know, falling-down problem. You would like to try it sometime?’

Goodfellowe managed no more than what he hoped would sound a dignified and noncommittal grunt.

‘Simple, Minister Goodfellowe. With such problems, if tiger bone works in man’s mind, then it will work for body too.’ Her eyes turned to water once more. ‘Which is why I cannot allow it to be thought that Uncle Zhu does not sell good powder.’

‘You’re trying to tell me that the powder may or may not be tiger bone. But even if it isn’t, you can’t admit it? Because of your uncle’s image?’ He ran his hand through his hair, ransacking it in frustration.

‘You are kind to help, Minister Goodfellowe. I am so sorry to bother you. Now I make sure you get only best tea. Fresh spring tip. From top of bush. No more mix. No more old dust.’ Her emotions were unravelling, she was blubbing now and struggling to show her gratitude. Awkwardly she stretched up to kiss his cheek. Goodfellowe’s emotions were equally unsettled. A dismembered bike and several missed votes. Seemed his tea supply had scarcely been Guandong Grade One, either.

He would have been laden with considerably more apprehension had he known what was taking place inside the pub on the other side of the road. The Marquis of Granby was, in the finest traditions of the brewing trade, a watering hole, not dissimilar to the desert wells around which Arabs would tether their camels and retire to the shade in order to contemplate the hidden meanings of life. Since it was frequented by so many off-duty policemen, the Marquis was usually awash with hidden meanings which representatives of the national media were more than happy to divine. No need to put unscrupulous policemen on retainers to keep their press paymasters informed of who and what were passing through the hands of the Custody Sergeant; a few rounds at the bar of the Marquis were usually more than sufficient. Oscar Kutzman was one such desert dweller, a photographer whose duties were to find and photograph distinguished people in less than distinguished circumstances. The job required talent – a sharp eye, an excellent memory for faces, an exceptional lack of scruple, all of which Oscar had in abundance. He was also conscientious in paying for his tip-offs, one of which only last week had led him to the rear door of a Bloomsbury apartment block at precisely the moment a senior Catholic cleric emerged in the embrace of his four-year-old son.

‘Oscar, you find my stories that boring?’ his guest enquired, aware that Kutzman’s attentions had wandered elsewhere.

‘A thousand apologies, my dear Inspector,’ the photographer responded, fumbling in his bag. ‘You recognize that fellow with the Chinese girl?’

‘Beneath the lamp-post? Never seen him before.’

‘No matter, I’ve just remembered. I covered his drink-driving case a few months ago at Horseferry Magistrates.’

‘Seems safe enough now, with a bike. Or what’s left of it.’

‘But with a young girl like that? I fancy not – Oh, that’s great!’ he enthused, grabbing his Nikon and squeezing off several frames as he studied Jya-Yu reaching up to embrace Goodfellowe. Bound to be a bit grainy in the fading evening light, but with a little help from the darkroom and a judicious choice of neg, it could probably be made to look as though she was kissing him full on the lips. An exaggeration, of course, but scarcely a deception, since Oscar had few illusions as to what this public show of affection might mean in a private context. Not a story, not yet, maybe never, but he’d been around long enough to believe in rainy days when, without warning, the great compost heap of life bursts into flower and onto the front page. This was definitely one for the compost heap.

As the couple disappeared down the street, he turned to his colleague and smiled. ‘You know, we may just have paid for your next brandy, Inspector.’

For the second time that evening, Goodfellowe had brushed against the world of Freddy Corsa.

TWO

Corsa kept the scribe waiting, wanting from the start to establish the line of authority. Not that there was ever going to be any doubt on the point, but the gesture nevertheless had to be made. Like genuflecting in a church.

The lift by which the journalist had ascended was glass-fronted, in keeping with the contemporary internal design of the converted warehouse, allowing sight of the first three floors of the building in which were housed the offices of the Granite Foundation, the charitable trust created by Papa and, as in all such matters, transformed by his son. The Foundation owned the building and leased the top two penthouse floors to Corsa at a rent so nominal that it would undoubtedly have been regarded as an abuse had the details been known by the Charity Commission, which they weren’t. But, Corsa argued, he gave the Foundation the benefit of his financial acumen and public relations expertise which were of inestimable value. Anyway, all the trustees were placemen, hand-picked ‘for their proven commitment to good causes,’ as Corsa put it, although the only cause most of them had served had been Corsa himself. Still, it ensured that board meetings ran efficiently and without acrimony.

The penthouse, which was used by Corsa as his London home and for which travellers in the lift required a computer access code, was a stunning modernist creation in steel and glass, shod with a suitable acreage of blond wood. It offered breath-snatching views along the river to where the new headquarters of Granite Newspapers nestled in the shadow of Canary Wharf, while its internal privacy and climate were secured by an adept use of computer-controlled sailcloth shades which surrounded the atrium on three sides. As much as Corsa insisted on being regarded as part of the press establishment, in private his tastes were eclectic, nonconformist, some might say even inconsistent. But never his purpose.

The journalist, when he was ushered onto the terracotta terrace overlooking the river, found Corsa surrounded by fig trees and seated on a planter’s chair, talking by telephone with his son’s headmaster.

‘Headmaster, Freddy Junior tells me you’re looking to replace your cricket pavilion. I’d like to help. The Granite Foundation is very keen on worthwhile educational projects. I’m sure they would want to look at it very closely.’

He waved for the journalist to take a seat. Tea was already set out on the table beside them. He indicated that the journalist should pour.

‘One point, Headmaster. If they are going to provide the bulk of the funds, I’m sure they would like to think that their name might find its way onto the pavilion. Not quite as important as the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery, perhaps, but the principle’s the same.’

On the river below a pleasure boat commandeered for a school outing to Greenwich sounded its klaxon and the children waved energetically. Corsa waved back.

‘Glad you agree. But, now you raise the subject, I’m not sure that something like the Granite Pavilion has quite the right personal touch. Bit too … solid for Sussex, wouldn’t you say? Maybe we’d better just call it the Corsa Pavilion.’ He winked at his guest, allowing him in on the game. ‘But there is one other point we need to discuss, if the subject is cricket. To be blunt, I can’t see how the school can have a Corsa Cricket Pavilion if it doesn’t have a Corsa in the cricket team.’

A silence fell as the headmaster was allowed to ponder the point.

‘Does it matter if his average was only eight last year?’ Corsa continued. ‘Those runs are worth five thousand pounds apiece if you get your new pavilion. It could be up in time for the annual game with Eton. So maybe it will cost you the match for the next two years, but it’ll save the team.’ He paused, then a glint of satisfaction crossed Corsa’s well-tanned face. ‘I felt sure you would feel that way about it, Headmaster. Pleasure talking to you.’

He replaced the phone and turned to his guest. ‘Don’t think I’m a soft touch – it’s not as painful as it sounds. Someone is sure to argue that as generous as my offer is, others should be asked to help raise some of the money. To foster team spirit. So I’ll end up offering matching sums, pound for pound. Get away with twenty grand, less than two years’ school fees.’ He declined to remind the visitor that in any event the money would not be coming from his own pocket but from the Foundation.

‘So, Mr Gooley, you want to become the Herald’s new City Editor.’

The young man slurped his tea in surprise. ‘I hadn’t realized there was a vacancy.’

‘There isn’t. Not yet at least. But imagine for a moment that there were. Why should you replace him?’

Gooley, put off-balance, wrestled awkwardly with his thoughts.

‘Why should it be you?’ Corsa repeated. ‘Or is that too difficult a question?’

‘It’s an unfair question.’

‘Yes, but I’m sure you’ll manage.’

Gooley returned his cup to the table, clearing the decks. He was a young man whose playing field of emotions stretched between enterprise and ambition, and the ground in between was exceptionally well trodden. He was not the sort of man to pass by an opportunity without launching himself at it with both kneecaps. It won him few friends, although the Herald’s City Editor might have counted himself amongst them, yet Gooley was still of an age where friends were little more than an audience.

‘OK. I’m a good journalist. I know the City, the institutions, how to gut a balance sheet.’

‘So do a hundred others.’

‘But far more important, I know men. City men. What drives them.’

‘Which is?’

‘Hunger.’

‘For fame?’

‘No, not in the City. Fame is for the gentlemen farther up the river at Westminster. That’s why they die poor and disappointed and in their own beds. In the City the hunger is for wealth. Money. Acquisition. And why so many of them die in other people’s beds. They’re warmer.’

Corsa was amused. ‘You sound as if you’ve made quite a study of this. Something of an academic, are you?’

It was the journalist’s turn to show amusement. ‘With my accent? You think I got that at university? No, Mr Corsa, I’m Oldham, not Oxford. Rugby league and Tandoori takeaway, that’s me, and I’ll waste your money on the finest claret only if it gets me a story. There’s nothing academic about me. I didn’t need books to understand the way the City men think. All I needed was a mirror.’

‘So we’re all avaricious, are we?’

‘Single-minded. Know what we want.’

‘And what do you want?’

Gooley looked carefully around the penthouse. His eyes were not adjusted to appreciate the refinement, the glow of Lalique, the elegant discomfort of the Mackintosh chairs. He was simply lost in the size of it all. ‘I’ll bet you’ve got a hundred silk ties in your wardrobe.’

‘A hundred and fifty.’ Corsa exaggerated, but the younger man’s eyes remained direct, disarmingly uncomplicated.

‘I want this, or something like this,’ he breathed. ‘I want to be part of it all. That’s why I want the opportunity to be your City Editor.’

Corsa’s appreciation of the man grew. ‘But along with the opportunities also go responsibilities. To me. I’m very much a hands-on proprietor. The City is my world, too, and I don’t like being taken by surprise.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I’m talking a two-way relationship. I tell you what I know; you return the confidence. I want to feel it’s a team effort.’ Corsa was an excellent player of this particular game, flattering his journalists and editors into subservience, leaving their professional integrity intact while ensuring they did precisely what he intended. ‘It’s not that I want any inside information, you understand, but I need to know you’ve got your finger on the pulse. That the stories you print are well founded and not simply dreamed up over lunch. Understood?’

‘Sharing inside information with you would be highly unethical’ – Gooley paused for no more than the beating of a wing – ‘if you were to use it. I feel sure our relationship would be based on a deep and mutual trust. If I were your City Editor.’

‘Good. Very good.’ Corsa mused, then made up his mind. The present incumbent could go chew nut buns. ‘Very well, Jim, in the spirit of mutual trust let me give you something. News which you will be the first to hear. Not for printing yet, but I want you to think about it. You know that the Granite Group is the best damn company in the newspaper field, but the others are always snapping at us. And when these new European regulations come in there’s going to be one hell of a dog fight. So we are going to be as lean and as fit and as mean as possible.’

Corsa made chopping motions with his hand. Gooley nodded.

‘It means that our friend the current City Editor isn’t going to be the only one asked to fall upon his pen. I’ll be announcing more economies, more streamlining.’

‘You mean more sackings at mill.’ The journalist leaned forward in his seat, alert. ‘How many?’

Corsa hesitated. ‘Suddenly I feel as though I’m being interrogated.’

‘You are. That’s my job. How many?’

‘Another five per cent.’

Gooley whistled gently. Another five per cent on top of the corporate ransacking Corsa had already undertaken … He began to shift uncomfortably as though discovering he was squatting on a distress flare, and straightened his tie defensively. Then he drew a deep breath and returned Corsa’s stare. ‘That’s great news. The Granite Group getting itself ready for the challenges of the new millennium. Committed to driving through reform. Focused strategy. Shareholder values …’

‘You are going to do … very well, Jim,’ Corsa enthused, but the eyes were still sharp, restless. ‘You realize, of course, that some of the competition will undoubtedly try to twist the news to make it sound like a measure of desperation. Cutbacks caused by overexpansion, imposed by bankers, that sort of unimaginative crap.’

‘Which is why we need to get in there first, set the pace, get people thinking straight. Not have some jaundiced hack from The Times getting it all wrong and queering the pitch.’

‘Very prescient. There’s a deal riding on this.’

‘How much of a deal?’

Corsa knew he had found the right man. ‘A twenty thousand bonus if after the announcement the shares go up rather than down.’

‘Does that mean I’ve got the job?’

‘One final question. You’re not a vegetarian by any sad chance?’

‘Surely it doesn’t all come down to money?’

The question seemed almost to startle the older woman, causing her to pause on her tour of inspection in order to give the matter a considered response. ‘It’s not just the money, Mrs Ashburton, it’s the principle of the thing. What sort of father puts his daughter in that sort of position? Especially a father who’s supposed to set an example.’

‘I feel Sam should be our main concern.’

Miss Flora Rennie, headmistress and custodian of values both moral and material at the Werringham School for Girls, resumed her walk around Top Field with Jenny Ashburton, her arts and crafts teacher. Mrs Ashburton had just come off the hockey field and had a perceptible dampness of the brow. Typical, Miss Rennie thought. Well intentioned but commits just a little too far. A flawed sense of perspective.

‘My concerns have to be wider than one individual girl. There are others to be considered. As headmistress I am responsible for making sure that the buildings are refurbished and the equipment replaced – and that I’m able to honour your salary cheques. I can’t do that if Mr Goodfellowe doesn’t honour his cheques.’