Paper Money

28

An editor's conference in the afternoon was rare. The editor sometimes said: "The mornings are fun, the afternoons are work." Up until lunchtime, his efforts were expended in the production of a newspaper. By two o'clock it was too late to do anything significant: the content of the paper was more or less determined, most of the day's editions had been printed and distributed, and the editor turned his brain to what he called administrative sludge. But he had to be around, in case something came up which required a top-level decision. Arthur Cole believed that such a thing had come up.

Cole, the deputy news editor, sat opposite the editor's oversize white desk. On Cole's left was the reporter Kevin Hart; on his right was Mervyn Glazier, City editor.

The editor finished signing a pile of letters and looked up. "What have we got?"

Cole said: "Tim Fitzpeterson will live, the oil announcement's been delayed, the currency van raiders got away with more than a million, and England are all out for seventy-nine."

"And?"

"And there's something going on."

The editor lit a cigar. If the truth were known, he quite liked to have his administrative sludge interrupted by something exciting like a story. "Go on."

Cole said: "You remember Kevin came in during the morning conference, a little overexcited about a phone call allegedly from Tim Fitzpeterson."

The editor smiled indulgently. "If young reporters don't get excited, what the hell will they be like when they get old?"

"Well, it's possible Kevin was right to say it was the big one. Remember the names of the people allegedly blackmailing Fitzpeterson? Cox and Laski." Cole turned to Hart. "Okay, Kevin."

Hart uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. "Another phone call, this time from a woman who gave her name and address. She said that her husband, William Johnson, had been on the currency van raid, that he had been shot and blinded, and that it was a Tony Cox job."

The editor said: "Tony Cox! Did you follow it up?"

"There is a William Johnson in hospital with shotgun wounds to the face. And there's a detective beside his bed, waiting for him to come round. I went to see the wife, but she wouldn't speak."

The editor, who had once been a crime reporter, said: "Tony Cox is a very big fish. I'd believe anything of him. Not at all a nice man. Go on."

Cole said: "The next bit is Mervyn's."

"There's a bank in trouble," the City editor said.

"The Cotton Bank of Jamaica-it's a foreign bank with a branch in London. Does a lot of UK business. Anyway, it's owned by a man called Felix Laski."

"How do we know?" the editor asked. "That it's in trouble, I mean."

"Well, I got a tip from a contact. I rang Threadneedle Street to check it out. Of course, they won't give a straight answer, but the noises they made tended to confirm the tip."

"Tell me exactly what was said."

Glazier pulled out his pad. He could write shorthand at 150 words per minute, and his notes were always immaculate. "I spoke to a man called Ley, who is most likely to be dealing with it. I happen to know him, because-"

"Skip the commercial, Mervyn," the editor interrupted. "We all know how good your contacts are."

Glazier grinned. "Sorry. First, I asked him if he knew anything about the Cotton Bank of Jamaica. He said: 'The Bank of England knows a good deal about every bank in London.'

"I said: 'Then you'll know just how viable the Cotton Bank is at the moment.'

"He said: 'Of course. Which is not to say that I'm going to tell you.'

"I said: 'They're about to go under-true or false?'

"He said: 'Pass.'

"I said: 'Come on, Donald, this isn't Mastermind-it's people's money.'

"He said: 'You know I can't talk about that sort of thing. Banks are our customers. We respect their trust.'

"I said: 'I am going to print a story saying that the Cotton Bank is about to fold. Are you or are you not telling me that such a story would be false?'

"He said: 'I'm telling you to check your facts first.' That's about it." Glazier closed his notebook. "If the bank was okay, he would have said so."

The editor nodded. "I have never liked that kind of reasoning, but in this case you're probably right." He tapped his cigar on a large glass ashtray. "Where does it get us?"

Cole summed up. "Cox and Laski blackmail Fitzpeterson. Fitzpeterson tries to kill himself. Cox does a raid. Laski goes bust." He shrugged. "There's something going on."

"What do you want to do?"

"Find out. Isn't that what we're here for?"

The editor got up and went to the window, as if to make time in which to consider. He made a small adjustment to his blinds, and the room became slightly brighter. Slats of sunshine appeared on the rich blue carpet, picking out the sculptured pattern. He returned to his desk and sat down.

"No," he said. "We're going to leave it, and I'm going to tell you why. One: we can't predict the collapse of a bank, because our prediction on its own would be enough to cause that collapse. Just to ask questions about the bank's viability would set the City all a-tremble.

"Two: we can't try to detect the perpetrators of a currency raid. That's the police force's job. Anyway, anything we discover can't be printed for fear of prejudicing a trial. I mean, if we know it's Tony Cox, the police must know; and the law says that if we know an arrest is imminent or likely, the story becomes sub judice.

"Three: Tim Fitzpeterson is not going to die. If we blunder around London asking about his sex life, before you know it there will be questions in Parliament about Evening Post reporters scouring the country for dirt on politicians. We leave that sort of thing to the Sunday rags."

He laid his hands on his desk, palms down. "Sorry, boys."

Cole got up. "Okay, let's get back to work."

The three journalists left. When they got back to the newsroom, Kevin Hart said: "If he was editor of The Washington Post, Nixon would still be winning elections on a law-and-order ticket."

Nobody laughed.