Exposure (7 page)

Julia shook her head. ‘You're not getting rid of me,' she said quietly. ‘All right, I'll join you. Vodka on the rocks. Make it a small one.'

He came back and sat down. He had a cheese-and-pickle sandwich on a plate. He took a bite out of it. ‘Ben,' she said, ‘please. Look at it this way. If King is what you say, someone ought to do something about it! Instead of putting me off you ought to help me expose him.'

Ben Harris looked at her. ‘Publicity is a funny thing, Julia.' He went on, ‘If a man gets himself into the public eye by being a self-confessed shit, but a bit of a character, the great British public takes him to its heart. They say to themselves, He's been a naughty boy, but he's not so bad. Look what he did for those refugee kids from Romania, and didn't he rescue Brighton Soccer Club when the lads went to see him – deep down he's got a kind heart. You know the kind of con trick, and it always seems to work. I don't understand the mentality, but then I wouldn't. I'm Welsh. King has built himself up into an institution. The poor refugee boy picked up from a DP camp by a kind-hearted UNRRA official.

‘People have got a sneaking admiration for him. They think, Look where he's got. All that money, all those businesses. Perhaps he has cut a few corners, so who hasn't—?'

‘Ben,' Julia said softly, ‘why won't you help me?'

He looked at her. She'd never noticed his eyes before. They were as dark as Welsh coal.

‘Because I'm scared for you,' he said. ‘There were two people rich enough to call King's bluff. Alfred Hayman, the boss of Eros films, and J. D. Lewis, the head of Lewis Publications. Big men, and tough. King wanted their outlets; movies and TV and a big publishing and magazine network. He went after them in his usual way, buying into the shares, rumour mongering to depress the price – clever articles placed in the financial columns speculating about profits spiralling down – Hayman and Lewis fought him off. They routed the bastard in his takeover bids, and each of them set out to get him.' He looked at her. ‘They're dead. Hayman was actually murdered in the Bahamas and Lewis was run off the road one night on his way home to Kent. Nobody was ever charged. King couldn't stop them, so I believe he had them murdered. I travelled to the Bahamas to look into the Hayman killing. I talked to the police. I even got to see the body. It was a contract killing, dressed up to look like robbery. I remember having a drink with the Bahamian copper in charge. He was a smart man, very impressive. He said to me, “This wasn't done by any of our people. They don't shoot a man at point-blank range in the left ear, and then turn his place over for valuables. They use a club or a knife. This killer came from outside on a contract. From the US I'd say.” Hayman was fighting King with his own weapons. He'd been buying into King Media Promotions through nominees, and he was gearing up to go public and throw him off the Board.'

‘And the other man – Lewis, the boss of the multinational publishers?' Julia asked him. ‘Did you look into that too?'

‘Yes, on my own time. I'd been told to drop the story after Hayman, but when Lewis was killed, I couldn't leave it alone. It nagged at me. I knew King was involved. I didn't find out anything I could use. Just a hit-and-run accident at night on a wet road. Lewis was driving a Bentley. They're built like bloody tanks. It must have been a hell of a big lorry that hit him, because the car bounced through the barrier and went down an embankment. It was smashed up like a matchbox. If you're going to take on a car like that without getting hurt yourself, you hit them sideways with a three tonner.

‘From the tyre marks they reckoned Lewis was going at about eighty miles an hour. As I told you, they never found the lorry or the driver. Case closed. Like Hayman. Now do you still want to mount a personal campaign against Harold King? I tell you what, go away and think about it. Sit in that plush office with the nice view, and imagine what it would be like to wake up one night and find a man in a hood bending over you with a knife.

‘There are contract killers who specialize in sex crimes. It puts the police off if the hit is a woman.'

Julia stood up. ‘You've no real proof, Ben,' she said slowly. ‘You're just trying to frighten me. And if you really believe it, then you ought to help me stop him. You go back to your office and think about that. Thanks for the drinks.'

Ben Harris watched her leave; several men looked after her, raking the back view. Slim, very neat, elegant legs. And that mane of red hair standing out like a beacon.

She wouldn't listen to him. She was stubborn and she was courageous. And Western had hooked her. Just as years ago, he had hooked him. And then, Harris addressed his remaining inch of whisky, cut him off short and gave him the news editorship as a consolation prize. He wasn't afraid of Western, and he showed it. On the few occasions Western had tried to manipulate a news story, Ben had stood up to him, true to his calling. If his marriage had failed and his grown-up children did their filial duty with a Christmas card, Ben had been true to the job.

He had been jealous and suspicious of all comers because he couldn't bear to face the future without his work; even jealous of Julia Hamilton after the success of her stories on the Rhys murders.

Jealous, but in his professional heart, admiring of a talent and the guts that went with it. She was a nice girl, he couldn't deny that. Success hadn't spoiled her; it hadn't made her conceited. He remembered his remark when she came back from Wales – ‘Christ,' he muttered, it seemed like yesterday. She'd looked grey and hollow eyed. Western had thrown her in at the deepest end, sending her on a vile murder of two helpless toddlers. ‘It's marked you, and it shows.' He'd been grudging and angry, because he was shocked at what the experience had cost her.

He had a daughter of his own, even if she never bothered to come near him. Julia Hamilton had looked into the darkest pit of human evil, and survived without losing her faith in people. When Ben Harris realized that, he decided to back her. She wasn't out to knife him and get his job; others might like to, but it wasn't her style.

He had been what he termed friendly, until she took up with that bumptious prick Sutton. Then he was irritable, nit-picking and nasty for some time. He had never understood the female mind. So his ex-wife complained, and he didn't argue. He just went off to the pub, or back to the office.

Julia hadn't been scared off the assignment. He knew that. She'd been shaken, he could see, but still determined.

She'd go ahead, and King would soon hear whispers that someone was poking around trying to uncover his past.

He bought himself another Scotch. ‘If you really believe it, then you ought to help me stop him. You go back to your office and think about that …' He did think about it. He thought about it when he went in to the big steel and plate-glass Western building and as he finished off his day's work. He thought about it sitting at home with the TV screen flickering in front of him.

He hadn't much to lose. He'd backed off himself once, because Western told him to; was he really going to let a pig-headed young woman take on Harold King, and sit on his hands? He pressed the off button on the remote control. The picture faded to a tiny crimson eye, and that too diminished and was gone. Then he got up and unlocked a cupboard in his bedroom, and took out an unmarked file.

3

‘Let's go out to eat tonight,' Julia suggested. Felix looked at her and grinned. ‘Good idea. Who's paying? I bought a new suit and some shirts this afternoon – I'm skint.'

‘I'm paying,' Julia said. ‘And you'd better put on the new suit. We're going to Mario's.'

‘We are?' he stared at her. ‘Sweetheart, you
are
paying – it's ten quid for an orange juice … Are we celebrating something?'

‘No,' Julia answered. ‘It's down to expenses. I just want to go there and see the place. I've booked a table for nine o'clock. I'm going to change.'

The head waiter at Mario's was a friend of Ben Harris. Julia was discovering that there were unexpected facets to his character. He knew a lot of unlikely people, and he could call in favours when he needed information. Like which evening this week Harold King was dining at Mario's with his family. He always took his wife and daughter out to dinner at Mario's; it was a weekly ritual. He had a special table which was always reserved in case he called up at the last minute, and Harris said he always ordered the same menu. Foie Gras, followed by Steak Diane, ending with a
bombe surprise
. His wife and daughter would drink claret at a hundred and twenty pounds a bottle, Ch. Haut Brion '82, and a vintage Krug to go with the pudding. King never touched alcohol. He was a life-long teetotaller.

Julia dressed in a short, black skirt and a sequinned tank top, with long fake diamond earrings that swung like waterfalls against the blazing hair – Felix whistled when she came in and said, ‘You look good; you ought to take me out more often. How do you like the suit? Nice, conservative House of Commons uniform?'

‘Very smart,' Julia said. ‘You look good, too. Let's go, we can have a drink in the bar and see who's there.'

They took Julia's car, and on the way he said to her casually, ‘What are you up to? You're not going to the most expensive watering hole in London on expenses just to have a look at the décor. Who are you interested in?'

She made it sound unexciting. ‘Harold King. I've heard he's angling for a Life Peerage. Have you heard any buzz about it? Might be an interesting profile.'

He frowned. ‘No. And I don't believe it. He's a bloody crook, he'd never get an honour. It may be a stupid, lousy system, but nobody'd stand for
him
going to the Lords. You going to do a profile on him?'

‘No,' she said. ‘It's just an idea at the moment. We might be taking a look at the Honours system.'

‘Oh, I see,' he settled back in his seat. ‘“Exposure” on the trail of corruption, selling honours – great stuff, Julia. So long as you don't expect to get a DBE yourself one day … They've got long memories.'

‘Hey,' Felix said, looking round, as they took a seat in the upstairs room. ‘This is rather smart. I think I could get used to this lifestyle, don't you?'

It was a long room, panelled in eighteenth-century pine; there were big comfortable sofas and occasional armchairs, fine sporting pictures on the walls, fresh flowers and piles of newspapers on the centre table. It was a pastiche of the English country house, and in clever contrast to the chic Italian décor of the restaurant below. There was no bar in sight; orders were taken and drinks brought to the customers.

Julia saw them sitting in a corner. Harold King, with his wife and his daughter. He was familiar enough from TV and photographs, but the reality was different. He was much taller than she expected, with a shock of pure white hair that framed a semi-circle of bald scalp. The eyebrows were white, too, and they bushed out over heavy-lidded pale eyes. It was a powerful, ugly face, the flesh sagged in a dewlap onto his collar. He had a powerful body with heavy shoulders. His skin was coarse and tanned a deep brown, whether from sun or artifice, she couldn't tell. He was sitting in a big chair, and he seemed to sprawl over it, legs spread, feet planted on the carpet, his hands moving constantly as he spoke. To his right a very thin dark woman listened and smiled and occasionally nodded. She was beautifully dressed, and wearing a massive ruby-and-diamond brooch on the neck of her black dress. When she gestured, a diamond as big as a pebble flashed blue fire. The wife of thirty-two years. Marilyn; ex-model, ex-bit-part actress. Incredibly, the delicate creature with her birdlike frame and little painted face was the mother of the hulking blonde girl on the other side of King. Gloria King, a cruel misnomer, for a female version of her father. White-blond hair, the same pale eyes with tortoise lids, the coarse features and heavy limbs; she wore a suite of gold and diamond jewellery like fetters round her neck and wrists. She never looked away from her father's face. Her eyes were fixed on him in adoration.

Julia murmured to Felix, ‘There's King, over there, with the wife and daughter.'

Felix stared openly. ‘Jesus,' he said, grinning. ‘She's going to need a bloody big cash settlement. I suppose if you thought about the money long enough, you'd get it up … Mum looks a better bet. Bit like fucking something out of the Mummy Room in the British Museum.'

‘Felix,' Julia hissed at him. ‘Keep your voice down.' She didn't need to warn him because at that moment Harold King began to shout.

‘Where the hell's the menu? Where's Phillipe?'

‘He's on his way up, sir,' a nervous wine waiter assured him. King scowled at him. His voice rose over the quiet room, so that everyone stopped talking and turned to look at him. ‘I want him now – go and tell him to hurry up!'

The head waiter was already hurrying across the room. King waited till he reached the table.

‘I want another bottle of Perrier and the menu – what the hell's going on here? You call this service?'

Phillipe was a man of international reputation and part-owner of the restaurant. He held out the leather-covered menu.

‘I have it here, Mr King.'

‘Take it away; you know perfectly well what we always have.'

He dismissed the man with an angry wave. Phillipe gave a slight bow and said smoothly, ‘Of course. Your Perrier will be here immediately.'

‘My God,' Julia said. ‘Did you see that? What a pig!'

Felix shrugged, ‘He was playing games, drawing attention to himself. It's part of the act. I bet he gives Philippe What's-his-name a socking great tip when he leaves and the oily little bugger will take it and bow low. Put the moral indignation away, darling, and let's enjoy ourselves.'

Julia said angrily, ‘Nothing bothers you, does it, Felix? How could you excuse behaviour like that?'