Paper Money (15 page)

"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--in 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

back street. 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 Fitzpeterson 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 thin nylon carpet

and a few fading watercolors, 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 net ball 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 "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?"

"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 "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 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 extension in the bedroom.

He went through. There was a gray Trimphone on a little chip board

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 copy taker demanded.

Kevin was silent. He had just noticed the blood on the crumpled sheets

beside him, and he felt ill.

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.

As a young man he had wanted power and prestige, he supposed. In that he

had failed. There was no prestige in being chairman of an ailing

company, no matter how big; and his power was rendered worthless by the

strictures of the accountants.

He was not sure what people meant when they talked about job

satisfaction. It was an odd expression, calling to mind a picture of a

craftsman making a table from a piece of wood, or a farmer leading a

herd of plump lambs to market. Business was not like that: even if one

were moderately successful, there would always be new frustrations. And

for Hamilton there was nothing other than business. Even if he had

wanted to, he had not the ability to make tables or breed sheep, write

textbooks or design office blocks.

He thought again about his sons. Ellen had been right: neither of them

was counting on the inheritance. if asked for their counsel, they would

certainly say: "It's yours--spend it!" Nevertheless, it went against his

instincts to dispose of the business which had made his family rich.

Perhaps, he thought, I should disobey my instinct--following it has not

made me happy.

For the first time he wondered what he would do if he did not have to go

to the office. He had no interest in village life. Walking to the pub

with a dog on a lead, like his neighbor Colonel Quinton, would bore

Hamilton. Newspapers would hold no interest--he only read the business

pages now, and if he had no business even they would be dull. He was

fond of his garden, but he could not see himself spending all day

digging weeds and forking in fertilizer.

What were the things we used to do, when we were young? It seemed, in

retrospect, that Ellen and he had spent an awful lot of time doing

absolutely nothing. They had gone for long drives in his two-seater,

sometimes meeting friends for a picnic. Why? Why get in a car, go a long

way, eat sandwiches and come back? They had gone to shows and to

restaurants, but that was in the evening. Yet there had always seemed to

be too few free days for them to spend together.