half of the facts, I start to wonder if I ought to become a computer
programmer.”
Cole filled the basin with cold water and splashed some on his face. He
fumbled for the towel and wiped himself dry. “You ought to know this,
but I’ll tell you anyway,” he began. “The story we put in the paper
consisted of what we know, and only what we know. We know Fitzpeterson
was found unconscious and rushed to hospital, and we know there was an
empty bottle beside him, because you saw all that. You were in the right
place at the right time, which, incidentally, is an important talent for
a reporter to have. Now, what else do we know? We know we got an
anonymous tip that the man had spent the night with a whore, and that
someone phoned up claiming to be Fitzpeterson and saying he was being
blackmailed by Laski and Cox. Now, if we print those two facts, we
cannot but imply that they are connected with the overdose; indeed, that
he took the overdose because he was being blackmailed over the whore.”
Kevin said: “But that implication is so obvious that surely we’re
deceiving people if we don’t print it!”
“And what if the calls were hoaxes, the tablets were indigestion pills,
and the man’s in a diabetic coma? And we’ve ruined his career?”
“Isn’t that a bit unlikely?”
“You bet. Kevin, I’m ninety percent sure that the truth is the way your
original story read. But we’re not here to print our suspicions.
Now, let’s get back to work.”
Kevin followed Arthur through the door and across the newsroom. He felt
like the heroine in the movie who says: “I’m so confused, I don’t know
what to do!” He was half inclined to think that Arthur was right; but he
also felt that things should not be that way.
A phone rang at an unattended desk, and Kevin picked it up.
“Newsroom.”
“Are you a reporter?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Yes, madam. My name is Kevin Hart. How can I help you?”
“My husband’s been shot and I want justice.”
Kevin sighed. A domestic shooting meant a court case, which in turn
meant there was no way the paper could do much of a story. He guessed
that the woman was going to tell him who had shot her husband and ask
him to print it. But it was juries who decided who shot whom, not
newspapers. Kevin said: “Tell me your name, please?”
“Doreen Johnson, five Yew Street, east one. My Willie was shot on this
currency job.” The woman’s voice cracked. “He’s been blinded.” She
started to shout. “It was a Tony Cox job, so just print that!” The line
went dead.
Kevin put the phone down slowly, trying to take it in.
This was turning out to be one hell of a day for phone calls.
He picked up his notebook and went to the news desk.
Arthur said: “Got something?”
“Don’t know,” Kevin told him. “A woman phoned up. Gave me her name and
address. She said her husband was on the currency raid, that he was shot
in the face and blinded, and that it was a Tony Cox job.” Arthur stared.
“Cox?” he said. “Cox?”
Someone called: “Arthur!”
Kevin looked up, annoyed at the interruption.
The voice belonged to Mervyn Glazier, the paper’s City editor; a stocky
young man in battered suede shoes and a sweat-stained shirt.
Glazier came nearer and said: “I may have a story for your pages this
afternoon. Possible collapse of a bank. It’s called the Cotton Bank of
Jamaica, and it’s owned by a man called Felix Laski Arthur and Kevin
stared at one another.
Arthur said: “Laski? Laski?” Kevin said: “Jesus Christ.”
Arthur frowned, scratched his head, and said wonderingly: “What the hell
is going on?”
THE BLUE MORRIS was still tailing Tony Cox. He spotted it in the car
park of the pub when he came out. He hoped they would not play silly
buggers and breathalyze him: he had drunk three pints of lager with his
smoked-salmon sandwiches.
The detectives pulled out of the exit a few seconds behind the Rolls.