A Press of Suspects Page 4

  He put the car away and stood for a while in the sultry night air, watching the play of lightning against a threatening bank of cloud. The pale roses under the front window looked fresh and beautiful in the flashes. He drew a deep breath, savouring their perfume. He’d miss the garden if he left this place—it had been one of his greatest delights. Not that it meant so much to him now that his mother had died—he’d made it lovely for her as much as for himself, and it seemed an empty frame without her. He felt her loss acutely and unceasingly, for she had been the constant and almost the only companion of his leisure, the one person with whom he had been completely at ease. She at least had appreciated him, she had believed in him. She had nourished his ambitions and fostered his hopes. She had even believed that he might one day become a great editor, and there had been a time when he had half-believed it too. Perhaps it was just as well that she hadn’t lived to know his ultimate humiliation.

  Drops of rain began to splash around him and he went into the house. It smelt of Mrs. Molloy’s furniture polish—not a very cosy smell. He felt hungry, and scanned the pantry for food. There were bottles and tins, left-overs from his mother’s housekeeping, but he felt too tired to bother with any of them now. He ate some bread and cheese and drank up the milk—it would only turn sour in the storm. Then he sat down next to the radio and lit a cigarette. He switched it on keeping the volume low in order not to disturb the neighbours. Some foreign station was playing the Grieg piano concerto on records and he heard it through. It was an exciting piece, especially against the background of thunder, and it made his pulse race.

  When it ended, he went up to bed. He was physically exhausted, but felt too agitated for sleep. He had not slept soundly at night for years—not since the early days of the war, not since the bombing. Recently his insomnia had been getting worse. Sometimes he took tablets, but he usually found that he lay awake waiting impatiently for them to take effect, and in any case his supply had run out.

  For a while he tried to read, but his eyeballs ached and the words were blurred on the page. The bed seemed hard—perhaps he had made it too hurriedly that morning. He must remember to turn the mattress. He put the light out and lay in the darkness, listening to the mounting storm. His thoughts turned to the interview he had had with Ede, and to all the things he had wanted to say and hadn’t said. As he built up the scene again, fact and fancy became so intermingled that he could almost believe he had said them. He saw Ede embarrassed by his biting sarcasms, wilting under his deadly shafts. When his imagination was drained and he could no longer conjure anything from the darkness, he turned his mind again to the wreck of his career. It was a mental treadmill—hateful yet irresistible. Soon he was writhing and tossing from side to side, talking and counter-talking until his brain reeled and his nerves shrieked with tiredness.

  In the end he must have slept a little, for as a clap of thunder rattled the panes he woke from a fearful dream, fighting off tormenting demons that came at him with flames. For a moment, when the lightning flashed, he could see the face of Nicholas Ede at the foot of the bed. He struggled up and lunged at it, sweating and terrified, but it had gone. It had been a different face—a more arrogant Ede, with an evil smile and thick, brutal lips. A gloating Ede.

  Jessop lay back on his pillow, and suddenly he felt at peace. Suddenly everything had become clear to him. He knew now why Ede had been so anxious to send him to Malaya. Ede wanted him to go the way of Eversley. Ede wanted to kill him. Ede was a murderous megolomaniac, who knew that Jessop was in his way. Ede, the protagonist of the powerful, the greedy, the exploiters—Jessop, the champion of the underdog, the downtrodden and oppressed. And Ede was afraid of him—afraid of what he, Jessop, would say about him. Jessop laughed quietly in the darkness. Well, the plot had been uncovered in time. No doubt Ede had thought that he had a weakling to deal with, an easy victim. No doubt he had taken silence for submission. Again Jessop chuckled. Was there not such a thing as silent strength? He too could make plans. He was not going to allow himself to be killed by Ede—he had a duty to survive, a duty to his fellow-newspapermen, who had no inkling of the danger in their midst. It was now more important than ever that he should finish his opus. He would finish it. But first he would deal with Ede—yes, and with Ede’s fellow-plotters. He would strike at once, and rid the world of these criminals. Not recklessly, no, no! With sly cunning, matching Ede’s own.

  He lay in creative ecstasy, his mind never more lucid, revolving ingenious schemes. Yes, already he was beginning to see a way. Had not Providence placed in his keeping, for this very purpose, the perfect instrument of execution? Had not Providence even arranged the pattern of events, by calling the miscreants together? Ede, Cardew, Hind, Munro. What did it matter who went first?—let Providence decide that. One by one, they could all be destroyed. And some day, he would receive the thanks of mankind. He would be hailed as a deliverer, a saviour.

  To-morrow he must be up early—he had work to do. The prospect of action soothed him. He turned on his side and fell at once into a deep untroubled sleep.

  Chapter Five

  Shortly before noon next day, editorial executives and heads of departments began to assemble in the Board Room for the morning conference. It was a sombre room, panelled in dark oak from floor to ceiling. Opening out of it was the Directors’ Dining Room, where a waitress was now busy laying the table for the Munro luncheon. Beyond was the restaurant.

  The first arrivals stood around joking and chatting, very much at ease. The atmosphere at these twice-daily conferences was quite informal. Things were different now from what they had been in the harsh competitive days before World War II, when there had usually been twenty pages or more to fill and advertisers had had to be wooed and readers had had to be clawed away from rivals with stunts and sensations. In those days, as Joe Hind and others could well remember, there had been an air of strain at conferences, with a go-getting Editor rapping out reprimands, a restless Ideas Man injecting a stream of impracticable suggestions into every department, and reporters being dispatched in all directions, often on the most hare-brained missions. In those days the threat of the sack had never been far away and nerves had been stretched taut. The News Editor had been afraid to miss a story and the Foreign Editor to leave a corner of the globe uncovered by his men. Reporters had found it necessary to lie, threaten, blackmail, distort and invent in a cut-throat battle of survival against the other gentlemen of the Press. Sub-editors had gloated over smart-aleck headlines and screamed in ever larger type. In those days there had been almost nothing too degrading for a popular newspaper to do in its wild scramble for circulation.

  Now, for good or ill, much of that had changed. There were only six or eight pages to fill each day, because of the shortage of paper. Advertisers no longer had to be wooed; they came, layout in hand, begging for space. Modest profits were assured, provided there were no undue extravagance. Frantic competition for minor scoops was a waste of effort when there was no room to print them anyway. Excessive invention and distortion were no longer safe, for the Press was under other scrutiny than that of Edgar Jessop. A Royal Commission had just reported on its activities, and not wholly in its favour. Evidently it had to watch its step. It must try to be accurate and responsible and serious, the word went round—worthy of a grown-up democracy. By 1949, something of the lassitude and smugness of the Welfare State had settled on Fleet Street. Jobs were safe, and dividends were safe, so why worry? The tension had gone—and with it much of the excitement.

  It was, therefore, a calm and contented body of men who gathered round the conference table that morning—except, of course, for Edgar Jessop, and he showed nothing of his feelings. Hind, in jovial humour after a rewarding evening with Miss Brooks, was there for the News Room. There was the Art Editor, with the first batch of news pictures, and the Features Editor, who didn’t actually need to be there but was bored and wanted company. There was the Sports Editor, who had dropped in to make sure he got space on Page One for a
boxing event that he thought important. There was Cardew, of the sensitive face and elegant clothes, who had just come by cab from the Foreign Office. There was Hutchinson, the Columnist, eager to turn rejected news scraps into cottage pie, and Pringle the Crime Reporter, who wasn’t of conference calibre but had been specially summoned because of the new wave of “cosh and run” attacks in town. There was Smith-Randolph, the Leader Writer, sitting back on the Editor’s left, faintly aloof.

  On Ede’s right sat the Assistant Editor, Henry Jackson, an old warrior steeped in printer’s ink, and the mainstay of the paper. He was long past sixty, but nobody knew just how long, and he never offered any information on the subject. His face was deeply lined and his hair was quite white, but his mental vigour was certainly unimpaired. He had served the Morning Call without sparing himself for more than forty years and his only ambition was to postpone retirement and go on serving it till he dropped. He admired Ede and was trusted by him, and the two men worked well in harness. But whereas Ede applied himself to his editorship with gusto and brilliance, Jackson was content with pedestrian routine and quiet competence. Ede put the paper first but tried, not always with success, to avoid being submerged by it; Jackson put the paper first and last and knew no other life. It was one of the oldest office jokes that even when he was off duty he always seemed reluctant to go home, and grim jests were made about his probable domestic background until it was discovered, to the surprise of all, that he had a sweet and gentle wife of whom he was extremely fond. Nevertheless, the paper was rarely out of his mind except when he was asleep. A newspaperman, in his view, had no absolute claim to a private life. Newspapermen, it was true, frequently married and brought up families; purchased houses and endowment policies; took up hobbies and went on holidays, but all these things were incidental, and in no circumstances should be allowed to impinge upon the job. If a man wasn’t prepared to sacrifice his family, his leisure, his health, and if necessary even his life, to get a good story, then in Jackson’s view he oughtn’t to be in Fleet Street. Service, order and discipline were Jackson’s gods. His limitations were recognised, but the staff liked him for his qualities. He was reliable, even-tempered and friendly, and he knew his job backwards. He knew his place, too, and always deferred to Ede when deference was due. He was the prompter, the adviser, the restrainer; never the rival. Ede presided at the table with the good-humoured tolerance of the man who knows that his authority is unquestioned.

  When all were seated, Ede nodded to the News Editor and the conference began. Hind started to read from a prepared statement on which, under his direction, the main items of news had been summarised. These, with later additions, would form the backbone of to-morrow’s news pages. Since all those present had duplicated copies of the statement in front of them, the recital lacked both surprise and suspense. Nevertheless, it was far from tedious. Hind, lolling back in a nonchalant way with his buttocks overlapping the edge of his chair, his brown suit crumpled as though he had slept in it, a cigarette smouldering between his fingers, put on a first-class act. Not for him the twice-told tale! Paraphrasing freely, he illuminated the bald items of news with touches of colour and humour, glancing repeatedly round at his colleagues to see how they were enjoying the cheerful commentary. Ede, not for the first time, watched him with quiet relish, admiring his expertise. Hind might be a phoney, and he certainly had some regrettable characteristics, but he was always good entertainment.

  There were, of course, pitfalls which even so adroit and experienced a News Editor as Hind could not always avoid. From time to time a news item which had already appeared in some paper, or even in the Morning Call itself, would creep undetected into the tail of the statement. Then, inevitably, Jackson would pounce. “That’s old, Joe,” he would say in a tone of finality, and he would then quote the newspaper, the date, and sometimes even the exact position in the column where it had been published. His memory was photographic and prodigious. Hind would grin. There was no arguing with Jackson.

  Sometimes an interesting news item would be followed by a barrage of supplementary questions from Ede or Jackson or anyone else who was interested, and a free-for-all would follow. Baiting the News Editor was considered a legitimate sport, in which all but the vulnerable Jessop participated. It occasionally happened that Hind had summarised the news item too quickly before coming into conference, and could not recollect the details required of him. Then he would either declare that the story was thin and valueless, really not worth anyone’s attention, or shuffle rapidly through his papers with exclamations of astonishment that he could have overlooked that one piece of copy, or else—by a line of double-talk in which he excelled—attempt to convey the impression that he was actually giving the required answers. Then Ede would shake his head regretfully and the conference would collapse in laughter.

  To-day, no such pitfalls yawned, and Hind proceeded for a while without interruption. Food news opened the statement—a dreary sign of the times, this, that an extra pennyworth of meat a week could steal a banner headline. Then came reports of a possible railway strike, on which the Industrial Correspondent was working; a White Paper on the distribution of manpower, and the latest coal production figures.

  “That’s all the dull stuff,” said Hind. He knew what was important but he didn’t pretend to like it. “There’ll be the usual pre-holiday piece—trains, traffic prospects and so on.” He looked inquiringly at the Editor. “I don’t know whether we want to follow up Cooper-Wright’s attack on the B.B.C. for harbouring fellow-travellers?”

  Ede stroked his blue jowl. The Proprietor, who was in America, took a poor view of Cooper-Wright. “I don’t think so, Joe—the fellow’s probably right, but it’s been said before, and we don’t want to encourage a heresy hunt. We overdid it this morning—the speech was only worth a couple of sticks.” Ede had picked up a good deal of jargon since taking over the editorship, and he was human enough to like airing it. It made him feel that he had been in newspapers all his life. “Carry on.”

  “Well, we’ve got the churches, of course.” The Morning Call was currently campaigning for the repair of the blitzed city churches. “Two interviews.”

  “And pictures,” put in the Art Editor.

  “All right,” said Ede. “Better run them to-day—it looks as though we’re going to be a bit short of stuff anyway.” Hind wrote the word “Must” against the item on his statement and proceeded. “The crime wave is still gathering strength,” he said. “We’ve got three more cases to-day—an old woman coshed in Hampstead, a jewel-shop raid during the morning rush-hour, and a hi-jacking in Stepney.”

  Ede looked across at the Crime Reporter, with no great pleasure. Arthur Pringle was a short, unprepossessing man of forty-five with a narrow head, sandy hair and pale eyes. He had contrived to be taken on by the Morning Call at the height of the wartime manpower shortage, largely on the strength of his own hints that he had a pull with some of the “boys” at Scotland Yard. He had since held down the job by the well-worn Fleet Street device of absenting himself as much as possible from the office and surrounding all his movements with an aura of mystery. Although he was hardly ever where he was supposed to be, he was adept at appearing to be on hand if wanted, and important telephone messages always seemed to get relayed to him in time to avoid trouble. During his rare appearances in the office he sought to give the impression that he was engaged on secret business of the most vital nature, and on these occasions might be seen conversing out of the corner of his mouth in dark corridors while casting hunted glances to right and left. Even by Fleet Street standards he was illiterate, but he had a genius for “getting by”.

  To-day he felt nervous, and blinked back at Ede as though the unaccustomed limelight hurt his eyes. His racket, he suspected, was coming to an end, and perhaps his job as well. On the previous evening the News Editor had detected him in a serious malpractice, and it seemed likely that he had already reported the matter to the Editor. Pringle was the more anxious to create a good imp
ression now.

  “The jewel-shop raid is believed to be the work of the same gang that did the Thornton Heath job last week,” he confided.

  Ede nodded impatiently. “I dare say, but I think it’s time we gave the public something more than snippets. You’d better do a feature article, Pringle, summarising the crime wave to date. Clean the whole thing up in one good piece.”

  “It’s the shortage of police,” said Pringle.

  “Yes, yes, I know. Bring that in, of course, but I want a balanced picture of the whole situation. I’d like to see the article by four o’clock.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Pringle, a trifle stunned and looking like an undersized Atlas bearing the weight of the underworld on his shoulders.

  Ede turned again to Hind. “Anything more, Joe?”

  “While we’re on the crime stuff,” said Hind, who had listened to these exchanges with malicious satisfaction, “there’s an item here that links up—another judge who wants to re-introduce flogging for robbery with violence. That’s the second in a week.”

  “The third,” said Jackson. “If you remember, Latimer set the ball rolling last Monday.”