A Crooked Sixpence Read online

  ‘And you’re going with it.’

  ‘I’m confused,’ said O’Toole. ‘Which way is going with it? Do you think, for instance, that I should consider the implications of this set-up—of being here with you?’

  He wasn’t very pleased with the clumsy style of this change of subject, but there it was—he’d brought it out.

  After a few seconds, the girl said in a low voice: ‘Are you trying to say that we’ve come to the end of our time?’

  O’Toole was caught off-balance. He found himself trying to remember what Jenny had said to him the last time he’d seen her: wanting to improve on her performance, to come out of it better: knowing, he thought, exactly what he was letting Elizabeth in for: restraining an impulse to minimise her hurt, because it would suit him very well to do so, and so he could not be sure if it were true: feeling that it was better, on balance, to receive the axe than to give it, because it was the executioner who had to select the time and place. Thinking this, he had not even nodded.

  ‘Does the silence mean yes?’ asked Elizabeth, fearfully, but not unkindly.

  ‘It means nothing,’ said O’Toole, ‘I’m just the man from the Gas Company. In your position, if I wanted to hang on, I would, as long as I could. In fact, I did.’

  ‘I suppose I want to,’ said the girl.

  ‘Go with it,’ said O’Toole. Then, after a pause, ‘Do you think we should get a bottle and go back to the flat?’

  ‘I don’t think so, tonight,’ said the girl, ‘I’ll have another drink and then I’d better be getting along. I’ve got the smalls to wash.’

  Leaving, she said she would call O’Toole during the week.

  Walking home alone through the chilling London mist, O’Toole thought about the symmetry of the situation, like a game of chasings. The only way you can stop being it yourself—is to make someone else it, and it goes on forever: there is no all in, the whippy’s taken.

  He decided he had found something new to admire in Elizabeth. She wasn’t very fast with the cracks, but she had seen that he was floundering, and had tried to help him. But her kindness didn’t affect the situation; it only made it more difficult to rationalise what he had to do, anyway. People select their sexual partners on a yellow, goat-eyed basis: the whole thing was a psychological disease, the coupling and decoupling merely the symptoms, and the only cure to be born adult. In every pair, thought O’Toole, one party is getting out more than they put in, and the exploiters and exploited are sorted out in the cradle. The shame of big-hearted Britain.

  The way to get by is to learn your piece off by heart and say it when the time comes, irrespective of the audience reaction.

  Deciding this, O’Toole felt a mood in himself he had not previously experienced: not despairing, but sombre. He put it down to London being cold, and himself getting older and losing his nerve. In fact, it was just that he had never thought seriously before, even about such a simple subject.

  On Tuesday morning there was a postcard from Ceylon: a picture of the liner Himalaya on the front, and on the back the message, ‘Better start teeing up that job for me. Money running low. Jowls.’

  On his way to the office, O’Toole wondered how his friend would take the news that he, too, was out of work...He decided that he would have to improvise the interview with Barr, who was bound to have devised some contorted and unpredictable reason for sacking him without notice. It might be better, he thought, to snatch the initiative by implying that he was a Catholic with strong views about abortionists: he wondered if he could get away with claiming that they didn’t have them in Australia and he was too embarrassed to ask just exactly what they did.

  Norman Knight, ruddy and masculine in a blazer with a Navy crest was the first person to greet him: he seemed to have been waiting for O’Toole to come in, took him by the arm and steered him to the waiting-room.

  ‘We’ve got to get our lines right or we might be in trouble Digger,’ he said.

  ‘I am already, Norman,’ said O’Toole. ‘I’m supposed to go and see Barr and get the sack.’

  Knight laughed. ‘You’ve got the safest job in Fleet Street this morning,’ he said. ‘Ifor Morgan—you remember, that cheap snide lawyer that Eileen sent in here to get nasty with us-he’s been as good as his word. His writ arrived promptly yesterday afternoon. Morgan must have been working like a maniac to get it out.’

  ‘How much does he want?’

  ‘That hasn’t come up yet,’ said Knight. ‘Technically, this is an imputation against the chastity of a married woman, so he doesn’t have to prove special damage or put any figure to it. Unless we can prove what we say, he can ask for the earth and get it.’

  ‘How do we stand?’

  ‘It comes down to who the jury believes, of course, but as far as the story goes you and I can swing it between us, I should say. The trouble is in the headlines and the pictures.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Like an idiot I wasn’t here on Saturday night,’ said Knight. ‘I suppose you saw that childish masked picture and the line on top of it, “Here is another of the vampire’s victims”?’

  ‘I wondered how you got that,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Knight. ‘Either Barr or Starsh—or, more likely, Starsh egging Barr on—thought that the story needed a sexy picture to pep it up. Eileen certainly looked a fright in her dressing-gown. So they’ve dug some doll’s picture out of the files and had that mask painted on it, and then put the line about “another victim” over it, although we haven’t got a scrap of evidence that there’s ever been another victim. The office lawyer looked over the copy but of course he’s never seen the blocks or the heads. Eileen has told Ifor Morgan that the picture doesn’t look at all like her young friend, and naturally he’s fastened on to it in his pleadings. If he can show that we’ve faked the picture, the whole of our case sounds fishy and it might be enough to sway the jury against us.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t know more about it,’ said O’Toole, ‘although I doubt they would have listened to any more protests from me on Saturday night.’

  ‘You were in no position to know,’ said Knight. ‘I don’t care if the case costs the paper a million, but I can’t afford to have one of my series knocked down. Not that the business over the picture really affects the issue, of course: Eileen is a cow and a procuress and we both know it. But it was lunacy to risk the whole series for the sake of a silly ornamental frill like that.’

  ‘It’s just a matter of someone saying the picture shows Eileen’s victim, is it?’ asked O’Toole. ‘Won’t the girl be called in?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Knight. ‘Eileen won’t be very keen to call her for fear she breaks down in the witness-box and spills her lot, and we can’t now, because she looks nothing like the picture.’

  ‘You didn’t take it, did you, Norman?’ asked O’Toole mischievously.

  ‘You know damn well I didn’t,’ said Knight. ‘The day I start lying on oath to save Cameron Barr’s money for him will be the day I turn this job in...Barr and Starsh got us into this, let them get us out.’

  ‘I said I’d go and see Barr first thing,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Don’t let him con you into anything,’ said Knight.

  O’Toole put his head round the door of Barr’s office and was greeted by a warm smile.

  ‘Come in, James,’ said Barr, ‘I have something to discuss with you.’

  ‘About that business on Saturday, Mr. Barr...’ said O’Toole, plunging into the subject.

  ‘Oh, just a misunderstanding, laddie,’ said Barr. ‘Water under the bridge. What I want to see you about is this impudent writ we’ve had from this whore that you and Mr. Knight exposed. I suppose you’ve heard about it?’

  O’Toole nodded.

  ‘Nothing to be alarmed about, of course,’ said Barr. ‘We get them every day of the week. Naturally, we think all the more highly of a man who can defend the paper in court, and I believe you might make a good impression. You were present
at all Knight’s interviews, were you not?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘You read the copy, of course, and you will be able to confirm that every word we published was absolutely accurate, the plain unvarnished truth?’

  O’Toole considered this a moment.

  ‘The story was fair enough,’ said O’Toole. ‘I didn’t write the heads.’

  ‘No one said you did,’ said Barr sharply. ‘That’s no part of your job. Now let’s see what your memory is like. Do you remember snapping the girl this woman had with her?’

  ‘I understood that reporters didn’t take pictures in Britain,’ said O’Toole. ‘I wouldn’t know one end of a camera from another.’

  ‘Must have been someone else,’ said Barr. ‘It’s the girl, all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Oh, come now,’ said Barr. ‘Jog your memory a little. You’re not going to let us down when we need you, are you? You can’t see her face in the paper. Women can do wonders with corsets and so on. No doubt you’re more up to date on that than I am.’

  Barr smiled chummily and O’Toole produced a faint echo. ‘It could easily be her, couldn’t it?’

  ‘It could be, I suppose,’ said O’Toole. ‘It could be a million girls.’

  ‘Of course it could,’ said Barr. ‘You think it over. You need a good memory to do well in this business. While your recollection is fresh, I want you to go straight down to the lawyer with Knight and let him have a statement.’

  ‘You know the Judge, don’t you, Digger?’ Knight asked on the way down in the lift. O’Toole must have looked blank. ‘He’s the office lawyer. You must have seen him going over the proofs on Saturday afternoons.’

  ‘Bald, skinny chap?’ asked O’Toole. ‘Striped pants? I wondered who he was.’

  ‘You’ll find he’s a decent type,’ said Knight. ‘A bit on the slow side for those monkeys upstairs, but he knows his libel.’

  ‘He slipped up on this one, didn’t he?’

  ‘Probably never saw it,’ said Knight. ‘He’s supposed to be responsible for keeping the libels out, but of course the paper’s one long libel from end to end and they don’t show him any of the fancy heads or pictures they slide in at the last minute. He can’t do much about it because Barr is the boss, and if the lawyers propped at every potential libel they’d be out of the job inside a week. So what it comes down to is, they’re paid for worrying.’

  ‘Some job.’

  ‘It’s regular work,’ said Knight. ‘Any lawyer would appreciate a client who averages a writ a week.’

  They had arrived on the second floor and Knight tapped on an unmarked door. A deep radio-announcer’s voice said ‘Come in, please.’

  O’Toole thought he had walked into a film set. The public parts of the Sun building were all chrome and black marble, slightly tatty, like an oil company headquarters run on the cheap, but the lawyer’s room belonged to some different part of town, some other century. The door through which they passed was glossy paint on the outside, carved oak on the inside. The room was half-panelled in oak with a quiet wallpaper above. Most of the walls were lined with books; row upon row of legal reports bound in scuffed red leather, darkening back through the decades, the Victorian ones bearing the marks of apparently genuine bookworms. One clear space featured the framed portrait of some long-dead, bearded Justice, perhaps, thought O’Toole, the very one who sent great-granddad away.

  The lawyer sat behind a heavy leather-topped desk. As O’Toole had seen him before, he wore a black jacket, high starched collar and discreetly black and white checked tie, with a tiny pearl pin. On a nose thin as a knife blade, crimson and bulging with blood-pressure perched a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, anchored to his lapel by a black ribbon. Neatly arranged round the desk were briefs tied with red tape, more books with places marked by scraps of paper, and an ebony-handled letter-opener. Lying on a leather-bound blotter, wildly incongruous, was a copy of last Sunday’s Sun.

  ‘Do you know O’Toole, Mr. Firebrace?’ Knight asked.

  ‘I believe I have not had the pleasure,’ said the lawyer, in that rich, expensive voice. ‘Do be seated, gentlemen.’

  The lawyer resumed reading the paper for a few seconds, came to the end of the story, and looked up. O’Toole noticed that a red circle had been drawn about the photograph of Eileen’s victim.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the lawyer. ‘This has come upon us rather suddenly, as you might say, and I had not read the article as it actually appeared.’ He smiled apologetically, ‘I’m afraid that I must confess that the Sun is not my family paper. We take the Observer, as it happens. The children like to see it when they are home from school.’

  ‘How does the story seem?’ asked Knight.

  ‘I have read your reports, of course, and those of your colleague, before the article was passed into the paper,’ said the lawyer, in the pleadings’—he consulted a vast file of documents typed on broad brief-paper, and found a place—‘our opponent makes great play with the headlines, and I see that he has cast aspersions on the photograph of the...er...young lady whom you found with the other woman. I don’t suppose either of you know anything about it?’

  Knight and O’Toole shook their heads.

  ‘I thought not,’ said the lawyer, it is, as a matter of fact—what shall I say—new to me, too. No matter, I shall, no doubt, learn its history in due course. As to the rest of the article, it is beyond doubt defamatory to a very high, I might say unmatchable, degree, and we have no alternative but to plead truth. However, the stories of you two gentlemen appear to tally perfectly, and I notice that our opponents concede’—he consulted his file again—‘that you were in the lady’s premises for some considerable time, although perfect strangers to her. That is very damning, very damning indeed. What do you think a jury might make of her, Mr. Knight?’

  ‘She’s gone a million when she opens her mouth,’ said Knight. ‘Plummy.’

  ‘That seems hopeful,’ said the lawyer. Turning to O’Toole, he smiled and added, ‘Mr. Knight is an old hand in the witness-box. I suppose this is your first legal action in this country, Mr. O’Toole?’

  ‘Or anywhere else, on the business end,’ said O’Toole. ‘Well, nothing to worry about,’ said the lawyer. ‘We might take the liberty of coaching you a little beforehand, as you might say. Now, I think we should get your evidence into proper shape as soon as possible, so that you may have the opportunity of studying it.’

  He touched a bell, and a grey-haired, elderly woman in a clerical-grey dress came in. She, too, wore gold-rimmed glasses, and carried a dictation pad.

  ‘My secretary, Miss Flynn, gentlemen,’ said the lawyer as they rose. ‘Now, Mr. O’Toole, your name and occupation, please.’

  ‘James O’Toole, reporter,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Journalist,’ the lawyer said to the secretary. ‘Now did you, Mr. O’Toole, as part of your editorial duties...’

  As the gamier details emerged, the lawyer chuckled, like a broadminded clergyman listening to a dirty joke. ‘My, what you chaps get up to,’ he said several times. The grey head of his secretary was steady as a rock.

  They finished dictating the statements, a straightforward account of the investigation, but in cooler language than the paper had used, and Knight and O’Toole left the lawyer to return to the editorial room.

  ‘I know who he is, Norman,’ said O’Toole. ‘He’s a character actor hired by Barr to give the place tone.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said Knight. ‘Firebrace is a lawyer of the old school. I can tell you, he’s drawing a very fancy salary, too.’

  ‘Why the fantastic decor?’ O’Toole asked.

  ‘He wants to feel at home,’ said Knight. ‘Most of these cases are settled out of court, and the money is discussed right in the Judge’s office. He needs the right atmosphere to impress people that the Sun is no fly-by-night outfit and he’s ready to go to the House of Lords if they won’t see reason.’

 
‘I suppose it makes sense,’ said O’Toole. ‘I don’t know what I expected—someone with a barrow full of nylons, perhaps. But, after all, the law is a business, and whatever this enterprise is, it’s certainly a business, too. Still, I must say I got a shock to find that you can hire one of these leather-bound boys, law-books and all, and keep him on ice till you need him. It’s like Al Capone hiring a priest to give him absolution.’

  ‘No knuckle-crushing propaganda here, you black Protestant,’ said Knight, jogging O’Toole with his elbow and laughing as they got into the lift.

  ‘One more thing, Norman,’ said O’Toole. ‘I may be dense, but why doesn’t Barr himself get into the witness-box and say he was out with his Brownie and happened to run into Eileen’s girl-friend? His human drama act should go down great.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Knight. ‘Look at it from Barr’s point of view. Even if we lose the case, it’s only the shareholders’ money and we’re covered to a certain extent by insurance against libel actions, anyway. But Barr himself can’t afford to get involved in it. He’s pulling down one of the biggest salaries in this country with a fabulous expense account, to begin with. Then, next year, there’s a vacant seat on the Press Council, and if he makes a few speeches in the right places about the responsibilities of a free Press he’ll breeze into it. Very handy if someone goes squealing to them about his paper. Do you see him risking all that with a silly story about a box Brownie? The other side might ask him where you put the film into it and Barr would be back selling second-hand cars.

  ‘How about Starsh?’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Not likely,’ said Knight. ‘He’s got principles.’

  As O’Toole walked into the newsroom behind Knight, Jacobs, busy at his desk with the morning’s mail, looked up, traced an-hour glass curve in the air with his hand and jerked his thumb toward the waiting-room. O’Toole turned toward it, half expecting to see a collarless Father Sweeney waiting with his family and a new proposition for redemption. Instead, it was Elizabeth.