A Crooked Sixpence Read online

  ‘Just one other thing, Nick, while I’m here,’ said O’Toole. ‘You’ve noticed I’ve left the producer groping under the table as they bring on the fish and chips. How far do we proceed with this line? I mean, how much of the steamy details can the readers stand?’

  ‘I’m afraid you have to leave nearly everything to the imagination,’ said Starsh. ‘The News of the World, with their carefully cultivated archaic layout and expensive politicians writing on the leader-page to add tone—they can get away with enumerating the exact pieces of underwear the bus conductor tore off the waitress behind the gasworks. We go in for catchy headlines and sexy pictures, so we have to be terribly careful about what we actually say. It’s the old story about the policeman who books every sports-car driver on sight for speeding.’

  ‘Bit of a let-down for the panting reader, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s why we need real writers here. Getting back to your mill-girl, I want you to work plenty of personalities into it. You’re not writing a degree thesis, you know, so never mind the generalities. Let me have a bit more about the house she lives in, her boss at the mill, and so on. And could you let me have the first instalment within a day or two, like a good chap?’

  ‘You can’t rush genius, Nick,’ said O’Toole, ‘but, boy, talent can move.’

  The girl was waiting in the appointed coffee-house when O’Toole arrived. Seeing her, he realised she was the first person in London he’d recognised out of a crowd. In the first few days, he’d studied people in the street, expecting to see someone he knew round every corner, startled and disappointed by the continual echo of faces he knew, always of people who couldn’t possibly be in London. After a week or so, he’d given up looking for acquaintances: there weren’t any.

  ‘Hello, Elizabeth,’ said O’Toole, enjoying the minor miracle of her continued existence. ‘How’s the War Office?’

  ‘Hello, James,’ said the girl, smiling. ‘Pretty dull, as usual. Actually I’m not supposed to talk about it outside, if you could possibly think of some other form of greeting.’

  ‘Sorry. Strangely enough, I’m probably the only reporter in town your secrets are absolutely safe with. I can’t think of a thing that could happen at the War Office that would possibly interest my employers. Especially war. But we can keep your business quiet if you like. What’ll you have?’

  ‘Just a small black, please. Slimming.’

  And not a second too soon, thought O’Toole, and beat the thought back. You have to allow a certain amount of room for manoeuvre in the matter of figures, and too much always has the edge on not enough.

  ‘What about this girl who leads a life of shame?’ asked the girl, after O’Toole had ordered the coffees. ‘Was she nice?’

  ‘She’s just an innocent mill-girl from Bradford,’ said O’Toole, ‘I’m writing her confession in five instalments. As a matter of fact, I left her being chased down a back street by a seedy stage-door Johnny in a cloth cap.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think she’s going to win. The Sunday Sun is a paper for family reading, so I’ve been told.’

  ‘You mean, you’re making the whole thing up?’

  ‘In a way, yes. It’s life, but hotter, stronger and neater.’

  ‘What a peculiar way to earn a living,’ said the girl. ‘Do you tell your readers it’s all made up?’

  The coffees arrived. O’Toole sugared his heavily, publicly, wondering if he was being spiteful and if so, what about.

  ‘Not in so many words,’ he said, ‘In fact, not at all.’

  ‘Isn’t that just a teeny bit dishonest?’

  ‘Good God, no. I mean, if you’d been connected with the other branch of the newspaper game you’d probably find it a relief.’

  ‘Tell me about the other branch,’ said the girl. ‘I’m fascinated.’

  ‘I don’t believe that either,’ said O’Toole. ‘But you asked for it. You have to understand that newspapers are all, more or less, in two distinct kinds of business. There’s the intelligence side. You know, meat will be dearer tomorrow, the president of Peru just shot himself, bondholders beware. That sort of thing’s supposed to be true. The other side’s the one the money’s in.’

  ‘That’s what you’re in.’

  ‘Right. It’s called human interest, and it’s really a branch of show business. Non-stop vaudeville, changed every day, and always leave them laughing. If you can write revue sketches and begging letters and you can clean up dirty jokes, you’ve got what it takes. The only difficult part about it is to get members of the public to take part in your productions.’

  ‘This is the side that doesn’t have to be true.’

  ‘Not in the pedestrian, literal sense, no. But it has to be true within a set of conventions called “a nose for news”. All women under fifty-five are attractive. All Frenchmen are hairdressers. Every time an aeroplane crashes someone had a dream warning them not to go, a broken doll was found in the wreckage, and priests gave absolution to the dying. That’s what people want to read, so that’s what I write. It’s of no importance that the mill-girl doesn’t exist, except that it saves me the trouble of convincing some deluded little girl that the things that have to happen to her really did happen. It also saves my employer some money.’

  ‘You really despise it, under your big tough act, don’t you, James?’

  ‘You may be right about my act,’ said O’Toole. ‘But you’re quite wrong about my attitude. Most of the time, I love it. It’s got the warm friendliness of clean, uncompromising dishonesty. None of your barrow-boys polishing up the apples on the front of the stall. Mind you, I’ve got to admit that everyone I ever knew who was in a dirty racket said exactly the same thing: what I like about this game is it’s good, clean dirt.’

  ‘But it’s such a waste of ability.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. We’re entertaining people, too, and T S Eliot would use exactly the same line of defence for his racket. It can be a very congenial atmosphere to work in. The one thing you don’t have to be is sincere.’

  ‘Except with the public.’

  ‘I forgot them. Around the office there are one or two people you have to keep a straight face with, of course, but everyone else knows the whole thing is balls. And they know you know it, too, and so on.’

  ‘But it must be terribly unsatisfying, isn’t it?’

  ‘You have to remember we’ve all got something wrong with us,’ said O’Toole. ‘Booze, wrong class, hungry for power, can’t do anything else. There’s always a psychological club-foot or a nasty secret somewhere.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you, for instance?’

  ‘Oh, I’m lazy. I need some bastard cracking the whip over me before I can write a line and then some other bastard telling me what great stuff it is as I go along. I like the sensation of power, phoney as the power is. Also, I’m an honest man.’

  ‘Making up stories about mill-girls?’

  ‘I’m too honest for business, let’s put it that way. I don’t have to convince myself people like their milk watered.’

  ‘Couldn’t you be just ordinary old-fashioned honest without all these excuses?’

  ‘You’re making me uneasy,’ said O’Toole. ‘Tell me some more about yourself, if the subject hasn’t become irrelevant by now.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell, really,’ said the girl. ‘You already know what I do for a living. You mightn’t know I’m engaged to a very nice chap named Henry, so there’s an item for you.’

  ‘Henry Something or Something Henry?’

  ‘Henry Something.’

  ‘Is he around?’

  ‘He’s been out in Ceylon planting tea for a year or so. He’s coming back to marry me in eighteen months. Unless I get a better offer, of course.’

  ‘Perhaps he might.’

  The girl laughed. ‘Perhaps. I’m very fond of Henry but he’s a bit...well, stuffy, you know.’

  ‘But a good man.’

  ‘As you say, a
good man. I’m afraid I’m going to have a lot of trouble staying physically faithful to him.’

  ‘I can offer no comment,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘You don’t have to. He’s nothing to do with you, really.’

  ‘This makes me slightly uncomfortable,’ said O’Toole. ‘But would you like to come up and inspect my new place? I’d like to see how you get along with my landlord.’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘It’s not the most thrilling of evenings, I know. Also, it will cost sixpence.’

  ‘Sixpence?’

  ‘I presume you like to take a bath now and again,’ said O’Toole.

  Outside, it was cold and already dark, and the air smelt of smoke. Unexpectedly, as the girl took his arm, O’Toole felt at home.

  XII

  IT’S AWKWARD to lie abed with a comparative stranger, and O’Toole was up and dressed and smoking before the embarrassment had worn off. So he was punctual to the office.

  The newsroom was deserted. But in a minute Starsh, bird-like and busy, bustled in.

  ‘Ah, James,’ he said. ‘You’ve just got half an hour to get your train. You’re going to see something of our English countryside. Liverpool is particularly lovely at this time of the year.’

  ‘What’s the job?’

  ‘Did you see the Liverpool golfing murder in the papers this morning?’

  ‘I haven’t had time to read one.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Starsh. ‘Well, never mind, you can pick it up on the train. Briefly, this woman—a Mrs. Green, I think—was found relaxing by the fire at home with her head bashed in. Just a routine murder, but both husband and wife were keen golfers, and the golf angle lifts it out of the rut.’

  ‘A full-blooded iron shot.’

  ‘Anything you like. Naturally, suspicion favours the husband.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Murderers seldom pick on people they don’t know. It’s the family who have to look out when Dad cuts loose. From the story in the mornings, the police have been grilling hubby all night without result. That’s where you come in.’

  ‘I grill him some more?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘Not quite,’ said Starsh. ‘If we accuse him of doing his old lady in, he’ll sue us for millions, and if the police can’t prove it, we’ve got no chance. Besides, no one says he did it.’

  ‘Well, what do I ask him?’

  ‘We have to be subtle about this. As a matter of fact, Norman Knight invented this technique, but he’s not about at the moment and he suggested you might be able to handle it.’

  ‘Very nice of Norman. What technique?’

  ‘We can’t even say that gossip accuses Mr. Green: that’s highly libellous, too. However, if Mr. Green himself says that gossip accuses him, that’s altogether different. A man can’t libel himself. Prior consent. We’re completely in the clear.’

  ‘Does he say this?’

  ‘Handle him right, and he will. Norman’s a wonder at this sort of thing. Frankly, I wouldn’t know how to start: that’s your department, dear boy. What I want is his denial, with alibi, and the longer and more unlikely, the better. Oh, and one more thing...‘

  ‘His measurements.’

  ‘Not this time. I don’t need to tell you, this is risky stuff, and it’s only worth it if you get to him first and get him really tied up. Take your typewriter along and get the whole thing written down. Then I want his signature at the end and his initials on every sheet. With that, we’re completely safe.’

  ‘Just one more point, Nick,’ said O’Toole. ‘Does it matter if he did it or not?’

  ‘Makes no difference,’ said Starsh. ‘I don’t want to know, either. That train goes in twenty minutes.’

  Everyone in Liverpool seemed to know where Mr. Green lived, so O’Toole found the house without trouble. It was a neat brick box in a machine-made suburban street. A hundred yards from the door O’Toole passed a patrolling policeman, and avoided his eye, for no reason he could think of.

  On the doorstep, he felt immensely improbable and alien with his typewriter in his hand and a phoney story about reading the gas meter half-formed on his lips.

  Idiotically, he found himself remembering an undertaker who had called to measure his dead grandfather, years ago on the other side of the world. He twisted a grin off his face and in the same impulse knocked heavily on the door.

  It was opened by a middle-aged man with heavy black eyebrows and black-rimmed glasses over a pale fleshy face. He wore braces and carpet slippers.

  ‘Mr. Green?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard about your trouble, and I’ve...er...come to help.’ O’Toole stumbled and recovered smoothly. ‘I only want a couple of minutes of your time and I can save you a lot of bother.’ He moved toward the door, and Mr. Green moved forward at the same time. They were closer than comfortable face-reading distance.

  ‘It’s a personal matter,’ said O’Toole, standing his ground. ‘I really can’t discuss it here.’ He glanced at the policeman, who now had his back to the scene. Mr. Green backed an inch or two.

  ‘Just a couple of minutes,’ said O’Toole. ‘In privacy.’

  ‘Better come in,’ said Mr. Green. O’Toole wondered why he’d weakened. Probably lonely, like everyone.

  The house was inhospitable, deathly-neat. Mr. Green led O’Toole to a cramped living-room with a cold, sepulchral empty fireplace.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Mr. Green. As he folded, O’Toole recognised that the easy-chair must have been the last resting-place of the late Mrs. Green, but completed the sit without a noticeable stiffening. Involuntarily his eyes flicked from the polished fire-irons to heavy brass candlesticks to a set of golf clubs standing in a corner. None was bloodstained.

  ‘Now, what’s this all about?’ said Mr. Green.

  O’Toole leaned forward to project a bluff, honest friendliness. ‘I’ve been hearing some terrible rumours about you, Mr. Green,’ he said. ‘Wicked, horrible rumours. I think you should know what they’re saying.’

  ‘Like what, for instance?’ Mr. Green vibrated with suspicion.

  ‘I’ve heard them in the pubs round here,’ said O’Toole. ‘On the buses, too. They’re pointing at you behind your back, Mr. Green. They’re saying you did it.’

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘They’re saying you were responsible for your wife’s death, Mr. Green.’

  O’Toole glanced at the fire-irons again, but Mr. Green didn’t notice. He didn’t answer, either.

  O’Toole leaned further forward.

  ‘You’ve got an honest face, Mr. Green,’ he said, I just want the truth. As man to man, did you do it?’

  ‘I’m innocent,’ said Mr. Green.

  ‘That’s good enough for me,’ said O’Toole, straightening. ‘We can crush these rumours, once and for all—scotch them right at the source. I’m from the Sunday Sun’—he was talking rapidly, and the dangerous moment passed without Mr. Green bridling—‘and we want to publish your side of the story. Straight from the heart, putting paid to these wicked gossips.’

  ‘You’ll just make them worse,’ said Mr. Green, but he seemed interested.

  ‘You’re wrong, Mr. Green, terribly wrong,’ said O’Toole. ‘People are asking why you are silent, why you haven’t said a single word in your defence. The whole nation is waiting, Mr. Green. They’re whispering that you have something to hide. That isn’t so, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said O’Toole. ‘We’ll show them you’ve got a clear conscience, no secrets to hide. You’ve heard the rumours, haven’t you?’

  ‘I suppose people must have been talking,’ said Mr. Green. ‘Some people ain’t got no feelings at all.’

  ‘Wicked scandalmongers, they’re everywhere,’ said O’Toole. ‘But don’t you worry, Mr. Green, we’ll put a stop to them. Luckily I’ve brought my typewriter along so we can get your side of the story—the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We’ll write it down word for word,
with no possibility of mistakes.’

  Mr. Green showed no sign of gratitude, but he didn’t decline the offer. O’Toole dragged his machine on to his knee, whipped off the cover and kept talking as he wound in a sheet of paper. Mr. Green studied the typewriter with interest.

  ‘You swear that you’re innocent, don’t you?’ said O’Toole.

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘I swear that I am innocent,’ O’Toole typed.

  ‘You know what they’re saying?’

  ‘You just told me.’

  ‘I know what they are whispering,’ typed O’Toole. ‘But it’s lies, all lies, wicked, heartless lies.’ He read as he typed. Mr. Green nodded. ‘Can you prove your innocence, Mr. Green?’ he asked.

  ‘I was nowhere near this house at the time,’ said Mr. Green solemnly.

  ‘I am innocent of this dreadful charge and I can prove it—prove it up to the hilt,’ typed O’Toole. ‘Here is my alibi.’

  ‘Now where were you, Mr. Green?’

  ‘I was at work. It’s a good quarter of a mile from the house.’

  ‘Where do you work?’

  ‘In the dockyard.’

  ‘You were working all that day?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Except for lunch and my tea break, of course.’

  ‘Now, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Green,’ said O’Toole. ‘I’m here to help you prove your innocence without a shadow of a doubt. Would it have been possible—remotely, conceivably possible—for you to have left the dock?’

  ‘Of course not. The chap on the gate would have recognised me.’

  ‘I see. How many people work in the dockyard?’

  ‘About fifteen hundred, give or take a hundred,’ said Mr. Green.

  ‘Hmm,’ said O’Toole. ‘Do you know the man on the gate?’

  ‘Not personally, like,’ said Mr. Green. ‘There are a dozen of them. But I would have been recognised, all right.’

  ‘Just let me get that down,’ said O’Toole. He typed: ‘I could not possibly have left my place of employment at the time this dreadful crime was committed. One of the twelve doorkeepers would have been bound to have recognised me.’