The Fourth Estate

by Jeffrey Archer

  “Why?” asked Tom.

  “Because, counselor, we’ll need a witness to the contract.”

  * * *

  Sir Walter Sherwood had sworn several times that day, well above his average for a month.

  The first string of expletives came after he had put the phone down on his brother. Alexander had called from Paris just before breakfast to tell him that he had sold his shares in the Globe to Richard Armstrong, at a price of $20 million. He recommended Walter to do the same.

  But everything Sir Walter had heard about Armstrong only convinced him that he was the last man alive who should control a newspaper that was as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

  He had calmed down a little after a good lunch at the Turf Club, but then nearly had a heart attack when his sister-in-law called from New York to say that she had also sold her shares, not to Armstrong, but to Keith Townsend, a man Sir Walter considered gave colonials a bad name. He would never forget being stuck in Sydney for a week and having to endure the daily views of the Sydney Chronicle on the subject of “the so-called Queen of Australia.” He had switched to the Continent, only to discover that it was in favor of Australia becoming a republic.

  The final call of the day came from his accountant just before he sat down to dinner with his wife. Sir Walter didn’t need to be reminded that sales of the Globe had been falling every week for the past year, and that he would therefore be wise to accept an offer of $20 million from whatever quarter. Not least because, as the bloody man so crudely put it, “The two of them have stitched you up, and the sooner you get your hands on the money the better.”

  “But which one of the bounders should I close a deal with?” he asked pathetically. “Each seems to be just as bad as the other.”

  “That is not a matter on which I’m qualified to advise,” replied the accountant. “Perhaps you should settle on the one you dislike least.”

  Sir Walter arrived in his office unusually early the following morning, and his secretary presented him with a thick file on each of the interested parties. She told him they had both been delivered by hand, within an hour of each other. He began to dip into them, and quickly realized that each must have been sent by the other. He procrastinated. But as the days passed, his accountant, his lawyer and his wife regularly reminded him about the continued drop in sales figures, and that the easy way out had been presented to him.

  He finally accepted the inevitable, and decided that so long as he could remain as chairman of the board for another four years—which would take him up to his seventieth birthday—he could learn to live with either Armstrong or Townsend. He felt it was important for his friends at the Turf Club to know that he had been kept on as chairman.

  The following morning, he asked his secretary to invite the rival suitors to lunch at the Turf Club on successive days. He promised he would let them know his decision within a week.

  But after having had lunch with them both, he still couldn’t decide which he disliked most—or, for that matter, least. He admired the fact that Armstrong had won the MC fighting for his adopted country, but couldn’t abide the thought of the proprietor of the Globe not knowing how to hold a knife and fork. Against that, he rather enjoyed the idea of the proprietor of the Globe being an Oxford man, but felt ill whenever he recalled Townsend’s views on the monarchy. At least both of them had assured him that he would remain as chairman. But when the week was up, he was still no nearer to reaching a decision.

  He began to take advice from everyone at the Turf Club, including the barman, but he still couldn’t make up his mind. It was only when his banker told him that the pound was strengthening against the dollar because of President Johnson’s continuing troubles in Vietnam that he finally came to a decision.

  Funny how a single word can trigger a stream of unrelated thoughts and turn them into action, mused Sir Walter. As he put the phone down on his banker, he knew exactly who should be entrusted to make the final decision. But he also realized that it would have to be kept secret, even from the editor of the Globe, until the last moment.

  On the Friday afternoon, Armstrong flew to Paris with a girl called Julie from the advertising department, instructing Pamela that he was not to be contacted except in an emergency. He repeated the word “emergency” several times.

  Townsend had flown back to New York the previous day, having been given a tip that a major shareholder in the New York Star might at last be willing to sell their stock in the paper. He told Heather he didn’t expect to return to England for at least a fortnight.

  Sir Walter’s secret broke on the Friday evening. The first person in Armstrong’s camp to hear the news rang his office immediately, and was given his secretary’s home number. When it was explained to Pamela what Sir Walter was planning, she was in no doubt that this was an emergency by any standards and immediately phoned the George V. The manager informed her that Mr. Armstrong and his “companion” had moved hotels after he had come across a group of Labor ministers, who were in Paris to attend a NATO conference, sitting in the bar. Pamela spent the rest of the evening systematically ringing every first class hotel in Paris, but it wasn’t until a few minutes after midnight that she finally ran Armstrong to ground.

  The night porter told her emphatically that Mr. Armstrong had said he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances. Remembering the age of the girl who was with him, he felt that he wouldn’t get much of a tip if he disobeyed that order. Pamela lay awake all night and phoned again at seven the following morning. But as the manager didn’t come on duty until nine on a Saturday, she received the same frosty reply.

  The first person to tell Townsend what was going on was Chris Slater, the deputy features editor of the Globe, who decided that for the trouble it took to make an overseas call, he might well secure his future on the paper. In fact it took several overseas calls to track Mr. Townsend down at the Racquets Club in New York, where he was eventually found playing squash with Tom Spencer for $1,000 a game.

  Townsend was serving with a four-point lead in the final set when there was a knock on the glass door and a club servant asked if Mr. Townsend could take an urgent telephone call. Trying not to lose his concentration, Townsend simply asked, “Who?” As the name Chris Slater meant nothing to him, he said, “Tell him I’ll call back later.” Just before he served, he added, “Did he say where he was calling from?”

  “No, sir,” replied the messenger. “He only said he was with the Globe.”

  Townsend squeezed the ball as he considered the alternatives.

  He was currently $2,000 up against a man he hadn’t beaten in months, and he knew that if he left the court, even for a few moments, Tom would claim the match.

  He stood staring at the front wall for another ten seconds, until Tom said sharply, “Serve!”

  “Is that your advice, counselor?” he asked.

  “It is,” replied the lawyer. “Get on with it or concede. The choice is yours.” Townsend dropped the ball, ran out of the court and chased after the messenger. He reached him just before he put the phone down.

  “This had better be good, Mr. Slater,” said Townsend, “because so far you’ve cost me $2,000.”

  He listened in disbelief as Slater told him that in the following day’s edition of the Globe, Sir Walter Sherwood would be inviting the paper’s readers to vote on who they felt should be its next proprietor.

  “There will be balanced full-page profiles on both candidates,” Slater went on to explain, “with a voting slip at the bottom of the page.” He then read out the last three sentences of the proposed editorial.

  The loyal readers of the Globe need have no fear for the future of the best-loved paper in the kingdom. Both candidates have agreed that Sir Walter Sherwood shall remain as chairman of the board, guaranteeing the continuity that has been the hallmark of the paper’s success for the better part of a century. So register your vote, and the result will be announced next Saturday.

  Townsend thanked Sla
ter, and assured him that if he became proprietor he would not be forgotten. His first thought after he had put the phone down was to wonder where Armstrong was.

  He didn’t return to the squash court, but immediately rang Ned Brewer, his bureau chief in London. He briefed him on exactly what he expected him to do during the night, and ended by telling him that he would be in touch again as soon as he landed at Heathrow. “In the meantime, Ned,” he said, “make sure you have at least £20,000 in cash available by the time I reach the office.”

  As soon as he had put the phone down, Townsend went to the front desk and picked up his wallet from security, walked out onto Fifth Avenue and hailed a taxi. “The airport,” he said. “And you get $100 if we’re there in time for the next flight to London.” He should have added “alive.”

  As the cab weaved in and out of the traffic, Townsend suddenly remembered that Tom was still waiting for him on the court, and that he was meant to be taking Kate out to dinner that night so she could bring him up to date on her progress with The Senator’s Mistress. Every day that passed, Townsend thanked a God he didn’t believe in that Kate had flown back from Sydney. He felt he had been lucky enough to find the one person who could tolerate his intolerable lifestyle, partly because she had accepted the situation long before they were married. Kate had never once made him feel guilty about the hours he kept, the turning up late or not turning up at all. He only hoped Tom would phone to let her know he had disappeared. “No, I have no idea where,” he could hear him saying.

  When he landed at Heathrow the following morning, the cabbie didn’t feel it was his place to ask why his fare was dressed in a tracksuit and carrying a squash racket. Perhaps all the courts in New York were booked.

  He arrived at his London office forty minutes later, and took over the operation from Ned Brewer. By ten o’clock every available employee had been sent to all corners of the capital. By lunchtime no one within a twenty-mile radius of Hyde Park Corner could find a copy of the Globe at any price. By nine that evening Townsend was in possession of 126,212 copies of the paper.

  Armstrong arrived back at Heathrow on the Saturday afternoon, having spent most of the morning in Paris barking out orders to his staff all over Britain. By nine o’clock on Sunday morning, thanks to a remarkable trawl from the West Riding area, he was in possession of 79,107 copies of the Globe.

  He spent the Sunday ringing the editors of all his regional papers and ordering them to write front-page stories for the following morning’s editions, urging their readers to dig out Saturday’s Globe and vote Armstrong. On Monday morning he talked himself on to the Today program and as many news slots as possible. But each of the producers decided it was only fair that Townsend should be allowed the right of reply the following day.

  By Thursday, Townsend’s staff were exhausted from signing names; Armstrong’s sick from licking envelopes. By Friday afternoon both men were phoning the Globe every few minutes, trying to find out how the count was going. But as Sir Walter had called in the Electoral Reform Society to count the votes, and they were more interested in accuracy than speed, even the editor wasn’t told the result until just before midnight.

  “The Dodgy Dingo Beats the Bouncing Czech” ran the banner headline in the first editions of Saturday’s paper. The article that followed informed the Globe’s readers that the voting had been 232,712 in favor of the Colonial, to 229,847 for the Immigrant.

  Townsend’s lawyer arrived at the Globe’s offices at nine o’clock on Monday morning, bearing a draft for $20 million. However much Armstrong protested, and however many writs he threatened to issue, he could not stop Sir Walter from signing his shares over to Townsend that afternoon.

  At the first meeting of the new board, Townsend proposed that Sir Walter should remain as chairman, on his present salary of £100,000 a year. The old man smiled and made a flattering speech about how the readers had unquestionably made the right choice.

  Townsend didn’t speak again until they reached Any Other Business, when he suggested that all employees of the Globe should automatically retire at the age of sixty, in line with the rest of his group’s policy. Sir Walter seconded the motion, as he was keen to join his chums at the Turf Club for a celebratory lunch. The motion went through on the nod.

  It wasn’t until Sir Walter climbed into bed that night that his wife explained to him the significance of that final resolution.

  FIFTH EDITION

  The Citizen v the Globe

  28.

  The Citizen

  15 April 1968

  MINISTER RESIGNS

  “One hundred thousand copies of The Senator’s Mistress have been printed and are stacked in the warehouse in New Jersey, awaiting Mrs. Sherwood’s inspection,” said Kate, looking up at the ceiling.

  “That’s a good start,” said Townsend. “But they’re not going to return a penny of my money until they see them in the shops.”

  “Once her lawyer has verified the numbers and the invoiced orders, he’ll have no choice but to return the first million dollars. We will have fulfilled that part of the contract within the stipulated twelve-month period.”

  “And how much has this little exercise cost me so far?”

  “If you include printing and transport, around $30,000,” replied Kate. “Everything else was done in-house, or can be set against tax.”

  “Clever girl. But what chance do I have of getting my second million back? For all the time you’ve spent rewriting the damn book, I still can’t see it making the bestseller lists.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Kate. “Everybody knows that only eleven hundred shops report their sales to the New York Times each week. If I could get a sight of that list of booksellers, I’d have a real chance of making sure you get your second million back.”

  “But knowing which shops report doesn’t make customers buy books.”

  “No, but I think we could nudge them in the right direction.”

  “And how do you propose doing that?”

  “First by launching the book in a slow month—say, January or February—and then by only selling in to those outlets that report to the New York Times.”

  “But that won’t make people buy them.”

  “It will if we only charge the bookshop fifty cents a copy, with a cover price of $3.50, so the bookseller shows a 700 percent mark-up on every copy sold, instead of the usual one hundred.”

  “But that still won’t help if the book is unreadable.”

  “It won’t matter in the first week,” said Kate. “If the bookshops stand to make that sort of return, it will be in their interest to put the book in the window, on the counter, by the till, even on the best-seller shelves. My research shows that we’ll only have to sell ten thousand copies in the first week to hit the number fifteen slot on the best-seller list, which works out at less than ten copies per shop.”

  “I suppose that might just give us a fifty-fifty chance,” said Townsend.

  “And I can lower those odds even further. In the week of publication we can use our network of newspapers and magazines across America to make sure the book gets favorable reviews and front-page advertisements, and put my article on ‘The Amazing Mrs. Sherwood’ in as many of our journals as you think we can get away with.”

  “If it’s going to save me a million dollars, that will be every one of them,” said Townsend. “But that still only makes the odds a shade better than fifty-fifty.”

  “If you’ll let me go one step further, I can probably make it odds-on.”

  “What are you proposing? That I buy the New York Times?”

  “Nothing quite as drastic as that,” said Kate with a smile. “I’m recommending that during the week of publication our own employees buy back 5,000 copies of the book.”

  “Five thousand copies? That would just be throwing money down the drain.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Kate. “After we’ve sold them back to the shops at fifty cents apiece a second time, for an outlay of $15,00
0 you’ll be virtually guaranteed a week on the best-seller list. And then Mr. Yablon will have to return your second million.”

  Townsend took her in his arms. “We just might pull it off.”

  “But only if you get hold of the names of the shops that report to the New York Times best-seller list.”

  “You’re a clever girl,” he said, pulling her closer.

  Kate smiled. “At last I’ve found out what turns you on.”

  * * *

  “Stephen Hallet is on line one, and Ray Atkins, the minister for industry, on line two,” said Pamela.

  “I’ll take Atkins first. Tell Stephen I’ll call him straight back.”

  Armstrong waited for the click on his latest toy, which would ensure that the whole conversation was recorded. “Good morning, Minister,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s a personal problem, Dick. I wondered if we could meet?”

  “Of course,” Armstrong replied. “How about lunch at the Savoy some time next week?” He flicked through his diary to see who he could cancel.

  “I’m afraid it’s more urgent than that, Dick. And I’d prefer not to meet in such a public place.”

  Armstrong checked his appointments for the rest of the day. “Well, why don’t you join me for lunch today in my private dining room? I was due to see Don Sharpe, but if it’s that urgent, I can put him off.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Dick. Shall we say around one?”

  “Fine. I’ll see that there’s someone to meet you in reception and bring you straight up to my office.” Armstrong put the phone down and smiled. He knew exactly what the minister of industry wanted to see him about. After all, he had remained a loyal supporter of the Labor Party over the years—not least by donating a thousand pounds per annum to each of fifty key marginal seats. This small investment ensured that he had fifty close friends in the parliamentary party, several of them ministers, and gave him an entrée into the highest levels of government whenever he needed it. Had he wanted to exert the same influence in America, it would have cost him a million dollars a year.