by Lewis Orde
*
When Roland returned to Regent’s Park later that night, the flat was dark and silent. He had wanted to speak to Elsie Partridge, tell her about the pension he would give her so that she could retire comfortably in Scotland, but the housekeeper was asleep, her door closed. Roland settled instead for opening the door of Katherine’s bedroom. Light from the hall spilled softly into the room, gently illuminating the bed. Roland stood in the doorway for a full minute, taking in the sleeping form of his daughter, the books on horses that were stacked high on the bedside table, the prints of thoroughbreds and steeplechasers that covered almost every inch of wall space.
Katherine’s blond hair was spread across the pillow and Roland wondered whether Alf Goldstein would Be offended by this blondness – by these blue eyes – as well. Did Katherine, too, remind Goldstein of the typical Nazi, the children with whom Hitler had wanted to populate his new, racially pure Germany? Damn Goldstein, Roland suddenly thought. Why the hell did he have to say something like that? It was true that his feelings went a lot deeper than Roland’s; they extended to the depths of fanatical bigotry, which Roland had never known.
Roland suddenly caught himself, ashamed for even considering such a thing. It was he . . . Roland . . . who was making the comparison between Katherine and Heinrich Kassler, not Goldstein. No, it wasn’t the blond hair and blue eyes that disturbed the former sergeant. It was just Germans of Kassler’s generation.
Roland entered the room quietly, bent over the bed and kissed Katherine on the forehead. She stirred and he feared he’d woken her, until she rolled over, still asleep. Roland pulled a chair up to her bed and sat down, content to watch his daughter while she slept. He had so many things to consider . . . would she be better off living with Janet and the other two children? Even if Janet eventually married? Perhaps had more children by another man? He knew that Katherine would never refer to another man as her father; he didn’t have to worry about anyone usurping his role. He would see her regularly, probably as frequently as he saw her now – which he knew wasn’t all that often, especially since the Adler’s deal.
Janet was right, he decided as he stood up, replaced the chair and started toward the door.
‘Daddy, is that you?’
He turned around. Katherine was sitting up in bed, woken by the noise of his movements. She rubbed sleep from her eyes, squinted at the form silhouetted in the light from the hall.
‘I just came in to check on you.’ Roland walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge. ‘Feel like talking?’
‘What about?’
‘Kathy, would you like to live with Janet and your brother and sister? All the time?’
‘Will I still see you?’
‘Of course. Nothing will really change. You’ll still go to the same school, have the same friends.’ The two-bedroom house in Chelsea would be cramped with three children, he decided. He’d buy Janet something larger, closer to where he lived.
‘Why can’t I stay here with you?’
‘I’m going to be very busy all the time now. And Elsie wants to go home to Scotland.’
‘Why don’t you hire another housekeeper?’
‘I probably will,’ Roland answered, thinking that his daughter’s reasoning was all too frequently mature beyond her years. She considered all the angles, the same way he did until he was satisfied. She was his daughter, all right; there was no getting away from that. ‘But you don’t want to stay in such a large apartment with just a housekeeper, do you? I’m going to be away a lot.’
‘Do you have to be away so often?’
‘Yes. I do. You’ve seen my picture in the newspaper,’ he said, referring to the stories of the Adler’s takeover. ‘I have a big company to run now.’
‘Why don’t you get other people to help you, so you can spend more time with us?’
He tried to come up with a reply, a gentle lie he could tell her that would salve his own painful conscience. But he was unable to. The truth eclipsed anything he thought to tell her: that he was only really happy when he was pushing himself to the limit with a project.
Instead of trying to explain himself to his daughter, he kissed her a second time and left the room. Once in the hallway, an idea flashed in his mind. He strode to the telephone and dialed Michael Adler’s number.
‘Michael’s something’s just hit me. Why don’t we close the three stores for two days – a Monday and Tuesday, which are usually our slowest days anyway – and then have a grand reopening, special sales, the works? Show the public that the new Adler’s really means business?’
Lying in bed, Michael looked at his watch; it was two minutes before midnight. But he was used to calls from Roland at strange hours. When Roland was involved in something hot he worked almost non-stop and expected those around him to do likewise.
‘I’ll arrange a meeting with our advertising people for tomorrow, Roland. Let’s get their thoughts on it.’
‘Good enough. See you first thing in the morning.’ Roland hung up and walked into the living room. He lit a cigarette and sat down, thinking the idea over, expanding on it, trying to decide on the slowest-moving merchandise to include in the sale.
Already the conversation with Katherine had been pushed far to the back of his mind.
*
The takeover of Adler’s was destined to give Roland a dubious kind of fame – and an enemy. As a rule he took little interest in newspaper stories about the acquisition, regarding the press as something of a necessary evil. Always fresh in his memory was the cheap way newspapers had treated him during the elopement with Catarina and the subsequent custody case, but with regard to Adler’s the reporters behaved as Roland believed they should, focusing on the facts and refraining from embellishing their stories with personal background.
Except for one – a weekly, antiestablishment, satirical magazine called Probe. If Michael hadn’t brought the article to his attention, Roland would have missed it altogether. Probe wasn’t on his required reading list. At least he never placed it on the same level of importance as the Financial Times and Investor’s Chronicle. Until now . . .
‘Read this when you get the opportunity.’ Michael tossed the magazine onto Roland’s desk. ‘Page eight, I marked it for you. The “Rushes” column.’
‘Probe?’ Roland’s eyes lifted. ‘What are you, of all people, doing reading this garbage?’
‘My secretary gave it to me, says she’s a regular subscriber.’
‘Is that so? Maybe we’d better choose our secretaries more carefully,’ he said, laughing. He turned to page eight and skimmed his eyes across the column Michael had circled in red. ‘Vulture?’
‘Obviously a play on your name.’ Michael smiled as if he found it amusing. ‘By their lights you’re a businessman who gobbles up dying companies.’
‘Thank you, I can see that.’ Roland went through the article more carefully. ‘Sarcastic bunch of bastards . . . “The Vulture, an old-fashioned St George-like figure who took on the German dragon to preserve the virtue of a fair British maiden . . .” I bet no one ever referred to Adler’s as a fair British maiden before. What’s the editor’s name?’
‘Daniel Rushden. He writes the “Rushes” column every week.’
Roland rifled through the pages until he found the masthead. Daniel Rushden was editor and publisher. ‘I wonder if there’s anything here on which I can base a libel suit.’
The indulgent smile on Michael’s face dropped away. ‘Don’t even bother with them, Roland. Probe’s the kind of bully that will pack up and go away if you ignore them.’ He reeled off a string of names – all public figures politicians, industrialists, entertainers – who had taken Probe to court during the magazine’s five-year existence. ‘Each time they’re in court, their damned circulation goes up. So does their advertising.’
‘Who would advertise in this kind of thing?’ Roland glanced through the magazine again; the advertising was obviously directed at a young audience – popular records, mov
ies, clubs. ‘I’m going to call Simon, see what he thinks.’
While Michael waited, Roland phoned Simon at Aronson Freres. He read the article over the telephone and waited for Simon’s opinion. It was the same as Michael’s . . . leave it alone. Roland considered what he’d said after they hung up, but he wasn’t in the mood for accepting such advice. When newspapers had taken shots at him in the past he’d been unable to retaliate; he’d been either too busy to bother himself, or he felt it was below him. Well, now he had the time. And, more importantly, he had the power. A magazine was sniping at him, and he was going to respond. He grinned at Michael as he reached his decision.
‘No libel suit. I’m just going to offer to take a journalist out to lunch. What do you think about that?’
‘I think you’re risking a hell of a lot for personal satisfaction. Give a publication like Probe the chance to sink their teeth into you, let them know they’re getting to you, and they’ll never let go.’
Roland telephoned Daniel Rushden that afternoon, introduced himself and invited him to lunch the following day. Rushden accepted warily. His targets didn’t usually respond this cordially to an attack, and he was puzzled.
Roland met the tall, angular editor at Eldridge’s, secure in the knowledge that he was on home territory. There was nothing Rushden could do to him here. In this place, Roland was all-powerful. He wanted Rushden to be aware of that – too powerful to tangle with.
The only son of an eminent Harley Street doctor, Rushden had received a public school education before turning against the establishment, mocking it for what he considered its false values and pompous attitudes. The magazine he had launched five years earlier – after spending six years as a political journalist on a leftist newspaper – had succeeded beyond Rushden’s wildest expectations. The more Probe attacked establishment figures in stories that reputable publications considered too risky to print – and the more these figures responded angrily – the larger his magazine’s circulation grew. Rushden’s anti-establishment viewpoint had very quickly achieved cult status for Probe.
‘What made you buy a restaurant?’ Rushden asked Roland after they had ordered.
‘I like to eat well, so why should I pay someone else for the privilege of feeding me?’
‘Bravo! The decisive action that so befits a hero who beat back the German hordes from our shores once again,’ Rushden responded, filing Roland’s comment away in his memory. ‘You make quite a habit of this, don’t you – clobbering Germans for the Union Jack? Military Cross and Military Medal . . .’
‘And you seem to make quite a habit of upsetting people.’ Roland was surprised by the magazine owner’s comments; he had done his homework thoroughly and quickly, the sign of a man to be watched.
‘Only those who need upsetting.’
‘What made you decide I was one of them?’
‘Well, your little escapade with Adler’s and this Kassler fellow did have all the melodramatics one could wish for. World War Two revisited, playing on nationalistic pride. Just like your final confrontation with your former father-in-law . . . a British baby being brought up in Argentina. Perish the thought!’
‘You seem to know quite a lot about me.’
‘I make it my business to learn about those men in positions of power. One way or another, they influence the way the rest of us have to live.’ Rushden still was uncertain what to make of Roland. He seemed such an odd mixture. At first glance, the perfect gentleman, dressed immaculately and expensively, courteous; but just below the surface lurked a ruthless business mind that would stop at nothing for success. A decade earlier Rushden had admired Roland for the way he’d run off with Catarina, evading her powerful father. Then he’d been somewhat of a rebel, like Rushden himself. Now he was a pillar of respectability, chairman of a public company, a man who flaunted his wealth by inviting critics to lunch in a restaurant he’d once bought on a whim.
‘It appears to me that you exert some considerable influence yourself, Mr Rushden.’
‘Thank you.’ Rushden’s face brightened for an instant. ‘But not as much as you. A vulture’s—’
‘I’m not particularly fond of that nickname.’
Rushden ignored the interruption. ‘A vulture’s so easily recognizable. Such a good source of copy.’
Roland sat back as a waiter placed a dish in front of him, remained silent until the waiter left. Then his expression hardened. ‘A vulture could also prove to be a very expensive source of copy.’
Rushden’s brown eyes sparkled at this. ‘Finally – to the meat of the meeting! A threat! Can I assume that a libel action will follow? If so, I’ll instruct Probe’s counsel to be prepared.’
Roland began to eat, giving himself time to think. Had it been a mistake, reacting like this? Everyone had warned him against locking horns with Probe, but he’d be damned if he would. He had never backed off from a fight yet, and this magazine publisher who had found a comfortable niche pandering borderline stories wasn’t going to change his ways unless he was forced to.
Roland didn’t respond to the comment, decided to stay on more neutral territory – at least for now.
‘Thank you for an excellent lunch,’ Rushden said as they prepared to leave. ‘Such a civilized way to waste half the day.’
‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’ Roland knew he should end it there, but some perversity urged him on, forced him to show the Probe publisher just how powerful he was. ‘I can be very civilized when I’m not annoyed. This vulture wouldn’t harm a fly.’
‘Probably not,’ Rushden agreed as he shook Roland’s hand. ‘Too bad that I’m a masochist, though. I have this odd reaction to people who suggest they can hurt me. I always want to see if they can.’
Roland watched sourly as Rushden waved for a taxi. And he wondered how this lunchtime meeting would be covered in the next ‘Rushes’ column. He had little doubt that it would be covered. Instead of dissuading Rushden from further stories, Roland’s meeting had merely whetted his appetite.
The following week Rushden sent Roland a note thanking him for lunch, including a complimentary copy of the latest issue. Roland turned to the ‘Rushes’ column. ‘Fine Fare at The Vulture’s Nest,’ read the headline, and Roland knew he had made an enemy – an enemy who would undoubtedly make him as notorious as some of the other personalities he had chosen to ridicule.
Chapter Four
Daniel Rushden and Probe dogged Roland’s steps during the next three years as he set about consolidating and then expanding Adler’s stores. Roland knew he was exaggerating the situation out of all proportion, but it seemed to him that barely an issue of Probe passed without some mention of ‘the Vulture.’ When he sold forty percent of the electrical shops to raise capital to acquire a floundering department store in Birmingham, Rushden wrote that the Vulture had found the carcass in the Midlands quite to his taste. When Katherine turned twelve and won the junior class of a show-jumping championship, Rushden put together a speculative story stating that Roland’s entire family was driven to succeed, no matter what the cost. He even suggested that this passion for winning was fostered by the lack of a conventional family structure. His research had brought to his attention the two children Roland had with Janet Taylor – a certain indication, in Rushden’s reasoning, that Roland was a man who felt he was unbridled by the rules of society.
Gradually, as Roland had feared, he was being transformed into a public figure. Despite the fact that his fame was only among readers of Probe, it was a recognition he’d never cared to have. Publicity always reminded him of his time with Catarina, the way the press had jumped on the story with no regard for the feelings of those involved, simply to boost their circulation through sensationalism. He suspected Rushden was doing it for a similar reason – creating a dubious fame for Roland, if only to benefit from it himself.
Roland’s increasingly frequent visits with Michael Adler and Christopher Mellish to gambling clubs in the West End of London titillated Rushden’s interest
even more. Such clubs smelled of decadence, the successors to the gambling houses of Victorian England where fortunes – and even daughters – were staked on the turn of a card. And when, in the company of Mellish and Michael Adler, Roland won a backgammon tournament in Monte Carlo in the summer of 1962, Rushden launched a new section to honor the event – the Vulture Chronicles, the story of a flamboyant playboy intent on proving that he is not the fortune hunter (Roland recognized Menendez’s words . . . Rushden must have checked back carefully) he was once accused of being.
After the first appearance of the Vulture Chronicles, Roland seriously considered a libel action. Then he dismissed the idea in favor of retaliating the way he knew best – by trying to take over Probe and then put it out of business. After making discreet inquiries into Rushden’s personal life – a wife, three children, a large mortgage and the cost of operating the magazine – he made an offer through an intermediary which he felt the journalist would be unable to reject. Everyone else had a price, so why not Daniel Rushden?
At best, the idea was ill-conceived; at worst, it was the most pitiful scheme Roland ever had, because it was a decision based not on sound financial judgment but on personal anger. Not only did Rushden turn down the offer, he managed to learn on whose behalf the intermediary was acting. The next issue of Probe contained a damning indictment of Roland as a powerful businessman who thought his money could silence all critics. And there was nothing Roland could do – no action he could take – in his own defense. He had handed Rushden the sword and bared his own neck.
Roland was finally given a respite from the attacks in 1963 when the Christine Keeler affair broke. Rushden jumped on it – a prostitute sharing her favors with the British War Minister and a Soviet spy – and Roland hoped that the Vulture would finally be allowed to slip away into the night. He needed the break not only from the attacks, but from the anger they stirred in him at his inability to fight back. At the time he was negotiating to buy a small chain of department stores in France. Even if DeGaulle had refused Britain’s entry into the Common Market, that didn’t stop Roland and Michael Adler from trying to expand across the English Channel. But, as negotiations reached the final stage, Roland’s move was delayed by the death of Helen Adler – Michael’s mother and Albert’s wife – who died suddenly from a heart attack.
