by Lewis Orde
The judge considered the matter carefully before siding with Roland’s counsel; there were grounds for criminal charges. Roland couldn’t resist a brief smile as he watched Rushden’s face sag. The man who had made his life a public misery since the takeover of Adler’s was looking at a prison sentence; and he understandably didn’t like what he saw.
Roland was driven home to Stanmore that night in an expansive frame of mind. The hearing had made front page news in every paper; even if some writers had castigated him for being a vengeful tyrant he couldn’t have cared less. Revenge was the greatest motivation; its taste was sweet. But he had known that all along. He had the muscle and this was one time he was able to use it.
As Goldstein pulled the car into the circular drive, Katherine came running out of the house. Roland climbed out of the car and she rushed straight into his arms. ‘What’s the matter? I thought you’d be at the stables by now.’ When she looked up he could see she’d been crying.
‘Read this!’ She pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket. Roland read it and some of his elation immediately dimmed.
‘What’s the matter?’ Goldstein asked.
‘Sally. She’s gone back to Curzon Street. Doesn’t want to share a house with someone as pig-headed, stubborn and vindictive as me.’ He crushed the note into a ball and shoved it into his pocket. ‘What do you think, Kathy?’ He knew she’d been following the case; her opinion was more valuable to him than anyone’s.
She followed him into the house where he dropped his briefcase. The butler appeared and wordlessly carried it into the room Roland used as an office. ‘Is it worth losing Sally as a friend?’ Katherine asked.
‘I never thought it would come to that.’
‘Didn’t you? She warned you all along not to proceed with this. She told you to give that terrible man and his slimy magazine the chance to crawl out, apologize and call it even.’
Now even Katherine was lined up against him, and that hadn’t happened since Sharon’s days. ‘I’ll speak to her.’
‘I wish you luck. She was fit to be tied when she left here.’
Roland rang through to Curzon Street. ‘Why do you think I left?’ Sally demanded. ‘I warned you that you’d lose any respect you had with the press if you proceeded, and that included myself.’
‘You’re not a journalist,’ he tried to argue. ‘You’re the director of a publishing group.’
‘I’m still a journalist first and foremost. Rushden may be the worst possible kind of reporter who ever sat behind a typewriter, but he’s still a journalist. Just like me. When you take an unfair punch at one of us, you hit us all.’
Faced with Sally’s anger, Roland became sarcastic. ‘You’re really putting me in my place, Sally, moving out of the house. If nothing else could do it, that really showed me the error of my ways.’
‘Don’t be such a stupid ass, Roland. It doesn’t become you.’
‘Will you be in the office tomorrow?’
‘For part of the time.’ She hung up, leaving him to wonder what she meant.
The next morning, while he was in a meeting with Michael Adler, Roland found out. Sally phoned to say the entire union membership of the publishing group – including all the provincial newspapers and the Eagle – had walked out in protest of Roland’s action against Daniel Rushden.
‘Couldn’t you do anything to stop them?’
‘Stop them?’ She laughed harshly. ‘Who the hell do you think organized the whole thing?’
Roland knew he should have guessed. ‘What conditions do you want to return to work.’
Sally’s voice softened. ‘Sort this thing out, Roland. You’ve got permission to press criminal charges but you can still back out of it.’
‘Sally, I won’t be blackmailed. Not by you or anyone else.’
‘Then do it for the sake of your friends, if you value their friendship. Remember that no matter how strongly you feel about it, we’re all going to be dragged through the muck if this thing goes the full distance. Just forget your foolish wounded pride for one minute and consider this: Christopher was my husband as well as your friend. Have some consideration for my feelings as well.’
Roland put down the receiver and looked helplessly at Michael. ‘They’ve all walked out. Sally led them.’
‘I know. She told me she was going to.’
‘Oh, fine. Another friend.’
‘I’ve tried to be but you were too irate to listen to anything rational. All you had to do in the first place with this chap Rushden was ignore him. You were told he thrived on controversy and you provided him with it. Now you’re both in a position where neither of you can be seen to give way. You’re going to fight it out in a criminal court, and believe me, Roland, you’ve got plenty more to lose than he has.’
‘Six months in jail, he’ll lose.’
‘He’ll do that standing on his head. And when he gets out, the entire country will look on him as the victim of a rich, ruthless man who uses the law to send his critics to prison.’
Roland sighed in defeat. He didn’t have the strength to fight Rushden and his own friends. ‘What do you suggest I do?’
‘Call him. You might find him a lot more amenable now. You’ve done what you wanted to do, proved how strong you are. Now show him you can be a human being as well.’
*
Daniel Rushden received Roland’s phone call with trepidation. Roland was the last person from whom he expected to hear; the man hired expensive lawyers to do his talking for him.
‘Mr Rushden, I would like to meet with you as soon as possible.’
‘What about?’ To gloat over an impending jail sentence? Once Rushden had considered the entire episode a bizarre joke. Criminal libel . . .! A throwback to an earlier era, an era to which Roland clearly belonged. But since the High Court judge believed Roland had adequate cause to pursue criminal proceedings, it was a reasonable assumption that a jury in a criminal trial would think the same way.
‘I believe it’s about time we discussed our situation like reasonable men, Mr Rushden.’
Reasonable? Rushden’s mind went blank as he repeated the word to himself. Who was Eagles to suddenly claim he was a reasonable man? ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘Can we talk over dinner tonight?’
‘At your restaurant, Eldridge’s?’
‘The Vulture’s Nest, as you once referred to it.’
‘I feel a little out of my depth there, Mr Eagles.’
‘Enemy territory? Then why don’t you suggest a place?’
Rushden tried to think but Roland’s call – the invitation to dinner – had blown all logic from his mind. Finally he mentioned an Italian restaurant near the law courts. ‘Just to remind ourselves that it’s not a social call.’
‘I seriously doubt either of us will need much reminding. I’ll see you there at seven o’clock.’
When Roland arrived at the restaurant, Rushden was already seated at a table in the back, anxiously dividing his attention between his watch and the door. ‘Sorry if I kept you waiting,’ Roland said, as he sat down and looked around. It wasn’t the kind of place he would have chosen for himself – checkered plastic tablecloths, cheap cutlery, thick heavy plates. But then this was not really dining for pleasure . . .
‘Do you smoke?’ Rushden pulled out a pack of Embassy cigarettes, offered one to Roland as if the gesture would break the ice.
‘No, thank you.’ Roland extended his gold lighter, watched while Rushden lit the cigarette, inhaled deeply. Poor devil was scared out of his wits over what the evening might hold – asked to dinner by the very man who seemed intent on putting him behind bars. ‘You seem very tense, Mr Rushden.’
‘I’m just confused by your invitation, Mr Eagles. Or would it have something to do with the walkout at Burnham Press and the Eagle?’
Roland smiled thinly; there was no way he could have kept that from Rushden. There would be no copies of the Eagle on the street the following morning, and the story had
already been carried in late editions of other newspapers, all covering the union problems faced by one of their own. So much for dog not eating dog. The staff who worked for Roland might side with a fellow journalist they felt was being persecuted, but there was no such camaraderie among publishers.
‘Not really, Mr Rushden, Do you seriously think I’m a man who can be influenced by blackmail?’
Rushden gazed across the table into Roland’s clear blue eyes. The answer lay there, just as it lay in the expensively tailored suit, silk tie and crisp cotton shirt. This was a man who made his own laws and bowed to no one.
‘We are both in an awkward situation, Mr Rushden—’
‘For which you are responsible.’
‘Please be courteous enough to allow me to finish.’ Roland stopped speaking while the waiter took their orders; he decided to play it safe in this strange restaurant and settle for a salad. ‘The awkwardness of this situation dictates that neither of us can win – we can only lose. You, because you will probably spend time in jail should I pursue this criminal libel action now that the High Court have given me permission. And me’ – again that thin smile – ‘because whatever happens I’m going to be regarded as a tyrant. I have conferred with my lawyers, and they agree that a settlement is possible before I institute proceedings.’
‘What kind of settlement?’
‘Probe will take advertisements in all national newspapers retracting the insinuation it made concerning me. This will take the form of a letter which my lawyers will dictate. You will also agree not to ever mention my name again—’
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
Rushden considered the choice. A few hours ago he might have said no, but now, sitting opposite the man who had been his enemy for so long, he wasn’t sure. The image that Rushden had built up – the playboy intent on carving his name across the world – no longer seemed quite so true. The man sitting opposite him was human, and just as worried about what could happen as Rushden was. ‘I’ll need to take advice on your offer.’
‘Please feel free to.’ Roland inspected the salad the waiter placed in front of him, picked at it, and decided he didn’t like it; too many years of eating only the finest had spoiled him. ‘There is one other thing.’
‘Of course. There would be.’
‘I would like to know on what evidence you based your assumption that I knew of Christopher Mellish’s relationship with Charles Marsden.’
‘Is it true?’
Roland smiled faintly and ignored the question. ‘On what did you base your claim?’
Rushden looked down at a steaming dish of lasagna and couldn’t even remember ordering it. ‘Do you know where Mellish is?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. And even if I did, I wouldn’t say. He was a friend, and I don’t run out on friends.’
‘But you did know about the friendship with Marsden.’ It was no longer a question.
‘Yes, I did. If you had stuck to that fact, this meeting wouldn’t have been necessary. You had to be that extra bit clever, though, didn’t you, and suggest that I’d known about everything.’
‘I never dreamed you’d react the way you did.’
‘Why not? Criminal libel is a legal weapon, and the High Court in its infinite wisdom offered me its use.’
Whatever else he might have been – muckraker, satirist – Daniel Rushden was still a journalist. His greatest loyalty was to his sources, and he would rather go to jail than divulge them. This moment was different, though, because he had the opportunity to hurt this man more than he ever could in a Probe article. Just once, one final barb before they settled their differences. ‘Your wife told me about your knowing of Mellish and Marsden.’
‘My wife? Sharon?’
‘Mrs Sharon Eagles,’ To the day he died Rushden knew he would treasure the look of pure shock that passed over Eagles’ face. ‘She came to my office and showed me a letter you once received from the man who does your dirty work, Alf Goldstein.’
Roland closed his eyes for a moment, pictured in every detail the letter Goldstein had sent him while he was on honeymoon with Sharon. He had screwed it up into a ball, dropped it into a trash can. Had Sharon . . .? Of course she had! How else could she have known? How else could she have shown Rushden the letter? She’d kept it all these years. But why . . . for God’s sake why?
In that moment, Rushden knew regret. He had wanted this one chance to hurt Roland, but the pain he saw in the man’s face made the journalist wince. The articles he wrote – sniping at public figures – were like fighting a battle from a rear position; you never saw the enemy’s eyes when the bullet hit. This, however, was close combat. He had a firsthand look at every trace of pain that registered on the enemy’s face, and Rushden found he had no stomach for it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘So am I,’ Roland answered, recovering quickly. ‘When can I expect your reply to my conditions for not pursuing this matter further?’
‘Tomorrow evening.’ Rushden answered. ‘I’ll see my lawyers first thing in the morning to discuss your offer.’
‘Would you hazard a guess at their advice?’
Rushden took a forkful of lasagna, chewed thoughtfully. ‘I think they’ll agree that your terms are most generous.’
‘Good. I’ll be glad when this unpleasantness is over. I think we’ve both had quite enough.’
*
Instead of going straight home, Roland went to Curzon Street to see Sally. She allowed him only as far as the hallway, then stood with her arms folded across her chest, waiting to hear what he had to say.
‘You can call off your strike. I’ve made peace with Rushden.’
‘How did you leave it?’
‘I offered him settlement terms which he thinks his lawyers will find satisfactory. No criminal proceedings.’ He saw Sally relax a fraction. ‘It was Sharon who gave Probe the information that I knew about Christopher and Marsden.’
‘Why would she do a thing like that?’ Sally was so shocked at the news that she didn’t even think to ask how Sharon had known.
Roland shrugged. ‘To lash out against me? Who knows?’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know. If it were just Sharon, I’d leave it and walk away. But I can’t walk away from Simon. Having him against me still—’
‘He’s not against you.’
‘He’s not damned well speaking to me, what do you call that? He was my friend for years, and it hurts.’
‘Are you thinking of telling him what Sharon did?’
‘I think it’s the only way to make him see what I was going through while Sharon and I were together. Simon believes I neglected her, but she was so insecure – so jealous of anyone I even spoke to – that it was impossible for the marriage to work.’
‘Shall we see him now? I’ll come with you.’
‘I was hoping you’d offer.’
Sally drove to South Kensington. While Roland waited in the car Sally rang the bell of Simon’s house. The maid answered, then Nadine appeared. Roland couldn’t hear what was being said, but he saw Nadine look toward the car, then back into the house. Finally, Simon came to the door. Moments later, Sally beckoned for Roland.
‘Hello, Simon.’ Roland thought the banker looked much older than when he’d last seen him. His eyes were sunk deeply, lines crisscrossed his face like deep scars, the beard had more gray than before. Even his shoulders seemed stooped.
‘Come in, please,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time we sat down and talked, something we should have done a long time ago.’ A little of the sprightliness returned as he led Roland into the drawing room.
‘Where’s Sharon? And David?’
‘They’re in Paris, with Miriam and Claude. She left a few days ago, before your court hearing. Now I understand why. She sowed the seeds but didn’t wish to see the harvest reaped.’
‘Is she any better?’
‘We thought she was improving, but obviousl
y the trouble is still there. Roland . . .’ Simon spread his arms beseechingly. ‘What can I say? None of us had any idea how serious her problem was.’
‘I didn’t want to believe it myself, when we were married. I always remembered Sharon as she was when she was young. Bright, alive, beautiful. She’s still beautiful, but somewhere . . .’
‘Something happened. I try to tell myself it was that terrible time she had with Graham, but even then I’m not certain. Now I’m more inclined to think that Graham simply acted as a catalyst, made Sharon’s condition worse – and to think that I blamed you.’
‘I blamed myself as well, Simon. For a while – God forgive me – I even blamed Katherine. I thought she was trying to come between Sharon and me, that it was her jealousy that was causing the trouble.’
Simon looked at the floor, unwilling to meet Roland’s eyes. ‘For Sharon to have done such a thing . . . To see this man Rushden and show him a letter that had been written to you. Hate runs so deep, it’s so inexplicable.’
Roland shifted uncomfortably in the chair, uncertain now why he had even come to the house. Perhaps he would have been better off just leaving the past alone. No . . . friendships weren’t like old clothes, meant to be thrown away when you no longer wanted them; they were meant to be kept forever, no matter what. ‘Simon, the most painful part of this whole unhappy affair was losing you and Nadine as friends.’
Simon looked up, as if recognizing reconciliation in Roland’s words. ‘Do you think friendship can ever mend such a rift?’
‘Only if we try,’ Roland answered. It was all he could say.’
*
Sally drove Roland back to Stanmore from South Kensington, a trip during which neither said much. Roland thought over the meeting with Simon and decided nothing had been resolved at all . . . Even if Simon now saw the situation in its true light, Roland felt no closer to him. The split between the two men over Sharon had been too deep to bridge with just one meeting, a few words of apologetic conversation. Damn . . .! If only he’d listened to the advice everyone had given him about marrying Sharon, so much of this could have been avoided. Even the final clash with Daniel Rushden never would have occurred if he’d occasionally listened to the advice of his friends.
