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North hadn’t met this guy before. But the turnover in tabloid staff was over fifty per cent a year, so that meant nothing.
‘So what have you got for us?’
From under his evening suit jacket, North pulled out a large padded envelope containing the most incriminating photographs he had of Jacob Strauss and a variety of different girls in porno outfits. There was also a detailed list of Strauss’s sexual adventures, and the madames who’d variously indulged him.
As they drove on, he described what he had, hyping up the contents of the envelope.
‘Sounds like a real corker of a story. Real corker,’ enthused Williams. Then, as they pulled into a quiet, Belgravia mews, ‘You sure you haven’t shown this stuff around to anyone else. Mr Barron won’t be pleased ….’
‘You have my word on it.’
Williams winked. ‘Good enough for me.’
Williams pulled the car over to one side of the mews, and turned off the engine. It was suddenly dark and very quiet.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s see what you’ve got in there.’
No sooner had North handed over the envelope than he was aware of something flicking in front of his face – then the sudden, violent tug of a cord around his neck. Eyes popping in agony and hands frantically reaching up to his throat, he struggled and writhed in his seat for a silent thirty seconds before slumping, motionless. The driver was still looking over at him when the smell of fæces began to fill the car.
‘Gordon Bennett!’ He rapidly wound down the window and started the engine. ‘Waste of a posh suit, eh, Harry?’
Moments later, the car was heading east, and Williams was pulling out his mobile. He dialled a number.
“Ello Mr d’Andrea,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Mission accomplished.’
•••
Never in his whole career had Mike Cullen addressed such a large gathering of the world’s media – and never had he spoken on a subject of such supreme personal importance to him, or with so little time to prepare. But he knew he had no choice. He who lived by the media must die by the media – and he had no intention of dying just yet.
As he stood outside the Grosvenor House facing blazing TV lights, a battery of over a dozen microphones and Dictaphones thrust in his face, the constant whir and flash of photographers all about him, he marshalled all the persuasive power and sense of shaken outrage of which he knew he was so eminently capable.
‘When I took Nathan Strauss on as a client ten years ago,’ he began, at once siding with the angels, ‘I was proud to count him among Lombard’s biggest corporate clients. In due course, he also became one of my most valued personal friends.’
He described the closeness of his working relationship with Nathan, and how the development of Starwear I and II had been a joint endeavour. But sensing a certain restiveness among the media, he quickly moved on.
‘You will remember Nathan’s statement, over a year ago, in which he denied that Starwear had any involvement in child labour? I certainly remember it. I wrote that statement …’
There was an instant volley of questions. Cullen gestured for silence. ‘Please. Let me finish. I wrote that statement at Starwear headquarters following a lengthy telephone conversation during which Nathan asked his brother Jacob, explicitly and several times, whether any of the stories then circulating about child labour could be true. Jacob denied the possibility of it each time. Like Nathan, I found it, quite frankly, unimaginable that a senior executive of a global company like Starwear would even countenance using child labour. Like Nathan, I didn’t think his own brother would tell an outright lie. Like Nathan, I took Jacob at his word.’
Cullen went on to relate how Jacob’s appointment as CEO, following Nathan’s death, had created immediate problems at Lombard. It was not only Jacob’s ‘erratic’ behaviour, it was also the imposition of Elliott North on Lombard, creating tensions both inside the agency and out. North, Cullen told the press, had made ‘crude and aberrant attempts to manipulate the media’ and had had to be disciplined. And it had been North who was the prime link with GlobeWatch which, Cullen told the rolling TV cameras, he had assumed to be a bona fide not-for-profit organisation.
Having staked out his defence in the clearest possible terms, Cullen glanced about the assembled throng before raising both hands in the air, sending off a fresh explosion of flash-cubes.
‘Having said all that, I am not trying to shirk my responsibility,’ he said. ‘Lest you think I protest too much, let me say this: I was wrong to accept so unquestioningly the information my client gave me about his business; I was wrong not to dismiss Elliott North when his outrageous behaviour first became apparent; and I was wrong not to resign the Starwear account when it became clear that Jacob Strauss was intent on self-destruction.
‘I apologise now, fully and without reserve, for my agency’s unwitting support of Starwear’s horrifying crimes against children. And I promise that I will do my utmost to try to right my client’s wrongs. Quite apart from anything else, tonight I pledge one million pounds from Lombard to be used with immediate effect to free the child slaves abused by Starwear. And I’d encourage other City businesses to contribute to the Lombard Free the Children Appeal.’
His voice growing hoarse, and eyes shining, he ended, ‘When I think of those images we saw tonight …’ he shook his head, lips trembling with emotion, ‘who could not be moved?’
Watching all of this on television, Chris turned to Judith. ‘You know, I just can’t believe he’d be involved.’
She was staring at the screen. ‘If he is, he’s very plausible.’
‘D’you reckon he’s got us all fooled?’
She pulled a droll expression. ‘Well, he is in PR.’
At that moment the telephone went. Apart from Bernie himself, there was only one person who had their telephone number: Harvey Tilyard. Picking up the cordless receiver, Judith glanced at Chris significantly, before taking the phone into the bedroom. Chris carried on watching Cullen deftly fielding the inevitable barrage of questions, shouldering just the right amount of excusable blame while pointing the finger firmly at Jacob Strauss and his malevolent personal spin-meister.
