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CHAPTER ONE
‘COME on in, Storm,’ David Winters invited, when he saw the familiar female shape of his Advertising Controller hovering anxiously outside his office door.
‘I’ve only been back a few minutes,’ he added, as Storm did as she was bid, dropping a light kiss on her cheek.
‘Yes, I know,’ Storm agreed, too preoccupied to question the almost passionless embrace and her own lack of reaction to it. She and David had been going out together for over a year and although Storm had no doubts about her love for him she acknowledged that it did lack the passionate intensity she had heard discussed among her contemporaries. But this was how she wanted it. With David she felt safe; their relationship was as comfortable as a well worn shoe. And as boring? She dismissed the thought as disloyal and concentrated instead on the news which had brought her to his office in the first place.
David was the controller and one of the shareholders in the independent radio station, he and his team ran from the small market town of Wyechester, broadcasting throughout the Cotswolds. Still in its very early infancy, the station had been going through a bad patch lately, with audience ratings dropping and complaints from several of their backers who had looked upon the venture as a potential source of unlimited revenue. Privately Storm thought David could have done far better in his choice of co-shareholders, but she was far too loyal to him to say so.
Three weeks ago he had been summoned to London for a discussion concerning the future of the radio station, with the Independent Broadcasting Authority, and it was the results of this discussion that had brought Storm hot-foot to David’s office. Passionately dedicated to the success of their venture, she asked anxiously.
‘Well, how did it go? Are they going to revoke our licence?’
David shook his head.
‘It’s not quite as bad as that,’ he assured her.
‘Oh, David! You managed to persuade them to give us another chance!’
For a moment he seemed about to agree, and then he admitted unhappily:
‘Not me. It was all Jago Marsh’s doing.’
‘Jago Marsh?’ Storm stared at him. ‘How did he come to be involved? I should have thought the great white wonder of the media was far too lordly to involve himself in our paltry affairs,’ she said bitterly.
Jago Marsh had an unparalleled reputation in the world of independent television and radio. Storm had only seen him in the flesh once. She had been a student at the time and he had visited her college to give a lecture.
How excited she had been at the time! He had been something of a hero to her in those days. Everyone who knew anything about the media knew of his meteoric rise to fame and fortune. He had started with the B.B.C. and then progressed to various independent radio stations before starting up his own channel in London and turning it into an overnight success.
Storm had soon been disillusioned, though. Oh, his lecture had been stimulating enough, and his darkly handsome face and athletic physique had given him a presence it was hard to ignore. However, he had concluded his lecture on a note which Storm personally thought unwarranted and cheap.
Her own interest in advertising had developed while she was still at school, coupled with an enthusiasm for local radio which had led to her wholehearted belief that for the small, local business, there was no better form of advertising, and to this end she was determined to find herself the sort of job that would give free rein to her enthusiasm.
It had come rather as a douche of cold water, therefore, to hear Jago Marsh, whose career she had followed with such interest, announce in his crisply autocratic voice that by and large he considered that the field of local radio was best left to the male sex.
He had elaborated on this claim by adding that it was his experience that girls looked upon local radio as a stepping stone to a television career with all its attendant glamour.
His accusations had stung and Storm considered them grossly unfair. She had wanted to tell him as much, but the length of his lecture had left no time for questions.
Still nursing her indignation, she had seen him leaving the college. A long, sleek car was waiting for him and in it sat a perfectly groomed blonde, her voice clearly audible to Storm as she murmured seductively, ‘Ah, there you are at last, darling. I thought you must have been detained by one of those wretchedly adoring little girls one always meets at these places.’
Jago Marsh’s reply had been equally clear.
‘They wouldn’t have detained me for long. Adoration has always bored me, although most of the time I suspect that it’s merely a means to an end—you can have my body if I can have a job. If I had my way women would be banned from the media entirely.’
He was despicable, Storm had seethed, watching him drive carelessly away, but from that day on she had doubled her efforts to do well at college, determined that if and when she was fortunate enough to get a job she would do it as well as—and better than—any man.
Aware of her anger, David wondered where she got her unbounded energy from. Hair the colour of sun-warmed beech leaves curled riotously round a small heart-shaped face. Eyes of a deep, misty-violet frowned determinedly behind a fringe of thick dark lashes, her small chin tilted firmly as she waited for his reply.
‘It was unfortunate that he should be there.’ David admitted. ‘I bumped into him in the foyer. We started in the B.B.C. together. He asked me what I was doing in town.’ He shrugged tiredly. ‘He could have found out easily enough anyhow, so I told him, and the next thing I knew he’d taken over.’
Typical of the man, Storm thought briefly.
‘I suppose I ought to be grateful to him for salvaging something. I’m sure the Authority were going to revoke our licence. Those last opinion poll results about our programmes were pretty damning. Of course Jago didn’t lose any time in pointing out to me that we were badly under-capitalised.’
Privately Storm had to acknowledge that this was quite true. Apart from the small amount of shares held by David the major proportion of the remainder were held by a local businessman, Sam Townley, who owned a large supermarket chain. Storm did not like Sam. She thought him both grasping and inclined to cut corners where he thought it might be to his own advantage, and he was very begrudging of the money spent on what was really basic equipment for the radio station. It had been Storm’s opinion for a long time that David should seek another investor, but he had not seemed inclined to agree, and in some ways she blamed their present problems on this reluctance, although she would never have admitted it to a soul. The shortage of money had made it impossible for them to branch out in ways that might have ensured their success, but it didn’t help to hear her own views reinforced by Jago Marsh.
‘Does he have any sug
gestions as to how we might improve our capital?’ Storm enquired sarcastically.
David regarded her unhappily.
’Not our capital, perhaps, but as far as our services go, he had plenty to say.’
He paused, and something in his expression communicated itself to Storm.
‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ she asked slowly. ‘Something you haven’t told me.’
David had his back to her. At thirty-two he had already developed a vaguely defensive stoop, his fair hair falling untidily over his eyes, the suit he had worn for his journey to London, hanging a little loosely on his narrow frame.
‘The only way the I.B.A. would agree to continue our licence was if Jago came in with us in an advisory capacity.’
For a moment Storm was too taken aback to speak, and then she rallied, exclaiming bitterly:
‘And how is he supposed to do that? The last thing I heard was that he was off on a lecture tour of the States—I read it in the paper only the other week. But I suppose he’s so egotistical that he thinks he can advise us, give his lecture tour and run his own station all at the same time. After all, a small venture like ours shouldn’t take up more than half an hour or so of his time every other week. Is that it? I suppose we ought to be grateful,’ she added before David could speak. ‘At least he’ll be out of our hair, but it makes me so mad. When we eventually do make a success of the station—and we will, I know we will, he’ll collect all the congratulations and we’ll have done all the work.’
‘It’s not going to be quite like that, Storm,’ David told her. ‘Jago isn’t going to the States. He’s cancelled his tour, and he says the London station is running perfectly now. He’s pretty confident of the management he’s got down there. He’s got interests in television too, of course, but right now what he’s looking for, so he told me, is a new challenge, a chance to get back to the roots of local radio and see how it’s changed in the last decade. He’s coming down here, Storm, to run the station himself.’
Storm had grown steadily paler as David delivered this speech. Now she stared at him in disbelief.
‘He can’t be!’ she objected. ‘Oh, David, surely you didn’t agree to that!’
‘I didn’t have much chance,’ he told her defensively. ‘The I.B.A. were all for it. As far as they’re concerned he can’t do any wrong. He had plenty of pull with them, I could tell that right away. How could I make them listen to me? They’ve given us another three months to try and turn the corner and…’
‘They?’ Storm asked dangerously, her eyes flashing. ‘Or Jago Marsh? What does he hope to prove by doing this?’
