Hunter’s television programme was called ‘Bill Hunter – Personal Investigator,’ and it had a subsidiary heading tacked on: ‘Presents the News Behind the News.’ The programme ran for a quarter of an hour each week, and consisted simply of an unscripted interview with some celebrated or notorious person. There were, however, unusual features about it. Most programmes billed as ‘unscripted’ are so only in name – the protagonists have discussed very thoroughly in advance the course that the programme is to take. Hunter, however, had stipulated from the start that he should not meet his subject in advance, or discuss a line of questioning with him. The questions might be disconcerting, the answers might come as a surprise to Hunter. The programme therefore rightly appeared to viewers as a battle of wits.
This impression was enhanced by the fact that the people interviewed had always a slightly gamey flavour about them. They were film stars famous for the number or nature of their love affairs, generals suddenly sacked or demoted, extreme Left or Right wing politicians, surprisingly rich American trade unionists, organisers of nudist colonies, former members of secret societies devoted to violence. To the watchers sitting comfortably in their armchairs it seemed that the people interviewed were being ruthlessly quizzed by a Personal Investigator who had discovered a complete range of skeletons in their cupboards.
In fact, the questions were all based upon the material unearthed by Hunter’s research assistant Charlie Cash, and Charlie’s research rarely went beyond industrious digging in old newspaper cuttings plus the fruits of intelligent guesswork from conversations with friends around Fleet Street. Occasionally questions based on Charlie’s speculations provoked unexpected reactions, and the person interviewed got really annoyed. These were the moments when the watchers in suburban semis wriggled most deliciously in their overstuffed armchairs, the moments that fixed the Personal Investigator in their minds as an inquisitorial father figure extracting secrets from mentally-tortured victims. The idea was seven-eighths illusion, but then, as Hunter sometimes reflected, wasn’t the whole apparatus and effect of TV designed to create an illusion? The difference between TV and the cinema, he had once heard someone say, was that while both created legendary figures, the cinema did not try to deny that they were fabulous while TV pretended that they were just homebodies like you and me.
Reality faced him now, however, reality quite undeniable, in the shape of Charlie Cash sitting across the table from him in Charlie’s little Fleet Street office, a dusty cubicle filled with law and reference books, quite remote from Jerry Wilton’s splendour of glass walls and chromium fittings. Charlie sat behind a table spilling over with papers. He had a long thin nose, sloping shoulders, and the hungry look of a good research man. He twisted a toothpick in his mouth.
‘Here’s the stuff on Nick the Greek.’ He handed over two large envelopes marked A and B. The first contained facts, the second what Charlie called his intelligent guesswork. There would be a separate page for each story, and appended to the story would be a note from Charlie about its origins and possible use. Charlie, with the aid of a secretary, gave this kind of service to a dozen people, and got well paid for it.
‘Is he a Greek?’
‘He’s rich, a crook, a commercial genius. Must be a Greek or an Armenian or a Jew, isn’t that right, statistics can’t lie. Anyway they say he carries a Greek passport, though there seems to be a bit of mystery about it.’
‘How does it strike you?’
Charlie looked down his long nose. ‘Not too good.’
‘Jerry thought we were on to a winner.’
‘Jerry believes what he reads in the papers. He doesn’t know a tiger from pussy. This Mekles is a nasty piece of work.’
‘We’ve handled nasty pieces of work before now.’
‘Yes, but this is different. The stuff about our friend Nick that Jerry is thinking of is really old hat. That girl who fell off the yacht, for instance, Lindy Powers –’
‘The film actress?’
‘That’s what they called her. She had a bit part in a B film, then lay around Hollywood until Mekles picked her up. Anyway, the press did that to death at the time. If you want to give it another going over, you can, but it’s stale stuff. Same with a lot of the rest of it. There was a story that he had some famous stolen paintings in his villa on the Riviera. Mekles showed reporters round, turned out the paintings had been bought through art dealers, only he’d bought shrewdly and cheaply. That sort of thing.’
‘Do you mean we haven’t got a story?’
‘You’ve got a story, only I don’t see how you’re going to tell it without landing up to your neck in slander. And other trouble too, I dare say. Nasty revengeful type friend Nick is said to be.’
‘What’s the story, then?’
‘There are half a dozen, and they’re all poison. You know the international groups controlling tarts are supposed to have taken a knock since the Messina brothers were put inside? So that the import of French tarts into Britain by marriages of convenience almost stopped, for instance? Well, in the last few months the organisation has got a lot tighter again. Mekles is said to be one of two or three people controlling it. Then drugs – he’s said to have both the import-export and the distribution ends tied up. It’s distribution that’s the problem as you know, getting the stuff into and out of the country is easy here, not like the States. Fake antiques is another sideline – there’s still a ready sale for them in the States, though Americans have smartened up a lot in the last few years and look twice at worm holes made with a drill. But Mekles has an east end factory turning out the stuff.’
‘Let’s get down to cases, Charlie. How much of this can I use?’
Charlie dropped the toothpick into a waste basket, picked another. ‘I thought I’d made that plain. None of it.’
‘None of it?’
‘I don’t see how you can. It’s all B stuff. I know it, but there’s no proof. Take the factory. It runs as a perfectly straight concern, making cheap furniture that falls to bits when you use it. Now, a pal of mine named Jack Foldol, a bookie’s tout, knows the manager at this factory, a White Pole, if you know what I mean, named Kosinsky. One day Kosinsky told him about the other stuff they made, and the prices they got for it. Kosinsky also said that one day Myerson, that’s the man who’s supposed to own the place, had made a terrific fuss about an important conference, cleared everyone out of the place. Kosinsky was curious, managed to hang around, saw Mekles arrive, recognised him from newspaper photographs. Kosinsky hasn’t any doubt it was Mekles, heard a little bit of what they were saying, enough to know that Mekles was giving Myerson orders.’
‘If it was Mekles.’
‘That’s what I mean. It’s all hearsay stuff. I told you you couldn’t use it.’
‘Does Mekles come here often? From the way Jerry spoke I thought this was a first visit.’
‘Hell, no, he’s been in England a dozen times. Why should they keep him out, he’s a solid citizen. It’s a headache, and I’m glad it’s yours.’
Hunter nodded, took the envelopes. He had, even now, no warning presentiment. He had made good programmes out of less promising material.
‘How’s Anna?’ It was a question Charlie never forgot to ask. ‘That’s a great little woman, Bill. One of these days I’m going to come along and take her away from you. In the meantime, don’t forget to kiss her foot for me, will you?’
On that Monday night he stepped into the hotel’s revolving door, was whirled round, and then whirled round again before he got out. Inside he spoke to a commissionaire. ‘Mekles,’ he said, ‘Mr Nicholas Mekles.’
On the commissionaire’s face there was a fine glaze of disapproval. ‘Mr Mekles is on the fourth floor, sir.’
Are your eyes fixed so that you can’t look at me when you speak? he wanted to ask. But before he could say anything a voice called from the other side of the reception hall and he saw Jerry Wilton, sweating and anxious.
‘Been looking out for you, Bill. How are you?’
‘How should I be? Hot.’ Outside the night was hot, in here it was cool, but the air conditioning had a stifling effect. He wanted to pull his shirt collar open.
‘We’re all set. Less than quarter of an hour to spare.’ Jerry managed to sound reproachful. ‘I’ve been talking to Mekles. He seems a nice little chap, most co-operative. Just time for a word with him, if you’d like one.’
‘No, thanks.’ Jerry always wanted him to talk to the subjects, and he always refused. ‘I’d like a drink.’
‘A drink, yes, of course.’ Jerry’s anxiety was perceptibly increased, but he was brave about it. ‘There’s a bar round to the left. Let’s make it a quick one, you know me, just a time slave, like to be on the platform half an hour before the train goes.’
While they drank whisky Jerry turned round a ring on his finger, tapped the counter, scratched one leg with the other, did everything but look at his watch. ‘How did the programme come along?’
‘Terrible. Just terrible!’
‘What’s that?’ Jerry looked as though he had heard a priest reading from a handbook on atheism.
‘I told you, terrible. We like to play with squibs and you’ve given me a stick of dynamite. You’d better hope I won’t set a match to it.’ He held out his glass for another whisky.
Jerry stared, then laughed. ‘You aren’t serious, Bill.’
‘Perfectly serious.’ What makes me needle him, Hunter wondered, even though the needling is the truth, and it probably will be a terrible programme?
When they got out of the lift at the fourth floor flexes were trailing all over the place. Two electricians were hanging about, and there was a stocky man with a cauliflower ear in the corridor.
‘One of Mekles’ bodyguards,’ Jerry whispered. ‘He really does have them. And do you know, Bill, he’s taken the whole bloody floor? What it is to be rich, eh?’ Admiration was blended with envy in Jerry’s voice.
‘What it is to come out on top in the rat race.’
Jerry looked at him, said nothing. They turned left into the room where the telecast was to take place, and Hunter walked under the intense heat of the arcs. Three or four people began talking to him at once. Would he sit down in his special chair, raise his head, raise his hand, lean forward. He did all that. While the make-up men were working on his face, brushing his jacket, he saw Charlie Cash hovering in the background, and raised a hand.
Charlie came over. ‘You’ve got everything?’
‘In here.’ Hunter tapped his head.
‘Got a line to work on?’
‘I put my trust in God.’
‘You believers.’ Charlie turned down the corners of his mobile comedian’s mouth, went away.
Jerry Wilton walked over to an inner room, opened the door, spoke to somebody there, came back.
‘We’re on in one minute. Quiet, please.’
There was silence. Hunter could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He wanted to wipe his forehead, but didn’t dare to do so. The green light showed and he heard a voice full of synthetic excitement and enthusiasm saying:
‘And now we bring you again our News Behind the News programme, with Personal Investigator Bill Hunter in another candid, unscripted, no-holds-barred interview with one of the most interesting personalities in London this week, with –’
Now on more than a million television screens the announcer’s face was replaced by Hunter’s, and he began to talk: ‘–a modern mystery man, Mr Nicholas Mekles. To many of us Mr Mekles is a name. We know of him as the owner of a shipping fleet. He is lucky enough to have a fabulous villa on the Riviera and an equally fabulous yacht. He is reputed to exercise control over a dozen different organisations. Some people say he is the richest man in the world.’ Hunter paused, so that his next words should take on an emphasis that was not in his voice. ‘How has Mr Mekles reached his present position? Where did the money come from? Those are two of the intriguing questions I propose to ask this man of mystery. Mr Mekles is paying one of his occasional visits to London – he has taken the whole fourth floor of the Park Lane Grand Hotel, and it’s from a room in his suite that I am talking to you. And now, let’s meet the man of mystery.’
The cameras followed him as he walked across the room and tapped on the inner door. This door opened and Mekles came out, a man like a very elegant lizard, olive-skinned and sweetly smiling, with small snapping dark eyes.
The two men sat down, Hunter with his back to the cameras so that the audience looked past him at Mekles. For the rest of the programme the watchers would never see Hunter’s face. The effect had been adapted from an American programme, to give the impression of a man being judged rather than questioned. The cameras shifted occasionally to give a glimpse of Hunter’s shoulder as they looked over it, or to show the back of his head. Mekles, beyond him and in a lower chair, looked like a criminal undergoing interrogation.
Open mildly. ‘Can you tell me, Mr Mekles, how this man-of-mystery label got attached to you?’
The little man in the chair below him shrugged. His tongue shot out, briefly licked narrow lips. His voice was low, musical, the words perfectly comprehensible but the stress on syllables foreign. ‘I am a businessman. What is there mysterious about that? This man of mystery, you know, I think he does not exist. He has been invented by newspaper reporters looking for a story.’ His smile broadened. ‘Perhaps by television interviewers too.’
The victim should not answer back. Hunter said sharply, ‘A businessman. What kind of business?’
‘Any kind that is offered. I buy things cheap, I sell them at a profit. That kind of business.’
‘Three years ago your name was mentioned in connection with an international report into the control of prostitution in Europe, and the shifting of prostitutes from one country to another.’ Mimicking Mekles’ accent slightly, Hunter asked, ‘That kind of business?’
It was his belief that the only way in which the interview could take on some sort of life was by his angering Mekles. To his disappointment the little man seemed unmoved. He said carefully, ‘As you know, I am sure, I was cleared of any suggestion that I had any connection with such horrible traffic.’
‘You own a shipping fleet?’ Mekles inclined his head. ‘Is it a fact that several ships of that fleet sank with valuable cargo on board?’
‘Four ships only.’
‘And that the insurance companies concerned refused to pay on the ground that the ships were not seaworthy?’
No feeling of any sort showed in the little dark eyes. ‘Not at all. One of the insurance companies paid without question. The other refused to pay, on what I could only regard as a pretext. I took the only step available to me.’
Incautiously Hunter asked, ‘What was that?’
‘I bought the insurance company.’ Without raising his voice Mekles said, ‘I am quite a respectable man, I assure you, Mr Hunter. As respectable as you are, perhaps. I have big oil interests, I own a great deal of property, some of it in England. Would you like me to tell you about that?’
The interview was going badly, creating the wrong impression. It was almost as though Mekles were the interrogator and Hunter the man under questioning. And it was hot, too hot under the arc lamps. Hunter felt the heat striking at him, soaking his shirt, making his collar limp, beating at his eyes and forehead, as he went on asking questions, making wild roundhouse verbal swings which Mekles parried with almost contemptuous ease, saying that there was no mystery about his passport, it had been issued by the Greek Government, there was no mystery about his origin, he was a Greek citizen, he had come to England merely for pleasure. ‘It is a very nice country,’ he said. ‘Your policemen are wonderful. Also your television interviewers.’
Hunter discovered in himself a dislike, almost hatred, for the little man sitting opposite him. He remembered suddenly a note made by Charlie Cash. ‘Mekles is supposed to be here to get in touch with Melville Bond, ex-MP, businessman, director Bellwinder Tool Co. Some sort of shady deal proposed, Mekles boss, Bond carrying out instructions. Like the furniture factory I told you about.’ Underneath came Charlie’s comment: ‘Unconfirmed. Don’t know what it’s all about. Just info., not to use.’
Sometimes a shot in the dark could be successful. It had happened before, it could happen again. He said, ‘So you are here purely for pleasure?’
‘Purely. I find all sorts of things pleasant. Even an interview like this one when I am being – what do you call it? – grilled.’
‘Business absolutely doesn’t enter into it?’
Sharply Mekles said, ‘It does not.’
Hunter leaned forward. The camera, looking down, showed his broad shoulders, the back of his head. ‘Do you know a man named Melville Bond?’
There was a flicker of hesitation, no more. ‘No.’
‘You haven’t been in touch with him?’
‘Not at all.’
‘You have done no business with him?’
‘None whatever.’
There was something here. Hunter could feel it. He said encouragingly, ‘Perhaps you used another name for the purpose? Or approached him through an agent? In an important business deal you might well not wish to appear personally.’
‘I have no knowledge whatever of Mr Bond.’ Mekles drew back in the chair, put out his tongue again, and Hunter was suddenly aware of danger, of a transformation from lizard to snake. ‘And on the question of using false names you have personal knowledge, I think.’
The attack was so sudden that Hunter was jolted by it, committed again the mistake of allowing Mekles the initiative. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that your name is not Hunter but O’Brien. You have spent several years in prison for a crime which I will be friendly enough not to name. I cannot admit that you have any right to ask me such questions as you have done. I must ask you to excuse me.’
All this the viewers in suburban semis delightedly heard and saw; saw, too, the bulk of the interviewer as Hunter stepped down from his chair and moved towards Mekles, arms swinging. Then the transmission was cut off and replaced by an urbane announcer, apologising.
In the room, Hunter barely grazed Mekles’ jaw with a right swing. He heard Jerry and Charlie Cash both crying out, and turned just in time to take a blow on the side of the face from the man with the cauliflower ear. He slipped sideways, tripped over one of the trailing wires, was conscious of thunderous bangs and crashes all about him, and then knew nothing more.