Exposure by Evelyn Anthony Page A

salaries and got himself a life peerage. He was the friend of ministers in the Government and courted by the Opposition. He was everything that Harold King intended to be at the apex of his own career. And his train of thought, sunny and optimistic on that morning, like the weather outside his window, switched to something his daughter Gloria had said on their way home from dinner at Mario’s. He listened to Gloria. She had his sharp eye for people, his jungle instincts.
    â€˜Did you know that woman, Daddy – the one with the red hair?’ He’d felt his wife’s eyes on him, knew that she tensed against some discovery of a fresh liaison, which Gloria would have enjoyed bringing into the open. Gloria didn’t care if he slept with women. She knew she was the only one that counted.
    â€˜No, why? I know who she is – she’s a journalist on the Herald . Why, Gloria?’
    â€˜Because she was looking at you, Daddy. The way you look when you hate somebody.’ His wife made a mistake, partly from relief.
    â€˜Don’t be silly, why should some stranger look at your father like that?’
    â€˜Shut up,’ he said curtly. ‘Gloria notices things. I got the same feeling. Funny you felt it too, sweetheart. Maybe I should run a check on her.’
    He hadn’t done anything about it until now, when one thought led from the Herald to its staff members.
    He reached into a silver box and brought out a cigar. He smoked, and he ate what he pleased. He had the blood pressure of an eighteen year old. He enjoyed flaunting it in the face of his doctors, proving that the rules for lesser men did not apply to him. And he was as potent as ever. Joe took care of that side of his life. Joe took care of a lot of things.
    Julia Hamilton. He’d follow Gloria’s instinct. Joe could nose around and see what he could pick up on her.
    He dialled an outside number. A woman on the other end said that Joe was in the sauna.
    â€˜Tell him I’ll boil his ass if he doesn’t get out of there. Now.’ He didn’t have to hold more than a couple of minutes.
    â€˜Mr King – sorry you had to wait.’
    â€˜Tell that stupid cow not to fob me off when I call,’ King snapped. ‘I want you up here right away. I’ve got something for you.’
    â€˜Give me fifteen minutes,’ the man called Joe said.
    â€˜Ten,’ King commanded and hung up.
    On the other end of the line, the man standing soaked in sweat, with a towel wrapped round his middle, turned to the coloured girl.
    â€˜Next time my boss calls, you just say hold on and get me – you understand?’
    She had big, frightened dark eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Joe – I’m sorry.’
    â€˜Next time’, he said, ‘you will be. Now get my fucking clothes.’
    Nessenberg was much smaller than Julia had expected. It curled up like a cat, snug, neat and prosperous. It was unaffected by the turmoil of reunification and the problem of refugees from the war-ravaged Balkans. The Nessenberghof was still there. Harris remarked that it looked exactly the same as it did ten years ago.
    It was comfortable and conservative. Their rooms were pleasant with views over the garden at the rear.
    â€˜It feels strange,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been to Germany and it’s not what I expected. Everyone smiles and seems so friendly.’
    â€˜And so they are – the south isn’t like Prussia; the southerners are famous for their charm, and for being the cradle of the bloody Nazis. I’ve found it easier to deal with the easterners. The Berliners are something else again. A race on their own. You’d like them. They enjoy life, and they stuck out after the war with that bloody Wall running through the middle of them. You must go there one day.’
    â€˜How do you know it so well?’ she asked him.
    â€˜My wife is German,’ he said. ‘We used to come over for