The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer Page B

the
paper, he often found it had been savagely cut.
    I don’t want to
know your opinions,” the old crime reporter would repeat.
    I just want the
facts.” Evans had done his training on the Manchester Guardian, and never tired
of repeating the words of C.P. Scott: “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.”
Keith decided that if he ever owned a newspaper, he would never employ anyone
who had worked for the Manchester Guardian.
    He returned to
St. Andrew’s for the second term, and used the leader in the first edition of
the school magazine to suggest that the time had come for Australia to sever
its ties with Britain. The article declared that Churchill had abandoned Australia
to its fate, while concentrating on the war in Europe.
    Once again the
Melbourne Age offered Keith the chance to disseminate his views to a far wider
audience, but this time he refused – despite the tempting offer of £20, four
times the sum he had earned in his fortnight as a cub reporter on the Courier.
He decided to offer the article to the
    Adelaide
Gazette, one of his father’s papers, but the editor spiked it even before he
had reached the second paragraph.
    By the second
week of term, Keith realized that his biggest problem had become how to rid
himself of Penny, who no longer believed his excuses for not seeing her, even
when he was telling the truth. He had already asked Betsy to go to the cinema
with him the following Saturday afternoon.
    However, there
remained the unsolved problem of how you dated the next girl before you had
disposed of her predecessor.
    At their most
recent meeting in the gym, when he suggested that perhaps the time had come for
them to... Penny had hinted that she would tell her father how they had been
spending Saturday afternoons. Keith didn’t give a damn who she told, but he did
care about embarrassing his mother. During the week he stayed in his study,
working unusually hard and avoiding going anywhere he might bump into Penny.
    On Saturday
afternoon he took a circuitous route into town, and met up with Betsy outside
the Roxy cinema. Nothing like breaking three school rules in one day, he
thought. He purchased two tickets for Chips Rafferty in The Rats of Tobruk, and
guided Betsy into a double seat in the back row. By the time ‘The End” flashed
up on the screen, he hadn’t seen much of the film and his tongue ached. He
couldn’t wait for next Saturday, when the First Eleven were playing away and he
could introduce Betsy to the pleasures of the cricket pavilion.
    He was relieved
to find that Penny didn’t try to contact him during the following week. So on
Thursday, when he went to post another letter to his mother, he fixed a date to
see Betsy on Saturday afternoon. He promised to take her somewhere she had
never been before.
    Once the first
team’s bus was out of sight, Keith hung around behind the trees on the north
side of the sports ground, waiting for Betsy to appear.
    After half an
hour he began to wonder if she was going to turn up, but a few moments later he
spotted her strolling across the fields, and immediately forgot his impatience.
Her long fair hair was done up in a ponytail, secured by an elastic band. She
wore a yellow sweater which clung so tightly to her body that it reminded him
of Lana Turner, and a black skirt so restricting that when she walked she had
no choice but to take extremely short steps.
    Keith waited for
her to join him behind the trees, then took her by the arm and guided her
quickly in the direction of the pavilion. He stopped every few yards to kiss
her, and had located the zip on her skirt with at least twenty-two yards still
to cover.
    When they
reached the back door, Keith removed a large key from his jacket pocket and
inserted it into the lock. He turned it slowly and pushed the door open,
fumbling around for the light switch. He flicked it on, and then heard the
groans. Keith stared down in disbelief at the sight that greeted him. Four eyes
blinked back up at