Michael Dobbs - Goodfellowe MP

The penthouse, which was used by Corsa as his London home and for which travellers in the lift required a computer access code, was a stunning modernist creation in steel and glass, shod with a suitable acreage of blond wood. It offered breath-snatching views along the river to where the new headquarters of Granite Newspapers nestled in the shadow of Canary Wharf, while its internal privacy and climate were secured by an adept use of computer-controlled sailcloth shades which surrounded the atrium on three sides. As much as Corsa insisted on being regarded as part of the press establishment, in private his tastes were eclectic, nonconformist, some might say even inconsistent. But never his purpose.

The journalist, when he was ushered onto the terracotta terrace overlooking the river, found Corsa surrounded by fig trees and seated on a planter’s chair, talking by telephone with his son’s headmaster.

‘Headmaster, Freddy Junior tells me you’re looking to replace your cricket pavilion. I’d like to help. The Granite Foundation is very keen on worthwhile educational projects. I’m sure they would want to look at it very closely.’

He waved for the journalist to take a seat. Tea was already set out on the table beside them. He indicated that the journalist should pour.

‘One point, Headmaster. If they are going to provide the bulk of the funds, I’m sure they would like to think that their name might find its way onto the pavilion. Not quite as important as the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery, perhaps, but the principle’s the same.’

On the river below a pleasure boat commandeered for a school outing to Greenwich sounded its klaxon and the children waved energetically. Corsa waved back.

‘Glad you agree. But, now you raise the subject, I’m not sure that something like the Granite Pavilion has quite the right personal touch. Bit too … solid for Sussex, wouldn’t you say? Maybe we’d better just call it the Corsa Pavilion.’ He winked at his guest, allowing him in on the game. ‘But there is one other point we need to discuss, if the subject is cricket. To be blunt, I can’t see how the school can have a Corsa Cricket Pavilion if it doesn’t have a Corsa in the cricket team.’

A silence fell as the headmaster was allowed to ponder the point.

‘Does it matter if his average was only eight last year?’ Corsa continued. ‘Those runs are worth five thousand pounds apiece if you get your new pavilion. It could be up in time for the annual game with Eton. So maybe it will cost you the match for the next two years, but it’ll save the team.’ He paused, then a glint of satisfaction crossed Corsa’s well-tanned face. ‘I felt sure you would feel that way about it, Headmaster. Pleasure talking to you.’

He replaced the phone and turned to his guest. ‘Don’t think I’m a soft touch – it’s not as painful as it sounds. Someone is sure to argue that as generous as my offer is, others should be asked to help raise some of the money. To foster team spirit. So I’ll end up offering matching sums, pound for pound. Get away with twenty grand, less than two years’ school fees.’ He declined to remind the visitor that in any event the money would not be coming from his own pocket but from the Foundation.

‘So, Mr Gooley, you want to become the Herald’s new City Editor.’

The young man slurped his tea in surprise. ‘I hadn’t realized there was a vacancy.’

‘There isn’t. Not yet at least. But imagine for a moment that there were. Why should you replace him?’

Gooley, put off-balance, wrestled awkwardly with his thoughts.

‘Why should it be you?’ Corsa repeated. ‘Or is that too difficult a question?’

‘It’s an unfair question.’

‘Yes, but I’m sure you’ll manage.’

Gooley returned his cup to the table, clearing the decks. He was a young man whose playing field of emotions stretched between enterprise and ambition, and the ground in between was exceptionally well trodden. He was not the sort of man to pass by an opportunity without launching himself at it with both kneecaps. It won him few friends, although the Herald’s City Editor might have counted himself amongst them, yet Gooley was still of an age where friends were little more than an audience.

‘OK. I’m a good journalist. I know the City, the institutions, how to gut a balance sheet.’

‘So do a hundred others.’

‘But far more important, I know men. City men. What drives them.’

‘Which is?’

‘Hunger.’

‘For fame?’

‘No, not in the City. Fame is for the gentlemen farther up the river at Westminster. That’s why they die poor and disappointed and in their own beds. In the City the hunger is for wealth. Money. Acquisition. And why so many of them die in other people’s beds. They’re warmer.’

Corsa was amused. ‘You sound as if you’ve made quite a study of this. Something of an academic, are you?’

It was the journalist’s turn to show amusement. ‘With my accent? You think I got that at university? No, Mr Corsa, I’m Oldham, not Oxford. Rugby league and Tandoori takeaway, that’s me, and I’ll waste your money on the finest claret only if it gets me a story. There’s nothing academic about me. I didn’t need books to understand the way the City men think. All I needed was a mirror.’

‘So we’re all avaricious, are we?’

‘Single-minded. Know what we want.’

‘And what do you want?’

Gooley looked carefully around the penthouse. His eyes were not adjusted to appreciate the refinement, the glow of Lalique, the elegant discomfort of the Mackintosh chairs. He was simply lost in the size of it all. ‘I’ll bet you’ve got a hundred silk ties in your wardrobe.’

‘A hundred and fifty.’ Corsa exaggerated, but the younger man’s eyes remained direct, disarmingly uncomplicated.

‘I want this, or something like this,’ he breathed. ‘I want to be part of it all. That’s why I want the opportunity to be your City Editor.’

Corsa’s appreciation of the man grew. ‘But along with the opportunities also go responsibilities. To me. I’m very much a hands-on proprietor. The City is my world, too, and I don’t like being taken by surprise.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘I’m talking a two-way relationship. I tell you what I know; you return the confidence. I want to feel it’s a team effort.’ Corsa was an excellent player of this particular game, flattering his journalists and editors into subservience, leaving their professional integrity intact while ensuring they did precisely what he intended. ‘It’s not that I want any inside information, you understand, but I need to know you’ve got your finger on the pulse. That the stories you print are well founded and not simply dreamed up over lunch. Understood?’

‘Sharing inside information with you would be highly unethical’ – Gooley paused for no more than the beating of a wing – ‘if you were to use it. I feel sure our relationship would be based on a deep and mutual trust. If I were your City Editor.’

‘Good. Very good.’ Corsa mused, then made up his mind. The present incumbent could go chew nut buns. ‘Very well, Jim, in the spirit of mutual trust let me give you something. News which you will be the first to hear. Not for printing yet, but I want you to think about it. You know that the Granite Group is the best damn company in the newspaper field, but the others are always snapping at us. And when these new European regulations come in there’s going to be one hell of a dog fight. So we are going to be as lean and as fit and as mean as possible.’

Corsa made chopping motions with his hand. Gooley nodded.

‘It means that our friend the current City Editor isn’t going to be the only one asked to fall upon his pen. I’ll be announcing more economies, more streamlining.’