Fatal Deception Read online

  Bruno deliberately paused again, then said forcefully, 'As I intend that the Welford Observer shall show a profit. At the moment this paper is headed on the same downward spiral as the Gazette, but for different reasons. There, it was the staff that was behind the times, here it is mostly the plant and the format. Yes, there will be changes here, you can be sure of that. But not necessarily sweeping economies, although some will be made in certain departments. In fact I intend to invest a great deal of capital into the paper so that we can get rid of that antiquated machinery which you know as well as I do is completely out of date. And if you're thinking that modern machinery will require less manpower in that department, I'll tell you now that I intend to print a mid-week edition of the paper that will be distributed free to every household in the district. Hopefully this will attract a good deal more revenue in advertisements, another aspect of the paper that I intend to concentrate on.' He gave them time to take that in, then said emphatically, 'The Observer must be made to pay. And it's going to take the hard work of all of us to do that. Remember that all of us here are the Observer. We're a team and must pull together, not against one another. I need your help; I can't do it alone. And I hope you'll give it to me.' He looked round at the sea of eyes and gave them one of his charming grins. 'I've talked for so long I could even drink a cup of that terrible coffee from the vending machine—which is one of the first things we're going to improve on.'

  There was a general sound of endorsing laughter as Bruno moved to turn away, but Norrie stepped forward and said quickly, 'Just a moment.'

  Bruno's face hardened as he recognised her voice and turned to face her. 'Yes?'

  Norrie's chin came up defiantly and she made sure her voice carried to all corners of the big room. 'You've told us a great deal that sounds very encouraging, Mr Denton,' she said with heavy sarcasm. 'But can you guarantee that no one here will lose their jobs?'

  For a moment Bruno just looked at her without answering, an angry gleam in his dark eyes, then he said quite steadily, 'No, Miss Peters, I cannot. If I think that someone is below standard, not pulling their weight, or being particularly bloody-minded, then that person will have to go.'

  'Thank you,' Norrie said triumphantly into the shocked silence. 'That's all I wanted to know.'

  Bruno looked at her for a moment longer before giving a curt nod, then strode out of the room.

  There was silence for a minute as he went out of the office and then uproar as everybody started talking at once. Both Ted and Sue turned to Norrie and spoke excitedly but she didn't hear them. Although no one else in the room knew it, that last glance that she and Bruno had exchanged had been a tacit declaration of war. He knew that she was going to fight him to the bitter, end, and she had no doubt that he would do the same. She shivered suddenly, as if someone had walked over her grave, and looked at Sue rather dazedly as she said, 'Good for you, Norrie. You really floored him with that last question.'

  'That's as maybe,' Ted reminded them warningly. 'But if he is going to put money into the paper that will carry a lot of weight. We've been crying out for new machinery for years. And this idea of a free midweek paper is a good one, you can't deny that.'

  Norrie looked at Ted in some dismay, realising that Bruno's new ideas and his power of persuasion had half won him over already. 'Modern machinery needs less people to run it,' she pointed out tartly. 'You're not going to just wait around and see who he's going to get rid of, are you?'

  'No, we need to get an undertaking from Denton now that he won't make anyone redundant/ Sue insisted.

  Ted got back up on his box, called for order and eventually managed to get it, but the meeting went on for a good hour afterwards before it was agreed that Ted and a couple of other union representatives would ask for a further meeting with Bruno to find out exactly what he was going to do, what staff alterations he was going to make, and whether he was going to ask for any voluntary redundancies. Norrie was hoping for something more active but was pleased that they were at least doing something. They were forewarned and could put up a fight. Someone suggested that she should be one of the representatives but she hastily refused; stirring everyone up to oppose Bruno was one thing, having to face him again was quite another.

  Not a lot of work was done at the Observer that day. Everyone was discussing the union meeting and airing their own views on what should have been done or said. Norrie went back to Sue's office feeling mentally exhausted, the high adrenalin all drained away, and she was glad to sit and let the talk wash over her for a while. But then she remembered that Ben was with the baby-minder and the woman charged by the hour so she hastily said goodbye and dashed off. It was nearly lunch-time and the main road through the town was heavy with traffic; Norrie had to wait at the crossing outside the Observer office for several impatient minutes before she could get across. As she waited she had the peculiar feeling that she was being watched, but it wasn't until she got to the other side that she remembered that Bruno had seen her come into the building. Stepping on to the pavement, she let the crowd go round her and turned to look back. Bruno was standing at the window of the Board Room, watching her. For several moments their eyes held, but then he lifted a hand in a mocking salute and Norrie quickly turned and walked rapidly away.

  Over the weekend, Norrie worked on a couple of features that she'd had in mind for some time and that didn't need too much research, but she found it difficult to keep her mind on her work. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Bruno and the colossal row they'd had after he'd sacked her father. She had been almost hysterically furious, hurling abuse at him, unable to take it in that the man she loved had betrayed her in this way. Bruno had been quite cool and had tried to reason with her at first, but then he, too, had been goaded into emotional anger, telling her to grow up and face reality. They had said some really hurtful things to each other then; she had even lied and called him a lousy lover because she knew that would hurt him most. He had looked murderous and she thought he was going to hit her, but instead he had become icy cold and withdrawn, saying bitingly, 'You're behaving like a spoilt, hysterical teenager. I want a woman not a child. When you come to your senses and realise that you're an individual and not Daddy's little girl any more, call me.' And then he'd walked out on her yelled insults. Within two weeks he'd appointed a new editor and left the town. Norrie hadn't seen him because she'd taken her father away for a holiday to try and help him get over it, not that it had done any good at all, if anything he was even more bitter and miserable. When they got back she'd found a letter from Bruno waiting for her, but she'd still been so angry that she'd torn it through without opening it and burnt the remains. He hadn't written again and she hadn't expected him to; Bruno wasn't the type to take a second rebuff.

  Taking the easy way out, Norrie posted the two feature articles off to Sue and didn't go into the office again until Wednesday. Already changes were being made; the reception area was being redecorated and modernised with a built-in counter instead of the two old desks. 'And there's going, to be easy chairs and a low table where customers can sit and discuss what they want with us,' one of the girls explained excitedly. 'We're going to have a whole new image.'

  Sue, too, was busy. 'We're probably going to need to have at least one more feature every week especially for the new mid-week edition,' she told Norrie happily. 'Probably with the emphasis on some feature within the area. Can you take on any more work, Norrie, or are your hands full with Ben?'

  'Yes, of course I can. I have too much spare time,' Norrie admitted. 'And Ben's going to nursery school every morning next term which will help.'

  'Good.' Sue put the end of her pen in her mouth and chewed it reflectively. 'Of course you're still restricted to using public transport. It would help if you had a car, you know. You could get all around the area then, not just in the town.'

  'I've managed okay without one so far. Taking on a little more work would hardly cover the expense of a car, Sue.'

  'No, I suppose not. Still ...
'

  'Was it Bruno Denton's idea that I'd be more useful if I had a car?' Norrie demanded.

  'What? Oh no, it was mine. He just suggested that our features could now cover a wider area.'

  'So you've been talking to him?'

  'Yes.' Sue looked at her a little awkwardly. 'I know that in your eyes he's a louse, but honestly, Norrie, he does have some really good ideas. For instance, he ...'

  'Not just in my eyes,' Norrie interrupted tartly. 'What about all the people he's sacked in his time?' She leaned forward, saying urgently, 'Can't you see what he's doing? He's trying to charm you into being on his side. And succeeding, too, by the sound of it. That's his way, Sue. He'll butter you up with talk of more features, make you feel important, possibly even hint at a rise, and you'll probably be okay as long as you go along with him, but if you want to do things your way instead of his—then you'll be in for a nasty shock. Opposing Bruno Denton is what he calls sheer bloody-mindedness. Remember?'

  Sue looked at her and gave a puzzled shake of her head. 'I honestly don't know what to believe any more. He certainly seems okay on the surface, but if what you say is true ... Perhaps he's changed since you knew him,' she suggested hopefully.

  Norrie shook her head emphatically. 'Why should he? I can't see it. What happened when the union delegates went to see him?'

  'Bruno said that he didn't envisage having to make any staff cuts but he assured them that if he had to he would call for voluntary redundancies first and that full payments and compensation would be paid. And you know, Norrie, there are a couple of men in the linotype room who are nearly sixty and would be glad to take early retirement.'

  Norrie saw all right; Sue's use of Bruno's Christian name told her that the other girl had completely changed sides since she'd seen her last. One talk with Bruno and he had Sue eating out of his hand, she thought bitterly. For a startled moment she wondered if Bruno would use the same tactics here as he had in Devon and become Sue's lover to get the inside information he wanted on the staff of the Observer; the kind of information that doesn't appear in the Personnel records but all your workmates know; whether a man drinks too much, if a marriage is breaking up, who's having an affair with whom. The kind of gossip that could be used as moral blackmail when Bruno wanted to get his own way. But the thought of Sue and Bruno together was more than Norrie could take and she quickly changed the subject, handing over her work and asking for her next assignment.

  'I thought we might do an article on that shell grotto over in Radbury. It's falling into decay, evidently, and some publicity might ginger up the local council or historical society to take it over and try to preserve it.'

  'Whereabouts in Radbury is it? I've never even heard of the place,' Norrie admitted.

  'I'm not surprised. It isn't open to the public or anything. It's actually a series of underground rooms. Some eccentric millionaire had them built in his garden in the nineteenth century on the lines of the Hell Fire Caves in High Wycombe. There's a meeting-room and a robing-room, that kind of thing. And every room is lined with patterns made out of sea-shells and bits of marble, from what I can gather. I seem to remember that there's just one old man who keeps an eye on the place; stops the vandals and courting couples from getting in there. If you ask around in the village someone's bound to know who he is.'

  'Okay. When do you want it?'

  'Next week, if you can. Oh, and try and find out when we can send a photographer round, will you?'

  When Norrie left Sue she stood in the corridor indecisively for a few seconds, then made her way to the linotype room. Ted Burtenshaw was okay, but there were several younger, more left wing men who also worked there. She managed to beckon one of them over without attracting anyone else's attention and confided her worries to him. 'Isn't there anything we can do, Dave?' she asked.

  'You know what they're like here; won't move a muscle until you put a bomb under them. And anyway, they don't think they've got anything to protest about.'

  'And they won't have until it's too late to do anything about it. Did they get the assurances from the new management in writing?'

  'No, they just took Denton's word for it. Ted said he felt we could trust him.'

  'Oh Lord, not Ted too! I thought he had more sense.'

  'Tell you what I'll do,' Dave offered. 'I'll get in touch with union headquarters, and maybe I'll do a bit of printing on my own account. That might stir things up a bit.'

  'Great. Let me know if I can help,' Norrie enthused.

  Dave slipped an arm round her waist. 'How about coming out for a drink tonight to talk it over?'

  Norrie moved neatly away from him. 'Shame on you, and you a married man.'

  He gave a leering grin. 'What difference does that make? You're not the kind of girl to let a little thing like that get in the way, now are you? You've been around.'

  'Goodbye, Dave.' Norrie walked away and left him, realising, by no means for the first time, that looking after a toddler who not only bore your surname but also looked like you, could have more disadvantages than the obvious ones. But it had been worth it to try and get something moving. Dave disliked capitalism almost as much as she disliked Bruno and would get far more notice taken of him at headquarters than she ever would if she'd gone there.

  She spent most of that afternoon on the telephone, trying to find out the name of the man who looked after the grotto at Radbury, and eventually tracked him down via the local vicar, the sexton, the village shop and a neighbour who obligingly went along to the old man's house to fetch him. He turned out to be a bit deaf and the call turned into a three-sided conversation with the neighbour talking to Norrie and then shouting in the old man's ear. They arranged, after about ten minutes of explanation, for Norrie to go over to see the caves the next morning, and she then 'phoned Sue to ask if the photographer was free.

  'Just a minute, I'll check. I'm glad you managed to find him, the grotto should make an interesting feature.' Norrie heard a man's voice in the background while she waited and then Sue explaining about the feature before breaking off to speak on the internal phone. 'He can't make it tomorrow, Norrie,' she came back. 'He'll have to go some other time. Let him have the details, will you?'

  'All right, I'll drop them in tomorrow on my way back.'

  'What time are you going?'

  'There's a bus just after nine; I'll get that.' But she thought it better not to mention that the bus only went to the large village near Radbury and that she would have to walk the last two miles. Buses only went directly to the little village twice a day at seven-thirty in the morning and five-thirty in the evening, to collect and take home people who worked in the town. Norrie owned a bicycle and thought of taking that, but Radbury was at least thirteen miles away and she remembered one extremely steep hill that completely put her off the idea.

  Ben got dropped off at the nursery school as early as she could the next morning and then Norrie ran into the town square to catch the bus. It was already there and a few people were starting to get on, although there wasn't much of a queue at this time in the morning. As she sprinted across the square she was startled by the sound of a car horn close by so she stopped and looked round, thinking that she was about to be run down. But the only car around was a gold-coloured Jaguar sports car parked on the kerb. As she looked towards it the horn sounded again and she saw Bruno in the driving seat. Opening the window, he called out, 'I'm going your way; I'll give you a lift.'

  For a moment Norrie was too surprised to think, but then she glanced at the bus and saw the last person about to get on. 'But I'm not going your way,' she yelled back at him, and ran across to the bus, slipping through the doors just before they closed.

  ' 'Ere, you were cutting that a bit fine, weren't you?' the driver said in surprised admiration. 'Could have got yourself stuck, you could.'

  Norrie grinned at him, paying for her ticket and taking a seat half way along the almost empty bus. As it pulled away she looked out of the window, expecting to see Bruno driv
e off, but he fell in behind the bus, following it through the one-way system around the town. Norrie's heart skipped a couple of beats and she breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the main road and the gold car accelerated past.

  It wasn't until then that she began to wonder how he'd known where she was going and why he had bothered to offer her a lift anyway. The first he could have learnt from Sue presumably, but the second . . . that was completely baffling.

  The weather was quite bright and, as always, it gave her pleasure to drive through the countryside, to see the patchwork of crops growing in the fields, ranging from dark green to the bright yellow of mustard seed.

  It wasn't as scenically picturesque as her native Devon, but it would do, it would most certainly do. The bus took a meandering route through a dozen little villages, dropping off parcels and passengers along the way and going so slowly that Norrie looked anxiously at her watch; at this rate she would only have about an hour at the grotto before it would be time to get the bus back. Eventually it reached the terminus and Norrie got out with the last three passengers. She had been given directions and knew which way to go but when she turned to walk to her left she stopped precipitately. The gold Jaguar was parked nearby and Bruno was leaning against it, smoking a cigarette and looking as if he had all the time in the world.