Paper Money by Ken Follett Read Free Book Online

note.
     
    Eighteen, do you read .. I don't know, give her an aspirin ..." assault
    with a knife, not serious. where the hell have you been, Eighteen
     
    Herbert's attention strayed to the photograph on the mantelpiece above
    the boarded-in fireplace.
     
    The picture was flattering: Herbert had known this, twenty years ago,
    when she had given it to him; but now he had forgotten. Oddly, he did
    not think of her as she really had been, anymore.
     
    When he remembered her he visualized a woman with flawless skin and
    hand-tinted cheeks, posing before a faded panorama in a photographer's
    studio. ii ... theft of one color television and damage to a plexiglass
    window ..."
     
    He had been the first among his circle of friends to "lose the wife," as
    they would put it. Two or three of them had suffered the tragedy since:
    one had become a cheerful drunkard, another had married a widow.
     
    Herbert had buried his head in his hobby, radio. He began listening to
    police broadcasts during the day when he did not feel well enough to go
    to work, which was quite often. Grey Avenue, Golders Green, reported
    assault.1
     
    One day, after hearing the police talk about a bank raid, he had
    telephoned the Evening Post. A reporter had thanked him for the
    information and taken his name and address. The raid had been a big one
    quarter of a million pounds and the story was on the front page of the
    Post that evening. Herbert had been proud to have given them the
    tip-off, and told the story in three pubs that night. Then he forgot
    about it. Three months later he got a check for fifty pounds from the
    newspaper.
     
    With the check was a statement which read: "Two shot in 250,000 raid"
     
    and gave the date of the robbery. "leave it out, Charlie, if she won't
    make a complaint, forget it..
     
    The following day Herbert had stayed at home and phoned the Post every
    time he picked something up on the police wavelength. That afternoon he
    got a call from a man who said he was deputy news editor, who explained
    just what the paper wanted from people like Herbert. He was told not to
    report an assault unless a gun was used or someone was killed; not to
    bother with burglaries unless the address was in Belgravia, chelsea, or
    Kensington; not to report except when weapons were used or very large
    amounts of cash stolen. proceed to twenty-three, Narrow Road, and He got
    the idea quickly because he was not stupid, and the Post's news values
    were far from subtle. Soon he realized he was earning slightly more on
    his "sick" days than when he went to work. What was more, he preferred
    listening to the radio to inking boxes for cameras. So he gave in his
    notice, and became what the newspaper called an earwig.
     
    better give me that description now After he had been working full-time
    on the radio for a few weeks the deputy news editor came to his house-it
    was before he moved to the studio apartment to talk to him. The
    newspaper nan said Herbert's work was very useful to the paper, and how
    would he like to work for them exclusively? That would mean Herbert
    would phone tips only to the Post, and not to other papers. But he would
    get a weekly retainer to make up for the loss of income. Herbert did not
    say that he never had phoned any other papers. He accepted the offer
    graciously. sit tight and we'll get you some assistance in a few minutes
     
    Over the years he had improved both his equipment and his understanding
    of what the newspaper wanted; He learned that they were grateful for
    more or less anything early in the morning, but as the day wore on they
    became more choosy, until by about three P.M. nothing less than murder
    in the sbt or large-scale robbery with violence interested them. He also
    discovered that the paper, Like the police, was a lot less interested in
    a crime done to a colored man in a colored area. Herbert thought this
    quite reasonable, since he, as an Evening Post reader, was not much
    interested in what The wogs did