part of the risk, of the tension of dealing with men and exploiting their weaknesses. She dressed to dominate and to be in control. Power dressing. And in the tight-assed business circles of London it seemed to work all the more effectively. 'You're very direct, Miss Quine.'
'I prefer to cut through it rather than spread it. And I can play your game.' She sat back into the sofa and began counting off the carefully manicured fingers of her left hand. 'Ben Landless. Age . . . well, for your well-known vanity's sake, let's say not quite menopausal. A rough son-of-a-bitch who was born to nothing and now controls one of the largest press operations in this country.'
'Soon to be the largest,' he interrupted quietly.
'Soon to take over United Newspapers,' she nodded, 'when the Prime Minister you nominated, backed and got elected virtually single-handed takes over in a couple of hours' time and waves aside the minor inconvenience of his predecessor's mergers and monopolies policy. You must've been celebrating all night, I'm surprised you had the appetite for breakfast. But you have the reputation of being a man with insatiable appetites. Of all kinds. So what's on your mind, Ben?' She spoke almost seductively in an accent that had been smoothed and carefully softened but not obliterated. She wanted people to take notice and to remember, to pick her out from the crowd. So the vowels were still New England, a shade too long and lazy for London, and the sentiments often rough as if they had been fashioned straight from the dole queues of Dorchester.
A smile played around the publisher's rubbery lips as he contemplated his good fortune and her defiance, but his eyes remained unmoved, watching her closely. His humour seemed confined to the lower half of his face, not touching his eyes nor penetrating beneath the skin. There is no deal. I backed him because I thought he was the best man for the job, but there's no private pay-off. I shall take my chances, just like all the rest.'
She suspected that was the second lie of the conversation, but let it pass.
'Whatever else happens, it's a new era. A change of Prime Minister means fresh challenges. And opportunities. I suspect he'll be more relaxed about getting the wheels of business turning and letting people make money than was Henry Collingridge. That's good news for me. And potentially for you.'
'With all the economic indicators scooting downhill?'
'That's just the point. Your opinion-research company has been in business for . . . what, twenty months? You've made a good start, you're well respected. But you're small, and small boats like yours could be swamped if the economy gets rough over the next couple of years. Anyway, you've no more patience than I do in running a shoestring operation. You want to make it big, to be on top. And for that you need cash.'
'Not your cash. If I had newspaper money poured into my operation it would ruin every shred of credibility I've built. My business is supposed to be objective analysis, not smears and scares with a few naked starlets thrown in to boost circulation.'
He ran his thick tongue around his mouth as if trying absent-mindedly to dislodge a piece of breakfast. 'You underestimate yourself,' he muttered. He produced a toothpick, which he used like a sword-swallower to probe into a far corner of his jaw. 'Opinion polls are not objective analysis. They're news. If an editor wants to get an issue rolling he commissions people like you to carry out some research. He knows what answers he wants and what headline he's going to run, he just needs a few statistics to give the whole thing the smack of authenticity. Opinion polls are the weapons of civil war. Kill off a government, show the nation's morals are shot to hell, establish that we all love Palestinians or hate apple pie. You don't need facts, just the blessing of an opinion poll.'
He grew more animated as he warmed to his theme. His hands had come down from his mouth and were grasped in front of him as if throttling an incompetent editor. There was no sign of the toothpick; perhaps he had simply swallowed it, as he did most things which got in his way.
'Information is power,' he continued. 'And money. A lot of your work is done in the City, for instance, with companies involved in takeover bids. Your little polls tell them how shareholders and the financial