The Big Story Read online

  MORRIS LANGLO WEST was born in St Kilda, Melbourne, in 1916. At the age of fourteen, he entered the Christian Brothers seminary ‘as a kind of refuge’ from a difficult childhood. He attended the University of Melbourne and worked as a teacher. In 1941 he left the Christian Brothers without taking final vows. During World War II West worked as a code breaker, and for a time he was private secretary to former prime minister Billy Hughes.

  After the war, West became a successful writer and producer of radio serials. In 1955 he left Australia to build an international career as a writer and lived with his family in Austria, Italy, England and the USA. West also worked for a time as the Vatican correspondent for the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. He returned to Australia in 1982.

  Morris West wrote 30 books and many plays, and several of his novels were adapted for film. His books were published in 28 languages and sold more than 70 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than one million copies.

  West received many awards and accolades over his long writing career, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W.H. Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature for The Devil’s Advocate. In 1978 he was elected a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1985, and was made an Officer of the Order (AO) in 1997.

  Morris West died at his desk in 1999.

  THE MORRIS WEST COLLECTION

  FICTION

  Moon in My Pocket (1945,as Julian Morris)

  Gallows on the Sand (1956)

  Kundu (1957)

  The Big Story (US title: The Crooked Road) (1957)

  The Concubine (US title: McCreary Moves In) (1958)

  The Second Victory (US title: Backlash) (1958)

  The Devil’s Advocate (1959)

  The Naked Country (1960)

  Daughter of Silence (1961)

  The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963)

  The Ambassador (1965)

  The Tower of Babel (1968)

  Summer of the Red Wolf (1971)

  The Salamander (1973)

  Harlequin (1974)

  The Navigator (1976)

  Proteus (1979)

  The Clowns of God (1981)

  The World is Made of Glass (1983)

  Cassidy (1986)

  Masterclass (1988)

  Lazarus (1990)

  The Ringmaster (1991)

  The Lovers (1993)

  Vanishing Point (1996)

  Eminence (1998)

  The Last Confession (2000, published posthumously)

  PLAYS

  The Illusionists (1955)

  The Devil’s Advocate (1961)

  Daughter of Silence (1962)

  The Heretic (1969)

  The World is Made of Glass (1982)

  NON-FICTION

  Children of the Sun (US title: Children of the Shadows) (1957)

  Scandal in the Assembly

  (1970, with Richard Frances)

  A View from the Ridge (1996, autobiography)

  Images and Inscriptions (1997, selected by Beryl Barraclough)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Terms used in the text

  do not always reflect current usage.

  This edition published by Allen & Unwin in 2017

  First published in Great Britain in 1957 by William Heinemann Ltd

  Published in the United States under the title The Crooked Road

  Copyright © The Morris West Collection 1957

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

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  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

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  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  Cover design: Julia Eim

  Cover image: Shutterstock

  ISBN 978 1 76029 754 1 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 1 76063 840 5 (ebook)

  FOR

  JOYCE

  WITH LOVE AND

  GRATITUDE

  “It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new.”

  MACHIAVELLI: The Prince

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS THE BIG STORY—the biggest of his life.

  He sat at ease in the lounge of the Hotel Caravino savouring it page by careful page, as a general might savour the schedule of his coming triumph, as a woman might savour the letters of a constant lover.

  Between the buff manila covers it lay pat, precise and unimpeachable—the story that every newsman dreams of in bed and babbles in his hopeful cups. Nothing was wanting to it but proof and this would be in his hands within the hour, when Enzo Garofano, the informer, came to collect his fee and hand over the photostats of the Orgagna letters.

  Then he would leave Sorrento and this bright, tourist paradise with its wall of curtained glass and its dazzling murals and its sun-drenched terrace, and its vista of cliff and sea and brown bodies stretched under the blossoming umbrellas. He would pack and go—back to Rome, back to the office where the teleprinter girls would be waiting to send the story to Paris, to London and New York, where it would burst into shattering headlines in the morning editions.

  And under the headlines would be his own name: Our Special Correspondent, Richard Ashley.

  He was a big man, tall, broad-shouldered, flat-bellied, with cropped hair and a lean brown face scored about the mouth and eyes with the lines of harsh experience. He was dressed, holiday-fashion, in a loose flowered shirt, blue linen slacks and a pair of espadrilles made by the local craftsmen.

  Today, he had reached forty years of age. Even that thought was pleasant to him. A man is fortunate when he comes at one stride to the climacteric and to the climax of his career.

  He closed the folder and laid it on the table beside his chair. He looked at his watch. Three-thirty. At four-thirty Garofano would come. Some time in the next hour he must hear from Rome that the office had approved his offer of two thousand dollars for the photostats and that the cash had been lodged with American Express in Sorrento. He frowned with faint impatience. Hansen was running it too fine for comfort.

  At the bar, Roberto coughed discreetly. Ashley looked up. Roberto gave him a flashing Latin smile and pointed to the terrace. Ashley fol
lowed the gesture and saw a pair of attractive brown legs stretched on the bright cushions of a chaise-longue. The rest of their owner was invisible behind the curtains at the right of the door.

  Ashley grinned and shook his head. It was a provocative picture, but to a man on the eve of his triumph it was of no interest at all.

  “Keep your mind on your job, Roberto. Fix me a martini. And if this one’s not dry enough, I’ll pour it down your neck.”

  Roberto chuckled happily.

  “Better than that, give it to the lady and I’ll make you another one.”

  Ashley shrugged away the suggestion.

  “I can’t afford the time or the money. Besides, I’m working.”

  Roberto put down the bottle with a thump and gestured theatrically.

  “Working! In this sunlight? At this hour? In the presence of such beauty? Vergogna!”

  He sighed mightily, and bent to the rituals of measuring drinks and slicing lemon-peel behind the bright tiles of the bar-front. He was a dark, compact fellow, with sleek hair and a small moustache and a pearly smile. He was a good barman. His manner was a discreet combination of deference and Neapolitan insolence. The deference brought him tips from the men and the women paid in different coin for the flattery of insolence.

  Ashley looked at his watch again.

  “What time does the Post Office open?”

  “Three o’clock, signore.”

  “I’m expecting a telegram. The damn thing should be here by now.”

  Roberto shrugged philosophically.

  “Pazienza, my friend! Pazienza! First the telegram must arrive at the Post Office. Then it must be copied. Then they must send a messenger to…”

  He broke off and gaped, goggle-eyed, as the brown legs swung themselves off the chaise-longue and their owner came into view, a blonde in a Capri bathing suit, standing in conscious grace against the balustrade. She smiled, flirted her hips at them and walked out of view towards the end of the terrace.

  “Well!”

  Roberto beat his forehead in anguish.

  “It is too much, signore! It is ten times too much! I am married with three children. My wife is expecting another. There is my job which I must keep and my honour which I would lose all too gladly. And I am subjected to temptations like this!”

  “I’m thirsty,” said Ashley.

  “Subito, signore!” said Roberto, a wise fellow who knew when a joke was done with.

  He lifted the flap of the bar and came towards Ashley with the drink balanced on a small silver tray. He wiped the table, laid down a cardboard chaser, set down the drink with studied care and waited.

  “How much?”

  “Six hundred lire, signore.”

  Ashley looked up sharply.

  “Six hundred? It was four-fifty at lunch-time.”

  “A mistake, signore,” said Roberto, blandly. “I meant, of course, to say four-fifty.”

  “You’re a liar, Roberto.”

  Roberto shrugged and smiled, cheerfully.”

  “You force me to admit it, signore. I am a very great liar.”

  “Why do you lie to me? I tip you well, don’t I?”

  “Very well, signore.”

  “Then why lie to me?”

  “Force of habit, signore.”

  “A bad habit, Roberto.”

  “Let us call it a disease of the profession.” Roberto cocked a quizzical eye at Ashley. “Do you never lie, signore?”

  The question took him by surprise. Roberto was still smiling, but there was a new note in his voice, an odd fugitive expression in his dark eyes. It was as if he said, ‘We should understand each other, you and I. We have interests in common. We may be of use to each other.’

  Ashley answered the question with some care.

  “I lie sometimes, yes. But never about money.”

  “Because you do not need to worry about money. I, on the contrary, must worry about it all the time. Each of us lies about the thing that is important to him.”

  And there it was, the opening gambit, laid down for him in the Neapolitan fashion with smiles and circumlocutions. Roberto had something to tell him, but he was not prepared to tell it without payment. The next move was up to Ashley.

  “What do you think is important to me, Roberto?”

  Roberto cocked his head on one side in the fashion of the South.

  “This telegram which you expect. The information which is contained in that book——” he pointed down at the manila folder, “—and the man who is coming to see you at four-thirty this afternoon!”

  It shocked him like water dashed in the face. He started forward and the glass rocked perilously on the table. Then he took control of himself and sat back in the chair. He looked at Roberto. The dark eyes told him nothing. They were blank as a bird’s. Cautiously, Ashley framed the next question.

  “The book, I can understand—you’ve seen me working on it. The telegram—I spoke about that myself. But the other—the visitor I’m expecting—how and what do you know about him?”

  “The drink,” said Roberto, flatly. “The signore has not paid for his drink.”

  Ashley fished in his hip pocket for his wallet. He took out a five-thousand lire note and laid it deliberately on the silver tray. Roberto’s eyes brightened. He picked up the note, folded it slowly and put it away.

  “It is a message, signore,” he said, softly. “It says that the man who comes to see you is a liar and a cheat. You should take what he offers but trust him not at all.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  He picked up the tray and walked back to the bar. Ashley sat back in his chair and watched him go. He made no argument. He asked no more questions. He knew that he might talk till doomsday and still not prise another particle of information from those subtle smiling lips.

  Besides, he was not too perturbed. He had been too long and too deeply involved in this investigation not to know that the Italian thrives on gossip and theatrical intrigue. At each stage of his story he had been beset by contact men and pedlars of useless information. They would button-hole him in bars and press clubs and hotel foyers; they would come introduced by friends or simply because they had heard that the ‘scrittore Americano’ was prepared to pay for information. They would talk largely and vaguely of sinister doings and dangerous influences—and end always with a plea for advance money. Sometimes a few grains of truth sifted out of their talk. Most often it blew away in chaff and husks.

  Then they would try to sell him other things—warnings of attempts on his life, names and addresses of men who might offer him protection. He did not blame them too much. In Italy a man had to live as best he could—by peddling gossip to the press or peddling charm to dowager tourists. But he was not prepared to fret about them. He had tested the fabric of his story. It was too strong to be shaken by anything but catastrophe.

  So he told himself as he sat in his chair and sipped his drink and flipped again through the pages of his manuscript. But a faint unease still nagged at him. A small sourness had crept into the sweet taste of his triumph.

  He weighed Roberto’s message again.

  “The man who comes to see you is a liar and a cheat.” Nothing new in that. Garofano was a cheap huckster, peddling stolen documents. He must be a liar and he must be a cheat. But the documents were genuine enough. He had seen them and studied them. They fitted like joiners’ pieces into the framework of his evidence.

  “Take what he offers, but trust him not at all.” What he offered was a physical commodity—photostatic copies of documents already inspected and verified. There was no possibility of forgery. The question of trust did not arise.

  There were only two questions of any importance. The identity of the messenger and the reason for the warning. Even to these there was an obvious answer—profit! Five thousand lire splits neatly in half. Half to the barman, half to a seedy tout who has heard gossip in a bar. The ‘scrittore Americano’ is buying something from Enzo Ga
rofano. Pass him a friendly warning and we share the tip. A simple version of the skin game, which the Neapolitans call la combinazione!

  Ashley grinned wryly at the butt-end of the thought. He began to feel better. Then the page-boy came in with a telegram.

  Ashley paid him and dismissed him, then tore open the shoddy yellow envelope. The message was brief and blunt:

  AUTHORISE INFORMATION PAYMENT TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS STOP CURRENCY AVAILABLE AMERICAN EXPRESS SORRENTO STOP ADVISE CONCLUSION DEAL… HANSEN.

  Good! He smiled grimly, crumpled the message form and thrust it into his pocket. Rome had approved. The money was available. Now there was nothing to do but wait for Enzo Garofano. He tossed off his drink and walked out into the raw sunlight of the terrace.

  Roberto watched him with cool and speculative eyes.

  The girl watched him, too.

  She saw his chiselled, lean face and the big frame of him and the strong hands and the easy relaxation of his walk. She saw how he leaned on the balustrade and looked down at the bright huts and the baking bodies on the beach, then out across the blue water to the blurred outline of Naples and the misty shapes of Ischia and Procida. He had the attitude of a man at ease with himself and with the world, a man with time to spend. There were good reasons why he should be induced to spend some of it on her.

  She leaned back against the angle of the railing, sucking in her belly and thrusting up her chest as a model does for a photographer; then she twitched the bright beach-stole about her so that the flash of colour would catch his eye. When he turned, she smiled at him and heard him greet her in English:

  “Good day there!”

  “Buon giorno… Va bene cosi nel sole!”

  The Italian greeting surprised him. Because she was blonde with a honey-coloured tan, he had taken her for a foreigner. American, perhaps, like himself, or a Swede or a Gretchen from the Rhineland.

  “Italiana?”

  “Si, Italiana. Da Roma.”

  She smiled and gestured for him to join her at the end of the terrace. From Rome? That might mean anything. Venice, Trento, Florence, Pisa. The blonde Lombard stock had filtered far and wide through the peninsula. His tongue slipped easily into the cadence of the language and they talked, facing each other across the angle of the terrace, while the voices and the music drifted up faintly from the beach, two hundred feet below.