Murder, Mystery, and Magic. John Burke
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can have fresh copies run off, can’t you? Or get them sent out on line, or whatever they call it nowadays. And charge him against his next royalties.”
“If any.”
She looked back over her shoulder and shrugged that shoulder as if deciding that I too was a washout. I couldn’t help snapping back: “No matter how we tart either of them up, there’s precious little chance of an acceptance.”
She reached for her tights. She really did have the most beautiful back; and she was moving her hips most tauntingly, as if to demonstrate what I’d be missing if I didn’t come up with some bright idea.
It couldn’t just be that she wanted to stop Crispin moaning and boring her. She must think more of him than I had guessed so far. In which case, why was she here with me?
Using me. But that back, those shoulders….
“All right,” I said. “There might be one way to ensure publication.”
“About time, too. I knew you’d come up with something.”
“You pay to have your own book printed and published. Handle your own distribution. Or pay some firm to handle the lot—printing and distribution. Vanity publishing, they call it.”
“How much would it cost?”
“More than it’s ever worth.”
“How much?”
“Now, just a minute. Crispin would hate it. No way would he admit that he had to—”
“He doesn’t need to know.”
This was surely way out of character. “You’d really do that for him?”
“He’s been a good breadwinner so far.” She sounded resigned rather than grateful. “We’ve got to keep him ticking over.”
“Wouldn’t that sort of payment show up somewhere? I don’t know how the two of you manage your budgets, but surely he’d be bound to notice?”
“He leaves the handling of the books to me. Those sort of books. I was his secretary, remember?”
I was tempted to ask her if she really loved him that much, but it didn’t seem quite right at the moment. Or maybe any other moment.
I always hated this stage when all that sleek beauty disappeared within an everyday dress: smart and expensive, but still only an unremarkable sheath for such remarkable contents,
“Next Tuesday, then?” she said levelly. “And you’ll let me have all the details then?”
“Now, look, I’m not sure—”
“Rather than some vanity publisher, as you call it, couldn’t you approach a reputable one? Someone glad to do you a favour?”
“Favours come with a high price tag in this business.”
“I’m sure you can manage it, David.” She stooped to look in the dressing table mirror and pat her already trim hair back into its tight, boyish helmet. As if peering through the glass at someone she had just recognized, she said: “Wasn’t there that rather interesting woman you introduced me to at that last party?”
“There’ve been so many parties. The only one you came to without Crispin—”
“Nina. Wasn’t that it? Nina something-or-other. She seemed rather nice. And quite fond of you.”
“Nina Whiteley.” I didn’t think Nina had ever been all that fond of me, except when I brought her a potential bestseller; but now I did recall that she and Gemma had talked enthusiastically together for quite a time. “A very agreeable contact,” I conceded, “but she’s already rejected those last two books of his.”
“But with adequate financial back-up to cover any losses, couldn’t she be persuaded?”
“Are you serious about this? I mean, if anything went wrong, as it well might, Crispin would kill you if he found out.”
It was only a turn of phrase, but for a moment her eyes gleamed with an excitement I’d never aroused in her before. Her lips seemed to mutter the words silently. Kill me…kill….
Aloud she said: “Tuesday.”
She clung obediently to me while I kissed her goodbye, and smiled her frigid smile. It was routine. With the usual post-coital tristesse I found myself thinking that all she really wanted was attentiveness rather than passion.
Gemma left by the back door of the block into the gardens. I waited ten minutes as usual, before going out and hailing a cab to take me back to the office.
At my desk that afternoon I was awash with doubts about her ideas on Crispin’s behalf. As a conscientious professional agent, I disapproved of the basic amateurism of vanity publishing; and on top of that there was something about Gemma’s whole attitude that gave me the shivers.
But by the next day I was already so hungry for her naked in my arms that I knew I had to act. I wasn’t going to risk facing her on the Tuesday and telling her I’d decided I couldn’t go ahead with the scheme. Would she be capable of turning, expressionless, and walking out?
All too possibly. So I went to see Nina Whiteley.
* * * *
“Yes, I do remember her,” said Nina. “Charming girl. Never met her husband—that client of yours, right?—but I couldn’t help wondering….”
Not wanting her to speculate too far, I said: “I’ve got a couple of propositions.”
She settled herself in her chair with that cheerful scepticism which so many agents and authors had had to face. The challenge was to break it down, or fail; to argue with her, or woo her.
I had never found it easy to woo Nina. She was thin, dark-haired, and had a darkly bossy manner, as if in dealing with men she had to be as masculine and menacing as possible. There was talk of a divorce in the distant past, but the word “Mrs.” never crept into correspondence or into the gossip columns of the literary supplements.
I said: “I’ve been thinking you ought to have first look at a project one of my clients is working on.”
“Anybody I’ve heard of?”
“He’s collaborating with a certain politician’s dumped doxy who has quite a tale to tell. Several tales, in fact.”
“You mean ghosting.”
“The collaboration is a bit closer than that.”
“Tell me more.”
Her immediately receptive attitude was unusual. As a rule, her studied indifference was part of the game, waiting to see if the next move was worth following up or should be wiped off the board
I told her more. About the revelations, political and personal, the minister’s discarded mistress was telling to her new lover—a journalist who had done many skilful interpretations of governmental scandals and was always eager to broaden his collection of misdeeds. There was also a hint—I wasn’t going to admit to more than a hint at this stage—of some slightly kinky involvement of another woman in the new ménage At intervals Ms. Whiteley nodded, as if to hurry me along and get down to the real business—which I assumed would be the usual wrangle over royalties, advances, availability of the key people for interviews and publicity and so on.
When I had finished and, to my surprise and delight, she had expressed readiness to conclude a deal as quickly as I wanted, I said: “And now I’ve got a favour to ask.”
“I’ve already done you a favour, buying your project.”
“No, I’ve done you a favour by giving you first offer.”
She smiled and crossed her long, lean legs. She really was in a good mood this morning. I wondered if she was having an affair, and was still purring over the