Headlong Read online

  ‘He left,’ Slider suggested.

  ‘Yes. It hadn’t lasted long – only two years. And I knew it was coming, because by then we were dating regularly, and I was the dumping ground for a lot of Ed’s complaining. I’d met Leo, and frankly couldn’t see how it could work at all. So I wasn’t surprised when he said he wanted to set up his own agency, and asked me if I’d like to come in with him. I had quite a few of my own clients by then, and my areas seemed a natural fit with his. But it was a big jump, financially, and I said I’d have to think about it. And while I was thinking, he asked me to marry him, too.’ She gave Slider a ravishing smile, that told him a lot about what she had looked like when she was young. ‘Which convinced me,’ she concluded.

  ‘And was it hard?’

  ‘Financially? Yes, at first. We set up in Floral Street – Covent Garden?’

  ‘Yes, I know it.’

  ‘In an office above a perfume shop, with a tiny flat on the floor above, very cramped and a bit primitive. There was no central heating, no double glazing. Draughts and traffic noise. Love in a cold climate! But we made ends meet, just about. And then he signed Virginia Foulkes and I signed Jane Flamborough, and Jane brought us John Grisewood – they were old friends and he wasn’t happy where he was – and we were off to the races. I had Olivia – our daughter – the following year and Ivo two years later, but luckily agenting is something you can do while pregnant, and even when I had to take time off, I could still do the office work, which Ed was never keen on, so it all worked out. It was a bit cramped in Floral Street with two babies, but when Olivia was five, Ed’s father died and left us this flat, so we were able to move, and keep Floral Street just as the office.’

  ‘This was Leo Wiseman’s flat?’

  ‘Yes, the family home. It was where Ed grew up. Of course, it didn’t look like this back then – all small dark rooms and heavy mahogany furniture. But we were glad to get it, furniture and all.’

  ‘So Leo must have forgiven Ed at the end?’

  She shrugged. ‘Ed was all he had. Ed’s mother had died a long time before, and Ed was the only child. There was no one else to leave things to. And Leo didn’t hate Ed – he was his son. He was irritated by him, annoyed with him for some time after the split, but they mended fences when the grandchildren came along. He adored Olivia – Leo did. I used to drop her off with him at weekends sometimes, when I had things to do. But it was sudden, Leo’s death – he was only sixty-six – and Ed was devastated. I think he felt he hadn’t had time properly to make up, and to tell his father how much he loved him. He threw himself into his work, building up the business, and succeeding brilliantly. I suppose his very success was at the root of the trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Do you really want to hear all this?’ she said, seeming to come back to reality with a bump. ‘I mean – all this personal stuff. I don’t want to bore you.’

  ‘Please – I’m not bored at all. As I said, the better I understand him—’

  ‘All right, but I’ll need some more coffee. You?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  This time she brought a plate of biscuits as well, and settled herself in the corner of the big sofa, one leg tucked under her, as if making herself comfortable for the long haul.

  ‘Being married to Ed might have been my dream, but it wasn’t one long picnic,’ she began.

  SIX

  Brat Worst

  ‘Ed was a wonderful person – warm, funny, kind – great company, a wonderful lover and a brilliant father,’ said Regina Cantor. ‘He just wasn’t a very good husband.’

  ‘In what way?’ Slider asked.

  She ruminated a moment. ‘You have to understand, the seventies and early eighties were the golden age of publishing. Editors had almost complete autonomy to buy the books they liked and believed in.’

  ‘Don’t they now?’

  She gave a short laugh. ‘Not quite! Everything has to go through committees of accountants and analysts. You see, back then, the numbers of books sold, compared with today, was phenomenal. Quite ordinary paperback fiction might sell twenty or thirty thousand copies. The same book now, you’d hope to sell three or four thousand. So there was money and scope to publish a wide range of fiction. Now they’re all hunting for the one bestseller that will pay all the bills.’

  ‘Surely publishers would always be hoping for a bestseller,’ Slider said, trying to understand.

  ‘Yes, of course. But then it was only part of the picture. Now it’s everything. It’s all about trends – trying to guess what the next one will be, or desperately trying to jump on the last one to pass by. There’s got to be something to hang the PR on, you see. I’m always having perfectly good, well-written fiction through my hands that I have to turn down because that’s all it is. No market hook. I know I won’t be able to sell it.’ She gave herself a little shake. ‘But I was talking about then – the golden age. It was dynamic, exciting, everyone was making money. There were long lunches, launch parties, conferences, book fairs. There was a lot of drinking, a certain amount of cannabis, and a lot of sex. And everywhere you looked, there was Ed, having a hell of a good time.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Slider. ‘You’re saying that he …?’

  ‘Ed’s fatal flaw,’ she said, ‘was that he tended to sleep with his young clients. Actually,’ she corrected herself, ‘they didn’t even have to be all that young.’

  ‘That must have been difficult for you,’ Slider said neutrally. Sex was so often at the bottom of everything: jealousy, betrayal, hurt. Revenge.

  ‘I’ve tried over the years to understand. Ed was full of the juices of life, and they overflowed. He never meant to hurt me. He just couldn’t help himself. He was always desperately contrite when I found out and was upset. And to do him justice, he never intended anything serious by it. He never wanted to be married to anyone but me. But in the end,’ she sighed, looking away, ‘it wore me down. I loved him, you see, so despite the dulling effect of repetition, it went on hurting. In the end, out of sheer self-defence, I had to leave him. Once Ivo was out of uni, I told him I wanted a divorce.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘He was devastated, begged me to change my mind, made all sorts of promises I knew he couldn’t keep. I had to harden my heart against his pleading.’ She looked distressed at the memory. ‘But it was the best thing for both of us, really. I’m sure he was happier afterwards, able to go back to his carefree bachelor life.’

  ‘So the split was amicable?’

  ‘Oh yes. I told you Ed was kind. He gave me everything I asked for. Both the children were off our hands, so they weren’t an issue. By then, we had the house in Shepherd’s Bush to work from, and the children used the flat upstairs there as a pied-à-terre. I said I’d like this flat and Ed could keep the house. We also had a cottage in Wales, and we sold that and split the proceeds. And we kept the partnership going for almost another five years while I gradually extracted myself. Then I met Simon, and wanted to get married again, so that was the spur to cutting the final threads.’

  ‘And you’ve remained friends?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s no animosity between us, and when we do meet it’s on affectionate terms. But we don’t see each other much. It’s just if I happen to bump into him on the professional circuit. We don’t have cosy lunches or anything of that sort. I told you, I had to detach myself from him emotionally. Ed was all too easy to love, and having got over that particular sickness, I wasn’t going to risk being infected again. And,’ she added, growing brisk, having been reflective, ‘Simon certainly wouldn’t like it if I had anything but an arm’s length relationship with him.’

  ‘He’s jealous?’ Slider asked, slipping the question in blandly.

  But she looked at him sharply. ‘Simon is quite fêted enough on his own account not to feel his ego shaking when Ed’s mentioned. But no man welcomes his wife’s ex into the nest, does he?’

  ‘And your children – how did they feel
about him?’

  ‘Oh, they adored him, of course. He had that magnetism – and as I said, he was a wonderful father, always ready to play with them, take them on outings, make magic for them. And by the time we divorced and they had to learn he had feet of clay, they were grown up. More or less. They …’ She hesitated. ‘They were upset of course. But they got over it.’

  He sensed something else under the words and waited; and when she didn’t go on, he asked, ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Olivia’s married and lives in New Zealand. Works for a publishing house there. Ivo lives in Los Angeles. He agents film scripts.’ She raised her eyes to his. ‘Both happy and settled, you see, with good careers.’

  But far away, he thought.

  ‘Do you see them often?’ he asked. He saw she didn’t like the question.

  ‘We Skype,’ she said shortly.

  Old illusions can persist in spite of experience, and Atherton had subconsciously been imagining the premises of Wolff & Baynes as a tall, narrow Victorian building in Bloomsbury, full of handsome staircases and marble fireplaces, and employees quietly beavering behind solid mahogany desks. It was disappointing to find them occupying one floor of a massive featureless glass cube near Waterloo. It was open plan, bright, modern, and smelled faintly, agreeably of books, of which there seemed to be dozens lining every sub-divided working cubby. The only thing that had translated from his vision was the hush. Publishing workers seemed to have the natural reserve of librarians.

  Cathy Beccles had been not only willing but eager when he telephoned her to make the appointment. Now she met him at the lift doors, and led him through the open plannery, where a vast herd of employee browsed quietly on words, peaceable as buffalo. She conducted him to a glass cubicle off to one side, with a sign painted on the door saying MEETING ROOM 2. It was furnished with sofa, chairs, small round table, and a bar with cupboards above and below, on which stood a coffee machine and an electric kettle, and into which was set a small sink for water and for washing the cups.

  ‘It’s sound-proofed,’ she told him, with faint anxiety as he watched the glass door sigh closed behind them. ‘We’ll be quite private in here.’

  On the open plain, he could see the necessity of such a conversation cave. The walls, however, were all glass; Atherton assumed it was to stop employees having sex on the sofa. Or perhaps only a sneaky nap.

  Cathy Beccles offered him coffee, and he accepted, more for her sake than his, because she seemed nervous, or at least ill at ease. She was very small and slight – you might even call her thin – with mild brown eyes in a long, pale face and thin, limp, mouse-coloured hair that hung down on either side to jaw level as though it hadn’t the energy to do anything more enterprising. She was wearing a knee-length, dark-brown, wool skirt, and a beige cashmere cardigan over a white shirt; no earrings, but a plain heavy gold chain round her throat; no rings on her fingers, but well-kept hands and perfectly-manicured nails, painted in what he took to be ballet-slipper varnish.

  He was intrigued by her. At first glance she was a nothing, instantly forgettable, the sort of person the eye slipped over without remark, looking for something more interesting to rest on. Neat and tidy were the adjectives you’d naturally apply to her. But on second glance, there was an understated – oh, definitely understated – elegance about her. Not glamorous or expensive elegance, but just something about the way she stood, the way she allowed her face to tell its own story without the help of paint, the care she took of her hands. A glance down confirmed she was wearing well-polished court shoes. Slider, he thought, would have expected that. One of his rules was that you could tell a person by their shoes, and how they looked after them.

  When they were settled, she looked searchingly into Atherton’s face and said, ‘I read something on the web. That you were treating Ed’s death as suspicious. I suppose your coming here confirms it. It means you think he was … murdered?’ The word seemed hard for her to say, as it was for many people. It sounded absurdly melodramatic when applied to real, everyday life. It was the stuff of TV drama and sensationalist fiction. In real life people you knew did not get murdered.

  He said, ‘I know it’s hard to believe. Everyone feels that, and with good reason. There’s only around six hundred intentional homicides a year out of a population of sixty-five million, so the chances that you’ll ever come across one are tiny. It’s good for us to remind ourselves of that sometimes.’

  ‘I suppose you come across them more often than ordinary people,’ she said. ‘That must be hard. Does it make you depressed?’

  Ve vill ask ze qvestions! He smiled at her. ‘I’m supposed to be interviewing you.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘Lifelong habit. Trying to figure people out.’

  ‘You’re in the right job, then.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Novels are all about what makes people tick, aren’t they?’

  ‘Well – yes, I suppose so.’ She watched him docilely now, waiting for his questions; but the eyes, he thought – the eyes were a thinker’s.

  ‘You sell rights, I understand,’ he said. ‘What exactly are rights?’

  ‘The extras surrounding a book. You have your basic hardback and paperback. But then there’s ebooks and other digital formats – that’s big nowadays, of course. Book club versions. Serialisation. Translation into foreign languages. Film and TV. Merchandising – that can be big with books that make it into film. You know, like Star Wars games and action figures.’

  He nodded. ‘I know what merchandising is.’

  ‘So my job is to sell as many of those and wherever possible. It can make a huge difference. Rights can make more than the basic book does.’

  ‘So you’re an important person to know?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she said. ‘But I’m good at my job. I think I bring value to the company.’

  If anyone notices. On the way through to the glass box, he had noted that most of the other employees he passed were young, in their twenties or early thirties. He wondered about her age. It was hard to tell, her face being so smooth and unlined, but now he studied her, he thought she must have twenty years on the oldest of them. Was she an outsider? Did these bright young things allow their eyes to pass over her unheeding? And did she mind? These lean lads with their whippy waists and designer stubble, these girls with their magazine-shoot make-up and long glossy hair …

  If he were on the hunt – of course, he told himself hastily, there was Emily now, so he was not – but if he were on the hunt, how tired he would be of all that hair! The time and effort spent on its care and maintenance, the intrusiveness of it, the constant tossing and swinging and grooming and brushing – it was like having a girl bring her pony with her on a date. No, he’d make it a rule only to date short-haired girls. They’d have so much more attention to spare for him …

  He realised that Cathy Beccles had her eyes fixed patiently on his face, as if perfectly used to having minds wander away from her. He straightened himself out guiltily.

  ‘You had lunch on Monday with Ed Wiseman,’ he said. ‘I understand you were old friends.’

  ‘I’ve known Ed a long time,’ she said. He gave her a ‘go on’ nod, and she did. ‘I was an editorial assistant at Mirador when Ed was just starting his agency. We met at a launch and it went from there. When you work in publishing, you get to know the leading agents. And it’s their business to know you.’

  ‘This friendship has endured a long time. Was it more than friendship?’ She looked down at her hands. ‘He was a very attractive man. I’ve heard stories—’

  She sighed and interrupted him. ‘We had … From time to time. Over the years. He was married, of course. To Reggie. Nowadays, it would be considered bad form, I suppose, but there was a lot more of it back then.’ She still wasn’t meeting his eyes. ‘And somehow, with Ed, it was as if ordinary rules didn’t apply. He … you didn’t—’

  ‘You had an affair with him?’

  Now she looke
d up, faintly shocked. ‘Oh, not an affair! Nothing that serious. Just sometimes, when we met at a fair or something …’

  ‘You slept together.’

  ‘Rights used to involve a lot of travel. Nowadays it’s all done on line, but back then I was hopping over to New York and Tokyo and so on … Agents travelled too. When you’re staying in a foreign hotel, you’re glad of the company. Having a few drinks or a meal together leads to … to …’

  This was painful. He let her off the hook. ‘I understand. And you’ve always remained friends.’

  She smiled, and he saw that she was not, in fact, plain at all. ‘He was very loyal. Once you were his friend, you were always his friend.’

  Atherton remembered something that was said about Charles II with regard to his mistresses: that he never discarded, only added to his hand. He was getting a good idea of Ed Wiseman’s character.

  ‘So when you had lunch with him on Monday, was that for business, or was it purely pleasure?’

  ‘It was always a pleasure to have lunch with Ed. But he had a business reason for asking me.’ A shadow crossed her face briefly. ‘He wanted help with a book.’

  ‘Why does that trouble you?’ Atherton asked quickly.

  ‘It isn’t a very good book. I happen to know it’s already been rejected by Translit and Welling House. He sent it to me, asked me to read it, then arranged that lunch. He wanted me on side before he pitched it to Wolff, I suppose, because he knew they would be sticky. He thought if I said it had tremendous sub-rights potential it would tip the balance.’ She shrugged. ‘Flattering in a way, to imagine I have that much influence. But I don’t think he’s been thinking straight about this particular book.’

  ‘And what is it? What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘It’s called Headlong. A psychological thriller by Calliope Hunt.’

  ‘Calliope Hunt!’ said Atherton. He’d got to it at last, and without even asking.

  ‘You’ve heard of her?’

  ‘Should I have?’

  ‘She’s done a bit of modelling and a bit of presenting on local TV. This is her first novel.’