‘She claims she didn’t know what was in the book,’ said Nina. ‘She’s telling everyone she was ill and didn’t read it properly—’
‘I know Liz Tassel,’ growled Waldegrave and Strike was interested to see a flash of authentic anger in this amiable, drunken editor. ‘She knew what she was bloody doing when she put that book out. She thought it was her last chance to make some money off Owen. Nice bit of publicity off the back of the scandal about Fancourt, whom she’s hated for years… but now the shit’s hit the fan she’s disowning her client. Bloody outrageous behaviour.’
‘Daniel disinvited her tonight,’ said the dark girl. ‘I had to ring her and tell her. It was horrible.’
‘D’you know where Owen might’ve gone, Jerry?’ asked Nina.
Waldegrave shrugged.
‘Could be anywhere, couldn’t he? But I hope he’s all right, wherever he is. I can’t help being fond of the silly bastard, in spite of it all.’
‘What is this big Fancourt scandal that he’s written about?’ asked the redhead. ‘I heard someone say it was something to do with a review…’
Everyone in the group apart from Strike began to talk at once, but Waldegrave’s voice carried over the others’ and the women fell silent with the instinctive courtesy women often show to incapacitated males.
‘Thought everyone knew that story,’ said Waldegrave on another faint hiccup. ‘In a nutshell, Michael’s first wife Elspeth wrote a very bad novel. An anonymous parody of it appeared in a literary magazine. She cut the parody out, pinned it to the front of her dress and gassed herself, à la Sylvia Plath.’
The redhead gasped.
‘She killed herself?’
‘Yep,’ said Waldegrave, swigging wine again. ‘Writers: screwy.’
‘Who wrote the parody?’
‘Everyone’s always thought it was Owen. He denied it, but then I suppose he would, given what it led to,’ said Waldegrave. ‘Owen and Michael never spoke again after Elspeth died. But in Bombyx Mori, Owen finds an ingenious way of suggesting that the real author of the parody was Michael himself.’
‘God,’ said the redhead, awestruck.
‘Speaking of Fancourt,’ said Waldegrave, glancing at his watch, ‘I’m supposed to be telling you all that there’s going to be a grand announcement downstairs at nine. You girls won’t want to miss it.’
He ambled away. Two of the girls ground out their cigarettes and followed him. The blonde drifted off towards another group.
‘Lovely, Jerry, isn’t he?’ Nina asked Strike, shivering in the depths of her woollen coat.
‘Very magnanimous,’ said Strike. ‘Nobody else seems to think that Quine didn’t know exactly what he was doing. Want to get back in the warm?’
Exhaustion was lapping at the edges of Strike’s consciousness. He wanted passionately to go home, to begin the tiresome process of putting his leg to sleep (as he described it to himself), to close his eyes and attempt eight straight hours’ slumber until he had to rise and place himself again in the vicinity of another unfaithful husband.
The room downstairs was more densely packed than ever. Nina stopped several times to shout and bawl into the ears of acquaintances. Strike was introduced to a squat romantic novelist who appeared dazzled by the glamour of cheap champagne and the loud band, and to Jerry Waldegrave’s wife, who greeted Nina effusively and drunkenly through a lot of tangled black hair.
‘She always sucks up,’ said Nina coldly, disengaging herself and leading Strike closer to the makeshift stage. ‘She comes from money and makes it clear that she married down with Jerry. Horrible snob.’
‘Impressed by your father the QC, is she?’ asked Strike.
‘Scary memory you’ve got,’ said Nina, with an admiring look. ‘No, I think it’s… well, I’m the Honourable Nina Lascelles really. I mean, who gives a shit? But people like Fenella do.’
An underling was now angling a microphone at a wooden lectern on a stage near the bar. Roper Chard’s logo, a rope knot between the two names, and ‘100th Anniversary’ were emblazoned on a banner.
There followed a tedious ten-minute wait during which Strike responded politely and appropriately to Nina’s chatter, which required a great effort, as she was so much shorter, and the room was increasingly noisy.
‘Is Larry Pinkelman here?’ he asked, remembering the old children’s writer on Elizabeth Tassel’s wall.
‘Oh no, he hates parties,’ said Nina cheerfully.
‘I thought you were throwing him one?’
‘How did you know that?’ she asked, startled.
‘You just told me so, in the pub.’
‘Wow, you really pay attention, don’t you? Yeah, we’re doing a dinner for the reprint of his Christmas stories, but it’ll be very small. He hates crowds, Larry, he’s really shy.’
Daniel Chard had at last reached the stage. The talk faded to a murmur and then died. Strike detected tension in the air as Chard shuffled his notes and then cleared his throat.
He must have had a great deal of practice, Strike thought, and yet his public speaking was barely competent. Chard looked up mechanically to the same spot over the crowd’s head at regular intervals; he made eye contact with nobody; he was, at times, barely audible. After taking his listeners on a brief journey through the illustrious history of Roper Publishing, he made a modest detour into the antecedents of Chard Books, his grandfather’s company, described their amalgamation and his own humble delight and pride, expressed in the same flat monotone as the rest, in finding himself, ten years on, as head of the global company. His small jokes were greeted with exuberant laughter fuelled, Strike thought, by discomfort as much as alcohol. Strike found himself staring at the sore, boiled-looking hands. He had once known a young private in the army whose eczema had become so bad under stress that he had had to be hospitalised.
‘There can be no doubt,’ said Chard, turning to what Strike, one of the tallest men in the room and close to the stage, could see was the last page of his speech, ‘that publishing is currently undergoing a period of rapid changes and fresh challenges, but one thing remains as true today as it was a century ago: content is king. While we boast the best writers in the world, Roper Chard will continue to excite, to challenge and to entertain. And it is in that context’ – the approach of a climax was declared not by any excitement, but by a relaxation in Chard’s manner induced by the fact that his ordeal was nearly over – ‘that I am honoured and delighted to tell you that we have this week secured the talents of one of the finest authors in the world. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Michael Fancourt!’