A Murder of Magpies (10 page)

Miranda thought. Gossip was a serious business. “Well, your main idea, that you disturbed burglars, works. I think that we just need to cover it up with something else, otherwise people will link the Alemán libel problems to it. Two things happening to you on the same day is not good.”

“No, heaven forbid that more than one thing should happen to me at a time.”

She flashed a smile of apology, but wasn't deflected. “You got burgled, but what you're not saying is … How about you think it was your ex, in some sort of revenge deal?”

I hadn't laughed in days, but the thought of Peter breaking into my flat to destroy my possessions in a state of thwarted passion was irresistibly comic—and so far from anything he might actually do that it couldn't hurt. “All right, but poor Peter. Can we make it ‘an' ex—suggest that I have so many that I can't be quite sure which one it was?”

I'm afraid that Miranda laughed out loud at the idea of my having legions of men lined up waiting their turn. But she had the decency to smother it quickly. “That's great. I can say that you think it wasn't Peter—a more recent acquisition who you tried out and had to let go. And I can also hint that I know more about him, and that Kath would be astonished to hear who it was. That will definitely get her attention. I can make her think it's a Timmins and Ross author, and she'll spend all her energies on that.” Then she looked doubtful. “At least, it'll work if there isn't really a Timmins and Ross author…” She trailed off, uncertain whether asking if I had a secret lover was ruder than making the assumption that I didn't.

“No, one of our authors is fine. Make it Breda if you think that will keep Kath gossiping.”

Miranda's eyes popped. Then she looked regretful. “After three days of
Toujours Twenty-one
I'd love to believe it, but I don't think Breda's ever had sex at
all
.”

“You could be right—she probably found her children under a cabbage leaf. Can we bear to discuss her book? We will have to at some point—I'm due in Galway next week.”

Miranda looked as though the smell of rotten eggs had just wafted through my office. “I've done about fifty pages. Do you want to look at it before I go on?”

“Want? No. Need to? I suppose so. Give it to me before I go, and I'll read it this weekend.”

“Good. Do you want me to cancel your appointments for Monday? Are you going to be in? Also, you need to decide about Paris on Wednesday.”

“My God, Paris. I'd completely forgotten.” Kit had organized for me to go and see the couture show featuring Vernet's new designer, I think on the basis that after this book came out, he would be banned from their shows for life. I normally don't get glamorous little jaunts like this, and I'd been looking forward to it.

Miranda looked sick. If she had had an invitation to a Paris fashion show, it would take more than grievous bodily harm to make her forget about it. It had been planned as a fun day out with Kit, but now it could just be an opportunity to talk to the people at Vernet, see what they thought about Kit's disappearance.

“I'll still go to Paris. Will you get in touch with Vernet's PR? He's a ghastly man named Loïc Something-or-other—it's in the file. Make it sound like we want to make sure Vernet isn't unhappy with the book, or something. He won't have time to see me before the show, but try and book him for after. As for the rest, I'll be in on Monday, but cancel everything that isn't absolutely urgent. It's unlikely that I'll have time for anything except talking to Robert and whoever he dredges up for criminal law at Selden's—if, of course, Selden's deign to do criminal law.”

I saw David go past and stuck my head out the door to stop him. Miranda was relieved we didn't have to discuss Breda anymore, so she escaped.

David looked at me warily. My eye makeup was not what he was used to. I shepherded him into his office like a particularly bossy collie dog, and shut the door.

I quickly ran through the events of the last day. David began by looking irritated, and ended by staring at me, completely speechless, mouth ajar. Crime was not something publishers ever thought would enter their lives, except as a profitable list of whodunits.

“It's as under control as it's going to be for the moment, David.” I tried not to sound exasperated. “We're gathering up the manuscripts, and Miranda will shred them. The police already have their own.” This did not appear to comfort him. “As far as the outside world is concerned, I had a break-in. In a totally unrelated incident, Kit's new book is having a series of libel problems, and will be delayed. End of story.”

“Do you really think people are going to believe that?” David looked hopeful. He was always one to find the easiest route, even if it took him miles out of his way.

I snapped. I always find it difficult to talk to David. I constantly have to bite my lip so I won't say things like, “Stand up straight, take your hands out of your pockets, stop being so
wet
.” So I was abrupt to the point of rudeness now. “No, David, I don't. But I also don't think they're going to believe that Kit has been abducted, possibly murdered, that I was beaten up by thugs trying to locate his manuscript, and that none of us know what the hell is going on.” I thought and revised. “Well, they'll believe that last bit. For God's sake, we've got to leave it to the police, do some damage limitation, and move on.” I had no intentions of leaving it to the police or moving on, but David wasn't going to be much use.

 

6

Chris Stanley was on the phone as I returned to my office, sounding a bit distant. He was a good friend of Peter's, and we hadn't kept in touch after the breakup. No animosity, but he was definitely “his” rather than “hers.” I didn't bother to think of a cover story. What possible reason could I have for wanting to talk to a foreign student? Chris might not even know him. But I was in luck.

“Diego Alemán? Yes, he's one of my students, why?”

“I want to talk to him about a manuscript I'm working on. You know about his brother?”

“Of course. What's the manuscript?”

“One of my authors is writing a book on the fashion industry, and he wants to check out various things with the Alemán family.” It was weak, but Chris might not think in scandalous tabloid terms about my kind of book.

He didn't. “Sure. I can get him to e-mail you. Or, I tell you what, Rosie and I are having a lunch party on Sunday—why don't you come? Diego will be there.”

“That would be great.” I couldn't believe it was going to be this easy. “Thanks. What time?”

“Come whenever you like after one. I can't promise you'll have much chance to talk to Diego, there'll be a lot of people, but at least you can meet.”

We hung up and I tried Nicholas at the LSD again. This time he was in, and as cheerfully expansive as ever. “Sam! I haven't heard from you for ages.”

“I could say the same, surely?” We'd always flirted, on the comfortable understanding that neither of us had any intention of acting on it.

He didn't bother to follow up. “What can I do for you?”

Nick hated being out of the loop, so if I dangled the bait in front of him, I knew he'd leap at it. “It's about Kit.”

“Kit Lovell? We've had the
police
asking about him. Now you. For God's sake, what's going on?”

“They didn't tell you?” I murmured tantalizingly. “Just like them. Kit's vanished.”

“
Vanished?
What do you mean, vanished?”

“Vanished. As in disappeared. As in, no one knows where he is.” I hated saying it, and I hated even more that the police were still not treating Kit's disappearance as their priority. “Can we meet?”

Nick was really a very nice man. “My God, yes. Why didn't they say? Idiots.”

“What's good for you?”

“Are you going to this party at the Tate tonight?”

I wasn't, because I wasn't nearly trendy enough to be invited. “The Tate. Sure. If I meet you there, can we go somewhere for dinner after and talk?”

Nick was nice, but he wasn't stupid. “I'll leave your name at the door and say you're my guest. It starts at six, but I won't be there until closer to eight. We can duck out after half an hour.”

Three down. Only Selden's to go, and then I could go home—well, to Mr. Rudiger's—to start talking to carpenters and locksmiths and with luck get some sleep before seeing Nick.

My conversation with Robert was easily encapsulated: (a) he was faintly revolted by the idea of crime, and, by extension, with me for bringing it to his notice; (b) he would line up some fraud and corporate law people for me to talk to on Monday; (c) would I now please go away and let him catch an early train home to his nice, orderly life. I agreed with (d) all of the above, and we hung up, mutually relieved to have postponed the problem for seventy-two hours.

*   *   *

I hadn't asked Nick which Tate, Modern or British, since I'd been pretending I'd been invited. Rather than call back and admit to my uncool-ness, I made a guess on Modern. I could always get a cab over to Millbank if I needed to.

One of the things that is so peculiar about London is that there are hardly any views. In most cities you stand on a long avenue, or a piazza, or a plaza, and get a dramatic sweep of the most important buildings, which have been carefully situated to say “authority,” “prestige,” “status,” or, more simply, “money.” Even New York, which is most like London in this respect, has a skyline that you could recognize anywhere. London has none of this. It's as though all the architects in the city took a course in How to Hide a Building. The best ones are tucked away down dark alleys. Even St. Paul's has to be glimpsed through a thicket of multistory car parks.

The new Tate, for all its lip service to design, is exactly the same. From the other side of the river, if you're in one of those multi-story car parks, it is probably fantastic. But approaching it from any other direction you have to wend your way through low-cost council housing and 1960s concrete bunkers cunningly disguised as pubs. But then, what do I know?

It was still raining steadily as I ducked down the appropriate underpass and there I was. I was right about the party being here. The place was ringed by warders got up to look like bodyguards in all-black uniforms: Tate Modish. None of your “accessibility” for the Tate. They pull the punters in by making it look like they aren't wanted. The thing is, it works, and people now besiege a place that shows the very same art that they avoided like the plague when the warders wore bright blue polyester.

I told one of the bodyguards that I was a guest of Nicholas Meredith. He tried not to show his disbelief openly, and after a murmured conversation into his mobile he reluctantly had to let me pass, although you could see he thought that it was a bad idea to let someone with my notions of makeup into the building.

I went down the ramp into the Turbine Hall, where Dylan Surtees's four-hundred-foot photograph,
Visitors to the Turbine Hall,
was being unveiled. It was a great piece, but I was so uncool for looking at it when I could have been looking at Lady Gaga, who was surrounded by more bodyguards than there were outside. I gave myself points for actually recognizing Lady Gaga instead, and grabbed a drink before I set off to mill around looking for Nick. It was painless, as parties go. There were plenty of journalists and authors there I knew, and by the time I arrived they were all too drunk to think my eye makeup was odd. Either that, or it was close to what I always looked like, which was not really a thought to warm the cockles of my heart. Whatever cockles were. I made a mental note to look it up when I got home. Then I made another note, to slap myself. Jesus, what a nerd I am. I got a grip and looked around.

And there, at five o'clock from where I stood, was Gerald Atworth, Kit's editor. I shifted uncomfortably. Was I really willing to barge up and talk to him? He wouldn't remember me. I wasn't someone who might one day be able to offer him a job, or access, or do him a favor. And I wasn't twenty and blonde and wearing a short skirt. Those two possibilities were the only varieties of women he'd remember. As I havered, undecided, he stepped forward, moving into the personal space of the young blonde short-skirted woman who had been cheerfully talking to him and another man. I watched as she began to drink more and talk less, taking small, unconscious steps back.

Despite this, I found that my feet had made a decision while my mind was screaming no, and I was now standing right beside them. The third in the group, the man whose back had been to me, turned. The paper's literary editor. Now it was easy, and I moved in smoothly.

“James. Good to see you.” We kissed and did the how-long-it's-been-we-should-see-each-other-more-often routine, which is really just publishing-speak for “hello.” I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the blonde took the pause as an opportunity to flee. I turned to Kit's editor, hand outstretched. “Sam Clair. We met with Kit Lovell.”

He was bored but civil. Well, civil-ish. His eyes flickered over my shoulder to see who he could move on to as we went through the courtesies. It was obvious I didn't have long.

“Have you spoken to Kit recently? I've been trying to catch up with him, but he seems to have gone to ground.”

Atworth shrugged. “I don't take attendance.”

Not civil at all. I pasted my social smile on more firmly. “Of course. But an editor like you knows everything.” Nothing but the best butter.

James snorted quietly into this drink. I took that to mean there wasn't enough butter in the world. And he was probably right. Atworth didn't even bother to look at me. “Maybe he just doesn't want to talk to you.”

I wasn't going to get anywhere, so screw this. I widened my eyes and channeled my inner Betty Boop. “Goodness,” I said with a baby lisp. “The diplomatic world must have gone into mourning when you decided to move to Madras and become a snake charmer.” I shook my head admiringly, patted his arm benevolently, and stomped off.