Crime Writers and Other Animals (11 page)

The man's face fell. ‘I'll have a black coffee, thanks.'

Before she filled a cup for him from the machine, Juanita Rainbird explained severely, ‘I should just point out that my getting coffee for you is not an expression of any subservient gender role-play. I would be equally ready to get coffee for a guest of my own sex.'

Tilson Gutteridge looked bewildered. ‘Fine,' he murmured.

Juanita Rainbird placed the cup of coffee on the desk in front of him. ‘Right, let's get back to the text, shall we?'

His finger moved along under the lines as they both silently read on.

. . . the well-to-do Hebrew financier . . .

Without comment, Juanita Rainbird stuck a yellow Post-it sticker in the margin beside these words, and scribbled a pencil note on her clipboard.

. . . whose hair, black, thick and naturally curly, exuded the fragrance of some violet-scented pomade. He had fleshy, prominent features, his long nose curving down almost in mirror image of his jutting chin . . .

‘That's unacceptable too.'

‘She's just saying what the bloke looked like,' Tilson Gutteridge protested wearily.

‘Yes, but couched in those terms it becomes a racist slur.'

‘Oh, come on, that's how everyone talked in the thirties. For heaven's sake, don't make such a meal of it, darling.'

Juanita's eyes beamed blue fire at her visitor. ‘I am sorry, Mr Gutteridge, but I must ask you to refrain from the use of diminishing sexist endearments.'

‘Er . . .?'

She took no notice of his puzzlement, but returned to the typescript.

Another of the Dowager Duchess's guests also aspired to, but failed to meet, the qualification of an English gentleman. Though not of the Semitic brotherhood, he too was an oily cog in the machinery of finance . . .

Juanita Rainbird's pencil, once again offended, raced across her pad.

Ras Gupta was an oriental gentleman who had made a killing from firms about to go smash, scooping up their shares at cat's meat prices . . .

Tilson Gutteridge's finger stopped and he looked up solicitously to Juanita. ‘Any worries about complaints from the cat protection lobby?'

The editor pursed her lips. ‘Let's just press on, shall we?'

This dark-complexioned aspirant's attempts to pass himself off as the genuine article were let down by the flashiness of the loud attire he favoured, not to mention a native predilection for shoddy jewellery. The ridiculousness of his appearance was accentuated by his dwarfish stature, which qualified him better for a circus ring than the drawing room of a Dowager Duchess.

Juanita Rainbird could restrain herself no longer. ‘That'll have to be changed,' she blurted out.

‘Why?'

‘It's sizeist.'

‘Eh?'

‘The emphasis on the man's non-average altitudinal endowment could cause offence to readers similarly afflicted.' She realized her mistake and moved quickly to limit the damage. ‘That is, I don't use the word “afflicted” in any pejorative sense. In no way do I wish to imply that someone vertically challenged has less validity or viability as a human being than someone of more traditional anatomical configuration.'

‘Er . . .?' Tilson Gutteridge looked at her blankly. ‘So what are you saying – Ras Gupta can't be described as short . . .?'

‘No.'

‘. . . even though the plot hinges on the fact that he is the only one of the house guests small enough to have crawled out of the scullery window on Christmas night after the Dowager Duchess had been murdered?'

‘Well . . .' Juanita Rainbird was momentarily checked. Then her pencil dashed down another note. ‘I'm sure we'll be able to find an alternative formula of words to deal with that problem.'

Tilson Gutteridge shrugged and readdressed his attention to the typescript.

Another of the guests at the Stebbings gloried in the name of the Vicomte de Fleurie-Rizeau. An effeminate Gallic lounge lizard, whose fractured English was uttered in an affected lisp and whose movements were almost ladylike in their dainty—

‘This won't do,' said Juanita Rainbird. But before she could launch into her homophobia lecture, she caught sight of the watch on her wrist. ‘Oh, goodness, I didn't realize it was so late. It's lunchtime.'

Tilson Gutteridge grinned. ‘Splendid. Where are we going? Needn't be too lavish. Just an Italian or something. So long as they serve a decent red wine, eh?'

Juanita Rainbird looked at him primly. ‘I'm sorry, Mr Gutteridge. That was not an invitation. I'm already committed to sharing a working sandwich with my managing director.'

‘Oh well, have to do it another time, won't we?'

‘I should also point out that Krieper & Thoday have recently instituted an across-the-board no-lunching policy. The only exception to that rule being the lunching on publication day of authors whose previous works have made the
Sunday Times
bestseller lists.'

‘Oh. I thought lunch was one of the main activities of publishers.'

‘You have a rather dated image of our industry, I'm afraid, Mr Gutteridge,' said Juanita Rainbird austerely. ‘Anyway, it's not as if you're even an author, are you?'

‘No,' he agreed. ‘So . . . what? We'll continue going through the manuscript another time?'

‘Yes. Unless you'd like to leave it with me and I'd—'

His hands were instantly out to snatch up the typescript and clutch it protectively to his chest. ‘I'm not letting this out of my sight.'

‘Well, maybe you'd like to stay here while one of my assistants—' She quickly corrected herself ‘—one of my
coworkers
photocopies—'

Tilson Gutteridge shook his head firmly. ‘This stays with me and is not reproduced until we've sorted out a deal.'

‘Yes . . .' Juanita Rainbird paused, selecting her next words with care. ‘This does of course bring us on to the question of ownership . . . more specifically, perhaps, how you came to be in possession of the manuscript . . .?'

The man grinned complacently.

‘. . . and indeed what rights – if any – you might have in the property . . .?'

‘Oh, it's mine all right,' he assured her.

‘It may be yours in the sense that you physically have the typescript in your possession, but the issue of copyright is a totally different—'

‘The copyright is mine too.'

Juanita Rainbird allowed herself a little laugh. ‘I don't see how that could be possible, Mr Gutteridge.'

‘It's possible,' he told her, ‘because I have recently discovered something of my family history.'

‘Oh?'

‘I have always known myself to be illegitimate. I was adopted as a baby. It was only last month that I found out the identity of my real mother.'

He played the silence for a little more than it was worth.

‘My real mother was Eunice Brock.'

Juanita Rainbird said nothing, but her mind was racing.

‘So I am not only the owner of the physical manifestation of this manuscript, but also of its copyright.'

The editor did the sums quickly in her head. It wasn't a disaster. So they'd have to pay royalties on the one book; their profits on the rest of the Eunice Brock
œuvre
would remain intact.

‘Not only that,' Tilson Gutteridge went on gleefully, ‘I am also the copyright holder on the rest of my mother's published work.'

Juanita Rainbird gave a confident smile as, politely but deftly, she dashed his aspirations.

‘I'm sorry, Mr Gutteridge, but I'm afraid your mother's published works went out of copyright in 1989.'

‘I know that, Juanita sweetie.' He didn't give her time to object to the sexist diminutive as he went on. ‘But I'm sure I don't have to tell someone in publishing that, as of summer 1995, the period of copyright is to be extended from fifty to seventy years after an author's death . . .'

Juanita Rainbird gaped.

‘. . . so my mother's works are about to come back into copyright, where they will remain until the year 2009.'

Keith Chappick didn't know much about books, but he was good at sacking people, so he was doing very well in publishing. In his native Australia he'd started by sacking people in newspapers, then moved on to sacking people in television. It was as a television executive that he'd arrived in England, and the move to sacking people in publishing had been a logical one. He had been through two other publishing houses before taking up the appointment at Krieper & Thoday. In each one he'd sacked more people and been given a higher-profile job with more money.

The Keith Chappick management style had been quickly imposed on Krieper & Thoday. On his first day he'd sacked the publishing director and two senior editors; thereafter he ruled by simple terror. The staff, secure in nothing save the knowledge that their jobs were permanently on the line, spread themselves ever thinner, taking on more and more work, putting in longer and longer hours. Uncomplaining, they annexed the responsibilities of sacked colleagues, knowing that refusal of any additional burden was a one-way ticket to the dole queue. Within six months of the new managing director's arrival, the same amount of work was being done by a third of the previous staff. Krieper & Thoday's shareholders were delighted.

Complaints about Keith Chappick's idiosyncratic management techniques became as improbable as complaints about workload. No one demurred when the nine o'clock half-hour of Aikido was made mandatory for all staff. They trotted off like lambs to the slaughter of paint-ball combat weekends. Even the no-lunching diktat was accepted without a murmur by people who had hitherto been among the most dedicated contributors to the profits of Orso, Nico Ladenis and the Groucho Club.

Nor would any member of staff contemplate refusing the managing director's summons to ‘share a working sandwich' in the half-hour before he went off to lunch at the Connaught.

The invitation – ‘subpoena' might be a better word – was literal. The sandwich was singular, and it was shared. That day Juanita Rainbird got half a tuna and cucumber, while Keith Chappick probed her working record for reasons that might allow him to sack her.

Juanita gave him the good news and the bad news. Coming across a new Eunice Brock manuscript was undoubtedly good news; coming across an accompanying copyright holder with a claim to the whole estate undoubtedly bad.

‘What proof do we have that he's who he says he is?' asked Keith Chappick once the full story was out.

‘None yet, but he's assured me he can produce documentation to authenticate his claim.'

‘Hm . . .' The managing director looked thoughtfully out of his top-floor aquarium of an office at the slate-grey winter sky. ‘And from what you say, he seems to have an accurate knowledge of copyright law . . .?'

‘An unhealthily accurate knowledge. He reckons, when the extension to seventy years comes in, he'll be due royalties on all Eunice Brock sales since the old girl's niece died.'

‘Shit. That's the period when the television series has been on. That's when the books have been really coining it.'

‘I know.'

‘Could make a nasty big hole in the company's profits – particularly as it'd be retrospective.'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, there's no way we're going to pay him. We've got to get round it somehow.' He looked blandly at his employee. ‘Any ideas?'

This was another typical Keith Chappick management technique. Sacking was really all he did. He didn't regard it as part of his job to have ideas; that's what the staff were there for. Whatever the problem, they had to come up with the solution to it. If they didn't, they got sacked.

‘The best thing would be . . .' Juanita Rainbird began cautiously, ‘. . . if we could prove that his claim was false, that he actually isn't who he says he is . . .'

‘Is it known that Eunice Brock did have an illegitimate child?'

‘There were strong rumours. That muck-raking biography of her that came out a couple of years back stated it as an acknowledged fact.'

‘Hm.' Keith Chappick scratched his chin as he looked out over the London skyline.

‘And Tilson Gutteridge'd be about the right age.' Juanita shook her head ruefully. ‘The best thing'd be if we could prove someone else was really Eunice Brock's illegitimate child . . . and that that someone was either dead or totally unaware of their true identity.'

‘Yes . . .' said the managing director; then, with increasing enthusiasm as the idea took hold, ‘Yes. That's what you'd better do, Juanita.'

‘What?'

‘Find a rival claimant.'

‘But supposing there isn't one . . .?'

Keith Chappick shrugged. ‘That's your problem. Incidentally . . . did this old geezer say whether he'd got family . . . you know, heirs of his own . . .?'

‘He's got no one. Not married, no relatives.'

‘So, if he were to die . . .' the managing director grinned, letting the idea float for a moment in the air-conditioned air, ‘. . . our problem would be at an end.'

‘Yes.'

Keith Chappick looked briskly at his watch. The audience was over. ‘Leave it with you, Juanita. I'm relying on you to get it sorted . . . or . . .'

He didn't need to finish the sentence. The threat had been implicit from the beginning of the interview.

‘This is man's work,' averred Wenceslas Potter. ‘Don't you bother your pretty little nut about it.'

‘But I want to know who murdered Mummy,' Lady Cynthia insisted. ‘It'd be a pretty shabby sort of daughter who wasn't interested.'

‘You're absolutely right!' the detective ejaculated. ‘And let it never be said that I could entertain the idea of anyone as pretty as you ever doing anything shabby. But believe me, I have your best interests at heart. I'm afraid the conscienceless cove who did for your mother might strike again.'