Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery (35 page)

But it’s our little Kimberlee who is stealing the other crime writers’
thunder. Definitely, a publishing force to reckon with!

III.

Jay Fforde had come to the conclusion that the invention of e-mail signaled the imminent demise of mankind. Even though his agency Web site stated explicitly “No Email Queries or Submissions,” every day his network server was nearly shut down by some berk trying to send him a 150,000-page manuscript by attachment. The ones that made it through went straight into his little electronic trash bin, unread. Even after fifteen years in the business, Jay was amazed at the number of people out there tapping away at manuscripts—each one, of course, a potential best seller, according to its creator.

The phone rang. A carefully screened call had been allowed through the bottleneck by Jay’s assistant. Jay picked up the instrument, first pausing to fling back a strand of the longish, sun-streaked fair hair that flopped in accepted head-boy style from a center part on his patrician skull. Many thought his wide-set eyes, high cheekbones, and sulky face held a suggestion of Byronic decadence, a thought Jay liked to cultivate.

“Jay,” came a confidant, female voice. A trace of an American accent flattened what would once have been called BBC English, before regional accents became the new Received Pronunciation. Immediately Jay sat up a little straighter. The voice of a beautiful young woman who happened to be a wildly successful, selling-in-the-millions author was a potent combination for any agent.

“Kimberlee?” he said. Frightful name; it must come from her American side. Well, no one was perfect, although Kimberlee came close. “What a delight to hear from you. How was the rest of your holiday?”

Just then, his assistant appeared in the doorway, carrying a sheaf of manuscript pages. Jay impatiently waved her away, miming for her to close the door behind her.

“… Bahamas are not what they were, but still—you should see my tan,” Kimberlee Kalder chirped on. “I just heard you’ll be at Dalmorton. How wonderful of Julius to include you. Of course, you rep what’s-her-name, don’t you?”

“Magretta Sincock? Yes. For a short while longer, at least.”

“Oh
really
?”

“Yes. Damned shame about her books and all, but tastes change and poor Magretta will keep turning out the same old thing. I mean, seriously, how many women can there be out there married to some guy who—surprise!—turns out to have shoved his three previous wives overboard during their honeymoon cruise? Anyway, Easterbrook thought it would be a good opportunity to mix business with a little pleasure.”

“Good,” she said, lowering her silky voice to a purr. “I do think it’s time you and I met for a serious discussion, too, don’t you?”

Jay’s heart took flight at the words. If he could land Kimberlee Kalder as a client, well … He’d be running the agency in a year. The Troy, Lewis, Bunter, and Hastings Agency would become the Fforde Agency at last. And he could ditch his other clients, beginning with Magretta. Who would need
them
?

Reluctantly, he tore his mind away from empire building. Kimberlee was saying something about train connections and reservations at the castle.

“You’ll have to call today if you want to get near the castle spa,” she told him. “They’ll be booked solid from the moment this crowd of scribblers arrives.”

“I’ll tell you what, Kimberlee. Why don’t I book a massage for you, while I’m at it? My little treat, courtesy of the agency. I insist. What’s that you say?” He picked up a pen and jotted notes as she talked. “All right. So that’s a black mud envelopment treatment, an Aromapure Facial, a hydro pool session, and a sun shower treatment.” Feeling like a waiter, he asked, “Will there by anything else?”

He rang off awhile later, Kimberlee having run out of special requests. Almost simultaneously, the door to the outer office swung open again.

“That was Kimberlee, wasn’t it?” said Laurie. “She wouldn’t identify herself, but the bossy tone is unmistakable.”

“Yes. She’s ready to dump Ninette and come over to the dark side.”

“I suspected as much. You can tell her for me you can catch more flies with honey—”

“Before I forget, call Dalmorton Castle, will you, and book her into the spa for these treatments.” He handed her the list. Laurie glanced at it, and sniffed.

“She doesn’t want much, does she?” Laurie tucked the list in her pocket and began tidying his desk, gathering files, tapping papers ruthlessly into line against the antique mahogany wood.

“If you move that you know I’ll never find it again,” said Jay.

“That’s what I’m here for, Jay. To find things for you.”

Jay smiled. Laurie always made him think of the redoubtable Miss Lemon, Hercule Poirot’s fiercely competent secretary, foil to the well-meaning but dim Hastings. She placed a stack of papers before him.

“Magretta’s late again with her rewrites. She’s getting worse, I think.”

Jay was pulled back from a daydream of yachts, Caribbean beaches, and ski chalets in Val Claret. He sat up, shoving the stack of papers to one side.

“Give her a few more weeks,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

IV.

A few blocks to the west, Ninette Thomson was worried. Kimberlee Kalder, her megastar client, as she supposed they would say in Hollywood, was sending out all the well-known signs of a writer in flight to a new agent. Increasingly ludicrous demands—an espresso machine, for God’s sake—temper tantrums, insistence on impossible terms from her British and American publishers for her next book, overturning all the carefully negotiated—and extremely generous for an unknown author—terms of the contract Ninette had painstakingly organized for her. Demanding Ninette take the new book when it was ready to a larger publisher, despite a contract option that stipulated she could
not
do precisely that.

Honestly, thought Ninette. It was worse than dealing with the commitment-phobic, hormone-blinded male. You always could tell when they had one foot out the door, headed for another woman’s bedroom, if you knew the signs. Which Ninette, fifty-four and the survivor of countless “summer” romances, felt certain she did.

She stood, stretching the tension from her shoulders. She had to get home and pack for this castle fandango. Good of Easterbrook to include her, really, although she knew Kimberlee Kalder was the only reason. She, Ninette, certainly wouldn’t have been invited for the sake of a Winston Chatley or a Portia De’Ath. She turned away from the large, modern desk that stood in front of a ten-foot, floor-to-ceiling window in her office. More and more, Ninette had started working from home—less temptation to frequent the wine bars that way—but she remained reluctant to give up the fantastic view and, more importantly, the prestigious address of her London office. Sometimes the only indicator of a good agent that a writer had to go by was the address. But the expense! The expense would have driven her down and out long ago if that wonderful manuscript of Kimberlee Kalder’s hadn’t shown up in her slush pile nearly two years ago.

Wonderful, she reminded herself, meaning saleable, meaning marketable, meaning the only things that mattered in today’s publishing climate. Every day Ninette turned down manuscripts that were wonderful—wonderfully written, insightful, sad, funny, groundbreaking, heartbreaking, whatever. And not one of them met the blockbuster, plot-driven standards that were becoming the byword of the industry: less character, more plot.

Fewer and fewer publishers were willing to take a chance on an unknown writer. But Ninette, after years in the business, could sense a best-selling winner, and Ninette did persuade Easterbrook to take that chance on Kimberlee.

The last truly fine writer she’d taken on, knowing for certain she’d never make a fortune but not caring, had been Portia De’Ath, who was now selling at a decent little clip. Winston Chatley fell into the same category …

But it was Kimberlee, damn it all, who was paying the bills.

Now the silly, greedy little twit thought she could do better. Imagined a different agent, a different publisher, would bring in even more than the ridiculously large amount the first book had brought her already.

Kimberlee Kalder suddenly thought she didn’t need her, Ninette Thomson.

Well, we’ll just see about that now, won’t we?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

G. M. Malliet has worked as a journalist and copywriter for national and international news publications and public broadcasters. She attended Oxford University and holds a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge—the setting for the St. Just mysteries.

Death of a Cozy Writer
, her first mystery, won the Malice Domestic Grant. She has also won the Romance Writers of America’s 2006 Stiletto Award (thriller category).