The Herring in the Library (28 page)

‘Yes, yes, I do get the picture,’ I sighed. ‘So I like Margery Allingham, do I?’

‘You’ve adored Margery Allingham ever since you read
The Tiger in the Smoke
with a torch, under the bedclothes in the dorm.’

‘In which part of your imagination did I go to a boarding school? Was it in Sunderland, by the way?’

Elsie’s appreciation of irony is strictly limited to her own. ‘As a writer of crime fiction,’ she said, enunciating her words with more than usual care, ‘you should be
able to manage the odd fib or two if it will boost sales. Saying-the-thing-that-is-not is your job. I’m only a literary agent. Do you hear me complaining about having to lie? I described you
as a “much-respected author” the other day. I may have even called you a “best-selling author”. There are whole weeks, Ethelred, when I scarcely get to tell the truth from
the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed.’

‘Is that true?’

‘Don’t try to get clever with me, Ethelred.’

‘And the question about which football team I support?’ I asked, looking further down the list.

‘Wait, I’ll Google that one for you too.’ There was a pause and the sound of a biscuit being munched in far-away Hampstead. ‘OK . . . it looks as though Sunderland is up
near Newcastle, so I’d tell them you support Newcastle United if I were you. That should go down well. How are the other interviews that I emailed to you? I promised we’d turn them
round in a few days.’

‘We?’

‘You.’

‘I’ll try to finish them all in Egypt and email the answers back to you.’

‘Egypt? Who said you had permission to go to Egypt?’

‘I’m doing some research. I did tell you.’

‘Did you? Well, if you really must put pleasure before duty, at least take your laptop along to the pyramids.’

‘I shall most certainly have my computer with me. I said, it’s research; it’s not a holiday. I shall be working hard the whole time.’

‘I see – “research” is it?’ said Elsie.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s research. But without the inverted commas you just put it into.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘And not the pyramids either, as it happens. I’m going on a cruise down the Nile – or possibly up the Nile. I wasn’t paying much attention when I booked it. It’s
the boat that is the great attraction.’

‘You’re travelling alone, I hope?’

‘I’m going with Annabelle.’

I was treated to another outward and audible sign of Elsie’s disapproval.

‘She’s keeping a close eye on you, now you’re engaged.’

‘We’re not engaged,’ I said.

The resulting snort of derision was intended to convey a number of things to me:

2. Whether Annabelle and I became engaged would be a decision made solely by Annabelle, who would inform me when she considered the time was right.

4. Annabelle was, contrary to anything I might have been told, not a natural blonde.

‘I like her as much as I need to.’

‘She says she likes you.’

‘She’ll be able to coach you in telling fibs then.’

‘I really wish—’

‘My boredom threshold is pretty low this morning, Ethelred. I’m putting the phone down before you mention that woman again. Have a nice day, now.’

‘—you’d try to get on with Annabelle.’

‘Piss off, Ethelred. It’s almost lunch-time and, if I’m going to sell your Latvian rights to Nordik, I’ll need to take this afternoon’s mendacity to previously
unexplored levels.’

‘The Elsie Thirkettle Literary Agency.
K
ā
es varu jums pal
ī
dz
ē
t?’

‘It’s me, Elsie, not Nordik.’

‘Ethelred, I’ve been practising that for the past half-hour. You’ve just made me waste my best attempt to ask a Latvian if I can help them. You are a total plonker. Go
away.’

‘Sorry. Elsie, just a thought. You don’t fancy coming to Egypt, do you?’

‘No, Ethelred. My first rule in life is not to share a rusty old boat with gold-diggers sporting fake tits. I’ve stuck to it since I was a girl and it’s made me what I am
today. You’d do well to try it yourself sometime. In the meantime, you and Annabelle have fun.’

‘Annabelle may not be coming.’

‘May not, in what sense?’

‘Isn’t.’

‘So – let’s pause for a moment and get this absolutely right – Annabelle isn’t coming and therefore, as poor second choice, you’re now inviting me at a
week’s notice? Thanks a bunch.’

‘Eight days’ notice.’

‘Eight days? Why didn’t you say so? That really does make all the difference.’

‘Does it?’

‘That was irony, Ethelred. Look it up in
Fowler’s Modern English Usage.
Now, as I may have observed before: Piss off.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t keep saying “sorry”.’

‘Sor— I was offering to pay for the whole trip, of course . . .’

‘I’m busy,’ said Elsie. ‘I can scarcely drop the entire work of an important literary agency, like this one for example, and clear off up the Nile on some three-legged
paddle steamer you’ve booked yourself on. You’ll have picked the oldest, slowest and most uncomfortable boat in Egypt as a matter of principle. I’m sure you’ll enjoy
it.’

‘The
Khedive
is actually quite well appointed,’ I said, ‘though it is a paddle steamer, of course.’

There was a pause in the conversation during which a literary agent in Hampstead wrestled with a minor problem that had nothing to do with her.

‘Why exactly
has
Annabelle dropped out?’ Elsie asked, shelving for one moment the work of an important literary agency.

‘She changed her mind.’

‘Why?’

‘She just did. Maybe she’d just had enough of my company for a while,’ I added, jokingly.

‘Fair enough. I can see that,’ said Elsie. ‘Even so, I don’t change my mind. And I never play second fiddle to women who don’t realize they are too old to wear
short skirts. Check your contract – it’s in para 23.2.’

‘Sor—’ I said again.

‘Nothing would induce me to go on that boat, whatever it’s called.’

‘The
Khedive,’
I sighed. ‘It’s called the
Khedive.’

‘Ethelred Tressider speaking.’

‘Elsie here. I’ve just Googled this brilliant boat we’re going on. Have I explained Google, by the way? Somebody like you might think of it as this magic librarian that can
tell you—’

‘Elsie, I use Google all the time. As far as Egypt is concerned, don’t worry. I’m not going now. I’m about to phone up and cancel the trip. I’ll set the next book
in Pembrokeshire or somewhere instead. Pembrokeshire is quite interesting in late November.’

‘I don’t think so, Ethelred. Sadly, there’s no market for books about Pembrokeshire these days. More to the point, you didn’t tell me that the word “luxury”
featured twenty-seven times in the description of the
Khedive.
There seem to be staff whose sole duty is to top up the ice in your drink. The general picture I’m getting here is the
Ritz with a paddle attached to the back. This trip must cost a fortune.’

‘Possibly.’

‘You haven’t checked the cost down to the last penny? Does that mean you’ve finally sold the Big House?’

‘I’ve found a buyer for it and I think we’re about to exchange contracts. It has all happened a bit suddenly, but I really have to take any serious offer that comes along.
Houses that size don’t sell easily at the moment and the running costs are hideous. The gardens alone require somebody full-time.’

I paused, aware that a simple ‘yes’ would have been a better answer if I wanted the whole thing to sound routine and uncontroversial. Mentioning the gardens was almost certainly a
step too far. But I was perfectly entitled to sell the house if I chose, whatever Annabelle had said.

‘So, you’re back in your old flat?’ asked Elsie, pleased, it would seem, by all aspects of my answer. ‘On your own? No unnatural blondes?’

‘Wasn’t that clear from my interview answers?’

‘I thought that was just building up a background, creating a nice picture for the sort of readers you have – lonely, bored, a bit insecure, semi-literate.’

‘No, Elsie, it was the truth. I never really moved out of the old flat. Technically, the house has been mine only since probate was granted. Annabelle had every right to remain there in
the meantime.’

I was doing it again. I had to stop sounding defensive all the time.

‘And now?’ asked Elsie.

‘We’ll have to work something out,’ I said, summarizing in six words a discussion with Annabelle that had occupied most of the previous evening plus a short and abruptly
terminated phone call this morning. ‘But, to answer your question, yes, the house is as good as sold and money isn’t so much of an issue now.’

‘Even so, I wouldn’t want you to lose your deposit on the trip.’

‘That’s kind of you, but it’s not your problem.’

‘Ethelred – my authors’ problems are my problems, you know that. Do I get a really enormous cabin? On the top deck?’

‘The boat was pretty empty. I’m sure that could have been arranged – but you don’t want to go.’

There was a crunching noise in Hampstead as somebody ate another restorative chocolate digestive. In the background I thought I heard an empty packet hit the wastepaper bin.

‘You deserve a holiday, Ethelred. I should hate to see you cancel just because I wasn’t there for you. I like to support my authors every way possible. Are we flying first
class?’

‘The quickest way of getting there is a charter flight straight to Luxor from Gatwick. And it’s research, not a holiday.’

This time, I noticed, she didn’t say ‘yeah, right’. Elsie did not take unnecessary risks.

‘I’ll put up with a charter flight if I have to,’ she said. I couldn’t see her at the other end of the phone line, of course; but I knew that, just as soon as she had
finished her biscuit, her expression would be one of noble self-sacrifice, probably modelled on the statue of Nurse Edith Cavell outside the National Portrait Gallery.

Five minutes later I was ringing the travel agent to say that I would now be accompanied by Ms Elsie Thirkettle rather than by Lady (Annabelle) Muntham, and that a cabin on the top deck would
most certainly be required. As I paid the additional charges I felt a momentary pang of guilt that I was, in a sense, spending Annabelle’s money.

But it had – I reminded myself – been Annabelle’s decision not to come. Even she, surely, would have conceded that much? And, had I been able to see into the future as I read out the
three numbers printed on the back of my card, I might have felt that she had made a very wise decision indeed. But of course, you never do see into the future. If I’d noticed any references
in the tour brochure to a dead body floating in the Nile or to the cold barrel of a gun pointing at a spot precisely midway between my eyes, I might have decided South Wales in a blizzard was in
fact much the better option. But perhaps they’d hidden that sort of stuff in the small print, along with the fuel surcharges. They often do, I find.

The Herring in the Library

L. C. Tyler was born in Essex and educated in Southend and at Oxford University. He has worked in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Sudan, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. He currently
lives in Islington with his wife, children and border terrier.

Also by L. C. Tyler

A Very Persistent Illusion

First published in the UK 2010 by Macmillan

This edition published 2011 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2011 by Pan Books
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Copyright © L. C. Tyler 2010

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