Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) (70 page)

‘I still think it’s absurd that he needs to know,’ said Celia. ‘We need the money in early March, the memoirs are due for publication in September.’

‘August, Celia.’

‘We’ll find something else,’ said Celia. ‘I told you this sort of thing would happen, trying to work with people who don’t understand publishing.’

‘Oh, Celia, please!’ Jay sounded most unusually irritated. ‘They’re trying to enable us to continue publishing. You seem to have trouble remembering that.’

‘I suppose I do. I just find the process rather painful.’ She smiled suddenly at him. ‘I might even publish my own memoirs. They’d sell.’

‘They certainly would,’ said Jay.

He was to remember that conversation in the months ahead.

Douglas Marks was a keen young journalist, fresh from a long stint on the
Western Morning News
, and in only his second week at the
Daily Sketch
when he was told by the features editor to try to get an interview with the author of
Deer Mountain
, Joanna Scott.

‘Not very exciting, I know, but our editor’s mother-in-law bought the silly woman’s book and loved it and wanted to read all about her. There must be many other readers who feel the same way. What we want is human interest, photographs of her with the deer, you know the sort of thing. The point is, nobody’s managed to get hold of her yet, she won’t give interviews, so it would be a scoop of sorts. Don’t look like that, lad, takes all sorts to make a paper.’

It wasn’t quite the sort of scoop Marks had envisaged when he came to Fleet Street from the provinces, but he was prepared to give it a go. Deer lady today, Prime Minister or Princess tomorrow. Maybe.

He phoned Lyttons and got a point-blank refusal from the publicity department. Mrs Scott, it appeared, was very shy and reclusive, and needed to protect the deer as much as herself. In that case, could he meet her in Glasgow or even Perth? Then the deer wouldn’t need to be disturbed. This was also refused; a girl with a cut-glass accent told him she would send him what she called Mrs Scott’s biography. Marks said he already had that and put the phone down.

He tried other leads, literary agents, bookshops, but always got the same answer; Mrs Scott would not see anybody, least of all the press. Would she talk on the phone? No, she didn’t have a phone. Could he make a date for later in the year, not at the sanctuary, somewhere else, to be agreed by her? No, she wasn’t prepared to do that.

‘I’m beginning to think there’s something fishy here,’ he said to his fellow trainee-reporter, known to all and sundry as Jimbo. ‘This is a smashhit book, it outsold every other book on the market at Christmas, people literally queued up to buy it, it’s still selling like hot cakes.’

‘So?’ said Jimbo, ‘what’s the big deal? She doesn’t want to talk to the press. I wouldn’t, if I was an old lady living on a mountain.’

‘But if she’s that much of a recluse, why write the book?’

‘To make money.’

‘Yeah, and to sell lots of copies. Otherwise, why write it in the first place? And if you write a book, you talk to the press. That’s what authors do these days, successful ones who sell lots of books, that is. They do talk to the press. Just every now and again. It helps sales.’

‘Maybe her sales don’t need helping.’

‘Sales always need helping. And now there’s a children’s version coming out later this year, in the summer, surely they’ll want publicity for that.’

Jimbo shrugged. ‘Clearly they don’t need it.’

‘No. There’s something funny here. Look, this is a charming, attractive book, there’s nothing disagreeable in it, no violence, nothing pornographic, why on earth won’t the woman who wrote it agree to an interview?’

‘I think you’re getting worked up about nothing, Duggie boy. Why don’t you get stuck into that story about this year’s CND march? Bloody silly nonsense, if you ask me. But at least that’s fact . . .’

‘Yes, but then I’ve got to tell old Jacko I can’t do what he wants with the deer woman. I’ll look like a fool. It’s not like they’ve asked me to interview Humphrey Bogart.’

‘He’s dead.’

‘I know that, you bloody idiot. Actually, I think he might be easier to get hold of. No, I’ve just got to get her address. I’ve got a hunch about it, Jimbo. I just feel in my water it’s a story.’

‘Oh yeah? Where’s your green eye shade, then?’

‘Oh shut up. Look, want to come out for a drink? If you can make any sensible suggestions, I’ll stand you a beer.’

‘Make it lunch, and I’ll promise to come up with something.’

As Douglas and Jimbo drank their way through dinner that night, following an equally liquid lunch, Fenella Woodward, the new (and very well-spoken) receptionist at Lyttons was telling her mother about the interesting phone call she had had that day.

‘It was a Canadian, the son of one of Joanna Scott’s best friends. You know, she wrote
Deer Mountain
. Anyway, his mother was absolutely thrilled to discover that her old school friend had done so well, and they want to look her up, apparently. The mother emigrated to Canada when she was quite young, and they’re here on a visit, and longing to get in touch with her. He was so sweet, obviously a wonderful son, his mother is an invalid, she has some dreadful muscle-wasting illness, and this could be her last trip to England. He said he just knew it would make her feel so much better.’

‘What would?’

‘Well, being able to meet her.’

‘What, on this mountain? With a muscle-wasting illness? Did you give him her address?’

‘Yes, I did. I said he must write in and we would forward the letter. That’s what we’re told to say, but he said they were leaving in three days, and she has to go back into hospital. It just seemed so unkind not to help as much as I could. So I did – give him her address. Not of the sanctuary, of course, but the one where she collects her letters, in the village nearby. What harm can that do?’

‘If I were you, Fenella,’ said her mother slowly, ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone you did that.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Jay, ‘this cash flow still isn’t looking good.’

‘Well,’ Giles replied wearily, ‘maybe we shall have to leave the Dugdale memoirs in it. Find someone else to write the book, finish it quickly.’

‘Giles, I’ve left it in.’

‘Oh,’ said Giles. ‘Oh Christ.’

‘There’s another thing. They’re questioning the need for this place. Couldn’t we move to cheaper premises? Do we really need to be in the heart of the West End?’

‘Yes, of course we do. It’s essential. Everybody is.’

‘I would argue with you on that, I think,’ said Jay. ‘Everybody isn’t. This place must cost twice what Michael Joseph pays in Bloomsbury, or André Deutsch in Cumberland Place. I know it’s beautiful, I know Oliver loved it, I know it’s the only possible replacement for Paternoster Square. But paying these rates is commercial suicide. Maybe we should think about it: at least for the future.’

‘Oh God,’ said Giles. ‘I’m hating all this.’

‘It is rather – unfortunate,’ said Charteris. ‘We shall look – disorganised if we have to cancel the memoirs. And at precisely the time when we want to look the opposite.’

‘It is the sort of thing that happens all the time in this business though,’ said Jay, ‘surely that must count for something?’

‘I’m afraid not very much. It’s precisely that fact that has made getting the money quite – difficult. The fact that this is a capricious, unreliable business. And we are becoming quite unusual in remaining a private company. Collins and Longmans have both sold public shares, and they are only two examples. They’re all going down that road.’

Jay stared at him, a curl of excitement suddenly in his stomach. ‘Are you suggesting—’ It was almost unthinkable, certainly unsayable.

Charteris shook his head. ‘Not at the moment, no. Even if we all agreed it was a viable option, this is no time to do it. In fact, it’s virtually impossible. But if you had control of the company, then yes, I do most certainly think we should look at it very carefully.’

‘Celia would never consider it,’ said Jay.

She wouldn’t, of course: but he would. Giles and Venetia might. The young ones, Elspeth, Keir, Lucas – if his new ambition to join the company materialised – they probably would see it as not only inevitable but desirable. They would recognise the need for change, for growth, for the money that such a course of action would provide, and see, too, that family businesses – with their inherent tangle of private agendas and prejudices – had almost certainly had their day. It was such a different world from the one in which Celia, Oliver and LM had developed Lyttons; not only tougher, but unimaginably wider. And they needed capital: so badly. To expand, to build a proper paperback list, establish foreign agents, and – of course – to buy and keep the best authors. If they reacquired the company, the matter should be properly and dispassionately aired and explored. They might even be able to pay themselves decent salaries.

The address which Douglas Marks had been given, School House, Tullydie (presumably some kind of
poste restante
, he thought, certainly no mountain hideaway), was in a village near Perth; he had to change trains to get to Perth and after that, it was a long bus journey to the village. He had brought a camera with him, loaned by the picture desk; just a small one, nothing obtrusive.

The village was small and drab, and surprisingly near a town. It had a pub, a school, a few houses, and a shop, all on one main street. Marks stood looking round him; this couldn’t be right. There were some mountains in the distance; far, far in the distance. He would put them at twenty or thirty miles away. Long trip to collect letters. He took a couple of pictures, anyway.

The location of School House was not obvious, there was no street name, and there was quite clearly no school. Indeed there were none of the cosy landmarks to be found in an English village, no church, no village green, no pond. Clearly local knowledge was needed; he went into the shop.

A village shop: everything looking old and vaguely unsavoury, battered tins, creased packets, even the cheese, under its glass dome, looked as if it had been there for some time. A young girl was behind the counter; Marks asked her if she knew where School House was.

‘Out of the village,’ she said. ‘Take the road towards Craigraich. At the first crossroads turn left, then it’s about a mile up on the hill.’

‘I don’t have a car.’

She shrugged.

‘Is there a local taxi service?’

‘Taxi service?’ She looked at him as if he had asked for a casino or a brothel. ‘No. You could walk though.’

‘And – is that where Mrs Scott lives?’

‘Who?’ she said.

‘Mrs Joanna Scott?’

‘Who wants her?’

It seemed an odd question.

‘I’m a solicitor,’ he said.

He had used this explanation effectively in the past; most people seemed to live in the hope, or even expectation, of solicitors arriving on their doorsteps with news of large bequests and opened their doors most trustingly.

But, ‘A solicitor?’ she said suspiciously. ‘And you’ve no car?’

‘I’ve come from London. By train and then bus.’

‘Oh aye. Well, you’ll have to walk, as I say.’

Marks walked.

The Lyttons and Charteris were in the boardroom, waiting for Brian Gilmour. It was 5 March.

‘I would never have believed this could have taken so long,’ said Giles wearily.

‘Me neither,’ said Venetia. ‘I suppose it helps them tighten the screws.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well – they know we’ve got – what – three days left. How can we turn down any offer they make to us?’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s fair,’ said Charteris mildly, ‘these things do always take a lot of time. And most people aren’t in quite the hurry we are.’

‘I agree with Venetia,’ said Celia. ‘It seems absurd to me. Two months they’ve been poking their noses into our affairs, and nothing to show for it at all. I almost hope they turn us down. I can tell them what I think of them.’

‘Please don’t, Lady Celia,’ said Charteris. ‘It won’t help and we might need them another time.’