A Dog's Life (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 4) (11 page)

Then the ebook arrived. Stephanie had been quoted in media articles detailing her rise to fame and fortune as claiming that the advent of the ebook, with all its possibilities and opportunities, opened up the world of readers for her like Moses opened up the Red Sea. She also liked to add that she probably made more out of it than he did, which some commentators clearly found a little crass. But with the kind of money Stephanie was raking in for her churn-em-out-cheap JR Lleroy series she didn’t take too much care in what she said.

Stephanie Lather wasn’t even thirty and thanks to her books, hard work and her canny self-promotion through the manipulation of social media, she was an international sensation on both sides of the pond. She was also rumoured to be considerably wealthy.

From reading about Stephanie, Joy had learned that while the gatekeepers to the world of traditional publishing had shunned her, she had never given up hope and had kept thumping away at the keyboard and submitting manuscripts. With the advent of ebooks and ereaders, she had seen and seized her opportunity. Stephanie had ditched her dream of a book deal and, as one particularly influential traditional publishing house with substantial vested interests in the dying physical book market had famously remarked on the subject of ebooks, sold her soul to the devil. Fundamental to her success were her self-promotion skills, which were on a par with her writing skills – aggressive and irresistible. Stephanie Lather had worked with a single-minded tirelessness – one that she claimed made Mother Theresa look like a part-timer – towards fulfilling her dreams of becoming an author of note and she had succeeded in emphatic fashion. An author of note she had certainly become, but perhaps not in the way she had originally intended. This was not something that appeared to bother her as she commuted between her homes on the Dorset coast, in London’s Knightsbridge and in a New York apartment building.

No one was pretending that Stephanie wrote erudite and scholarly fiction. No one was talking about literary prizes, not even longlists for them. But she did have a gift for telling a good tale, her plotting was regularly ingenious and her characters always seemed so familiar and real and created for readers to empathise with.

Sales of her ebooks numbered in the millions. She churned them out quickly and priced them cheaply. She would often Tweet reminders to her followers that her books could be had for less than the price of a cup of decent tea. Her fan base was huge – cross-gender, cross-generational, cross-culture and across continents.

By all forms of media she had been singled out as one of the great success stories of the ebook boom and the traditional-publishing industry had been forced to sit up and take notice. Then, when they’d realised that there might be money to be made from a complementary series of ‘real’ books and audio books, they’d fist-fought each other in the streets to offer her the kind of publishing deal that all writers, traditional or self-published, fantasise about.

Stephanie Lather had made it big. Very big. And by her own admission she wasn’t finished, not by a long way.

There was talk that although she no longer lived in Dover and felt no great affinity for the place, which she had once described in her blog as,
‘...the dour town on the Dour river...’
, she had chosen the place for the launch of hard copies of her books for one reason and one reason only. It was not because she felt she owed anything to the community in which she was raised. It was not because she felt a debt to any one from there. It was because this is where her ex-husband still lived and worked. At the docks. Which could be seen clearly – even on an inclement winter’s day when the English Channel was throwing itself through thick sea mist at Neptune’s whim and Dover’s beach – from the Dover Marina Hotel. The husband that had betrayed her, cheated on her with her sister before, during and after her pregnancy with their second child. The husband that had abandoned his paternal obligations to both of his daughters and left a penniless Stephanie to struggle like a blind three-legged mule climbing Everest with a shed on its back – her words. There was talk that Stephanie Lather was back in Dover to rub his nose in her success as much as to launch her traditional publishing career.

Stephanie Lather was to give a talk about her journey from a self-publishing nobody to a traditionally-published success story. And then she was going to do a book signing. Joy had tickets.

Joy was a big fan of the JR Lleroy series – undemanding, pure escapist reads. She had all twelve novels on her ebook reader. Each time a new book came out she would quickly download and devour it. Sometimes even reading it twice.

After some hanging around in the lobby with free coffee and biscuits to the gentle background murmur of polite and expectant conversation, Joy went in to take her seat in the Chartwell conference room along with everyone else. As people waited and chatted she looked around and took in the opulence of the venue: the fine and expensive wallpaper, the deep and luxurious carpet, the picture windows with superb harbour views. It was all far removed from the daily life of the humble detective constable – the drab grubby surroundings, the scumbags they had to deal with, the constant cycle of unpleasantness – and Joy felt that, given the chance, she could get used to it.

As Joy sat and waited, her thoughts strayed to the state of her own life. Despite her gripes and a very big career wobble caused by her near-death experience at the hands of ex-DS Wilkie, she still largely enjoyed her job and her confidence was growing. She didn’t hate where she lived. She was involved with a man whom she understood she felt something significant for. So why did she feel so... unfulfilled?

Joy recognised that, of course, news of her mother’s ailing health and the emotional trauma of seeing her the previous evening had contributed to her feelings of discontent, but Joy also understood that it went deeper than that. She had been feeling... unfulfilled – there was no better word for it – for a good while. She wanted more from life. She was only in her early thirties and while her biological clock wasn’t audible just yet, she found herself wondering about that element of her future with greater regularity. Would Justin be the man for that? He already had two young kids. No, that wouldn’t work. Not for her. Not other people’s kids. Was a relationship that involved levels of commitment she had no experience of what she needed now? If she wasn’t careful, life would be in danger of settling down into a grind, a rut, and that frightened her as much as anything. Should she push herself harder at work? Look for new opportunities? Advancement? Superintendent Vine had indicated that she could be influential in a good way, but there was a price tag attached to that kind of help. And Joy finally found herself considering the thing that might be at the root of her despondency.

To break the spell of Joy’s reverie, Stephanie Lather entered from a door behind the elevated little stage to a warm round of applause. She looked good in a designer suit – everyone knew she liked her clothes. She looked fit – everyone knew she could afford and had a personal trainer. She looked happy – everyone knew she was living the dream. She looked like a woman who’d won the lottery. Better than that, she was a woman who’d fixed her own win. She had a right to enjoy it.

While the couple of other figures that had entered with her took seats at the table on the dais, Stephanie remained standing and walked to the front of the stage to smile and blow kisses at her adoring audience. Joy found herself irresistibly caught up in the fervour and clapped and smiled back. It was all very uplifting.

Stephanie used her hands and body language to show that she felt unworthy and gradually the commotion died down.

When all had been reduced to an expectantly-charged hush, she began: ‘Thank you. Thank you. How kind and lovely you all are. How truly unworthy I feel. I’d like to start by thanking you all for coming today and giving me such a wonderful reception.’

She was interrupted by a resurgence or applause. Again she quietened them with some appropriate hand signals.

‘As most of you may know, I was born and bred in Dover and although I don’t visit as often as I would like, it will always have a special place in my heart.’

A couple of rows behind Joy and off to her left someone blew a large raspberry. That changed things. Stephanie’s verbal stride faltered. Her fixed wide grin curdled and her eyebrows dipped. She looked momentarily unsure or herself. All those who’d heard it turned to seek out the source but it was not immediately apparent.

Stephanie resumed, perhaps wondering whether she had been mistaken: ‘One question that readers often ask me is: where did the character of JR Lleroy come from? Is JR’s life based to any extent on my own?’

‘That’s two questions,’ shouted someone from across the other side, not kindly it seemed to Joy.

Stephanie again looked fleetingly perplexed by the interruption. After a short pause she carried on. ‘Like many authors’ central protagonists, there is a good deal of JR Lleroy in me and a good deal of me in JR Lleroy. We are of a similar age. We have comparable backgrounds...’

‘What do you attribute your popularity to?’ came a loud female voice two rows in front of Joy.

In Stephanie’s obvious confusion and hesitancy at yet another interruption, one of the other women who’d entered from behind the stage with her and had been sitting at the desk – a cold, frigid-looking, stern-faced woman – stood and walked to take up a position beside the author.

She smiled a tight icy smile as she speared the owner of that enquiry with her stare. ‘Stephanie will be taking questions at the end, but because of our tight time constraints, could I please ask that questions are kept until after Stephanie has given us a reading from her latest novel.’

A murmur of general agreement rippled through the audience. Joy had not been to such an event before but she was surprised at what she had witnessed so far – in a bad way. It was not at all what she had expected.

To emphasise her point, the businesswoman turned her back and click-clacked back to the desk. Stephanie smiled again, made an apologetic face and took a deep breath to continue. But before she was able to utter another sound a familiar voice from the front, loud and clear, said: ‘Do you practise sock-puppetry, Stephanie?’

Joy had no idea what sock-puppetry was and she could see from the troubled faces of others around her that she was not alone. She looked back at Stephanie and was not sure that she was looking at the same person. A significant change of expression had settled on her features. Gone was the endearingly-hopeful, friendly mask of the debutant. In its place was the hard, angry, experienced look of someone who had fought for things. Joy now saw a woman who had struggled and battled for something and was preparing to defend it to the death if need be.

Stephanie came to the front of the stage and folded her arms deliberately. A chair scraped back behind her and she took a moment to wave the woman who had sprung to her defence once for her to stay where she was.

Arms back in position across her chest, Stephanie said, ‘What?’ and Joy felt that had a rat broken wind behind the skirting board she would have heard it.

‘It’s a simple question, Steph – or do you prefer
Matron
, which I understand is one of your online alter egos?’

Stephanie Lather flushed a deep, angry crimson. ‘Who are you?’

Now the woman behind her was coming out from behind the desk and talking. Her expression had changed too. She was now looking worried for her client. ‘I think that we should leave it there for the moment, Stephanie. Let’s take a break, everyone. Get a coffee and reconvene in fifteen minutes.’

Stephanie gave no indication that she was leaving. Nor did anyone else. They had ringside seats that they’d paid handsomely for.

The heckler stood, which Joy felt was considerate of her. ‘My name is Jemima Dune. You’ve heard of me, I think, but we’ve never met.’

The crowd’s collective gaze switched back to the stage. Stephanie’s colour had lightened by several shades of rouge.

‘What’s up, Steph? Cat got your tongue?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Stephanie. But it was clear to Joy that she did.

She was turning to leave when another female member of the audience was on her feet and calling out: ‘What about me, Steph, or do you prefer
Dixie
? My name’s Stevie Maybe. Remember me?’

Stephanie looked to the source of the noise. Her eyes were wide now and Joy fancied she saw something unpleasant and volatile welling up in her – a geyser of fury.

‘Over here, Steph, or is it
Victoria Sponge
?’ Stephanie stopped and turned, unable to resist or ignore the jeer. ‘My name’s Stella Reach. Do you remember me? Why don’t you answer the question? Do you practise sock-puppetry? Here’s another question: do you use fake online identities to slag off your fellow self-published authors while raving about your own books?’

Stephanie’s mouth opened wide. And then shut to form a hard line above a strong jaw. The look she shot that particular woman might have led to a simple act of violence if Stephanie’s entourage had not physically hustled her from the stage.

While over a hundred of Stephanie’s fans sat in stunned silence, first one and then the other two who had heckled to such devastating effect seized the moment and the empty stage, like an attacking force seizing abandoned high ground. The only thing they were missing was their flag. Joy sensed a palpable cocktail of confusion, irritation and anger in the conference room. It was something in danger of turning nasty. With a racing pulse, she prepared herself for intervention.