A Bed of Scorpions (3 page)

I gritted my teeth. He definitely hadn’t mentioned a
death in an art gallery. That wasn’t the kind of thing I might have forgotten. I pulled back from my anger. There was no particular reason for him to. Maybe. ‘He didn’t say anything about it. But did you say you knew who he was? That you know me? You haven’t met him with me, have you?’ I asked, even though I was sure he hadn’t. Jake’s shifts meant he didn’t often go out with me in the evenings, and I hadn’t seen Anna and Aidan in months, maybe more.

‘No. I mean, no, I hadn’t met him before; and no, I didn’t say that I knew you.’

‘What do you want?’ There seemed no point in tiptoeing about.

‘I don’t know.’

I
TOOK THE BUS
back to the office. I didn’t notice the way the sun struck the red-brick façades any longer, or the people enjoying its warmth. Instead, I huddled in my seat as if it were midwinter.

Miranda was lying in wait for me as soon as I appeared. She’s my assistant, and her retro-Goth look puts some people off, but she’s great. She’s been with me for nearly six months, and I’ve been able to leave more and more to her. Now she picked up her mug and stood as I came down the hall, using a sheaf of cover briefs to gesture me into my office. The mug was ominous, indicating she expected a long session, and when she didn’t lean on the door frame, but pulled a chair close to mine, I knew I was doomed.

I put my head down and slunk to my desk suitably chastened, but also very happy to focus on something I could do something about. She was right, and the work
needed to be done; I might as well do it with good grace. Cover briefs are outlines to tell the jacket designer what the book is about (no, they don’t read them, don’t be silly), and how we want to position it in the market. Most of the books they pretended to describe hadn’t been delivered – many hadn’t been written – so they were written on little more than an outline and a prayer that the author would come up with the goods. Taking that into account, Miranda had done a good job, and we only needed an hour to tidy them up.

I was pleased to get it done. At least, I was until Miranda hitched her chair closer. Apparently there was more. She gave a brisk nod, and ‘Now’ she said, as though she were getting a small child ready for her first day at school. I jumped inwardly. That was usually my tone – half-editor, half-sheepdog was how I privately saw my relationship with my authors. The notion that Miranda thought the same about me was endearing, and I grinned at her, despite being quite certain I wouldn’t want to do whatever it was she had lined up for me.

‘Now,’ she repeated firmly, ‘I’ve almost finalised your Frankfurt schedule.’ She pursed her lips when I shuddered. Give her a ticket to Frankfurt and watch her dust, her expression said. ‘In the meantime,’ she went on, not giving an inch, ‘you need to prepare for the Culture Committee panel.’

This was much worse than I’d feared. In a moment of total derangement, I’d agreed to sit on a joint Arts Council committee, and what a waste of time that had turned out to be. David Snaith, Timmins & Ross’s editor-in-chief, and my boss, had put me forward for it. With all the government
spending cuts, it was undoubtedly sensible for various cultural bodies to pool their knowledge, and the committee was made up of people from concert venues, from museums, theatre companies and music festivals, as well as more book-related things like book festivals. Theoretically the range, from government-funded institutions like the Opera House to commercial outfits like ours, should have made an exchange of views interesting.

That was the theory. Back here in real life, however, a lot of time was spent whining. Yes, times are hard, yes, music, and books, and dance, and theatre, don’t have the stranglehold on entertainment that they used to. But moaning got old fast. Even when time was spent more constructively, discussions revolved around matters that, in general, applied to only a few people in any one meeting. Things that were essential to one art form – audio-guides in museums, or live-streaming for theatre – had no relevance to the rest of us, and so we settled back to bitch and moan again.

And the panel. That was my lowest moment. I hadn’t been bitching and moaning, I’d been daydreaming in the meeting when it was proposed, and so I hadn’t heard when the committee chair volunteered me. I bet the son-of-a-bitch knew I wasn’t listening, too. Now I was doomed to make a presentation on ‘Subsidy in a Commercial World’. And since the area of publishing I work in barely deals with subsidies, it meant hours of setting up meetings with people in those areas that are subsidised. And all so that, when my turn came, I could say something that anyone who dealt with subsidies already knew, and anyone who didn’t, didn’t care.

I think I growled, because Miranda giggled, then hastily looked solemn, like a child with crumbs around her lips swearing she had no idea who had taken the biscuit out of the tin, hadn’t even know there
were
biscuits in that tin. She hadn’t giggled, no siree.

‘I’ve set up meetings for you over the next few days, when it’s quiet.’ I must have growled again, because she repeated ‘when it’s quiet’, now in full primary-schoolteacher mode, quelling the unruly through sheer force of personality. ‘You’re seeing Emma Cotton from the University Presses Alliance, and Neil Simonson from the Riverside Literature Festival. They can both fit you in on Monday. There’s also that charity that subsidises the cost of illustrations for art books.’

I nodded gloomily, resigned. I’d had some dealings with the Daylesworth Trust because, although I mostly do fiction, every now and again I publish a fashion book. The costs of printing illustrations, and paying the picture fees, were so high that we couldn’t do them on standard publishing terms. Either we had to get the fashion houses to contribute, or we needed some outside help. I hated relying on the fashion houses. They only knew what worked in magazines or advertising, and so what they wanted – what, if they were paying for it, they demanded – was often entirely unsuitable for books. So when a few years ago a friend who worked for an art publisher pointed me to the Daylesworth, it seemed a gift. The trust had been set up by some rich businessman who collected art, and it was entirely focused towards art books. But I’d decided that if you stretched the definition of ‘art’, it could cover fashion too. Maybe they
had agreed, or maybe doing the odd frock book made them feel hip. I don’t know. I’d never met anyone there. They had a grant application on their website, I’d filled it out the first time, and when it worked, I continued to do so. Maybe this meeting would be help for later books.
I feel almost positive about this
, I told myself. Then I added,
Liar
.

Miranda was still organising me. ‘They’ve been playing funny buggers, but I’ve got them pinned down now.’ She paused, diverted. ‘It was very strange. I couldn’t get a call-back for weeks.’

I didn’t see why that was strange. I’d avoid meeting me to discuss arts subsidy too, if I could.

I wasn’t given much time to brood, however. Miranda had suddenly speeded up, clearly thinking that if she spoke very quickly, the content wouldn’t register. ‘The woman there is Celia Stein, and she’s apparently very busy at the moment, so I booked you in to see her this afternoon at four.’ And then she had gathered her papers and her mug and slid out the door before I could share my views on scheduling.

I’d been thinking recently that I should put her forward for the next junior editor vacancy that came up. She was new, but she had hoovered up everything I’d thrown at her, and she deserved a better job than the entry-level one she did for me. And the job’s laughable salary meant that I couldn’t keep her and just give her better work. But if she kept this up, I was going to get her promoted simply to get her out of my hair.

I called through the wall to the pod where she and her colleagues sat: ‘Where am I meeting her?’

‘Her office,’ she called back. ‘The address is in your diary.’ I looked. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been – just on the edge of Regent’s Park, which meant I could walk home afterwards. I tried to continue feeling martyred, but it wasn’t working.

‘Thanks,’ I called instead, my tone an apology for my thoughts.

She giggled again. I really would have to find her a better job.

At three-thirty I gave up. I’d spent most of my afternoon worrying about Aidan, then pushing those thoughts aside and going back to the contract I was negotiating with a new author, before the picture of Frank in his office took over again. The image was so vivid I was barely aware any longer that I hadn’t seen him myself.

Instead I checked out Celia Stein online. The Daylesworth Trust’s website was remarkably uninformative. It said she had worked in ‘the arts’, as though that were a job description, before she had moved to the charitable sector. And that was all. I googled her, too, but with no other information I couldn’t disentangle her from the other Celia Steins the world was filled with, although for amusement I let myself imagine that she was the Celia Stein who was a competitive dirt-bike racer. Sadly, I decided the odds were against it, and so I set off knowing nothing, not a position I liked to be in.

I walked. The bus would have taken as long, and I hoped that the mindlessness of walking would stave off the pictures of Frank, that dark body in the dark room. It didn’t, but it did make me realise that however much
Jake wanted to keep me away from his job, we needed to talk. So when I reached the park, I stopped and texted quickly:
Are you working or am I seeing you tonight?
Then I looked around for the Daylesworth’s offices. The address Miranda had given turned out to be a street of white-stuccoed, rather grand houses, on one side of the road only, as they faced a private square at the south end of Regent’s Park. I’d always assumed the trust was a fairly small operation, but if it could afford more than a couple of rooms here, that was not the case. Or maybe the founder ran his business, whatever that was, from there, and they benefitted by the connection.

The office, when I found it, had no sign at all out front, neither for the Daylesworth Trust nor any other business. I went up the stairs past a group of three women smoking in the sun. Inside was even less informative. Where I expected a reception area, or a hall, there was nothing but a surprisingly small stone-flagged foyer, dominated by a vast double staircase, its large stone steps and elaborate gilt and wrought-iron railing making it look like it belonged in a seaside resort hotel in the 1890s. There was no sign, but also nowhere to go but up, so up I went. At the top of the first flight, tucked into the side of the landing, was an ugly 1960s veneered plywood desk. A plainly dressed, middle-aged woman looked up. ‘Yes?’ she said, and it was only manners that stopped me from doing a carton-style double-take. She had the most beautiful voice, deep and gravelly, like Lauren Bacall, oozing sex and sin, but coming out of a completely ordinary face.

I contemplated asking her to marry me, just so I could
wake up to that voice for the rest of my life, but I decided she might think it was too sudden. ‘Would you tell Celia Stein that Samantha Clair is here?’ I said instead.

She picked up the phone and dialled. Then, ‘I’m afraid there’s nowhere to sit, but she won’t be long.’

I smiled. An opportunity to listen some more. ‘Not to worry. This is a very strange building. What was it before?’

A snort escaped her. ‘It’s nineteenth century, and it’s listed, a building of historical importance. But for anyone who works here, it’s a white elephant, is what it is. We’re not allowed to touch any of the architectural features, so we’re just shoved in wherever we fit, all over the place.’

‘Why are you here, then, if it’s so impractical?’

She looked sour. ‘Good question. We were in a purpose-built office block not far away. When the building was scheduled for demolition, when Crossrail was given the go-ahead, we needed to move quickly. The upstairs here is lovely – the bosses have beautiful offices. That may have something to do with their choice.’ She stopped abruptly and picked up the phone. I couldn’t tell if she had just realised she was spilling internal politics to a total stranger, or if she’d heard a step before I did. At any rate, when a woman appeared on the stairs above us, the receptionist was booking a cab and I was admiring the ceiling mouldings.

She came towards me holding out her hand. ‘Celia Stein,’ she confirmed. ‘How nice of you to offer to come to me. I appreciate it.’ She was the kind of woman I’ve always longed to be, looking at them wistfully in restaurants and theatres. She was neither terribly tall, nor terribly thin, but she looked both. Her hair, a reddish
brown, fell in waves past her shoulders, and was held back from her face on one side with a comb. Her clothes were not dissimilar to mine – trousers and a blouse – but there the resemblance ended. Hers were two shades of elegant taupe, chosen to set off her russet colouring, while mine were black and white, chosen to reduce to the bare minimum the time spent thinking about them. And, I acknowledged to myself, that was why I would never look like women like Celia Stein: she took time and trouble and I didn’t. Her hairstyle, so simple-looking, probably took half an hour of careful blow-drying every morning, and needed highlights once a month; my hair was cut when I remembered, and otherwise had to look out for itself. She also spent money, a neon sign flashing over her head:
Expensive to Maintain
. Her trousers were linen, her shirt silk, her watch thin and discreet, her shoes sleek Italian (maybe) leather. I bet the highlights cost a bomb too, and her dry-cleaning bill.

I gave myself a mental shake. I had no idea why my hackles had gone up. She was watching me, and I think she knew it. ‘Please come up,’ was all she said, and, ‘Thank you, Denise,’ to the receptionist as she turned to lead the way.

Celia Stein’s office was small and not particularly glamorous, whatever Denise thought. Or maybe she wasn’t high enough up the pecking order. Her room was not dissimilar to mine, which was also in an old house converted to office use, and equally harshly carved out of a space that had once been beautiful. Hers was at the back of the building, and looked out onto a light-well and the rear of the house behind. Otherwise, it was run-of-the-mill: standard-issue 
office desk, filing cabinets, shelves. The only spot of colour came from a print on the wall, an orange and gold mishmash of 1950s cartoon characters. Its colours suited her look, even if the style didn’t go with her personality. Or what I had decided in the first twenty seconds was her personality. Sam Clair, the Sigmund Freud of snap judgements.

She sat at her desk and gestured to the single remaining chair. There was coffee in a cafetière on her desk, and two cups, which softened my mood considerably. We made small talk for the few minutes it took to pour us both a drink, and then she said, ‘Tell me how I can help.’