The Great Pursuit (25 page)

'I can't imagine what they are.'

Baby smiled. 'Like who the real writer is. And don't give me that crap about a guy with six
children and terminal arthritis. There's no such thing.'

'There isn't?' said Piper.

'No way. So we've got Frensic willing to risk his reputation as a literary agent for a
percentage of two million and an author who goes along with him to preserve his precious
anonymity from disclosure. That adds up to one hell of a weird set of circumstances. And Hutch
hears what's going on he's going to murder them.'

'If Hutchmeyer hears what we've been doing he isn't going to be exactly pleased,' said Piper
gloomily.

'Yes but we aren't there and Frensic is. In Lanyard Lane and by now he's got to be
sweating.'

And Frensic was. The arrival of a large packet mailed in New York and addressed Personal,
Frederick Frensic, had excited his curiosity only mildly. Arriving early at the office he had
taken it upstairs with him and had opened several letters before turning his attention to the
package. But from that moment onwards he had sat petrified staring at its contents. In front of
him lay, neatly Xeroxed, sheet after sheet of Piper's unmistakable handwriting and just as
equally unmistakably the original manuscript of Pause O Men for the Virgin. Which was impossible.
Piper hadn't written the bloody book. He couldn't have. It was out of the question. And anyway
why should anyone send him Xeroxed copies of a manuscript? The manuscript. Frensic rummaged
through the pages and noted the corrections. The damned thing was the manuscript of Pause. And it
was in Piper's handwriting. Frensic got up from his desk and went through to the filing cabinet
and brought back the file now marked Mr Smith and compared the handwriting of Piper's letters
with that of the manuscript. No doubt about it. He even reached for a magnifying glass and
studied the letters through it. Identical. Christ. What the hell was going on? Frensic felt most
peculiar. Some sort of waking nightmare had taken hold of him. Piper had written Pause? The
obstacles in the way of such a supposition were insuperable. The little bugger couldn't have
written anything and if he had...even if he quite miraculously had, what about Mr Cadwalladine
and his anonymous client? Why should Piper have sent him the typed copy of the book through a
solicitor in Oxford? And anyway the sod was dead. Or was he? No, he was definitely dead, drowned,
murdered...Sonia's grief had been too real for disbelief. Piper was dead. Which brought him full
circle to the question, who had sent this post-mortem manuscript? From New York? Frensic looked
at the postmark. New York. And why Xeroxed? There had to be a reason. Frensic grabbed the package
and rummaged inside it in the hope that it might contain some clue like a covering letter. But
the package was empty. He turned to the outside. The address was typed. Frensic turned the packet
over in search of a return address but there was nothing there. He turned back to the pages had
read several more. There could be no doubting the authenticity of the writing. The corrections on
every page were conclusive. They had been there in exactly the same form in every annual copy of
Search for a Lost Childhood, a sentence scratched neatly out and a new one written in above.
Worst of all, there were even the spelling mistakes. Piper had always spelt necessary with two cs
and parallel with two rs, and here they were once again as final proof that the little maniac had
actually penned the book which had gone to print with his name on the title page. But the
decision to use his name hadn't been Piper's. He had only been consulted when the book had
already been sold...

Frensic's thoughts spiralled. He tried to remember who had suggested Piper. Was it Sonia, or
had he himself...? He couldn't recall and Sonia wasn't there to help him. She had gone down to
Somerset to interview the author of Bernie the blasted Beaver and to ask for amendments in his
opus. Beavers, even voluble beavers, didn't say 'Jesus wept' and 'Bloody hell', not if they
wanted to get into print as children's bestsellers. Frensic did, several times, as he stared at
the pages in front of him. Pulling himself together with an effort, he reached for the phone.
This time Mr Cadwalladine was going to come clean about his client. But the telephone beat
Frensic to it. It rang. Frensic cursed and picked up the receiver.

'Frensic & Futtle, Literary Agents...' he began before being stopped by the operator.

'Is that Mr Frensic, Mr Frederick Frensic?'

'Yes,' said Frensic irritably. He had never liked his Christian name.

'I have a birthday greeting for you,' said the operator.

'For me?' said Frensic. 'But it isn't my birthday.'

But already a taped voice was crooning 'Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday, dear Frederick,
happy Birthday to you.'

Frensic held the receiver away from his ear. 'I tell you it isn't my bloody birthday,' he
shouted at the recording. The operator came back on the line.

'The greetings telegram reads TRANSFER ADVANCE ROYALTIES CARE OF FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF NEW
YORK ACCOUNT NUMBER FOUR SEVEN EIGHT SEVEN SEVEN SIX LOVE PIPER. I will repeat that. TRANSFER...'
Frensic sat and listened. He was beginning to shake.

'Would you like that account number repeated once again?' asked the operator.

'No,' said Frensic. 'Yes.' He grabbed a pencil with an unsteady hand and wrote the message
down.

'Thank you,' he said without thinking as he finished.

'You're welcome,' said the operator. The line went dead.

'Like hell I am,' said Frensic and put the phone down. He stared for a moment at the word
'Piper' and then groped his way across the room to the cubicle in which Sonia made coffee and
washed the cups. There was a bottle of brandy there, kept for emergency resuscitation of rejected
authors. 'Rejected?' Frensic muttered as he filled a tumbler. 'More like resurrected.' He drank
half the tumbler and went back to his desk feeling little better. The nightmare quality of the
manuscript had doubled now with the telegram but it was no longer incomprehensible. He was being
blackmailed. 'Transfer advance royalties...' Frensic suddenly felt faint. He got out of his chair
and lay down on the floor and shut his eyes.

After twenty minutes he got to his feet. Mr Cadwalladine was going to learn that it didn't pay
to tangle with Frensic & Futtle. There was no point in phoning the wretched man again.
Stronger measures were needed now. He would have the bastard squealing the name of his client and
there would be an end to all this talk of professional confidentiality. The situation was
desperate and desperate remedies were called for. Frensic went downstairs and out into the
street. Half an hour later, armed with a parcel that contained sandals, dark glasses, a
lightweight tropical suit and a Panama hat, he returned to the office. All that was needed now
was an ambulance-chasing libel lawyer. Frensic spent the rest of the morning going through Pause
for a suitable identity and then phoned Ridley, Coverup, Makeweight and Jones, Solicitors of
Ponsett House. Their reputation as shysters in cases of libel was second to none. Mr Makeweight
would see Professor Facit at four.

At five to four Frensic, armed with a copy of Pause O Men for the Virgin and peering dimly
through his tinted glasses, sat in the waiting-room and looked down at his sandals. He was rather
proud of them. If anything distinguished him from Frensic, the literary agent, it was, he felt,
those awful sandals.

'Mr Makeweight will see you now,' said the receptionist. Frensic got up and went down the
passage to the door marked Mr Makeweight and entered. An air of respectable legal fustiness clung
to the room. It didn't to Mr Makeweight. Small, dark and effusive, he was rather too quick for
the furnishings. Frensic shook hands and sat down. Mr Makeweight regarded him expectantly. 'I
understand you are concerned with a passage in a novel,' he said.

Frensic put the copy of Pause on the desk.

'Well, I am rather,' he said hesitantly. 'You see...well it's been drawn to my attention by
some of my colleagues who read novels I am not a novel-reader myself you understand but they have
pointed out...well I'm sure it must be a coincidence...and they have certainly found it very
funny that...'

'That a character in this novel resembles you in certain ways?' said Mr Makeweight, cutting
through Frensic's hesitations.

'Well I wouldn't like to say that he resembles me...I mean the crimes he commits...'

'Crimes?' said Mr Makeweight taking the bait. 'A character resembling you commits crimes? In
this novel?'

'It's the name you see. Facit,' said Frensic leaning forward to open Pause at the page he had
marked. 'If you read the passage in question you will see what I mean.'

Mr Makeweight read three pages and looked up with a concern that masked his delight. 'Dear
me,' he said, 'I do see what you mean. These are exceedingly serious allegations. ',

'Well they are, aren't they?' said Frensic pathetically. 'And my appointment as Professor of
Moral Sciences at Wabash has yet to be confirmed and, quite frankly, if it were thought for one
moment...'

'I take your point,' said Mr Makeweight. 'Your career would be put in jeopardy.'

'Ruined,' said Frensic.

Mr Makeweight selected a cigar happily. 'And I suppose we can take it that you have
never...that these allegations are quite without foundation. You have never for instance seduced
one of your male students?'

'Mr Makeweight,' said Frensic indignantly.

'Quite so. And you have never had intercourse with a fourteen-year-old girl after dosing her
lemonade with a barbiturate?'

'Certainly not. The very idea revolts me. And besides I'm not sure I would know how to.'

Mr Makeweight regarded him critically. 'No, I daresay you wouldn't,' he said finally. 'And
there is no truth in the accusation that you habitually fail students who reject your sexual
overtures?'

'I don't make sexual overtures to students, Mr Makeweight. As a matter of fact I am neither on
the examining board nor do I give tutorials. I am not part of the University. I am over here on a
sabbatical and engaged in private research.'

'I see,' said Mr Makeweight, and made a note on his pad.

'And what makes it so much more embarrassing,' said Frensic, 'is that at one time I did have
lodgings in De Frytville Avenue.'

Mr Makeweight made a note of that too. 'Extraordinary,' he said, 'quite extraordinary. The
resemblance would seem to be almost exact. I think, Professor Facit, in fact I do more, I know
that...provided of course that you haven't committed any of these unnatural acts...I take it you
have never kept a Pekinese...no. Well as I say, provided you haven't and indeed even if you have,
I can tell you now that you have grounds for taking action against the author and publishers of
this disgraceful novel. I should estimate the damages to be in the region of...well to tell the
truth I shouldn't be at all surprised if they don't constitute a record in the history of libel
actions.'

'Oh dear,' said Frensic, feigning a mixture of anxiety and avarice, 'I was rather hoping it
might be possible to avoid a court case. The publicity, you understand.'

Mr Makeweight quite understood. 'We'll just have to see how the publishers respond,' he said.
'Corkadales aren't a wealthy firm of course but they'll be insured against libel.'

'I hope that doesn't mean the author won't have to...'

'Oh he'll pay all right, Professor Facit. Over the years. The insurance company will see to
that. A more deliberate case of malicious libel I have never come across.'

'Someone told me that the author, Mr Piper, has made a fortune out of the book in America,'
said Frensic.

'In that case I think he will have to part with it,' said Mr Makeweight.

'And if you could expedite the matter I would be most grateful. My appointment at
Wabash...'

Mr Makeweight assured him that he would put the matter in hand at once and Frensic, having
given his address as the Randolph Hotel, Oxford, left the office well pleased. Mr Cadwalladine
was about to get the shock of his life.

So was Geoffrey Corkadale. Frensic had only just returned to Lanyard Lane and was divesting
himself of the disgusting sandals and the tropical suit when the phone rang. Geoffrey was in a
state bordering on hysteria. Frensic held the phone away from his ear and listened to a torrent
of abuse.

'My dear Geoffrey,' he said when the publisher ran out of epithets. 'What have I done to
deserve this outburst?'

'Done?' yelled Corkadale. 'Done? You've done for this firm for one thing. You and that
damnable Piper...'

'De mortuis nil nisi...' Frensic began.

'And what about the bloody living?' screamed Geoffrey. 'And don't tell me he didn't speak ill
of this Professor Facit knowing full well that the swine was alive because...'

'What swine?' said Frensic.

'Professor Facit. The man in the book who did those awful things...'

'Wasn't he the character with satyriasis who...'

'Was?' bawled Geoffrey. 'Was? The bloody maniac is.'

'Is what?' said Frensic.

'Is! Is! The man's alive and he's filing a libel action against us.'

'Dear me. How very unfortunate.'

'Unfortunate? It's catastrophic. He's gone to Ridley, Coverup, Makeweight and...'

'Oh no,' said Frensic, 'but they're absolute rogues.'

'Rogues? They're bloodsuckers. Leeches. They'd get blood out of a stone and with all this
filth in the book about Professor Facit they've got a watertight case. They're dunning us for
millions. We're finished. We'll never...'

'The man you want to speak to is a Mr Cadwalladine,' said Frensic. 'He acted for Piper. I'll
give you his telephone number.'

'What good is that going to do? It's deliberate libel...'

But Frensic was already dictating Mr Cadwalladine's telephone number and with apologies
because he had a client in the room next door he put the phone down on Geoffrey's ravings. Then
he changed out of the tropical suit, phoned the Randolph and booked a room in the name of
Professor Facit and waited. Mr Cadwalladine was bound to call and when he did Frensic was going
to be ready and waiting. In the meantime he sought further inspiration by studying Piper's
telegram. 'Transfer advance royalties care of account number 478776.' And the little bastard was
supposed to be dead. What in God's name was going on? And what on earth was he going to tell
Sonia? And where did Hutchmeyer fit into all this? According to Sonia the police had grilled him
for hours and Hutchmeyer had come out of the experience a shaken man, and had even threatened to
sue the police. That didn't sound like the action of a man who...Frensic put the notion of
Hutchmeyer kidnapping Piper and demanding his money back by proxy as too improbable for words. If
Hutchmeyer had known that Piper hadn't written Pause he would have sued. But Piper apparently had
written Pause. The proof was there in front of him in the copy of the manuscript. Well he would
have to screw the truth out of Mr Cadwalladine and with Mr Makeweight in the wings demanding
enormous damages, Mr Cadbloodywalladine was going to have to come clean.