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
