glowing with health from her skiing. The sun had brought out the freckles on her nose, and her brown skin made the other customers in the coffee shop look pale and wintry. “I’m still reeling from the news about Polly,” she said. “Are you two relatives of hers?”
“No,” Jude replied. “Just people who want to find out how she died.”
“Yes, well, it seems to get ghastlier the more details I find out. Shot dead before the shop was burnt down around her – horrible.”
“How did you find out about it?”
“Oh, the Cambridge Mafia. I deliberately refrained from checking any emails while I was in Davos, because I knew they’d just be from needy paranoid authors, so I didn’t get the news till Saturday.”
“You haven’t spoken to Lola, have you?”
“No, I thought she’d have enough on her plate with her stepdaughter having been killed. Her husband must be devastated.”
Ah, so it seemed Serena hadn’t heard about Ricky’s death. Probably nothing to be gained by telling her unless she asked after him.
“What about Piers? Have you spoken to him?”
“Texted him. Said how devastated I was. How ghastly it must be for him. I mean, whatever he may have thought about Polly, they had been together for, I don’t know, twelve years, something like that.”
“You say ‘whatever he may have thought of Polly’. What do you mean?” asked Carole.
“Well, I gather from mutual chums that things haven’t been too good between them recently. And Piers always treated her a bit as though she was second best. I mean, when we were doing Footlights revues and things, Polly was always the hanger-on, the outsider, you know, not at Cambridge, not part of the group. But maybe Piers’d treat any woman he was going out with like that.”
“Oh?”
“Not lacking in self-esteem, our Piers. Biggest ego on the planet. The only thing he really cares about is his writing, his bloody career, and now with this sitcom of his apparently going into production, all his ambitions are going to be realized.”
“The real reason why we arranged to meet you, Serena,” said Carole, “is that we wanted to find out more about this book Polly had written. She was talking to me about it when I met her the afternoon before she died.”
“Oh yes, the book.” The agent sighed as this was a subject that had already caused trouble.
“She did offer it to you to read, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Happens quite a lot. This terrible myth that ‘everyone’s got a book in them’. And, in most cases, that is precisely where it should stay. But because people know I’m a literary agent, I get lots of manuscripts passed on from second cousins and friends of friends…you know how it is.”
“So Polly sent her manuscript to you through Piers?”
“No, she didn’t. Apparently she’d suggested that, but he wasn’t keen. Usual Piers thing – he didn’t want any competition. He was the writer in that set-up, didn’t like the idea of having a girlfriend with literary pretensions – in case she might turn out to be more talented than he was. From what Polly told me, he’d positively tried to stop her contacting me. But she was very determined, and she’d met me enough times back in Cambridge to make a direct approach herself. Which is what she did.”
“So you read it?”
“Yes, every word. Which, let me tell you, I don’t do with every manuscript that comes thudding into my in- box. I have a fifty-page rule – which I think is bloody generous of me, actually. A lot of agents don’t even go that far. But with me, I give the author a chance. If he or she has failed to engage my interest in fifty pages, then it’s the standard rejection letter.”
“So what did you think of Polly’s book?” asked Jude. “We’ve heard mixed reports.”
“She told me you’d liked it,” said Carole, “but Piers implied you’d only told Polly that out of kindness.”
“Huh. Bloody typical Piers again.”
“Oh?”
“As I said, he really hated the idea of Polly having talent in her own right. OK, she was an actor, he didn’t mind that. At least he didn’t mind it, because she wasn’t a very successful actor. If she’d suddenly become a star, I’m not sure the relationship would have survived. He doesn’t like competition.”
“According to Piers, the relationship wasn’t going to survive, anyway,” said Jude. “He said he was going to wait till they got through Christmas and then give Polly the old heave-ho.”
Serena Fincham smiled sardonically. “So typical of Piers. Ever the sensitive soul.” It was significant that she used exactly the same phrase as Lola to describe him.
“Anyway, please tell us,” Carole demanded impatiently, “what did you think of Lola’s book?”
“Bloody great,” said Serena. “I’d have taken it on straight away – I know a good few publishers who would snap up something like that – and pay a decent advance for it, even in these benighted times. But Polly wanted to do a bit more tinkering with it, so I told her to get back to me when she’d got a final draft she was happy with.”
“Which, of course, she never did.”
“No.”
“What kind of a book was it?” asked Jude.
“Well, it was a novel, but one of those novels which is clearly very thinly disguised autobiography. About a girl – who wasn’t called Polly, but clearly was Polly. And about the difficulties of her upbringing – feckless father, parents both doing drugs, divorce, mother’s remarriage to another unreliable male, break-up of that relationship, second divorce, mother’s death from an overdose…you know, all the cheery ingredients of normal family life. Had it been nonfiction, I suppose you would have called it a ‘misery memoir’, but it was better than most of those are. Better written, for a start. Polly really did write beautifully.”
“And do you think, if the book were published, it’d be successful?”
“Oh yes. Though I say it myself, I do have an instinct for these things – which is why I do the job I do. I’ve represented a few turkeys – haven’t we all – but, generally speaking, I’ve got a good nose for a successful book. And Polly’s fell straight into that category, no question.”
“Presumably, with a book like that,” Carole began, “thinly disguised autobiography, there’s a potential libel risk, isn’t there? I mean, if people in the book recognize themselves, they could take the author to court?”
“Yes, but Polly had managed that very skilfully. The characters were changed just enough to get round the libel risk. But, of course, particularly because she comes from quite a famous family, everyone would suspect who the originals were. So, come the publicity circus, Polly would have been asked all those questions: ‘Is the irresponsible stepfather Ricky Le Bonnier? Is the dominant grandmother Flora Le Bonnier? Is the arsehole of a boyfriend Piers Duncton?’ And then, of course, in all the interviews Polly would have hotly denied that was the case, which would only feed more curiosity in the listeners and viewers – and would sell more books.”
“You used the word ‘arsehole’ for the way Piers came across in the book…”
Serena quickly picked up Jude’s cue. “Yes, and I was being kind. I think Polly must’ve been saving up her spleen for some years. The Edwin in the book is Piers all over, very funny, lots of surface charm and a cold-blooded eye to the main chance. But at bottom a self-centred bully. If the book ever had been published, I don’t think Polly’s relationship with Piers could possibly have survived.”
Carole and Jude exchanged looks. Both knew how close they seemed to be getting to an explanation of the tragedy at Gallimaufry, but both knew how seriously they lacked evidence. “Serena,” said Jude softly, hardly daring to put the question in case their hopes were to be dashed, “you don’t by any chance have a copy of the book, do you? I mean, the draft that Polly sent you?”
“She actually emailed it to me.”
“So you never had a hard copy?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. When she sent it to me I had a problem with my laptop – it was being repaired – so I did a printout at the office and took it home to read over that weekend.”
“Have you still got the printour?”
“Yes.”
Matching involuntary sighs of relief emanated from Carole and Jude, as Serena reached into her capacious leather briefcase and pulled out a dog-eared pile of typing paper held together by a red rubber band.
