G Malliet - Death and the Lit Chick

"And in this case?' St. Just prompted.

She looked him straight in the eye, a panda peering from the bamboo forest.

"In this case, no. She wasn't established, for one thing. Just trust me on this, and don't let that girly ditz-brain act of hers fool you. She liked giving the impression that deciding whether to wear strappy heels or flats was the day's biggest decision. But she has-had-a mind like a computer. She knew what she looked like; she knew what she had going for her, and she wasn't shy about using it to her advantage. So what? She wrote a book calculated to the last comma to hit its target market, and it did."

"Which was?'

"Roughly, Sloane Rangers and those who aspire to similar status. Every girl out there who imagines she's going to dabble in PR or design leather handbags or write children's books and finally end up at the altar of St Paul's, hanging on Prince William's arm. And more than a few middle-aged ladies who daydream the same."

"I see." He stole a glance at Moor, who was nodding.

"My daughters all wanted a flat in Chelsea after reading it. As -as they would say- if."

Ninette was nodding vigorously again.

"You see? Harmless fantasy-well, one imagines it's harmless-but it hit a real nerve. There have been imitators since, but Kimberlee Kalder got in first."

"I do see," said St. Just. He turned to Moor as if to indicate the floor was his, but Moor, with a wave of his hand, abjured.

St. Just thought a moment. "Would you say she had rivals?" he said at last.

"I would say she had enemies."

At St. Just's encouraging look, she went on:

"Not that she went out of her way to harm people. It's just that for Kimberlee Kalder, no one existed but Kimberlee Kalder. It was a style that, shall we say, took some getting used to."

"Really."

"I'll tell you who loved her, though," Ninette continued. "Lord Easterbrook. Not in the romantic sense, of course. In the sense that she saved his bacon. I wonder what the poor man is going to do now."

"I imagine you will miss her for much the same reasons," put in Moor.

"Quite," she said. "A real money earner, she was, and now she's gone…"

St. Just waited in vain for the prospect of financial loss, at least, to start the waterworks, but Ninette spoke with an ethereal detachment, as if the topic were quite remote from anything surrounding her life. Still, he knew that shock could manifest itself in exactly such a way. The reality could take days, weeks, even months to sink in.

"So," St. Just said, "tell me about our host here, Dagger Press."

"What about it?"

"Specifically, what can you tell me about Easterbrook, the man who brought us all here together?"

Ninette examined a cuticle before answering, then looked at the policemen in turn. The sound of Sergeant Kittle's taking advantage of the pause to flip to a new page in his notebook seemed to unsettle her.

"Well, the publishing house itself began as a rich man's hobby-eighty, ninety years ago. Possibly it was even meant to fail, as some sort of income fiddle. But Lord Easterbrook's grandfather hadn't counted on the Golden Age of mystery writing kicking in right about then. He made a ruddy fortune instead."

"So Easterbrook inherited a going concern," said St. Just.

Ninette nodded. "And married a wealthy woman. Never hurts to have backup insurance, does it? Anyway, fast-forward to the present day, where the market is glutted but still writers crank out novels like sausage links. An apt analogy that," she added. "I must remember it. Anyway, the field is lucrative for some but, frankly, it's getting crowded with too much of the same old thing. Kimberlee turned out to be the breath of fresh air the whole show needed. She was a born publicity machine and quickly established a 'persona.' She also had the instincts of a natural actress, where most writers are naturally shy. Wasn't it Agatha Christie who said she took up writing so she wouldn't have to speak in public? That's true of most writers."

"But not Kimberlee," said St. Just.

" Not Kimberlee," she said. "God, no. The woman was born with a microphone in her hand. Lord Easterbrook needed a personality more than he needed another author, and with Kimberlee he got that in spades. What can I say? Publishing is a strange business."

"Let me share with you an observation," said St. Just. "I can see what you mean when you indicate she was sharp, intelligent. But then she'd come out with some gushing, Valley-Girl rubbish…"

Again Ninette nodded.

"She was inconsistent. She wasn't pitch perfect. Would have been, given time. It was an act-somewhat O.T.T., if you know what I mean-and the cracks showed through the plaster here and there."

"So there was a conflict with her real character or personality," said St. Just. "I see."

Sergeant Kittle spoke up just then.

"So who was killed, her or the 'over-the-top' person she pretended to be?"

St. Just thought it an excellent question, but said nothing. Ninette shrugged.

"I imagine you have contact information for her friends or family," said Moor. "And her solicitor. Please leave the details with Sergeant Kittle-it could save us time tracking people down. Do you have anything more to add?"

"No. Just that I don't know who her solicitor was, if she had one."

St. Just picked up a very slight hesitation.

"You're certain you've nothing to add?"

Ninette sighed and wrapped her leopard-print arms tightly around her midriff.

"I may as well tell you," she said. "You're bound to hear it from one of the gossipmongers down below. Kimberlee was giving every sign of leaving me. For Jay's agency. Jay Fforde."

St. Just eyed her sympathetically. "Not a great show of gratitude there."

"You can repeat that. After all I'd done for her."

"There was no way to stop her? No contract tying her to you?"

"Of course there was, but surely you know how the law works, or fails to work, as well as I do-better than I do. I could have sued her and probably I would have won, but what would it have cost me-and not just in pounds sterling? As someone said in a different context, it would be an expense of spirit chasing after her-and very bad publicity. Kimberlee counted on me not wanting a public squabble. No. I think in the end I'd have just let her go."

"But, obviously, you weren't happy," put in Moor.

"I was gored, but I wouldn't kill anyone over it, if that's what you're implying. We rather quickly reached the 'over my dead body' stage of negotiations, Kimberlee and I, but it was just business as usual. And a cutthroat business it is. Oh, God, she wasn't…?"

"Killed with a knife?" St. Just shook his head.

"Thank heaven for that. I guess. Anyway, here's what you need to take away from any discussion about Kimberlee, if you want to find out who did this: In the way that a baby will think a person ceases to exist when he's no longer in the same room, so for Kimberlee most people ceased to exist when she wasn't physically with them. I found it to be… an eerie quality. Other people may have found her indifference harder to take. Her self-absorption was near-total."

She paused.

"There's one other thing I suppose I should mention."

"Yes?"

"You do realize that many of the writers Kimberlee so loved to trash were authors Jay had at some point turned down or let go."

"How do you think she came to know so much about it?" asked Moor.

Ninette turned to him.

"That's just it. I should think pillow talk was the answer. You only had to look at the pair of them. The body language, the way she hung on his every word. Or pretended to."

St. Just leveled an assessing gaze her way.

"Well, thank you," he said. "I appreciate your analysis. It might have a bearing. We'll speak again soon."

The panda eyes grew, if possible, rounder. "I have to get back to London. You can't keep us here forever."