Andy Martin - Reacher Said Nothing

‘Really?’ said Lee. Calm and composed.

‘Yes, your work has been a great inspiration to me.’ Turned out he was an up-and-coming thriller writer. ‘I really liked that point you made about not giving away too much information – dosing it out. Slow disclosure. I try to keep it in mind while I’m writing.’

‘Who do you publish with?’ Lee said.

‘St Martin’s Press,’ says the guy.

‘Good publisher,’ says Lee. ‘Well, good luck with the next one!’

The guy thanked him again and backed off (no doubt at the same time relaxing his finger on the trigger of the handy little weapon he had stowed away in his pocket). Lee has this habit of seeing the other person’s point of view. I was seeing a threat to life and limb – an assassin, in short. He was seeing a budding fellow writer. (Really, how much difference was there?) And in his parting words I felt a sense that he was wishing himself good luck for his next one too – given that it barely existed.

It wasn’t his own life he was worrying about, it was the life of the unborn book.

I mentioned my John Lennon scenario to Lee as we went on. He laughed it off. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that was on the way back to the Dakota. It was outside the building, but he was coming home , not going out. He signs a record for the fan. Then the fan pulls out a gun and shoots him.’ It was a fine distinction. But it was clear he had given the episode some thought. Had seen himself as a possible target. Then dismissed it. ‘A writer is never going to be in the same league as a rock star – or an actor, for example. Not even remotely. Writing is show business for shy people. Or invisible people. It’s the book that’s out there, not the person. We just don’t have that kind of visibility – or directness. So I guess, by the same token, we’re less of a target.’

He thought this part of town was more literary than his old neighbourhood. ‘I’m more recognized in this part of New York. The Upper West Side. I might have a couple of fans coming up to me if I walk through Central Park. Only one or two a week. No big deal.’

Lee is a distinctive guy to look at. About six foot four. Tall and stringy-looking. Strong chin. Piercing blue eyes. Reddybrown hair. Late fifties but well preserved. Verging on elegant. Longitudinal. Someone had said to him ‘You should play Reacher’ (in the movie). He had replied, ‘My body mass would just about fit into one of his arms.’ (Reacher 250 lbs; Child more like half that) Still, you can pick him out in a crowd. Or walking across Central Park. He has a long, lazy, loping stride. Half Robert Redford, half Jacques Tati. With a bit of Walter White thrown in for good measure.

He was doing a down-the-line interview with a radio show in England. Now even Lee was starting to worry about putting off the writing. Maybe it was one show too many.

‘The book came out yesterday in the UK. It’s already sold a phenomenal number. So this is not strategic. But I love Simon Mayo – the guy actually reads the books. I’m doing this show because I want to be on it.’

We went in. Bumped into an old guy in braces and baggy trousers hitched high. A producer or something.

‘So what is this book?’ he says.

‘It’s a thriller. I hope.’

‘So it’s a movie, is it?’

‘Well [cue sound of Lee gritting his teeth], it might become one ultimately.’

He hates the movie assumption. I have taken a vow to keep off the subject of Tom Cruise (who played Reacher in the Jack Reacher movie, based on One Shot ). He has already received around one million emails from fans saying ‘YOU SOLD US OUT, YOU BASTARD!’ or words to that effect. He sends out a tweet about what he had for breakfast and they all tweet back to him, ‘But why Tom Cruise?’ Some people said, ‘What about Daniel Craig?’

‘Well, what about Daniel Craig?’ I said.

‘He’s even shorter!’ Lee shot back. (He had actually met Daniel Craig and knew him well enough to call him ‘Danny’.) Likewise Clint Eastwood: ‘They’re all shrimps!’

The producer in London is a fan, more well versed than the old guy. ‘If you ever want a character who’s a slightly stressed-out radio producer,’ she says, rather seductively, ‘feel free to use me.’

Simon Mayo, the presenter in London, says, ‘We’re doing Jack Reacher songs this afternoon. This one is “The Wanderer”.’

And then: ‘Lee Child live from New York … The one and only Lee Child!’

All the callers wanted to be a character in a Reacher book. Possibly have a romance with Reacher. Or even be on the receiving end of a crunching Reacher head-butt. Mayo launched in with a story about how Lee has a character named Audrey Shaw in The Affair . The real Audrey Shaw’s son, aged fourteen, had written to him, telling him she was a total Reacher fan and would he mind using her name. So he did. ‘She was a fan,’ Lee explained, ‘and it’s a great name. Perfect for the character.’

A lot of people were wondering about Reacher getting older. I’d heard the question asked a few times – how old is he now? Is he over the hill or what? Lee reckoned he was around forty-eight now, maybe a bit older. ‘I used to be very specific but now I just don’t mention it.’ And they wanted to know if Lee was going to kill him off one of these days. They were expecting it all to come to an end. Twilight of an idol. ‘It’s my readers who are keeping him alive,’ Lee says.

We walked back to his place. Unmolested by fans or assassins. As far as I could work out, you either wanted to be Jack Reacher, make love to him, or kill him off for all time. Or possibly some combination of the above.

The Lee Child apartment was like a very comfortable library. Hushed. Orderly. Lee had had white-painted bookshelves installed all around and there was still space for more books. He had a lot more in boxes stashed away somewhere.

‘I’m paying for it with the advance on the next book,’ he said. He looked around and grinned. ‘I haven’t earned it yet. I’m living in an apartment that was bought with a book that hasn’t been written.’

‘Nervous?’ I said.

‘It’s more I feel I have to really earn the apartment. It’s like it’s on a mortgage – I bought it with promises. Now I have to deliver.’

Lee wanted to get down to work, but he thought we’d better have some lunch first. It was about two o’clock. He made us some toast. We had cheese (a choice of Cheddar or Stilton – he had a big hunk of Stilton) and marmalade to go with it. And a smoothie (he had apricot, I had strawberry). We sat down in the dining room to eat our toast. It was a lovely old French farm table of some kind, chunky and rustic-looking.

I started telling him about rotten jobs I’d done in the past, how I’d lasted less than an hour in one of them, at a metal factory. Lee had tried a few other jobs in his youth. He didn’t like any of them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the work, he didn’t like the workmanship . In the jam factory, for example. ‘It was all sugar paste, nothing but sugar paste. If you wanted apricot jam you threw in some orange colour. Strawberry – throw in some red. It was like you were painting jam . What about raspberry with all those little pips? No problem – here, we’ll throw in some tiny wood chips.’ He was really outraged by how bad it was. ‘Nothing was real. Nobody cared.’ He felt responsible for people eating a load of rubbish just masquerading as jam. They were being conned. Lee wanted it to be good jam, whatever flavour it was.

He once had a job in a dried pea factory. He couldn’t believe it: ‘Birds were perched up there on the rafters, way over our heads, and shitting into the peas. Nobody cared. That is how it was.’