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Nine Lives

We had the launch at Hatchards, Piccadilly, one of my favourite bookshops in London. They have a round table in the room where you come in, next to the cash tills, and they had completely covered it with copies of my new book: Pünd’s Last Case by Eliot Crace and Ian Black.

Why ‘my’ new book? Well, a lot had happened in the year since Frederick Turner was arrested and a huge scandal had exploded around the Little People and everything to do with Miriam Crace. I’m afraid there was no longer going to be any Netflix series. Suddenly, charity shops were piled high with unwanted copies of the books. Marble Hall had temporarily closed to the public while the estate reconsidered the family profile. I heard rumours that it had been privately sold to a Russian oligarch. I felt a little sorry for the Daphnes and the Enids who had worked there, but otherwise I couldn’t help feeling that the house had got what it deserved.

As for me, I was now the head of my own publishing company, Nine Lives Books, named after Hugo, who was very much his old self. Perhaps I should have mentioned that Steve, who had lent me his house in Muswell Hill, was a successful investment banker and once he had got over the damage done to his property during my brief tenancy and had accepted that it wasn’t my fault, we’d started talking and he’d decided to back me in a new enterprise. I had a tiny office in the back end of Farringdon, four members of staff and a roster – so far – of three books. But against all the odds, in a world dominated by multinationals, we were doing rather well.

After the storm broke and I’d watched the Fall of the House of Crace, I moved into action. I had already decided that I’d had enough of freelance editing and that it was time to go into business for myself. Once you’ve been a commissioning editor, no other job in publishing feels quite so worthwhile: finding and nurturing new talent, developing a book and watching it take shape – the content, the cover, the distribution, the reviews – and at last spotting its first appearance in the Sunday Times Top Ten and Nielsen BookScan.

To start with, I had forced my way into Michael Flynn’s office at Causton Books and persuaded him to let me buy the rights to Eliot’s book. Actually, I had blackmailed him. There were a whole lot of stories swirling around in the press and he knew how badly he’d behaved towards me, caving in to Jonathan Crace’s demands to get rid of me for no good reason. And what had he got in return for all his efforts? He’d spent a fortune on two new editions featuring the Little People that would never see the light of day and as far as he was concerned, the less said the better. I promised to keep quiet if he let me have what I wanted. An unfinished manuscript, a whodunnit with no solution, was a small price to pay for my silence. He squeezed a small sum of money out of me, just to save face, but I knew that I’d paid a fraction of its true value.

I also had the ending! I had managed to find the extra twenty thousand words I needed to bulk out the last section. The cover looked terrific, quite art deco, a silhouette of Atticus Pünd walking between two bending palm trees, with the Chateau Belmar behind. I’d sent out advance copies to a variety of authors and critics and we’d had great feedback. Shari Lapena and Kate Mosse had provided cover quotes.

The second book from Nine Lives would be out in a couple of months’ time. I’d managed to track down Sam Rees-Williams, the author who had written the biography of Miriam Crace. It had been commissioned by HarperCollins, but when they’d decided against publishing it, the rights had reverted to him. He had been utterly disheartened by what had happened and he had never written another book, but I visited him in Oxford – he was working as a security guard at the Pitt Rivers Museum – and persuaded him to have another try. He went back to his original manuscript, made the necessary changes and updated the ending. We’d given it a new title: Miriam Crace and Her Little Shop of Horrors . Of course it had to have the word ‘little’ in there somewhere.

Commissioning the book had been a commercial decision. I knew there was enormous interest in Miriam Crace and that a new biography couldn’t be better timed. But I’ll admit that I wasn’t sorry to be getting back at Jonathan Crace and his nephew Roland for all the harm they’d caused not just me but many of the people around them. At the same time, I felt a certain protectiveness towards other members of the family who had never asked for any of this. I’d talked it through with Sam and we’d agreed to go easy on Julia, Leylah, Edward and his wife, Amy (whom I’d never met), mentioning them by name but largely keeping them out of the spotlight. The main thrust of the book was Miriam herself and she deserved everything she got.

After that, I was planning to publish a crime novel in time for Christmas, the first in a projected series. It was being written by a detective with an insider’s knowledge of life in the police force, writing under the same pseudonym he had used to complete Pünd’s Last Case .

Ian Blakeney had become Ian Black. He was still working as a detective inspector and had chosen not to use his real name. He had investigated the murder of Eliot Crace and he had finished Eliot’s book, adding the extra twenty thousand words I needed. I knew that this turnaround would have made for an interesting interview on Front Row – for one – but he felt uncomfortable with his new-found fame and we both agreed that anonymity was the best policy. He had already decided to retire in a few years’ time and he was as surprised as anyone to have fallen into this new career.

I saw him now, standing in the background while the white wine and canapés were served. The same sort of crowd who always turned up at book launches seemed to be enjoying themselves at this one. My sister, Katie, was close by and Ian had his two children, Tom and Lucy, on either side. They were very proud of him, but he was standing there in his jacket and tie, making no secret of the fact that he couldn’t wait to get home.

He and I were together and had been for eleven months.

We weren’t married and I wasn’t living with him yet, but we saw each other most evenings and weekends. We went to concerts and the theatre, he cooked or we went to restaurants, we talked books. We were planning a trip to Central America. We felt as if we’d known each other much longer than we really had and I knew in my heart that this time it was for keeps. Katie loved him. Tom and Lucy were about the same age as her children and together we made a family much happier and healthier than the Craces and the Chalfonts had ever been.

I’m not saying that you are only complete if you have a job and a relationship, but unfortunately this was what I had learned from the moment I moved back to Crouch End. I needed them both and I’m afraid all the charms of Hugo, along with the two goldfish, Hero and Leander, hadn’t been nearly enough for me. I had Ian and I had Nine Lives. My first book was out and I had never been happier.

I glanced at it, lying on the table. Pünd’s Last Case . I had gone back to the original title because I felt I owed it to Eliot, but this time I was determined it would be exactly that. I’d finished with Alan Conway and his famous creation. From the moment they had come into my life, almost thirty years ago, they had caused me nothing but trouble. But as I stood there, I knew I’d finally put them behind me. I had made a resolution as far as Atticus Pünd was concerned and this time I was going to keep it.

Never.

Never again.