Men from Boys

The Boy and Man Booker Reginald Hill

Boy Ansell awoke, had no idea where he was except that it wasn’t his flat and for a moment felt afraid.

Then he remembered and joy washed away his fear.

Cautiously he raised his head from the soft bank of pillows. A slight muzziness, nothing more. It was true what they said, the best champagne leaves little trace of its passage and last night he had drunk nothing but the best.

He slipped his hand under the pillow. Another moment of panic, then his fingers touched paper. It was there, but he needed to see it. He groped for an unfamiliar light switch. A golden glow touched his surroundings like sunlight. A hotel room. But what a room! You could fit all of his Brighton flat in here. Furnished in the stately home neo-classical style with a sky-blue ceiling from whose lofty rococo cornice gilded cherubim looked down on acres of thick white carpet, it was probably costing his publishers more for one night here than a whole week at the kind of dump they used to put him in.

But they could do better.

They would do better now that he had this to wave at them.

He read the magic words on the piece of paper.

Fifty thousand. With the kind of sales now in prospect, he could afford to smile at this paltry sum. It would, after all, buy him only five or six months in a room like this. He might even never bother to cash the cheque but keep it framed on his study wall.

Or better still, cash it but keep a convincing photocopy framed.

He swung his legs to the floor and viewed himself in a heavy gilt mirror nicely placed to catch the wide expanse of the king-sized bed. No sign that he’d had company last night. Not that it hadn’t been there for the asking, he told himself complacently as he turned his face slowly from left to right profile. Boy David they called him, and even in his mid-thirties his face and figure still retained enough of the youthful perfection of Michelangelo’s statue to justify the sobriquet. So pussy galore on offer. But at some point during all the back-slapping, cheek-pecking, body-hugging, champagne-swilling celebration, he had decided that this was a triumph he wanted to snuggle up with alone.

Molly had seen him safely back, he dimly recalled. Molly who was so sensitive to all his needs. Molly who, his sensual sensors told him, would not herself be averse to adding the remaining ninety per cent to the ten per cent of him she already had. But never sleep with your agent was the only useful bit of literary advice he’d ever been given.

Happily no one had ever said anything against sleeping with your agent’s secretary.

If Toni had been around last night, now that might have been different. Timid little Toni, a real country mouse, still wide-eyed and tremulous at finding herself in the big city, might have seemed an impossible challenge to some. But the Boy’s motto, as he boasted to his intimates, was Vidi, vici, veni. I saw, I conquered, I came. And as soon as he set eyes on this fresh young thing, a mouse in manner but a shapely pussycat in form, he’d known he had to have her.

It had taken him a mere ninety minutes from the first time he got her alone. Molly had sent her down to Brighton with a bunch of contracts for him to sign. She claimed she’d posted the originals to him weeks back. Well, she might have done. He wasn’t responsible for the vagaries of the postal service. Now his signature was a matter of urgency, so shy little Toni got a day trip to Brighton. Tense at first, she soon relaxed under the glow of his famous charm. He could see she was ripe for plucking. It was in the stars, written there as reliably as a Fascist train timetable, a judgement confirmed when the phone rang and it turned out to be Molly with the news that her Booker mole had just given her the nod that Boy was on the shortlist. Pop! went the bubbly, and not long after, pop! went everything else, and as he put her on to the London train a couple of hours later, he was already looking forward to the next time.

But there hadn’t been a next time. Enquiring after Toni when he turned up at Molly’s office a couple of days later, he was told that family illness required her presence at home in the Midlands. Then, in the weeks that followed, he’d been swept up in a whirl of pre-Booker publicity, cashing in on being on the shortlist. You had to do it, Molly explained. Literary prizes were a lottery. Being odds-on favourite was no guarantee of success. Indeed, given the self-regarding vanity of some of the plonkers who did the judging, it could be counter-productive!

But this time they had been unable to resist the overwhelming evidence. In his mind he savoured the chairman’s words once more.

‘This was a shortlist of the highest standard. Each of these novels deserves superlative praise. Yet in the end we had no difficulty in choosing our winner. The Accelerant is a profound and moving modern fable. Superficially the story of a sexual predator who claims he never sleeps with any woman unless certain she wants to sleep with him, and who uses that certainty to justify all the short cuts both moral and chemical which he takes, at a deeper level this is a powerful parable of political degeneration, mapping the path from idealistic, altruistic beginnings to ruthless and bloody dictatorship, both in its blatant forms in Africa, the Middle East and South America, and in its subtler manifestations in our own Corridors of Power. Covering four continents and two decades, this is not easy material to deal with. But David Boyd Ansell has such a sharp eye for detail, such a keen ear for nuance, such a fine sense of balance and proportion that he keeps everything under perfect control. Truly here is a writer we can rely on to keep his head while all around are losing theirs...’

And so on, and so on. He’d stifled a small yawn at this point, ironically underlining on all the TV close-ups his indifference to such paeans. But oh! how the memory of them warmed his being like the memory of good sex.

He stood up, made the long journey to the window and drew the heavy damask curtains. Autumn sunlight streamed in, strong enough to make him blink. The view it lit up was undistinguished, anonymous rooftops mainly. But at least he could see a fair chunk of sky. London hotels charged for sky by the square inch.

A telephone rang. He found it, said, ‘Yes?’

It was Molly.

‘Good morning, Boy,’ she said breezily. ‘Just checking you’re conscious and mobile.’

Sometimes her breeziness irritated him.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ he said. ‘I’ve been up for ages.’

‘Excitement kept you awake, eh? That’s good. We need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the press call.’

‘The what?’

‘Come on, Boy, wake up, do! At last we’re an overnight success and that means we’ve got a busy day. Conference suite, second floor, 11 a.m. Pics and a few questions from the mob, then an hour for The Times supplement piece. One o’clock we lunch with the Japs. This afternoon, there’s a couple of telly things, then this evening Front Row. I’ll give you a knock at quarter to. Don’t wear that houndstooth shirt, by the way. You may not have time to change after lunch and it can look funny on the box. And dump that grotty leather jacket. We need to show the world that being a successful author doesn’t have to mean dressing like Worzel Gummidge. Bye.’

She really did go too far sometimes. And what was all this we stuff? Okay, in the five years since he’d used her, his sales had risen steadily, but what real part had she played in his success other than fielding the bids for his books? By rights, all this media crap should be the responsibility of those nice young publicists from his publishers, sexy young Emma, for instance, whom he’d teased to distraction on the last tour. Or roly-poly Clare with the huge knockers from the tour before. Molly needed to be reminded exactly who she was. It wasn’t just a question of responsibilities, it was also a question of manners. He didn’t expect deference, just a modicum of respect. But his appearance on the Man Booker shortlist, far from screwing him up a notch or two in Molly’s estimation, seemed to have been the signal for a marked increase in that offhand deprecatory familiarity which she liked to think of as her trademark. In the past he’d heard her refer to her distinguished client list as my performing fleas. Up till now, like the other fleas, so long as she did the job, he’d opted to grit his teeth and affect amusement. Now, though, he was past all that. Yes, it was time for a serious talk. Or perhaps more than just a talk. There was that flash Yank who’d assured him he could get double his American advance, no sweat, and that was before he’d joined the Booker pantheon. Maybe it was time to part company completely. He pictured doing it over a candle-lit dinner in a room like this. Good food, fine wine, soft music. Then, just as she was relaxing into the certainty of at last enjoying that part of him she’d clearly so long desired, he’d reveal that the only hard and pointed bit of his anatomy she was about to get was the elbow!

He was brought out of this pleasing fantasy by a gentle tap at the door.

He went to open it.

A large trolley stood there. It bore an elegant coffee pot, two plates covered with silver domes, a selection of breakfast cereals, a fresh grapefruit, a basket of croissants, a jug of orange juice, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a vase of orchids. Pushing it was a dark-haired young woman in a fetching black skirt and bolero jacket.

‘Good morning, Mr Ansell,’ she said with a smile. ‘Your breakfast.’

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Did I order this?’

He couldn’t recall filling in a breakfast card last night. Such trivialities had not been on the agenda.

‘Compliments of the management, sir. And may I add my personal congratulations?’

She pushed the trolley into the room alongside the table in the window bay.

Then, running what looked like an appreciative eye over his classical features and an even more appreciative one over his pyjama’d torso, she said, ‘Don’t let it get cold, sir. Enjoy your breakfast.’

And left.

Nice arse. Reminded him of Toni. Or perhaps it was just association of ideas. They all had nice arses.

Missed chance there, old son, he told himself. Should have asked her if she’d like to stay and serve me.

Still, there were other appetites which the smell of the fresh croissants had awoken.

He seized the handle of one of the silver domes and lifted it.

To his surprise, instead of the expected bacon, eggs, etc., he found himself looking at a white envelope with his name typed on it.

He picked it up and tore it open.

It contained a single sheet of paper.

He began to read what was typed upon it. After a few moments, he sat down on an elegant chaise longue and began to read again.

For a few seconds indignation overcame all other emotions. Then his gaze went to the breakfast trolley and fastened on the second silver dome.

‘Oh shit!’ he said.

Five seconds later he was running down the corridor. He didn’t stop till he’d put several other rooms and a right angle between himself and his own door. None of the few people he met showed much interest in the rapid passage of a man in pyjamas which said something for the class of guest you still got at an old-fashioned five-star hotel. He came across a cleaner talking into a telephone. He took it off her without apology and barked into it, ‘Security. Get Security to the fifth floor.’ From the look on the woman’s face, he saw that she thought this was a good idea too.

Half an hour later he was sitting in the manager’s office, wrapped in one of the luxurious bath robes which you would be billed for if you ‘accidentally’ removed it, drinking coffee laced with whisky, when Molly came in, looking anxious. ‘Boy, are you all right? I went up to your room but it’s like a war zone up there. What’s going on?’

He told her the tale and her thin intelligent face was expressing just the right mixture of concern for his safety and admiration for his sang-froid, which was becoming plus froid with each telling, when the door opened to admit a small man wearing a grey suit and an expression that said I may be tiny but I’m important.

In his hand he held a transparent plastic bag.

‘Mr Ansell,’ he said. ‘Commander Hewlitt, Special Branch. The bomb squad chaps found this.’

He held up the bag. It contained a white envelope and a sheet of typewritten paper.

Boy peered close and said, ‘Yes, that’s it. The letter I told your people about.’

‘No, sir,’ said Hewlitt. ‘The bomb squad passed that letter straight out to us in case things went wrong and it got destroyed. It’s on its way to the lab now for examination. This letter they found on a plate under the other lid.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Boy, peering once more at the plastic bag. ‘Are you sure there hasn’t been a mistake? It looks like the same letter.’

‘It is, sir. Except for one word in the penultimate sentence. Large has become small.’

Molly got there before he did. ‘You mean, whichever lid Boy lifted first, he was going to find a letter making him think there could be a bomb under the other one?’

‘Exactly, madam. The bomb people are checking the rest of the room but I don’t think they’ll find anything. So, a silly time-wasting jape.’

‘It didn’t feel like a jape to me!’ said Boy indignantly.

‘No, sir. Which is why we take such things seriously. Do you have any idea who might have perpetrated it? I gather from the letter that you won some kind of award last night?’

‘Yes, the Man Booker.’

‘Man Booker? That would be for a book, then? You are a writer?’

Molly tried unconvincingly to turn an involuntary guffaw into a fit of coughing.

He glowered at her and snapped, ‘Yes, I’m a writer.’

‘There would be other contestants for this award?’ said Hewlitt. ‘Good losers, would you say? Or might one of them have been disappointed enough to seek a stupid revenge?’

‘I shouldn’t imagine so...’

Then he hesitated. Why wouldn’t he imagine so?

‘Yes, sir?’ prompted Hewlitt.

‘Look, I’m not accusing anyone, you understand. But one of the writers on the shortlist’s an Irishman and you know what they’re like with bombs. Then there’s that gay Australian, I wouldn’t put anything past him. And that little shit from up north, I expect this kind of thing passes for sophisticated humour up in Heckmondwyke.’

‘You could be right, sir. I must enquire next time I visit my mother. Perhaps you could give me their names. And were there any other contestants?’

‘Nominees,’ corrected Ansell. ‘It wasn’t a game show. Yes, two more, but they are both women.’

‘And that puts them out of the running, does it, sir?’

‘Well, yes, I think it does, in most cases anyway. Though I say it myself, I get on rather well with women, which is perhaps another reason why some men might feel threatened enough to play a stupid practical joke. Can I go back to my room now?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sure they’ll be finished up there now. We’ll need a formal statement at some point...’

‘But later, please, commander,’ said Molly. ‘Mr Ansell has a press conference in a few minutes. Boy, can you make it? In the circs, I don’t think they’ll mind hanging around a little while.’

‘If they do mind, they can sod off,’ said Boy, finishing his coffee and rising.

As he went through the door, Molly shouted after him, ‘And remember. Not the houndstooth!’

She’d definitely have to go.

The press conference went very well. All the papers were represented, even the grotties. WRITER WINS MAN BOOKER was a yawn to most tabloids, but PRIZEWINNNER IN BOMB SCARE was worth a couple of paras. The revelation that in fact there wasn’t any bomb rather took the gilt off the gingerbread, but Boy’s relaxed, self-deprecating narrative plus his undeniably striking profile gave them the chance to present him as a uniquely British hero of a type not very common in these Americanised days.

He played up the image, interrupting some tabloid chick to protest that he was here to talk about his book, not about something as trivial as a threat to his life.

‘Okay.’ The hack yawned. ‘So where did you get the idea for The Accelerant from?’

He winced for the benefit of the broadsheets, then gave his usual bland answer and saw her eyes glaze. The truth would have woken her up. He imagined telling it.

‘It was this old varsity chum of mine, Piers, actually. He was a med student and with his help, we were into all kinds of shit back in those days. But most of it was targeted on keeping you going, whether it was doing exams or disco dancing till you dropped. As far as seduction juice went, I never really got much beyond slipping in an extra finger of gin with the old orange. I ran into Piers again a year or so back. Consultant at one of the big teaching hospitals. Like old friends often do on meeting, we quickly regressed to our early relationship, and one night after a few jars, he told me about this stuff he sometimes used just to help things along a bit, as he put it. When I realised what he was talking about, I was shocked. More than shocked. Horrified. When he saw this, he justified himself by asking what was the difference between getting a girl legless so you could screw her and slipping her a few drops of some harmless drug which left her without a hangover and next to no memory of what had taken place? I said the difference was about ten years in clink, and quite right too. He got quite heated, assuring me he never used it except when convinced the girl was as eager as he was.

‘“You know how they can be,” he said. “Positively gagging for it, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to keep you waiting till you’ve gone through all the usual run-up rituals. Now, I don’t mind that normally, but sometimes you just don’t have the time. That’s when an accelerant comes in useful. That’s how I look on it, you see. Just an accelerant.”

‘And that’s where I got the idea from. I’d been planning this political novel whose theme was the old one of ends justifying means and the consequent corruption. What I needed to make it fresh and immediate was an in-your-face analogy which would provide the page-turning dynamic to draw in the mass market. And here it was. My theme and my title. The Accelerant. I used it. It worked. And that’s why I’m here, answering your stupid questions, with the Booker prize in my pocket.’

One day he might talk to them like that. One day when his bank balance was bigger than his life expectancy. But not yet.

So he gave them the usual line and when the bomb threat questions started up again, he reverted to modest hero mode with only token resistance.

‘You knocked ’em in the aisle,’ said Molly afterwards. ‘Hold back on the personal details with The Times. They’ve got an exclusive on the literary career, but I think we can do a hot deal with one of the tabs for the childhood trauma stuff. You did have childhood trauma, didn’t you, Boy.’

‘By the bucket load,’ he said.

‘Good. I’ll bring him up to you soon as he arrives. By the way, you should find a few hundred books in your room waiting to be signed. Why don’t you make a start on them?’

Signing books was a pain even though he’d reduced his official signature to a single undulating scrawl. And it was worse when you didn’t have a skivvy at hand to open the volumes at the title page and stack them to one side as they were done. But it was a necessary evil and he set to with a will, determined to get as many as possible out of the way.

As many as possible turned out to be five.

When he opened the sixth, he found the title page had already been written on.

He looked at the tower of books and was tempted to kick it over. But why risk losing your leg for a gesture?

He left the room and went in search of a telephone.

Commander Hewlitt arrived just as the bomb people gave the all clear. They seemed pretty phlegmatic but the commander sounded definitely pissed off. ‘False alarms like this tying up large numbers of highly trained personnel are a serious offence, sir. Up to seven years’ imprisonment.’

‘Is that all? I’d cut his balls off, whoever’s responsible,’ said Boy.

‘Yes, sir. Now a few more questions, then a formal statement...’

Once more Molly protested that the pressure on her client’s time was too intense to allow diversion, but this time Hewlitt was adamant.

When Molly continued arguing, Boy snapped, ‘For God’s sake, cancel the Times guy. Cancel the Jap lunch too. In fact, cancel everything. God knows what other little surprises this joker has got ready for me. If he’s for real, I don’t want to be about. And if it’s just a pathetic game, soon the sympathy will start running out and I’ll just look a laughing stock, which is probably what he wants anyway.’

‘So what will you do, sir?’ asked Hewlitt.

‘I’ll go home to Brighton and get on with my work, Commander, in the hope that you will get on with yours and catch the idiot behind these pranks.’

‘Probably a good idea, sir,’ said Hewlitt. ‘But if we could just have that statement first...’

Two hours later Ansell climbed out of the elegant Mercedes his publishers had provided, said a curt thank you to the driver and went into his flat. Four years ago, when he bought it, the price had seemed exorbitant even though he’d picked it up at the bottom of a slump. Sea here was like sky in London, you paid through the nose for the privilege of viewing what God had provided free. Now it was worth possibly double the money. Before Booker, he’d played with the notion that if he won, he might sell up and use some of his new earning power to buy something in town. But to get what he had in Brighton in any reasonably central location was going to cost an arm and a leg, and after today’s experience, he was no longer sure he wanted to be so near the rotten heart of things, particularly if arms and legs were literally what he might have to pay.

He glanced at his answer machine, which formed the base of a four-foot-high resin copy of Michelangelo’s David with a telephone as a cache sexe. Some slight adjustment to the face made the personal resemblance even stronger, but the phone made it a joke instead of a vanity.

Some adjustment had been necessary to the crotch too, but that was for the lucky ones to find out.

The answer machine registered lots of messages, which was only to be expected.. Everybody loves a winner, he told himself with that cynicism only winners can afford. But it would be nice to relax with a large G and T and let this torrent of praise wash away the day’s less pleasant memories.

First things first, though, especially in matters of relaxation. He headed to the bathroom. When the bullets start flying, keep a tight ass, was a piece of veterans’ lore he recalled reading somewhere. Perhaps Mailer in The Naked and the Dead. Or Kate Adie anywhere. He seemed to have been keeping a tight ass all day. No smart alec reporter was going to be able to remark slyly that Boy Ansell reacted to threats against him by spending an unconscionable time on the loo. But now it was time to let go.

It was worth waiting for, till on the sixth sheet of toilet paper he found the message.

He read it again. Unnecessarily. He’d got the message first time. This was an exercise in humiliation. He was meant to go scuttling off to summon the bomb squad once more, this time to work over an unflushed lavatory.

He looked up at the old-fashioned high-level tank from which a thin golden chain ran down to a metal ball, enamelled to look like planet earth (another of his jokes).

‘Sod you!’ he said.

And not giving himself time to reflect, he stood up, took the world in his hand, and pulled.

Water rushed and bubbled, the pan emptied. He stood there defiantly till the roar of the tank refilling died to a trickle then a drip. Finally, silence.

‘Sod you,’ he said again, this time in triumph.

He went back into his living room. The phone rang.

He sat down, unhooking the receiver from the Boy David’s crotch.

‘Ansell.’

‘Boy, it’s Molly. Just checking you got home safely.’

He thought of telling her about the latest incident, decided the absurdity outweighed the heroics, and said, ‘No problem.’

‘Oh good. I’m sorry it turned into such a trying day for you when you should have been simply enjoying your astounding triumph.’

His famous ear for nuance had always been able to spot a put-down at twenty paces. ‘Astounding?’ he said. ‘To whom?’

‘To you, I mean. Not to me, of course. But I can’t believe that you in your heart of hearts really expected it. Did you?’

‘Well, yes, in a way, I always hoped — look, what are you trying to say? That I didn’t deserve it?’

He heard her laugh. ‘I’m happy to debate expected with you, Boy. But I’m sure neither of us has any delusions about deserved.’

He opened his mouth, closed it again. He had misheard, he thought. Or was misinterpreting what he’d heard. Don’t rush in with a hasty response. Keep control. Don’t lose your head. Wasn’t that one of the things he was famous for in his writing?

He said, ‘You know me, Molly. No vanity. I never went around saying I thought I ought to win the Booker, but now that I have done, I’m certainly not about to quarrel with the verdict of such a distinguished panel of experts.’

‘Experts?’ She laughed again. ‘If your claim to fame rests on being chosen by that bunch of self-regarding prancers, better forget it, darling.’

What had got into her? Not him, perhaps that was the trouble. Or could it be that, pissed off at having to cancel all that carefully organised publicity stuff today, she’d dived into a bottle and was now letting her resentment show? Whatever, it gave him the perfect cue for cutting the cord. And without the expense of a good dinner.

He said mildly, ‘If you think so poorly of my books, perhaps it would be better for us both if you no longer had the disagreeable task of trying to sell them.’

See if that shocked her into sobriety.

It didn’t.

‘Oh, come on, Boy,’ she said long-sufferingly. ‘What I think about your books is neither here nor there. But surely even you won’t grudge me a share of your success, after all the hard work I’ve put in.’

‘All the hard work...?’ he echoed in genuine puzzlement. ‘You mean selling them to publishers who were gagging for them? Or ferrying me around to media events which, incidentally, is a task perhaps better left to my publisher’s PR professionals who know how to treat a star.’

That set her laughing again. God, she must be really rat-arsed!

‘Jesus, Boy, haven’t you caught on yet that when you’ve got a tour coming up, the girls in the publicity department start going sick in droves? Given a choice between you and King Kong, they’d all be packing their jungle kit. That’s why I took over myself, to preserve the peace. So I reckon that the time I spend on that, plus the work I’ve had to put in on your scripts, makes earning my ten per cent the hardest graft I’ve ever done.’

‘On my scripts? My editor never has to do a thing with them. He says they’re among the cleanest scripts he’s ever seen. And I’ve heard you say so yourself.’

‘Yeah, yeah, that’s for Big Ears and Noddy out there, Boy, that’s for the image. Come on, surely it must occur to you to wonder sometimes how your four hundred pages of waffly rambling turn into two fifty of crisp prose? With the spelling correct and the punctuation in the right place? Or perhaps you never read the finished product? Probably wise.’

Suspicions were swirling in his mind like storm clouds, but he wasn’t ready yet to admit the tempest blast while he still had some shred of vanity to shelter behind. ‘I don’t get you. You said... you seemed to be saying that you expected me to win last night. That must mean...’

‘It means that I’d called in more favours than you’d find at a gypsy’s wedding, not to mention rattling a whole catacomb of skeletons in judges’ cupboards. But that won’t keep me awake nights, that’s par for the course in the glitzy world of awards. What really bothers me, Boy, is one of the judges said to me afterwards, you needn’t have bothered with all the pressure, darling, we all actually thought it was by far the best book. You see what this means? I’ve created a monster and no one else seems able to spot the stitching!’

Now the tempest broke.

‘You bitch!’ yelled Boy. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? These stupid jokes. It was you, trying to humiliate me.’

‘Well done, Boy. I wondered how long that famous eye for detail and ear for nuance were going to take to get you there. Yes, indeed. And I actually got to the hotel early enough to see you sprinting down the corridor in your jim-jams. A writer we can rely on to keep his head... yes, even if it means running around half naked in public! God, you looked terrified!’

‘Not so terrified I didn’t pull the loo chain just now,’ he snarled, defensive despite himself.

‘Well done. On the other hand, sometimes a bit of real humiliating fear’s not a bad thing, you know. Being brave kills more people than terror, I’d say. Though terror can leave permanent scars on the vulnerable and sensitive.’

‘Well, it’s not going to leave any scars on me,’ he said. The famous control was back. For all he knew she was getting all this down on tape. He mustn’t lose his head. ‘You’re the only one who’s going to suffer damage here. We’re finished, Molly. And by the time my lawyers are through, I doubt if you’ll see a penny of my future earnings. I can’t imagine what you thought you were playing at. Such silly pranks. A woman of your age!’

‘What’s my age got to do with it?’

‘I understand strange changes often take place with the menopause. I advise you to see a doctor. Or a psychologist. There’s been some good work done on sexual frustration, they tell me.’

‘Frustration...? You mean I’m not getting enough generally? Or not getting enough of you?’

‘You said it,’ he replied equably. ‘And it’s too late now. I’m not in the therapy business.’

‘Oh Boy, Boy.’ She sighed. ‘That sharp eye, that keen ear, and you never caught on during our years together that I’m gay? And here’s me thinking it must be that which was protecting me. But now I think about it, you’d probably have regarded it as a challenge, wouldn’t you? Get me up to your flat, bucketfuls of boyish charm, rather less of cheap bubbly, then an irresistible offer to let me find out what I’d been missing. You like a challenge, don’t you? Toni must have seemed a challenge.’

‘Toni?’ He laughed triumphantly. ‘Is that what this is really about? Young Toni? Now I begin to see things clearly. You found out. It wasn’t me you were jealous of, it was her! Grooming her as a little bit on the side, were you? And then you found out she preferred the real thing. So you sacked her and thought you’d play your stupid pranks on me. And I used to think you were a sophisticated woman. I hope you had the decency to give her a good reference. I certainly would! Where is she now?’

‘She’s safe,’ said Molly calmly. ‘Recovering. It’s going to take a long time, they say. Oh, I warned her that you’d probably have a go at her some time, told her to take no notice and eventually your vanity would make you give up on the grounds that if you hadn’t tried anything, you couldn’t have been rejected. I never dreamt you’d sink so low, Boy. What did you spike her drink with? Rohypnol, like the guy in your lousy book? Write about what you know, isn’t that the advice they dish out on creative writing courses?’

Boy was genuinely horrified. Who the hell did this ancient dyke think she was, taking the moral high line with him? What did she know about good old-fashioned straight sex between a man and a woman? He could look back over a long line of willing and enthusiastic partners, most of whom came back for more, hence his initial revulsion at Piers’s confession. Okay, he’d repressed his true feelings in the interests of research but that was the price an artist sometimes had to pay. Practical experience was important and eventually he’d got a sample of the stuff from Piers who, like his victims, was in no position to resist. First of all he tried it out on himself. Result, irresistible drowsiness and when he recovered, a memory gap whose edges were as fuzzy as candy floss. Next had been a woman he was in an intermittent sleeping arrangement with. When she woke up, she’d been apologetic, putting her retreat from full consciousness down to not counting the vodka martinis. After that, he’d only used it a couple of times, certainly not more than three or four, and always in the kind of situation described by Piers where it was merely accelerating the inevitable.

And that’s how it had been with Toni. He’d soon seen that a couple of glasses of celebratory champagne weren’t going to be enough. She was naïve, she was nervous, but beneath it all, she was ready, he was certain of that. A light lunch in his flat — one of his famous aphrodisiac salads — another bottle of bubbly, a shot of armagnac, and by two o’clock, two thirty at the latest, they’d have been in bed.

The problem was there was this Yankee journalist, nine out of ten attractive and desperate for an interview, who was lunching him at the Grand at one. He contemplated standing her up, but with news of the Booker nomination to drop casually into the conversation, this was too good an opportunity to be missed.

But so was Toni.

It was a situation tailor-made for the Accelerant. So tailor-made that he’d genuinely forgotten that he’d used it and when he did remember, the only regret he felt was that she might not be able to share completely his own delightful memories. He’d kissed her on the forehead as he put her on her train, still apologising for her silliness in letting a little champagne turn her so woozy, and promised himself that next time he would make sure there wasn’t any need to rush.

‘You still there, Boy? Guilt got your tongue?’

There was a strong temptation to justify himself, but with this bitch, that could be hugely dangerous. Just keep your head, he told himself. Be very careful what you say.

‘Yes, I’m still here,’ he said. ‘It’s simple incomprehension that’s reduced me to silence.’

‘Come on, Boy! Give it up! Okay, you probably told yourself all you were doing was speeding up the inevitable, you weren’t giving her anything she didn’t really want. Just like your cardboard hero. And she wouldn’t remember anyway. But she really didn’t want it, Boy. And she does remember. In nightmares, in panic attacks. Oh yes, she remembers. It’s going to take her a long time to forget.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said calmly. ‘What I do know is, if you repeat any of these monstrous calumnies in public, I shall be obliged, albeit reluctantly, to seek protection from the Law.’

‘Ah yes. The Law. That was my first reaction. Call in the police. But Toni got hysterical when I suggested it and Maggie, her sister, said no, it wasn’t the way. Interesting woman, Toni’s sister. Member of a club I go to. It was her got me to take on Toni in the first place, so we both feel responsible. Now Maggie, she’s quite different from Toni. None of her hang-ups. Action woman, looks at life straight on, bags of self-confidence and common sense. Well, I imagine you need all that when you’re an officer in the Ordnance Corps. And like a lot of soldiers, she doesn’t have much faith in civil justice.’

‘No, she wouldn’t,’ sneered Boy. ‘Even in this enlightened age, military dykes can’t have very good career prospects. I can see why she’d want to steer clear of the cops.’

‘Now I’d never have thought of that, Boy. Must be that famous artistic sensitivity of yours. But don’t misunderstand me, just because she’s a military dyke, as you put it, doesn’t mean she can’t pass for normal in the dusk with the light behind her. Or even at dawn. In fact, you can judge for yourself. It was her who served your breakfast this morning. Anyway, we both agreed, no police, unless of course you agreed to plead guilty at the trial and save Toni the trauma of giving evidence?’

‘Trial?’ He laughed. ‘Molly, don’t be ridiculous. We both know there isn’t going to be a trial. My conscience is clear. I have done nothing wrong except spend a pleasant hour in bed with a willing and enthusiastic young woman.’

Put that on your tape and play it! he told himself gleefully.

‘Willing and enthusiastic? Yes, I can see you smiling at the jury and urging them to ask themselves, why would someone as attractive as I am need to resort to foul play to get my end away? You really do think of yourself as the Boy David, don’t you? One whirl of your slingshot and the whole world’s at your feet. And if they’re not worshipping, unconscious will do.’

‘Molly, I think you’ve had some kind of breakdown,’ he said with avuncular concern. ‘I think you need help. I’m sorry I can’t give it, but I advise you to look for someone who can in the near future. No more pranks, please, or I definitely will call in the Law. My solicitor will be in touch anyway about terminating our agreement. I’ll instruct him to be generous. Despite everything, I’m grateful for what you’ve done for my career.’

That would sound well on the tape, if there was a tape.

‘That’s kind of you, Boy. And don’t think I don’t recognise your good qualities too. For instance, it was brave of you to pull the loo chain. And you often said things that made me laugh. Okay, they were usually a bit sour and cynical, but they genuinely amused me. Which is why I’m putting in this effort to get you to see reason and face up to things like a man. A grown man, I mean. Okay, it’ll be painful and when it’s over, you won’t be the famous Boy Ansell any more. But you can’t stay like that for the rest of your life anyway. You’ve got to grow up some time. Might even help your writing. So let’s talk a bit longer and see if we can’t come to some resolution which makes sense to all of us.’

She sounded so genuinely concerned that despite himself he felt touched. But the crack about his writing was the last straw. Who the hell did she think she was, a stringy middle-aged literary leech talking like this to a man with a Booker cheque in his wallet?

He said, ‘Molly, there’s nothing left to say. I’m going to ring off now.’

She said, ‘Boy, don’t hang up. I’m warning you, don’t hang up. Please.’

But of course he did.

Though perhaps, as he did so, because he was after all a good if somewhat overrated writer and deserving of at least a third of the praise heaped upon him, perhaps his keen ear for nuance detected that there was more of appeal than threat in Molly’s words.

Then perhaps his sharp eye for detail reminded him that Toni’s sister was an officer in the Ordnance Corps.

And perhaps there was even time for his fine sense of balance and proportion to register that there was something not quite right about the set of the shoulders on Michelangelo’s statue, as if someone had been mucking about with the resin.

But there was no way even his brilliant mind could put all these things together in time to abort replacing the phone on the statue’s crotch.

Which was when both Boy Davids lost their heads together.