‘Why does Andrew Black do anything?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Maybe it’s – well. He doesn’t have my father any more—’
Sophie folded her arms.
‘We’re not having this conversation.’
Sophie Almonds worked at Hayes & Heath as a literary agent. This meant that she got her clients – clients including me – contracts and cash advances for their novels, or whatever else she could get them hired to write. I took whatever she brought me, which wasn’t much by then to be honest, but I always got the impression that it never stopped her from trying. Unfortunately, Sophie Almonds was also Andrew Black’s literary agent, technically speaking, and that made talking to her about his letter a little . . . problematic.
Not only did Sophie make a point of never discussing one client with another – and doubly so if that client happened to be Andrew Black – but from a personal perspective, it was possible, in certain lights, to see her jaw tightening ever so slightly at any mention of the man’s name. A little over six years ago, Sophie Almonds pulled off the book deal of the decade, only to have it come crashing down spectacularly because of Black’s peculiar foibles (he would’ve said principles). If there had been anybody else I could have talked to about Black and his letter, I would have.
‘I’m worried he might be in trouble,’ I said, planting my elbows on the table and pushing on. ‘I think this might be – not a cry for help, but . . . it’s like he’s being as intriguing as he can, just so I’ll get back to him.’ I waited, but Sophie didn’t reply. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about it,’ I said. ‘I mean, why not say more? Why just send this? I haven’t heard from him in years, and now . . . He’s trying to make sure that I reply. This and this,’ I waved a hand at the Polaroid and the note, ‘it’s a hook, isn’t it? A pretty decent hook too.’ I turned over the letter to show the address written on the reverse. ‘He’s letting me know where he is, and he wants to make sure that I’ll write back.’
‘And will you?’
‘Yeah. Well. That’s the plan.’
Sophie’s big blue eyes were hard and bright as polished glass. I felt as if I were being unpicked, one stitch at a time.
‘But you haven’t written back yet, is that what you’re telling me?’
‘No, I haven’t written back yet,’ I said.
‘Good.’ Her eyes flicked away from mine, to the Thames rolling by outside the pub window. ‘Then don’t. It’s for the best.’
Sophie Almonds stood around five foot four, with shoulder-length, dark brown hair, often tied back with a simple black ribbon, and increasingly threaded through with silver. She was a still, watchful woman, with big, expressive eyes, and the sinewy build of a long-distance runner. She reminded me of a small, wiry bird of prey, the kind that makes its living on blasted moorlands, and has to keep its wits about it to survive. I’d once thought – maybe because of the way she carried herself and those cool, unflinching eyes, or maybe because of her little black notebook that seemed to have half the world’s secrets tucked away inside it – I’d once thought that this Sophie bird could’ve been a sphinx once upon a time, defeated by some great hero of legend and now living on vastly reduced means. Certainly, it always seemed to me that it would be deeply unwise to cross or underestimate her.
Sophie Almonds was in her mid-forties I thought, and possibly of Scandinavian descent. I didn’t know these things for certain though, because she kept all personal information locked away as tightly as the affairs of her clients. And, as I’ve said, it was never wise to push her too far, except when absolutely necessary.
‘I’m worried about him,’ I said again.
‘What I’m going to suggest to you now,’ Sophie said after a moment, slowly knitting her fingers together, ‘is that you put that picture, and that note, back into that envelope there, and then pass the envelope to me.’
‘Why?’
‘So I can take it home and burn it.’
I looked at her. ‘Well, that seems extreme.’
‘No, not really. For one thing, I don’t think we should be leaving Andrew Black’s address around where anyone might find it. My agency still represents his interests, and that means protecting his anonymity as well as we possibly can.’
I raised my eyebrows.
Sophie sighed. ‘All right, look. You shouldn’t respond to this. If you’re asking for my advice, then that’s the advice I have for you. Do not respond to this.’
‘Okay.’
‘Good.’
‘No, I mean, okay but.’
‘But what?’
‘I know you don’t like him.’
Sophie waited.
‘And I don’t blame you for not liking him,’ I said. ‘You got him an amazing deal for the rest of his series and he went out and did—’
Sophie looked at me.
‘—what he did,’ I finished weakly.
A tiny smile with no warmth in it broke through her composed expression.
‘The rest of the series,’ she said, and she let out a small sound somewhere between bemused sigh and bitter laugh. It was a dangerous sound; it had broken glass in it.
I waited a moment, let a little time pass.
The clock ticked and the river rolled by.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I know coming to you with this isn’t ideal but I think he might be in trouble.’
‘He’s not in trouble.’
‘Do you know that for sure?’
Sophie didn’t answer.
‘You see? Because he’d never just come out and ask anyone, would he, never just say what’s on his mind. He can’t do what normal people do, and there’s an urgency to this—’ I pushed the note towards her. ‘I’m – concerned about him; I really am.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, why?’
‘Tom. You don’t like him either.’
‘That’s. That’s not—’
‘Of course it is.’
I looked at Sophie.
‘Of course it is,’ she said again. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with it. Why would you like him? Why would you care so much about him and his fucking book, Tom? Maybe you should spend some more time with that, rather than—’ She waved a hand at the note in from of her.
I held her gaze.
‘I’m concerned about him,’ I said. ‘And this—’ I slid the Polaroid up alongside the note. ‘Whatever this is, I’m concerned about this too.’
Sophie stared right back at me. Then she folded her arms and began searching my face, my expression, picking her way inside.
‘Is this about his thing?’ she asked at last. ‘His whole entropy, end of the world – thing?’
‘Just look at it.’
It took a moment, but Sophie’s eyes finally dropped from mine to the picture in front of her, perhaps seeing it properly for the first time. A pair of neat little frown lines appeared above her eyebrows. She picked up the Polaroid and took some time to look at the thing, like a jeweller with a stone. She tilted and turned it, this way and that way, held it up to the light, investigated the back, and then finally put it back down next