The conference began in earnest the next day, and St. Just, along with most of the authors, was bussed into Edinburgh, feeling rather like royalty on the way to open a chain store in the provinces. The air was cold and the road glazed with frost, the warm spell of the day before a fast-fading memory.
The coach deposited them at the Luxor Hotel, where they were issued name badges and set loose to mingle, clash, or-in St. Just's case-hope to escape notice altogether. He'd stayed in his room the night before, ordering room service, but he'd met most of the others at breakfast. The one person he wanted to see, of course, had not been there.
An opening session was scheduled within the hour in the hotel's main ballroom, and participants had begun to gather outside its double doors, some sitting on the floor with coffee cups, like mendicants in a church porch. Many had opted for comfort in jeans and spandex, while many had gone in-oddly, St. Just thought-for the pinstriped captain-of-industry look. Most had mobiles attached to their ears.
Old acquaintance were reuniting, standing back to admire and comment on how well the other looked. But underneath it all-all the back-slapping and the faces wreathed in smiles-St. Just picked up the occasional impression of a past slight or grudge being dusted off for a closer look.
Donna Doone squeezed her way out of an opening in the crowd to join him, dressed today in a sequined, low-cut white jumpsuit that inescapably called to mind Elvis: The Vegas Years. Mrs. Elksworthy also materialized from somewhere, just as Magretta Sincock came steaming into view. Today she had assembled a costume the color and texture of a putting green, with a feathered cavalier hat and a leather belt slung gunslinger style around her ample hips.
"Oh, look," she said, pointing with her glass of orange juice. "Rachel Twalley."
"Yes, she's a dear friend of mine from school days," said Joan Elksworthy, following Magretta's direction, then adding, "Oh, my." They all looked over at Rachel, who stood wrestling with a cascading sheaf of papers and an empty stapler, casting aggrieved glances at the burbling entourage now forming around Kimberlee. Her harried manner suggested a woman tired of all work and no glory.
Magretta went on: "She writes, or rather wrote, Regency mysteries with a corgi sleuth, owned by a Princess Royal-or was it a dachshund owned by Bonnie Prince Charlie? Anyway, I suspect she agreed to arrange this rave-up in an attempt to keep her name alive before the public. At least she'll be listed in the program for something."
Ignoring the frosty reception these comments were getting from Joan Elksworthy, Magretta went on:
"But historicals are doing rather well now. I'm thinking of going in for one myself. What would you say," she said, turning to St. Just, "to a spunky heroine who escapes human sacrifice in ancient Gaul, only to find that she has the ear, along with other parts, of the great Caesar, helping him resolve potentially embarrassing political scandals?"
"It's a… novel idea," said St. Just, not daring to steal a glance at Mrs. Elksworthy.
"You think it's rubbish, of course," said Magretta, catching him off guard with her unexpected acumen, "but I tell you, publishers are looking for a hook, however stupid. Is that Quentin Swope, I wonder? The one who wrote that simply libelous article in the Edinburgh Herald? I have a word or two for him." Magretta slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder and swooped off in a flutter of molting plumage.
The eddying crowd gradually pushed them in the direction of the sellers' room, where books representing the fevered output of the gathered were offered for purchase, along with apparently in-demand mystery paraphernalia such as sloganed T-shirts and cat bookends. St. Just was becalmed near Annabelle Pace at a table selling collectible crime novels. He was turning to comment on a first-edition Chandler when he saw she had struck up a conversation with Winston Chatley on her other side. Sensing some old chemistry or affinity there, he held back.
He began idly looking for the books of authors he recognized from the castle, reading the little biographies on the back jackets and marveling at the revealing choices of author photo. Magretta, in a hazy black-and-white studio shot clearly decades old, was recognizable mostly by her rigid, unchanging hairstyle. Head propped on her hands, she smiled at the potential buyer with the coy, come-hither look of an old-time movie vamp. Most of the other authors had adopted a friendly grin, or, in the case of the thriller writers, a grimace suggesting a minor bowel obstruction. Tom Brackett glared out at the world with a fierce sneer on his lips.
Kimberlee's book was impossible to miss, and not only for the sheer volume of copies available for sale. The thick glossy cover was coated in a garish shade of hot pink; its title, Dying for a Latte, was set in a jagged black font meant to resemble knife blades. The subject was illustrated by an androgynous, prone victim with a black stiletto heel sticking out of its back and a woman's stocking tied garrote-style around its neck. In its outstretched hand was a martini glass filled with something St. Just hoped was meant to represent one of those designer cocktails rather than blood.
The latte of the title was nowhere to be seen but perhaps that oversight was explained in the narrative.
A scene ripped from today's headlines, thought St. Just. He picked up the book and leafed through it rather furtively, like a man in a lingerie store shopping for his wife's Valentine's Day gift. The story seemed to be about-as much as it was about anything-a young woman in a low-level publishing job with a tiny apartment, a shoe fetish, an unlimited clothing budget, and a philandering boss she finds dead of a gunshot wound. St. Just flipped back to the front cover at that point, wondering what had happened to the shoe, the stocking, and the martini glass. Shrugging, he flipped through a few more pages. Ninety percent of the book seemed to be taken up with the protagonist yakking about either this shooting or, in equal measure, her ex-boyfriend with her two "gal pals" and a gay decorator. These breezy discussions generally were held over cocktails in one trendy nightspot or another. Midway through, the heroine accosted the ex-boyfriend and gave him a good bollocking. Henry James it was not.
"A Kimberlee Kalder fan? You?"
The low, honeyed voice at his side startled him so the pink horror of a book nearly flew out of his hands. He blushed, as if he'd been caught reading porn.
"Who, as they would say in America, would'a thunk it?" the soft voice added.
He turned toward the speaker. Looking down, his eyes met a blue gaze the color of the sea at midnight. He felt as if he'd again slipped sideways through a time warp, for it was the dark-haired woman from St. Germaine's restaurant, the one he'd glimpsed again yesterday. Since he thought it was doubtful she'd remember him, he was reluctant to mention their former "acquaintance," for reasons of pride or whatever that he didn't care to examine too closely.
He closed the book and replaced it carefully with its ghastly pink sisters.
"Just curious," he cleared his throat, smiled. "There's been so much talk."
"Hmm. Oh, about the book, you mean?" she smiled mischievously, a smile to light any room. A smile he decided instantly he wanted to-had to-see every day of his life.
Whatever it took.
He'd learn to tell jokes, memorize joke books, if that's what it took, to make that smile appear.
He didn't care who this woman was.
He didn't care where she came from.
He didn't care if she snored.
St. Just was a goner.