Free Crime Writers and Other Animals by Simon Brett

know. I lived with the bastard!’
    He’d thought he was doing all right before, but after the interview with Mariana Lestrange, he knew he’d
really
got the dirt.
    It took him less than a week to thread this new vein of vindictiveness into his text. At the end of that time, Carlton Rutherford checked carefully through his manuscript before delivering it personally to Dashiel Loukes’ office. According to the agent’s unnervingly pretty assistant, her boss was still out at lunch. Carlton Rutherford thought this slightly odd at five forty-five in the afternoon, but did not question it.
    He went back to Upper Norwood to await the reaction to his literary bombshell.
    At least this time their meeting merited lunch. Dashiel Loukes took him to the Groucho Club and, bathed in the sunlight of the upstairs dining room, gave his verdict.
    â€˜Sorry, old boy. Not a chance in hell of placing it.’
    â€˜But come on, it’s good. All that detail – fascinating stuff. You can’t say I haven’t got all the dirt, can you?’
    â€˜No. Certainly not. No, it’s the most compulsive manuscript I’ve read for years. I was up half the night reading it – absolutely riveting.’
    â€˜Well then . . .?’
    â€˜It’s your old problem, Carlton. Just like it was with
Neither One Thing Nor The Other
. . .’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Libel, old boy, libel. Your manuscript has got something actionable on every page.’
    â€˜But it’s all true! It’s all substantiated. I actually witnessed a lot of it.’
    â€˜Surely you didn’t witness the incident in the gents’ lavatory with Joe Orton . . .? Or the benedictine-drinking contest with David Niven . . .? Or that business with Malcolm Muggeridge and the spatula . . .?’
    â€˜No, I wasn’t actually there, but it’s all true! I got it from Mariana. Anyway, Joe Orton’s not going to pop up from the grave to deny it. Nor’s David Niven likely to—’
    â€˜I agree, old boy. No problems with
them
. They’re all safely dead and you can’t libel the dead. No, it’s Bartlett himself who’s likely to make a stink – absolutely guaranteed to make a stink, I’d say.’
    â€˜But it all happened! Mariana Lestrange said he even used to boast about a lot of it.’
    â€˜Boasting in private about it is very different from sanctioning the printing of this kind of unsubstantiated gossip.’
    â€˜Dashiel, how many times do I have to tell you – it’s all fully substantiated!’
    â€˜Carlton, the bottom line is that I’ve consulted a top libel lawyer whom I’ve used many times before. He’s read your manuscript and he says it’s absolute dynamite.’
    â€˜But it’s
good
,’ the author wailed plaintively.
    â€˜I’m not denying it. It’s very good. Easily the most readable thing you’ve ever done.’ Carlton Rutherford decided not to rise to this implied slight to the rest of his
oeuvre
, as the agent went on, ‘But the fact remains that it’s good
dynamite
. No publisher will touch it.’
    â€˜But—’
    â€˜No, old boy, you have to face the truth. There is no chance of publication for this book while Bartlett Mears is alive!’
    From that moment Carlton Rutherford realized that he would have to commit murder.
    The idea didn’t worry him at all. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he relished the prospect.
    The manner of Bartlett Mears’ killing did not really matter, so long as he ended up safely dead. But self-preservation dictated that Carlton Rutherford should use a method which could appear to any investigating authorities as an accident.
    He did not have to look far to find it. Details that he knew of his quarry’s personal habits – his smoking, his drinking, his addiction to a variety of pills – they all pointed in the same