The well-lit, high-ceilinged lobby of the publishers was a relief after the taxi ride. Arthur now sat on a purple sofa directly beneath a large poster of his latest bestseller, bemoaning cancel culture and the extinction of the white male. Linda perched beside him, head nodding like the Churchill dog.
The editor who met us, Hayley, a friend who’d acquired one of my first authors, wouldn’t meet my eye, which I read as a Bad Sign, even in the lift when it was clear someone had farted. No one acknowledged the rancid stench, and as we stood in that tiny steel space I knew that scent was the smell of impending doom.
I licked my dry lips, trying to order my thoughts. The agency needed Arthur’s income. This meeting had to go well. If it didn’t then I knew my plans for later that week would be up in smoke. And I owed it to Linda, to the agency. She’d given me my first break almost eight years ago, I needed to help her now.
Ding.
The meeting room was intimidatingly spacious. Two women were sitting at the large oval table, their grim expressions reflected in the glass top. I pulled out a chair only to realize Arthur had walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window and was gazing out at the sparkling Thames that snaked past the building. “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,” he said, as if he was at a dinner party holding a prawn vol-au-vent. “Samuel Johnson,” he finished.
Stony looks met the words and my palms dampened.
“Mr. Chumley,” Melissa, CEO of Charter Publishing, eyes enlarged behind purple frames. “Thank you for coming in to see us this morning. Obviously, we would like to address the quite serious situation that arose this weekend.”
“Ah, the Wokerati wanting my scalp, you mean!” Arthur pulled out a chair with a flourish. “People love to be offended these days.”
“Your words were offensive,” Melissa stated, eyes narrowed. “You wrote,” she said, reading loudly from a piece of paper in front of her, “‘I would much rather be stuck in bed with her, not her book. There’d be more action.’”
“I was speaking privately to another writer.”
“Twitter is not private,” Melissa snapped, her mouth set in a hard line.
“I realize that now,” Arthur said pompously.
Linda leaned across the table. “Arthur here is obviously very sorry people could not see the joke,” she said, barely containing her eye roll at him. “He has deleted the tweet that caused such a ridiculous uproar.”
“Deleting it doesn’t actually make it go away. It was screenshotted hundreds of times, it’s still out there,” Melissa said.
“Screenshotted or not,” Linda waved a hand. “Arthur sold almost a million books for you last year. What’s one little chirp?”
“Tweet,” I corrected in a whisper.
Linda glared at me. I knew I needed to fly to Arthur’s defense too—I had the sales figures, a prepared statement to issue online, both in my bag, but I found my throat closing up.
“In the future my tweets will stick to the prospects of Leeds United and vintage cars,” Arthur chuckled.
Melissa’s reply was icy. “The thing is, these things are important, important to us as a company, to the author who was on the receiving end of an entirely unwarranted, disparaging remark from an established author.” Her hand curled into a fist on the glass, “And it has only been ten months since the bullying allegation . . .”
“Well, if you will employ oversensitive twenty-year-olds . . .” Arthur murmured, his hand clenched around his water.
“If we don’t believe you’re taking these things seriously,” Melissa’s voice rose, “I’m afraid Charter Publishing would need to think long and hard about our current contract renewal.”
I winced. If Charter pulled out now, it would leave a huge hole in the agency’s finances, not to mention that after a few years of declining sales, solidified by a global pandemic, Arthur’s books weren’t quite the jewels they used to be. Would we be able to find him another publishing house willing to pay as much? Particularly as everyone in the industry would know Charter had dropped him and why. He’d get offers, of course, but I think both Linda and Arthur might be surprised by how much less publishers were willing to pay for someone incendiary, with falling sales and no loyalty to his fellow authors. I cleared my throat.
“Arthur knows how badly he got it wrong,” I piped up. “In fact,” I added, straightening my shoulders, “just on the way over, he mentioned how refreshing it was to see so many young female writers in the crime world. Didn’t you, Arthur?”
A fraction of a pause, the slightest nod of his head.
“And he was telling me about a bursary scheme he’d heard of that encourages more diverse voices into the crime community.”
Melissa’s expression lightened, and I heard a small, sharp inhale from Linda.
“With a big name supporting it, and a generous contribution to the scheme, well . . . it seems to me an excellent way to drive forward the change he wants to see.”
Melissa glanced at her two colleagues, her fist unfurling. “That is comforting to hear. Involvement in this scheme might go some way to rectifying some of the damage done.”
“We could prepare a short statement to that effect,” I went on, gaze steady, voice confident. “Alongside the apology, of course. And then I’m sure we will all be relieved to put this sorry business behind us.”
I sat on my hands, hoping I would not be smote down by my lies. To my left, I could sense Arthur bristling but he seemed to have the good sense to stay quiet.
“Well,” the pause dragged on as Melissa’s colleagues stared at her, “I have to admit this is a relief.” She suddenly looked a little more friendly. “We obviously want to continue this successful partnership,” she said, enunciating each word carefully, “but we are also extremely aware of today’s climate and do not want to be seen to not act when one of our authors so flagrantly goes against the principles we try to uphold as a company.”
Arthur was getting away with it; I could feel my shoulders dropping a couple of inches.
Shame filled me as I realized my part in helping him. I thought of his words this morning, his tweet, the lack of respect, the bullying incident—a young editorial assistant who hadn’t been seen since. I blinked. Was this really what I wanted?
“Well,” I said, pushing back my chair, “we should probably get on and work out the details.” I wanted to get out of this room before the bubble burst. “Linda?” I turned brightly.
Linda stood, her expression stony.
Arthur glanced across at her. And then, when she said nothing and followed me to the door, his back stiffened, a vein going in his neck as he stalked out.