‘I – no, I can’t say that I do.’
‘It’s really quite clever,’ she said, eyes still on the photo and the letter. ‘You start with a small cage, really small, say, as big as a teapot. Then you fasten the cage to the ground and you put something shiny inside it.’
‘Something shiny?’
‘It doesn’t matter what – something with glitter, a crystal, a diamond, if you want. All that matters is that the shiny thing is too big to pull out through the bars of the cage.’
Sophie flicked a glance up at me.
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘And when it’s all set up, you go home, leave it there. And then along comes the raccoon. He sees the shiny thing and tries pulling it out through the bars. He tries and tries, because raccoons love shiny things, apparently, but he can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to give up either; he can’t physically let go of the treasure he’s found, so he just stays there, holding onto it. Even when you come back with a sack in the morning and he wants to run away, he can’t make himself let go of the thing because it’s too shiny and wonderful and intriguing.’
‘And you’ve got him.’
‘You have. You unfasten the cage, lift it up with the raccoon still dangling from it, and drop them both into the sack.’
‘And that’s what you think this is?’
‘I wonder,’ Sophie said, still staring at the objects on the table.
Moments passed. Sophie continued to stare, lost in thought.
‘Sophie?’
‘After that, you knot the sack and you throw it in the river.’
‘What?’ I said, and when she didn’t answer: ‘You are joking, right?’
When she looked up, her expression was quite serious.
‘Can I show you something?’ she said.
‘Yeah. Yes. Of course you can.’
My agent reached down beside her chair and lifted a small black handbag onto the table. She took out her purse, opened it and removed a little square of greyish paper from one of its many pockets.
‘Just read this, if you would,’ she said, passing it to me.
The square turned out to be a neatly folded piece of newspaper. It folded out into a long, thin column of text. An old print review of Cupid’s Engine.
I began to read. Astonishing manipulation of expectation, countless twists and turns, flawlessly realised. On and on it went, the words masterpiece and genius showing up, and pulled double, triple duty, the review text escalating through the excitement registers as it progressed, leaving any attempt at even-handed, critical assessment of what was, after all, a murder mystery novel, far, far behind.
‘Wow,’ I said, refolding the clipping and handing it back.
‘Absolutely.’
‘She liked the book, I think.’
‘Absolutely,’ Sophie said again. ‘At the time, I cut that review out and kept it, just because I’d never seen anything like it. And because I was so pleased to be a part of something so special, you know? Now, I keep it with me as a reminder.’
‘Of what?’
‘To run,’ she said simply. ‘If a novel like Cupid’s Engine ever lands on my desk again, I will run. Nobody can do this,’ she held up the review, ‘nobody can produce a book like this one and be anywhere approaching sane or normal. The work, the focus involved, do you have any idea?’
‘I do.’
‘Then you know that anyone capable of achieving what Black achieved is, potentially, a very dangerous person.’
‘What? I don’t think—’
‘Oh, come on, Thomas,’ she said. ‘You’ve read that book. What is it – a thousand pages? – and not a single unnecessary word in the whole thing. The things he’s able to achieve, the level of manipulation. He has you believing that up is down and black is white.’ She pushed the picture of the sphere across the table towards me. ‘You’re right that this is a hook, but it’s not a pretty decent one. It’s a brilliant, and – I promise you – an extremely well-calculated one. What in God’s name makes you think it’s a good idea to bite?’
I sat back in my chair, not really knowing what to say.
‘I’m just telling you what I think,’ Sophie said, ‘and I think you should stay well away from this. A person with a brain like Andrew’s, well, they’re capable of anything. Can make you do and think anything, make you be anything.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I said, finding my feet. ‘I mean, I’d never deny that he’s a great writer, but—’
‘What do you think the world is, Thomas? No, don’t answer now. But I want you to take some time to think about it. Is the world you live in, each and every day, made more from rocks and grass and trees, or from articles, certificates, records, files and letters? Is it made more from soil and rivers and sand, or from thoughts and ideas, beliefs and opinions? Actually, let me ask you another question: is it the kind of world where nine words’ – she rapped her knuckles on Andrew’s letter – ‘nine words presented in just the right way, can compel a normally well-balanced person to charge blindly off into the unknown, to an address they’ve never visited before in their life?’
‘I didn’t say I’d go.’
‘Of course you’d go. This is what I’m trying to make you understand. With a person like Black, you might think he’s your friend, like you’re in it together, when all the time he’s dancing you like a puppet off the edge of a fucking cliff.’
‘ – ’
‘Oh, don’t look at me like that.’ Sophie’s cheeks flushed. ‘You know what I’m talking about, or you would’ve just written back to him without coming to me for – for fucking permission.’
I started to respond but the words didn’t come.
An awkward moment passed.
‘Not a cliff,’ I said quietly.
‘What?’
‘He mainly just told me I was a terrible writer, to be honest. He didn’t dance me off a cliff. He did that to you.’
Sophie stared at me, big bird eyes searching my face for meaning, as if meaning were a frightened mouse seen darting away through the heather. And then – she laughed. It was a tired laugh, a release of tension, an oh-fucking-hell and slumping-into-your-chair sort of a laugh.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Oh, Tom. Listen, can you just drop this, please? I’ll sleep better knowing he’s just – gone.’
I looked at the objects on the table. I nodded.
‘Is that a yes?’
‘It’s an I’ll do my best.’
Sophie Almonds sighed a long, deep sigh. She picked up the note.
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these are the most words he’s written since Cupid,’ she said. ‘I suppose you know that this text belongs to his publishers technically, under the terms of his contract?’
‘I do.’
‘You do.’ She held up the single sheet of notepaper, as if testing its weight. ‘What do you think? The long-awaited second Andrew Black novel?’
I stared at the small piece of paper dangling between her finger and thumb with its nine neat little words.
‘You’d