“Sort of. Only in this case, Catriona Polson was the company that was making the money. The Firestone Agency was struggling, to be honest. They had quite a few talented people on the staff, but Paul Firestone had lost his edge and morale was crap. They lost a couple of their bigger names and soon as they started to slide, Catriona pounced. According to my buddy Clive, who works for Bookselling News, Paul Firestone hadn’t entirely lost his marbles. He negotiated a deal on the sale of his agency that concluded with a balloon payment after three years, the amount to be dependent on Polson and Firestone’s turnover. On a sliding scale that increased geometrically once profits hit a certain target.” Kirsten paused expectantly.

“Wasn’t that kind of betting against her own success?” Lindsay asked.

“Yes and no,” Kirsten said. “Under normal circumstances, no literary agency would hope to generate the kind of profits in a single year that would have caused problems for Polson.”

Lindsay grinned. “Why do I have the feeling you’re about to outline a set of circumstances so far off the normal curve that our instruments have no way of measuring it?”

“Because you’re psychic?”

“It’s not a phenomenon I’m noted for. So what were these exceptional circumstances?”

Kirsten leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. “After Martin Amis got his half-million-pound advance, literary novelists woke up to the fact that they might have a bit of clout. When Milos Petrovicĉ won last year’s Booker Prize, he decided that he more than deserved what Martin had already achieved, but his current agent couldn’t get the deal up above £350,000. Meanwhile, Polson’s personal assistant was bonking a chap called Jeremy Dunstan, who’s head honcho of a new literary imprint that one of the populist houses is trying to get off the ground. And Polson hears pillow talk that Jeremy is about to go out with a wallet full of dosh to pull in a couple of prime catches so that agents and authors will get their heads round the idea that his list is serious business, not some loss leader to make his company look like they’re not dragging their knuckles on the bottom of the cave. With me so far?” she asked, tipping herself forward to extinguish her cigarette.

“Fascinated,” Lindsay said, heavy on the irony. “I had no idea the world of gentlemen publishers had spun into the orbit of the eighties. So what happened next? As if I couldn’t guess.”