‘I suppose I’ll have to try to read it,’ said Liz, with a mixture of pride, perplexity and reluctance. ‘I suppose, if there’s anything publishable in there, it might be quite valuable? Do you think?’

‘Yes, perhaps,’ said Alix cautiously. She did not like to say that if Stephen were dead, it would not be very valuable. Stephen had been a successful writer, after a fashion, and had made, latterly, a good living from his trade. His manuscripts no doubt resided in some North American university, in carefully controlled atmospheric conditions. This package could go and join them, if it proved authentic. But it would not fetch a very high price, if known to be the last. Stephen was—or had been—at that mid-stage in his career where his value depended upon a prospect of output, of œuvre. He had had more years of work ahead of him. A last message and then the silence of death would do his prospects no good. It would create a momentary stir, and no more. His publishers would not like it at all. Unless, of course, this last manuscript proved to be a masterpiece. But if it were, who would be able to tell? It sounded from Liz’s description as though it needed a good deal of editing. Alix knew, from the complaints of friends and from her own experience in the role, that editors these days are not what they were. It would take an exceptional editor to deal with this Do-It-Yourself Novel Pack that had landed up on Liz Headleand’s desk.

Liz, following this unspoken train of thought, inquired, ‘Did Stephen have an agent?’

Alix reflected.

‘He was rather keen on negotiating his own affairs. He was quite good at it, for such a vague sort of person. But I think there was somebody. Wasn’t that dotty woman he knew some kind of agent?’

What dotty woman?’

‘That drinking woman. Isn’t she in his flat in Primrose Hill now?’

Liz was silent. She had not known, or had forgotten, that there was a dotty drinking woman in Stephen’s flat.

‘Yes,’ said Alix, ‘I’m almost sure she was some kind of agent. You could always contact her, I suppose. He’d just changed publishers, with the last book. And anyway, he had two lots of publishers, one for his serious work and one for his thrillers.’

What was her name?’

‘I think she was called Hattie. Hattie Osborne.’

‘Hmm,’ said Liz, smelling a rival.

‘I say,’ said Alix. ‘Does it look a . . .  newish sort of bone?’