"despise blackmail," Catriona said, lighting a second cigarette.

"Me too," Lindsay said cheerfuly. "It doesn't half get results, though."

"You must go down like a cup of cold sick in a euphemistic society like America."

"They love it. Penny used to call me a breath of fresh effluvium. They think all the Scots are brutally frank. They've been watching too many historical Hollywood epics. So, are we going to talk to each other, or am I going to talk to the tabloids? Did I mention I used to be a national newspaper journalist?" Lindsay's smile alone would have been accepted by any court in the land as sufficient provocation for GBH.

Catriona fiddled with her cigarette. "There's so little to say that it's not worth arguing over. I'm far too busy to have to deal with muck-raking journalists as well as interfering busybodies."

It wasn't a graceful climbdown, but Lindsay wasn't proud. "Thanks," she said. "I know Penny would have wanted you to help."

Catriona looked as if she'd bitten into a profiterole and found a slug. "Such convenient knowledge," she muttered.

"You've been Penny's agent right from the start, am I right?"

"Since before she was ever published. She brought The Magicking of Danny Armstrong to me after it had been rejected by all the major American houses and her agent in New York had let her go. I was able to place it for her over here, and the rest, as they say, is history."

Lindsay took out her notebook, more for show than necessity, and scribbled a note. "This latest book? Very different, I hear."

"Penny decided she wanted a challenge. She was doing three Darkliners titles a year, and she wanted to break out of what had started to feel like a rut. Heart of Glass was going to be her first adult thriller. It was very noir, very passionate and very powerfully written. I had great hopes of it."

"How much of it was actually finished?"

"Penny had written about three-quarters of it. She came over here to do some research she needed for the last part of the book, and to finish writing it. I read what she'd completed before she arrived. But within days of getting to London, she announced she was doing a major rewrite. I was surprised, because what I saw was very good. But Penny was adamant that it needed some substantial alterations."

Lindsay frowned. "She wasn't going to change the murder method in the book, was she?"

"Not as far as I'm aware. From what she said to me, it was the characters she planned to work on, not the plot or the structure."

"Was there anything in particular that she mentioned?"

Catriona stubbed out her cigarette. "Nothing specific," she said.

"Have you got a copy of the manuscript?"

Catriona sighed heavily. "Unfortunately not. Penny took it away with her. She said she wanted me to come to the rewrite with as fresh an eye as possible, not to be able to compare it with what had gone before. She was always quite fussy about retrieving first drafts. Almost neurotic."

"She was a perfectionist," Lindsay said sadly, stricken by memory of her friend. "She hated the idea of anyone revealing her early drafts to the world after she'd gone. I remember her talking about it one night."

"I don't even have a current synopsis," Catriona said, sounding more cross than sad. "If Meredith should come across the manuscript of Heart of Glass, or the computer disk it's on, I'd really appreciate it if she could pass it on to me."

"Why?" Lindsay asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.

"The three hundred pages I saw were publishable quality," Catriona answered, confirming Lindsay's guess. "If they came with a synopsis, her editor could probably cobble together an ending in an appropriate style."

"Oh, great, just what Penny would have loved," Lindsay said sarcastically. "A load of cobblers."

"I think I have more right to be the judge of that," Catriona said stiffly. "If Penny had doubted my judgement, she would hardly have granted me so much power as her literary executor. Penny wanted to show the world that she was more than just a writer of teenage fiction. What I've seen of Heart of Glass demonstrated a formidable talent, and she deserves to have that credited to her reputation. That's what she really wanted, Ms. Gordon. She wanted it so badly she could taste it."

Lindsay looked away, realizing that Penny had wanted it so badly she had even been prepared to jeopardize Meredith's career just to generate more publicity. That indicated a raw ambition Lindsay had never recognized in Penny before. She could understand her desire for acknowledgement; what she couldn't relate to was her willingness to sacrifice her emotional happiness and security for the fickleness of reputation. "Yeah, well," was all she said.

"I'm not really the person you should be talking to about this," Catriona added casually as she lit another cigarette. "Penny spent a lot more time with her editor than she did with me this trip."

"And her editor is?"

"Belinda Burton. Baz to her babies. Baz would have had a much clearer idea of where she was up to and where she was going. They were very close. It was a large part of the reason behind Penny's success. The relationship between an editor and a writer is crucial. Different people work in different ways. When you link an editor and writer whose minds run along the same tracks and who like to work at the same level of detail, you've got a match made in heaven. A mismatch and everybody's life is an absolute bloody misery. It's part of my job to marry up writers with appropriate editors. Baz and Penny fit like a matching plug and socket," Catriona said expansively.

"You wouldn't be trying to divert me, would you?"

Catriona laughed. "No. But if you're still fixated on the profit motive and you think that Penny dead is an appealing moneymaker, you really would be better employed talking to Baz. Penny's royalty is ten percent, so my cut is around one and a half percent of the retail price. Monarch Press, on the other hand, are picking up between ten and forty percent on every book sold. As they say on your side of the Atlantic, go figure."

Lindsay stood up. She wasn't entirely convinced she'd got everything out of Catriona Poison that there was to be had, but she didn't have the right questions to elicit more. Perhaps after she'd spoken to Baz Burton, she'd have more ammunition to fire at the agent. "Fine," she said. "I'll talk to her. Now, wasn't that painless?"

"Painless but not a terribly productive use of my time," Catriona said dismissively, leading Lindsay out of the room and down the corridor. "I'm bound to say, I hope your client is paying you up front. I suspect she may end up wasting all her available cash on defense lawyers. I think you're backing the wrong horse, Ms. Gordon. Always a mistake to let sentiment stand in the way of reality, however unpalatable that may be."

For once, Lindsay refused to let herself be wound up. She contented herself with, "Ass Arnie says, hasta la vista, baby." On her way out of the front door, she took out the card she'd put in her shirt pocket earlier. It was about ten years old, but that didn't matter. She flicked it across the desk to the receptionist. "Have a nice day, cher," she said in her best Bayou accent. She didn't wait to register the response to a card that read, "Lindsay Gordon, Staff Reporter, Daily Nation."