Preface to Murder

sign of Grant Sadler. Damn it. Had he already been and gone, or had he not turned up at all? She had just removed her phone from her bag and was redialling his number when his familiar face appeared at the door.
If on the previous evening the literary agent had been attempting to cultivate an edgy, cool image, this morning he looked simply haggard. His hair stood up on end, he hadn’t shaved, and his eyes were smudged as if he hadn’t slept a wink all night. Perhaps the phone call from Jennifer Eagleston had woken him rather earlier than he was used to.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘The bus took ages. I keep forgetting how awful the traffic is in Oxford.’
Bridget smiled, taking pity on him. It seemed that she and Grant shared an aversion for Oxford’s road congestion and traffic restrictions. Perhaps they would get on well together. ‘There’s one last table over in the corner,’ she said, pointing.
They grabbed it just before it was claimed by a couple of Japanese tourists who were clearly uncertain whether they were supposed to sit down first or order food at the counter. Bridget felt slightly guilty when she saw them turn and leave the shop, but then her stomach rumbled, quickly dispelling any lingering sense of remorse.
‘Lunch?’ she enquired cheerfully.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ said Grant. He took a seat opposite hers, his right knee bouncing up and down beneath the table. If anything, he appeared even more nervous than he had done the previous evening.
Bridget quickly perused the menu and when a young waitress came over to their table, she placed her usual order: Queen’s Chicken Royal – a fillet of chicken in ciabatta served with chips – and a bottle of mineral water. It was at least fifty per cent healthy by her reckoning.
‘Just a coffee for me,’ said Grant.
The waitress vanished into the kitchen, and Grant turned to stare out of the window. He watched as passers-by hurried along the pavement, but didn’t seem to see them. Bridget realised that he was in a deep state of shock. Eventually he seemed to recall that she was with him.
‘This might seem a silly question,’ she asked, ‘but what exactly does a literary agent do?’
‘Oh, right.’ The question had the desired effect, bringing him back from his faraway thoughts to focus on the present. ‘I suppose it isn’t necessarily obvious to people outside the industry. Agents act as the grease in the machine, making the whole publishing industry work. Or, if you don’t like the grease metaphor, you could think of us as glue, bringing authors and publishers together.’
‘So did you work on behalf of Diane?’
‘She was my client, yes. I negotiated to sell her manuscript to publishers.’
‘And she paid you for your services?’
He shook his head. ‘Her publisher paid me a percentage of her advance.’
‘Her advance?’
‘Sorry. Advance payment. It’s an amount that the publisher agrees to pay the author in return for the publishing rights to the manuscript.’
‘I see. And how long have you been Diane Gilbert’s agent?’
‘Three years.’
‘As long as that? I thought that A Deadly Race was her first book.’
‘It is.’ When Bridget gave him a puzzled look, he elaborated. ‘The cogs of the publishing world don’t turn quickly. Getting a first book into the bookshops is a long haul. First the author has to find an agent, which isn’t easy. Most authors never even make it that far. The agent makes submissions to publishers and, if successful, negotiates a contract. Then the completed manuscript goes through several rounds of editing and proof-reading before its final publication.’
‘I see. So how much contact did you have with Diane during those three years?’
‘Well, quite a lot initially, mostly by phone and email. Then not so much for a long while. But I spoke to her more in recent weeks, in the run-up to the book launch.’
‘And what did you think of her?’
‘Seriously? Diane was an incredible woman. As soon as she wrote to me, I knew she was an author that I wanted to represent.’
‘Why was that exactly?’
‘Diane was a highly-regarded academic and a fearless writer. She didn’t care if what she wrote got her into trouble, she just wanted to get her words out there and have them read. She was already well known within her field, but her book will bring her work to a much wider audience. If there’s a silver lining to this tragedy, it’s that her book will garner a lot more publicity than it would otherwise have done.’
‘I suppose so.’
Bridget waited while the waitress brought the food and drink to the table. She took a quick bite out of the chicken in ciabatta before continuing with her questioning.
‘What do you know about the death threat that Diane received?’
Grant stared mournfully into his coffee. ‘I already told the police all I know.’
‘Perhaps you could tell me again?’
‘All right. Diane told me about it when I was up in Oxford to make arrangements for the literary festival. I went to see her at the Blavatnik, and she showed it to me there. It had arrived by post that morning.’
‘At her work or her home address?’
‘At home.’
‘What did Diane think about the letter?’
‘Not a lot. She was used to getting a ton of hate on social media. To be honest, I think she might secretly have enjoyed it. Some of her tweets – well, it was almost as if she was inviting people to send her abuse. Like I said, she was fearless.’
‘Had she ever reported the abuse to the police?’
‘Not Diane. It wasn’t really in her nature to ask for help.’
‘But she decided to contact the police about the letter?’
‘She wasn’t going to. But her sister, Annabel, was worried, and when she showed it to