She put the stack on the one patch on Gwen’s desk that was clear and came over to embrace me. I brushed my lips against her very soft cheek, noting the slight and doubtless expensive smell of lemon.
“If only you’d telegraphed ahead to say when you were coming, Daddy would surely have been here to welcome you home,” she said. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me affectionately in the eye. “Oh, darling, dearest Anthony,” she breathed. “You really are the most beautiful writer in all of Daddy’s stable. And we missed you so—didn’t we, Gwen?” The old secretary coughed venomously and lit one of her cigars. Vicky smiled and led the way through towering piles of other typescript into her father’s office. Old Man Richardson’s office was, if possible, still more cluttered. Vicky moved a pile of new books from the chair in front of the desk and poured me a very small sherry. As I sipped at the disgusting fluid—the contents of Gwen’s correction bottle might have been more palatable—she fitted a cigarette into her long holder and looked about for the desk lighter.
“How was America?” she asked. “The only news in the papers while you were away was all about the new round of show trials in Washington. The Prosecutor-Judge sounded perfectly frightful.” She smiled and fiddled with the lighter. Except for a difference of forty years and about twelve stone, she managed to look exactly like her father. I ignored the question—in any event, it was probably more an evasion than anything else: and I had nothing to say about Richard Nixon, or any others of the Anslinger attack dogs—and cleared my throat.
“Your father told me he wanted something sexy for the second volume,” I said. “Well, I’ve evidence that Churchill was taking money from Czech Jewish interests to get him out of trouble. There was a payment of £15,000 in late 1939, and another of £5,000 in 1940. The payments ceased after his first stroke and when it was clear there wouldn’t be a war.” Vicky smiled again and lit her cigarette.
“Such ghastly people, these Jews, don’t you agree?” she said. “But does this really add to our picture of Winston? More to the point, I’m not sure it gives the impression Randolph wants the world to have of his heroic father.” I gave her a stony look. Yes, the family had specified a thick cover of whitewash over the old beast’s reputation. On the other hand, Richardson & Co. were putting up the money. Bearing in mind how Churchill’s last failed cause had been his turn against the Jews once they’d kissed and made up with the Germans, this was as near to sexy as anyone could have wanted. But Vicky was reaching down for one of the books she’d taken off my chair. She held up the thick hardback. Hitler: Colossus of his Age, its title screamed from the glossy cover. A picture of the man had been found that didn’t make him look barking mad, and this had been stuck over a montage of his more extravagant building projects.
“We sent this one to the printers while you were away,” she said. Daddy’s throwing a big party on the twentieth anniversary of the death, and another next month on what would have been the seventieth birthday. Hitler always sells. Even at 9s.6d, we think we’ll shift a million of these.” She stopped and gave me another of those exaggeratedly loving stares. If my American trip had spared me the build-up, I’d known this was coming. Most galling it was, too.
“But, surely,” I said, trying for a tone of gentle mockery, “the author’s a foreigner. Besides, the last I heard of her, wasn’t she banged up in some American jail?” For perhaps half a second, Vicky dropped her loving act, and her face turned as expressionless as the display on a calculating machine. Then she was all smiles again, and fussing with her cigarette holder.
“It’s sad, of course,” came the reply, “she was caught while crossing back into America. But she’d already put the last touches to the manuscript. As for being foreign, she has a big following here—aren’t we the nearest, after all, to what she wants for mankind? And she has a growing presence in Germany. Indeed, it was their foreign minister who put pressure on Washington to have her charged only with tobacco smuggling. We’ll shift a million here for sure. And we’ve already sold the German rights. Daddy’s even wangling an introduction to that edition by Goering himself.” Vicky put the book down and gave me what passed for her full attention.
“The problem with Churchill,” she went on, “is that he did nothing big after Gallipoli. If you think a bit of corruption can make up for all that arid financial stuff from the twenties, and then his long, piss-stained descent into something close by the gutter, you really will have to think again. I’m sure Daddy will agree.
“Did you find any sex scandals?” she asked with a sudden change of tone. I shook my head. “Any truth about his deathbed conversion to Rome?” I shook my head again. “Did you find anything except this Jewish scandal that might be dressed up as an explosive revelation?” She varied the question, now putting an emphasis on the anything. I smiled frostily back at her. “Well, you see, my darling Anthony,” she went on, now motioning at what looked like the telegram I’d sent once we were out of American air space, “Daddy can’t see how we can add to the advance we agreed. £500 is a lot of money. You can buy a house with that.” I shifted uncomfortably in the chair. £500 might buy many things. It might even keep Vicky Richardson for a whole month in shoes. But I was in a tight spot, and I needed more.
“The American trip was more expensive than I planned,” I said firmly. “The Safe Zone in Chicago is at least three times London prices.” Where was her father? He must have known I’d be round today. He’d probably have been just as flinty about the cash. But it’s always easier to talk money with a man.
“I really do feel for you, Anthony,” she crooned. “Did you lose all your money in that gold mine?” My face tightened. How did they know about that? “But I did hear Daddy urge you to do the work from Montreal. That would have been ever so much cheaper.” She stood suddenly up. “Now, we do need the manuscript by October. Publication date, you’ll recall, is set for next March. We absolutely must catch the tenth anniversary of Winston’s death. This aside, Randolph will explode if we don’t have the last volume out before he also drinks himself to death.” I thought of a more insistent plea for money. Of course, she saw it coming and cut me straight off.
“The first volume is still doing rather well, and you’ll get your royalty statement in the next fortnight,” she said with a little pat on my back. “I might persuade Daddy to consider a further advance on the second volume—but you’ll need to persuade me that it can rise above the dull worthiness of a second volume.
“Can we get you a taxi?” she asked with a brief glance at her watch. She fitted another cigarette into her holder.
As I left, Vicky was almost cuddling the Hitler biography. I’d never before realised how much I hated Ayn Rand.
The pavement heating was being repaired in Chamberlain Street, and the taxi took an age to get me through the resulting traffic. At last, though, I was able to walk through the glass doors of Victory Mansions. Looking dejected, there were two Indians sheltering from the drizzle in a doorway across the road.
“Glad to see you, Dr Markham,” the porter said, getting up from his desk and giving a brisk salute. “I heard you’d be back tomorrow. I’m afraid I had your boxes taken up to Dr Pakeshi. There were too many to keep down here. I do apologise. I….”
“Think nothing of it, Hattersley,” I said with an open smile. “I suppose you’ve enough other post to give me.” He had. There was a whole box load of the stuff. “Don’t worry about carrying it up,” I said, taking delivery. There must have been a hundred letters and packages in there. I’d sort through them all in due course. For the moment, all I wanted was to sit down and relax after a week of travelling.