A woman I didn’t recognise was already sizing me up when I walked into Vic’s office, her eyes moving over my coat and my bag and my face with a speed that told me, before either of them said a word, this wasn’t going to be the usual conversation about running times and delivery dates.
“Marlowe. This is Helen Holt, she runs acquisitions for the true-crime strand at Northlight.” Vic didn’t stand, which he never did, but there was an energy off him I hadn’t seen since the week he’d greenlit Held, something close to hunger dressed up as professional calm. “I’ve been talking to her for a fortnight. Sit down.”
“I’d rather stand.” I stayed by the door, my bag still over my shoulder, and looked at the woman in the good coat who was already, I could tell, cataloguing me the way I catalogued everyone else, deciding whether…
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