It wasn't only beginners who got frustrated when my synopses didn't make it as a book. Irritation ran high amongst those who'd previously published a book com- pletely off their own bat. Publishers did a lot of weeding out of course, and in the early years I had no influence with them. The rejection rate has remained steady at ninety- something per cent. But many a project ran aground before it got that far. Some of my customers would come back to undo the deal. This was not merely childish, it was also expressly contrary to the conditions of sale, but it wasn't a huge problem. I lost my profit of course, as I couldn't sell the returned notes to anyone else, but I had little choice.

The customers got their money back. My income was already substantial and I had to think strategically. I had the good name of Writers' Aid to consider.

By the very nature of the thing, I couldn't just let my customers leaf through the material I had for sale before they bought. I couldn't operate a ten-days-on-approval policy.

As soon as I'd allowed a client to read the first page of a synopsis, it either had to end in a sale, or I had to withdraw the synopsis from the market. And so, once more, it was necessary to beat about the bush, and this I thoroughly enjoyed. I had perfected the art of asking a girl if she'd go to bed with me, without making her aware of what I was asking, yet in such a way that she was able to convince me that, later in the evening, she would. If not, I was the one who'd break off the tentative process.

Only when I was well established abroad was I able to permit a German or French writer to buy a synopsis which I'd let a Norwegian have a go at a few years earlier. On occasions this caused small conflagrations that I had to go out and smother, but I was good at putting out fires. Putting out fires is akin to the act of comforting.

An important watershed came early in the eighties when I realised that I could no longer just take a single payment for a synopsis which might theoretically end up as a best-seller. I began negotiating for part of the book's future royalties - for example, after it sold more than five or ten thousand copies.

I pitched this at a level of between ten and thirty per cent of the author's royalty, depending on how detailed the synopsis was and the likely potential it had of becoming a best-seller in the hands of that writer. This change represented a considerable financial advance, and it was to turn me into a wealthy man - but it would also prove treacherous.

While I was negotiating a royalty I always carried a dictaphone in my jacket pocket. I considered it was in the best interests of the customer. A verbal agreement is ob- viously just as binding as a written one; the problem with verbal agreements is that they depend on both parties having equally good memories. It is here the dictaphone has proved indispensable, and there have been times when I've been forced to refer to it. On a few occasions I've also had to convince my client of my credentials by indicating that for many years I'd had a tape recorder wired to my phone. I was an orderly man - some might even have called me pedantic.

One of these frustrated individuals - we'll call him Robert - visited me once at my flat. He was ten years older than me, half Flemish, and he'd had his share of problems in the past.

His literary career had had its ups and downs, and at quite a young age he'd fathered a son who had been slightly brain- damaged. Obviously, this had placed a strain on his relations with Wenche, and now she'd taken up with another author.

Wenche and Robert still lived together, but because of their disabled son their existence together was rather like one of those old barometers where the man is out when the woman is in and vice versa. I couldn't tell to what extent Robert was aware of Wenche's affair with Johannes, but I knew all the details. The literary establishment was extreme- ly transparent.

Robert was one of those I'd helped who expected me to a.s.sume more and more responsibility for all aspects of their lives. Also, his self-image was closely wedded to his literary merits. Several months earlier we'd been to the Casino and he'd spent practically the entire evening whining that his relationship with Wenche had always mirrored his own literary successes and failures. When he was lucky with a book, he found favour in the marital bed, but as soon as he got a bad review he was condemned to bedroom apartheid at home. I told him Wenche was the one with the problem, not him.

I didn't cherish such unannounced visits, I'd made that perfectly plain. I liked to clear away folders and suchlike before I let anyone through the door - the place could often be in quite a mess. But Robert was in such a state as he stood on the landing that I let him in anyway.

'What's the matter, Robert? Got bogged down again?' I asked before we went into the living-room.

He went right to the heart of the matter. 'I've got a feeling you're helping other people besides me,' he said.

I saw no reason to deny it. 'OK,' I said. 'Suppose there are lots of others who come to me. What of it? Aren't you happy with what you've got?'

I began to think of Jesus' parable of the workers in the vineyard. Robert was one of the very first I'd helped, and our terms had been clear. He didn't need to worry himself about any agreements I'd made with the other workers in the vineyard.

I sat him down in an armchair and fetched a couple of bottles of beer. Then I went to the music centre. 'Chopin or Brahms?' I enquired.

He was silent; he merely inhaled deeply a couple of times before saying: 'You said it was just me.'

I pretended to turn the matter over: 'Did I really say that?'

His shoulders twitched. They were broad shoulders. He whispered fiercely: 'I thought it was just us two, Petter.'

'Listen here,' I replied. 'You're probably referring to something I said ten or twelve years ago. Everything was different then, I'm not denying it.'

'But I thought it was just going to be us two,' he re- iterated.

I had little patience with such whinging. It was too late to complain about other partic.i.p.ants in the greatest literary pyramid sell of all time when for years you've made yourself dependent on The Spider's largess. But ingrat.i.tude is the world's reward. No sooner had Professor Higgins taught some pa.s.sing flower-girl to speak properly, than she de- manded to be allowed to fill the role of his one and only love.

'Do you think you would have liked knowing that I was supplying half the literary establishment with things to write about?' I asked him. 'Would you have entered into our collaboration then?'

He shook his head. 'No way,' he said.

'But you liked the reviews you got for your latest novel,' I pointed out, 'and Wenche did too. You got an eight-page synopsis from me, and you got it cheap. By the way, I agree with the man who said that your writing can be sloppy. You should have asked me to go through your ma.n.u.script. You know I don't charge much for a read-through.'

He drew himself up. 'Who are you helping?' he demanded.

I put a finger to my mouth. 'Are you mad?' I said.

He looked at me innocently. He obviously still thought that we shared an exclusive confidence. 'Would you have liked me to tell Bent or Johannes about you?' I asked.

'Are you helping Johannes?'

'Oh, come on, Robert. I think you're tired. Tell me your news. How are things at the moment?'

'Dreadful,' he said.

He didn't look too good. It was remarkable how grey his hair had turned over the past year. Added to which, he was the sort of man who kept a good head of hair for a long time, but then suddenly began to lose it.

'Have you told anyone about me?' he queried.

'Of course not,' I replied, which was no more than the truth. 'I'm discretion itself. I'm bilateral to my fingertips.

You've got nothing to worry about there, at least not if you behave decently.'

Some weeks later he came back, unannounced yet again.

I was annoyed. I found it intolerable that certain authors tried to intrude into my private life. I'd had a strong aversion to footsteps on the stairs from the days when snotty kids wanted to get me out into the courtyard to play cowboys and Indians. I could have had a visitor, I could have been conducting an interesting seminar with a woman writer. Or I could even have been sitting deep in concentration. Before visitors arrived I like to ensure that I'd shovelled Metre Man into the bedroom. Strangely enough, this was something he accepted without protest.

This time it was clear that people had been conferring. I guessed they had been talking about how I'd been doing consultancy work in a big way. I also a.s.sumed that all of the partic.i.p.ants had denied that they were customers of mine themselves. Guesswork has always been a forte of mine.

Making suppositions is akin to inventing plausible stories.

This was the first time it occurred to me that someone might do me harm one day. I already felt pressurised enough to deem it necessary to tell Robert about the tapes. I'd also had cheques from him on several occasions and these I'd photocopied for form's sake. I told him I'd worked out a system by which my bank box would immediately be opened if anything happened to me. I reckoned that this would calm him down. At first he was exasperated and irascible. He was a large man and a good deal taller than me. I'd also been witness to his ungovernable temper on a couple of occasions. But soon the placidity of resignation descended on him, and I was pleased on his account. It's never good to live with the empty hope that something will avail when you're actually in a hopeless situation. If you find yourself in a dismal fix, clinging to unrealistic expectations that a miracle cure can make things better is only rubbing salt into the wound, and apathy is almost the better part as a state of mind. I spoke to him in a friendly and forbearing manner, yet another type of author-therapy. I said that no one would get to know about what he'd purchased from me. I poured him some liberal gla.s.ses of whisky and asked how things were with Wenche.

It was a couple of years before I saw him again. He was pale and told me he'd had writer's block. This time he wanted to try writing a crime novel, he said, and I let him choose between two synopses. It was generous of me.

Robert knew that the synopsis he saw but didn't buy would immediately become worthless. It had to be taken from the file of notes for sale and put into the file of stories that could freely be used at parties. I couldn't completely cease being a raconteur, having pithy stories up my sleeve was a good advertis.e.m.e.nt.

The synopsis he took away with him was ent.i.tled Triple Murder Post-mortem and was perhaps loosely inspired by the Beatles' number 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds'. The notes ran to almost fifteen pages, but the story in brief was as follows:

In the Flemish city of Antwerp there lived three brothers: Wim, Kees and Klas. Wim had a large birthmark on his face and had been tormented by his two elder brothers throughout his childhood.

In his early twenties he met the love of his life, a strikingly beautiful girl called Lucy, but his brother Kees managed to steal her from him just a few weeks before they were due to be married. Family unity wasn't improved when the brothers' parents died within a short time of one another. Their parents had made a detailed will, and the terms of the inheritance left little doubt that Wim had been short- changed. This was purportedly due to some chicanery by his elder brothers. Klas, who was a lawyer, had been especially instrumental in helping the old people arrange a will and, in the years following his parents' death, he'd gone about Antwerp all but bragging about the way he'd managed to twist them around his little finger.

Despite all this, Wim managed to set up as a diamond merchant and over the years became very wealthy. His great sorrow was that he'd never had a family. There were no women in Wim's life other than Lucy, and as a result he had no heir. The only thing that added a bit of comfort and delight to his existence was that he occasionally had visits from Lucy for old times' sake. As time went on she sometimes asked his advice in marital matters. Kees wasn't an easy man with whom to share both bed and board.

If their younger brother were to die before them, Kees and Klas had, in common decency, to inherit part of Wim's fortune, and when at a relatively young age he contracted an incurable disease, he stated in his will that his last wish was that Kees and Klas should open his large safe together. Rumours in Antwerp had it that the safe contained cut diamonds worth millions of Belgian francs.

Wim died a few months after signing his will in the presence of witnesses, and now Kees and Klas got together to open the safe.

They took with them a prominent commercial lawyer. When, with greed in their eyes, they opened the priceless ark, there was a huge explosion which killed all three of them instantly. There hadn't been a single diamond in the safe, nor any bills or notes. Kees and Klas had inherited nothing but a b.o.o.by-trap, but by way of recompense, it was of impeccable provenance and beautifully designed in every way.

The newspapers soon christened this grotesque episode 'the triple murder post-mortem', and the events had several judicial con- sequences. In his will, Wim had bequeathed all his remaining valuables, other than those in the safe, to Lucy, Kees' widow. But could the courts be absolutely certain that she wasn't implicated in a conspiracy with the triple murderer? There was no doubt that she'd visited Wim several times at his premises over the years, more often during his final year, and she made no attempt to deny this.

Perhaps she'd also had access to the safe? The authorities also learnt that Lucy had recently consulted a divorce lawyer with the idea of filing for a separation from Kees on the grounds that theirs was a cold, dead and childless marriage.

A legal man was now appointed to look after the dead diamond merchant's interests as well. For who could be sure that Lucy alone hadn't placed the bomb in the safe after Wim died? And what had become of all his diamonds? Wasn't it odd to brand a prosperous diamond merchant a triple murderer before the matter even came to court?

A case was never brought against Lucy, but because of the nature of the evidence the court also issued an injunction against calling the deceased diamond merchant a murderer or a triple murderer. Or as the judge expressed it: 'Innocent until proven guilty!' And as he dismissed the court: 'De mortuis nil nisi bene'.

Because of the judicial sequels, all the press reports and perhaps also the loss of both husband and in-laws, Lucy decided to leave Antwerp. Just a few days before she was due to fly to Buenos Aires to live with a cousin she had there, she celebrated her thirtieth birthday, and on the very anniversary a well-dressed man knocked at her door. He gave her his card and said that he represented a large firm of brokers. He had a small suitcase in his hand which his client had asked him to deliver personally to Lucy van der Heijden's door on this date. Lucy signed the receipt and, as soon as the man had gone, she opened the suitcase. It was full of cut diamonds. There was a handwritten slip of paper with the diamonds, and on it was written: Dearest Lucy, I wish you every happiness on your thirtieth birthday. Live for us both. Your own Wim.

The web had begun to alter in character. From now on its skeins were spun from client to client as well. And so it got denser and denser and more and more dangerous. Gradually, the symptoms of decay manifested themselves in four distinct groups.