Carnage on the Committee (13 page)

From his taxi on his way to the House of Lords, Pooley rang Mary Lou. 'So what's this about a tree falling on Jack? She shattered it, presumably.'

Mary Lou giggled. 'No, no. It shattered her - that is to say, drove her into a deep sulk that I've only just got her out of. It's a book.
A Tree Falling in the Forest.
She was at the end of her tether as it was, having spent an incredulous halff-hour with
Baking Bread for Cats . . .'

'Sorry? A cook book for cats?'

'No, a navel-gazing analysis of the lesbian condition allegedly written by a cat who is also lesbian as a result of a bad experience with a torn

'A lesbian cat?'

'Sorry, I was kidding about that bit. But the cat is the narrator. And it's pretty anti-tom. So then Jack got to
A Tree Falling in the Forest
which she hated from page one but because it's on four long-lists she had to read a lot of it.'

'And it's about?'

'A gay logger in the Yukon musing about the environmental damage he's causing with every breath he takes and every tree he cuts down. It's packed with statistics about acres of lost rain forest and apocalyptic moan-ings about global warming interpolated with angst-laden memories of life-denying sexual encounters .. .'

'Aren't there any straight novels any more?'

'She just hit a queer patch because of having to read some of Ferriter's and Rosa Karp's ffavourites. Anyhow she went into a sulk because I made her read so much of it, then she plunged into Churchill's speeches and wouldn't open her mouth for about three hours. Refused even to speak to Horace. I felt like sending her to bed without her

supper but in the end a large gin and tonic did the trick and she's back at work. What about you?'

'On my way from Wysteria to Rosa.'

'How awful is Wysteria?'

'Worse than awful. I'll tell you later. Must make a call to the office.'

'Bye, darling.'

'Bye,' said Pooley, making kissing noises, which were interrupted by the taxi driver. 'What's this about a lesbian cat, guv? I know us straights are in short supply these days, but I thought the animal kingdom was reliable enough. If you ask me, it's something in the water. Or they're making it compulsory in the schools. I had that Rosa Karp in the back of the cab once and when I told her what I thought of her equality she threatened to have me arrested ...'

'I doubt it,' typed Amiss. 'Corpses rarely laugh ...' The phone rang.

'I thought these books were supposed to be in English,' growled the baroness.

'Which one isn't?'

'Crap.'

it's not
Crap.
It's
C-rap.'

'Huh?'

it's a rap novel.'

it's gibberish. Can't even understand the first line. What is "I so fragged after railing the skeeza I can't walk my ass to my hoe" supposed to mean?'

'I hesitate to explain this to a woman of your delicacy, but it's roughly that the gentleman is so exhausted after enthusiastic sexual intercourse with a slut that he can't summon up the energy to pay a visit to the lady on whose immoral earnings he lives.'

After a brief silence the baroness said, 'How do you know this?' 'The internet offers translations.'

'Did you discover why the author is called Notl337?'

'Yes. But it's complicated. And, incidentally, 1337 is pronounced leet.'

She emitted a piteous cry.

it's all right. Jack. It was on Rosa's and Ferriter's shortlists - naturally - but the rest of us never got beyond the first page.'

There was a sound of tearing paper.

'You're not desecrating this noble work, I trust?'

'Just recycling it. The parrot's cage needs lining.'

'So I got to the House of Lords at the time agreed,' Pooley told Amiss and Milton, as they sat surrounded by cartons of Chinese food, 'and Rosa Karp kept me waiting for the best part of an hour on the excuse that she was at a crucial meeting. When she finally arrived in the lobby I accosted her immediately and the woman she was with promptly said, "Rhonda Skeffington of the
Sketch"
and pressed her card into my hand. "Had an interesting interview?" I asked and Rhonda said that indeed she had, thanked Rosa profusely for giving her so much of her time and departed, waving cheerily.'

'What a cow!' said Amiss. 'Did Rosa look embarrassed?'

'Not enough. Mumbled something unconvincing about long-standing engagements and unavoidable overrunning, so I got very heavy about wasting police time and by the time I had finished she was apologising profusely.'

'Apologising to a WASP!' said Amiss. 'You must have roughed her up seriously.'

'Anyway it was good that she started the interview unsettled and feeling in the wrong which makes a change for Rosa Karp.'

is it my imagination,' asked Amiss, 'or are you becoming less nice as you get older, Ellis?'

'In our game,' said Milton, 'everyone gets less nice as he gets older.'

'As "she" gets older,' said Pooley. 'Rosa recovered enough to tell me that if I wasn't prepared to say "he or she" I should say "she", since it was a form off necessary positive discrimination to counteract the negative experienced by women over the millennia or something like that, to which I said that the only form of discrimination I was interested in was discrimination against criminals and that she'd already retarded the murder enquiry enough without going into irrelevancies.'

'My, my,' said Amiss. 'At this rate you'll be hanging suspects from the ceiling and applying electric shocks to their genitals.'

'That's what Den Smith thinks we do already.'

'Iff we'd a lot of suspects like Den Smith, we just might,' said Milton. He helped himselff to the last sparerib. 'I'm enjoying this,' he said. 'It feels a bit like one of those midnight feasts you'll have had in boarding school, Ellis.'

'It's not midnight, is it?' asked Pooley. 'Good lord, it is. I'd better get on. Well, the nub is that she's got no bright ideas either, though she thinks Griffiths is capable of anything.' He consulted his notebook. 'Anti-feminist, reactionary, hectoring

'Among the very words he used about her,' said Milton. 'Though he was coming at it from a different angle.'

'Wait'll they meet Jack,' said Amiss, pushing his plate away and picking up the wine bottle.

'Not for me, thanks,' said Milton. 'I must go in a minute. What did Rosa say about the others, Ellis?'

'Much the same likes and dislikes as the ghastly Wilcox, though with a subtly different angle. Seemed particularly upset that Hermione wouldn't be around to speak on some equality bill next week, thinks Den's crusading anti-imperialism makes him a great man, thinks Ferriter a true intellectual and admires Hugo Hurlingham because of the opposition to English insularity represented by his Europeanness.' He put down his notebook. Tell us what we need to know about Hurlingham.'

Amiss yawned. 'Our man in Europe. Our link with the Barbarossa Prize.'

'Which is what, exactly?'

'A new literary prize about to be funded by the European Commission with the aim of encouraging a European dimension in literature. Hugo's a sharp operator in these areas. He's apparently in love with the European ideal for all sorts of high-flown reasons, but I think it's because it gives him access to innumerable all-expenses-paid freebies abroad - meetings, conferences, lunches and dinners. And, of course, at home as well.'

He yawned again. 'Hugo's already on the guest list of all the European embassies in London, since among literary editors he's the great European drum-banger. He devotes half his literary pages in the
Sunday Oracle
to European literature.'

'So he's been involved in setting up the Barbarossa, has he?' asked Milton.

'More than that. It was he who persuaded Ron Knapper to change the rules to allow translations of novels from any country in the EU to be considered for the Knapper-Warburton. It's one of the reasons we've so many entries. The quid pro quo was that the winner of the Warburton, rather than the winner of the Booker or the Whitbread or any of the other major literary prizes, gets put in the pot for the Barbarossa.'

Pooley frowned. 'That doesn't make sense. Supposing the English translation of a French novel wins the Warburton, that means no English novel is going to be a contender for the Barbarossa.'

'That's right. But that shows your Anglo-centricity. As

Hugo pointed out when I protested, anyone bothered by this would be betraying their narrow nationalism and parochialism. Anyway, a literary prize in each EU country is also being opened up to foreigners, so it's all supposed to even out.'

'Jack must have been thrilled when she heard about

it.'

'Thrilled is the word. She delivered herselff of a tirade about how the British, being suicidally obsessed with
le
fair play, would be capable of giving prizes even to frogs, while the frogs are about as likely to allow an English novel to be awarded any of their prizes as they are to give up stuffing themselves with foie gras on the grounds that it's nasty for geese.'

'Can't argue with that,' said Milton.

'Under Hermione we might well have ended up with a foreign novel. Hugo, Rosa, Wysteria and Hermione all believed in leading by example. "The British have been bad Europeans" was one of the mantras. "In our small way," they would trill, "we have the chance to show ourselves to be good Europeans."'

'What do you get if you win the Barbarossa? And why Barbarossa anyway?'

'He was a twelfth-century Holy Roman Emperor who got a good press. And what you get if you win the prize named after him is one million euros and a piece of what will almost certainly be spectacularly naff sculpture representing the European literary ideal, whatever that is. You also become the Barbarossa Fellow, which means you're required to give a lecture at a major university in every EU country.'

'That's rather a lot of work, isn't it?' asked Milton.

'Not real work, since you can give the same lecture everywhere in conditions of great luxury. As Hugo explained it, you will receive an honorary doctorate in each university, will be celebrated and wined and dined and generally have rose petals strewn in your path.'

'Cushy number,' said Milton.

'You haven't heard the best bit. Your novel will be translated into all the EU languages — not just the ones that people actually speak, but all the officially recognised minority languages as well. So for instance in the UK you'll have your work translated into Cornish, Gaelic, Welsh and Irish as well as English.'

'I don't want to think about this,' said Milton. 'I don't want to get angry. I want to go home to bed. I'll give you a lift.'

Amiss looked distressed. 'Oh, please, before we go, Ellis, do finish giving us Rosa's views on her fellow committee members.'

Pooley consulted his notebook again. 'She thinks Dervla is mentally retarded, hates Griffiths and believes that Wilcox's sensitive exploration of the soul of woman is a vital part of the struggle.'

Milton stood up. 'The struggle for what?'

'For that future in which female values will be on top and there'll be no more violence.'

'Oh, good. That'll be something to look forward to. But for now we really must be off, Robert. Ellis and I have a meeting at eight a.m. and are then calling on Hurlingham - after which he's doing the Irish child and I'm doing Ferriter.'

'But what about me?' cried Amiss in frustration. 'What are they all saying about me?'

Pooley grinned. 'Rosa said you were insensitive and non-inclusive and Wysteria said that she had never been able to get over how much you'd hurt her feelings with some joke so inappropriate and tasteless that it ruined her whole day and still upsets her when she thinks about it.

Den was a bit too preoccupied with other matters to get round to talking about you.'

'But Griffiths is a fan,' said Milton. 'Thinks you're the only one on the committee with... what does he call it? ... good authority.' He put on his coat.

'Means I'm the only one who ever agrees with him,' said Amiss, reaching for his.

10

Amiss caught Pooley on his mobile as he was finishing dressing. 'Just a thought that niggled me in the middle of the night.'

'Yes,' said Pooley, as he combed his hair.

'Have you established yet if every member of the committee had the opportunity to slip her the ricin?'

'Probably. That is, no one can be ruled out. There was plenty of opportunity to slip something in her food or coffee or wine if you were bold enough. Sometimes people passed wine or poured coffee for others, though no one admits to having done so for Hermione. Except Francis Birkett and Andras Jungbert, of course, who helped everyone at lunch.'

'Have you checked them out?'

'Of course, I have, Robert,' said Pooley, strapping on his watch. 'Thoroughly. Someone who has spent so much time devouring crime novels knows one must always suspect the butler. Or indeed the waiter. And the PR man, whom I'm also ruling out. Both Jungbert and Birkett could have done it, but frankly, it's a bit difficult to see a motive, try as I do in my more fanciful moments.' He picked up his briefcase and left his flat. 'Not that I have many fanciful moments these days. When you have to wallow in the reality of real-life crime you find the most obvious suspect is usually the perpetrator. Not, mind you, that we've got an obvious suspect this time.'

'So it's up to me as a crime writer
manque
to wear the fanciful hat. Has anyone interviewed these guys?'

'Yes. And at home, in case they proved to be secret writers with a grievance. Jungbert's Hungarian and the people in his hostel confirm his English is hopeless; the chef, who never left the kitchen anyway, is French with only a bit of kitchen English, mostly expletives, lives during the week in lodgings and commutes to his family in Paris at weekends; and Birkett is a widower who lives in Streatham, has a stamp collection and some books on the subject and plays darts on Friday nights. He's been in his job for twenty years, so it seems a bit late in the day for him to start murdering people. Unless, of course, Hermione Babcock was horrible to him.'