Publish and Be Murdered (7 page)

‘And sanctimoniousness,’ said Amiss mildly.

‘Oh, of course I have to condemn the puritan sins.’ Potbury began to get agitated. ‘Because puritan sins are by definition totalitarian. Puritans don’t understand the concept of “live and let live”. They’re meddlers, all of them. Whereas all we want is to be left alone to go to hell in our own way.’

An hour later, after the conclusion of the tirade against liberalism that had followed the diatribe against puritanism, Amiss decided to tear himself away. As he stood up, Potbury, by now in high good humour, chuckled. ‘Whatever you do, don’t miss next Monday’s meeting.’

Amiss sat down again.

‘Why not?’

‘Winterton’s back.’

‘The assistant editor? What’s so significant about that?’

‘He and Willie loathe each other.’

‘But why then did Willie give him the job?’

‘He was his protégé initially. Fetch another bottle, will you?’

Amiss did so guiltily. ‘Here you are, Henry. But don’t pour me any until I’ve checked at home. Hang on one minute. Don’t lose your thread.’

Having learned from his answering service to his mingled relief and regret that Rachel was working late, he accepted another whisky. ‘OK, Henry. Tell me all about it.’

‘It is not unamusing, really.’ Potbury snorted. ‘On Willie’s last trip to the States he came back raving about this brilliant young man whom he just had to have to liven up the political coverage. He would pay for himself as he’d be able to write so much on American as well as domestic politics that we could cut down on the freelancers.

‘Dwight Winterton was a paragon, and a really useful paragon at that. He was one of those hybrids, half English and half American, brought up in the States but with frequent visits to Europe, went to Harvard and was then a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. Hugely well informed about politics and history. Right little prodigy, in fact. And nice, with it. I think Willie saw him as someone who could succeed me when I fall down the stairs or get cirrhosis of the liver or come to some other discreditable end.’ He laughed.

‘So?’

It’s been a disaster.’

‘Why. Is he not as bright as Willie thought?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s hugely bright. Mad, of course, like most young right-wingers, wanting to stuff children back up chimneys, start a preemptive war against Germany, and take back India with ten battalions. All that sort of thing. But that’s all right. He’s young. He’ll settle.’

‘So are their differences political?’

‘No. It’s just that they hate each other.’

‘Why?’

‘They’re a bit like a couple who had a one-night stand, flew to Las Vegas the following day to get married and found two days later not only that they were incompatible in their habits but that they hated each other’s values, and what’s more, he just wanted her for sex and she just wanted him for money.’

‘That’s an arrangement that I understood quite often worked – for short periods anyway.’

‘Not as short as this one,’ said Henry with a snort. ‘Dwight Winterton arrived to a hero’s welcome and within a fortnight they were fighting like cat and dog at the Monday meeting.

‘Essentially, Dwight quickly discovered that Willie is a self-indulgent poseur and Willie discovered that Winterton despised him and would like his job. And if there is one kind of person Willie can’t stand, it’s someone bright who wants to be editor of
The Wrangler
.’

He paused and contemplated what was left in his glass. ‘It’s compounded by the fact that Dwight has principles and Willie has none, and because Willie, though he’s lazy, is pernickety, and Dwight, though he’s industrious, is slapdash. So Willie has countless opportunities to niggle and patronize and worst of all rewrite, which Dwight absolutely hates.

‘And then Willie is driven mad by Dwight’s habit of going AWOL because he’s decided to go off and see what Yorkshire or Northern Ireland are like. Willie resents this because he rightly fears that Dwight is building up a network and is growing in authority, but he can’t stop him because Dwight doesn’t even claim expenses. He’s got private money. So since Dwight gets the work done, Willie has no ground on which to fight.’

‘Can’t Willie just fire him?’

‘Dwight might sue. He
is
American, after all. And I doubt if Willie would have the trustees on his side if it came to a showdown. To do my colleagues justice…’

‘Your colleagues?’

‘Yes. Didn’t you know? I’m a trustee. It’s one of the reasons Willie puts up with me. The other two are a couple of pompous old Establishment bores, but they do believe in fair play and though they’re often taken in by Willie, he knows he’d have a lot of explaining to do if he sacked a brilliant and prolific journalist. And of course, knowing this, Dwight goes ever more his own way and grins as Willie squirms. Willie is left with petulance as almost his only weapon.’

Amiss began to feel rather gloomy. ‘Are you telling me that Willie’s no good?’

‘Willie could have been good, but he chose otherwise. Essentially, early on he gave up on intellectual rigour and integrity. He can write elegantly, I grant you, and his mind is at least half furnished. But when it comes to the crunch, duchesses and cabinet ministers will always take precedence over truth. Hence
The Wrangler
’s line on New Labour: it attacks because it has to, but as far as Willie can fix it, attacks in ways that do not wound.’

‘But I’ve seen some pretty ferocious criticism in recent months, Henry.’

‘Ah yes, but never by Willie. Willie can always flutter his hands at the Downing Street would-be press censors and tell them that I cannot be controlled, so it’s not his fault. But if you look at anything he writes you’ll find that more and more those he criticizes in New Labour are those our new rulers are happy to see thrown to the wolves. And as far as possible, depending what his colleagues will put up with, he tries to make the anonymous leaders as inoffensive as possible.

‘In his heart and in his soul Willie Lambie Crump is an apparatchik who would love to drag this journal towards total support of the government of Anthony Blair. However, I will continue to make this as difficult for him as I can.’

‘Is it just you against him?’

‘Phoebe follows the party line because she has little choice. She would not be listened to, even though she has one of the best brains we’ve had since the war. Amaryllis Vercoe is bright and thinks like us, but she’s rather shallow, and anyway, has little clout with Willie. Clement Webber shouts a lot and then goes back to Oxford. So apart from me, the challenge is coming from Dwight, who is everything Willie is not: intellectually curious, vigorous, original and energetic. Dwight will make imaginative and intellectual leaps into the unknown, yet he retains an instinctive understanding of the essence of the Burkean conservative. Willie skims along the surface: Dwight dives underneath it.’

He poured another slug of whisky, and ignoring Amiss’s shake of the head, poured some into his glass too. ‘If things get worse, I’ll have to try and topple Willie: we’ve got to get back to the glory days when
The Wrangler
thrilled with iconoclasm and intellectual daring.’

‘You’re actually trying to bring about a change of editor?’

‘It’s too early yet, but I’m considering future steps.’

Amiss cursed inwardly when the phone rang.

‘What? Now? Already?’ Potbury looked at his watch. ‘My dear, I do apologize. You’re absolutely right. I was caught in an agreeable conversation and quite forgot where I was. I shall see you as soon as I can get to you.’ Downing his whisky, he lumbered to his feet. ‘Forgive me… I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name again.’

‘Robert.’

‘Forgive me, Robert. I’m delighted you’ve joined us and I look forward to many more conversations in this room and elsewhere. Drop in any time and if I’m asleep wake me up.’ He grinned, and stopping only to pick up the jacket that lay in the corner, left with more speed than Amiss would have given him credit for.

Petulance was much in evidence at the meeting next Monday. Gone was the harmony of the previous week, when the emperor Lambie Crump had held forth when he wished and enjoyed the intellectual ping-pong played by the others when he wanted a rest. The offender was the weedy, bespectacled, impish Dwight Winterton, who gazed innocently at Lambie Crump as he artlessly explained that the sweeping statement he had just made about the French economy had no basis in reality and was totally contradicted by what he, Winterton, had picked up on his visit the previous week to his French stockbroking chum.

Later, Winterton broke into an excited account of his visit to a Welsh eisteddfod, described how he had been made an honorary Druid, and produced an article he had written at the weekend. Lambie Crump clearly ached to tell him to stuff it, but decorum and self-protection had to prevail. Winterton’s account had been so amusing that no one in his right mind could think of denying it to
Wrangler
readers. To Amiss, who was getting sicker of Lambie Crump’s self-regarding posturings by the day, it was as much as he could do to keep a straight face.

When afterwards, Dwight Winterton chatted to him in a friendly way over champagne and suggested lunch or dinner sometime, Amiss realized he must be careful. He could see Lambie Crump gazing fixedly over at them. ‘Good to meet you, Dwight,’ he said quickly. ‘Let’s talk soon.’ And pausing only to curry favour with Lambie Crump by asking if he could spare some time later on to give him a word of advice, he headed for the door. As he was leaving, Potbury caught his eye and gave him an enormous wink, which Amiss prayed Lambie Crump had not noticed.

8

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Detective Sergeant Ellis Pooley finished his cheese, placed his knife in the centre of the plate, picked a few crumbs off the tablecloth, dropped them beside the knife and took another small sip of claret. ‘Very nice indeed. Thank you very much.’

He looked around the room appreciatively. ‘I must say, Rachel, how delighted I am to see Robert at last living in a place that is both clean and comfortable. You’ve had a most civilizing effect on him.’

‘Suburbanizing, you mean,’ said Amiss, and then caught himself guiltily. ‘Sorry, Rach. You know I didn’t mean that.’

‘I’m not so sure you didn’t.’ Rachel collected the plates and carried them over to the sink. ‘There are moments, Ellis, when I fear that whether he knows it or not, deep down Robert is bored. Life’s too straightforward for him.’

‘For goodness sake.’ Pooley sounded irritated. ‘Ever since I first met you, Robert, you’ve been wailing because you didn’t like where you lived or you didn’t have a proper job or Rachel was out of reach or you didn’t have a penny. Do you mean that now you haven’t any of those problems you’re looking for new ones?’

Amiss interrupted hastily. ‘Rachel’s exaggerating. Everything’s fine.’ He scratched his ear. ‘I suppose I could just do with a little bit more excitement at work.’

‘Being manager of such a peculiar institution as
The Wrangler
sounds pretty interesting.’

‘It is, but in many respects, rather lacking in challenge. A journal as small as that shouldn’t need someone like me.’

‘Well, why have they got you then?’

‘Because things are in such a mess that they need me. Another proprietor would bring in accountants and management consultants. This one’s too gentlemanly for that. My job is simply to do accountants’ and consultants’ dirty work in a gentlemanly manner.’

Pooley looked at him dubiously. ‘But you’re absolutely useless with money.’

‘I’m useless,’ said Amiss stiffly, ‘with
my
money. But while I may be personally profligate, I am capable of exercising prudence and perspicacity…’ He stopped. ‘What a lot of “ps”.’

‘Try adding “pompous”,’ suggested Rachel.

Amiss ignored her. ‘…when I’m dealing with that of others. I’ll have you know I’ve cut costs substantially without firing people or lowering morale.’

Pooley looked incredulous. ‘I didn’t think such a thing was possible.’

‘When you go into a place that is still operating according to the customs and practices of the nineteen thirties that is not too difficult. For instance, simply by spending a few hundred pounds on a fax machine I’ve saved us a fortune.’

Pooley looked puzzled.

‘Ah, I forgot this was going to take a leap of the imagination.’ Amiss rose and thoughtfully began to open another bottle of claret. ‘Picture if you will – ’ he said, having tried and failed to persuade his friend to accept a refill, ‘an office in which the most modern piece of equipment is a stout manual typewriter manufactured in nineteen sixty-seven, the telephones are splendid nineteen thirties Bakelite models with circular dials and the filing cabinets are ancient and wooden and creak a lot and are jammed with yellowing dusty files so tightly packed that it requires exceptional strength to get anything in or out. Indeed, Marcia Whitaker, who is
inter alia
a fact-checker, has biceps that put me to shame.

‘In the midst of this, Josiah Ricketts, who is known as the office clerk, conducts his business along the lines that he was taught when recruited in the nineteen forties by one Albert Flitter, who had joined the paper as an office boy in nineteen fifteen, had risen to the giddy heights of office manager and had a deep reverence for doing things the way the ladies and gentlemen had liked them.

‘True, the phones were slightly modernized, admittedly, Ricketts was prevailed upon to allow senior members of staff to have one each and when equipment like the typewriter collapsed did perforce purchase a more or less up-to-date model, but “newfangled” was a dirty word, so with anything newfangled, Ricketts would not have to do. And the idle sods of editors couldn’t be bothered intervening.’

‘Goodness,’ said Pooley, absentmindedly holding out his glass for a refill. ‘But how do they communicate with printers and the rest of it?’

‘Essentially by recreating the postal system of long ago through the use of couriers. Until after the war, Ricketts explained to me nostalgically, it used to be possible for a contributor to post his copy at nine o’clock in the evening. It would be on the desk of the editor at eight the following morning, amendments were sent to the printers by the nine o’clock post, received by them at midday and the proof would be with the contributor by late afternoon. The major concession since then has been that the proofreader-cum-fact-checker, Ben Baines, is also available to take copy over the phone.’