Carnage on the Committee (28 page)

Milton thought for a moment. 'Right. I'll have to take this to the AC and see if we can get the press to hold it until we've decided what to do. At the very least, Rosa Karp and Ferriter will have to be warned before this gets into the public sphere. Ellis, ring Jack, tell her it's probable all this will be over shortly and that she should say nothing but convene that damned committee and choose the winner while they still have the chance.'

Pooley nodded. 'Jack's going to be unbearably pleased with herself.'

'So is the AC if he spots that we were wrong about Birkett having no children. If we'd checked properly we'd have found out about the suicide and it might have led us in the right direction. However, let's hope he's too stupid to suss it out himself.' He picked up the cassette player and strode off to the AC.

Epilogue

'I think we can pat ourselves on the back/ said the baroness. She was sitting at a circular table in a private room at ffeatherstonehaugh's, beaming all around her. On her right was Rachel, welcomed back into the fold with a bear hug, on her left Mary Lou, and opposite them Milton, Pooley and Amiss. 'We've plenty to celebrate apart from me being right and the chef getting good veal at last.'

'Why have you divided us by gender, Jack?' asked Amiss.

Too long an incarceration with Rosa Karp has got to you, Robert. I have not divided us by gender, I have merely placed beside me the people I want beside me.'

'And we two are honoured because ... ?' asked Mary Lou.

'Delicacy forbids me to say anything about why Rachel is a guest of honour except that I'm pleased she's recovered from her bout of insanity and hope she will in future hold on to her wits. And to Robert.'

'Thank you. Jack. I'm so glad you're being delicate. And I'll try my best to meet your wishes on both counts.'

in your case, Mary Lou, while I'm lamenting your loss.

I'm rejoicing in your new career - not least because you owe it all to me.'

'I rather thought Mary Lou's performance on
Newstiight
had something to do with it,' observed Pooley.

'Well, of course it had, you idiot. She was, of course, brilliant and beautiful, but if I might remind you, it was I who made Mary Lou a judge in the first place, it was I who was asked to appear and it was I who said I was too busy and bludgeoned them into taking Mary Lou instead. She'd never have been offered Hugo Hurlingham's job or the arts programme if she hadn't had that chance to wow the viewers.'

'Incontrovertible,' said Mary Lou. i was just the humble instrument of a higher power.'

'Drink up, drink up. Robert, attend to everyone's glasses. The starters will be along in about fifteen minutes and will be accompanied by a New Zealand Sauvignon I'm particularly keen on. But we must not waste the champagne. One must never waste champagne.'

'You owe me fifty quid, Robert,' said Milton. 'We got our man before you got yours.'

i don't call receiving a confession through the post getting your man. Especially when you still haven't the faintest idea where he is and will almost certainly never find him.'

'I certainly hope not,' said the baroness sternly. 'I should be very annoyed if you did. Birkett might have been unsound on lamb but he was certainly sound on judges. The world's a much better place without that ghastly quartet. And besides, if you banged up Birkett, Ferriter and Karp might revert to their wicked, wicked ways.'

'I couldn't possibly comment on Birkett,' said Milton, 'but I'm prepared to waive the bet, Robert, if you've actually finished the book.'

'He hasn't just finished it,' said Rachel, it's good and he's got an agent. So there.'

'And you're doing what, Rachel?' asked Milton.

'Nothing until Robert and I have gone on our long, aimless and lazy wander around Europe in the naff but comfortable second-hand motorhome we've just acquired.'

'I envy you,' said Milton. 'That was something Ann and I were always going to do and never got round to doing because we were always too busy.'

'You're always too busy, Jim,' said Pooley. 'The last few weeks have just been ridiculous.'

'Things will be much better now that Robinson's been shunted sideways. He made such a balls of trying to silence the press over Birkett's letter for no sane reason that the Commissioner actually bothered to hold an investigation of how the case had been conducted and found for me against him on every contentious issue. No one, thank heaven, picked up on our failure to find out about Birkett's daughter. So I'm being promoted and he's been shuffled into a non-job.'

The jabber of congratulations which followed was drowned out by the baroness. 'Promoted to what?'

'Commander.'

'Excellent. Sounds suitably authoritative and grave.' She beamed once more. 'I must say, this is most satisfactory. Let me sum up. The case has been solved but the admirable murderer is free; Jim has been given the recognition he deserves and no longer has a craven and stupid boss; Mary Lou and Ellis are getting married, she's beginning a new lucrative career and will stay a Fellow of St Martha's and visit often enough to keep her hand in and me happy; Robert and Rachel are reunited and going off to enjoy themselves; and there's even a chance that Robert might actually have found a line of work that he might stay with for five minutes.'

She leaned forward, grabbed a bottle and filled up her own glass. 'Where was I? Oh, yes. Karp and Ferriter are silenced for ever, unless Birkett does something foolish and gets caught; the literary establishment is still reeling from the appalling press it received and is perforce cleaning up its act; that preposterous piece of EU self-aggrandisement, the Barbarossa Prize, has been aborted because the twenty-five-nation committee could not even agree on what constituted literature; and Geraint Griffiths has succeeded in putting
Pursuing the Virgins
so thoroughly on the map as to force both Muslims and Christians in this country to have an honest debate about what the hell we're going to do about Islamofascists. What else?'

'A good book won the Knapper-Warburton,' pointed out Amiss.

'The Manor House of Rosemonde
is not just a good book,' said the baroness, 'it's a fine book, perhaps even a great book. Even if it was written by a Hungarian about a frog.'

'I've been so busy I never found out how you pulled off fixing it so a good book won,' said Milton.

'You explain it, Robert,' said the baroness.

'Even by Jack's standards,' said Amiss, 'she behaved appallingly, with the aim, I realised, of ensuring that her enemies on the committee would always vote for books she seemed particularly to hate, thus ending up with a long-list full of appalling books liked at most by one or two judges. The short-list was made even more appalling by her manipulating things so that there was no vote, and that crackpots - both dead and alive - got to indulge themselves by choosing ridiculous titles, except for Hugo Hurlingham, who posthumously and with help chose
Rosemonde,
which Jack continued to rubbish. Are you with me so far?'

There were murmurs of agreement.

'She then announced at the last session that the winner would be chosen by proportional representation and said something to me apparently intended to be
sotto voce
about
Rosemonde
being total crap and that she'd rather have
Once and Future Heroes,
the book that Griffiths, who actually liked Jack, hated above all - thus throwing him into a rage that caused him to give
Rosemonde
his number two. So the result of all this was that
Rosemonde
won overwhelmingly, since it turned out to be the first choice of Jack, Mary Lou and me and the second of everyone else.'

Milton took a thoughtful sip. 'I think I follow this, but I've got two questions. First, what happened when they realised that she must have been misleading them all along?'

it look a few moments,' said Mary Lou, 'and then there was a barrage of angry questions and accusations, but fortunately just as she was telling them that all was fair in love and war, Ellis rang to say we could pack up and get ready to go home and everyone lost interest. And then of course the publication of Birkett's letter stopped Rosa and Ferriter from causing any further trouble.'

'And why, Jack, did you like the book so much if it is as European as it sounds?' asked Milton.

it is a wonderful study of an astonishing talent who was so selff-critical that he produced in his life only thirteen songs - all masterpieces of their kind - which give the titles to the chapters which in their turn, treat of the great issues of life and death and love and loss and the human condition.'

'For example?'

'"To the country where war is waged" is the first,' said Mary Lou, 'and I'm not going to make any attempt to explain to you how it caught and moved me. You'll have to read it yourself.'

'But you're such a Europhobe, Jack,' said Milton.

The baroness shook her head, i hate the European Union, Jim, but I love Europe. I love visiting it, I love eating its food, and looking at its art and listening to its music and sometimes even reading its books. I just want it to stay where it is - on the other side of the channel -and keep its nose out of our business.'

'So are you going to emulate Robert and Rachel and take off there soon?' asked Pooley.

'No, I'm going to China.'

'China! Why China all of a sudden?' asked Mary Lou.

The baroness looked coy. 'I'm visiting a friend I met recently.'

'Who? When? Where?'

in Richmond Park a few weeks ago. I was passing and saw the Chinese State Circus was on. One must always go to the circus. I admired the leading acrobat and took him for a drink afterwards.'

As everyone began firing off questions simultaneously, the waiter came in with a large tray.

'You can be as inquisitive as you like, but you won't get anything more out of me,' said the baroness, 'except that I'm celebrating too. Get pouring the white wine, Robert, for there are many courses and many bottles to be consumed before we sleep.'

246

¹
 
Matricide at St Martha's

²
 
Clubbed to Death

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Table of Contents

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