Publish and Be Murdered

Publish and Be Murdered

Ruth Dudley Edwards

Amiss 08

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Contents

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Epilogue
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PUBLISH AND BE MURDERED

She’s filleted the civil service, clobbered the Cambridge colleges, satirized gentlemen’s clubs, burlesqued the bishops – now Ruth Dudley Edwards mocks the media.

Living with Rachel and contemplating marriage, Amiss feels settled at last. He even has a proper job, managing
The Wrangler
– a right-wing, 200-year-old English magazine of economics, politics and letters – and stemming the monumental losses incurred through the extravagance and inefficiency of its editor, William Lambie Crump.

Yet Amiss is not entirely happy with his job, for the atmosphere at the paper is poisoned by rampant egocentricity and savage ideological battles. Things are so bad that not even the appointment of Baroness Troutbeck as a columnist seems likely to bring much cheer.

When Henry Potbury, the drunken deputy editor, is found drowned in a bowl of punch, suspicions of foul play are brushed aside by the police. But after another death, Amiss’s friend Chief Superintendent Jim Milton takes charge of the investigation, spurred on by relentless chivvying from the baroness. Is the murderer a Conservative, enraged by the paper’s switch to New Labour? An ambitious journalist, desperate to break the promotion logjam? Or a wife enraged by her husband’s obsession with a tarty correspondent? There is no shortage of motives and, in typical Dudley Edwards style, no shortage of laughs in this riotous farce.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

MURDER IN A CATHEDRAL

TEN LORDS A-LEAPING

MATRICIDE AT ST MARTHA’S

CLUBBED TO DEATH

THE SCHOOL OF ENGLISH MURDER

THE ST VALENTINE’S DAY MURDERS

CORRIDORS OF DEATH

Non-fiction

TRUE BRITS: INSIDE THE FOREIGN OFFICE

THE BEST OF BAGEHOT

THE PURSUIT OF REASON: THE ECONOMIST 1843-1993

VICTOR GOLLANCZ: A BIOGRAPHY

HAROLD MACMILLAN: A LIFE IN PICTURES

JAMES CONNOLLY

PATRICK PEARSE: THE TRIUMPH OF FAILURE

AN ATLAS OF IRISH HISTORY

RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS was born and brought up in Dublin. Since she graduated she has lived in England, where she has been a teacher, a Cambridge postgraduate student, a marketing executive, a civil servant and finally, a freelance writer and journalist.

An historian and prize-winning biographer, her most recent non-fiction includes the authorized history of
The Economist
and a portrait of the British Foreign Office, written with its co-operation.

She feels intellectually English and temperamentally Irish.
Publish and Be Murdered
is her eighth crime novel. The sixth,
Ten Lords A-Leaping
, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Last Laugh Award for Funniest Crime Novel of the Year.

ISBN 0 00 232598 5

Jacket illustration by Mark Entwisle

Author photograph by Bob Cooksey

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Collins Crime

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

77-85 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8JB

First published in Great Britain in 1998 by Collins Crime

Copyright © Ruth Dudley Edwards 1998

Ruth Dudley Edwards asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 00 232598 5

Typeset in Meridien and Bodoni by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Polmont, Stirlingshire

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

To Paul, friend and pedant, and, of course, as usual, to John.

My friends were as wonderful as ever, but I must single out for special thanks for encouragement, help or inspiration on this book, Andrew Boyd, Máirín Carter, Betsy Crabtree, Sylvia Kalisch, Kathryn Kennison, Paul Le Druillenec (to whom it is dedicated), Gordon and Ken Lee, James McGuire, Sean O’Callaghan, Carol Scott, my publisher, Julia Wisdom, who showed enough patience for someone twice her size, and my gentle, literate and sane copy-editor, Karen Godfrey.

Yes, I did write a history of
The Economist
. And, yes, I drew some inspiration from its past for this book. But in all essentials – including the ethics and habits of its editors – the modern
Economist
bears no resemblance whatsoever to
The Wrangler.

1

^
»

‘Bertie Ormerod says you’re a tactful sort of fellow. Won’t frighten the horses or get the dowagers all of a twitter.’

Lord Papworth’s rheumy eyes fixed themselves upon Amiss. ‘Smart too. Said you were as sharp as a whippet. So the upshot – the nub and gist as it were – is… can you help?’

‘I hope so,’ said Amiss hesitantly. ‘If I’m what you want, that is. Though I’m not really sure I’m what you need.’

Papworth grunted. ‘Want and need’s two different things, I grant you. You sound just like my old nanny.’ He brooded for a moment. ‘Well, I think I need what I want on this occasion and vice versa. And that’s you.’

‘If you say so, Lord Papworth. I’ve always enjoyed
The Wrangler
and I’d be honoured to be its manager. But I must warn you that while I’m OK at administration, I haven’t much to offer in the way of advanced computer skills or knowledge of company law or accountancy.’

Papworth emitted a cackle so loud and derisive as to cause several of the other denizens of the Pugin Room to peer at him covertly. ‘I don’t think you quite understand. I’m not attempting to have my journal dragged into the twenty-first century: I merely have a modest aspiration that it should be assisted into the second half of the twentieth. And that that be achieved with the minimum of disruption to a largely loyal – if eccentric – workforce.’ He drained his glass, placed it firmly on the table, leaned forward and tapped Amiss on the knee. ‘What I neither need nor want is a sharp-suited young man who puts machines before people. It’s got to be someone with common sense and humanity who can staunch the haemorrhage cascading from the Papworth coffers. Drink?’

‘Thank you. Another gin and tonic would be very nice.’

Papworth flapped an arm towards the bar and pointed at their glasses.

‘Is this a new problem?’ asked Amiss, when his host had focused on him once more. ‘I mean, has there been some kind of management hiatus recently?’

‘No, no.’ Papworth cackled again. ‘It’s a very old problem that’s been neglected for years. I suppose I simply wasn’t prepared to face up to it until my son gave me a talking-to recently. Said it was all very well and grand to do one’s bit
pro bono publico
, but that the losses had got beyond a joke and I might bloody well remember that it was his patrimony I was playing silly buggers with.

‘ “What’s more”, he added, “you’re getting on and won’t be around much longer.” ’ Papworth smiled proudly. ‘Callous devil, isn’t he? But it’s a fair point nonetheless. The old
Wrangler
’s a heavy burden on the estate. I can see why Piers doesn’t take kindly to seeing me losing the best part of a quarter of a million a year when it probably isn’t necessary. Or most of it isn’t.’

‘You’re not tempted to sell?’

Papworth looked horrified. ‘Family’s owned
The Wrangler
for close on two hundred years. Not going to part with it now.
Noblesse oblige
and all that.’

He turned to greet the waitress as she put the drinks on the table. ‘Thank you, my dear. And how’s the arthritis?’ He counted out coins on to her tray.

‘No better, my lord. I’m thinking of packing the job in.’

‘My goodness, Rose, you must never do that.’ He waved towards the stately Thames as it passed serenely by the terraces of the Houses of Parliament. ‘Like 0l’ Man River, my dear Rose, you must go on and on and on.’

‘That’s what Lady Thatcher said she was going to do,’ said Rose sharply. ‘And look what happened to her.’ She grinned sardonically and left.

‘Serves me right for producing clichés,’ said Papworth.

‘Now where was I? Ah, yes. Where my son is right, Mr Amiss, is in saying that while I have properly treated
The Wrangler
with the respect due to a family treasure, I have – like my old father before me – been guilty of gross financial irresponsibility.’ He took a thoughtful sip of whisky. ‘Not all my fault, mind you. There’s a tendency for the buggers who run the paper to carry on as if I should be down on my knees thanking them brokenly for the opportunity to subsidise them lavishly.’

He put his glass down, and for the first time, indicated resentment. ‘I mean, dammit, I had Willie Lambie Crump… d’you know who I mean?’

‘The
Wrangler
editor. Yes. I’ve seen him on TV a couple of times.’

‘Well, there he was at dinner the other week complaining that not enough was spent on maintaining the building, while still absolutely refusing to consider moving to cheaper premises.’

‘Where’s the office?’

‘Mayfair.’

‘Seems a strange place for a poor magazine.’

‘Journal,’ said Papworth automatically.

‘Is there a difference?’

‘Not really, now that you mention it. It’s just that we started out as a journal, and
Wrangler
editors thought the word “magazine” was vulgar.’

‘Fair enough. Mayfair seems a strange place for a poor journal.’

Papworth looked at Amiss ruefully. ‘The building’s worth a packet but the trust doesn’t allow its sale without the agreement of the editor and the editor insists the paper would not flourish anywhere else. Bloody convenient principle on which to stick, especially since he’s got a flat at the top. But when I reminded him what supporting
The Wrangler
was costing me, he said loftily that privilege had its penalties and that he couldn’t see that my wealth could be put to any better use than keeping
The Wrangler
’s standard fluttering nobly in the intellectual breeze.’

He fell silent for a moment, took another sip and put his glass down with what was close to being a thump. ‘That’s the trouble with institutions: they tend to take themselves seriously. Doesn’t matter if it’s parliament or the Jockey Club or Oxbridge colleges or gentlemen’s clubs: they’re all prone to be pompous and given to flummery. But mostly that’s harmless enough. If you ask me, the worst offenders are their greatest critics – the bloody press.