Ten Lords A-Leaping (20 page)

‘Bloody cheek. I’m a more experienced sleuth than you are.’

‘Stop arguing and get cracking.’

By the time Amiss reached St Martha’s it was after dinner, but the baroness had laid in supplies of thick slices of cold ham, Stilton and brown bread, which she urged on him as she poured a glass of the claret which, for its richness and robustness, had been chosen as the college’s recommended red tipple.

‘I had something on the train.’

‘Rubbish. You can’t get anything on the train except tasteless pap. Eat up, you’re going to need all your strength.’

‘Why?’ He pushed Plutarch away from the ham, took a large swallow of claret and looked at her suspiciously. ‘What do I need to be braced for? Whom have we lost?’

‘None of our stalwarts. It was a sub-committee to discuss some amendment to a town-planning bill which hadn’t much grabbed the interest of the landed gentry, so of the rumoured names only poor old Gussy Barnacle was identifiably one of us. But the other side lost three or four, including… have another drink.’

‘Who?’

‘Beatrice Parsons.’

‘Christ! It’s not claret I need, it’s whisky.’

Ever the perfect hostess, the baroness instantly produced a bottle of Black Bush and poured him a quadruple. He took a large swallow gratefully and subsided into an armchair.

‘Why has that rattled you so much?’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t stand her, but…’

‘Yes. I feel the same.’ She took a meditative pull on her pipe. ‘Somehow it seems wrong to have one’s enemy slain by another hand.’

‘I hope the cops think it’s another hand. Have you thought they mightn’t?’

‘Of course I have. What do you take me for? And so has Bertie, who, I may say, for a man of such usual coolness under fire, is a bit unnerved. He said he hadn’t anticipated that a row over fox-hunting was going to turn into the Battle of the Somme.’

‘So what do you know?’

‘Well, I’ve checked all our hard core and everyone’s safe and well. But it looks as if they and us are only safe and well because of Bertie being taken hostage by the animal activists this morning. The bombs went off in committee room 4, so what’s the betting they were intended for us?’

‘A hundred to one, I suppose. Though surely whoever was trying to get us would have removed them when we didn’t show?’

‘Maybe it was too difficult. Who knows? Anyway, the Home Secretary’s told Bertie the Bomb Squad’s preliminary view is that there was was a bomb under each of the twenty cushions; eleven were set off.’

‘But…’

‘Yes, I know. How could they all have sat down at exactly the same moment? Look, there’s no point now in bothering our heads with that sort of speculation. Wait till the boffins come up with the goods. We’ll concentrate on what we understand.’

‘So if they had been intended for us, they’d have got a clean sweep.’

‘Are you sure you don’t want that champagne?’

‘Not tonight, thanks. I haven’t the heart for it.’

The phone rang. As the baroness discussed plans with a still surprisingly calm Tommy Beesley, Amiss closed his eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts about Rachel. Plutarch, who had just finished the ham, settled in appreciatively to the Stilton. She evinced no interest in the brown bread.

‘That’s all settled,’ said the baroness as she came off the phone. ‘As many of us as can make it will meet at nine a.m. at Bertie’s London pad to talk things over.’

‘Nine?’

‘Only time he could manage.’

‘God, we’ll have to get up before seven.’

‘Six. We’ll leave at six-thirty sharp so as to avoid the traffic. Then we can have a decent breakfast in London.’

‘What’s wrong with the train?’

‘I want to drive.’

‘How do you drive?’

‘How do you think?’

‘Could you summon a witness? I think it’s time I made a will.’ He looked round and saw a large ginger form nestled next to a gnawed piece of Stilton and drifting into sleep. ‘And I’m going to leave Plutarch to you.’

‘That’s no threat.’ The baroness rose, walked over to Plutarch and stroked her. ‘She’s a girl after my own heart – appreciates her vittles. Now stop whingeing and try and get hold of young Ellis Pooley. He might have some useful gen. Then I’ll put you to bed.’

‘I should have expected you to drive a souped-up nineteen thirties Aston Martin,’ said Amiss as, relieved, he got into a comfortable seat in her modern saloon.

‘Cars are cars. They should be fast and generously built. Rather like me.’ Her chortle almost drowned out the revving of the engine as she sped down the drive.

‘That racket should have woken half of St Martha’s.’

‘Do ’em good. Shouldn’t be lazing in bed.’

‘If you’re awake, everyone should be awake, eh?’

‘Naturally.’

Despite urban traffic, it took them less than an hour to cover the fifty-five miles to London, a feat which, because of inevitable hold-ups, involved the baroness taking the car to excessive speeds along several stretches of the motorway.

‘Must you drive so fast?’ said Amiss – trying to keep the panic out of his voice – the first time he saw the speedometer touch 110 m.p.h.

‘I wouldn’t call this fast. Stop whining. It’s my job to drive and yours to keep an eye out for the rozzers and speed traps and find us the
Today
programme.’

By the time they arrived in London, Amiss’s nerves about the baroness’s driving had been somewhat eased by his realization that – as in all dealings with her – one might as well lie back and enjoy it. From the radio they had learned little that was new except that the definitive tally was eleven, the names of all the victims and details of the two or three who were eminent enough to attract tributes from the mighty. The Prime Minister had been wheeled on to talk of the work of his beloved colleague, Lady Parsons, whose concern for the underprivileged had been an example to everyone in his party: she had been a dear friend and would be sorely missed by him even more personally than politically.

‘Balls!’ interjected the baroness. ‘Bertie tells me the PM never could stand her and greatly regretted being pushed into giving her a peerage.’

The programme was long on shock and short on facts. All that emerged at the end was that there were now nineteen corpses and nobody was quite clear why – though the finger of suspicion appeared to be pointing firmly at what various commentators kept describing coyly as subversive elements.

‘Pretty perfect description of you,’ said Amiss, as the baroness took a short cut by driving the wrong way up a one-way street. ‘Do you keep
any
rules?’

‘Rules are for other people. I like breaking them.’ She turned sharp right into a small car park, on the gate of which was a notice saying ‘Private – no access except for staff and visitors to M. C. Carter Ltd’, drove into a bay marked ‘Visitors’, switched off the engine, placed on the windscreen a notice saying, ‘Attending conference’, grabbed her holdall and climbed out of the car.

Amiss climbed out after her. ‘You are outrageous.’

‘You’ll turn my head if you go on paying me such compliments. Now come on, let’s step out briskly to the Ritz. We’ve got a long day ahead of us so we’d better stoke up well.’

Chapter 20

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‘I’m knackered.’ Amiss collapsed into Pooley’s armchair.

‘What do you think I am? I only had two hours in bed last night.’

‘Yes, but you’re spending your time with Jim. I’m spending mine with the Lady Troutbeck, who has just deposited me here after a sixteen-hour day and gone roaring into the night in high good humour, promising to beat her record of forty-five minutes to Cambridge. Her apparently inexhaustible supply of energy wears me out.’

‘I take your point. Jim had the grace to admit to being too tired to come here tonight. Do you want a drink?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Whisky?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you eaten?’

‘Vast breakfast, huge lunch, don’t need any more.’

‘Well, forgive me if I get myself something. We were running around so much today we didn’t have time for anything.’

Amiss was asleep by the time Pooley returned from the kitchen bearing a tray with two apples, a piece of cheese and a glass of milk. He awoke as a glass of whisky was put beside him.

‘What an admirably healthy meal. Doubt if it would go down well with Jack. It’s a bit austere, and besides, she thinks milk is for babies and cats.’

‘Well, from what I’ve seen of her – ’ Pooley placed a piece of cheddar tidily on a brown cracker ‘ – she’s the exception that proves every rule. Now, while I’m eating, tell me anything I should know that you’ve picked up today.’

‘Well, most of today has been squiring Jack around television and radio studios as she delivered variations on her we-shall-not-be-moved routine. She had a pretty clear run. Hear any of it?’

‘No.’

‘It was good stuff. She even managed a graceful tribute to Parsons. Jack prides herself on her ability to outdo the opposition when it comes to hypocrisy, so she came up with much about the sterling work of her fellow baroness and how tragic it was that this life of public service had been cut short by the action of insane supporters of hers in a cause both misplaced and ill-founded.’

‘Any opposition to this line?’

‘A couple of interviewers suggested the pro-hunting lobby might be behind this, but Jack brushed that aside as an absurd reflection on the stout-hearted people who kept our heritage alive in the British countryside. One of Jerry Dolamore’s sidekicks ranted a bit about those who murdered foxes being obvious murderers of people, but he wasn’t very convincing. And Brother Francis was too preoccupied with sharing with the listeners his new poem to get into the whodunit controversy.’

Pooley finished his cheese. ‘What’s the poem like?’

‘All I can remember is:

‘That noble dame, so pure of soul

With pity for the slave

Is mourned tonight by every mole

And fox and vixen brave.

‘Deliriously inappropriate for an apparatchik like the said Parsons, don’t you think?’

Pooley laughed so much that he almost choked on his apple. ‘Thanks, Robert. I enjoyed that. There hasn’t been much to laugh at today.’

‘What’s the state of play with Dolamore?’

‘He’s being held under anti-terrorist legislation, so in theory Charlie Friel could hold on to him for another five days, but honestly, from what I’ve heard, he’s going to get nowhere. Dolamore put up a very convincing show of shock/horror over the bombs and seemed genuinely upset about Parsons. Otherwise he’s full of self-righteousness and oratorical flourishes, and even Charlie’s coming to the conclusion that he couldn’t organize his way out of a paperbag, let alone into the Lords to murder its inmates. And the Commissioner’s getting twitchy about the protests outside the Yard demanding the release of Saint Jerry. My guess is he’ll be out any time now.’

‘So you write him off?’

‘If you ask me, he’s the sort of man who would be dangerous if he had a different calibre of supporter. But the activists don’t seem to be throwing up any military talents. They’re more like a gaggle of unruly street urchins.’

‘So another cul-de-sac?’

‘So it seems. How are things with you?’

‘Well, I can’t say our meeting at Bertie Stormerod’s was too cheery. A lot of the poor old boys have lost people they were fond of in one or another of those massacres and a few of them are downright frightened, though rallied by a combination of Jack, Bertie and Tommy Beesley, who now that he actually has a proper enemy in his sights is behaving just like an old cavalry officer.’

‘So is there a plan?’

‘Just to carry on with business as usual, with all the hard core having the job of rallying the troops and me continuing the back-room stuff and helping them make their case in committee. We’ve had one boost with today’s opinion polls showing that support for the abolition of fox-hunting has slumped from ninety-one per cent to sixty-four per cent. Stormerod gave most of the credit for this to Jack, though she said it should go to the Avengers for offending the English sense of fair play. It’s probably a mixture of both.’

He drained his glass and waved it at Pooley. ‘So what gives on your side?’

Pooley finished his apple, drank his milk, refilled Amiss’s glass and poured himself a small measure of whisky to which he added an equal measure of water.

‘Well, it’s all so extraordinary and unprecedented it’s very hard to get a grip on. Take the bombs, for instance. The Bomb Squad are pretty certain that what happened was that the members of the Committee trickled in a few minutes before the meeting was due to start, sat down, chatted and were joined by their chairman, Lady Parsons, precisely on time at four-thirty. As soon as she sat down the bomb under her cushion exploded. Naturally everyone leaped up and the bombs under each of their cushions exploded in turn.’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘Two different types of anti-personnel mine. One kind explodes on contact: the other explodes when you release contact.’

Amiss grimaced. ‘How very unpleasant.’

‘Horribly ingenious and sick at the same time.’

‘But what would have happened if the chairman had come in first?’

Pooley shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe the murderer didn’t want to kill everybody. He might have been content with one or a few. That might even be why he didn’t use a bigger bomb. Though of course these mines are easier to transport.’

‘How big are they?’

‘About the size of a compact disk.’

‘Difficult to get?’

‘Unfortunately not. There were thousands of them sloshing around after the Gulf War and they’re even easier to get from crooked arms dealers than the stun-gun.’

‘Still, there’s specialist knowledge involved, isn’t there? Presumably we’re looking for someone with a military background?’

‘If by military you mean paramilitary, yes, probably. But there’s no shortage of such people around these days.’