Murdering Americans (20 page)

***

‘Change of scene, Robert,’ said the baroness. ‘I’ll take you to my bar.’

‘I didn’t realise such an amenity existed.’

‘Bolt-hole rather than amenity, although it has its virtues. Come on, come on. Your eyes will give out if you spend all day staring at that stupid computer.’

‘And whose fault is it that…? OK, I’ll be with you in a minute.’

***

‘Joe’s,’ said the red neon sign outside the tiny basement at the bottom of what looked like a derelict house near the railway line. There was a gingham half-curtain on the grimy window, under a sign saying ‘Miller Lite.’

‘Lite, lite, lite, lite, lite,’ said the baroness. ‘How I hate that word. It’s almost as bad as lo-fat—both constitute a standing affront to both taste-buds and the English language.’

She swept into an almost empty room, nodded at the elderly man in a check shirt behind the bar, called ‘Two pints of the usual,’ and led Amiss into a tiny room at the back containing two small wooden tables with ashtrays and a few chairs.

‘What’s the usual?’

‘Indiana Amber. It’s drinkable, which is more than can be said for most of the gnat’s piss that masquerades as American beer. And it’s not kept at sub-zero temperatures.’ She scrabbled in her handbag, drew out her pipe and its accessories, and commenced the elaborate ritual with pipe cleaner, tobacco, and pipe reamer. Then, with a mighty flame from her lighter, she settled back and drew deeply and happily.

‘I see the attraction of this place. Can you smoke in all bars?’

‘In bars only, as I understand it—though not, for some arcane reason, in the hotel bar—but since there are only two bars in town and the other one has loud music, it’s an academic question. What kill-joys legislators are! Not that we aren’t getting as bad back home about everything.’

When the beer arrived, Amiss thanked the barman but the baroness just gave him a slight nod. ‘Don’t go jabbering to this barman, Robert. We get on very well by speaking as little as possible. He’s surly and taciturn—such a relief from the “Hi-great-to-see-you-have-a-nice-day” brigade. Makes me think nostalgically of Yorkshire.’

‘Do you—as they say—come here often?’

‘When I get a chance, which is rarely. I like to sip a contemplative pint, look at that mottled, crooked mirror up there with Marlboro Man on it and imagine for a minute I’ve found the real America. The one where men were men and women were women and they just got on with it. Any moment now a bow-legged cowboy will stalk in and say “Barman, get me a whisky and make it a large one.”’ She sighed. ‘Gary Cooper, for preference.’

‘Shouldn’t you be dressed properly for this encounter? I know you’re looking very smart these days since you conducted that raid on Oxfam—despite the sartorial depredations of Gonzales’s frustrated would-be parrot executioner—but I fear a discreet red suit is not what your cowboy would be looking for. Shouldn’t you affect something more like a corset and black fishnet stockings?’

‘“See what the boys in the backroom will have…”’ she began, in execrable imitation of Marlene Dietrich. ‘What’s the next line?’

‘If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. Now we’re here, I’ve a lot of things I need to talk to you about. For a start, there’s the what seems like insuperable problem of money….’

***

Another pint each and almost an hour later, the door opened and a familiar voice said, ‘Hi, I’m sorry, sir, I was looking for someone.’ The door shut.

Amiss jumped up, ran out after Betsy, and caught her just before she drove off. ‘Oh, Robert, am I glad to see you! I’ve been looking for you and Lady Troutbeck everywhere and your cell phones weren’t working.’

‘Probably because it’s a basement and we were right at the back. Come on in.’

Betsy gave him a hunted look. ‘But it was Provost Fortier-Pritchardson who gave permission for students to go into bars with Lady Troutbeck. Do you think it’ll still be OK?’

‘Jack will protect you, Betsy. Never fear.’

Betsy beamed at him. ‘Hey, yeah. Sure she will.’ She followed him obediently.

‘Sit down, Betsy. Do you want some nasty pop?’ asked the baroness.

‘Oh, no. There isn’t time for that. This is an emergency.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Marjorie’s been trying to get you. The police have arrested someone and now they’re looking for you, Lady Troutbeck.’

‘Me? What have I to do with it? I wasn’t a witness.’

‘I don’t know. But it’s serious. Marjorie said they broke down the door of your office.’

‘They what?’

‘It was all confused.’

‘They’d better not have frightened Horace or we’ll be adding a zero to the compensation claim.’ The baroness finished her Indiana Amber with one gulp, knocked out her pipe in the ashtray, and threw a couple of ten-dollar bills on the table. ‘Keep the change, bartender,’ she called, as she headed to the door. She turned to the others. ‘OK, come on. We need to get out of here fast. I’ll call my lawyer and then give myself up.’

Amiss noticed that the bartender looked at her with what was close to being an expression of interest.

Chapter Thirteen

‘I’m back.’

The baroness put the phone down, kicked off her shoes, and flung herself down on the sofa. She was snoring loudly when, ten minutes later, Amiss knocked. Grumpily, she got up and opened the door. ‘I thought you were Horace.’

‘I am,’ said Amiss. ‘Beverages! Beverages! Whoo! Whoo!’

Her fussing over drinks was interrupted by the arrival of Marjorie and the transference of Horace from his box to the baroness’s shoulder. His insistence on climbing up her hair and squatting on her head caused much expostulation. Eventually, he was coaxed to perch on the door of his cage and bribed into silence with a piece of banana, and the trio finally got to sit down with their glasses.

‘I was not very impressed with New Paddington’s finest,’ said the baroness.

‘The one you have outside looks OK,’ said Amiss.

‘He’s been outclassed,’ said the baroness. ‘There’s a much superior one lurking somewhere nearby who’s one of the friends of a friend of Myles.’

‘Your admirers have fascinating ways of showing their affection, Jack,’ said Amiss.

‘Guns. Bodyguards. What next? Oh, of course, the private eyes.’

She looked sad for a moment. ‘Private eyes more experienced than poor Mike and Vera-Velda. They’re digging up stuff about the provost and the Goon and Dickinson at a rate of knots, according to Edgar Junior.’

‘Before we get further on to all that, what happened with the cops? Why had they broken down the door?’

‘They knocked. They could hear Horace talking but failed to identify him as a parrot, and, of course, he wouldn’t answer the door when requested to do so and because Marjorie had gone out for a few minutes, it was locked. Being in aggressive mood for reasons I will explain later, with guns at the ready, they crashed in.’

‘I’m not encouraged that they can’t tell the difference between a bird and a person.’

‘I gather they did when they actually saw him face to face and they showed great restraint by not arresting him. So far these cops do not seem to be smart people, Robert. Indeed I have yet to find evidence that they have a brain cell or a ball among them.’ She paused, had some more gin-and-tonic and then said judiciously, ‘Well, perhaps it would be fairer to say that the ones with brain cells seem to have no balls and vice-versa. One often finds that in life.’

‘It’s not true of you, Jack,’ said Marjorie. ‘You’ve more guts than you can hang on a fence.’

The baroness simpered.

‘Now can you hurry up the story. I’ve got to get home to my family.’

‘Very well. The police had messed up on three things.’

‘Yes.’

‘Firstly, they missed the obvious point about the mysterious person in the burqa. Secondly, they thought I’d set up the Provost-Goon murders.’ She appeared to go into a reverie.

‘If I ever set you up for murder, Jack,’ said Amiss, ‘it’ll be after having to prod you after every sentence when you’re supposed to be telling a fluent story.’

‘Stop being petulant. Thirdly, they’ve changed their tune on Mike and Vera and alleged—half-heartedly I admit—that I might have been involved in murdering them.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s take this one by one.’

‘I can’t. Everything’s interconnected. The cops picked up a bearded Muslim youth who vaguely fitted the description of the running man and he turned out to have a business card of Helen’s with my fingerprints on it.’

‘They’ve got your prints?’

‘Yes, Robert. Prints and mugshot since I was apprehended with my Colt 45.’

‘Threatening Muslims who were threatening you,’ growled Marjorie.

‘I told you these cops are not bright. The coincidence was enough to carry them away. Since this guy had form and so, in a way, do I, that was enough for the genius in charge. Obviously we must be in league to murder someone for being anti-Islamic.’

‘Even though your reputation among Muslims is as an Islamophobe.’

‘The thinking seems to have been that I was cunningly trying to cover my tracks.’

Amiss scratched his head. ‘In that case, why would you have kept hounding the cops to look for this guy?’

‘I pointed out that flaw in their logic, but they didn’t seem to get it. However, when it emerged that they’d also found my prints on a wallet in the chap’s possession, all became clear.’

‘You’d notified them about that theft,’ said Marjorie.

‘Well, Stefano had, and eventually they found the relevant bit of paper.’

‘So what’s their theory now?’

‘Their heads hurt. In so far as I could follow them, the options are: a) he was an opportunistic thief who was at the meeting, stole my wallet because it was easy, and is an ordinary decent criminal with nothing to do with the murders; b) he was at the meeting, stole the wallet, hadn’t grasped my name, thought the card was my card, went off to murder me and didn’t spot the difference between Helen and me; c) someone else gave him the wallet and inflamed him by telling him bad things about what I’d said and he thought Helen was this bad person; d) oh, hell, I can’t remember. It’s all too convoluted.’

‘What’s his story?’

‘He said he found the wallet empty in the street and didn’t look at the card, which was one of several—none of which has his prints on them. And though he has form as a petty criminal, he has none as an Islamist agitator. In fact he seems to enjoy drinking and gambling.’

‘He doesn’t sound like the murderer to me,’ said Amiss, dispiritedly.

‘Or me,’ said Marjorie.

‘Beverages! Beverages!’ shouted Horace. ‘Freeze!’

‘He is rather smart, isn’t he? He didn’t have long to pick that up,’ said the baroness. ‘Give him another piece of banana, Robert. Now, what’s more important than the rest of this is the business of the woman in the burqa. When I heard about the rucksack, everything became clear.’

‘What rucksack?’

‘The running man had a rucksack.’

‘Yes.’

‘If you’re hiding a rucksack under your burqa, wouldn’t the smartest way of hiding it be on your stomach, so you look pregnant? Isn’t that what female suicide bombers do with their explosives?’

‘Sure. But why would you want to hide the rucksack?’ asked Marjorie.

‘Because you wouldn’t want to be associated with the man into whom you’d turn after committing the murder.’

There was a pause while Amiss and Marjorie took that in.

‘OK,’ said Amiss. ‘Got it. Of course it was the same person.’

‘But why wouldn’t he keep on the burqa?’ asked Marjorie.

‘Ever see anyone run in a burqa?’

‘You’d have to raise your skirts, wouldn’t you,’ said Marjorie, nodding. ‘And you’d kinda stand out. OK.’

‘I need another drink,’ said Amiss. ‘We haven’t even got to Mike and Vera yet. Carry on while I do the refills.’

‘When as a result of pressure from the Edgars and their agents, the fuzz had to take the failed brakes more seriously, they finger-printed the Chevy and found my prints. This they found deeply suspicious. I wasn’t, after all, in Europe around the time of the crash. I pointed out that days ago I had tried vainly to interest someone in taking the crash seriously and that it was my lawyer that was now representing Vera’s mother, but they were not to be dislodged from the view that all this was much too much of a coincidence, especially since I had never before mentioned that I’d been in that car.’ Her voice went up a few decibels. ‘Why the hell would I have?’

‘How did you get out of that?’

‘I lost my temper and said if they didn’t let me call Edgar Junior, the consequent law suit would leave them without either shirts or trousers. Edgar Junior duly created merry hell and so frightened them with threats that he’s garnered another piece of information. They seem to have swooped on known criminals among the local Muslims, not Islamists.’

‘Because?’

‘Why do you think? They’re terrified of “alienating the Muslim community.”’

‘Hotdamn,’ said Marjorie, and then recollected herself. ‘I mean this is all so much crap. It wouldn’t happen like this in Texas. If it were me, I’d send in the Marines. Which doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t put a few bucks on Dickinson having something to do with it. Maybe he paid the running man.’

‘In fact we’re no further forward, Jack,’ said Amiss. ‘You’re still as much at risk as you were yesterday.’

‘My head aches,’ said Marjorie. ‘I gotta go. Do you want me to pick up Horace in the morning?’

‘How did he get on with Dean Pappas-Lott?’

‘I thought she was going to strangle him when he shouted “PC rubbish.” She took it worse than when he kept saying “VRC.”’

‘I’ll rebuke him for tactlessness and send him to a sensitivity workshop,’ said the baroness.

***

‘I’ve already told Stefano I won’t be here for dinner,’ said Amiss.

‘You have a hot date?’

‘You might say as much. I’m dining with Traci. On mature reflection I decided it might be worth seeing if there was more to be got out of her, so I rang her to tell her the sad news that you still weren’t quite in the clear on the psittacosis front and then told her how much I liked dogs.’

‘If I were you, I’d wear my chastity belt,’ said the baroness.

***

Amiss groaned and picked up the phone. ‘Yes?’

‘Would you like bacon and egg?’ asked the baroness, who had taken to providing her own breakfast since the installation of a small cooker and toaster. She was still struggling to master the intricacies of the espresso machine that had arrived a couple of days previously.

‘I think so.’

‘Make up your mind.’

‘Yes.’

‘Fifteen minutes.’

Amiss showered, shaved, tended his scratches, and threw on a T-shirt and jeans before knocking on her door. ‘Just in time,’ she said. ‘The bacon is
à point
, I think you’ll find, and the egg is perfect. Having failed to train the hotel chef out of that terrible “over-easy” business that means everything’s hard, I had to take up self-catering. I think I’m rather good.’

‘Perhaps you have a future as a short-order cook.’

After a few minutes in which the baroness ate, and congratulated herself, she cleared her plate and buttered some toast. ‘Excellent toast too. It must be dark brown, something they can’t seem to grasp in America. And did you know they don’t have electric kettles? I had to boil the water for tea in a saucepan. Seems quite extraordinary in what’s supposed to be a civilised country. What do you think is the reason?’

‘Not a clue,’ said Amiss.

‘You’re very monosyllabic this morning. What’s happened to your usual chatter?’

‘Traci.’

‘So how was she?’

‘Amorous.’

‘Did you succumb?’

‘No. How do you think I got these scratches?’

She peered at him. ‘I hadn’t noticed, but now you mention it….’

‘How could you not notice these? There are six of them and they run all down my cheeks.’

‘My mind was on other things. Like bacon and eggs.’ She scrutinised him. ‘Better put something on them. Her nail-varnish might be full of toxins.’

‘It wasn’t Traci who scratched me. It was Sweetie. She set him on me when I told her that though I respected her and she was of course a very desirable woman, I could not accept her offer owing to my marital circumstances. She took it badly.’

‘I’m trying to picture that.’

‘Very small dog, long fuschia claws….’

‘Fuschia?’

‘Yep. They’re varnished to match hers. So no doubt doubly full of toxins.’

‘Wow!’ She laughed merrily. ‘Or should I say “Bow-wow”?’

‘She just jammed him into my face and he panicked. However, to take a Betsy approach, it could be argued that this was good news because Traci became contrite when she saw the blood and I was able to make my excuses and leave without further sexual or canine assault.’

‘I hope you got something out of her apart from the wounds.’

‘And more champagne than I wanted and a forced overdose of lobster and a very late night. Yes, enough to make me sure we’re proceeding on the right lines. When she got absolutely pie-eyed it became clear that the real wealth is very very
nouveau.
She spoke piteously about how in the first year of her marriage she had to buy off-the-rack, and was peevish because—in order to have real money—it was necessary to live in a hole like New Paddington. Though Dickinson has promised that they’ll be domiciled in luxury in California within a year or so.’

‘Doesn’t the bloody man realise her lack of discretion makes her a time-bomb?’

‘Yes, but….’

‘I know. Sex. I suppose she’s good in bed.’

‘So she told me. Indeed it was all I could do to stop her giving me a demo of her prowess at erotic stripping and a performance on the retractable pole in the master bedroom.’

‘What a goody-goody you are, Robert.’

‘If you feel like that, give her a call now and I’m sure she’ll perform for you. She told me that though you were a rough diamond, there was something rather attractive about you.’

‘Can’t imagine what she means by rough. If I were a diamond, I would be superbly cut—in addition to being flawless, polished, and at least fifteen carats.’ She paused and considered. ‘And possibly yellow. Literally, not metaphorically, you understand. Right, now it’s time to get down to work.’

***

‘I fetched Plutarch from St. Martha’s yesterday,’ said Rachel. ‘I don’t think she was pleased, but the new Bursar was. Extremely.’

‘Is she behaving?’ asked Amiss nervously.

‘If you mean Plutarch, by her standards, she’s so far behaving impeccably—if you don’t count our difference of opinion about her getting into the car. At least life is less dangerous since we got that cat guard. Nothing would have induced me to try stuffing her in a basket.

‘If you mean the Bursar, she was well-mannered, but seemed rather strained. There had been an incident with the gardener yesterday morning, when he inadvertently stood on Plutarch’s tail and had his trousers torn. However, no one was making much fuss because Plutarch is under Jack’s protection and St. Martha’s in turn is protective of Jack and too nervous about her welfare to be cross even about Plutarch and the gardener’s trousers.’

‘How much do they know about what’s going on?’

‘Just what’s in the press, since, of course, from what I gather, Jack hasn’t told anyone at the college anything.’