Media coverage went in three stages. First was extensive coverage of all the victims, with the tabloids printing page after page of photographs of them in robes and coronets, with, where possible, coverage of their more glamorous womenfolk. Vanessa was snapped coming out of her house in a short black suit, with the caption: ‘Heartbroken daughter-in-law, the new Lady Poulteney’. The broadsheets were meanwhile conducting exhaustive investigations into the reliability of pacemakers and the argument for a second chamber, reformed or otherwise. Then came the death-ray sensation, which allowed editors to indulge their technically-minded readers with acres of descriptions of weaponry. And finally, because of the Animal Avengers, attention was focused on animal activists and the pros and cons of the Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill. To her surprise—but not to Amiss’—the baroness became a celebrity virtually overnight, for the media and public were bored with the traditional adversaries on hunting. Over the preceding few weeks, concerned woolly hats, former huntsmen who’d converted to being anti, former antis who’d converted to being pro, farmers who said hunts conserved the landscape, farmers who complained of wanton damage, toffs who were Masters of Foxhounds, saboteur spokesmen and all the rest of the caravanserie had exhausted the interest of the British people. But the Lords outrage had not only got every pub in the land arguing about the issue, but had found an overnight star. Because of his background, Sid Deptford had a certain curiosity value, but essentially he served up the same old story over and over again. What grabbed everyone was the way the baroness dealt with the opposition—one by one.
For a start, she was the only one who could handle Brother Francis, whose gentleness, sincerity, and mawkish verses made him initially a great hit and one whom interviewers found hard to handle. Beating up politicians was one thing, viciously interrogating a self-sacrificing, soft-spoken saint who had given up all worldly delights for what the British public held most dear was another. But once Jack Troutbeck began to temper her tendency to interject ‘Balderdash’ or ‘Rubbish’, she became adept at dragging her opponent into the real world, where he cut a poor figure. She would recite lines of Brother Francis’ back to him and ask politely what they meant. Most viewers laughed on the occasion when she recited
Oh for a fluffy bunny king
His paw commanding everything
With a cuddly kitty queen
Whose twitching whiskers rule serene,
Their folk all furry, frisky fun,
Bright-eyed and joyful every one.
Was Brother Francis really recommending that we emulate the morals of rabbits? And surely cats were the greatest hunters on earth. And when he fumbled, she would put the fear of God into the viewers by saying that the logical implications of what he and the animal activists stood for was the outlawing of domestic pets: if animals were our equals, we had no right to own them. This notion struck chill into the hearts of the owners of Tibbies throughout the nation.
When they threw Lady Parsons at her, she showed her up for the cold fish she was, eliciting the information that she had never lived with animals, whereas she, Jack Troutbeck, was able to call on sixty years of close companionship with dogs, cats, horses, and the rest of it. What had she done when she became Mistress of St Martha’s? She had insisted the kitchen use only free-range eggs and meat from properly looked-after animals, she had brought peacocks to live in the front garden and two abused donkeys had been given sanctuary on the grounds. ‘I’m extremely fond of animals,’ she explained. ‘I may eat them, I may chase them occasionally for sport, I’m very clear they have no souls, but I don’t want to cause them pain, and where possible I like them to have a jolly good time. I think that’s a humane position.’
She was even better at dealing with Jerry Dolamore, who, like most demagogues, was unimpressive in conversation and too slow-witted for debate. The febrile quality, the nervous energy, and the hint that underneath the surface he was a volcano—which made him so exciting as an orator—came across on television as rather mad. As Amiss remarked to the baroness, if television had only been invented some decades earlier, Hitler would probably have never come to power. Worse again, Dolamore’s supporters were incapable of exercising the necessary restraint to keep viewers on their side. Ugly studio-audience scenes of people in their twenties screaming at a feisty grey-haired woman did not go down well with the Great British Public and its notions of fair play. Not that the hecklers bothered the lady herself; she perfected a tolerant look with which she prefaced assaults on Dolamore on the issues of freedom of speech and the use of violence. While she did not accuse him of being one of the Animal Avengers, she pronounced his avowed strategy of intimidation to be incompatible with free speech. Ruthlessly she appealed to xenophobia when she explained to him kindly that as a foreigner he would perhaps have a problem in understanding that the British held free speech dear and that those who understood the very essence of the nation would never give in to threats. It was not for this, she explained, to the cheers of a studio audience, that this little country had stood alone against what—like Winston Churchill—she pronounced the ‘Nazi’ menace. Fortunately, she explained, she knew that her companions in the Lords would stand firm and not dance to the murderers’ tune.
‘Why ain’t she runnin’ the bleedin’ country?’ asked Deptford of Amiss on the telephone one morning.
‘Because it’s a democracy, Sid. I fear the populace would not for long accept being pushed around the way we are. Look at what they did to Mrs Thatcher.’
‘Yeah, but Jack’s more fun.’
‘The British don’t like their leaders to be fun. Bet you she’s got a media shelf life of only a few weeks.’
‘That’s OK, me old mate. It’s all we need. Now, should we answer that toffee-nosed article in the Independent?’
***
‘It’s Paul, Jim. Charlie’s pulled him in.’
‘Who?’
‘Dolamore. Thinks he might have organized the murders to establish his supremacy over the animal-activist movement.’
‘Any evidence?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far. But after being held for twenty-four hours one of his ex-sidekicks was so anxious to be helpful that he spilled the beans on Dolamore’s attempt last year to establish a sort of Grand Council of all the loony groups whom he called together at Locksleigh Manor. Apparently, it was mayhem. Most of these groups say they operate by consensus, which means anarchy. Mostly they can never take decisions about anything except making trouble in public. So there was old Dolamore trying to persuade a gaggle of the innocent and well-meaning, as well as of fanatics, fascists, anarchists, and in some cases even psychopaths to bend to his will.’
‘I’d like to have been there. What happened?’
‘It went on for five hours, consisted of about three dozen people because the groups with more than one member sent at least three representatives. They were impossible to control, and the whole thing ended in uproar. The only thing which was agreed was that they wanted to take direct action, but couldn’t agree what it should be. According to this bloke, Dolamore decided to go his own way, side by side with Brother Francis, hoping, by whipping up public support, to become the great guru of the movement, which to an extent he’s done. The bloke suggested he might have teamed up with the most violent end of the movement and tried to establish his supremacy by masterminding the murders in the inner circle.’
‘Sounds thin.’
‘It is thin. But that won’t stop Charlie.’
‘I wouldn’t like to be Dolamore.’
‘I wouldn’t like to be Charlie’s mother if she got on the wrong side of him. Cheers. I’ll keep you posted.’
As Milton put the phone down, he wondered once again why he was a policeman.
***
‘Cancel the lot of them.’
‘Who? What?’ Amiss was only half awake.
‘Bertie can’t make it.’
‘Why not?’
‘He’s just rung to say he’s missed the fast train to London.’
Amiss looked blearily at his alarm clock, which showed 7.30. ‘He’s still got time to get down, hasn’t he?’
‘No. He’s still surrounded.’
‘Jack, will you please tell me what you are talking about?’
She adopted her oh-very-well-if-I’ve-got-to-spell-this-out tone. ‘He rang me, on his mobile phone, from the end of his drive, where he has been trapped for some considerable time by a group of enraged woolly hats and riffraff. The police are on their way—but it is a long way—and he says he has no chance of getting to London until this afternoon.’
‘Can’t we go ahead without him?’
‘Without Bertie? You must be mad. He’s the only leader we’ve got.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’m disappointed in you, Robert. My leadership as yet has to be exercised by stealth.’
‘Hah!’ said Amiss. ‘What about all that carry-on over the airwaves since Friday?’
‘That’s different. My peers aren’t yet ready for me. Stop arguing and ring round and change them to the same time tomorrow. Can’t be helped. Oh, and don’t forget to rebook the committee room.’
‘It would be easier to serve you, Jack, if you didn’t vacillate wildly between treating me as a mind-reader and a moron.’ But he had already lost her.
‘Must fly,’ she said absent-mindedly. ‘Dragons to slay. See you.’
Amiss spent half the morning trying to track down peers, and the other half in the Lords placating those who had turned up. At the end he felt obliged to have lunch with two particularly aggrieved old dodderers who had come down on the night train from Aberdeen and who didn’t know what the country was coming to. That evening, after switching on the six o’clock news, Amiss was minded to agree.
‘Massive explosion at the House of Lords: several feared dead,’ said the announcer expressionlessly. Amiss waited in a cold panic as she produced a few measured lines on the latest row between London and Brussels and Europe and then revealed that a bank clerk had been killed in an armed robbery in Manchester. After an age she returned to the first item: ‘At 4.30 p.m. a committee room on the first floor of the House of Lords was racked by a series of minor explosions.
‘Early police estimates are that there have been about ten fatalities, but owing to difficulties of identification, names are not likely to be released for some time. The Lord Chancellor has vowed that the upper house will stand firm in the face of this second outrage, and the Prime Minister has promised that no effort will be spared to bring the perpetrators to justice.’
Switching off the platitudes, Amiss rushed to the telephone. He got straight through to the baroness.
‘Thank God. I was terrified it was you.’
‘What was me?’
‘Blown up. A committee room in the Lords. Haven’t you heard?’
‘Well, well,’ she said when he had finished. ‘Things certainly seem to be hotting up. I’m glad it wasn’t us, but I’m sorry for the poor devils who copped it.’
‘Instead of us, presumably?’
‘Well, it’s certainly as good a working hypothesis as I can think of. You’d better come down.’
‘Why? The action is here.’
‘First, because however tasteless it might be, I think we should crack open some champagne once more to celebrate being alive. But also because you’re more useful here. You’re not going to be able to track down your tame rozzers tonight. Everything that has to be done we can do by phone, and I need my Watson by my side.’
‘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 subcommittee 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 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 9.00 a.m. at Bertie’s London pad to talk things over.’
‘9.00?’
‘Only time he could manage.’
‘God, we’ll have to get up before 7.00.’
‘6.00. We’ll leave at 6.30 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 mph.
‘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’ nerves about the baroness’ 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.’