Killing the Emperors (4 page)

By ten p.m. the five friends had settled in the gallery and had resolved the inevitable arguments with the baroness about whether, what, and how much they wanted to drink (‘You’re a crowd of blasted puritans’). Pooley and Rachel were drinking decaffeinated coffee (‘Wimps! The whole point of coffee is caffeine. I’ll have a double espresso.’) and nothing else (‘Typical!’). Mary Lou and Amiss had mollified their hostess by each ordering an Americano, agreeing to help her do justice to the decanter of port, and showing some interest in her impassioned explanation as to why the traditional Portuguese manner of treading grapes was immeasurably superior to anything a machine could do. After a few minutes, Pooley leaned forward and said, ‘Jack, I hate to interrupt, but I can’t stay long. If there’s anything else you want to tell us about, you should get on with it. I’ve an early start tomorrow and murderers to locate.’

Reluctantly, the baroness turned her attention away from the delights of the Douro River Valley. ‘I was seeking to alert you to the destruction of art, of course. Pay attention.’

Amiss yawned. ‘You’re always banging on about the destruction of something.’

‘What do you expect, when the Western world is going to hell?’ She reached again for her glass. ‘Do I not spend my life selflessly battling with the forces of anarchy?’

‘You’re usually leading the forces of anarchy.’

‘Only on battlegrounds of my choosing,’ she said stiffly. ‘When it’s a necessary means of getting my way. And anyway, I never defend intellectual or moral anarchy.’

‘I’ve heard you defend blackmail and intimidation,’ remarked Rachel.

‘If they’re my ends, they justify my means.’

Pooley was getting irritated. ‘Can we cut the philosophical niceties, Jack. I’m a simple policeman. Get to it. What’s up?’

‘We have fought the culture wars together, my friends,’ she said, waving her glass of port for emphasis. ‘But we cannot rest. The forces of darkness still reign. They must be overthrown. This time it’s the Satanic army of the art world that must be destroyed.’

Mary Lou looked apprehensive. ‘Haven’t you won enough cultural battles to justify hanging up your sword, Jack?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Amiss heartily. ‘When you come to think of it, you’ve been pretty comprehensive and successful.’

The baroness threw him a contemptuous look. ‘You’re mistaken if you think such blatant flattery will get you off the hook, Robert. I don’t indulge in false modesty…’

‘You can say that again,’ said Mary Lou.

‘Darling, please don’t interrupt her,’ said Pooley. ‘It only slows everything up.’

‘…so I recognise that I have had some small success in routing the evil forces of political correctness at St. Martha’s
2
and Paddington University.
3
And, of course, there was the Knapper-Warburton.
4
But I cannot rest upon my laurels. There’s much more to be done.’

She leaned forward confidingly. ‘Now, I recognise that I cannot fight and win global cultural wars. Mine have to be small canvases. Like Jane Austen’s. I am not Tolstoy.’

‘You’re a bit more like him than Jane Austen, if I may say so,’ said Amiss. ‘At least in your appetites.’

She ignored him. ‘So the small canvas this time is related to art. And once more I need help.’

‘What kind of help?’ asked Rachel.

‘Stop looking so apprehensive. I’m not going to kidnap Robert. Now pay attention and I’ll tell you what we have to do.’

Chapter Two

February 2012

His phone rang mid-morning. Since the caller sounded like a frantic skylark, Robert Amiss realised it had to be Petunia Stamp, the college secretary of St. Martha’s. Trying without much success to make sense of the cacophony of twitters, he gathered that she was upset. He pictured the fluttering little creature—pink alice band slightly askew and chest heaving underneath some frightful knitwear appliquéd with kittens or butterflies—and wondered yet again how Baroness Troutbeck—who suffered fools appallingly—could stand her. And vice-versa.

‘Take it slowly, Miss Stamp. Is something the matter?’

‘It’s the mistress, Mr. Amiss. The mistress. Where, oh where, is the mistress?’

Patient questioning elicited the information that the baroness had been expected back in Cambridge the previous night but had not turned up. Since she often arrived early in the morning, no one had worried until she failed to surface at the monthly council meeting. ‘A council meeting, Mr. Amiss! She missed a council meeting! You know she would never miss a council meeting. And no message. No message. And she’s not answering her phone. Something terrible must have happened to her. What will we do? Should I send for the police?’

‘Leave it with me for the moment, Miss Stamp. If anything’s happened to her, it would probably be here rather than in Cambridge. I’ll investigate and get back to you. And don’t worry. You know she’s the toughest of tough old birds.’

Interpreting Miss Stamp’s silence as an indication that she didn’t know whether to be comforted by this undoubted truth or horrified by his
lèse-majesté
, he said goodbye in what he hoped was a manly reassuring voice and rang off.

***

‘Sorry to have got your PA to rout you out of a meeting, Mary Lou, but it’s urgent.’

‘I was interviewing a grumpy poet for tonight’s programme and was glad to have an excuse to get rid of the asshole. What’s up? You sound agitated.’

‘It’s contagious. Miss Stamp’s been on the phone in a right old state because she can’t find Jack. And I admit to being worried. She didn’t turn up for this morning’s council meeting. And they can’t get hold of her.’

‘Hell, I’m worried! That never happened during my time at St. Martha’s. Never ever.’

Amiss got up and began to pace. ‘That’s what’s troubling me. Jack’s reliability and punctuality are positively aggressive.’

‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘Car crash?’

‘Precisely. The way she drives it’s a miracle she’s never had one.’

‘But if she was in hospital she’d have had ID and St. Martha’s would know by now.’

‘Unless Myles was down as next-of-kin. And they wouldn’t have been able to find him. Isn’t he still in Iraq?’

‘Last time I heard. But she wouldn’t have named Myles. He’s away too much.’

‘Supposing…?’

‘Really bad crash and a fire?’

‘Yep.’

‘Oh, God, Mary Lou. Of course it’s possible. What’ll we do?’

‘I’ll get Ellis to put someone on to it. It shouldn’t take long. It would have to have been an accident on the North Circular or the M11.’

‘Unless she went by a scenic route?’

‘With a motorway available on which to do a ton?’

‘Sorry. Dumb idea.’

‘But then of course there’s the other horrible possibilities.’

‘Heart attack? Stroke? Burglars?’

‘That sort of thing. I’ll ask Ellis to send someone round to her flat and will be back to you as soon as I hear anything that counts as news.’

***

‘You’re supposed to be a crime writer,’ Amiss said to himself crossly. ‘Think of a benign reason why she’s disappeared.’ He thought of the baroness’ propensity for pursuing even unlikely potential conquests—male and female—as well as of her greed for all the good things of life, but then he thought of her sense of duty and her fierce loyalty to St. Martha’s. He made a vain attempt to get back to work, but finding himself looking as blankly at the screen as it looked at him, he decided to engage in displacement activity. With Radio 4 talking at him of all manner of political and cultural controversies that he could hardly take in, he attacked the kitchen belligerently and tidied up everything in the flat he could find to tidy. Resisting the temptation to bother Ellis Pooley, he forced himself to sit down at the computer, pay bills, and answer emails. He rang Miss Stamp again, found her frantic, failed to steady her, went out for a walk, phone in hand, made an unnecessary visit to the supermarket to buy unnecessary food and went home and tried to interest himself in Sky News. But Middle Eastern tensions, domestic rows about public expenditure cuts, and a hurricane threatening American cities failed to do the trick. ‘I’ve been so worried,’ he told his wife when she got home, ‘that I thought of taking my mind off Jack by giving Plutarch a bath.’

Rachel looked at the fat feline sprawled across the rug. ‘That would have been a suicide mission.’

‘I know. I know. That’s why I never bathe her. But it would certainly have distracted me.’

‘Phone Ellis.’

‘I don’t want to seem to be fussing. He’ll be doing what he can. Mary Lou would have called if there was news.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Robert. Impossible person though Jack is, we’re all very fond of her and you and Ellis have been through so many wars together that you’re blood brothers. Phone him. Now!’

***

‘He’s virtually certain that she can’t have had a crash on the way to Cambridge,’ Amiss reported. ‘There were only half-a-dozen during the relevant period and everyone involved has been identified.’

‘Has he had her flat checked?’

‘Yes. A neighbour had a key. Nothing suspicious. And her car’s gone. He was flummoxed and wondering whether to get her reported as a missing person.’

‘She wouldn’t like that if she’d simply gone AWOL.’

‘But she wouldn’t have gone AWOL when she was due at that meeting. It wasn’t as if it was even just routine. She’d mentioned to me there was a row brewing about something or other which she had to resolve. She was trying to decide whether the appropriate tactic was conciliation or repression. You know Jack. She was looking forward to it.’

‘So he’d better have her reported as a missing person, then.’

‘That’s what I told him. No choice.’

‘How are you?’

‘Miserable. Scared. Edgy.’ He gave a bleak laugh. ‘Like Tracey Emin. Come on, wife. Take me out for a walk and a drink and try to get my mind onto something other than that the most likely explanation is that Jack Troutbeck’s dead.’

***

It was after eight o’clock the next morning. Amiss had given Rachel breakfast and had walked her to the tube, assuring her unconvincingly that he would call on his innate male ability to compartmentalise, avoid tormenting himself about Jack, and get some work done. Having instructed himself to hold off until nine from ringing Pooley, he looked at newspapers on-line and found himself reading the same paragraphs over and over again and checking his watch every few minutes. At half past eight, when the phone rang, he jumped up so energetically that he knocked over his coffee and the dregs spread over his keyboard. He paid no attention but grabbed the receiver. Plutarch, ever alert to the main chance, seized the opportunity to leap on his chair and curl herself into a contented marmalade circle.

‘It’s Ellis. No news, I’m afraid.’

‘I’m sort of relieved.’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘What are the theories?’

‘We haven’t got any. We’re still searching for the car. And no one here’s much interested. I’ve got someone going through all the routine procedures with the help of her secretary: photographs, credit card details, habits, places she frequents and so on. We got hair from her London bathroom so we’ll have her DNA soon. But there’s no sense of urgency about this. My colleagues think academics and peers are all dotty anyway, so she’s just some old bird who’s wandered off somewhere on a whim. Maybe with amnesia.’

‘I thought of that. But it wouldn’t explain why she didn’t answer her phone.’

‘It’s a very long shot when you know her. But if you don’t… Anyway, Jim’ll be back from his Interpol meeting tomorrow and he’ll take it seriously. Until then there isn’t much I can do.’

‘OK,’ said Amiss, trying to conceal the fear in his voice.

‘
Courage, mon vieux
,’ said Pooley. ‘Think of what she’s come alive out of in the past. Nine lives and all that.’

‘She’s used most of those up,’ said Amiss gloomily.

***

The phone rang an hour later. Having dried his keyboard and tried vainly to make it work, Amiss had been out to the computer shop and was back in business.

‘Don’t let me interrupt if you’re writing.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mary Lou.’ As he stood up and began pacing, Plutarch again took possession of his chair. ‘Surely you’ve learned by now that most writers are desperate for distraction. By this time most mornings, I’ve managed to postpone starting a new chapter by answering emails that could have waited for hours and reading several newspapers on the net on the spurious grounds that I need to stay in touch with reality. If you hadn’t called I might have been driven to iron a shirt.’

She didn’t respond.

‘And, of course, I’m worried sick about Jack.’

‘That’s why I rang. So am I. And I keep thinking about that dinner at ffeatherstonehaugh’s. She was so right. I feel a bit ashamed. I agreed with her but I haven’t done anything since to challenge the pernicious orthodoxy she’s complaining about and, of all of us, I’m the gal who should.’

‘But then you want to keep your job, don’t you?’

‘Yeah. Same old excuse everyone uses. You toe the line or you’re identified as a heretic. And we all know nothing good happens to heretics. Ellis had a bit of a go at me on the way home that night for not standing up to the thought police and speaking my mind. You know when he gets priggish?’

‘Don’t I just!’

‘He went on about the courage of one’s convictions and that sort of thing. So I asked him when he last bit his tongue when a superior officer told him to do something he thought stupid or wrong—as opposed to actually immoral, which Ellis would die rather than countenance.’

‘Don’t tell me. That same day?’

‘The day before, it turned out. Honesty is one of my guy’s many saving graces.’

Amiss paced on. ‘There isn’t much we can do anyway, is there? Jack was calling us to arms, but the enemy is widely dispersed and we seem to lack either weapons or troops.’

‘I guess we could do a bit of chipping away here or there when we get a chance. I can try to get more of a voice in arts programmes for the good guys. And if you decide to do a novel about that world, maybe you can make a difference.’

‘Hah! Do you know how many copies the first one sold? Or what my advance was on this one? And before you ask, I’d have to be a few drinks in before I’d be able to bring myself to tell you. If I didn’t do some journalism we’d be in complete penury. I’m relying on Rachel to hurry up and become one of those super-teachers who’re brought in to turn around sink schools and are rewarded with six-figure salaries and titles.’

‘Don’t they have to work hundreds of hours a week?’

‘She’ll cope.’

‘Might you seriously have a go at the art world?’

‘If Jack comes back. This morning, not being able to write, I’ve been reading up on some of what she was going on about. Here’s something from an open letter the Stuckists wrote to the benighted Serota some years back. It was a sensible, civil criticism of postmodernism.’

‘Oh, holy shit,’ groaned Mary Lou. ‘Post-bloody-modernism rears its horrible head again. That’s the incomprehensible fashionable gibberish that drove me out of academia. I hate meeting it in my new line of work. What’s it supposed to mean in this context?’

‘Search me. It seems to embrace all the skill-free stuff that can be done by people who couldn’t paint a house or sculpt a ball out of plasticine. You know, the stuff Jack was moaning about. Along with pointless performance art, people being videoed picking their noses and all that kind of thing.’

‘Postmodern almost always means waste of space and trashing of the admirable.’

‘The Stuckists’ view. They suggested to Serota that post-modernism…hang on a second, I was just reading it.’ He leaned across Plutarch, who snarled and extended a claw. ‘That post-modernism was “a cool, slick marketing machine where the cleverness and cynicism of an art which is about nothing but itself, eviscerates emotion, content and belief.” The Brit artist, they went on, seemed uninterested in vision or insight, merely in maintaining “his or her media kudos in the art brat pack.”’

Amiss resumed pacing. ‘They sent this to Serota for comment along with a manifesto called
Remodernism
, which called for a new spirituality in art, culture, and society to replace post-modernism’s spiritual bankruptcy. Mind you, it admittedly was full of heresies like the proposition that art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn’t art.’

‘And Serota’s response?’

‘That they wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he had no comment on the letter or the manifesto.’

‘What a contemptuous shit! Well, that really puts him on my hate list.’

‘Mine too. Then they had an exhibition of paintings in Liverpool that—from what I’ve seen on the net—included plenty of interesting and talented stuff. They offered the Tate a hundred-and-sixty paintings allegedly worth £500,000. The donation was turned down…hang on…I have to navigate around Plutarch to find the primary source.’

Cautiously, he once more leaned across the cat, who took noisy umbrage. ‘Bloody animal. You’d think the mouse I was clicking on was a real one being wrenched from her slavering mouth. I’ve only just evaded serious injury.

‘Anyway, the offer was rejected by Serota, who told them portentously that Tate curators and trustees felt the work lacked sufficient quality “in terms of accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant preservation in perpetuity in the national collection.” The bugger didn’t mention any conflict of interest, like that the curators and trustees were likely to have taken a dim view that many of the exhibits satirised Serota and the bloody Tate.