by Ruth Edwards
The baroness dialled Ricciano’s number. ‘We’re finished….Right.’
She sat down again. ‘Now, I’d like to have stuck to Sicilian cooking this evening, but there was a problem with ingredients. Fresh swordfish is in short supply in the mid-West. So we’re reverting to Roman and having Saltimbocca. Stefano was able to get hold of free-range veal. Is that all right with you?’
‘It’s all the same to me, Jack. You do the fussin’. I’ll do the eatin’.’
***
Much later, Marjorie asked, ‘How did you get on with Warren Godber this afternoon?’
‘Pretty well. It wasn’t a long conversation, but he cut to the chase. He said he’d spent decades building up a history department that was first class—mainly by hiring gifted people who were swimming against the trend of fashion and imposing such high standards that only motivated students took the course. As dean, he did the same, he said, on a larger scale.’
‘He certainly did. The Department of Humanities was respected by anyone who knew anything, until it got sunk by the Axis of Evil.’
‘The President and the Provost?’
‘And the Goon and the Dean they put in place of Warren.’
‘Who is?’
‘Diane Pappas-Lott.’
‘Not another woman with three names. Why do you all do it? It overloads the memory.’
‘It’s kind of hedgin’ bets for some when they get married. For others like me we just like to hang on to our family name. And for others like Helen it’s feminism and they make the husband do the same.’
‘Is there an unfortunate Mr. Provost?’
‘I think there once was but he’s never mentioned.’
‘What interests me is what happens when a girl called Mary Cook-Scrimgeour gets married to Horace Swanson-Scappaticci? Does their daughter end up being called Josephine Cook-Scrimgeour-Swanson-Scappaticci? And what happens in turn to her daughter?’
‘Ours are just called by my husband’s name. A lot of feminists have the kids take theirs.’
The baroness snorted. ‘Why does everything have to be so complicated? If you ask me, it’s just another example of conspicuous American consumption. A sort of surf ’n’ turf variation of nomenclature.’
‘I was telling you about Dean Diane Pappas-Lott.’
‘Another philistine, presumably.’
‘Oh, boy, is she a philistine. And a fundamentalist. And a zealot. She’s worse than the Provost in some ways because she’s stupid and she can never see when she’s gone too far. She’s an ignorant sociologist who understands nothin’ but believes in diversity like Osama believes in Allah. I don’t say she’d kill for diversity but I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.’
‘Is she black?’
‘White, but pretending to have the credentials. Pappas is a Greek name, so she describes herself as a ‘woman of colour.’ And she alleges she’s bi-sexual, but who knows?’ She snorted. ‘I’d rather have Horace as dean than her.’
Hearing his name, Horace, who had just finished a piece of cheese, said ‘To be or not to be….Rubbish.’
‘To be or not to be, that is the question,’ shouted the baroness. ‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’
Horace ruminated, shouted ‘Rubbish’ a couple of times, followed it up with an ear-splitting ‘Whoo! Whoo!’ and adjourned to amuse himself on his swing.
‘Standards are dropping everywhere,’ said the baroness. ‘To get back to Godber, he said that since almost everything he’d spent his life building up had been comprehensively destroyed, he’d given up and was in negotiation to take early retirement. He didn’t have the energy to fight any more, and has decided he’d be better off cultivating his garden.
‘I asked him for details, and he told me a bit about how the Provost and the Dean between them had introduced the new courses for imbeciles and idlers, how the honours and pass grades had been compulsorily halved, how there was irresistible pressure on young staff to over-grade coursework, and how the Provost’s revamped kangaroo court as run by the Goon had been used to get rid of some of his best staff through manufactured complaints from intimidated students. It was getting really interesting, but then he had a phone call and said he had to go.’
She refilled their glasses. ‘Before he went, I asked him about the VRC group. He said he’d heard of it because of the Sentinel reports, but he was out of things these days. I asked him who’d know and he said you’d be a good source. To be precise, he said something along the lines of “Marjorie always knew what was going on. And even though they exiled her to Siberia, I’ll bet she still keeps her ears open.”’
‘Did he say that?’ Marjorie seemed pleased. ‘I hardly ever see Warren Godber these days, though we were hand in glove when I was Provost Haringey’s secretary.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘But we’ve no call to run across each other these days.’
‘Who is Provost Haringey?’
‘Was. Jim Haringey was Helen Fortier-Pritchardson’s predecessor. He died suddenly more than four years ago and I’m still all choked up about it.’ She paused and looked squarely at the baroness. ‘The inquest said it was an accident. Maybe. Some said it was suicide. If it was, then hogs fly sideways. But Warren and I thought it was probably murder.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was killed by a peanut.’
‘You mean he choked? The way Dubya nearly choked on a pretzel?’
‘No. It was an allergy. It was a funny thing. He never used to be allergic to peanuts, and he didn’t often eat them, but apparently allergies can build up, and one day several years back he had a peanut butter sandwich and went into anaphylactic shock. His throat was all swelled up and he couldn’t hardly breathe by the time the ambulance got to him, but they saved him. This time, he wasn’t so lucky.’
She brooded for a moment. ‘There were two funny things about what happened. How did the peanut get in his sandwich? And why didn’t he have his EpiPen?’ She saw the baroness was looking puzzled. ‘An EpiPen’s a kind of syringe with the antidote—adrenaline. Warren carried one everywhere. But it wasn’t on him when he took bad and it was never found.’
‘How did he come to eat the peanut?’
‘It was in the ham salad sandwich that he’d brought to work that morning. If Jim wasn’t going out to lunch—which he hardly ever did—he’d always buy a ham sandwich on his way to work and put it in the office fridge. He didn’t like the food in the cafeteria.’
‘Sound man,’ grunted the baroness.
‘That day, like most days, I made him coffee round midday and went out to grab a quick lunch. When I got back, he was lying on the floor just about breathin’ and his lips and throat were badly swollen. He couldn’t talk and he seemed nearly out of it.
‘I called the emergency services and then tried to help him. I knew because of how he looked that it was probably an allergic response. We’d discussed it a couple of times and I’d read stories in the press about anaphylactic shock.
‘I could see Jim had been trying to find his EpiPen. He’d turned his pockets inside out while he was lying on the floor. He couldn’t stand up to reach the phone. I searched and searched, but the EpiPen wasn’t there.’ She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t get my head round that. Jim was really careful about it. He knew traces of peanut could come up in food quite unexpectedly and that next time, he could die within a minute or two. So he’d always have an EpiPen in his jacket pocket, a spare in the car, and another at home.
‘I grabbed his keys, rang 911 again to tell them what he needed and what I was doing, and then ran to the parking lot. But by the time I got there and back, he wasn’t breathin’. I injected him with the EpiPen, but when the ambulance men arrived a couple of minutes later, they said he was dead.’
‘Sounds fishy to me, Marjorie. Very very fishy.’
***
‘It is fishy, damn it, Mary Lou.’
‘It’s four years ago, Jack. There’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘On the
contrary. There is something I can do about it. I have my methods.’
‘Which methods are you talking about?’
The baroness ground out her cigar into the ashtray as if it were a pestle. ‘I’ve already got myself a gumshoe,’ she announced, her voice redolent with triumph.
‘You’ve what?’
‘You heard.’
‘Why?’
‘I thought it was the done thing to do if intending to spend any appreciable time in the States.’
‘Are you going to stop being ridiculous?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Jack!!!!!!!!!!!!’
‘I wanted to know a bit more about the Provost’s hitman and—serendipitously—I happened to walk down a mean street and find a hero.’
‘The Provost’s what?’
‘I told you before.’
‘All you told me was that she had an unpleasant bit of work as her PA.’
‘She has the sinister Dr. Gonzales. I think he roughs up students so I’m having him investigated.’
Mary Lou paused to take this in. ‘Who or what have you hired?’
‘A rather delightful chap called Mike of M and V Private Investigators. I took to him immediately. Exactly what I hoped for in an American private eye.’
‘Trench-coat, fedora, and Colt 45, no doubt?’
‘I don’t know about the Colt 45, but Mike’s certainly got the trench-coat and fedora.’
‘Has he a partner called Velda with a figure a man would kill for?’
‘He certainly has a Velda, but sadly I haven’t yet had the chance to check out her figure. How do you know about her, anyway?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jack, have you never heard of Mike Hammer?’
‘Sort of,’ said the baroness. ‘But Mickey Spillane was a bit unsubtle I seem to remember. I was more of a Chandler man myself.’
‘Unsubtle isn’t quite the word. Hammer was given to blowing people’s guts out with his trusty rod even when only slightly piqued.’
‘This guy seems more even-tempered. Besides, he’s Mike Robinson. Perhaps he’s just a Spillane fan.’
‘Is he around ninety?’
‘More like twenty.’
‘Sounds like a weirdo. And a child to boot.’
‘Whatever or whoever he is,’ said the baroness, with as much dignity as she could muster, ‘I’ve hired him. If he’s no good, I’ll fire him. But if he delivers on Gonzales, I’ll get him on to checking out the prime suspect for Provost Haringey’s murder.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘President Dickinson, of course. He was in his office just down the corridor, and Marjorie said he had means, motive, and opportunity.’
‘Means?’
‘How hard is it to buy peanuts? Or how onerous to carry round a small packet awaiting your opportunity.’
‘Which was?’
‘Haringey was at a meeting in Dickinson’s office that morning where everyone took their jackets off. When everyone else had gone, Dickinson and Haringey stayed behind to try to resolve a major difference of opinion about grade inflation and failed, and in a rage, Haringey marched off without his jacket. Marjorie said she’d never seen him so angry. The jacket was delivered a few minutes later by the President’s secretary. So all the Pres had to do was to remove the EpiPen and then await an opportunity to insert the peanut in the sandwich in a fridge used by half a dozen people. Then fingers crossed that Marjorie wouldn’t be around when he ate it.’
‘Motive?’
‘The Provost was blocking him from turning the university into a factory. Apparently they absolutely hated each other.’
‘Couldn’t he just have fired him?’
‘Not that easy. Apparently Haringey was one tough cookie. But once he was dead, Dickinson was able to get the benighted Helen Fortier-Pritchardson in to do his dirty work. And she moved Marjorie out the day after she took over.’
‘Presumably the cops investigated all this.’
‘Only cursorily, apparently, and not at all after the inquest said it was an accident. The autopsy indicated that Haringey’s last mouthful of sandwich contained a peanut, but that didn’t prove it had been there when it left the shop. His wife tried to find out what had happened by following the time-honoured American custom of suing the sandwich shop for $100 million, but though her lawyers got a private eye on to it, they found nothing. They used peanuts in the shop and the sandwich-maker could theoretically have accidentally dropped one into the salad, but, as the sandwich shop pointed out, they went to great pains to avoid such a thing happening and someone could have put it in his sandwich deliberately when it was in the fridge or he could have done it himself.’
‘I love the idea of committing suicide with a peanut, Jack, but I’m too busy to get involved with an engaging mystery that happened four years ago and four thousand miles away.’
‘Pity. Traci said something intriguing last night that I must follow up on.’
‘Which was?’
‘Never you mind. You said you weren’t interested.’
‘Sulk then if you want to.’
‘I shall. Where’s Robert?’
‘Still dawdling around the Czech Republic.’
‘Getting bored?’
‘Not one bit, Jack. Forget about Robert and Rachel. You’ll be home before they are. Now apart from the matter of Haringey, the deceased, what are you up to?’
‘Pedagogy. I have an event tomorrow.’
‘What?’
‘The Distinguished Visiting Professors will speak to the final year humanities students and answer questions. The Dean of Humanities, the Greek woman of so-called colour, will be in the chair.’
‘How many do you expect?’
‘Hundreds and hundreds, apparently. It’ll be a full house, since….’ She wrinkled her nose with distaste. ‘They get something called a credit for just turning up. And as well it’s part of what they call the outreach programme, so the public can come if they like.’
‘I’d buy a ringside ticket to see you four together.’
‘Might be very tame. Constance and I no longer hate each other with the ferocity of yore and Rowley is just so boring I doubt if he’s likely to get me roused.’
‘Jimmy Rawlings?’
‘Ah, yes,’ said the baroness. ‘Jimmy Rawlings is a different matter entirely.
***
The following morning, the baroness stopped by Mike Robinson’s office. The curly-haired brunette in T-shirt and jeans tapping at her laptop was pretty, though not spectacularly so.
‘Are you Velda?’ asked the baroness.
‘Oh, he’s been giving you that bullshit, has he?’ said the woman fondly. She laughed. ‘The silly fantasising son-of-a-bitch. No, I’m Vera and I refuse to be called Velda. And he’s not Mike, he’s really Maurice. But he just can’t bear either of our real names, so he calls us after Mike Hammer and his girlfriend. I don’t mind. It’s a bit of fun. Our pet names for each other are Maurice-Mike and Vera-Velda.’
If this example of the American propensity to tell complete strangers their innermost secrets disconcerted the baroness, she didn’t show it. ‘I can’t really complain about the name business,’ she said, as she sat down in the armchair. ‘I don’t use my Christian name either. But should I distrust anything else he tells me?’
‘No, no. Mike’s a good P.I. Just gets a bit carried away with the retro stuff sometimes. Never interferes with the job, though. Are you his new client?’
‘Jack Troutbeck.’
‘I guessed you were. Mike described you accurately.’
‘As what?’
‘A no-nonsense broad.’
‘That’s me. Now I haven’t heard anything from your silly fantasising son-of-a-bitch since the night before last, though I’ve tried him a few times. Do you know how he’s getting on or has he run off with my five hundred dollar advance?’
Vera giggled. ‘Times are a bit hard, but Mike wouldn’t skip town with five hundred dollars. Or even five
thousand. He’s not like that. It’s just that he sees himself so much as the guy who works alone that he hates providing information along the way. Prefers to get back with the full story.’
‘I understand that.’
‘If he calls in, what’ll I tell him?’
‘That I want to see him asap. Preferably with you. There’s more afoot. I think I’ll be needing you both.’
***
‘Diversity is not something you can be half-hearted about,’ said Dean Pappas-Lott, a large woman with what looked suspiciously like a fake tan and hair so frizzy it looked as if she had suffered a severe electric shock. She was sitting behind a long table. To her left were Constance Darlington and Rowland Cunningham and to her right, the baroness and Jimmy Rawlings. All five had a large white card in front of them bearing their names. The white paper table-cloth bearing the trade-mark VRC message had been grabbed by the quivering Dean and dumped in a waste bin as soon as she arrived.
Having seen that they were variously described as Lady Connie, Lord Rowland, and Lady Ida, the three peers had requested a black marker and had written on the other side of their cards the more conventional version of their names. Not to be outdone, Jimmy Rawlings had changed his to Mujaahid, which he explained to them he used when meeting people who didn’t know him in his old incarnation as a boxer.
The baroness’s midnight-blue suit, made of fine wool, was severely tailored, and the blue-and-white polka dot blouse had a floppy bow. That it was a sartorial tribute to Margaret Thatcher was not lost on Constance.
Reading from a script, after a good deal of general welcoming waffle, Dean Pappas-Lott had embarked on what was clearly a familiar theme. ‘As you all know, here at Freeman U we’re passionate about embracing diversity. Embracing diversity is what makes a school a great school. Embracing diversity is what makes a society a great society. And embracing diversity is what will make this world a place where everyone can realise her or his potential.
‘Our goal, here at Freeman U, and we pursue it 24/7, is to give minorities the chance that the majority has shamefully denied them throughout human history. As Martin Luther King said, “Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” As Toni Morrison has said, “The range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither.”
