Murdering Americans

by Ruth Edwards

  ‘I don’t need trained interpreters. Just young Americans. And I’ve a couple of dozen of them at work now selecting what’s significant and responding to it where appropriate to try to elicit further information and/or recruit people to help with our day of action. Then there’s the crack unit downloading the information that helps bolster the case you’ve already constructed against Dickinson, Prichardson, and Gonzales. We’ll keep it coming. Betsy’s taking me back to Godber’s and will be straight back to the office to feed you the stuff as it arrives on her computer.’

  ‘Just try to make sure it’s in some known language,’ grumbled the baroness.

  ***

  ‘You and your fucking parrot,’ shrieked Acting Provost Pappas-Lott.

  The baroness threw a cloth over Horace’s cage to discourage him from continuing to shout “Rubbish.”

  ‘Come, come, Diane. I don’t know what’s particularly bothering you at present, but you shouldn’t take it out on an innocent bird. You might hurt his feelings and then where would you be? He recently learned my lawyer’s number.’

  ‘You’re behind this. I know you are. Don’t deny it.’

  The baroness leaned back in her chair and put her feet on the desk. ‘Behind what?’

  ‘This anti-diversity campaign. You’ve probably paid for the website, you motherfucker.’

  ‘The what? Oh, that Save Freeman University business they’re talking about in the local paper? What a quaint thought. I am but a humble British academic and a proud technological illiterate to boot. And incidentally, should you of all people really be using “motherfucker” as an epithet?’

  ‘You’ve done nothing but sneer and mock since you got here.’

  ‘I just make the odd joke.’

  ‘We don’t have jokes in Freeman U. How often do I have to tell you that humour is inappropriate.’ She fell into a chair and began to scream. ‘I don’t know why you’re trying to uphold the white patriarchy, but you’re probably working for the CIA. You probably had Helen and Ethan murdered.’

  The baroness reluctantly removed her feet from the desk, stood up and went over to her recumbent visitor. ‘If you don’t stop screaming, Diane, I’ll slap you. I don’t want Horace learning how to imitate you.’

  The noise stopped abruptly.

  ‘Now tell me why you’re here,’ said the baroness, in her most soothing tone.

  The Acting Provost gulped. ‘I panicked. There’s a message from the President telling me to close down the website and I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t start here if I were you. Haven’t you asked the campus police? Or your IT people?’

  ‘They say it isn’t illegal.’

  ‘That never stopped Dr. Gonzales.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Have you consulted the faculty deans?’

  She began to cry. ‘They won’t take me seriously. They’re all men.’

  ‘In that case, Diane, I suppose you’re stuck with the issue. Why is it a problem? I don’t know anything about websites, but aren’t there a lot of them out there? Why not let students give their opinions?’

  ‘They’re challenging everything we stand for.’

  ‘Well then you need to respond to the challenge, don’t you? Why don’t you go back to your office, send a message to the President that you can’t get the website closed down, read what’s appearing on it and see if you can get stuck into the debate. Maybe you’ll find some common ground. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at universities?’

  ‘Not at this one,’ sobbed the Acting Provost, as she trailed out of the room.

  The baroness rang Amiss. ‘To misquote the Duke of Wellington,’ she said, ‘I have seen the enemy, and by God she doesn’t frighten me.’

  ***

  It was a week later and the baroness was sitting with Martin Freeman on the terrace of his New Paddington home drinking home-made lemonade. He raised his head from the thick file she had presented him with and gazed at her in horror.

  ‘I’m deterring the children from taking law suits for the moment,’ she said. ‘No point in bankrupting the university. It’d be better to hang on to the money and try to restore Freeman University to what it’s supposed to be.’

  ‘I feel sick,’ said Freeman. ‘Sick and shocked. I was chairman of the Board that selected Henry Dickinson.’

  ‘What did he have that the competition didn’t have?’

  ‘The previous President had died suddenly and we needed an urgent replacement. We’d had a few disappointments by the time we interviewed Dickinson. Not that many people want to live in a backwater like New Paddington. Henry had a good reputation in Wall Street. Nothing flashy, just steady performance. And he seemed to be energetic and enthusiastic. I remember telling my wife that even if he didn’t live up to expectation, he’d be a heck of an improvement on his predecessor when it came to fund-raising. And he was.’

  ‘Had you met his wife at the time he was appointed?’

  ‘No. He said she couldn’t come with him to be interviewed because she was looking after her sick mother. If I’d known he had acquired someone like that tart, I’d have thought more than twice about his judgement. You think she drove him to it?’

  ‘I think she fired the engine of corruption.’

  Freeman leafed over a few more papers. ‘But I can’t believe what’s here. How could I let this happen on my watch?’

  ‘I’m afraid you fell into the trap Edmund Burke described of being a good man who did nothing and let evil prosper.’

  Freeman looked distressed. ‘I didn’t want trouble and I took refuge in the family belief that we should never interfere with the academic side of things. But you’re right. That doesn’t excuse me for having let all this go on under my nose.’

  ‘You weren’t much interested in the humanities, were you?’

  ‘No. Knew nothing about them. History and English and sociology and all that stuff were beyond me. I was always being told by the Provost and the President that Freeman U was at the cutting-edge of post-post-modernity and virtual savvy, whatever that meant. I didn’t pay attention. Engineering and Science were my thing and so at social functions I’d be inclined to talk to their deans or professors.’

  ‘And as you’ll see from the file, standards were up to snuff there until recently.’

  ‘How Dickinson could have thought he could sell places in those faculties beats me. Either the kids can do the math or they can’t do the math. Bridges have to stand up.’

  ‘It rather looks as if he’d decided to have a final grand sale before he rode into the sunset. If you look at the figures we’ve dug up, he seems to have acquired several million dollars in the last two years alone.’

  ‘How the heck could he do that?’

  ‘Rich, unscrupulous parents of thick, lazy children.’

  ‘There’s no lack of those, I guess.’

  ‘Certainly not where Freeman is concerned. Dickinson was offering a fine service, which presumably became quickly known about through word of mouth. The key was to do what the diversity industry call “de-emphasizing SATs.” Just by claiming minority status, applicants could get in through a rigged exam and interview. Best was to be black, of course….’

  ‘So that explains why Dickinson had established Africa as a good market….’

  ‘That’s right. But even if your child couldn’t plead colour, there was always sexual orientation. If no one’s asking questions, just claiming to be bi-sexual is enough.’

  ‘And they got decent grades….’

  ‘Because standards plummeted, courses were introduced which my parrot could probably have passed assuming he’d turned up to class and claimed to be bi-sexual, and there were no penalties for plagiarism. In the case of the really rich and corrupt, you could order your essays and course-work on the internet, cheat at exams, and even pay another student to do everything for you including physically taking your classes. Hence the high turnover in staf
f and the demoralisation of good people like Warren Godber.’

  Freeman looked even more depressed. ‘Why didn’t he come to me?’

  ‘It would have looked like sour grapes. Besides, your policy of non-interference was well-known.’

  ‘The Provost? What was going on with the Provost? Was she corrupt as well?’

  ‘A different kind of corruption, as Dickinson realised early on. Our investigators have established that they knew each other while Haringey was alive.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Why would they tell you? Dickinson knew how he could make real money, but he needed a compliant Provost, so when he met Helen at a conference and got to know her, he realised he had what he was looking for: she was fanatical, smart and ruthless. As a natural totalitarian who hated everything for which a good university stands, particularly the curious, sceptical mind, she was desperate for power and prepared to do any deal to get it. As a mere Dean at the time, she was limited in the damage she could do.

  ‘As far as Helen was concerned, Dickinson could do what he liked as long as she could too. She had the invaluable help of her PA and probably lover, Gonzales, a student she had saved years before in a different college from being thrown out for indolence and violence and who had later purchased himself respectability with a bogus Ph.D.

  ‘Haringey died and Dickinson influenced the head-hunters to recommend Helen, who embarked joyfully on her great experiment in social engineering by making students follow the party line and kow-tow to authority. Standards were a matter of no importance, so she lowered them to please Dickinson. In no time at all, her files reveal, with the help of Gonzales, she was proving the point that absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.’

  ‘But she was so charming.’

  The baroness raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘Hey, sorry, Jack. I should know better than to say something so dumb. Look at businessmen. And politicians. Why shouldn’t academics be as false?’

  ‘Quite. Indeed why shouldn’t they be even more false? The people in their power are children who are easily taken in and staff terrified of missing out on tenure. Or of being framed.’

  Freeman flicked back a few pages. ‘But you’re saying that Gonzales was that ornery? That he actually had kids beaten up.’

  ‘Beaten up, threatened, frightened, blackmailed—whatever it took. He was a cunning chap who had excellent sources of information on campus. Paid sources. And the kangaroo-court….’

  ‘You mean the Office of Student Judicial Affairs?’

  ‘That’s it. Helen introduced it with the backing of the President so thenceforward the troublesome and comparatively poor among the students stood no chance. Once they introduced the notion that if someone felt hurt by something you said, you had said something hurtful, and that if someone thought you had demonstrated prejudice towards them you had done so, there was ample scope to throw out Jesus Christ on trumped-up charges.’

  Freeman thumbed through a few more pages. ‘There is some terrible stuff here. Do you really believe that it was the raped and injured that mostly were punished by the authorities after those frat and sorority hazings?’

  ‘The evidence is overwhelming, Martin. Think about it. If children know their parents have bought their places and that essentially they can do what they like as long as the money comes rolling in, why would they not do what they like? The same applied to the star athletes who were allowed to get away with anything—even sexual assaults on cheerleaders. We’re mostly savages at that age, if not tamed by discipline and authority. So your sense of impunity is liable to show itself in ill-treating the poorer and most vulnerable students when you’re all drunk together. And when you’re seen to escape the consequences, you encourage others.’

  ‘Absolute power and all that….’

  ‘Precisely. Which takes us to Haringey.’

  ‘Jim Haringey was a good man,’ said Freeman. ‘I was real sorry when he had his accident.’ He looked at the baroness. ‘Oh, I guess you think it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I suppose it would have been one heck of a coincidence.’

  ‘You’ll see an analysis of it in that file, Martin. Either Dickinson is a murderer or he’s incredibly lucky. Marjorie said Haringey was thwarting him at every turn by insisting that academic standards were immutable. And he’d met his ideal replacement.’

  ‘So that’s likely one murder. You think Gonzales was responsible for the car crash.’

  ‘The brakes were definitely tampered with. Crudely. Gonzales may well have done it himself but I’m sure that at the very least he had it done. We’ve established from one of his spies that he knew I’d been to see Mike, and I bet he had him followed to Ohio.’

  ‘But who then killed Gonzales and Helen?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue, though maybe there’ll be a breakthrough in the next day or so. Marjorie thinks Dickinson, though there’s no evidence at all. I’ve heard the D.A. has finally decided to do something to locate the mysterious running man. Mind you, I think it not impossible that one of the people victimised by the Provost and/or Gonzales might have been opportunistic enough to do him in. I’ve got a P.I. checking out which of their victims might have been around New Paddington at the time of the murder but he’s found nothing yet.’

  ‘So what are we going to do now? Have Dickinson arrested for corruption or murder or both?’

  ‘We’ve no proof that would stand up in court even on corruption as yet, Martin. I think Dickinson’s lawyers would have a field-day with what’s here. A lot of our evidence has been gathered illegally through hacking or through copying confidential university documents. Much of the students’ evidence is still anonymous. They’re going to have to take a deep breath at the right moment and stand up together knowing they won’t be victimised.’

  ‘So what’s your plan?’

  ‘Take over Founder’s Day for a massive protest against the President in the presence of thousands of parents. We’ll need your help.’

  ‘You’re really a pirate, aren’t you, Jack,’ observed Freeman. ‘Very well. Tell me what I have to do to help you take over the ship.’

  ***

  ‘I’ve done my job,’ said the baroness, smacking her lips as she tasted her wine. ‘Hmmmmmmmmm! I really like that Barolo. Stefano has done well, don’t you think, Robert?’

  ‘There’s much more to be done, Jack. Getting Freeman on side was the easy bit. Now we have to get the troops on the parade ground disciplined and drilled.’

  ‘That’s a job for a sergeant-major. Not for a general. Generals sit in their armchairs sipping good wine and planning how many troops to send over the top at dawn.’

  ‘That was World War I generals, Jack. This is the twenty-first century. Even generals have to be more egalitarian these days.’

  ‘Heaven forfend! This campaign is supposed to be about turning the clock back, dammit.’

  ‘Jack!’

  ‘You’re such a spoil-sport.’ She reached out for the bottle with a sigh of resignation. ‘Oh, very well, then. What do you want me to do?’

  ***

  From: Robert Amiss

  To: Rachel Simon; Mary Lou Denslow; Ellis Pooley; Jim Milton; Myles Cavendish

  Date: Fri 30/06/2006 21.07

  Subject: Viva la revolution!

  The last few days have been so enjoyable I’ve been thinking I might go into the revolutionary business full-time as a mercenary. I’m already well paid here for my labours, but I need to hit the big-time, perhaps starting by taking over obscure African republics and then moving into more challenging territory in Central America. Should be pots of money in it and then I can write my memoirs. Something’s got to be more lucrative than writing crime novels.

  Straight from the Department-of-You-Couldn’t-Make-It-Up is the fact that Jack Troutbeck is leading a ‘Save Freeman University’ army of neo-Puritans acquired through the imaginative use of new technology. What’s even more satisfy
ing is that our New Model Army seems to be as diverse as even the deceased Provost could have wished: I don’t know if we’ve any cross-dressers or transsexuals, who were mostly figments of the administration’s imagination, but our recruits include most categories of sexual orientation, race, and religion. Quite apart from the students who were already in a state of silent desperation about the state of affairs on campus, there are innumerable others who have been radicalised by the revelations of the website and who are dying to participate in a demo to bring about regime change. There’s a large body of Muslim students who are particularly enthusiastic, since they are as keen on the work-ethic as they are revolted by debauchery and they are sick of being assumed to be Islamists.

  A website innovation of which I am particularly proud is the space we’ve offered the FU administration to make its case. I know those of you with time to idle away on the computer will already know this, but for those of you who haven’t, trust me, it has truly been priceless. True to her previous form, the Acting Provost provided a rambling defence of diversity laden with pious quotes, e.g., from Maya Angelou, ‘We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.’

  Since if you’ve the internet and brains you can find quotations in no time, I set someone on a counter-attack, starting with Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’ A neat statement of one of the tenets of SFU: that we should have a colour-blind society.

  We dragged the debate onto the issue of conformity of thought and speech, of which the Acting Provost’s quotes were all in favour, and threw at her good liberals like JFK (‘Conformity is that jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth’) and the feminist lesbian Rita Mae Brown (‘The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.’)

  And when she was on the ropes, we upset her with an attack on moral relativism. When she produced some crap about all cultures being equal, we came back asking her if she approved of wife-beating, female circumcision, and beheading gays. And to finish off, we threw in some heretical quotes from such dead white males as Mark Twain (‘It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races’), Robert A. Heinlein (‘One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh’) and finally William Henry III (‘It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose.’) After that she retired. Presumably in hysterics.