Dear Chief Superintendent Milton,
As a responsible citizen I’ve got nothing against the police, or indeed, against the remaining members of the Knapper-Warburton committee, except Lady Karp and Professor Ferriter, so I don’t want to inconvenience you any further. The attached short tape should make things clear.
Yours sincerely,
Frank S. Birkett
PS You should know that I’ve sent copies of this to several newspapers, so it can’t be kept quiet. And if you try to ban them from printing it, I’ll get it on the Net somehow.
Milton summoned Pooley and they listened together. Birkett began by introducing himself fully, helpfully including his date of birth, his mother’s maiden name and his medical card number as proof of his identity. It was clear he was reading his statement, for there were no hesitations, no pauses to find the right words. As ever, he sounded calm and polite.
‘It’s a simple story,’ he began. ‘My wife, Lizzie, and I were able to have just one child, Mary, whom we adored. She was a clever but shy and intense little thing, who lived a lot of the time in her imagination and loved to read and write.
‘From the time she was a child she scribbled and scribbled. At grammar school all her teachers praised her essays and we were proud as proud. Her big ambition was to get to university to study English Literature and we were all delighted when she got to Oxford. We didn’t know if she just had bad luck with her lecturers or what, but she came home at the end of the first term and said she was leaving. “Dad and Mum,” she said, “it’s a waste of time. It’s got nothing to do with enjoying books. It’s all about politics and scoring points and rubbishy theories and attacking dead people because they didn’t think like us.”
‘We argued with her, of course. Told her it was a great chance and it might get better. Even said maybe she should try another university. But she said she hated it all so much she couldn’t go on. “I don’t want to end up being put off literature,” she said. “It’s all right. I’ll get a job and I’ll still be able to read and I’ll write my novel. That’s what I really want to do.” And so she worked in a bookshop and though she didn’t get paid much she liked having books around her and she wrote away in the evenings. And then, when the novel was finished, she sent it off to what she thought was the likeliest publisher who sent it back with a rejection slip so fast she knew no one had read it. So she sent it to the next most likely and so on.
‘It was heartbreaking every time the post came and it was another rejection. Some of them said it was interesting or well-written but not for them. Lots of them didn’t seem to have read it. Others didn’t even reply. It’s only since I started to learn about the publishing world that I discovered that in those days most publishers were already expecting agents to do the job of finding new authors. Mary was too green to have known that. We were all green. We were a very close little family who probably kept ourselves to ourselves too much.
‘For all that Mary believed in her talent, she was a modest girl and she thought maybe the book wasn’t good enough so she rewrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and when it got turned down again and again she put it in a drawer and wrote another one. And this time she struck lucky. She had an answer from Hugo Hurlingham, who was then a publisher. He took her out to lunch, he spoke warmly about the quality and originality of her book, he promised to help her improve it and he said he would publish it enthusiastically and that she had a bright future.
‘You’ve never seen anyone so excited and happy. Then he took her out again and asked her to go to bed with him and she said no. After that he never answered her letters or returned her phone calls. Mary had been working for so long and so hard and had had so many disappointments that this further one put her into a terrible depression. The doctor put her on some pills and, in those days, people didn’t know about the side effects. She became very manic, went on about how after all she had no talent and one night she just jumped into the Thames. It took several days for her body to surface and during that time we were half-mad with worry.
‘I wrote to Hurlingham and told him she had killed herself and he didn’t even answer the letter. And what with grief and work and trying to help Lizzie, revenge was way down the menu at that time. I always told myself that if I got a chance I’d do for Hugo Hurlingham, but not while Lizzie was alive, and she lived on, miserably, poor thing, for another twenty years. Fortunately—because I was going to need cash—I sold our house because it was too big for just me and moved to a little rented flat nearby. And then, last year, the Warburton Prize was chaired by Hugo Hurlingham and all my old rage bubbled up again. I served him coffee and I served him lunch and I wondered about killing him.
‘I had a conscience, though. He was a lot older and even though he had a big opinion of himself, he was civil enough. Maybe he had reformed, I thought. So I began reading about him and about the literary world in all sorts of newspapers and magazines, learned to use a computer and spent hours on the internet. With nothing much else to do, I got quite absorbed in it. And then by the time the prize was awarded to Hermione Babcock, who I realised by then was one of his closest friends, I realised properly how corrupt he really was. And how corrupt a lot of those people were and how little chance people like my Mary had. So I decided to do something that would do more than avenge her, but bring that squalid little world to the notice of everyone.
‘I’m not a man who does things without thought, so by the time I had made up my mind what I was going to do, I heard that Babcock was going to chair the Knapper-Warburton and Hurlingham would be on the committee. Give the man another chance, I thought, just in case I’m being unfair. I’ve always been very proud of how fair the English are. So I went to one of those spy shops and got myself two of those bugging devices that I could clamp under the tables in the boardroom and the dining room and that transmitted to my car in the car-park outside.
‘After one of those Warburton meetings, I’d sit at home evening after evening listening to every word, and—putting it together with what I’d read—I was revolted by the corruption of it all. You could see with most of them it was all about their agendas and their networks and their prejudices. Hugo Hurlingham was on the make in Europe. Hermione Babcock was pushing a few people who would give her some job she was looking for. Den Smith lived only to do down people he didn’t like. Wysteria Wilcox was cruel and vain. Felix Ferriter was an academic with no love or understanding of literature—just the sort of person that had driven Mary away from university. And Rosa Karp was a time-serving, dangerous fool.
‘Geraint Griffiths was pushing an agenda too, but I didn’t think it was a selfish one, and anyway I agreed with him. Robert Amiss and Dervla were continually walked over, but seemed perfectly nice and harmless. As for Lady Troutbeck, who came on the scene later. Well! If I was in the business of killing people for having bad manners, then she’d be top of the list. But I’m not and anyway she seemed very sensible to me and she dealt with all the people I hated in a way I very much approved of. Anyway, I had decided that for the sake of young people like Mary I would kill the six members of the committee that the world would be better off without. I’m sorry I only managed four. For now, that is. But I’ll come back to that.
‘I decided from the beginning that I wasn’t the kind of person that’s cut out to murder people myself. The thing was to get others to do it for you. So I read crime reports, found out about a few pubs where villains are easily found and tested the water by placing an order for ricin, which I duly tried out successfully in Hermione Babcock’s vegetable curry. It didn’t cost much, and was money very well spent.
‘I really wanted the Wilcox woman drowned like the kitten the nasty old bitch pretended to be. I knew all about her favourite walk and her favourite place and all that from the internet and because she never stopped blethering about it over lunch. My criminal contact found me someone suitable and we went together to the Chiswick Eyot to suss it out. All he needed, he told me, were
a few hours’ notice, and I was able to give him that immediately after I heard Wilcox tell Rosa Karp at lunch that she was in such a terrible state after the car ride with mad Ida Troutbeck that she would have to go home and lie down and then go to her place of rest. My man was already hiding there when she arrived.
‘That murder was a lot more expensive, but I’ve been a frugal man all my life and none of the direct expenses made more than a little dent in my savings. Still, I spent a lot on the drive-by shootings, and was very disappointed that only two of them came to fruition. I already knew from the internet that Den Smith would be at the Cambridge Union that night, I had rung the offices of Hurlingham, Karp and Ferriter a few days earlier to ask if they’d be available to take part in a debate and had been told they were all otherwise engaged that night, so there were teams ready to wait near all their houses after ten. And then, to my big disappointment, the look-out men, who went to suss things out a few hours earlier, reported that both Ferriter and Karp had arrived home hours before they should have, so their assassins sadly had to be stood down. Still, they got Hugo Hurlingham, who mattered most, and Den Smith, who was a great bonus.
‘So what now? I planned it all very carefully over the past year. Nearly all my money is abroad and I’m going after it. I won’t be back and I’ll be very surprised if you’ll find me under my interesting new identity in an interesting place. However, I still have my contact among the criminal classes and I still have a great loathing for Felix Ferriter and Rosa Karp. But being, like I said, a fair man, I’ll give them a sporting chance. If he retires from academic life and stops making fools of those poor students and if she never again opens her idiotic mouth in public, they’ll be left alone. Professor Ferriter and Lady Karp, it’s quite simple. I’ll have access to the internet where I’m going and I’ll be checking on you. My message is quite straightforward. Shut up or die!’
Milton thought for a moment. ‘Right. I’ll have to take this to the AC and see if we can get the press to hold it until we’ve decided what to do. At the very least, Rosa Karp and Ferriter will have to be warned before this gets into the public sphere. Ellis, ring Jack, tell her it’s probable all this will be over shortly and that she should say nothing but convene that damned committee and choose the winner while they still have the chance.’
Pooley nodded. ‘Jack’s going to be unbearably pleased with herself.’
‘So is the AC if he spots that we were wrong about Birkett having no children. If we’d checked properly we’d have found out about the suicide and it might have led us in the right direction. However, let’s hope he’s too stupid to suss it out himself.’ He picked up the cassette player and strode off to the AC.
Epilogue
“I think we can pat ourselves on the back,” said the baroness. She was sitting at a circular table in a private room at ffeatherstonehaugh’s, beaming all around her. On her right was Rachel, welcomed back into the fold with a bear hug, on her left Mary Lou, and opposite them Milton, Pooley and Amiss. ‘We’ve plenty to celebrate apart from me being right and the chef getting good veal at last.’
‘Why have you divided us by gender, Jack?’ asked Amiss.
‘Too long an incarceration with Rosa Karp has got to you, Robert. I have not divided us by gender, I have merely placed beside me the people I want beside me.’
‘And we two are honoured because…?’ asked Mary Lou.
‘Delicacy forbids me to say anything about why Rachel is a guest of honour except that I’m pleased she’s recovered from her bout of insanity and hope she will in future hold on to her wits. And to Robert.’
‘Thank you, Jack. I’m so glad you’re being delicate. And I’ll try my best to meet your wishes on both counts.’
‘In your case, Mary Lou, while I’m lamenting your loss, I’m rejoicing in your new career—not least because you owe it all to me.’
‘I rather thought Mary Lou’s performance on Newsnight had something to do with it,’ observed Pooley.
‘Well, of course it had, you idiot. She was, of course, brilliant and beautiful, but if I might remind you, it was I who made Mary Lou a judge in the first place, it was I who was asked to appear and it was I who said I was too busy and bludgeoned them into taking Mary Lou instead. She’d never have been offered Hugo Hurlingham’s job or the arts programme if she hadn’t had that chance to wow the viewers.’
‘Incontrovertible,’ said Mary Lou. ‘I was just the humble instrument of a higher power.’
‘Drink up, drink up. Robert, attend to everyone’s glasses. The starters will be along in about fifteen minutes and will be accompanied by a New Zealand Sauvignon I’m particularly keen on. But we must not waste the champagne. One must never waste champagne.’
‘You owe me fifty quid, Robert,’ said Milton. ‘We got our man before you got yours.’
‘I don’t call receiving a confession through the post getting your man. Especially when you still haven’t the faintest idea where he is and will almost certainly never find him.’
‘I certainly hope not,’ said the baroness sternly. ‘I should be very annoyed if you did. Birkett might have been unsound on lamb but he was certainly sound on judges. The world’s a much better place without that ghastly quartet. And besides, if you banged up Birkett, Ferriter and Karp might revert to their wicked, wicked ways.’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment on Birkett,’ said Milton, ‘but I’m prepared to waive the bet, Robert, if you’ve actually finished the book.’
‘He hasn’t just finished it,’ said Rachel. ‘It’s good and he’s got an agent. So there.’
‘And you’re doing what, Rachel?’ asked Milton.
‘Nothing until Robert and I have gone on our long, aimless and lazy wander around Europe in the naff but comfortable second-hand motorhome we’ve just acquired.’
‘I envy you,’ said Milton. ‘That was something Ann and I were always going to do and never got round to doing because we were always too busy.’
‘You’re always too busy, Jim,’ said Pooley. ‘The last few weeks have just been ridiculous.’
‘Things will be much better now that Robinson’s been shunted sideways. He made such a balls of trying to silence the press over Birkett’s letter for no sane reason that the Commissioner actually bothered to hold an investigation of how the case had been conducted and found for me against him on every contentious issue. No one, thank heaven, picked up on our failure to find out about Birkett’s daughter. So I’m being promoted and he’s been shuffled into a non-job.’
The jabber of congratulations which followed was drowned out by the baroness. ‘Promoted to what?’
‘Commander.’
‘Excellent. Sounds suitably authoritative and grave.’ She beamed once more. ‘I must say, this is most satisfactory. Let me sum up. The case has been solved but the admirable murderer is free; Jim has been given the recognition he deserves and no longer has a craven and stupid boss; Mary Lou and Ellis are getting married, she’s beginning a new lucrative career and will stay a Fellow of St Martha’s and visit often enough to keep her hand in and me happy; Robert and Rachel are reunited and going off to enjoy themselves; and there’s even a chance that Robert might actually have found a line of work that he might stay with for five minutes.’
She leaned forward, grabbed a bottle and filled up her own glass. ‘Where was I? Oh, yes. Karp and Ferriter are silenced for ever, unless Birkett does something foolish and gets caught; the literary establishment is still reeling from the appalling press it received and is perforce cleaning up its act; that preposterous piece of EU self-aggrandisement, the Barbarossa Prize, has been aborted because the twenty-five-nation committee could not even agree on what constituted literature; and Geraint Griffiths has succeeded in putting Pursuing the Virgins so thoroughly on the map as to force both Muslims and Christians in this country to have an honest debate about what the hell we’re going to do about Islamofascists. What else?’
‘A good book won th
e Knapper-Warburton,’ pointed out Amiss.
‘The Manor House of Rosemonde is not just a good book,’ said the baroness, ‘it’s a fine book, perhaps even a great book. Even if it was written by a Hungarian about a frog.’
‘I’ve been so busy I never found out how you pulled off fixing it so a good book won,’ said Milton.
‘You explain it, Robert,’ said the baroness.
‘Even by Jack’s standards,’ said Amiss, ‘she behaved appallingly, with the aim, I realised, of ensuring that her enemies on the committee would always vote for books she seemed particularly to hate, thus ending up with a long-list full of appalling books liked at most by one or two judges. The short-list was made even more appalling by her manipulating things so that there was no vote, and that crackpots—both dead and alive—got to indulge themselves by choosing ridiculous titles, except for Hugo Hurlingham, who posthumously and with help chose Rosemonde, which Jack continued to rubbish. Are you with me so far?’
There were murmurs of agreement.
‘She then announced at the last session that the winner would be chosen by proportional representation and said something to me apparently intended to be sotto voce about Rosemonde being total crap and that she’d rather have Once and Future Heroes, the book that Griffiths, who actually liked Jack, hated above all—thus throwing him into a rage that caused him to give Rosemonde his number two. So the result of all this was that Rosemonde won overwhelmingly, since it turned out to be the first choice of Jack, Mary Lou and me and the second of everyone else.’
Milton took a thoughtful sip. ‘I think I follow this, but I’ve got two questions. First, what happened when they realised that she must have been misleading them all along?’
Carnage on the Committee: A Robert Amiss/Baroness Jack Troutbeck Mystery Page 22
