‘Yes, sure, but don’t waste your time on me, Mr Milton. If you’re worth close on a billion bucks you’re not going to go murdering people over a small business hiccup like this.’
‘How much were you offering Piers Papworth for an unencumbered Wrangler?’
‘Five million.’
‘Five million pounds?’
‘Yeah, sure. I know it’s a lot, but I kinda want it. Like some people want a yacht. It’s a fun investment and could be good. It’s got the name—until I change it—it’s got the age, it’s got the kudos and it gives me a great jumping-off ground here. And anyway, it’ll be a handy tax loss. Besides, Piers drove a hard bargain. Pointed out the grief it’d be causing in the family. And it sure has. His pa’s mad. His ma’s mad. And though they’re being kinda English and civilized, it’s a big strain. Piers said, and I agreed, that he deserved a big bonus for fucking up his relationship with his parents.’
‘You’re not going to renege on him the way you would have on Lambie Crump?’
‘Renege on the Honourable Piers Papworth? Fat chance. He got it in writing that if the journal’s available and free of the trust within two years, I’ll buy it for five mill.’ She grinned happily. ‘Anyway, the other bonus is that with money like that at stake Piers’ll really try.’
‘Do you think he might have gone so far as to murder Potbury?’
She shrugged. ‘Never thought about it. Thought the guy just fell into the punch. Gave me a good laugh.’
‘Do you think Mr Papworth would be capable of murder?’
‘How do I know? I hardly know the guy. Hard bastard, I’d say, but wouldn’t have thought he was as hard as that. And I wouldn’t approve of it either. You don’t want to bring murder into legit business. I’m not running a fucking Mafia operation.’
‘What about Lambie Crump as a possible murderer?’
‘Jeez, I wouldn’t expect that guy to know how to kill a kitten. But what do I know? Sometimes that kind’s the worst.’ She glanced at the Rolex again. ‘Is that it?’
‘Almost, Miss McGregor. But I’d like to know what happened after Potbury’s death.’
‘Oh, that was pretty pissy. Thought it was going to be OK then, but the old man pulls a fast one and puts on that Troutbeck broad instead of him. I wasn’t bothered at first. I’d met her and thought she was OK. Sure, I knew she was tough. But she was on the make as well. Wanted big bucks for that college of hers. So I thought I had her.’ She snorted. ‘Canyabelieve I offered her one hundred K just like that to buy the land she wanted and when I make it clear there’s a string attached, she turns me down flat?’
‘Do you mean you tried to bribe her?’
‘I don’t bribe, Mr Milton. You can get into trouble bribing. I pay people for their help and I pay them well. That’s why I get so much help.’
‘But not from Lady Troutbeck.’
‘No. Who’d have thought it? She’s just as soft in the head as the Potbury bastard when it comes to funny old notions: noblesse oblige and all that, Piers says it’s called. And now Lambie Crump’s dead so I’m worse off than before. I’ll bet old Jack Troutbeck’ll be beating up those gaga trustees even as we speak. Well, may the best woman win. Now, is that OK? Have you got all you want?’
‘That’s fine for now, Miss McGregor. We’re grateful to you for being such an admirably frank witness.’
‘Frankness saves time: bullshit costs money.’ And with a nod she got up and strode from the room.
Chapter Twenty-three
‘Can you believe it, Jack? Sales were up by forty per cent last week.’
‘Not bad. How much is because of publicity arising from Crump’s murder?’
‘Only a little. Circulation went up by just a few thousand in the first week, but because I got going immediately with the advertising campaign, we’ve gone up another twelve thousand. Now we’re going hell for leather devising various kinds of circulation-boosters and subscription-bribes and all the rest of it. In other words, at last we’re going to be doing what all our competitors do.’
‘I saw one of those ads. Thought it was pretty revolting.’
‘Which one?’
‘We Wrangle. Do You?’
‘Stop being so bloody critical, Jack. I had to think it up pretty rapidly, since name-recognition is all the rage these days and I wanted to capitalize on the wider fame that poor Willie’s death has brought us.’
The baroness had lost interest. ‘I’ve found you some talent.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’ve always fancied myself as one of those influential behind-the-scenes dons who select the perfect recruits for higher academia or sexy media jobs or MI5 or whatever, and I think I’ve found just the one for you: young, female, sexy and iconoclastic.’
‘But we’ve got one of those, Jack. We’ve got Amaryllis.’
‘No, no, no. Amaryllis is precocious. Her stuff could be written by someone twenty-five years her senior. This one is fresh, lively and irritating but demonstrably young. She’s still an undergraduate, for God’s sake.’
‘What are her politics?’
‘Rabid libertarian, of course.’
‘You mean she’s a clone of yours?’
‘No. I’m an old libertarian: she’s a young libertarian. Basically she’ll be writing about what a crowd of dumbed-down tosspots the younger generation are. I told her to try something out for you and I’m faxing it now: it’s mostly a savaging of all those ill-fated attempts of universities to bring themselves up to date by providing courses in subjects they shouldn’t touch—like business studies, computer technology and—God help us—even writing and publishing. Pretoria Rooke’s a great one for rigour.’
Amiss could not deny the article was entertaining: the Troutbeck protégée had wit, ruthlessness and originality. With amendments amounting to no more than two commas and—as a gesture to the lawyers—the removal of the names of two particularly excoriated vice chancellors, Amiss approved the article for that week. He added to the list of articles on the cover, ‘Letter From an Undergraduette’—a title he hoped that by annoying everyone, including the author, would start up an enraged correspondence.
***
A week later, the Honourable Piers Papworth opened his front door, looking red-eyed and irritable. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘Chief Superintendent James Milton and Sergeant Tewkesbury, Mr Papworth. I arranged with your wife that I would catch you here now.’
‘I don’t know what possessed her to agree to that,’ said Papworth. ‘I’ve had a twenty-four-hour flight and I’m tired and want to go to bed. I certainly don’t want to be cross-examined. You’ve got a cheek waylaying me at home like this.’
‘Too bad,’ said Milton in a steely voice. ‘A conversation with you, Mr Papworth, is long overdue. We’ve waited three weeks and can’t wait any longer.’
‘Oh, fuck,’ said Papworth. ‘I suppose I’d better get it over with. Come in.’
He led them through the hall and into a pleasant drawing room. ‘Sit down, then,’ he said, as he threw himself into an armchair. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘The nature of your involvement with Miss McGregor and what exactly you’ve been up to with regards to The Wrangler.’
‘You must know all that already. I don’t want the bloody thing. That’s been pretty strikingly obvious, hasn’t it? All sorts of people must have been snooping to you about that, not excluding my dear old pa.’
‘And you didn’t want it because…?’
‘Because it’s a fucking drain on the family finances, that’s why. A piece of out-of-date sentiment. The Papworths can’t afford that kind of expensive nostalgia. Pa should have got rid of it years ago or at least stopped it taking every spare penny we had.’
‘Though I gather the losses have been stemmed pretty
dramatically over the past few months.’
‘Yes, that’s true. It’s bad now but it was much worse then. But he wouldn’t even have done something about that if I hadn’t nagged and nagged.’ He looked at Milton crossly. ‘The days are long gone when people like us should be proprietors of anything except the public conveniences we call home. And I’ll do my bit there when Pa dies to try to keep Papworth Castle going. That’s been haemorrhaging money as well, but I know what has to be done to keep it going. If I have to turn it into a fucking theme park I’ll turn it into a fucking theme park.
‘My family and I will live in the warmer bits. We’ll take fivers off the proletariat and in exchange they’ll be allowed to overrun our property, peer at our belongings, ride on our roundabouts or whatever we install for their diversion. We’ll have vulgarities like Papworth potpourri and teatowels, and if we do all those things we might save the place, despite the bloody death duties. But there’s no chance of doing that until we can raise money for investment from selling The Wrangler.’
‘You expect a sizeable sum of money, sir, I gather.’
‘Yes, but as you’ll have heard, that depends on doing the business with the trust, and up to now we’ve been buggered by the high-minded intelligentsia. How sodding easy it was for Henry Potbury to emerge from his stupor to lecture about principle and tradition and what we owe the great intellects of the past. He’s had a fat salary for years out of the Papworth estate—the same as Lambie Crump and the rest of the wankers. And now there’s this old bitch of a baroness, who’s even more of a menace.’
‘Yet your father was on Potbury’s side, Mr Papworth.’
‘Sodding easy for him too. He’s a great man for the pro bono publico shit. Spent most of his life slogging away in the Lords defending tradition and decency in public life. And where does that get him and the others like him? Despised and mocked and threatened with extinction by these miserable gits that we’ve got ruling us now. And meanwhile he let The Wrangler bleed him dry and obstinately refuses to face what’s going to happen when he dies. He just can’t accept that the whole Papworth heritage will crumble because I simply won’t be able to pay the death duties. Unless I can get that money from Sharon McGregor.’
‘What do you do for a living, Mr Papworth?’
‘I’ve been a moderately successful banker, I’m a moderately successful farmer and I keep a moderately successful eye on our Australian property, which, of course, has been yielding too small a profit because my pa naturally took a high-minded view of our duties to sitting tenants. I wish he’d take a similarly high-minded view of his duties to his son and heir. I’ve just been spending three weeks trying to sort out a dispute between two tenants and the net result is another great loss for the Papworths, since Pa decreed that neither of them must suffer financially.’
‘So clearly it mattered hugely to you to break this trust.’
‘Yes, it did. And it does.’
‘And Mr Potbury was in the way.’
‘Indeed he was. And so is Baroness Troutbeck. And so, above all, is my father. But murdering people for money is not the Papworth way.’ He smiled quite pleasantly. ‘Our motto is “endure or perish” and we’re good at enduring. If it comes to it, my wife and I will endure whatever hardship and humiliation is necessary to save Papworth Castle.’
He sat up and looked straight at Milton. ‘Listen, do you really think I’m prepared to put the whole family fortune in jeopardy by knocking off old Potbury—richly though he deserved to be knocked off. For God’s sake, if I did and was caught, my wife would have to cope alone with the castle and two useless teenage children who’d burn the whole place down if the insurance was good enough.’
‘And you’ve no idea who else might have wanted to kill him?’
‘No. Like me, Sharon would have liked him out of the way. Like me, murdering him wasn’t an option.’
‘And Lambie Crump?’
‘Good God, what can I say about Lambie Crump? He was on our side. He’d have lied and cheated for us when it came to the crunch if he was going to make enough out of it.’
‘But would he have murdered Potbury?’
‘I never believed Willie Lambie Crump had the balls of a gnat, though I suppose you never know. Sorry, I can’t help you. I don’t believe Potbury was murdered. If I were you, I’d write that off and just concentrate on Willie. I’ll lay you ten to one he was done by some pansy he picked up, patronized and under-paid.’
***
‘I give up,’ said Milton to Amiss.
‘What do you mean, “give up”?’
‘I mean there’s nowhere to go on this. I can find motives and opportunity for the murder of Potbury but no evidence. I can find no motives and lots of opportunity for the murder of Crump and again no evidence. It makes no sense whatsoever to view them both as murders.’
‘I admit it’s hard to see why the same person would have done for them both.’
‘It’s bloody impossible. But neither can I think of any hypothesis that explains two murders and two murderers. Can you?’
‘Oh, bugger it,’ said Amiss. ‘I can’t. I admit that the more I think about it the more I begin to think that Henry wasn’t murdered at all. After all, why has nobody tried to murder Jack, who’s filling precisely the same role as Henry, but even more effectively?’
‘One reason is simply that we’re about. It would take a brave man to try to kill her when we’re around the place: the Cambridge police have been keeping an ostentatious eye on St Martha’s. What’s more, if anyone got her, it would be virtual proof that Henry was murdered too and would therefore narrow down the suspects. It’d be madness.’
‘So what are you going to do now?’
‘Quit if I can. For the moment at least. Even Tewkesbury agrees. He still believes in his heart that Lambie Crump was rubbed out by some mad right-winger, and I still think it was because of greed. But we see no option but to write a report recommending that the case lie fallow.’
‘Which leaves us in a very difficult position here, still not knowing if there is a killer on the staff.’
‘I think you can assure Lord Papworth that it is highly unlikely that either Winterton or Phoebe Somerfield murdered Crump, while it’s quite definite that neither Webber nor Amaryllis Vercoe did. Anyway, he’d be mad not to keep you on as editor. That last issue was terrific.’
Amiss beamed. ‘Things are certainly going extraordinarily well. I think the literary section’s going to be wonderful since I replaced that boring pillock Wilfred Parry with someone who actually loves books. Circulation’s doubled and we’re almost breaking even. Costs are down too. I finally managed to boot Naggiar off to early retirement at Chateau Hypochondria on medical grounds and Ricketts actually asked if he could go part time. I’ve brought in an assistant for Jason, who’s now gradually taking over as administrator, which he’ll do fine if I’m there to take strategic decisions and do the tactful things. All is going beautifully.’
‘So if Lord Papworth offers you the job permanently, will you take it?’
‘I’m trying not to think of it. I’ve still got a question mark over the politics and I’m still not sure that the world of the media is for me. And as well as that, I’d hate to decide I wanted it and then be disappointed.’
‘But you will.’
‘I might.’
‘And if you did, would it make Rachel happy?’
‘I don’t know if anything will make Rachel happy, so I’m not taking that into account. She wants me to be successful, yet all my better coups drive her frantic. She froths at the mouth over the advent of Pretoria, for instance.’
‘But Pretoria’s fun.’
‘You’re not supposed to be or have fun these days. Who was it who said that the trouble with the new young Labour MPs was that they thought “fun” was an acronym?’
‘Well, I hope Papworth has the sense to beg you to stay on and that you’ve the sense to agree. I’m delighted how it’s worked out for you, Robert. If anyone deserved a break, you did.’
He stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch. But formally I wish you a future at The Wrangler uncomplicated by deaths and detection.’ He wondered as he left the room if he’d been right to conclude that the expression that flittered across Amiss’s face as he spoke was slightly wistful.
***
‘About time you met,’ said the baroness.
Amiss eyed her companion rather apprehensively. Pretoria Rooke was thin and sexy. She wore a short, tight-fitting ribbed sweater that showed off her navel-ring to advantage. Her jeans were skintight, her dyed blonde hair spiky with gel. She had four rings in one ear and two in the other, but mercifully—for Amiss was squeamish—her nose was innocent of metal.
As they began dinner in the mistress’s private dining room, Amiss felt like a grandfather, but Pretoria’s precociousness, her mischievous sense of humour and the surprising extent of her intellectual capital shrank the years. And since she and the baroness were so familiar with each other in a jolly, female-anarchist kind of way, all barriers of age disintegrated. Even Plutarch, prowling around and demanding food and attention, added to the general gaiety.
Amiss realized that—like the baroness—Pretoria had in abundance a quality he had always lacked. She knew whom she hated, she knew why, she wished to hound them to their death, she loved the thrill of the chase and she most enjoyed the kill. She was a star, and one with the brains, breadth, originality and verve to keep Wrangler readers—particularly the young—happy for a long time to come. He felt very relieved that as a result of guessing the competition must be after her, he had written to her after her second article thanking her and quadrupling her fee. He hoped that this evening would help to bind her to The Wrangler with bonds of loyalty and affection.
It was after the second brandy and a conversation raucously uncharitable at the expense of great stars of the written and broadcast media, that the baroness jumped up, said abruptly: ‘I’m off. Early start,’ and disappeared.
Publish and Be Murdered Page 20
