The Principals

by Bill James

  ‘But she might simply have been working alone in her room, before and after,’ Moss said.

  ‘Absolutely. Non-availability is undoubtedly conceivable. I might get telephone records to see whether she made or received calls during those uncharted minutes. If she did, it could clear her by proving what you’ve suggested. I want to be entirely fair, yet meticulously thorough.’

  Gormand, Medlicott, Ellison: these were three of Chote’s praetorian guard, his main and constant support. Moss sat bemused for some seconds, bemused and slightly scared at witnessing whatever it was that had taken Chote over. He had a very pale, long, aquiline face and it stayed pale and orderly now, showed no evidence of mental riot or bitter fantasising. How could that be?

  ‘You’re surprised at these names, I see,’ Lawford said, his voice kindly, sympathetic. ‘But a leader’s closest associates know his strengths and weaknesses best and might be more able than any others to use that knowledge to neutralize those strengths, exploit those weaknesses. Think of rulers killed by their bodyguards.’

  Mart thought, instead, of the John le Carré espionage novels: the obsessive line on betrayal in the Secret Service, and the hunt for a traitor among seeming colleagues and friends. Lawford Chote appeared to be taking that obsessiveness one stage further: into mania. ‘Availability to carry out some action is not the same as actually carrying it out, Principal,’ Moss said.

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ Chote replied. ‘It is a necessary preliminary to that action, though. I must watch these three. Perhaps you will help me in this, Mart? I don’t need an immediate answer. But give it thought, will you, please? We are talking about the well-being of Sedge. We may have in our care its safety, its continuing life, indeed. You may keep the papers for study and reference. They might help you realize the seriousness of the threat confronting us. The lists of times look so routine and harmless, yet what might they hide, Mart? Yes, what indeed?’

  TWELVE

  1987

  Of course, the injuries and general chaos that ended the banquet to mark Sedge’s centenary should have been foreseen. And, to be fair to himself, Mart Moss had expected some turbulence there, some joshing and teasing. What happened went way beyond this, though. Surely, nobody would have predicted such violence. Although the setting could hardly have been more dignified, time-blessed and uplifting, this failed to inspire a due response from some of the guests. Moss suspected they had deliberately planned their vandalism in advance. This wasn’t just a lark, spontaneous and childish, but well-organized destructiveness.

  The banquet took place in the magnificent Plain Parlour of Standfast Fort. This nicely restored and preserved castle dated from Tudor times and stood in the city centre. It was famous throughout the county and beyond for hosting high-grade knees-ups in its Plain Parlour. Standfast had been prominent during the seventeenth-century Civil War, on the Royalist side. At one stage it was, in fact, overrun by some of Oliver Cromwell’s troops and most histories of the period said Plain Parlour saw hand-to-hand fighting and even bloody deaths. No deaths now, but some scrappping.

  The regrettable behaviour at the Sedge centenary do was not caused by people wanting to re-enact in a playful, modern-dress way those Civil War ructions, but arose out of very contemporary opposed views and lively hatreds. The hiring charge for Plain Parlour, a bar and staffing was already steep. Damage and breakages caused to salvers, tureens and general crockery, to the lighting system, to some mahogany panelling (this disputed), and to chairs used as weapons and/or missiles, pushed the bill higher still. In any case, could it be altogether sane to put on this lavish function now? Martin would concede that it would honour Sedge’s one hundred years of existence and achievement, a very worthy aim; but also very expensive. Sedge would be stuck with the complete festive costs at a time when its finances were rumoured to be overstretched, perhaps terminally overstretched. Back at Sedge there might one day be fighting as rough as any ever witnessed in Plain Parlour, but it would be against bailiffs, not Roundheads.

  It hadn’t happened yet, though, and the jubilee proceeded. There had been several serious attempts to stop it altogether or, at least, to keep it modest and comparatively cheap. Lawford didn’t do modesty and despised anything cut-price. But, after all, 100 was no great age for a university: England and Europe had colleges and universities that went back to the Middle Ages. Luther lectured at Wittenberg in the early 1500s. Moss knew about one of these doomed efforts to cancel or shrink the pageantry because he had been involved in it – unwillingly and more or less accidentally involved, but involved just the same.

  He’d had a phone call on a Sunday morning at home in Maliphant Close from someone who said he was Ned Lane-Hinkton of the U.F.C. (Universities Finance Centre). ‘I’m coming down to Sedge tomorrow, Mart, and I wondered if we could meet up.’

  Moss had been startled to get what he assumed was a business call on a Sunday; surprised, too, that he should get a call at all from the U.F.C. This wasn’t his kind of terrain. He wouldn’t have thought anyone at the U.F.C. could even have heard of him, a non-Oxbridge Humanities prof, let alone address him by his shortened first name and suggest they ‘meet up’. Why ‘up’? Wasn’t it only Americans who met up? Brits met.

  ‘To do with what?’ Mart had said.

  ‘May I ask you to book somewhere for lunch?’ Lane-Hinkton replied. ‘Not the famed Sedge dining room, nor anywhere on university ground. Somewhere reasonably discreet in the town.’

  ‘Somewhere secret?’

  ‘Discreet. If poss. Know anywhere like that?’

  Moss gave him the name of a dockside pub where he and his wife used to eat now and then before the divorce. He couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone he knew lunching there.

  Lane-Hinkton turned out to be fat, jolly-looking, his voice confiding. The words arrived unrushed from one side of his mouth, varying right or left, depending not on the political flavour of what he was saying, but simply on where his listener, listeners, was, were. Moss thought Lane-Hinkton – (‘Ned, or Neddy, please, Mart’) – was abour twenty-seven or -eight, unmoustached, apparently untattooed, teeth his own and well looked after, very dark hair, pony-tailed and bound at the back with a plastic clasp of some sort. He was short, physically slow-moving, blue-black eyes, mouth open more often than not, as if he had trouble getting enough oxygen to his lungs, although his tongue looked radiantly hale. He wore shiny grey leather trousers, a pale red linen jacket, weighty brown, lace-up shoes, most probably advertised as ‘water-repellent’. Under the jacket he had on a formal white shirt with ruffles across the chest, a stiff collar and bow tie, one wing of it purple, the other turquoise.

  He was already at a table in The Lock Gate when Moss arrived and rose to welcome him. ‘Mart,’ he said, ‘grand to see you.’ Moss was to his left as he came into the dining room and Ned’s greeting was from that side of his mouth: the bow tie’s purple side. ‘Lovely place. They’ve got black-pudding hash on as Meal of the Day, one of my very favourites. Worth travelling from London for. One can get it in smart joints there, yes, but I always feel they’re doing it to show they know how to go basic peasant once in a while. Here, though, it seems natural. Quite possibly the black pud is top range Irish, maybe Clonakilty. Unbeatable. So eatable.’ He held out his hand and Moss shook it. Three other tables were occupied. ‘I’d have recognized you anywhere, Mart,’ Ned said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘The photo. Damn clear. A professional, I shouldn’t wonder. You, gazing very hard at the surrounds, obviously on a kind of survey.’

  ‘Which photo?’ Moss replied. So Lawford had been right.

  Ned sat down and Martin took the other chair. ‘Volvo,’ Lane-Hinkton said. ‘A copy came our way the way these things will in their own fashion, won’t they, Mart?’

  ‘Will they? Which way will they come in their own fashion?’

  ‘In one sense it’s the photo that brings me here,’ Lane-Hinkton said.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘What?’
/>   ‘Sense,’ Mart replied.

  ‘I can’t say it was the black-pudding hash because I didn’t know it would be on until I got here.’ He laughed mildly to offset the clunking plod of this logic.

  ‘In what sense, then, Ned?’

  He had the remains of his chuckle still softening the line of his lips. ‘In confidence, Mart, I prefer Neddy. It has that nursery touch about it; a toddler’s affectionate cognomen. People feel safe with me. They relax. I can surprise and floor the stupid sods by suddenly turning so fucking uncongenial and ruthless.’

  ‘Right, Neddy,’ Martin replied.

  ‘Oh, I don’t include you, Mart.’

  ‘Include me in what?’

  ‘As one of those stupid sods who can be fooled by a crude stratagem, viz, sticking a couple of extra letters on to Ned. You’d see through it.’

  ‘Is this another stratagem?’ Mart asked.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘To say I’d never be fooled by that cruder strategem,’ Moss said.

  ‘God, Mart, this conversation could go on and on, like the never-ending line of Banquo’s ghosts in Macbeth. We must focus on our main topic. The ride out to Charter was a special quest, wasn’t it? I’ve said a survey. Inventorying? We are inclined to regard it as one of those rites of passage – you’ll know the Golding novel of that title, naturally – something that possibly changes a life in the most profound style.’

  ‘Which we?’

  ‘And for a special quest he took a special guest: your very self, Mart. This would seem to proclaim a relationship – not a relationship in the relationship usage of Lady Chatterley’s Lover – about which more later – but a relationship of a work-related, professional, drift.’ Lane-Hinkton shook his head. It was severe reproof of himself. ‘Do forgive me, Mart, but I seem to be taking charge in a pushy, metropolitan way. Because I fancy the black-pudding hash so unambiguously, so vividly, so convinced that the onion-potato ratio of the hash will be perfect, I’m assuming you will fancy it, too. Arrogance! There’s liver and bacon, also, which, had there not been the black-pudding hash, I would have gone for. And this might well be your choice. Or they have a vegetarian course, or skate, or lasagne. Don’t let me bully you, Mart! I trend in that direction, I’m afraid. On my personnel dossier at U.F.C. there’s probably a note: “Ned is inclined to bully re black-pudding hash.” Wilt take some ale, or an Old Raj gin and bitters. I checked that they have max alc Old Raj.’

  ‘There’s a photo?’ Mart replied.

  ‘Well, as I said, Martin, it’s the photo that prompted the visit. Geraldine – she and I are the “we” – Geraldine thought I should come and have a word. And, clearly, what Geraldine in her newly enhanced power role at U.F.C. says goes. A moot, a suggestion, is an edict. Also clearly, what she is looking for, what, indeed, the whole of U.F.C. is looking for, is a convenient way to reach this maverick sod, Chote. When I say convenient, what I mean is a mode of reaching him which doesn’t touch off all his extreme and negative reactions leading to impasse. The time for impasses has passed, Mart, I think you’ll agree. There should no longer be impassible impasses.’

  ‘Reaching him?’

  ‘Get through to him. Get his attention. Get him to hear the warnings and respond rationally to them, not detonate or spit and/or sulk.’

  ‘Which warnings?’

  ‘Geraldine envisages a sort of go-between service,’ Ned replied. ‘But don’t take that as a slight, will you? This would be, will be, a crucial liaison role, with enormous implications. We need someone, and you seem wonderfully well suited, Mart. Cohabitation of the Volvo on that keynote saunter sends us this signal. Geraldine schemes a sort of devious, though legitimate, approach to Lawford. When Geraldine writes her memoirs they’ll be titled The Compleat Wangler.’

  Moss loved lunchtime drinking. Afternoons could be memorably or non-memorably improved by it. He’d come by bus and would get a taxi back. The English department had no teaching on Mondays. Traditionally it was regarded as a wind-down day after the weekend. But, by quick, intelligent adaptation, it could be used, too, as a weekend extension day, if, for example, a good lunch materialized. Ned must realize this about university Humanities departments or he wouldn’t have suggested the feed.

  He had the kind of teeth that would tell black-pudding hash who was boss. He and Mart both downed Old Raj and bitters to kick off with, then a bottle of Chilean white between them for the first course, kedgeree, and a claret magnum with Ned’s black-pudding hash and Mart’s liver and bacon. Mart took a half bottle of Sicilian Corvo with the cheeseboard and Ned had a bumper glass of Barsac for the sticky toffee pudding.

  During the main, Ned said in very kindly though not sloshed tone, ‘There’s quite a bit of affection for Lawford at U.F.C., flagrant shit-or-bust arsehole though he might be, Martin. We sincerely wish to help him and Sedge. Swapsies? I’ll give you a mouthful of my hash so you may marvel at the ingredients’ balance, and I will take a token square of your liver-tinged bacon.’

  For a moment Mart wanted to reject this idea, afraid that, when Ned said he would give Mart a hash mouthful, Lane-Hinkton meant his own mouthful. This to be delivered to Moss’s mouth by lips contact and a controlled disgorging from Ned’s right or left mouth area depending on how he felt it best to approach Mart as to tilt for the transfer – a move something like one motherly aircraft refuelling a small-fry plane in flight.

  But Ned meant only a cutlery-based exchange of samples, a piece of black-pudding garnished with hash from him, a strip of liver-boosted bacon from Mart. He’d had the black-pudding hash here on one of his visits with Grace and had found the hash too dense, and still did, though he said, ‘Excellent, yes. Oh, yes!’ And Ned praised the augmented bacon. Moss thought Neddy might regard this mutual mouthful savouring as a kind of blood-brothers bonding ritual. People spoke of ‘breaking bread’ with someone as a sign of abiding inter-dependence and friendship. This would be ‘breaking black-pudding hash’ or ‘liver-partnered bacon’, but perhaps Lane-Hinkton saw their across-the-table, non-drip forkings as a similar symbolic pledge of shared purpose and comradeliness.

  ‘It’s your newness, you see, Mart. This is what Geraldine homed in on. That’s one of her attributes – to home in on essentials. She doesn’t care for lav language, but if she did she would probably have as her motto “cut the crap”. As it is, she speaks of “getting to the inner”.’

  ‘Is that where I am?’ Moss replied.

  ‘We can’t go to Roy Gormand or Flora Ellison or Medlicott, Chote’s clique of cliques people, his devotees. They’re cowed. We wouldn’t be sure they’d do the job in the fashion it needs to be done.’

  ‘Which job? Which fashion?’

  ‘The warnings. Categorical.’

  Lane-Hinkton had brought complexities with him, as well as dress style. Chote’s clique of cliques, his devotees, were not relied on by Geraldine or Ned to ‘reach’ him, ‘get through’ to him, and they wanted Mart for that. But, alongside this, Chote’s attitude to his clique of cliques, his devotees, was troubled because he suspected one of them – more than one? – had given the treacherous word that put the cameraman in place and, apparently, produced a Volvo pic. Mart felt tugged in two directions, one to be Ned and Geraldine’s man and ‘reach’ Lawford; and, two, to be Lawford’s man and hunt down the spy or spies, if they existed, which, on balance, he thought they didn’t. Mart took a decidedly forceful swig of the claret – though from his glass, not the magnum bottle – a swig to clear his head, or to take him to an afternoon men’s spot where he didn’t have to worry whether his head were clear or not. Or even whether it was still there.

  ‘This meal, for instance, Mart.’

  ‘Always reliable.’

  ‘Oh, true. But, no, not this one.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘The Sedge Centenary feast,’ Lane-Hinkton said.

  ‘In Plain Parlour?’

  ‘Geraldine thinks it must not go ahead. Or not go ahead on the proposed scale.’


  ‘The thing about things … Sorry … The thing about events at Plain Parlour, Neddy, is that they have to be of a due grandeur and shape. The surroundings demand it. That kind of setting must be lived up to or the occasion’s a contemptible flop. History requires it, surely. The Charles aspect. The Cromwell aspect.’

  ‘This is why I referred to warnings, Martin. I’m not one to look down on history and neither is Geraldine, to my knowledge. The reverse in my own case. But, just as in hash, ratio is so important, and is acknowledged by you as admirable in the present dish, so there has to be a satis ratio between history and the present fucking dark situation menacing Sedge, owing to distortions in the ratio of Chote’s splendid leadership flair on one hand, and respect for the dictates of income and cash generally – or their looming lack – on the other. Now, Mart, I don’t want you to think I ordered the black-pudding hash merely to make a clever-clever allegorical point about potato-onion ratio and university governance. That would be a disgustingly calculating ploy. The black-pudding hash is brilliant in its own right, in its own Lock Gate right, as appreciatively endorsed by you. But the comparison of the hash and the Sedge Principalship came to me just now as a sudden revelation and I felt duty-bound to mention it. Perhaps I’m using imagery in the metaphysical poets’ fashion, where, at first sight the two sides of a metaphor seem utterly unlike, rather than like each other – for instance, the human body as a dungeon, in Andrew Marvell; or black-pudding hash and the principal of a university, here – but on second thought the resemblance is clear and striking.’