The English School of Murder

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  ‘Oh, curses.’ Amiss kicked the table in frustration.

  ‘Thanks very much, Bob.’

  Amiss slammed down the phone.

  ‘Poor Bob.’ Galina was standing by the door. ‘You are stood down for tomorrow evening? No?’

  ‘Stood up, yes.’

  ‘Why then you must come out with us. With Fabrice and me. And some of the others—maybe Simone, Ahmed. We will have a good time, no? Dancing, and maybe Gunther take us to play baccarat…’

  ‘Dreadfully sorry, Galina. I would have loved to, but I simply can’t.’

  She looked displeased. ‘Say me why not. You have an empty evening.’

  ‘I won’t be free. Three of us were meeting. Only one can’t come.’

  He had noticed before Galina’s propensity to get the bit between her teeth. ‘Well then you will bring the other one. Is it man or woman?’

  The effrontery of the rich still had the power to surprise Amiss; he felt like throttling the importunate bitch. ‘It’s a woman. But we’re meeting in Paris. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have a plane to catch. Bye-bye. Have a dance for me.’

  He disappeared at high speed and Galina returned pouting to the lounge, where Rich found her a couple of minutes later. ‘What is the matter, Galina my lovely? You look distressed. How can I cheer you up?’

  ‘Bob goes to Paris. It is for that reason he will not come with us tomorrow night.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll have a marvellous time even without him. I wish I could join you, but I have to visit my mother—in Birmingham.’

  Galina was lost in thought for a moment; then she looked up at Rich, her face transfigured. ‘Allora. I have a wonderful idea. You will give us a picnic. On Sunday.’

  It took all Rich’s considerable professionalism not to let his horror show. ‘I wish I could, Galina, but I have so much to do. For one thing, I have to organise my partner’s funeral.’

  ‘Ees not possible on a Sunday,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Please, please, Reech. My friend Giovanni Balducci, he told me about a picnic you have. I wish one.’

  Their eyes locked. Galina, blithely unconscious of Rich’s pain, summoned up her most implacable expression. ‘Reech, I do not like to be disappointed.’

  Rich’s shoulders sagged in defeat. For a moment he looked very old.

  ‘Oh, very well. How many do you want to come? We’d better keep it small.’

  Galina frowned, muttered under her breath and counted on her fingers. ‘Fabrice, Ahmed, Davina, Alessandro, Karl, you, me—we will be in seven.’ She thought again. ‘No, eight Reech. You must make Gavs come. Ahmed likes him.’

  ‘You will tell the other students?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘I will see you all here at lunchtime on Sunday.’ And Rich escaped to go home and continue mourning his friend.

  ***

  ‘Rachel, I’m at Heathrow. On stand-by. Should get to you at bedtime.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten I’m working tomorrow?’

  ‘No. But we can have Saturday night and most of Sunday, can’t we?’

  ‘Certainly. What a smashing surprise. Have you robbed a bank?’

  ‘No. You’ll have to lend me the money.’

  ‘Well, of course it’s a gentleman’s privilege to change his mind. What brought this about?’

  ‘I’ve had one of those birthdays.’

  Chapter 15

  Amiss felt at peace. He had had a most therapeutic day wandering aimlessly around Paris and had been thrilled to find again, purely by accident, the crêperie near the Sorbonne which he had frequented during the summer after he’d left Oxford. He enjoyed his inexpensive lunch there more than any of the extravagant meals he had had during the previous four days. ‘It would have been nicer had you been with me,’ he told Rachel when she joined him, much later, at their favourite restaurant. ‘But I had a lovely time anyway.’

  ‘You needed it,’ she said. ‘You badly needed a treat.’ She gave him a hug. ‘I’m so glad you came.’

  ‘Oh, so am I. I was an idiot not to come before. I don’t know why I was so obstinate about not borrowing money from you.’

  ‘Probably hidden anti-semitism. Fear that I’ll reveal myself at bottom as a usurer.’

  ‘Idiot. Will you have a drink to start?’

  ‘I certainly will. And can we order straight away? I’m starving. I had no time for lunch between meetings.’

  When they had ordered, and a plate of crudités had alleviated the worst pangs of Rachel’s hunger, she leaned back gratefully and emitted a long and happy sigh. ‘Oh, this is nice. Now divert me. I want to hear all about your BPs. All you managed to tell me last night was that you hated them all.’

  ‘I do, I do. And I feel so guilty about it.’

  ‘Robert, you’ve got a capacity for guilt that is positively Jewish. Where did you get it?’

  ‘Well I didn’t catch it from you, that’s for sure. How did you escape without it?’

  The waiter arrived and delivered Amiss’s garlic mushrooms and Rachel’s shellfish. ‘That’s another anomaly,’ she said, sounding slightly muffled through her first mouthful of moules marinière. ‘You’re the one with the Jewish stomach.’

  ‘I expect we were switched at birth.’

  They ate with concentration for a couple of minutes. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Now go on. Tell me why you’ve become a xenophobe.’

  Amiss ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I really really loathe them and it frightens me. You know how I abhor racial stereotyping, and all that sort of stuff—especially the negative kind.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Rachel. I’m being serious. I’m not talking about our yid/goy banter.’

  ‘Sorry, yes of course. You’re a fully paid-up nice liberal who keeps an open mind, avoids labelling people and scores very low indeed on racial prejudice.’ She finished the last of the moules, mopped some of the broth with the remains of her roll, chewed it enthusiastically, washed it down with a gulp of the house white, smacked her lips and looked enquiringly at Amiss. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  He looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘I mean it! You’re a nice person: it’s official.’

  ‘That’s good to know. In fact that’s what I thought I was. And it was certainly in that spirit that I approached this job.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’re all living up to the worst of the goddamn stereotypes, and I find myself thinking, “Just like a kraut/frog/wop or whatever.”’

  ‘Kike?’

  ‘We don’t get any of them—too hardworking for us.’

  ‘I have to say that if you’d spent the whole day arguing with French bureaucrats you’d believe in national stereotypes. When they weren’t shrugging and making moues, they were trying to change the rules without telling us.’

  ‘Oh, well, bureaucrats.’

  ‘Balls! It’s the French. Nothing like living abroad to make one robust about disliking other nations. Anyway, what makes it all right to disparage bureaucrats? Because you were one? Same way you’ve a licence to mock the English?’

  The waiter reappeared, served up their pot au feu and poured them some of the house red. Rachel raised her glass. ‘Happy Birthday, Robert. Now, as a favour to me, will you forget your liberal conscience and tell me why you hate them so much. And linger over it. I’m in the mood for unrelieved character assassination. Tell me about them one by one, in all their ghastliness.’

  ‘Starting with the least or most offensive?’

  ‘Oh, please save the worst till last. I always like a treat to finish.’

  ‘OK. I’ll save Ahmed until coffee. I think he’s the most awful, though of course I concede that it’s early days yet. Right. I think on the whole that Gunther is the least offensive, but he’s very hard to take nevertheless. Quick, quick. Bad thing about stereotype German? And don’t stop to think.’

  ‘Fat, ponderous, humourless.’

  ‘Perfect. Well, Gun
ther must weigh fifteen stone and tucks into the starchy foods at every opportunity. He carries a large pocket dictionary around with him and oblivious to his waiting audience, he halts mid-sentence to thumb through it for the mot juste; it is, he explains often, important to get things right. I said to him once that something wasn’t important, and he responded with, “Everything is of importance.”

  ‘He has to have every joke explained to him; in fact I truly believe he’s only just learning to grasp what jokes are. He can spot them now—they’re what has just happened when people laugh.’

  ‘He sounds boring, but not actually objectionable.’

  ‘You don’t allow that boring can be objectionable? Well, how about his preoccupation with status? Can you believe that Gunther wanted a conversation about the rank of the stripping WPC? I had to spell out every rank in the Met. In fact,’ and in his excitement Amiss dropped his fork on to his plate and spilled gravy on the tablecloth, ‘the only time I’ve ever seen him animated was when we talked about who called whom what in Britain. He was thunderstruck to learn that secretaries often called their bosses by their first names. Produced the response, “But how could this be? The boss he has no honorific? This is incredulous.”’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘Lives off his inheritance, as far as I can gather. His papa founded a pretty successful pharmaceutical company and he’s got a seat on the board. No chance of one not knowing. He’s got the company logo on his key-ring, socks, sweaters and probably underpants.’

  ‘And he’s in London for what?’

  ‘Gambling clubs.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Late forties.’

  ‘What does he look like as well as fat?’

  ‘Almost bald, but those hairs he does have are beautifully coiffed. My guess is he blow dries it daily.’

  Rachel frowned. ‘What would he have done in the war if he’d been old enough?’

  ‘Good question.’ Amiss ate thoughtfully. ‘I know. He’d have sat on the board of the company and asked no questions.’

  ‘Redeeming feature?’

  ‘Stolid good humour.’

  ‘You know that party game—what animal does he most resemble? Sounds as if he’d be a warthog.’

  ‘A carnivorous warthog. Gunther doesn’t consider it a meal unless he’s scoffed a few kilos of red meat.’

  She grimaced. ‘OK, that’s enough Gunther. Next worst?’

  Amiss pushed his plate away. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  He mimed coffee to the waiter.

  ‘Fabrice. Well, you’ve already done a bit of stereotyping of the French. What was it? Gallic gestures. Duplicitousness. Other negative characteristics?’

  ‘Food snobs, wine snobs, womanisers and think they’re God Almighty.’

  ‘Fabrice thinks if you get a good meal in London it’s because the chef is French. Therefore, if he doesn’t know who’s doing the cooking, he demands steak frites every time. He refuses to countenance any other than French wines. Californian? Australian? Bulgarian? Italian? All rubbish. He tells me he has a wife and two mistresses exclusively to himself, for all three of whom he’s just bought kilts at the Scotch House. And he’s at it with Galina. Yes, and he also thinks he’s God Almighty. And he says “Bof!”

  ‘What else? Oh yes. Every time he discovers a new quirk in the English language he assures me that “it is not logique”, and shows what an inferior language it is to French. All this along with aforementioned shrugs and moues.’

  ‘Is he sexy?’

  ‘Oh, I’d say so. Same age as Gunther, but slim, graceful and with lots of black hair with wings of white at the temples. Mind you, if I had half the money he spends on it I wouldn’t need to work. He’s bought lots of English clothes which he wears with careless elegance—le sports coat, le cashmere sweater, le Burberry raincoat, that sort of thing.’ He began to laugh.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Poor old Gunther. I heard from Gavs that they both went shopping separately last weekend and bought Burberrys. Came in on Monday wearing them and of course Gunther looked vile and Fabrice marvellous. Gunther hasn’t worn it since.’

  ‘Job?’

  ‘Owns a prosperous vineyard. As far as I can gather his wife actually runs it.’

  ‘Purpose of visit?’

  ‘Learn a bit of English; find a bit of new crumpet; avoid work.’

  ‘Redeeming feature?’

  ‘Honesty. When I asked him what was the essential problem in Anglo-French relations, he said, “We ’ate you.”’

  ‘I think I could get to like Fabrice. Animal?’

  ‘Only a camel, I think, could convey his quintessential snot-tiness.’

  ‘Who’s next?’

  ‘Simone, who’s Swiss. Well?’

  ‘Obsessed with cleanliness, order and keeping to rules. Boring, unimaginative?’

  ‘Yep. That’s our Simone. Eating anywhere she hasn’t eaten before is an act of heroism. We went to a Thai restaurant yesterday and she was convinced she would be forced to eat dog. As she goes through the city all she sees are dog turds and litter. Talks about nothing except the bloody germs that lie in wait for her all over London. Yesterday, over lunch, she told us that the previous night she had seen from her taxi something very disturbing.’

  ‘My God, let me guess. A badly rinsed teacup?’

  ‘A dosser asleep in a cardboard box. That shouldn’t be allowed, she explained. These people spread disease. Fabrice, to do him justice, said they had to sleep somewhere and what should be done with them. She said they should be put in jail.’

  ‘Yeech!’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Looks?’

  ‘Reminds me of nothing so much as a Swiss Doris Day, except her yellow hair is curled. She wears the modern equivalents of Peter Pan collars and gingham dirndl skirts. Expensive ones, mind: lots of lace, embroidery, that sort of thing. Goes in a great deal for pretty little feminine gestures to denote, for example, despair at the hotel’s failure to air duvets at the correct times, or whatever sodding thing is on what only another Swiss could call her mind.’

  ‘Source of income?’

  ‘Recently divorced rich husband.’

  ‘Redeeming feature?’

  ‘Stays quiet most of the time.’

  ‘Animal?’

  ‘Persian cat.’

  ‘Hmm. Next?’

  ‘Galina—Italian. Yes?’

  ‘La Dolce Vita stuff, voluptuous, vivacious, lots of gestures, amoral.’

  ‘Spot on. Jesus, what a pain in the ass that woman is. Permanently the life and soul of the party—which means she decides when and where the party is and draws up the guest list. “Ees not clear for me” is what she comes up with every time she feels she isn’t getting enough attention. She’s got a pout that must have been helped on by a plastic surgeon and she points it in my direction every time she notices I’ve been looking at someone else for two seconds. Wants to have me looking gooey-eyed and making Fabrice jealous. At that I draw the line.’

  ‘Source of income?’

  ‘Husband. Must be loaded. Even I know she’s wearing thousands of pounds worth of clothes and sometimes tens of thousands worth of jewellery.’

  ‘Redeeming feature?’

  ‘Generous with money, I suppose. In fact most of them are. But it’s not what I call generosity. It’s just that they don’t mind how much they pay to buy you. You wouldn’t catch any of them giving money to a blind beggar. Unless maybe Gunther, if someone sat him down and explained at length exactly how this beggar had come to this state through no fault of his own and why it was that there were no appropriate authorities for him to go to in order to claim welfare benefits.’

  ‘What animal is Galina?’

  ‘A lynx.’

  ‘And Ahmed?’

  ‘Ah, our pièce de résistance. Oh, I can’t think of any animal that deserves to be compared with him. Maybe a cross between a shark and a tomcat.’

  ‘
Nasty?’

  ‘He is. Nasty young Ahmed ibn Mohammed ibn Abdullah from Saudi Arabia.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Flash clothes, throws money around ostentatiously, thinks all women are potential lays, fast cars, lazy.’

  ‘You’ve been reading my diary. In fact, of all the lines they trot out, the one that maddens me most is “Insh’allah”—as God wills. Ahmed uses his religion in a way that is insulting both to it and to me. He’s always late, and it’s always God’s will. Anything he doesn’t want to do is forbidden by Islam; anything he does isn’t. They all think of me as a servant, but Ahmed openly treats me like one.’

  ‘He’s swarthy?’

  ‘And cross-eyed. Just on the edge of running to flab and certainly will if he goes on imbibing the way he does. On the three separate occasions I’ve met him he’s been ostentatiously sporting different watches and shades. His clothes are the wrong side of vulgar and curiously chosen. Yesterday he was wearing a pale blue leather jacket which must have cost him several hundred quid, along with a yellow sweater from Marks and Spencer, in which, incidentally—because it is Jewish-owned—Saudis are not supposed to shop.’

  ‘Income?’

  ‘Claims to be a member of the Saudi royal family. It’s quite possible, I suppose. I believe there are five thousand princes. In any case, true or false, he is forever boasting about his great connections.’

  ‘Phew. What a menagerie!’ Rachel accepted the waiter’s offer of more coffee. She thought over the conversation. ‘Tell me, do they all stay in the same place together, or what?’

  ‘Mostly. We’ve got a deal with a local swanky hotel which gives the punters a tiny discount—the rich love those—and us a cut. One of the great advantages of this arrangement is that our students can screw each other without inconvenience. The rooms are pretty palatial, apparently, but Ahmed complains anyway because he’d rather be staying with one of his royal cousins, who, he claims, owns an apartment in Earl’s Court with six bedrooms and four bathrooms.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For wives, children, in-laws and servants. Ahmed said he couldn’t stay there because his cousin is in London for a small operation and has brought with him a retinue of seventeen: two wives; six children; one mother-in-law; one father-in-law; two brothers; one brother’s brother-in-law; four servants. With the best will in the world, there wasn’t room for Ahmed.’