Carnage on the Committee: A Robert Amiss/Baroness Jack Troutbeck Mystery

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

  The door opened and a tiny, pleasant-faced, middle-aged Filipino in a black dress and white apron came in carrying a chrome tray. She looked with alarm at Rawlinson’s ashtray, which he removed and placed on the floor. She put down her tray. ‘Shall I get you an ashtray from your study, sir?’

  Rawlinson smiled. ‘Thank you, Alina, but this will do for the moment.’ He indicated Milton and Pooley. ‘These gentlemen are from the police. They may want to have a word with you later.’

  She bowed slightly. ‘I will be downstairs. May I pour you coffee?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Milton. ‘White, no sugar, for me, please.’

  ‘And me, please,’ said Pooley.

  She served the three of them deftly and withdrew. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Rawlinson, ‘we don’t keep biscuits.’

  ‘We’re fine, thank you, Sir William,’ said Milton.

  ‘So Alina revived Hermione with some cold water and helped her to bed. By the time I got home, at around six-thirty, Hermione had been vomiting and looked dreadful, but she insisted she’d be fine and wanted to be left alone to sweat it out. Hermione was a very determined woman, and one tended to do as instructed. Still, I kept checking, and when at about ten her breathing became more laboured, I called an ambulance. The hospital also thought it just a virus and treated her accordingly and it was not until her kidneys and liver began to fail early on Thursday morning that the alarm bells were sounded. I arrived to see her at about eight-thirty to find her already on a life-support machine. As you will know, she died at two p.m.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Milton. ‘Now, as you know, the pathologist seems to think the ricin—which was a very large dose—was administered some time in the twelve hours before she became ill.’

  ‘And I’ve already given your colleagues all the information I have about my wife’s movements during that period.’

  ‘Indeed. You’ve been most helpful and we are working on it. But could I ask you if you’ve had a chance to think further about who might have wanted to kill Lady Babcock?’

  Rawlinson finished his coffee and put down his cup. ‘Not a clue, Mr Milton. Hermione’s life was in the literary world and the Lords and while obviously she made some enemies, I had no reason to think there was anything personal going on. You know what they’re like, those literary people…Or maybe you don’t?’

  Milton shook his head.

  ‘Well, it’s like any other kind of work, I suppose, it’s just that ambition and greed and achievement and so on take different forms from what you’d get in industry or banking. Or probably the police. That is to say, there’s an extraordinarily random element at work. For instance, I got to the top of a merchant bank because I’m reasonably clever, I understand the money market, I’m diligent, I get on with clients and I have the ability to convince people I know what I’m talking about. I expect you’ve done well for equivalent reasons.

  ‘But the literary world is completely different. You can be a brilliant and hard-working writer and never get anywhere, while others with a tenth of your talent and industry bask in adulation and wealth. It’s a mixture of luck and self-promotion. Thomas Gray had it right. “Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest” and all that…Oh, sorry, Mr Milton. I forgot. You must get very fed up with that quotation.’

  ‘Not really, sir. Police and criminals don’t quote much poetry.’

  ‘Gray, of course, was talking about illiterates, who don’t know they could have been Milton. But what about those writers who’ve produced the book, believe it’s good and can’t get it published, or if it does get published, it’s ignored and they see contemporaries streaking ahead of them for no reason except that they’re young, sexy, lucky in their timing or geniuses at self-promotion or networking. So that’s why there’s so much anger and backbiting in that world—far more in my experience than you get in normal life—and for all I know some of it was directed at Hermione because of her success.’

  Milton looked at Rawlinson rather uncertainly. ‘Are you suggesting, sir, that there were those who might have felt that Lady Babcock had been more successful than she deserved?’

  Rawlinson smiled. ‘There were. Plenty, in fact. A lot of people didn’t like Hermione; there were snide comments in the press and quite a few expressions of outrage that she won the Warburton. There was an awful lot of money involved, after all. It wasn’t just the prestige. Indeed, I remember several really disagreeable articles. But murder’s a different matter.’

  ‘No one comes to mind in her personal life who might actually have wanted to kill her?’

  ‘Absolutely not. No likely murderers in the family, or as far as I know, among friends.’

  ‘I was just going to ask you about her family, Sir William. I know her parents are dead, that she was divorced and that she has two children.’

  ‘Ralph Babcock is still about, but Hermione hardly ever saw him. Joshua lives in Hong Kong and Alex in New York. They’ll both be back here for the funeral, whenever that’ll be. Then there’s her sister, Flora, but they were not close.’

  ‘That’ll be Dame Flora Massingham, will it?’ asked Pooley.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll need to talk to all of them,’ said Milton.

  ‘Speak to my secretary and she’ll give you the phone numbers and anything else you want.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I have to leave shortly. I have an urgent meeting.’

  ‘Her close friends, Sir William?’

  ‘Hermione didn’t go in for intimate friends in the way that women do—you know, old school and university friends, that kind of thing. She specialised in occupational friendship. Currently, she was particularly thick with Wysteria Wilcox and Rosa Karp, but as much for professional reasons as anything else. I’ll think about it in the car and if any names come to mind I’ll tell my secretary to give you the details.’

  ‘There has been some speculation about rows on the Warburton committee, sir.’

  ‘Which will intensify, no doubt, when people realise that their last meeting happened within the ricin incubation period. But I’m damned if I can believe that one of her colleagues bumped her off because she didn’t agree with them about some novel or other. They’d have to be raving mad. I know they had rows and I suppose a fist fight might be imaginable at the stage when the winner is chosen, but the notion that someone would be murdered before even the long-list stage is too preposterous for even a thriller-writer.’

  ‘There could be other motives, sir, since some of the judges knew each other quite well.’

  ‘Let me think.’ Rawlinson ticked the names off on his fingers as he spoke. ‘I’ve mentioned Wysteria and Rosa. And Hermione knew that ghastly Den Smith well and wrote for his awful magazine sometimes. So those are three she got on well with. Who else was there?’

  ‘Professor Felix Ferriter,’ said Pooley.

  ‘Oh, lord. Yes, she talked a bit about him, but I couldn’t understand what she was driving at. Literary criticism is a closed book to me. And they seemed to get on too. Who didn’t she like? Oh, yes. She complained often about that peculiar Welsh journalist who shouts a lot. And about some little Irish girl with a funny name whom she thought stupid and ignorant. And someone called Amiss she thought obstructive and flippant. But she wasn’t afraid of any of them.’ He frowned. ‘That’s seven including Hermione, but I’m sure there were eight.’

  ‘Sir Hugo Hurlingham,’ proffered Pooley.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. But he was another of her allies. She’s reviewed for him for years and they were both great enthusiasts for the Barbarossa Prize.’

  ‘Barbarossa?’ asked Milton.

  ‘Some European prize that Hermione was hoping the Warburton winner might win.’ He spread his hands helplessly. ‘It was all very complicated and I’m afraid I only half-listened.’

  ‘Tell me about Den Smith,’ said Milton. ‘He is, I understand, rather volatile.’

  ‘Den’s professionally angry. He was an Angry Youngish Man w
hen I met him first, raged a lot in middle-age, and is now an Angry Elderly Man—which always seems ridiculous to me. Not my sort, but he and Hermione seemed to get on fine. She agrees—agreed—with him about America, which she always found impossibly crude except for certain literary enclaves in New York.’

  Milton looked curiously at Rawlinson. ‘Did you like your wife’s friends, Sir William?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I did.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because they weren’t my kind. But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t keen on mine either. We had fulfilling separate lives and were happy to escort each other to professional functions where it was necessary. I have old-fashioned notions about sticking by the person you marry. So, in practice, had Hermione.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘I don’t want to be unhelpful, Mr Milton, but I really need to get to the office. Is there anything else you desperately need to discuss today?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, sir. May we stay on for a while and look around and talk to Alina?’

  ‘Certainly. I’ll send her up to you.’ He shook hands with both of them, smiled and left.

  7

  ‘Even allowing for shock, reserve and all that kind of thing, I don’t think William Rawlinson is very upset about his wife’s death.’ Pooley sat forward and gazed at Amiss intently. ‘In fact, the more Jim and I looked at that house, the more I suspected he’ll enjoy being without her.’

  Milton stretched and then leaned back further into his armchair. ‘My guess is that he probably long ago realised he didn’t like her. You tell Robert all about it, Ellis. I might just go to sleep.’

  ‘Top-up, Jim?’ asked Amiss, pointing at the whisky that Plutarch’s recumbent body prevented him from reaching.

  ‘No, thanks. I’m fine. Get on with it, Ellis. We need to go soon. Sammy will be getting restive.’

  ‘Sammy? Sammy Pike? I thought he’d retired. Why didn’t you bring him up with you?’

  ‘He has retired, but helps me out sometimes. It would offend his sense of propriety to listen to Ellis contradicting me.’

  Pooley was aching to continue. ‘So you’ve got the picture so far?’

  ‘Hermione was as chilly, minimalist and anally-retentive at home as she was abroad.’

  ‘Fantastically so.’

  ‘Knowing how tidy Ellis is compared to us,’ said Milton, ‘it was a pleasure to see him so horrified. Her study was pristine and characterless and the dining room was worse: imagine eating off a glass and metal table while sitting on wooden seats with mirrored backs?’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘The front of the back of the dining chairs—i.e. what you lean against—was mirrored.’

  ‘Clumsy guests would make for an interesting evening.’

  ‘And the pictures…!’ Pooley shook his head. ‘The minimalist paintings were depressing enough, but as for the art photos of bathroom fittings!’

  ‘Do you mean photos of baths?’

  ‘And washbasins. And loos. And bidets.’

  ‘What an absolutely foul idea.’

  ‘Don’t forget the boarded garden,’ said Milton sleepily.

  ‘Oh, yes. There were boards over half of the garden.’

  ‘You mean decking?’

  ‘No, decking is suburban. These were boards. And you couldn’t walk on them even if you wanted to.’

  ‘Ah, you mean they were art.’

  ‘Indeed they were. We asked Alina to show us outside and there, sure enough, was a plaque: CARL ANDRÉ. EVERYTHING IS AN ENVIRONMENT.’

  ‘The pile-of-bricks chap,’ added Milton. ‘Remember the row years ago when the Tate bought them.’

  ‘I was in short pants, then, Jim. But I know what you’re talking about. Isn’t he a bit passé?’

  ‘So is minimalism,’ said Pooley. ‘But maybe Hermione was a traditionalist in her own way.’

  The phone rang. Amiss reached across the cat and picked up the receiver. ‘Ah, Jack. How are you getting on?…Yes, I sympathise…Yes, I thought you’d like that…No, of course I didn’t. I only selected it to cheer you up…No, everything’s been quiet, but Jim and Ellis are here reporting on their first day on the job…OK.’ He held the receiver towards Milton. ‘Jack wants a word, Jim.’

  Milton reached over. ‘Good to talk to you again…No idea…Yes…Yes…Yes…No idea…Give my love to…’ He put down the receiver. ‘I haven’t talked to her for ages. I’d forgotten how abrupt she is.’

  ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Having learned that I’d no idea who’d done it, she told me to hurry up, sort everything out, give none of them any quarter and that she’d buy us all a wonderful dinner when it was all over.’

  ‘Don’t be too enthusiastic. She’s just read a novel that’s got her worked up about the gastronomic possibilities of tripe.’

  ‘What’s a novel got to do with tripe?’ asked Milton.

  ‘Tripe and the modern novel are closely related,’ said Amiss, ‘but one of the entries is actually called Tripe! With an exclamation mark. If I remember correctly it’s about an Algerian terrorist who plans appalling atrocities while working in a French triperie. Jack likes it because it includes dozens of recipes.’

  ‘I hope she’ll have moved to something called Great Cuisine with or without an exclamation mark by the time she buys this dinner,’ said Milton. ‘Where were we?’

  Pooley leaned forward and gazed at Amiss intently. ‘At the Rawlinson/Babcock house, which was very interesting. It was clear from Rawlinson’s room that in all the rest of the house she had imposed her tastes on him. His room was full of leather and red plush and the smell of cigars and sporting memorabilia and guns and classical music and thrillers and adventure books piled higgledy-piggledy. Who’s Who gives his recreations as music, shooting and reading about explorers.’

  ‘And hers?’

  ‘She didn’t give any.’

  ‘Too grand to share this information with hoi polloi, no doubt. What was their bedroom like?’

  ‘Separate bedrooms actually: hers spartan; his untidy. Same with their bathrooms. The spare bedrooms, bathrooms and so on were furnished to her taste. And Alina had a room at the top chock-a-block with family photos, religious statues and pictures of Imelda Marcos.’

  ‘Kitchen?’

  ‘Functional, but nothing elaborate. Alina told us that Madam wasn’t interested in cooking. Sounds as if they ate out a lot and when at home lived on a diet of grilled fish and chicken.’

  ‘Did Alina say anything interesting?’

  ‘She’s been with them for ten years,’ said Pooley, ‘and while she said appropriately polite things about how terrible Madam’s death was, she didn’t give much impression of grief, did she, Jim?’

  ‘Well she certainly didn’t manage any tears, though she crossed herself a few times. But she didn’t manage too many words either, for that matter. All we got out of her was that they were nice to her, there were not many visitors to stay, that Madam often had people to coffee or tea, that they sometimes had drinks parties and sometimes dinners with outside caterers. She had met the children once or twice but had nothing of interest to say about them. She could not recall Flora Massingham.’

  ‘So who else did you see today?’

  Milton yawned. ‘No one. We went straight back to the Yard where Ellis set things up for the next few days and I worked on all the other cases I’m in charge of. I’m going to be hard put to spend more than a quarter of my time on this, so in practice Ellis will be running things most of the time.’

  His phone rang. ‘Yes, Sammy…Oh, God…All right, we’ll be straight down.’ He jumped up. ‘Sorry, Robert, but there’s a problem on another job and I’ll have to look in at the Yard after all before I go home. Do you want to stay or come, Ellis?’

  ‘I’ll come with you, Jim. I want to do a bit of browsing.’

  ‘The internet was made for Ellis, Robert. It’s an adventure playground for the inquisi
tive.’

  Pooley looked slightly hurt. ‘It’s very useful. I’ve already found out that those pictures and that Carl André must have cost a packet.’

  ‘Well, there’s a surprise. Don’t get up, Robert, it’d be a shame to disturb Plutarch. How middle-aged she’s becoming. Hasn’t done anything uncivilised all evening.’

  ‘You weren’t here when she jumped onto my keyboard and succeeded in wiping half a chapter,’ said Amiss grimly. ‘I can tell you I nearly did something uncivilised.’ He shoved the cat to one side and got up. She waved a faintly threatening paw in a half-hearted way, spread herself over the cushion and went back to sleep.

  ‘Ellis told me you were writing a book. How’s it working out?’

  ‘Mostly hell. Just occasionally heaven. Always too slow.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘You don’t really want to know, Jim,’ said Amiss, as he opened the front door. ‘Too close to home. You go off and hunt a real murderer and I’ll go back to my imaginary one. We can have a race to see who gets his man first.’

  ‘Fifty quid we win,’ said Milton, perking up.

  ‘It’s a deal.’ They shook hands solemnly. ‘Consider yourself the bookie, Ellis,’ said Milton. ‘’Night, Robert.’

  Amiss closed the door, picked up his glass and took it over and set it beside the computer.

  ***

  Pooley was on his way to interview Hermione’s sister when Milton called. ‘They’ve examined Babcock’s corpse in minute detail and can find no sign of any puncturing of the skin, so it’s virtually certain that she ingested the ricin. Now as we know from Rawlinson and Alina, she didn’t go out on Monday, as she was reading a book and reviewing it for a Sunday paper, so there are no other Monday suspects. See me when you’ve finished with Flora Massingham and we’ll talk about Tuesday.’ He rang off just as Pooley’s cab drew up outside an attractive cottage in West Hampstead.