The English School of Murder Read online

  Amiss emitted a broad chuckle and stuck to his guns. ‘More of the head really.’

  That seemed to delight Rich. When he stopped laughing he pulled his Filofax from under his arm, scrutinised his diary and went through a series of self-important mutterings. ‘Seven o’clock,’ he said finally.

  Bastard, thought Amiss. He must know I finish at five. ‘Great. Thanks, Rich. See you then.’

  He strode purposefully towards the door to the garden, almost sure he knew how to go about tackling the present continuous tense.

  ***

  Rich was on the doorstep with an expensive middle-aged blonde and Amiss held back politely as they concluded their business. Rich kissed her hand with tremendous élan and a ‘Goodbye, dear lady. Arrivederci. I cannot wait’, and she sashayed away, turning back periodically to wave.

  ‘You’re some operator,’ said Amiss admiringly. ‘Do you do that to all the girls?’

  ‘Most,’ said Rich, eyeing his employee with some surprise. ‘Do you always dress like that when you want advice?’

  ‘What?’ Amiss seemed puzzled. Then he looked down at his dinner jacket and laughed. ‘Oh, this. Taking the mater to the opera. She’s a stickler for keeping up standards.’

  ‘Well, come in. Have a drink. You obviously haven’t got long.’ Rich exerted himself with commendable haste to get Amiss a gin and tonic from a little fridge behind the sofa.

  ‘You’re not a man who likes shilly-shallying, Rich, so I’ll come straight to the point. Is there going to be a future for me in the class end of the business? Or did you envisage me staying outside with the proletariat?’

  Rich was so thunder-struck that he failed to produce any sound at all.

  ‘Fair’s fair, Rich. I can take a joke as well as the next man and I played along last week. But you’re a student of character and you must know very well that what I’m interested in is the high life and the perks.’

  ‘You were only given the job on Friday,’ said Rich in disbelief.

  ‘Come on, Rich. You’re pulling my leg. You didn’t seriously think I wanted to go into the same line of work as Ned, dear old boy though he undoubtedly is. You and I are two of a kind, for heaven’s sake. See an opportunity and go for it. Come on, what do you say?’

  ‘How do you know so much about this side of the operation?’

  ‘The mater again. She met some people skiing who swore by this place and said it was absolutely enormous fun. That’s why I applied.’ Amiss shook his head. ‘Now, Rich, you know women. You can’t expect me to tell her what I’m really doing. She’d have a seizure.’

  Rich looked bemused. ‘Didn’t Ned tell me you used to be a civil servant? You don’t sound very like one to me.’

  ‘Foreign Office, actually. Loved the parties and all that. Afraid I got dumped for not taking all the backroom stuff seriously enough. So here I am ready and waiting to be your right-hand man. Game for anything, as they say,’ and both of them broke into a ‘har…har…har’ in chorus. Amiss fancied that Rich’s was a trifle forced.

  ‘Good Lord, is that the time? I must rush. She’s an awful tartar if she’s kept waiting. Let me know tomorrow, yah?’ And Amiss rushed from the room and the house calling loudly for a taxi.

  ***

  Although Amiss still refused to let Rachel buy him a ticket to Paris, he had put up only a token fight to stop her funding their calls. The phone was ringing as he got through the door, and he took great pleasure in bragging about his démarche.

  ‘I never knew you had it in you,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Neither did I. Haven’t gone in for amateur theatricals since primary school.’

  ‘How did you work up the characterisation?’

  ‘Played it as a cross between Prince Andrew and one of the new breed of Tory MPs.’

  ‘Pretty sudden swing from vilifying Mrs Thatcher to poor old Ned.’

  ‘I hope it’s equally effective. Hard to tell. Anyway, if the worst comes to the worst, I’ve enjoyed it.’

  ‘What’s that gobbling sound?’

  ‘I’m eating fish and chips.’

  ‘Well, if the BPs live up to their reputation, it’ll presumably be quails’ eggs and champagne from now on.’

  ‘I should bloody well think so. Now, have I told you lately that I love you?’

  And they fell to discussing matters of more pressing interest.

  Chapter 10

  It worked. When Amiss came in the following morning, Rich was waiting for him. ‘Enjoy the opera?’

  ‘Awful. Walked out at half-time. Remind me never to go to modern English stuff again. Give me the Eyeties every time.’

  ‘When do you finish today, Bob?’

  ‘After the night-shift supposedly.’

  ‘Well, I’ll ask Jenn to take that class for you. Why don’t you join us tonight? Some of us are going out on the town. Dinner, dancing. It’ll be black tie. Meeting up at the champagne bar round the corner at eight. Hope you’ll have more fun than you did with your mater.’ They guffawed heartily.

  ‘And the rest of the week?’

  ‘We’ll talk about that tomorrow. Let’s see how you get on tonight.’

  ***

  ‘What’s your collar size?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘Excellent. Yes, I can let you have a dress shirt. Come round at six. In fact you’d better come again in the next few days and choose at leisure from my wardrobe. I’ve got a lot of stuff I rarely wear that should be perfect for squiring contessas. There was a stage when my mother used to take me shopping every time she came to town.’ There was a pause and Amiss heard Pooley say, ‘Yes, sir. Immediately, sir.’

  He replaced the receiver.

  ***

  At seven, just as Rich had retied his bow for the fifth time, the telephone rang and he had another of those arguments. ‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘I don’t know why you can’t accept what I’m telling you.’

  ‘But the offer that I am making to you is excellent.’

  ‘I know that, Sven, but it remains out of the question. My partner will not tolerate it.’

  ‘I think that you are losing a great opportunity. There is much money and tiny risk.’

  ‘I know that, but he is quite adamant. I’m sorry, but there is nothing I can do. Goodbye.’

  It was midnight and Rich was in expansive form. Sophie, Galina, Ingrid, Davina, Fabrice and Marcello seemed to be having a whale of a time. Amiss was working furiously to charm the whole pestilential brood while avoiding up-staging his boss. He seemed to be succeeding. He had managed to make a virtue out of his inability to dance: there were squeals and giggles as the women tried in turn to teach him and his exaggerated helplessness underlined the prowess on the floor of Rich and Fabrice, both of whom could have made a living at it.

  If nothing else, he was beginning to understand the attraction of Rich. He might seem on the surface to be a fatuous old fool, but to a lot of people, from decent old Ned Nurse through to the jaded cosmopolitan Galina, he supplied an infectious joie de vivre. Amiss was beginning to feel that Rich deserved every penny he could wring out of these desiccated people.

  It was Rich who called a halt at three. ‘Come on, darlings. Beauty sleep.’ And he overrode Davina’s objections with a hug and a private joke that had her whooping with laughter on her way to collect her furs.

  ‘When ees it you wish us in the school?’ asked Galina coquettishly.

  ‘Since the whole group is here, lunchtime will do. Tell you what, darlings. Let’s meet at twelve thirty where we started out tonight. We won’t want much more than oysters for lunch, will we? Oh, Bob, do your usual day like a love. But then let’s you and I have a little drinkie round about—when are you finished?—Five or nine?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Well come along to the Wednesday cocktail party at five and then we’ll go on somewhere afterwards, just the two of us. For a chinwag.’

  ‘A chinwag would be triff.’ Their eyes met and they commenced their job of organising thei
r group ready for the approaching taxis.

  ***

  ‘So he gave me the low-down on the finances. Or what he said was the low-down.’

  Amiss climbed out of the cavalry twill trousers. ‘No good. You’re appreciably longer in the leg than me.’

  ‘They can be turned up. Here, try this.’ And Pooley tossed him a magnificent brown tweed suit.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Ellis, we can’t start having your clothes altered to fit me.’

  ‘Why not. Might as well do this thing properly. Try it on. You might have to take a princess on a country weekend.’

  ‘Too true I might,’ said Amiss, clambering into a suit that Jeremy Buckland would have envied and finding to his delight that apart from the leg length, it fitted him perfectly. ‘Rich tells me that weekend escorts are in strong demand.’

  ‘Hat!’ And Pooley threw across a deerstalker.

  ‘It’s too small. My head’s bigger than yours.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Pooley. ‘Now why don’t we leave all this for a while, have a drink and you can finish filling me in.’

  ‘It’s primarily an escort agency with English lessons thrown in. He was quite open about it. It’s for people who want some fun in London but need to be able to justify the time and the expense by claiming to be learning English. So spouses lie to spouses; children lie to parents; employees lie to bosses; bosses lie to employees; training directors lie to exchange-control authorities. Rich charges in the region of two thousand quid a week and does a roaring trade. Most of the clientele hears about it by word of mouth.’

  ‘But don’t they get found out?’

  ‘There’s really nothing to give them away. It is a proper English school. They do learn English one way or the other. After all, the escorts are all English speakers and the students come from a variety of countries and hence have English as the lingua franca. And if they want to have it off with one of the escorts, well, I guess that’s been known to happen with a teacher at a normal language school.’

  ‘Well, surely the extra activities cause comment?’

  ‘Again, on the face of it they’re no different in kind from the norm. So instead of having occasional theatre trips and gatherings in the pub, they go to Le Gavroche and Annabel’s. The central difference is that these students are at the school to enjoy themselves, and Rich is a genius at making that happen. I imagine he also lays on rather more esoteric entertainments for those with unusual tastes.’

  ‘You’re being uncharacteristically delicate, Robert.’

  ‘In deference to you, Ellis.’

  ‘And why keep on the prefab business?’

  ‘It’s the bread and butter. They may be only paying a couple of quid an hour, but it mounts up. He reckons the school makes a profit of a couple of thousand a week on those poor buggers. Anyway, it’s somewhere to put Ned. He wouldn’t exactly shine as a BP escort.’

  ‘So what’s the escort talent like?’

  ‘Ah, well that’s why I came at the right time. Rich has been feeling overwhelmed at the demands on him. He says he’s OK on the distaff side. Apparently Cath is brilliant and Jenn OK. He keeps her away from the choosey ones, but she goes down particularly well with Arabs. However he’s suffering from a shortage of men, exacerbated by the preponderance of women among the students. Gavs is gay, which limits his appeal a trifle, and anyway his domestic partner is getting possessive and wants him to move to a job with less anti-social hours. Rich said he was resigned to struggling on alone until he could recruit and train someone suitable. He hadn’t spotted my potential. However, I am now officially declared a natural who can go on parade immediately.’

  ‘So you’re in.’

  ‘As of tomorrow. He’s bringing in a couple of part-timers to take on prefab duty. I’m afraid Ned’ll be disappointed. He had aspirations to make a dedicated teacher of me.’

  ‘Never mind Ned. Congratulations. Now did you pick up anything about Wally?’

  ‘Only very vaguely. Rich mentioned with a sigh that he was plagued by people who thought themselves suitable for dealing with the BPs. Said it was very hard to tell someone he lacked charm.’

  ‘Do I detect you’re warming to Rich?’

  ‘Well, I disliked him so much at the start I could scarcely cool. Let’s just say I’m developing a grudging admiration for him. I imagine he’s an amoral little shit, but he does work hard and when he drops the asshole façade, it’s possible to have sensible dealings with him.’

  ‘Is he a murderer?’

  ‘God knows,’ said Amiss. ‘Now let’s get back to raiding your wardrobe. I’ve got to get some sleep. Apparently I’m doing a full day’s conversation, punctuated by lunch at the Tate to introduce them to its marvellous wine list and then in the evening we’re off to a West End musical followed by a late supper.’

  ‘Salary?’

  ‘It’s doubled, which helps. There’s also a substantial clothes allowance, and of course all expenses are paid. And after six months I can come in on a profit sharing scheme.’

  ‘Robert, you haven’t forgotten why you’re at the school?’

  ‘No Ellis. I’m there to find out if Wally Armstrong was murdered and to help keep Ned alive. Really, how absent-minded do you think I am?’

  ‘Just checking. Here, try this Burberry.’

  ***

  However, it was too late to save Ned, who had been knocked off his bike at Hyde Park Corner at seven thirty that evening. The driver whose lorry had killed him swore Ned had ridden into the roundabout right under his wheels. Two independent witnesses corroborated his story. Amiss heard the news with a heavy heart and an indefinable sense of guilt. But the only one to weep for Ned was Rich, who had to identify him at the morgue, where he sobbed so hysterically that they sent for a doctor to sedate him.

  Chapter 11

  Pooley spent the morning at a resources allocation meeting of unbelievable tedium. What made it worse was that as senior inspector, Romford was in the chair, standing in for Milton. Pooley suffered, perforce in silence and impassively, as Romford held things up with pedantic interventions and irritating objections, looked outraged when anyone uttered the mildest expletive and when in repose exuded that moral complacency that made him so universally unpopular.

  ‘Now, in conclusion, I have an announcement to make. I’m being transferred to Stolen Vehicles. Next week will be my last here.’ Grunts and mutters of the ohsirwe’llmissyou variety ensued; Romford reciprocated ponderously, declared the meeting closed and led the way out of the room. Pooley and WDC Simon, left to clear up, danced a jig: it was a moment too deep for words.

  His mood was shattered by Amiss’s lunchtime phone call; his distress was increased by the constraints on both of them. Amiss was as edgy about being overheard as Pooley, who had had the misfortune to have Romford arrive at his desk the moment he picked up the phone.

  ‘Thanks very much, Bob.’

  Recognising the agreed code, Amiss hung up.

  Pooley jumped up. ‘Yessir.’ He lost no opportunity to curry favour with Romford. He had let his contempt show once or twice in the early days and had a great deal of ground to make up—though not for much longer, he crowed internally.

  ‘Who’s Bob?’ asked Romford.

  ‘Er…my garage. Sorry, sir. I asked them to let me know when my car was ready.’

  Even Romford couldn’t find in this the substance for a homily on time-wasting. ‘Here’s a copy of my memo to the typing pool. You’ll see I’ve improved on what you drafted.’ Pooley skimmed the proffered document.

  ‘I think you’ll agree this shows we won’t stand for any nonsense.’

  ‘Oh, indeed it does, sir. Walk all over you if they got a chance, they would,’ observed Pooley absently.

  Romford nodded and walked away. He reflected with satisfaction on the way that young man was developing. You didn’t hear him going on with all that stuff about detective stories any more. Discipline was the thing. Nothing like keeping their noses to the grindstone to knock a
ll that nonsense out of them.

  ***

  Luckily the table had been booked in the school’s name, so it took only a couple of minutes for the obliging receptionist to identify Amiss and bring him to the telephone. ‘Robert. Ellis. Can you talk?’

  ‘Sort of. Can you?’

  ‘Yep. Where did it happen?’

  Amiss leaned against the desk and kept his eyes on his lunch companions. ‘Hyde Park Corner.’

  ‘Time?’

  ‘Sevenish last night.’

  ‘How’s Rich taking it?’

  ‘Badly. Not in yet.’ Galina caught his eye and waved. ‘Sorry. Must go. Anything I should do?’

  ‘Nothing special. Except watch your back.’

  ‘I will. Bye.’ He smiled at the receptionist and sped back to his table. ‘Sorry, darlings. Honestly…mothers!’

  Galina smacked his wrist. ‘Ees naughty saying bad things about mothers; I am a mother.’

  ‘How am I supposed to think of you as a mother?’ And smooth-ly, Amiss drifted into the vein of empty gallantry that was fast becoming second nature.

  ***

  There were only four lines in the evening newspaper but they made things much easier for Pooley and his friend in Central. Having tipped him off, Pooley spent the afternoon chafing at his desk. He was immersed in routine work on an open-and-shut case: a domestic murder of such dreary brutality as to offer no stimulus of any kind.

  Mid-afternoon he decided to console himself by having a chat with Pardeep, the current object of his romantic fantasies. One of the tiny handful of Asian policewomen, she worked on Inspector Pike’s team and it was fortunate that Pike was a tolerant man, for Pooley’s visits were frequent and without professional justification. Nor was Pooley her only visitor, for even the most deep-dyed racist elements in MIR admitted that she was the best-looking WPC in the Met. Pooley, who prided himself on the purity of his love, believed himself to care more about her mind.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Could do.’

  They spent a companionable quarter of an hour swapping gossip, and then returned to work. Pooley went into his favourite daydream before catching sight of Romford and guiltily buckling down to his in-tray.