Carnage on the Committee

RUTH DUDLEY

EDWARDS

Praise for

RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS

'This blithe series puts itself on the side of the angels by merrily, and staunchly, subverting every tenet of political correctness'
Independent

'Sprightly, saucy and ingenious'
S
un
day Times

'[.Ruth Dudley Edwards] writes ebullient novels frilled with entertaining eccentrics'
The Times

'Dudley Edwards is an equal-opportunities satirist. She's rude to every persuasion'
Daily Telegraph

'No one is writing wittier mystery fiction in Britain today than Ruth Dudley Edwards' Val McDirmid,

Manchester Evening News

'Marvellously entertaining and iconoclastic series of satires on the British establishment. Ruth Dudley-Edwards is a crime writer whom we should treasure sharp, intelligent and gloriously politically incorrect'
Mail on Sunday

' E1 e g a n t fa r c e - c u m - w h o d u n i t'
Sunday Telegraph

When the chairperson of the prestigious Knapper-Warburton Literary Prize dies

in suspicious circumstances, Robert Amiss (the token sane member of the judging panel) wastes no time in summoning Baroness 'Jack' Troutbeck to step into the breach.

Speculation that a killer may be targeting the judges worries the baroness not in the slightest - it's the prospect of immersing herself in modern, literature that fills her with dread. But noblesse must oblige, even when it means joining the ranks of the superciliati sitting in judgement on the literati.

With the baroness at the helm, the judges resume the task of whittling away at the short-list. But the killer, too, has resumed and is whittling away at the judges one by one ...In deplorable taste and wickedly funny, this, the tenth in the Robert Amiss series, will consolidate the author's reputation for scurrilous humour.

RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS
was born and brought up in Ireland, but has lived in England since she was twenty-one. She has been a postgraduate student at Cambridge, a teacher, a marketing executive, a civil

servant, and a literary judge. A freelance journalist and broadcaster for over twenty years, she is also a prize-winning historian and biographer. Her books include the authorised history of
The Economist
and biographies of the Irish revolutionary Patrick Pearse, the British publisher Victor Gollancz and (jointly) the newspapermen Hugh Cudlipp and Cecil Harmsworth King.

Her comic mysteries satirise the British Establishment (affectionately) and political correctness (venomously).
Carnage on the Committee
is the tenth in the series. Now divorced, Ruth Dudley Edwards lives happily in London. Apart from books, her chief interests are friends, politics and travel. For more information, visit her website
www.ruthdudleyedwards.co.uk

CARNAGE ON THE COMMITTEE

By the same author

FICTION

The Anglo-Irish Murders

Publish and be Murdered

Murder in a Cathedral

Ten Lords A-leaping

Matricide at St Martha's

Clubbed to Death

The School of English Murder

The St Valentine's Day Murders

Corridors of Death

NON-FICTION

Newspapermen: Hugh Cudlipp, Cecil Harmsworth

King and the glory days of Fleet Street

The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions

True Brits: Inside the Foreign Office

The Best of Bagehot The Pursuit of Reason: The Economist 1843-1993

Victor Gollancz: A Biography

Harold MacMillan: A Life in Pictures

James Connolly

Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure

An Atlas of Irish History

RUTH DUDLEY EDWARDS

Carnage on the Committee

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

To Kathryn and John, both of whom frequently persuade me that the seemingly impossible is easily achieved.

Among those to whom I am grateful for inspiration and/or help are Presiley Baxendale (who got her way), Nina Clarke, Jodi and Bobbie Cudlipp, my brother Owen, Mariella Frostrup, Eamonn Hughes, James McGuire, Robert Salisbury, and the great Frederick Crews, whose
Postmodern Pooh
should be force-fed to all aspiring literary critics. Iarlaith and Mairrn Carter deserve special honours for their stunning inventiveness on the imaginary-fiction front. My thanks too to Julia Wisdom, who held her nerve, to Charlotte Webb, a first-rate copy editor, and to Georgina Burns, Debbie Collings, and Anne O'Brien for many kindnesses.

Prologue

'She's dead. Dead.
Dead.
It's a disaster! What are we going to
do.
Robert? What the fuck are we going to
do?'

'Who's dead?'

'La grande frontage,
that's who.'

'Hermione? Are you serious?'

'Deadly.'

'But she looked fine the other day. What did she die of?'

'How do/know? Something serious, obviously. Anyway I don't care. She's
dead.
Oh, God! How
could
she die?' Prothero emitted a great sob.

'I'm sorry to be pedantic, Georgie, but it was only yesterday that you said you wished she'd never been born.'

'That was just because she was being her usual toffee-nosed pain-in-the-arse. Saying you wished she'd never been born's not the same as wishing she was
dead.
How can we get another chairperson at
this
notice? What are we going to
do?'
Prothero's voice rose to a shriek. 'There's a meeting of the committee next
Thursday.
Have you forgotten? The crwcial meeting. The
long-\isi
meeting. What
will
we do without Herm/one?'

'Calm down, Georgie. Calm down.'

'How
can
I calm down? Stop being so macho about this. It's my crisis and I'll thweam if I want to. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

Amiss held the receiver away from him until the sounds diminished. He put it cautiously to his ear again and seized his moment as Prothero paused for breath. 'Gcorgie, if you go on like that I'll put the phone down. Let's begin at the beginning. Is it definite that Hermione's dead?'

'Yep. Stark, staring dead.'

'What did she die of?'

They don't seem to know.'

'She seemed fine on Tuesday.'

'It was Tuesday afternoon she sickened, according to hubby. He very thoughtfully rang me this evening after he heard the news. Have you met him? Lovely, lovely man, William. Wasted on her. Those eyes . . . that . . .'

'Georgie!'

'Sorry.'

'So you need a new chair.'

'Immediately.'

'So whom have you in mind?'

'That's what I'm thweaming about. You
know
who'll insist on being it.'

'Geraint Griffiths. And probably Den Smith.'

'And you
know
what'll happen if the Gee Gee becomes chairperson.'

'Den will walk out.'

'And you
know
what'll happen if the Gee Gee's told he can't be chairperson.'

'He'll walk out. That is, he'll threaten to walk out. I wouldn't be certain he would.'

'He'll certainly make a
huge
fuss. Especially if Dirty Den gets the job. And whichever of them walks or fusses, it'll be
all
over the press in five minutes, the committee
and

the prize will be a
laughing
stock, the Big Knapparoonie will fire me and I'll
never
work in this town again.'

'I'm sure you're exaggerating, Georgie. You'll work something out, I'm sure.' Amiss's eyes strayed back to his computer screen. No, he thought. A blunt instrument. There wouldn't have been a sharp enough knife in such a seedy flat.. .

'Robert, for God's sake, help me.'

Amiss wrenched his mind away from his putative, to Prothero's real, corpse. 'Oh, sorry, Georgie, I got distracted.'

Prothero was aggrieved. 'How
can
you, Robert? I'm relying on you. I got you on this committee in the first place to hold my
hand. And
because I knew you were diplomatic. And if ever the Warburton needed a diplomat, it's
now.'

'Don't try to make it sound as if you did me a favour,' said Amiss crossly. 'I wish I'd never agreed. Two months reading crap and then all those ghastly rows I don't want you to pretend for even one minute you haven't been titivating the press with. Hermione's well out of it.'

There was a muffled sob. 'Don't be so cn/el. I
did
think I was doing you a favour. I thought you'd meet some interesting people who loved books. So
help
me, I thought literary prizes were about book-lovers rewarding book-lovers. How
could
I know what the literati were like?' His voice began to rise again. 'How
could
I? I'm just a poor bastard who sucks up to people for a living.
Robert,
how
can
I stop the Gee Gee and Dirty Den in their tracks?'

'I don't suppose you should just let the best man win?'

As the scream began. Amiss interrupted. 'OK, OK, I have it. Gender. That's how you stop them. Tell Knapper that it's got to be a woman or the sisterhood will go mad.'

'But then Rosa Krap will think she's entitled to it. And you
know
what'll happen then.'

'Geraint and Den will both walk out.'

'Exactly.'

'So you can't have Rosa Karp.'

'And how am I supposed to get out of
that?'

Amiss brooded. 'Find a chairwoman fast and then tell Rosa you had to get a new broom as it was impossible to choose between her and Wysteria.'

' HysteriaUUUU?
You couldn't have Lady Bloody Hysteria Fucking
Wilcox
as the chair of a choirboys' fcw'tting competition. I've already had her on the phone in tears four times this week complaining about the Gee Gee's abusive phone calls.'

'Not the point, Georgie. You can mutter about having had to act in haste so
fait accompli
and all that. But it does require you to get someone fast.'

'It requires
you
to get someone fast. I wouldn't know where to
start.
I'm only a poor bloody PR man.
I
don't know which trees grow the kind of bird who can deal with the Gee Gee and Dirty Den.
And
the rest.
And
read hundreds of books in ten minutes.'

An image floated into Amiss's mind. He blenched, but stifled his doubts. 'I don't want to get your hopes up too much, Georgie, but I do know a possible.'

'Oh, you are wonderful, Robert darling. Who
is
this superwoman?'

'Does the name Jack Troulbeck mean anything to you?'

'Troutbeck? Troutbeck? Troutbeck? Don't think so. Is he a woman? Are we trans#e«dering here? Rosa Krap
will
be pleased.'

'Baroness Troutbeck. More composite than trans.'

'Would that be that beefy broad who duffed up the art establishment on TV last week? I read something about how someone or other said he'd never ever been so insulted.'

'Sounds like her.' 'What are her credentials?'

'Mistress of St Martha's, Cambridge.'

'Loved by the literati, is she?'

'I expect any that know her hate her. But she'd know how to deal with Geraint. And Den. And Rosa. And I can't think of anyone else who fits that bill.'

'Is she interested in modern literature?'

Amiss had a sudden memory of the baroness over dinner denouncing as rubbish every novel written since Graham Greene was in his prime. 'Yes. Very. English is her subject.'