Murdering Americans (21 page)

‘Has she been in touch at all?’

‘The Bursar said they have a business call every day or so, but that all Jack would say was that the papers were making a fuss about nothing.’

‘Two—probably four—murders is hardly nothing.’

‘That’s what the Bursar thought, especially after Rawlings said all those rude things at that press conference when he got back about how she was responsible for inciting hate crimes.’

‘Did the papers report Jack’s response?’

‘You mean the bit about how Rawlings should be ashamed to make political capital out of other people’s tragic deaths? That was referred to. The Bursar was not the only person to think it rather uncharacteristically po-faced.’

‘That’s because I wrote it. Jack’s first reaction was to say “He ain’t seen nuttin’ yet,” which I thought rather impolitic—as well as, I hope, inaccurate—but I did let her add that bit about how she, at least, unlike Rawlings, hadn’t fled America for fear of Islamists. Did the media run with that?’

‘Not any papers I saw, but an interviewer put it to Rawlings on television and he seemed as mad as hell.’

‘Good. What’s the news of your mother?’

‘Excellent. She’s definitely going back to work tomorrow and I’m definitely the best daughter in the universe about whom she will never ever again utter a word of criticism. It was not wanting to lose the moral high ground that made me decide to stay here rather than join you in Indiana, which would be inviting her to have a relapse and even again start uttering the odd word of criticism. Dad indicated that she had privately got very worked up about the best daughter in the universe being put in mortal danger from anti-Semites in a foreign country, so I decided to choose the easy option even if it does mean being without you for another couple of weeks. Now tell me what’s happening.’

‘An extraordinary amount of work is mostly what’s happening. Jack is focusing on three things mainly. Firstly, to augment the work being done by expensive private investigators, with the help of one lot of spies she’s trying to find out exactly how President Dickinson has acquired his money. Secondly, with the help of other spies and a vast amount of material smuggled to her by Marjorie, she’s trying to discover what Provost Prichardson and Dr. Gonzales were up to on a day-by-day basis. And thirdly, she is—as she put it—expertly playing her fishing-rod to land the big fish, Martin Freeman, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and get him fully on the side of the revolution.’

‘And how is the revolution going?’

‘Not badly, if I say so myself. Considering the limitations of my army, I’m quite pleased so far. The website is almost ready to roll and between the coverage we’ve been promised from the local newspaper and the emails that will go out on Website-Day to every student in Freeman, I’m expecting a big response. You should be able to follow quite a lot of events vicariously.’

‘And what happens then?’

‘No decisions until Jack comes up with some results and we see what the website provokes.’

‘Robert.’

‘Yes.’

‘Doesn’t it bother you that the murderer is still out there?’

‘Well, yes, of course I’d like him locked up. But if it was mistaken identity and Jack is the target, I’m not too worried because she really is being well guarded. If the targets were Pritchardson and Gonzales, I haven’t a clue and I haven’t got time to think about it. I’m fantastically busy.’

‘Any sign of life from the police?’

‘The D.A. is having talks with the local imam, we’re told. Oh, and negotiations between Jack’s lawyer and the cops look set to have the charges against her dropped in exchange for her agreeing not to sue.’

‘And her gun?’

‘Still a subject for negotiation. But she doesn’t seem too exercised about it at the moment and I’d be just as pleased if they held on to it. I haven’t yet developed an American insouciance about guns. I may be trying to bring about a revolution, but it’s unarmed, and call me a wimp—as, come to think of it, you frequently do—I’d rather it stayed that way. Having Jack modelling herself on Annie Oakley is one complicating factor I can do without.’

***

‘Lady Troutbeck.’

‘Yes, Betsy.’

‘Why does everyone hate us?’

‘This is really rather good,’ said the baroness, finishing her espresso. ‘Hot enough, if not quite strong enough, but I think I’ve cracked it.’ She looked over at Betsy, who was still sipping her Diet Coke. ‘Who is everyone? And who is us?’

‘Everyone is the world. And us is Americans.’

‘And what makes you think the world hates you? Not just Rowley Cunningham and Jimmy Rawlings?’

‘Oh, no, but they kinda started me thinking about it. And then since I got to know you I’ve given myself a programme of reading stuff on the internet about abroad. And it’s not just all those Muslim countries but places like Europe and France.’

‘Pay no attention to the French, Betsy. When there was some little unpleasantness about Iraq some of your countrymen rightly described them as pansy-ass, limp-wristed, knock-kneed, cheese-eating surrender monkeys. You couldn’t expect them to like Americans.’

‘But even the English don’t like us, Lady Troutbeck. Some of your famous people say totally horrible things about us, like that we’re the biggest danger to peace in the whole world.’ She smiled wanly. ‘And that we’re the fattest and greediest too.’

‘So what do you think is the explanation?’

‘Is it cos we’re bigger and richer and fatter than anywhere else?’

‘That’s a part of it. You were much more popular when there were two big boys in the playground—you and the Soviet Union. Compared to the big communist bully you seemed very attractive. Well, that is, attractive to anyone half-way sane. And then the Soviet Union fell and you were the only big boy standing.’

‘And little boys think big boys are bullies.’

‘Exactly. And like cheeking them.’

‘Are we bullies?’

‘Of course you are sometimes. You’re open-hearted and well-meaning, but you can be dangerously self-centred and selfish and prone to throw your weight about. It comes of being an only child.’ The baroness laughed. ‘I should know.’

‘Oh, gee, Lady Troutbeck. Are you an only child? So am I.’

‘In that case, you’re what is known as the exception that proves the rule, Betsy. Only children are usually much more like me. And America. As a young nation America has had a vast expanse of territority to itself without powerful neighbours to have to get along with, so it had things its own way and expects everyone to see things from its perspective. It’s not surprising in what, in terms of development, is an adolescent nation. Europe is full of old nations who’ve had to fight with each other every inch of the way just to survive. At the very least, that meant we’ve had to take account of the neighbours.’

‘So you mean we’re spoiled?’

‘In many ways yes. You’re blessed with ample resources and your homeland has been a haven. Until 9/11, that is, which countries who were devastated in the world wars sometimes think you make too much fuss about. Though personally, I don’t. But then I’m in favour of waging war on terror. I think we’re seriously up against it vis-à-vis Islamist global anti-Western fanaticism.’

Betsy’s forehead went into its familiar furrow. ‘And being fat and greedy? Is that part of being adolescent?’

‘Whoo! Whoo! Praise the Lord. Whoo! Whoo!’

‘Damn! He’s finished his fig. Hang on, I’ll shut him up with a grape.’ The baroness shook her head as she returned from bribing Horace. ‘That bird is going to end up as fat as an American, the way things are going. And with less excuse.

‘Oh, by the way, Betsy, I quite like adolescents, so I’ve been trying to look at things from America’s point of view, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the main reason why Americans eat too much and are obsessed with material goods and choice and so on—not to speak of a preoccupation with being safe and living for ever—is because they’re almost all descended from tired, poor, and huddled masses who fled pogroms and famines so terrible they were prepared to risk their lives crossing a dangerous ocean.’

‘Like it says on the Statue of Liberty.’

‘Exactly. When they got to America they thought they and their children would be safe and free and fed and housed for ever. All this over-consumption is a reaction to that history. As is the preoccupation with quantity rather than quality.’ She laughed. ‘Anyway, I like America so I’m putting the best gloss on it.’

‘Why do you like us?’

‘You are courteous and kind, Betsy, and unlike many people in Europe, I remember our history. I remember that Nazism would have triumphed and we would have lost the Second World War without America’s help, that it provided the money to rebuild Europe and that without America standing up to the Soviet Union, freedom would be a distant memory for all of us.’

‘Oh, Lady Troutbeck. You make me proud to be an American.’

‘Someone has to do it, Betsy. But I have to enter a caveat. That’s another word for caution. It’s because of that history that you overestimate how much freedom matters to people in other parts of the world. Some people actually like servitude. Look at all the people who vote for Islamist parties.

‘Now, how are you getting on with
Middlemarch
? Tell me when you’re finished, and I’ll give you an interesting story called
Animal Farm.’

***

‘The
Sentinel
’s certainly done us proud,’ said Amiss, dangling the paper in front of the baroness’s nose. ‘Look.’

‘“
SAVE FREEMAN U” WEBSITE LAUNCHED: PROVOST CONDEMNS TROUBLEMAKERS
.

‘Good. Good. I can’t read it until I’ve finished tending to Horace. What’s the story?’

‘What they were given. It’s enormously long and rehashes quite a lot of the stuff they produced before from the VRC, but the gist is that idealistic students with a thirst for education and backed by a generous mystery donor….’

The baroness smirked. ‘I like being a mystery.’

‘…have launched a website—www.savefreemanu.com—calling on fellow students and friends of Freeman U to help their campaign to abolish corruption, intellectual decadence, and censorship on campus. They say that while they deplore the murders of the Provost and her personal assistant, both were implicated in an assault on the integrity and inspiration for which Freeman U used to be a by-word. The website explains how to set up anonymous email addresses, so concerned students can safely send in their stories and get blogging.’

‘What’s blogging?’

‘You know perfectly well, not least because you’ve been told several times. It’s the technological equivalent of a phone-in. Considering you’re now the major benefactor of a website, it’s time you stopped affecting complete ignorance of anything since the abacus.’

‘I like abacuses.’

‘The Acting Provost is unhappy,’ reported Amiss, raising his voice slightly. ‘“‘The students behind this are racist, sexist, homophobic subversives,’ she said when contacted by this newspaper. ‘They will be expelled when we find them. Freeman U does not tolerate any kind of intolerance and we will be taking action to have the site closed down immediately.’ A spokesman for SFU said, ‘We are grateful to Acting Provost Dr. Diane Pappas-Lott for so succinctly demonstrating how American values have been under attack for the past four years by the stifling of free speech on the FU campus. I couldn’t resist calling it “FU.” Just once.’”’

‘Otherwise a most restrained comment.’

‘Restraint is what I’m counselling.’ Amiss’s phone rang. ‘Yes, Mark….Excellent…OK, I’ll get going. ’Bye.’ He ended the call. ‘I’m going over to HQ to monitor what’s going on with the website, Jack. Apparently the response is fantastic. Two thousand hits within the first hour.’

‘I hope they’re palpable hits.’

‘Are you coming?’

‘No, I’m staying here for now. All of you will become over-excited by this electronic gibberish. Someone has to think.’

Chapter Fourteen

The baroness gazed with distaste at the screen of Amiss’s laptop. ‘I can’t read this stuff. It’s all impenetrable, illiterate crap.’

‘It’s a goldmine, Jack.’

‘It may well be, but I’m not going to be the one to put on a tin hat with an in-built lantern and go down in the lift carrying a canary. Or even a parrot. Horace and I would instantly expire from the effects of the noxious gases of ignorance.’ She paused and jabbed her finger at the screen. ‘Look at that.’

‘Hey, baggyshorts,’ read Amiss, ‘I just wanna say I know your really sad but don’t loose all your hopes and dreams your luck might get enlightened. I know im goofy dude but ive worn that asshole’s t-shirt and I got thru and he didnt go find someone to hug and chill out with.’ He sighed. ‘Trust you to select an example like this, though even this has value.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘Give me a minute.’ Amiss rapidly scrolled up a few times and then returned to the orginal place. ‘It’s following a thread about our late friend Dr. Gonzales. This particular blogger—who goes under the pseudonym of “coolchick” and who, I grant you, is grammatically and syntactically challenged—is sympathising with a male using the pseudonym “baggyshorts”….’

‘How do you know baggyshorts is male?’

‘Apart from the evidence of his own earlier blog, coolchick—who has clearly been reading all his contributions—calls him “dude,” which to the best of my knowledge is used only of males. Or, of course, female-to-male transsexuals.’

She snorted. ‘She should know better than to trust anyone wearing baggy shorts.’

‘In any case, if you will permit me to continue this exegesis, which you did after all request, baggyshorts had testified that Gonzales had had his—baggyshorts’—scholarship taken away from him for complaining publicly that someone who never turned up had improperly passed one of the courses baggyshorts was taking, and thus he—baggyshorts that is—had had to drop out of college. Coolchick—who in confiding that she had worn the same T-shirt is using a metaphor to indicate having had a similar unfortunate experience with Gonzales, aka asshole—hopes baggyshorts will overcome this setback….’

‘It’s beginning to sound like the plot of an Italian opera.’

‘…by finding someone to hug and relax with.’

The baroness scrutinised the screen. ‘Coolchick didn’t say that. She said
asshole
didn’t go and find someone to hug and chill with. Not that I quite follow her reasoning. I should have thought being murdered was a bigger problem for asshole than a lack of affection and the opportunity to unwind. There’s a certain finality to it.’

‘She omitted the full stop after “didn’t.”’

The baroness reread the paragraph. ‘You may well be right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Now how many of these entries are there?’

‘Last time I checked there were in the region of eight thousand. Probably twice as many by now.’

‘I certainly don’t want to read any more of this bilge. How big is your army of trained interpreters?’

‘I don’t need trained interpreters. Just young Americans. And I’ve a couple of dozen of them at work now selecting what’s significant and responding to it where appropriate to try to elicit further information and/or recruit people to help with our day of action. Then there’s the crack unit downloading the information that helps bolster the case you’ve already constructed against Dickinson, Prichardson, and Gonzales. We’ll keep it coming. Betsy’s taking me back to Godber’s and will be straight back to the office to feed you the stuff as it arrives on her computer.’

‘Just try to make sure it’s in some known language,’ grumbled the baroness.

***

‘You and your fucking parrot,’ shrieked Acting Provost Pappas-Lott.

The baroness threw a cloth over Horace’s cage to discourage him from continuing to shout “Rubbish.”

‘Come, come, Diane. I don’t know what’s particularly bothering you at present, but you shouldn’t take it out on an innocent bird. You might hurt his feelings and then where would you be? He recently learned my lawyer’s number.’

‘You’re behind this. I know you are. Don’t deny it.’

The baroness leaned back in her chair and put her feet on the desk. ‘Behind what?’

‘This anti-diversity campaign. You’ve probably paid for the website, you motherfucker.’

‘The what? Oh, that Save Freeman University business they’re talking about in the local paper? What a quaint thought. I am but a humble British academic and a proud technological illiterate to boot. And incidentally, should you of all people really be using “motherfucker” as an epithet?’

‘You’ve done nothing but sneer and mock since you got here.’

‘I just make the odd joke.’

‘We don’t have jokes in Freeman U. How often do I have to tell you that humour is inappropriate.’ She fell into a chair and began to scream. ‘I don’t know why you’re trying to uphold the white patriarchy, but you’re probably working for the CIA. You probably had Helen and Ethan murdered.’

The baroness reluctantly removed her feet from the desk, stood up and went over to her recumbent visitor. ‘If you don’t stop screaming, Diane, I’ll slap you. I don’t want Horace learning how to imitate you.’

The noise stopped abruptly.

‘Now tell me why you’re here,’ said the baroness, in her most soothing tone.

The Acting Provost gulped. ‘I panicked. There’s a message from the President telling me to close down the website and I don’t know where to start.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t start here if I were you. Haven’t you asked the campus police? Or your IT people?’

‘They say it isn’t illegal.’

‘That never stopped Dr. Gonzales.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Have you consulted the faculty deans?’

She began to cry. ‘They won’t take me seriously. They’re all men.’

‘In that case, Diane, I suppose you’re stuck with the issue. Why is it a problem? I don’t know anything about websites, but aren’t there a lot of them out there? Why not let students give their opinions?’

‘They’re challenging everything we stand for.’

‘Well then you need to respond to the challenge, don’t you? Why don’t you go back to your office, send a message to the President that you can’t get the website closed down, read what’s appearing on it and see if you can get stuck into the debate. Maybe you’ll find some common ground. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at universities?’

‘Not at this one,’ sobbed the Acting Provost, as she trailed out of the room.

The baroness rang Amiss. ‘To misquote the Duke of Wellington,’ she said, ‘I have seen the enemy, and by God she doesn’t frighten me.’

***

It was a week later and the baroness was sitting with Martin Freeman on the terrace of his New Paddington home drinking home-made lemonade. He raised his head from the thick file she had presented him with and gazed at her in horror.

‘I’m deterring the children from taking law suits for the moment,’ she said. ‘No point in bankrupting the university. It’d be better to hang on to the money and try to restore Freeman University to what it’s supposed to be.’

‘I feel sick,’ said Freeman. ‘Sick and shocked. I was chairman of the Board that selected Henry Dickinson.’

‘What did he have that the competition didn’t have?’

‘The previous President had died suddenly and we needed an urgent replacement. We’d had a few disappointments by the time we interviewed Dickinson. Not that many people want to live in a backwater like New Paddington. Henry had a good reputation in Wall Street. Nothing flashy, just steady performance. And he seemed to be energetic and enthusiastic. I remember telling my wife that even if he didn’t live up to expectation, he’d be a heck of an improvement on his predecessor when it came to fund-raising. And he was.’

‘Had you met his wife at the time he was appointed?’

‘No. He said she couldn’t come with him to be interviewed because she was looking after her sick mother. If I’d known he had acquired someone like that tart, I’d have thought more than twice about his judgement. You think she drove him to it?’

‘I think she fired the engine of corruption.’

Freeman leafed over a few more papers. ‘But I can’t believe what’s here. How could I let this happen on my watch?’

‘I’m afraid you fell into the trap Edmund Burke described of being a good man who did nothing and let evil prosper.’

Freeman looked distressed. ‘I didn’t want trouble and I took refuge in the family belief that we should never interfere with the academic side of things. But you’re right. That doesn’t excuse me for having let all this go on under my nose.’

‘You weren’t much interested in the humanities, were you?’

‘No. Knew nothing about them. History and English and sociology and all that stuff were beyond me. I was always being told by the Provost and the President that Freeman U was at the cutting-edge of post-post-modernity and virtual savvy, whatever that meant. I didn’t pay attention. Engineering and Science were my thing and so at social functions I’d be inclined to talk to their deans or professors.’

‘And as you’ll see from the file, standards were up to snuff there until recently.’

‘How Dickinson could have thought he could sell places in those faculties beats me. Either the kids can do the math or they can’t do the math. Bridges have to stand up.’

‘It rather looks as if he’d decided to have a final grand sale before he rode into the sunset. If you look at the figures we’ve dug up, he seems to have acquired several million dollars in the last two years alone.’

‘How the heck could he do that?’

‘Rich, unscrupulous parents of thick, lazy children.’

‘There’s no lack of those, I guess.’

‘Certainly not where Freeman is concerned. Dickinson was offering a fine service, which presumably became quickly known about through word of mouth. The key was to do what the diversity industry call “de-emphasizing SATs.” Just by claiming minority status, applicants could get in through a rigged exam and interview. Best was to be black, of course….’

‘So that explains why Dickinson had established Africa as a good market….’

‘That’s right. But even if your child couldn’t plead colour, there was always sexual orientation. If no one’s asking questions, just claiming to be bi-sexual is enough.’

‘And they got decent grades….’

‘Because standards plummeted, courses were introduced which my parrot could probably have passed assuming he’d turned up to class and claimed to be bi-sexual, and there were no penalties for plagiarism. In the case of the really rich and corrupt, you could order your essays and course-work on the internet, cheat at exams, and even pay another student to do everything for you including physically taking your classes. Hence the high turnover in staff and the demoralisation of good people like Warren Godber.’

Freeman looked even more depressed. ‘Why didn’t he come to me?’

‘It would have looked like sour grapes. Besides, your policy of non-interference was well-known.’

‘The Provost? What was going on with the Provost? Was she corrupt as well?’

‘A different kind of corruption, as Dickinson realised early on. Our investigators have established that they knew each other while Haringey was alive.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Why would they tell you? Dickinson knew how he could make real money, but he needed a compliant Provost, so when he met Helen at a conference and got to know her, he realised he had what he was looking for: she was fanatical, smart and ruthless. As a natural totalitarian who hated everything for which a good university stands, particularly the curious, sceptical mind, she was desperate for power and prepared to do any deal to get it. As a mere Dean at the time, she was limited in the damage she could do.

‘As far as Helen was concerned, Dickinson could do what he liked as long as she could too. She had the invaluable help of her PA and probably lover, Gonzales, a student she had saved years before in a different college from being thrown out for indolence and violence and who had later purchased himself respectability with a bogus Ph.D.

‘Haringey died and Dickinson influenced the head-hunters to recommend Helen, who embarked joyfully on her great experiment in social engineering by making students follow the party line and kow-tow to authority. Standards were a matter of no importance, so she lowered them to please Dickinson. In no time at all, her files reveal, with the help of Gonzales, she was proving the point that absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.’

‘But she was so charming.’

The baroness raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Hey, sorry, Jack. I should know better than to say something so dumb. Look at businessmen. And politicians. Why shouldn’t academics be as false?’

‘Quite. Indeed why shouldn’t they be even more false? The people in their power are children who are easily taken in and staff terrified of missing out on tenure. Or of being framed.’

Freeman flicked back a few pages. ‘But you’re saying that Gonzales was that ornery? That he actually had kids beaten up.’

‘Beaten up, threatened, frightened, blackmailed—whatever it took. He was a cunning chap who had excellent sources of information on campus. Paid sources. And the kangaroo-court….’

‘You mean the Office of Student Judicial Affairs?’

‘That’s it. Helen introduced it with the backing of the President so thenceforward the troublesome and comparatively poor among the students stood no chance. Once they introduced the notion that if someone felt hurt by something you said, you had said something hurtful, and that if someone thought you had demonstrated prejudice towards them you had done so, there was ample scope to throw out Jesus Christ on trumped-up charges.’

Freeman thumbed through a few more pages. ‘There is some terrible stuff here. Do you really believe that it was the raped and injured that mostly were punished by the authorities after those frat and sorority hazings?’

‘The evidence is overwhelming, Martin. Think about it. If children know their parents have bought their places and that essentially they can do what they like as long as the money comes rolling in, why would they not do what they like? The same applied to the star athletes who were allowed to get away with anything—even sexual assaults on cheerleaders. We’re mostly savages at that age, if not tamed by discipline and authority. So your sense of impunity is liable to show itself in ill-treating the poorer and most vulnerable students when you’re all drunk together. And when you’re seen to escape the consequences, you encourage others.’