Murdering Americans (4 page)

‘About an hour. But, hey, that’ll be great cos we can like get acquainted.’

‘Cool,’ said the baroness grimly.

***

She had been asleep for fifty minutes when they reached the Hotel New Paddington. A nervous Betsy shook her awake. ‘’Scuse me, Lady Troutbeck. We’re here. I hope you’re like feeling better. You’ve had a really good sleep.’

The baroness rubbed her eyes and groaned. ‘What time is it?’

‘Fifteen after five.’

‘And you said the Provost will be here when…?’

‘Six. She’s taking you out to a really neat restaurant.’

‘Can’t think why she’d imagine I’d be interested in a neat restaurant. Decent would be more like it.’ Unaware, as she climbed out of the car with Horace, of Betsy’s bewilderment, she added, ‘Fetch the bellhop,’ and beamed proudly at her grasp of local argot. ‘And tell him to be quick. I’ll check in, settle Horace, and see you downstairs in fifteen minutes for a drink.’

***

The baroness shook the door of the bar fruitlessly, then marched across the ornate lobby to the reception desk. ‘What’s going on? The bar door seems to be locked.’

The tall, perky, pony-tailed redhead looked apologetic. ‘Sorry, ma’am. It’s a shame, but the bar’s closed.’

‘When will it open?’

The receptionist beamed. ‘6.00 tomorrow evening.’

The baroness deliberately took a deep breath and put on her most reasonable tone. ‘Why is it not open now?’

The tone was as irritatingly chirpy as the news was bad. ‘Indiana’s a great place to be, ma’am, but the law says we can’t open on Sunday.’

‘And why are you not opening during the day tomorrow?’

‘There’s no demand, ma’am. Folks here don’t drink in the daytime.’ She beamed. ‘But I’m sure you’ll find a bar some place.’ She paused. ‘Well, maybe you will.’

The baroness sighed heavily, leaned forward, and read the name on the receptionist’s lapel badge. ‘Could we cut to the chase, Miss Barbara Lupoff? This is an hotel, so you can, presumably, serve a resident at any time?’

Barbara Lupoff was delighted to have a chance to be positive. ‘Oh, sure, ma’am. We can serve residents all right.’

‘Right, then. We’ll sit in the lobby. What’ll you have, Betsy? I’m having a gin and tonic. Will you have the same? Or perhaps a glass of wine?’

Barbara was downcast. ‘She’s not a resident, ma’am.’

‘Hey, I’ll just have a soda, Lady Troutbeck. I’m not like old enough to be allowed alcohol.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Are you serious? This place is run by Roundheads.’ She turned back to Barbara. ‘However, at least this means we need not be troubled about her residential status. Get me the gin and tonic if you think I’m old enough to be allowed the gin.’

‘Sorry, ma’am, I’m afraid we can’t serve you. All the alcoholic beverages are in the bar and we haven’t got the key.’

‘And who has the key, Barbara?’ asked the baroness, in her most controlled voice.

‘The barman, ma’am.’

‘And he is where?’

‘Don’t know, ma’am. He don’t live in.’

The baroness took a deep breath. ‘We can surmount that problem. I have in my bag a bottle of malt whisky I was intending to give to my hostess, but my need is greater. Just get me a glass.’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am.’

‘All the glasses are locked in the bar?’

‘No. It’s against the law to allow any alcohol to be drunk in a public part of the hotel unless it’s provided by the hotel.’

The baroness exploded. ‘Let me get this straight, Lupoff. I got up at 1.00 in the morning your time, flew across the Atlantic, met in Chicago the thickest customs official in the West, transferred in Chicago to a plane that in the subsequent storm behaved like a canoe in a tsunami, was driven for an hour across a prairie, am shortly going out to dinner and have to keep my eyes open, and you tell me the bar is locked and I can’t even have a quick drink of my own whisky.’

Barbara smiled brightly. ‘Unless you’d like to go up to your room, ma’am.’

The baroness growled. ‘Dear God! Whatever happened to the land of the free?’ She emitted a theatrical sigh. ‘Very well, then. When in New Paddington one must, presumably, do like the New Paddingtonians. Send two glasses upstairs immediately along with the soda water.’

‘Could I have like a Diet Coke, Lady Troutbeck?’

‘You just said soda.’

‘But Diet Coke is a soda.’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s a revolting pop. But if you want it you shall have it.’ She turned back to the receptionist. ‘Two glasses and…’ she shuddered theatrically, ‘a Diet Coke. Now come upstairs, Betsy, and meet Horace…’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ said the receptionist, ‘but we’ve just been banned by Freeman U from allowing students in the bedrooms.’

‘What?’ The baroness’s voice had once again risen by several decibels. ‘Do, pray, explain.’

‘It’s a new rule, ma’am. Dr. Gonzales from the Provost’s office called last week.’

‘Rules are there to be broken. Can’t you ignore her, whoever she is?’

Barbara shook her head and Betsy intervened. ‘Dr. Gonzales is a man, Lady Troutbeck, and no one ignores him.’

‘Who the hell is he?’

‘He…he…works for the Provost,’ said Betsy.

‘And why do you look like a rabbit in the headlights at the mention of his name?’

‘Please, Lady Troutbeck,’ said Betsy, ‘I don’t need the Coke. And like I’ve got stuff to do so I’d better go now anyway. You just go upstairs and have a drink and I’ll like see you in the morning.’

‘Thanks to the mysterious Gonzales, the moment has passed,’ said the baroness. Her face brightened. ‘And, besides, here comes the Provost.’

Chapter Four

‘I love that suit,’ said Helen Fortier-Prichardson. ‘Is it tweed?’

The baroness looked down at her skirt complacently. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s a light tweed and it’s supposed to remind you of heather.’

‘Who’s the designer?’

‘Holland and Holland. They’re my gunsmiths.’

The Provost looked shocked. ‘You shoot?’

‘Sadly, not these days. I’ve been too busy. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to do some hunting while I’m here? What’s the local game?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said the Provost stiffly. Then, remembering that she was supposed to be wooing the baroness for professional reasons, she softened her tone and said, ‘I can find out for you and see if we can fix you up.’

‘That would be excellent. I’d like to have a gun again.’

‘But now you must be starving,’ said the Provost. ‘Server!’

A young man appeared beside the table, handed them both menus, and poured into their glasses water and ice from an enormous jug. ‘I’ll be your waiter this evening,’ he said. ‘I’m Randy.’

‘You may very well be,’ said the baroness, guffawing, ‘but isn’t it a bit early in our relationship to tell me that?’

‘Randy is a given name here, Jack,’ said the Provost, who seemed on edge.

‘How odd,’ said the baroness. ‘Be careful if you ever go to England, Randy. You could get more offers than you’d like.’ She took a healthy swig of water and spat it out again. ‘Ugh! It’s chlorinated. ’Orrible. Get me bottled water.’

‘Sure, ma’am,’ said Randy, and sped off before the baroness could demand an alcoholic drink. She and the Provost began reading the menu.

‘The desserts here are to die for,’ said the Provost. ‘Make sure to keep room for the Banana Enchilada.’

The baroness cast a despairing look down the menu. Having ascertained that she was expected to feel tempted by a banana deep-fried in a tortilla with lashings of cream, ice cream, and toffee fudge sauce, she returned to reading incredulously the descriptions of the appetisers.

The Provost looked at her sympathetically. ‘Still not decided, Jack? I know it’s tough. Everything’s so good. I’ve had a hard time choosing, but I’m going for the Mozza Melts.’

‘This Mozzarella will not be authentic artisan, Helen,’ said the baroness.

‘How do you mean “authentic artisan”?’

The baroness looked at her gravely. ‘Proper Mozzarella is made with milk from buffalos that have grazed in the malarial swamps south of Rome. It must be made—not in creameries or factories—but by the hands of the buffalo farmer himself.’ She paused. ‘Or, of course, his wife.’

The Provost pursed her lips in irritation. ‘I guess this won’t be authentic then,’ she said, ‘but Mozza Melts are just delicious.’

‘I can’t myself see that a dodgy cheese is improved by being fried in beer batter, whatever that is.’ The baroness put down the menu. ‘I’ll just have a rare steak.’

‘Aren’t you hungry?’

‘I seem to have lost my appetite.’

***

‘Of course it wasn’t rare,’ grumbled the baroness later that evening to Mary Lou, whom she had pursued by phone from office to home. ‘And it hadn’t been properly hung. And would you believe the madwoman wanted me to order it with something called battered prawns? Why would I want to put prawns on my steak? And they had no green vegetables. And the portions were so enormous the food was falling off the giant plates. And when I finally got a drink, the tonic was sweet and I had to send it back and get whisky and water instead and the glass was crammed with ice and the water was chlorine-ridden so I had to send it back as well and get neat whisky and bottled water. And all the wine on their list was so young, drinking it was infanticide. And I asked for the cheeseboard, and it consisted of a huge piece of sweaty, processed, orange, alleged cheddar.’

‘I warned you about American food.’

‘Not enough. Anyway, that wasn’t the worst of it. Once she finished exclaiming over the menu, the bloody Provost got down to telling me about campus life, and apart from the obscenity of talking about students as customers and dons as service providers, I couldn’t understand anything she was saying because of the vocabulary she uses—resource-allocation models and leading-edge paradigms and recalibrating and recontextualising interfaces and cutting-edge programmes.’

‘They learn it at Provost school, I guess.’

‘Well this half-wit seemed to think it would all make sense to me as I was the head of St. Martha’s. The bloody woman is a crashing bore. I don’t even fancy her any more. I wouldn’t dream of sleeping with someone who thinks battery chicken covered….No, let me get that right…battery chicken
slathered
with melted cheese is the food of the gods.’

‘So lust has fled?’

‘It most certainly has.’

‘You must wonder why you’re in New Paddington in that case.’

‘There are other possibilities,’ said the baroness coyly.

‘Really? Already? Who?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘Sometimes I’d like to slap you, Jack, but there’s not much I can do about that at this distance. Didn’t you find out anything at all from her about the university, or is that another secret?’

‘I learned that she has two interests: getting ever more bums on classroom seats and making sure that their owners think the right—that is, the left—way. She confided she’d had problems with a couple of right-wingers. Silly bitch. What does she think I am? And that her first year here was blighted by a humanities dean called Godber who was so “last century” that he was resistant to her profit-maximization schedules, which I presume meant he wouldn’t dumb down to pull in more punters. Worse still, he was apparently unsound on diversity, whatever that means here.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘She got him replaced as dean by someone called Diane who apparently is “now-centred.”’

‘So you’ll be seeking Godber out as soon as possible, I guess.’

‘I certainly will. There are also, I gather, though she was vague about this, some troublesome students, but she says she’ll tell me more about that later. Additionally, she said if all went well there was an even more distinguished visiting professorship paying mega mega bucks that might be on the cards next year. If I didn’t know there was no reason to bribe me, I’d think that was what she was doing.

‘However, I’m knackered and I’m off to bed for a vigorous sleep. I’m going to need all my strength to take on this place.’

***

‘Reception. Can I help you?’

‘This is Jack Troutbeck. What the hell is going on? I keep being woken by what I presume is a train shrieking “Whoo! Whoo! Wah! Wah!” I thought the entire hotel was taking off for Chicago. Is this going to go on all night?’

‘’Fraid so, Mr. Troutbeck. Would you like to move to another room?’

‘At 4.00 a.m.?’ With a muffled sob the baroness slammed down the phone.

***

‘Did you enjoy your breakfast, ma’am?’ asked the head waiter.

The baroness took a deep breath. ‘No, I most certainly did not enjoy my breakfast. In fact I sent everything back except the salt, and even that was sub-standard because it wasn’t sea salt. The toast was sweet and under-done, the butter frothy, the orange juice iced, the fruit salad freezing and unripe, the coffee was filth, the bacon fatter than a sumo wrestler, and the tasteless eggs appeared to have been fried in baby oil.’

‘I don’t know what to say…’ he began.

‘Try sorry,’ she barked, as she stalked out of the dining room.

***

‘Hi, Lady Troutbeck,’ said Betsy. ‘So how are you this beautiful morning?’

‘Exhausted, starving, cross, and in an uncustomary mood of self-pity.’

‘Oh, gee, I’m really sorry. Is something like wrong?’

‘Apart from being unable to sleep because the Chattanooga Choo-Choo went through my bedroom all night and being unable to eat because everything is unfit for human consumption, all is fine.’ She paused. ‘Mind you, it’s also unfit for animal consumption, come to think of it.’

Betsy’s little brow furrowed. ‘What’s the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?’

‘What’s the Chattanooga Choo-Choo? Dear God, I thought you were an American.’ She burst into loud and tuneless song: ‘Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo? Track 29, boy, would you give me a shine?’

Betsy looked around nervously and blushed when she saw they were being regarded with interest by two receptionists, the porter, and three guests. ‘You’re talking like about the train, I guess.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So are they like giving you a quieter room?’

‘They most certainly are, and it’s better than the one I had last night, but it’s still not satisfactory and will have to be improved on when the hotel manager is back on duty tomorrow. I’ve been supervising the move for the last hour.’

‘So you’ve got better accommodation because of the train. That’s cool.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘And like the food? You’ve like issues with the food?’

‘It’s disgusting.’

Betsy frowned again. ‘Is food fixed different in Europe from like the way it is here?’

‘It sure is, Betsy. At least where I come from.’

Betsy’s face brightened. ‘Hey, it’s just that you’re not like used to it. You’ll see. Our food is great. You’ll get to love it.’

‘Your optimism does you credit. Now, let’s get going.’

‘Sure, Lady Troutbeck. I’m parked just outside.’

Betsy had swapped the enormous station wagon of the previous evening for something more modest, though it also was decorated with a large logo of black, brown, and yellowish-white hands reaching towards each other, accompanied by the message:
FREEMAN UNIVERSITY: TOGETHER IN DIVERSITY
.

The baroness gazed at it with distaste. ‘I was hoping for something more on the lines of a beat-up Chevrolet.’

‘I’m afraid we don’t have anything like beat-up, Lady Troutbeck. I don’t even think the carpool has like any Chevrolets.’

‘Romance is dead,’ said the baroness, climbing into the passenger seat. ‘Now what instructions have you been given?’

‘The programme is to show you the campus, then we grab lunch, and then I take you to the Provost’s office.’

‘Before you do that, I’d like you to drive me round New Paddington till I get the lie of the land.’

‘Sure thing, Lady Troutbeck. It won’t like take long.’

Ten minutes later, they were back outside the hotel.

The baroness gaped at her. ‘You mean that’s it?’

‘Yep.’

‘But I didn’t see any shops, any restaurants, even any bars. Not even one of those diners I was looking forward to. Just run-down garages and decaying buildings and torn posters on rickety bill boards. And almost no people.’

‘That’s like the way New Paddington is, Lady Troutbeck. They say that like in olden days it was busy, but then like they built the shopping malls outside town and everyone like moved to the suburbs. There’s like lots of American towns like that.’

‘Not the way I remember them from the movies.’

‘Do you like go to the movies much?’

The baroness ruminated. ‘I suppose I haven’t been to half-a-dozen since the 1960s. That possibly explains it. Still, where are the students? Why aren’t they roaming the streets?’

‘We like stay on campus pretty well all the time, Lady Troutbeck, and, of course, lots of people like go home at the weekends.’

The baroness snorted. ‘Clearly, this joint is not jumpin’. Drive on, Betsy.’

***

‘I suppose it’s utilitarian.’

‘What’s that, Lady Troutbeck?’

‘Useful, Betsy. This campus is what our politicians back home would now, God help us, describe as “fit for purpose,” i.e., it undoubtedly provides students with the necessary facilities—places to sleep and work and be taught and lounge about in. But it has no soul, Betsy. No soul at all.’

‘But we can’t like all be students in Cambridge, Lady Troutbeck. I looked it up on the net when I heard I was like looking after you, and of course it’s like awesome. But we’re only like ordinary American students. We don’t expect like historic buildings, just places that’ll help us get the degrees we like need.’

The baroness looked at Betsy with more interest than before. ‘I accept your rebuke. Now let’s go and find some lunch. A beer and a sandwich will do fine.’

‘There’s no like alcohol in the food courts, Lady Troutbeck. They’re just a collection of fast-food outlets. And even if we could like find a bar in town, I couldn’t go in, because Dr. Gonzales has students banned unless they’re like over 21.’

‘And if we go to the hotel, the bar will still be closed and….’

They looked at each other and laughed.

***

‘What I can’t understand, Betsy,’ said the baroness, picking up and discarding pieces of blue cheese from a salad from which she had already removed an enormous slab of alleged turkey and a big slice of sweating cheddar, ‘is how there are so many fat people in America when the food is too horrible to eat. Just look at this….’ She gesticulated towards the body of the room.

‘Food court.’

‘Food court. Wall-to-wall junk food. What’s a responsible university doing encouraging the young to eat ersatz pizza, breaded processed fowl…’ she read from the menu, ‘mile-high meatloaf sandwich on egg bread, topped with mashed potatoes, fries, and a side order of pink and white marshmallow? Marshmallow! Marshmallow! Not to speak of paving-stone-sized slabs of cheesecake with artificial cream.’

‘There’s like the Health Zone low-carb section where you got your salad,’ pointed out Betsy.

‘A section full of little cards listing ingredients, calories, fat and sodium content for everything, I note, thus making it all feel like a penance.’ She ate a piece of lettuce and winced at the dressing. ‘Is there no demand here for natural ingredients properly cooked?’

Betsy took a sip of her strawberry milk shake and said nothing.

‘What exactly is that you’re eating?’ asked the baroness.

‘It’s a Surf ’n’ Turf.’

‘A what?’

‘You put the meat from a Big ’n’ Tasty hamburger together with the fish from a Filet-O-Fish. I don’t eat the buns.’

The baroness put her head in her hands. ‘Is mixing fish with meat an American thing? The Provost was trying to make me do something similar last night.’