The School of English Murder

The School of English Murder

Ruth Dudley Edwards

Amiss 03

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0
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Contents

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Prologue
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3
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4
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5
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6
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Epilogue
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THE SCHOOL OF ENGLISH MURDER

Ruth Dudley Edwards

LONDON VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD

1990

Robert Amiss, hero of
Corridors of Death
and
The Saint Valentine’s Day Murders
, is in a mess. He has left the Civil Service, the bank writes impertinent letters to him, and he faces the indignity of life on the dole. So when his old friends in the CID ask him for help, he is in no position to refuse.

Strange things have been happening at the Knightsbridge School of English. One teacher has met a suspicious death and another has been attacked, apparently a random mugging. Are the two events connected? Amiss unwillingly agrees to be the CID’s mole at the school.

His reluctance is soon justified. Rechristened ‘Bob’ by his dubious new employers, Amiss is forced to adopt the persona of Cad-about-Town and play escort to a group of obnoxious foreign students absorbed solely in the pursuit of pleasure. But then another ‘accidental’ death hits the school. Something very nasty – and clearly dangerous – is going on… and Amiss gets drawn into the thick of it.

Funny and exciting, with a wonderful cast of characters (including a redoubtable cat called Plutarch), Ruth Dudley Edwards’ third crime novel will delight all lovers of the English mystery.

First published in Great Britain 1990

by Victor Gollancz Ltd 14 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8QJ

Copyright © Ruth Dudley Edwards 1990

The right of Ruth Dudley Edwards to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Edwards, Ruth Dudley

The school of English murder.

I. Title

823'.914[F]

ISBN 0-575-03788-1

Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd,

Lymington, Hants

Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd,

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

By the same author

PATRICK PEARSE: THE TRIUMPH OF FAILURE

VICTOR GOLLANCZ: A BIOGRAPHY

CORRIDORS OF DEATH

THE ST VALENTINE’S DAY MURDERS

To Elizabeth Bawdon, Susan Chadwick, Nina Clarke, Vincent Guy, Ivan Hill, Maureen Lenehan, David and John Mattock, Tina Moskal, Richard Pooley and all those other friends who have taught English as a Foreign Language properly but who nevertheless inspired, helped or encouraged me to produce the present travesty.

The School Of English Murder

Prologue

^
»

‘Do you want to know another of the bitter ironies of life?’

‘Probably not,’ said Rachel. The weariness of her tone was not lost on Amiss. ‘But carry on if you must. It might be one I hadn’t heard of yet.’

‘It’s that people who take principled decisions that cost them money are always those who can’t afford to. Catch any of those sods with fat savings accounts and a twenty-year build-up of pension entitlements walking out on a safe job.’

Rachel eyed him levelly. He could see her lips contracting into thin lines. When they opened and he heard her teeth snap he warded off trouble hastily.

‘OK, OK. You’re about to point out that I walked out in a fit of rage, that principle had nothing to do with it and that I could have returned if I hadn’t been too proud. And, knowing you, I expect you’ve got a list up your sleeve of well-heeled people who gave up all for honour.’ He stubbed out his cigarette savagely.

‘Good guesses,’ said Rachel. ‘You, on the other hand, will now point out that not everyone should be expected to be accurate and objective in times of crisis. You’ll add that at a time like this a chap needs a woman who’ll bolster up his ego rather than one who subjects his every remark to rigorous logical scrutiny. You may even go on to elaborate on why, being only a gentile, you can’t be expected —’

‘Will you shut up?’ yelled Amiss. ‘You’re talking like a bloody civil servant.’

‘I
am
a bloody civil servant. I thought the whole problem was that you wished you still were.’

‘Not me,’ declared Amiss, leaping to his feet and striding up and down the room purposefully. ‘I can’t wait to embark on an exciting new career. You’ll see. I’ll become a nasty, greedy insider dealer and drive a nasty, flashy Porsche.’

‘Fine,’ said Rachel. ‘In the meantime, don’t forget to sign on the dole. I suppose if you can’t find a job you can become a Foreign Office spouse. It’ll do wonders for my career if you’re free to travel with me, protect me from liaisons with dubious foreigners and engage in intelligent small-talk at cocktail parties. Most of my competitors have liberated wives who object to doing that kind of thing. You’ll be a great asset.’

‘Is that a proposal of immediate marriage?’ asked Amiss hopefully.

‘Call it a statement of long-term intent.’

They looked at each other and Amiss grinned first.

‘You’re an impossible cow,’ he said, ‘but I love you. I can’t wait till you’re stationed back in London. Now before you bugger off back to Paris, take me out, buy me a wonderful dinner and let’s get down to considering seriously how I go about finding a decent job in Thatcher’s Britain.’

1

«
^
»

Amiss arrived at the Unemployment Benefit office five minutes before his nine o’clock appointment and was delighted to be interviewed punctually by a motherly Jamaican of such cheerfulness and optimism as to mitigate the effect of the bad news she conveyed. She helped him fill in his claim form and then surveyed the result.

‘Sorry, love. Nothin’ doin’. I can tell you now you won’t get no dole for about six months. From what you’ve said you’re sure to be classified “Voluntarily unemployed without a good reason.” ’

‘Six months? I thought it was six weeks.’

‘That was in the old days. Didn’t you know there’s been reforms? This is one o’ them.’ She grinned so disarmingly that Amiss was forced to grin back.

‘ ’Course you’ll be able to appeal.’

‘No point. I’ve no case.’

‘Why’d you jus’ walk out?’ she asked with unprofessional curiosity.

‘Bad temper mainly, I suppose. I got fed up with stupid bureaucracy. And I’m too proud to go back. Besides, I need a change.’

‘I didn’t think high-ups did that sort of thing.’

‘I didn’t think of myself as a high-up.’

‘Well, compared to me you were.’

She took pity on Amiss’s embarrassment.

‘Cheer up, love. With your looks and your brains you’ll be fixed up in no time.’

‘But in the meantime I haven’t any money.’

‘Go on. What were you doin’ with it?’

‘Don’t know really. Taxis? Eating out? Going abroad? I was never the saving type.’

‘Well I suppose if you’re really stuck, Social Security’ll help. But you’ll be lucky to get the rent and enough for one night a week out at McDonalds. The good days is over.’

‘Well, anything helps when you’ve got nothing,’ said Amiss lugubriously.

‘Off you go then. It’s two buses to get to the Security. Pity you’re called Amiss. The L-Z office is much nearer. Now if you’d been called Robert Mugabe you’d have it made.’ And giving him a crisp set of directions, she sent him off with a smile and a wave.

With a lift in his step Amiss set off in search of the first bus. He had been waiting for fifteen minutes when the rain began to fall. The woman in front of him struggled to pull up the rain hood on the baby buggy with one hand, while her elder child tugged at the other and screamed to be allowed to go to the playground. By the time the bus turned up, mother, children and Amiss were all suffering from fractured nerves. With difficulty he helped the family on to the conductorless bus and fled upstairs out of earshot.

A second lengthy wait in persistent rain finally put him in the appropriate mood for his first look at the Social Security office. It was an uncompromising piece of concrete neo-brutalism, whose barracks-like appearance was subtly enhanced by its perplexing adornments. The one piece of graffiti — bank of Dresden — was new to Amiss and only marginally more comprehensible than the three rows of posters each showing a clenched fist, a great deal of barbed wire and a lot of Arabic writing. Underneath these was a small poster picturing the late Shah of Iran, which accused the ‘Criminal English Freemasonry’ of having put their agent Khomeini in power and then concealed his death for years. The said freemasonry was additionally charged with being at the head of world terrorism. To raise further the spirits of its putative clientele — or perhaps to make the indigenous population feel at home — officialdom had put up a sequence of its own notices outside and immediately inside the glass door. The first explained that the building served another purpose: it was additionally a centre for artificial eyes, limbs and appliances. The second stated that no dogs were admitted, the third that no cycles or dogs were admitted and the fourth gave details of the correct procedure in the event of escaping gas. The fifth was the
pièce de résistance
:

MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC PLEASE NOTE

No person in possession of alcoholic liquor nor severely affected by drink or drugs will be admitted to these premises. The police will be asked to remove those who fail to comply with this notice.

The only positive note was struck by the friendly doorkeeper who confirmed that Amiss was in the right place at the right time and sent him to a door at the end of the corridor. He was less than surprised when he found himself in a room of dreary awfulness. It contained perhaps thirty bucket seats, all of them occupied, with a line of people standing waiting for the next vacancy. The dirty yellow walls contrasted startingly with the floor-covering — a pock-marked reddish lino that erupted in places into what looked unnervingly like large black boils. There were expanses of scratched brown notice-board empty apart from a scattering of small leaflets about death grants. At the far end of the room Amiss could see three officials conducting interviews from behind their protective glass.

He stood at the end of the line and began to read. Every five minutes or so everyone would move up one place to make room for the newcomers. By midday Amiss felt as if he’d been there for half a lifetime. The wailing of the baby behind him was driving him madder even than the smell and incoherent mumblings of the two drunks immediately in front. He shifted uncomfortably on the plastic seat, leafed through his newspaper for the fifth time that morning and failed to find anything he hadn’t already digested. The previous time he had applied himself so thoroughly as to become
au fait
not only with the article on the current state of English ladies’ hockey, but even with the details of the Commons debate on EEC agricultural policy. He looked furtively at his neighbours to see if there was any chance of effecting a swap of newsprint. Number three down the line was still crouched over his racing paper; number five remained glued to a pictorial magazine engagingly titled
Big Women;
the woman immediately in front was immersed in a religious tract and the two Asians to his right scanned papers in their native languages. It was unlikely that any of them would be thrilled by an offer of the London
Independent
.