Murdering Americans by Ruth Edwards Page B

we don’t want any disconnects. Frictionless team-playing is our goal at Freeman.’
    The baroness scrutinised the document from which the Provost had been reading. ‘You’ve left a category off that list,’ she observed.
    ‘What? Where?’
    ‘Species. Should you really be allowing for discrimination on the basis of species? Is my parrot to be denied his equal opportunities?’
    The Provost looked at her coldly. ‘At Freeman we don’t like inappropriate humour, Jack. We are envisioners and empowerers. Not comedians.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the baroness. ‘You shouldn’t discriminate against comedians either.
    ‘They’ve got lawyers too.’
    ***
    The baroness took a nap after Betsy delivered her back to the hotel. Invigorated, she decided on a stroll before dinner. Within a few minutes she was in a wide and virtually empty street lined by dilapidated Victorian houses, few of which offered much evidence of even partial occupancy. Searching hopefully for a bar, she found signs only for a notary, an accountant, and a realtor before coming to a large area of waste ground full of tin cans and bits of cars. There was no bar on the other side, but a young man in a belted raincoat and a fedora jammed low over his forehead was leaning against a lamppost, smoking. On the front door to his left was an old-fashioned neon sign which read ‘M and V Private Investigators. No case too small.’
    The baroness nodded at him. ‘Do you mean that about too small? Do you do misplaced spectacles and cats up trees?’
    He touched his hat in salutation. ‘Beats killing time, lady.’
    ‘I don’t think it would if it was the cat in my life,’ she said with a guffaw. ‘Maybe I’ll be back to you about the spectacles.’
    ***
    ‘So it wasn’t a bad day, considering how appallingly it began,’ she told Mary Lou that evening. ‘I’m having fun winding up the prissy Provost and the unpleasant heavy she calls her PA by pretending I’m dying to go massacring animals, I have a fine office where Horace can be accommodated during the day, a share of an efficient-seeming secretary, an attractive gopher who’s a lot brighter than she first seemed, an enemy in the shape of Rowley Cunningham to keep my hand in, and, tomorrow night, I hope I will, inter alia, be meeting the renegade ex-dean at a dinner for faculty and distinguished visitors.’
    ‘You’re certainly whining less than last night. Did you find some real food?’
    ‘I invaded the hotel kitchen, bribed the chef, and stood over him until I got a rare steak and hot chips. I also procured a plain green salad with a simple dressing by making it myself and refusing all offers of extraneous ingredients. Various people kept wittering about me breaching safety rules and regulations by even being there, but I ignored them and they retreated.’
    ‘Wise people.’
    ‘Oh, and the bar was open and I found a bottle of wine that was not an insult. Tonight, Horace and I are on the train-free side of the hotel, and tomorrow I intend to get a serious grip on matters culinary. Indeed I plan to carry all before me.’
    ‘Of course you do, Jack.’
    ‘Any word from Robert and Rachel? I rang his mobile phone, but it seems to be out-of-order.’
    ‘As I explained before, Jack, it’s switched off. They’re set on avoiding avoid any post-wedding hysteria from Rachel’s family or demands from you, so they respond only to text messages and emails.’
    ‘I don’t have a mobile here so I can’t send a text message, even if I knew how. And obviously I can’t do emails.’
    ‘If you choose to handicap yourself through intellectual laziness and stubbornness, Jack,’ said Mary Lou icily, ‘don’t expect any sympathy from me.’
    There was a silence.
    ‘You’re very sharp today.’
    ‘You’re very provoking.’
    ‘Well, so be it. I am what I am. You didn’t answer my question.’
    ‘I had a brief email from Italy. They’re happy.’
    ‘Remind them America awaits