Carnage on the Committee Read Online Free PDF

raise Jim. Got Ellis. He's nosing round and will be back to us.'
    'Quite like old times.'
    'I can see you're enjoying yourself. You haven't shouted at anyone for miles.'
    'I like fun and this is sounding promising. Life's been a bit tame recently. Haven't had an adventure since we solved the Irish Question last year.' [The Anglo-Irish Murders]
    'Unfortunately the Irish don't seem to have noticed. They're still asking the same question.'
    'There's the Irish for you. Ungrateful to the last.' The car turned sharply from a roundabout into a slip road. 'Stop babbling for a couple of minutes or so. The rain's eased off, so I'm going to do a bit of driving.' He looked at the speedometer with his usual sinking feeling. As it shot up to eighty, she moved into the fast lane and put her foot fully down. 'I'm in the mood to show my paces. Nothing to clear your head early in the morning like doing a ton down the motorway.'
    Amiss sank into his seat in obedience to Rule Seven: when you're really terrified, just close your eyes and feign sleep.
    3
    'Wake up, wake up,' she shouted a few minutes later. 'Coffee and obits break. And don't even think about eating. I've rung St Martha's with instructions about breakfast.' As she slammed the door, he scrambled out and followed her into the service station. 'I'll get the papers and a table. Jack. You get me a black filter coffee and do the complaining.'
    He was already half-way through The Times's account of Hermione's glittering career when the baroness shoved a cup and saucer in front of him and sat down. Ignoring the expected grumbles, he passed her The Guardian to distract her and tried to sip the acrid liquid without making faces. Within a few minutes, she jumped up. 'I can't stand any more.'
    'Any more what?'
    'Any more of this muck or - what's even more rebarbative - this assessment of Hermione Babcock, great-hearted European and scourge of little Englanders. If they're to be believed, she was leading the Warburton towards a New Jerusalem in the teeth of the forces of reaction.' She gathered up her belongings. 'Forces of reaction, indeed. They ain't seen nuttin' yet.'
    As they passed the cash desk, she hurled at the cashier the information that the coffee wasn't fit for cattle.
    'The quality of the coffee's got nothing to do with her,' said Amiss wearily.
    'Rubbish. She works in the place, doesn't she? She should take an interest in the sufferings of customers. You might as well say the food at St Martha's has nothing to do with me.'
    She paid no attention to Amiss's feeble rebuttal. 'Stop being boring. There was some good news: Babcock copped it when she was only half-way through her sensitive, ground-breaking new novel.'
    'What ground was she breaking this time?' he asked, as they charged back to the car-park.
    'Christ knows. The crassness of consumerism came in to it somewhere, as did the neo-Gothic, Mother Courage, post-capitalist meta-narrative - whatever crap that is -White Goddesses, Hillary Clinton and the Ode to Joy. Top of the many things I'll never forgive the bloody European movement for is its kidnapping of Beethoven's Ninth: they should be playing Wellington's Victory instead. Now get in. Get in.'
    The next few minutes were enlivened by the baroness's inability to find the way out, her insistence on driving contrary to the directional arrows and the altercation with the protesting driver who was going the right way. 'That showed him,' she remarked with satisfaction as they finally reached the motorway.
    Amiss emerged from the newspaper in which he had prudently buried himself. 'Do you want to hear some more about Hermione? There's quite an entertaining piece in The Independent about how she and Flora Massingham, her sister, were at daggers drawn; it also implies she shagged half of literary London. Which, of course, we all knew anyway.'
    'How could anyone possibly have wanted to shag a scarecrow like Hermione? 1 wouldn't have laid a finger on her even on a desert island.' She