Killing the Emperors Read Online Free PDF Page B

Burglars?’
    ‘That sort of thing. I’ll ask Ellis to send someone round to her flat and will be back to you as soon as I hear anything that counts as news.’
    ***
    ‘You’re supposed to be a crime writer,’ Amiss said to himself crossly. ‘Think of a benign reason why she’s disappeared.’ He thought of the baroness’ propensity for pursuing even unlikely potential conquests—male and female—as well as of her greed for all the good things of life, but then he thought of her sense of duty and her fierce loyalty to St. Martha’s. He made a vain attempt to get back to work, but finding himself looking as blankly at the screen as it looked at him, he decided to engage in displacement activity. With Radio 4 talking at him of all manner of political and cultural controversies that he could hardly take in, he attacked the kitchen belligerently and tidied up everything in the flat he could find to tidy. Resisting the temptation to bother Ellis Pooley, he forced himself to sit down at the computer, pay bills, and answer emails. He rang Miss Stamp again, found her frantic, failed to steady her, went out for a walk, phone in hand, made an unnecessary visit to the supermarket to buy unnecessary food and went home and tried to interest himself in Sky News. But Middle Eastern tensions, domestic rows about public expenditure cuts, and a hurricane threatening American cities failed to do the trick. ‘I’ve been so worried,’ he told his wife when she got home, ‘that I thought of taking my mind off Jack by giving Plutarch a bath.’
    Rachel looked at the fat feline sprawled across the rug. ‘That would have been a suicide mission.’
    ‘I know. I know. That’s why I never bathe her. But it would certainly have distracted me.’
    ‘Phone Ellis.’
    ‘I don’t want to seem to be fussing. He’ll be doing what he can. Mary Lou would have called if there was news.’
    ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Robert. Impossible person though Jack is, we’re all very fond of her and you and Ellis have been through so many wars together that you’re blood brothers. Phone him. Now!’
    ***
    ‘He’s virtually certain that she can’t have had a crash on the way to Cambridge,’ Amiss reported. ‘There were only half-a-dozen during the relevant period and everyone involved has been identified.’
    ‘Has he had her flat checked?’
    ‘Yes. A neighbour had a key. Nothing suspicious. And her car’s gone. He was flummoxed and wondering whether to get her reported as a missing person.’
    ‘She wouldn’t like that if she’d simply gone AWOL.’
    ‘But she wouldn’t have gone AWOL when she was due at that meeting. It wasn’t as if it was even just routine. She’d mentioned to me there was a row brewing about something or other which she had to resolve. She was trying to decide whether the appropriate tactic was conciliation or repression. You know Jack. She was looking forward to it.’
    ‘So he’d better have her reported as a missing person, then.’
    ‘That’s what I told him. No choice.’
    ‘How are you?’
    ‘Miserable. Scared. Edgy.’ He gave a bleak laugh. ‘Like Tracey Emin. Come on, wife. Take me out for a walk and a drink and try to get my mind onto something other than that the most likely explanation is that Jack Troutbeck’s dead.’
    ***
    It was after eight o’clock the next morning. Amiss had given Rachel breakfast and had walked her to the tube, assuring her unconvincingly that he would call on his innate male ability to compartmentalise, avoid tormenting himself about Jack, and get some work done. Having instructed himself to hold off until nine from ringing Pooley, he looked at newspapers on-line and found himself reading the same paragraphs over and over again and checking his watch every few minutes. At half past eight, when the phone rang, he jumped up so energetically that he knocked over his coffee and the dregs spread over his keyboard. He paid no attention but grabbed the receiver. Plutarch,