Killing the Emperors by Ruth Dudley Edwards Read Free Book Online Page A

Martha’s for a holiday, but that sadly she’d made too many enemies. Apparently peeing in the piano was such a bad breach of etiquette that even Jack was powerless in the face of public opinion.’
    ‘You tread on my dreams,’ said Rachel. He gave her a hug. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s OK.’
    ‘Anyway she can’t have more than ten years left, darling, and she’s much better than she was. It’s ages since she climbed the curtains or managed to open the fridge.’
    ‘When you say better, you mean slightly less athletic.’
    ‘And a bit mellower. For instance, she hardly ever bites and the scratches are positively gentle.’ Rachel looked at the new plaster on the back of his hand. ‘Special circumstances this evening. You’d be angry if you’d had your ear chewed by a tomcat.’
    ‘I expect I would. All right. Forget I mentioned it. It was a moment of weakness.’
    ‘So back to your art expedition.’
    ‘Ah, yes. The doomed art expedition. “What’s the point anyway?” asked the head of English. “It’ll be wasted on them. They don’t care about art.”
    ‘I was opening my mouth to suggest that this might be related to no one having ever bothered to show them any, when Maureen pointed out that it would be offensive to Muslim students to show them figurative art. I pointed out that only the most conservative of Islamic clerics regarded that as sinful, and she said it would be culturally insensitive to run the risk. Another colleague asked why I should choose somewhere as passé as the National Gallery? Surely the kids deserved to see something more relevant to their lives? What could the Renaissance mean to them? And yes, she suggested Tate Modern. And she’s the deputy head of history.
    ‘I said I thought they could do with a little more sense of the past, and there was silence. It was becoming clear that the consensus was that I am a pathetic, naïve nuisance. Then the head gave me his full attention and said, “Rachel, of course it’s excellent to see a newcomer with such enthusiasm. And, yes, the world would be a better place if we could move beyond the curriculum. But we must be realistic. These children will do well to scrape a few exams and get low-grade jobs. I don’t think we should give them ideas beyond what is likely to be their station. My advice to you is to teach to the test. Yes, that’s what the job is all about. Teach to the test. Teach to the test.”’
    Amiss got up, sat on the arm of her chair, and put his arm around her. ‘Do you feel like quitting?’
    ‘No, I feel like fighting. But on a ground of my own choosing. No one can make much of a difference at my level without support from the top. I need to keep my head down, pass my probation period, and find myself a job in a school run by people who encourage aspiration and achievement.’
    The phone rang and Amiss rushed to it. ‘Ellis. Yes…Of course there must be a connection…It’s much too much of a coincidence. Idiots…OK, I’ll do that...Yes, of course…Straightaway.’
    ‘Ellis still can’t persuade anyone that there could be a link,’ he told Rachel. ‘He reckons if I tip off the press anonymously and get them speculating, it might help. Let me just hunt out my cloak and my dagger while I think of some way of leaking that doesn’t make me seem like a complete nutter.’

Chapter Three
    Around the time Miss Stamp had first been twittering at Amiss, Jack Troutbeck had woken up in an unaccustomed state of befuddlement. Instead of hurling herself out of bed to attack the day, she opened her eyes slowly, but since she was in pitch darkness, that didn’t help. She could remember getting into her car in London to drive to Cambridge and then an arm coming from behind her with something that smelled sweet. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said to herself. ‘Chloroform! How quaint.’
    Sitting up, she flailed around looking for a lamp or a light switch: finding neither, she threw back her head and bellowed,