'Can they now refuse?' enquired Lamb. Her voice to her own ears was anxious; but then anxiety on this particular subject was comprehensible.
'We've made them an offer they can't refuse, in the words of the movie,' replied Monkey. 'This is the text.' He pointed to it. 'And the presenter, Jemima Whats-it, is ready to receive it.'
'So easy,' murmured Fox. 'If we can do this with mere photographs, what can't we do with our little Royal Madam herself.'
Pussy smiled ruminatively, as though at some image in her mind, not necessarily a pleasant one.
'You know the new Underground Plan,' began Lamb slowly. Tom was dead. She knew that she must now eliminate all the familiar feelings of anxiety, it was vital to proceed calmly, this was how she was justifying her whole existence, wasn't it?
'I have an idea,' went on Lamb. 'A new idea which might work.
She explained, her confidence growing as she spoke.
'I could help on that,' said Beagle. 'Fox, you could help me.'
'I could help you both,' contributed Chicken firmly. 'It's my special interest, you see.'
So they plotted, as the seals continued to gaze mutely down on the various and varied faces of the people who had constituted themselves their human saviours.
CHAPTER TEN
Speaking Up For Animals
The terrible screaming which filled Cumberland Palace would, thought Ione Quentin, remain in her ears long after many sounds more generally associated with royal life (the noise of the bands, the noise of the crowds laughing and murmuring and clapping, the noise of the ceremonial horses clattering in the early morning) were forgotten.
'Ma'am, it'll be all right. They'll take care of it.'
Princess Amy gave another scream which sounded something like: 'They won't, they won't, they won't,' though the connection was not clear. One word, 'animals', could be discerned, and then the words became incomprehensible and finally turned into sobs. When the sobs were diminishing, Ione risked another gentle touch to the royal shoulder. Princess Amy raised herself on one elbow and gazed at her lady-in-waiting. Tears - aided by screams - had washed away most of her make-up: but the long eyelashes surrounding the enormous eyes which were her best feature were spiky-black with a mixture of tears and mascara. The full pouting mouth for once made Princess Amy look more like an injured child than a sulky young woman.
Unbidden and irreverent thoughts came to Ione Quentin's mind: one of these unbidden thoughts concerned Prince Ferdinand, Ione thought it was a pity the Prince could not glimpse his fiancee now. Ione, whose language, at least to herself, could be surprisingly robust, thought: for once P.A. looks positively fuckable. If P.F. saw her now, he might not waste quite so much energy in other directions....
Ione Quentin hurriedly pulled herself up and concentrated on the matter in hand. She put her arms round Amy's shoulders and Amy turned and buried her face in Ione's neat cream-coloured silk shirt, the shirt she wore so often (or something identical) that it was like a uniform. The feeling of Amy snuffling into the shirt, wet and still gasping or sobbing mildly, reminded Ione briefly of a pug puppy they had had as a child. Was that the pug Lydia had adored, the baby pug with a hernia who had to be put down? Another profitless line of thought. The sobs had turned to mere shudders of the frame held against hers. The worst was over.
Wait, thought Ione, what am I saying? The worst is only just beginning.
If the worst was just beginning, nevertheless Ione Quentin's arm round the weeping Princess Amy represented the last link in a long chain of shock, horror and disbelief since Innoright - or its representative — had rung Jemima Shore and requested certain public statements from the royal couple. Otherwise certain photographs would be released to the continental and American Press, and shown at least to the British Press.
'As if they'd dream of printing such filth!' one important person at another even more important palace had exclaimed, apprised of the emergency.
'Oh, I don't know,' murmured Major Pat Smylie-Porter, taking another long look at Mirabella's sinuous naked frame. 'Things ain't what they used to be where the Press is concerned, we all know that. Her without him perhaps. A Page Two picture.'
'Don't you mean Page Three?' rapped back the important person irritably. 'And anyway the wretched woman is hardly built for that kind of thing, our own horse would be -' He stopped to find Major Pat gazing blandly back at him.
On the other hand there was nothing bland about Rick Vancy, his usual calm tinged with manifest disgust at the idea of tus's sacrosanct exclusive interview being tampered with by some 'unfocused friends of the animal kingdom,' as he termed Innoright. To Jemima Shore, he remarked over lunch at Le Caprice: 'They have to find these gross people and they have to find them fast. Or find the photographs, and the negatives, all the negatives. We have to deaccessify them, correction, your police have to deaccessify them. What are your police doing?'
'Maybe we should send for the cia,' suggested Jemima Shore sweetly.
'For Chrissake, those bunglers,' began Rick Vancy, before realizing that he had once again failed to identify a British joke; he really had to work- on the whole subject of British jokes, thought Rick Vancy wearily, once this crazy business was over. A fun programme indeed! Even the animals were getting in on the act, it appeared, and that was not turning out to be much fun either.
From long experience, Rick Vancy knew himself to be a man of naturally liberal stance on every issue, without being so wildly liberal that tus became greatly alarmed: it was good for them to be just a little alarmed, at least from time to time. For example, Rick Vancy was critical of the us government on Nicaragua ('a revolution with no right to survive?') and stern towards the British government on Northern Ireland ('a colony with any right to survive?'). In a seemingly relaxed fashion. Rick Vancy, with his moral eyes half shut, could sense the public mood at its most liberal and push his own position just a little bit further in order to adopt that hard-hitting stance upon which his admirers counted.
But animals! The ecology was one thing: that could be political to put it mildly and generally was, but animal rights pure and simple! Animal rights when there was nuclear energy for or against, chemical warfare for or against, on another level Afghanistan for or against the Russian presence, Cambodia for or against the Vietnamese presence, or just the Middle East for or against, if you could put it like that, and after many years of sage reporting, Rick Vancy thought that you almost could. Either you cared or you didn't care, but you went there and reported anyway, with luck returning. And as a matter of fact. Rick Vancy did care.
With all this to be considered, Rick Vancy felt he might pass a lifetime of activity without getting around to animal rights for or against.
Not that Rick himself wasn't an animal lover; two English sheepdogs had graced the first Vancy marriage to a
Norwegian (the one that was sometimes supposed to have involved an Englishwoman, maybe on the strength of the dogs). Another live-in relationship sans marriage which had involved an Englishwoman had also encompassed a relationship with a rat. Yes, a rat, Goddammit, a tame or tame-ish domestic rat, the marks of whose bites were still with him long after the scars left by crazy English Tammy, herself a bit of a biter, had faded. And Goddammit once more, Rick had been fond of that rat! He shared memories with that rat.
Some of this Rick thought of expressing to Jemima, irked, he had to admit, that their relationship remained friendly and nothing more. Frankly, this was not what he had been led to expect in New York. Lunch at Le Caprice was all very well: in fact it was very agreeable. And Rick Vancy had noted with quiet satisfaction the moment when the corner table had become his table and stopped being inevitably Jemima's. So that Jemima, giving a last-minute lunch to her old friend Jamie Grand, the powerful presenter of the new arts programme Literature Now, had had to bow ruefully in Rick's direction, seeing him already installed there.
On the other hand, thought Rick, however socially gratifying, this had probably not helped his cause with Jemima. R
ick had a sudden inspiration. Would an account of some of Tammy's odder practices, with or without the rat, turn Jemima on? Maybe all Englishwomen of roughly Tammy's age and background shared the same odd predilection for domestic rats in intimate situations.
Maybe the rat was the key.
'Hey, did you ever know a woman who owned a rat, called Tammy?' he began. 'The woman I mean, not the rat.' Since Jemima continued to look politely blank, he added: 'The woman was called Tammy. No, forget it. Listen, these people are sick. Isn't that right? All the causes in the world, all the dying babies in Ethiopia, all the dying babies in the Sudan —'
'All the dying girl babies,' put in Jemima who suddenly remembered she had completed a programme on female infanticide (tentative title: 'Death is a Chauvinist') shortly before leaving Megalith, and wondered what on earth had happened to it.
'Exactly. All the damn babies. And these guys go for animal rights. To me that's crazy. It's either crazy or it's sick. And given what they're asking us to do, it's sick. Come on, Jemima, give. These are your Brits for Chrissake. Do they just hate society? Is that it? Or just hate us humble humans without getting as far as a dangerously complicated concept like society?'
'I'm not sure about this lot,' said Jemima honestly, bringing her mind reluctantly back from the fate of Death is a Chauvinist' (a private call to Cherry perhaps?). 'There are some very obviously violent ones around, animal liberationists, you read about them in the newspapers, horrifying manifestoes, threatening to burn, wreck, kill, whatever. Up till recently they tended to threaten but on the whole not perform. Or not perform particularly drastically. Then there was that incident in Westminster Square. You must have read about that. Ghastly! Carnage, that's the only word. The word everybody used and for once the right word. The fact that only, repeat only, horses were actually killed made it worse somehow.'
Rick looked at her quizzically. 'Better to have we horrid or humble humans knocked off than horses?'
'Docs one have to choose?' countered Jemima. 'No, no, I mean that it's surely specially frightful that people would kill or rather in most cases hideously maim - so they had to be destroyed - the very species they were allegedly trying to help.'
'The old terrorist situation. The innocent tend to suffer along with the guilty. And I guess you have to locate these guys somewhere in the terrorist pantheon.'
'Innoright itself hasn't so far committed an act of terrorism as such,' Jemima pointed out. 'And I should add that according to my pal Pompey - the policeman - Innoright doesn't exactly have a violent reputation. More crazy than sick, to accept your distinction.'
‘Oddballs?'
'What they're asking is not all that odd. If you believe what they believe. Not that we're going to give it to them,' added Jemima hastily, in case Rick Vancy's suspicions about the general British softness on the subject of the fate of animals as opposed to the fate of the human race in general should be confirmed. 'It's the principle of speaking up for animals. They feci no one does it, or no one of sufficient importance in the public mind. The Prince and Princess will do it, put it on the map for good. That's all.'
She was eating fish as usual, having politely described herself as 'almost a vegetarian' when she first met Rick (today: salade tiède a lotte). Rick on the other hand as he invariably did was eating chopped steak. And now that he knew Jemima better, he had slipped into drinking what she privately termed the Puritan champagne - Perrier water. I may be 'almost a vegetarian' thought Jemima, but he's 'almost a teetotaller' without liking to admit it. She herself was drinking white wine. To be frank, had it not been for Rick's sneaky abstemiousness, she would normally have diluted it with some of the Puritan champagne; as it was, she felt she must stand up for the rights of Sancerre to be drunk unadulterated.
'That's all!' echoed Rick. He pushed aside the steak (he always ate exactly two-thirds of it, as though he had measured it in advance, Jemima noticed) and began to tick off the Innoright demands: 'No more animal laboratory experiments of any sort, even in the cause of medicine, experiments on human beings if necessary instead.'
'Experiments on the human beings who benefit from the results,' corrected Jemima. 'That's what it said. Not the actual sick of course, just members of the human as opposed to the animal species.'
'Okay, okay.' He went on: 'In no particular order: no more fur coats or fur garments or trimmings. Leather not mentioned, I note. They're soft on leather. So-called Fur Law to be introduced. All existing fur coats to be sold abroad, proceeds to go to the rehabilitation of animals rescued from scientific laboratories, factory farms etc. Any woman seen wearing a fur coat in the street' — Rick broke off. 'Do you know something? This is fundamentalist rubbish. That clause about women wearing fur coats in the streets and the right of citizen's arrest, it reminds me of Iran, women without the veil, Pakistan, women with makeup -'
'Is it a fundamental liberty to wear a fur coat?' began Jemima. She stopped. 'Listen Rick, I'm not trying to argue the toss. If I were to be honest, I suppose like most people here, and doubtless a good many people in the States, I have to face the fact that I simply shudder away from the subject of animal experiments. Just imagine if anyone were to lay a finger on Midnight!'
'Cats not rats,' thought Rick irrelevantly. 'No wonder she didn't relate to Tammy and her rat.'
'On the other hand,'-went on Jemima, 'leukaemia in children, for example, animals who surfer to save children from leukaemia, animals versus children - I just don't want to think about it. And I'm supposed to be an investigator!'
'You've never gotten around to making a programme about it.'
Jemima smiled. 'Now that's an idea. Instead of our exclusive interview with P.A. and P.F., I make a programme about Innoright. I show the famous photographs. I interview Mirabella Prey. The only problem being: where are the people behind all this? How do I lure them on to the silver screen? Any ideas?'
'This is the point, sweetheart. Where are they? And what are the police doing about finding them?'
i may as well tell you one more thing. Rick. Now this is not crazy, this is serious. Far from killing, one of them was recently actually killed. A journalist who was a member of Innoright. One of them, one of the Innoright members died recently, was killed at a conference. Treated by the police as murder. Not much publicity, not exactly covered up, just not stressed when all attention was on the royal couple.'
'Jesus!' Rick took a quick restorative swig of the Puritan champagne. 'Murder! And what are the police doing about that?'
On the subject of what the police were doing about that — that being the unaccidental death of Jean-Pierre Schwarz-Albert — more voices than the plaintive voice of Rick Vancy were being raised. For example, Detective Superintendent John Portsmouth found his murder hunt suddenly interrupted by a series of interested enquiries concerning Animal Rights activists in general, Innoright in particular.
'Everybody keeps telling me in their panicky way that there has to be a connection,' observed Pompey stolidly to Detective Sergeant Vaillant as they sat alone, at the end of the day, in the incident room set up for the murder of Schwarz-Albcrt a.k.a. Tom, a member of the Innoright cell. 'And then they ask me will I please inform them what the connection is? The man dies. The photographs are taken. The threats are made: unless HRH speaks up -'
'Unless HRH and HH speak up -' corrected Vaillant.
'Unless they both speak up. But it's her they're after - cousin of the Monarch, member of the British Royal Family and all that. Could be seen by the ignorant - and a good many of them around - as some form of royal proclamation. A balance to all that hunting by You-know-who and all that shooting by You-know-who-else. Back to the connection. What I say is: if there is a connection, will those who know what it is, please inform me?'
Pompey gazed at Vaillant.
'So far as you know we've drawn a series of blanks. And not for want of trying. The photographer has an alibi, lots of witnesses that he came late, including the place of his other assignment which kept him. Still,
we shan't forget him. Not us. We're having another look at him over the photographs of course. So are Special Branch. The film star — what's her name? Do you realize I know her figure better than I know her name?' Since Vaillant looked shocked, Pompey proceeded: 'She swears she can't identify him. Swears she has no idea who knew she was going there to confront the wretched bridegroom. Well, that's what she says.' He paused. 'But he allowed us to search his studio, positively offered it, so that must be clean. Then there are the two women,' Pompey added.
'The witnesses?'
Pompey pursued his train of thought. 'Odd that two women who made statements, apparently quite unconnected with each other - but we'll have to check that - should prove to be members of Innoright.'
'There's a lot of it about,' put in Vaillant helpfully.
'Ordinary rank and file members. All the same it's an odd coincidence. And -'
'In this office we don't believe in coincidences,' finished Vaillant.
'Charity Wadham, a teacher if I remember rightly. Meeting a friend for tea in the Republican lounge, unaware it had been blocked off for the Royal Press Conference. Friend went happily to the other lounge, Mrs Wadham strays into the wrong lounge and sees our man apparently sleeping. Friend confirms story. But Mrs Charity Wadham is a member of Innoright, a founder member, what's more. The other woman - what is her name? -something foreign, Muscovite. ...'