Free Anglo-Irish Murders by Ruth Dudley Edwards Page A

these people are dangerous because of their great rage against people who have what they haven’t got. It’s like an underclass anywhere, but it’s been given an ideology to justify envy and revenge. Anyway, in Call-me-Cormac’s view all terrorism is a response to tyranny and therefore is usually justified. Unless it’s the loyalist underclass killing Catholics, of course. Or even more so, any action by the state which smacks of heavy-handedness. IRA man shoots policeman dead—legitimate form of protest. Policeman accidentally kills terrorist in self-defence, call in Amnesty International and demand public enquiry.’
    ‘Does the chap have saving graces?’
    ‘Don’t think so, unless a penchant for too much stout qualifies as a saving grace. Probably if he’d been a priest in Oxford rather than South America he’d have developed a taste for port. But since nowadays he’s a friend of the poor and the Irish poor at that, stout it has to be. And it makes him sing even worse.’
    ‘Sing what?’
    ‘Protest and peace stuff, naturally. And accompanies himself badly on the guitar.’
    ‘Oh, God. Does he…?’
    He was interrupted by the baroness, who plumped herself down beside them, waved her large Martini in a celebratory manner and said, ‘Yum, yum. They certainly did all right on the interpreter.’
    ‘Is that so, Jack? I haven’t had time to notice. Unlike you, I’ve been too busy trying to grasp who is who to have time to study the carnal possibilities of anyone here.’
    She smacked her lips. ‘I could really take to Aisling. I’ve always liked blue-black hair and green eyes.’
    ‘Well, well,’ drawled Gibson. ‘I hadn’t expected romance to blossom so early in the proceedings. Gives us all hope.’
    ‘Keep your filthy hands off our interpreter, Jack,’ said Amiss. ‘You shouldn’t be mingling pleasure with business.’
    ‘I long ago gave up thinking this had anything to do with business. As far as I’m concerned, I’m playing this one for laughs all the way.’
    ‘Very wise,’ said Gibson. ‘Very wise.’
    ‘Aisling’s probably straight anyway,’ said Amiss crossly.
    ‘Only because she’s never met me before.’
    ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re quite repellent when you smirk?’ She giggled with pleasure.
    Amiss groaned. ‘And that one of the most irritating things about you is that it’s almost impossible to find any insult that you don’t interpret as a compliment?’
    She giggled again. ‘Just as well, isn’t it? Now tell me about this pretentious little jerk who is presumably about to bore the arse off all of us.’
    ‘Why do you automatically assume he’s a jerk?’
    ‘Because of the title of his talk. “Silence and narrative: Heaney and the Peace.” Bullshit personified.’
    ‘I tend to agree with you,’ said Gibson, ‘but the Irish don’t. McGuinness was pushed strongly by the Department of Foreign Affairs, who say he’s intellectually red-hot.’
    ‘That’s because they’re a bunch of spoiled writers and academics—like most of the Irish.’
    ‘No one could accuse you of shirking the sweeping statement,’ commented Amiss.
    ‘So what’s the alleged purpose of this session anyway?’
    ‘He’s to broaden our minds, we’re told,’ said Gibson, ‘not to speak of extending our horizons, accessing our sensibilities, wringing our withers…all that sort of stuff. Inter alia he’s looking at our cultural divisions from a European perspective in the context of our universality, or something like that.’
    ‘Can’t wait. Anyway why isn’t the little bastard here by now? We kick off in half an hour.’
    ‘He is here,’ said Amiss. ‘Even as we speak I expect he is rehearsing in his room. He told me with immense solemnity that it had been hard to sandwich us in between his lecture to the Strasbourg Friends of the Peace Process and the Regional Hegemony Working Party in Stuttgart.’
    ‘Oh God, he’s one of these travelling academics. They’re