Read Online Publish and Be Murdered by Ruth Dudley Edwards - Free Book Online Page B

speed, pulled off her black cloak and threw it into the corner. Rachel stood up, retrieved it and went out and hung it up in the hall.
    ‘What’s the matter with that girl?’ asked the baroness. ‘She’s not on duty now. I’m not a foreigner. Rachel! Rachel! Stop fussing around and come back here.’
    Pausing only to clap Pooley hard on the back, she fell into the chair beside him. ‘What have you had to eat?’
    ‘Cassoulet,’ said Amiss.
    ‘And very good it was too,’ observed Pooley.
    ‘Thank you,’ said Rachel as she returned and nodded at her visitor. ‘There’s plenty left, Jack. Want some?’
    ‘Is it made with goose fat?’
    ‘We’re not telling you,’ said Amiss. ‘Do you want some or not?’
    ‘Not. I had the fattest of fat lunches today, so I’ll settle for claret and cheese. What have you got?’
    ‘Since I knew you might drop in, I trekked off to the health food shop and bought extremely aged organically produced cheddar.’
    ‘Hmmmm. I’ll give it a try. How old’s the claret?’
    ‘Nineteen ninety-four.’
    ‘That’s so young, drinking it’s almost child abuse.’
    ‘Jack, I don’t give a fuck if you eat and drink nothing. Yes or no to the claret.’
    ‘I suppose I’ll have to make do.’
    She gazed at her companions. ‘What’s the matter? Why are you so quiet?’
    ‘Because you’re so noisy,’ said Pooley. ‘It’s good to see you, Jack. Now listen to Robert’s account of how he’s modernizing The Wrangler .’
    ‘God, how boring. You make him sound like one of those dreary ministers who keep telling us to shape up for the new millennium.’
    She took a draught of wine, smacked her lips and greedily tucked into the cheese. ‘Not bad. All right, then. Get on with it.’
    Amiss gave her a two-paragraph update and continued. ‘So my approach is to make progress by gentleness and stealth. I’ve only been there two months and already the staff have come to terms with a simple photocopying machine, a fax and an efficient, up-to-date and cheap telephone system. I’ve changed nothing that didn’t absolutely have to be changed, their jobs are made easier and I’ve persuaded them that they are being freed from drudgery to concentrate on more important areas such as – in the case of Ben and Marcia – making the journal ever more accurate.’
    ‘That’s all very well, but so far you can’t even have saved enough to pay your own salary,’ pointed out Pooley.
    ‘I’ve saved it three times over already just by getting rid of the supervisor and four of the five typists (or typewriters, as the editor calls them), giving the other one a simple word processor that she loves as intensely as Adam did his liddle mop in Cold Comfort Farm and persuading Sabrina Trustler-Stomp – ’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Sabrina Trustler-Stomp, who works for Lambie Crump. I’ve been told he’s never had a secretary who was not well in with the aristocracy and had at least a double-barrelled name. Anyway, I took Sabrina out for a jolly dinner one evening and persuaded her that her life would be more rewarding if she learned a) to type and b) to use a computer. She isn’t with us much, having a contract that allows her time off for Ascot, Henley and God knows what, but now, when she’s around, she helps out quite enthusiastically. Thinks it’s all ever so much fun.’
    ‘But you got rid of the old ladies. I thought there were to be no redundancies.’
    ‘They were all happy to leave, being in their seventies and hanging on there really out of a sense of duty, knowing they were the only people left in London who knew how to use manual typewriters and carbon paper and who didn’t mind retyping the same document with amendments fifteen times over, which, with all the staff wrangling about changes in the articles, often happened: with a word processor, four or five hours can be saved. So I wooed them with soft words and a generous pay-off. Miss Grumshaw, the supervisor, told me she’d been