by Tom Sharpe
‘Why can’t I just sit in the corner?’ he asked.
‘Because she wants to see me in private.’
‘Well then, see her in private for God’s sake,’ said Hoskins. ‘She isn’t likely to assault you.’
‘That’s what you think,’ said Dundridge. ‘And in any case I want you as a witness. I have reason to believe that she is going to make an attempt to blackmail me.’
‘Blackmail you?’ said Hoskins turning pale. He didn’t like that ‘reason to believe’. It smacked of a policeman giving evidence.
‘With photographs,’ said Dundridge.
‘With photographs?’ echoed Hoskins, now thoroughly alarmed.
‘Obscene photographs,’ said Dundridge, with a deal more confidence than Hoskins happened to know was called for.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to tell her to go jump in a lake,’ said Dundridge.
Hoskins looked at him incredulously. To think that he had once described this extraordinary man as a nincompoop. The bastard was as tough as nails.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ he said finally, ‘I’ll stand outside the door and listen to what she says. Will that do?’
Dundridge said it would have to and Hoskins hurried back to his office and phoned Mrs Williams.
‘Sally,’ he said, ‘this is you-know-who.’
‘I don’t, you know,’ said Mrs Williams, who had had a hard night.
‘It’s me. Horsey, horsey catkins,’ snarled Hoskins desperately searching for a pseudonym that would deceive anyone listening in on the switchboard.
‘Horsey horsey catkins?’
‘Hoskins, for God’s sake,’ whispered Hoskins.
‘Oh, Hoskins, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
Hoskins controlled his frayed temper. ‘Listen carefully,’ he said, ‘the gaff’s blown. The gaff. Gee for Gifuckingraffe. A for Animal. F for Freddie.’
‘What’s it mean?’ interrupted Mrs Williams.
‘The fuzz,’ said Hoskins. ‘It means the balloon’s going to go up. Burn the lot, you understand. Negatives, prints, the tootee. You’ve never heard of me and I’ve never heard of you. Get it. No names, no pack drill. And you’ve never been near the Golf Club.’
By the time he had put the phone down Mrs Williams had got the message. So had Hoskins. If Mrs Williams was going to be nabbed, he could be sure that he would be standing in the dock beside her. She had left him in no doubt about that.
He went back to Dundridge’s office and was there to open the door for Lady Maud when she arrived. Then he stationed himself outside and listened.
Inside Dundridge nerved himself for the ordeal. At least with Hoskins outside the door he could always call for help and in any case Lady Maud seemed to be rather better disposed towards him than he had expected.
‘Mr Dundridge,’ she said, taking a seat in front of his desk, ‘I would like to make it quite clear that I have come here this morning in no spirit of animosity. I know we’ve had our little contretemps in the past but as far as I am concerned all is forgiven and forgotten.’
Dundridge looked at her balefully and said nothing. As far as he was concerned nothing was ever likely to be forgotten and certainly he wasn’t in a forgiving mood.
‘No, I have come here to ask for your co-operation,’ she went on, ‘and I want to assure you that what I am about to say will go no further.’
Dundridge glanced at the door and said he was glad to hear it.
‘Yes, I rather thought you might,’ said Lady Maud. ‘You see I have reason to believe that you have been the subject of a blackmail attempt.’
Dundridge stared at her. She knew damned well he had been subject to blackmail.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘These photographs,’ said Lady Maud and, producing an envelope from her handbag, she spread the torn and charred fragments of the photographs out on the desk. Dundridge studied them carefully. Why the hell were they torn and charred? He sorted through them looking for his face. It wasn’t there. If she thought she was going to blackmail him with this lot she was very much mistaken.
‘What about them?’ he asked.
‘You know nothing about them?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Dundridge, thoroughly confident now. He knew what had happened. He had left these photographs on Mr Ganglion’s desk. Ganglion had torn them up and thrown them in the fire and had then changed his mind. He had taken them out and had visited Lady Maud and explained that he, Dundridge, had accused her of blackmail. And here she was trying to wriggle out of it. Her next remark confirmed this theory.
‘Then my husband has never tried to influence you in any of your decisions by using these photographs,’ she said.
‘Your husband? Your husband?’ said Dundridge indignantly. ‘Are you suggesting that your husband has attempted to blackmail me with these … obscene photographs?’
‘Yes,’ said Lady Maud, ‘that is exactly what I am suggesting.’
‘Then all I can say is that you are mistaken. Sir Giles has always treated me with the greatest consideration and courtesy, which is,’ he glanced at the door before continuing courageously, ‘more than I can say for you.’
Lady Maud looked at him, mystified. ‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘Yes,’ said Dundridge, ‘except this. Why don’t you take those photographs to the police?’
Lady Maud hesitated. She hadn’t bargained on this attitude from Dundridge. ‘I don’t think that would be very sensible, do you?’
‘Yes,’ said Dundridge, ‘as a matter of fact I do. Now then I am a busy man and you are wasting my time. You know your way out.’
Lady Maud rose from her chair wrathfully. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ she shouted.
Dundridge leapt out of his chair and opened the door. ‘Hoskins,’ he said, ‘show Lady Maud Lynchwood out.’
‘I will find my own way,’ said Lady Maud, and stormed past them and down the corridor. Dundridge went back into his office and collapsed into his chair. He had called her bluff. He had shown her the door. Nobody could say the Controller Motorways Midlands wasn’t master in his own house. He was astonished at his own performance.
So was Hoskins. He stared at Dundridge for a moment and staggered back to his own office shaken by what he had just heard. She had confronted Dundridge with those awful photographs and he had had the nerve to tell her to take them to the police. My God, a man who could do that was capable of doing anything. The fat was really in the fire now. On the other hand she had said it wouldn’t be sensible. Hoskins agreed with her wholeheartedly. ‘She must be protecting Sir Giles,’ he thought and wondered how the hell she had got hold of the photographs in the first place. For a moment he thought of phoning Sir Giles but decided against it. The best thing to do was to sit tight and keep his mouth shut and hope that things would blow over.
He had just reached this comforting conclusion when the bell rang. It was Dundridge again. Hoskins went back down the corridor and found the Controller in a jubilant mood.
‘Well that’s put paid to that little scheme,’ he said. ‘You heard her threatening me with filthy photographs. She thought she was going to get me to use my influence to change the route of the motorway. I told her.’
‘You most certainly did,’ said Hoskins deferentially.
‘Right,’ said Dundridge turning to a map he had pinned on the wall, ‘we must strike while the iron is hot. Operation Overland will proceed immediately. Have the compulsory purchase orders been served?’
‘Yes,’ said Hoskins.
‘And the task force has begun demolition work in the Gorge?’
‘Demolition work?’
‘Dynamiting.’
‘Not yet. They’ve only just moved in.’
‘They must start at once,’ said Dundridge. ‘We must keep the initiative and maintain the pressure. I intend to establish a mobile HQ here.’ He pointed to a spot on the map two miles eas
t of Guildstead Carbonell.
‘A mobile HQ?’ said Hoskins.
‘Arrange for a caravan to be set up there. I intend to supervise this operation personally. You and I will move our offices out there.’
‘That’s going to be frightfully inconvenient,’ Hoskins pointed out.
‘Damn the inconvenience,’ said Dundridge, ‘I mean to have that bitch out of Handyman Hall before Christmas come hell or high water. She’s on the run now and by God I mean to see she stays there.’
‘Oh all right,’ said Hoskins gloomily. He knew better than to argue with Dundridge now.
Lady Maud drove back to the Hall pensively. She could have sworn that the thin legs in the photographs were the legs she had seen twinkling across the marble floor but evidently she had been wrong. Dundridge’s self-righteous indignation had been wholly convincing. She had expected the wretched little man to blush and stammer and make excuses but instead he had stood up to her and ordered her out of his office. He had even suggested she should take the photographs to the police and, considering his pusillanimity in other less threatening circumstances, it was impossible to suppose he had been bluffing. No, she had been wrong. It was a pity. She would have liked to have seen Sir Giles in court, but it hardly mattered. She had enough to be going on with. Sir Giles would move heaven and earth to see that the motorway was stopped now and if he failed she would force him to resign his seat. There would have to be another by-election and what had worked in the case of Ottertown would work again in the case of the Gorge. The Government would cancel the motorway. And finally if that too failed there was always the Wildlife Park. It was one thing to demolish half a dozen houses and evict the families that lived there, but it was quite a different kettle of fish to deprive ten lions, four giraffes, a rhinoceros and a dozen ostriches of their livelihood. The British public would never stand for cruelty to animals. She arrived at the Hall to find Blott busy washing his films in the kitchen.
‘I’ve turned the boiler-room into a darkroom,’ he explained, and held up a film for her to look at. Lady Maud studied it inexpertly.
‘Have they come out all right?’ she asked.
‘Very nicely,’ said Blott. ‘Quite lovely.’
‘I doubt if Giles would share your opinion,’ said Lady Maud and went out into the garden to pick a lettuce for lunch. Blott finished washing his films in the sink and took them down to the boiler-room and hung them up to dry. When he came back lunch was ready on the kitchen table.
‘You’ll eat in here with me,’ said Lady Maud. ‘I’m very pleased with you, Blott, and besides, it’s nice to have a man about the house.’
Blott hesitated. It seemed an illogical remark. There appeared to be a great many men about the house, tramping up and down the servants’ stairs to their bedrooms and working day and night on the fencing. Still, if Lady Maud wanted him to eat with her, he was not going to argue. Things were looking up. She was going to get a divorce from her husband. He was in love and while he had no hope of ever being able to do anything about it, he was happy just to sit and eat with her. And then there was the fence. Blott was delighted by the fence. It brought back memories of the war and his happiness as a prisoner. It would shut out the world and he and Maud would live singly but happily ever after.
They had just finished lunch and were washing up when there was a dull boom in the distance and the windows rattled.
‘I wonder what that was,’ said Lady Maud.
‘Sounds like blasting,’ said Blott.
‘Blasting?’
‘In a quarry.’
‘But there aren’t any quarries round here,’ said Lady Maud. They went out on to the lawn and stood looking at a cloud of dust rising slowly into the sky a mile or two to the east.
Operation Overland had begun.
21
And Operation Overland continued. Day after day the silence of the Gorge was broken by the rumbling of bulldozers and the dull thump of explosions as the cliffs were blasted and the rocks cleared. Day after day the contractors complained to Hoskins that the way to build a motorway was to start at the beginning and go on to the end, or at least to stick to some sort of predetermined schedule and not go jumping all over the place digging up a field here and rooting out a wood there, starting a bridge and then abandoning construction to begin a flyover. And day after day Hoskins took their complaints and some of his own to Dundridge, and was overruled.
‘The essential feature of Operation Overland lies in the random nature of our movements,’ Dundridge explained. ‘The enemy never knows where we are going to be next.’
‘Nor do I, come to that,’ said Hoskins bitterly. ‘I had a job finding this place this morning. You might have warned me you were going to move it before I went home last night.’
Dundridge looked round the Mobile Headquarters. ‘That’s odd,’ he said. ‘I thought you had it moved.’
‘Me? Why should I do that?’
‘I don’t know. To be nearer the front line I suppose.’
‘Nearer the front line?’ said Hoskins. ‘All I want is to be back in my bloody office, not traipsing round the countryside in a fucking caravan.’
‘Well anyway, whoever had it moved had a good idea,’ said Dundridge. ‘We are nearer the scene of action.’
Hoskins looked out of the window as a giant dumper rumbled past.
‘Nearer?’ he shouted above the din. ‘We’re bloody well in it if you ask me.’ As if to confirm his words there was a deafening roar and two hundred yards away a portion of cliff collapsed. As the dust settled Dundridge surveyed the scene with satisfaction. This was nature as man, and in particular Dundridge, intended. Nature conquered, nature subdued, nature disciplined. This was progress, slow progress, but inexorable. Behind them cuttings and embankments, concrete and steel, ahead the Gorge and Handyman Hall.
‘By the way,’ said Hoskins when he could hear himself speak, ‘we’ve had a complaint from General Burnett. He says one of our trucks damaged his garden wall.’
‘So what?’ said Dundridge. ‘He won’t have a garden or a wall in two months’ time. What’s he complaining about?’
‘And Mr Bullett-Finch phoned to say—’
But Dundridge wasn’t interested. ‘File all complaints,’ he said dismissively, ‘I haven’t got time for details.’
*
In London Sir Giles didn’t share his opinion. He was obsessed with details, particularly those concerned with the sale of his shares and what Lady Maud was going to do with those damned photographs.
‘I lost half a million on those shares!’ he yelled at Blodger. ‘Half a bleeding million.’
Blodger commiserated. ‘I said at the time I thought you were being a little hasty,’ he said.
‘You thought? You didn’t think at all,’ Sir Giles screamed. ‘If you’d thought you would have known that wasn’t me on the phone.’
‘But it sounded like you. And you asked me to call you back at your flat.’
‘I did nothing of the sort. You don’t seriously imagine I would sell four thousand President Rand when the market was at rock bottom. I’m not fucking insane you know.’
Blodger looked at him appraisingly. The thought had crossed his mind. It was Schaeffer who brought the altercation to an end.
‘If you must swear,’ he said, ‘I can only suggest that you would do so more profitably before a Commissioner of Oaths.’
‘And what would I want with a Commissioner of Fucking Oaths?’
‘A sworn statement that the signatures on the share transfer certificates were forgeries,’ said Schaeffer coldly.
Sir Giles picked up his hat. ‘Don’t think this is the end of the fucking matter,’ he snarled. ‘You’ll be hearing from me again.’
Schaeffer opened the door for him. ‘I can only hope fucking not,’ he said.
But if his stockbrokers were not sympathetic, Mrs Forthby was.
‘It’s all my fault,’ she wailed squinting at him through the two black eyes he had given her for
her pains. ‘If only I hadn’t gone out for those fish fingers this would never have happened.’
‘Fish fucking …’ he began and pulled himself up. He had to keep a grip on his sanity and Mrs Forthby’s self-denunciations didn’t help. ‘Never mind about that. I’ve got to think what to do. That bloody wife of mine isn’t going to get away with this if I can help it.’
‘Well, if all she wants is a divorce …’
‘A divorce? A divorce? If you think that’s all she wants …’ He stopped again. Mrs Forthby mustn’t hear anything about those photographs. Nobody must hear about them. The moment that information got out he would be a ruined man and he had just three weeks to do something about them. He went back to his flat and sat there trying to think of some way of stopping the motorway. Thee wasn’t much he could do in London. His request to discuss the matter with the Minister of the Environment had been turned down, his demand for a further Inquiry denied. And his private source in the Ministry had been adamant that it was too late to do anything now.
‘The thing is under construction already. Barring accidents nothing can stop it.’
Sir Giles put down the phone and thought about accidents, nasty accidents, like Maud falling downstairs and breaking her neck or having a fatal car crash. It didn’t seem very likely somehow. Finally he thought about Dundridge. If Maud had something on him, he had something on the Controller Motorways Midlands. He telephoned Hoskins at the Regional Planning Board.
‘He’s out at SHMOCON,’ said the girl on the switchboard.
‘Shmocon?’ said Sir Giles, desperately trying to think of a village by that name in South Worfordshire.
‘Supreme Headquarters Motorway Construction,’ said the girl. ‘He’s Deputy Field Commander.’
‘What?’ said Sir Giles. ‘What the hell’s going on up there?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said the girl, ‘I’m only a field tele-graphist. Shall I put you through?’
‘Yes,’ said Sir Giles. ‘It sounds batty to me.’
‘It is,’ said the girl. ‘It’s a wonder I don’t have to use morse code.’