by Tom Sharpe
‘Bertie?’ said Lady Maud. ‘Bertie Bullett-Finch?’
‘You know he’s dead, of course,’ said the General.
‘Dead?’ said Lady Maud. ‘I had no idea. When did this happen?’
‘Last night. House was knocked down by the motorway swine. Bertie was inside at the time.’
Lady Maud sat down, stunned by the news. ‘How absolutely dreadful. Do they know who did it?’
‘They’ve taken that fellow Dundridge in for questioning,’ said the General. Lady Maud could think of nothing to say.
‘Knocked half Guildstead down too. The Colonel and I thought we ought to come over and have a talk to you about it. Puts a very different complexion on the whole business of the motorway, don’t you know.’
‘Of course,’ said Lady Maud. ‘Come over at once.’ She put the phone down and tried to imagine what had happened. Dundridge taken in for questioning. Mr Bullett-Finch dead. Finch Grove demolished. Guildstead Carbonell … It was such astonishing news that it drove all thoughts of Giles from her mind.
‘I must phone poor dear Ivy,’ she muttered and dialled Finch Grove. Not surprisingly, she got no reply.
In the garage Sir Giles was doing his best to persuade Blott to stop pointing the twelve-bore at his chest.
‘Five thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘Five thousand pounds. All you’ve got to do is open the gates.’
‘You get out of here,’ said Blott.
‘What do you think I want to do? Stay here?’
‘Out of the garage,’ said Blott.
‘Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Anything you ask …’
‘I’ll count to ten,’ said Blott. ‘One.’
‘Fifty thousand pounds.’
‘Two,’ said Blott.
‘A hundred thousand. You can’t ask better than that.’
‘Three,’ said Blott.
‘I’ll make it—’
‘Four,’ said Blott.
Sir Giles turned and ran. There was no mistaking the look on Blott’s face. Sir Giles stumbled round the house and across the lawn to the pinetum. He scrambled over the iron railings and climbed back into his tree. The lions had finished the giraffe and were licking their paws and wiping their whiskers. Sir Giles wiped the sweat off his face with an oily handkerchief and tried to think what to do next.
Dundridge was saved that trouble by the discovery of an empty vodka bottle in the cab of the crane and by eyewitnesses who testified that one of the two men seen driving the crane up the High Street had been singing bawdy songs and was very clearly intoxicated.
‘There seems to have been some mistake,’ the Superintendant told him apologetically. ‘You’re free to go.’
‘But you told me you were treating the case as one of murder!’ shouted Dundridge indignantly. ‘Now you turn round and say it was simply drunken driving.’
‘Murder in my view implies premeditation,’ explained the Superintendent. ‘Now, two blokes go out and have one too many. They get a bit merry and pinch a crane and knock a few houses down, well you can’t feel the same about it, can you? There’s no premeditation there. Just a bit of fun, that’s all. Now I’m not saying I approve. Don’t get me wrong. I’m as hard on vandalism and drunkenness as the next man, but there are mitigating circumstances to be taken into account.’
Dundridge left the police station unconvinced, and as far as Hoskins’ behaviour was concerned he could find no mitigating circumstances whatsoever.
‘You deliberately led the police to believe that I had given orders for the Bullett-Finches’ house to be demolished,’ he shouted at him in the Mobile HQ. ‘You gave them to understand that I set out to murder Mr Bullett-Finch.’
‘I only told them that you had had a row with him on the phone. I’d have said the same thing about Lady Maud if they had asked me,’ Hoskins protested.
‘Lady Maud doesn’t happen to have been murdered,’ yelled Dundridge. ‘Nor does General Burnett or the Colonel and I’ve had rows with them too. I suppose if any of them get run over by a bus or die of food poisoning you’ll tell the police I’m responsible.’
Hoskins said he didn’t think that was being fair.
‘Fair,’ yelled Dundridge, ‘fair? Now you just listen to what I’ve had to put up with since I’ve been up here. I’ve been threatened. I’ve been given doctored drinks. I’ve been … Well never mind about that. I’ve been shot at. I’ve been subject to abuse. I’ve had my car tyres slashed. I’ve been accused of murder and you have the fucking gall to stand there and talk to me about fairness. My God, I’ve fought clean up to now but not any longer. From now on anything goes and the first thing to go is you. Get out of here and don’t come back.’
‘There’s just one thing I think you ought to know,’ said Hoskins edging towards the door. ‘You’ve got a new problem on your hands. Lady Maud Lynchwood is opening a Wildlife Park at Handyman Hall on Sunday.’
Dundridge sat down slowly and stared at him.
‘She is what?’
Hoskins edged back into the office. ‘Opening a Wildlife Park. She’s had the whole place wired in and she’s got lions and rhinoceroses and …’
‘But she can’t do that. She’s had a compulsory purchase order served on her,’ said Dundridge stunned by this latest example of opposition.
‘She’s done it all the same,’ said Hoskins. ‘There are signs up along the Ottertown Road and there was an advertisement in last night’s Worford Advertiser. I’ve got a copy here.’ He went through to his office and returned with a full-page advertisement announcing Open Day at Handyman Hall Wildlife Park. ‘What are you going to do about that?’
Dundridge reached for the phone. ‘I’m going to get on to the legal department and tell them to apply for an injunction to stop her,’ he said. ‘In the meantime you can see that work resumes in the Gorge immediately.’
‘Don’t you think we should hold off for a day or two,’ said Hoskins, ‘and wait for this fuss over the Bullett-Finches’ house and Guildstead Carbonell to die down a bit.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Dundridge. ‘If the police choose to regard the whole thing as a trivial matter, I see no reason why we shouldn’t. Work will proceed as before. If anything, faster.’
24
At Handyman Hall what was left of the Save the Gorge Committee met in the sitting-room lamenting the passing of Mr Bullett-Finch and seeking to take advantage from his sacrifice.
‘The whole thing is an outrage against humanity,’ said Colonel Chapman. ‘A more inoffensive fellow than poor old Bertie you couldn’t imagine. Never a harsh word from him.’
Lady Maud could remember several harsh words from Mr Bullett-Finch when she had taken the liberty of walking across his lawn, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Whatever his faults in life, Mr Bullett-Finch dead had been canonized. General Burnett put her thoughts into words.
‘Terrible way to go,’ he said, ‘having a dashed great iron ball smash you to smithereens like that. Rather like a gigantic cannonball.’
‘He probably didn’t feel a thing,’ said Colonel Chapman. ‘It was late at night and he was in bed …’
‘He wasn’t you know. They found him in his dressing-gown. Must have heard it coming.’
‘In the midst of life we are …’ Miss Percival began but Lady Maud interrupted her.
‘There is no point in dwelling on the past,’ she said. ‘We must concentrate our minds on the future. I have invited Ivy to come and stay here.’
‘I rather doubt if she will accept,’ said Colonel Chapman looking nervously out of the window. ‘Her nerves were never up to much and this latest shock hasn’t done them any good and those lions …’
‘Nonsense,’ said Lady Maud briskly. ‘Perfectly harmless creatures provided you know how to handle them. The main thing is to show you’re not afraid of them. The moment they smell fear they become dangerous.’
‘I’m sure I’d be no good at all,’ said Miss Percival. General Burnett nodded.
‘I remember once
in the Punjab …’ he began.
‘I think we should keep to the matter in hand,’ said Lady Maud. ‘Much as I regret what has happened to poor Mr Bullett-Finch and indeed to Guildstead Carbonell, there is this to be said for it, it does put us all in a much stronger position vis-à-vis the Ministry of the Environment and this infernal motorway. I think you said, General, that the police were questioning that man Dundridge.’
General Burnett shook his head. ‘The Chief Constable has been keeping me abreast of events,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid they’ve dropped that line of enquiry. It appears that there was some sort of shindig at the Royal George last night. Seems they’re working on the theory that a couple of navvies had a bit too much beer and …’
‘Beer?’ said Lady Maud with a strange look on her face. ‘Did I hear you say “beer”?’
‘My dear lady,’ said the General apologetically. ‘I only mentioned beer because I believe that is what these fellows drink. I wasn’t for one moment imputing …’
‘As a matter of fact I believe it was vodka,’ said Colonel Chapman tactfully. ‘In fact I’m sure it was. They found a bottle.’
But the damage had already been done. Lady Maud was looking quite distraught.
In the pinetum Sir Giles was desperately trying to make up his mind. From his tree he had watched General Burnett and Colonel Chapman and Miss Percival arrive. They had come in one car – Miss Percival had left her car outside the main gates and had joined the General in his – and their coming seemed to offer Sir Giles an opportunity to escape if only he could reach the house. Maud could hardly shoot him down in cold blood in front of her neighbours. There might be a nasty scene. She might accuse him of arson, of blackmail and bribery. She might expose him to ridicule but he was prepared to run these risks to get out of the Park alive. On the other hand he wasn’t sure that he was prepared to run the gauntlet of the lions who had sauntered away from their last meal and were lying about on the lawn in front of the terrace. Then again he was now extremely hungry and the lions on the contrary weren’t. They had just eaten their fill of giraffe.
At least Sir Giles hoped they had. It was a risk he had to take. If he stayed in the tree he would starve to death and sooner or later he would have to come down. Better sooner, he thought, than later. Sir Giles climbed down and got over the railings. Perhaps if he walked confidently … He didn’t feel confident. He hesitated and then moved cautiously forward. If only he could reach the terrace. And as he moved across the grass he was conscious that he was increasing the distance between himself and the safety of the tree while decreasing that between himself and the lions. He reached the point of no return.
In the sitting-room General Burnett was lamenting Sir Giles’ absence. ‘I’ve tried ringing his flat in London and his office but nobody seems to know where he’s got to,’ he said. ‘If only we could get in touch with him, I’m convinced we could bring pressure to bear on the Minister to call a halt to the motorway. I’m the last one to complain, but it’s at a time like this that a constituency needs its MP.’
‘I’m afraid my husband tends to let his business interests get in the way of his Parliamentary duties,’ Lady Maud agreed.
‘Of course, of course,’ said Colonel Chapman. ‘He’s bound to have a lot of irons in the fire. Wouldn’t have got where he has if he hadn’t.’
‘I think …’ said Miss Percival nervously staring out of the window.
‘All I’m saying is that it’s about time he made his presence felt,’ said the General.
‘I really do think you ought to …’ Miss Percival began.
‘It’s at times like this he ought to raise his voice … Good God! What the hell was that?’
There was a ghastly scream from the garden.
‘I think it was Sir Giles raising his voice,’ said Miss Percival, and fainted. The General and Colonel Chapman turned and looked out of the window in horror. Sir Giles was visible for a moment and then he disappeared beneath a lion. Lady Maud seized a poker and opened the french windows.
‘How dare you?’ she shouted charging across the terrace. ‘Shoo, Shoo.’
But it was too late. The General and Colonel Chapman rushed out and dragged her back still waving the poker and shooing.
‘Damned plucky little woman,’ said the General as they drove home. Colonel Chapman said nothing. He was trying to rid his mind of the memory of those gumboots, and besides, he found the General’s description of Lady Maud a little inappropriate even in these distressing circumstances. His left ear was still ringing from the blow she had given him for telling her she mustn’t blame herself for what had happened.
‘Mind you, I’m afraid it’s put an end to the Wildlife Park,’ continued the General. ‘Pity really.’
‘It’s also put an end to Sir Giles,’ said Colonel Chapman, who felt that General Burnett was taking the whole affair too calmly.
‘There is that to be said for it,’ said the General. ‘Never could stomach the fellow.’
In the back seat Miss Percival fainted for the sixth time.
At Handyman Hall the Superintendent explained to Lady Maud as tactfully as possible that there would have to be a coroner’s inquest.
‘An inquest? But it’s perfectly obvious what happened. General Burnett and Colonel Chapman were here.’
‘Just a formality, I assure you,’ said the Superintendent. ‘And now I’ll be getting along.’
He went out to his car with the gumboots and drove off. In the Park the lions were licking their paws and wiping their whiskers. Lady Maud stared out of the window at them. They would have to go of course. Sir Giles might not have been a nice man but Lady Maud’s sense of social propriety wouldn’t allow her to keep animals that couldn’t be trusted not to eat people. And then there was Blott. Blott and the events of the previous evening in Guildstead Carbonell. It was all too obvious what he had wanted Very Special for and it was all her fault. And to think she had invited Ivy Bullett-Finch to come and stay. Well, at least she had a good excuse for cancelling the invitation now. She went through the kitchen and was about to go out when it occurred to her that having tasted human flesh once the lions might not succumb quite so readily to her fearlessness. She ought really to carry some sort of weapon. Lady Maud hesitated and then went on regardless. She owed it to her conscience to take some risks. She went down the path and into the kitchen garden.
‘Blott,’ she said. ‘I want a word with you. Do you realize what you have done?’
Blott shrugged. ‘He got what was coming to him,’ he said.
‘I’m not talking about him,’ said Lady Maud, ‘I’m talking about Mr Bullett-Finch.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s dead. He was killed last night when his house was demolished.’
Blott took off his hat and scratched his head. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘A pity? Is that all you’ve got to say?’ said Lady Maud sternly.
‘I don’t know what else I can say. I didn’t know he was in the house any more than you knew he was going to go and get eaten by those lions.’ He picked a caterpillar off a cabbage and squashed it absentmindedly.
‘I must say if I had known what you were going to do I would never have given you the day off,’ said Lady Maud and went back into the house.
Blott went on with his weeding. Women were odd things, he thought. You did what they wanted and all the thanks you got for it was a telling off. A telling off. That was an odd expression too, come to think of it. But then the world was full of mysteries.
In London Mrs Forthby woke with a vague sense that something was missing. She rolled over in bed, switched on the light and looked at the clock. It said eleven forty-eight and since it was dark it must be nearly midnight. On the other hand it didn’t feel like midnight. She felt as though she had been asleep a lot longer than four hours, and where was Giles? She got out of bed and looked in the kitchen, the bathroom, but he wasn’t in the flat. Oh well, he had probably gone out. She w
ent back to the kitchen and made herself some tea. She was feeling very hungry too. That was strange because she had had a big dinner. She made some toast and boiled an egg. And all the time she had the nagging feeling that something was wrong. She had gone to bed at eight o’clock and here she was at midnight wide awake and famished. To while away the time she picked up a book but she didn’t feel like reading. She turned on the radio and caught the news headlines. ‘… Lynchwood, Member of Parliament for South Worfordshire, who was killed at his home Handyman Hall near Worford by a lion. In Arizona a freak whirlwind destroyed …’ Mrs Forthby switched off the radio and poured herself another cup of tea before remembering what the announcer had just said. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘this afternoon? But …’ She went through to the sitting-room and looked at the date on the clock. It read Friday the 20th. But yesterday was Wednesday. Giles had said so. She had said it was Tuesday and he had said Wednesday. And now it was Friday morning and Giles had been killed by a lion. What was a lion doing at Handyman Hall? What was Sir Giles doing there, come to that? They had been going to Brighton together for the weekend. It was all too awfully perplexing and horrible. It couldn’t be true. Mrs Forthby dialled the nice lady who told the time. ‘At the third stroke it will be twelve ten and twenty seconds.’
‘But what’s the date? What day is it?’ Mrs Forthby asked.
‘At the third stroke it will be twelve ten and thirty seconds.’
‘Oh dear, you really aren’t being very helpful,’ said Mrs Forthby, and began to cry. Giles hadn’t been a very nice man but she had been fond of him and it was all her fault.
‘If I hadn’t been so forgetful and had remembered to wake up he would still be alive,’ she murmured.
At his Mobile HQ Dundridge greeted the news next morning jubilantly.
‘That’ll teach the stupid bitch to build a bloody Wildlife Park,’ he told Hoskins.
‘I don’t see how you can say that,’ said Hoskins. ‘All it’s done is to create another vacancy in Parliament. There will have to be a by-election and you know what happened last time.’