by Tom Sharpe
But Mr Lapline preferred not to. Goodenough’s secretary possessed physical attractions that were rather too obvious for Mr Lapline’s taste and were, he suspected, used in part to distract the Special Income Tax investigators from concentrating at all closely on the dubious accounts of Goodenough’s clients. He chose not to speculate on the other uses his partner might put them to. He went back to his office and thought wistfully about having his gall bladder out after all.
*
That evening Goodenough explained the problem to Vera. ‘She’s an old woman who has seen everything she believed in proved wrong and it has made her even more bitter than she was before. In any case, she’s got more money than she knows what to do with and now she’s out to raise hell in Porterhouse. She’s already put Lappie in a spin and his gall bladder is playing up again. It always does when he’s under stress. I’ve said I’ll find the applicants for him.’
‘Meaning that I will,’ said Vera, helping herself to another gin and tonic.
‘Well, I was rather hoping …’ said Goodenough with a look of mock guilt.
Vera arranged herself on the sofa. ‘I shall need time off,’ she said. ‘And expenses.’
‘No problem. Bloody Mary’s account will see you right. And you’re an angel.’
2
That wasn’t the way Vera saw herself but she was away for only a fortnight during which time Mr Lapline felt far worse. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ he asked Goodenough several times, only to be told that everything was under control. Goodenough chose not to mention whose control that was and Mr Lapline chose not to question him too closely.
In the event Vera returned with a list of twenty academics who would be happy to become Fellows at Porterhouse. Goodenough studied the list doubtfully.
‘I had no idea there were so many universities,’ he said. ‘And who’s this man in Grimsby whose research is into Psycho-erotic Anal Fantasies? I can’t see Porterhouse accepting him even for six million.’
‘I can’t see Lady Mary Evans taking to him either,’ said Vera. ‘Unless of course she approves of early-morning drinking. On the other hand, his thinking is undoubtedly radical.’
‘And Dr Lamprey Yeaster at Bristol? His curriculum vitae seems very sound. “Historical Research into Industrial Relations in Bradford”.’
‘I don’t think he’s quite right for her, somehow,’ said Vera. ‘He’s a member of the National Front and his views on blacks leave rather a lot to be desired.’
‘In that case she won’t touch him with a bargepole. There’s no one here she’s going to choose.’
‘Oh yes, there is, my dear,’ said Vera. ‘I think she’ll like Dr Purefoy Osbert.’
Goodenough looked at her suspiciously. ‘You mean you’ve ring-fenced him? Why? What’s so special about him apart from his name?’
‘Nothing very much except that he’ll do what I tell him. Have a look at his list of publications.’
Goodenough read them. ‘He seems to have a thing about executions,’ he said. ‘Particularly hangings. There’s a book here called The Long Drop.’
‘That’s Purefoy’s magnum opus. I haven’t read it myself but I’m told it’s strong stuff. He has made a study of every hanging in England since 1891.’
‘And you think Bloody Mary is going to approve of him? She is violently anti-capital punishment.’
‘So is Purefoy. You’ve no idea how many innocent people he believes have gone to the gallows. That’s his whole thesis.’
‘What’s this about Crippen? The Innocence of Dr Crippen? The bugger wasn’t innocent. He was guilty as hell.’
‘Not according to Purefoy,’ said Vera. ‘Mrs Crippen committed suicide and the doctor panicked and buried her in the cellar.’
‘What, after cutting her up into small pieces or whatever he did? The fellow is off his head. Still, I can certainly see him getting on with Lady Mary like a house on fire. But tell me, why do you always refer to him by his Christian name?’
Vera smiled. ‘Because he’s my cousin,’ she said.
*
It was not something Goodenough mentioned to Mr Lapline. In fact he amended the list of Dr Osbert’s publications. Mr Lapline was in a bad way without having to cope with the innocence of Dr Crippen and what happened when they hanged Mrs Thompson. He was having trouble with his own bowels. ‘I can’t honestly say I begin to like the sound of any of them,’ he said, ‘and as for this one in Grimsby …’
‘You don’t think he’s right for Porterhouse?’
Mr Lapline expressed the opinion that he wasn’t right for anywhere except hell. Goodenough went away to make his next move. Having studied the notes Lady Mary had made on the Senior Fellows – there wasn’t a faintly benevolent comment among them – he decided it would be best not to discuss the possibility of the new Fellowship with the Bursar. The Dean (what she had to say about the Dean was vitriolic) and the Senior Tutor, ‘a wholly unintelligent person whose interest in rowing suggests obsessive adolescent interests’ in her words, clearly distrusted the Bursar who ‘sided with Godber on financial grounds’. There was independent evidence of this dislike in the reports of the two private detectives she had employed to investigate her husband’s death. One report, written by an unfortunate operative who had spent two hellish months working as a human dishwasher in the College kitchens and who had developed a most unpleasant skin condition thanks to the scouring powder and detergents he had been forced to use, described the Dean as the real power in Porterhouse with the Senior Tutor as his deputy.
‘I have decided to make the offer through the Senior Tutor,’ Goodenough told Vera. ‘If I took the idea to the Bursar, the Dean would turn it down flat. He’d smell trouble. Got a nose for it. In any case, from what I hear the Bursar is so desperate for money we’re bound to have his support. It will look better coming from the Tutor.’
*
In fact the stratagem was unnecessary. The Dean was already making plans to spend some time away from Porterhouse. He was going to find a rich successor to Skullion, preferably from among the Old Porterthusians. He had always been fond of Skullion, but in view of the financial situation in Porterhouse the need to find a new Master, one with financial pull and a very large private income, seemed imperative. At least to the Dean. That was how they had dealt with the financial mess Lord Fitzherbert had got the College into. Fitzherbert had been a rich enough man himself, and they had made him Master. That had always been the preferred Porterhouse method, and the Dean meant to use it again. The real difficulty lay in finding a way to remove Skullion. It had never been supposed he would live so long after his stroke and now the Dean could only hope he would pass quietly away after an excellent dinner. The Dean had in mind the special Duck Dinner. Skullion had always loved Canards pressés à la Porterhouse. All the same the Dean had been to see the College doctor in the hope of an unfavourable prognosis for the Master, but Dr MacKendly was more concerned with the Dean himself. ‘Now what is it this time?’ he asked. ‘The old prostate giving you trouble again?’
‘Hardly,’ said the Dean, ‘since it has never given me the slightest trouble before.’
‘Well, it was bound to happen at your age,’ said the doctor, putting on a surgical glove and indicating the examination couch. ‘Now this may be a touch uncomfortable but hardly painful.’
‘It certainly won’t,’ said the Dean, remaining rooted to his chair. ‘I have not come about my own condition. I am concerned about Skull … the Master, that is.’
Dr MacKendly sat down regretfully at his desk but did not remove the surgical glove. ‘Skullion? Can’t say I’m entirely surprised. All that sitting about in a wheelchair and so on and widdling into a bag is bound to have an effect in the end. Of course we could operate, but that can cause problems you know. Sometimes one ejaculates backwards into the bladder.’
‘I hardly think Skullion … the Master is likely to ejaculate anywhere,’ said the Dean bitterly, ‘particularly as he doesn’t need a pro
state operation. What I want you to tell me is your opinion on the Master’s general fitness.’
The doctor nodded. He still hadn’t removed the surgical glove. ‘General fitness, eh? Well, that’s a different matter altogether. I mean at our age we can hardly expect to be entirely fit and –’
‘I am talking about the Master, Skullion, for goodness sake,’ the Dean snapped. ‘His general fitness.’
‘Point taken,’ said the doctor. ‘And I have to say that he is not at all well. The Porterhouse Blue he had, you know, was a very bad one. It’s amazing he survived at all. He must have the constitution of an ox.’
The Dean eyed him very unpleasantly. ‘And would you assess his ability to perform his duties as Master of the College at the same bovine level?’ he asked.
‘Ah, there you have me, Dean. I have never really known what a Master’s duties are, apart from dining in Hall and being around for official occasions and so on. Otherwise there is practically damnall to do as far as I can see. Skullion has proved that, hasn’t he?’
The Dean made a final attempt to get an answer that made sense. ‘And how long do you think he’s got? Got to live, I mean.’
‘There you have me again,’ said the doctor. ‘It is almost impossible to say. Only a matter of time, of course.’
But the Dean had had enough. ‘Have you ever known when it wasn’t?’ he asked and stood up.
‘Wasn’t? Wasn’t what?’
‘A matter of time. From the day we are born, for instance.’ And leaving Dr MacKendly to work that out – the doctor’s speciality was rugby knees, not metaphysics – the Dean went down the steps into King’s Parade and walked back to Porterhouse in a very nasty temper. Around him tourists stared into shop windows or sat on the wall under King’s College Chapel or photographed the Senate House. The Dean disregarded them. They belonged to a world he had always despised.
Two days later, explaining that he had a sick relative in Wales to visit, the Dean set off in search of a new Master for Porterhouse. Something told him he had to hurry. It was a gut feeling, but such a feeling seldom let him down.
*
The feelings that Mr Lapline had in his stomach were by now so acute that it was some two weeks before Goodenough had sufficient time to spare from his partner’s work to travel to Cambridge to meet the Senior Tutor for lunch at the Garden House Hotel overlooking the Cam. ‘I’d have invited you to my club in London, but it gets very crowded these days and we can talk more privately here. Besides, it is always a pleasure to visit Cambridge and I’m sure you’re a very busy man. I hope you don’t mind lunching here?’
The Senior Tutor didn’t in the least mind. He had heard good things about the Garden House, and Wednesday lunch in Hall tended to be rather meagre. He accepted a very large pink gin and studied the menu while Goodenough spoke about his nephew in the Leander Club, his own college, Magdalen at Oxford, and anything but the matter he had come to discuss. It was only after he had persuaded the Senior Tutor to have another very large pink gin and then had primed him with a sizeable helping of pâté, an excellent fillet steak and a bottle and a half of Chambertin and they were sitting with their coffee and Chartreuse, that Goodenough finally got round to the topic of the donation. He did so with an air of slight embarrassment.
‘The fact of the matter is that we have been instructed by someone in the City who wishes to remain anonymous to sound out the Senior Fellows about the creation of a new Fellowship, and frankly, knowing your reputation for discretion, I thought a quiet chat with you might be the best way to start.’ He paused to allow the Senior Tutor to choose a cigar to go with another Chartreuse. ‘The funding for the salary of the new Fellow would of course be paid for by our client and the donation to the College would run into seven figures.’
Again he paused, this time to allow the tutor to calculate that seven figures made one million. ‘In fact the client has mentioned six million pounds with possibly more to follow on her … his death.’
‘Six million? Did you say six million?’ asked the Senior Tutor rather huskily. If it hadn’t been for the meal, and the cost of the Chambertin and the Partagas cigar, he would have wondered if he was being subjected to some fiendish practical joke. Nobody had ever offered Porterhouse such an enormous sum before.
‘Oh yes, at least six,’ Goodenough said, sensing the Senior Tutor’s bewilderment. Taking advantage of it, he went on. ‘But on condition that the donation is not made public. I’m afraid my client is an eccentrically private person and insists on anonymity. I have to make that point.’
For a moment the thought crossed his mind of hinting the client might be Getty. He did better. ‘You’ve heard of Getty?’
‘Yes,’ said the Senior Tutor almost in a whisper.
‘Unfortunately my client does not possess that degree of wealth but she … he’ (damn that second Chartreuse) ‘has a very considerable fortune all the same.’
‘Must have,’ muttered the Senior Tutor, and made the mistake of inhaling the Havana too deeply. When his gasping coughs stopped, Goodenough went on. ‘I’m telling you all this privately because of your reputation for discretion. It is essential that nothing leaks out. Your influence in Porterhouse is well known and I feel sure that with your backing …’
The practised words wafted happily into the Senior Tutor’s mulled consciousness. The client was particularly anxious that the Bursar, whose reputation was not so … well, to be a little indiscreet, not so reliable, must not be consulted, but if the Senior Tutor could give his assurance that the donation would be accepted – the Senior Tutor could and did – and the Fellow appointed – the Senior Tutor had no doubt about that – then the matter was settled, and Mr Goodenough’s client would proceed. A letter putting forward the terms of the appointment would be drawn up and sent to the Senior Tutor, who would make the necessary arrangements, presumably through the College Council, and confirm the decision in writing. By the time Goodenough had finished, the Senior Tutor was in a state of euphoria. Goodenough gave him a lift back to Porterhouse in his taxi then caught the train to London.
*
‘He did what?’ said Mr Lapline next day.
‘Lapped it up,’ Goodenough said.
‘Lapped it up? Are you sure?’ Mr Lapline couldn’t imagine any of the Senior Fellows at Porterhouse lapping anything, apart from soup, up. From what he had seen of the Dean and the Senior Tutor at the inquest into Sir Godber Evans’ death, they might well chew but they were definitely not of the lapping sort.
‘Absolutely,’ Goodenough assured him. ‘Swallowed the proposal hook, line and sinker, along with an excellent bottle of Burgundy and an underdone steak –’
‘For heaven’s sake, Goodenough, don’t talk about food. If you knew what my stomach is doing to me –’
‘Sorry, sorry. All I’m trying to tell you is that you’ve got no reason to worry about losing Her Ladyship’s account. She will find someone on that list who will prove just the sort of person she wants, and Porterhouse will accept him with open arms. Whether they like what they get is another matter altogether. That is not your problem, nor mine.’
But Mr Lapline continued to be pessimistic. ‘I wish I had your confidence. I just hope to God she doesn’t choose that anal-erotic swine from Grimsby. With a list of publications like that the sod ought to be in jail.’
*
For the next few weeks the firm of Lapline & Goodenough resumed its normal and most respectable routine. Mr Lapline’s gall bladder quietened down, and Lady Mary was sent the list of candidates along with their curricula vitae. It was left to her to invite them down to her house to be interviewed. Goodenough refused to have anything to do with that side of the business. ‘I wouldn’t dream of involving the firm in such matters,’ he said. ‘We are not a scholastic employment agency. In any case, I have yet to receive written confirmation of the contract from Porterhouse, though the Senior Tutor did write to thank me for lunch and said he was sure the Fellowship would be approved.’
/> All the same, Goodenough’s curiosity had been provoked by his reading of The Long Drop. Even to his hardened sensibilities Purefoy Osbert’s book was deeply disturbing. He had sat up late for two nights running, transfixed by the anatomical consequences and the details of hangings with which Dr Osbert seemed most at home.
‘Are you sure this cousin of yours is entirely sane?’ he asked Vera. ‘That beastly book of his has to have been written by someone with a pronounced taste for S and M.’
‘You’re just an old fuddy-duddy. Purefoy isn’t in the least like that. It’s just that the poor darling is deeply committed to social justice.’
‘Could have fooled me,’ Goodenough muttered. He hadn’t much liked that ‘poor darling’ when applied to a man who could describe so graphically the consequences of too long or too short a drop on victims who were either too short and fat themselves or too tall and thin. There was also the evidence – and Dr Osbert’s facts could not be faulted – that since the abolition of capital punishment a great many people found guilty of murder and condemned to life imprisonment had later been shown to be wholly innocent and had been pardoned. It followed from these incontestable statistics that a considerable proportion of those who had been hanged before abolition had also been entirely innocent. The lawyer in Goodenough found this conclusion most upsetting. He wondered how the argument would go down with the Dean and the Senior Tutor.
‘I suppose it doesn’t matter what happens once he’s been appointed,’ he told Vera. ‘All the same I can foresee some extremely heated arguments.’
‘Which Purefoy will win,’ said Vera, ‘because he is obsessed with facts and certainties.’
‘Not the only thing he’s obsessed with. And anyway, it is not a fact that Crippen didn’t murder his wife. It’s an assumption, and a false one.’