Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

'The one about the Last Lunch,' said the Chaplain, 'or even a Last Dinner. Supper has always struck me as a rather insubstantial meal, more of a snack really. Still, if you're going to be crucified, I don't suppose you want anything too heavy.'

'Christ,' said Dr Buscott in disgust.

'Precisely,' the Chaplain went on. 'We've just been talking about Him. A most peculiar chap, I've always thought. I've often wondered what he'd have done in life if he had come up to Porterhouse as an undergraduate.'

'He might have come in handy to do something for the Bursar. It's going to take a miracle to get him back to sanity,' said the Senior Tutor, and helped himself to one of the chops the Bursar had refused.

At the other end of High Table Purefoy Osbert and the Librarian sat eating quietly.

'Do they always behave like that?' Purefoy asked.

'They're always very odd but I've never seen anything like that before,' said the Librarian. 'But then the whole place seems to have gone mad lately. Funnily enough the Bursar has always seemed the mildest of them all.'

'And who is the small round man with the red face?'

'That is the Dean,' the Librarian said. 'The small angry-looking man. Not someone you want to cross, especially when he's in a nasty mood, and by the look of him he's not in a very nice one now.'

'And who is the tall thin old fellow?' Purefoy asked.

'That's the Praelector. He's not a bad old chap. Very old but relatively scholarly for Porterhouse,' the Librarian said. "The dimmest of the three is supposed to be the Senior Tutor, but I'm not sure he's half as ignorant as he pretends. It's always difficult to know with the Senior Fellows. They are perpetually playing games and pretending to be complete fools and never to do any work and then you find they regard you as an idiot because they've taken you in. But all Cambridge is a bit like that. I call it a "Put-You-Down Town". Everyone is so bloody competitive. Not that I'm bothered, because the Librarian is only a sort of honorary Fellow in Porterhouse and I very seldom dine in. But as the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow I'm afraid they'll expect you to and they'll put you through it. It is what they call your Induction Dinner.'

However, for the moment the Dean was far too preoccupied to notice Dr Osbert. It wasn't only the Bursar's state of mind that bothered him. In fact that was the least of his worries. Something about the Praelector's manner, and the fact that he was obviously more in command of the situation than the Senior Tutor whose emotions were leading the way, led him to suspect that the Praelector saw more profit for the College in what had happened than was immediately obvious. He would have to have a quiet talk with the Praelector on his own.

At the Transworld Television Productions Centre in Dockland Hartang was trying to get Karl Kudzuvine on his own. 'Get me K.K.,' he told Ross Skundler in tones that, had Kudzuvine heard them, would have made sure he wasn't gotten at all easily. The first long letter from Waxthorne, Libbott and Chaine, Solicitors, 615 Green Street, Cambridge, jointly composed by both Mr Retter and Mr Wyve and personally addressed to Edgar Hartang, was not the sort of missive he liked receiving. It set out in numbered paragraphs the list of complaints against Edgar Hartang and Transworld Television Productions in details that covered several pages and requested an early response to their suggestion that in order to save very considerable costs and attendant publicity he pay the sum of twenty million pounds as part payment for the damage done to Porterhouse College buildings and the mental strain placed upon Fellows and undergraduates about to take exams alike.

'Twenty million pounds? Is someone out of their fucking minds? I told Kudzuvine to buy in the fucking place, not smash it to the ground,' he screamed at Skundler who was having to stand in for Kudzuvine and take all Hartang's terrible anger. 'I go to Bangkok a few days and when I get back I find this. Do I need a demand for twenty million pounds sterling? Like holes in my ass I need it. And where the fuck is Kudzuvine?'

'Nobody seems to know, sir,' said Skundler, regretting what he had said about K.K. being up shit creek and needing to paddle. He was nose-deep himself now. He had approved the Porterhouse accounts and by proxy the validity of the scheme. 'He just hasn't come back to work since he went up there with the team, sir.'

'Team? What sort of team? Some fucking demolition one like a wrecking crew? They take a bullfuckingdozer with them? Well, where is he?'

'I'll try and find out some more information, E.H.' Skundler said, sidling towards the door.

'You won't,' said Hartang in tones of unmistakable menace. 'You will stay here and tell me what has been going on while I'm in Bangkok.' He lowered his voice to a terrifying whisper. And don't say you don't know, Skundler.' Behind the blue glasses the eyes seemed to shred Ross Skundler already. Only when someone was going to die did Edgar Hartang speak with such clarity.

'All I know is Kudzuvine got the Professor to invite him to make a video of Porterhouse College Sunday and Kudzuvine went to Cambridge-'

'Tell me something I don't know, Skundler. Like who is the Professor? Don't I know Kudzuvine went to Cambridge? Twenty million pounds I know too.'

'Professor Bursar, sir, the one you…Kudzuvine found for you at the fund-raising seminar on account he seemed dumb as dogshit…'

'Dumb as dogshit? Twenty million pounds may be dogshit to you, Skundler, but dumb it ain't. Speaks volumes. I don't like what I'm hearing.'

Skundler liked it even less. He wasn't just on the hook now, he was being reeled in. Fast. 'This Professor Bursar, you saw him, sir. He came to lunch Wednesday twelfth, twelve forty-five with you. You remember?'

'You asking me a question, Skundler? Are you asking me a question? Because if you are, I got an-'

'No, sir, Mr Hartang,' said Skundler who didn't want to hear the answer. He knew it. 'I'm just reminding myself the details and just how dumb he seemed. I mean real stupid.'

Hartang's mind went back to the occasion. Ate like a pig,' he said involuntarily, and went into spasms. When he had finally got several pills into his mouth and had washed them down with mineral water, he corrected himself. The pig phobia was subdued by another thought. He was being stung to the tune of twenty millions by some broken-down professors. 'Grotesque,' he muttered, meaning the Bursar. 'Gets his suits from the Salvation Army, thrift shop, some place like that. But dumb he ain't.'

'No sir, I guess not,' said Skundler, wishing to hell he could avoid mentioning the Bursar's next visit with the ledgers.

'Don't guess, Skundler. Tell it like it is.'

'So I told Kudzuvine we had to see the print-out on account we needed to know their financial situation. Like we're not buying a pig in a poke. Jesus, Mr Hartang, you all right? I mean you want me to call the medication team?'

Hartang shook his head-or it shook him. Everything about him shook for a minute and beads of sweat broke out on his face. When he finally pulled himself together again, his voice was shaky but his meaning was unmistakable. 'I am all right, Skundler. You use that word again and you aren't. Next time I'll be putting a long-distance through.'

Skundler tried to swallow. His throat was desert-dry. He knew Hartang's long-distance calls. Like 'Fax me Death'. 'The Professor brings these ledgers, sir, like…like they're from before printing.'

'Yes, they would be,' said Hartang. 'Ever know a fucking ledger had printing in it? Because I haven't. Not in a lifetime doing accounts I've ever seen a ledger that's been printed in.'

'No, sir, I didn't mean that. I meant like they were way back. Used quills and all. I said to the Professor-'