Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

'Skundler,' said Hartang very quietly and eyeing him through slits, 'Skundler, are you out of your fucking little mind? Or are you trying to tell me you are way off your trolley? Because I don't believe you. I don't believe one lousy fucking word you are telling me. You are lying, Skundler. And I don't like liars one dead cent. I used to like you, Skundler. Skundler's one of the team, I said.

'Not now. Not now you tell me they still use quills to do the books at this Porterhouse College of yours.'

'I didn't say that, Mr Hartang, sir,' Skundler managed to get out, 'I said like they used to. I said to the Professor, "Do you still use quills?" And he said-'

'Yes, we use quills is what he told you. Like they got a million fucking geese running round they can rely on. No way, asshole. You'll be telling me next they don't do double-entry even.'

Skundler seized a final opportunity. 'They do, sir. But with figures that bad nothing coming in and it is all out I don't know why. I said to the Professor-'

'I'll tell you why, Skundler. I'll tell you. Because that fucking Limey shit in the shiny suit like hand-me-downs was pegging you to the ground for the fucking ants to eat. He try and sell you any equity in a New fucking Jersey gold-mine too? Because if he did, you bought. As sure as shit you bought. Well, you and Kudzuvine have bought me twenty million sterling's worth of trouble.' He pressed a button underneath the huge glass-topped desk. 'Get me Schnabel, Feuchtwangler and Bolsover. And fast,' he shouted. Skundler hurried towards the door. 'Not you, Skundler, not you. I want to enjoy your company a little longer. Not much but just a little. Okay.' He paused and the lizard eyes studied Ross Skundler. 'Want a drink, Ross?' he asked. 'Because I sure as hell do. And I don't drink.'

'Yes sir, I could do with one.'

'Well, you're not getting one. Now get me the Chivas Regal. Where you and Kudzuvine are going you'll have plenty to drink. Like fathoms.'

Skundler crossed to the major bar and fetched the Scotch and one glass. They rattled on the desk top when he put them down.

Edgar Hartang was reading the letter again. He wanted his lawyers' opinion and very fast indeed. It looked real bad to him. Like he'd been screwed.

It was late afternoon before the Dean left the Praelector's study to visit the Master and see for himself what this monstrous gangster Kudzuvine looked like in the flesh. He had spent the intervening hours listening to the Praelector explain how he had consulted Mr Retter and Mr Wyve about damage repair and compensation and he had been impressed by the Praelector's reasoning. All the same he had his reservations. 'I take your point about the cost of repairs and compensation,' he said, 'though frankly I cannot conceive of this dreadful fellow Hartang paying up without a struggle. If what is on that tape is halfway true the man is in the drug trade.'

'Which is precisely why he will pay up,' said the Praelector. 'I don't think he will have any alternative.'

'But money from a drug dealer? I mean the swine should be in jail. How can we possibly justify receiving money made in such a way?'

'It is a matter I have given some thought to,' said the Praelector. 'And I have come to the conclusion that we must follow College precedent.'

For a moment the Dean could hardly believe his ears. 'Precedent? Precedent? You're not suggesting for one moment anyone in the College has ever been involved in the drug trade, surely?'

'Not to my knowledge, though statistically I should have thought it was highly likely. No, I was thinking of one of our Masters. Long dead now, though not so long when one comes to think of it. 1749. Jonathan Riderscombe made his money in the Slave Trade. Now I don't know which you think is worse, drugs or slaves. I must say I consider the Slave Trade to have been an abomination. But we benefited from it. I am too old to be entirely sentimental.'

The Dean kept his thoughts on the subject to himself. He disliked being reminded of the dark origins of great fortunes. He was also extremely surprised, and not at all pleased, that a new Fellow had been appointed in his absence. 'The Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellowship?' he said. 'I don't like the sound of this at all. The damned man Evans didn't deserve a memorial of any sort. He was one of the worst Masters we've ever had. Except for Fitzherbert, of course, but that is another story. I think I ought to have been consulted before any decision was reached.'

'Unfortunately we couldn't reach you,' said the Praelector.

'Cathcart knew where I had gone. You could have asked him.'

'We could have, had we known you were not visiting a dying relative,' said the Praelector with some slight acerbity. 'You could hardly expect us to phone every hospital and nursing home in Wales, and in any case there were other cogent reasons for making the decision very quickly.'

'Were there indeed? And what might those reasons be?' asked the Dean, who disliked being faulted.

'Six million pounds,' said the Praelector, which took the Dean's breath away. 'I think you would describe that sum as a sufficiently cogent reason. We were faced with something of an ultimatum. But the Senior Tutor knows more about the matter than I do. He was the person the donor's lawyers approached. Don't ask me why.'

'Not the Bursar?'

'Not the Bursar.'

'And who exactly is this quite remarkably munificent donor? Do we know that?'

The Praelector shook his head. 'No, we don't, but I think I can make an educated guess. The Senior Tutor would have us believe it to be a group of City financiers who admired Sir Godber Evans' efforts on their behalf. I don't.'

The Dean didn't either. 'City financiers, my eye,' he said, 'the bloody man did terrible harm to the financial interests of the country. Hopeless Keynesian,' he said.

'Quite,' the Praelector agreed. 'On the other hand, a certain woman, I won't call her a lady because in my opinion she isn't one, though she does have the title…You take my meaning?'

'I do indeed, and let me make an educated guess as to the name of the solicitors. It wouldn't be Lapline and Goodenough by any chance?'

'That I don't know. The Senior Tutor was holding his cards very close to his chest. All the same six million pounds is not to be sneezed at. It gives us a fighting fund against this monster Hartang.'

He smiled slightly and the Dean acknowledged the truth of the statement with a nod of the head. 'Unfortunately it also gives us a new Fellow whose antecedents I think we should examine more closely. Where does he come from? I suppose the Senior Tutor was prepared to divulge that information to the College Council?'

'Kloone University. His speciality seems to be in researching crimes and punishments. His main work is a large tome on hanging called _The Long Drop._ I have not read it myself but I am told it is authoritative by those who read such books.'

'And I take it he is against hanging,' said the Dean.

'I imagine so. The widow would not have sponsored him if he'd been in favour of capital punishment,' said the Praelector. 'But you'll meet him tonight. It is his Induction Dinner. I haven't spoken to him myself so we shall just have to see what we have on our hands. In the meantime we have the Bursar in the lunatic asylum where he properly belongs and we have six million pounds in the kitty. And unless Retter and Wyve are totally misjudging the situation we have…'

'The gangster Hartang by the scrotum,' said the Dean.

The Praelector acknowledged that this had been his thought though he would have put it more delicately himself. And what is more,' he went on, 'we have the man Kudzuvine at our convenience. I think the expression is that we have taken a hostage to fortune.'

Even the Dean had to smile. 'I must congratulate you Praelector. For a man of your age you have done splendidly.'