Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

'Not the what?' asked Sir Cathcart as he and the Praelector helped the Dean to a chair.

'Not the Dog's Nose man,' he whimpered.

Sir Cathcart bent over him solicitously. 'The Dog's Nose man?'

'Pimpole. It isn't possible. Not Pimpole.'

'He doesn't seem to be very well,' the Praelector said. 'Perhaps the strain has been too much for him. And I shouldn't give him any of that brandy.'

But Sir Cathcart had reached the end of his own tether. 'I'm not going to give him any,' he snapped. 'I need some myself. Come here for that infernal dinner and find the place has been turned into a human abattoir. And then when I've managed to persuade one murderer to get the hell out…Damn it, what the hell is wrong with Lord Pimpole? Knew his father. Charming family. Pots of money, too. Just the chap.'

'No, he's not,' moaned the Dean. 'He is nothing like the man he used to be. He's a filthy soak. Pimpole Hall and the estate have been sold to meet his debts. He has drunk a fortune away. He doesn't even wash. Pimpole lives in a dilapidated cottage with a vile dog and drinks Dog's Noses.' He paused and looked wildly around at them. 'Have you ever drunk a Dog's Nose?' Both men shook their heads.

'Heard of 'em,' said Sir Cathcart, 'but-'

'Then don't,' the Dean continued. 'Not ever. If you value your sanity. Pimpole drinks them all the time. Seven ounces of gin to thirteen of beer.'

'Dear shit,' said Sir Cathcart, 'the bugger must be off his head.'

'Cathcart, he is. And what is more…no, I can't tell you how depraved Pimpole is. It's too awful.'

'Try, old fellow,' Sir Cathcart said. 'Try and tell us. You've done jolly well so far.'

'I don't think we need to hear any more,' said the Praelector. 'Seven ounces of gin…' His voice trailed away in disgust and disbelief. But Sir Cathcart wanted to hear about depravity.

The Dean told them. And even Sir Cathcart understood. 'Sheep?' he said slowly. 'Sheep and dogs? Well, that does put a rather different complexion on the matter.'

He helped himself to some more of the Dean's brandy and sat down. It was the Praelector who spoke. 'It also puts an entirely different complexion on Skullion's apparent willingness to retire. He has, in old-fashioned golfing parlance, laid us a perfect stymie.'

There was silence in the room as they took this in. Again from somewhere in the College there came the sound of raucous laughter. It reminded Sir Cathcart of the Senior Tutor. 'I know why the Senior Tutor…' he hesitated for a moment and chose his words with care. 'I know why the Senior Tutor took the desperate action he did. Skullion had told Dr Osbert that he had murdered Sir Godber. Obviously the Senior Tutor realized he had to act immediately. All the same this second killing has made things damnably awkward. Still, if the body is in the Crypt I daresay we can buy time.' This time there could be no mistaking the Dean's and the Praelector's unease. They exchanged a glance and turned back to Sir Cathcart.

'Cathcart my boy,' said the Praelector, 'have you ever had any allergic reaction to duck? By that I mean, has the ingestion of concentrated fat ever affected the way you perceive things?'

Sir Cathcart D'Eath's eyes bulged in his purple face. 'Have I what?' he bellowed. 'An allergic reaction to duck? Are you quite insane? Here we are with dead bodies littering the damned College and you want to know if the ingestion of digitalized duck affects the way I perceive things. Well, as a matter of fact…'

'Hush, my dear chap, do keep your voice down,' the Dean intervened.

Sir Cathcart did. As a matter of fact the way I perceive things has changed,' he said hoarsely. 'I perceive that the College has gone collectively off its trolley. Not only have we an ex-Head Porter as Master and one who admits to killing his predecessor but we also have a Senior Tutor who has beaten, anyway mangled, another Fellow to death and put his body in the Crypt and to top it all…'

'What on earth are you talking about? What makes you think the Senior Tutor has beaten anyone to death? Bodies in the Crypt? Of course there are bodies in the Crypt. The Masters are buried there. No one else.'

Sir Cathcart eyed them with a doubtful and extremely cautious suspicion. 'Then why did you tell me before that damned dinner that the Senior Tutor had butchered this new Fellow, Osbert?' he demanded of the Praelector.

'Me? I never said a word about the Senior Tutor murdering Dr Osbert,' said the Praelector indignantly. 'I've never heard such a farrago of nonsense in my life.'

'You bloody well did. You said you blamed the Senior Tutor…' Sir Cathcart hesitated. In his befuddled mind a fresh doubt had arisen.

The Praelector took advantage of the pause. 'I said I blamed the Senior Tutor for allowing Dr Osbert to be appointed without properly investigating who was putting him up for the Fellowship. I said nothing about him murdering anybody.'

'And to the best of my knowledge Dr Osbert is still alive,' said the Dean.

Sir Cathcart stirred unhappily in his seat. 'There has evidently been some sort of ghastly cock-up,' he said. 'All the same some stupid bastard told me…' His voice trailed away as enlightenment slowly dawned.

'The Chaplain, perhaps?' hazarded the Dean.

Sir Cathcart nodded.

'Ah,' said the Praelector significantly and reached for the brandy. 'That explains everything. Which still leaves us with the vexed question of a Master to succeed Skullion. I take it that we are all agreed that he has not nominated Lord Pimpole.'

For a moment it seemed as though Sir Cathcart was going to object on the grounds that he had given his word as a gentleman etcetera, but he backed away. Sheep and dogs were too much even for his sexual eclecticism. 'Good,' continued the Praelector. 'In that case I shall convene an emergency meeting of the College Council to have the Master declared _non compos mentis._ This will negate any future nominations he might attempt. It is the only method open to us and it will have the additional advantage of rendering any ridiculous assertions that he murdered Sir Godber Evans nugatory. And now, if you'll excuse me, it is long past my normal bedtime.'

'And mine,' said Sir Cathcart.

As he made his way out past the Porter's Lodge a figure hurried by into Porterhouse It was the man the General had come to identify.

It was a very different Purefoy Osbert who came into Porterhouse that night. He no longer felt strongly that crime was a product of the law or that human misbehaviour existed only as a side-effect of police brutality and social repression. He had moved beyond these generalizations into a more personal world in which his own anger dominated everything. He had been deliberately humiliated and made to look an idiot. All the way back from Kloone he had faced the fact, the evident fact that Mrs Ndhlovo, far from loving him or even feeling fond of him, had made a mockery of his feelings for her. Just as evidently she had always regarded him as a fool. And Purefoy was prepared to agree with her. He had been a damned fool to have been taken in by her stories of a black husband in Uganda who had ended up as various portions of President Idi Amin's late-night snacks. A woman who could hoodwink the University authorities into believing such an unlikely story by speaking pidgin English had to be an experienced charlatan. It wouldn't have surprised him to have learnt that she had never been anywhere near Africa and that her encyclopaedic knowledge of sexual practices had been obtained entirely from treatises on the subject or from hearsay. Whatever the case she was definitely a liar and a fraud as well as a heartless bitch and Purefoy wanted no part of her. She belonged to a past that he intended to forget. He had even given up the idea of writing her a letter in which he told her what he thought of her. She wasn't worth the trouble, might even find some satisfaction in knowing how much she had hurt him, and besides he had more constructive things to do.