Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

'Dead certain,' said Skullion. 'Watched them from my bedroom in the Master's Lodge. Saw them through the window and they came out looking shifty and went to the Secretary's office. Want to know why?'

'Yes, I bloody well do.'

'Because there's a copier there. Then the Dean went back up again and came out looking smug.' Skullion laughed. 'I may miss some things but not a lot and what I don't see or hear, other people tell me. But that's not for anyone else's ears. Right?'

'All right,' said Purefoy, still fuming. 'Just the same they had no right-'

'Oh come off it. Right? Right doesn't come into it. You come up here all of a sudden as the Sir Godber Evans Memorial Fellow, get appointed when the Dean's away and the Senior Tutor gets me to sign my name to your appointment without telling me what you are or who put up the money, and they're still not certain, and you think they're not going to want to find out? Was there anything in there said Lady Mary was behind you?'

'No, no I don't suppose there was.'

'Must've been something, because the Dean drives out to Coft Castle to see Sir Cathcart that afternoon and he don't do that just for a chinwag. Never mind that. Just don't leave what I'm going to tell you lying around. Put it somewhere safe out of College.'

He finished his tea and handed the cup to Mrs Ndhlovo. 'And you'd better not be seen around,' he told her. 'You'd be better off in digs. Mrs Charlie'll recommend some The Dean and the Senior Tutor don't hold with women in College.'

'I don't care what they hold with. I'm entitled-

'Entitled? You may be entitled but they can dig up something in College Rules and Regulations says you're not and cause him a lot of trouble arguing about it. Take my word for it. When I've finished, that'll be different. For the time being keep your head down. They can think what they like but there'll be nothing they can do. And I don't want them finding me and trying to stop me spilling the beans.'

'If you say so, Mr Skullion, if you say so.'

'Sensible,' said Skullion, pleased by the 'Mister'. 'Now you'll be wanting to get that van back and fetch your car and you don't want to be all night about it. Ask Mrs Charlie about the digs and I'll see you tomorrow. Any time in the morning.'

It was almost midnight when they got back to Cambridge and slipped up to Purefoy's rooms. 'Just this once,' Mrs Ndhlovo said. 'I'll move into the digs in the morning.'

Dinner in Hall had been a sombre affair. Mention of Porterhouse Park was normally avoided as being an unsuitably morbid topic but there could be no avoiding it now.

'Dr Osbert and a woman went up to see him? How the deuce did they find out how to get there?' the Senior Tutor wanted to know.

'It seems our young colleague is rather more ingenious than his manner suggests,' said the Dean. 'Someone claiming to be from the hospital phoned to say that blood was needed for a transfusion, Skullion had burst an ulcer or some such nonsense, and they needed the address. Walter gave it to them. And now Skullion has disappeared and the police tell me that all the gates were locked and the keys have gone.'

'Nasty, very nasty. He couldn't by any chance have taken himself off?'

'One hardly supposes a man in his condition in a wheelchair would get very far without being spotted. No, I think the presumption must be that Dr Osbert agreed to help him get away from there.'

'But what on earth for? I shouldn't for a moment imagine he and Skullion have anything in common. Just the sort of young man he most dislikes.'

The Dean kept his thoughts on the matter to himself and glanced significantly at the Praelector but the Praelector had preoccupations of his own. The Bumps were coming up and after them the May Balls, and for the first time in several years Porterhouse was having its own May Ball. By that time Hartang would be installed in the Master's Lodge-for once the Inauguration of the new Master was being postponed until the Michaelmas Term in case certain rearrangements had to be made-and the Praelector had spent part of the afternoon with three people from London whose IDs suggested they were Customs and Excise but whose questions and inspection of the College and in particular the Master's Lodge seemed to have more to do with security. The woman had been the one who had impressed the Praelector most. In her forties, she had the air of a perfectly ordinary housewife on her way back from a supermarket-she actually carried a shopping bag-or the local library to collect a new historical romance. Her hair was permed and slightly blue, she was short and plump and at first sight she appeared happily absent-minded. By the time they had finished that first impression had been replaced by another. The patina of cheerful absent-mindedness had been overlaid by too much intelligent questioning and the authority she obviously possessed. The Praelector preferred not to wonder what was in the shopping bag. She seemed particularly interested in the May Ball.

'Anyone who pays for a ticket is entitled to come,' the Praelector told her, and was promptly assured that this year there would be certain unspecified measures taken to keep the rowdier element away.

'We want it to be a happy occasion,' she said. 'I think you can safely leave the staff arrangements to us. We have some excellent caterers we can provide and it will save the College authorities extra work. Now about the Master's accommodation.'

The Praelector had taken them to the Master's Lodge and had left them there. 'I shall be in my room if you need me,' he said.

They had spent several hours there and had come away apparently satisfied. 'Such a very pleasant house. And so handy having a lift. Of course it needs rewiring and a few refinements added. We will send some electricians up in a day or two. There is no need for the College to concern itself. They will use the main door of the house and Bill here will be with them. He knows about these things.'

Bill was the taller of the two men, and looked as though he knew a great deal about a great many things.

'And now if we could just have a word with the porters?'

The Praelector had taken them down to the Porter's Lodge and had gone back to his rooms uncomfortably aware that he had just made the acquaintance of three very hard people. It was going to be a very odd May Ball. And when that evening he had gone down to see if there was any mail in his pigeonhole Walter had been in an unusually serious mood.

'Bloody coppers,' he said with uncharacteristic frankness when the Praelector asked him if the visitors had stayed long. 'Telling me how to run my own business. Going to put a bloke in here with Henry and me for May Week. What do they want to do that for?'

'I think they may be looking for pickpockets and people using the occasion to come into College to steal,' the Praelector said tactfully. 'I'm sure they'll keep out of your way.'

'They'd better. Got enough to do without having the place crawling with flatfoots. Stick out like sore thumbs they do, and rude with it.'

Sir Cathcart would have found the comment precise. His feelings about the police were even less friendly. He'd had two uniformed officers and a plainclothes man in a patrol car drive up without bothering to make an appointment that morning and he hadn't liked their manners in the slightest. They had said they had received a complaint from a Mrs Ransby and had reason to believe he might be able to help them.

Sir Cathcart had tried to laugh it off. 'You mustn't believe anything you read in the papers. An utter travesty of the facts. As a matter of fact she was trying to blackmail me.'

'Oh yes, sir. Was she indeed? Blackmail you? And how was she trying to do that?' the Sergeant had asked in a tone of voice the General hadn't heard from a policeman before. The CID man said nothing. He had just stood there looking at the furniture in the hall and seeming not to be interested. Something about him annoyed Sir Cathcart, who had had two drinks for breakfast.