Tom Sharpe - Grantchester Grind

'Mrs Ransby tried to blackmail you and you didn't feel inclined to pay her. Very natural, sir, and may one enquire what your reaction to her demand, I presume it was for a sum of money, what your reaction was?'

'I told her to fuck off,' said the General. And frankly I'd be glad if you would go and make yourselves useful somewhere else. If you want to discuss anything more with me, you can make an appointment. I am extremely busy and…'

The plainclothes man introduced himself. 'My name is Dickerson, Detective Inspector Dickerson, and I have here a warrant to search premises in Botanic Lane…'

It had been an appalling moment, and the morning had got worse. Sir Cathcart had reacted angrily, the police had asked him if he wanted to speak to his solicitor and have him present when they searched the house, Sir Cathcart had said he did although it was the last thing he wanted, and had then changed his mind and had tried a different approach. That hadn't worked either.

'The Chief Constable is in London today, sir. If you'd like his deputy…' Sir Cathcart didn't, and had suffered the ignominy of being driven to Botanic Lane because as the Sergeant had pointed out it wouldn't look good if he was stopped for driving over the limit.

Nothing had looked good. The architects on the ground floor had watched his arrival with interest and when they got up to what Sir Cathcart had in the past jovially referred to as his little love nest he had been shocked by the mess it was in. Evidence of Myrtle's drunken struggles with the latex costume was everywhere and the brandy bottle was still on the floor of the bedroom. In the bathroom things were worse still. The consequences of the brandy were in the basin, the toothbrush was on the floor with the old razor, and the smell was most unpleasant. There was worse still to come.

'A one-way mirror, eh? And a video camera. Well, well. Someone is into porno by the look of things. I think we are going to need a photographer and the print man,' the Inspector said, and suggested they wait outside in the car. The General went downstairs and ran the gauntlet of the architects' office and sat in the police car. He'd changed his mind about his solicitor.

'You can use the car phone, sir,' he was told. An hour later with the solicitor, a very respectable solicitor who, if he had known General Sir Cathcart D'Eath in happier circumstances, didn't show it, they all climbed the stairs and inspected the rooms once again. The leather straps and the inflatable gag were placed in plastic bags.

'There is no need for you to say anything, and I strongly advise you not to,' the solicitor informed Sir Cathcart and requested that his client be allowed to go home. The General had to wait for a taxi and the Inspector said he would make an appointment to see him when they needed to ask him any further questions. Or perhaps he would prefer to come to the police station instead when they let him know. The solicitor said his client would prefer to be interviewed at home. Sir Cathcart went back to Coft Castle and was photographed by a young newspaperman who just happened to be there.

Alone in his study Sir Cathcart D'Eath sat with a revolver and a bottle of Chivas Regal and thought about shooting Myrtle fucking Ransby. And possibly some policemen at the same time.

As the end of term drew near and the Porterhouse Eights, no longer near the Head of the River, rowed over or moved up one, and as the marquees for the May Ball arrived and preparations were made, for erecting them, Hartang came almost unnoticed to Porterhouse. His car, no stretch limo with black windows but a three-year-old Ford as nondescript as Hartang himself, slipped into the Old Coach House and the Master-to-be climbed out and stared around at the motley of old cars, the Dean's humpbacked Rover and the Chaplain's ancient Armstrong Siddeley and Professor Pawley's even older Morris. In the space of sixty miles he had stepped from the safety and sterile modernity of Transworld Centre into a mausoleum of antique machinery. Even the large iron bolts on the Coach House doors alarmed him by their simplicity while on the whitewashed wall at one end a wooden hay-rack spoke of even older means of transport. And the floor was cobbled and stained with oil. Hartang looked at it all distrustfully and with a sense of defeat.

'If you'll just follow me, sir,' said the taller of the two men who had driven up with him. 'We can walk across to the Master's Lodge unobserved.' He opened a side door and stepped outside. Hartang followed nervously and blinked in the bright sunshine. Without his dark blue glasses the light hurt his weak eyes and he walked with head down to avoid the glare until they were in the hall of the Master's Lodge. Here evidence of the past was all too apparent. The furniture he had seen on his previous visits had been comparatively modern but in its place there was solid black oak and dark mahogany and even an old curved wooden hatstand. On the wall the portrait of Humphrey Lombert, Master 1852-83, stared through small metal spectacles sternly into the distance over his head. The floor was shining parquet with a dark red Afghan rug. Behind him the smaller man shut the door quietly and they went through into the drawing-room where a woman with permed hair and wearing a brown tweed suit was sitting on a chintz sofa looking through a copy of _The Field._ Ah, there you are,' she said. 'I do hope you had an uneventful drive.'

Hartang tried to smile and said it had been all right 'Well, now that you're safely here,' she said without introducing herself, 'you can make yourself at home. Your luggage is upstairs and everything has been unpacked. You'll find it in the wardrobes and the chests of drawers. I'll show you that in a moment. In the meantime here are your new passport and birth certificate. And your curriculum vitae. There is nothing in it that should cause you any difficulties. We have tried to keep as close to your natural characteristics as possible. You are an obsessional recluse with very few outside interests. A number of suggested hobbies have been listed. There is, for instance, the collection of eighteenth-century American law books that you might like to have. Or there's…'

Hartang sat in an armchair and knew he was trapped. Until this moment and until this woman with the plump legs and the permed hair he hadn't been sure. He knew he'd been in deep shit, but you might get out of deep shit if you thought enough about it and had people out front. This was different. He was alone and in an environment he didn't begin to understand and she was telling him how he was going to live his life and what he was going to think and all she was allowing him to do was to choose some hobbies. Worst of all, she was doing it all with an air of absolute certainty that he had to do exactly what she was telling him. Even in prison all those years ago Hartang had felt freer than he did now. And even when they took him up in the elevator and explained how the doors and the roof and floor were bullet-proof and if he ever felt threatened all he had to do was get in there fast and press the yellow button, he could find no comfort in the knowledge. Quite the opposite. The metal walls were like a cell, they weren't even like: they _were_ a cell. The bedroom was full of old-fashioned furniture too and it was only when they went through it to a small room with no windows that Hartang began to feel in surroundings that he was used to-computer screens and printers and white wood tables and comfortable executive chairs.

'You have your communications centre here and you can get all the information you need and talk to whoever you want to worldwide,' the woman told him. Hartang doubted it. Whatever he said and whatever messages he sent or came in would be recorded. The information he wanted was what the fuck was going on.