Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape

“Lady Maud’s been,” she told him. “She left a message for you.”

“Oh yes,” said Dundridge. “I hope you didn’t tell her where I was.”

“No, I didn’t,” said the girl. “She’s a horrid old bag isn’t she? I wouldn’t wish her on my worst enemy.”

“You can say that again,” Dundridge agreed. “What was the message?”

“She said ‘Tell Mr Dundridge that I have a number of photographs in which I feel sure he will take a particular interest’. She made me write it down. Hullo, are you still there? Mr Dundridge. Hullo. Hullo. Mr Dundridge, are you there?” But there was no reply. She put the phone down.

In his flat Dundridge sat in a state of shock. He still clutched the phone but he was no longer listening. His thoughts were concentrated on one terrible fact, Lady Maud had those ghastly photographs. She could destroy him. There was nothing he could do about it. She would use them if the motorway went ahead and there was absolutely no way he could stop it now. The fucking bitch had arranged the whole thing. First the photographs, then the bribe, and finally the attempt to murder him. The woman was insane. There could be no doubt about it now. Dundridge put down the phone and tried desperately to think what to do. He couldn’t even go to the police. In the first place they would never believe him. Lady Maud was a Justice of the Peace, a respected figure in the community and what had that Miss Boles told him? “We’ll know if you tell the police. We’ve had customers in the police.” And in any case he had no proof that she was involved. Only the word of the girl at the Planning Board and Lady Maud would claim she had been talking about photographs of the Hall or something like that. He needed proof but above all he needed legal advice. A good lawyer.

He picked up the telephone directory and looked in the yellow pages under Solicitors. “Ganglion, Turnbull and Shrine.” Dundridge dialled and asked to speak to Mr Ganglion. Mr Ganglion would see him in the morning at ten o’clock. Dundridge spent the evening and most of the night pacing his room in an agony of doubt and suspense. Several times he picked up the phone to call Lady Maud only to put it down again. There was nothing he could say to her that would have the slightest effect and he dreaded what she would have to say to him. Towards dawn he fell into a restless sleep and awoke exhausted at seven.

At Handyman Hall Lady Maud and Blott slept fitfully too; Blott because he was kept awake by the rumble of lorries through the arch; Lady Maud because she was superintending the whole operation and explaining where she wanted things put.

“Your men can sleep in the servants’ quarters,” she told the manager. “I shall be away for a week. Here is the key to the back door.”

When she finally got to bed in the early hours Handyman Hall had assumed the aspect of a construction camp. Concrete mixers, posts, lorries, fencing wire, bags of cement and gravel were arranged in the park and work had already begun by the light of lamps and a portable generator.

She lay in bed listening to the voices and the rumble of the machines and was well satisfied. When money was no object you could still get things done quickly even in England. “Money no object,” she thought and smiled to herself at the oddity of the phrase. She would have to do something about money before very long. She would think about it in the morning.

At seven she was up and had breakfasted. Through the window of the kitchen she was pleased to note that several concrete posts had already been installed and that a strange machine that looked like a giant corkscrew was boring holes for some more. She went along to the study and spent an hour going through Sir Giles’ filing-cabinets. She paid particular attention to a file marked Investments and took down the details of his shareholdings and the correspondence with his stockbroker. Then she went carefully through his personal correspondence, but there was no indication to be found there of any mistress with a penchant for whips and handcuffs.

At nine she signed the contract and went up to her room to pack and at ten she and Blott, now dressed in his pinstripe suit and wearing a blue polka-dot tie, drove off in the Land-Rover for Hereford and the train to London. Behind them in the study the phone was off the stand. There would be no phone calls to Handyman Hall from Sir Giles.

Dundridge arrived promptly at the offices of Ganglion, Turnbull and Shrine and was kept waiting for ten minutes. He sat in an outer office clutching his briefcase and looking miserably at the sporting prints on the walls. They didn’t suggest the sophisticated modern approach to life that he felt an understanding of his particular case required. Nor did Mr Ganglion, who finally deigned to see him. He was an elderly man with gold-rimmed glasses over which he looked at Dundridge critically. Dundridge sat down in front of his desk and tried to think how to begin.

“And what did you wish to consult me about, Mr Dundridge?” Mr Ganglion enquired. “I think you should know in advance that if this has anything to do with the motorway we are not prepared to handle it.”

Dundridge shook his head. “It hasn’t got anything to do with the motorway, well not exactly,” he said. “The thing is that I’m being blackmailed.”

Mr Ganglion put the tips of his fingers together and tapped them. “Blackmailed? Indeed. An unusual crime in this part of the world. I can’t remember when we last had a case of blackmail. Still it does make a change, I must say. Yes, blackmail. You interest me, Mr Dundridge. Do go on.”

Dundridge swallowed nervously. He hadn’t come to interest Mr Ganglion or at least not in the way his smile suggested. “It’s like this,” he said. “I went to a party at the Golf Club and I met this girl…”

“A girl, eh?” said Mr Ganglion and drew his chair up to the desk. “An attractive girl I daresay.”

“Yes,” said Dundridge.

“And you went home with her, I suppose,” said Mr Ganglion, his eyes alight with a very genuine interest now.

“No,” said Dundridge. “At least I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” said Mr Ganglion. “Surely you know what you did?”

“That’s the whole point,” Dundridge said, “I don’t know what I did.” He stopped. He did know what he had done. The photographs proclaimed his actions all too clearly. “Well actually… I know what I did and all that…”

“Yes,” Mr Ganglion said encouragingly.

“The thing is I don’t know where I did it.”

“In a field perhaps?”

Dundridge shook his head. “Not in a field.”

“In the back of a car?”

“No,” said Dundridge. “The thing is that I was unconscious.”

“Were you really? Extraordinary. Unconscious?”

“You see, I had a Campari before we left. It tasted bitter but then Campari does, doesn’t it?”

“I have no idea,” said Mr Ganglion, “what Campari tastes like but I’ll take your word for it.”

“Very bitter,” said Dundridge, “and we got into the car and that’s the last thing I remember.”

“How very unfortunate,” said Mr Ganglion, clearly disappointed that he wasn’t going to hear the more intimate details of the encounter.

“The next thing I knew I was sitting in my car in a lay-by.”

“A lay-by. Very appropriate. And what happened next?”

Dundridge shifted nervously in his chair. This was the part he had been dreading. “I got some photographs.”

Mr Ganglion’s flagging interest revived immediately. “Did you really? Splendid. Photographs indeed.”

“And a demand for a thousand pounds.”

“A thousand pounds? Did you pay it?”

“No,” said Dundridge. “No I didn’t.”