Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape

On this particular night Mr Bullett-Finch was deep in a chapter on hormone weedkillers when the lights went out. He got up and stumbled through to the fusebox only to find that the fuses were intact.

“Must be a power failure,” he thought and went up to bed in the dark. He had just undressed and was putting on his pyjamas when he became aware that something extremely large and powered by an enormous diesel engine appeared to be making its way up his drive. He rushed to the window and peered out into two powerful headlights. Temporarily blinded, he groped for his dressing-gown and slippers, found them and put them on and looked out of the window again. What looked like a gigantic crane had stopped on the gravel forecourt and was backing on to his lawn. With a scream of rage Mr Bullett-Finch told it to stop but it was too late. A moment later there was a winching noise and the crane began to swing. Mr Bullett-Finch pulled his head in the window and raced for the stairs. He was halfway down them when all concern for his precious lawn disappeared, to be replaced by the absolute conviction that Finch Grove was at the very centre of some gigantic earthquake. As the house disintegrated around him – Mr Edwards’ claim to be a demolition expert entirely vindicated – Mr Bullett-Finch clung to the banisters and peered through a duststorm of plaster and powdered brick while the furnishings of which his wife had been so rightly proud hurtled past him from the upstairs rooms. Among them came Mrs Bullett-Finch herself, screaming and hysterically proclaiming her innocence, which had until then never been in doubt, and he was just debating why she should assume responsibility for what was obviously a natural cataclysm when he was saved the trouble by the roof collapsing on top of him and the staircase collapsing underneath. Mr Bullett-Finch descended into the cellar and lay unconscious, surrounded by his small stock of claret. Mrs Bullett-Finch, still clinging to her mattress and the conviction that she had left the gas on, had meanwhile been catapulted into the herb-garden where she sobbed convulsively among the thyme.

From the cab of his crane Mr Edwards regarded his handiwork with pride.

“Told you I could do it,” he said and seized the bottle of vodka from Blott who had been steadying his nerves with it. Blott let him finish it. Then he dragged him down from the cab and climbed back to wipe any fingerprints from the controls. Finally, hoisting Mr Edwards over his shoulder, he set off down the drive.

By the time he reached the Royal George Mrs Wynn was back from Worford, and washing glasses by candlelight.

“Look at all this mess,” she said irately, “I leave you to look after the place for one day and what do I find when I get back. Anyone would think there had been an orgy here. And what’s been going on in the village, I’d like to know? The place looks like it’s been bombed.”

Blott helped with the glasses and then went out to the Land-Rover. Mr Edwards was still sleeping soundly in the back. He drove slowly out of the yard and turned towards Ottertown. It was a longer way round but Blott didn’t want to be seen in the High Street. He stopped at the caravan site where the motorway workers lived and deposited Mr Edwards on the grass. Then he drove on towards the Gorge and Handyman Hall. At two o’clock he was in bed in the Lodge. All in all it had been a good day’s work.

In Dundridge’s flat the phone rang. He groped for it sleepily and switched on the light. It was Hoskins. “What the hell do you want? Do you realize what time it is?”

“Yes,” said Hoskins, “as a matter of fact I do. I just wanted to tell you that you’ve gone too far this time.”

“Gone too far?” said Dundridge. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”

“Don’t give me that,” said Hoskins. “You and your random sorties and your task forces and assault groups. Well you’ve certainly landed us in it this time. There were people living in that fucking house, you know, and it wasn’t even scheduled for demolition in the first place and as for what you’ve done to Guildstead Carbonell… I hope you realize that the motorway wasn’t supposed to go within a mile of that village. It’s a historical monument, Guildstead Carbonell is… was. It’s a fucking ruin now, a disaster area.”

“A disaster area?” said Dundridge. “What do you mean a disaster area?”

“You know very well what I mean,” shouted Hoskins hysterically, “I always thought you were mad but now I know it.” He slammed the phone down, leaving Dundridge mystified. He sat on the edge of his bed and wondered what to do. Clearly something had gone wrong with Operation Overland. He was just about to call Hoskins back when the phone rang again. This time it was the police.

“Is that Mr Dundridge?”

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is the Chief Constable. I wonder if I could have a word with you. It’s about this business at Guildstead Carbonell…”

Dundridge got dressed.

Sir Giles parked his car outside Wilfrid’s Castle Church. It was an unfrequented spot and nobody was likely to be out and about at two o’clock in the morning. It was one of the great advantages of a Bentley that it was not a noisy car. For the last five miles Sir Giles had driven without lights, coasting past farmhouses and keeping to back roads. He had seen no other vehicles and, as far as he could tell, had been seen by nobody. So far so good. Leaving the car he made his way down the footpath to the bridge. It was dark down there under the trees and he had some difficulty in finding his way. On the far side of the bridge he came to a wire mesh gate. Using his torch briefly he unlatched it and went through into the pinetum. The gate puzzled Sir Giles. It was a long time since he had been over the bridge, not since the day of his wedding in fact, but he felt sure there had been no gate there then. Still he hadn’t time to worry about little things like that. He had to move quickly. It wasn’t easy. The pinetum was dark enough by daylight. At night it was pitch black. Sir Giles shone his torch on the ground and moved forward cautiously grateful to the carpet of pine needles that deadened his footsteps. He was halfway through the wood when he became conscious that he was not alone. Something was breathing nearby.

He switched off his torch and listened. Above him the pine trees sighed in a light breeze and for a moment Sir Giles hoped he had been mistaken. The next moment he knew he hadn’t. An extraordinary whistling, wheezing noise issued from the wood. “Must be a cow with asthma,” he thought though how an asthmatic cow had got into the pinetum he couldn’t imagine. A moment later he was disabused of the notion of a cow. With a horrible snort whatever it was got to its feet, a process that involved breaking a number of branches, large branches by the sound of things, and lumbered off with a singlemindedness of purpose that seemed to bring it into contact with a great many trees. Sir Giles stood and quaked, partly from fear and partly because the ground beneath his feet was also quaking, and when finally the creature smashed through the iron fence at the edge of the wood with as little regard for property as for its own health and welfare he was in two minds about going on. In the end he forced himself to continue, though more cautiously. After all, whatever he had disturbed, it had run away.

Sir Giles came to the gate and stared at the house. The place was in darkness. He walked quickly across the lawn and round to the front door. Then taking off his shoes he unlocked the door and stepped inside. Silence. He went down the corridor to his study and shut the door. Then he switched on his torch and shone it on the safe – or rather on the hole in the wall where the safe had been. Sir Giles stared at it in horror. No wonder Hoskins had talked so insistently about incinerators and inflammable material and health risks. It hadn’t been Dundridge who had been threatening to go the police. It was Maud. But had she been already? There was no way of telling. He switched off the torch and stood in the darkness thinking. There was certainly one way of ensuring that if she hadn’t been already she wasn’t going to in future. Any doubts he had had, and they were few, about the wisdom of disposing of Handyman Hall and Maud disappeared. He would make certain of the bitch. He opened the door of the study and listened for a moment before tiptoeing down the passage towards the kitchen. Kitchens were the logical place for fires to start of their own accord and besides there were the oil tanks that fed the Aga cooker. On the way he stopped to put on his Wellington boots in the cloakroom under the stairs.