Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape

“Dead?” said Lady Maud. “I had no idea. When did this happen?”

“Last night. House was knocked down by the motorway swine. Bertie was inside at the time.”

Lady Maud sat down, stunned by the news. “How absolutely dreadful. Do they know who did it?”

“They’ve taken that fellow Dundridge in for questioning,” said the General. Lady Maud could think of nothing to say. “Knocked half Guildstead down too. The Colonel and I thought we ought to come over and have a talk to you about it. Puts a very different complexion on the whole business of the motorway, don’t you know.”

“Of course,” said Lady Maud. “Come over at once.” She put the phone down and tried to imagine what had happened. Dundridge taken in for questioning. Mr Bullett-Finch dead. Finch Grove demolished. Guildstead Carbonell… It was such astonishing news that it drove all thoughts of Giles from her mind.

“I must phone poor dear Ivy,” she muttered and dialled Finch Grove. Not surprisingly, she got no reply.

In the garage Sir Giles was doing his best to persuade Blott to stop pointing the twelve-bore at his chest.

“Five thousand pounds,” he said. “Five thousand pounds. All you’ve got to do is open the gates.”

“You get out of here,” said Blott.

“What do you think I want to do? Stay here?”

“Out of the garage,” said Blott.

“Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Anything you ask…”

“I’ll count to ten,” said Blott. “One.”

“Fifty thousand pounds.”

“Two,” said Blott:

“A hundred thousand. You can’t ask better than that.”

“Three,” said Blott.

“I’ll make it -”

“Four,” said Blott.

Sir Giles turned and ran. There was no mistaking the look on Blott’s face. Sir Giles stumbled round the house and across the lawn to the pinetum. He scrambled over the iron railings and climbed back into his tree. The lions had finished the giraffe and were licking their paws and wiping their whiskers. Sir Giles wiped the sweat off his face with an oily handkerchief and tried to think what to do next.

Dundridge was saved that trouble by the discovery of an empty vodka bottle in the cab of the crane and by eyewitnesses who testified that one of the two men seen driving the crane up the High Street had been singing bawdy songs and was very clearly intoxicated.

“There seems to have been some mistake,” the Superintendent told him apologetically. “You’re free to go.”

“But you told me you were treating the case as one of murder,” shouted Dundridge indignantly. “Now you turn round and say it was simply drunken driving.”

“Murder in my view implies premeditation,” explained the Superintendent. “Now, two blokes go out and have one too many. They get a bit merry and pinch a crane and knock a few houses down, well you can’t feel the same about it, can you? There’s no premeditation there. Just a bit of fun, that’s all. Now I’m not saying I approve. Don’t get me wrong. I’m as hard on vandalism and drunkenness as the next man, but there are mitigating circumstances to be taken into account.”

Dundridge left the police station unconvinced, and as far as Hoskins’ behaviour was concerned he could find no mitigating circumstances whatsoever.

“You deliberately led the police to believe that I had given orders for the Bullett-Finches’ house to be demolished,” he shouted at him in the Mobile HQ. “You gave them to understand that I set out to murder Mr Bullett-Finch.”

“I only told them that you had had a row with him on the phone. I’d have said the same thing about Lady Maud if they had asked me,” Hoskins protested.

“Lady Maud doesn’t happen to have been murdered,” yelled Dundridge. “Nor does General Burnett or the Colonel and I’ve had rows with them too. I suppose if any of them get run over by a bus or die of food poisoning you’ll tell the police I’m responsible.”

Hoskins said he didn’t think that was being fair.

“Fair,” yelled Dundridge, “fair? Now you just listen to what I’ve had to put up with since I’ve been up here. I’ve been threatened. I’ve been given doctored drinks. I’ve been… Well never mind about that. I’ve been shot at. I’ve been subject to abuse. I’ve had my car tyres slashed. I’ve been accused of murder and you have the fucking gall to stand there and talk to me about fairness. My God, I’ve fought clean up to now but not any longer. From now on anything goes and the first thing to go is you. Get out of here and don’t come back.”

“There’s just one thing I think you ought to know,” said Hoskins edging towards the door. “You’ve got a new problem on your hands. Lady Maud Lynchwood is opening a Wildlife Park at Handyman Hall on Sunday.”

Dundridge sat down slowly and stared at him.

“She is what?”

Hoskins edged back into the office. “Opening a Wildlife Park. She’s had the whole place wired in and she’s got lions and rhinoceroses and…”

“But she can’t do that. She’s had a compulsory purchase order served on her,” said Dundridge stunned by this latest example of opposition.

“She’s done it all the same,” said Hoskins. “There are signs up along the Ottertown Road and there was an advertisement in last night’s Worford Advertiser . I’ve got a copy here.” He went through to his office and returned with a full-page advertisement announcing Open Day at Handyman Hall Wildlife Park. “What are you going to do about that?”

Dundridge reached for the phone. “I’m going to get on to the legal department and tell them to apply for an injunction to stop her,” he said. “In the meantime you can see that work resumes in the Gorge immediately.”

“Don’t you think we should hold off for a day or two,” said Hoskins, “and wait for this fuss over the Bullett-Finches’ house and Guildstead Carbonell to die down a bit.”

“Certainly not,” said Dundridge. “If the police choose to regard the whole thing as a trivial matter, I see no reason why we shouldn’t. Work will proceed as before. If anything, faster.”

At Handyman Hall what was left of the Save The Gorge Committee met in the sitting-room lamenting the passing of Mr Bullett-Finch and seeking to take advantage from his sacrifice.

“The whole thing is an outrage against humanity,” said Colonel Chapman. “A more inoffensive fellow than poor old Bertie you couldn’t imagine. Never a harsh word from him.”

Lady Maud could remember several harsh words from Mr Bullett-Finch when she had taken the liberty of walking across his lawn, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Whatever his faults in life, Mr Bullett-Finch dead had been canonized. General Burnett put her thoughts into words.

“Terrible way to go,” he said, “having a dashed great iron ball smash you to smithereens like that. Rather like a gigantic canonball.”

“He probably didn’t feel a thing,” said Colonel Chapman. “It was late at night and he was in bed…”

“He wasn’t you know. They found him in his dressing-gown. Must have heard it coming.”

“In the midst of life we are…” Miss Percival began but Lady Maud interrupted her.

“There is no point in dwelling on the past,” she said. “We must concentrate our minds on the future. I have invited Ivy to come and stay here.”

“I rather doubt if she will accept,” said Colonel Chapman looking nervously out of the window. “Her nerves were never up to much and this latest shock hasn’t done them any good and those lions…”

“Nonsense,” said Lady Maud briskly. “Perfectly harmless creatures provided you know how to handle them. The main thing is to show you’re not afraid of them. The moment they smell fear they become dangerous.”