Tom Sharpe - The Throwback

'I demand that a warrant be issued,' he told him.

'But we can't apply for a warrant unless we've sufficient evidence of tax evasion to convince a magistrate,' said Mr Wyman, 'and quite frankly…'

'Who's talking about tax evasion, you fool?' squawked Mr Mirkin. 'I'm talking about assault with intent to kill, attempted murder…'

'Just because it rained rather hard,'- said Mr Wyman, ' and you got caught…'

Mr Mirkin's reaction was so violent that he had to be sedated and Mr Wyman had to lie on a couch in Accident Emergencies holding his nose tightly above the bridge to stop it bleeding.

But Mr Mirkin was not the only person to suffer a sense of loss. The discovery of the late Mrs Flawse in a shell crater surrounded by gold sovereigns came as a shock to Jessica.

'Poor mummy,' she said when an officer from the Royal Artillery brought her the sad news, 'she never had much bump of direction and it's nice to know she didn't suffer. You did say death was instantaneous?'

'Absolutely,' said the officer, 'we bracketed her first and then all six guns fired a salvo and we were bang on target.'

'And you say she was surrounded by Sovereigns?' asked Jessica. 'That would have made her very proud. She always was a great admirer of the Royal Family and to know that they were with her in her hour of need is a wonderful comfort.'

She left the officer in a state of some perplexity and went about the more urgent business of nest-making. She was two weeks' pregnant. It was left to Lockhart to offer his apologies to the Major for the inconvenience caused by Mrs Flawse's failure to look where she was going.

'I feel very strongly about trespass myself,' he said as he saw the officer to the door, 'disturbs the game no end to have people hiking all over the countryside and with absolutely no right. If you ask me, and out of the hearing of my wife of course, the woman got what was coming to her. Damned fine shooting, what!' The Major handed over the jam jar containing Mrs Flawse and left hurriedly.

'Talk about sang-bloody-froid,' he muttered as he drove down the hill.

Behind him Mr Dodd was about to empty the jam jar into the cucumber frame when Lockhart stopped him.

'Grandfather loathed her,' he said, 'and besides, there'll have to be an official funeral.'

Mr Dodd said it seemed a waste of a good coffin but Mrs Flawse was laid to rest beside Mr Taglioni two days later. This time Lockhart's inscription on the headstone was only slightly equivocal and read:

'Beneath this stone lies Mrs Flawse Who foolishly went out of doors. She met her end by dint of shell, Let those that missed her wish her well.'

Jessica was particularly touched by the last line.

'Mummy was such a wonderful woman,' she told Mr Bullstrode and Dr Magrew who put in a somewhat unwilling appearance at the funeral, 'she would love to know she had been immortalized in poetry.'

Dr Magrew and Mr Bullstrode didn't share her certainty.

'I'd have preferred the relative pronoun to be a bit more personal than that,' said the doctor, looking at the wreaths and the jam jar contributed by Mr Dodd. It contained a vixen's brush. Mr Bullstrode was rather more concerned with the Army's role in the affair.

' "From the officers and mess…"' he read underneath a large wreath, 'from what I have heard they should have left the mess out. It would have been more tactful all things considered.' As they left the churchyard they noticed Lockhart deep in conversation with the Major.

'It does not augur well,' said the solicitor. 'You heard what happened to the Tax Collector?'

Dr Magrew had in fact treated the man. 'I doubt it will be a few days before he's up and about,' he said. 'I put both his legs in plaster.'

'I had no idea he had broken them,' said Mr Bullstrode. Dr Magrew smiled.

'He hadn't,' he said, 'but I thought it best to be on the safe side.'

'My feelings exactly,' said Mr Bullstrode, *I wouldn't want to pit myself against the bastard with him in so close communion with the Army.'

But Lockhart's interest in military matters was by and large pacific and concerned with preventing any further accident of the sort that had happened to Mrs Flawse.

'I'd be happy to have you put your notices up a bit closer to the house and on my ground,' he told the Major. 'It would keep people from interfering with my game.'

What his game was he kept to himself but the Major was touched by his generosity.

'I'll have to get permission from the Ministry,' he said, 'but isn't there anything else we can do to help?'

'Well, as a matter of fact there is,' said Lockhart.

Next day he drove to Newcastle with a trailer behind the car and when he returned both car and trailer were loaded to the brim with fresh electronic equipment. He made two subsequent trips and each time came back with more bits and pieces.

'Oh, Lockhart,' said Jessica, 'it's so nice to know you've got a hobby. There you are in your workshop and here am I making everything ready for baby. What was that huge machine that came up yesterday?'

'An electric generator,' said Lockhart, 'I've decided to electrify the house.'

But to watch him and Mr Dodd at work on Flawse Fell suggested that it was less the house than the surrounding countryside that Lockhart had decided to electrify. As each day passed they dug fresh holes and deposited loudspeakers in them and wired them together.

'It will be a minefield of the things,' said Mr Dodd as they ran a large cable back to the house.

'And that's another thing we'll need,' said Lockhart, 'dynamite.'

Two days later Mr Dodd paid a visit to the quarry at Tombstone Law while Lockhart, finally accepting the Major's offer of help, spent several hours on the artillery range with a tape recorder listening to the guns being fired.

'There's just one thing more I'd like,' he said when he had got what he wanted, 'some tapes of authentic rifle and machine-gun fire.'

Once again the Major was obliging and detailed off some men to fire rifles and machine-guns across the fell.

'I must say I think it's an ingenious idea,' said the Major as Lockhart packed his equipment into the car and prepared to leave. 'Sort of bird scarer, what?'

'You could put it like that,' said Lockhart and thanking him once again drove away. He returned to the Hall to find Mr Dodd waiting for him with the news that he had what was needed to make the scene realistic.

'We'll just have to be sure the sheep don't tread on them,' he said but Lockhart was of a different opinion.

'A dead sheep or two won't come amiss. They'll add a touch of death to the scene. A few bullocks would, too.'

All the while Mr Mirkin hobbled about Hexham on crutches and spent hours poring over the tax returns of old Mr Flawse in the determination to find proof of tax evasion and something that would justify the issue of a warrant. But it was a hopeless task. Old Mr Flawse had made a loss. On the other hand, one of his tax-loss enterprises had been a woollen mill and tweed-making factory and tweed-making was subject to Value Added Tax. Mr Mirkin's thoughts turned to VAT. It wasn't within his jurisdiction but came under that of Customs and Excise. VAT evasion and Customs and Excise? Mr Mirkin had found what he wanted. The Excise men needed no warrant to enter and search an Englishman's house, be it castle or cot, at any time of the day or night and their powers, unlike his own, were not subject to the limitations of magistrates, courts of law or any of the legal institutions which preserved an Englishman's supposed liberties. The Excise men were a law unto themselves and as such entirely to Mr Mirkin's envy and purpose. He went to the offices of the head VAT man for the Middle Marches and enlisted his curiosity and help.

'The best time would be to go at night,' he said, 'and take them by surprise.'