Grantchester Grind by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page A

don’t suppose you’ve considered Philippe Fitzherbert,’ he said. ‘Old Fitzherbert’s

    boy. Said to be extremely rich. Got a place down in Gascony and lives there. Odd chap.

    French mother.’
    The Dean looked puzzled. ‘Rich? Considering the way his father practically

    bankrupted the College and finished the Anglian Lowland Bank on which we relied, I’m

    amazed to hear his son is rich. He can’t have inherited it. The College had to soak old

    Fitzherbert as Master.’
    Sir Cathcart sipped his drink and his ginger moustache twitched. Behind the bloodshot

    eyes something was happening. ‘Heard something,’ he said, resorting to the staccato

    that best expressed his important thoughts. ‘Rum. Very rum. After the war.’
    The Dean sat rigid in his deep armchair. He recognized that the General too was

    following his instincts. This was no time to interrupt.
    ‘Tell you who might know more. Anthony. Anthony Lapschott. Financial

    wheeler-dealer. Never quite sure what. Went into publishing too, made a small fortune.

    Writes books in his spare time. Tried to read one once. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

    Something about the loss of power. I’ve never quite known what to make of him but he seems

    to have known everyone. Spends his time these days down in Dorset. Portland Bill. If anyone

    knows, he will.’ The Dean considered Anthony Lapschott. He remembered him as a strange

    young man whose friends were for the most part in other colleges. An Arty, not a Hearty. On

    the other hand he had the reputation of being one of the few serious thinkers to have

    emerged from Porterhouse. Yes, he would go and see Lapschott. The Dean had that gut feeling

    again.

Chapter 5
    The Bursar’s feelings were strong too, but of a different kind. Unlike the Senior

    Tutor, whose relationship with the Dean had its up and downs, the Bursar couldn’t be said

    to have any relationship with either of them that was not down. The Dean and the Senior

    Tutor despised and hated him, and he in turn detested them. Ever since he had sided with

    the late Master and Lady Mary over the changes they had wanted to introduce in

    Porterhouse, they had regarded him as a traitor and the man who had given Skullion the

    sack. What Skullion himself thought of the Bursar couldn’t be put into words even by

    someone who wasn’t in the Master’s awful condition. In the circumstances Goodenough had

    made a wise decision to approach the Senior Tutor and to leave the Bursar well alone On

    the other hand the Bursar, who was responsible for the College’s so-called finances,

    knew only too well the situation had reached crisis point. The actual fabric of the

    College, the roofs and gutters, the stonework and the old wooden floors, all needed urgent

    attention and, while every other Cambridge college had been able to afford general

    repair and cleaning-up, Porterhouse remained as grimy and smoke-blackened as ever. A

    piece of guttering had fallen into the street near the Main Gate, fortunately not

    hitting anyone, and there were leaks in the roof of the Chapel and parts of Old Court.
    In short, unless funds were found quickly Porterhouse would fall apart and once again the

    Bursar would be blamed. In a last-ditch attempt to avoid this and learn how to raise funds

    he had recently attended a seminar on ‘Private Fund-raising for Establishments of

    Higher Education etc’ in Birmingham. For three days he had sat through a series of

    lectures on the subject and had been impressed by what he heard. For obvious reasons he

    hadn’t spoken himself but late-one afternoon, when he was leaving a lecture entitled

    ‘Private Influence on Education in Donational Usage’ which had been given by a don

    from Peterhouse, the Bursar was approached by a man curiously dressed in a black

    blazer, a light brown polo-neck sweater, white socks and moccasins. His eyes were almost

    invisible behind dark blue sunglasses.
    ‘May I introduce