The Midden by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online Page A

once he got his foot stuck in the

iron bars of a grid which he mistook for a giant clam. But this time the total disassociation

produced by the Toad had begun to wear off. Having escaped from the terrible grip of the clam he

felt strangely cold.
    He had to get home, though the home he had to get to had no clear identity. Home was simply

where a house was, and ahead of him he could see a building outlined against the sky. In the

half-world between mental agitation and partial perception he made his way towards it and found

himself confronted by a solid stone wall and some iron gates. It was exactly what he wanted. He

tried the gates and found them locked. Something dark was on the other side and might be looking

at him. That didn't matter. Nothing mattered except getting into a warm bed. Timothy Bright

grasped the wrought-iron gates and began to climb. He was going to fly from the top. On the other

side a large Rottweiler waited eagerly. Trained from its infancy to kill, it was looking forward

to the opportunity.
    At the top of the gate Timothy Bright hesitated momentarily. He was a bird once again and this

time he definitely intended to fly. Letting go of the spikes around him, he stood for a second

with his arms outstretched. For a moment he was very briefly airborne. As he plunged downwards

the Rottweiler, like the sheep on the dam, had a vague awareness of danger. Then 190 lb of yuppie

dropped on it from a height of ten feet. As the great dog's legs buckled beneath it and the deep

breath it had taken was expelled from its various orifices together with portions of its dinner,

the dog knew it had made a mistake. Its jaws slammed together, its teeth locked on themselves and

it was desperately short of breath. With a final effort to avoid suffocation, it tried to get its

legs together. Splayed out on either side of its body, they wouldn't come. Only when Timothy

Bright rolled to one side did it manage to break free. But the Rottweiler was a broken beast.

With a plaintive whistle and a hobble it slunk round the corner of the house to its kennel.
    Timothy Bright lay a little longer on the cobbled forecourt. He too had had the breath knocked

out of him though to a lesser extent than the Rottweiler, but the urge to go to bed was stronger

than ever. He got unsteadily to his feet and found the front door which flickered under a light

in front of him. He turned the handle and the door opened. The hall light was on. Timothy moved

towards the darkened stairs and climbed them with infinite weariness. Ahead of him there was a

door. He opened it and went inside and found the bed. As he climbed into it someone on the far

side stirred and said, 'God, you stink of dog,' and went back to sleep. Timothy Bright did

too.

Chapter 5
    In the conference dining-room at the Underview Hotel in Tween the Chief Constable, Sir Arnold

Gonders, presided over a celebratory dinner for the Twixt and Tween Serious Crime Squad.

Ostensibly the dinner was being held to mark the retirement of Detective Inspector Holdell, who

had been with the Squad since it had first been set up. In fact the real celebration had to do

with the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions in London not to proceed with the trial

of twenty-one members of the Squad for falsifying evidence, fabricating confessions, accepting

bribes, the use of unwarranted violence, and wholesale perjury, which crimes had sent several

dozen wholly innocent individuals to prison for sentences as long as eighteen years while

allowing as many guilty criminals to sleep comfortably at home and dream of other dreadful crimes

to commit.
    The Chief Constable was particularly pleased by the outcome. He had spent the day in London

and had had a private meeting with the Home Secretary and the DPP to hear the decision. As he put

it to his Deputy, Harry Hodge, 'I told them straight. The morale of the Force is the priority.

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