‘Under licence. You will naturally have to report . . .’
‘But I don’t want to leave,’ said Yapp. ‘I’ve settled in here very comfortably and I do my best to help the other prisoners, and . . .’
‘Which is doubtless why the Parole Board have come to their decision,’ said the Governor. ‘I have repeatedly emphasized in my reports that your conduct has been exemplary and for my own part I may say I shall be sorry to see you go.’
And in spite of his protests Yapp was taken back to his cell and an hour later was ushered through the prison gates clutching a small suitcase. He was accompanied by a substantial Prison Visitor in tweeds.
‘Couldn’t be better,’ she said briskly as they walked towards the car. ‘There’s nothing like starting a new life on a fine day.’
‘New life, my foot,’ said Yapp – and for one mad moment considered returning to his old one by hitting the damned woman. But his natural ineffectuality got the better of him, and besides, his feelings for Doris were reasserting themselves. She alone had remained constant in her loyalty. At least, he supposed so, and with all the new material of his personal experience with which to programme her it might yet be possible to discern some rational pattern in the apparent chaos of events.
‘I shall return to my research at Kloone,’ he said, and climbed into the car.
*
The computer was on Croxley’s mind too. He had always known it would supersede him and, with the accession of Frederick, it had. That the late Lord Petrefact had done his legal damnedest to prevent his son’s succession had been of little moment. The family had congealed around Frederick like some immensely influential swarm about a queen and Croxley had revenged himself on his late master by disclosing the full extent of his mental instabilities. And now he was rewarded by being offered the managership of the Mill at Buscott. For a moment he had been tempted, but discretion prevailed. Whatever had happened at Buscott it had not been to Yapp’s advantage, and Frederick resembled his father too closely to be trusted. Instead Croxley had used his last few days at Petrefact Consolidated to put several ‘patches’ into the computer. It would take some time to find them and by then he would be a rich man. It was, he felt, a fitting tribute to the deviousness of the late Lord Petrefact, and one the old devil would have appreciated.
*
At the New House Rosie Coppett was busy in the kitchen making pastry for a rhubarb pie. Through the window she could see Miss Emmelia among the cloches. By the back door Annie was gossiping with the milkman. Something about old Mr Jipson selling his tractor. Rosie wasn’t interested. She would never be any good with mechanical things. Besides, it was a nice day, and Miss Emmelia had said she could have a rabbit in a hutch if she promised not to let it loose among the lettuces.
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Published by Arrow Books in 2002
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Copyright © Tom Sharpe 1980
Tom Sharpe has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
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First published in 1980 by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd
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ISBN 9780099435532
Tom Sharpe, Ancestral Vices
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