Ancestral Vices by Tom Sharpe

think of nothing. ‘I suppose you could say—’
    ‘An affray,’ interrupted Mrs Billington-Wall. ‘And what you seem to forget is that I am held personally responsible for this house during Lord Petrefact’s absence and as caretaker . . .’
    ‘But he isn’t absent. The man’s in there,’ said Croxley.
    Mrs Billington-Wall gave the door of Lord Petrefact’s bedroom a disparaging look. ‘One must suppose so,’ sheconceded. ‘All the same, my judgement is that he’s not in a fit state to make a lucid assessment of the situation. Legally speaking, he is absent. I am not, and in my opinion—’
    ‘Yes, but what about the scandal?’ said Croxley, now fighting with a desperation made positively ferocious by the knowledge of what Lord Petrefact would do when he learnt that the police had been invited to take a look at his private affairs. Short of actually asking Her Majesty’s Income Tax Inspectors to send half a dozen of their brightest young men to browse through his third set of ledgers, Croxley could think of nothing more likely to give the old man terminal apoplexy than the intrusion of the police.
    ‘What scandal?’ asked Mrs Billington-Wall. ‘If there’s been any scandalous behaviour here I would say that the destruction of . . .’
    But Croxley had taken her arm and was leading her down the corridor away from the door.
    ‘Pigs,’ he whispered conspiratorially.
    ‘Pigs?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘What do you mean “exactly”?’
    ‘What I said,’ continued Croxley, frantically trying to lure the woman into a maze of misunderstanding from which she would emerge determined to stop the police on the doorstep.
    ‘But you said “Pigs”. Now you say “Exactly”. I’ve not the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’
    ‘A nod’s as good as a wink,’ said Croxley with what he hoped was a suggestive leer.
    Mrs Billington-Wall ignored it. ‘Not to me it isn’t. Are you trying to tell me . . .’
    ‘Quite,’ said Croxley. ‘Say no more.’
    ‘That that old man in there has a perverse penchant for pigs?’ Croxley raised his eyes to heaven and prayed. If it ever got to the old man’s ears . . . Still, anything was better than the police. He ploughed on.
    ‘Sucking pigs,’ he said, trying to imbue the participle with a positively revolting emphasis. He succeeded. Mrs Billington-Wall stiffened.
    ‘I don’t believe it,’ she snapped.
    ‘I’m not asking you to,’ said Croxley truthfully. ‘All I’m saying is that if the police come tramping round the house in their dirty great boots the name of Billington-Wall’s going to hit the front page of the
News of The World
next Sunday with banner headlines like “Brigadier General’s Widow in Pork Orgy”. And if you don’t believe me go and ask the contract chef in the kitchen. Lord Petrefact had one disembowelled last night so that it would fit.’
    ‘Fit?’ said Mrs Billington-Wall with an expression of quite extraordinary disgust.
    ‘Fit,’ said Croxley. ‘It wasn’t the right size.’
    ‘Size?’
    ‘Look, you surely don’t want me to spell out the physiological facts for you, do you? I should have thought a woman with your experience of—’
    ‘Never mind my experience,’ said Mrs Billington-Wall, ‘and I can assure you that it doesn’t extend to bestiality.’
    ‘I suppose not. Still . . .’
    ‘And if you think I’m going to be party to a conspiracy to cover up the disembowelling of a pig for the purposes you have suggested—’
    ‘Now, wait a moment—’ began Croxley but Mrs Billington-Wall was not a woman to be stopped.
    ‘Let me assure you I’m not. As Secretary of the Fawcett branch of the RSPCA I feel deeply on these matters.’
    ‘I’m sure you do,’ said Croxley, now so enmeshed in
suggestio porcine
that he was prepared to be rude, ‘and you’ll feel a damned sight deeper by the time the fuzz have had their crack at you. You try and explain the presence of a good third of intersected pig in the