Free The Midden by Tom Sharpe Page A

entirely all right and I want to get back to

bed.'
    'If you say so, sir. All the same, it seems a pity not to take the opportunity to use this as

a training exercise.'
    'No. Repeat, no. Repeat, no, on no account. Over and fucking out.' And putting the phone down

the Chief Constable turned back to even more immediate problems.

Chapter 7
    The first problem was to get back into the bedroom and have it out with Vy. She was to blame

for what had happened. Any reasonable husband coming home and finding some filthy young gigolo in

bed with his wife would have acted in a similarly violent manner. In a way what he had done had

been rather complimentary to her and showed the right amount of jealousy. There was certainly no

need for her to have behaved in that irrational way with the gun. He might have been killed and

then where would she have been? On the other hand he had no intention of going back into the

bedroom until she'd promised not to do anything dangerous again. Outside the bedroom door he

stopped. 'Darling, darling,' he called softly. 'It's me. You know. Me. Pooh Bear and Wiggly Toes

and...'
    Inside the bedroom Lady Vy had found her contact lenses and the nature of her mistake. 'Oh,

for God's sake, not at a time like this. Not with '
    Sir Arnold hurled himself through the door. Gun or no gun, he had to stop her before she said

any more. 'Hush,' he yelled in what he supposed was a whisper. And then, more for the benefit of

the two women downstairs than for Lady Vy herself. 'Now, dear, you mustn't blame yourself. We all

make mistakes.'
    'Blame myself? Blame myself? I wake up to find you beating someone to death with a bed lamp

and '
    'No, dear, no, that's not quite true,' he said in a whisper that was practically a bellow.

Then, sotto voce, 'Walls have ears, for Chrissake.'
    Lady Vy looked at him dementedly. 'Walls have ears? You stand there in the altogether and tell

me in some godawful whisper that walls have ears? Are you clean off your trolley?'
    Sir Arnold signalled frantically towards the door. 'We don't need any witnesses,' he said in a

conversational tone.
    'You may not,' said Lady Vy. 'In fact I'm sure you don't, but as far as I'm concerned '
    Sir Arnold crossed to the bed and drew back the sheet that was covering Timothy Bright's naked

body. 'Shut up and listen to me,' he hissed. 'I come home and find you tucked up with this. With

some foul toyboy you've been having it off with in my fucking bed and the sod has the gall to

sleep here and snore '
    He stopped and stared down at Timothy's scarred knees, hands and arms, not to mention a

seriously bruised chest and mangled face, and revised his opinion of Vy. If passionate love was

what the poor devil and Vy had been making, he was exceedingly glad he had never succeeded in

arousing her sexually to such extraordinary lengths. For a fraction of a second it occurred to

him that his wife had been seeing too many Dracula movies. Or cannibal ones. Only the lack of

blood on her face-cream convinced him otherwise. He preferred not to look at the brute's head.

The scalp wound was still leaking blood onto the pillow. In any case Lady Vy had his attention

now.
    'What do you mean "toyboy" and "having it off", you vile creature?' she spat with a hauteur

that was almost genuine. 'Do you think I would dream of sleeping with a...a callow youth, a mere

child?'
    Sir Arnold looked back at the bloke on the bed. It had never occurred to him that his wife

could think of someone in his late twenties as a mere child. Or callow, whatever that meant. It

didn't seem natural, somehow. He tried to get back to the issue. 'What do you expect me to think?

If you came home unexpectedly at whatever hour it was in the middle of the night and found a

naked girl in bed with me, what would you think?'
    'I'd know perfectly well you hadn't been having normal sex with her,' Lady Vy hurled back at

him. 'I suppose fellatio might do something