Free The Gropes by Tom Sharpe Page B

Jenkins when the junior clerk had been off to Amsterdam on his stag do. Horace wouldn’t even be able to take the first step of getting a photograph taken quickly since it was Saturday and the post office where there was a photo booth was closed in the afternoon.
    For a while Horace was crestfallen at this early curtailment of his plans but he brightened up when a fresh idea struck him. Finishing his whisky, he went down to the bank, unlocked the door and cut off the alarm system before entering. Once inside he locked the door again and unlocked the safe containing the personal documents etc. of the clients. It took over an hour to sift through the various last wills and testaments, ancient Premium Bonds and frayed and faded love letters stored in the safety-deposit boxes, but finally he found a passport with a photograph which bore at least a passing resemblance to him. It was perhaps less than ideal that it was held in the name of one Mr Ludwig Jansens who had been born in Jelgava some seventy years previously but the tollrecent events had taken on Horace’s looks meant that in a dim light it might do.
    Having finished and locked the door once more, he set the alarm and went further along the high street where he caught a bus to the station on East Road. Two hours later, he was happily installed in an expensive hotel in London under his new false name. From now on he was going to treat himself well, and besides, it was the last place Vera would look for him.
    That night Horace had an excellent dinner and got uproariously drunk to celebrate his freedom.
    The next morning he had breakfast in his hotel bedroom trying to think how he could escape Britain without leaving any evidence of his ultimate destination. It would have to be in Europe. He now had a passport but that could be recorded if he tried to get into somewhere like America and his whereabouts subsequently traced. He would be safe enough once he was in the EU. There were no records of frontier crossings between Italy and France or Germany for that matter.
    Horace still wasn’t sure where he would hide from that dreadful wife he had so insanely married. And from the son he had obviously conceived, and whose mirror image had driven him to drink and, almost, to madness. It was only when he went down to settle his bill that he was inspired by an article in a newspaper on a side table. It mentioned Latvia belonging to the European Union. It was meant to be. Why onearth hadn’t Ludwig’s passport made him think of Latvia in the first place? It was perfect. From there he could get into Poland and then into Germany or anywhere else leaving no trail behind him.
    Horace paid the hotel in cash and went to a travel agency where he explained that he had a phobia about flying and wanted instead to travel by boat to Latvia.
    ‘The boats to Latvia are not liners. They are essentially steamers carrying cargo,’ the clerk told Horace.
    ‘Why are they called tramp steamers?’
    ‘I’ve always thought it’s because they’re so slow. And I have to warn you that the passenger accommodation is nothing to write home about.’
    Horace was about to say that writing home was the last thing he was going to do, but kept his thoughts to himself. He booked a passage and paid for it, then went out into the street with his documents. He was particularly pleased that the clerk had merely glanced at his passport and had written the wrong name down. Things were going well.

Chapter 13
    Vera’s feelings were the exact opposite to those of Horace. To say she was unhappy would be the understatement of far more than a year. She’d never been so desperately miserable in her life and of course she blamed Horace. If he hadn’t gone off his head she wouldn’t have had to send her love child to stay with that dreadful Belinda. She had never liked the woman and even before the wedding she had told Albert he had fallen for a hard and bitter gold-digger who would treat him like dirt. But he’d