Trouble on the Heath: A Comedy of Russian Gangsters, Town Planners and a Dog Called Nigel

Chapter Six

Malcolm Thomas finished his lecture on the distribution of early Celtic fish hooks 6,000–5,000 BC. He packed his notes neatly into his bag. He nodded to the six students who had unexpectedly turned up to the lecture, and then wandered over to the porters’ lodge.

His pigeon hole was surprisingly full.

The first thing he took out was a mailing from the Medieval Academy of America. He always liked getting their letters, because they had such an impressive logo. It made the study of history seem respectable again. Most people, when you told them you were a Professor of History, would look blank and say things like: “Are people still doing History?” or “I thought we already knew it all.”

But you had to take the Medieval Academy of America’s logo seriously. It gave the subject weight.

Then there were a dozen bills, all from the university, and addressed to “Prof. Michael Thomas, Department of History”.

“You’d think they could get my name right by now,” Malcolm murmured as he stuffed them into his bag.

The university had a new Managing Director, whose greatest achievement had been to change his title from ‘The Principal’ to ‘The Managing Director’.

His second greatest achievement was to introduce a new system of accounting. Instead of the university owning the buildings, and using them for research and teaching, the new Managing Director had sold the buildings off (for a vast fortune). Lecturers and staff now had to compete on the open market to hire the lecture halls and classrooms.

Whenever a lecturer used a lecture hall, he had to pay the university out of his own salary. The lecturers’ salaries were then topped-up by grants, made possible by the sale of the buildings.

The new Managing Director called the system ‘Transparency in Action’. The staff called it ‘Stupidity in Action’.

In addition, the new Managing Director had ordered that ‘students’ must now be referred to as ‘clients’ or ‘customers’. ‘Subjects’ were, in future, to be referred to as ‘areas of future expertise’.

Malcolm continued pulling envelopes out of his pigeon hole. There was the History Now! magazine. He would keep that to read over coffee. Nothing gave him more pleasure, in the whole month, than reading History Now! over a cup of coffee, and sneering at the articles.

But then at the bottom of the pigeon hole was an envelope that he didn’t recognise. The writing was unfamiliar and it bore a Russian stamp.

Curious, he slit it open. Inside was a scrap of paper, upon which someone had written in capital letters the words: “STOP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING”.

Malcolm thought for a while. Was the author of the note talking about teaching History? If so, Malcolm would take their advice seriously. When the new Managing Director had taken over as head of the university, he had spent a large part of his Opening Address being rude about any university teaching that did not contribute to the Gross National Product or produce some commercial breakthrough, like the mobile phone or soft ice-cream.

Malcolm had the distinct feeling that the teaching of Medieval History was high on the Managing Director’s hit list.

If Malcolm were looking for a secure future, he should certainly stop what he was doing, but there was nothing else he wanted to do. History was his chosen subject and Medieval History, in particular, was his passion.

But he had a creepy feeling that the writer of the note was not advising him to stop teaching History.

That evening he showed the note to his wife Angela over supper.

“I received this weird note this morning,” he said as he poured out two glasses of Chilean Merlot. He pushed the note across the table and watched her read it.

“One of your students perhaps?” she said, with a slight curl of the lip.

“But what are they talking about?” Malcolm took the note back, and examined it again, as he might examine a medieval manuscript. The colour of the ink, the style of the lettering, the pressure of the pen on paper, the age of the paper – all these things might give a clue as to who had written it, when they had written it, and why.

Although Malcolm was an expert in unlocking the secrets of medieval manuscripts, this scrap of paper told him nothing.

“Have you got something going with one of your students again, Malcolm?” Angela’s eyes were not narrow slits at the moment, but he knew they would become narrow slits if he didn’t head off this line of enquiry. He knew that once Angela’s eyes became narrow slits, he would have to do a lot of soothing before they returned to their proper shape. If they remained as narrow slits for more than five minutes, his life would not be worth living for the rest of the evening.

“Of course not, my dear! You know I don’t do that sort of thing!” Malcolm tried to sound as indignant as possible.

In fact Malcolm’s relations with his students had always been entirely correct. But several years ago, he’d received a note in his pigeon hole which read ‘I love you dearly X X X’.

Malcolm had assumed it was from Angela and had thanked her for the note at the end of the day. But Angela had not written the note. She assumed (correctly as it turned out) that it was from one of Malcolm’s female students. Angela also assumed (incorrectly as it happened) that something had been ‘going on’ between Malcolm and the student.

In the end Malcolm had managed to persuade Angela of his innocence, but the suspicion still stayed in Angela’s mind. Or perhaps it wasn’t the suspicion of something that might have happened, but the fear that something might happen in the future.

“I have always kept my relations with the students on a professional level. You know that, my angel. Don’t you?”

He checked Angela’s eyes for any sign of narrowing, but to his relief they remained unnarrowed. He relaxed.

“Could it be the Planning Application?” she said.

Oddly, Malcolm hadn’t thought about the Highgrove Park Residents’ Association’s latest fight, since he’d sent off their letter of objection, after the meeting at Lady Chesney’s place.

“But who would have sent it?” he said, and pulled a face that meant: “Surely someone rich enough to buy both numbers 26 and 27 Highgrove Park can’t also be a complete loony?”

Angela was familiar with the meaning of Malcolm’s various faces, and she replied, “Just because they’re rich enough to buy numbers 26 and 27 doesn’t mean they’re not complete loonies.”

Malcolm stared at the note again, and then weighed it in his hand, as if there were some well-known connection between weight and sanity.

“And isn’t the company that’s bought the site Russian?” Angela added, pointing to the Russian stamps on the envelope.

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Malcolm. “But what do they mean by STOP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING? I’m just objecting on behalf of the Association to a planning application.”

“Oh damn! There’s Freddie!” muttered Angela taking a sip of the Merlot.

“I’ll go,” sighed Malcolm, and he got up from the table, taking his glass of wine with him, to look at their six-year-old son, who was yelling that he couldn’t sleep without his submarine.

As he reached the door, Angela put her glass back on the table.

“Maybe it’s one of those Russian tycoons,” she said. “Maybe he’s a gangster?”