Wilt

By Tom Sharpe

Chapter 1

When­ev­er Hen­ry Wilt took the dog for a walk, or, to be more ac­cu­rate, when the dog took him, or, to be ex­act, when Mrs Wilt told them both to go and take them­selves out of the house so that she could do her yo­ga ex­er­cis­es, he al­ways took the same route. In fact the dog fol­lowed the route and Wilt fol­lowed the dog. They went down past the Post Of­fice, across the play­ground, un­der the rail­way bridge and out on to the foot­path by the riv­er. A mile along the riv­er and then un­der the rail­way line again and back through streets where the hous­es were big­ger than Wilt’s se­mi and where there were large trees and gar­dens and the cars were all Rovers and Mer­cedes. It was here that Clem, a pedi­gree Labrador, ev­ident­ly feel­ing more at home, did his busi­ness while Wilt stood look­ing around rather un­easi­ly, con­scious that this was not his sort of neigh­bour­hood and wish­ing it was. It was about the on­ly time dur­ing their walk that he was at all aware of his sur­round­ings. For the rest of the way Wilt’s walk was an in­te­ri­or one and fol­lowed an itinerary com­plete­ly at vari­ance with his own ap­pear­ance and that of his route. It was in fact a jour­ney of wish­ful think­ing, a pil­grim­age along trails of re­mote pos­si­bil­ity in­volv­ing the ir­re­vo­ca­ble dis­ap­pear­ance of Mrs Wilt, the sud­den ac­qui­si­tion of wealth, pow­er, what he would do if he was ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Ed­uca­tion or, bet­ter still, Prime Min­is­ter. It was part­ly con­coct­ed of a se­ries of des­per­ate ex­pe­di­ents and part­ly in an un­spo­ken di­alogue so that any­one notic­ing Wilt (and most peo­ple didn’t) might have seen his lips move oc­ca­sion­al­ly and his mouth curl in­to what he fond­ly imag­ined was a sar­don­ic smile as he dealt with ques­tions or par­ried ar­gu­ments with dev­as­tat­ing repar­tee. It was on one of these walks tak­en in the rain af­ter a par­tic­ular­ly try­ing day at the Tech that Wilt first con­ceived the no­tion that he would on­ly be able to ful­fil his la­tent promise and call his life his own if some not en­tire­ly for­tu­itous dis­as­ter over­took his wife.

Like ev­ery­thing else in Hen­ry Wilt’s life it was not a sud­den de­ci­sion. He was not a de­ci­sive man. Ten years as an As­sis­tant Lec­tur­er (Grade Two) at the Fen­land Col­lege of Arts and Tech­nol­ogy was proof of that. For ten years he had re­mained in the Lib­er­al Stud­ies De­part­ment teach­ing class­es of Gas­fit­ters, Plas­ter­ers, Brick­lay­ers and Plumbers. Or keep­ing them qui­et. And for ten long years he had spent his days go­ing from class­room to class­room with two dozen copies of Sons and Lovers or Or­well’s Es­says or Can­dide or The Lord of the Flies and had done his damnedest to ex­tend the sen­si­bil­ities of Day-​Re­lease Ap­pren­tices with no­table lack of suc­cess.

‘Ex­po­sure to Cul­ture’, Mr Mor­ris, the Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies, called it but from Wilt’s point of view it looked more like his own ex­po­sure to bar­barism, and cer­tain­ly the ex­pe­ri­ence had un­der­mined the ide­als and il­lu­sions which had sus­tained him in his younger days. So had twelve years of mar­riage to Eva.

If Gas­fit­ters could go through life whol­ly im­per­vi­ous to the emo­tion­al sig­nif­icance of the in­ter­per­son­al re­la­tion­ships por­trayed in Sons and Lovers, and coarse­ly amused by D.H. Lawrence’s pro­found in­sight in­to the sex­ual na­ture of ex­is­tence, Eva Wilt was in­ca­pable of such de­tach­ment. She hurled her­self in­to cul­tur­al ac­tiv­ities and self-​im­prove­ment with an en­thu­si­asm that tor­ment­ed Wilt. Worse still, her no­tion of cul­ture var­ied from week to week, some­times em­brac­ing Bar­bara Cart­land and Anya Se­ton, some­times Ous­pen­sky, some­times Ken­neth Clark, but more of­ten the in­struc­tor at the Pot­tery Class on Tues­days or the lec­tur­er on Tran­scen­den­tal Med­ita­tion on Thurs­days, so that Wilt nev­er knew what he was com­ing home to ex­cept a hasti­ly cooked sup­per, some forcibly ex­pressed opin­ions about his lack of am­bi­tion, and a half-​baked in­tel­lec­tu­al eclec­ti­cism that left him dis­ori­ent­ed.

To es­cape from the mem­ory of Gas­fit­ters as pu­ta­tive hu­man be­ings and of Eva in the lo­tus po­si­tion, Wilt walked by the riv­er think­ing dark thoughts, made dark­er still by the knowl­edge that for the fifth year run­ning his ap­pli­ca­tion to be pro­mot­ed to Se­nior Lec­tur­er was al­most cer­tain to be turned down and that un­less he did some­thing soon he would be doomed to Gas­fit­ters Three and Plas­ter­ers Two and to Eva for the rest of his life. It was not a prospect to be borne. He would act de­ci­sive­ly. Above his head a train thun­dered by. Wilt stood watch­ing its dwin­dling lights and thought about ac­ci­dents in­volv­ing lev­el cross­ings.

‘He’s in such a fun­ny state these days,’ said Eva Wilt, ‘I don’t know what to make of him.’

‘I’ve giv­en up try­ing with Patrick,’ said Mavis Mot­tram study­ing Eva’s vase crit­ical­ly. ‘I think I’ll put the lupin just a frac­tion of an inch to the left. Then it will help to em­pha­sise the or­ator­ical qual­ities of the rose. Now the iris over here. One must try to achieve an al­most au­di­ble ef­fect of con­trast­ing colours. Con­tra­pun­tal, one might say.’

Eva nod­ded and sighed. ‘He used to be so en­er­get­ic,’ she said, ‘but now he just sits about the house watch­ing tel­ly. It’s as much as I can do to get him to take the dog for a walk.’

‘He prob­ably miss­es the chil­dren,’ said Mavis. ‘I know Patrick does.’

‘That’s be­cause he has some to miss,’ said Eva Wilt bit­ter­ly. ‘Hen­ry can’t even whip up the en­er­gy to have any’

‘I’m so sor­ry, Eva. I for­got,’ said Mavis, ad­just­ing the lupin so that it clashed more sig­nif­icant­ly with a gera­ni­um.

‘There’s no need to be sor­ry,’ said Eva, who didn’t num­ber self-​pity among her fail­ings, ‘I sup­pose I should be grate­ful. I mean, imag­ine hav­ing chil­dren like Hen­ry. He’s so un­cre­ative, and be­sides chil­dren are so tire­some. They take up all one’s cre­ative en­er­gy.’

Mavis Mot­tram moved away to help some­one else to achieve a con­tra­pun­tal ef­fect, this time with nas­tur­tiums and hol­ly­hocks in a cerise bowl. Eva fid­dled with her rose. Mavis was so lucky. She had Patrick, and Patrick Mot­tram was such an en­er­get­ic man. Eva, in spite of her size, placed great-​em­pha­sis on en­er­gy, en­er­gy and cre­ativ­ity, so that even quite sen­si­ble peo­ple who were not un­du­ly im­pres­sion­able found them­selves ex­haust­ed af­ter ten min­utes in her com­pa­ny. In the lo­tus po­si­tion at her yo­ga class she man­aged to ex­ude en­er­gy, and her at­tempts at Tran­scen­den­tal Med­ita­tion had been likened to a pres­sure-​cook­er on sim­mer. And with cre­ative en­er­gy there came en­thu­si­asm, the febrile en­thu­si­asms of the ev­ident­ly un­ful­filled wom­an for whom each new idea her­alds the dawn of a new day and vice ver­sa. Since the ideas she es­poused were ei­ther trite or in­com­pre­hen­si­ble to her, her at­tach­ment to them was cor­re­spond­ing­ly brief and did noth­ing to fill the gap left in her life by Hen­ry Wilt’s lack of at­tain­ment. While he lived a vi­olent life in his imag­ina­tion, Eva, lack­ing any imag­ina­tion at all, lived vi­olent­ly in fact. She threw her­self in­to things, sit­ua­tions, new friends, groups and hap­pen­ings with a reck­less aban­don that con­cealed the fact that she lacked the emo­tion­al stami­na to stay for more than a mo­ment. Now, as she backed away from her vase, she bumped in­to some­one be­hind her.

‘I beg your par­don,’ she said and turned to find her­self look­ing in­to a pair of dark eyes.

‘No need to apol­ogise,’ said the wom­an in an Amer­ican ac­cent. She was slight and dressed with a sim­ple scruffi­ness that was be­yond Eva Wilt’s mod­er­ate in­come.

‘I’m Eva Wilt,’ said Eva, who had once at­tend­ed a class on Get­ting to Know Peo­ple at the Oakring­ton Vil­lage Col­lege. ‘My hus­band lec­tures at the Tech and we live at 34 Parkview Av­enue.’

‘Sal­ly Pring­sheim,’ said the wom­an with a smile. ‘We’re in Rossiter Grove. We’re over on a sab­bat­ical. Gaskell’s a bio­chemist.’

Eva Wilt ac­cept­ed the dis­tinc­tions and con­grat­ulat­ed her­self on her per­spi­cac­ity about the blue jeans and the sweater. Peo­ple who lived in Rossiter Grove were a cut above Parkview Av­enue and hus­bands who were bio­chemists on sab­bat­ical were al­so in the Uni­ver­si­ty. Eva Wilt’s world was made up of such nu­ances.

‘You know, I’m not at all that sure I could live with an or­ator­ical rose,’ said Sal­ly Pring­sheim. ‘Sym­phonies are OK in au­di­to­ri­ums but I can do with­out them in vas­es.’

Eva stared at her with a mix­ture of as­ton­ish­ment and ad­mi­ra­tion. To be open­ly crit­ical of Mavis Mot­tram’s flow­er ar­range­ments was to ut­ter blas­phe­my in Parkview Av­enue. ‘You know, I’ve al­ways want­ed to say that,’ she said with a sud­den surge of warmth, ‘but I’ve nev­er had the courage.’

Sal­ly Pring­sheim smiled. ‘I think one should al­ways say what one thinks. Truth is so es­sen­tial in any re­al­ly mean­ing­ful re­la­tion­ship. I al­ways tell G ba­by ex­act­ly what I’m think­ing.’

‘Gee ba­by?’ said Eva Wilt.

‘Gaskell’s my hus­band,’ said Sal­ly. ‘Not that he’s re­al­ly a hus­band. It’s just that we’ve got this open-​end­ed ar­range­ment for liv­ing to­geth­er. Sure, we’re le­gal and all that, but I think it’s im­por­tant sex­ual­ly to keep one’s op­tions open, don’t you?’

By the time Eva got home her vo­cab­ulary had come to in­clude sev­er­al new words. She found Wilt in bed pre­tend­ing to be asleep and woke him up and told him about Sal­ly Pring­sheim. Wilt turned over and tried to go back to sleep wish­ing to God she had stuck to her con­tra­pun­tal flow­er ar­range­ments. Sex­ual­ly open-​end­ed free­wheel­ing op­tions were the last thing he want­ed just now, and, com­ing from the wife of a bio­chemist who could af­ford to live in Rossiter Grove, didn’t au­gur well for the fu­ture. Eva Wilt was too eas­ily in­flu­enced by wealth, in­tel­lec­tu­al sta­tus and new ac­quain­tances to be al­lowed out with a wom­an who be­lieved that cli­toral stim­ula­tion oral­wise was a con­comi­tant part of a ful­ly eman­ci­pat­ed re­la­tion­ship and that uni­sex was here to stay. Wilt had enough trou­bles with his own viril­ity with­out hav­ing Eva de­mand that her con­ju­gal rights be sup­ple­ment­ed oral­wise. He spent a rest­less night think­ing dark thoughts about ac­ci­den­tal deaths in­volv­ing fast trains, lev­el cross­ings, their Ford Es­cort and Eva’s seat belt, and got up ear­ly and made him­self break­fast. He was just go­ing off to a nine o’clock lec­ture to Mo­tor Me­chan­ics Three when Eva came down­stairs with, a dreamy look on her face.

‘I’ve just re­mem­bered some­thing I want­ed to ask you last night,’ she said. ‘What does “tran­sex­ual di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion” mean?’

‘Writ­ing po­ems about queers,’ said Wilt hasti­ly and went out to the car. He drove down Parkview Av­enue and got stuck in a traf­fic jam at the round­about. He sat and cursed silent­ly. He was thir­ty-​four and his tal­ents were be­ing dis­si­pat­ed on MM 3 and a wom­an who was clear­ly ed­uca­tion­al­ly sub­nor­mal. ‘Worst of all, he had to recog­nise the truth of Eva’s con­stant crit­icism that he wasn’t a man. ‘If you were a prop­er man,’ she was al­ways say­ing, ‘you would show more ini­tia­tive. You’ve got to as­sert your­self.’

Wilt as­sert­ed him­self at the round­about and got in­to an al­ter­ca­tion with a man in a mi­ni-​bus. As usu­al, he came off sec­ond best.

‘The prob­lem with Wilt as I see it is that he lacks drive,’ said the Head of En­glish, him­self a nerve­less man with a ten­den­cy to see and solve prob­lems with a de­gree of equiv­oca­tion that made good his nat­ural lack of au­thor­ity.

The Pro­mo­tions Com­mit­tee nod­ded its joint head for the fifth year run­ning.

‘He may lack drive but he is com­mit­ted,’ said Mr Mor­ris, fight­ing his an­nu­al rear­guard on Wilt’s be­half.

‘Com­mit­ted?’ said the Head of Cater­ing with a snort. ‘Com­mit­ted to what? Abor­tion, Marx­ism or promis­cu­ity? It’s bound to be one of the three. I’ve yet to come across a Lib­er­al Stud­ies lec­tur­er who wasn’t a crank, a per­vert or a red-​hot rev­olu­tion­ary and a good many have been all three.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said the Head of Me­chan­ical En­gi­neer­ing, on whose lath­es a de­ment­ed stu­dent had once turned out sev­er­al pipe bombs.

Mr Mor­ris bris­tled. ‘I grant you that one or two lec­tur­ers have been…er…a lit­tle overzeal­ous po­lit­ical­ly but I re­sent the im­pu­ta­tion that…’

‘Let’s leave gen­er­al­ities aside and get back to Wilt,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal. ‘You were say­ing that he is com­mit­ted.’

‘He needs en­cour­age­ment,’ said Mr Mor­ris. ‘Damn it, the man has been with us ten years and he’s still on­ly Grade Two.’

‘That’s pre­cise­ly what I mean about his lack­ing drive,’ said the Head of En­glish. ‘If he had been worth pro­mot­ing he’d have been a Se­nior Lec­tur­er by now.’

‘I must say I agree,’ said the Head of Ge­og­ra­phy. ‘Any man who is con­tent to spend ten years tak­ing Gas­fit­ters and Plumbers is clear­ly un­fit to hold an ad­min­is­tra­tive post’

‘Do we al­ways have to pro­mote sole­ly for ad­min­is­tra­tive rea­sons?’ Mr Mor­ris asked weari­ly, ‘Wilt hap­pens to be a good teach­er.’

‘If I may just make a point,’ said Dr May­field, the Head of So­ci­ol­ogy. ‘at this mo­ment in time it is vi­tal we bear in mind that, in the light of the forth­com­ing in­tro­duc­tion of the Joint Hon­ours de­gree in Ur­ban Stud­ies and Me­dieval Po­et­ry, pro­vi­sion­al ap­proval for which de­gree by the Coun­cil of Na­tion­al Aca­dem­ic Awards I am hap­py to an­nounce at least in prin­ci­ple, that we main­tain a vi­able staff po­si­tion in re­gard to Se­nior Lec­ture­ships by al­lo­cat­ing places for can­di­dates with spe­cial­ist knowl­edge in par­tic­ular spheres of aca­dem­ic achieve­ment rather than–’

‘If I may just in­ter­rupt for a mo­ment, in or out of time,’ said Dr Board, Head of Mod­ern Lan­guages, ‘are you, say­ing we should have Se­nior Lec­ture­ships for high­ly qual­ified spe­cial­ists who can’t teach rather than pro­mote As­sis­tant Lec­tur­ers with­out doc­tor­ates who can?’

‘If Dr Board, had al­lowed me to con­tin­ue,’ said Dr May­field, ‘he would have un­der­stood that I was say­ing…’

‘I doubt it,’ said Dr Board, ‘quite apart from your syn­tax…’

And so for the fifth year run­ning Wilt’s pro­mo­tion was for­got­ten. The Fen­land Col­lege of Arts and Tech­nol­ogy was ex­pand­ing. New de­gree cours­es pro­lif­er­at­ed and more stu­dents with few­er qual­ifi­ca­tions poured in to be taught by more staff with high­er qual­ifi­ca­tions un­til one day the Tech would cease to be a mere Tech and rise in sta­tus to be­came a Poly. It was the dream of ev­ery Head of De­part­ment and in the pro­cess Wilt’s self-​es­teem and the hopes of Eva Wilt were ig­nored.

Wilt heard the news be­fore lunch in the can­teen.

‘I’m sor­ry, Hen­ry,’ said Mr Mor­ris as they lined up with their trays, ‘it’s this wretched eco­nom­ic squeeze. Even Mod­ern Lan­guages had to take a cut. They on­ly got two pro­mo­tions through.’

Wilt nod­ded. It was what he had come to ex­pect. He was in the wrong de­part­ment, in the wrong mar­riage and in the wrong life. He took his fish forg­ers across to a ta­ble in the cor­ner and ate by him­self. Around him oth­er mem­bers of staff sat dis­cussing A-​lev­el prospects and who was go­ing to sit on the course board next term. They taught Maths or Eco­nomics or En­glish, sub­jects that count­ed and where pro­mo­tion was easy. Lib­er­al Stud­ies didn’t count and pro­mo­tion was out of the ques­tion. It was as sim­ple as that. Wilt fin­ished his lunch and went up to the ref­er­ence li­brary to look up in­sulin in the Phar­ma­copoeia. He had an idea it was the one un­trace­able poi­son.

At five to two, none the wis­er, he went down to Room 752 to ex­tend the sen­si­bil­ities of fif­teen ap­pren­tice butch­ers, des­ig­nat­ed on the timetable as Meat One. As usu­al they were late and drunk.

‘We’ve been drink­ing Bill’s health,’ they told him when they drift­ed in at ten past two.

‘Re­al­ly?’ said Wilt, hand­ing out copies of The Lord of the Flies. ‘And how is he?’

‘Bloody aw­ful,’ said a large youth with ‘Stuff Off paint­ed across the back of his leather jack­et. ‘He’s puk­ing his guts out. It’s his birth­day and he had four Vod­kas and a Baby­cham…’

‘We’d got to the part where Pig­gy is in the for­est,’ said Wilt, head­ing them off a dis­cus­sion of what Bill had drunk for his birth­day. He reached for aboard duster and rubbed a draw­ing of a Dutch Cap off the black­board.

‘That’s Mr Sedg­wick’s trade­mark,’ said one of the butch­ers, ‘he’s al­ways go­ing on about con­tra­cep­tives and things. He’s got a thing about them.’

‘A thing about them?’ said Wilt loy­al­ly.

‘You know, birth con­trol. Well, he used to be a Catholic, didn’t be? And now he’s not, he’s mak­ing up for lost time,’ said a small pale-​faced youth un­wrap­ping a Mars Bar.

‘Some­one should tell him about the pill,’ said an­oth­er youth lift­ing his head som­no­lent­ly from the desk. ‘You can’t feel a thing with a Frenchie. You get more thrill with the pill.’

‘I sup­pose you do,’ said Wilt, ‘but I un­der­stood there were side-​ef­fects.’

‘De­pends which side you want it,’ said a lad with side­burns.

Wilt turned back to The Lord of the Flies re­luc­tant­ly. He had read the thing two hun­dred times al­ready.

Now Pig­gy goes in­to the for­est…’ he be­gan, on­ly to be stopped by an­oth­er butch­er, who ev­ident­ly shared his dis­taste for the mis­for­tunes of Pig­gy.

‘You on­ly get bad ef­fects with the pill if you use ones that are high in oe­stro­gen.’

‘That’s very in­ter­est­ing,’ said Wilt. ‘Oe­stro­gen? You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘Old girl down our street got a blood­clot in her leg…’

‘Sil­ly old clot,’ said the Mars Bar.

‘Lis­ten,’ said Wilt. ‘Ei­ther we hear what Pe­ter has to tell us about the ef­fects of the pill or we get on and read about Pig­gy.

‘Fuck Pig­gy,’ said the side­burns.

‘Right,’ said Wilt hearti­ly, ‘then keep qui­et.’

‘Well,’ said Pe­ter, ‘this old girl, well she wasn’t all that old, maybe thir­ty, she was on the pill and she got this blood­clot and the doc­tor told my aun­tie it was the oe­stro­gen and she’d bet­ter take a dif­fer­ent sort of pill just in case and the old girl down the street, her old man had to go and have a va­sec­to­my so’s she wouldn’t have an­oth­er blood­clot.’

‘Bug­gered if any­one’s go­ing to get me to have a va­sec­to­my,’ said the Mars Bar, ‘I want to know I’m all there.’

‘We all have am­bi­tions,’ said Wilt.

‘No­body’s go­ing to hack away at my knack­ers with a bloody great knife,’ said the side­burns.

‘No­body’d want to,’ said some­one else.

‘What about the bloke whose mis­sus you banged,’ said the Mars Bar. ‘I bet he wouldn’t mind hav­ing a go.’

Wilt ap­plied the sanc­tion of Pig­gy again and got them back on to va­sec­to­my.

‘Any­way, it’s not ir­re­versible any more,’ said Pe­ter. ‘They ran put a tiny lit­tle gold tap in and you can turn it as when you want a nip­per.’

‘Go on. That’s not true.’

‘Well, not on the Na­tion­al Health you can’t, but if you pay they can read about it in a mag­azine. They’ve been do­ing ex­per­iments in Amer­ica’

‘What hap­pens if the wash­er goes wrong?’ asked the Mars Bar.

‘I sup­pose they call a plumber in.’

Wilt sat and lis­tened while Meat One ranged far and wide about va­sec­to­my and the coil and In­di­ans get­ting free tran­sis­tors and the plane that land­ed at Au­dley End with a lot of il­le­gal im­mi­grants and what some­body’s broth­er who was a po­lice­man in Brix­ton said about blacks and how the Irish were just as bad and bombs and back to Catholics and birth con­trol and who’d want to live in Ire­land where you couldn’t even buy French let­ters and so back to the Pill. And all the time his mind filled it­self ob­ses­sive­ly with ways and means of get­ting rid of Eva. A di­et of birth-​con­trol pills high on oe­stro­gen? If he ground them up and mixed them with the Oval­tine she took at bed­time there was a chance she’d de­vel­op blood­clots all over the place in no time at all. Wilt put the no­tion out of his head. Eva with blood­clots was too aw­ful to stom­ach, and any­way it might not work. No, it would have to be some­thing quick, cer­tain and pain­less. Prefer­ably an ac­ci­dent.

At the end of the hour Wilt col­lect­ed the books and made his way back to the Staff Room. He had a free pe­ri­od. On the way he passed the site of the new Ad­min­is­tra­tion block. The ground had been cleared and the builders had moved in and were bor­ing pile holes for the foun­da­tions. Wilt stopped and watched as the drilling ma­chine wound slow­ly down in­to the ground. They were mak­ing wide holes. Very wide. Big enough for a body.

‘How deep are you go­ing?’ he asked one of the work­men.

‘Thir­ty feet.’

‘Thir­ty feet?’ said Wilt. ‘When’s the con­crete go­ing in?’

‘Mon­day, with any luck,’ said the man.

Wilt passed on. A new and quite hor­ri­ble idea had just oc­curred to him.

Chapter 2

It was one of Eva Wilt’s bet­ter days. She had days, bet­ter days, and one of those days. Days were just days when noth­ing went wrong and she got the wash­ing-​up done and the front room vac­uumed and the win­dows washed and the beds made and the bath Vimmed and the lava­to­ry pan Harpicked and went round to the Har­mo­ny Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre and helped with Xe­rox­ing or sort­ed old clothes for the Jum­ble Sale and gen­er­al­ly made her­self use­ful and came home for lunch and went to the li­brary and had tea with Mavis or Su­san or Jean and talked about life and how sel­dom Hen­ry made love to her even per­func­to­ri­ly nowa­days and how she had missed her op­por­tu­ni­ty by re­fus­ing a bank clerk who was a man­ag­er now and came home and made Hen­ry’s sup­per and went out to Yo­ga or Flow­er Ar­range­ment or Med­ita­tion or Pot­tery and fi­nal­ly climbed in­to bed with the feel­ing that she had got some­thing done.

On one of those days noth­ing went right. The ac­tiv­ities were ex­act­ly the same but each episode was taint­ed with some mi­nor dis­as­ter like the fuse blow­ing on the vac­uum-​clean­er or the drain in the sink get­ting blocked with a piece of car­rot so that by the time Hen­ry came home he was ei­ther greet­ed by si­lence or sub­ject­ed to a quite un­war­rant­ed ex­posé of all his faults and short­com­ings. On one of those days Wilt usu­al­ly took the dog for an ex­tend­ed walk via the Fer­ry Path Inn and spent a rest­less night get­ting up and go­ing to the bath­room, thus nul­li­fy­ing the cleans­ing qual­ities of the Harpic Eva had puffed round the pan and pro­vid­ing her with a good ex­cuse to point out his faults once again in the morn­ing.

‘What the hell am I sup­posed to do?’ he had asked af­ter one of those nights. ‘If I pull the chain you grum­ble be­cause I’ve wo­ken you up and if I don’t you say it looks nasty in the morn­ing.’

‘Well, it does, and in any case you don’t have to wash all the Harpic off the sides. And don’t say you don’t. I’ve seen you. You aim it all the way round so that it all gets tak­en off. You do it quite de­lib­er­ate­ly.’

‘If I pulled the chain it would all get flushed off any­way and you’d get wo­ken up in­to the bar­gain,’ Wilt told her, con­scious that he did make a habit of aim­ing at the Harpic. He had a grudge against the stuff.

‘Why can’t you just wait un­til the morn­ing? And any­way it serves you right,’ she con­tin­ued, fore­stalling his ob­vi­ous an­swer, ‘for drink­ing all that beer. You’re sup­posed to be tak­ing Clem for a walk, not swill­ing ale in that hor­rid pub.’

‘To pee or not to pee, that is the ques­tion,’ said Wilt help­ing him­self to All-​Bran. ‘What do you ex­pect me to do? Tie a knot in the damned thing?’

‘It wouldn’t make any dif­fer­ence to me if you did,’ said Eva bit­ter­ly.

‘It would make a hell of a lot of dif­fer­ence to me, thank you very much.’

‘I was talk­ing about our sex life and you know it.’

‘Oh, that.’ said Wilt.

But that was on one of those days.

On one of her bet­ter days some­thing un­ex­pect­ed hap­pened to in­ject the dai­ly round with a new mean­ing and to awake in her those dor­mant ex­pec­ta­tions that some­how ev­ery­thing would sud­den­ly change for the bet­ter and stay that way. It was on such ex­pec­ta­tions that her faith in life was based. They were the spir­itu­al equiv­alent of the triv­ial ac­tiv­ities that kept her busy and Hen­ry sub­dued. On one of her bet­ter days the sun shone brighter, the floor in the hall gleamed brighter and Eva Wilt was brighter her­self and hummed ‘Some day my prince will come’ while Hoover­ing the stairs. On one of her bet­ter days Eva went forth to meet the world with a dis­arm­ing good­heart­ed­ness and awoke in oth­ers the very same ex­pec­ta­tions that so thrilled her in her­self. And on one of her bet­ter days Hen­ry had to get his own sup­per and if he was wise kept out of the house as long as pos­si­ble. Eva Wilt’s ex­pec­ta­tions de­mand­ed some­thing a sight more in­vig­orat­ing than Hen­ry Wilt af­ter a day at the Tech. It was on the evenings of such days that he came near­est to gen­uine­ly de­cid­ing to mur­der her and to hell with the con­se­quences.

On this par­tic­ular day she was on her way to the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre when she ran in­to Sal­ly Pring­sheim. It was one of those en­tire­ly for­tu­itous meet­ings that re­sult­ed from Eva mak­ing her way on foot in­stead of by bi­cy­cle and go­ing through Rossiter Grove in­stead of straight down Parkview Av­enue which was half a mile short­er. Sal­ly was just driv­ing out of the gate in a Mer­cedes with a F reg­is­tra­tion which meant it was brand new. Eva not­ed the fact and smiled ac­cord­ing­ly.

‘How fun­ny me run­ning in­to you like this.’ she said bright­ly as Sal­ly stopped the car and un­locked the door.

‘Can I give you a lift? I’m go­ing in­to town to look for some­thing ca­su­al to wear tonight. Gaskell’s got some Swedish pro­fes­sor com­ing over from Hei­del­berg and we’re tak­ing him to Ma Tante’s.

Eva Wilt climbed in hap­pi­ly, her mind com­put­ing the cost of the car and the house and the sig­nif­icance of wear­ing some­thing ca­su­al at Ma Tante’s (where she had heard that starters like Prawn Cock­tails cost 95p) and the fact that Dr Pring­sheim en­ter­tained Swedish pro­fes­sors when they came to Ip­ford.

‘I was go­ing to walk to town,’ she lied. ‘Hen­ry’s tak­en the car and it’s such a love­ly day.’

‘Gaskell’s bought a bi­cy­cle. He says it’s quick­er and it keeps him fit,’ said Sal­ly, thus con­demn­ing Hen­ry Wilt to yet an­oth­er mis­for­tune. Eva made a note to see that he bought a bike at the po­lice auc­tion and cy­cled to work in rain or snow. ‘I was think­ing of try­ing Fe­lic­ity Fash­ions for a shan­tung pon­cho. I don’t know what they’re like but I’ve been told they’re good. Pro­fes­sor Grant’s wife goes there and she says they have the best se­lec­tion.’

‘I’m sure they must have.’ said Eva Wilt, whose pa­tron­age of Fe­lic­ity Fash­ions had con­sist­ed off look­ing in the win­dow and won­der­ing who on earth could af­ford dress­es at forty pounds. Now she knew. They drove in­to town and parked in the mul­ti-​storey car park. By that time Eva had stored a lot more in­for­ma­tion about the Pring­sheims in her mem­ory. They came from Cal­ifor­nia. Sal­ly had met Gaskell while hitch­hik­ing through Ari­zona. She had been to Kansas State but had dropped out to live on a com­mune. There had been oth­er men in her life. Gaskell loathed cats. They gave him hay fever. Wom­en’s Lib meant more than burn­ing your bra. It meant to­tal com­mit­ment to the pro­gramme of wom­en’s su­pe­ri­or­ity over men. Love was great if you didn’t let it get to you. Com­post was in and colour TV out. Gaskell’s fa­ther had owned a chain of stores which was sor­did. Mon­ey was handy and Rossiter Grove was a bore. Above all, fuck­ing had to be, just had to be fun whichev­er way you looked at it.

Eva Wilt re­ceived this in­for­ma­tion with a jolt. In her cir­cle ‘fuck’ was a word hus­bands used when they hit their thumbs with ham­mers. When Eva used it she did so in the iso­la­tion of the bath­room and with a wist­ful­ness that robbed it of its cru­di­ty and im­bued it with a splen­did viril­ity so that a good fuck be­came the most dis­tant and ab­stract of all her ex­pec­ta­tions and quite re­moved from Hen­ry’s oc­ca­sion­al ear­ly morn­ing fum­blings. And if ‘fuck’ was re­served for the bath­room, fuck­ing was even more re­mote. It sug­gest­ed an al­most con­tin­uous ac­tiv­ity, a fa­mil­iar oc­cur­rence that was both ca­su­al and sat­is­fy­ing and added a new di­men­sion to life. Eva Wilt stum­bled out of the car and fol­lowed Sal­ly to Fe­lic­ity Fash­ions in a state of shock.

If fuck­ing was fun, shop­ping with Sal­ly Pring­sheim was a rev­ela­tion. It was marked by a de­ci­sive­ness that was tru­ly breath­tak­ing. Where Eva would have hummed and haaed, Sal­ly se­lect­ed and hav­ing se­lect­ed moved on down the racks, dis­card­ed things she didn’t like leav­ing them hang­ing over chairs, seized oth­ers, glanced at them and said she sup­posed they would do with a bored ac­cep­tance that was in­fec­tious, and left the shop with a pile of box­es con­tain­ing two hun­dred pounds’ worth of shan­tung pon­chos, silk sum­mer coats, scarves and blous­es. Eva Wilt had spent sev­en­ty on a pair of yel­low loung­ing py­ja­mas and a rain­coat with lapels and a belt that Sal­ly said was pure Gats­by.

‘Now all you need is the hat and you’ll be it,’ she said as they load­ed the box­es in­to the car. They bought the hat, a tril­by, and then had cof­fee at the Mom­basa Cof­fee House where Sal­ly leant across the ta­ble in­tense­ly, smok­ing a long thin cigar, and talk­ing about body con­tact in a loud voice so that Eva was con­scious that the wom­en at sev­er­al near­by ta­bles had stopped tack­ing and were lis­ten­ing rather dis­ap­prov­ing­ly.

‘Gaskell’s nip­ples drive me wild,’ Sal­ly said. ‘They drive him wild too when I suck them.’

Eva drank her cof­fee and won­dered what Hen­ry would do if she took it in­to her head to suck his nip­ples. Drive him wild was hard­ly the word and be­sides she was be­gin­ning to re­gret hav­ing spent sev­en­ty pounds. That would drive him wild too. Hen­ry didn’t ap­prove of cred­it cards. But she was en­joy­ing her­self too much to let the thought of his re­ac­tion spoil her day.

‘I think teats are so im­por­tant,’ Sal­ly went on. Two wom­en at the next ta­ble paid their bill and walked out.

‘I sup­pose they must be,’ said Eva Wilt un­easi­ly. ‘I’ve nev­er had much use for mine.’

‘Haven’t you?’ said Sal­ly. ‘We’ll have to do some­thing about that.’

‘I don’t see that there is much any­one can do about it,’ said Eva. ‘Hen­ry nev­er takes his py­ja­mas off and my night­ie gets in the way.’

‘Don’t tell me you wear things in bed. Oh you poor thing. And night­ies, God, how hu­mil­iat­ing for you! I mean it’s typ­ical of a male-​dom­inat­ed so­ci­ety, all this cos­tume dif­fer­en­ti­ation. You must be suf­fer­ing from touch de­pri­va­tion. Gaskell says it’s as bad as vi­ta­min de­fi­cien­cy.’

‘Well, Hen­ry is al­ways tired when he gets home,’ Eva told her. ‘And I go out a lot.’

‘I’m not sur­prised,’ said Sal­ly, ‘Gaskell says male fa­tigue is a symp­tom of pe­nile in­se­cu­ri­ty. Is Hen­ry’s big or small?’

‘Well it de­pends,’ said Eva hoarse­ly. ‘Some­times it’s big and some­times it isn’t.’

‘I much pre­fer men with small ones,’ said Sal­ly, ‘they try so much hard­er.’

They fin­ished their cof­fee and went back to the car dis­cussing Gaskell’s pe­nis and his the­ory that in a sex­ual­ly un­dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed sati­ety nip­ple stim­ula­tion would play an in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant role in de­vel­op­ing the hus­band’s sense of his hermaphar­oditic na­ture,’ ‘He’s writ­ten an ar­ti­cle on it,’ Sal­ly said as they drove home. ‘It’s called “The Man As Moth­er.” It was pub­lished in Suck last year.’

‘Suck?’ said Eva.

‘Yes, it’s a jour­nal pub­lished by the So­ci­ety for Un­dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed Sex­ual Stud­ies in Kansas. G’s done a lot of work for them on an­imal be­haviour. He did his the­sis on Role Play in Rats there.’

‘That sounds very in­ter­est­ing,’ said Eva un­cer­tain­ly. Roll or role? Whichev­er it was it was im­pres­sive and cer­tain­ly Hen­ry’s oc­ca­sion­al pieces on Day Re­lease Ap­pren­tices and Lit­er­ature in the Lib­er­al Stud­ies Quar­ter­ly hard­ly mea­sured up to Dr Pring­sheim’s mono­graphs.

‘Oh I don’t know. It’s all so ob­vi­ous re­al­ly. If you put two male rats to­geth­er in a cage long enough one of them is sim­ply bound to de­vel­op ac­tive ten­den­cies and the oth­er pas­sive ones,’ said Sal­ly weari­ly. ‘But Gas­ket was ab­so­lute­ly fu­ri­ous. He thought they ought to al­ter­nate. That’s G all over. I told him how sil­ly he was be­ing. I said, “G hon­ey, rats are prac­ti­cal­ly un­dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed any­way. I mean how can you ex­pect them to be able to make an ex­is­ten­tial choice?” and you know what he said? He said, “Pu­bic ba­by, rats are the paradigm. Just re­mem­ber that and you won’t go far wrong. Rats are the paradigm.” What do you think of that?’

‘I think rats are rather hor­rid,’ said Eva with­out think­ing. Sal­ly laughed and put her hand on her knee.

‘Oh Eva, dar­ling,’ she mur­mured, ‘you’re so adorably down to earth. No, I’m not tak­ing you back to Parkview Av­enue. You’re com­ing home with me for a drink and lunch. I’m sim­ply dy­ing to see you in those lemon loungers.’

They turned in­to Rossiter Grove.

If rats were a paradigm for Dr Pring­sheim, Print­ers Three were a paradigm for Hen­ry Wilt, though of a rather dif­fer­ent sort. They rep­re­sent­ed all that was most dif­fi­cult, in­sen­si­tive and down­right blood­ymind­ed about Day Re­lease Class­es and to make mat­ters worse the sods thought they were lit­er­ate be­cause they could ac­tu­al­ly read and Voltaire was an id­iot be­cause he made ev­ery­thing go wrong for Can­dide. Com­ing af­ter Nurs­ery Nurs­es and dur­ing his Stand-​to pe­ri­od, Print­ers Three brought out the worst in him. They had ob­vi­ous­ly brought out the worst in Ce­cil Williams who should have been tak­ing them.

‘It’s the sec­ond week he’s been off sick,’ they told Wilt.

‘I’m not at all sur­prised,’ said Wilt. ‘You lot are enough to make any­one sick.’

‘We had one bloke went and gassed him­self. Pinker­ton his name was. He took us for a term and made us read this book Jude the Ob­scure. That wasn’t half a de­press­ing book. All about this twit Jude.’

‘I had an idea it was,’ said Wilt.

‘Next term old Pinky didn’t come back. He went down by the riv­er and stuck a pipe up the ex­haust and gassed him­self.’

‘I can’t say I blame him,’ said Wilt.

‘Well I like that. He was sup­posed to set us an ex­am­ple.’

Wilt looked at the class grim­ly.

‘I’m sure he had that in mind when he gassed him­self,’ he said. ‘And now if you’ll just get on and read qui­et­ly, eat qui­et­ly and smoke so that no one can see you from the Ad­min. block, I’ve got work to do.’

‘Work? You lot don’t know what work is. All you do is sit at a desk all day and read. Call that work? Bug­gered if I do and they pay you to do it…’

‘Shut up,’ said Wilt with startling vi­olence. ‘Shut your stupid trap.’

‘Who’s go­ing to make me?’ said the Print­er.

Wilt tried to con­trol his tem­per and for once found it im­pos­si­ble. There was some­thing in­cred­ibly ar­ro­gant about Print­ers Three.

‘I am,’ he shout­ed.

‘You and who else? You couldn’t make a mouse shut its trap, not if you tried all day.’

Wilt stood up. ‘You fuck­ing lit­tle shit,’ he shout­ed. ‘You dirty sniv­el­ling…’

‘I must say, Hen­ry, I’d have ex­pect­ed you to show more re­straint,’ said the Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies an hour lat­er when Wilt’s nose had stopped bleed­ing and the Tech Sis­ter had put a Band-​Aid on his eye­brow.

‘Well it wasn’t my class and they got my goat by gloat­ing about Pinker­ton’s sui­cide. If Williams hadn’t been off sick it wouldn’t have hap­pened,’ Wilt ex­plained. ‘He’s al­ways sick when he has to take Print­ers Three.’

Mr Mor­ris shook his head dispirit­ed­ly. ‘I don’t care who they were. You sim­ply can’t go around as­sault­ing stu­dents…’

‘As­sault­ing stu­dents? I nev­er touched…’

‘All right, but you did use of­fen­sive lan­guage. Bob Fen­wick was in the next class­room and he heard you call this Al­li­son fel­low a fuck­ing lit­tle shit and an evil-​mind­ed mo­ron. Now, is it any won­der he took a poke at you?

‘I sup­pose not,’ said Wilt. ‘I shouldn’t have lost my tem­per. I’m sor­ry.’

‘In that case we’ll just for­get it hap­pened,’ said Mr Mor­ris. ‘But just re­mem­ber if I’m to get you a Se­nior Lec­ture­ship I can’t have you blot­ting your copy­book hav­ing punch-​ups with stu­dents.’

‘I didn’t have a punch-​up,’ said Wilt, ‘he punched me.’

‘Well, let’s just hope he doesn’t go to the po­lice and charge you with as­sault. That’s the last sort of pub­lic­ity we want.’

‘Just take me off Print­ers Three,’ said Wilt, ‘I’ve had my fill of the brutes.’

He went down the cor­ri­dor and col­lect­ed his coat and brief­case from the Staff Room. His nose felt twice its nor­mal size and his eye­brow hurt abom­inably. On his way out to the carpark he passed sev­er­al oth­er mem­bers of staff but no one stopped to ask him what had hap­pened. Hen­ry Wilt passed un­no­ticed out of the Tech and got in­to his car. He shut the door and sat for sev­er­al min­utes watch­ing the piledrivers at work on the new block. Up, down, up, down. Nails in a cof­fin. And one day one in­evitable day he would be in his cof­fin, still un­no­ticed, still an As­sis­tant Lec­tur­er (Grade Two) and quite for­got­ten by ev­ery­one ex­cept some lout in Print­ers Three who would al­ways re­mem­ber the day he had punched a Lib­er­al Stud­ies lec­tur­er on the nose and got away with it. He’d prob­ably boast about it to his grand­chil­dren.

Wilt start­ed the car and drove out on­to the main road filled with loathing for Print­ers Three, the Tech, life in gen­er­al and him­self in par­tic­ular. He un­der­stood now why ter­ror­ists were pre­pared to sac­ri­fice them­selves for the good of some cause. Giv­en a bomb and a cause he would cheer­ful­ly have blown him­self and any in­no­cent by­standers to King­dom Come just to prove for one glo­ri­ous if brief mo­ment that he was an ef­fec­tive force. But he had nei­ther bomb nor cause. In­stead he drove home reck­less­ly and parked out­side 34 Parkview Av­enue. Then he un­locked the front door and went in­side.

There was a strange smell in the hall. Some sort of per­fume. Musky and sweet. He put his brief-​case down and looked in­to the liv­ing-​room. Eva was ev­ident­ly out. He went in­to the kitchen and put the ket­tle on and felt his nose. He would have a good look at it in the bath­room mir­ror. He was halfway up­stairs and con­scious that there was a pos­itive­ly mi­as­mic qual­ity about the per­fume when he was brought to a halt. Eva Wilt stood in the bed­room door­way in a pair of as­ton­ish­ing­ly yel­low py­ja­mas with enor­mous­ly flared trousers. She looked quite hideous, and to make mat­ters worse she was smok­ing a long thin cigarette in a long thin hold­er and her mouth was a bril­liant red.

‘Pe­nis ba­by,’ she mur­mured hoarse­ly and swayed. ‘Come in here. I’m go­ing to suck your nip­ples till you come me oral­wise.’

Wilt turned and fled down­stairs. The bitch was drunk. It was one of her bet­ter days. With­out wait­ing to turn the ket­tle off, Hen­ry Wilt went out of the front door and got back in­to the ear. He wasn’t stay­ing around to have her suck his nip­ples. He’d had all he could take for one day.

Chapter 3

Eva Wilt went down­stairs and looked for pe­nis ba­by half­heart­ed­ly. For one thing she didn’t want to find him and for an­oth­er she didn’t feel like suck­ing his nip­ples and for a third she knew she shouldn’t have spent sev­en­ty pounds on a rain­coat and a pair of beach py­ja­mas she could have got for thir­ty at Blow­dens. She didn’t need them and she couldn’t see her­self walk­ing down Parkview Av­enue look­ing like The Great Gats­by. Be­sides, she felt a bit sick.

Still, he had left the ket­tle on so he must be some­where. It wasn’t like Hen­ry to go out and leave the ket­tle on. She looked in the lounge. It had been the sit­ting-​room un­til lunchtime when Sal­ly called her sit­ting-​room a lounge. She looked in the din­ing-​room, now the din­er, and even in the gar­den but Hen­ry had van­ished, tak­ing, with him the car, and her hopes that nip­ple-​suck­ing would bring new mean­ing to their mar­riage and put an end to her body con­tact de­pri­va­tion. Fi­nal­ly she gave up the search and made her­self a nice pot of tea and sat in the kitchen won­der­ing what on earth had in­duced her to mar­ry a male chau­vin­ist pig like Hen­ry Wilt who wouldn’t have known a good fuck if he had been hand­ed one on a plate and whose idea of a so­phis­ti­cat­ed evening was a bone­less chick­en cur­ry at the New Del­hi and a per­for­mance of King Lear at the Guild­hall. Why couldn’t she have mar­ried some­one like Gaskell Pring­sheim who en­ter­tained Swedish pro­fes­sors at Ma Tante and who un­der­stood the im­por­tance of cli­toral stim­ula­tion as a nec­es­sary con-​some­thing-​or-​oth­er of a tru­ly sat­is­fy­ing in­ter­per­son­al pen­etra­tion? Oth­er peo­ple still found her at­trac­tive. Patrick Mot­tram did and so did John Frost who taught her pot­tery, and Sal­ly had said she was love­ly. Eva sat star­ing in­to space, the space be­tween the wash­ing-​up rack and the Ken­wood mix­er Hen­ry had giv­en her for Christ­mas, and thought about Sal­ly and how she had looked at her so strange­ly when she was chang­ing in­to her lemon loungers. Sal­ly had stood, in the door­way of the Pring­sheims’ bed­room, smok­ing a cigar and watch­ing her move­ments with a sen­su­al cal­cu­la­tion that had made Eva blush.

‘Dar­ling, you have such a love­ly body,’ she had said as Eva turned hur­ried­ly and scram­bled in­to the trousers to avoid re­veal­ing the hole in her panties. ‘You mustn’t let it go to waste.’

‘Do you re­al­ly think they suit me?’

But Sal­ly had been star­ing at her breasts in­tent­ly. ‘Boo­by ba­by,’ she mur­mured. Eva Wilt’s breasts were promi­nent and Hen­ry, in one of his many off mo­ments, had once said some­thing about the dogs of hell go­ing din­galin­gal­ing for you but not for me. Sal­ly was more ap­pre­cia­tive, and had in­sist­ed that Eva re­move her bra and bum it. They had gone down to the kitchen and had drunk Tequi­la and had put the bra on a dish with a sprig of hol­ly on it and Sal­ly had poured brandy over it and had set it alight. They had to car­ry the dish out in­to the gar­den be­cause it smelt so hor­ri­ble and smoked so much and they had lain on the grass laugh­ing as it smoul­dered. Look­ing back on the episode Eva re­gret­ted her ac­tion. It had been a good bra with dou­ble-​stretch pan­els de­signed to give con­fi­dence where a wom­an needs it, as the TV ad­verts put it. Still, Sal­ly had said she owed it to her­self as a free wom­an and with two drinks in­side her Eva was in no mood to ar­gue.

‘You’ve got to feel free,’ Sal­ly had said. ‘Free to be. Free to be.’

‘Free to be what?’ said Eva.

‘Your­self, dar­ling,’ Sal­ly whis­pered, ‘your se­cret self,’ and had touched her ten­der­ly where Eva Wilt, had she been sober and less elat­ed, would staunch­ly have de­nied hav­ing a self. They had gone back in­to the house and had lunch, a mix­ture of more Tequi­la, sal­ad and Ryvi­ta and cot­tage cheese which Eva, whose ap­petite for food was al­most as om­niv­orous as her en­thu­si­asm for new ex­pe­ri­ences, found un­sat­is­fy­ing. She had hint­ed as much but Sal­ly had pooh­poohed the idea of three good meals a day.

‘It’s not good calo­riewise to have a high starch in­take,’ she said, ‘and be­sides it’s not how much you put in­to your­self but what. Sex and food, hon­ey, are much the same. A lit­tle a lot is bet­ter than a lot a lit­tle. ‘ She had poured Eva an­oth­er Tequi­la, in­sist­ed she take a bite of lemon be­fore knock­ing it back and had helped her up­stairs to the big bed­room with the big bed and the big mir­ror in the ceil­ing.

‘It’s time for TT,’ she said ad­just­ing the slats of the Vene­tian blinds.

‘Tea tea,’ Eva mum­bled. ‘but we’ve just had din din.’

‘Touch Ther­apy, dar­ling,’ said Sal­ly and pushed her gen­tly back on to the bed. Eva Wilt stared up at her re­flec­tion in the mir­ror; a large wom­an, two large wom­en in yel­low py­ja­mas ly­ing on a large bed, a large crim­son bed; two large wom­en with­out yel­low py­ja­mas on a large crim­son bed; four wom­en naked on a large crim­son bed.

‘Oh Sal­ly, no Sal­ly.’

‘Dar­ling,’ said Sal­ly and si­lenced her protest oral­wise. It had been a startling­ly new ex­pe­ri­ence though on­ly part­ly re­mem­bered. Eva had fall­en asleep be­fore the Touch Ther­apy had got well un­der way and had wo­ken an hour lat­er to find Sal­ly ful­ly dressed stand­ing by the bed with a cup of black cof­fee.

‘Oh I do feel bad,’ Eva said, re­fer­ring as much to her moral con­di­tion as to her phys­ical.

‘Drink this and you’ll feel bet­ter.’

Eva had drunk the cof­fee and got dressed while Sal­ly ex­plained that post-​con­tact in­hibito­ry de­pres­sion was a per­fect­ly nat­ural re­ac­tion to Touch Ther­apy at first.

‘You’ll find it comes nat­ural­ly af­ter the first few ses­sions. You’ll prob­ably break down and cry and scream and then feel tremen­dous­ly lib­er­at­ed and re­lieved.’

‘Do you think so? I’m sure I don’t know.’

Sal­ly had driv­en her home. ‘You and Hen­ry must come to our bar­be­cue Thurs­day night,’ she said. ‘I know G ba­by will want to meet you. You’ll like him. He’s a breast ba­by. He’ll go crazy about you.’

‘I tell you she was pissed,’ said Wilt as he sat in the Brain­trees’ kitchen while Pe­ter Brain­tree opened a bot­tle of beer for hint. ‘Pissed and wear­ing same Go­daw­ful yel­low py­ja­mas,’ and smok­ing a cigarette in a long bloody hold­er.’

‘What did she say?’

Well if you must know, she said, “Come here…” No, it’s too much. I have a per­fect­ly foul day at the Tech. Mor­ris tells me I haven’t got my se­nior lec­ture­ship. Williams is off sick again so I lose a free pe­ri­od. I get punched in the face by a great lout in Print­ers Three and I come home to a drunk wife who calls me pe­nis ba­by.’

‘She called you what?’ said Pe­ter Brain­tree, star­ing at him.

‘You heard me.’

‘Eva called you pe­nis ba­by? I don’t be­lieve it.’

‘Well you go round there and see what she calls you,’ said Wilt bit­ter­ly, ‘and don’t blame me if she sucks your nip­ples off oral­wise while she’s about it.’

‘Good Lord. Is that what she threat­ened to do?’

‘That and more,’ said Wilt.

‘It doesn’t sound like Eva. It re­al­ly doesn’t.’

‘It didn’t fuck­ing look like her ei­ther, come to that. She was all dolled up in yel­low beach py­ja­mas. You should have seen the colour. It would have made a but­ter­cup look drab. And she’d got some ghast­ly scar­let lip­stick smeared round her mouth and she was smok­ing…She hasn’t smoked for six years and then all this pe­nis ba­by nip­ple-​suck­ing stuff. And oral­wise.’

Pe­ter Brain­tree shook his head. ‘That’s a filthy word,’ he said.

‘It’s a per­fect­ly filthy act too, if you ask me’ said Wilt.

‘Well, I must say it all sounds pret­ty pe­cu­liar,’ said Brain­tree, ‘God knows what I’d do if Su­san came home and start­ed in­sist­ing on suck­ing my teats.’

‘Do what I did. Get out of the house,’ said Wilt. ‘And any­way it isn’t just nip­ples ei­ther. Damn it, we’ve been mar­ried twelve long years. It’s a bit late in the day to start ar­sing about oral­wise. The thing is she’s on this sex­ual lib­er­ation kick. She came home last night from Mavis Mot­tram’s flow­er ar­range­ment do jab­ber­ing about cli­toral stim­ula­tion and open-​end­ed free­wheel­ing sex­ual op­tions.’

‘Free­wheel­ing what?’

‘Sex­ual op­tions. Per­haps I’ve got it wrong. I know sex­ual op­tions came in­to it some­where. I was half asleep at the time.’

‘Where the hell did she get all this from?’ asked Brain­tree.

‘Some bloody Yank called Sal­ly Pring­sheim,’ said Wilt. ‘You know what Eva’s like. I mean she can smell in­tel­lec­tu­al clap­trap a mile off and homes in on it like a bloody dung-​bee­tle head­ing for an open sew­er. You’ve no idea how many phone “lat­est ideas” I’ve had to put up with. Well, most of them I can man­age to live with. I just let her get on with it and go my own qui­et way, but when it comes to par­tic­ipat­ing oral­wise while she blath­ers on about Wom­en’s Lib, well you can count me out.’

‘What I don’t un­der­stand about Sex­ual Free­dom and Wom­en’s Lib is why you have to go back to the nurs­ery to be lib­er­at­ed,’ said Brain­tree. ‘There seems to be this loony idea that you have to be pas­sion­ate­ly in love all the time.’

‘Apes,’ said Wilt mo­rose­ly.

‘Apes? What about apes?’

‘It’s all this busi­ness about the an­imal mod­el. If an­imals do it then hu­mans must. Ter­ri­to­ri­al Im­per­ative and the Naked Ape. You stand ev­ery­thing on its head and in­stead of as­pir­ing you ret­rogress a mil­lion years. Hitch your wag­on to an orang-​out­ang. The egal­itar­ian­ism of the low­est com­mon de­nom­ina­tor.’

‘I don’t quite see what that has to do with sex,’ said Brain­tree.

‘Nor do I,’ said Wilt. They went down to the Pig In A Poke and got drunk.

It was mid­night be­fore Wilt got home and Eva was asleep. Wilt climbed sur­rep­ti­tious­ly in­to bed and lay in the dark­ness think­ing about high lev­els of oe­stro­gen.

In Rossiter Grove the Pring­sheims came back from Ma Tame tired and bored.

‘Swedes are the bot­tom,’ said Sal­ly as she un­dressed.

Gaskell sat down and took off his shoes. ‘Ungstrom’s all right. His wife has just left him for a low-​tem­per­ature physi­cist at Cam­bridge. He’s not usu­al­ly so de­pressed.’

‘You could have fooled me. And talk­ing about wives, I’ve met the most un­lib­er­at­ed wom­an you’ve ev­er set eyes on. Name of Eva Wilt. She’s got boobs like can­taloupes.’

‘Don’t,’ said Dr Pring­sheim, ‘if there’s one thing I don’t need right now it’s un­lib­er­at­ed wives with breasts.’ He climbed in­to bed and took his glass­es off.

‘I had her round here to­day.’

‘Had her?’

Sal­ly smiled. ‘Gaskell, hon­ey, you’ve got a toad­some mind’

Gaskell Pring­sheim smiled my­opi­cal­ly at him­self in the mir­ror above. He was proud of his mind. ‘I just know you, lover,’ he said. ‘I know your fun­ny lit­tle habits. And while we’re on the sub­ject of habits what are all those box­es in the guest room? You haven’t been spend­ing mon­ey again? You know our bud­get this month…’

Sal­ly flounced in­to bed. ‘Bud­get fud­get,’ she said, ‘I’m send­ing them all back to­mor­row.’

‘All?’

‘Well, not all, but most. I had to im­press boo­by ba­by some­how.’

‘You didn’t have to cop half a shop just to…’

‘Gaskell, hon­ey, if you would just let me fin­ish,’ said Sal­ly, ’she’s a man­ic, a love­ly, beau­ti­ful, ob­ses­sive com­pul­sive man­ic. She can’t sit still for half a minute with­out tidy­ing and clean­ing and pol­ish­ing and wash­ing up.’

‘That’s all we need, a man­ic com­pul­sive wom­an around the house all the time. Who needs two?’

‘Two? I’m not man­ic’

‘You’re man­ic enough for me,’ said Gaskell.

‘But this one’s got boobs, ba­by, boobs. Any­way I’ve in­vit­ed them over on Thurs­day for the bar­be­cue.’

‘What the hell for?’

‘Well, if you won’t buy me a dish­wash­er like I’ve asked you a hun­dred times, I’m go­ing out to get me one. A nice man­ic com­pul­sive dish­wash­er with boobs on.’

‘Je­sus.’ sighed Gaskell, ‘are you a bitch.’

‘Hen­ry Wilt, you are a sod,’ Eva said next morn­ing. Wilt sat up in bed. He felt ter­ri­ble. His nose was even more painful than the day be­fore, his head ached and he had spent much of the night ex­pung­ing the Harpic from the bowl in the bath­room.

He was in no mood to be wo­ken and told he was a sod. He looked at the clock. It was eight o’clock and he had Brick­lay­ers Two at nine. He got out of bed and made for the bath­room.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Eva de­mand­ed, get­ting out of bed her­self.

‘I heard,’ said Wilt, and saw that she was naked. Eva Wilt naked at eight o’clock in the morn­ing was al­most as startling a sight as Eva Wilt drunk, smok­ing and dressed in lemon yel­low py­ja­mas at six o’clock at night. And even less en­tic­ing. ‘What the hell are you go­ing about like that for?’

‘If it comes to that, what’s wrong with your nose? I sup­pose you got drunk and fell down. It looks all red and swollen.’

‘It is all red and swollen. And if you must know I didn’t fall, down. Now for good­ness sake get out of the way. I’ve got a lec­ture at nine.’

He pushed past her and went in­to the bath­room and looked at his nose. It looked aw­ful. Eva fol­lowed him in. ‘If you didn’t fall on it what did hap­pen?’ she de­mand­ed.

Wilt squeezed foam from an aerosol and pat­ted it gin­ger­ly on his chin.

‘Well?’ said Eva.

Wilt picked up his ra­zor and put it un­der the hot tap. ‘I had an ac­ci­dent,’ he mut­tered.

‘With lamp-​post, I sup­pose. I knew you’d been drink­ing.’

‘With a Print­er,’ said Wilt in­dis­tinct­ly and start­ed to shave.

‘With a Print­er?’

‘To be pre­cise, I got punched in the face by a par­tic­ular­ly pug­na­cious ap­pren­tice print­er.’

Eva stared at hire in the mir­ror. ‘You mean to say a stu­dent hit you in the class­room?’

Wilt nod­ded.

‘I hope you hit him back’

Wilt cut him­self.

‘No I bloody didn’t,’ he said, dab­bing his chits with a fin­ger. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do.’

Eva ig­nored his com­plaint. ‘Well you should have. You’re not a man. You should have hit him back.’

Wilt put clown the ra­zor. ‘And got the sack. Got hauled up in court for as­sault­ing a stu­dent. Now that’s what I call a bril­liant idea.’ He reached for the sponge and washed his face.

Eva re­treat­ed to the bed­room sat­is­fied. There would be no men­tion of her lemon loungers now. She had tak­en his mind off her own lit­tle ex­trav­agance and giv­en him a sense of grievance that would keep him oc­cu­pied for the time be­ing. By the time she had fin­ished dress­ing, Wilt had eat­en a bowl of All-​Bran, drunk half a cup of cof­fee and was snarled up in a traf­fic jam at the round­about. Eva went down­stairs and had her own break­fast and be­gan the dai­ly round of wash­ing up and Hoover­ing and clean­ing the bath and…

‘Com­mit­ment,’ said Dr May­field, ‘to an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach is an es­sen­tial el­ement in…’

‘The Joint Com­mit­tee for the Fur­ther De­vel­op­ment of Lib­er­al Stud­ies was in ses­sion. Wilt squirmed in his chair and wished to hell it wasn’t. Dr May­field’s pa­per ‘Cere­bral Con­tent and the Non-​Aca­dem­ic Syl­labus’ held no in­ter­est for him, and be­sides, it was de­liv­ered in such con­vo­lut­ed sen­tences and with so much monotonous fer­vour that Wilt found it dif­fi­cult to stay awake. He stared out of the win­dow at the ma­chines bor­ing away on the site of the new Ad­min block. There was a re­al­ity about the work go­ing on down there that was in marked con­trast to the im­prac­ti­cal the­ories Dr May­field was ex­pound­ing. If the man re­al­ly thought he could in­stil Cere­bral Con­tent, what­ev­er that was, in­to Gas­fit­ters Three he was out of his mind. Worse still, his blast­ed pa­per was bound to pro­voke an ar­gu­ment at ques­tion time. Wilt looked round the room. The var­ious fac­tions were all there, the New Left, the Left, the Old Left, the In­dif­fer­ent Cen­tre, the Cul­tur­al Right and the Re­ac­tionary Right.

Wilt classed him­self with the In­dif­fer­ents. In ear­li­er years he had be­longed to the Left po­lit­ical­ly and to the Right cul­tur­al­ly. In oth­er words he had banned the bomb, sup­port­ed abor­tion and the abo­li­tion of pri­vate ed­uca­tion and had been against cap­ital pun­ish­ment, thus earn­ing him­self some­thing of a rep­uta­tion as a rad­ical while at the same time ad­vo­cat­ing a re­turn to the craft of the wheel­wright, the black­smith and the hand­loom weaver which had done much to un­der­mine the ef­forts of the Tech­ni­cal staff to in­stil in their stu­dents an ap­pre­ci­ation of the op­por­tu­ni­ties pro­vid­ed by mod­ern tech­nol­ogy. Time and the in­tran­si­gent coarse­ness of Plas­ter­ers had changed all that. Wilt’s ide­als had van­ished, to be re­placed by the con­vic­tion that the man who said the pen was might­ier than the sword ought to have tried read­ing The Mill on the Floss to Mo­tor Me­chan­ics Three be­fore he opened his big mouth. In Wilt’s view, the sword had much to rec­om­mend it.

As Dr May­field droned on, as ques­tion time with its ide­olog­ical ar­gu­ments fol­lowed, Wilt stud­ied the pile hole on the build­ing site. It would make an ide­al de­pos­ito­ry for a body and there would be some­thing im­mense­ly sat­is­fy­ing in know­ing that Eva, who in her life­time had been so un­bear­able, was in death sup­port­ing the weight of a mufti-​storey con­crete build­ing. Be­sides it would make her dis­cov­ery an ex­treme­ly re­mote pos­si­bil­ity and her iden­ti­fi­ca­tion out of the ques­tion. Not even Eva, who boast­ed a strong con­sti­tu­tion and a stronger will, could main­tain an iden­ti­ty at the bot­tom of a pile shaft. The dif­fi­cul­ty would be in get­ting her to go down the hole in the first place. Sleep­ing pills seemed a sen­si­ble pre­lim­inary but Eva was a sound sleep­er and didn’t be­lieve in pills of any sort.

‘I can’t imag­ine why not,’ Wilt thought grim­ly, ’she’s pre­pared to be­lieve in just about ev­ery­thing else.’

His rever­ie was in­ter­rupt­ed by Mr Mor­ris who was bring­ing the meet­ing to a close. ‘Be­fore you all go,’ he said. ‘there is one more sub­ject I want to men­tion. We have been asked by the Head of En­gi­neer­ing to con­duct a se­ries of one-​hour lec­tures to Sand­wich-​Course Trainee Fire­men. The theme this year will be Prob­lems of Con­tem­po­rary So­ci­ety. I have drawn up a list of top­ics and the lec­tur­ers who will give them.’

Mr Mor­ris hand­ed out sub­jects at ran­dom. Ma­jor Mill­field got Me­dia, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Par­tic­ipa­to­ry Democ­ra­cy about which he knew noth­ing and cared less. Pe­ter Brain­tree was giv­en The New Bru­tal­ism in Ar­chi­tec­ture, Its Ori­gins and So­cial At­tributes, and Wilt end­ed up with Vi­olence and the Break-​Up of Fam­ily Life. On the whole he thought he had done rather well. The sub­ject fit­ted in with his present pre­oc­cu­pa­tions. Mr Mor­ris ev­ident­ly agreed.

‘I thought you might like to have a go at it af­ter yes­ter­day’s lit­tle episode with Print­ers Three,’ he said, as they went out. Wilt smiled wan­ly and went off to take Fit­ters and Turn­ers Two. He gave them Shane to read and spent the hour jot­ting down notes for his lec­ture. In the dis­tance he could hear the pile-​bor­ing ma­chines grind­ing away. Wilt could imag­ine Eva ly­ing at the bot­tom as they poured the con­crete in. In her lemon py­ja­mas. It was a nice thought, and helped him with his notes. He wrote down a head­ing, Crime in the fam­ily, sub­head­ing (A) Mur­der of Spouse, de­cline in since di­vorce laws.

Yes, he should be able to talk about that to Trainee Fire­men.

Chapter 4

‘I loathe par­ties,’ said Wilt on Thurs­day night, ‘and if there’s one thing worse than par­ties it’s uni­ver­si­ty par­ties and bot­tle par­ties are worst of all. You take along a bot­tle of de­cent bur­gundy and end up drink­ing some­one else’s rotgut.’

‘It isn’t a par­ty,’ said Eva, ‘it’s a bar­be­cue.’

‘It says here “Come and Touch and Come with Sal­ly and Gaskell 9 PM Thurs­day. Bring your own am­brosia or take pot luck with the Pring­sheim punch.” If am­brosia doesn’t mean Al­ge­ri­an bil­ge­wa­ter I’d like to know what it does mean.’

‘I thought it was that stuff peo­ple take to get a hard-​on,’ said Eva.

Wilt looked at her with dis­gust. ‘You’ve picked up some choice phras­es since you’ve met these bloody peo­ple. A hard-​on! I don’t know what’s got in­to you.’

‘You haven’t. That’s for sure,’ said Eva, and went through to the bath­room. Wilt sat on the bed and looked at the card. The beast­ly thing was shaped like a…What the hell was it shaped like? Any­way it was pink and opened out and in­side were all these am­bigu­ous words. Come and Touch and Come. Any­one touched him and they’d get an ear­ful. And what about pot luck? A lot of trendy dons smok­ing joints and talk­ing about set-​the­oret­ic da­ta-​ma­nip­ula­tion sys­tems or the sig­nif­icance of pre-​Pop­per Hegelian­ism in the con­tem­po­rary di­alec­ti­cal scene, or some­thing equal­ly un­in­tel­li­gi­ble, and us­ing fuck and cunt ev­ery now and then to show that they were still hu­man.

‘And what do you do?’ they would ask him.

‘Well, ac­tu­al­ly I teach at the Tech.’

‘At the Tech? How fright­ful­ly in­ter­est­ing,’ look­ing over his shoul­der to­wards more stim­ulat­ing hori­zons, and he would end the evening with same ghast­ly wom­an who felt strong­ly that Techs ful­filled a re­al func­tion and that in­tel­lec­tu­al achieve­ment was vast­ly over­rat­ed and that peo­ple should be, ori­ent­ed in a way that would make them com­mu­ni­ty co­or­di­nat­ed and that’s what Techs were do­ing, weren’t they? Wilt knew what Techs were do­ing. Pay­ing peo­ple like him £3500 a year to keep Gas­fit­ters qui­et for an hour.

And Pring­sheim Punch. Planters Punch. Print­ers Punch. He’d had enough punch­es re­cent­ly.

‘What the hell am I to wear?’ he asked.

‘There’s that Mex­ican shirt you bought on the Cos­ta del Sol last year,’ Eva called from the bath­room. ‘You haven’t had a chance to wear it since’

‘And I don’t in­tend to now,’ mut­tered Wilt, rum­mag­ing through a draw­er in search of some­thing non­de­script that would demon­strate his in­de­pen­dence. In the end he put on a striped shirt with blue jeans.

‘You’re sure­ly not go­ing like that?’ Eva told him emerg­ing from the bath­room large­ly naked. Her face was plas­tered with white pow­der and her lips were carmine.

‘Je­sus wept,’ said Wilt, ‘Mar­di Gras with per­ni­cious anaemia.’

Eva pushed passed him. ‘I’m go­ing as The Great Gats­by,’ she an­nounced,’ ‘and if you had any imag­ina­tion you’d think of some­thing bet­ter than a busi­ness shirt with blue jeans’

‘The Great Gats­by hap­pened to be a man,’ said Wilt.

‘Bul­ly for him,’ said Eva and put on her lemon loungers.

Wilt shut his eyes and took off his shirt. By the time they left the house he was wear­ing a red shirt with jeans while Eva, in spite of the hot night, in­sist­ed on putting on her new rain­coat and tril­by.

‘We might as well walk.’ said Wilt.

They took the car. Eva wasn’t yet pre­pared to walk down Parkview Av­enue in a tril­by, a belt­ed rain­coat and lemon loungers. On the way they stopped at an off-​li­cence where Wilt bought a bot­tle of Cyprus red.

‘Don’t think I’m go­ing to touch the muck,’ he said, ‘and you had bet­ter take the car keys now. If it’s as bad as I think it will be, I’m walk­ing home ear­ly.’

It was. Worse. In his red shirt and blue jeans Wilt looked out of place.

‘Dar­ling Eva,’ said Sal­ly, when they fi­nal­ly found her talk­ing to a man in a loin­cloth made out of a kitchen tow­el ad­ver­tis­ing Irish cheeses, ‘you look great. The twen­ties suit you. And so this is Hen­ry.’ Hen­ry didn’t feel Hen­ry at all. ‘In pe­ri­od cos­tume too. Hen­ry meet Raphael.’

The man in the loin­cloth stud­ied Wilt’s jeans. ‘The fifties are back,’ he said lan­guid­ly, ‘I sup­pose it was bound to hap­pen.’

Wilt looked point­ed­ly at a Con­nemara Ched­dar and tried to smile.

‘Help your­self, Hen­ry,’ said Sal­ly, and took Eva off to meet the freest but the most lib­er­at­ed wom­an who was sim­ply dy­ing to meet boo­by ba­by. Wilt went in­to the gar­den and put his bot­tle on the ta­ble and looked for a corkscrew. There wasn’t one. In the end he looked in­to a large buck­et with a la­dle in it. Half an or­ange and seg­ments of bruised peach float­ed in a pur­ple liq­uid. He poured him­self a pa­per cup and tried it. As he had an­tic­ipat­ed, it tast­ed like cider with wood al­co­hol and or­ange squash. Wilt looked round the gar­den. In one cor­ner a man in a chef’s hat and a jock­strap was cook­ing, was burn­ing sausages over a char­coal grill. In an­oth­er cor­ner a dozen peo­ple were ly­ing in a cir­cle lis­ten­ing to the Wa­ter­gate tapes. There was a sprin­kling of cou­ples talk­ing earnest­ly and a num­ber of in­di­vid­uals stand­ing by them­selves look­ing su­per­cil­ious and re­mote. Wilt recog­nised him­self among them and se­lect­ed the least at­trac­tive girl on the the­ory that he might just as well jump in the deep end and get it over with. He’d end up with her any­way.

‘Hi,’ he said, con­scious that al­ready he was slip­ping in­to the Amer­icanese that Eva had suc­cumbed to. The girl looked at him blankly and moved away.

‘Charm­ing,’ said Wilt, and fin­ished his drink. Ten min­utes and two drinks lat­er he was dis­cussing Rapid Read­ing with a small round man who seemed deeply in­ter­est­ed in the sub­ject.

In the kitchen Eva was cut­ting up French bread while Sal­ly stood with a drink and talked about Lévi-​Strauss with an Ethiopi­an who had just got back from New Guinea.

I’ve al­ways felt that L-S was all wrong on the wom­an’s front,’ she said, lan­guid­ly study­ing Eva’s rear, ‘I mean he dis­re­gards the es­sen­tial sim­ilar­ity…’ She stopped and stared out of the win­dow. ‘Ex­cuse me a mo­ment she said, and went out to res­cue Dr Scheimach­er from the clutch­es of Hen­ry Wilt. ‘Ernst is such a sweet­ie,’ she said, when she came back ‘you’d nev­er guess he got the No­bel prize for sper­ma­tol­ogy.’

Wilt stood in the mid­dle of the gar­den and fin­ished his third drink he poured him­self a fourth and went to lis­ten to the Wa­ter­gate tapes. He got there in time to hear the end.

‘You get a much clear­er in­sight in­to Tricky Dick’s char­ac­ter quadra­phon­ical­ly,’ some­one said as the group brake up.

‘With the high­ly gift­ed child one has to de­vel­op a spe­cial re­la­tion­ship. Roger and I find that To­nio re­sponds best to con­struc­tion­al ap­proach.’

‘It’s a lead of bull. Take what he says about quasars for ex­am­ple…’

‘I can’t hon­est­ly see what’s wrong with bug­gery…’

‘I don’t care what Mar­cuse thinks about tol­er­ance. What I’m say­ing is…’

‘At mi­nus two-​fifty ni­tro­gen…’

‘Bach does have his mo­ments I sup­pose but he has his lim­ita­tions…’

‘We’ve got this place at St Trop…’

‘I still think Kaldor had the an­swer…’

Wilt fin­ished his fourth drink and went to look for Eva. He’d had enough. He was halt­ed by a yell from the man in the chef’s hat.

‘Burg­ers up. Come and get it.’

Wilt stag­gered off and got it. Two sausages, a burnt beef­burg­er and a slosh of coleslaw on a pa­per plate. There didn’t seem to be any knives or forks.

‘Poor Hen­ry’s look­ing so for­lorn,’ said Sal­ly, ‘I’ll go and trans­fuse him.’

She went out and took Wilt’s arm.

‘You’re so lucky to have Eva. She’s the ba­bi­est ba­by.’

‘She’s thir­ty-​five,’ said Wilt drunk­en­ly, ‘thir­ty-​five if she’s a day.’

‘It’s mar­vel­lous to meet a man who says what he means,’ said Sal­ly, and took a piece of beef­burg­er from his plate. ‘Gaskell just nev­er says any­thing straight­for­ward­ly. I love down to earth peo­ple.’ She sat down on the grass and pulled Wilt down with her. ‘I think it’s ter­ri­bly im­por­tant for two peo­ple to tell one an­oth­er the truth,’ she went on, break­ing off an­oth­er piece of beef­burg­er and pop­ping it in­to Wilt’s mouth. She licked her fin­gers slow­ly and looked at him with wide eyes. Wilt chewed the bit un­easi­ly and fi­nal­ly swal­lowed it. It tast­ed like burnt mince­meat with a soupçon of Lancôme. Or a bou­quet.

‘Why two?’ he asked, rins­ing his mouth out with coleslaw.

‘Why two what?’

‘Why two peo­ple,’ said Wilt, ‘Why is, it so im­por­tant for two peo­ple to tell the truth?’

‘Well I mean…’

‘Why not three? Or four? Or a hun­dred?’

‘A hun­dred peo­ple can’t have a re­la­tion­ship. Not an in­ti­mate one,’ said Sal­ly, ‘not a mean­ing­ful one.’

‘I don’t know many twos who can ei­ther,’ said Wilt. Sal­ly dabbed her fin­ger in his coleslaw.

‘Oh but you do. You and Eva have this re­al thing go­ing be­tween you.’

‘Not very of­ten.’ said Wilt. Sal­ly laughed.

‘Oh ba­by, you’re a truth ba­by.’ she said, and got up and fetched two more drinks. Wilt looked down in­to his pa­per cup doubt­ful­ly. He was get­ting very drunk.

‘If I’m a truth ba­by, what sort of ba­by are you, ba­by?’ he asked, en­deav­our­ing to in­stil the last ba­by with more than soupçon of con­tempt. Sal­ly snug­gled up to him and whis­pered in his ear.

‘I’m a body ba­by,’ she said.

‘I can see that.’ said Wilt. ‘You’ve got a very nice body.’

‘That’s the nicest thing any­body has ev­er said to me,’ said Sal­ly.

‘In that case.’ said Wilt, pick­ing up a black­ened sausage ‘you must have had a de­prived child­hood’

‘As a mat­ter of fact I did,’ Sal­ly said and plucked the sausage from his fin­gers. ‘That’s why I need so much lov­ing now. She put most of the sausage in her mouth, drew it slow­ly out and nib­bled the end. Wilt fin­ished off the coleslaw and washed it down with Pring­sheim Punch.

‘Aren’t they all aw­ful?’ said Sal­ly, as shouts and laugh­ter came from the cor­ner of the gar­den by the grill.

Wilt looked, up.

‘As a mat­ter of fact they are,’ he said. ‘Who’s the clown in the jock­strap?’

‘That’s Gaskell. He’s so ar­rest­ed. He loves play­ing at things,’ In the States he just loves to ride foot­plate on a lo­co­mo­tive and he goes to rodeos and last Christ­mas he in­sist­ed on dress­ing up as San­ta Claus and go­ing down to Watts and giv­ing out presents to the black kids at an or­phan­age. Of course they wouldn’t let him.’

‘If he went in a jock­strap I’m not in the least sur­prised,’ said Wilt. Sal­ly laughed.

‘You must be an Aries,’ she said. ‘you don’t mind what you say.’ She got to her feet and pulled Wilt up-’I'm go­ing to show you his toy room. It’s ev­er so droll.’

Wilt put his plate down and they went in­to the house. In the kitchen Eva was peel­ing or­anges for a fruit sal­ad and talk­ing about cir­cum­ci­sion rites with the Ethiopi­an, who was slic­ing ba­nanas for her. In the lounge sev­er­al cou­ples were danc­ing back to back very vig­or­ous­ly to an LP of Beethoven’s Fifth played at 78.

‘Christ,’ said Wilt as Sal­ly col­lect­ed a bot­tle of Vod­ka from a cup­board. They went up­stairs and down a pas­sage to a small bed­room filled with toys. There was a mod­el train set on the floor, a punch­bag, an enor­mous Ted­dy dear, a rock­ing horse, a fire­man’s hel­met and a life­size in­flat­ed doll that looked like a re­al wom­an.

‘That’s Judy,’ said Sal­ly. ’she’s got a re­al cunt. Gaskell is a plas­tic freak.’ Wilt winced. ‘And here are Gaskell’s toys, pu­ber­ty ba­by.’

Wilt looked round the room at the mess and shook his head. ‘Looks as though he’s mak­ing up for a lost child­hood,’ he said.

‘Oh, Hen­ry, you’re so per­cep­tive,’ said Sal­ly, and un­screwed the top of the Vod­ka bot­tle.

‘I’m not. It’s just bloody ob­vi­ous.’

‘Oh you are. You’re just ter­ri­bly mod­est, is all. Mod­est and shy and man­ly.’ She swigged from the bot­tle and gave it to Wilt. He took a mouth­ful in­ad­vis­ed­ly and had trou­ble swal­low­ing it. Sal­ly locked the door and sat down on the bed. She reached up a hand and pulled Wilt to­wards her.

‘Screw me, Hen­ry ba­by,’ she said and lift­ed her skirt, ‘fuck me, hon­ey. Screw the pants off me.’

‘That,’ said Wilt, ‘would be a bit dif­fi­cult.’

‘Oh. Why?’

‘Well for one thing you don’t ap­pear to be wear­ing any and any­way why should I?’

‘You want a rea­son? A rea­son for screw­ing?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt. ‘Yes I do.’

‘Rea­son’s trea­son. Feel free.’ She pulled him down and kissed him. Wilt didn’t feel at all free. ‘Don’t be shy, ba­by.’

‘Shy?’ said Wilt lurch­ing to one side. ‘Me shy?’

‘Sure you’re shy. OK, you’re small. Eva told me…’

‘Small? What do you mean I’m small?’ shout­ed Wilt fu­ri­ous­ly.

Sal­ly smiled up at him. It doesn’t mat­ter. It doesn’t mat­ter. Noth­ing mat­ters. Just you and me and…’

‘It bloody well does mat­ter,’ snarled Wilt. ‘My wife said I was small. I’ll soon show the sil­ly bitch who’s small. I’ll show…’

‘Show me, Hen­ry ba­by, show me. I like them small. Prick to the quick.’

‘It’s not true,’ Wilt mum­bled.

‘Prove it, lover,’ said Sal­ly squirm­ing against him.

‘I won’t,’ said Wilt, and stood up.

Sal­ly stopped squirm­ing and looked at him. ‘You’re just afraid,’ she said. ‘You’re afraid to be free.’

‘Free? Free?’ shout­ed Wilt, try­ing to open the door, ‘Locked in a room with an­oth­er man’s wife is free­dom? You’ve got be jok­ing.’

Sal­ly pulled down her skirt and sat up.

‘You won’t?’

‘No,’ said Wilt.

‘Are you a bondage ba­by? You can tell me. I’m used bondage ba­bies. Gaskell is re­al…’

‘Cer­tain­ly not,’ said Wilt. ‘I don’t care what Gaskell is.’

‘You want a blow job, is that it? You want for me to give you a blow job? She got off the bed and came to­wards him. Wilt looked at her wild­ly.

‘Don’t you touch me,’ he shout­ed, his mind alive with im­ages of burn­ing paint. ‘I don’t want any­thing from you.’

Sal­ly stopped and stared at him. She wasn’t smil­ing any more.

‘Why not? Be­cause you’re small? Is that why?’

Wilt hacked against the door.

‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Be­cause you haven’t the courage of your in­stincts? Be­cause yours a psy­chic vir­gin? Be­cause you’re not a man? Be­cause you can’t take a wom­an who thinks?’

‘Thinks?’ yelled Wilt, stung in­to ac­tion by the ac­cu­sa­tion that he wasn’t a man. ‘Thinks? You think? You know some­thing? I’d rather have it off with that plas­tic me­chan­ical do than you. It’s got more sex ap­peal in its lit­tle fin­ger than you have in your whole rot­ten body. When I want a whore I’ll buy one.’

‘Why you lit­tle shit’ said Sal­ly, and lunged at him. Wilt scut­tled side­ways and col­lid­ed with the punch­bag. The next mo­ment he had stepped on a mod­el en­gine and was hurtling across the room. As he slumped down the wall on to the floor Sal­ly picked up the doll and leant over him.

In the kitchen Eva had fin­ished the fruit sal­ad and had made cof­fee. It was a love­ly par­ty. Mr Os­ewa had told her all about his job as un­der­de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer in Cul­tur­al Af­fairs to UN­ESCO and how re­ward­ing he found it. She had been kissed twice on the back of the neck by Dr Scheimach­er in pass­ing and the man in the Irish Cheese loin­cloth had pressed him­self against her rather more firm­ly than was ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary to reach the toma­to ketchup. And all around her ter­ri­bly clever peo­ple were be­ing so out­spo­ken. It was all so so­phis­ti­cat­ed. She helped her­self to an­oth­er drink and looked around for Hen­ry. He was nowhere to be seen.

‘Have you seen Hen­ry?’ she asked when Sal­ly came in­to the kitchen hold­ing a bot­tle of Vod­ka and look­ing rather flushed.

‘The last I saw of him he was set­ting with some dol­ly bird,’ said Sal­ly, help­ing her­self to a spoon­ful of fruit sal­ad. ‘Oh, Eva dar­ling, you’re ab­so­lute­ly Cor­don Bleu ba­by.’ Eva blushed.

‘I do hope he’s en­joy­ing him­self, Hen­ry’s not aw­ful­ly good at par­ties.’

‘Eva ba­by, be hon­est. Hen­ry’s not aw­ful­ly good pe­ri­od.’

‘It’s just that he…’ Eva be­gan but Sal­ly kissed her.

‘You’re far too good for him,’ she said. ‘we’ve got to find you some­one re­al­ly beau­ti­ful.’ While Eva sipped her drink, Sal­ly found a young man with a frond of hair falling across his fore­head who was ly­ing on a couch with a girl, smok­ing and star­ing at the ceil­ing.

‘Christo­pher pre­cious,’ she said, ‘I’m go­ing to steal you for a mo­ment. I want you to do some­one for me. Go in­to the kitchen and sweet­en the wom­an with the boo­bies and the aw­ful yel­low py­ja­mas.’

‘Oh God. Why me?’

‘My sweet, you know you’re ut­ter­ly ir­re­sistible. But the sex­iest. For me, ba­by, for me.’

Christo­pher got off the couch and went in­to the kitchen Sal­ly stretched out be­side the girl.

‘Christo­pher is a dream­boy,’ she said.

‘He’s a gigo­lo.’ said the girl. ‘A male pros­ti­tute.’

‘Dar­ling,’ said Sal­ly, ‘it’s about time we wom­en had them.’

In the kitchen Eva stopped pour­ing cof­fee. She was feel­ing de­light­ful­ly tip­sy.

‘You mustn’t.’ she said hasti­ly.

‘Why not?’

‘I’m mar­ried.’

‘I like it. I like it.’

‘Yes but…’

‘No buts, lover.’

‘Oh.’

Up­stairs in the toy room Wilt, re­cov­er­ing slow­ly from the com­bined as­saults on his sys­tem of Pring­sheim Punch, Vod­ka, his nympho­ma­ni­ac host­ess and the cor­ner of the cup­board against which he had fall­en, had the feel­ing that some­thing was ter­ri­bly wrong. It wasn’t sim­ply that the room was os­cil­lat­ing, that he had a lump on the back of his head or that he was naked. It was rather the sen­sa­tion that some­thing with all the less at­trac­tive qual­ities of a mouse­trap, or a vice, or starv­ing clam, had at­tached it­self im­pla­ca­bly to what he, had up till now al­ways con­sid­ered to be the most pri­vate of parts. Wilt opened his eyes and found him­self star­ing in­to smil­ing if slight­ly swollen face. He shut his eyes again, hope against hope, opened them again, found the face still there and made an ef­fort to sit up.

It was an un­wise move. Judy, the plas­tic doll, in­flat­ed be­yond her nor­mal pres­sure, re­sist­ed. With a squawk Wilt fell back on to the floor. Judy fol­lowed. Her nose bounced on his face and her breasts on his chest. With a curse Wilt rolled on­to his side and con­sid­ered the prob­lem. Sit­ting up was out of the ques­tion. That way led to cas­tra­tion. He would have to try some­thing else. He rolled the doll over fur­ther and climb on top on­ly to de­cide that his weight on it was in­creas­ing pres­sure on what re­mained of his pe­nis and that if he want­ed to get gan­grene that was the way to go about get­ting it. Wilt rolled off pre­cip­itate­ly and groped for a valve. There must be one some­where if he could on­ly find it. But if there was a valve it was well hid­den and by the feel of things he hadn’t got time to waste find­ing it. He felt round on the floor for some­thing to use as a dag­ger, some­thing sharp, and fi­nal­ly broke off a piece of rail­way track and plunged it in­to his as­sailant’s back. There was a squeak of plas­tic but Judy’s swollen smile re­mained un­changed and her un­want­ed at­ten­tions as im­pla­ca­ble as ev­er. Again and again he stabbed her but to no avail. Wilt dropped his makeshift dag­ger and con­sid­ered oth­er means. He was get­ting fran­tic, con­scious of a new threat. It was no longer that he was the sub­ject of her high air pres­sure. His own in­ter­nal pres­sures were mount­ing. The Pring­sheim Punch and the vod­ka were mak­ing their pres­ence felt. With a des­per­ate thought that if he didn’t get out of her soon he would burst, Wilt seized Judy’s head, bent it side­ways and sank his teeth in­to her neck. Or would have had her pounds per square inch per­mit­ted. In­stead he bounced off and spent the next two min­utes try­ing to find his false tooth which had been dis­lodged in the ex­change.

By the time he had got it back in place, pan­ic had set in. He had to get out of the doll. He just had to. There would be a ra­zor in the bath­room or a pair of scis­sors. But where on earth was the bath­room? Nev­er mind about that. He’d find the damned thing. Care­ful­ly, very care­ful­ly he rolled the doll on to her hack and fol­lowed her over. Then he inched his knees up un­til he was strad­dling the thing. All he need­ed now was some­thing to hold on to while he got to his feet. Wilt leant over and grasped the edge of a chair with one hand while lift­ing Judy’s head off the floor with the oth­er. A mo­ment lat­er he was on his feet. Hold­ing the doll to him he shuf­fled to­wards the door and opened it. He peered out in­to the pas­sage. What if some­one saw him? To hell with that. Wilt no longer cared what peo­ple thought about him. But which way was the bath­room? Wilt turned right, and peer­ing fran­ti­cal­ly over Judy’s shoul­der, shuf­fled off down the pas­sage.

Down­stairs, Eva was hav­ing a won­der­ful time. First Christo­pher, then the man in the Irish Cheese loin­cloth and fi­nal­ly Dr Scheimach­er, had all made ad­vances to her and been re­buffed. It was such a change from Hen­ry’s lack of in­ter­est showed she was still at­trac­tive. Dr Scheimach­er had said that she was an in­ter­est­ing ex­am­ple of la­tent steatopy­gia, Christo­pher tried to kiss her breasts and the man in the loin­cloth had made the most ex­traor­di­nary sug­ges­tion to her. And through it all, Eva had re­mained en­tire­ly vir­tu­ous. Her mas­sive skit­tish­ness, her in­sis­tence on danc­ing and, most ef­fec­tive of all, her habit of say­ing in a loud and not whol­ly cul­ti­vat­ed voice, ‘Oh you are aw­ful’ at mo­ments of their great­est ar­dour, had had a marked­ly de­ter­rent ef­fect. Now she sat on the floor in the liv­ing-​room, while Sal­ly and Gaskell and the beard­ed man from the in­sti­tute of Eco­log­ical Re­search ar­gued about sex­ual­ly in­ter­change­able role-​play­ing in a pop­ula­tion-​re­stric­tive so­ci­ety. She felt strange­ly elat­ed. Parkview Av­enue and Mavis Mot­tram and her work at the Har­mo­ny Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre seemed to be­long to an­oth­er world. She had been ac­cept­ed by peo­ple who flew to Cal­ifor­nia or Tokyo to con­fer­ences and Think Tanks as ca­su­al­ly as she took the bus to town. Dr Scheimach­er had men­tioned that he was fly­ing to New Del­hi in the morn­ing, and Christo­pher had just come back from pho­to­graph­ic as­sign­ment in Trinidad. Above all, there was an au­ra of im­por­tance about what they were do­ing, a glam­our that was whol­ly lack­ing in Hen­ry’s job at the Tech. If on­ly she could get him to do some­thing in­ter­est­ing and ad­ven­tur­ous. But Hen­ry was such a stick-​in-​the-​mud. She had made mis­take in mar­ry­ing him. She re­al­ly had. All he was in­ter­est­ed in was books, but life wasn’t to be found in books. Like Sal­ly said, life was for liv­ing. Life was peo­ple and ex­pe­ri­ences and fun. Hen­ry would nev­er see that.

In the bath­room Wilt could see very lit­tle. He cer­tain­ly couldn’t see any way of get­ting out of the doll. His at­tempt to slit the beast­ly thing’s throat with a ra­zor had failed, thank large­ly to the fact that the ra­zor in ques­tion was a Wilkin­son bond­ed blade. Hav­ing failed with the ra­zor be had tried sham­poo as a lu­bri­cant but apart from work­ing up a lath­er which even to his jaun­diced eye looked as though he had aroused the doll to pos­itive­ly fren­zied heights of sex­ual ex­pec­ta­tion the sham­poo had achieved noth­ing. Fi­nal­ly he had re­vert­ed to a quest for the valve. The damned thing had one some­where if on­ly he could find it. In this en­deav­our he peered in­to the mir­ror on the door of the medicine cab­inet but the mir­ror was too small. There was a large one over the wash­basin. Wilt pulled down the lid of the toi­let and climbed on to it. This way he would be able to get a clear view of the doll’s back. He was just inch­ing his way round when there were foot­steps in the pas­sage. Wilt stopped inch­ing and stood rigid on the toi­let lid. Some­one tried the door and found it locked. The foot­steps re­treat­ed and Wilt breathed a sigh of re­lief. Now then, just let him find that valve.

And at that mo­ment dis­as­ter struck. Wilt’s left foot stepped in the sham­poo that had dripped on to the toi­let seat, slid side­ways off the edge and Wilt, the doll and the door of the medicine cab­inet with which he had at­tempt­ed to save him­self were mo­men­tar­ily air­borne. As they hur­tled in­to the bath, as the show­er cur­tain and fit­ting fol­lowed, as the con­tents of the medicine cab­inet cas­cad­ed on to the wash­basin, Wilt gave a last de­spair­ing scream. There was a pop rem­inis­cent of cham­pagne corks and Judy, fi­nal­ly re­spond­ing to the pres­sure of Wilt’s eleven stone drop­ping from sev­er­al feet in­to the bath, eject­ed him. But Wilt no longer cared. He had in ev­ery sense passed out. He was on­ly dim­ly aware of shouts in the cor­ri­dor, of some­one break­ing the door down, of faces peer­ing at him and of hys­ter­ical laugh­ter. When he came to be was ly­ing on the bed in the toy room. He got up and put on his clothes and crept down­stairs and out of the front door. It was 3 AM.

Chapter 5

Eva sat on the edge of the bed cry­ing.

‘How could he? How could he do a thing like that? she said, ‘in front of all these peo­ple.’

‘Eva ba­by, men are like that. Be­lieve me,’ said Sal­ly.

‘But with a doll…’

‘That’s sym­bol­ic of the male chau­vin­ist pig at­ti­tude to wom­en. We’re just fuck arte­facts to them. Ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion. So now you know how Hen­ry feels about you.’

‘It’s hor­ri­ble,’ said Eva.

‘Sure it’s hor­ri­ble. Male dom­ina­tion de­bas­es us to the lev­el of ob­jects.’

‘But Hen­ry’s nev­er done any­thing like that be­fore,’ Eva wailed.

‘Well, he’s done it now.’

‘I’m not go­ing back to him. I couldn’t face it. I feel so ashamed.’

‘Hon­ey, you just for­get about it. You don’t have to go any­where. Sal­ly will look af­ter you. You just lie down and get some sleep.’

Eva lay back, but sleep was im­pos­si­ble. The im­age of Hen­ry ly­ing naked in the bath on top of that hor­ri­ble doll was faced in her mind. They had to break the door down and Dr Scheimach­er find cut his hand on a bro­ken bot­tle try­ing to get Hen­ry out of the bath…Oh, it was all too aw­ful. She would nev­er be able to look peo­ple in the face again. The sto­ry was bound to get about and she would be known as the wom­an whose hus­band went around…With a fresh parox­ysm of em­bar­rass­ment Eva buried her head in the pil­low and wept.

‘Well that sure made the par­ty go with a bang,’ said Gaskell. ‘Guy screws a doll in the bath­room and ev­ery­one goes berserk.’ He looked round the liv­ing-​room at the mess. ‘If any­one thinks I’m go­ing to start clear­ing this lot up now they’d bet­ter think again. I’m go­ing to bed.’

‘Just don’t wake Eva up. She’s hys­ter­ical,’ said Sal­ly.

‘Oh great. Now we’ve got a man­ic ob­ses­sive com­pul­sive wom­an with hys­te­ria in the house.’

‘And to­mor­row she’s com­ing with us on the boat.’

‘She’s what?’

‘You heard me. She’s com­ing with us on the boat.’

‘Now wait a bit…’

‘I’m not ar­gu­ing with you, G. I’m telling you. She’s com­ing with us.’

‘Why, for Chris­sake?’

‘Be­cause I’m not hav­ing her go back to that creep of a hus­band of hers. Be­cause you won’t get me a clean­ing-​wom­an and be­cause I like her.’

‘Be­cause I won’t get you a clean­ing-​wom­an. Now I’ve heard it all.’

‘Oh no you haven’t,’ said Sal­ly, ‘you haven’t heard the half of it. You may not know it but you mar­ried a lib­er­at­ed wom­an. No male pig is go­ing to put one over on me…’

‘I’m not try­ing to put one over on you,’ said Gaskell. ‘All I’m say­ing is that I don’t want to have to…’

‘I’m not talk­ing about you. I’m talk­ing about that creep Wilt. You think he got in­to that doll by him­self? Think again, G ba­by, think again.’

Gaskell sat down on the so­fa and stared at her.

‘You must be out of your mind. What the hell did you want to do a thing like that for?’

‘Be­cause when I lib­er­ate some­one I lib­er­ate them. No mis­take.’

‘Lib­er­ate some­one by…’ he shook his head. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

Sal­ly poured her­self a drink. ‘The trou­ble with you, G, is that you talk big but you don’t do. It’s yakki­ty yak with you. “My wife is a lib­er­at­ed wom­an. My wife’s free.” Nice-​sound­ing talk but come the time your lib­er­at­ed wife takes it in­to her head to do some­thing, you don’t want to know.’

‘Yeah, and when you take it in­to your god­dam head to do some­thing who takes the can back? I do. Where’s pet­ti­coats then? Who got you out of that mess in Om­aha? Who paid the fuzz in Hous­ton that time…’

‘So you did. So why did you mar­ry me? Just why?’

Gaskell pol­ished his glass­es with the edge of the chef’s hat. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ’so help me I don’t know.’

‘For kicks, ba­by, for kicks. With­out me you’d have died of bore­dom. With me you get ex­cite­ment. With me you get kicks in the teeth.’

Gaskell got up weari­ly and head­ed for the stairs. It was at times like these that he won­dered why he had mar­ried.

Wilt walked home in agony. His pain was no longer phys­ical. It was the agony of hu­mil­ia­tion, ha­tred and self-​con­tempt. He had been made to look a fool, a per­vert and an id­iot in front of peo­ple he de­spised. The Pring­sheims and their set were ev­ery­thing he loathed, false, phoney, pre­ten­tious, a cir­cus of in­tel­lec­tu­al clowns whose an­tics had not even the mer­it of his own, which had at least been re­al. Theirs were mere­ly a par­ody of en­joy­ment. They laughed to hear them­selves laugh­ing and pa­rad­ed a sen­su­al­ity that had noth­ing to do with feel­ings or even in­stincts but was dredged up from shal­low imag­ina­tions to mim­ic lust. Cop­ulo er­go sum. And that bitch, Sal­ly, had taunt­ed him with not hav­ing the courage of his in­stincts as if in­stinct con­sist­ed of ejac­ulat­ing in­to the chem­ical­ly ster­il­ized body of a wom­an he had first met twen­ty min­utes be­fore. And Wilt had re­act­ed in­stinc­tive­ly, shy­ing away from a con­cu­pis­cence that had to do with pow­er and ar­ro­gance and an in­tol­er­able con­tempt for him which pre­sup­posed that what he was, what lit­tle he was, was a mere ex­ten­sion of his pe­nis and that the ul­ti­mate ex­pres­sion of his thoughts, feel­ings, hopes and am­bi­tions was to be at­tained be­tween the legs of a trendy slut. And that was be­ing lib­er­at­ed.

‘Feel free,’ she had said and had knot­ted him in­to that fuck­ing doll. Wilt ground his teeth un­der­neath a street­lamp.

And what about Eva? What sort of hell was she go­ing to make for him now? If life had been in­tol­er­able with her be­fore this, it was go­ing to be unadul­ter­at­ed mis­ery now, she wouldn’t be­lieve that he hadn’t been screw­ing that doll, that he hadn’t got, in­to it of his own ac­cord, that he had been put in­to it by Sal­ly. Not in a month of Sun­days. And even if by some mir­acle she ac­cept­ed his sto­ry, a fat lot of dif­fer­ence that would make.

‘What sort of man do you think you are, let­ting a wom­an do a thing like that to you?’ she would ask. There was ab­so­lute­ly no re­ply to the ques­tion. What sort of man was he? Wilt had no idea. An in­signif­icant lit­tle man to whom things hap­pened and for whom life was a chap­ter of in­dig­ni­ties. Print­ers punched him in the face and he was blamed for it. His wife bul­lied him and oth­er peo­ple’s wives made a laugh­ing-​stock out of him. Wilt wan­dered on along sub­ur­ban streets past se­mi-​de­tached hous­es and lit­tle gar­dens with a mount­ing sense of de­ter­mi­na­tion. He had had enough of be­ing the butt of cir­cum­stance. From now on things would hap­pen be­cause he want­ed them to. He would change from be­ing the re­cip­ient of mis­for­tune. He would be the in­sti­ga­tor. Just let Eva try any­thing now. He would knock the bitch down.

Wilt stopped. It was all very well to talk. The bloody wom­an had a weapon she wouldn’t hes­itate to use. Knock her down, my eye. If any­one went down it would be Wilt, and in ad­di­tion she would pa­rade his af­fair with the doll to ev­ery­one they knew. It wouldn’t be long be­fore the sto­ry reached the Tech. In the dark­ness of Parkview Av­enue Wilt shud­dered at the thought. It would be the end of his ca­reer. He went through the gate of Num­ber 34 and un­locked the front door with the feel­ing that un­less he took some dras­tic ac­tion in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture he was doomed.

In bed an hour lat­er he was still awake, wide awake and wrestling with the prob­lem of Eva, his own char­ac­ter and how to change it in­to some­thing he could re­spect. And what did he re­spect? Un­der the blan­kets Wilt clenched his fist.

‘De­ci­sive­ness,’ he mur­mured. ‘The abil­ity to act with­out hes­ita­tion. Courage.’ A strange litany of an­cient virtues. But how to ac­quire them now? How had they turned men like him in­to Com­man­dos and pro­fes­sion­al killers dur­ing the war? By train­ing them. Wilt lay in the dark­ness and con­sid­ered ways in which he could train him­self to be­come what he was clear­ly not. By the time he fell asleep he had de­ter­mined to at­tempt the im­pos­si­ble.

At sev­en the alarm went. Wilt got up and went in­to the bath­room and stared at him­self in the mir­ror. He was a hard man, a man with­out feel­ings. Hard, me­thod­ical, cold-​blood­ed and log­ical. A man who made no mis­takes. He went down­stairs and ate his All-​Bran and drank his cup of cof­fee. So Eva wasn’t home. She had stayed the night at the Pring­sheims. Well that was some­thing. It made things eas­ier for him. Ex­cept that she still had the car and the keys. He cer­tain­ly wasn’t go­ing to go round and get the car. He walked down to the round­about and caught the bus to the Tech. He had Brick­lay­ers One in Room 456. When he ar­rived they were talk­ing about grad­bash­ing.

‘There was this stu­dent all dressed up like a wait­er see. “Do you mind?” he says. “Do you mind get­ting out of my way.” Just like that and all I was do­ing was look­ing in the win­dow at the books…’

‘At the books?’ said Wilt scep­ti­cal­ly. ‘At eleven o’clock at night you were look­ing at books? I don’t be­lieve it’

‘Mag­azines and cow­boy books.’ said the brick­lay­er. ‘They’re in a junk shop in Finch Street’

‘They’ve got girlie mags.’ some­one else ex­plained. Wilt nod­ded. That sound­ed more like it.

‘So I says. “Mind what?”‘ con­tin­ued the brick­lay­er, ‘and he says, “Mind out of my way.” His way. Like he owned the bloody street.’

‘So what did you say?’ asked Wilt.

‘Say? I didn’t say any­thing. I wasn’t wast­ing words on him.’

‘What did you do then?’

‘Well, I put the boat in and duffed him up. Gave him a good go­ing-​over and no mis­take. Then I pushed off. There’s one bloody grad who won’t be telling peo­ple to get out of his way for a bit.’

The class nod­ded ap­prov­ing­ly.

‘They’re all the bloody same, stu­dents,’ said an­oth­er brick­lay­er. ‘Think be­cause they’ve got mon­ey and go to col­lege they can or­der you about. They could all do with a go­ing-​over. Do them a pow­er of good.’

Wilt con­sid­ered the im­pli­ca­tions of mug­ging as part of an in­tel­lec­tu­al’s ed­uca­tion. Af­ter his ex­pe­ri­ence the pre­vi­ous night he was in­clined to think there was some­thing to be said for it. He would have liked to have duffed up half the peo­ple at the Pring­sheims’ par­ty.

‘So none of you feel there’s any­thing wrong with beat­ing a stu­dent up if he gets in your way?’ he asked.

‘Wrong?’ said the brick­lay­ers in uni­son, ‘What’s wrong with a good punch-​up? It’s not as if a grad is an old wom­an or some­thing. He can al­ways hit back, can’t he?’

They spent the rest of the hour dis­cussing vi­olence in the mod­ern world. On the whole, the brick­lay­ers seemed to think it was a good thing.

‘I mean what’s the point of go­ing out on a Sat­ur­day night and get­ting pissed if you can’t have a bit of a bar­ney at the same time? Got to get rid of your ag­gres­sion some­how.’ said an un­usu­al­ly ar­tic­ulate brick­lay­er, ‘I mean it’s nat­ural isn’t it?’

‘So you think man is a nat­ural­ly ag­gres­sive an­imal,’ said Wilt.

‘Course he is. That’s his­to­ry for you, all them wars and things. It’s on­ly bloody poofters don’t like vi­olence.’

Wilt took this view of things along to the Staff Room for his free pe­ri­od and col­lect­ed a cup of cof­fee from the vend­ing ma­chine. He was joined by Pe­ter Brain­tree.

‘How did the par­ty got’ Brain­tree asked.

‘It didn’t,’ said Wilt mo­rose­ly.

‘Eva en­joy it?’

‘I wouldn’t know. She hadn’t come home by the time I got up this morn­ing.’

‘Hadn’t come home?’

‘That’s what I said,’ said Wilt.

‘Well did you ring up and find out what had hap­pened to her?’

‘No,’ said Wilt.

‘Why not?’

‘Be­cause I’d look a bit of a twit ring­ing up and be­ing told she was shacked up with the Abyssini­an am­bas­sador, wouldn’t I?’

‘The Abyssini­an am­bas­sador? Was he there?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know.’ The last I saw of her she was be­ing chat­ted up by this big black bloke from Ethiopia. Some­thing to do with the Unit­ed Na­tions. She was mak­ing fruit sal­ad and he was chop­ping ba­nanas for her.’

‘Doesn’t sound a very com­pro­mis­ing sort of ac­tiv­ity to me,’ said Brain­tree.

‘No, I dare­say it doesn’t. On­ly you weren’t there and don’t know what sort of par­ty it was,’ said Wilt rapid­ly com­ing to the con­clu­sion that an edit­ed ver­sion of the night’s events was called for. ‘A whole lot of mid­dle-​aged with-​it kids do­ing their with­ered thing.!

‘It sounds bloody aw­ful. And you think Eva…’

‘I think Eva got pissed and some­body gave her a joint and she passed out,’ said Wilt, ‘that’s what I think. She’s prob­ably sleep­ing it off in the down­stairs loo.’

‘Doesn’t sound like Eva to me,’ said Brain­tree. Wilt drank his cof­fee and con­sid­ered his strat­egy. If the sto­ry of his in­volve­ment with that fuck­ing doll was go­ing to come out, per­haps it would be bet­ter if he told it his way first. On the oth­er hand…

‘What were you do­ing while all this was go­ing on?’ Brain­tree asked.

‘Well’ said Wilt, ‘as a mat­ter of fact…’ He hes­itat­ed. On sec­ond thoughts it might be bet­ter not to men­tion the doll at all. If Eva kept her trap shut…’I got a bit slewed my­self.’

‘That sounds more like it,’ said Brain­tree, ‘I sup­pose you made a pass at an­oth­er wom­an too.’

‘If you must know,’ said Wilt, ‘an­oth­er wom­an made a pass at me. Mrs Pring­sheim.’

‘Mrs Pring­sheim made a pass at you?’

‘Well, we went up­stairs to look at her hus­band’s toys…’

‘His toys? I thought you told me he was a bio­chemist.’

‘He is a bio­chemist. He just hap­pens to like play­ing with toys. Mod­el trains and Ted­dy Bears and things. She says he’s a case of ar­rest­ed de­vel­op­ment. She would, though. She’s that sort of loy­al wife.’

‘What hap­pened then?’

‘Apart from her lock­ing the door and ly­ing on the bed with her legs wide open and ask­ing me to screw her and threat­en­ing me with a blow job, noth­ing hap­pened,’ said Wilt.

Pe­ter Brain­tree looked at him scep­ti­cal­ly. ‘Noth­ing?’ he said fi­nal­ly. ‘Noth­ing? I mean what did you do?’

‘Equiv­ocat­ed,’ said Wilt.

‘That’s a new word for it,’ said Brain­tree. ‘You go up­stairs with Mrs Pring­sheim and equiv­ocate while she lies on a bed with her legs open and you want to know why Eva hasn’t come home? She’s prob­ably round at same lawyer’s of­fice fil­ing a pe­ti­tion for di­vorce right now.’

‘But I tell you I didn’t screw the bitch,’ said Wilt, ‘I told her to hawk her pearly some­where else.’

‘And you call that equiv­ocat­ing? Hawk her pearly? Where the hell did you get that ex­pres­sion from?’

‘Meat One,’ said Wilt and got up and fetched him­self an­oth­er cup of cof­fee.

By the time he came back to his seat he had de­cid­ed on his ver­sion.

‘I don’t know what hap­pened af­ter that,’ he said when Brain­tree in­sist­ed on hear­ing the next episode. ‘I passed out. It must have been the vod­ka.’

‘You just passed out in a locked room with a naked wom­an? Is that what hap­pened?’ said Brain­tree. He didn’t sound as if he be­lieved a word of the sto­ry.

‘Pre­cise­ly,’ said Wilt.

‘And when you came to?’

‘I was walk­ing home,’ said Wilt. ‘I’ve no idea what hap­pened in be­tween.’

‘Oh well, I dare­say we’ll hear about that from Eva,’ said Brain­tree. ‘She’s bound to know.’

He got up and went off and Wilt was left alone to con­sid­er his next mane. The first thing to do was to make sure that Eva didn’t say any­thing. He went through to the tele­phone in the cor­ri­dor and di­alled his home num­ber. There was no re­ply. Wilt went along to Room 187 and spent an hour with Turn­ers and Fit­ters. Sev­er­al times dur­ing the day he tried to tele­phone Eva but there was no an­swer.

‘She’s prob­ably spent the day round at Mavis Mot­tram’s weep­ing on her shoul­der and telling all and sundry what a pig I am,’ he thought. ‘She’s bound to be wait­ing for me when I get home tonight.’

But she wasn’t. In­stead there was a note on the kitchen ta­ble and a pack­age. Wilt opened the note.

‘I’m go­ing away with Sal­ly and Gaskell to think things over. What you did last night was hor­ri­ble. I won’t ev­er for­give you. Don’t for­get to buy some dog food. Eva. P.S. Sal­ly says next time you want a blow job get Judy to give you one.’

Wilt looked at the pack­age. He knew with­out open­ing it what it con­tained. That in­fer­nal doll. In a sud­den parox­ysm of rage Wilt picked it up and hurled it across the kitchen at the sink. Two plates and a saucer bounced off the wash­ing-​up rack and broke on the floor.

‘Bug­ger the bitch,’ said Wilt in­clu­sive­ly, Eva, Judy, and Sal­ly Pring­sheim all com­ing with­in the am­bit of his fury. Then he sat down at the ta­ble and looked at the note again. ‘Go­ing away to think things over.’ Like hell she was. Think? The stupid cow wasn’t ca­pa­ble of thought. She’d emote, drool over his de­fi­cien­cies and work her­self in­to an ec­sta­sy of self-​pity. Wilt could hear her now blath­er­ing on about that blast­ed bank man­ag­er and how she should have mar­ried him in­stead of sad­dling her­self with a man who couldn’t even get pro­mo­tion at the Tech and who went around fuck­ing in­flat­able dolls in oth­er peo­ple’s bath­rooms. And there was that filthy slut, Sal­ly Pring­sheim, egging her on. Wilt looked at the postscript. ‘Sal­ly says next time you want a blow job…’Christ. As if he’d want­ed a blow job the last time. But there it was, a new myth in the mak­ing, like the busi­ness of his be­ing in love with Bet­ty Crab­tree when all he had done was give her a lift home one night af­ter an Evening Class. Wilt’s home life was punc­tu­at­ed by such myths, weapons in Eva’s ar­moury to be brought out when the oc­ca­sion de­mand­ed and bran­dished above his head. And now Eva had the ul­ti­mate de­ter­rent at her dis­pos­al, the doll and Sal­ly Pring­sheim and a blow job. The bal­ance of re­crim­ina­tion which had been the sus­tain­ing fac­tor in their re­la­tion­ship had shift­ed dra­mat­ical­ly. It would take an act of des­per­ate in­ven­tion on Wilt’s part to re­store it.

‘Don’t for­get to buy some dog food.’ Well at least she had left him the car. It was stand­ing in the car­port. Wilt went out and drove round to the su­per­mar­ket and bought three tins of dog food, a boil-​in-​the-​bag cur­ry and a bot­tle of gin. He was go­ing to get pissed. Then he went home and sat in the kitchen watch­ing Clem gulp his Bon­zo while the bag boiled. He poured him­self a stiff gin, topped it up with lime and wan­dered about. And all the time he was con­scious of the pack­age ly­ing there on the drain­ing board wait­ing for him to open it. And in­evitably he would open it. Out of sheer cu­rios­ity. He knew it and they knew it wher­ev­er they were, and on Sun­day night Eva would come home and the first thing she would do would be to ask about the doll and if he had had a nice time with it. Wilt helped him­self to some more gin and con­sid­ered the doll’s util­ity. There must be some way of us­ing the thing to turn the ta­bles on Eva.

By the time he had fin­ished his sec­ond gin he had be­gun to for­mu­late a plan. It in­volved the doll, a pile hole and a nice test of his own strength of char­ac­ter. It was one thing to have fan­tasies about mur­der­ing your wife. It was quite an­oth­er to put them in­to ef­fect and be­tween the two there lay an area of un­cer­tain­ty. By the end of his third gin Wilt was de­ter­mined to put the plan in­to ef­fect. If it did noth­ing else it would prove he was ca­pa­ble of ex­ecut­ing a mur­der.

Wilt got up and un­wrapped the doll. In his in­te­ri­or di­alogue Eva was telling him what would hap­pen if Mavis Mot­tram got to hear about his dis­gust­ing be­haviour at the Pring­sheim’s.

‘You’d be the laugh­ing stock of the neigh­bour­hood,’ she said, ‘you’d nev­er live it down.’

Wouldn’t he though? Wilt smiled drunk­en­ly to him­self and went up­stairs. For once Eva was mis­tak­en. He might not live it down but Mrs Eva Wilt wouldn’t be around to gloat. She wouldn’t live at all.

Up­stairs in the bed­room he closed the cur­tains and laid the doll on the bed and looked for the valve which had elud­ed him the pre­vi­ous night. He found it and fetched a foot­pump from the garage. Five min­utes lat­er Judy was in good shape. She lay on the bed and smiled up at him. Wilt half closed his eyes and squint­ed at her. In the half dark­ness he had to ad­mit that she was hideous­ly life­like. Plas­tic Eva with the mas­tic boobs. All that re­mained was to dress it up. He rum­maged around in sev­er­al draw­ers in search of a bra and blouse, de­cid­ed she didn’t need a bra, and picked out an old skirt and a pair of tights. In a card­board box in the wardrobe he found one of Eva’s wigs. She had had a phase of wigs. Fi­nal­ly a pair of shoes. By the time he had fin­ished, Eva Wilt’s repli­ca lay on the bed smil­ing fixed­ly at the ceil­ing.

‘That’s my girl,’ said Wilt and went down to the kitchen to see how the boil-​in-​the-​bag was com­ing along. It was boil-​in-​the-​bag. Wilt turned the stove off and went in­to the lava­to­ry un­der the stairs and sat think­ing about his next move. He would use the doll for dum­my runs so that if and when it came to the day he would be ac­cus­tomed to the whole pro­cess of mur­der and would act with­out feel­ing like an au­toma­ton. Killing by con­di­tioned re­flex. Mur­der by habit. Then again he would know how to time the whole af­fair. And Eva’s go­ing off with the Pring­sheims for the week­end would help too. It would es­tab­lish a pat­tern of sud­den dis­ap­pear­ances. He would pro­voke her some­how to do it again and again and again. And then the vis­it to the doc­tor.

‘It’s just that I can’t sleep, doc­tor. My wife keeps on go­ing off and leav­ing me and I just can’t get used to sleep­ing on my own.’ A pre­scrip­tion for sleep­ing tablets. Then on the night. ‘I’ll make the Oval­tine tonight, dear. You’re look­ing tired. I’ll bring it up to you in bed.’ Grat­itude fol­lowed by snares. Down to the car…fair­ly ear­ly would be best…around ten thir­ty…over to the Tech and down the hole. Per­haps in­side a plas­tic bag…no, not a plas­tic bag. ‘I un­der­stand you bought a large plas­tic bag re­cent­ly, sir. I won­der if you would mind show­ing it to us.’ No, bet­ter just to leave her down the hole they were go­ing to fill with con­crete next morn­ing. And fi­nal­ly a be­wil­dered Wilt. He would go round to the Pring­sheims’. ‘Where’s Eva? Yes, you do. ‘No, we don’t.’ ‘Don’t lie to me. She’s al­ways com­ing round here.’ ‘We’re not ly­ing. We haven’t seen her.’ Af­ter that he would go to the po­lice.

Mo­tive­less, clue­less and in­dis­cov­er­able. And proof that he was a man who could act. Or wasn’t. What if he broke down un­der the strain and con­fessed? That would be some sort of vin­di­ca­tion too. He would know what sort of man he was one way or an­oth­er and at least he would have act­ed for once in his life. And fif­teen years in prison would be al­most iden­ti­cal to fif­teen, more, twen­ty years at the Tech con­fronting louts who de­spised him and talk­ing about Pig­gy and the Lord of the Flies. Be­sides he could al­ways plead the book as a mit­igat­ing cir­cum­stance at his tri­al.

‘Me lud, mem­bers of the ju­ry, I ask you to put your­self in the de­fen­dant’s place. For twelve years he has been con­front­ed by the ap­palling prospect of read­ing this dread­ful book to class­es of bored and hos­tile youths. He has had to en­dure ag­onies of rep­eti­tion, of nau­sea and dis­gust at Mr Gold­ing’s re­volt­ing­ly ro­man­tic view of hu­man na­ture. Ah, but I hear you say that Mr Gold­ing is not a ro­man­tic, that his view of hu­man na­ture as ex­pressed in his por­trait of a group of young boys ma­rooned on a desert is­land is the very op­po­site of ro­man­ti­cism and that the sen­ti­men­tal­ity of which I ac­cuse him and to which my client’s ap­pear­ance in this court at­tests is to be found not in The Lord of the Flies but in its pre­de­ces­sor, Coral Is­land. But, me lud, gen­tle­men of the ju­ry, there is such a thing as in­vert­ed ro­man­ti­cism, the ro­man­ti­cism of dis­il­lu­sion­ment, of pes­simism and of ni­hilism. Let us sup­pose for one mo­ment that my client had spent twelve years read­ing not Mr Gold­ing’s work but Coral Is­land to groups of ap­pren­tices,’ is it rea­son­able to imag­ine that he would have been driv­en to the des­per­ate rem­edy of mur­der­ing his wife? No. A hun­dred times no. Mr Bal­lan­tyne’s book would have giv­en him the in­spi­ra­tion, the self-​dis­ci­pline, the op­ti­mism and the be­lief in man’s abil­ity to res­cue him­self from the most des­per­ate sit­ua­tion by his own in­ge­nu­ity…’

It might not be such a good idea to pur­sue that line of ar­gu­ment too far. The de­fen­dant Wilt had af­ter all ex­er­cised a good deal of in­ge­nu­ity in res­cu­ing him­self from a des­per­ate sit­ua­tion…Still, it was a nice thought. Wilt fin­ished his busi­ness in the lava­to­ry and looked around for the toi­let pa­per. There wasn’t any. The bloody roll had run out. He reached in his pock­et and found Eva’s note and put it to good use. Then he flushed it down the U-​bend, puffed some Harpic af­ter it to ex­press his opin­ion of it and her and went out to the kitchen and helped him­self to an­oth­er gin.

He spent the rest of the evening sit­ting in front of the TV with a piece of bread and cheese and a tin of peach­es un­til it was time to try his first dum­my run. He went out to the front door and looked up and down the street. It was al­most dark now and there was no one in sight. Leav­ing the front door open he went up­stairs and fetched the doll and put it in the back seat of the car. He had to push and squeeze a bit to get it in but fi­nal­ly the door shut. Wilt climbed in and backed the car out in­to Parkview Av­enue and drove down to the round­about. By the time he reached the car park at the back of the Tech it was half past ten ex­act­ly. He stopped and sat in the car look­ing around. Not a soul in sight and no lights on. There wouldn’t be. The Tech closed at nine.

Chapter 6

Sal­ly lay naked on the deck of the cab­in cruis­er, her tight breasts point­ing to the sky and her legs apart. Be­side her Eva lay on her stom­ach and looked down­riv­er.

‘Oh God, this is di­vine,’ Sal­ly mur­mured. I have this deep thing about the coun­try­side.’

‘You’ve got this deep thing pe­ri­od,’ said Gaskell steer­ing the cruis­er er­rat­ical­ly to­wards a lock. He was wear­ing a Cap­tain’s cap and sun­glass­es.

‘Cliché ba­by,’ said Sal­ly.

‘We’re com­ing to a lock,’ said Eva anx­ious­ly. ‘There are some men there.’

‘Men? For­get men, dar­ling. There’s just you and me and G and G’s not a man, are you G ba­by?’

‘I have my mo­ments,’ said Gaskell.

‘But so sel­dom, so aw­ful­ly sel­dom,’ Sal­ly said. ‘Any­way what does it mat­ter? We’re here idyllic­style, cruis­ing down the riv­er in the good old sum­mer­time.’

‘Shouldn’t we have cleared the house up be­fore we left?’ Eva asked.

‘The se­cret of par­ties is not to clear up af­ter­ward but to clear off. We can do all that when we get back.’

Eva got up and went be­low. They were quite near the lock and she wasn’t go­ing to be stared at in the nude by the two old men sit­ting on the bench be­side it.

‘Je­sus, Sal­ly, can’t you do some­thing about soul­mate? She’s get­ting on my teats,’ said Gaskell.

‘Oh G ba­by, she’s nev­er. If she did you’d Cheshire cat.’

‘Cheshire cat?’

‘Dis­ap­pear with a smile, hon­ey chil’, foe­tus first. She’s but pos­itive­ly gar­gan­tu­an­ly uter­ine.’

‘She’s but pos­itive­ly gar­gan­tu­an­ly bor­ing.’

‘Time, lover, time. You’ve got to ac­cen­tu­ate the lib­er­at­ed, elim­inate the neg­ative and not mess with Mis­ter-​in-​be­tween.’

‘Not mess with Miss­es-​in-​be­tween. Op­er­ative word miss­es,’ said Gaskell bump­ing the boat in­to the lock.

‘But that’s the whole point’

‘What is?’ said Gaskell.

‘Mess­ing with Miss­es-​in-​be­tween. I mean it’s all ways with Eva and us. She does the house­work. Gaskell ba­by can play ship’s cap­tain and teat­feast on boobs and Sal­ly sweet­ie can mino­taur her labyrinthine mind.’

‘Mind?’ said Gaskell. ‘Polyun­sat­urat­ed hasn’t got a mind. And talk­ing of cretins, what about Mis­ter-​in-​be­tween?’

‘He’s got Judy to mess with. He’s prob­ably screw­ing her now and to­mor­row night he’ll sit up and watch Ko­jak with her. Who knows, he may even send her off to Mavis Con­tra­cun­tal Mot­tram’s Flow­er Ar­range­ment evening. I mean they’re suit­ed. You can’t say he wasn’t hooked on her last night.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Gaskell, and closed the lock gates.

As the cruis­er float­ed down­wards the two old men sit­ting on the bench stared at Sal­ly. She took off her sun­glass­es and glared at them.

‘Don’t blow your prostates, se­nior cit­izens,’ she said rude­ly. ‘Haven’t you seen a fan­ny be­fore?’

‘You talk­ing to me?’ said one of the men.

‘I wouldn’t be talk­ing to my­self.’

Then I’ll tell you,’ said the man, ‘I’ve seen one like yours be­fore. Once.’

‘Once is about right,’ said Sal­ly. ‘Where?’

‘On an old cow as had just dropped her calf,’ said the man and spat in­to a neat bed of gera­ni­ums.

In the cab­in Eva sat and won­dered what they were talk­ing about. She lis­tened to the lap­ping of the wa­ter and the throb of the en­gine and thought about Hen­ry. It wasn’t like him to do a thing like that. It re­al­ly wasn’t. And in front of all those peo­ple. He must have been drunk. It was so hu­mil­iat­ing. Well, he could suf­fer. Sal­ly said men ought to be made to suf­fer. It was part of the pro­cess of lib­er­at­ing your­self from them. You had to show them that you didn’t need them and vi­olence was the on­ly thing the male psy­che un­der­stood. That was why she was so harsh with Gaskell. Men were like an­imals. You had to show them who was mas­ter.

Eva went through to the gal­ley and pol­ished the stain­less steel sink. Hen­ry would have to learn how im­por­tant she was by miss­ing her and do­ing the house­work and cook­ing for him­self and when she got back she would give him such a telling-​off about that doll. I mean, it wasn’t nat­ural. Per­haps Hen­ry ought to go and see a psy­chi­atrist. Sal­ly said that he had made the most hor­ri­ble sug­ges­tion to her too. It on­ly went to show that you couldn’t trust any­one. And Hen­ry of all peo­ple. She would nev­er have imag­ined Hen­ry would think of do­ing any­thing like that. But Sal­ly had been so sweet and un­der­stand­ing. She knew how wom­en felt and she hadn’t even been, an­gry with Hen­ry.

‘It’s just that he’s a sphinc­ter ba­by,’ she had said. ‘It’s symp­tomat­ic of a male dom­inat­ed chau­vin­ist pig so­ci­ety. I’ve nev­er known an MCP who didn’t say “Bug­ger you” and mean it.’

‘Hen­ry’s al­ways say­ing bug­ger,’ Eva had ad­mit­ted. ‘It’s bug­ger this, and bug­ger that.’

‘There you are, Eva ba­by. What did I tell you? It’s se­man­tic degra­da­tion anal­wise.’

‘It’s bloody dis­gust­ing,’ said Eva and so it was.

She went on pol­ish­ing and clean­ing un­til they were clear of the lock and steer­ing down­riv­er to­wards the open wa­ter of the Broads. Then she went up on deck and sat look­ing out over the flat emp­ty land­scape at the sun­set. It was all so ro­man­tic and ex­cit­ing, so dif­fer­ent from ev­ery­thing she had known be­fore. This was life as she had al­ways dreamt it might be, rich and gay and ful­fill­ing. Eva Wilt sighed. In spite of ev­ery­thing she was at peace with the world.

In the car, park at the back of the Tech Hen­ry Wilt wasn’t at peace with any­thing. On the con­trary, he was at war with Eva’s repli­ca. As he stum­bled drunk­en­ly round the car and strug­gled with Judy he was con­scious that even an in­flat­able doll had a will of its own when it came to be­ing dragged out of small cars. Judy’s arms and legs got caught in things. If Eva be­haved in the same way on the night of her dis­pos­al he would have the dev­il’s own job get­ting her out of the car. He would have to tie her up in a neat bun­dle. That would be the best thing to do. Fi­nal­ly, by tug­ging at the doll’s legs, he hauled her out and laid her on the ground. Then he got back in­to the car to look for her wig. He found it un­der the seat and af­ter re­ar­rang­ing Judy’s skirt so that it wasn’t quite so re­veal­ing, he put the wig on her head. He looked round the car park at the ter­rapin huts and the main build­ing but there was no one to be seen. All clear. He picked the doll up and car­ry­ing it un­der his arm set off to­wards the build­ing site. Halfway there he re­alised that he wasn’t do­ing it prop­er­ly. Eva drugged and sleep­ing would be far too heavy to car­ry un­der his arm. He would have to use a fire­man’s lift. Wilt stopped and hoist­ed the doll on to his back, and set off again weav­ing er­rat­ical­ly, part­ly be­cause, thanks to the gin, he couldn’t help it, and part­ly be­cause it added verisimil­itude to the un­der­tak­ing. With Eva over his shoul­der he would be bound to weave a bit. He reached the fence and dropped the doll over. In the pro­cess the wig fell off again. Wilt groped around in the mud and found it. Then he went round to the gate. It was locked. It would be. He would have to re­mem­ber that. De­tails like that were im­por­tant. He tried to climb over but couldn’t. He need­ed some­thing to give him a leg up. A bi­cy­cle. There were usu­al­ly some in the racks by the main gate. Stuff­ing the wig in­to his pock­et Wilt made his way round the ter­rapin huts and past the can­teen and was just cross­ing the grass by the Lan­guage Lab when a fig­ure ap­peared out of the dark­ness and a torch shone in his face. It was the care­tak­er.

‘Here, where do you think you’re go­ing?’ the care­tak­er asked. Wilt halt­ed.

‘I’ve…I’ve just come back to get some notes from the Staff Room.’

‘Oh it’s you, Mr Wilt,’ said the care­tak­er. ‘You should know by now that you can’t get in at this time of night. We lock up at nine thir­ty.’

‘I’m sor­ry. I for­got,’ said Wilt.

The care­tak­er sighed. ‘Well, since it’s you and it’s just this once…’ he said, and un­locked the door to the Gen­er­al Stud­ies build­ing. ‘You’ll have to walk up. The lifts don’t work at this time of night. I’ll wait for you down here.’

Wilt stag­gered slow­ly up five flights of stairs to the Staff Room and went to his lock­er. He took out a hand­ful of pa­pers and a copy of Bleak House he’d been mean­ing to take home for some months and hadn’t. He stuffed the notes in­to his pock­et and found the wig. While he was about it he might as well pick up an elas­tic band. That would keep the wig on Judy’s head. He found some in a box in the sta­tionery cup­board, stuffed the notes in­to his oth­er pock­et and went down­stairs.

‘Thanks very much,’ he told the care­tak­er. ‘Sor­ry to have both­ered you.’ He wove off round the cor­ner to the bike sheds.

‘Pissed as a newt,’ said the care­tak­er, and went back in­to his of­fice.

Wilt watched him light his pipe and then turned his at­ten­tion to the bi­cy­cles. The bloody things were all locked. He would just have to car­ry one round. He put Bleak House in the bas­ket, picked the bike up and car­ried it all the way round to the fence. Then he climbed up and over and groped around in the dark­ness for the doll. In the end he found it and spent five min­utes try­ing to keep the wig on while he fas­tened the elas­tic band un­der her chin. It kept on jump­ing off. ‘Well, at least that’s one prob­lem I won’t have with Eva,’ he mut­tered to him­self when the wig was se­cured. Hav­ing sat­is­fied him­self that it wouldn’t come off he moved cau­tious­ly for­ward skirt­ing mounds of grav­el, ma­chines, sacks and re­in­forc­ing rods when it sud­den­ly oc­curred to him that he was run­ning a con­sid­er­able risk of dis­ap­pear­ing down one of the pile holes him­self. He put the doll down and fum­bled in his pock­et for the torch and shone it on the ground. Some yards ahead there was a large square of thick ply­wood. Wilt moved for­ward and lift­ed it. Un­der­neath was the hole, a nice big hole. Just the right size. She would fit in there per­fect­ly. He shone the torch down. Must be thir­ty feet deep. He pushed the ply­wood to one side and went back for the doll. The wig had fall­en off again.

‘Fuck,’ said Wilt, and reached in his pock­et for an­oth­er elas­tic band. Five min­utes lat­er Judy’s wig was firm­ly in place with four elas­tic bands fas­tened un­der her chin. That should do it. Now all he had to do was to drag the repli­ca to the hole and make sure it fit­ted. At this point Wilt hes­itat­ed. He was be­gin­ning to have doubts about the sound­ness of the scheme. Too many un­ex­pect­ed con­tin­gen­cies had arisen for his lik­ing. On the oth­er hand there was a sense of ex­hil­ara­tion about be­ing alone on the build­ing site in the mid­dle of the night. Per­haps it would be bet­ter if he went home now. No, he had to see the thing through. He would put the doll in­to the hole to make quite sure that it fit­ted. Then he would de­flate it and go home and re­peat the pro­cess un­til he had trained him­self to kill by proxy. He would keep the doll in the boot of the car. Eva nev­er looked there. And in fu­ture he would on­ly blow her up whew he reached the car park. That way Eva would have no idea what was go­ing on. Def­inite­ly not. Wilt smiled to him­self at the sim­plic­ity of the scheme. Then he picked Judy up and pushed her to­wards the hole feet first. She slid in eas­ily while Wilt leant for­ward. Per­fect. And at that mo­ment he slipped on the mud­dy ground. With a des­per­ate ef­fort which ne­ces­si­tat­ed let­ting go of the doll he hurled him­self to one side and grabbed at the ply­wood. He got to his feet cau­tious­ly and cursed. His trousers were cov­ered with mud and his hands were shak­ing.

‘Damned near went down my­self,’ he mut­tered, and looked around for Judy. But Judy had dis­ap­peared. Wilt reached for his torch and shone it down the hole. Halfway down the doll was wedged light­ly against the sides and for once the wig was still on. Wilt stared des­per­ate­ly down at the thing and won­dered what the hell to do. It–or she–must be at least twen­ty feet down. Fif­teen. Any­way a long way down and cer­tain­ly too far for him to reach. But still too near the top not to be clear­ly vis­ible to the work­men in the morn­ing. Wilt switched off the torch and pulled the ply­wood square so that it cov­ered half the hole. That way he wouldn’t be in dan­ger of join­ing the doll. Then he stood up and tried to think of ways of get­ting it out.

Rope with a hook on the end of it? He hadn’t a rope or a hook. He might be able to find a rope but hooks were an­oth­er mat­ter. Get a rope and tie it to some­thing and climb down it and bring the doll up? Cer­tain­ly not. It would be bad enough climb­ing down the rope with two hands but to think of climb­ing back up with one hand hold­ing the doll in the oth­er was sheer lu­na­cy. That way he would end up at the bot­tom of the hole him­self and if one thing was clear in his mind it was that he didn’t in­tend to be dis­cov­ered at the bot­tom of a thir­ty-​foot pile hole on Mon­day morn­ing clutch­ing a plas­tic fuck­ing doll with a cunt dressed in his wife’s clothes. That way lay dis­as­ter. Wilt vi­su­al­ized the scene in the Prin­ci­pal’s of­fice as he tried to ex­plain how he came to be…And any­way they might not find him or hear his yells. Those damned ce­ment lor­ries made a hell of a din and he bloody well wasn’t go­ing to risk be­ing buried un­der…Shit. Talk about po­et­ic jus­tice. No the on­ly thing to do was to get that fuck­ing doll down to the bot­tom of the hole and hope to hell that no one spot­ted it be­fore they poured the con­crete in. Well, at least that way he would learn if it was a sen­si­ble method of get­ting rid of Eva. There was that to be said for it. Ev­ery cloud had…

Wilt left the hole and looked around for some­thing to move Judy down to the bot­tom. He tried a hand­ful of grav­el but she mere­ly wob­bled a bit and stayed put. Some­thing weight­ier was need­ed. He went across to a pile of sand and scooped some in­to a plas­tic sack and poured it down the hole, but apart from adding an ex­tra di­men­sion of macabre re­al­ism to Mrs Wilt’s wig the sand did noth­ing. Per­haps if he dropped a brick on the doll it would burst. Wilt looked around for a brick and end­ed up with a large lump of clay. That would have to do. He dropped it down the hole. There was a thump, a rat­tle of grav­el and an­oth­er thump. Wilt shone his torch down. Judy had reached the bot­tom of the hole and had set­tled in­to a grotesque po­si­tion with her legs crum­pled up in front of her and one arm out­stretched to­wards him as if in sup­pli­ca­tion. Wilt fetched an­oth­er lump of clay and hurled it down. This time the wig slid side­ways and her head lolled. Wilt gave up. There was noth­ing more he could do. He pulled the ply­wood back over the hole and went back to the fence.

Here he ran in­to more trou­ble. The bi­cy­cle was on the oth­er side. He fetched a plank, leant it against the fence and climbed over. Now to car­ry the bike back to the shed. Oh bug­ger the bi­cy­cle. It could stay where it was. He was fed up with the whole busi­ness. He couldn’t even dis­pose of a plas­tic doll prop­er­ly. It was lu­di­crous to think that he could plan, com­mit and car­ry through a re­al mur­der with any hope of suc­cess. He must have been mad to think of it. It was all that blast­ed gin.

‘That’s right, blame the gin,’ Wilt mut­tered to him­self, as he trudged back to his car. ‘You had this idea months ago.’ He climbed in­to the car and sat there in the dark­ness won­der­ing what on earth had ev­er pos­sessed him to have fan­tasies of mur­der­ing Eva. It was in­sane, ut­ter­ly in­sane, and just as mad as to imag­ine that he could train him­self to be­come a cold-​blood­ed killer. Where had the idea orig­inat­ed from? What was it all about? All right, Eva was a stupid cow who made his life a mis­ery by nag­ging at him and by in­dulging a taste for East­ern mys­ti­cism with a fre­net­ic en­thu­si­asm cal­cu­lat­ed to de­range the sober­est of hus­bands, but why his ob­ses­sion with mur­der? Why the need to prove his man­li­ness by vi­olence? Where had he got that from? In the mid­dle of the car park, Hen­ry Wilt, sud­den­ly sober and clear-​head­ed, re­alised the ex­traor­di­nary ef­fect that ten years of Lib­er­al Stud­ies had had up­on him. For ten long years Plas­ter­ers Two and Meat One had been ex­posed to cul­ture in the shape of Wilt and The Lord of the Flies, and for as many years Wilt him­self had been ex­posed to the bar­bar­ity, the un­hesi­tat­ing readi­ness to com­mit vi­olence of Plas­ter­ers Two and Meat One. That was the gen­esis of it all. That and the un­re­al­ity of the lit­er­ature he had been forced to ab­sorb. For ten years Wilt had been the duct along which trav­elled crea­tures of imag­ina­tion, Nos­tro­mo, Jack and Pig­gy, Shane, crea­tures who act­ed and whose ac­tions ef­fect­ed some­thing. And all the time he saw him­self, mir­rored in their eyes, an in­ef­fec­tu­al pas­sive per­son re­spond­ing sole­ly to the dic­tates of cir­cum­stance. Wilt shook his head. And out of all that and the trau­mas of the past two days had been born this acte gra­tu­it, this se­mi-​crime, the sym­bol­ic mur­der of Eva Wilt.

He start­ed the car and drove out of the car park. He would go and see the Brain­trees. They would still be up and glad to see him and be­sides he need­ed to talk to some­one. Be­hind him on the build­ing site his notes on vi­olence and the Break-​Up of Fam­ily Life drift­ed about in the night wind and stuck in the mud.

Chapter 7

‘Na­ture is so li­bidi­nous.’ said Sal­ly, shin­ing a torch through the port­hole at the reeds. ‘I mean take bull­rush­es. I mean they’re pos­itive­ly archety­pal­ly phal­lus. Don’t you think so, G?’

‘Bull­rush­es?’ said Gaskell, gaz­ing help­less­ly at a chart. ‘Bull­rush­es do noth­ing for me.’

‘Maps nei­ther, by the look of it’

‘Charts, ba­by, charts.’

‘What’s in a name?’

‘Right now, a hell of a lot. We’re ei­ther in Frog­wa­ter Reach or Fen Broad. No telling which.’

‘Give me Fen Broad ev­ery time. I just adore broads. Eva sweet­heart, how’s about an­oth­er pot of cof­fee? I want to stay awake all night and watch the dawn come up over the bull­rush­es.’

‘Yes, well I don’t,’ said Gaskell. ‘Last night was enough for me. That crazy guy with the doll in the bath and Schei cut­ting him­self. That’s enough for one day. I’m go­ing to hit the sack.’

‘The deck,’ said Sal­ly, ‘hit the deck, G. Eva and I are sleep­ing down here. Three’s a crowd.’

‘Three? With boobs around it’s five at the least. OK, so I sleep on deck. We’ve got to be up ear­ly if we’re to get off this damned sand­bank.’

‘Has Cap­tain Pring­sheim strand­ed us, ba­by?’

‘It’s these charts. If on­ly they would give an ex­act in­di­ca­tion of depth.’

‘If you knew where we were, you’d prob­ably find they do. It’s no use know­ing it’s three feet–’

‘Fath­oms, hon­ey, fath­oms.’

‘Three fath­oms in Frog­wa­ter Reach if we’re re­al­ly in Fen Broad.’

‘Well, wher­ev­er we are, you’d bet­ter start hop­ing there’s a tide that will rise and float us off,’ said Gaskell.

‘And if there isn’t?’

‘Then we’ll have to think of some­thing else. Maybe some­one will come along and tow us off.’

‘Oh God, G, you’re the skil­fullest,’ said Sal­ly. ‘I mean why couldn’t we have just stayed out in the mid­dle? But no, you had to come steam­ing up this creek wham in­to a mud­bank and all be­cause of what? Ducks, god­damned ducks.’

‘Waders, ba­by, waders. Not just ducks.’

‘OK, so they’re waders. You want to pho­to­graph them so now we’re stuck where no one in their right minds would come in a boat. Who do you think is go­ing to come up here? Jonathan Seag­ull?’

In the gal­ley Eva made cof­fee. She was wear­ing the bright red plas­tic biki­ni Sal­ly had lent her. It was rather too small for her so that she bulged round it un­com­fort­ably and it was re­veal­ing­ly tight but at least it was bet­ter than go­ing around naked even though Sal­ly said nu­di­ty was be­ing lib­er­at­ed and look at the Ama­zo­ni­an In­di­ans. She should have brought her own things but Sal­ly had in­sist­ed on hur­ry­ing and now all she had were the lemon loungers and the biki­ni. Hon­est­ly Sal­ly was so au­tho­ra…au­tho­ra­some­thing…well, bossy then.

‘Du­al-​pur­pose plas­tic, ba­by, apron­wise,’ she had said, ‘and G has this thing about plas­tic, haven’t you, G?’

‘Bio-​degrad­ably yes.’

‘Bio-​degrad­ably?’ asked Eva, hop­ing to be ini­ti­at­ed in­to some new as­pect of wom­en’s lib­er­ation.

‘Plas­tic bot­tles that dis­in­te­grate in­stead of ly­ing around mak­ing an eco­log­ical swamp,’ said Sal­ly, open­ing a port­hole and drop­ping an emp­ty cigar pack­et over the side, ‘that’s G’s life­work. That and re­cy­cla­bil­ity. In­fi­nite re­cy­cla­bil­ity.’

‘Right,’ said Gaskell. ‘We’ve got in-​built ob­so­les­cence in the au­to­mo­tive field where it’s out­mod­ed. So what we need now is in-​built bio-​degrad­able del­iques­cence in ephemera.’

Eva lis­tened un­com­pre­hend­ing­ly but with the feel­ing that she was some­how at the cen­tre of an in­tel­lec­tu­al world far sur­pass­ing that of Hen­ry and his friends who talked about new de­gree cours­es and their stu­dents so bor­ing­ly.

‘We’ve got a com­post heap at the bot­tom of the gar­den,’ she said when she fi­nal­ly un­der­stood what they were talk­ing about. ‘I put the pota­to peel­ings and odds and ends on it.’

Gaskell raised his eyes to the cab­in roof. Cor­rec­tion. Deck­head.

‘Talk­ing of odds and ends.’ said Sal­ly, run­ning a fond hand over Eva’s bot­tom, ‘I won­der how Hen­ry is get­ting along with Judy.’

Eva shud­dered. The thought of Hen­ry and the doll ly­ing in the bath still haunt­ed her.

‘I can’t think what had got in­to him.’ she said, and looked dis­ap­prov­ing­ly at Gaskell when he snig­gered. ‘I mean it’s not as if he has ev­er been un­faith­ful or any­thing like that. And lots of hus­bands are. Patrick Mot­tram is al­ways go­ing off and hav­ing af­fairs with oth­er wom­en but Hen­ry’s been very good in that re­spect. He may be qui­et and not very push­ing but no one could call him a gad­about.’

‘Oh sure,’ said Gaskell, ’so he’s got a hang-​up about sex. My heart bleeds for him.’

‘I don’t see why you should say he’s got some­thing wrong with him be­cause he’s faith­ful,’ said Eva.

‘G didn’t mean that, did you, G?’ said Sal­ly. ‘He meant that there has to be true free­dom in a mar­riage. No dom­inance, no jeal­ousy, no pos­ses­sion. Right, G?’

‘Right.’ said Gaskell.

‘The test of true love is when you can watch your wife hav­ing it off with some­one else and still love her,’ Sal­ly went on.

‘I could nev­er watch Hen­ry…’ said Eva. ‘Nev­er.’

‘So you don’t love him. You’re in­se­cure. You don’t trust him.’

‘Trust him?’ said Eva. ‘If Hen­ry went to bed with an­oth­er wom­an I don’t see how I could trust him. I mean if that’s what he wants to do why did he mar­ry me?’

‘That,’ said Gaskell. ‘is the six­ty-​four-​thou­sand dol­lar ques­tion.’ He picked up his sleep­ing bag and went out on deck. Be­hind him Eva had be­gun to cry.

‘There, there,’ said Sal­ly, putting her arm round her. ‘G was just kid­ding. He didn’t mean any­thing.’

‘It’s not that.’ said Eva, ‘it’s just that I don’t un­der­stand any­thing any more. It’s all so com­pli­cat­ed.’

‘Christ, you look bloody aw­ful,’ said Pe­ter Brain­tree as Wilt stood on the doorstep.

‘I feel bloody aw­ful,’ said Wilt. ‘It’s all this gin.’

‘You mean Eva’s not back?’ said Brain­tree, lead­ing the way down the pas­sage to the kitchen.

‘She wasn’t there when I got home. Just a note say­ing she was go­ing away with the Pring­sheims to think things over.’

‘To think things over? Eva? What things?’

‘Well…’ Wilt be­gan and thought bet­ter of it, ‘that busi­ness with Sal­ly I sup­pose. She says she won’t ev­er for­give me.’

‘But you didn’t do any­thing with Sal­ly. That’s what you told me.’

‘I know I didn’t. That’s the whole point. If I had done what that nympho­ma­ni­ac bitch want­ed there wouldn’t have been all this bloody trou­ble.’

‘I don’t see that, Hen­ry. I mean if you had done what she want­ed Eva would have had some­thing to grum­ble about. I don’t see why she should be up in the air be­cause you didn’t.’

‘Sal­ly must have told her that I did do some­thing,’ said Wilt, de­ter­mined not to men­tion the in­ci­dent in the bath­room with the doll.

‘You mean the blow job?’

‘I don’t know what I mean. What is a blow job any­way?’

Pe­ter Brain­tree looked puz­zled

‘I’m not too sure,’ he said, ‘but it’s ob­vi­ous­ly some­thing you don’t want your hus­band to do. If I came home and told Bet­ty I’d done a blow job she’d think I’d been rob­bing a bank.’

‘I wasn’t go­ing to do it any­way,’ said Wilt. ‘She was go­ing to do it to me.’

‘Per­haps it’s a suck off,’ said Brain­tree, putting a ket­tle on the stove. ‘That’s what it sounds like to me.’

‘Well it didn’t sound like that to me,’ said Wilt with a shud­der. ‘She made it sound like a paint-​peel­ing ex­er­cise with a blow lamp. You should have seen the look on her face.’

He sat down at the kitchen ta­ble de­spon­dent­ly.

Brain­tree eyed him cu­ri­ous­ly. ‘You cer­tain­ly seem to have been in the wars,’ he said.

Wilt looked down at his trousers. They were cov­ered with mud and there were round patch­es caked to his knees. ‘Yes…well…well I had a punc­ture on the way here,’ he ex­plained with lack of con­vic­tion. ‘I had to change a tyre and I knelt down. I was a bit pissed.’

Pe­ter Brain­tree grunt­ed doubt­ful­ly. It didn’t sound very con­vinc­ing to him. Poor old Hen­ry was ob­vi­ous­ly a bit un­der the weath­er. ‘You can wash up in the sink,’ he said.

Present­ly Bet­ty Brain­tree came down­stairs. ‘I couldn’t help hear­ing what you said about Eva,’ she said. ‘I’m so sor­ry. Hen­ry. I wouldn’t wor­ry. She’s bound to come back.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ said Wilt, gloomi­ly, ‘and any­way I’m not so sure I want her back.’

‘Oh, Eva’s all right,’ Bet­ty said. ‘She gets these sud­den urges and en­thu­si­asms but they don’t last long. It’s just the way she’s made. It’s easy come and easy go with Eva.’

‘I think that’s what’s wor­ry­ing Hen­ry,’ said Brain­tree, ‘the easy come bit.’

‘Oh sure­ly not. Eva isn’t that sort at all.’

Wilt sat at the kitchen ta­ble and sipped his cof­fee. ‘I wouldn’t put any­thing past her in the com­pa­ny she’s keep­ing now,’ he mut­tered lugubri­ous­ly. ‘Re­mem­ber what hap­pened when she went through, that mac­ro­bi­ot­ic di­et phase? Dr Man­nix told me I was the near­est thing to a case of scurvy he’d seen since the Bur­ma rail­way. And then there was that episode with the tram­po­line. She went to a Keep Fit Class at Bul­ham Vil­lage Col­lege and bought her­self a fuck­ing tram­po­line. You know she put old Mrs Port­way in hos­pi­tal with that con­trap­tion.’

‘I knew there was some sort of ac­ci­dent but Eva nev­er told me what ac­tu­al­ly hap­pened,’ said Bet­ty.

‘She wouldn’t. It was a rud­dy mir­acle we didn’t get sued,’ said Wilt. ‘It threw Mrs Port­way clean through the green­house roof. There was glass all over the lawn and it wasn’t even as though Mrs Port­way was a healthy wom­an at the best of times.’

‘Wasn’t she the wom­an with the rheuma­toid arthri­tis?’

Wilt nod­ded dis­mal­ly. ‘And the du­elling scars on her face,’ he said. ‘That was our green­house, that was.’

‘I must say I can think of bet­ter places for tram­po­lines than green­hous­es,’ said Brain­tree. ‘It wasn’t a very big green­house was it?’

‘It wasn’t a very big tram­po­line ei­ther, thank God,’ said Wilt, ’she’d have been in or­bit oth­er­wise.’

‘Well it all goes to prove one thing,’ said Bet­ty, look­ing on the bright side, ‘Eva may do crazy things but she soon, gets over them.’

‘Mrs Port­way didn’t.’ said Wilt, not to be com­fort­ed. ‘She was in hos­pi­tal for six weeks and the skin grafts didn’t take. She hasn’t been near our house since.’

‘You’ll see. Eva will get fed up with these Pring­sheim peo­ple in a week or two. They’re just an­oth­er fad.’

‘A fad with a lot of ad­van­tages if you ask me,’ said Wilt. ‘Mon­ey, sta­tus and sex­ual promis­cu­ity. All the things I couldn’t give her and all dressed up in a lot of in­tel­lec­tu­al clap­trap about Wom­en’s Lib and vi­olence and the in­tol­er­ance of tol­er­ance and the rev­olu­tion of the sex­es and you’re not ful­ly ma­ture un­less you’re am­bi­sex­trous. It’s enough to make you vom­it and it’s just the sort of crap Eva would fall for. I mean she’d buy rot­ten her­rings if some clown up the so­cial scale told her they were the so­phis­ti­cat­ed things to eat. Talk about be­ing gullible!’

‘The thing is that Eva’s got too much en­er­gy,’ said Bet­ty. You should try and per­suade her to get a full-​time job.’

‘Full-​time job?’ said Wilt. ‘She’s had more full-​time jobs than I’ve had hot din­ners. Mind you, that’s not say­ing much these days. All I ev­er get is a cold sup­per and a note say­ing she’s gone to Pot­tery or Tran­scen­den­tal Med­ita­tion or some­thing equal­ly half-​baked. And any­way Eva’s idea of a job is to take over the fac­to­ry. Re­mem­ber Pot­ters, that en­gi­neer­ing firm that went broke af­ter a strike a cou­ple of years ago? Well, if you ask me that was Eva’s fault. She got this job with a con­sul­tan­cy firm do­ing time and mo­tion study and they sent her out to the fac­to­ry and the next thing any­one knew they had a strike on their hands.’

They went on talk­ing for an­oth­er hour un­til the Brain­trees asked him to stay the night. But Wilt wouldn’t. ‘I’ve got things to do to­mor­row.’

‘Such as?’

‘Feed the dog for one thing.’

‘You can al­ways drive over and do that. Clem won’t starve overnight’

But Wilt was too im­mersed in self-​pity to be per­suad­ed and be­sides he was still wor­ried about that doll. He might have an­oth­er go at get­ting the thing out of that hole. He drove home and went to bed in a tan­gle of sheets and blan­kets. He hadn’t made it in the morn­ing.

‘Poor old Hen­ry.’ said Bet­ty as she and Pe­ter went up­stairs. ‘He did look pret­ty aw­ful.’

‘He said he’d had a punc­ture and had to change the wheel.’

‘I wasn’t think­ing of his clothes. It was the look on his face that wor­ried me. You don’t drink he’s on the verge of a break­down?’

Pe­ter Brain­tree shook his head. ‘You’d look like that if you had Gas­fit­ters Three and Plas­ter­ers Two ev­ery day of your life for ten years and then your wife ran away,’ he told her.

‘Why don’t they give him some­thing bet­ter to teach?’

‘Why? Be­cause the Tech wants to be­come a Poly and they keep start­ing new de­gree cours­es and hir­ing peo­ple with PhDs to teach them and then the stu­dents don’t en­rol and they’re lum­bered with spe­cial­ists like Dr Fitz­patrick who knows all there is to know about child labour in four cot­ton mills in Manch­ester in 1837 and damn all about any­thing else. Put him in front of a class of Day Re­lease Ap­pren­tices and all hell would break loose. As it is I have to go in­to his A-​lev­el class­es once a week and tell them to shut up. On the oth­er hand Hen­ry looks, meek but he can cape with row­dies. He’s too good at his job. That’s his trou­ble and be­sides he’s not a bum suck­er and that’s the kiss of death at the Tech. If you don’t lick ar­ses you get nowhere.’

‘You know,’ said Bet­ty, ‘teach­ing at that place has done hor­ri­ble things to your lan­guage.’

‘It’s done hor­ri­ble things to my out­look on life, nev­er mind my lan­guage,’ said Brain­tree. ‘It’s enough to drive a man to drink.’

‘It cer­tain­ly seems to have done that to Hen­ry. His breath reeked of gin.’

‘He’ll get over it’

But Wilt didn’t. He woke in the morn­ing with the feel­ing that some­thing was miss­ing quite apart from Eva. That bloody doll. He lay in bed try­ing to think of some way of re­triev­ing the thing be­fore the work­men ar­rived on the site on Mon­day morn­ing but apart from pour­ing a can of petrol down the hole and light­ing it, which seemed on re­flec­tion the best way of draw­ing at­ten­tion to the fact that he had stuffed a plas­tic doll dressed in his wife’s clothes down there, he could think of noth­ing prac­ti­cal. He would just have to trust to luck.

When the Sun­day pa­pers came he got out of bed and went down to read them over his All-​Bran. Then he fed the dog and mooched about the house in his py­ja­mas, walked down to the Fer­ry Path inn for lunch, slept in the af­ter­noon and watched the box all evening. Then he made the bed and got in­to it and spent a rest­less night won­der­ing where Eva was, what she was do­ing and why, since he had oc­cu­pied so many fruit­less hours spec­ulat­ing on ways of get­ting rid of her homi­ci­dal­ly, he should be in the least con­cerned now that she had gone of her own ac­cord.

‘I mean if I didn’t want this to hap­pen why did I keep think­ing up ways of killing her,’ he thought at two o’clock. ‘Sane peo­ple don’t go for walks with a Labrador and de­vise schemes for mur­der­ing their wives when they can just as eas­ily di­vorce them.’ There was prob­ably some foul psy­cho­log­ical rea­son for it. Wilt could think of sev­er­al him­self, rather too many in fact to be able to de­cide which was the most like­ly one. In any case a psy­cho­log­ical ex­pla­na­tion de­mand­ed a de­gree of self-​knowl­edge which Wilt, who wasn’t at all sure he had a self to know, felt was de­nied him. Ten years of Plas­ter­ers Two and Ex­po­sure to Bar­barism had at least giv­en him the in­sight to know that there was an an­swer for ev­ery ques­tion and it didn’t much mat­ter what an­swer you gave so long as you gave it con­vinc­ing­ly. In the four­teenth cen­tu­ry they would have said the dev­il put such thoughts in­to his head, now in a post Fre­duian world it had to be a com­plex or, to be re­al­ly up to date, a chem­ical im­bal­ance. In a hun­dred years they would have come up with some com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent ex­pla­na­tion. With the com­fort­ing thought that the truths of one age were the ab­sur­di­ties of an­oth­er and that it didn’t much mat­ter what you thought so long as you did the right thing, and in his view he did, Wilt fi­nal­ly fell asleep.

At sev­en he was wo­ken by the alarm clock and by half past eight had parked his car in the park­ing lot be­hind the Tech. He walked past the build­ing site where the work­men were al­ready at work. Then he went up to the Staff Room and looked out of the win­dow. The square of ply­wood was still in place cov­er­ing the hole but the pile-​bor­ing ma­chine had been backed away. They had ev­ident­ly fin­ished with it.

At five to nine he col­lect­ed twen­ty-​five copies of Shane from the cup­board and took them across to Mo­tor Me­chan­ics Three. Shane was the ide­al so­porif­ic. It would keep the brutes qui­et while he sat and watched what hap­pened down be­low. Room 593 in the En­gi­neer­ing block gave him a grand­stand view. Wilt filled in the reg­is­ter and hand­ed out copies of Shane and told the class to get on with it. He said it with a good deal more vigour than was usu­al even for a Mon­day morn­ing and the class set­tled down to con­sid­er the plight of the home­stead­ers while Wilt stared out of the win­dow, ab­sorbed in a more im­me­di­ate dra­ma.

A lor­ry with a re­volv­ing drum filled with liq­uid con­crete had ar­rived on the site and was back­ing slow­ly to­wards the ply­wood square. It stopped and there was an ag­onis­ing wait while the driv­er climbed down from the cab and lit a cigarette. An­oth­er man, ev­ident­ly the fore­man, came out of a wood­en hut and wan­dered across to the lor­ry and present­ly a lit­tle group was gath­ered round the hole. Wilt got up from his desk and went over to the win­dow. Why the hell didn’t they get a move on? Fi­nal­ly the driv­er got back in­to his cab and two men re­moved the ply­wood. The fore­man sig­nalled to the driv­er. The chute for the con­crete was swung in­to po­si­tion. An­oth­er sig­nal. The drums be­gan to tilt. The con­crete was com­ing. Wilt watched as it be­gan to pour down the chute and just at that mo­ment the fore­man looked down the hole. So did one of the work­men. The next in­stant all hell had bro­ken loose. There were fran­tic sig­nals and shouts from the fore­man. Through the win­dow Wilt watched the open mouths and the ges­tic­ula­tions but still the con­crete came. Wilt shut his eyes and shud­dered. They had found that fuck­ing doll.

Out­side on the build­ing site the, air was chick with mis­un­der­stand­ing.

‘What’s that? I’m pour­ing as fast as I can.’ shout­ed the driv­er, mis­con­stru­ing the fren­zied sig­nals of the fore­man. He pulled the lever still fur­ther and the con­crete flood in­creased. The next mo­ment he was aware that he had made some sort of mis­take. The fore­man was wrench­ing at the door of the cab and scream­ing blue mur­der.

‘Stop, for God’s sake stop,’ he shout­ed. ‘There’s a wom­an down that hole!’

‘A what?’ said the driv­er, and switched off the en­gine.

‘A fuck­ing wom­an and look what you’ve been and fuck­ing done. I told you to stop. I told you to stop pour­ing and you went on. You’ve been and poured twen­ty tons of liq­uid con­crete on her.’

The driv­er climbed down from his cab and went round to the chute where the last trick­les of ce­ment were still slid­ing hes­itant­ly in­to the hole.

‘A wom­an?’ he said. ‘What? Down that hole? What’s she do­ing down there?’

The fore­man stared at him de­mon­ical­ly. ‘Do­ing?’ he bel­lowed, ‘what do you think she’s do­ing? What would you be do­ing if you’d just had twen­ty tons of liq­uid con­crete dumped on top of you? Fuck­ing drown­ing, that’s what.’

The driv­er scratched his head. ‘Well I didn’t know she was down there. How was I to know? You should have told me.’

‘Told you?’ shrieked the fore­man. ‘I told you. I told you to stop. You weren’t lis­ten­ing.’

‘I thought you want­ed me to pour faster. I couldn’t hear what you were say­ing.’

‘Well, ev­ery oth­er bug­ger could,’ yelled the fore­man. Cer­tain­ly Wilt in Room 593 could. He stared wild-​eyed out of the win­dow as the pan­ic spread. Be­side him Mo­tor Me­chan­ics Three had lost all in­ter­est in Shane. They clus­tered at the win­dow and watched.

‘Are you quite sure?’ asked the driv­er.

‘Sure? Course I’m sure,’ yelled the fore­man. ‘Ask Bar­ney.’

The oth­er work­man, ev­ident­ly Bar­ney, nod­ded. ‘She was down there all right. I’ll vouch for that. All crum­pled up she was. She had one hand up in the air and her legs was…’

‘Je­sus,’ said the driv­er, vis­ibly shak­en. ‘What the hell are we go­ing to do now?’

It was a ques­tion that had been both­er­ing Wilt. Call the Po­lice, pre­sum­ably. The fore­man con­firmed his opin­ion. ‘Get the cops. Get an am­bu­lance. Get the Fire Brigade and get a pump. For God’s sake get a pump.’

‘Pump’s no good,’ said the driv­er, ‘you’ll nev­er pump that con­crete out of there, not in a month of Sun­days. Any­way it wouldn’t do any good. She’ll be dead by now. Crushed to death. Wouldn’t drown with twen­ty tons on her. Why didn’t she say some­thing?’

‘Would it have made any dif­fer­ence if she had?’ asked the fore­man hoarse­ly. ‘You’d have still gone on pour­ing.’

‘Well, how did she get down there in the first place?’ said the driv­er, to change the sub­ject.

‘How the fuck would I know. She must have fall­en…’

‘And pulled that ply­wood sheet over her, I sup­pose,’ said Bar­ney, who clear­ly had a prac­ti­cal turn of mind. ‘She was bloody mur­dered.’

‘We all know that,’ squawked the fore­man. ‘By Chris here. I told him to stop pour­ing. You heard me. Ev­ery­one for half a mile must have heard me but not Chris. Oh, no, he has to go on–’

‘She was mur­dered be­fore she was put down the hole,’ said Bar­ney. ‘That wood­en cov­er wouldn’t have been there if she had fall­en down her­self.’

The fore­man wiped his face with a hand­ker­chief and looked at the square of ply­wood. ‘There is that to it,’ he mut­tered. ‘No one can say we didn’t take prop­er safe­ty pre­cau­tions. You’re right. She must have been mur­dered. Oh, my God!’

‘Sex crime, like as not,’ said Bar­ney. ‘Raped and stran­gled her. That or some­one’s mis­sus. You mark my words. She was all crum­pled up and that hand…I’ll nev­er for­get that hand, not if I live to be a hun­dred.’

The fore­man stared at him livid­ly. He seemed in­ca­pable of ex­press­ing, his feel­ings. So was Wilt. He went back to his desk and sat with his head in his hands while the class gaped out of the win­dow and tried to catch what was be­ing said. Present­ly sirens sound­ed in the dis­tance and grew loud­er. A po­lice car ar­rived, four fire en­gines hur­tled in­to the car park and an am­bu­lance fol­lowed. As more and more uni­formed men gath­ered around what had once been a hole in the ground it be­came ap­par­ent that get­ting the doll down there had been a damned sight eas­ier than get­ting it out.

‘That con­crete starts set­ting in twen­ty min­utes.’ the driv­er ex­plained when a pump was sug­gest­ed for the umpteenth time. An In­spec­tor of Po­lice and the Fire Chief stared down at the hole.

‘Are you sure you saw a wom­an’s body down there?’ the In­spec­tor asked. ‘You’re pos­itive about it?’

‘Pos­itive?’ squeaked the fore­man. ‘Course I’m pos­itive. You don’t think…Tell them, Bar­ney. He saw her too.’

Bar­ney told the In­spec­tor even more graph­ical­ly than be­fore. ‘She had this hair see and her hand was reach­ing up like it was ask­ing for help and there were these fin­gers…I tell you it was hor­ri­ble. It didn’t look nat­ural.’

‘No, well, it wouldn’t,’ said the In­spec­tor sym­pa­thet­ical­ly. ‘And you say there was a board on top of the hole when you ar­rived this morn­ing.’

The fore­man ges­tic­ulat­ed silent­ly and Bar­ney showed them the board. ‘I was stand­ing on it at one time,’ he said. ‘It was here all right so help me God.’

‘The thing is, how are we to get her out?’ said the Fire Chief. It was a point that was put to the man­ag­er of the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny when he fi­nal­ly ar­rived on the scene. ‘God alone, knows,’ he said. ‘There’s no easy way of get­ting that con­crete out now. We’d have to use drills to get down thir­ty feet’

At the end of the hour they were no near­er a so­lu­tion to the prob­lem. As the Mo­tor Me­chan­ics dragged them­selves away from this fas­ci­nat­ing sit­ua­tion to go to Tech­ni­cal Draw­ing, Wilt col­lect­ed the un­read copies of Shane and walked across to the Staff Room in a state of shock. The on­ly con­so­la­tion he could think of was that it would take them at least two or three days to dig down and dis­cov­er that what had all the ap­pear­ances of be­ing the body of a mur­dered wom­an was in fact an in­flat­able doll. Or had been once. Wilt rather doubt­ed if it would be in­flat­ed now. There had been some­thing hor­ri­bly in­tractable about that liq­uid con­crete.

Chapter 8

There was some­thing hor­ri­bly in­tractable about the mud­bank on which the cab­in cruis­er had ground­ed. To add to their trou­bles the en­gine had gone wrong. Gaskell said it was a bro­ken con rod.

‘Is that se­ri­ous?’ asked Sal­ly.

‘It just means we’ll have to be towed to a boat­yard.’

‘By what?’

‘By a pass­ing cruis­er I guess,’ said Gaskell.

Sal­ly looked over the side at the bull­rush­es.

‘Pass­ing?’ she said. ‘We’ve been here all night and half the morn­ing and noth­ing has passed so far and if it did we wouldn’t be able to see it for all these fuck­ing bull­rush­es.’

‘I thought bull­rush­es did some­thing for you.’

‘That was yes­ter­day,’ snapped Sal­ly. ‘To­day they just mean we’re in­vis­ible to any­one more than fifty feet away. And now you’ve screwed the mo­tor. I told you not to rev it like that.’

‘So how was I to know it would bust a con rod,’ said Gaskell. ‘I was just try­ing to get us off this mud­bank. You just tell me how I’m sup­posed to do it with­out revving the god­dam mo­tor.’

‘You could get out and push.’

Gaskell peered over the side. ‘I could get out and drown,’ he said.

‘So the boat would be lighter,’ said Sal­ly. ‘We’ve all got to make sac­ri­fices and you said the tide would float us off.’

‘Well I was mis­tak­en. That’s fresh wa­ter down there and means the tide doesn’t reach this far.’

‘Now he tells me. First we’re in Frog­wa­ter Beach…’

‘Reach,’ said Gaskell.

‘Frog­wa­ter wher­ev­er. Then we’re in Fen Broad. Now where are we for God’s sake?’

‘On a mud­bank,’ said Gaskell.

In the cab­in Eva bus­tled about. There wasn’t much space for bustling but what there was she put to good use. She made the bunks and put the bed­ding away in the lock­ers un­der­neath and she plumped the cush­ions and emp­tied the ash­trays. She swept the floor and pol­ished the ta­ble and wiped the win­dows and dust­ed the shelves and gen­er­al­ly made ev­ery­thing as neat and tidy as it was pos­si­ble to make it. And all the time her thoughts got un­ti­di­er and more mud­dled so that by the time she was fin­ished and ev­ery ob­ject in­sight was in its right place and the whole cab­in prop­er­ly ar­ranged she was quite con­fused and in two minds about near­ly ev­ery­thing.

The Pring­sheims were ev­er so so­phis­ti­cat­ed and rich and in­tel­lec­tu­al and said clever things all the time but they were al­ways quar­relling and get­ting at one an­oth­er about some­thing and to be hon­est they were quite im­prac­ti­cal and didn’t know the first thing about hy­giene. Gaskell went to the lava­to­ry and didn’t wash his hands af­ter­wards and good­ness on­ly knew when he had last had a shave. And look at the way they had walked out of the house in Rossiter Grove with­out clear­ing up af­ter the par­ty and the liv­ing-​room all over cups and things. Eva had been quite shocked. She would nev­er have left her house in that sort of mess. She had said as much to Sal­ly but Sal­ly had said how non­spon­ta­neous could you get and any­way they were on­ly rent­ing the house for the sum­mer and that it was typ­ical of a male-​ori­ent­ed so­cial sys­tem to ex­pect a wom­an to en­ter a con­trac­tu­al re­la­tion­ship based up­on fe­male do­mes­tic servi­tude. Eva tried to fol­low her and was left feel­ing guilty be­cause she couldn’t and be­cause, it was ev­ident­ly in­fra dig to be house­proud and she was.

And then there was what Hen­ry had been do­ing with that doll. It was so un­like Hen­ry to do any­thing like that and the more she thought about it the more un­like Hen­ry it be­came. He must have been drunk but even so…with­out his clothes on? And where had he found the doll? She had asked Sal­ly and had been hor­ri­fied to learn that Gaskell was mad about plas­tic and just adored play­ing games with Judy and men were like that and so to the on­ly mean­ing­ful re­la­tion­ships be­ing be­tween wom­en be­cause wom­en didn’t need to prove their viril­ity by any overt act of ex­tra­sex­ual vi­olence did they? By which time Eva was lost in a maze of words she didn’t un­der­stand but which sound­ed im­por­tant and they had had an­oth­er ses­sion of Touch Ther­apy.

And that was an­oth­er thing she was in two minds about. Touch Ther­apy. Sal­ly had said she was still in­hib­it­ed and be­ing in­hib­it­ed was a sign of emo­tion­al and sen­sa­tion­al im­ma­tu­ri­ty. Eva bat­tled with her mixed feel­ings about the mat­ter. On the one hand she didn’t want to be emo­tion­al­ly and sen­sa­tion­al­ly im­ma­ture and if the re­vul­sion she felt ly­ing naked in the arms of an­oth­er wom­an was any­thing to go by and in Eva’s view the nas­ti­er a medicine tast­ed the more like­ly it was to do you good, then she was cer­tain­ly im­prov­ing her psy­cho-​sex­ual be­haviour pat­tern by leaps and bounds. On the oth­er hand she wasn’t al­to­geth­er con­vinced that Touch Ther­apy was quite nice. It was on­ly by the ap­pli­ca­tion of con­sid­er­able will-​pow­er that she over­came her ob­jec­tions to it and even so there was an un­der­tow of doubt about the pro­pri­ety of be­ing touched quite so sen­sa­tion­al­ly. It was all very puz­zling and to cap it all she was on the Pill. Eva had ob­ject­ed very strong­ly and had point­ed out that Hen­ry and she had al­ways want­ed ba­bies and she’d nev­er had any but Sal­ly had in­sist­ed.

‘Eva ba­by,’ she had said, ‘with Gaskell one just nev­er knows. Some­times he goes for months with­out so much as a twitch and then, bam, he comes all over the place. He’s to­tal­ly undis­crim­inat­ing.’

‘But I thought you said you had this big thing be­tween you,’ Eva said.

‘Oh, sure. In a blue moon. Sci­en­tists sub­li­mate and G just lives for plas­tic. And we wouldn’t want you to go back to Hen­ry with G’s genes in your ovum, now would we?’

‘Cer­tain­ly not,’ said Eva hor­ri­fied at the thought and had tak­en the pill af­ter break­fast be­fore go­ing through to the tiny gal­ley to wash up. It was all so dif­fer­ent from Tran­scen­den­tal Med­ita­tion and Pot­tery.

On deck Sal­ly and Gaskell were still wran­gling.

‘What the hell are you giv­ing brain­less boobs?’ Gaskell asked.

‘TT, Body Con­tact. Tac­tile Lib­er­ation,’ said Sal­ly. ‘She’s sen­su­al­ly de­prived’

‘She’s men­tal­ly de­prived too. I’ve met some dum­mies in my time but this one is the dimwit­ti­est. Any­way, I meant those pills she takes at break­fast.’

Sal­ly smiled. ‘Oh those,’ she said.

‘Yes those. You blow­ing what lit­tle mind she’s got or some­thing?’ said Gaskell. ‘We’ve got enough trou­bles with­out Mo­by Dick tak­ing a trip.’

‘Oral con­tra­cep­tives, ba­by, just the plain old Pill.’

‘Oral con­tra­cep­tives? What the hell for? I wouldn’t touch her with a ster­ilised stir­ring rod.’

‘Gaskell, hon­ey, you’re so naïve. For au­then­tic­ity, pure au­then­tic­ity. It makes my re­la­tion­ship with her so much more re­al, don’t you think. Like wear­ing a rub­ber on a dil­do.’

Gaskell gaped at her. ‘Je­sus, you don’t mean you’ve…’

‘Not yet. Long John Sil­ver is still in his bag but one of these days when she’s a lit­tle more eman­ci­pat­ed…’ She smiled wist­ful­ly over the bull­rush­es. ‘Per­haps it doesn’t mat­ter all that much us be­ing stuck here. It gives us time, so much love­ly time and you can look at your ducks…’

‘Waders,’ said Gaskell, ‘and we’re go­ing to run up one hell of a bill at the Ma­ri­na if we don’t get this boat back in time.’

‘Bill?’ said Sal­ly. ‘You’re crazy. You don’t think we’re pay­ing, for this hulk?’

‘But you hired her from the boat­yard. I mean you’re not go­ing to tell me you just took the boat,’ said Gaskell. ‘For Chris­sake, that’s theft’

Sal­ly laughed. ‘Hon­est­ly, G, you’re so moral. I mean, you’re in­con­sis­tent. You steal books from the li­brary and chem­icals from the lab but when it comes to boats you’re all up in the air.’

‘Books are dif­fer­ent.’ said Gaskell hot­ly.

‘Yes,’ said Sal­ly, ‘books you don’t go to jail for. That’s what’s dif­fer­ent. So you want to think I stole the boat, you go on think­ing that.’

Gaskell took out a hand­ker­chief and wiped his glass­es. ‘Are you telling me you didn’t?’ he asked fi­nal­ly.

‘I bor­rowed it.’

‘Bor­rowed it? Who from?’

‘Schei.’

‘Scheimach­er?’

‘That’s right. He said we could have it when­ev­er we want­ed it so we’ve got it.’

‘Does he know we’ve got it?’

Sal­ly sighed. ‘Look, he’s in In­dia isn’t he, cur­ry­ing sperm? So what does it mat­ter what he knows? By the time he gets back we’ll be in the Land of the Free.’

‘Shit.’ said Gaskell weari­ly, ‘one of these days you’re go­ing to land us in it up to the eye­balls.’

‘Gaskell hon­ey, some­times you bore me with your wor­ry­ing so.’

‘Let me tell you some­thing. You wor­ry me with your god­dam at­ti­tude to oth­er peo­ple’s prop­er­ty.’

‘Prop­er­ty is theft.’

‘Oh sure. You just get the cops to see it that way when they catch up with you. The fuzz don’t go a ball on steal­ing in this coun­try.’

The fuzz weren’t go­ing much of a ball on the well-​nour­ished body of a wom­an ap­par­ent­ly mur­dered and buried un­der thir­ty feet and twen­ty tons of rapid­ly set­ting con­crete. Bar­ney had sup­plied the well-​nour­ished bit. ‘She had big breasts too,’ he ex­plained, in the sev­enth ver­sion of what he had seen. ‘And this hand reach­ing up–’

‘Yes, well we know all about the hand,’ said In­spec­tor Flint. ‘We’ve been in­to all that be­fore but this is the first time you’ve men­tioned breasts.’

‘It was the hand that got me,’ said Bar­ney. ‘I mean you don’t think of breasts in a sit­ua­tion like that.’

The In­spec­tor turned to the fore­man. ‘Did you no­tice the de­ceased’s breasts?’ he en­quired. But the fore­man just shook his head. He was past speech.’

‘So we’ve got a well-​nour­ished wom­an…What age would you say?’

Bar­ney scratched his chin re­flec­tive­ly. ‘Not old,’ he said fi­nal­ly. ‘Def­inite­ly not old.’

‘In her twen­ties?’

‘Could have been.’

‘In her thir­ties?’

Bar­ney shrugged. There was some­thing be was try­ing to re­call. Some­thing that had seemed odd at the time.

‘But def­inite­ly not in her for­ties?’

‘No.’ said Bar­ney. ‘Younger than that.’ He said it rather hes­itant­ly.

‘You’re not be­ing very spe­cif­ic,’ said In­spec­tor Flint.

‘I can’t help it,’ said Bar­ney plain­tive­ly. ‘You see a wom­an down a dirty great hole with con­crete slosh­ing down on top of her you don’t ask her her age.’

‘Quite. I re­alise that but if you could just think. Was there any­thing pe­cu­liar about her…’

‘Pe­cu­liar? Well, there was this hand see…’

In­spec­tor Flint sighed. ‘I mean any­thing out of the or­di­nary about her ap­pear­ance. Her hair for in­stance. What colour was it?’

Bar­ney got it. ‘I knew there was some­thing,’ he said, tri­umphant­ly. ‘Her hair. It was crooked.’

‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it. You don’t dump a wom­an down a thir­ty-​foot pile shaft with­out muss­ing up her hair in the pro­cess.’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. It was on side­ways and flat­tened. Like she’d been hit.’

‘She prob­ably had been hit. If what you, say about the wood­en cov­er be­ing in place is true, she didn’t go down there of her own vo­li­tion. But you still can’t give any pre­cise in­di­ca­tion of her age?’

‘Well,’ said Bar­ney, ‘bits of her looked young and bits didn’t. That’s all I know.’

‘Which bits?’ asked the In­spec­tor, hop­ing to hell Bar­ney wasn’t go­ing to start on that hand again.

‘Well, her legs didn’t look right for her teats if you see what I mean.’ In­spec­tor Flint didn’t. ‘They were all thin and crum­pled-​up like.’

‘Which were? Her legs or her teats?’

‘Her legs, of course,’ said Bar­ney. ‘I’ve told you she had these love­ly great…’

‘We’re treat­ing this as a case of mur­der,’ In­spec­tor Flint told the Prin­ci­pal ten min­utes lat­er. The Prin­ci­pal sat be­hind his desk and thought de­spair­ing­ly about ad­verse pub­lic­ity.

‘You’re quite con­vinced it couldn’t have been an ac­ci­dent?’

‘The ev­idence to date cer­tain­ly doesn’t sug­gest ac­ci­den­tal death,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘How­ev­er, we’ll on­ly be ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain on that point when we man­age to reach the body and I’m afraid that is go­ing to take some time.’

‘Time?’ said the Prin­ci­pal. ‘Do you mean to say you can’t get her out this morn­ing?’

In­spec­tor Flint shook his head. ‘Out of the ques­tion, sir,’ he said. ‘We are con­sid­er­ing two meth­ods of reach­ing the body and they’ll both take sev­er­al days. One is to drill down through the con­crete and the oth­er is to sink an­oth­er shaft next to the orig­inal hole and try and get at her from the side.’

‘Good Lord,’ said the Prin­ci­pal, look­ing at his cal­en­dar, ‘but that means you’re go­ing to be dig­ging away out there for sev­er­al days.’

‘I’m afraid it can’t be helped. Who­ev­er put her down there make a good job of it. Still, we’ll try to be as un­ob­tru­sive as pos­si­ble.’

Out of the win­dow the Prin­ci­pal could see four po­lice cars, a fire en­gine and a big blue van. ‘This is re­al­ly most un­for­tu­nate,’ he mur­mured.

‘Mur­der al­ways is,’ said the In­spec­tor, and got to his feet. ‘It’s in the na­ture of the thing. In the mean­time we are seal­ing off the site and we’d be grate­ful for your co-​op­er­ation.’

‘Any­thing you re­quire,’ said the Prin­ci­pal, with a sigh.

In the Staff Room the pres­ence of so many uni­formed men peer­ing down a pile hole pro­voked mixed re­ac­tions. So did the dozen po­lice­men scour­ing the build­ing, site, stop­ping now, and then to put things care­ful­ly in­to en­velopes, but it was the ar­rival of the dark blue car­avan that fi­nal­ly clinched mat­ters.

‘That’s a Mo­bile Mur­der Head­quar­ters.’ Pe­ter Fen­wick ex­plained. ‘Ap­par­ent­ly some ma­ni­ac has buried a wom­an at the bot­tom of one of the piles.’

The New Left, who had been clus­tered in a cor­ner dis­cussing the like­ly im­pli­ca­tions of so many paramil­itary Fas­cist pigs, heaved a sigh of un­mar­tyred re­gret but con­tin­ued to ex­press doubts.

‘No, se­ri­ous­ly.’ said Fen­wick. ‘I asked one of them what they were do­ing. I thought it was some sort of bomb scare.’

Dr Cox, Head of Sci­ence, con­firmed it. His of­fice looked di­rect­ly on to the hole. ‘It’s too dread­ful to con­tem­plate,’ he mur­mured. ‘Ev­ery time I look up I think what she must have suf­fered.’

‘What do you sup­pose they are putting in­to those en­velopes?’ asked Dr May­field.

‘Clues.’ said Dr Board, with ev­ident sat­is­fac­tion. ‘Hairs. Bits of skin and blood­stains. The usu­al triv­ial de­tri­tus of vi­olent crime.’

Dr Cox hur­ried from the room and Dr May­field looked dis­gust­ed. ‘How re­volt­ing.’ he said. ‘Isn’t it pos­si­ble that there has been some mis­take? I mean why should any­one want to mur­der a wom­an here?’

Dr Board sipped his cof­fee and looked wist­ful­ly at him. ‘I can think of any num­ber of rea­sons,’ he said hap­pi­ly. ‘There are at least a dozen wom­en in my Evening Class whom I would cheer­ful­ly beat to death and drop down holes. Sylvia Swans­beck for one.’

‘Who­ev­er did it must have known they were go­ing to pour con­crete down to­day,’ said Fen­wick. ‘It looks like an in­side job to me.’

‘One of our less com­mu­ni­ty-​con­scious stu­dents per­haps,’ sug­gest­ed Dr Board, ‘I don’t sup­pose they’ve had time to check if any of the staff are miss­ing.’

‘You’ll prob­ably find it had noth­ing to do with the Tech,’ said Dr May­field. ‘Some ma­ni­ac…’

‘Come now, give cred­it where cred­it is due.’ in­ter­rupt­ed Dr Board. ‘There was ob­vi­ous­ly an el­ement of pre­med­ita­tion in­volved. Who­ev­er the mur­der­er was…is, he planned it pret­ty care­ful­ly. What puz­zles me is why be didn’t shov­el earth down on top of the wretched wom­an so that she couldn’t be seen. Prob­ably in­tend­ed to but was dis­turbed be­fore he could get around to it. One of those lit­tle ac­ci­dents of fate.’

In the cor­ner of the Staff Room Wilt sat and drank his cof­fee, con­scious that he was the on­ly per­son not star­ing out of the win­dow. What the hell was he to do? The sen­si­ble thing would be to go to the po­lice and ex­plain that he had been try­ing to get rid of an in­flat­able doll that some­one had giv­en him. But would they be­lieve him? If that was all that had hap­pened why had he dressed it up in a wig and clothes? And why had he left it in­flat­ed? Why hadn’t he just thrown the thing away? He was just re­hears­ing the pros and cons of the ar­gu­ment when the Head of En­gi­neer­ing came in and an­nounced that the po­lice in­tend­ed bor­ing an­oth­er hole next to the first one in­stead of dig­ging down through the con­crete.

‘They’ll prob­ably be able to see bits of her stick­ing out the side.’ he ex­plained. ‘Ap­par­ent­ly she had one arm up in the air and with all that con­crete com­ing down on top of her there’s a chance that arm will have been pressed against the side of the hole. Much quick­er that way.’

‘I must say I can’t see the need for haste.’ said Dr Board. ‘I should have thought she’d be pret­ty well pre­served in all that con­crete. Mum­mi­fied I dare­say.’

In his cor­ner Wilt rather doubt­ed it. With twen­ty tons of con­crete on top of her even Judy who had been an ex­treme­ly re­silient doll was hard­ly like­ly to have with­stood the pres­sure. She would have burst as sure as eggs were eggs in which case all the po­lice would find was the emp­ty plas­tic arm of a doll. They would hard­ly both­er to dig a burst plas­tic doll out.

‘And an­oth­er thing.’ con­tin­ued the Head of En­gi­neer­ing, ‘if the arm is stick­ing out they’ll be able to take fin­ger­prints straight away.’

Wilt smiled to him­self. That was one thing they weren’t go­ing to find on Judy, fin­ger­prints. He fin­ished his cof­fee more cheer­ful­ly and went off to a class of Se­nior Sec­re­taries. He found them agog with news of the mur­der.

‘Do you think it was a sex killing?’ a small blonde girl in the front raw asked as Wilt hand­ed out copies of This Is­land Now. He had al­ways found the chap­ter on the Vi­cis­si­tudes of Ado­les­cence ap­pealed to Se­nior Secs. It dealt with sex and vi­olence and was twelve years out of date but then so were the Se­nior Sec­re­taries. To­day there was no need for the book.

‘I don’t think it was any sort of killing.’ said Wilt tak­ing his place be­hind the desk.’

‘Oh but it was. They saw a wom­an’s body down there,’ the small blonde in­sist­ed.

‘They thought they saw some­thing down there that looked like a body,’ said Wilt. ‘That doesn’t mean it was one. Peo­ple’s imag­ina­tions play tricks with them.’

‘The po­lice don’t think so.’ said a large girl whose fa­ther was some­thing in the City. ‘They must be cer­tain to go to all that trou­ble. We had a mur­der on our golf course and all they found were bits of body cut up and put in the wa­ter haz­ard on the fif­teenth. They’d been there six months. Some­one sliced a ball on the dog­leg twelfth and it went in­to the pond. They fished out a foot first. It was all puffy and green…’ A pale girl from Wilstan­ton faint­ed in the third row. By the time Wilt had re­vived her and tak­en her to the Sick Room, the class had got on to Crip­pen, Haigh and Christie. Wilt re­turned to find them dis­cussing acid baths…and all they found were her false teeth and gall­stones.’

‘You seem to know a lot about mur­der,’ Wilt said to the large girl.

‘Dad­dy plays bridge with the Chief Con­sta­ble,’ she ex­plained. ‘He comes to din­ner and tells su­per sto­ries. He says they ought to bring back hang­ing.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ said Wilt grim­ly. It was typ­ical of Se­nior Secs that they knew Chief Con­sta­bles who want­ed to bring back hang­ing. It was all mum­my and dad­dy and hors­es with Se­nior Sec­re­taries.

‘Any­way, hang­ing doesn’t hurt,’ said the large girl. ‘Sir Frank says a good hang­man can have a man out of the con­demned cell and on to the trap with a noose around his neck and pull the lever in twen­ty sec­onds.’

‘Why con­fine the priv­ilege to men?’ asked ‘Wilt bit­ter­ly. The class looked at him with re­proach­ful eyes, ‘The last wom­an they hanged was Ruth El­lis,’ said the blonde in the front row.

‘Any­way with wom­en it’s dif­fer­ent,’ said the large girl.

‘Why?’ said Wilt in­ad­vis­ed­ly.

‘Well it’s slow­er.’

‘Slow­er?’

‘They had to tie Mrs Thom­son to a chair,’ vol­un­teered the blonde. ‘She be­haved dis­grace­ful­ly.’

‘I must say I find your judge­ments pe­cu­liar,’ said Wilt. ‘A wom­an mur­der­ing her hus­band is doubt­less dis­grace­ful. The fact that she puts up a fight when they come to ex­ecute her doesn’t strike me as dis­grace­ful at all. I find that…’

‘It’s not just that,’ in­ter­rupt­ed the large girl, who wasn’t to be di­vert­ed.

‘What isn’t?’ said Wilt.

‘It’s be­ing slow­er with wom­en. They have to make them wear wa­ter­proof pants.’

Wilt gaped at her in dis­gust. ‘Wa­ter­proof what?’ he asked with­out think­ing.

‘Wa­ter­proof pants,’ said the large girl.

‘Dear God,’ said Wilt.

‘You see, when they get to the bot­tom of the rope their in­sides drop out,’ con­tin­ued the large girl, ad­min­is­ter­ing the coup de grâce. Wilt stared at her wild­ly and stum­bled from the room.

‘What’s the mat­ter with him?’ said the girl. ‘Any­one would think I had said some­thing beast­ly.’

In the cor­ri­dor Wilt leant against the wall and felt sick. Those fuck­ing girls were worse than Gas­fit­ters. At least Gas­fit­ters didn’t go in for such dis­gust­ing anatom­ical de­tails and be­sides Se­nior Secs all came from so-​called re­spectable fam­ilies. By the time he felt strong enough to face them again the hour had end­ed. Wilt went back in­to the class­room sheep­ish­ly and col­lect­ed the books.

‘Name of Wilt mean any­thing to you? Hen­ry Wilt?’ asked the In­spec­tor.

‘Wilt?’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal, who had been left to cope with the po­lice while the Prin­ci­pal spent his time more prof­itably try­ing to off­set the, ad­verse pub­lic­ity caused by the whole ap­palling busi­ness. ‘Well, yes it does. He’s one of our Lib­er­al Stud­ies lec­tur­ers. Why? Is there…’

‘If you don’t mind, sir, I’d just like a word with him. In pri­vate’

‘But Wilt’s a most in­of­fen­sive man,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal. ‘I’m sure he couldn’t help you at all.’

‘Pos­si­bly not but all the same…’

‘You’re not sug­gest­ing for one mo­ment that Hen­ry Wilt had any­thing to do with…’ the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal stopped and stud­ied the ex­pres­sion on the In­spec­tor’s face. It was omi­nous­ly neu­tral.

‘I’d rather not go in­to de­tails,’ said In­spec­tor Flint, ‘and it’s best if we don’t jump to con­clu­sions.’

The Vice-​Prin­ci­pal picked up the phone. ‘Do you want him to come across to that…er…car­avan?’ he asked.

In­spec­tor Flint shook his head. ‘We like to be as in­con­spic­uous as pos­si­ble. If I could just have the use of an emp­ty of­fice.’

‘There’s an of­fice next door. You can use that.’

Wilt was in the can­teen hav­ing lunch with Pe­ter Brain­tree when the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal’s sec­re­tary came down with a mes­sage.

‘Can’t it wait?’ asked Wilt.

‘He said it was most ur­gent.’

‘It’s prob­ably your Se­nior Lec­ture­ship come through at last,’ said Brain­tree bright­ly. Wilt swal­lowed the rest of his Scotch egg and got up.

‘I doubt that, ‘he said and went wan­ly out of the can­teen and up the stairs. He had a hor­rid sus­pi­cion that pro­mo­tion was the last thing the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal want­ed to see him about.

‘Now, sir.’ said the In­spec­tor when they were seat­ed in the of­fice, ‘my name is Flint, In­spec­tor Flint, CID, and you’re Mr Wilt? Mr Hen­ry Wilt?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt.

Now, Mr Wilt, as you may have gath­ered we are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the sus­pect­ed mur­der of a wom­an whose body is be­lieved to have been de­posit­ed at the bot­tom of one of the foun­da­tion holes for the new build­ing. I dare­say you know about it.’ Wilt nod­ded. ‘And nat­ural­ly we are in­ter­est­ed in any­thing that might be of as­sis­tance. I won­der if you would mind hav­ing a look at these notes.’

He hand­ed Wilt a piece of pa­per. It was head­ed ‘Notes on Vi­olence and the Break-​Up of Fam­ily Life, and un­der­neath were a num­ber of sub-​head­ings.

1. In­creas­ing use of vi­olence in pub­lic life to at­tain po­lit­ical ends. A) Bomb­ings. B) Hi­jack­ing. C) Kid­nap­ping. D) As­sas­si­na­tion.

2. In­ef­fec­tu­al­ity of Po­lice Meth­ods in com­bat­ing Vi­olence. A) Neg­ative ap­proach. Po­lice able on­ly to re­act to crime af­ter it has tak­en place. B) Use of vi­olence by po­lice them­selves. C) Low lev­el of in­tel­li­gence of av­er­age po­lice­man. D) In­creas­ing use of so­phis­ti­cat­ed meth­ods such as di­ver­sion­ary tac­tics by crim­inals.

3. In­flu­ence of me­dia. TV brings crime tech­niques in­to the home.

There was more. Much more. Wilt looked down the list with a sense of doom.

‘You recog­nise the hand­writ­ing?’ asked the In­spec­tor.

‘I do,’ said Wilt, adopt­ing rather pre­ma­ture­ly the el­lip­ti­cal lan­guage of the wit­ness box.

‘You ad­mit that you wrote those notes?’ The In­spec­tor reached out a hand and took the notes back.

‘Yes.’

‘They ex­press your opin­ion of po­lice meth­ods?’

Wilt pulled him­self to­geth­er. ‘They were jot­tings I was mak­ing for a lec­ture to Sand­wich-​Course Trainee Fire­men,’ he ex­plained. ‘They were sim­ply rough ideas. They need am­pli­fy­ing of course…’

‘But you don’t de­ny you wrote them?’

‘Of course I don’t. I’ve just said I did, haven’t I?’

The In­spec­tor nod­ded and picked up a book. ‘And this is yours too?’

Wilt looked at Bleak House. ‘It says so, doesn’t it?’

In­spec­tor Flint opened the cov­er. ‘So it does,’ he said with a show of as­ton­ish­ment, ’so it does’

Wilt stared at him. There was no point in main­tain­ing the pre­tence any longer. The best thing to do was to get it over quick­ly. They had found that bloody book in the bas­ket of the bi­cy­cle and the notes must have fall­en out of his pock­et on the build­ing site.

‘Look, In­spec­tor,’ he said, ‘I can ex­plain ev­ery­thing. It’s re­al­ly quite sim­ple. I did go in­to that build­ing site…’

The In­spec­tor stood up. ‘Mr Wilt, if you’re pre­pared to make a state­ment I think I should warn you…’

Wilt went down to the Mur­der Head­quar­ters and made a state­ment in the pres­ence of a po­lice stenog­ra­pher. His progress to the blue car­avan and his fail­ure to come out again were not­ed with in­ter­est by mem­bers of the staff teach­ing in the Sci­ence block, by stu­dents in the can­teen and by twen­ty-​five fel­low lec­tur­ers gap­ing through the win­dows of the Staff Room.

Chapter 9

‘God­dam the thing,’ said Gaskell as he knelt greasi­ly be­side the en­gine of the cruis­er, ‘you’d think that even in this pre-​tech­no­log­ical monar­chy they’d fit a de­cent mo­tor. This con­trap­tion must have been made for the Ark.’

‘Ark Ark the Lark,’ said Sal­ly, ‘and cut-​the crowned heads fool­ery. Eva’s a regi­naphile.’

‘A what?’

‘Regi­naphile. Monar­chist. Get it. She’s the Queen’s Bee so don’t be an­ti-​British. We don’t want her to stop work­ing as well as the mo­tor. Maybe it isn’t the con rod.’

‘If I could on­ly get the head off I could tell,’ said Gaskell.

‘And what good would that do? Buy you an­oth­er?’ said Sal­ly and went in­to the cab­in where Eva was won­der­ing what they were go­ing to have for sup­per. ‘Tarba­by is still tin­ker­ing with the mo­tor. He says it’s the con rod.’

‘Con rod?’ said Eva.

‘On­ly con­nect, ba­by, on­ly con­nect’

‘With what?’

‘The thigh bone’s con­nect­ed to the knee bone. The con rod’s con­nect­ed to the pis­ton and as ev­ery­one knows pis­tons are pe­nis sym­bols. The mech­anised male’s sub­sti­tute for sex. The Out­board Mo­tor Syn­drome. On­ly this hap­pens to be in­board like his balls nev­er dropped. Hon­est­ly, Gaskell is so re­gres­sive’

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Eva.

Sal­ly, lay back on the bunk and lit a cigar. ‘That’s what I love about you, Eva. You don’t know. Ig­no­rance is bliss­ful, ba­by. I lost mine when I was four­teen.’

Eva shook her head. ‘Men,’ she said dis­ap­prov­ing­ly.

‘He was old enough to be my grand­fa­ther,’ said Sal­ly. ‘He was my grand­fa­ther.’

‘Oh no. How aw­ful.’

‘Not re­al­ly,’ said Sal­ly laugh­ing, ‘he was an artist. With a beard. And the smell of paint on his smock and there was this stu­dio and he want­ed to paint me in the nude. I was so pure in those days. He made me lie on this couch and he ar­ranged my legs. He was al­ways ar­rang­ing my legs and then stand­ing back to look at me and paint­ing. And then one day when I was ly­ing there he came over and bent my legs back and kissed me and then he was on top of me and his smock was up and…’

Eva sat and lis­tened, fas­ci­nat­ed. She could vi­su­alise it all so clear­ly, even the smell of paint in the stu­dio and the brush­es, Sal­ly had had such an ex­cit­ing life, so full of in­ci­dent and so ro­man­tic in a dread­ful sort of way. Eva tried to re­mem­ber what she had been like at four­teen and not even go­ing out with boys and there was Sal­ly ly­ing on a couch with a fa­mous artist in his stu­dio.

‘But he raped you,’ she said fi­nal­ly. ‘Why didn’t you tell the po­lice?’

‘The po­lice? You don’t un­der­stand. I was at this ter­ri­bly ex­clu­sive school. They would have sent me home. It was pro­gres­sive and all that but I shouldn’t have been out be­ing paint­ed by this artist and my par­ents would nev­er have for­giv­en me. They were so strict.’ Sal­ly sighed, over­come by the rigours of her whol­ly fic­ti­tious child­hood. ‘And now you can see why I’m so afraid of be­ing hurt by men. When you’ve been raped you know what pe­nile ag­gres­sion means.’

‘I sup­pose you do,’ said Eva, in some doubt as to what pe­nile ag­gres­sion was.

‘You see the world dif­fer­ent­ly too. Like G says, noth­ing’s good and noth­ing’s bad. It just is.’

‘I went to a lec­ture on Bud­dhism once,’ said Eva, ‘and that’s what Mr Pod­gett said. He said–’

‘Zen’s all wrong. Like you just sit around wait­ing. That’s pas­sive. You’ve got to make things hap­pen. You sit around wait­ing long enough, you’re dead. Some­one’s tram­pled all over you. You’ve got to see things hap­pen your way and no one else’s’

‘That doesn’t sound very so­cia­ble,’ said Eva. ‘I mean if we all did just what we want­ed all the time it wouldn’t be very nice for oth­er peo­ple.’

‘Oth­er peo­ple are hell,’ said Sal­ly. ‘That’s Sartre and he should know. You do what you want is good and no moral kick­back. Like G says, rats are the paradigm. You think rats go around think­ing what’s good for oth­er peo­ple?’

‘Well no, I don’t sup­pose they do,’ said Eva.

‘Right. Rats aren’t eth­ical. No way. They just do. They don’t get screwed up think­ing.’

‘Do you think rats can think?’ asked Eva, now thor­ough­ly en­gaged in the prob­lems of ro­dent psy­chol­ogy.

‘Of course they can’t. Rats just are. No Schaden­freude with rats.’

‘What’s Schaden­freude?’

‘Sec­ond cousin to Weltschmerz,’ said Sal­ly, stub­bing her cigar out in the ash­tray. ‘So we can all do what we want when­ev­er we want to. That’s the mes­sage. It’s on­ly peo­ple like G who’ve got the know bug who get balled up.’

‘No bug?’ said Eva.

‘They’ve got to know how ev­ery­thing works. Sci­en­tists. Lawrence was right. It’s all head and no body with G.’

‘Hen­ry’s a bit like that,’ said Eva. ‘He’s al­ways read­ing or talk­ing about books. I’ve told him he doesn’t know what the re­al world is like.’

In the Mo­bile Mur­der Head­quar­ters Wilt was learn­ing. He sat op­po­site In­spec­tor Flint whose face was reg­is­ter­ing in­creas­ing in­creduli­ty.

‘Now, we’ll just go over that again,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘You say that what those men saw down that hole was in ac­tu­al fact an in­flat­able plas­tic doll with a vagi­na.’

‘The vagi­na is in­ci­den­tal,’ said Wilt, call­ing forth re­serves of in­con­se­quence.

‘That’s as maybe,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘Most dolls don’t have them but…all right, we’ll let that pass. The point I’m try­ing to get at is that you’re quite pos­itive there isn’t a re­al live hu­man be­ing down there.’

‘Pos­itive,’ said Wilt, ‘and if there were it is doubt­ful if it would still be alive now.’

The In­spec­tor stud­ied him un­pleas­ant­ly. ‘I don’t need you to point that out to me,’ he said. ‘If there was the faintest pos­si­bil­ity of what­ev­er it is down there be­ing alive I wouldn’t be sit­ting here, would I?’

‘No.’ said Wilt.

‘Right. So now we come to the next point. How is it that what those men saw, they say a wom­an and you say a doll…that this thing was wear­ing clothes, had hair and even more re­mark­ably had its head bashed in and one hand stretched up in the air?’

‘That was the way it fell,’ said Wilt. ‘I sup­pose the arm, got caught up on the side and lift­ed up’

‘And its head was bashed in?’

Well, I did drop a lump of mud on it.’ Wilt ad­mit­ted, ‘that would ac­count for that.’

‘You dropped a lump of mud on its head?’

‘That’s what I said,’ Wilt agreed.

‘I know that’s what you said. What I want to know is why you felt obliged to drop a lump of mud on the head of as in­flat­able doll that had, as far as I can gath­er, nev­er done you any harm.’

Wilt hes­itat­ed. That damned doll had done, him a great deal of harm one way and an­oth­er but this didn’t seem an op­por­tune mo­ment to go in­to that. ‘I don’t know re­al­ly,’ he said fi­nal­ly, ‘I just thought it might help.’

‘Help what?’

‘Help…I don’t know. I just did it, that’s all. I was drunk at the time.’

‘All right, we’ll come back to that in a minute. There’s still one ques­tion you haven’t an­swered. If it was a doll, why was it wear­ing clothes?’

Wilt looked des­per­ate­ly round the car­avan and met the eyes of the po­lice stenog­ra­pher. There was a look in them that didn’t in­spire con­fi­dence. Talk about lack of sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief.

‘You’re not go­ing to be­lieve this,’ Wilt said. The In­spec­tor looked at him and lit a cigarette.

‘Well?’

‘As a mat­ter of fact I had dressed it up,’ Wilt said, squirm­ing with em­bar­rass­ment’

‘You had dressed it up?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt.

‘And may one en­quire what pur­pose you had in mind when you dressed it up?’

‘I don’t know ex­act­ly.’

The In­spec­tor sighed sig­nif­icant­ly. ‘Right. We go back to the be­gin­ning. We have a doll with a vagi­na which you dress up and bring down here in the dead of night and de­posit at the bot­tom of a thir­ty-​foot hole and drop lumps of mud on its head. Is that what you’re say­ing?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt.

‘You wouldn’t pre­fer to save ev­ery­one con­cerned a lot of time and both­er by ad­mit­ting here and now that what is at present rest­ing, hope­ful­ly at peace, un­der twen­ty tons of con­crete at the bot­tom of that pile is the body of a mur­dered wom­an?’

‘No,’ said Wilt, ‘I most def­inite­ly wouldn’t.’

In­spec­tor Flint sighed again. ‘You know, we’re go­ing to get to the bot­tom of this thing,’ he said. ‘It may take time and it may take ex­pense and God knows it’s tak­ing pa­tience but when we do get down there–’

‘You’re go­ing to find an in­flat­able doll,’ said Wilt.

‘With a vagi­na?’

‘With a vagi­na.’

In the Staff Room Pe­ter Brain­tree staunch­ly de­fend­ed Wilt’s in­no­cence. ‘I tell you I’ve known Hen­ry well for the past sev­en years and what­ev­er has hap­pened he had noth­ing to do with it.’

Mr Mor­ris, the Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies, looked out of the win­dow scep­ti­cal­ly. ‘They’ve had him in there since ten past two. That’s four hours,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t do that un­less they thought he had some con­nec­tion with the dead wom­an.’

‘They can think what they like. I know Hen­ry and even if the poor sod want­ed to he’s in­ca­pable of mur­der­ing any­one.’

‘He did punch that Print­er on Tues­day. That shows he’s ca­pa­ble of ir­ra­tional vi­olence.’

‘Wrong again. The Print­er punched him,’ said Brain­tree.

‘On­ly af­ter Wilt had called him a sniv­el­ling fuck­ing mo­ron,’ Mr Mor­ris point­ed out. ‘Any­one who goes in­to Print­ers Three and calls one of them that needs his head ex­am­ined. They killed poor odd Pinker­ton, you know. He gassed him­self in his car.’

‘They had a damned good try at killing old Hen­ry come to that.’

‘Of course, that blow might have af­fect­ed his brain,’ said Mr Mor­ris, with mo­rose sat­is­fac­tion. ‘Con­cus­sion can do fun­ny things to a man’s char­ac­ter. Change him overnight from a nice qui­et in­of­fen­sive lit­tle fel­low like Wilt in­to a homi­ci­dal ma­ni­ac who sud­den­ly goes berserk. Stranger things have hap­pened.’

‘I dare­say Hen­ry would be the first to agree with you,’ said Brain­tree. ‘It can’t be very pleas­ant sit­ting in that car­avan be­ing ques­tioned by de­tec­tives. I won­der what they’re do­ing to him.’

‘Just ask­ing ques­tions. Things like “How have you been get­ting on with your wife?” and “Can you ac­count for your move­ments on Sat­ur­day night?” They start off gen­tly and then work up to the heavy stuff lat­er on.’

Pe­ter Brain­tree sat in silent hor­ror. Eva. He’d for­got­ten all about her and as for Sat­ur­day night he knew ex­act­ly what Hen­ry had said he had been do­ing be­fore he turned up on the doorstep cov­ered with mud and look­ing like death…

‘All I’m say­ing,’ said Mr Mor­ris, ‘is that it seems very strange to me that they find a dead body at the bot­tom of a shaft filled with con­crete and the next thing you know they’ve got Wilt in that Mur­der HQ for ques­tion­ing. Very strange in­deed. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes.’ He got up and left the room and Pe­ter Brain­tree sat on won­der­ing if there was any­thing he should do like phone a lawyer and ask him to come round and speak to Hen­ry. It seemed a bit pre­ma­ture and pre­sum­ably Hen­ry could ask to see a lawyer him­self if he want­ed one.

In­spec­tor Flint lit an­oth­er cigarette with an air of in­sou­ciant men­ace. ‘How well do you get on with your wife?’ he asked.

Wilt hes­itat­ed. ‘Well enough,’ he said.

‘Just well enough? No more than that?’

‘We get along just fine,’ said Wilt, con­scious that be had made an er­ror.

‘I see. And I sup­pose she can sub­stan­ti­ate your sto­ry about this in­flat­able doll.’

‘Sub­stan­ti­ate it?’

‘The fact that you made a habit of dress­ing it up and car­ry­ing on with it.’

‘I didn’t make a habit of any­thing of the sort,’ said Wilt in­dig­nant­ly.

‘I’m on­ly ask­ing. You were the one who first raised the fact that it had a vagi­na. I didn’t. You vol­un­teered the in­for­ma­tion and nat­ural­ly I as­sumed…’

‘What did you as­sume?’ said Wilt ‘You’ve got no right…’

‘Mr Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘put your­self in my po­si­tion. I am in­ves­ti­gat­ing a case of sus­pect­ed mur­der, and a man comes along and tells me that what two eye-​wit­ness­es de­scribe as the body of a well-​nour­ished wom­an in her ear­ly thir­ties…’

‘In her ear­ly thir­ties? Dolls don’t have ages. If that bloody doll was more than six months old…’

‘Please, Mr Wilt, if you’ll just let me con­tin­ue. As I was say­ing we have a pri­ma fa­cie case of mur­der and you ad­mit your­self to hav­ing put a doll with a vagi­na down that hole. Now if you were in my shoes what sort of in­fer­ence would you draw from that?’

Wilt tried to think of some to­tal­ly in­no­cent in­ter­pre­ta­tion and couldn’t.

‘Wouldn’t you be the first to agree that it does look a bit pe­cu­liar?’

Wilt nod­ded. It looked hor­ri­bly pe­cu­liar.

‘Right,’ con­tin­ued the In­spec­tor. ‘Now if we put the nicest pos­si­ble in­ter­pre­ta­tion on your ac­tions and par­tic­ular­ly on your em­pha­sis that this doll had a vagi­na–’

‘I didn’t em­pha­sise it. I on­ly men­tioned the damned thing to in­di­cate that it was ex­treme­ly life­like. I wasn’t sug­gest­ing I made a habit of…’ He stopped and looked mis­er­ably at the floor.

‘Go on, Mr Wilt, don’t stop now. It of­ten helps to talk.’

Wilt stared at him fran­ti­cal­ly. Talk­ing to In­spec­tor Flint wasn’t help­ing him one io­ta. ‘If you’re im­ply­ing that my sex life was con­fined to cop­ulat­ing with an in­flat­able fuck­ing doll dressed in my wife’s clothes…’

‘Hold it there,’ said the In­spec­tor, stub­bing out his cigarette sig­nif­icant­ly. ‘Ah, so we’ve tak­en an­oth­er step for­ward. You ad­mit then that what­ev­er is down that hole is dressed in your wife’s clothes? Yes or no.’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt mis­er­ably.

In­spec­tor Flint stood up. ‘I think it’s about time we all went and had a lit­tle chat with Mrs Wilt,’ he said. ‘I want to hear what she has to say about your fun­ny lit­tle habits.’

‘I’m afraid that’s go­ing to be a lit­tle dif­fi­cult,’ said Wilt.

‘Dif­fi­cult?’

‘Well you see the thing is she’s gone away.’

‘Gone away?’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘Did I hear you say that Mrs Wilt has gone away?’

‘Yes.’

‘And where has Mrs Wilt gone to?’

‘That’s the trou­ble. I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘No, I hon­est­ly don’t know,’ said Wilt.

‘She didn’t tell you where she was go­ing?’

‘No. She just wasn’t there when I got home.’

‘She didn’t leave a note or any­thing like that?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt, ‘as a mat­ter of fact she did.’

‘Right, well let’s just go up to your house and have a look at that note.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not pos­si­ble,’ said Wilt. ‘I got rid of it.’

‘You got rid of it?’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘You got rid of it? How?’

Wilt looked pa­thet­ical­ly across at the po­lice stenog­ra­pher. ‘To tell the truth I wiped my bot­tom with it,’ he said.

In­spec­tor Flint gazed at him de­mon­ical­ly. ‘You did what?’

‘Well, there was no toi­let pa­per in the lava­to­ry so I…’ he stopped. The In­spec­tor was light­ing yet an­oth­er cigarette. His hands were shak­ing and he had a dis­tant look in his eyes that sug­gest­ed he had just peered over some ap­palling abyss. ‘Mr Wilt,’ he said when he had man­aged to com­pose him­self, ‘I trust that I am a rea­son­ably tol­er­ant man, a pa­tient man and a hu­mane man, but if you se­ri­ous­ly ex­pect me to be­lieve one word of your ut­ter­ly pre­pos­ter­ous sto­ry you must be in­sane. First you tell me you put a doll down that hole. Then you ad­mit that it was dressed in your wife’s clothes. Now you say that she went away with­out telling you where she was go­ing and fi­nal­ly to cap it all you have the temer­ity to sit there and tell me that you wiped your ar­se with the one piece of sol­id ev­idence that could sub­stan­ti­ate your state­ment.’

‘But I did,’ said Wilt.

‘Balls,’ shout­ed the In­spec­tor. ‘You and I both know where Mrs Wilt has gone and there’s no use pre­tend­ing we don’t. She’s down at the bot­tom of that fuck­ing hole and you put her there.’

‘Are you ar­rest­ing me?’ Wilt asked as they walked in a tight group across the road to the po­lice car.

‘No,’ said In­spec­tor Flint, ‘you’re just help­ing the po­lice with their en­quiries. It will be on the news tonight.’

‘My dear Brain­tree, of course we’ll do all we can,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal. ‘Wilt has al­ways been a loy­al mem­ber of staff and there has ob­vi­ous­ly been some dread­ful mis­take. I’m sure you needn’t wor­ry. The whole thing will right it­self be­fore long.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Brain­tree, ‘but there are com­pli­cat­ing fac­tors. For one thing there’s Eva…’

‘Eva? Mrs Wilt? You’re not sug­gest­ing…’

‘I’m not sug­gest­ing any­thing. All I’m say­ing is…well, she’s miss­ing from home. She walked out on Hen­ry last Fri­day.

‘Mrs Wilt walked…well I hard­ly knew her, ex­cept by rep­uta­tion of course. Wasn’t she the wom­an who broke Mr Lock­yer’s col­lar-​bone dur­ing a part-​time Evening Class in ju­do some years back?’

‘That was Eva,’ said Brain­tree.

‘She hard­ly sounds the sort of wom­an who would al­low Wilt to put her down…’

‘She isn’t,’ said Brain­tree hasti­ly. ‘If any­one was li­able to be mur­dered in the Wilt house­hold it was Hen­ry. I think the po­lice should be in­formed of that.’

They were in­ter­rupt­ed by the Prin­ci­pal who came in with a copy of the evening pa­per. ‘You’ve seen this I sup­pose,’ he said, wav­ing it dis­traugh­tly. ‘It’s ab­so­lute­ly ap­palling.’ He put the pa­per down on the desk and in­di­cat­ed the head­lines. MUR­DERED WOM­AN BURIED IN CON­CRETE AT TECH. LEC­TUR­ER HELP­ING PO­LICE.

‘Oh dear,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal. ‘Oh dear. How very un­for­tu­nate. It couldn’t have come at a worse mo­ment’

‘It shouldn’t have come at all,’ snapped the Prin­ci­pal. ‘And that’s not all. I’ve al­ready had half a dozen phone calls from par­ents want­ing to know if we make a habit of em­ploy­ing mur­der­ers on the full-​time staff. Who is this fel­low Wilt any­way?’

‘He’s in Lib­er­al Stud­ies,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal. ‘He’s been with us ten years.’

‘Lib­er­al Stud­ies. I might have guessed it. If they’re not po­ets man­goes they’re Maoists or…I don’t know where the hell Mor­ris gets them from. And now we’ve got a blast­ed mur­der­er. God knows what I’m go­ing to tell the Ed­uca­tion Com­mit­tee tonight. They’ve called an emer­gen­cy meet­ing for eight.’

‘I must say I re­sent Wilt be­ing called a mur­der­er,’ said Brain­tree loy­al­ly. ‘There is noth­ing to sug­gest that he has mur­dered any­one.’

The Prin­ci­pal stud­ied him for a mo­ment and then looked back at the head­lines. ‘Mr Brain­tree, when some­one is help­ing the po­lice with their en­quiries in­to a mur­der it may not be proven that he is a mur­der­er but the sug­ges­tion is there.’

‘This cer­tain­ly isn’t go­ing to help us get the new CNAA de­gree off the ground,’ in­ter­vened the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal tact­ful­ly. ‘We’ve got a vis­it from the In­spec­tion Com­mit­tee sched­uled for Fri­day.’

‘From what the po­lice tell me it isn’t go­ing to help get the new Ad­min­is­tra­tion block off the ground ei­ther,’ said the Prin­ci­pal. ‘They say it’s go­ing to take at least three days to bore down to the bot­tom of that pile and then they’ll have to drill through the con­crete to get the body out That means they’ll have to put a new pile down and we’re al­ready well be­hind sched­ule and our build­ing bud­get has been halved. Why on earth couldn’t he have cho­sen some­where else to dis­pose of his damned wife’

‘I don’t think…’ Brain­tree be­gan.

‘I don’t care what you think,’ said the Prin­ci­pal, ‘I’m mere­ly telling you what the po­lice think.’

Brain­tree left them still wran­gling and try­ing to fig­ure out ways and means of coun­ter­act­ing the ad­verse pub­lic­ity the case had al­ready brought the Tech. He went down to the Lib­er­al Stud­ies of­fice and found Mr Mor­ris in a state of de­spair. He was try­ing to ar­range stand-​in lec­tur­ers for all Wilt’s class­es.

‘But he’ll prob­ably be back in the morn­ing,’ Brain­tree said.

‘Like hell he will.’ said Mr Mor­ris. ‘When they take them in like that they keep them. Mark my words. The po­lice may make mis­takes, I’m not say­ing they don’t, but when they act this swift­ly they’re on to a sure thing. Mind you. I al­ways thought Wilt was a bit odd.’

‘Odd? I’ve just come from the VP’s of­fice. You want to hear what the Prin­ci­pal’s got to say about Lib­er­al Stud­ies staff.’

‘Christ.’ said Mr Mor­ris, ‘don’t tell me.’

‘Any­way what’s so odd about Hen­ry?’

‘Too meek and mild for my lik­ing. Look at the way he ac­cept­ed re­main­ing a Lec­tur­er Grade Two all these years.’

‘That was hard­ly his fault.’

‘Of course it was his fault. All he had to do was threat­en to re­sign and go some­where else and he’d have got pro­mo­tion like a shot. That’s the on­ly way to get on in this place. Make your pres­ence felt’

‘He seems to have done that now,’ said Brain­tree. ‘The Prin­ci­pal is al­ready blam­ing him for throw­ing the build­ing pro­gramme off sched­ule and if we don’t get the joint Hon­ours de­gree past the CNAA, Hen­ry’s go­ing to be made the scape­goat. It’s too bad. Eva should have had more sense than to walk out on him like that.’

Mr Mor­ris took a more som­bre view. ‘She’d have shown a damned sight more sense if she’d walked out on him be­fore the sod took it in­to his head to beat her to death and dump her down that bloody shaft. Now who the hell can I get to take Gas­fit­ters one to­mor­row?’

Chapter 10

At 34 Parkview Av­enue Wilt sat in the kitchen with Clem while the de­tec­tives ran­sacked the house. ‘You’re not go­ing to find any­thing in­crim­inat­ing here,’ he told In­spec­tor Flint.

‘Nev­er you mind what we’re go­ing to find. We’re just hav­ing a look.’

He sent one de­tec­tive up­stairs to ex­am­ine Mrs Wilt’s clothes or what re­mained of them.

‘If she went away she’d have tak­en half her wardrobe,’ he said. ‘I know wom­en. On the oth­er hand if she’s push­ing up twen­ty tons of pre­mix she wouldn’t need more than what she’s got on.’

Eva’s wardrobe was found to be well stocked. Even Wilt had to ad­mit that she hadn’t tak­en much with her.

‘What was she wear­ing when you last saw her?’ the In­spec­tor asked.

‘Lemon loungers.’ said Wilt.

‘Lemon what?’

‘Py­ja­mas,’ said Wilt, adding to the list of in­crim­inat­ing ev­idence against him. The In­spec­tor made a note of the fact in his pock­et­book.

‘In bed, was she?’

‘No,’ said Wilt. ‘Round at the Pring­sheims.’

The Pring­sheims? And who might they be?’

‘The Amer­icans I told you about who live in Rossiter Grove.’

‘You haven’t men­tioned any Amer­icans to me.’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘I’m sor­ry. I thought I had. I’m get­ting mud­dled. She went away with them.’

‘Oh did she? And I sup­pose we’ll find they’re miss­ing too?’

‘Al­most cer­tain­ly,’ said Wilt. ‘I mean if she was go­ing away with them they must have gone too and if she isn’t with them I can’t imag­ine where she has got to.’

‘I can,’ said the In­spec­tor look­ing with dis­taste­ful in­ter­est at a stain on a sheet one of the de­tec­tives had found in the dirty linen bas­ket. By the time they left the house the in­crim­inat­ing ev­idence con­sist­ed of the sheet, an old dress­ing-​gown cord that had found its way mys­te­ri­ous­ly in­to the at­tic, a chop­per that Wilt had once used to open a tin of red lead, and a hy­po­der­mic sy­ringe which Eva had got from the vet for wa­ter­ing cac­ti very pre­cise­ly dur­ing her In­door Plant phase. There was al­so a bot­tle of tablets with no la­bel on it.

‘How the hell would I know what they are?’ Wilt asked when con­front­ed with the bot­tle. ‘Prob­ably as­pirins. And any­way it’s full’

‘Put it with the oth­er ex­hibits,’ said the In­spec­tor. Wilt looked at the box.

‘For God’s sake, what do you think I did with her? Poi­soned her, stran­gled her, hacked her to bits with a chop­per and in­ject­ed her with Bio­food?’

‘What’s Bio­food?’ asked In­spec­tor Flint with sud­den in­ter­est.

‘It’s stuff you feed plants with,’ said Wilt. ‘The bot­tle’s on the win­dowsill.’

The In­spec­tor added the bot­tle of Bio­food to the box. ‘We know what you did with her, Mr Wilt,’ he said. ‘It’s how that in­ter­ests us now.’

They went out to the po­lice car and drove round to the Pring­sheims’ house in Rossiter Grove. ‘You just sit in the car with the con­sta­ble here while I go and see if they’re in,’ said In­spec­tor Flint and went to the front door. Wilt sat and watched while he rang the bell. He rang again. He ham­mered on the door­knock­er and fi­nal­ly he walked round through the gate marked Trades­man’s En­trance to the kitchen door. A minute lat­er he was back and fum­bling with the car ra­dio.

‘You’ve hit the nail on the head all right, Wilt,’ he snapped. ‘They’ve gone away. The place is a bloody sham­bles. Looks like they’ve had an or­gy. Take him out.’

The two de­tec­tives bun­dled Wilt, no longer Mr Wilt but plain Wilt and con­scious of the fact, out of the car while the In­spec­tor called Fen­land Con­stab­ulary and spoke with sin­is­ter ur­gen­cy about war­rants and send­ing some­thing that sound­ed like the D brigade up. Wilt stood in the drive­way of 12 Rossiter Grove and won­dered what the hell was hap­pen­ing to him. The or­der of things on which he had come to de­pend was dis­in­te­grat­ing around him.

‘We’re go­ing in the back way,’ said the In­spec­tor. This doesn’t look good.’

They went down the path to the kitchen door and round to the back gar­den. Wilt could see what the In­spec­tor had meant by a sham­bles. The gar­den didn’t look at all good. Pa­per plates lay about the lawn or, blown by the wind, had wheeled across the gar­den in­to hon­ey­suck­le or climb­ing rose while pa­per cups, some squashed and some still filled with Pring­sheim punch and rain­wa­ter, lit­tered the ground. But it was the beef­burg­ers that gave the place its air of macabre filth. They were all over the lawn, stained wilt coleslaw so that Wilt was put in mind of Clem.

‘The dog re­turns to his vom­it,’ said In­spec­tor Flint ev­ident­ly read­ing his mind. They crossed the ter­race to the lounge win­dows and peered through. If the gar­den was bad the in­te­ri­or was aw­ful.

‘Smash a pane in the kitchen win­dow and let us in,’ said the In­spec­tor to the taller of the two de­tec­tives. A mo­ment lat­er the lounge win­dow slid back and they went in­side.

‘No need for forcible en­try,’ said the de­tec­tive. ‘The back door was un­locked and so was this win­dow. They must have cleared out in a hell of a hur­ry.’

The In­spec­tor looked round the room and wrin­kled his nose. The smell of stale pot, sour punch and can­dle smoke still hung heav­ily in the house.

‘If they went away,’ he said omi­nous­ly and glanced at Wilt.

‘They must have gone away,’ said Wilt who felt called up­on to make some com­ment on the scene, ‘no one would live in all this mess for a whole week­end with­out…’

‘Live? You did say “live” didn’t you?’ said Flint step­ping on a piece of burnt beef­burg­er.

‘What I meant…’

‘Nev­er mind what you meant, Wilt.’ Let’s see what’s hap­pened here.’

They went in­to the kitchen where the same chaos reigned and then in­to an­oth­er room. Ev­ery­where it was the same. Dead cigarette ends doused in cups of cof­fee or ground out on the car­pet. Pieces of bro­ken record be­hind the so­fa marked the end of Beethoven’s Fifth. Cush­ions lay crum­pled against the wall. Burnt-​out can­dles hung limply post-​coital from bot­tles. To add a fi­nal touch to the squalor some­one had drawn a por­trait of Princess Anne on the wall with a red felt pen. She was sur­round­ed by hel­met­ed po­lice­men and un­der­neath was writ­ten. THE FUZZ AROUND OUR AN­NY THE ROY­AL. FAMLYS FAN­NY THE PRICK IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE CUNT. Sen­ti­ments that were doubt­less per­fect­ly ac­cept­able is Wom­en’s Lib cir­cles but were hard­ly cal­cu­lat­ed to es­tab­lish the Pring­sheims very high­ly in In­spec­tor Flint’s re­gard.

‘You’ve got some nice friends, Wilt.’ he said.

‘No friends of mine,’ said Wilt, with feel­ing. ‘The sods can’t even spell.’

They went up­stairs and looked in the big bed­room. The bed was un­made, clothes, most­ly un­der­clothes, were all over the floor or hung out of draw­ers and an un­stop­pered bot­tle of Joy lay on its side on the dress­ing-​ta­ble. The room stank of per­fume.

‘Je­sus wept,’ said the In­spec­tor, eye­ing a pair of jock­straps bel­liger­ent­ly. ‘All that’s miss­ing is some blood.’

They found it in the bath­room. Dr Scheimach­er’s cut hand had rained blood­stains in the bath and splat­tered the tiles with dark blotch­es. The bath­room door with its bro­ken frame was hang­ing from the bot­tom hinge and there were spots of blood on the paint­work.

‘I knew it,’ said the In­spec­tor, study­ing their mes­sage and that writ­ten in lip­stick on the mir­ror above the wash­basin. Wilt looked at it too. It seemed un­du­ly per­son­al.

WHERE WILT FAGGED AND EVA RAN WHO WAS THEN THE MALE CHAU­VIN­IST PIG?

‘Charm­ing,’ said In­spec­tor Flint. He turned to look at Wilt whose face was now the colour of the tiles. ‘I don’t sup­pose you’d know any­thing about that. Not your hand­iwork?’

‘Cer­tain­ly not,’ said Wilt.

‘Nor this?’ said the In­spec­tor, point­ing to the blood­stains in the bath. Wilt shook his head. ‘And I sup­pose this has noth­ing to do with you ei­ther?’ He in­di­cat­ed a di­aphragm that had been nailed to the wall above the lava­to­ry seat. WHERE THE B SUCKS THERE SUCK I UN­DER­NEATH A DUTCH CAP NICE AND DRY. Wilt stared at the thing in ut­ter dis­gust.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he mut­tered. ‘It’s all so aw­ful.’

‘You can say that again,’ the In­spec­tor agreed, and turned to more prac­ti­cal mat­ters. ‘Well, she didn’t die in here.’

‘How can you tell?’ asked the younger of the two de­tec­tives.

‘Not enough blood.’ The In­spec­tor looked round un­cer­tain­ly. ‘On the oth­er hand one hard bash…’ They fol­lowed the blood­stains down the pas­sage to the room where Wilt had been dol­lknot­ted.

‘For God’s sake don’t touch any­thing,’ said the In­spec­tor, eas­ing the door open with his sleeve, ‘the fin­ger­print boys are go­ing to have a field day here.’ He looked in­side at the toys.

‘I sup­pose you butchered the chil­dren too,’ he said grim­ly.

‘Chil­dren?’ said Wilt, ‘I didn’t know they had any.’

Well if you didn’t,’ said the In­spec­tor, who was a fam­ily man, ‘the poor lit­tle bug­gers have got some­thing to be thank­ful for. Not much by the look of things but some­thing.’

Wilt poked his head round the door and looked at the Ted­dy Bear and the rock­ing horse. ‘Those are Gaskell’s,’ he said, ‘he likes to play with them.’

‘I thought you said you didn’t know they had any chil­dren?’

‘They haven’t. Gaskell is Dr Pring­sheim. He’s a bio­chemist and a case of ar­rest­ed de­vel­op­ment ac­cord­ing to his wife.’ The In­spec­tor stud­ied him thought­ful­ly. The ques­tion of ar­rest had be­come one that need­ed care­ful con­sid­er­ation.

‘I don’t sup­pose you’re pre­pared to make a full con­fes­sion now?’ he asked with­out much hope.

‘No I am not,’ said Wilt.

‘I didn’t think you would be, Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘All right, take him down to the Sta­tion. I’ll be along lat­er.’

The de­tec­tives took Wilt by the arms. It was the last straw.

‘Leave me alone,’ he yelled. ‘You’ve got no right to do this. You’ve got–’

‘Wilt,’ shout­ed In­spec­tor Flint, ‘I’m go­ing to give you one last chance. If you don’t go qui­et­ly I’m go­ing to charge you here and now with the mur­der of your wife’

Wilt went qui­et­ly. There was noth­ing else to do.

‘The screw?’ said Sal­ly. ‘But you said it was the con rod.’

‘So I was wrong,’ said Gaskell. She cranks over.’

‘It, G, it. It cranks over.’

‘OK. It cranks over so it can’t be a con rod. It could be some­thing that got tan­gled with the prop­shaft.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like weeds.’

‘Why don’t you go down and have a look your­self?’

‘With these glass­es?’ said Gaskell. ‘I wouldn’t be able to see any­thing.’

‘You know I can’t swim,’ said Sal­ly. ‘I have this leg.’

‘I can swim,’ said Eva.

‘We’ll tie a rope round you. That way you won’t drown,’ said Gaskell, ‘all you’ve got to do is go un­der and feel if there’s any­thing down there.’

‘We know what’s down there,’ said Sal­ly. ‘Mud is.’

‘Round the prop­shaft,’ said Gaskell. ‘Then if there is you can take it off.’

Eva went in­to the cab­in and put on the biki­ni.

‘Hon­est­ly, Gaskell, some­times I think you’re do­ing this on pur­pose. First it’s the con rod and now it’s the screw.’

‘Well, we’ve got to try ev­ery­thing. We can’t just sit here,’ said Gaskell, ‘I’m sup­posed to be back in the lab to­mor­row.’

‘You should have thought of that be­fore,’ said Sal­ly. ‘Now all we need is a god­dam Al­ba­tross.’

‘If you ask me we’ve got one,’ said Gaskell, as Eva came out of the cab­in and put on a bathing cap.

‘Now where’s the rope?’ she asked. Gaskell looked in a lock­er and found some. He tied it round her waist and Eva clam­bered over the side in­to the wa­ter.

‘It’s ev­er so cold,’ she gig­gled.

‘That’s be­cause of the Gulf Stream,’ said Gaskell, ‘it doesn’t come this far round.’

Eva swam out and put her feet down.

‘It’s ter­ri­bly shal­low and full of mud.’

She wad­ed round hang­ing on to the rope and groped un­der the stern of the cruis­er.

‘I can’t feel any­thing,’ she called.

‘It will be fur­ther un­der,’ said Gaskell, peer­ing down at her. Eva put her head un­der the wa­ter and felt the rud­der.

‘That’s the rud­der,’ said Gaskell.

‘Of course it is,’ said Eva, ‘I know that, sil­ly. I’m not stupid.’

She dis­ap­peared un­der the boat. This time she found the pro­peller but there was noth­ing wrapped round it.

‘It’s just mud­dy, that’s all,’ she said, when she resur­faced. ‘There’s mud all along the bot­tom.’

‘Well there would be wouldn’t there,’ said Gaskell. Eva wad­ed round to the side. ‘We just hap­pen to be stuck on a mud­bank.’

Eva went down again but the prop­shaft was clear too. I told you so,’ said Sal­ly, as they hauled Eva back on board. ‘You just made her do it so you could see her in her plas­tic ki­ni all cov­ered with mud. Come, Bot­ti­cel­li ba­by, let Sal­ly wash you off.’

‘Oh Je­sus,’ said Gaskell. ‘Pe­nis aris­ing from the waves.’ He went back to the en­gine and looked at it un­cer­tain­ly. Per­haps there was a block­age in the fu­el line. It didn’t seem very like­ly but he had to try some­thing. They couldn’t stay stuck on the mud­bank for­ev­er.

On the fore­deck Sal­ly was spong­ing Eva down.

‘Now the bot­tom half, dar­ling,’ she said un­ty­ing the string.

‘Oh, Sal­ly. No, Sal­ly.’

‘Labia babia.’

‘Oh, Sal­ly, you are aw­ful.’

Gaskell strug­gled with the ad­justable wrench. All this Touch Ther­apy was get­ting to him. And the plas­tic.

At the Coun­ty Hall the Prin­ci­pal was do­ing his best to paci­fy the mem­bers of the Ed­uca­tion Com­mit­tee who were de­mand­ing a full En­quiry in­to the re­cruit­ment pol­icy of the Lib­er­al Stud­ies De­part­ment.

‘Let me ex­plain,’ he said pa­tient­ly, look­ing round at the Com­mit­tee, which was a nice bal­ance of busi­ness in­ter­ests and so­cial com­mit­ment. ‘The 1944 Ed­uca­tion Act laid down that all ap­pren­tices should be re­leased from their places of em­ploy­ment to at­tend Day Re­lease Class­es at Tech­ni­cal Col­leges…’

‘We know all that,’ said a build­ing con­trac­tor, ‘and we all know it’s a bloody waste of time and pub­lic mon­ey. This coun­try would be a sight bet­ter of if they were left to get on with their jobs.’

‘The cours­es they at­tend,’ con­tin­ued the Prin­ci­pal be­fore any­one with a so­cial con­science could in­ter­vene, ‘are craft-​ori­ent­ed with the ex­cep­tion of one hour, one oblig­atory hour of Lib­er­al Stud­ies. Now the dif­fi­cul­ty with Lib­er­al Stud­ies is that no one knows what it means.’

‘Lib­er­al Stud­ies means,’ said Mrs Chat­ter­way, who prid­ed her­self on be­ing an ad­vo­cate of pro­gres­sive ed­uca­tion, in which role she had made a sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tion to the il­lit­er­acy rate in sev­er­al pre­vi­ous­ly good pri­ma­ry schools, ‘pro­vid­ing so­cial­ly de­prived ado­les­cents with a firm ground­ing in lib­er­al at­ti­tudes and cul­tur­al­ly ex­tend­ing top­ics…’

‘It means teach­ing them to read and write,’ said a com­pa­ny di­rec­tor. ‘It’s no good hav­ing work­ers who can’t read in­struc­tions.’

‘It means what­ev­er any­one choos­es it to mean,’ said the Prin­ci­pal hasti­ly. ‘Now if you are faced with the prob­lem of hav­ing to find lec­tur­ers who are pre­pared to spend their lives go­ing in­to class­rooms filled with Gas­fit­ters or Plas­ter­ers or Print­ers who see no good rea­son for be­ing there, and keep­ing them oc­cu­pied with a sub­ject that does not, strict­ly speak­ing, ex­ist, you can­not af­ford to pick and choose the sort of staff you em­ploy. That is the crux of the prob­lem.’

The Com­mit­tee looked at him doubt­ful­ly.

‘Am I to un­der­stand that you are sug­gest­ing that Lib­er­al Stud­ies teach­ers are not de­vot­ed and tru­ly cre­ative in­di­vid­uals im­bued with a strong sense of vo­ca­tion?’ asked Mrs Chat­ter­way bel­liger­ent­ly.

‘No,’ said the Prin­ci­pal, ‘I am not say­ing that at all. I am mere­ly try­ing to make the point that Lib­er­al Stud­ies lec­tur­ers are not as oth­er men are. They ei­ther start out odd or they end up odd. It’s in the na­ture of their oc­cu­pa­tion.’

‘But they are all high­ly qual­ified,’ said Mrs Chat­ter­way, ‘they all have de­grees.’

‘Quite. As you say they all hold de­grees. They are all qual­ified teach­ers but the stress­es to which they are sub­ject leave their mark. Let me put it this way. If you were to take a heart trans­plant sur­geon and ask him to spend his work­ing life dock­ing dogs’ tails you would hard­ly ex­pect him to emerge un­scathed af­ter ten years’ work. The anal­ogy is ex­act, be­lieve me, ex­act.’

‘Well, all I can say,’ protest­ed the build­ing con­trac­tor, ‘is that not all Lib­er­al Stud­ies lec­tur­ers end up bury­ing their mur­dered wives at the bot­tom of pile shafts.’

‘And all I can say,’ said the Prin­ci­pal, ‘is that I am ex­treme­ly sur­prised more don’t’

The met­ing broke up un­de­cid­ed.

Chapter 11

As dawn broke glau­cous­ly over East An­glia Wilt sat in the In­ter­view Room at the cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion iso­lat­ed from the nat­ural world and in a whol­ly ar­ti­fi­cial en­vi­ron­ment that in­clud­ed a ta­ble, four chairs, a de­tec­tive sergeant and a flu­ores­cent light on the ceil­ing that buzzed slight­ly. There were no win­dows, just pale green walls and a door through which peo­ple came and went oc­ca­sion­al­ly and Wilt went twice to re­lieve him­self in the com­pa­ny of a con­sta­ble. In­spec­tor Flint had gone to bed at mid­night and his place had been tak­en by De­tec­tive Sergeant Yates who had start­ed again at the be­gin­ning.

‘What be­gin­ning?’ said Wilt.

‘At the very be­gin­ning.’

‘God made heav­en and earth and all…’

‘For­get the wise­cracks,’ said Sergeant Yates.

‘Now that,’ said Wilt, ap­pre­cia­tive­ly, ‘is a more or­tho­dox use of wise.’

‘What is?’

‘Wise­crack. It’s slang but it’s good slang wise­wise if you get my mean­ing.’

De­tec­tive Sergeant Yates stud­ied him close­ly. ‘This is a sound­proof room,’ he said fi­nal­ly.

‘So I’ve no­ticed,’ said Wilt.

‘A man could scream his guts out in here and no one out­side would be any the wis­er.’

‘Wis­er?’ said Wilt doubt­ful­ly. ‘Wis­dom and knowl­edge are not the same thing. Some­one out­side might not be aware that…’

‘Shut up,’ said Sergeant Yates.

Wilt sighed. ‘If you would just let me get some sleep…’

‘You’ll get some sleep when you tell us why you mur­dered your wife, where you mur­dered her and how you mur­dered her.’

‘I don’t sup­pose it will do any good if I tell you I didn’t mur­der her.’

Sergeant Yates shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We know you did. You know you did. We know where she is. We’re go­ing to get her out. We know you put her there. You’ve at least ad­mit­ted that much.’

‘I keep telling you I put an in­flat­able…’

‘Was Mrs Wilt in­flat­able?’

‘Was she fuck,’ said Wilt.

‘Right, so we’ll for­get the in­flat­able doll crap…’

‘I wish to God I could,’ sold Wilt. ‘I’ll be on­ly too glad when you get down there and dig it out. It will have burst of course with all that con­crete on it but it will still be recog­nis­ably an in­flat­able plas­tic doll.’

Sergeant Yates leant across the ta­ble. ‘Let me tell you some thing. When we do get Mrs Wilt out of there, don’t imag­ine she’ll be un­recog­nis­able.’ He stopped and stared in­tent­ly at Wilt. ‘Not un­less you’ve dis­fig­ured her.’

‘Dis­fig­ured her?’ said Wilt with a hal­low laugh. ‘She didn’t need dis­fig­ur­ing the last time I saw her. She was look­ing bloody aw­ful. She had on these lemon py­ja­mas and her face was all cov­ered with…’ He hes­itat­ed. There was a cu­ri­ous ex­pres­sion on the Sergeant’s face.

‘Blood?’ he sug­gest­ed. ‘Were you go­ing to say “blood”?’

‘No,’ said Wilt, ‘I most cer­tain­ly wasn’t. I was go­ing to say pow­der. White pow­der and scar­let lip­stick. I told her she looked fuck­ing aw­ful.’

‘You must have had a very hap­py re­la­tion­ship with her,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I don’t make a habit of telling my wife she looks fuck­ing aw­ful.’

‘You prob­ably don’t have a fuck­ing aw­ful-​look­ing wife,’ said Wilt mak­ing an at­tempt to con­cil­iate the man.

‘What I have or don’t have by way of a wife is my busi­ness. She lies out­side the do­main of this dis­cus­sion.’

‘Lucky old her,’ said Wilt, ‘I wish to God mine did.’ By two o’clock they had left Mrs Wilt’s ap­pear­ance and got on to teeth and the ques­tion of iden­ti­fy­ing dead bod­ies by den­tal chart.

‘Look,’ said Wilt weari­ly, ‘I dare­say teeth fas­ci­nate you but at this time of night I can do with­out them.’

‘You wear den­tures or some­thing?’

‘No. No. I don’t,’ said Wilt, re­ject­ing the plu­ral.

‘Did Mrs Wilt?’

‘No,’ said Wilt, ’she was al­ways very…’

‘I thank you,’ said Sergeant Yates, ‘I knew it would come out in the end.’

‘What would?’ said Wilt, his mind still on teeth.

‘That “was”. The past tense. That’s the give away. Right, so you ad­mit she’s dead. Let’s go on from there.’

‘I didn’t say any­thing of the sort. You said “Did she wear den­tures?” and I said she didn’t…’

‘You said “she was”. It’s that “was” that in­ter­ests me. If you had said “is” it would have been dif­fer­ent’

‘It might have sound­ed dif­fer­ent,’ said Wilt, ral­ly­ing his de­fences, ‘but it wouldn’t have made the slight­est dif­fer­ence to the facts.’

‘Which are?’

‘That my wife is prob­ably still around some­where alive and kick­ing…’

‘You don’t half give your­self away, Wilt,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Now it’s “prob­ably” and as for “kick­ing” I just hope for your sake we don’t find she was still alive when they poured that con­crete down on top of her. The Court wouldn’t take kind­ly to that.’

‘I doubt if any­one would,’ said Wilt. ‘Now when I said “prob­ably” what I meant was that if you had been held in cus­tody for a day and half the night be­ing ques­tioned on the trot by de­tec­tives you’d be­gin to won­der what had hap­pened to your wife. It might even cross your mind that, all ev­idence to the con­trary, she might not be alive. You want to try sit­ting on this side of the ta­ble be­fore you start crit­icis­ing me for us­ing terms like “prob­able”. Any­thing more im­prob­able than be­ing ac­cused of mur­der­ing your wife when you know for a fact that you haven’t you can’t imag­ine.’

‘Lis­ten, Wilt,’ said the Sergeant, ‘I’m not crit­icis­ing you for your lan­guage. Be­lieve me I’m not. I’m mere­ly try­ing as pa­tient­ly as I can to es­tab­lish the facts.’

‘The facts are these’ said Wilt. ‘Like a com­plete id­iot I made the mis­take of dump­ing an in­flat­able doll down the bot­tom of a pile shaft and some­one poured con­crete in and my wife is away from home and…’

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Sergeant Yates told In­spec­tor Flint when he came on du­ty at sev­en in the morn­ing. ‘This one is a hard nut to crack. If you hadn’t told me he hadn’t a record I’d have sworn he was an old hand and a good one at that. Are you sure Cen­tral Records have got noth­ing on him?’ In­spec­tor Flint shook his head.

‘He hasn’t start­ed squeal­ing for a lawyer yet?’

‘Not a whim­per. I tell you he’s ei­ther as nut­ty as a fruit cake or he’s been through this lot be­fore.’

And Wilt had. Day af­ter day, year in year out. With Gas­fit­ters One and Print­ers Three, with Day Re­lease Mo­tor Me­chan­ics and Meat Two. For ten years he had sat in front of class­es, an­swer­ing ir­rel­evant ques­tions, dis­cussing why Pig­gy’s ra­tio­nal ap­proach to life was prefer­able to Jack’s brutish­ness, why Pan­gloss’ op­ti­mism was so un­sat­is­fac­to­ry, why Or­well hadn’t want­ed to shoot that blast­ed ele­phant or hang that man, and all the time fend­ing off ver­bal at­tempts to rat­tle him and re­duce him to the state poor old Pinker­ton was in when he gassed him­self. By com­par­ison with Brick­lay­ers Four, Sergeant Yates and In­spec­tor Flint were child’s play. If on­ly they would let him get some sleep he would go on run­ning in­con­se­quen­tial rings round them.

‘I thought I had him once,’ the Sergeant told Flint as they con­ferred in the cor­ri­dor. ‘I had got him on to teeth.’

‘Teeth?’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘I was just ex­plain­ing we can al­ways iden­ti­fy bod­ies from their den­tal charts and he al­most ad­mit­ted she was dead. Then he got away again.’

‘Teeth, eh? That’s in­ter­est­ing. I’ll have to pur­sue that line of ques­tion­ing. It maybe his weak link.’

‘Good luck on you,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I’m off to bed.’

‘Teeth?’ said Wit. ‘We’re not go­ing through that again are we? I thought we’d ex­haust­ed that top­ic. The last bloke want­ed to know if Eva had them in the past tense. I told him she did and…’

‘Wilt,’ said In­spec­tor Flint, ‘I am not in­ter­est­ed in whether or not Mrs Wilt had teeth. I pre­sume she must have done. What I want to know is if she still has them. Present tense.’

‘I imag­ine she must have,’ said Wilt pa­tient­ly. ‘You’d bet­ter ask her when you find her.’

‘And when we find her will she be in a po­si­tion to tell us?’

‘How the hell should I know? All I can say is that if for some quite in­ex­pli­ca­ble rea­son she’s lost all her teeth there’ll be the dev­il to pay. I’ll nev­er hear the end of it. She’s got a ma­nia for clean­ing the things and stick­ing bits of den­tal floss down the loo. You’ve got no idea the num­ber of times I’ve thought I’d got worms.’

In­spec­tor Flint sighed. What­ev­er suc­cess Sergeant Yates had had with teeth, it was cer­tain­ly elud­ing him. He switched to oth­er mat­ters.

‘Let’s go over what hap­pened at the Pring­sheims’ par­ty again,’ he said.

‘Let’s not,’ said Wilt who had so far man­aged to avoid men­tion­ing his con­tretemps with the doll in the bath­room. ‘I’ve told you five times al­ready and it’s wear­ing a bit thin. Be­sides it was a filthy par­ty. A lot of trendy in­tel­lec­tu­als boost­ing their pal­try egos.’

‘Would you say you were an in­tro­vert­ed sort of man, Wilt? A soli­tary type of per­son?’

Wilt con­sid­ered the ques­tion se­ri­ous­ly. It was cer­tain­ly more to the point than teeth.

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he said fi­nal­ly. ‘I’m fair­ly qui­et but I’m gre­gar­ious too. You have to be to cope with the class­es, I teach.’

‘But you don’t like par­ties?’

‘I don’t like par­ties like the Pring­sheims’, no.’

‘Their sex­ual be­haviour out­rages you? Fills you with dis­gust?’

‘Their sex­ual be­haviour? I don’t know why you pick on that. Ev­ery­thing about them dis­gusts me. All that crap about Wom­en’s Lib for one thing when all it means to some­one like Mrs Pring­sheim is that she can go around be­hav­ing like a bitch on heat while her hus­band spends the day slav­ing over a hot test tube and comes home to cook sup­per, wash up and is lucky if he’s got enough en­er­gy to wank him­self off be­fore go­ing to sleep. Now if we’re talk­ing about re­al Wom­en’s Lib that’s an­oth­er mat­ter. I’ve got noth­ing against…’

‘Let’s just hold it there,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘Now two things you said in­ter­est me. One, wives be­hav­ing like bitch­es on heat. Two, this busi­ness of you wank­ing your­self off.’

‘Me?’ said Wilt in­dig­nant­ly. ‘I wasn’t talk­ing about my­self.’

‘Weren’t you?’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘So you don’t mas­tur­bate?’

‘Now look here, In­spec­tor. You’re pry­ing in­to ar­eas of my pri­vate life which don’t con­cern you. If you want to know about mas­tur­ba­tion read the Kin­sey Re­port. Don’t ask me.’

In­spec­tor Flint re­strained him­self with dif­fi­cul­ty. He tried an­oth­er tack. ‘So when Mrs Pring­sheim lay on the bed and asked you to have in­ter­course with her…’

‘Fuck is what she said,’ Wilt cor­rect­ed him.’

‘You said no?’

‘Pre­cise­ly,’ said Wilt.

‘Isn’t that a bit odd?’

‘What, her ly­ing there or me say­ing no?’

‘You say­ing no.’

Wilt looked at him in­cred­ulous­ly.

‘Odd?’ he said. ‘Odd? A wom­an comes in here and throws her­self flat on her back on this ta­ble, pulls up her skirt and says “Fuck me, hon­ey, prick me to the quick.” Are you go­ing to leap on­to her with a “Whoopee, let’s roll ba­by”? Is that what you mean by not odd?’

‘Je­sus wept, Wilt,’ snarled the In­spec­tor, ‘you’re walk­ing a fuck­ing tightrope with my pa­tience.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ said Wilt. ‘All I do know is that your no­tion of what is odd be­haviour and what isn’t doesn’t be­gin to make sense with me.’

In­spec­tor Flint got up and left the room. ‘I’ll mur­der the bas­tard, so help me God I’ll mur­der him,’ he shout­ed at the Du­ty Sergeant. Be­hind him in the in­ter­view Room Wilt put his head on the ta­ble and fell asleep.

At the Tech Wilt’s ab­sence was mak­ing it­self felt in more ways than one. Mr Mor­ris had had to take Gas­fit­ters One at nine o’clock and had come out an hour lat­er feel­ing that he had gained fresh in­sight in­to Wilt’s sud­den ex­cur­sion in­to homi­cide. The Vice-​Prin­ci­pal was fight­ing off waves of crime re­porters anx­ious to find out more about the man who was help­ing the po­lice with their en­quiries in­to a par­tic­ular­ly macabre and news­wor­thy crime. And the Prin­ci­pal had be­gun to re­gret his crit­icisms of Lib­er­al Stud­ies to the Ed­uca­tion Com­mit­tee. Mrs Chat­ter­way had phoned to say that she had found his re­marks in the worst of taste and had hint­ed that she might well ask for an en­quiry in­to the run­ning of the Lib­er­al Stud­ies De­part­ment. But it was at the meet­ing of the Course Board that there was most alarm.

‘The vis­ita­tion of the Coun­cil for Na­tion­al Aca­dem­ic Awards takes place on Fri­day,’ Dr May­field, Head of So­ci­ol­ogy, told the com­mit­tee. ‘They are hard­ly like­ly to ap­prove the joint Hon­ours de­gree in the present cir­cum­stances.’

‘If they had any sense they wouldn’t ap­prove it in any cir­cum­stances,’ said Dr Board. ‘Ur­ban Stud­ies and Me­dieval Po­et­ry in­deed. I know aca­dem­ic eclec­ti­cism is the vogue these days but He­len Wad­dell and Lewis Mum­ford aren’t even re­mote­ly nat­ural bed­fel­lows. Be­sides the de­gree lacks aca­dem­ic con­tent.’

Dr May­field bris­tled. Aca­dem­ic con­tent was his strong point. ‘I don’t see how you can say that,’ he said. ‘The course has been struc­tured to meet the needs of stu­dents look­ing for a the­mat­ic ap­proach.’

‘The poor be­night­ed crea­tures we man­age to lure away from uni­ver­si­ties to take this course wouldn’t know a the­mat­ic ap­proach if they saw one,’ said Dr Board. ‘Come to think of it I wouldn’t ei­ther.’

‘We all have our lim­ita­tions,’ said Dr May­field suave­ly.

‘Pre­cise­ly’ said Dr Board, ‘and in the cir­cum­stances we should recog­nise them in­stead of con­coct­ing joint Hon­ours de­grees which don’t make sense for stu­dents who if their A-​lev­el re­sults are any­thing to go by, haven’t any chance in the first place. Heav­en knows I’m all for ed­uca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ty but–’

‘The point is,’ in­ter­ject­ed Dr Cox, Head of Sci­ence, ‘that it is not the de­gree course as such that is the pur­pose of the vis­ita­tion. As I un­der­stand it they have giv­en their ap­proval to the de­gree in prin­ci­ple. They are com­ing to look at the fa­cil­ities the Col­lege pro­vides and they are hard­ly like­ly to be im­pressed by the pres­ence of so many mur­der squad de­tec­tives. That blue car­avan is most off-​putting.’

‘In any case with the late Mrs Wilt struc­tured in­to the foun­da­tions…’ be­gan Dr Board.

‘I am do­ing my best to get the po­lice to re­move her from…’

‘The syl­labus?’ asked Dr Board.

‘The premis­es,’ said Dr May­field. ‘Un­for­tu­nate­ly they seem to have hit a snag.’

‘A snag?’

They have hit bedrock at eleven feet.’

Dr Board smiled. ‘One won­ders why there was any need for thir­ty-​foot piles in the first in­stance if there is bedrock at eleven,’ he mur­mured.

‘I can on­ly tell you what the po­lice have told me,’ said Dr May­field. ‘How­ev­er they have promised to do all they can to be off the site by Fri­day. Now I would just like to run over the ar­range­ments again with you. The Vis­ita­tion will start at eleven with an in­spec­tion of the li­brary. We will then break up in­to groups to dis­cuss Fac­ul­ty li­braries and teach­ing fa­cil­ities with par­tic­ular ref­er­ence to our abil­ity to pro­vide in­di­vid­ual tu­ition…’

‘I shouldn’t have thought that was a point that need­ed em­pha­sis­ing,’ said Dr Board. ‘With the few stu­dents we’re like­ly to get we’re al­most cer­tain to have the high­est teach­er to stu­dent ra­tio in the coun­try.’

‘If we adopt that ap­proach the Com­mit­tee will gain the im­pres­sion that we are not com­mit­ted to the de­gree. We must pro­vide a unit­ed front,’ said Dr May­field ‘we can’t af­ford at this stage to have di­vi­sions among our­selves. This de­gree could mean our get­ting Poly­tech­nic sta­tus.’

There were di­vi­sions too among the men bor­ing down on the build­ing site. The fore­man was still at home un­der se­da­tion suf­fer­ing ner­vous ex­haus­tion brought on by his part in the ce­men­ta­tion of a mur­dered wom­an and it was left to Bar­ney to su­per­in­tend op­er­ations. ‘There was this hand, see…’ he told the Sergeant in charge.

‘On which side?’

‘On the right,’ said Bar­ney.

Then we’ll go down on the left. That way if the hand is stick­ing out we won’t cut it off.’

They went down on the left and cut off the main elec­tric­ity ca­ble to the can­teen.

‘For­get that bleed­ing hand,’ said the Sergeant, ‘we go down on the right and trust to luck. Just so long as we don’t cut the bitch in half.’

They went down on the right and hit bedrock at eleven feet.

This is go­ing to slow us up no end,’ said Bar­ney. ‘Who would have thought there’d be rock down there.’

‘Who would have thought some nut would in­cor­po­rate his miss­es in the foun­da­tion of a col­lege of fur­ther ed­uca­tion where he worked,’ said the Sergeant.

‘Grue­some,’ said Bar­ney.

In the mean­time the staff had as usu­al di­vid­ed in­to fac­tions.

Pe­ter Brain­tree led those who thought Wilt was in­no­cent and was joined by the New Left on the grounds that any­one in con­flict with the fuzz must be in the right. Ma­jor Mill­field re­act­ed ac­cord­ing­ly and led the Right against Wilt on the au­to­mat­ic as­sump­tion that any­one who in­curred the sup­port of the left must be in the wrong and that any­way the po­lice knew what they were do­ing. The is­sue was raised at the meet­ing of the Union called to dis­cuss the an­nu­al pay de­mand. Ma­jor Mill­field pro­posed a mo­tion call­ing on the union to sup­port the cam­paign for the rein­tro­duc­tion of cap­ital pun­ish­ment. Bill Trent coun­tered with a mo­tion ex­press­ing sol­idar­ity with Broth­er Wilt. Pe­ter Brain­tree pro­posed that a fund be set up to help Wilt with his le­gal fees. Dr Lo­max, Head of Com­merce, ar­gued against this and point­ed out that Wilt had, by dis­mem­ber­ing his wife, brought the pro­fes­sion in­to dis­re­pute. Brain­tree said Wilt hadn’t dis­mem­bered any­one and that even the po­lice hadn’t sug­gest­ed he had, and there was such a thing as a law against slan­der. Dr Lo­max with­drew his re­mark. Ma­jor Mill­field in­sist­ed that there were good grounds for think­ing Wilt had mur­dered his wife and that any­way Habeas Cor­pus didn’t ex­ist in Rus­sia. Bill Trent said that cap­ital pun­ish­ment didn’t ei­ther. Ma­jor Mill­field said, ‘Bosh.’ In the end, af­ter pro­longed ar­gu­ment, Ma­jor Mill­field’s mo­tion on hang­ing was passed by a block vote of the Cater­ing De­part­ment while Brain­tree’s pro­pos­al and the mo­tion of the New Left were de­feat­ed, and the meet­ing went on to dis­cuss a pay in­crease of forty-​five per cent, to keep Teach­ers in Tech­ni­cal in­sti­tutes in line with com­pa­ra­bly qual­ified pro­fes­sions. Af­ter­wards Pe­ter Brain­tree went down to the Po­lice Sta­tion to see if there was any­thing Hen­ry want­ed.

‘I won­der if I might see him,’ he asked the Sergeant at the desk.

‘I’m afraid not, sir,’ said the Sergeant, ‘Mr Wilt is still help­ing us with our en­quiries.’

‘But isn’t there any­thing I can get him? Doesn’t he need any­thing?’

‘Mr Wilt is well pro­vid­ed for,’ said the Sergeant, with the pri­vate reser­va­tion that what Wilt need­ed was his head read.

‘But shouldn’t he have a so­lic­itor?’

‘When Mr Wilt asks for a so­lic­itor he will be al­lowed to see one,’ said the Sergeant, ‘I can as­sure you that so far he hasn’t asked.’

And Wilt hadn’t. Hav­ing fi­nal­ly been al­lowed three hours sleep he had emerged from his cell at twelve o’clock and had eat­en a hearty break­fast in the po­lice can­teen. He re­turned to the In­ter­view Room, hag­gard and un­shaven, and with his sense of the im­prob­able marked­ly in­creased.

‘Now then, Hen­ry,’ said In­spec­tor Flint, drop­ping an of­fi­cial oc­tave nomen­cla­ture­wise in the hope that Wilt would re­spond, ‘about this blood.’

‘What blood?’ said Wilt, look­ing round the asep­tic room.

The blood on the walls of the bath­room at the Pring­sheims’ house. The blood on the land­ing. Have you any idea how it got there? Any idea at all?’

‘None,’ said Wilt, ‘I can on­ly as­sume that some­one was bleed­ing.’

‘Right,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘who?’

‘Search me,’ said Wilt.

‘Quite, and you know what we’ve found?’

Wilt shook his head.

‘No idea?’

‘None,’ said Wilt.

‘Blood­spots on a pair of grey trousers in your wardrobe’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘Blood­spots. Hen­ry, blood­spots.’

‘Hard­ly sur­pris­ing,’ said Wilt. ‘I mean if you looked hard enough you’d be bound to find some blood­spots in any­one’s wardrobe. The thing is I wasn’t wear­ing grey trousers at that par­ty. I was wear­ing blue jeans.’

‘You were wear­ing blue jeans? You’re quite sure about that?’

‘Yes.’

‘So the blood­spots on the bath­room wall and the blood­spots on your grey trousers have noth­ing to do with one an­oth­er?’

‘In­spec­tor,’ said Wilt. ‘far be it from me to teach you your own busi­ness but you have a tech­ni­cal branch that spe­cialis­es in match­ing blood­stains. Now may I sug­gest that you make use of their skills to es­tab­lish…’

‘Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘Wilt, when I need your ad­vice on how to con­duct a mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion I’ll not on­ly ask for it but re­sign from the force.’

‘Well?’ said Wilt.

‘Well what?’

‘Do they match? Do the blood­stains match’ The In­spec­tor stud­ied him grim­ly. ‘If I told you they did?’ he asked.

Wilt shrugged. ‘I’m not in any po­si­tion to ar­gue,’ he said. ‘If you say they do, I take it they do.’

‘They don’t,’ said In­spec­tor Flint, ‘but that proves noth­ing,’ he con­tin­ued ‘be­fore Wilt could savour his sat­is­fac­tion. ‘Noth­ing at all. We’ve got three peo­ple miss­ing. There’s Mrs Wilt at the bot­tom of that shaft…No, don’t say it. Wilt, don’t say it. There’s Dr Pring­sheim and there’s Mrs Fuck­ing Pring­sheim.’

‘I like it,’ said Wilt ap­pre­cia­tive­ly. ‘I def­inite­ly like it’

‘Like what?’

‘Mrs Fuck­ing Pring­sheim. It’s ap­po­site.’

‘One of these days, Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor soft­ly, ‘you’ll go too far.’

‘Pa­tience­wise? To use a filthy ex­pres­sion,’ asked Wilt.

The In­spec­tor nod­ded and lit a cigarette.

‘You know some­thing, In­spec­tor,’ said Wilt, be­gin­ning to feel on top of the sit­ua­tion, ‘you smoke too much. Those things are bad for you. You should try…’

‘Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘in twen­ty-​five years in the ser­vice I have nev­er once re­sort­ed to phys­ical vi­olence while in­ter­ro­gat­ing a sus­pect but there comes a time, a time and a place and a sus­pect when with the best will in the world…’ He got up and went out. Wilt sat back in his chair and looked up at the flu­ores­cent light. He wished it would stop buzzing. It was get­ting on his nerves.

Chapter 12

On Eel Stretch–Gaskell’s map-​read­ing had mis­led him and they were nowhere near Frog­wa­ter Reach or Fen Broad–the sit­ua­tion was get­ting on ev­ery­one’s nerves. Gaskell’s at­tempts to mend the en­gine had had the op­po­site ef­fect. The cock­pit was flood­ed with fu­el and it was dif­fi­cult to walk on deck with­out slip­ping.

‘Je­sus, G, any­one would think to look at you that this was a god­dam oil rig,’ said Sal­ly.

‘It was that fuck­ing fu­el line,’ said Gaskell, ‘I couldn’t get it back on.’

‘Say why try start­ing the mo­tor with it off?’

‘To see if it was blocked.’

‘So now you know. What you go­ing to do about it? Sit here till the food runs out? You’ve got­ta think of some­thing.’

‘Why me? Why don’t you come up with some­thing?’

‘If you were any sort of a man…’

‘Shit,’ said Gaskell. ‘The voice of the lib­er­at­ed wom­an. Comes the crunch and all of a sud­den I’ve got to be a man. What’s up with you, man-​wom­an? You want us off here, you do it. Don’t ask me to be a man, up­per­case M, in an emer­gen­cy. I’ve for­got­ten how.’

‘There must be some way of get­ting help,’ said Sal­ly.

‘Oh sure. You just go up top and take a crowsnest at the scenery. All you’ll get is a bean­feast of bull­rush­es.’ Saly climbed on top of the cab­in and scanned the hori­zon. It was thir­ty feet away and con­sist­ed of an ex­panse of reeds.

‘There’s some­thing over there looks like a church tow­er,’ she said. Gaskell climbed up be­side her.

‘It is a church tow­er. So what?’

‘So if we flashed a light or some­thing some­one might see it,’

‘Bril­liant. A high­ly pop­ulat­ed place like the top of a church tow­er there’s bound to be peo­ple just want­ing for us to flash a light.’

‘Couldn’t we burn some­thing?’ said Sal­ly. ‘Some­body would see the smoke and…’

‘You crazy? You start burn­ing any­thing with all that fu­el oil float­ing around they’ll see some­thing all right. Like as ex­plod­ing cruis­er with bod­ies.’

‘We could fill a can with oil and put it over the side and float it away be­fore light­ing it.’

‘And set the seedbeds on fire? What the hell do you want? A fuck­ing holo­caust?’

‘G ba­by, you’re just be­ing un­help­ful.’

‘I’m us­ing my brains is all,’ said Gaskell. ‘You keep com­ing up with ‘bright ideas like that you’re go­ing to land us in a worse mess than we’re in al­ready.’

I don’t see why,’ said Sal­ly.

‘I’ll tell you why,’ said Gaskell, ‘be­cause you went and stole this fuck­ing Hes­pe­rus. That’s why.’

‘I didn’t steal it. I…’

‘You tell the fuzz that. Just tell them. You start set­ting fire to reedbeds and they’ll be all over us ask­ing ques­tions. Like whose boat this is and how come you’re sail­ing some­one else’s cruis­er…So we got to get out of here with­out pub­lic­ity.’

It start­ed to rain.

‘That’s all we need. Rain,’ said Gaskell. Sal­ly went down in­to the cab­in where Eva was tidy­ing up af­ter lunch. ‘God, G’s hope­less. First he lands us on a mud­bank in the mid­dle of nowhere, then he ge­fucks the mo­tor but good and now he says be doesn’t know what to do.’

‘Why doesn’t he go, and get help?’ asked Eva.

‘How? Swim­ming? G couldn’t swim that far to save his life.’

‘He could take the airbed and pad­dle down to the open wa­ter,’ said Eva. ‘He wouldn’t have to swim.’

‘Airbed? Did I hear you say airbed? What airbed?’

‘The one in the lock­er with the life­jack­ets. All you’ve got to do is blow it up and…’

‘Hon­ey you’re the prac­ti­callest,’ said Sal­ly, and rushed out­side. ‘G, Eva’s found a way for you to go and get help. There’s an airbed in the lock­er with the life­jack­ets.’ She rum­maged in the lock­er and took out the airbed.

‘You think I’m go­ing any­where on that damned thing you’ve got an­oth­er think com­ing,’ said Gaskell.

‘What’s wrong with it?’

In this weath­er? You ev­er tried to steer one of those things? It’s bad enough on a sun­ny day with no wind. Right now I’d end up in the reeds and any­how the rain’s get­ting on my glass­es.’

‘All right, so we wait till the storm blows over. At least we know how to get off here.’

She went back in­to the cab­in and shut the door. Out­side Gaskell squat­ted by the en­gine and toyed with the wrench. If on­ly he could get the thing to go again.

‘Men,’ said Sal­ly con­temp­tu­ous­ly, ‘Claim to be the stronger sex but when the chips are down it’s us wom­en who have to bail them out.’

‘Hen­ry’s im­prac­ti­cal too,’ said Eva. ‘It’s all he can do to mend a fuse.’ I do hope he isn’t wor­ried about me’

‘He’s hav­ing him­self a ball,’ said Sal­ly.

‘Not Hen­ry. He wouldn’t know how.’

‘He’s prob­ably hav­ing it off with Judy.’

Eva shook her head. ‘He was just drunk, that’s all. He’s nev­er done any­thing like that be­fore.’

‘How would you know?’

‘Well he is my hus­band.’

‘Hus­band hell. He just us­es you to wash the dish­es and cook and clean up for him. What does he give you? Just tell me that’

Eva strug­gled with her thoughts inar­tic­ulate­ly. Hen­ry didn’t give her any­thing very much. Not any­thing she could put in­to words. ‘He needs me,’ she said fi­nal­ly.

‘So he needs you. Who needs need­ing? That’s the rhetoric of fe­male feu­dal­ism. So you save some­one’s life, you’ve got to be grate­ful to them for let­ting you? For­get Hen­ry. He’s a jerk.’

Eva bris­tled. Hen­ry might not be very much but she didn’t like him in­sult­ed.

‘Gaskell’s noth­ing much to write home about,’ she said and went in­to the kitchen. Be­hind her Sal­ly lay back on the bunk and opened the cen­tre spread of Play­boy. ‘Gaskells got bread,’ she said.

‘Bread?’

‘Mon­ey, hon­ey. Green­stuff. ‘The stuff that makes the world go round Cabaret­wise. You think I mar­ried him for his looks? Oh no. I can smell a cool mil­lion when it comes by me and I do mean buy me.’

‘I could nev­er mar­ry a man for his mon­ey,’ said Eva prim­ly. ‘I’d have to be in love with him. I re­al­ly would.’

‘So you’ve seen too many movies. Do you re­al­ly think Gaskell was in love with me?’

‘I don’t know. I sup­pose he must have been.’

Sal­ly laughed. ‘Eva ba­by you are naïve. Let me tell you about G. G’s a plas­tic freak. He’d fuck a god­dam chim­panzee if you dressed it up in plas­tic’

‘Oh hon­est­ly. He wouldn’t’ said Eva. ‘I don’t be­lieve it.’

‘You think I put you on the Pill for noth­ing? You go around in that biki­ni and Gaskell’s drool­ing over you all the time if I wasn’t here he’d have raped you’

‘He’d have a hard time.’ said Eva, ‘I took Ju­do class­es.’

‘Well he’d try. Any­thing in plas­tic drives him crazy. Why do you think he had that doll?’

‘I won­dered about that.’

‘Right. You can stop won­der­ing’ said Sal­ly.

‘I still don’t see what that has to do with you mar­ry­ing him,’ said Eva.

‘Then let me tell you a lit­tle se­cret. Gaskell was re­ferred to me…’

‘Re­ferred?’

‘By Dr Free­born. Gaskell had this lit­tle prob­lem and he con­sult­ed Dr Free­born and Dr Free­born sent him to me.’

Eva looked puz­zled. ‘But what were you sup­posed to do?’

‘I was a sur­ro­gate,’ said Sal­ly.

‘A sur­ro­gate?’

‘Like a sex coun­sel­lor’ said Sal­ly. ‘Dr Free­born used to send me clients and I would help them.’

‘I wouldn’t like that sort of job,’ said Eva, ‘I couldn’t bear to talk to men about sex. Weren’t you em­bar­rassed?’

‘You get used to it and there are worse ways of earn­ing a liv­ing. So G comes along with his lit­tle prob­lem and I straight­ened him out but lit­er­al­ly and we got mar­ried. A busi­ness ar­range­ment. Cash on the tail.’

‘You mean you…’

‘I mean I have Gaskell and Gaskell has plas­tic.’ It’s an elas­tic re­la­tion­ship. The mar­riage with the two-​way stretch.’

Eva di­gest­ed this in­for­ma­tion with dif­fi­cul­ty. It didn’t seem right some­how. ‘Didn’t his par­ents have any­thing to say about it?’ she asked. ‘I mean did he tell them about you help­ing him and all that?’

‘Say? What could they say? G told them he’d met me at sum­mer school and Pringsy’s greedy lit­tle eyes popped out of his greasy lit­tle head. Ba­by, did that fat lit­tle man have pe­nis pro­jec­tion. Sell? He could sell any­thing. The Rock­efeller Cen­tre to Rock­efeller. So he ac­cept­ed me. Old Ma Pring­sheim didn’t. She fluffed and she puffed and she blew but this lit­tle pig­gy stayed right where the bank was. G and me went back to Cal­ifor­nia and G grad­uat­ed in plas­tic and we’ve been biodegrad­able ev­er since.’

‘I’m glad Hen­ry isn’t like that,’ said Eva. ‘I couldn’t live with a man who was queer.’

‘G’s not queer, hon­ey. Like I said he’s a plas­tic freak.’

‘If that’s not queer I don’t know what is’ said Eva.

Sal­ly lit a cigar­il­lo.

‘All men get turned on by some­thing,’ she said. ‘They’re ma­nip­ula­ble. All you’ve got to do is fend the kink. I should know.’

‘Hen­ry’s not like that. I’d know if he was.’

‘So he makes with the doll. That’s how much you know about Hen­ry. You telling me he’s the great lover?’

‘We’ve been mar­ried twelve years. It’s on­ly nat­ural we don’t do it as of­ten as we used to. We’re so busy.’

‘Busy lizzie. And while you’re house­bound what’s Hen­ry do­ing?’

‘He’s tak­ing class­es at the Tech. He’s there all day and he comes home tired

‘Takes class­es takes ass­es. You’ll be telling me next he’s not a sidewinder.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ said Eva.

‘He has his piece on the side. His sec­re­tary knees up on the desk.’

‘He doesn’t have a sec­re­tary.’

‘Then stu­dents pru­dence. Screws their grades up. I know. I’ve seen it. I’ve been around col­leges too long to be fooled.’

‘I’m sure Hen­ry would nev­er…’

‘That’s what they all say and then bin­go, it’s di­vorce and bob­by­sex and all you’re left to look for­ward to is menopause and peek­ing through the blinds at the man next door and wait­ing for the Fuller Brush man.’

‘You make it all sound so aw­ful.’ said Eva. ‘You re­al­ly do.’

‘It is, Eva teats. It is. You’ve got to do some­thing, about it be­fore it’s too late. You’ve got to lib­er­ate your­self from Hen­ry. Make the break and share the cake. Oth­er­wise it’s male dom­ina­tion doom­side.’

Eva sat on the bunk and thought about the fu­ture. It didn’t seem to hold trench for her. They would nev­er have any chil­dren now and they wouldn’t ev­er have much mon­ey. They would go on liv­ing in Park-​dew Av­enue and pay­ing off the mort­gage and maybe Hen­ry would find some­one else and then what would she do? And even if he didn’t, life was pass­ing her by.

‘I wish I knew what to do,’ she said present­ly. Sal­ly sat up and put her arm round her.

‘Why don’t you come to the States with us in Novem­ber?’ she said. ‘We could have such fun.’

‘Oh I couldn’t do that,’ said Eva. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to Hen­ry.’

No such qualms both­ered In­spec­tor Flint. Wilt’s in­tran­si­gence un­der in­tense ques­tion­ing mere­ly in­di­cat­ed that he was hard­er than he looked.

‘We’ve had him un­der in­ter­ro­ga­tion for thir­ty-​six hours now,’ he told the con­fer­ence of the Mur­der Squad in the brief­ing room at the Po­lice Sta­tion, ‘and we’ve got noth­ing out of him. So this is go­ing to be a long hard job and quite frankly I have my doubts about break­ing him.’

‘I told you he was go­ing to be a hard nut to crack,’ said Sergeant Yates.

‘Nut be­ing the op­er­ative word,’ said Flint. ‘So it’s got to be con­crete ev­idence.’

There was a snig­ger which died away quick­ly. In­spec­tor Flint was not in a hu­mor­ous mood.

‘Ev­idence, hard ev­idence is the on­ly thing that is go­ing to break him. Ev­idence is the on­ly thing that is go­ing to bring him to tri­al.’

‘But we’ve got that,’ said Yates. ‘It’s at the bott…’

‘I know ex­act­ly where it is, thank you Sergeant. What I am talk­ing about is ev­idence of mul­ti­ple mur­der. Mrs Wilt is ac­count­ed for. Dr and Mrs Pring­sheim aren’t. Now my guess is that he mur­dered all three and that the oth­er two bod­ies are…’ He stopped and opened the file in front of him and hunt­ed through it for Notes on Vi­olence and the Break-​Up of Fam­ily Life. He stud­ied them for a mo­ment and shook his head. ‘No,’ he mut­tered, ‘it’s not pos­si­ble.’

‘What isn’t, sir?’ asked Sergeant Yates. ‘Any­thing is pos­si­ble with this bas­tard.’

But In­spec­tor Flint was not to be drawn. The no­tion was too aw­ful.

‘As I was say­ing’ be con­tin­ued, ‘what we need now is hard ev­idence. What we have got is pure­ly cir­cum­stan­tial. I want more ev­idence on the Pring­sheims. I want to know what hap­pened at that par­ty, who was there and why it hap­pened and at the rate we’re go­ing with Wilt we aren’t go­ing to get any­thing out of him. Snell, you go down to the De­part­ment of Bio­chem­istry at the Uni­ver­si­ty and get what you can on Dr Pring­sheim. Find out if any of his col­leagues were at that par­ty. In­ter­view them. Get a list of his friends, his hob­bies, his girl friends if he had any. Find out if there is any link be­tween him and Mrs Wilt that would sug­gest a mo­tive. Jack­son, you go up to Rossiter Grove and see what you can get on Mrs Pring­sheim…’

By the time the con­fer­ence broke up de­tec­tives had been despatched all over town to build up a dossier on the Pring­sheims. Even the Amer­ican Em­bassy had been con­tact­ed to find out what was known about the cou­ple in the States. The mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion had be­gun in earnest.

In­spec­tor Flint walked back to his of­fice with Sergeant Yates and shut the door. ‘Yates,’ he said, ‘this is con­fi­den­tial. I wasn’t go­ing to men­tion it in there but I’ve a nasty feel­ing I know why that sod is so bloody cocky. Have you ev­er known a mur­der­er sit through thir­ty-​six hours of ques­tion­ing as cool as a cu­cum­ber when be knows we’ve got the body of his vic­tim pin­point­ed to the near­est inch?’

Sergeant Yates shook his head.’I've known some pret­ty cool cus­tomers in my time and par­tic­ular­ly since they stopped hang­ing but this one takes the bis­cuit If you ask me he’s a rav­ing psy­chopath.’

Flint dis­missed the idea. ‘Psy­chopaths crack easy,’ he said. ‘They con­fess to mur­ders they haven’t com­mit­ted or they con­fess to, mur­ders they have com­mit­ted but they con­fess. This Wilt doesn’t. He sits there and tells me how to run the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Now take a look at this.’ He opened the file and took out Wilt’s notes. ‘No­tice any­thing pe­cu­liar?’

Sergeant Yates read the notes through twice.

‘Well, he doesn’t seem to think much of our meth­ods,’ he said fi­nal­ly. ‘And I don’t much like this bit about low lev­el of in­tel­li­gence of av­er­age po­lice­man.’

‘What about Point Two D?’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘In­creas­ing use of so­phis­ti­cat­ed meth­ods such as di­ver­sion­ary tac­tics by crim­inals. Di­ver­sion­ary tac­tics. Doesn’t that sug­gest any­thing to you?’

‘You mean he’s try­ing to di­vert our at­ten­tion away from the re­al crime to some­thing else?’

In­spec­tor Flint nod­ded. ‘What I mean is this. I wouldn’t mind bet­ting that when we do get down to the bot­tom of that fuck­ing pile we’re go­ing to find an in­flat­able doll dressed up in Mrs Wilt’s clothes and with a vagi­na. That’s what I think’

‘But that’s in­sane.’

‘In­sane? It’s fuck­ing di­abol­ical,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘He’s sit­ting in there like a god­dam dum­my giv­ing as good as he gets be­cause he knows he’s got us chas­ing a red her­ring.’

Sergeant Yates sat down mys­ti­fied. ‘But why? Why draw at­ten­tion to the mur­der in the first place? Why didn’t he just lie low and act nor­mal­ly?’

‘What, and re­port Mrs Wilt miss­ing? You’re for­get­ting the Pring­sheims. A wife goes miss­ing, so what? Two of her friends go miss­ing and leave their house in a hell of a mess and cov­ered with blood­stains. That needs ex­plain­ing, that does. So he puts out a false trail…’

‘But that still doesn’t help him,’ ob­ject­ed the Sergeant. ‘We dig up a plas­tic doll. Doesn’t mean we’re go­ing to halt the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.’

‘Maybe not but it gives him a week while the oth­er bod­ies dis­in­te­grate.’

‘You think be used an acid bath like Haigh?’ asked the Sergeant. ‘That’s hor­ri­ble.’

‘Of course it’s hor­ri­ble. You think mur­der’s nice or some­thing? Any­way the on­ly rea­son they got Haigh was that stupid bug­ger told them where to look for the sludge. If he’d kept his trap shut for an­oth­er week they wouldn’t have found any­thing. The whole lot would have been washed away. Be­sides I don’t know what Wilt’s used. All I do know is he’s an in­tel­lec­tu­al, a clever sod and he thinks he’s got it wrapped up. First we take him in for ques­tion­ing, maybe even get him re­mand­ed and when we’ve done that, we go and dig up a plas­tic in­flat­able doll. We’re go­ing to look right Char­lies go­ing in­to court with a plas­tic doll as ev­idence of mur­der. We’ll be the laugh­ing stock of the world. So the case gets thrown out of court and what hap­pens when we pick him up a sec­ond time for ques­tion­ing on the re­al mur­ders? We’d have the Civ­il Lib­er­ties brigade sink­ing their teeth in­to our throats like bleed­ing vam­pire bats.’

‘I sup­pose that ex­plains why he doesn’t start shout­ing for a lawyer,’ said Yates.

‘Of course it does. What does he want with a lawyer now? But pull him in a sec­ond time and he’ll have lawyers falling over them­selves to help him. They’ll be squawk­ing about po­lice bru­tal­ity and vic­tim­iza­tion. You won’t be able to hear your­self speak. His bloody lawyers will have a field day. First plas­tic dolls and then no bod­ies at all. He’ll get clean away.’

‘Any­one who can think that lit­tle lot up must be a mad­man,’ said the Sergeant.

‘Or a fuck­ing ge­nius,’ said Flint bit­ter­ly. ‘Christ what a case.’ He stubbed out a cigarette re­sent­ful­ly.

‘What do you want me to do? Have an­oth­er go at him.’

‘No, I’ll do that. You go up to the Tech and chivvy his boss there in­to say­ing what he re­al­ly thinks of Wilt. Get any lit­tle bit of dirt on the blighter you can. There’s got to be some­thing in his past we can use.’

He went down the cor­ri­dor and in­to the In­ter­view Room. Wilt was sit­ting at the ta­ble mak­ing notes on the back of a state­ment form. Now that he was be­gin­ning to feel, if not at home in the Po­lice Sta­tion, at least more at ease with his sur­round­ings, his mind had turned to the prob­lem of Eva’s dis­ap­pear­ance. He had to ad­mit that he had been wor­ried by the blood­stains in the Pring­sheims’ bath­room. To while away the time he had tried to for­mu­late his thoughts on pa­per and he was still, at it when In­spec­tor Flint came in­to the room and banged the door.

‘Right, so you’re a clever fel­low, Wilt,’ he said, sit­ting down and pulling the pa­per to­wards him. ‘You can read and write and you’ve got a nice log­ical and in­ven­tive mind so let’s just see what you’ve writ­ten here. Who’s Ethel?’

‘Eva’s sis­ter,’ said Wilt. ‘She’s mar­ried to a mar­ket gar­den­er in Lu­ton. Eva some­times goes over there for a week.’

‘And “Blood in the bath”?’

‘Just won­der­ing how it got there.’

‘And “Ev­idence of hur­ried de­par­ture”?’

‘I was sim­ply putting down my thoughts about the state of the Pring­sheims house, said Wilt.

‘You’re try­ing to be help­ful?’

‘I’m here help­ing you with your en­quiries. That’s the of­fi­cial term isn’t it?’

‘It may be the of­fi­cial term, Wilt, but in this case it doesn’t cor­re­spond with the facts.’

‘I don’t sup­pose it does very of­ten,’ said Wilt. ‘It’s one of those ex­pres­sions that cov­ers a mul­ti­tude of sins.’

‘And crimes.’

‘It al­so hap­pens to ru­in a man’s rep­uta­tion,’ said Wilt. ‘I hope you re­al­ize what you’re do­ing to mine by hold­ing me here like this. It’s bad enough know­ing I’m go­ing to spend the rest of my life be­ing point­ed out as the man who dressed a plas­tic doll with a cunt up in his wife’s clothes and dropped it down a pile hole with­out ev­ery­one think­ing I’m a bloody mur­der­er as well.’

‘Where you’re go­ing to spend the rest of your life no­body is go­ing to care what you did with that plas­tic doll,’ said the In­spec­tor.

Wilt seized on the ad­mis­sion.

‘Ah, so, you’ve found it at last,’ he said ea­ger­ly. ‘That’s fine. So now I’m free to go.’

‘Sit down and shut up,’ snarled the In­spec­tor. ‘You’re not go­ing any­where and when you do it will be in a large black van. I haven’t fin­ished with you yet. In fact I’m on­ly just be­gin­ning.

‘Here we go again,’ said Wilt. ‘I just knew you’d want to start at the be­gin­ning again. You fel­lows have pri­ma­ry caus­es on the brain. Cause and ef­fect, cause and ef­fect. Which came first, the chick­en or the egg…pro­to­plasm or demi­urge? I sup­pose this time it’s go­ing to be what Eva said when we were dress­ing to go to the par­ty.’

‘This time.’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘I want you to tell me pre­cise­ly why you stuck that damned doll down that hole.’

‘Now that is an in­ter­est­ing ques­tion.’ said Wilt, and stopped. It didn’t seem a good idea to try to ex­plain to In­spec­tor Flint in the present cir­cum­stances just what he had had in mind when he dropped the doll down the shaft. The In­spec­tor didn’t look the sort of per­son who would un­der­stand at all read­ily that a hus­band could have fan­tasies of mur­der­ing his wife with­out ac­tu­al­ly putting them in­to ef­fect. It would be bet­ter to wait for Eva to put in an ap­pear­ance in the flesh be­fore ven­tur­ing in­to that un­chart­ed ter­ri­to­ry of the whol­ly ir­ra­tional. With Eva present Flint might sym­pa­thize with him. With­out her he most cer­tain­ly wouldn’t.

‘Let’s just say I want­ed to get rid of the beast­ly thing,’ he said.

‘Let’s not say any­thing of the sort,’ said Flint. ‘Let’s just say you had an ul­te­ri­or mo­tive for putting it there.’

Wilt nod­ded. ‘I’ll go along with that,’ he said.

In­spec­tor Flint nod­ded en­cour­ag­ing­ly. ‘I thought you might. Well, what was it?’

Wilt con­sid­ered his words care­ful­ly. He was get­ting in­to deep wa­ters.

‘Let’s just say it was by way of be­ing a re­hearsal.’

‘A re­hearsal? What sort of re­hearsal?’

Wilt thought for a mo­ment.

‘In­ter­est­ing word “re­hearsal”,’ he said. ‘It comes from the old French, re­hercer, mean­ing…’

‘To hell with where it comes from,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘I want to know where it ends up.’

‘Sounds a bit like a fu­ner­al too when you come to think of it.’ said Wilt, con­tin­uing his cam­paign of se­man­tic at­tri­tion.

In­spec­tor Flint hurled him­self in­to the trap. ‘Fu­ner­al? ‘Whose fu­ner­al?’

‘Any­one’s’ said Wilt blithe­ly. ‘Hearse, re­hearse.’ You could say that’s what hap­pens when you ex­hume a body. You re­hearse it though I don’t sup­pose you fel­lows use hears­es.’

‘For God’s sake,’ shout­ed the In­spec­tor. ‘Can’t you ev­er stick to the point? You said you were re­hears­ing some­thing and I want to know what that some­thing was.’

‘An idea, a mere idea,’ said Wilt, ‘one of those ephemera of men­tal fan­cy that flit like but­ter­flies across the sum­mer land­scape of the mind blown by the breezes of as­so­ci­ation that come like sud­den show­ers…I rather like that.’

‘I don’t,’ said the In­spec­tor, look­ing at him bit­ter­ly. ‘What I want to know is what you were re­hears­ing. That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘I’ve told you. An idea,’

‘What sort of idea?’

‘Just an idea,’ said Wilt. ‘A mere…’

‘So help me God, Wilt,’ shout­ed the In­spec­tor, ‘if you start on these fuck­ing but­ter­flies again I’ll break the un­bro­ken habit of a life­time and wring your bloody neck.’

‘I wasn’t go­ing to men­tion but­ter­flies this time,’ said Wilt re­proach­ful­ly, ‘I was go­ing to say that I had this idea for a book…’

‘A book’ snarled In­spec­tor Flint. ‘What sort of book? A book of po­et­ry or a crime sto­ry?’

‘A crime sto­ry.’ said Wilt, grate­ful for the sug­ges­tion.

‘I see,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘So you were go­ing to write a thriller. Well now, just let me guess the out­line of the plot. There’s this lec­tur­er at the Tech and he has this wife he hates and he de­cides to mur­der her…’

‘Go on!’ said Wilt, ‘you’re do­ing very well so far.’

‘I thought I might be,’ said Flint de­light­ed­ly. ‘Well, this lec­tur­er thinks he’s a clever fel­low who can hood­wink the po­lice. He doesn’t think much of the po­lice. So he dumps a plas­tic doll down a hole that’s go­ing to be filled with con­crete in the hope that the po­lice will waste their time dig­ging it out and in the mean­time he’s buried his wife some­where else. By the way, where did you bury Mrs Wilt, Hen­ry? Let’s get this over once and for all. Where did you put her? Just tell me that. You’ll feel bet­ter when it’s out.’

‘I didn’t put her any­where. If I’ve told you that once I’ve told you a thou­sand times. How many more times have I got to tell you I don’t know where she is.’

‘I’ll say this for you, Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor, when he could bring him­self to speak. ‘I’ve known some cool cus­tomers in my time but I have to take my hat off to you. You’re the coolest bas­tard it’s ev­er been my un­for­tu­nate ex­pe­ri­ence to come across.’

Wilt shook his head. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I feel sor­ry for you, In­spec­tor, I re­al­ly do. You can’t recog­nise the truth when it’s star­ing you in the face.’

In­spec­tor Flint got up and left the room. ‘You there,’ he said to the first de­tec­tive he could find. ‘Go in­to that In­ter­view Room and ask that bas­tard ques­tions and don’t stop till I tell you’

‘What sort of ques­tions?’

‘Any sort. Just any. Keep ask­ing him why he stuffed an in­flat­able plas­tic doll down a pile hole. That’s all. Just ask it over and over again. I’m go­ing to break that sod.’

He went down to his of­fice and slumped in­to his chair and tried to think.

Chapter 13

At the Tech Sergeant Yates sat in Mr Mor­ris’s of­fice. ‘I’m sor­ry to dis­turb you again,’ he said, ‘but we need some more de­tails on this fel­low Wilt.’

The Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies looked up with a hag­gard ex­pres­sion from the timetable. He had been hav­ing a des­per­ate strug­gle try­ing to find some­one to take Brick­lay­ers Four. Price wouldn’t do be­cause he had Me­chan­ics Two and Williams wouldn’t any­way. He had al­ready gone home the day be­fore with a ner­vous stom­ach and was threat­en­ing to re­peat the per­for­mance if any­one so much as men­tioned Brick­lay­ers Four to him again. That left Mr Mor­ris him­self and he was pre­pared to be dis­turbed by Sergeant Yates for as long as he liked if it meant he didn’t have to take those bloody brick­lay­ers.

‘Any­thing to help,’ he said, with an af­fa­bil­ity that was in cu­ri­ous con­trast to the haunt­ed look in his eyes. ‘What de­tails would you like to know?’

‘Just a gen­er­al im­pres­sion of the man, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Was there any­thing un­usu­al about him?’

‘Un­usu­al?’ Mr Mor­ris thought for a mo­ment. Apart from a pre­pared­ness to teach the most aw­ful Day Re­lease Class­es year in and year out with­out com­plaint he could think of noth­ing un­usu­al about Wilt. ‘I sup­pose you could call what amount­ed to a pho­bic re­ac­tion to The Lord of the Flies a bit un­usu­al but then I’ve nev­er much cared for…’

‘If you’d just wait a mo­ment, sir,’ said the Sergeant busy­ing him­self with his note­book. ‘You did say “pho­bic re­ac­tion” didn’t you?’

‘Well what I meant was…’

‘To flies, sir?’

‘To The Lord of the Flies. It’s a book,’ said Mr Mor­ris, now un­cer­tain that he had been wise to men­tion the fact. Po­lice­men were not no­tice­ably sen­si­tive to those niceties of lit­er­ary taste that con­sti­tut­ed his own def­ini­tion of in­tel­li­gence. ‘I do hope I haven’t said the wrong thing.’

‘Not at all, sir. It’s these lit­tle de­tails that help us to build up a pic­ture of the crim­inal’s mind.’

Mr Mor­ris sighed. ‘I’m sure I nev­er thought when Mr Wilt came to us from the Uni­ver­si­ty that he would turn out like this.’

‘Quite so, sir. Now did Mr Wilt ev­er say any­thing dis­parag­ing about his wife?’

‘Dis­parag­ing? Dear me no. Mind you he didn’t have to. Eva spoke for her­self.’ He looked mis­er­ably out of the win­dow at the pile-​bor­ing ma­chine.

‘Then in your opin­ion Mrs Wilt was not a very like­able wom­an?’

Mr Mor­ris shook his head. ‘She was a ghast­ly wom­an,’ he said.

Sergeant Yates licked the end of his ballpen.

‘You did say “ghast­ly” sir?’

‘I’m afraid so. I once had her in an Evening Class for El­emen­tary Dra­ma.’

‘El­emen­tary?’ said the Sergeant, and wrote it down.

‘Yes, though el­emen­tal would have been more ap­pro­pri­ate in Mrs Wilt’s case. She threw her­self in­to the parts rather too vig­or­ous­ly to be whol­ly con­vinc­ing. Her Des­de­mona to my Oth­el­lo is some­thing I am nev­er like­ly to for­get.’

‘An im­petu­ous wom­an, would you say?’

‘Let me put it this way,’ said Mr Mor­ris, ‘had Shake­speare writ­ten the play as Mrs Wilt in­ter­pret­ed it, Oth­el­lo would have been the one to be stran­gled.’

‘I see, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Then I take it she didn’t like black men.’

‘I have no idea what she thought about the racial is­sue.’ said Mr Mor­ris, ‘I am talk­ing of her phys­ical strength.’

‘A pow­er­ful wom­an, sir?’

‘Very.’ said Mr Mor­ris with feel­ings.

Sergeant Yates looked puz­zled. ‘It seems strange a wom­an like that al­low­ing her­self to be mur­dered by Mr Wilt with­out putting up more of a strug­gle,’ he said thought­ful­ly.

‘It seems in­cred­ible to me,’ Mr Mor­ris agreed, ‘and what is more it in­di­cates a de­gree of fa­nat­ical courage in Hen­ry that his be­haviour in this de­part­ment nev­er led me to sus­pect. I can on­ly sup­pose he was in­sane at the time.’

Sergeant Yates seized on the point. ‘Then it is your con­sid­ered opin­ion that he was not in his right mind when he killed his wife?’

‘Right mind? I can think of noth­ing right­mind­ed about killing your wife and dump­ing her body…’

‘I meant sir,’ said the Sergeant, ‘that you think Mr Wilt is a lu­natic.’

Mr Mor­ris hes­itat­ed. There were a good many mem­bers of his de­part­ment whom he would have clas­si­fied as men­tal­ly un­bal­anced but he hard­ly liked to ad­ver­tise the fact. On the oth­er hand it might help poor Wilt.

‘Yes. I sup­pose so.’ he said fi­nal­ly for at heart he was a kind­ly man. ‘Quite mad. Be­tween our­selves, Sergeant, any­one who is pre­pared to teach the sort of blood­ymind­ed young thugs we get can’t be en­tire­ly sane. And on­ly last week Wilt got in­to an al­ter­ca­tion with one of the Print­ers and was punched in the face. I think that may have had some­thing to do with his sub­se­quent be­haviour. I trust you will treat what I say in the strictest con­fi­dence. I wouldn’t want…’

‘Quite so, sir,’ said Sergeant Yates. ‘Well, I needn’t de­tain you any longer.’

He re­turned to the Po­lice Sta­tion and re­port­ed his find­ings to In­spec­tor Flint.

‘Nut­ty as a fruit­cake,’ he an­nounced. ‘That’s his opin­ion. He’s quite pos­itive about it.’

‘In that case he had no right to em­ploy the sod,’ said Flint. ‘He should have sacked the brute.’

‘Sacked him? From the Tech? You know they can’t sack teach­ers. You’ve got to do some­thing re­al­ly dras­tic be­fore they give you the boot.’

‘Like mur­der­ing three peo­ple, I sup­pose. Well as far as I’m con­cerned they can have the lit­tle bas­tard back.’

‘You mean he’s still hold­ing out?’

‘Hold­ing out? He’s coun­ter­at­tack­ing. He’s re­duced me to a ner­vous wreck and now Bolton says he wants to be re­lieved. Can’t stand the strain any longer.’

Sergeant Yates scratched his head. ‘Beats me how he does it,’ he said. ‘Any­one would think he was in­no­cent. I won­der when he’ll start ask­ing for a lawyer.’

‘Nev­er,’ said Flint. ‘What does he need a lawyer for? If I had a lawyer in there hand­ing out ad­vice I’d have got the truth out of Wilt hours ago.’

As night fell over Eel Sretch the wind in­creased to Gale Force Eight. Rain ham­mered on the cab­in roof, waves slapped against the hull and the cab­in cruis­er, list­ing to star­board, set­tled more firm­ly in­to the mud. In­side the cab­in the air was thick with smoke and bad feel­ings, Gaskell had opened a bot­tle of vod­ka and was get­ting drunk. To pass the time they played Scrab­ble.

‘My idea of hell,’ said Gaskell, ‘is to be huis closed with a cou­ple of dykes.’

‘What’s a dyke?’ said Eva.

Gaskell stared at her. ‘You don’t know?’

‘I know the sort they have in Hol­land…’

‘Yo­ga bear,’ said Gaskell, ‘you are the naïvest. A dyke is–’

‘For­get it, G’ said Sal­ly. ‘Whose turn to play?’

‘It’s mine.’ said Eva. ‘I…M…P spells Imp.’

‘O…T…E…N…T spells Gaskell,’ said Sal­ly.

Gaskell drank some mote vod­ka. ‘What the hell sort of game we sup­posed to be play­ing? Scrab­ble or some sort of Truth group?’

‘Your turn,’ said Sal­ly.

Gaskell put D…I…L…D on the O. ‘Try that for size.’

Eva looked at it crit­ical­ly.

‘You can’t use prop­er names,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t let me use Squezy.’

‘Eva teats, dil­do is not a prop­er name. It’s an im­prop­er thing. A sur­ro­gate pe­nis.’

‘A what?’

‘Nev­er mind what it is,’ said Sal­ly. ‘Your turn to play.’ Eva stud­ied her let­ters. She didn’t like be­ing told what to do so of­ten and be­sides she still want­ed to know what a dyke was. And a sur­ro­gate pe­nis. In the end she put L…O…V on the E.

‘Is a many-​splen­doured thing,’ said Gaskell and put D…I…D on the L and O.

‘You can’t have two of them,’ said Eva. ‘You’ve got one Dil­do al­ready.’

‘This one’s dif­fer­ent,’ said Gaskell, ‘it’s got whiskers.’

‘What dif­fer­ence does that make?’

‘Ask Sal­ly. She’s the one with pe­nis en­vy.’

‘You ass­hole,’ said Salty and put F…A…G…G…O on the T. ‘Mean­ing you.’

‘Like I said. Truth Scrab­ble,’ said Gaskell. ‘Trou­ble for sure. So why don’t we have an en­counter group in­stead. Let the truth hang out like it is.’

Eva used the F to make faith­ful. Gaskell fol­lowed with Hook­er and Sal­ly went In­sane.

‘Great.’ said Gaskell, ‘Al­pha­bet­ical I Ching.’

‘Wun­derkind, you slay me,’ said Sal­ly.

‘Go Zel­da your­self,’ said Gaskell and slid his hand up Eva’s thigh.

‘Keep your hands to your­self,’ said Eva and pushed him away. She put S and N on the I. Gaskell made Butch with the B.’

‘And don’t tell me it’s a prop­er name.’

‘Well it’s cer­tain­ly not a word I’ve heard.’ said Eva.

Gaskell stared at her and then roared with laugh­ter.

‘Now I’ve heard it all.’ he said. ‘Like cun­nilin­gus is a cough medicine. How dumb can you get?’

‘Go look in the mir­ror,’ said Sal­ly.

‘Oh sure. So I mar­ried a god­dam les­bian whore who goes round steal­ing oth­er peo­ple’s wives and boats and things. I’m dumb. But boobs here beats me. She’s so fuck­ing hyp­ocrit­ical she pre­tends she’s not a dyke…’

‘I don’t know what a dyke is,’ said Eva.

‘Well let me in­form you, fat­so. A dyke is a les­bian,’

‘Are you call­ing me a les­bian?’ said Eva.

‘Yes,’ said Gaskell.

Eva slapped him across the face hard. Gaskell’s glass­es came off and he sat down on the floor.

‘Now G…’ Sal­ly be­gan but Gaskell had scram­bled to his feet.’

‘Right you fat bitch,’ he said. ‘You want the truth you’re go­ing to get it. First off, you think hus­band Hen­ry got in­to that doll off his own bat, well let me tell you…’

‘Gaskell, you just shut up.’ shout­ed Sal­ly.

‘Like hell I will. I’ve had about enough of you and your rot­ten lit­tle ways. I picked you out of a cathouse…’

‘That’s not true. It was a clin­ic,’ screamed Sal­ly, ‘a clin­ic for sick per­verts like you.’

Eva wasn’t lis­ten­ing. She was star­ing at Gaskell. He had called her a les­bian and had said Hen­ry hadn’t got in­to that doll of his own ac­cord.

‘Tell me about Hen­ry,’ she shout­ed. ‘How did he get in­to that doll?’

Gaskell point­ed at Sal­ly. ‘She,’ put him there. That poor goof wouldn’t know…’

‘You put him there?’ Eva said to Sal­ly. ‘You did?’

‘He tried to make me, Eva. He tried to–’

‘I don’t be­lieve it,’ Eva shout­ed. ‘Hen­ry isn’t like that.’

‘I tell you he did. He…’

‘And you put him in that doll?’ Eva screamed and launched her­self across the ta­ble at Sal­ly. There was a splin­ter­ing sound and the ta­ble col­lapsed, Gaskell scud­ded side­ways on to the bunk and Sal­ly shot out of the cab­in. Eva got to her feet and moved for­ward to­wards the door. She had been tricked, cheat­ed and lied to. And Hen­ry had been hu­mil­iat­ed. She was go­ing to kill that bitch Sal­ly. She stepped out in­to the cock­pit. On the far side Sal­ly was a dark shad­ow. Eva went round the en­gine and lunged at her. The next mo­ment she had slipped on the oily deck and Sal­ly had dart­ed across the cock­pit and through the door in­to the cab­in. She slammed the door be­hind her and locked it. Eva Wilt got to her feet and stood with the rain run­ning down her face and as she stood there the il­lu­sions that had sus­tained her through the week dis­ap­peared. She saw her­self as a fat, sil­ly wom­an who had left her hus­band in pur­suit of a glam­our that was false and shod­dy and found­ed on brit­tle talk and mon­ey. And Gaskell had said she was a les­bian. The full nau­sea of know­ing what Touch Ther­apy had meant dawned on Eva. She stag­gered to the side of the boat and sat down on a lock­er.

And slow­ly her self-​dis­gust turned back to anger, and a cold ha­tred of the Pring­sheims. She would get her own back on them. They would be sor­ry they had ev­er met her. She got up and opened the lock­er and took out the life­jack­ets and threw them over the side. Then she blew up the airbed, dropped it in­to the wa­ter and climbed over her­self. She let her­self down in­to the wa­ter and lay on the airbed. It rocked alarm­ing­ly but Eva was not afraid. She was get­ting her re­venge on the Pring­sheims and she no longer cared what hap­pened to her. She pad­dled off through the lit­tle waves push­ing the life­jack­ets in front of her. The wind was be­hind her and the airbed moved eas­ily. In five min­utes she had turned the cor­ner of the reeds and was out of sight of the cruis­er. Some­where in the dark­ness ahead there was the open wa­ter where they had seen the dinghies and be­yond it land.

Present­ly she found her­self be­ing blown side­ways in­to the reeds. The rain stopped and Eva lay pant­ing on the airbed. It would be eas­ier if she got rid of the life­jack­ets. She was far enough from the boat for them to be well hid­den. She pushed them in­to the reeds and then hes­itat­ed. Per­haps she should keep one for her­self. She dis­en­tan­gled a jack­et from the bunch and man­aged to put it on. Then she lay face down on the airbed again and pad­dled for­ward down the widen­ing chan­nel.

Sal­ly leant against the cab­in door and looked at Gaskell with loathing.

‘You stupid jerk.’ she said. ‘You had to open your big mouth. So what the hell are you go­ing to do now?’

‘Di­vorce you for a start.’ said Gaskell.

‘I’ll al­imo­ny you for all the mon­ey you’ve got.’

‘Fat chance. You won’t get a red cent.’ Gaskell said and drank some more vod­ka.

‘I’ll see you dead first,’ said Sal­ly.

Gaskell grinned. ‘Me dead? Any­one’s go­ing to die round here, it’s you. Boo­by ba­by is out for blood.’

‘She’ll cool off.’

‘You think so? Try open­ing that door if you’re so sure. Go on, un­lock it,’

Sal­ly moved away from the door and sat down.

‘This time you’ve re­al­ly bought your­self some trou­ble,’ said Gaskell. ‘You had to pick a god­dam prize­fight­er.’

‘You go out and paci­fy her.’ said Sal­ly.

‘No way. I’d as soon play blind man’s buff with a fuck­ing rhinoceros.’ He lay on the bunk and smiled hap­pi­ly. ‘You know there’s some­thing re­al­ly iron­ical about all this. You had to go and lib­er­ate a Ne­an­derthal. Wom­en’s Lib for pa­le­olithics. She Tarzan, you Jane. You’ve bought your­self a piece of zoo.’

‘Very fun­ny,’ said Sal­ly. ‘And what’s your role?’

‘Me Noah. Just be thank­ful she hasn’t got a gun.’ He pulled a pil­low up un­der his head and went to sleep.

Sal­ly sat on star­ing at his back ven­omous­ly. She was fright­ened. Eva’s re­ac­tion had been so vi­olent that it had de­stroyed her con­fi­dence in her­self. Gaskell was right. There had been some­thing primeval in Eva Wilt’s be­haviour. She shud­dered at the thought of that dark shape mov­ing to­wards her in the cock­pit. Sal­ly got up and went in­to the gal­ley and found a long sharp knife. Then she went back in­to the cab­in and checked the lock on the door and lay down on her bunk and tried to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come. There were nois­es out­side. Waves lapped against the side of the boat. The wind blew. God, what a mess it all was! Sal­ly clutched her knife and thought about Gaskell and what he had said about di­vorce.

Pe­ter Brain­tree sat in the of­fice of Mr Gos­dyke, So­lic­itor, and dis­cussed the prob­lem. ‘He’s been in there since Mon­day and it’s Thurs­day now. Sure­ly they’ve no right to keep him there so long with­out his see­ing a so­lic­itor.’

If he doesn’t ask for one and if the po­lice want to ques­tion him and he is pre­pared to an­swer their ques­tions and re­fus­es to de­mand his le­gal rights I don’t re­al­ly see that there is any­thing I can do about it,’ said Mr Gos­dyke.

‘But are you sure that that is the sit­ua­tion?’ asked Brain­tree.

‘As far as I can as­cer­tain that is in­deed the sit­ua­tion. Mr Wilt has not asked to see me. I spoke to the In­spec­tor in charge, you heard me and it seems quite clear that Mr Wilt ap­pears, for some ex­traor­di­nary rea­son, to be pre­pared to help the po­lice with their en­quiries just as long as they feel his pres­ence at the Po­lice Sta­tion is nec­es­sary. Now if a man re­fus­es to as­sert his own le­gal rights then he has on­ly him­self to blame for his predica­ment.’

‘But are you ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain that Hen­ry has re­fused to see you? I mean the po­lice could be ly­ing to you.’ Mr Gos­dyke shook his head. ‘I have known In­spec­tor Flint for many years,’ he said, ‘and he is not the sort of man to de­ny a sus­pect his rights. No, I’m sor­ry. Mr Brain­tree. I would like to be of more as­sis­tance but frankly, in the cir­cum­stances, I can do noth­ing. Mr Wilt’s predilec­tion for the com­pa­ny of po­lice of­fi­cers is quite in­com­pre­hen­si­ble to me, but it dis­qual­ifies me from in­ter­fer­ing.’

‘You don’t think they’re giv­ing him third de­gree or any­thing of that sort?’

‘My dear fel­low, third de­gree? You’ve been watch­ing too many old movies on the TV. The po­lice don’t use strong-​arm meth­ods in this coun­try.’

‘They’ve been pret­ty bru­tal with some of our stu­dents who have been on de­mos,’ Brain­tree point­ed out.

‘Ah, but stu­dents are quite an­oth­er mat­ter and demon­strat­ing stu­dents get what they de­serve. Po­lit­ical provo­ca­tion is one thing but do­mes­tic mur­ders of the sort your friend Mr Wilt seems to have in­dulged in come in­to a dif­fer­ent cat­ego­ry al­to­geth­er. I can hon­est­ly say that in all my years in the le­gal pro­fes­sion I have yet to come across a case in which the po­lice did not treat a do­mes­tic mur­der­er with great care and not a lit­tle sym­pa­thy. Af­ter all, they are near­ly all mar­ried men them­selves, and in any case Mr Wilt has a de­gree and that al­ways helps. If you are a pro­fes­sion­al man, and in spite of what some peo­ple may say lec­tur­ers in Tech­ni­cal Col­leges are mem­bers of a pro­fes­sion if on­ly marginal­ly, then you can rest as­sured that the po­lice will do noth­ing in the least un­to­ward. Mr Wilt is per­fect­ly safe.’

And Wilt felt safe. He sat in the In­ter­view Room and con­tem­plat­ed In­spec­tor Flint with in­ter­est.

‘Mo­ti­va­tion? Now there’s an in­ter­est­ing ques­tion,’ he said. ‘If you had asked me why I mar­ried Eva in the first place I’d have same trou­ble try­ing to ex­plain, my­self. I was young at the time and…’

‘Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘I didn’t ask you why you mar­ried your wife. I asked you why you de­cid­ed to mur­der her.’

‘I didn’t de­cide to mur­der her.’ said Wilt.

‘It was a spon­ta­neous ac­tion? A mo­men­tary im­pulse you couldn’t re­sist? An act of mad­ness you now re­gret?’

‘It was none of those things. In the first place it was not an act. It was mere fan­ta­sy.’

‘But you do ad­mit that the thought crossed your mind?’

‘In­spec­tor,’ said Wilt, ‘if I act­ed up­on ev­ery im­pulse that crossed my mind I would have been con­vict­ed of child rape, bug­gery, bur­glary, as­sault with in­tent to com­mit grievous bod­ily harm and mass mur­der long ago.’

‘All those im­puls­es crossed your mind?’

‘At some time or oth­er, yes,’ said Wilt.

‘You’ve got a bloody odd mind.’

‘Which is some­thing I share with the vast ma­jor­ity of mankind. I dare­say that even you in your odd con­tem­pla­tive mo­ments have…’

‘Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘I don’t have odd con­tem­pla­tive mo­ments. Not un­til I met you any­how. Now then, you ad­mit you thought of killing your wife…’

‘I said the no­tion had crossed my mind, par­tic­ular­ly when I have to take the dog for a walk. It is a game I play with my­self. No more than that.’

‘A game? You take the dog for a walk and think of ways and means of killing Mrs Wilt? I don’t call that a game. I call it pre­med­ita­tion.’

‘Not bad­ly put,’ said Wilt with a smile, ‘the med­ita­tion bit. Eva curls up in the lo­tus po­si­tion on the liv­ing-​room rug and thinks beau­ti­ful thoughts. I take the bloody dog for a walk and think dread­ful ones while Clem defe­cates on the grass verge in Grenville Gar­dens. And in each case the end re­sult is just the same. Eva gets up and cooks sup­per and wash­es up and I come home and watch the box or read and go to bed. Noth­ing has al­tered one way or an­oth­er.’

‘It has now,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘Your wife has dis­ap­peared off the face of the earth to­geth­er with a bril­liant young sci­en­tist and his wife, and you are sit­ting here wait­ing to be charged with their mur­der.’

‘Which I don’t hap­pen to have com­mit­ted,’ said Wilt. ‘Ah well, these things hap­pen. The mov­ing fin­ger writes and hav­ing writ…’

‘Fuck the mov­ing fin­ger. Where are they? Where did you put them? You’re go­ing to tell me.’

Wilt sighed. ‘I wish I could,’ he said, ‘I re­al­ly do. Now you’ve got that plas­tic doll…’

‘No we haven’t. Not by a long chalk. We’re still go­ing down through sol­id rock. We won’t get what­ev­er is down there un­til to­mor­row at the ear­li­est.’

‘Some­thing to look for­ward to,’ said Wilt. ‘Then I sup­pose you’ll let me go.’

‘Like hell I will. I’ll have you up for re­mand on Mon­day.’

‘With­out any ev­idence of mur­der? With­out a body? You can’t do that.’

In­spec­tor Flint smiled. ‘Wilt,’ he said, ‘I’ve got news for you. We don’t need a body. We can hold you on sus­pi­cion, we can bring you up for tri­al and we can find you guilty with­out a body. You may be clever but you don’t know your law.’

‘Well I must say you fel­lows have an easy job of it. You mean you can go out in the street and pick up some per­fect­ly in­no­cent pass­er-​by and lug him in here and charge him with mur­der with­out any ev­idence at all?’

‘Ev­idence? We’ve got ev­idence all right. We’ve got a blood spat­tered bath­room with a bust­ed-​down door. We’ve got an emp­ty house in a filthy mess and we’ve got some bloody thing or oth­er down that pile hole and you think we haven’t got ev­idence. You’ve got it wrong.’

‘Makes two of us,’ said Wilt.

‘And I’ll tell you an­oth­er thing, Wilt. ‘The trou­ble with bas­tards like you is that you’re too clever by half. You over­do things and you give your­selves away. Now if I’d been in your shoes, I’d have done two things. Know what they are?’

‘No,’ said Wilt, ‘I don’t.’

‘I’d have washed that bath­room down, num­ber one, and num­ber two I’d have stayed away from that hole. I wouldn’t have tried to lay a false trail with notes and mak­ing sure the care­tak­er saw you and turn­ing up at Mr Brain­tree’s house at mid­night cov­ered in mud. I’d have sat tight and said noth­ing.’

‘But I didn’t know about those blood­stains in the bath­room and if it hadn’t been for that filthy doll I wouldn’t have dumped the thing down the hole. I’d have gone to bed. In­stead of which I got pissed and act­ed like an id­iot.’

‘Let me tell you some­thing else. Wilt.’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘You are an id­iot, a fuck­ing cun­ning id­iot but an id­iot all the same. You need your head read.’

‘It would make a change from this lot,’ said Wilt.

‘What would?’

‘Hav­ing my head read in­stead of sit­ting here and be­ing in­sult­ed.’

In­spec­tor Flint stud­ied him thought­ful­ly. ‘You mean that?’ asked.

‘Mean what?’

‘About hav­ing your head read? Would you be pre­pared to un­der­go an ex­am­ina­tion by a qual­ified psy­chi­atrist?’

‘Why not?’ said Wilt. ‘Any­thing to help pass the time.’

‘Quite vol­un­tar­ily, you un­der­stand. No­body is forc­ing you to, but if you want…’

‘Lis­ten, In­spec­tor, if see­ing a psy­chi­atrist will help to con­vince you that I have not mur­dered my wife I’ll be on­ly too hap­py to. You can put me on a lie de­tec­tor. You can pump me full of truth drugs. You can…’

‘There’s no need for any of that oth­er stuff,’ said Flint, and stood up. ‘A good shrink will do very nice­ly. And if you think you can get away with guilty but in­sane, for­get it. These blokes know when you’re ma­lin­ger­ing mad­ness.’ He went to the door and paused. Then he came back and leant across the ta­ble.

‘Tell me, Wilt,’ he said. ‘Tell me just one thing. How come you sit there so cool­ly? Your wife is miss­ing, we have ev­idence of mur­der, we have a repli­ca of her, if you are to be be­lieved, un­der thir­ty feet of con­crete and you don’t turn a hair. How do you do it?’

‘In­spec­tor,’ said Wilt. ‘If you had taught Gas­fit­ters for ten years and been asked as many damn­fool ques­tions in that time as I have, you’d know. Be­sides you haven’t met Eva. When you do you’ll see why I’m not wor­ried. Eva is per­fect­ly ca­pa­ble of tak­ing care of her­self. She may not be bright but she’s got a built-​in sur­vival kit.’

‘Je­sus, Wilt, with you around for twelve years she must have had some­thing.’

‘Oh she has. You’ll like Eva when you meet her. You’ll get along like a house on fire. You’ve both got lit­er­al minds and an ob­ses­sion with triv­ia. You can take a worm­cast and turn it in­to Mount Ever­est.’

‘Worm­cast? Wilt, you sick­en me,’ said the In­spec­tor, and left the room.

Wilt got up and walked up and down. He was tired of sit­ting down. On the oth­er hand he was well sat­is­fied with his per­for­mance. He had sur­passed him­self and he took pride in the fact that he was re­act­ing so well to what most peo­ple would con­sid­er an ap­palling predica­ment. But to Wilt it was some­thing else, a chal­lenge, the first re­al chal­lenge he had had to meet for a long time. Gas­fit­ters and Plas­ter­ers had chal­lenged him once but he had learnt to cope with them. You jol­lied them along. Let them talk, ask ques­tions, di­vert them, get them go­ing, ac­cept their red her­rings and hand out a few of your own, but above all you had to refuse to ac­cept their pre­con­cep­tions. When­ev­er they as­sert­ed some­thing with ab­so­lute con­vic­tion as a self-​ev­ident truth like all wogs be­gan at Calais, all you had to do was agree and then point out that half the great men in En­glish his­to­ry had been for­eign­ers like Mar­coni or Lord Beaver­brook and that even Churchill’s moth­er had been a Yank or talk about the Welsh be­ing the orig­inal En­glish­men and the Vikings and the Danes and from that lead them off through In­di­an doc­tors to the Na­tion­al Health Ser­vice and birth con­trol and any oth­er top­ic un­der the sun that would keep them qui­et and puz­zled and des­per­ate­ly try­ing to think of some ul­ti­mate ar­gu­ment that would prove you wrong.

In­spec­tor Flint was no dif­fer­ent. He was more ob­ses­sive but his tac­tics were just the same. And be­sides he had got hold of the wrong end of the stick with a vengeance and it amused Wilt to watch him try­ing to pin a crime on him he hadn’t com­mit­ted. It made him feel al­most im­por­tant and cer­tain­ly more of a man than he had done for a long, long time. He was in­no­cent and there was no ques­tion about it. In a world where ev­ery­thing else was doubt­ful and un­cer­tain and open to scep­ti­cism the fact of his in­no­cence was sure. For the first time in his adult life Wilt knew him­self to be ab­so­lute­ly right, and the knowl­edge gave him a strength he had nev­er sup­posed he pos­sessed. And be­sides there was no ques­tion in his mind that Eva would turn up even­tu­al­ly, safe and sound, and more than a lit­tle sub­dued when she re­al­ized what her im­pul­sive­ness had led to. Serve her right for giv­ing him that dis­gust­ing doll. She’d re­gret that to the end of her days. Yes, if any­body was go­ing to come off bad­ly in this af­fair it was dear old Eva with her bossi­ness and her busy­ness. She’d have a job ex­plain­ing it to Mavis Mot­tram and the neigh­bours. Wilt smiled to him­self at the thought. And even the Tech would have to treat him dif­fer­ent­ly in fu­ture and with a new re­spect. Wilt knew the lib­er­al con­science too well not to sup­pose that he would ap­pear any­thing less that mar­tyr when he went back. And a hero. They would bend over back­wards to con­vince them­selves that they hadn’t thought him as guilty as hell. He’d get pro­mo­tion too, not for be­ing a teach­er but be­cause they would need to salve their frag­ile con­sciences. Talk about killing the fat­ted calf.

Chapter 14

At the Tech there was no ques­tion of killing the fat­ted calf, at least not for Hen­ry Wilt. The im­mi­nence of the CNAA vis­ita­tion on Fri­day, co­in­cid­ing as it ap­par­ent­ly would with the res­ur­rec­tion of the late Mrs Wilt, was caus­ing some­thing ap­proach­ing pan­ic. The Course Board met in al­most con­tin­uous ses­sion and mem­oran­da cir­cu­lat­ed so fu­ri­ous­ly that it was im­pos­si­ble to read one be­fore the next ar­rived.

‘Can’t we post­pone the vis­it?’ Dr Cox asked. ‘I can’t have them in my of­fice dis­cussing bib­li­ogra­phies with bits of Mrs Wilt be­ing dug out of the ground out­side the win­dow.’

‘I have asked the po­lice to make them­selves as in­con­spic­uous as pos­si­ble,’ said Dr May­field.

‘With con­spic­uous lack of suc­cess so far,’ said Dr Board.’

‘They couldn’t be more in ev­idence. There are ten of them peer­ing down that hole at this very mo­ment.’

The Vice-​Prin­ci­pal struck a brighter note. ‘You’ll be glad to hear that we’ve man­aged to re­store pow­er to the can­teen,’ he told the meet­ing, ’so we should be able to lay on a good lunch.’

‘I just hope I feel up to eat­ing.’ said Dr Cox. ‘The shocks of the last few days have done noth­ing to im­prove my ap­petite and when I think of poor Mrs Wilt…’

‘Try not to think of her,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal, but Dr Cox shook his head.

‘You try not to think of her with a damned great bor­ing ma­chine grind­ing away out­side your of­fice win­dow all day.’

‘Talk­ing about shocks,’ said Dr Board, ‘I still can’t un­der­stand how the driv­er of that me­chan­ical corkscrew man­aged to es­cape elec­tro­cu­tion when they cut through the pow­er ca­ble.’

‘Con­sid­er­ing the prob­lems we are faced with, I hard­ly think that’s a rel­evant point just at present,’ said Dr May­field. ‘What we have got to stress to the mem­bers of the CNAA com­mit­tee is that this de­gree is an in­te­grat­ed course with a fun­da­men­tal sub­struc­ture ground­ed the­mat­ical­ly on a con­comi­tance of cul­tur­al and so­ci­olog­ical fac­tors in no way un­su­per­fi­cial­ly dis­parate and with a sol­id quo­ta of aca­dem­ic con­tent to give stu­dents an in­tel­lec­tu­al and cere­bral..

‘Haem­or­rhage?’ sug­gest­ed Dr Board.

Dr May­field re­gard­ed him bale­ful­ly. ‘I re­al­ly do think this is no time for flip­pan­cy,’ he said an­gri­ly. ‘Ei­ther we are com­mit­ted to the Joint Hon­ours de­gree or we are not. Fur­ther­more we have on­ly un­til to­mor­row to struc­ture our tac­ti­cal ap­proach to the vis­ita­tion com­mit­tee. Now, which is it to be?’

‘Which is what to be?’ asked Dr Board. ‘What has our com­mit­ment or lack of it to do with struc­tur­ing, for want of sev­er­al far bet­ter words, our so-​called tac­ti­cal ap­proach to a com­mit­tee which, since it is com­ing all the way from Lon­don to us and not vice ver­sa, is pre­sum­ably ap­proach­ing us?’

‘Vice-​Prin­ci­pal,’ said Dr May­field, I re­al­ly must protest. Dr Board’s at­ti­tude at this late stage in the game is quite in­com­pre­hen­si­ble. If Dr Board…’

‘Could even be­gin to un­der­stand one tenth of the jar­gon Dr May­field seems to sup­pose is En­glish he might be in a bet­ter po­si­tion to ex­press his opin­ion,’ in­ter­rupt­ed Dr Board. ‘As it is “in­com­pre­hen­si­ble” ap­plies to Dr May­field’s syn­tax, not to my at­ti­tude. I have al­ways main­tained…’

‘Gen­tle­men,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal. ‘I think it would be best if we avoid­ed in­ter-​de­part­men­tal wran­gles at this point in time and got down to busi­ness.’

There was a si­lence bro­ken fi­nal­ly by Dr Cox. ‘Do you think the po­lice could he per­suad­ed to erect a screen round that hole?’ he asked.

‘I shall cer­tain­ly sug­gest that to them,’ said Dr May­field. They passed on to the mat­ter of en­ter­tain­ment.

‘I have ar­ranged for there to be plen­ty of drinks be­fore lunch,’ said the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal, ‘and in any case lunch will be ju­di­cious­ly de­layed to al­low them to get in­to the right mood so the af­ter­noon ses­sions should be cut short and pro­ceed, hope­ful­ly, more smooth­ly.’

‘Just so long as the Cater­ing De­part­ment doesn’t serve Toad in the Hole,’ said Dr Board.

The meet­ing broke up ac­ri­mo­nious­ly.

So did Mr Mor­ris’s en­counter with the Crime Re­porter of the Sun­day Post.

‘Of course I didn’t tell the po­lice that I em­ployed homi­ci­dal ma­ni­acs as a mat­ter of pol­icy,’ he shout­ed at the re­porter. ‘And in any case what I said was, as I un­der­stood it, to be treat­ed in the strictest con­fi­dence.’

‘But you did say you thought Wilt was in­sane and that quite a num­ber of Lib­er­al Stud­ies lec­tur­ers were off their heads?’

Mr Mor­ris looked at the man with loathing. ‘To put the record straight, what I said was that some of them were…’

‘Off their rock­ers?’ sug­gest­ed the re­porter.

‘No, not off, their rock­ers,’ shout­ed Mr Mor­ris. ‘Mere­ly, well, shall we say, slight­ly un­bal­anced.’

‘That’s not what the po­lice say you said. They say quote…’

‘I don’t care what the po­lice say I said. I know what I said and what I didn’t and if you’re im­ply­ing…’

‘I’m not im­ply­ing any­thing. You made a state­ment that half your staff are nuts and I’m try­ing to ver­ify it.’

‘Ver­ify it?’ snarled Mr Mor­ris. ‘You put words in­to my mouth I nev­er said and you call that ver­ify­ing it?’

‘Did you say it or not? That’s all I’m ask­ing. I mean if you ex­press an opin­ion about your staff…’

‘Mr MacArthur, what I think about my staff is my own af­fair. It has ab­so­lute­ly noth­ing to do with you or the rag you rep­re­sent’

‘Three mil­lion peo­ple will be in­ter­est­ed to read your opin­ion on Sun­day morn­ing,’ said Mr MacArthur, ‘and I wouldn’t be at all sur­prised if this Wilt char­ac­ter didn’t sue you if he ev­er gets out of the cop­shop.’

‘Sue me? What the hell could he sue me for?’

‘Call­ing him a homi­ci­dal ma­ni­ac for a start. Ban­ner head­lines HEAD OF LIB­ER­AL STUD­IES CALLS LEC­TUR­ER HOMI­CI­DAL MA­NI­AC should be good for fifty thou­sand. I’d be sur­prised if he got less.’

Mr Mor­ris con­tem­plat­ed des­ti­tu­tion. ‘Even your pa­per would nev­er print that,’ he mut­tered. ‘I mean Wilt would sue you too.’

‘Oh we’re used to li­bel ac­tions. They’re run-​of-​the-​mill for us. We pay for them out of pet­ty cash. Now if you’d be a bit more co­op­er­ative…’ He left the sug­ges­tion in mid-​air for Mr Mor­ris to di­gest.

‘What do you want to know?’ he asked mis­er­ably.

‘Got any juicy drug scene sto­ries for us?’ asked Mr MacArthur. ‘You know the sort of thing. LOVE OR­GIES IN LEC­TURES. That al­ways gets the pub­lic. Teeny­bop­pers hav­ing it off and all that. Give us a good one and we’ll let you off the hook about Wilt.’

‘Get out of my of­fice!’ yelled Mr Mor­ris.

Mr MacArthur got up. ‘You’re go­ing to re­gret this.’ he said and went down­stairs to the stu­dents’ can­teen to dig up some dirt on Mr Mor­ris.

‘Not tests,’ said Wilt adamant­ly. ‘They’re de­cep­tive.’

‘You think so?’ said Dr Pittman, con­sul­tant psy­chi­atrist at the Fen­land Hos­pi­tal and pro­fes­sor of Crim­inal Psy­chol­ogy at the Uni­ver­si­ty. Be­ing pla­gio­cephal­ic didn’t help ei­ther.

‘I should have thought it was ob­vi­ous.’ said Wilt. ‘You show me an ink-​blot and I think it looks like my grand­moth­er ly­ing in a pool of blood, do you hon­est­ly think I’m go­ing to be fool enough to say so? I’d be daft to do that. So I say a but­ter­fly sit­ting on a gera­ni­um. And ev­ery time it’s the same. I think what it does look like and then say some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent. Where does that get you?’

‘It is still pos­si­ble to in­fer some­thing from that,’ said Dr Pittman.

‘Well, you don’t need a bloody ink-​blot to in­fer, do you?’ said Wilt. Dr Pittman made a note of Wilt’s in­ter­est in blood. ‘You can in­fer things from just look­ing at the shape of peo­ple’s heads.’

Dr Pittman pol­ished his glass­es grim­ly. Heads were not things he liked in­fer­ences to be drawn from. ‘Mr Wilt,’ he said, ‘I am here at your re­quest to as­cer­tain your san­ity and in par­tic­ular to give an opin­ion as to whether or not I con­sid­er you ca­pa­ble of mur­der­ing your wife and dis­pos­ing of her body in a sin­gu­lar­ly re­volt­ing and cal­lous fash­ion. I shall not al­low any­thing you may say to in­flu­ence my ul­ti­mate and ob­jec­tive find­ings.’

Wilt looked per­plexed. ‘I must say you’re not giv­ing your­self much room for ma­noeu­vre. Since we’ve dis­pensed with me­chan­ical aids like tests I should have thought what I had to say would be the on­ly thing you could go on. Un­less of course you’re go­ing to read the bumps on my head. Isn’t that a bit old-​fash­ioned?’

‘Mr Wilt,’ said Dr Pittman, ‘the fact that you clear­ly have a sadis­tic streak and take plea­sure in draw­ing at­ten­tion to oth­er peo­ple’s phys­ical in­fir­mi­ties in no way dis­pose me to con­clude you are ca­pa­ble of mur­der…’

‘Very de­cent of you,’ said Wilt, ‘though frankly I’d have thought any­one was ca­pa­ble of mur­der giv­en the right, or to be pre­cise the wrong, cir­cum­stances.’

Dr Pittman sti­fled the im­pulse to say how right he was. In­stead he smiled prog­nathous­ly. ‘Would you say you are a ra­tio­nal man, Hen­ry?’ he asked.

Wilt frowned. ‘Just stick to Mr Wilt if you don’t mind. This may not be a paid con­sul­ta­tion but I pre­fer a lit­tle for­mal­ity’

Dr Pittman’s smile van­ished. ‘You haven’t an­swered my ques­tion.’

‘No, I wouldn’t say I was a ra­tio­nal man,’ said Wilt.

‘An ir­ra­tional one per­haps?’

‘Nei­ther the one whol­ly nor the oth­er whol­ly. Just a man’

‘And a man is nei­ther one thing nor the oth­er?’

‘Dr Pittman, this is your province not mine but in my opin­ion man is ca­pa­ble of rea­son­ing but not of act­ing with­in whol­ly ra­tio­nal lim­its. Man is an an­imal, a de­vel­oped an­imal, though come to think of it all an­imals are de­vel­oped if we are to be­lieve Dar­win. Let’s just say man is a do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­imal with el­ements of wild­ness about him…’

‘And what sort of an­imal are you, Mr Wilt?’ said Dr Pittman. ‘A do­mes­ti­cat­ed an­imal or a wild one?’

‘Here we go again. These splen­did­ly sim­ple du­al cat­egories that seem to ob­sess the mod­ern mind. Ei­ther/Or Kierkegaard as that bitch Sal­ly Pring­sheim would say. No. I am not whol­ly do­mes­ti­cat­ed. Ask my wife. She’ll ex­press an opin­ion on the mat­ter.’

‘In what re­spect are you un­do­mes­ti­cat­ed?’

‘I fart in bed, Dr Pittman. I like to fart in bed. It is the trum­pet call of the an­thro­poid ape in me as­sert­ing its ter­ri­to­ri­al im­per­ative in the on­ly way pos­si­ble.’

‘In the on­ly way pos­si­ble?’

‘You haven’t met Eva,’ said Wilt. ‘When you do you’ll see that as­ser­tion is her forte not mine.’

‘You feel dom­inat­ed by Mrs Wilt?’

‘I am dom­inat­ed by Mrs Wilt.’

‘She bul­lies you? She as­sumes the dom­inant role?’

‘Eva is, Dr Pittman. She doesn’t have to as­sume any­thing. She just is.’

‘Is what?’

‘Now there’s the rub.’ said Wilt, ‘What’s to­day? You lose track of time in this place.’

‘Thurs­day.’

‘Well, to­day be­ing Thurs­day, Eva is Bernard Leach.’

‘Bernard Leach?’

‘The pot­ter, Dr Pittman, the fa­mous pot­ter,’ said Wilt. ‘Now to­mor­row she’ll be Mar­got Fonteyn and on Sat­ur­day we play bridge with the Mot­trams so she’ll be Omar Sharif. On Sun­day she’s Elis­abeth Tay­lor or Ed­na O’Brien de­pend­ing on what the Colour Sup­ple­ments have in store for me and in the af­ter­noon we go for a drive and she’s Eva Wilt. It’s about the on­ly time in the week I meet her and that’s be­cause I’m driv­ing and she’s got noth­ing to do but sit still and nag the pants off me.’

‘I be­gin to see the pat­tern.’ said Dr Pittman. ‘Mrs Wilt was…is giv­en to role-​play­ing. This made for an un­sta­ble re­la­tion­ship in which you couldn’t es­tab­lish a dis­tinc­tive and as­sertive role as a hus­band’

‘Dr Pittman,’ said Wilt, ‘a gy­ro­scope may, in­deed must, spin but in do­ing so it achieves a sta­bil­ity that is vir­tu­al­ly un­equalled. Now if you un­der­stand the prin­ci­ple of the gy­ro­scope you may be­gin to un­der­stand that our mar­riage does not lack sta­bil­ity. It may be damned un­com­fort­able com­ing home to a cen­trifu­gal force but it bloody well isn’t un­sta­ble.’

‘But just now you told me that Mrs Wilt did not as­sume a dom­inant role. Now you tell me she is a force­ful char­ac­ter.’

‘Eva is not force­ful. She is a force. There’s a dif­fer­ence. And as for char­ac­ter, she has so many and they’re so var­ied it’s dif­fi­cult to keep up with them all. Let’s just say she throws her­self in­to who­ev­er she is with an ur­gen­cy and com­pul­sive­ness that is not al­ways ap­pro­pri­ate. You re­mem­ber that se­ries of Gar­bo pic­tures they showed on TV some years back? Well, Eva was La Dame Aux Camélias for three days af­ter that and she made dy­ing of TB look like St Vi­tus’ dance. Talk about gal­lop­ing con­sump­tion’

‘I be­gin to get the pic­ture,’ said Dr Pittman mak­ing a note that Wilt was a patho­log­ical liar with sa­do-​masochis­tic ten­den­cies.

‘I’m glad some­body does,’ said Wilt. ‘In­spec­tor Flint thinks I mur­dered her and the Pring­sheims in some sort of blood­lust and dis­posed of their bod­ies in some ex­traor­di­nary fash­ion. He men­tioned acid. I mean it’s crazy. Where on earth does one get ni­tric acid in the quan­ti­ties nec­es­sary to dis­solve three dead bod­ies, and one of them over­weight at that? I mean it doesn’t bear think­ing about.’

‘It cer­tain­ly doesn’t,’ said Dr Pittman.

‘In any case do I look like a mur­der­er?’ con­tin­ued Wilt cheer­ful­ly. ‘Of course I don’t. Now if he’d said Eva had slaugh­tered the brutes, and in my opin­ion some­one should’ve done years ago, I’d have tak­en him se­ri­ous­ly. God help the poor sods who hap­pen to be around when Eva takes it in­to her head she’s Lizzie Bor­den.’

Dr Pittman stud­ied him preda­cious­ly.

‘Are you sug­gest­ing that Dr and Mrs Pring­sheim were mur­dered by your wife?’ be asked. ‘Is that what you’re say­ing?’

‘No,’ said Wilt, ‘I am not. All I’m say­ing is that when Eva does things she does them whole­heart­ed­ly. When she cleans the house she cleans it. Let me tell you about the Harpic. She’s got this thing about germs…’

‘Mr Wilt,’ said Dr Pittman hasti­ly. ‘I am not in­ter­est­ed in what Mrs Wilt does with the Harpic. I have come here to un­der­stand you. Now then, do you make a habit of cop­ulat­ing with a plas­tic doll? Is this a reg­ular oc­cur­rence?’

‘Reg­ular?’ said Wilt. ‘Do you mean a nor­mal oc­cur­rence or a re­cur­ring one? Now your no­tion of what con­sti­tutes a nor­mal oc­cur­rence may dif­fer from mine…’

‘I mean, do you do it of­ten?’ in­ter­rupt­ed Dr Pittman.

‘Do it?’ said Wilt. ‘I don’t do it at all.’

‘But I un­der­stood you to have placed par­tic­ular em­pha­sis on the fact that this doll had a vagi­na?’

‘Em­pha­sis? I didn’t have to em­pha­size the fact. The beast­ly thing was plain­ly vis­ible.’

‘You find vagi­nas beast­ly?’ said Dr Pittman stalk­ing his prey in­to the more fa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry of sex­ual aber­ra­tion.

‘Tak­en out of con­text, yes,’ said Wilt sidestep­ping, ‘and with plas­tic ones you can leave them in con­text and I still find them nau­se­at­ing.’

By the time Dr Pittman had fin­ished the in­ter­view he was un­cer­tain what to think. He got up weari­ly and made for the door.

‘You’ve for­got­ten your hat, doc­tor,’ said Wilt hold­ing it out to him. ‘Par­don my ask­ing but do you have them spe­cial­ly made for you?’

‘Well?’ said In­spec­tor Flint when Dr Pittman came in­to his of­fice. ‘What’s the ver­dict?’

‘Ver­dict? That man should be put away for life.’

‘You mean he’s a homi­ci­dal ma­ni­ac?’

‘I mean, that no mat­ter how he killed her Mrs Wilt must have been thank­ful to go. Twelve years mar­ried to that man…Good God, it doesn’t bear think­ing about.’

‘Well, that doesn’t get us much for­rad­er,’ said the In­spec­tor, when the psy­chi­atrist had left hav­ing ex­pressed the opin­ion that while Wilt had the mind of an in­tel­lec­tu­al jackrab­bit he couldn’t in all hon­esty say that he was crim­inal­ly in­sane. ‘We’ll just have to see what turns up to­mor­row.’

Chapter 15

What turned up on Fri­day was seen not on­ly by In­spec­tor Flint, Sergeant Yates, twelve oth­er po­lice­men, Bar­ney and half a dozen con­struc­tion work­ers, but sev­er­al hun­dred Tech stu­dents stand­ing on the steps of the Sci­ence block, most of the staff and by all eight mem­bers of the CNAA vis­ita­tion com­mit­tee who had a par­tic­ular­ly good view from the win­dows of the mock ho­tel lounge used by the Cater­ing De­part­ment to train wait­ers and to en­ter­tain dis­tin­guished guests. Dr May­field did his best to dis­tract their at­ten­tion.

‘We have struc­tured the foun­da­tion course to max­imize stu­dent in­ter­est,’ he told Pro­fes­sor Bax­en­dale, who head­ed the com­mit­tee, but the pro­fes­sor was not to be di­vert­ed. His in­ter­est was max­imized by what was be­ing un­struc­tured from the foun­da­tions of the new Ad­min block.

‘How ab­so­lute­ly ap­palling.’ he mut­tered as Judy pro­trud­ed from the hole. Con­trary to Wilt’s hopes and ex­pec­ta­tions she had not burst. The liq­uid con­crete had sealed her in too well for that and if in life she had re­sem­bled in many par­tic­ulars a re­al live wom­an, in death she had all the at­tributes of a re­al dead one. As the corpse of a mur­dered wom­an she was en­tire­ly con­vinc­ing. Her wig was mat­ted and se­cured to her head at an aw­ful an­gle by the con­crete. Her clothes clung to her and ce­ment to them while her legs had ev­ident­ly been con­tort­ed to the point of mu­ti­la­tion and her out­stretched arm had, as Bar­ney had fore­told, a des­per­ate ap­peal about it that was most af­fect­ing. It al­so made it ex­ceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to ex­tri­cate her from the hole. The legs didn’t help, added to which the con­crete had giv­en her a sub­stance and stature ap­prox­imate to that of Eva Wilt.

‘I sup­pose that’s what they mean by rig­or mor­tice.’ said Dr Board, as Dr May­field des­per­ate­ly tried to steer the con­ver­sa­tion back to the joint Hon­ours de­gree.

‘Dear Lord,’ mut­tered Pro­fes­sor Bax­en­dale. Judy had elud­ed the ef­forts of Bar­ney and his men and had slumped back down the hole. ‘To think what she must have suf­fered. Did you see that damned hand?’

Dr May­field had. He shud­dered. Be­hind him Dr Board snig­gered. ‘There’s a di­vin­ity that shapes our ends, rough-​hew them how we will,’ he said gai­ly. ‘At least Wilt has saved him­self the cost of a grave­stone. All they’ll have to do is prop her up with Here Stands Eva Wilt, Born So and So, Mur­dered last Sat­ur­day carved across her chest. In life mon­umen­tal, in death a mon­ument.’

‘I must say, Board,’ said Dr May­field, ‘I find your sense of hu­mour sin­gu­lar­ly ill-​timed.’

‘Well they’ll nev­er be able to cre­mate her, that’s for cer­tain,’ con­tin­ued Dr Board. ‘And the un­der­tak­er who can fit that lit­tle lot in­to a cof­fin will be noth­ing short of a ge­nius. I sup­pose they could al­ways take a sledge­ham­mer to her.’

In the cor­ner Dr Cox faint­ed.

‘I think I’ll have an­oth­er whisky if you don’t mind,’ said Pro­fes­sor Bax­en­dale weak­ly. Dr May­field poured him a dou­ble. When he turned back to the win­dow Judy was pro­trud­ing once more from the hole. ‘The thing about em­balm­ing,’ said Dr Board, ‘is that it costs so much. Now I’m not say­ing that thing out there is a per­fect like­ness of Eva Wilt as I re­mem­ber her…’

‘For heav­en’s sake, do you have to go on about it?’ snarled Dr May­field, but Dr Board was not to be stopped. ‘Quite apart from the legs there seems to be some­thing odd about the breasts. I know Mrs Wilt’s were large but they do seem to have in­flat­ed. Prob­ably due to the gas­es. They pu­tre­fy, you know, which would ac­count for it.’

By the time the com­mit­tee went on­to lunch they had lost all ap­petite for food and most of then were drunk.

In­spec­tor Flint was less for­tu­nate. He didn’t like be­ing present at ex­huma­tions at the best of times and par­tic­ular­ly when the corpse on whose be­half he was act­ing showed such a marked in­cli­na­tion to go back where she came from. Be­sides he was in two minds whether it was a corpse or not. It looked like a corpse and it cer­tain­ly be­haved like a corpse, al­beit a very heavy one, but there was some­thing about the knees that sug­gest­ed that all was not anatom­ical­ly as it should have been with what­ev­er it was they had dug up. There was a dou­ble joint­ed­ness and a cer­tain lack of sub­stance where the legs stuck for­wards at right an­gles that seemed to in­di­cate that Mrs Wilt had lost not on­ly her life but both kneecaps as well. It was this man­gled qual­ity that made Bar­ney’s job so dif­fi­cult and ex­ceed­ing­ly dis­taste­ful. Af­ter the body had dropped down the hole for the fourth time Bar­ney went down him­self to as­sist from be­low.

‘If you sods drop her,’ he shout­ed from the depths, ‘you’ll have two dead bod­ies down here so hang on to that rope what­ev­er hap­pens. I’m go­ing to tie it round her neck.’

In­spec­tor Flint peered down the shaft. ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ he shout­ed, ‘we don’t want her de­cap­itat­ed. We need her all in one piece.’

‘She is all in one bloody piece,’ came Bar­ney’s muf­fled re­ply, ‘that’s one thing you don’t have to wor­ry about.’

‘Can’t you tie the rope around some­thing else?’

‘Well I could,’ Bar­ney con­ced­ed, ‘but I’m not go­ing to. A leg is more like­ly to come off than her head and I’m not go­ing to be un­der­neath her when it goes.’

‘All right.’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘I just hope you know what you’re do­ing, that’s all.’

‘I’ll tell you one thing. The sod who put her down here knew what he was do­ing and no mis­take.’

But this fifth at­tempt failed, like the pre­vi­ous four, and Judy was low­ered in­to the depths where she rest­ed heav­ily on Bar­ney’s foot.

‘Go and get that bloody crane,’ he shout­ed, ‘I can’t stand much more of this.’

‘Nor can I,’ mut­tered the In­spec­tor, who still couldn’t make up his mind what it was he was sup­posed to be dis­in­ter­ring; a doll dressed up to look like Mrs Wilt or Mrs Wilt dressed up to look like some­thing some de­ment­ed sculp­tor for­got to fin­ish. What few doubts he had had about Wilt’s san­ity had been en­tire­ly dis­pelled by what he was present­ly wit­ness­ing. Any man who could go to the aw­ful lengths Wilt had gone to ren­der, and the word was en­tire­ly ap­po­site whichev­er way you took it, ei­ther his wife or a plas­tic doll with a vagi­na, both in­ac­ces­si­ble and hor­ri­bly mu­ti­lat­ed, must be in­sane.

Sergeant Yates put his thoughts in­to words. ‘You’re not go­ing to tell me now that the bas­tard isn’t off his rock­er,’ he said, as the crane was moved in­to po­si­tion and the rope low­ered and at­tached to Judy’s neck.

‘All right, now take her away,’ shout­ed Bar­ney.

In the din­ing-​room on­ly Dr Board was en­joy­ing his lunch. The eight mem­bers of the CNAA com­mit­tee weren’t. Their eyes were glued to the scene be­low.

‘I sup­pose it could be said she was in stat­ue pupil­lari,’ said Dr Board, help­ing him­self to some more Lemon Meringue, ‘in which case we stand in lo­co par­en­tis. Not a pleas­ant thought, gen­tle­men. Not that she was ev­er a very bright stu­dent. I once had her for an Evening Class in French lit­er­ature. I don’t know what she got out of Fleurs du Mal but I do re­mem­ber think­ing that Baude­laire…’

‘Dr Board,’ said Dr May­field drunk­en­ly, ‘for a so-​called cul­tured man you are en­tire­ly with­out feel­ing.’

‘Some­thing I share with the late Mrs Wilt, by the look of things.’ said Dr Board, glanc­ing out of the win­dow, ‘and while we are still on the sub­ject, things seem to be com­ing to a head. They do in­deed.’ Even Dr Cox, re­cent­ly re­vived and coaxed in­to hav­ing some mut­ton, looked out of the win­dow. As the crane slow­ly winched Judy in­to view the Course Board and the Com­mit­tee rose and went to watch. It was an uned­ify­ing sight. Near the top of the shaft Judy’s left leg caught in a crevice while her out­stretched arm em­bed­ded it­self in the clay.

‘Hold it,’ shout­ed Bar­ney in­dis­tinct­ly, but it was too late. Un­nerved by the na­ture of his load or in the mis­tak­en be­lief that be had been told to lift hard­er, the crane driv­er hoist­ed away. There was a ghast­ly crack­ing sound as the noose tight­ened and the next mo­ment Judy’s con­crete head, capped by Eva Wilt’s wig, looked as if it was about to ful­fil In­spec­tor Flint’s pre­dic­tion that she would be de­cap­itat­ed. In the event he need not have wor­ried. Judy was made of stern­er stuff than might have been ex­pect­ed. As the head con­tin­ued to rise and the body to re­main firm­ly em­bed­ded in the shaft Judy’s neck rose to the oc­ca­sion. It stretched.

‘Dear God,’ said Pro­fes­sor Bax­en­dale fran­ti­cal­ly, ‘Will it nev­er end?’

Dr Board stud­ied the phe­nomenon with in­creas­ing in­ter­est ‘It doesn’t look like it,’ he said. ‘Mind you we do make a point of stretch­ing our stu­dents, eh May­field?’

But Dr May­field made no re­sponse. As Judy took on the con­fig­ura­tion of an os­trich that had ab­sent­mind­ed­ly buried its head in a pail of ce­ment he knew that the joint Hon­ours de­gree was doomed.

‘I’d say this for Mrs Wilt,’ said Dr Board, ’she do hold on. No one could call her stiff-​necked. At­ten­uat­ed pos­si­bly. One be­gins to see what Modigliani was get­ting at.’

‘For God’s sake stop,’ yelled Dr Cox hys­ter­ical­ly, ‘I think I’m go­ing off my head.’

‘Which is more than can be said for Mrs Wilt.’ said Dr Board cal­lous­ly.

He was in­ter­rupt­ed by an­oth­er aw­ful crack as Judy’s body fi­nal­ly gave up the strug­gle with the shaft. With a show­er of clay it ca­reered up­wards to re­sume a clos­er re­la­tion­ship with the head and hung naked, pink and, now that the clothes and the con­crete had been re­moved, re­mark­ably life­like at the end of the rope some twen­ty feet above the ground.

‘I must say,’ said Dr Board study­ing the vul­va with rel­ish, ‘I’ve nev­er had much sym­pa­thy with necrophil­ia be­fore but I do be­gin to see its at­trac­tions now. Of course it’s on­ly of his­tor­ical in­ter­est but in Eliz­abethan times it was one of the perks of an ex­ecu­tion­er…’

‘Board,’ screamed Dr May­field, ‘I’ve known some fuck­ing swine in my time…’

Dr Board helped him­self to some more cof­fee. ‘I be­lieve the slang term for it is lik­ing your meat cold.’

Un­der­neath the crane In­spec­tor Flint wiped the mud from his face and peered up at the aw­ful ab­ject swing­ing above him. He could see now that it was on­ly a doll. He could al­so see why Wilt had want­ed to bury the beast­ly thing.

‘Get it down. For God’s sake get it down,’ he bawled, as the press pho­tog­ra­phers cir­cled round him. But the crane driv­er had lost his nerve. He shut his eyes, pulled the wrong lever and Judy be­gan a fur­ther as­cent.

‘Stop it, stop it, that’s fuck­ing ev­idence,’ screamed the In­spec­tor, but it was al­ready too late. As the rope wound through the fi­nal pul­ley Judy fol­lowed. The con­crete cap dis­in­te­grat­ed, her head slid be­tween the rollers and her body be­gan to swell. Her legs were the first to be af­fect­ed.

‘I’ve of­ten won­dered what ele­phan­ti­asis looked like,’ said Dr Board. ‘Shel­ley had a pho­bia about it, I be­lieve.’

Dr Cox cer­tain­ly had. He was gib­ber­ing in a cor­ner and the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal was urg­ing him to pull him­self to­geth­er.

‘An apt ex­pres­sion,’ ob­served Dr Board, above the gasps of hor­ror as Judy, now clear­ly twelve months preg­nant, con­tin­ued her trans­for­ma­tion. ‘Ear­ly Mi­noan, wouldn’t you say, May­field?’

But Dr May­field was past speech. He was star­ing de­ment­ed­ly at a rapid­ly ex­pand­ing vagi­na some four­teen inch­es long and eight wide. There was a pop and the thing be­came a pe­nis, an enor­mous pe­nis that swelled and swelled. He was go­ing mad. He knew he was.

‘Now that,’ said Dr Board, ‘takes some beat­ing. I’ve heard about sex-​change op­er­ations for men but…’

‘Beat­ings’ screamed Dr May­field, ‘Beat­ing? You can stand there cold-​blood­ed­ly and talk about…’

There was a loud bang. Judy had come to the end of her teth­er. So had Dr May­field. The pe­nis was the first thing to go. Dr May­field the sec­ond. As Judy de­flat­ed he hurled him­self at Dr Board on­ly to sink to the ground gib­ber­ing.

Dr Board ig­nored his col­league. ‘Who would have thought the old bag had so much wind in her?’ be mur­mured, and fin­ished his cof­fee. As Dr May­field was led out by the Vice Prin­ci­pal, Dr Board turned to Pro­fes­sor Bax­en­dale.

‘I must apol­ogize for May­field,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid this Joint Hon­ours de­gree has been too much for him and to tell the truth I have al­ways found him to be fun­da­men­tal­ly un­sound. A case of de­men­tia post Cox I dare­say.’

In­spec­tor Flint drove back to the Po­lice Sta­tion in a state bor­der­ing on lu­na­cy.

‘We’ve been made to look id­iots,’ he snarled at Sergeant Yates. ‘You saw them laugh­ing. You heard the bas­tards.’ He was par­tic­ular­ly in­censed by the press pho­tog­ra­phers who he asked him to pose with the limp rem­nants of the plas­tic doll. ‘We’ve been held up to pub­lic ridicule. Well, my God, some­body’s go­ing to pay.’

He hurled him­self out of the car and lunged down the pas­sage to the In­ter­view Room. ‘Right, Wilt,’ he shout­ed, ‘you’ve had your lit­tle joke and a bloody nasty one it was too. So now, we’re go­ing to for­get the niceties and get to the bot­tom of this busi­ness.’

Wilt stud­ied the torn piece of plas­tic. ‘Looks bet­ter like that if you ask me,’ he said. ‘More nat­ural if you know what I mean.’

‘You’ll look bloody nat­ural if you don’t an­swer my ques­tions,’ yelled the In­spec­tor. ‘Where is she?’

‘Where is who?’ said Wilt.

‘Mrs Fuck­ing Wilt. Where did you put her?’

‘I’ve told you. I didn’t put her any­where.’

‘And I’m telling you you did. Now ei­ther you’re go­ing to tell me where she is or I’m go­ing to beat it out of you.’

‘You can beat me up if you like,’ said Wilt, ‘but it won’t do you any good.’

‘Oh yes it will,’ said the In­spec­tor and took off his coat.

‘I de­mand to see a so­lic­itor,’ said Wilt hasti­ly.

In­spec­tor Flint put his jack­et on again. ‘I’ve been wait­ing to hear you say that. Hen­ry Wilt, I here­by charge you with…’

Chapter 16

In the reeds Eva greet­ed the dawn of an­oth­er day by blow­ing up the airbed for the tenth time. It had ei­ther sprung a leak or de­vel­oped a fault in the valve. Whichev­er it was it had made her progress ex­ceed­ing­ly slow and had fi­nal­ly forced her to take refuge in the reeds away from the chan­nel. Here, wedged be­tween the stems, she had spent a mud­dy night get­ting off the airbed to blow it up and get­ting back on to try and wash off the sludge and weeds that had ad­hered to her when she got off. In the pro­cess she had lost the bot­tom half of her lemon loungers and had torn the top half so that by dawn she re­sem­bled less the ob­ses­sive house­wife of 34 Parkview Av­enue than a fi­nal­ist in the heavy­weight di­vi­sion of the Ladies Mud­wrestling Cham­pi­onship. In ad­di­tion she was ex­ceed­ing­ly cold and was glad when the sun came up bring­ing with it the promise of a hot sum­mer day. All she had to do now was to find her way to land or open wa­ter and get some­one to…At this point Eva be­came aware that her ap­pear­ance was like­ly to cause some em­bar­rass­ment. The lemon loungers had been suf­fi­cient­ly out­ré to make her avoid walk­ing down the street when she had had them on; with them large­ly off, she cer­tain­ly didn’t want to be seen in pub­lic. On the oth­er hand she couldn’t stay in the reeds all day. She plunged on, drag­ging the airbed be­hind her, half swim­ming but for the most part trudg­ing through mud and wa­ter. At last she came out of the reeds in­to open wa­ter and found her­self look­ing across a stretch to a house, a gar­den that sloped down to the wa­ter’s edge, and a church. It seemed a long way across but there was no boat in sight. She would have to swim across and just hope that the wom­an who lived there was sym­pa­thet­ic and bet­ter still large enough to lend her some clothes un­til she got home. It was at this point that Eva dis­cov­ered that she had left her hand­bag some­where in the reeds. She re­mem­bered hav­ing it dur­ing the night but it must have fall­en off the airbed when she was blow­ing it up. Well she couldn’t go back and look for it now. She would just have to go on with­out it and ring Hen­ry up and tell him to come out in the car and get her. He could bring some clothes too. Yes, that was it. Eva Wilt climbed on to the airbed and be­gan to pad­dle across. Halfway over the airbed went down for the eleventh time. Eva aban­doned it and strug­gled on in the life­jack­et. But that too im­ped­ed her progress and she fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed to take it off. She trod wa­ter and tried to un­do it and af­ter a strug­gle man­aged to get it off. In the pro­cess the rest of the lemon loungers dis­in­te­grat­ed so that by the time she reached the bank Eva Wilt was ex­haust­ed and quite naked. She crawled in­to the cov­er of a wil­low tree and lay pant­ing on the ground. When she had re­cov­ered she stood up and looked around. She was at the bot­tom of the gar­den and the house was a hun­dred yards away up the hill. It was a very large house by Eva’s stan­dards, and not the sort she would feel at home in at the best of times. For one thing it ap­peared to have a court­yard with sta­bles at the back and to Eva, whose knowl­edge of large coun­try hous­es was con­fined to what she had seen on TV, there was the sug­ges­tion of ser­vants, gen­til­ity and a so­cial for­mal­ity that would make her ar­rival in the nude rather heavy go­ing. On the oth­er hand the whole place looked de­cid­ed­ly run down. The gar­den was over­grown and un­kempt, or­na­men­tal bush­es which might, once have been trimmed to look like birds and an­imals had re­vert­ed to strange and vague­ly mon­strous shapes, rust­ed hoops leant half-​hid­den in the grass of an un­tend­ed cro­quet lawn; a ten­nis net sagged be­tween posts and an aban­doned green­house boast­ed a few panes of lich­ened glass. Fi­nal­ly there was a di­lap­idat­ed boathouse and a row­ing boat. All in all the do­main had a sin­is­ter and im­pos­ing air to it which wasn’t helped by the pres­ence of a small church hid­den among trees to the left and a ne­glect­ed grave­yard be­yond an aid iron fence. Eva peered out from the weep­ing wil­low and was about to leave its cov­er when the French win­dows opened and a man came out on to the ter­race with a pair of binoc­ulars and peered through them in the di­rec­tion of Eel Stretch. He was wear­ing a black cas­sock and a dog col­lar. Eva went back be­hind the tree and con­sid­ered the awk­ward­ness off her sit­ua­tion and lack of at­tire. It was all ex­treme­ly em­bar­rass­ing. Noth­ing on earth would make her go up to the house, the Vicarage with noth­ing on. Parkview Av­enue hadn’t pre­pared her for sit­ua­tions of this sort.

Rossiter Grove hadn’t pre­pared Gaskell for the sit­ua­tion he found when Sal­ly woke him with ‘Noah ba­by, it’s dry­wise top­side, Time to fly the coop.’

He opened the cab­in door and stepped out­side to dis­cov­er that Eva had al­ready flown and had tak­en the airbed and the life­jack­ets with her.

‘You mean you left her out­side all night?’ he said. ‘Now we’re re­al­ly up Shit Creek. No pad­dle, no airbed, no god­dam life­jack­ets, no noth­ing.’

‘I didn’t know she’d do some­thing crazy like take off with ev­ery­thing,’ said Sal­ly.

‘You leave her out­side in the pour­ing rain all night she’s got to do some­thing. She’s prob­ably frozen to death by now or drowned.’

‘She tried to kill me. You think I was go­ing to let her in when she’s tried to do that. Any­how it’s all your fault for shoot­ing your mouth off about that doll.’

‘You tell that to the law when they find her body float­ing down­stream. You just ex­plain how come she goes off in the mid­dle of a storm.’

‘You’re just try­ing to scare me,’ said Sal­ly. ‘I didn’t make her go or any­thing.’

‘It’s go­ing to look pe­cu­liar if some­thing has hap­pened to her is all I’m say­ing. And you tell me how we’re go­ing to get off here now. You think I’m go­ing swim­ming with­out a life­jack­et you’re mis­tak­en. I’m no Spitz.’

‘My hero,’ said Sal­ly.

Gaskell went in­to the cab­in and looked in the cup­board by the stove. ‘And an­oth­er thing. We’ve got a food prob­lem. And wa­ter. There’s not much left.’

‘You got us in­to this mess. You think of a way out,’ said Sal­ly.

Gaskell sat down on the bunk and tried to think. There had to be some way of let­ting peo­ple know they were there and in trou­ble. They couldn’t be far from land. For all he knew dry land was just the oth­er side of the reeds. He went out and climbed on top of the cab­in but apart from the church spire in the dis­tance he could see noth­ing be­yond the reeds. Per­haps they got a piece of cloth and waved it some­one would spot it. He went down and fetched a pil­low case and spent twen­ty min­utes wav­ing it above his head and shout­ing. Then he re­turned to the cab­in and got out the chart and pored over it in a vain at­tempt to dis­cov­er where they were. He was just fold­ing the map up when he spot­ted the pieces of Scrab­ble still ly­ing on the ta­ble. Let­ters. In­di­vid­ual let­ters. Now if they had some­thing that would float up in the air with let­ters on it. Like a kite. Gaskell con­sid­ered ways of mak­ing a kite and gave it up. Per­haps the best thing af­ter all was to make smoke sig­nals. He fetched an emp­ty can from the kitchen and filled it with fu­el oil from be­side the en­gine and soaked a hand­ker­chief in it and clam­bered up on the cab­in roof. He lit the hand­ker­chief and tried to get the oil to burn but when it did there was very lit­tle smoke and the tin got too hot to hold. Gaskell kicked it in­to the wa­ter where it fiz­zled out.

‘Ge­nius ba­by.’ said Sal­ly, ‘you’re the great­est.’

‘Yea, well if you can think of some­thing prac­ti­cal let me know.’

‘Try swim­ming.’

‘Try drown­ing’, said Gaskell.

‘You could make a raft or some­thing.’

‘I could hack this boat of Scheimach­er’s up. That’s all we need.’

‘I saw a movie once where there were these gau­chos or Ro­mans or some­thing and they came to a riv­er and want­ed to cross and they used pigs’ blad­ders.’ said Sal­ly.

‘Right now all we don’t have is a pig,’ said Gaskell.

‘You could use the garbage bags in the kitchen,’ said Sal­ly. Gaskell fetched a plas­tic bag and blew it up and tied the end with string. Then he squeezed it. The bag went down.

Gaskell sat down de­spon­dent­ly. There had to be some sim­ple way of at­tract­ing at­ten­tion and he cer­tain­ly didn’t want to swim out across that dark wa­ter clutch­ing an in­flat­ed garbage bag. He fid­dled with the pieces of Scrab­ble and thought again about kites. Or bal­loons. Bal­loons.

‘You got those rub­bers you use?’ be asked sud­den­ly.

‘Je­sus at a time like this you get a hard on,’ said Sal­ly. ‘For­get sex. Think of some way of get­ting us off here’

‘I have,’ said Gaskell, ‘I want those skins.’

‘You go­ing to float down­riv­er on a pon­toon of con­doms?’

‘Bal­loons,’ said Gaskell. ‘We blow them up and paint let­ters on them and float them in the wind.’

‘Ge­nius ba­by.’ said Sal­ly and went in­to the toi­let. She came out with a sponge bag. ‘Here they are. For a mo­ment there I thought you want­ed me’

‘Days of wine and ros­es,’ said Gaskell, ‘are over. Re­mind me to di­vorce you.’ He tore a pack­et open and blew a con­tra­cep­tive up and tied a knot in its end.

‘On what grounds?’

‘Like you’re a les­bian,’ said Gaskell and held up the dil­do. ‘This and klep­to­ma­nia and the habit you have of putting oth­er men in dolls and knot­ting them. You name it, I’ll use it. Like you’re a nympho­ma­ni­ac.’

‘You wouldn’t dare. Your fam­ily would love it, the scan­dal’

‘Try me,’ said Gaskell and blew up an­oth­er con­dom.

‘Plas­tic freak.’

‘Bull dyke.’

Sal­ly’s eyes nar­rowed. She was be­gin­ning to think he meant what he said about di­vorce and if Gaskell di­vorced her in Eng­land what sort of al­imo­ny would she get? Very lit­tle. There were no chil­dren and she had the idea that British courts were mean in mat­ters of mon­ey. So was Gaskell and there was his fam­ily too. Rich and mean. She sat and eyed him.

‘Where’s your nail var­nish?’ Gaskell asked when he had fin­ished and twelve con­tra­cep­tives clut­tered the cab­in.

‘Drop dead,’ said Sal­ly and went out on deck to think. She stared down at the dark wa­ter and thought about rats and death and be­ing poor again and lib­er­at­ed. The rat paradigm. The world was a rot­ten place. Peo­ple were ob­jects to be used and dis­card­ed. It was Gaskell’s own phi­los­ophy and now he was dis­card­ing her. And one slip on this oily deck could solve her prob­lems. All that had to hap­pen was for Gaskell to slip and drown and she would be free and rich and no one would ev­er know. An ac­ci­dent. Nat­ural death. But Gaskell could swim and there had to be no mis­takes. Try it once and fail and she wouldn’t be able to try again. He would be on his guard. It had to be cer­tain and it had to be nat­ural.

Gaskell came out on deck with the con­tra­cep­tives. He had tied them to­geth­er and paint­ed on each one a sin­gle let­ter with nail var­nish so that the whole read HELP SOS HELP. He climbed up on the cab­in roof and launched them in­to the air. They float­ed up for a mo­ment, were caught in the light breeze and sagged side­ways down on to the wa­ter. Gaskell pulled them in on the string and tried again. Once again they float­ed down on to the wa­ter.

‘I’ll wait un­til there’s some more wind,’ he said, and tied the string to the rail where they bobbed gen­tly. Then he went in­to the cab­in and lay on the bunk.

‘What are you go­ing to do now?’ Sal­ly asked.

‘Sleep. Wake me when there’s a wind.’ He took off his glass­es and pulled a blan­ket over him.

Out­side Sal­ly sat on a lock­er and thought about drown­ing in bed.

‘Mr Gos­dyke,’ said In­spec­tor Flint, ‘you and I have had deal­ings for a good many years now and I’m pre­pared to be frank with you. I don’t know.’

‘But you’ve charged him with mur­der.’ said Mr Gos­dyke.

‘He’ll come up for re­mand on Mon­day. In the mean­time I am go­ing on ques­tion­ing him.’

‘But sure­ly the fact that he ad­mits bury­ing a life-​size doll…’

‘Dressed in his wife’s clothes, Gos­dyke. In his wife’s clothes. Don’t for­get that.’

‘It still seems in­suf­fi­cient to me. Can you be ab­so­lute­ly sure that a mur­der has been com­mit­ted?’

‘Three peo­ple dis­ap­pear off the face of the earth with­out a trace. They leave be­hind them two cars, a house lit­tered with un­washed glass­es and the left­overs of a par­ty…you should see that house…a bath­room and land­ing cov­ered will blood…’

‘They could have gone in some­one else’s car.’

They could have but they didn’t. Dr Pring­sheim didn’t like be­ing driv­en by any­one else. We know that from his col­leagues at the De­part­ment of Bio­chem­istry. He had a root­ed ob­jec­tion to British drivers. Don’t ask me why but be had.’

‘Trains? Bus­es? Planes?’

‘Checked, rechecked and checked again. No one an­swer­ing to their de­scrip­tion used any form of pub­lic or pri­vate trans­port out of town. And if you think they went on a bi­cy­cle ride, you’re wrong again. Dr Pring­sheim’s bi­cy­cle is in the garage. No, you can for­get their go­ing any­where. They died and Mr Smart Alec Wilt knows it.’

‘I still don’t see how you can be so sure.’ said Mr Gos­dyke.

In­spec­tor Flint lit a cigarette. ‘Let’s just look at his ac­tions, his ad­mit­ted ac­tions and see what they add up to,’ he said. ‘He gets a life­size doll…’

‘Where from?’

‘He says he was giv­en it by his wife. Where he got it from doesn’t mat­ter.’

‘He says he first saw the thing at the Pring­sheims’ house.’

‘Per­haps he did. I’m pre­pared to be­lieve that. Wher­ev­er he got it, the fact re­mains that he dressed it up to look like Mrs Wilt. He puts it down that hole at the Tech, a hole he knows is go­ing to be filled with con­crete. He makes cer­tain he is seen by the care­tak­er when he knows that the Tech is closed. He leaves a bi­cy­cle cov­ered with his fin­ger­prints and with a book of his in the bas­ket. He leaves a trail of notes to the hole. He turns up at Mrs Brain­tree’s house at mid­night cov­ered with mud and says he’s had a punc­ture when he hasn’t. Now you’re not go­ing to tell me that he hadn’t got some­thing in mind.’

‘He says he was mere­ly try­ing to dis­pose of that doll.’

‘And he tells me he was re­hears­ing his wife’s mur­der. He’s ad­mit­ted that.’

‘Yes, but on­ly in fan­ta­sy. His sto­ry to me is that be want­ed to get rid of that doll,’ Mr Gos­dyke per­sist­ed.

‘Then why the clothes, why blow the thing up and why leave it in such a po­si­tion it was bound to be spot­ted when the con­crete was poured down? Why didn’t he cov­er it with earth if he didn’t want it to be found? Why didn’t he just burn the bloody thing or leave it by the road­side? It just doesn’t make sense un­less you see it as a de­lib­er­ate plan to draw our at­ten­tion away from the re­al crime.’ The In­spec­tor paused. ‘Well now, the way I see it is that some­thing hap­pened at that par­ty we don’t know any­thing about. Per­haps Wilt found his wife in bed with Dr Pring­sheim. He killed them both. Mrs Pring­sheim puts in an ap­pear­ance and he kills her too.’

‘How?’ said Mr Gos­dyke. ‘You didn’t find that much blood.’

‘He stran­gled her. He stran­gled his own wife. He bat­tered Pring­sheim to death. Then he hides the bod­ies some­where, goes home and lays the doll trail. On Sun­day he dis­pos­es of the re­al bod­ies…’

‘Where?’

‘God alone knows, but I’m go­ing to find out. All I know is that a man who can think up a scheme like this one is bound to have thought of some­where di­abol­ical to put the re­al vic­tims. It wouldn’t sur­prise me to learn that he spent Sun­day mak­ing il­le­gal use of the cre­ma­to­ri­um. What­ev­er he did can be sure he did it thor­ough­ly.’

But Mr Gos­dyke re­mained un­con­vinced. ‘I wish I knew how you could be so cer­tain,’ he said.

‘Mr Gos­dyke,’ said the In­spec­tor weari­ly. ‘you have spent two hours with your client. I have spent the best part of the week and if I’ve learnt one thing from the ex­pe­ri­ence it is this, that sod in there knows what he is do­ing. Any nor­mal man in his po­si­tion would have been wor­ried and alarmed and down right fright­ened. Any in­no­cent man faced with a miss­ing wife and the ev­idence we’ve got of mur­der would have had a ner­vous break­down. Not Wilt. Oh no, he sits in there as bold as you please and tells me how to con­duct the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Now if any­thing con­vinces me that that bas­tard is as guilty as hell that does. He did it and I know it. And what is more, I’m go­ing to prove it.’

‘He seems a bit wor­ried now,’ said Mr Gos­dyke.

‘He’s got rea­son to be,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘be­cause by Mon­day morn­ing I’m go­ing to get the truth out of him even if it kills him and me both.’

‘In­spec­tor,’ said Mr Gos­dyke get­ting to his feet, ‘I must warn you that I have ad­vised my client not to say an­oth­er word and if he ap­pears in Court with a mark on him…’

‘Mr Gos­dyke, you should know me bet­ter than that. I’m not a com­plete fool and if your client has any marks on him on Mon­day morn­ing they will not have been made by me or any of my men. You have my as­sur­ance on that.’

Mr Gos­dyke left the Po­lice Sta­tion a puz­zled man. He had to ad­mit that Wilt’s sto­ry hadn’t been a very con­vinc­ing one. Mr Gos­dyke’s ex­pe­ri­ence of mur­der­ers was not ex­ten­sive but he had a shrewd sus­pi­cion that men who con­fessed open­ly that they had en­ter­tained fan­tasies of mur­der­ing their wives end­ed by ad­mit­ting that they had done so in fact. Be­sides his at­tempt to get Wilt to agree that he’d put the doll down the hole as a prac­ti­cal joke on his col­leagues at the Tech had failed hope­less­ly. Wilt had re­fused to lie and Mr Gos­dyke was not used to clients who in­sist­ed on telling the truth.

In­spec­tor Flint went back in­to the in­ter­view Room and looked at Wilt. Then he pulled up a chair and sat down.

‘Hen­ry,’ he said with an af­fa­bil­ity he didn’t feel, ‘you and I are go­ing to have a lit­tle chat.’

‘What, an­oth­er one?’ said Wilt. ‘Mr Gos­dyke has ad­vised me to say noth­ing.’

‘He al­ways does,’ said the In­spec­tor sweet­ly, ‘to clients he knows are guilty. Now are you go­ing to talk?’

‘I can’t see why not. I’m not guilty and it helps to pass the time.’

Chapter 17

It was Fri­day and as on ev­ery oth­er day in the week the lit­tle church at Wa­ter­swick was emp­ty. And as on ev­ery oth­er day of the week the Vicar, the Rev­erend St John Froude was drunk. The two things went to­geth­er, the lack of a con­gre­ga­tion and the Vicar’s in­so­bri­ety. It was an old tra­di­tion dat­ing back to the days of smug­gling, when Brandy for the Par­son had been about the on­ly rea­son the iso­lat­ed ham­let had a vicar at all. And like so many En­glish tra­di­tions it died hard. The Church au­thor­ities saw to it that Wa­ter­swick got id­iosyn­crat­ic par­sons whose awk­ward en­thu­si­asms tend­ed to make them un­suit­able for more re­spectable parish­es and they, to con­sole them­selves for its re­mote­ness and lack of in­ter­est in things spir­itu­al, got al­co­holic. The Rev St John Froude main­tained tra­di­tion. He at­tend­ed to his du­ties with the same An­glo-​Catholic Fun­da­men­tal­ist fer­vour that had made him so pop­ular in Es­her and turned an al­co­holic eye on the ac­tiv­ities of his few parish­ioners who, now that brandy was not so much in de­mand, con­tent­ed them­selves with the oc­ca­sion­al boat­load of il­le­gal In­di­an im­mi­grants.

Now as he fin­ished a break­fast of eggnog and Irish cof­fee and con­sid­ered the in­iq­ui­ties of his more egre­gious col­leagues as re­lat­ed in the pre­vi­ous Sun­day’s pa­per he was star­tled see some­thing wob­bling above the reeds on Eel Stretch. It looked like bal­loons, white sausage-​shaped bal­loons that rose briefly and then dis­ap­peared. The Rev St John Froude shud­dered, shut his eyes, opened them again and thought about the virtues of ab­sti­nence. If he was right and he didn’t know whether he want­ed to be or not, the morn­ing was be­ing pro­faned by a clus­ter of con­tra­cep­tives, in­flat­ed con­tra­cep­tives wob­bling er­rat­ical­ly where by the na­ture of things no con­tra­cep­tive had ev­er wob­bled be­fore. At least he hoped it was clus­ter. He was so used to see­ing things in twos when they were in fact ones that he couldn’t be sure if what looked like a clus­ter of in­flat­ed con­tra­cep­tives wasn’t just one or bet­ter still none at all.

He reeled off to his study to get his binoc­ulars and stepped out on­to the ter­race to fo­cus them. By that time the man­ifes­ta­tion had dis­ap­peared. The Rev St John Froude shook his head mourn­ful­ly. Things and in par­tic­ular his liv­er had reached a pret­ty pick­le for him to have hal­lu­ci­na­tions so ear­ly in the morn­ing. He went back in­to the house and tried to con­cen­trate his at­ten­tion on a case in­volv­ing an Archdea­con in On­gar who had un­der­gone a sex-​change op­er­ation be­fore elop­ing with his verg­er. There was mat­ter there for a ser­mon if on­ly he could think of a suit­able text.

At the bot­tom of the gar­den Eva Wilt watched his re­treat and won­dered what to do. She had no in­ten­tion of go­ing up to the house and in­tro­duc­ing her­self in her present con­di­tion. She need­ed clothes, or at least some sort of cov­er­ing. She looked around for some­thing tem­po­rary and fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed on some ivy climb­ing up the grave­yard fence. With one eye on the Vicarage she emerged from the wil­low tree and scam­pered across to the fence and through the gate in­to the church­yard. There she ripped some ivy off the trunk of a tree and, car­ry­ing it in front of her rather awk­ward­ly, made her way sur­rep­ti­tious­ly up the over­grown path to­wards the church. For the most part her progress was masked from the house by the trees but once or twice she had to crouch low and scam­per from tomb­stone to tomb­stone in full view of the Vicarage. By the time she reached the church porch she was pant­ing and her sense of im­pro­pri­ety had been in­creased ten­fold. If the prospect of pre­sent­ing her­self at the house in the nude of­fend­ed her on grounds of so­cial deco­rum, go­ing in­to a church in the raw was pos­itive­ly sac­ri­le­gious. She stood in the porch and tried fran­ti­cal­ly to steel her­self to go in. There were bound to be sur­plices for the choir in the vestry and dressed in a sur­plice she could go up to the house. Or could she? Eva wasn’t sure about the sig­nif­icance of sur­plices and the Vicar might be an­gry. Oh dear it was all so awk­ward. In the end she opened the church door and went in­side. It was cold and damp and emp­ty. Clutch­ing the ivy to her she crossed to the vestry door and tried it. It was locked. Eva stood shiv­er­ing and tried to think. Fi­nal­ly she went out­side and stood in the sun­shine try­ing to get warm.

In the Staff room at the Tech, Dr Board was hold­ing court. ‘All things con­sid­ered I think we came out of the whole busi­ness rather cred­itably,’ he said. ‘The Prin­ci­pal has al­ways said he want­ed to put the col­lege on the map and with the help of friend Wilt it must be said he has suc­ceed­ed. The news­pa­per cov­er­age has been pos­itive­ly prodi­gious. I shouldn’t be sur­prised if our stu­dent in­take jumped as­ton­ish­ing­ly.’

‘The com­mit­tee didn’t ap­prove our fa­cil­ities,’ said Mr Mor­ris, ’so you can hard­ly claim their vis­it was an un­qual­ified suc­cess.’

‘Per­son­al­ly I think they got their mon­ey’s worth,’ said Dr Board. ‘It’s not ev­ery day you get the chance to see an ex­huma­tion and an ex­ecu­tion at the same time. The one usu­al­ly pre­cedes the oth­er and cer­tain­ly the ex­pe­ri­ence of see­ing what to all in­tents and pur­pos­es was a wom­an turn in a mat­ter of sec­onds in­to a man, an in­stan­ta­neous sex change, was to use a mod­ern id­iom, a mind-​blow­ing one.’

‘Talk­ing of poor May­field,’ said the Head of Ge­og­ra­phy, ‘I un­der­stand he’s still at the Men­tal Hos­pi­tal.’

‘Com­mit­ted?’ asked Dr Board hope­ful­ly.

‘De­pressed. And suf­fer­ing from ex­haus­tion.’

‘Hard­ly sur­pris­ing. Any­one who can use lan­guage…abuse lan­guage like that is ask­ing for trou­ble. Struc­ture as a verb, for ex­am­ple.’

‘He had set great score by the joint Hon­ours de­gree and the fact that it has been turned down…’

‘Quite right too,’ said Dr Board. ‘The ed­uca­tive val­ue of stuff­ing sec­ond-​rate stu­dents with fifth-​rate ideas on sub­jects as di­verse as Me­dieval Po­et­ry and Ur­ban Stud­ies es­capes me. Far bet­ter that they should spend their time watch­ing the po­lice dig up the sup­posed body of a wom­an coat­ed in con­crete, stretch her neck, rip all her clothes off her, hang her and fi­nal­ly blow her up un­til she ex­plodes. Now that is what I call a tru­ly ed­uca­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence. It com­bines ar­chae­ol­ogy with crim­inol­ogy, zo­ol­ogy with physics, anato­my with eco­nom­ic the­ory, while main­tain­ing the stu­dents’ un­di­vid­ed at­ten­tion all the time. If we must have joint Hon­ours de­grees let them be of that vi­tal­ity. Prac­ti­cal too. I’m think­ing of send­ing away for one of those dolls.’

‘It still leaves un­re­solved the ques­tion of Mrs Wilt’s dis­ap­pear­ance,’ said Mr Mor­ris.

‘Ah, dear Eva,’ said Dr Board wist­ful­ly. ‘Hav­ing seen so much of what I imag­ined to be her I shall, if I ev­er have the plea­sure of meet­ing her again treat her with the ut­most cour­tesy. An amaz­ing­ly ver­sa­tile wom­an and in­ter­est­ing­ly pro­por­tioned. I think I shall chris­ten my doll Eva.’

‘But the po­lice still seem to think she is dead.’

‘A wom­an like that can nev­er die.’ said Dr Board. ‘She may ex­plode but her mem­ory lingers on in­deli­bly.’

In his study the Rev St John Froude shared Dr Board’s opin­ion. The mem­ory of the large and ap­par­ent­ly naked la­dy he had glimpsed emerg­ing from the wil­low tree at the bot­tom of his gar­den like some dis­gust­ing­ly over­sized nymph and scut­tling through the church­yard was not some­thing he was ev­er like­ly to for­get. Com­ing so short­ly af­ter the ap­pari­tion of the in­flat­ed con­tra­cep­tives it lent weight to the sus­pi­cion that he had been over­do­ing things on the al­co­hol side. Aban­don­ing the ser­mon he had been prepar­ing on the apos­tate Archdea­con of On­gar–he had had ‘By their fruits ye shall know them’ in mind as a text–he got up and peered out of the win­dow in the di­rec­tion of the church and was won­der­ing if he shouldn’t go down and see if there wasn’t a large fat naked la­dy there when his at­ten­tion was drawn to the reeds across the wa­ter. They were there again, those in­fer­nal things. This time there could be no doubt about it. He grabbed his binoc­ulars and stared fu­ri­ous­ly through them. He could see them much more clear­ly than the first time and much more omi­nous­ly. The sun was high in the sky and a mist rose over Eel Stretch so that the con­tra­cep­tives had a lu­mi­nes­cent sheen about them, an in­sub­stan­tial­ity that was al­most spir­itu­al in its im­pli­ca­tions. Worse still, there ap­peared to be some­thing writ­ten on them. The mes­sage was clear if in­com­pre­hen­si­ble. It read PEESOP. The Rev St John Froude low­ered his binoc­ulars and reached for the whisky bot­tle and con­sid­ered the sig­nif­icance of PEESOP etched ec­to­plas­mi­cal­ly against the sky. By the time he had fin­ished his third hur­ried glass and had de­cid­ed that spir­itu­al­ism might af­ter all have some­thing to be said for it though why you al­most al­ways found your­self in touch with a Red In­di­an who was act­ing by proxy for an aunt which might ac­count for the mis­spelling of Pea­soup while re­mov­ing some of the less at­trac­tive in­gre­di­ents from the stuff, the wind had changed the let­ters round. This time when he looked the mes­sage read EELPOPS. The Vicar shud­dered. What eel was pop­ping and how?

‘The sins of the spir­it,’ he said re­proach­ful­ly to his fourth glass of whisky be­fore con­sult­ing the or­acle once more. POSHELLS was fol­lowed by HEP­OLP to be suc­ceed­ed by SHHLP­SPO which was even worse. The Rev St John Froude thrust his binoc­ulars and the bot­tle of whisky aside and went down on his knees to pray for de­liv­er­ance or at least for some guid­ance in in­ter­pret­ing the mes­sage. But ev­ery time he got up to see if his wish had been grant­ed the com­bi­na­tion of let­ters was as mean­ing­less as ev­er or down­right threat­en­ing. What, for in­stance, did HELL­SPO sig­ni­fy? Or SLOSH­HEEL? Fi­nal­ly, de­ter­mined to dis­cov­er for him­self the true na­ture of the oc­cur­rence, he put on his cas­sock and wove off down the gar­den path to the boathouse.

‘They shall rue the day,’ he mut­tered as he climbed in­to the row­ing boat and took the oars. The Rev St John Froude held firm views on con­tra­cep­tion. It was one of the tenets of his An­glo-​Catholi­cism.

In the cab­in cruis­er Gaskell slept sound­ly. Around him Sal­ly made her prepa­ra­tions. She un­dressed and changed in­to the plas­tic biki­ni. She took a silk square from her bag and put it on the ta­ble and she fetched a jug from the kitchen and lean­ing over the side filled it with wa­ter. Fi­nal­ly she went in­to the toi­let and made her face up in the mir­ror. When she emerged she was wear­ing false eye­lash­es, her lips were heav­ily red and pan­cake make-​up ob­scured her pale com­plex­ion. She was car­ry­ing a bathing-​cap. She crossed the door of the gal­ley and put an arm up and stuck her hip out.

‘Gaskell ba­by,’ she called.

Gaskell opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘What the bell gives?’

‘Like it, ba­by?’

Gaskell put on his glass­es. In spite of him­self he did like it. ‘You think you’re go­ing to, whee­dle round me, you’re wrong…’

Sal­ly smiled. ‘Con­serve the ver­biage. You turn me on, bio-​degrad­able ba­by.’ She moved for­ward and sat on the bunk be­side him.

‘What are you try­ing to do?’

‘Make it up, babykink. You de­serve a cure.’ She fon­dled him gen­tly. ‘Like the old days. Re­mem­ber?’

Gaskell re­mem­bered and felt weak. Sal­ly leant for­ward and pressed him down on to the bunk.

‘Sur­ro­gate Sal­ly,’ she said and un­but­toned his shirt.

Gaskell squirmed. ‘If you think…’

‘Don’t think, kink,’ said Sal­ly and un­did his jeans. ‘On­ly erect.’

‘Oh God,’ said Gaskell. The per­fume, the plas­tic, the mask of a face and her hands were awak­en­ing an­cient fan­tasies. He lay supine on the bunk star­ing at her while Sal­ly un­dressed him. Even when she rolled him over on his face and pulled his hands be­hind his back he made no re­sis­tance.

‘Bondage ba­by,’ she said soft­ly and reached for the silk square.

‘No, Sal­ly, no,’ he said weak­ly. Sal­ly smiled grim­ly and tied his hands to­geth­er, wind­ing the silk be­tween his wrists care­ful­ly be­fore tight­en­ing it. When she had fin­ished Gaskell whim­pered. ‘You’re hurt­ing me.’

Sal­ly rolled him over. ‘You love it,’ she said and kissed him. She sat back and stroked him gen­tly. ‘Hard­er, ba­by, re­al hard. Lift me lover sky high.’

‘Oh Sal­ly.’

‘That’s my ba­by and now the wa­ter­proof.’

‘There’s no need. I like it bet­ter with­out.’

‘But I do, G. I need it to prove you loved me till death did us part.’ She bent over and rolled it down.

Gaskell stared up at her. Some­thing was wrong.

‘And now the cap.’ She reached over and picked up the bathing-​cap.

‘The cap?’ said Gaskell. ‘Why the cap? I don’t want that thing on.’

‘Oh but you do, sweet­heart It makes you look girl­wise.’ She fit­ted the cap over his head. ‘Now in­to Sal­lia in­ter alia.’ She un­did the biki­ni and low­ered her­self on to him. Gaskell moaned and stared up at her. She was love­ly. It was a long time since she had been so good. But he was still fright­ened. There was a look in her eyes he hadn’t seen be­fore. ‘Un­tie me,’ he plead­ed, ‘you’re hurt­ing my arm.’

But Sal­ly mere­ly smiled and gy­rat­ed. ‘When you’ve come and gone, G ba­by. When you’ve been.’ She moved her hips. ‘Come, bum, come quick.’

Gaskell shud­dered.

‘Fin­ished?’

He nod­ded. ‘Fin­ished,’ he sighed.

‘For good, ba­by, for good,’ said Sal­ly. ‘That was it. You’re past the last.’

‘Past the last?’

‘You’ve come and gone, G, come and gone. It’s Styx­side for you now.

‘Stick­side?’

‘S for Sal­ly, T for Ter­mi­nal, Y for You and X for Fast. All that’s left is this.’ She reached over and picked up the jug of mud­dy wa­ter. Gaskell turned his head and looked at it.

‘What’s that for?’

‘For you, ba­by. Mud­ders milk.’ She moved up his body and sat on his chest. ‘Open your mouth.’

Gaskell Pring­sheim stared up at her fran­ti­cal­ly. He be­gan to writhe ‘You’re mad. You’re crazy.’

‘Now just lie qui­et­ly and it won’t hurt. It will soon be over, lover. Nat­ural death by drown­ing. In bed. You’re mak­ing’ his­to­ry.’

‘You bitch, you mur­der­ous bitch.’

‘Cer­berus­wise,’ said Sal­ly, and poured the wa­ter in­to his mouth. She put the jug down and pulled the cap down over his face.

The Rev St John Froude rowed sur­pris­ing­ly steadi­ly for a man with half a bot­tle of whisky in­side him and a wrath in his heart, and the near­er he got to the con­tra­cep­tives the greater his wrath be­came. It wasn’t sim­ply that he had been giv­en a quite un­nec­es­sary fright about the state of his liv­er by the sight of the things (he could see now that he was close to them that they were re­al), it was rather that he ad­hered the doc­trine of sex­ual non-​in­ter­ven­tion. God, in his view had cre­at­ed a per­fect world if the book of Gen­esis was to be be­lieved and it had been go­ing down­hill ev­er since. And the book of Gen­esis was to be be­lieved or the rest of the Bible made no sense at all. Start­ing from this fun­da­men­tal­ist premise the Rev St John Froude had pro­gressed er­rat­ical­ly by way of Blake, Hawk­er, Leav­is and a num­ber of ob­scu­ran­tist the­olo­gians to the con­vic­tion that the mir­acles of mod­ern sci­ence were the works of the dev­il, that sal­va­tion lay in es­chew­ing ev­ery ma­te­ri­al ad­vance since the Re­nais­sance, and one or two be­fore, and that na­ture was in­finite­ly less red in tooth and claw than mod­ern mech­anized man. In short he was con­vinced that the end of the world was at hand in the shape of a nu­cle­ar holo­caust and that it was his du­ty as a Chris­tian to an­nounce the fact. His ser­mons on the sub­ject had been of such a vivid­ly hor­ren­dous fer­vour as to lead to his ex­ile in Wa­ter­swick. Now as he rowed up the chan­nel in­to Eel Stretch he ful­mi­nat­ed silent­ly against con­tra­cep­tion, abor­tion and the evils of sex­ual promis­cu­ity. They were all symp­toms and caus­es and causative symp­toms of the moral chaos which life on earth had be­come. And fi­nal­ly there were trip­pers. The Rev St John Froude loathed trip­pers. They fouled the lit­tle Eden of his parish with their boats, their tran­sis­tors and their un­abashed en­joy­ment of the present. And trip­pers who des­ecrat­ed the prospect from his study win­dow with in­flat­ed con­tra­cep­tives and mean­ing­less mes­sages were an abom­ina­tion. By the time he came in sight of the cab­in cruis­er he was in no mood to be tri­fled with. He rowed fu­ri­ous­ly across to the boat, tied up to the rail and, lift­ing his cas­sock over his knees, stepped aboard.

In the cab­in Sal­ly stared down at the bathing-​cap. It de­flat­ed and in­flat­ed, ex­pand­ed and was sucked in against Gaskell’s lace and Sal­ly squirmed with plea­sure. She was the lib­er­at­edest wom­an in the world, but the lib­er­at­edest. Gaskell was dy­ing and she would be free to be with a mil­lion dol­lars in the kit­ty. And no one would ev­er know. When he was dead she would take the cap off and un­tie him and push his body over the side in­to the wa­ter. Gaskell Pring­sheim would have died a nat­ural death by drown­ing. And at that mo­ment the cab­in door opened and she looked up at the sil­hou­ette of the Rev St John Froude in the cab­in door­way.

‘What the hell…’ she mut­tered and leapt off Gaskell.

The Rev St John Froude hes­itat­ed. He had come to say his piece and say it he would but he had clear­ly in­trud­ed on a very naked wom­an with a hor­ri­bly made-​up face in the act of mak­ing love to a man who as far as a quick glance en­abled him to tell had no face at all.

‘I…’ he be­gan and stopped. The man on the bunk had rolled on to the floor and was writhing there in the most ex­traor­di­nary fash­ion. The Rev St John Froude stared down at him aghast. The man was not on­ly face­less but his hands were tied be­hind his back.

‘My dear fel­low,’ said the Vicar, ap­palled at the scene and looped up at the naked wom­an for some sort of ex­pla­na­tion.’ She was star­ing at him de­mon­ical­ly and hold­ing a large kitchen knife. The Rev St John Froude stum­bled back in­to the cock­pit as the wom­an ad­vanced to­wards him hold­ing the knife in front of her with both hands. She was clear­ly quite de­ment­ed. So was the man on the floor. He rolled about and dragged his head from side to side. The bathing-​cap came off but the Rev St. John Froude was too busy scram­bling over the side in­to his row­ing boat to no­tice. He cast off as the ghast­ly wom­an lunged to­wards him and be­gan to row away his orig­inal mis­sion en­tire­ly for­got­ten. In the cock­pit Sal­ly stood scream­ing abuse at him and be­hind her a shape had ap­peared in the cab­in door. The Vicar was grate­ful to see that the man had a face now, not a nice face, a pos­itive­ly hor­ri­ble face but a face for all that, and he was com­ing up be­hind the wom­an with some hideous in­ten­tion. The next mo­ment the in­ten­tion was car­ried out. The man hurled him­self at her, the knife dropped on­to the deck, the wom­an scrab­bled at the side of the boat and then slid for­ward in­to the wa­ter. The Rev St John Froude wait­ed no longer. He rowed vig­or­ous­ly away. What­ev­er ap­palling or­gy of sex­ual per­ver­sion he had in­ter­rupt­ed, he want­ed none of it on paint­ed wom­en with knives who called him a moth­er­fuck­ing sort of a cuntsuck­er, among oth­er things didn’t elic­it sym­pa­thy when the ob­ject of their ob­scene pas­sions pushed them in­to the wa­ter. And in any case they were Amer­icans. The Rev St John Froude had no time for Amer­icans. They epit­omized ev­ery­thing he found of­fen­sive about the mod­ern world. Im­bued with a new dis­gust for the present and an urge to hit the whisky he rowed home and tied up at the bot­tom of the gar­den.

Be­hind him in the cab­in cruis­er Gaskell ceased shout­ing. The priest who had saved his life had ig­nored his hoarse pleas for fur­ther help and Sal­ly was stand­ing waist-​deep in wa­ter be­side the boat. Well she could stay there. He went back in­to the cab­in, turned so that he could lock the door with his tied hands and then looked around for some­thing to cut the silk scarf with. He was still very fright­ened.

‘Right,’ said In­spec­tor Flint, ’so what did you do then?’

‘Got up and read the Sun­day pa­pers’

‘Af­ter that?’

‘I ate a plate of All-​Bran and drank some tea.

‘Tea? You sure it was tea? Last time you said cof­fee.’

‘Which time?’

‘The last time you told it.’

‘I drank tea.’

‘What then?’

‘I gave Clem his break­fast.’

‘What sort?’

‘Chap­pie.’

‘Last time you said Bon­zo.’

‘This time I say Chap­pie.’

‘Make up your mind. Which sort was it?’

‘What the fuck does it mat­ter which sort it was?’

‘It mat­ters to me.’

‘Chap­pie.’

‘And when you had fed the dog.’

‘I shaved.’

‘Last time you said you had a bath.’

‘I had a bath and then I shaved. I was try­ing to save time.’

‘For­get the time, Wilt, we’ve got all the time in the world.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Shut up. What did you do then?’

‘Oh for God’s sake, what does it mat­ter? What’s the point of go­ing over and over the same things?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Right,’ said Wilt, ‘I will.’

‘When you had shaved what did you do?’

Wilt stared at him and said noth­ing.

‘When you had shaved?’

But Wilt re­mained silent. Fi­nal­ly In­spec­tor Flint left the room and sent for Sergeant Yates.

‘He’s clammed up,’ he said weari­ly. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘Try a lit­tle phys­ical per­sua­sion?’

Flint shook his head. ‘Gos­dyke’s seen him. If he turns up in Court on Mon­day with so much as a hair out of place, he’ll be all over us for bru­tal­ity. There’s got to be some oth­er way. He must have a weak spot some­where but I’m damned if I can find it. How does he do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘Keep talk­ing and say­ing noth­ing. Not one bloody use­ful thing. That sod’s got more opin­ions on ev­ery top­ic un­der the flam­ing sun than I’ve got hair on my head.’

‘If we keep him awake for an­oth­er forty-​eight hours he’s bound to crack up.’

‘He’ll take me with him,’ said Flint.’ We’ll both go in­to court in strait­jack­ets.’

In the In­ter­view Room Wilt put his head on the ta­ble. They would be back in a minute with more ques­tions but a mo­ment’s sleep was bet­ter than none. Sleep. If on­ly they would let sleep. ‘What had Flint said? ‘The mo­ment you sign a con­fes­sion you can have all the sleep you want.’ Wilt con­sid­ered the re­mark and its pos­si­bil­ities. A con­fes­sion. But it would have to be plau­si­ble enough to keep them oc­cu­pied while he got some rest and at the same time so im­pos­si­ble that it would re­ject­ed by the court. A de­lay­ing tac­tic to give Eva time to come back and prove his in­no­cence. It would be like Gas­fit­ters Two Shane to read while be sat and thought about putting Eva down the pile shaft. He should be able to think up some­thing com­pli­cat­ed that would keep them fran­ti­cal­ly ac­tive. How he had killed them? Beat them to death in the bath­room? Not enough blood. Even Flint had ad­mit­ted that much. So how? What was a nice gen­tle way to go? Poor old Pinker­ton had cho­sen a peace­ful death when he stuck a tube up the ex­haust pipe of his car…That was it. But why? There had to be a mo­tive. Eva was hav­ing it off with Dr Pring­sheim? With that twit? Not in a month of Sun­days. Eva wouldn’t have looked twice at Gaskell. But Flint wasn’t to know that. And what about that bitch Sal­ly? All three hav­ing it off to­geth­er? Well at least it would ex­plain why he killed them all and it would pro­vide the sort of mo­tive Flint would un­der­stand. And be­sides it was right for that kind of par­ty. So he got this pipe…What pipe? There was no need for a pipe. They were in the garage to get away from ev­ery­one else. No, that wouldn’t do. It had to be the bath­room. How about Eva and Gaskell do­ing it in the bath? That was bet­ter. He had bust the door down in a fit of jeal­ousy. Much bet­ter. Then he had drowned them. And then Sal­ly had come up­stairs and he had had to kill her too. That ex­plained the blood. There had been a strug­gle. He hadn’t meant to kill her but she had fall­en in the bath. So far so good. But where had he put them? It had to be some­thing good. Flint wasn’t go­ing to be­lieve any­thing like the riv­er. Some­where that made sense of the doll down the hole. Flint had it firm­ly fixed in his head that the doll had been a di­ver­sion­ary tac­tic. That meant that time en­tered in­to their dis­pos­al.

Wilt got up and asked to go to the toi­let. As usu­al the con­sta­ble came with him and stood out­side the door.

‘Do you have to?’ said Wilt. ‘I’m not go­ing to hang my­self with the chain.’

‘To see you don’t beat your meat,’ said the con­sta­ble coarse­ly.

Wilt sat down. Beat your meat. What a hell of an ex­pres­sion. It called to mind Meat One. Meat One? It was a mo­ment of in­spi­ra­tion. Wilt got up and flushed the toi­let. Meat One would keep them busy for a long time. He went back to the pale green room where the light buzzed. Flint was wait­ing for him.

‘You go­ing to talk now?’ he asked.

Wilt shook his head. They would have to drag it out of him if his con­fes­sion was to be at all con­vinc­ing. He would have to hes­itate, start to say some­thing, stop, start again, ap­peal to Flint to stop tor­tur­ing him, plead and start again. This trout need­ed tick­ling. Oh well, it would help to keep him awake.

‘Are you go­ing to start again at the be­gin­ning?’ he asked

In­spec­tor Flint smiled hor­ri­bly. ‘Right at the be­gin­ning.’

‘All right,’ said Wilt. ‘have it your own way, just don’t keep ask­ing me if I gave the dog Chap­pie or Bon­zo. I can’t stand all that talk about dog food.’

In­spec­tor Flint rose to the bait. ‘Why not?’

‘It gets on my nerves,’ said Wilt, with a shud­der.

The In­spec­tor leant for­ward. ‘Dog food gets on your nerves?’ he said.

Wilt hes­itat­ed pa­thet­ical­ly. ‘Don’t go on about it,’ he said. ‘Please don’t go on.’

‘Now then, which was it, Bon­zo or Chap­pie?’ said the In­spec­tor, scent­ing blood.

Wilt put his head in his hands. ‘I won’t say any­thing. I won’t. Why must you keep ask­ing me about food? Leave me alone.’ His voice rose hys­ter­ical­ly and with it In­spec­tor Flint’s hopes. He knew when he had touched the nerve. He was on to a good thing.

Chapter 18

‘Dear God,’ said Sergeant Yates, ‘but we had pork pies for lunch yes­ter­day. It’s too aw­ful.’

In­spec­tor Flint rinsed his mouth out with black cof­fee and spat in­to the wash­basin. He had vom­it­ed twice and felt like vom­it­ing again.

‘I knew it would be some­thing like that.’ he said with a shud­der. ‘I just knew it. A man who could pull that doll-​trick had to have some­thing re­al­ly filthy up his sleeve.’

‘But they may all have been eat­en by now,’ said the Sergeant. Flint looked at him bale­ful­ly.

‘Why the hell do you think he laid that phoney trail?’ he asked. ‘To give them plen­ty of time to be con­sumed. His ex­pres­sion “con­sumed”, not mine. You know what the shelf life of a pork pie is?’

Yates shook his head.

‘Five days. Five days. So they went out on Tues­day which leaves us one day to find them or what re­mains of them. I want ev­ery pork pie in East An­glia picked up. I want ev­ery fuck­ing sausage and steak and kid­ney pie that went out of Sweet­breads Meat Fac­to­ry this week found and brought in. And ev­ery tin of dog food.’

‘Dog food?’

‘You heard me,’ said In­spec­tor Flint stag­ger­ing out of the wash­room. ‘And while you’re about it you’d bet­ter make it cat food too. You nev­er know with Wilt,’ He’s ca­pa­ble of lead­ing us up the gar­den path in one im­por­tant de­tail.’

‘But if they went in­to pork pies what’s all this about dog food?’

‘Where the hell do you think he put the odds and ends and I do mean ends?’ In­spec­tor Flint asked sav­age­ly. ‘You don’t imag­ine he was go­ing to have peo­ple com­ing in and com­plain­ing they’d found a tooth or a toe­nail in the Sweet­breads pie they had bought that morn­ing. Not Wilt. That swine thinks of ev­ery­thing. He drowns them in their own bath. He puts them in plas­tic garbage bags and locks the bags in the garage while he goes home and sticks the doll down that fuck­ing hole. Then on Sun­day he goes back and picks them up and spends the day at the meat fac­to­ry all by him­self…Well if you want to know what be did on Sun­day you can read all about it in his state­ment. It’s more than my stom­ach can stand.’

The In­spec­tor went back hur­ried­ly in­to the wash­room. He’d been liv­ing off pork pies since Mon­day. The sta­tis­ti­cal chances of his hav­ing par­tak­en of Mrs Wilt were ex­treme­ly high.

When Sweet­breads Meat and Can­ning Fac­to­ry opened at eight, In­spec­tor Flint was wait­ing at the gate. He stormed in­to the man­ag­er’s of­fice and de­mand­ed to speak to him.

‘He’s not here yet,’ said the sec­re­tary. ‘Is there any­thing I can do for you?’

‘I want a list of ev­ery es­tab­lish­ment you sup­ply with pork pies, steak and kid­ney pies, sausages and dog food,’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘I couldn’t pos­si­bly give you that in­for­ma­tion,’ said the sec­re­tary. ‘It’s ex­treme­ly con­fi­den­tial.’

‘Con­fi­den­tial? What the hell do you mean con­fi­den­tial’

‘Well I don’t know re­al­ly. It’s just that I couldn’t take it on my­self to pro­vide you with in­side in­for­ma­tion…’ She stopped. In­spec­tor Flint was star­ing at her with a quite hor­ri­ble ex­pres­sion on his face.

‘Well, miss,’ he said fi­nal­ly, ‘while we’re on the top­ic of in­side in­for­ma­tion, it may in­ter­est you to know that what has been in­side your pork pies is by way of be­ing in­side in­for­ma­tion. Vi­tal in­for­ma­tion.’

‘Vi­tal in­for­ma­tion? I don’t know what you mean. Our pies con­tain per­fect­ly whole­some in­gre­di­ents.’

‘Whole­some?’ shout­ed the In­spec­tor. ‘You call three hu­man bod­ies whole­some? You call the boiled, bleached, minced and cooked re­mains of three mur­dered bod­ies whole­some?’

‘But we on­ly use…’ the sec­re­tary be­gan and fell side­ways, off her chair in a dead faint.

‘Oh for God’s sake,’ shout­ed the In­spec­tor, ‘you’d think a sil­ly bitch who can work in an abat­toir wouldn’t be squeamish…’ Find out who the man­ag­er is and where he lives and tell him to come down here at the dou­ble.’

He sat down in a chair while Sergeant Yates rum­maged in the desk. ‘Wakey, wakey,’ he said, prod­ding the sec­re­tary with his foot. ‘If any­one has got a right to lie down on the job, it’s me. I’ve been on my feet for three days and nights and I’ve been an ac­ces­so­ry af­ter the fact of mur­der.’

‘An ac­ces­so­ry?’ said Yates. ‘I don’t see how you can say that.’

‘Can’t you? Well what would you call help­ing to dis­pose parts of a mur­der vic­tim? Con­ceal­ing ev­idence of a crime?’

‘I nev­er thought of it that way,’ said Yates.

‘I did,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘I can’t think of any­thing else.

In his cell Wilt stared up at the ceil­ing peace­ful­ly. He was as­ton­ished that it had been so easy. All you had to do was tell peo­ple what they want­ed to hear and they would be­lieve you no mat­ter how im­plau­si­ble your sto­ry might be. And three days and nights with­out sleep had sus­pend­ed In­spec­tor Flint’s dis­be­lief with a vengeance. Then again Wilt’s hes­ita­tions had been timed per­fect­ly and his fi­nal con­fes­sion a nice mix­ture of con­ceit and mat­ter-​of-​fact­ness. On the de­tails of the mur­der he had been cold­ly pre­cise and in de­scrib­ing their dis­pos­al he had been a crafts­man tak­ing pride in his work. Ev­ery now and then when he got to a dif­fi­cult spot he would veer away in­to a man­ic ar­ro­gance at once boast­ful and cow­ard­ly with ‘You’ll nev­er be able to prove it. They’ll have dis­ap­peared with­out trace now. And the Harpic had come in use­ful once again, adding a macabre touch of re­al­ism about ev­idence be­ing flushed down thou­sands of U-​bends with Harpic be­ing poured af­ter it like salt from a salt cel­lar. Eva would en­joy that when he told her about it, which was more than could be said for In­spec­tor Flint. He hadn’t even seen the irony of Wilt’s re­mark that while he had been look­ing for the Pring­sheims they had been un­der his nose all the time. He had been par­tic­ular­ly up­set by the crack about gut re­ac­tions and the ad­vice to stick to health foods in fu­ture. Yes, in spite of his tired­ness Wilt had en­joyed him­self watch­ing the In­spec­tor’s blood­shot eyes turn from glee and gloat­ing self-​sat­is­fac­tion to open amaze­ment and fi­nal­ly undis­guised nau­sea. And when fi­nal­ly Wilt had boast­ed that they would nev­er be able to bring him to tri­al with­out the ev­idence, Flint had re­spond­ed mag­nif­icent­ly.

‘Oh yes, we will,’ he had shout­ed hoarse­ly. ‘If there is one sin­gle pie left from that batch we’ll get it and when we do the Lab boys will…’

‘Find noth­ing but pork in it,’ said Wilt be­fore be­ing dragged off to his cell. At least that was the truth and if Flint didn’t be­lieve it that was his own fault. He had asked for a con­fes­sion and he had got one by cour­tesy of Meat one, the ap­pren­tice butch­ers who had spent so many hours of Lib­er­al Stud­ies ex­plain­ing the work­ings of Sweet­breads Meat Fac­to­ry to him and had ac­tu­al­ly tak­en him down there one af­ter­noon to show him how it all worked. Dear lads. And how he had loathed them at the time. Which on­ly went to show how wrong you could be about peo­ple. Wilt was just won­der­ing if he had been wrong about Eva and per­haps she was dead when he fell asleep.

In the church­yard Eva watched the Rev St John Froude walk down to the boathouse and start row­ing to­wards the reeds. As soon as he had dis­ap­peared she made her way up the path to­wards the house. With the Vicar out of the way she was pre­pared to take the risk of meet­ing his wife. She stole through the door­way in­to the court­yard and looked about her. The place had a di­lap­idat­ed air about it and a pile of emp­ty bot­tles in one cor­ner, whiskey and gin bot­tles, seemed to in­di­cate that he might well be un­mar­ried. Still clutch­ing her ivy, she went across to the door, ev­ident­ly the kitchen door, and knocked. There was no an­swer. She crossed to the win­dow and looked in­side. The kitchen was large, dis­tinct­ly un­tidy and had all the hall­marks of a bach­elor ex­is­tence about it. She went back to the door and knocked again and she was just won­der­ing what to do now when there was the sound of a ve­hi­cle com­ing down the drive.

Eva hes­itat­ed for a sec­ond and then tried the door. It was un­locked. She stepped in­side and shut the door as a milk van drove in­to the court­yard. Eva lis­tened while the milk­man put down sev­er­al bot­tles and then drove away. Then she turned and went down the pas­sage to the front hall. If she could find the phone she could ring Hen­ry and he could come out in the car and fetch her. She would go back to the church and wait for him there. But the hall was emp­ty. She poked her head in­to sev­er­al rooms with a goad deal of care and found them large­ly bare of fur­ni­ture or with dust­cov­ers over chairs and so­fas. The place was in­cred­ibly un­tidy too. Def­inite­ly the Vicar was a bach­elor. Fi­nal­ly she found his study. There was a phone on the desk. Eva went over and lift­ed the re­ceiv­er and di­alled Ip­ford 66066. Then was no re­ply. Hen­ry would be at the Tech. She di­alled the Tech num­ber and asked for Mr Wilt.

‘Wilt?’ said the girl on the switch­board. ‘Mr Wilt?’

‘Yes,’ said Eva in a low voice.

‘I’m afraid he’s not here.’ said the girl.

‘Not there? But he’s got to be there.’

‘Well he isn’t.’

‘But he’s got to be. It’s des­per­ate­ly im­por­tant I get in touch with him.’

‘I’m sor­ry, but I can’t help you.’ said the girl.

‘But…’ Eva be­gan and glanced out of the win­dow. The Vicar had re­turned and was walk­ing up the gar­den path to­wards her, ‘Oh God,’ she mut­tered and put the phone down hur­ried­ly. She turned and rushed out of the room in a state of pan­ic. On­ly when she had made her way back along the pas­sage to the kitchen did it oc­cur to her that she had left her ivy be­hind in the study. There were foot­steps in the pas­sage. Eva looked fran­ti­cal­ly around, de­cid­ed against the court­yard and went up a flight of stone steps to the first floor. There she stood and lis­tened. Her heart was pal­pi­tat­ing. She was naked and alone in a strange house with a cler­gy­man and Hen­ry wasn’t at the Tech when he should have been and the girl on the switch­board had sound­ed most pe­cu­liar, al­most as though there was some­thing wrong with want­ing to speak to Hen­ry. She had no idea what to do.

In the kitchen the Rev St John Froude had a very good idea what he want­ed to do; ex­punge for ev­er the vi­sion of the in­fer­no to which he had been lured by those vile things with their mean­ing­less mes­sages float­ing across the wa­ter. He dug a fresh bot­tle of Teach­ers out of the cup­board and took it back to his study what he had wit­nessed had been so grotesque, so ev­ident­ly evil, so aw­ful, so pre­scient of hell it­self that he was in two minds whether it had been re­al or sim­ply a wak­ing night­mare. A man with­out a face, whose hands were tied be­hind his back, a wom­an with a paint­ed face and a knife, the lan­guage…The Rev St John Froude opened the bot­tle and was about to pour a glass when his eye fell on the ivy Eva had left on the chair. He put the bot­tle down hasti­ly and stared at the leaves. Here was an­oth­er mys­tery to per­plex him. How had a clump of ivy got on to the chair in his study? It cer­tain­ly hadn’t been there when he had left the house. He picked it up gin­ger­ly and put it on his desk. Then he sat down and con­tem­plat­ed it with a grow­ing sense of un­ease. Some­thing was hap­pen­ing in his world that he could not un­der­stand. And what about the strange fig­ure he had seen flit­ting about be­tween the tomb­stones? He had quite for­got­ten her. The Rev St John Froude got up and went out on to the ter­race and down the path to the church.

‘On a Sun­day?’ shout­ed the man­ag­er of Sweet­breads. ‘On a Sun­day? But we don’t work on a Sun­day. There’s no­body here, The place is shut.’

‘It wasn’t last Sun­day and there was some­one here, Mr Kid­ney,’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘Ki­dley, please,’ said the man­ag­er. ‘Ki­dley with an L.’

The In­spec­tor nod­ded. ‘OK Mr Ki­dley, now what I’m telling you is that this man Wilt was here last Sun­day and he…’

‘How did he get in?’

‘He used a lad­der against the back wall from the car park.’

‘In broad day­light? He’d have been seen.’

‘At two o’clock in the morn­ing, Mr Kid­ney.’

‘Ki­dley, In­spec­tor, Ki­dley.’

‘Look Mr Ki­dley, if you work in a place like this with name like that you’re ask­ing for it.’

Mr Ki­dley looked at him bel­liger­ent­ly. ‘And if you’re telling me that some bloody ma­ni­ac came in here with three dead bod­ies last Sun­day and spent the day us­ing our equip­ment to con­vert them in­to cooked meat ed­ible for hu­man con­sump­tion un­der the Food Reg­ula­tions Act, I’m telling you that that come un­der the head of…Head? What did he do with the heads?’ Tell me that?’

‘What do you do with heads, Mr Ki­dley?’ asked the In­spec­tor.

‘That rather de­pends. Some of them go with the of­fal in­to the an­imal food bins…’

‘Right. So that’s what Wilt said he did with them. And you keep those in the No. 2 cold stor­age room. Am I right?’

Mr Ki­dley nod­ded mis­er­ably. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘we do.’ He paused and gaped at the In­spec­tor. ‘But there’s a world of dif­fer­ence be­tween a pig’s head and a…’

‘Quite,’ said the In­spec­tor hasti­ly, ‘and I dare­say you think some­one was bound to spot the dif­fer­ence.’

‘Of course they would.’

‘Now I un­der­stand from Mr Wilt that you have an ex­treme­ly ef­fi­cient minc­ing ma­chine…’

‘No,’ shout­ed Mr Ki­dley des­per­ate­ly. ‘No. I don’t be­lieve it. It’s not pos­si­ble. It’s…’

‘Are you say­ing he couldn’t pos­si­bly have…’

‘I’m not say­ing that. I’m say­ing he shouldn’t have. It’s mon­strous. It’s hor­ri­ble.’

‘Of course it’s hor­ri­ble.’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘The fact re­mains that he used that ma­chine.’

‘But we keep our equip­ment metic­ulous­ly clean.’

‘So Wilt says. He was def­inite on that point. He says he cleaned up care­ful­ly af­ter­wards.’

‘He must have done,’ said Mr Ki­dley. ‘There wasn’t a thing out of place on Mon­day morn­ing. You heard the fore­man say, so.’

‘And I al­so heard this swine Wilt say that he made a list of where ev­ery­thing came from be­fore he used it so that he could put it back ex­act­ly where he’d found it. He thought of ev­ery­thing.’

‘And what about our rep­uta­tion for hy­giene? He didn’t think of that, did he? For twen­ty-​flue years we’ve been known for the ex­cel­lence of our prod­ucts and now this has to hap­pen. We’ve been at the head of…’ Mr Ki­dley stopped sud­den­ly and sat down.

‘Now then,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘what I have to know is who you sup­ply to. We’re go­ing to call in ev­ery pork pie and sausage…

‘Call them in? You can’t call them in,’ screamed Mr Ki­dley, ‘they’ve all gone.’

‘Gone? What do you mean they’ve gone?’

‘What I say. They’ve gone. They’ve ei­ther been eat­en or de­stroyed by now.’

‘De­stroyed? You’re not go­ing to tell me that there aren’t any left. It’s on­ly five days since they went out.’

Mr Ki­dley drew him­self up. ‘In­spec­tor, this is as old fash­ioned firm and we use tra­di­tion­al meth­ods and a Sweet­breads pork pie is a gen­uine pork pie. It’s not one of your er­satz pies with preser­va­tives that…’

It was In­spec­tor Flint’s turn to slump in­to a chair. ‘Am I to un­der­stand that your fuck­ing pies don’t keep?’ he asked.

Mr Ki­dley nod­ded. ‘They are for im­me­di­ate con­sump­tion he said proud­ly. ‘Here to­day, gone to­mor­row. That’s our mot­to. You’ve seen our ad­ver­tise­ments of course.’

In­spec­tor Flint hadn’t.

‘To­day’s pie with yes­ter­day’s flavour, the tra­di­tion­al pie with the fam­ily fill­ing.’

‘You can say that again.’ said In­spec­tor Flint.

Mr Gos­dyke re­gard­ed Wilt scep­ti­cal­ly and shook leis head ‘You should have lis­tened to me,’ he said, ‘I told you not to talk.’

‘I had to say some­thing,’ said Wilt. ‘They wouldn’t let me sleep and they kept ask­ing me the same stupid ques­tions over and over again. You’ve no idea what that does to you. It drive you pot­ty.’

‘Frankly, Mr Wilt, in the light of the con­fes­sion you have made I find it hard to be­lieve there was any need to. A man who can, of his own free will make a state­ment like this to the po­lice is clear­ly in­sane.’

‘But it’s nor true,’ said Wilt, ‘it’s all pure in­ven­tion.’

‘With a wealth of such re­volt­ing de­tail? I must say I find that hard to be­lieve. I do in­deed. The bit about hip and thighs. It makes my stom­ach turn over.’

‘But that’s from the Bible.’ said Wilt, ‘and be­sides I had to put in the gory bits or they wouldn’t have be­lieved me. Take the part where I say I sawed their…’

‘Mr Wilt, for God’s sake…’

‘Well, all I can say is you’ve nev­er taught Meat One. I got it all from them and once you’ve taught them life can hold few sur­pris­es.’

Mr Gos­dyke raised an eye­brow. ‘Can’t it? Well I think I dis­abuse you of that no­tion,’ he said solemn­ly. ‘In the light of this con­fes­sion you have made against my most earnest ad­vice, and as a re­sult of my firm be­lief that ev­ery word in it is true, I am no longer pre­pared to act on your be­half.’ He col­lect­ed his pa­pers and stood up. ‘You will have to get some­one else.’

‘But, Mr Gos­dyke, you don’t re­al­ly be­lieve all that non­sense about putting Eva in a pork pie, do you?’ Wilt asked.

‘Be­lieve it? A man who can con­ceive of such a dis­gust­ing thing is ca­pa­ble of any­thing. Yes I do and what is more so do the po­lice. They are this mo­ment scour­ing the shops, the pubs and the su­per­mar­kets and dust­bins of the en­tire coun­ty in search of pork pies.’

‘But if they find any it won’t do any good.’

‘It may al­so in­ter­est you to know that they have im­pound­ed five thou­sand cans of Dog­fill, an equal num­ber of Catkin and have be­gun to dis­sect a quar­ter of a ton of Sweet­breads Best Bangers. Some­where in that lit­tle lot they are bound to find some trace of Mrs Wilt, not to men­tion Dr and Mrs Pring­sheim.’

‘Well, all I can say is that I wish them luck.’ said Wilt.

‘And so do I,’ said Mr Gos­dyke dis­gust­ed­ly and left the room. Be­hind him Wilt sighed. If on­ly Eva would turn up. Where the hell could she have got to?

At the Po­lice Lab­ora­to­ries In­spec­tor Flint was get­ting restive. ‘Can’t you speed things up a bit?’ he asked.

The Head of the Foren­sic De­part­ment shook his head. ‘It’s like look­ing for a nee­dle in a haystack,’ he said, glanc­ing sig­nif­icant­ly at an­oth­er batch of sausages that had just been brought in. ‘So far not a trace. This could take weeks.’

‘I haven’t got weeks,’ said the In­spec­tor, ‘he’s due in Court on Mon­day!

‘On­ly for re­mand and in any case you’ve got his state­ment.’ But In­spec­tor Flint had his doubts about that. He had been look­ing at that state­ment and had no­ticed a num­ber of dis­crep­an­cies about it which fa­tigue, dis­gust and an over­whelm­ing de­sire to get the filthy ac­count over and done with be­fore he was sick had tend­ed to ob­scure at the time. For one thing Wilt’s scrawled sig­na­ture looked sus­pi­cious­ly like Lit­tle Tom­my Tuck­er when ex­am­ined close­ly and there was a QNED be­side it, which Flint had a shrewd idea meant Quod Non Er­at Demon­stran­dum and in any case there were rather too many ref­er­ences to pigs for his po­lice­man’s fan­cy and fuzzy pigs at that. Fi­nal­ly the in­for­ma­tion that Wilt had made a spe­cial re­quest for two pork pies for lunch and had spec­ified Sweet- breads in par­tic­ular sug­gest­ed an in­sane can­ni­bal­ism that might fit in with what he had said he had done but seemed to be car­ry­ing things too far. The word ‘provo­ca­tion’ sprang to mind and since the episode of the doll Flint had been rather con­scious of bad pub­lic­ity. He read through the state­ment again and couldn’t make up his mind about it. One thing was quite cer­tain. Wilt knew ex­act­ly how Sweet­breads fac­to­ry worked. The wealth of de­tail he had sup­plied proved that. On the oth­er hand Mr Ki­dley’s in­creduli­ty about the heads and the minc­ing ma­chine had seemed, on in­spec­tion, to be jus­ti­fied. Flint had looked gin­ger­ly at the beast­ly con­trap­tion and had found it dif­fi­cult to be­lieve that even Wilt in a fit homi­ci­dal ma­nia could have…Flint put the thought out his mind. He de­cid­ed to have an­oth­er lit­tle chat with Hen­ry Wilt. Feel­ing like death warmed up he went back to the In­ter­view Room and sent for Wilt.

‘How’s it go­ing?’ said Wilt when be ar­rived. ‘Had any luck with the frank­furters yet? Of course you could al­ways try your hand at black pud­dings…’

‘Wilt,’ in­ter­rupt­ed the In­spec­tor, ‘why did you sign state­ment Lit­tle Tom­my Tuck­er?’

Wilt sat down. ‘So you’ve no­ticed that at last, have you, very ob­ser­vant of you I must say.’

‘I asked you a ques­tion.’

‘So you did,’ said Wilt. ‘Let’s just say I thought it ap­pro­pri­ate.’

‘Ap­pro­pri­ate?’

‘I was singing. I think that’s the slang term for it isn’t it for my sleep, so nat­ural­ly…’

‘Are you telling me you made all that up?’

‘What the hell do, you think I did? You don’t se­ri­ous­ly think I would in­flict the Pring­sheims and Eva on an un­sus­pect­ing pub­lic in the form of pork pies, do you? I mean there must be some lim­its to your creduli­ty.’

In­spec­tor Flint glared at him. ‘My God, Wilt,’ he said, ‘if I find you’ve de­lib­er­ate­ly fab­ri­cat­ed a sto­ry…’

‘You can’t do very much more.’ said Wilt. ‘You’ve al­ready charged me with mur­der. What more do you want? You drag me in here, you hu­mil­iate me, you shout at me, you keep me awake for days and nights bom­bard­ing me with ques­tions about dog food, you an­nounce to the world that I am help­ing you in your en­quiries in­to a mul­ti­ple mur­der thus lead­ing ev­ery cit­izen in the coun­try to sup­pose that I have slaugh­tered my wife and a beast­ly bio­chemist and…’

‘Shut up,’ shout­ed Flint, ‘I don’t care what you think. It’s what you’ve done and what you’ve said you’ve done that wor­ries me. You’ve gone out of your way to mis­lead me…’

‘I’ve done noth­ing of the sort,’ said Wilt. ‘Un­til last night I had told you noth­ing but the truth and you wouldn’t ac­cept it. Last night I hand­ed you, in the ab­surd shape of a pork pie, a lie you want­ed to be­lieve. If you crave crap and use il­le­gal meth­ods like sleep de­pri­va­tion to get it you can’t blame me for serv­ing it up. Don’t come in here and blus­ter. If you’re stupid that’s your prob­lem. Go and find my wife.’

‘Some­one stop me from killing the bas­tard.’ yelled Flint, as he hurled him­self from the room. He went to his of­fice and sent for Sergeant Yates. ‘Can­cel the pie hunt. It’s a load of bull,’ he told him.

‘Bull?’ said the Sergeant un­cer­tain­ly.

‘Shit.’ said Flint. ‘He’s done it again.’

‘You mean…’

‘I mean that that lit­tle turd in there has led us up the gar­den path again.’

‘But how did he know about the fac­to­ry and all that?’

Flint looked up at him pa­thet­ical­ly. ‘If you want to know why he’s a walk­ing en­cy­clo­pe­dia, you go and ask him your­self.’

Sergeant Yates went out and re­turned five min­utes lat­er. ‘Meat One,’ he an­nounced enig­mat­ical­ly.

‘Meet won?’

‘A class of butch­ers he used to teach. They took him round the fac­to­ry’

‘Je­sus,’ said Flint, ‘is there any­body that lit­tle swine hasn’t taught?’

‘He says they were most in­struc­tive.’

‘Yates, do me a favour. Just go back and find out all the names of the class­es he’s taught. That way we’ll know what to ex­pect next.’

‘Well I have heard him men­tion Plas­ter­ers Two and Gas­fit­ters One…’

‘All of them, Yates, all of them. I don’t want to be caught out with some tale about Mrs Wilt be­ing got rid of in Sewage Works be­cause he once taught Shit Two.’ He picked the evening pa­per and glanced at the head­lines. Po­lice PROBE PIES FOR MISS­ING WIFE.

‘Oh my God,’ he groaned. ‘This is go­ing to do our pub­lic im­age no end of good.’

At the Tech the Prin­ci­pal was ex­press­ing the same opin­ion at a meet­ing of the Heads of De­part­ments.

‘We’ve been held up to pub­lic ridicule,’ he said. ‘First it is pop­ular­ly sup­posed that we make a habit of em­ploy­ing lec­tur­ers who bury their un­want­ed wives in the foun­da­tions of the new block. Sec­ond­ly we have lost all chance of at­tain Poly­tech­nic sta­tus by hav­ing the joint Hon­ours de­gree turned down by the CNAA on the grounds that those fa­cil­ities we do pro­vide are not such as be­fit an in­sti­tu­tion of high­er learn­ing. Pro­fes­sor Bax­en­dale ex­pressed him­self very forcibly on that point and par­tic­ular­ly on a re­mark he heard from one the se­nior staff about necrophil­ia…’

‘I mere­ly said…’ Dr Board be­gan.

‘We all know what you said, Dr Board. And it may in­ter­est you to know that Dr Cox in his lu­cid mo­ments is still re­fus­ing cold meat. Dr May­field has al­ready ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion. And now to cap it all we have this.’

He held app a news­pa­per across the top of whose sec­ond page there read SEX LEC­TURES STUN STU­DENTS.

‘I hope you have all tak­en good note of the pho­to­graph,’ said the Prin­ci­pal bit­ter­ly, in­di­cat­ing a large and un­for­tu­nate­ly an­gled pic­ture of Judy hang­ing from the crane. ‘The ar­ti­cle goes on…well nev­er mind. You can read it for your­selves. I would mere­ly like an­swers to the fol­low­ing ques­tions. Who au­tho­rized the pur­chase of thir­ty copies of Last Ex­it From Brook­lyn for use with Fit­ters and Turn­ers?’

Mr Mor­ris tried to think who had tak­en FTs. ‘I think that must have been Watkins,’ he said. ‘He left us last term. He was on­ly a part-​time lec­tur­er.’

‘Thank God we were spared him full-​time.’ said the Prin­ci­pal. ‘Sec­ond­ly which lec­tur­er makes a habit of ad­vo­cat­ing to Nurs­ery Nurs­es that they wear…er…Dutch Caps all the time?’

‘Well Mr Sedg­wick is very keen on them.’ said Mr Mor­ris.

‘Nurs­ery Nurs­es or Dutch Caps?’ en­quired the Prin­ci­pal.

‘Pos­si­bly both to­geth­er?’ sug­gest­ed Dr Board sot­to voce.

‘He’s got this thing against the Pill,’ said Mr Mor­ris.

‘Well please ask Mr Sedg­wick to see me in my of­fice on Mon­day at ten. I want to ex­plain the terms un­der which he is em­ployed here. And fi­nal­ly, how many lec­tur­ers do you know of who make use of Au­dio Vi­su­al Aid equip­ment to show blue movies to the Se­nior Secs?’

Mr Mor­ris shook his head em­phat­ical­ly. ‘No one in my de­part­ment.’ he said.

‘It says here that blue movies have been shown,’ said the Prin­ci­pal. ‘in pe­ri­ods prop­er­ly al­lo­cat­ed to Cur­rent Af­fairs.’

‘Went­worth did show them Wom­en in Love,’ said the Head of En­glish.

‘Well nev­er mind. There’s just one more point I want to men­tion. ‘We are not go­ing to con­duct an Evening Class in First Aid with par­tic­ular ref­er­ence to the Treat­ment of Ab­dom­inal Her­nia for which it was pro­posed to pur­chase an in­flat­able doll. From now on we are go­ing to have to cut our coats to suit our cloth.’

‘On the grounds of in­fla­tion?’ asked Dr Board.

‘On the grounds that the Ed­uca­tion Com­mit­tee has been wait­ing for years for an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cut back our bud­get,’ said the Prin­ci­pal. That op­por­tu­ni­ty has now been giv­en them. The fact that we have been pro­vid­ing a pub­lic ser­vice by keep­ing, to quote Mr Mor­ris, “a large num­ber of men­tal­ly un­bal­anced and po­ten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous psy­chopaths off the streets” un­quote seems to have es­caped their no­tice.’

‘I pre­sume he was re­fer­ring to the Day Re­lease Ap­pren­tices,’ said Dr Board char­ita­bly.

‘He was not.’ said the Prin­ci­pal. ‘Cor­rect me if I am wrong, Mor­ris, but hadn’t you in mind the mem­bers of the Lib­er­al Stud­ies De­part­ment?’

The meet­ing broke up. Lat­er that day Mr Mor­ris sat down to com­pose his let­ter of res­ig­na­tion.

Chapter 19

From the win­dow of an emp­ty bed­room on the first floor of the Vicarage, Eva Wilt watched the Rev St John Froude walk pen­sive­ly down the path to the church. As soon as he had passed out of sight she went down­stairs and in­to the study. She would phone Hen­ry again. If he wasn’t at the Tech he must be at home. She crossed to the desk and was about to pick up the phone when she saw the ivy. Oh dear, she had for­got­ten all about the ivy and she had left it where he was bound to have seen it. It was all so ter­ri­bly em­bar­rass­ing. She di­alled 34 Parkview Av­enue and wait­ed. There was no re­ply. She put they phone down and di­alled the Tech. And all the time she watched the gate in­to the church­yard in case the Vicar should re­turn.

‘Fen­land Col­lege of Arts and Tech­nol­ogy,’ said the girl on the switch­board.

‘It’s me again,’ said Eva, ‘I want to speak to Mr Wilt.’

‘I’m very sor­ry but Mr Wilt isn’t here.’

‘But where is he? I’ve di­alled home and…’

‘He’s at the Po­lice Sta­tion.’

‘He’s what?’ Eva said.

‘He’s at the Po­lice Sta­tion help­ing the po­lice with their en­quiries…’

‘En­quiries? What en­quiries?’ Eva shrieked.

‘Didn’t you know?’ said the girl ‘It’s been in all the pa­pers. He’s been and mur­dered his wife…’

Eva took the phone from her ear and stared at it in hor­ror. The girl was still speak­ing but she was no longer lis­ten­ing. Hen­ry had mur­dered his wife. But she was his wife. It wasn’t pos­si­ble. She couldn’t have been mur­dered. For one hor­ri­ble mo­ment Eva Wilt felt san­ity slip­ping from her. Then she put the re­ceiv­er to her ear again.

‘Are you there?’ said the girl.

‘But I am his wife.’ Eva shout­ed. There was a long si­lence at the oth­er end and she heard the girl telling some­one that there was a crazy wom­an on the line who said she was Mrs Wilt and what ought she to do.

‘I tell you I am Mrs Wilt. Mrs Eva Wilt.’ she shout­ed but the line had gone dead. Eva put the phone down weak­ly. Hen­ry at the Po­lice Sta­tion…Hen­ry had mur­dered her…Oh God. The whole world had gone mad. And here she was naked in a Vicarage at…Eva had no idea where she was. She di­alled 999.

‘Emer­gen­cy Ser­vices. Which de­part­ment do you re­quire?’ said the op­er­ator.

‘Po­lice,’ said Eva. There was a click and a man’s voice came on.

‘Po­lice here.’

‘This is Mrs Wilt,’ said Eva.

‘Mrs Wilt?’

‘Mrs Eva Wilt. Is it true that my hus­band has mur­dered…I mean has my hus­band…oh dear I don’t know what to say.’

‘You say you’re Mrs Wilt. Mrs. Eva Wilt?’ said the man.

Eva nod­ded and then said. ‘Yes.’

‘I see.’ said the man du­bi­ous­ly. ‘You’re quite sure you’re Mrs Wilt?’

‘Of course I’m sure. That’s what I’m ring­ing about.’

‘Might I en­quire where you’re call­ing from?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Eva. ‘You see I’m in this house and I’ve got no clothes and…oh dear.’ The Vicar was com­ing up the path on to the ter­race.

‘If you could just give us the ad­dress.’

‘I can’t stop now,’ said Eva and put the phone down. For mo­ment she hes­itat­ed and then grab­bing the ivy from the desk she rushed out of the room.

‘I tell you I don’t know where she is,’ said Wilt. ‘I ex­pect you’ll find her un­der miss­ing per­sons. She has passed from the realm of sub­stan­tial­ity in­to that of ab­strac­tion.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ asked the In­spec­tor, reach­ing for his cup of cof­fee. It was eleven o’clock on Sat­ur­day morn­ing but he per­sist­ed. He had twen­ty-​eight hours to get to the truth.

‘I al­ways warned her that Tran­scen­den­tal Med­ita­tion car­ried po­ten­tial dan­gers,’ said Wilt, him­self in a no-​man’s-​land be­tween sleep­ing and walk­ing. ‘But she would do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Med­itate tran­scen­den­tal­ly. In the lo­tus po­si­tion. Per­haps she has gone too far this time. Pos­si­bly she has trans­mo­gri­fied her­self’

‘Trans what?’ said In­spec­tor Flint sus­pi­cious­ly.

‘Changed her­self in some mag­ical fash­ion in­to some­thing else.’

‘Je­sus, Wilt, if you start on those pork pies again…’

‘I was think­ing of some­thing more spir­itu­al, In­spec­tor, some­thing beau­ti­ful.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Ah but think. Here am I sit­ting in this room with you as a di­rect re­sult of go­ing for walks with the dog and think­ing dark thoughts about mur­der­ing my wife. From those hours of idle fan­cy I have gained the rep­uta­tion of be­ing a mur­der­er with­out com­mit­ting a mur­der. Who is to say but that Eva, whose thoughts were monotonous­ly beau­ti­ful has not earned her­self a com­men­su­rate­ly beau­ti­ful re­ward? To put it in your terms, In­spec­tor, we get what we ask for.’

‘I fer­vent­ly hope so, Wilt,’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘Ah,’ said Wilt, ‘but then where is she? Tell me that. Mere spec­ula­tion will not do…’

‘Me tell you?’ shout­ed the In­spec­tor up­set­ting his cup of cof­fee. ‘You know which hole in the ground you put her in or which ce­ment mix­er or in­cin­er­ator you used.’

‘I was speak­ing metaphor­ical­ly…I mean rhetor­ical­ly,’ said Wilt. ‘I was try­ing to imag­ine what Eva would be if her thoughts such as they are took on the sub­stance of re­al­ity. My se­cret dream was to be­come a ruth­less man of ac­tion, de­ci­sive, un­hin­dered by moral doubts or con­sid­er­ations of con­science, a Ham­let trans­formed in­to Hen­ry the Fifth with­out the pa­tri­ot­ic fer­vour that in­clines one to think that he would not have ap­proved of the Com­mon Mar­ket, a Cae­sar…’

In­spec­tor Flint had heard enough. ‘Wilt,’ he snarled, ‘I don’t give a damn what you want­ed to be­come. What I want to know is what has be­come of your wife.’

‘I was just com­ing to that,’ said Wilt. ‘What we’ve got to es­tab­lish first is what I am.’

‘I know what you are, Wilt. A bloody word mer­chant, a ver­bal con­tor­tion­ist, a fuck­ing log­ic-​chop­per, a lin­guis­tic Hou­di­ni, an en­cy­clo­pe­dia of un­want­ed in­for­ma­tion…’ In­spec­tor Flint ran out of metaphors.

‘Bril­liant, In­spec­tor, bril­liant. I couldn’t have put it bet­ter my­self. A log­ic-​chop­per, but alas not a wife one. If we fol­low the same line of rea­son­ing Eva in spite of all her beau­ti­ful thoughts and med­ita­tions has re­mained as un­changed as I. The ethe­re­al eludes her. Nir­vana slips ev­er from her grasp. Beau­ty and truth evade her. She pur­sues the ab­so­lute with a fly­swat­ter and pours Harpic down the drains of Hell it­self…’

‘That’s the tenth time you have men­tioned Harpic,’ said the In­spec­tor, sud­den­ly alive to a new dread­ful pos­si­bil­ity. ‘You didn’t…’

Wilt shook his head. ‘There you go again. So like poor Eva. The lit­er­al mind that seeks to seize the evanes­cent and clutch­es fan­cy by its non-​ex­is­tent throat. That’s Eva for you. She will nev­er dance Swan Lake. No man­age­ment would al­low her to fill the stage with wa­ter or in­stall a dou­ble bed and Eva would in­sist.’

In­spec­tor Flint got up. ‘This is get­ting us nowhere fast.’

‘Pre­cise­ly,’ said Wilt, ‘nowhere at all. We are what we are and noth­ing we can do will al­ter the fact. The mould that forms our na­tures re­mains un­bro­ken. Call it hered­ity, call it chance…’

‘Call it a load of codswal­lop.’ said Flint and left the room. He need­ed his sleep and he in­tend­ed to get it.

In the pas­sage he met Sergeant Yates.

‘There’s been an emer­gen­cy call from a wom­an claim­ing to be Mrs Wilt,’ the Sergeant said.

‘Where from?’

‘She wouldn’t say where she was,’ said Yates. ‘She just said she didn’t know and that site had no clothes on…’

‘Oh one of those,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘A bloody nut­ter. What the hell are you wast­ing my time for? As if we didn’t have, enough on our hands with­out that.’

‘I just thought you’d want to know. If she calls again we’ll try and get a fix on the num­ber.’

‘As if I cared,’ said Flint and hur­ried off in search of his lost sleep.

The Rev St John Froude spent an un­easy day. His in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the church had re­vealed noth­ing un­to­ward and there was no sign that an ob­scene rit­ual (a Black Mass had crossed his mind) had been per­formed there. As he walked back to the Vicarage he was glad to note that the sky over Eel Stretch was emp­ty and that the con­tra­cep­tives had dis­ap­peared. So had the ivy on his desk. He re­gard­ed the space where it had been with ap­pre­hen­sion and helped him­self to whisky. He could have sworn there had been a sprig of ivy there when he had left. By the time he had fin­ished what re­mained in the bot­tle his mind was filled with weird fan­cies. The Vicarage was strange­ly noisy. There were odd creaks from the stair­case and in­ex­pli­ca­ble sounds from the up­per floor as if some­one or some­thing was mov­ing stealthi­ly about but when the Vicar went to in­ves­ti­gate the nois­es ceased abrupt­ly. He went up­stairs and poked his head in­to sev­er­al emp­ty bed­rooms. He came down again and stood in the hall lis­ten­ing. Then he re­turned to his study and tried to con­cen­trate on his ser­mon, but the feel­ing that he was not alone per­sist­ed. The Rev St John Froude sat at his desk and con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­ity of ghosts. Some­thing very odd was go­ing on. At one o’clock he went down the hall to the kitchen for lunch and dis­cov­ered that a pint of milk had dis­ap­peared from the pantry and that the re­mains of an ap­ple pie that Mrs Snape who did his clean­ing twice week­ly had brought him had al­so van­ished. He made do with baked beans on toast and tot­tered up­stairs for his af­ter­noon nap. It was while he was there that he first heard the voic­es. Or rather one voice. It seemed to come from his study. The Rev St John Froude sat up in bed. If his ears weren’t be­tray­ing him and in view of the morn­ing’s weird events he was in­clined to be­lieve that they were he could have sworn some­one had been us­ing his tele­phone. He got up and put on his shoes. Some­one was cry­ing. He went out on to the land­ing and lis­tened. The sob­bing had stopped. He went down­stairs and looked in all the rooms on the ground floor but, apart from the fact that a dust cov­er had been re­moved from one of the arm­chairs in the un­used sit­ting-​room, there was no sign of any­one. He was just about to go up­stairs again when the tele­phone rang. He went in­to the study and an­swered it.

‘Wa­ter­swick Vicarage,’ he mum­bled.

‘This is Fen­land Con­stab­ulary,’ said a man. ‘We’ve just had a call from your num­ber pur­port­ing to come from a Mrs Wilt!

‘Mrs Wilt?’ said the Rev St John Froude. ‘Mrs. Wilt? I’m afraid there must be some mis­take. I don’t know any Mrs Wilt.’

‘The call def­inite­ly came from your phone, sir.’

The Rev St John Froude con­sid­ered the mat­ter. ‘This is all very pe­cu­liar,’ he said, ‘I live alone.’

‘You are the Vicar?’

‘Of course I’m the Vicar. This is the Vicarage and I am the Vicar.’

‘I see, sir. And your name is?’

‘The Rev­erend St John Froude…F…R…O…U…D…E.’

‘Quite sir, and you def­inite­ly don’t have a wom­an in the house.’

‘Of course I don’t have a wom­an in the house. I find the sug­ges­tion dis­tinct­ly im­prop­er. I am a…’

‘I’m sor­ry, sir, but we just have to check these things out. We’ve had a call from Mrs Wilt, or at least a wom­an claim­ing to be Mrs Wilt, and it came from your phone…’

‘Who is this Mrs Wilt? I’ve nev­er heard of a Mrs Wilt.’

‘Well sir. Mrs Wilt…it’s a bit dif­fi­cult re­al­ly. She’s sup­posed to have been mur­dered.’

‘Mur­dered?’ said the Rev St John Froude. ‘Did you say “mur­dered”?’

‘Let’s just say she is miss­ing from home in sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances. We’re hold­ing her hus­band for ques­tion­ing.’

The Rev St John Froude shook his head. ‘How very un­for­tu­nate.’ he mur­mured.

‘Thank you for your help, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Sor­ry we have dis­turbed you.’

The Rev St John Froude put the phone down thought­ful­ly. The no­tion that he was shar­ing the house with a dis­em­bod­ied and re­cent­ly mur­dered wom­an was not one that he had want­ed to put to his caller. His rep­uta­tion for ec­cen­tric­ity was al­ready suf­fi­cient­ly widespread with­out adding to it. On the oth­er hand what he had seen on the boat in Eel Stretch bore, now that he came to think of it, all the hall­marks of mur­der. Per­haps in some ex­traor­di­nary way he had been a wit­ness to a tragedy that had al­ready oc­curred, a sort of post-​mortem dé­ja vu if that was the right way of putting it. Cer­tain­ly if the hus­band were be­ing held for ques­tion­ing the mur­der must have tak­en place be­fore…In which case…The Rev St John Froude stum­bled through a se­ries of sup­po­si­tions in which Time with a cap­ital T, and ap­peals for help from be­yond the grave fig­ured large­ly. Per­haps it was his du­ty to in­form the po­lice of what he had seen. He was just hes­itat­ing and won­der­ing what to do when he heard those sobs again and this time quite dis­tinct­ly. They came from the next room. He got up, braced him­self with an­oth­er shot of whisky and went next door. Stand­ing in the mid­dle of the room was a large wom­an whose hair strag­gled down over her shoul­ders and whose face was rav­aged. She was wear­ing what ap­peared to be a shroud. The Rev St John Froude stared at her with a grow­ing sense of hor­ror. Then he sank to his knees.

‘Let us pray,’ he mut­tered hoarse­ly.

The ghast­ly ap­pari­tion slumped heav­ily for­ward clutch­ing the shroud to its bo­som. To­geth­er they kneeled in prayer.

‘Check it out? What the hell do you mean “check it out”?’ said In­spec­tor Flint who ob­ject­ed strong­ly to be­ing wo­ken in the mid­dle of the af­ter­noon when he had had no sleep for thir­ty-​six hours and was try­ing to get some. ‘You wake me with some damned tom­fool­ery about a Vicar called Sig­mund Freud…’

‘St John Froude,’ said Yates.

‘I don’t care what he’s called. It’s still im­prob­able. If the bloody man says she isn’t there, she isn’t there. What am I sup­posed to do about it?’

‘I just thought we ought to get a pa­trol car to check, that’s all.’

‘What makes you think…’

‘There was def­inite­ly a call from a wom­an claim­ing to be Mrs Wilt and it came from that num­ber. She’s called twice now. We’ve got a tape of the sec­ond call. She gave de­tails of her­self and they sound au­then­tic. Date of birth, ad­dress, Wilt’s oc­cu­pa­tion, even the right name of their dog and the fact that they have yel­low cur­tains in the lounge.’

‘Well, any fool can tell that. All they’ve got to do is walk past the house,’

‘And the name of the dog. It’s called Clem. I’ve checked that and she’s right.’

‘She didn’t hap­pen to say what she’d been do­ing for the past week did she?’

‘She said she’d been on a boat,’ said Yates. ‘Then she rang off.’

In­spec­tor Flint sat up in bed. ‘A boat? What boat?’

‘She rang off. Oh and an­oth­er thing, she said she takes a size ten shoe. She does.’

‘Oh shit.’ said Flint, ‘All right, I’ll come down.’ He got out of bed and be­gan to dress.

In his cell Wilt stared at the ceil­ing. Af­ter so many hours of in­ter­ro­ga­tion his mind still re­ver­ber­at­ed with ques­tions. ‘How did you kill her? Where did you put her? What did you with the weapon?’ Mean­ing­less ques­tions con­tin­ual­ly re­it­er­at­ed in the hope they would fi­nal­ly break him. But Wilt hadn’t bro­ken. He had tri­umphed. For once in his life he knew him­self to be in­vin­ci­bly right and ev­ery­one else to­tal­ly wrong. Al­ways be­fore he had had doubts. Plas­ter­ers Two might af­ter all, have been right about there be­ing too many wogs in the coun­try. Per­haps hang­ing was a de­ter­rent. Wilt didn’t think so but he couldn’t be ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain. On­ly time would tell. But in the case of Regi­na ver­sus Wilt re the mur­der of Mrs Wilt there could be no ques­tion of his guilt. He could be tried, found guilty and sen­tenced, it would make no dif­fer­ence. He was in­no­cent of the charge and if he was sen­tenced to life im­pris­on­ment the very enor­mi­ty of the in­jus­tice done to him would com­pound his knowl­edge of his own in­no­cence. For the very first time in his life Wilt knew him­self to be free. It was as though the orig­inal sin of be­ing Hen­ry Wilt, of 34 Parkview Av­enue, Ip­ford, lec­tur­er in Lib­er­al Stud­ies at the Fen­land Col­lege of Arts and Tech­nol­ogy, hus­band of Eva Wilt and fa­ther of none, had been lift­ed from him. All the en­cum­brances of pos­ses­sions, habits, salary and sta­tus, all the so­cial con­for­mi­ties, the niceties of es­ti­ma­tion of him­self and oth­er peo­ple which he and Eva had ac­quired, all these had gone. Locked in his cell Wilt was free to be. And what­ev­er hap­pened he would nev­er again suc­cumb to the siren calls of self-​ef­face­ment. Af­ter the fla­grant con­tempt and fury of In­spec­tor Flint, the abuse and the op­pro­bri­um heaped on him for a week, who need­ed ap­pro­ba­tion? They could stuff their opin­ions of him. Wilt would pur­sue his in­de­pen­dent course and put to good use his ev­ident gifts of in­con­se­quence. Give him a life sen­tence and a pro­gres­sive prison gov­er­nor and Wilt would drive the man mad with­in a month by the sweet rea­son­able­ness of his re­fusal to obey the prison rules. Soli­tary con­fine­ment and a regime of bread and wa­ter, if such pun­ish­ments still ex­ist­ed, would not de­ter him. Give him his free­dom and he would ap­ply his new found tal­ents at the Tech. He would sit hap­pi­ly on com­mit­tees and re­duce them to dis­sen­sions by his un­tir­ing adop­tion of what­ev­er ar­gu­ment was most con­trary to the con­sen­sus opin­ion. The race was not to the swift af­ter all, it was to the in­de­fati­ga­bly in­con­se­quen­tial and life was ran­dom, an­ar­chic and chaot­ic. Rules were made to be bro­ken and the man with the grasshop­per mind was one jump ahead of all the oth­ers. Hav­ing es­tab­lished this new rule, Wilt turned on his side and tried to sleep but sleep wouldn’t come. He tried his oth­er side with equal lack of suc­cess. Thoughts, ques­tions, ir­rel­evant an­swers and imag­inary di­alogues filled his mind. He tried count­ing sheep but found him­self think­ing of Eva. Dear Eva, damnable Eva, ebul­lient Eva and Eva ir­re­press­ibly en­thu­si­as­tic. Like him she had sought the Ab­so­lute, the Eter­nal Truth which would save her the both­er of ev­er hav­ing to think for her­self again. She had sought it in Pot­tery, in Tran­scen­den­tal Med­ita­tion, in ju­do, on tram­po­lines and most in­con­gru­ous­ly of all in Ori­en­tal Dance. Fi­nal­ly she had tried to find it in sex­ual eman­ci­pa­tion, Wom­en’s Lib and the Sacra­ment of the Or­gasm in which she could for­ev­er lose her­self. Which, come to think of it, was what she ap­peared to have done. And tak­en the bloody Pring­sheims with her. Well she would cer­tain­ly have some ex­plain­ing to do when and if she ev­er re­turned. Wilt smiled to him­self at the thought of what she would say when she dis­cov­ered what her lat­est in­fat­ua­tion with the in­fi­nite had led to. He’d see to it that she had cause to re­gret it to her dy­ing day.

On the floor of the sit­ting-​room at the Vicarage Eva Wilt strug­gled with the grow­ing con­vic­tion that her dy­ing day-​was al­ready over and done with. Cer­tain­ly ev­ery­one she came in­to con­tact with seemed to think she was dead. The po­lice­man she had spo­ken to on the phone had seemed dis­in­clined to be­lieve her as­ser­tion that she was alive and at least rel­ative­ly well and had de­mand­ed proofs of her iden­ti­ty in the most dis­con­cert­ing fash­ion. Eva had re­treat­ed strick­en from the en­counter with her con­fi­dence in her own con­tin­uing ex­is­tence se­ri­ous­ly un­der­mined and it had on­ly need­ed the re­ac­tion of the Rev St John Froude to her ap­pear­ance in his house to com­plete her mis­ery. His fran­tic ap­peals to the Almighty to res­cue the soul of our dear de­part­ed, one Eva Wilt, de­ceased, from its present shape and un­en­durable form had af­fect­ed Eva pro­found­ly. She knelt on the car­pet and sobbed while the Vicar stared at her over his glass­es, shut his eyes, lift­ed up a shaky voice in prayer, opened his eyes, shud­dered and gen­er­al­ly be­haved in a man­ner cal­cu­lat­ed to cause gloom and de­spon­den­cy in the pu­ta­tive corpse and when, in a last des­per­ate at­tempt to get Eva Wilt, de­ceased, to take her prop­er place in the heav­en­ly choir he cut short a prayer about ‘Man that is born of Wom­an hath but a short time to live and is full of mis­ery and struck up ‘Abide with me’ with many a se­mi-​qua­ver, Eva aban­doned all at­tempt at self-​con­trol and wailed ‘Fast falls the even­tide’ most af­fect­ing­ly. By the time they had got to ‘I need thy pres­ence ev­ery pass­ing hour’ the Rev St John Froude was of an en­tire­ly con­trary opin­ion. He stag­gered from the room and took sanc­tu­ary in his study. Be­hind him Eva Wilt es­pous­ing her new role as de­ceased with all the en­thu­si­asm she had for­mer­ly be­stowed on tram­po­lines, ju­do and pot­tery, de­mand­ed to know where death’s sting was and where, grave, thy vic­to­ry. ‘As if I bloody knew,’ mut­tered the Vicar and reached for the whisky bot­tle on­ly to find that it too was emp­ty. He sat down and put his hands over his ears to shut out the dread­ful noise. On the whole ‘Abide with me’ was the last hymn he should have cho­sen. He’d have been bet­ter off with ‘there is a green hill far away’. It was less open to mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

When at last the hymn end­ed he sat rel­ish­ing the si­lence and was about to in­ves­ti­gate the pos­si­bil­ity that there was an­oth­er bot­tle in the larder when there was a knock on the door and Eva en­tered.

‘Oh Fa­ther I have sinned,’ she shrieked, do­ing her lev­el best, to wail and gnash her teeth at the same time. The Rev St John Froude gripped the arms of his chair and tried to swal­low. It was not easy. Then over­com­ing the rea­son­able fear that delir­ium tremens had come all too sud­den­ly he man­aged to speak. ‘Rise, my child.’ he gasped as Eva writhed on the rugs be­fore him, ‘I will hear your con­fes­sion.’

Chapter 20

In­spec­tor Flint switched the tape recorder off and looked at wilt.

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ said Wilt.

‘Is that her? Is that Mrs Wilt?’

Wilt nod­ded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘What do you mean you’re afraid so? The damned wom­an is alive. You should be fuck­ing grate­ful. In­stead of that you sit there say­ing you’re afraid so.’

Wilt sighed. ‘I was just think­ing what an abyss there is be­tween the per­son as we re­mem­ber and imag­ine them and the re­al­ity of what they are. I was be­gin­ning to have fond mem­ories of her and now…’

‘You ev­er been to Wa­ter­swick?’

Wilt shook his head. ‘Nev­er.’

‘Know the Vicar there?’

‘Didn’t even know there was a Vicar there.’

‘And you wouldn’t know how she got there?’

‘You heard her,’ said Wilt. ‘She said she’d been on a boat.’

‘And you wouldn’t know any­one with a boat, would you?’

‘Peo­ple in my cir­cle don’t have boats, In­spec­tor. Maybe the Pring­sheims have a boat.’

In­spec­tor Flint con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­ity and re­ject­ed it. They had checked the boat­yards out and the Pring­sheims didn’t have a boat and hadn’t hired one ei­ther.

On the oth­er hand the pos­si­bil­ity that he had been the vic­tim of some gi­gan­tic hoax, a de­lib­er­ate and in­volved scheme to make him look an id­iot, was be­gin­ning to take shape in his mind. At the in­sti­ga­tion of this in­fer­nal Wilt he had or­dered the ex­huma­tion of an in­flat­able doll and had been pho­tographed star­ing livid­ly at it at the very mo­ment it changed sex. He had in­sti­tut­ed a round-​up of pork pies un­prece­dent­ed in the his­to­ry of the coun­try. He wouldn’t be at all sur­prised if Sweet­breads in­sti­tut­ed le­gal pro­ceed­ings for the dam­age done to their pre­vi­ous­ly unspot­ted rep­uta­tion. And fi­nal­ly, he had held an ap­par­ent­ly in­no­cent man for ques­tion­ing for a week and would doubt­less be held re­spon­si­ble for the de­lay and ad­di­tion­al cost in build­ing the new Ad­min­is­tra­tion block at the Tech. There were, in all prob­abil­ity, oth­er ap­palling con­se­quences to be con­sid­ered, but that was enough to be go­ing on with. And he had no­body to blame but him­self. Or…Wilt. He looked at Wilt ven­omous­ly.

Wilt smiled. ‘I know what you’re think­ing,’ he said.

‘You don’t,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘You’ve no idea.’

‘That we are all the crea­tures of cir­cum­stance, that things are nev­er what they seem, that there’s more to this than meets…’

‘We’ll see about that,’ said the In­spec­tor.

Wilt got up. ‘I don’t sup­pose you’ll want me for any­thing else,’ he said. ‘I’ll be get­ting along home.’

‘You’ll be do­ing no such thing. You’re com­ing with us to pick up Mrs Wilt.’

They went out in­to the court­yard and got in­to a po­lice car. As they drove through the sub­urbs, past the fill­ing sta­tions and fac­to­ries and out across the fens Wilt shrank in­to the back seat of the car and felt the sense of free­dom he had en­joyed in the Po­lice Sta­tion evap­orate. And with ev­ery mile it dwin­dled far­ther and the harsh re­al­ity of choice, of hav­ing to earn a liv­ing, of bore­dom and the end­less pet­ty ar­gu­ments with Eva, of bridge on Sat­ur­day nights with the Mot­trams and drives on Sun­days with Eva, re­assert­ed it­self. Be­side him, sunk in sullen si­lence, In­spec­tor Flint lost his sym­bol­ic ap­peal. No longer the men­tor of Wilt’s self-​con­fi­dence, the foil to his in­con­se­quen­tial­ity, he had be­came a fel­low suf­fer­er in the busi­ness of liv­ing al­most a mir­ror-​im­age of Wilt’s own nonen­ti­ty. And ahead, across this flat bleak land­scape with its black earth and cu­mu­lus skies, lay Eva and a life­time of at­tempt­ed ex­pla­na­tions and counter-​ac­cu­sa­tions. For a mo­ment Wilt con­sid­ered shout­ing ‘Stop the car. I want to get out’, but the mo­ment passed. What­ev­er the fu­ture held he would learn to live with it. He had not dis­cov­ered the para­dox­ical na­ture of free­dom on­ly to suc­cumb once more to the servi­tude of Parkview Av­enue, the Tech and Eva’s triv­ial en­thu­si­asms. He was Wilt, the man with the grasshop­per mind.

Eva was drunk. The Rev St John Froude’s au­to­mat­ic re­ac­tion to her ap­palling con­fes­sion had been to turn from whisky to 150% Pol­ish spir­it which he kept for emer­gen­cies and Eva in be­tween ag­onies of re­pen­tance and the out­pour­ings of lurid sins, had wet her whis­tle with the stuff. En­cour­aged by its ef­fect, by the pet­ri­fied benev­olence of the Vicar’s smile and by the grow­ing con­vic­tion that if she was dead eter­nal life de­mand­ed an act of ab­so­lute con­tri­tion while if she wasn’t it al­lowed her to avoid the em­bar­rass­ment of ex­plain­ing what pre­cise­ly she was do­ing naked in some­one else’s house, Eva con­fessed her sins with an en­thu­si­asm that matched her deep­est needs. This was what she had sought in ju­do and pot­tery and Ori­en­tal dance, an or­gias­tic ex­pi­ation of her guilt. She con­fessed sins she had com­mit­ted and sins she hadn’t, sine that had oc­curred to her and sins she had for­got­ten. She had be­trayed Hen­ry, she had wished him dead, she had lust­ed af­ter oth­er men, she was an adul­ter­at­ed wom­an, she was a les­bian, she was a nympho­ma­ni­ac. And in­ter­spersed with these sins of the flesh there were sins of omis­sion Eva left noth­ing out. Hen­ry’s cold sup­pers, his lone­ly walks with the dog, her lack of ap­pre­ci­ation for all he had done for her, her fail­ure to be a good wife, her ob­ses­sion with Harpic…ev­ery­thing poured out. In his chair the Rev St John Froude sat nod­ding in­ces­sant­ly like a toy dog in the back win­dow of a car, rais­ing his head to stare at her when she con­fessed to be­ing a nympho­ma­ni­ac and drop­ping it abrupt­ly at the men­tion of Harpic, and all the time des­per­ate­ly try­ing to un­der­stand what had brought a fat naked–the shroud kept falling off her–la­dy, no def­inite­ly not la­dy, wom­an to his house with all the symp­toms of re­li­gious ma­nia up­on her.

‘My child, is that all?’ he mut­tered when Eva fi­nal­ly ex­haust­ed her reper­toire.

‘Yes, Fa­ther,’ sobbed Eva.

‘Thank God,’ said the Rev St John Froude fer­vent­ly and won­dered what to do next. If half the things he had heard were true he was in the pres­ence of a sin­ner so de­praved as to make the ex-​Archdea­con of On­gar a pos­itive saint. On the oth­er hand, there were in­con­gruities about her sins that made him hes­itate be­fore grant­ing ab­so­lu­tion. A con­fes­sion full of false­hoods was no sign of true re­pen­tance.

‘I take it that you are mar­ried,’ he said doubt­ful­ly, ‘and that Hen­ry is your law­ful wed­ded hus­band?’

‘Yes,’ said Eva. ‘Dear Hen­ry.’

Poor sod, thought the Vicar but he was too tact­ful to say so. ‘And you have left him?’

‘Yes’

‘For an­oth­er man?’

Eva shook her head. ‘To teach him a les­son,’ she said with sud­den bel­liger­ence.

‘A les­son?’ said the Vicar, try­ing fran­ti­cal­ly to imag­ine what sort of les­son the wretched Mr Wilt had learnt from her ab­sence. ‘You did say a les­son?’

‘Yes,’ said Eva, ‘I want­ed him to learn that he couldn’t get along with­out me.’

The Rev St John Froude sipped his drink thought­ful­ly. If even a quar­ter of her con­fes­sion was to be be­lieved her hus­band must be find­ing get­ting along with­out her quite de­light­ful. ‘And now you want to go back to him?’

‘Yes,’ said Eva.

‘But he won’t have you?’

‘He can’t. The po­lice have got him.’

‘The po­lice?’ said the Vicar. ‘And may one ask what the po­lice have got him for?’

‘They say he’s mur­dered me,’ said Eva.

The Rev St John Froude eyed her with new alarm. He knew now that Mrs Wilt was out of her mind. He glanced round for some­thing to use as a weapon should the need arise and find­ing noth­ing bet­ter to choose from than a plas­ter bust of the po­et Dante and the bot­tle of Pol­ish spir­it, picked up the lat­ter by its neck. Eva held her glass out.

‘Oh you are aw­ful,’ she said. ‘You’re get­ting me tid­dly.’

‘Quite,’ said the Vicar and put the bot­tle down again hasti­ly. It was bad enough be­ing alone in the house with a large, drunk, se­mi-​naked wom­an who imag­ined that her hus­band had mur­dered her and who con­fessed to sins he had pre­vi­ous­ly on­ly read about with­out her jump­ing to the con­clu­sion that he was de­lib­er­ate­ly try­ing to make her drunk. The Rev St John Froude had no de­sire to fig­ure promi­nent­ly in next Sun­day’s News of the World.

‘You were say­ing that your hus­band mur­dered…’ He stopped. That seemed an un­prof­itable sub­ject to pur­sue.

‘How could he have mur­dered me?’ asked Eva. ‘I’m here in the flesh, aren’t I?’

‘Def­inite­ly,’ said the Vicar. ‘Most def­inite­ly.’

‘Well then,’ said Eva. ‘And any­way Hen­ry couldn’t mur­der any­one. He wouldn’t know how. He can’t even change a fuse in a plug. I have to do ev­ery­thing like that in the house.’ She stared at the Vicar bale­ful­ly. ‘Are you mar­ried?’

‘No,’ said the Rev St John Froude, wish­ing to hell that he was.

‘What do you know about life if you aren’t mar­ried?’ asked Eva tru­cu­lent­ly. The Pol­ish spir­it was get­ting to her now and with it there came a ter­ri­ble sense of grievance. ‘Men. What good are men? They can’t even keep a house tidy. Look at this room. I ask you.’ She waved her arms to em­pha­size the point and the dust­cov­er dropped. Just look at it.’ But the Rev St John Froude had no eyes for the room. What he could see of Eva was enough to con­vince him that his life was in dan­ger. He bound­ed from the chair, trod heav­ily on an oc­ca­sion­al ta­ble, over­turned the wastepa­per bas­ket and threw him­self through the door in­to the hall. As he stum­bled away in search of sanc­tu­ary the front door bell rang. The Rev St John Froude opened it and stared in­to In­spec­tor Flint’s face.

‘Thank God, you’ve come,’ he gasped, ’she’s in there.’

The In­spec­tor and two uni­formed con­sta­bles went across the hall. Wilt fol­lowed un­easi­ly. This was the mo­ment he had been dread­ing. In the event it was bet­ter than he had ex­pect­ed. Not so for In­spec­tor Flint. He en­tered the study and found him­self con­front­ed by a large naked wom­an.

‘Mrs Wilt…’ he be­gan but Eva was star­ing at the two uni­formed con­sta­bles.

‘Where’s my Hen­ry?’ Eva shout­ed. ‘You’ve got my Hen­ry.’ She hurled her­self for­ward. Un­wise­ly the In­spec­tor at­tempt­ed to re­strain her.

‘Mrs Wilt, if you’ll just…’ A blow on the side of his head end­ed the sen­tence.

‘Keep your hands off me,’ yelled Eva, and putting her knowl­edge of ju­do to good use hurled him to the floor. She was about to re­peat the per­for­mance with the con­sta­bles when Wilt thrust him­self for­ward.

‘Here I am, dear,’ he said. Eva stopped in her tracks. For a mo­ment she quiv­ered and, seen from In­spec­tor Flint’s view­point, ap­peared to be about to melt. ‘Oh Hen­ry,’ she said, ‘what have they been do­ing to you?’

‘Noth­ing at all, dear,’ said Wilt. ‘Now get your clothes on. We’re go­ing home.’ Eva looked down at her­self, shud­dered and al­lowed him to lead her out of the room.

Slow­ly and weari­ly In­spec­tor Flint got to his feet. He knew now why Wilt had put that bloody doll down the hole and why he had sat so con­fi­dent­ly through days and nights of in­ter­ro­ga­tion. Af­ter twelve years of mar­riage to Eva Wilt the urge to com­mit homi­cide if on­ly by proxy would be over­whelm­ing. And as for Wilt’s abil­ity to stand up to cross-​ex­am­ina­tion…it was self-​ev­ident. But the In­spec­tor knew too that he would nev­er be able to ex­plain it to any­one else. There were mys­ter­ies of hu­man re­la­tion­ships that de­fied anal­ysis. And Wilt had stood there calm­ly and told her to get her clothes on. With a grudg­ing sense of ad­mi­ra­tion Flint went out in­to the hall. The lit­tle sod had guts, what­ev­er else you could say about him.

They drove back to Parkview Av­enue in si­lence. In the back seat Eva, wrapped in a blan­ket, slept with her head lolling on Wilt’s shoul­der. Be­side her Hen­ry Wilt sat proud­ly. A wom­an who could si­lence In­spec­tor Flint with one swift blow to the head was worth her weight in gold and be­sides that scene in the study had giv­en him the weapon he need­ed. Naked and drunk in a Vicar’s study…There would be no ques­tions now about why he had put that doll down the hole. No ac­cu­sa­tions, no re­crim­ina­tions. The en­tire episode would be rel­egat­ed to the best for­got­ten. And with it would go all doubts about his viril­ity or his abil­ity to get on in the world. It was check­mate. For a mo­ment Wilt al­most lapsed in­to sen­ti­men­tal­ity and thought of love be­fore re­call­ing just how dan­ger­ous a top­ic that was. He would be bet­ter off stick­ing to in­dif­fer­ence and undis­closed af­fec­tion. ‘Let sleep­ing dogs lie,’ he mut­tered.

It was an opin­ion shared by the Pring­sheims. As they were helped from the cruis­er to a po­lice launch, as they climbed ashore, as they ex­plained to a scep­ti­cal In­spec­tor Flint how they had come to be ma­rooned for a week in Eel Stretch in a boat that be­longed to some­one else, they were strange­ly un­com­mu­nica­tive. No they didn’t know how the door of the bath­room had been bust down. Well maybe there had been an ac­ci­dent. They had been too drunk to re­mem­ber. A doll? What doll? Grass? You mean mar­ijua­na? They had no idea. In their house?

In­spec­tor Flint let them go fi­nal­ly. ‘I’ll be see­ing you again when the charges have been prop­er­ly for­mu­lat­ed,’ he said grim­ly. The Pring­sheims left for Rossiter Grove to pack. They flew out of Heathrow next morn­ing.

Chapter 21

The Prin­ci­pal sat be­hind his desk and re­gard­ed Wilt in­cred­ulous­ly. ‘Pro­mo­tion?’ he said. ‘Did I hear you men­tion the word “pro­mo­tion”?’

‘You did,’ said Wilt. ‘And what is more you al­so heard “Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies” too.’

‘Af­ter all you’ve done. You mean to say you have the nerve to come in here and de­mand to be made Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt.

The Prin­ci­pal strug­gled to find words to match his feel­ings. It wasn’t easy. In front of him sat the man who was re­spon­si­ble for the se­ries of dis­as­ters that had put an end to his fond­est hopes. The Tech would nev­er be a Poly now. The Joint Hon­ours de­gree’s re­jec­tion had seen to that. And then there was the ad­verse pub­lic­ity, the cut in the bud­get, his bat­tles with the Ed­uca­tion Com­mit­tee, the hu­mil­ia­tion of be­ing her­ald­ed as the Prin­ci­pal of Doll­fuck­ers Hall…

‘You’re fired’ he shout­ed.

Wilt smiled. ‘I think not,’ he said. ‘Here are my terms…’

‘Your what?’

‘Terms,’ said Wilt. ‘In re­turn for my ap­point­ment as Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies, I shall not in­sti­tute pro­ceed­ings against you for un­fair dis­missal with all the at­ten­dant pub­lic­ity that would en­tail. I shall with­draw my case against the po­lice for un­law­ful ar­rest. The con­tract I have here with the Sun­day Post for a se­ries of ar­ti­cles on the true na­ture of Lib­er­al Stud­ies–I in­tend to call them Ex­po­sure to Bar­barism–will re­main un­signed. I will can­cel the lec­tures I had promised to give for the Sex Ed­uca­tion Cen­tre. I will not ap­pear on Panora­ma next Mon­day. In short I will ab­jure the plea­sures and re­wards of pub­lic ex­po­sure…’

The Prin­ci­pal raised a shaky hand. ‘Enough,’ he said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Wilt got to his feet. ‘Let me know your an­swer by lunchtime,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in my of­fice.’

‘Your of­fice?’ said the Prin­ci­pal.

‘It used to be­long to Mr Mor­ris,’ said Wilt and closed the door. Be­hind him the Prin­ci­pal picked up the phone. There had been no mis­tak­ing the se­ri­ous­ness of Wilt’s threats. He would have to hur­ry.

Wilt strolled down the cor­ri­dor to the Lib­er­al Stud­ies De­part­ment and stood look­ing at the books on the shelves. There were changes he had in mind. The Lord of the Flies would go and with it Shane, Wom­en in Love, Or­well’s Es­says and Catch­er in the Rye, all those symp­toms of in­tel­lec­tu­al con­de­scen­sion those dan­gled worms of sen­si­bil­ity. In fu­ture Gas­fit­ters One and Meat Two would learn the how of things not why. How to read and write. How to make beer. How to fid­dle their in­come tax re­turns. How to cope with the po­lice when ar­rest­ed. How to make an in­com­pat­ible mar­riage work. Wilt would give the last two lessons him­self. There would be ob­jec­tions from the staff, even threats of res­ig­na­tion, but it would make no dif­fer­ence. He might well ac­cept sev­er­al res­ig­na­tions from those who per­sist­ed in op­pos­ing his ideas. Af­ter all you didn’t re­quire a de­gree in En­glish lit­er­ature to teach Gas­fit­ters the how of any­thing. Come to think of it, they had taught him more than they had learnt from him. Much more. He went in­to Mr Mor­ris’s emp­ty of­fice and sat down at the desk and com­posed a mem­oran­dum to Lib­er­al Stud­ies Staff. It was head­ed Notes on a Sys­tem of Self-​Teach­ing for Day Re­lease Class­es. He had just writ­ten ‘non-​hi­er­ar­chi­cal’ for the fifth time when the phone rang. It was the Prin­ci­pal.

‘Thank you,’ said the new Head of Lib­er­al Stud­ies.

Eva Wilt walked gai­ly up Parkview Av­enue from the doc­tor’s of­fice. She had made break­fast for Hen­ry and Hoovered the front room and pol­ished the hall and cleaned the win­dows and Harpicked the loo and been round to the Har­mo­ny Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre and helped with Xe­rox­ing an ap­peal for a new play group and done the shop­ping and paid the milk­man and been to the doc­tor to ask if there was any point in tak­ing a course of fer­til­ity drugs and there was. ‘Of course we’ll have to do tests,’ the doc­tor had told her, ‘but there’s no rea­son to think they’d prove neg­ative. The on­ly dan­ger is that you might have sex­tu­plets.’ It wasn’t a dan­ger to Eva. It was what she had al­ways want­ed, a house full of chil­dren. And all at once. Hen­ry would be pleased. And so the sun shone brighter, the sky was bluer, the flow­ers in the gar­dens were rosier and even Parkview Av­enue it­self seemed to have tak­en on a new and brighter as­pect. It was one of Eva Wilt’s bet­ter days.

The End