Wilt (12 page)

‘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.

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?’