Wilt (19 page)

‘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.

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.’