The Wilt Alternative

by Tom Sharpe

  He left the canteen and went up to the office where Wilt was finishing his Queen’s pudding with the help of mouthfuls of coffee. Outside the door he met the SGS surgeon and para-psychologist who had been studying Wilt covertly.

  ‘Nervous type,’ he said gloomily. ‘Couldn’t be worse material. Sort of blighter who’d funk a jump from a tethered balloon.’

  ‘Fortunately he doesn’t have to jump from a tethered balloon,’ said the Superintendent. ‘All he has to do is enter the house and find an excuse for taking his family out.’

  ‘All the same I think he ought to have a shot of something to stiffen his backbone. We don’t want him dithering on the doorstep. Give the game away.’

  He marched off to fetch his bag while the Superintendent went in to Wilt. ‘Now then,’ he said with alarming cheerfulness, ‘all you’ve got to do …’

  ‘Is enter a house filled with killers and ask my wife to come out. I know,’ said Wilt.

  ‘Nothing very difficult about that.’

  Wilt looked at him incredulously. ‘Nothing difficult?’ said Wilt in a vaguely soprano voice. ‘You don’t know my bloody wife.’

  ‘I haven’t had the privilege yet,’ admitted the Superintendent.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Wilt. ‘Well, when and if you do you’ll discover that if I go home and ask her to come out she’ll think of a thousand reasons for staying in.’

  ‘Difficult woman, sir?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing difficult about Eva. Not at all. She’s just bloody awkward, that’s all.’

  ‘I see, sir, and if you suggested she didn’t go out you think she might in fact do so?’

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ said Wilt, ‘if I do that she’ll think I’m off my rocker. I mean what would you do if you were sitting peacefully at home and your wife came in and suggested out of the blue that you didn’t go out when it had never occurred to you to go out in the first place? You’d think there was something fucking odd going on, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose I would,’ said the Superintendent. ‘Never thought of it like that before.’

  ‘Well you’d better start now,’ said Wilt. ‘I’m not going …’ He was interrupted by the entrance of the Major and two other officers wearing jeans, T-shirts with UP THE IRA printed on them, and carrying rather large handbags.

  ‘If we might just interrupt a moment,’ said the Major, ‘we would like Mr Wilt to draw a detailed plan of the house, vertical section and then horizontal.’

  ‘What for?’ said Wilt, unable to take his eyes off the T-shirts.

  ‘In the event that we have to storm the house, sir,’ said the Major, ‘we need to get the killing angles right. Don’t want to go in and find the loo’s in the wrong place and what not.’

  ‘Listen, mate,’ said Wilt, ‘you go down Willington Road with those T-shirts and handbags you won’t reach my house. You’ll be bloody lynched by the neighbours. Mrs Fogin’s nephew was blown up in Belfast and Professor Ball’s got a thing about gays. His wife married one.’

  ‘Better change into the KEEP CLAPHAM WHITE shirts, chaps,’ said the Major.

  ‘Better not,’ said Wilt. ‘Mr and Mrs Bokani at Number 11 would be on to Race Relations like the clappers. Can’t you think of something neutral?’

  ‘Mickey Mouse, sir?’ suggested one of the officers.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said the Major grumpily, ‘one Mickey Mouse and the rest Donald Ducks.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Wilt, ‘I don’t know how many men you’ve got but if you’re going to flood the neighbourhood with Donald Ducks armed to the teeth with whatever you have in those gigantic handbags you’ll have a whole lot of schizophrenic infants on your conscience.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said the Major, ‘you leave the tactical angle to us. We’ve had experience before of this sort of operation and all we want from you is a detailed plan of the domestic terrain.’

  ‘Talk about calling a spade an earth-inverting horticultural implement,’ said Wilt. ‘I never thought I’d live to hear my home called a domestic terrain.’

  He picked up a pencil but the Superintendent intervened. ‘Look, if we don’t get Mr Wilt back to the house soon, someone may begin wondering where he is,’ he protested.

  As if to reinforce this argument the phone rang.

  ‘It’s for you,’ said the Major. ‘Some bugger called Flint who says he’s holed up in the bank.’

  ‘I thought I told you not to make any outgoing calls,’ the Superintendent said angrily into the phone. ‘Relieve themselves? Of course they can … An appointment at three with Mr Daniles? Who’s he? … Oh shit … Where? … Well, empty the wastepaper basket for Chrissake … I don’t have to tell you where. I should have thought that was patently obvious … What do you mean it’s going to look peculiar? … Do they have to cross the entire bank? … I know all about the smell. Get hold of an aerosol or something … Well if he objects detain the sod. And Flint, see if someone has a bucket and use that in future.’

  He slammed down the phone and turned back to the Major. ‘Things are steaming up at the bank and if we don’t move swiftly –’

  ‘Someone’s going to smell a rat?’ suggested Wilt. ‘Now, do you want me to draw my house or not?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Major, ‘and fast.’

  ‘There’s no need to adopt that tone,’ said Wilt. ‘You may be eager to have a battle on my property but I want to know who’s going to pay for the damage. My wife’s a very particular woman and if you start killing people all over the carpet in the living-room …’

  ‘Mr Wilt,’ said the Major with determined patience, ‘we shall do everything we can to avoid any violence on your property. It is for precisely that reason we need a detailed plan of the domestic … er … the house.’

  ‘I think if we leave Mr Wilt to draw the plan …’ said the Superintendent and nodded towards the door. The Major followed him out and they conferred in the corridor.

  ‘Listen,’ said the Superintendent, ‘I’ve already had a report from your trick cyclist that the little bastard’s a mass of nerves and if you’re going to start bullying him …’

  ‘Superintendent,’ said the Major, ‘it may interest you to know that I have a casualty allowance of ten on this op and if he’s one of them I shan’t be sorry. War Office approval.’

  ‘And if we don’t get him in there, and his wife and children out, you’ll have used up six of your quota,’ snapped the Superintendent.

  ‘All I can say is that a man who puts his living-room carpet before his country and the Western World …’ He would have said a lot more had it not been for the arrival of the para-psychologist with a cup of coffee.

  ‘Fixed him a spot of nervebracer,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Should see him through.’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ said the Superintendent. ‘I could do with something myself.’

  ‘No need to worry about it working,’ said the Major. ‘Used it myself once in County Armagh when I had to defuse a bloody great bomb. Bugger went off before I could get to it but by God I felt good all the same.’

  The medic went into the office and presently reappeared with the empty cup. ‘In like a lamb, out like a lion,’ he said. ‘No trouble at all.’

  11

  Ten minutes later Wilt lived up to the prediction. He left the police station of his own free will and entered the Superintendent’s car quite cheerfully.

  ‘Just drop me off at the bottom of the road and I’ll find my own way home,’ he said. ‘No need for you to bother to drive right up to the house.’

  The Superintendent looked at him doubtfully. ‘I hadn’t intended to. The object of the exercise is for you to go into the house without arousing suspicion and persuade your wife to come out by telling her you’ve met this herbalist in a pub and he’s invited you all round to look at his collection of plants. You’ve got that straight?’

  ‘Wilco,’ said Wilt.

  ‘Wilco?’

  ‘And what’s more,’ continued Wilt, ‘if that do
esn’t flush the bitch out I’ll take the children and leave her to stew in her own juice.’

  ‘Stop the car, driver,’ said the Superintendent hastily.

  ‘What for?’ said Wilt. ‘You don’t expect me to walk two miles? When I said you could drop me off I didn’t mean here.’

  ‘Mr Wilt,’ said the Superintendent, ‘I must impress on you the seriousness of the situation. Gudrun Schautz is undoubtedly armed and she won’t hesitate to shoot. The woman is a professional killer.’

  ‘So what? Bloody woman comes into my house having killed people all over the place and expects me to give her bed and board. Like hell I will. Driver, drive on.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said the Superintendent, ‘trust the army to cock this one up.’

  ‘Want me to turn back, sir?’ asked the driver.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Wilt. ‘The sooner I can get my family out and the army in the better. No need to look like that. Everything’s going to be roger over and out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said the Superintendent despondently. ‘All right, drive on. Now then, Mr Wilt, for God’s sake stick to your story about the herbalist. The fellow’s name is …’

  ‘Falkirk,’ said Wilt automatically. ‘He lives at Number 45 Barrabas Road. He has recently returned from South America with a collection of plants including tropical herbs previously uncultivated in this country …’

  ‘At least he knows his lines,’ muttered the Superintendent as they turned into Farringdon Avenue and pulled into the kerb. Wilt got out, slammed the car door with unnecessary violence and marched off down Willington Road. Behind him the Superintendent watched miserably and cursed the para-psychologist.

  ‘Must have given him some sort of chemical kamikaze mixture,’ he told the driver.

  ‘There’s still time to stop him, sir,’ said the driver. But there wasn’t. Wilt had dived into the gate of his house and disappeared. As soon as he had gone a head popped out of the hedge beside the car.

  ‘Don’t want to give the game away, old boy,’ said an officer wearing the uniform of a Gas Inspector. ‘If you’ll just toddle along I’ll call HQ and tell them the subject has entered the danger zone …’

  ‘Oh no you won’t,’ snarled the Superintendent as the officer twiddled with the knobs of his walkie-talkie. ‘There’s to be strict radio silence until the family are safely out.’

  ‘My orders are …’

  ‘Countermanded as of now,’ said the Superintendent. ‘Innocent lives are at stake and I’m not having them jeopardized.’

  ‘Oh all right,’ said the officer. ‘Anyway we’ve got the area sealed off. Not even a rabbit could get out of there now.’

  ‘It’s not simply a question of anyone getting out. We want as many as possible to get in before we move.’

  ‘Rightho, want to bag the lot of them eh? Nothing like going the whole hog, what!’

  The officer disappeared into the hedge and the Superintendent drove on.

  ‘Lions, lambs, and now fucking rabbits and hogs,’ he told the driver. ‘I wish to heaven the Special Ground Services hadn’t been called in. They seem to have animals on the brain.’

  ‘Comes of recruiting them from the huntin’ an’ shootin’ set, I expect, sir,’ said the driver. ‘Wouldn’t like to be in that bloke Wilt’s shoes.’

  *

  In the garden of Number 9 Willington Road Wilt did not share his apprehensions. Stiffened by the para-psychologist’s nerve-bracer he was in no mood to be trifled with. Bloody terrorists coming into his house without so much as a by-your-leave. Well, he’d soon show them the door. He marched resolutely up to the house and opened the front door before realizing that the car wasn’t outside. Eva must be out with the quads. In which case there was no need for him to go in. ‘To hell with that,’ said Wilt to himself, ‘this is my house and I’m entitled to do what I damned well please in it.’ He went into the hall and shut the door. The house was silent and the living-room empty. Wilt went through the kitchen and wondered what to do next. In normal circumstances he would have left, but circumstances were not normal. To Wilt’s intoxicated way of thinking they called for stern measures. The bloody army wanted a battle on his domestic terrain, did they? Well, he’d soon put a stop to that. Domestic terrain indeed! If people wanted to kill one another they could jolly well do it somewhere else. Which was all very fine, but how to persuade them? Well, the simplest way was to go up to the attic and heave Miss Bloody Schautz/Mueller’s suitcases and clobber out into the front garden. That way when she came home she’d get the message and take herself off to someone else’s domestic terrain.

  With this simple solution in mind Wilt went upstairs and climbed the steps to the attic door only to find it locked. He went down to the kitchen, found the spare key and went back. For a moment he hesitated outside the door before knocking. There was no reply. Wilt unlocked the door and went inside.

  The attic flat consisted of three rooms, a large bedsitter with the balcony looking down on to the garden, a kitchenette and beyond it a bathroom. Wilt shut the door behind him and looked around. The bedsitter which had occupied his former Muse was unexpectedly tidy. Gudrun Schautz might be a ruthless terrorist but she was also house-proud. Clothes hung neatly in a wall closet and the cups and saucers in the kitchen were all washed and set on shelves. Now, where would she have put her suitcases? Wilt looked round and tried another cupboard before remembering that Eva had moved the cold-water cistern to a higher position under the roof when the bathroom had been put in. There was a door to it somewhere.

  He found it beside the stove in the kitchenette and crawled through only to discover that he had to stoop along under the eaves on a narrow plank to reach the storage space. He groped about in the darkness and found the light switch. The suitcases were in a row beside the cistern. Wilt made his way along and grabbed the handle of the first bag. It felt incredibly heavy. Also distinctly lumpy. Wilt dragged it down from the shelf and it dropped with a metallic thud on to the plank at his feet. He wasn’t going to lug that back across the rafters. Wilt fumbled with the catches and finally opened the bag.

  All his doubts about Miss Schautz/Mueller’s profession vanished. He was looking down on some sort of sub-machine gun, a mound of revolvers, boxes of ammunition, a typewriter and what appeared to be grenades. And as he looked he heard the sound of a car outside. It had pulled into the drive and even to his untrained ear it sounded like the Aston-Martin. Cursing himself for not listening to his innate cowardice, Wilt struggled to get back along the plank to the door but the bag was in the way. He banged his head on the rafters above and was about to crawl over the bag when it occurred to him that the sub-machine gun might be loaded and could well go off if he prodded it in the wrong place. Best get the damned thing out. Again, that was easier said than done. The barrel got caught in the end of the bag and by the time he had disentangled it he could hear footsteps on the wooden stairs below. Too late to do anything now except switch the light off. Leaning forward across the bag and holding the machine gun at arm’s length Wilt joggled the switch up with the muzzle before crouching down in the darkness.

  *

  Outside in the garden the quads had had a marvellous afternoon with old Mrs de Frackas. She had read them the story about Rikki Tikki Tavi, the mongoose, and the two cobras, and had then taken them into her house to show them what a stuffed cobra looked like (she had one in a glass case and it bared its fangs most realistically) and had told them about her own childhood in India before sitting them down to tea in her conservatory. For once the quads had behaved themselves. They had picked up from Eva a proper sense of Mrs de Frackas’ social standing and in any case the old lady’s voice had a distinctly firm ring to it – or as Wilt had once put it, if at eighty-two she could no longer break a sherry glass at fifty paces she could still make a guard dog whimper at forty. It was certainly true that the milkman had long since given up trying to collect his payment on a weekly basis. Mrs de Frackas belonged to a generation that had
paid when it felt so inclined; the old lady sent her cheque only twice a year, and then it was wrong. The milk company did not dispute it. The widow of the late Major-General de Frackas, DSO etc. was a personage to whom people deferred and it was one of Eva’s proudest boasts that she and the old lady got on like a house on fire. Nobody else in Willington Road did and it was almost entirely because Mrs de Frackas loved children and considered Eva, in spite of her obvious lack of breeding, to be an excellent mother that she smiled on the Wilts. To be precise, she seldom smiled on Wilt, evidently regarding him as an accident in the family process and one that, if her observation of his activities in the summerhouse of an evening was correct, drank. Since the Major-General had died of cirrhosis or as she bluntly said, hob-nailed liver, Wilt’s solitary communion with the bottle only increased her regard for Eva and concern for the children. Being also rather deaf she thought them delightful girls, an opinion that was shared by no one else in the district.

  And so this bright sunny afternoon Mrs de Frackas sat the quads in her conservatory and served tea, happily unaware of the gathering drama next door. Then she allowed them to play with the tiger rug in her drawing-room and even to knock over a potted palm before deciding it was time to go home. The little procession went out of the front gate and into Number 9 just as Wilt began his search in the attic. In the bushes on the opposite side of the road the officer whom the Superintendent had warned not to use the radio watched them enter the house and was desperately praying that they would come out again straight away when the Aston-Martin drove up. Gudrun Schautz and two young men got out, opened the boot and took out several suitcases while the officer dithered, but before he could make up his mind to tackle them in the open they had hurried in the front door. Only then did he break radio silence.

  ‘Female target and two males have entered the zone,’ he told the Major who was making a round of the SGS men posted at the bottom of the Wilts’ garden. ‘No present withdrawal of civilian occupants. Request instructions.’