The Wilt Alternative

by Tom Sharpe

  But when at five he left the bank and returned to the police station it was to discover that Wilt’s account seemed yet again to correspond, however implausibly, with the facts.

  ‘A siege?’ he said to the desk sergeant. ‘A siege at Willington Road? At Wilt’s house?’

  ‘Proof of the pudding’s in there, sir,’ said the sergeant, indicating an office. Flint crossed to the window and glanced in.

  Like some monolith to maternity Eva Wilt sat motionless on a chair staring into space, her mind evidently absent and with her children in the house in Willington Road. Flint turned away and for the umpteenth time wondered what it was about this woman and her apparently insignificant husband that had brought them together and by some strange fusion of incompatibility had turned them into a catalyst for disaster. It was a recurring enigma, this marriage between a woman whom Wilt had once described as a centrifugal force and a man whose imagination fostered bestial fantasies involving murder, rape, and those bizarre dreams that had come to light during the hours of his interrogation. Since Flint’s own marriage was as conventionally happy as he could wish, the Wilts’ was less a marriage in his eyes than some rather sinister symbiotic arrangement of almost vegetable origin, like mistletoe growing on an oak tree. There was certainly a vegetable-looking quality about Mrs Wilt sitting there in silence in the office and Inspector Flint shook his head sadly.

  ‘Poor woman’s in shock,’ he said, and hurried away to discover for himself what was actually happening at Willington Road.

  *

  But as usual his diagnosis was wrong. Eva was not in a state of shock. She had long since realized that it was pointless telling the policewomen who were sitting with her that she wanted to go home, and now her mind was calmly and rather menacingly working on practical things. Out there in the gathering darkness her children were at the mercy of murderers and Henry was probably dead. Nothing was going to stop her from joining the quads and saving them. Beyond that goal she had not looked, but a brooding violence seeped through her.

  ‘Perhaps you would like some friend to come and sit with you,’ one of the policewomen suggested. ‘Or we could come with you to a friend’s house.’

  But Eva shook her head. She didn’t want sympathy. She had her own reserves of strength to cope with her misery. In the end a social worker arrived from the welfare hostel.

  ‘We’ve got a nice warm room for you,’ she said with an extruded cheerfulness that had served in the past to irritate a number of battered wives, ‘and you needn’t worry about nighties and toothbrushes and things like that. Everything you want will be provided for you.’

  ‘It won’t,’ thought Eva, but she thanked the policewomen and followed the social worker out to her car and sat docilely beside her as they drove away. And all the time the woman chattered on, asking questions about the quads and how old they were and saying how difficult it must be bringing up four girls at the same time as if the continually repeated assumption that nothing extraordinary had happened would somehow recreate the happy, humdrum world Eva had seen disintegrate round her that afternoon. Eva hardly heard her. The trite words were so grotesquely at odds with the instincts moving within her that they merely added anger to her terrible resolve. No silly woman who didn’t have children could know what it meant to have them threatened and she wasn’t going to be lulled into a passive acceptance of the situation.

  At the corner of Dill Road and Persimmon Street she caught sight of a billboard outside a newsagent’s shop. TERRORIST SIEGE LATEST.

  ‘I want a newspaper,’ said Eva abruptly, and the woman pulled into the kerb.

  ‘It won’t tell you anything you don’t know already,’ she said.

  ‘I know that. I just want to see what they’re saying,’ said Eva and opened the door of the car. But the woman stopped her.

  ‘You just sit here and I’ll get one for you. Would you like a magazine too?’

  ‘Just the paper.’

  And with the sad thought that even in terrible tragedies some people found solace by seeing their names in print the social worker crossed the pavement to the shop and went in. Three minutes later she came out and had opened the car door before she realized that the seat beside her was empty. Eva Wilt had disappeared into the night.

  *

  By the time Inspector Flint had made his way past the road blocks in Farringdon Avenue and with the help of an SGS man had clambered across several gardens to the Communications Centre he had begun to have doubts about his theory that the whole business was yet another hoax on Wilt’s part. If it was it had gone too far this time. The armoured car in the road and the spotlights that had been set up round Number 9 indicated how seriously the Anti-Terrorist Squad and Special Ground Services were taking the siege. In the conservatory at the back of Mrs de Frackas’ house men were assembling strange-looking equipment.

  ‘Parabolic listening devices. PLDs for short,’ explained a technician. ‘Once we’ve installed them we’ll be able to hear a cockroach fart in any room in the house.’

  ‘Really? I had no idea cockroaches farted,’ said Flint. ‘One lives and learns.’

  ‘We’ll learn what those bastards are saying and just where they are.’

  Flint went through the conservatory into the drawing-room and found the Superintendent and the Major listening to the adviser on International Terrorist Ideology who was discussing the tapes.

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ said Professor Maerlis gratuitously, ‘I would have to say that the People’s Alternative Army represents a sub-faction or splinter group of the original cadre known as the People’s Army Group. I think I would go so far.’

  Flint took a seat in a corner and was pleased to note that the Superintendent and Major seemed to share his bewilderment.

  ‘Are you saying that they’re actually part of the same group?’ asked the Superintendent.

  ‘Specifically, no,’ said the Professor. ‘I can only surmise from the inherent contradictions expressed in their communiqués that there is a strong difference of opinion as to the tactical approach while at the same time the two groups share the same underlying ideological assumptions. Owing, however, to the molecular structure of terrorist organizations the actual identification of a member of one group by another member of another group or sub-faction of the same group remains extremely problematical.’

  ‘The whole fucking situation is extremely problematical, come to that,’ said the Superintendent. ‘So far we’ve had two communiqués from what sounds like a partially castrated German, one from an asthmatic Irishman, demands from a Mexican for a jumbo jet and six million quid, a counter-demand from the Kraut for seven millions, not to mention a stream of abuse from an Arab and everyone accusing everyone else of being a CIA agent working for Israel and who’s fighting for whose freedom.’

  ‘Beats me how they can begin to talk about freedom when they’re holding innocent children and an old lady hostage and threatening to kill them,’ said the Major.

  ‘There I must disagree with you,’ said the Professor. ‘In terms of neo-Hegelian post-Marxist political philosophy the freedom of the individual can only reside within the parameters of a collectively free society. The People’s Army Groups regard themselves as in the forefront of total freedom and equality and as such are not bound to observe the moral norms which restrict the actions of lackeys of imperialist, fascist and neo-colonialist oppression.’

  ‘Listen, old boy,’ said the Major, angrily removing his Afro wig, ‘just whose side are you on anyway?’

  ‘I am merely stating the theory. If you want a more precise analysis …’ began the Professor nervously, only to be interrupted by the Head of the Psychological Warfare team who had been working on the voiceprints.

  ‘From our analysis of the stress factors revealed in these tape recordings we are of the opinion that the group holding Fräulein Schautz are emotionally more disturbed than the two other terrorists,’ he announced, ‘and frankly I think we should concentrate on reducing their anxie
ty level.’

  ‘Are you saying the Schautz woman is likely to be shot?’ asked the Superintendent.

  The psychologist nodded. ‘It’s rather baffling actually. We’ve hit something rather odd with that lot, a variation from the normal pattern of speech reactions, and I must admit I think she’s the one who’s most likely to get it in the neck.’

  ‘No skin off my nose if she does,’ said the Major, ‘she’s had it coming to her.’

  ‘There’ll be skin off everyone’s nose if that happens,’ said the Superintendent. ‘My instructions are to keep this thing cool and if they start killing their hostages all hell will be let loose.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Professor, ‘a very interesting dialectical situation. You must understand that the theory of terrorism as a progressive force in world history demands the exacerbation of class warfare and the polarizing of political opinion. Now in terms of simple effectiveness we must say that the advantage lies with People’s Army Group Four and not with the People’s Alternative Army.’

  ‘Say that again,’ said the Major.

  The Professor obliged. ‘Put quite simply, it is politically better to kill these children than eliminate Fräulein Schautz.’

  ‘That may be your opinion,’ said the Major, his fingers twitching on the butt of his revolver, ‘but if you know what’s good for you you won’t express it round here again.’

  ‘I was talking only in terms of political polarization,’ said the Professor nervously. ‘Only a very small minority will be perturbed if Fräulein Schautz dies but the effect of liquidating four small children, and coterminously conceived female siblings at that, would be considerable.’

  ‘Thank you, Professor,’ said the Superintendent hastily. And before the Major could decipher this sinister pronouncement he had ushered the adviser on Terrorist Ideologies out of the room.

  ‘It’s blasted eggheads like him who’ve ruined this country,’ said the Major. ‘To hear him talk you’d think there were two sides to every damned question.’

  ‘Which is exactly the opposite of what we’re getting on the voiceprints,’ said the psychologist. ‘Our analysis seems to indicate that there’s only one spokesman for the People’s Alternative Army.’

  ‘One man?’ said the Superintendent incredulously. ‘Didn’t sound like one man to me. More like half-a-dozen insane ventriloquists.’

  ‘Precisely. Which is why we think you should try to lower the anxiety level of that group. We may well be dealing with a split personality. I’ll play the tapes again and perhaps you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘Must you? Oh well …’

  But the sergeant had switched the recorder on and once again the cluttered drawing-room echoed to the guttural snarls and whimpers of Wilt’s communiqués. In a dark corner Inspector Flint, who had been on the point of dozing off, suddenly sprang to his feet.

  ‘I knew it,’ he shouted triumphantly, ‘I knew it. I just knew it had to be and by God it is!’

  ‘Had to be what?’ asked the Superintendent.

  ‘Henry Fucking Wilt who was behind this foul-up. And there’s the proof on those tapes.’

  ‘Are you sure, Inspector?’

  ‘I’m more than that. I’m positive. I’d know that little sod’s voice if he imitated an Eskimo in labour.’

  ‘I don’t think we have to go that far,’ said the psychological adviser. ‘Are you telling us you know the man we’ve just heard?’

  ‘Know him?’ said Flint. ‘Of course I know the bastard. I ought to after what he did for me. And now he’s having you lot on.’

  ‘I must say I find it hard to believe,’ said the Superintendent. ‘A more inoffensive little man you couldn’t wish to meet.’

  ‘I could,’ said Flint with feeling.

  ‘But he had to be drugged up to the eyeballs before we could get him to go back in,’ said the Major.

  ‘Drugged? What with?’ said the psychologist.

  ‘No idea. Some concoction our medic brews up for blighters with a streak of yellow. Works wonders with the bomb-disposal chappies.’

  ‘Well it wouldn’t appear to have worked quite so well in this case,’ said the psychologist nervously, ‘but it certainly accounts for the remarkable readings we’ve been getting. We could well have a case of chemically induced schizophrenia on our hands.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother too much about the “chemically induced” if I were you,’ said Flint. ‘Wilt’s a nutter anyway. I’ll give a hundred to one he set this thing up from the start.’

  ‘You can’t seriously be suggesting that Mr Wilt deliberately went out of his way to put his own children in the hands of a bunch of international terrorists,’ said the Superintendent. ‘When I discussed the matter with him he seemed genuinely astonished and disturbed.’

  ‘What Wilt seems and what Wilt is are two entirely separate things. I can tell you this much though. Any man who can dress an inflatable doll up in his wife’s clothes and ditch the thing at the bottom of a pile hole under thirty tons of quick-set concrete isn’t –’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ interrupted the sergeant, ‘message just come through from the station that Mrs Wilt has flown the coop.’

  The four men looked at him in despair.

  ‘She’s what?’ said the Superintendent.

  ‘Escaped from custody, sir. Nobody seems to know where she is.’

  ‘It fits,’ said Flint, ‘it fits and no mistake.’

  ‘Fits? What fits for Chrissake?’ asked the Superintendent, who was beginning to feel distinctly peculiar himself.

  ‘The pattern, sir. Next thing we’ll hear is that she was last seen on a motor cruiser going down the river, only she won’t be.’

  The Superintendent stared at him dementedly. ‘And you call that a pattern? Oh, my God.’

  ‘Well, it’s the sort of thing Wilt would come up with, believe me. That little bugger can think up more ways of taking a perfectly sane and sensible situation and turning it into a raving nightmare than any villain I’ve ever met.’

  ‘But there’s got to be some motive for his actions.’

  Flint laughed abruptly. ‘Motive? With Henry Wilt? Not on your life. You can think of a thousand good motives, ten thousand if you like, for what he does but at the end of the day he’ll come up with the one explanation you never even dreamt of. Wilt’s the nearest thing to Ernie you could wish to meet.’

  ‘Ernie?’ said the Superintendent. ‘Who the hell is Ernie?’

  ‘That ruddy computer they use for the premium bonds, sir. You know, the one that picks numbers out at random. Well, Wilt’s a random man, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to,’ said the Superintendent. ‘I thought all I had to cope with was a nice simple ordinary siege, instead of which this thing is developing into a madhouse.’

  ‘While we’re on that subject,’ said the psychologist, ‘I really do think it’s very important to resume communications with the people in the top flat. Whoever is up there and holding the Schautz woman is in a highly disturbed state. She could be in grave danger.’

  ‘No “could” about it,’ said Flint. ‘Is.’

  ‘All right. I suppose we’ll have to risk it,’ said the Superintendent. ‘Give the go-ahead for the helicopter to move in with a field telephone, sergeant.’

  ‘Any orders regarding Mrs Wilt, sir?’

  ‘You’d better ask the Inspector here. He seems to be the expert on the Wilt family. What sort of woman is Mrs Wilt? And don’t say she’s a random one.’

  ‘I wouldn’t really like to say,’ said Flint, ‘except that she’s a very powerful woman.’

  ‘What do you think she plans to do then? She obviously didn’t leave the police station without some aim in mind.’

  ‘Well, knowing Wilt as well as I do, sir, I have to admit I’ve grave doubts about her having a mind at all. Any normal woman would have been in a nut-house years ago living with a man like that.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting she’s some sort of psychop
ath as well?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Flint, ‘all I’m saying is that she can’t have any nerves worth speaking about.’

  ‘That’s a big help. So we’ve got a bunch of terrorists armed to the teeth, some sort of nutter in the shape of Wilt and a woman on the loose with a hide like a rhino. Put that little lot together and we’ve got ourselves one hell of a combination. All right, sergeant, put out an alert for Mrs Wilt and see that they take her into custody before anyone else gets hurt.’

  The Superintendent crossed to the window and looked at the Wilts’ house. Under the glare of the floodlights it stood out against the night sky like a monument erected to commemorate the stolidity and unswerving devotion to boredom of English middle-class life. Even the Major was moved to comment.

  ‘Sort of suburban son-et-lumière, what?’ he murmured.

  ‘Lumière perhaps,’ said the Superintendent, ‘but at least we’re spared the son.’

  But not for long. From somewhere seemingly close at hand there came a series of terrible wails. The Wilt quads were giving tongue.

  16

  A mile away Eva Wilt moved towards her home with a fixed resolve that was wholly at variance with her appearance. The few people who noticed her as she bustled down narrow streets saw only an ordinary housewife in a hurry to fix her husband’s supper and put the children to bed. But beneath her homely look Eva Wilt had changed. She had shed her cheerful silliness and her borrowed opinions and had only one thought in mind. She was going home and no one was going to stop her. What she would do when she got there she had no idea, and in a vague way she was aware that home was not simply a place. It was also what she was, the wife of Henry Wilt and mother of the quads, a working woman descended from a line of working women who had scrubbed floors, cooked meals and held families together in spite of illnesses and deaths and the vagaries of men. It wasn’t a clearly defined thought but it was there driving her forward almost by instinct. But with instinct there came thought.