by Tom Sharpe
‘There you are,’ said Eva. ‘We’re not breaking the law by holding a raffle for charity.’
‘I’d check it out if I were you, and you can check me out too,’ said Wilt. ‘I’ve had enough trouble with my private parts these last two days without wearing that Francis Drake outfit you rigged me out in last Christmas.’
‘You looked very nice in it. Even Mr Persner said you deserved a prize.’
‘For wearing your grandmother’s camiknickers stuffed with straw, I daresay I did, but I certainly didn’t feel nice. In any case, I’ve got my prisoner to teach that night.’
‘You could cancel that for once,’ said Eva.
‘What, just before the exams? Certainly not,’ said Wilt. ‘You invite a mob of costumed fools to invade the house for the good of charity without consulting me, you mustn’t expect me to stop my charitable work.’
‘In that case, you’ll be going out tonight then?’ said Eva. ‘Today’s Friday and you’ve got to keep up the good work, haven’t you?’
‘Good Lord,’ said Wilt, who’d lost track of the days. It was Friday and he had forgotten to prepare anything for the lecture to his class at Baconheath. Spurred on by Eva’s sarcasm and the knowledge that he’d end up the following Friday in straw-filled camiknickers or even as Puss in Boots in a black leotard which fitted far too tightly, Wilt spent the afternoon working over some old notes on British Culture and Institutions. They were entitled ‘The Need For Deference, Paternalism and The Class Structure’ and were designed to be provocative.
By six o’clock he had finished his supper, and half an hour later was driving out along the fen roads towards the airbase rather faster then usual. His penis was playing up again and it had only been by strapping it to his lower stomach with a long bandage and a cricket box that he’d been able to make himself comfortable and not provocatively indecent.
Behind him, the two monitoring vans followed his progress and Inspector Hodge was jubilant. ‘I knew it. I knew he’d have to move,’ he told Sergeant Runk as they listened to the signals coming from the Escort. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’
‘If he’s as smart as you say he is, it could be up the garden path,’ said Runk.
But Hodge was consulting the map. The coast lay ahead. Apart from that, there were only a few villages, the bleak flatness of the fens and … ‘Any moment he’ll switch west,’ he predicted. His hopes had turned to certainty. Wilt was heading for the US Airbase at Baconheath and the American connection was complete.
*
In Ipford prison, Inspector Flint stared into the Bull’s face. ‘How many years have you still to do?’ he asked. ‘Twelve?’
‘Not with remission,’ said the Bull. ‘Only eight. I’ve got good behaviour.’
‘Had,’ said Flint. ‘You lost that when you knocked Mac off.’
‘Knocked Mac off? I never did. That’s a bloody lie. I never touched him. He –’
‘That’s not what the Bear says,’ interrupted Flint, and opened a file. ‘He says you’d been saving up those sleeping pills so you could murder Mac and take over from him. Want to read his statement? It’s all down in black and white and nicely signed. Here, take a dekko.’
He pushed the paper across the table but the Bull was on his feet. ‘You can’t pull that fucking one on me,’ he shouted and was promptly pushed back into his chair by the Chief Warder.
‘Can,’ said Flint, leaning forward and staring into the Bull’s frightened eyes. ‘You wanted to take over from McCullum, didn’t you? Jealous of him, weren’t you? Got greedy. Thought you’d grab a nice little operation run from inside and you’d come out in eight years with a pension as long as your arm all safely stashed away by your widow.’
‘Widow?’ The Bull’s face was ashen now. ‘What you mean, widow?’
Flint smiled. ‘Just as I say. Widow. Because you aren’t ever going to get out now. Eight years back to twelve and a life stretch for murdering Mac adds up to twenty-seven by my reckoning, and for all those twenty-seven years, you’re going to be doing solitary for your own protection. I can’t see you making it, can you?’
The Bull stared at him pathetically. ‘You’re setting me up.’
‘I don’t want to hear your defence,’ said Flint, and got to his feet. ‘Save the blarney for the court. Maybe you’ll get some nice judge to believe you. Especially with your record. Oh, and I shouldn’t count on the missus to help. She’s been shacked up with Joe Slavey for six months, or didn’t you know?’
He moved towards the door, but the Bull had broken. ‘I didn’t do it, I swear to God I didn’t, Mr Flint. Mac was like a brother to me. I’d never …’
Flint put the boot in again. ‘Plead insanity is my advice,’ he said. ‘You’ll be better off in Broadmoor. Buggered if I’d want Brady or the Ripper as a neighbour for the rest of my natural.’ For a moment he paused by the door. ‘Let me know if he wants to make a statement,’ he said to the Chief Warder. ‘I mean, I suppose he could help …’
There was no need to go on. Even the Bull had got the message. ‘What do you want to know?’
It was Flint’s turn to think. Take the pressure off too quickly and all he’d get would be garbage. On the other hand, strike while the iron was hot. ‘The lot,’ he said. ‘How the operations work. Who does what. What the links are. You name it, I want it. Every fucking thing!’
The Bull swallowed. ‘I don’t know everything,’ he said, looking unhappily at the Chief Warder.
‘Don’t mind me,’ said Mr Blaggs. ‘I’m not here. Just part of the furniture.’
‘Start with how Mac got himself junk,’ said Flint. It was best to begin with something he already knew. The Bull told him and Flint wrote it all down with a growing sense of satisfaction. He hadn’t known about Prison Officer Lane being bent.
‘You’ll get me slit for this,’ said the Bull when he’d finished with Mrs Jardin, the Prison Visitor.
‘I don’t know why,’ said Flint. ‘Mr Blaggs here isn’t going to say who told him and it doesn’t necessarily have to come out at your trial.’
‘Christ,’ said the Bull. ‘You’re not still going on with that, are you?’
‘You tell me,’ said Flint, maintaining the pressure. By the time he left the prison three hours later, Inspector Flint was almost a happy man. True, the Bull hadn’t told him everything, but then he hadn’t expected him to. In all likelihood, the fool didn’t know much more, but he’d given Flint enough names to be going on with. Best of all, he’d grassed too far to back out, even if the threat of a murder charge lost its effect. The Bull would indeed get himself sliced by some other prisoner if the news ever got out. And the Bear was going to be Flint’s next target.
‘Being a copper’s a dirty business sometimes,’ he thought as he drove back to the police station. But drugs and violence were dirtier still. Flint went up to his office and began to check out some names.
Ted Lingon’s name rang a bell – two bells, when he put his lists together. And Lingon ran a garage. Promising. But who was Annie Mosgrave?
13
‘Who?’ said Major Glaushof.
‘Some guy who teaches English or something evenings. Name of Wilt,’ said the Duty Lieutenant. ‘H. Wilt.’
‘I’ll be right over,’ said Glaushof. He put the phone down and went through to his wife.
‘Don’t wait up, honey,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a problem.’
‘Me too,’ said Mrs Glaushof, and settled back to watch Dallas on BBC. It was kind of reassuring to know Texas was still there and it wasn’t damp and raining all the time and goddam cold like Baconheath, and people still thought big and did big things. So she shouldn’t have married an Airbase Security Officer with a thing going for German Shepherds. And to think he’d seemed so romantic when she’d met him back from Iran. Some security there. She should have known.
Outside, Glaushof climbed into his jeep with the three dogs and drove off between the houses towards the gates to Civilian Quarters. A group of men were s
tanding well back from Wilt’s Escort in the parking lot. Glaushof deliberately skidded the jeep to a stop and got out.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘A bomb?’
‘Jesus, I don’t know,’ said the Lieutenant, who was listening to a receiver. ‘Could be anything.’
‘Like he’s left his CB on,’ a Corporal explained, ‘only there’s two of them and they’re bleeping.’
‘Know any Brit who has two CBs running continuously the same time?’ asked the Lieutenant. ‘No way, and the frequency’s wrong. Way too high.’
‘So it could be a bomb,’ said Glaushof. ‘Why the fuck did you let it in?’
In the darkness and under threat of being blown to bits by whatever diabolical device the car concealed, Glaushof edged away. The little group followed him.
‘Guy comes every Friday, gives his lecture, has coffee and goes on home no problem,’ said the Lieutenant.
‘So you let him drive right through with that lot buzzing and you don’t stop him,’ said Glaushof. ‘We could have a Beirut bomb blast on our hands.’
‘We didn’t pick up the bleep till later.’
‘Too later,’ said Glaushof, ‘I’m not taking any chances. I want the sand trucks brought up but fast. We’re going to seal that car. Move.’
‘It ain’t no bomb,’ said the Corporal, ‘not sending like that. With a bomb the signals would be coming in.’
‘Whatever,’ said Glaushof, ‘it’s a breach of security and it’s going to be sealed.’
‘If you say so, Major,’ said the Corporal and disappeared across the parking lot. For a moment, Glaushof hesitated and considered what other action he should take. At least he’d acted promptly to protect the base and his own career. As Base Security Officer, he’d always been against these foreign lecturers coming in with their subversive talks. He’d already discovered a geographer who’d sneaked a whole lot of shit about the dangers to bird-life from noise pollution and kerosene into his lectures on the development of the English landscape. Glaushof had had him busted as a member of Greenpeace. A car with radios transmitting continuously suggested something much more serious. And something much more serious could be just what he needed.
Glaushof ran through a mental checklist of enemies of the Free World: terrorists, Russian spies, subversives, women from Greenham Common … whatever. It didn’t matter. The key thing was that Base Intelligence had fouled things up and it was up to him to rub their faces in the shit. Glaushof smiled to himself at the prospect. If there was one man he detested, it was the Intelligence Officer. Nobody heard of Glaushof, but Colonel Urwin with his line to the Pentagon and his wife in with the Base Commander’s so they were invited to play Bridge Saturday nights, oh sure, he was a big noise. And a Yale man. Screw him. Glaushof intended to. ‘This guy … what did you say his name is?’ he asked the Lieutenant.
‘Wilt,’ said the Lieutenant.
‘Where are you holding him?’
‘Not holding him anyplace,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘Called you first thing we picked up the signals.’
‘So where is he?’
‘I guess he’s over lecturing someplace,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘His details are in the guardhouse. Schedule and all.’
They hurried across the parking lot to the gates to the civilian quarters and Glaushof studied the entry in Wilt’s file. It was brief and uninformative. ‘Lecture Hall 9,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘You want me to have him picked up?’
‘No,’ said Glaushof, ‘not yet. Just see no one gets out, is all.’
‘No way he can except over the new fence,’ said the Lieutenant, ‘and I don’t see him getting far. I’ve switched the current on.’
‘Fine,’ said Glaushof. ‘So he comes out you stop him.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the Lieutenant, and went out to check the guards, while Glaushof picked up the phone and called the Security Patrol. ‘I want Lecture Hall 9 surrounded,’ he said, ‘but nobody to move till I come.’
He sat on staring distractedly at the centrepage of Playgirl featuring a male nude which had been pinned to the wall. If this bastard Wilt could be persuaded to talk, Glaushof’s career would be made. So how to get him in the right frame of mind? First of all, he had to know what was in that car. He was still puzzling over tactics when the Lieutenant coughed discreetly behind him. Glaushof reacted violently. He didn’t like the implications of that cough. ‘Did you pin this up?’ he shouted at the Lieutenant.
‘Negative,’ said the Lieutenant, who disliked the question almost as much as Glaushof had hated the cough. ‘No, sir, I did not. That’s Captain Clodiak.’
‘That’s Captain Clodiak?’ said Glaushof, turning back to examine the picture again. ‘I knew she … he … You’ve got to be kidding, Lieutenant. That’s not the Captain Clodiak I know.’
‘She put it there, sir. She likes that sort of thing.’
‘Yes, well I guess she’s a pretty feisty woman,’ said Glaushof to avoid the accusation that he was discriminatory. In career prospect terms, it was almost as dangerous as being called a faggot. Not almost; it was worse.
‘I happen to be Church of God,’ said the Lieutenant, ‘and that is irreligious according to my denomination.’
But Glaushof wasn’t to be drawn into a discussion. ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘Some other time, huh?’ He went out and back to the parking lot where the Corporal, now accompanied by a Major and several men from the Demolition and Excavation section, had surrounded Wilt’s car with four gigantic dumpers filled with sand, sweeping aside a dozen other vehicles in the process. As he approached, Glaushof was blinded by two searchlights which had suddenly been switched on. ‘Douse those mothers,’ he shouted, stumbling about in the glare. ‘You want them to know in Moscow what we’re doing?’ In the darkness that followed this pronouncement, Glaushof banged into the wheelhub of one of the dumptrucks.
‘Okay, so I go in without lights,’ said the Corporal. ‘No problem. You think it’s a bomb, I don’t. Bombs don’t transmit CB.’ And before Glaushof could remind him to call him ‘Sir’ in future, the Corporal had walked across to the car.
*
‘Mr Wilt,’ said Mrs Ofrey, ‘would you like to elucidate on the question of the rôle of women in British society with particular regard to the part played in professional life by the Right Honorable Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher and …’
Wilt stared at her and wondered why Mrs Ofrey always read her questions from a card and why they seldom had anything to do with what he had been talking about. She must spend the rest of the week thinking them up. And the questions always had to do with the Queen and Mrs Thatcher, presumably because Mrs Ofrey had once dined at Woburn Abbey with the Duke and Duchess of Bedford and their hospitality had affected her deeply. But at least this evening he was giving her his undivided attention.
From the moment he’d entered the lecture room, he’d been having problems. The bandage he had wound round his loins had come undone on the drive over, and before he could do anything about it one end had begun to worm its way down his right trouser leg. To make matters worse, Captain Clodiak had come late and had seated herself in front of him with her legs crossed, and had promptly forced Wilt to press himself against the lectern to quell yet another erection or, at least, hide the event from his audience. And by concentrating on Mrs Ofrey, he had so far managed to avoid a second glance at Captain Clodiak.
But there were disadvantages in concentrating so intently on Mrs Ofrey too. Even though she wore enough curiously patterned knitwear to have subsidized several crofters in Western Scotland, and her few charms were sufficiently muted by wool to make some sort of antidote to the terrifying chic of Captain Clodiak – Wilt had already noted the Captain’s blouse and what he took to be a combat skirt in shantung silk – Mrs Ofrey was still a woman. In any case, she evidently liked to be socially exclusive and sat by herself to the left of the rest of the class, and by the time he’d got halfway through his lecture, he’d become positively wry-necked in his regard for her. Wilt had swi
tched his attention to an acned clerk from the PX stores whose other courses were karate and aerobics and whose interest in British Culture was limited to unravelling the mysteries of cricket. That hadn’t worked too well either, and after ten minutes of almost constant eye-contact and Wilt’s deprecating observations on the effect of women’s suffrage on the voting patterns in elections since 1928, the man had begun to shift awkwardly in his chair and Wilt had suddenly realized the fellow thought he was being propositioned. Not wanting to be beaten to pulp by a karate expert, he had tried alternating between Mrs Ofrey and the wall behind the rest of the class, but each time it seemed that Captain Clodiak was smiling more significantly. Wilt had clung to the lectern in the hope that he’d manage to get through the hour without ejaculating into his trousers. He was so worried about this that he hardly noticed that Mrs Ofrey had finished her question. ‘Would you say that view was correct?’ she said by way of a prompt.
‘Well … er … yes,’ said Wilt, who couldn’t recall what the question was anyway. Something to do with the Monarchy being a matriarchy. ‘Yes, I suppose in a general way I’d go along with you,’ he said, wedging himself more firmly against the lectern. ‘On the other hand, just because a country has a female ruler, I don’t think we can assume it’s not male-dominated. After all, we had Queen Boadicea in Pre-Roman Britain and I wouldn’t have thought there was an awful lot of Women’s Lib about then, would you?’
‘I wasn’t asking about the feminist movement,’ said Mrs Ofrey, with a nasty inflection that suggested she was a pre-Eisenhower American, ‘my question was directed to the matriarchal nature of the Monarchy.’
‘Quite,’ said Wilt, fighting for time. Something desperate seemed to have happened to the cricket box. He’d lost touch with the thing. ‘Though just because we’ve had a number of Queens … well, I suppose we’ve had almost as many as we’ve had kings … must have had more, come to think of it? Is that right? I mean, each king had to have a queen …’