by Tom Sharpe
‘Well, he doesn’t seem to think much of our methods,’ he said finally. ‘And I don’t much like this bit about low level of intelligence of average policeman.’
‘What about Point Two D?’ said the Inspector. ‘Increasing use of sophisticated methods such as diversionary tactics by criminals. Diversionary tactics. Doesn’t that suggest anything to you?’
‘You mean he’s trying to divert our attention away from the real crime to something else?’
Inspector Flint nodded. ‘What I mean is this. I wouldn’t mind betting that when we do get down to the bottom of that fucking pile we’re going to find an inflatable doll dressed up in Mrs Wilt’s clothes and with a vagina. That’s what I think.’
‘But that’s insane.’
‘Insane? It’s fucking diabolical,’ said the Inspector. ‘He’s sitting in there like a goddam dummy giving as good as he gets because he knows he’s got us chasing a red herring.’
Sergeant Yates sat down mystified. ‘But why? Why draw attention to the murder in the first place? Why didn’t he just lie low and act normally?’
‘What, and report Mrs Wilt missing? You’re forgetting the Pringsheims. A wife goes missing, so what? Two of her friends go missing and leave their house in a hell of a mess and covered with bloodstains. That needs explaining, that does. So he puts out a false trail …’
‘But that still doesn’t help him,’ objected the Sergeant. ‘We dig up a plastic doll. Doesn’t mean we’re going to halt the investigation.’
‘Maybe not but it gives him a week while the other bodies disintegrate.’
‘You think he used an acid bath like Haigh?’ asked the Sergeant. ‘That’s horrible.’
‘Of course it’s horrible. You think murder’s nice or something? Anyway the only reason they got Haigh was that stupid bugger told them where to look for the sludge. If he’d kept his trap shut for another week they wouldn’t have found anything. The whole lot would have been washed away. Besides I don’t know what Wilt’s used. All I do know is he’s an intellectual, a clever sod and he thinks he’s got it wrapped up. First we take him in for questioning, maybe even get him remanded and when we’ve done that, we go and dig up a plastic inflatable doll. We’re going to look right Charlies going into court with a plastic doll as evidence of murder. We’ll be the laughing stock of the world. So the case gets thrown out of court and what happens when we pick him up a second time for questioning on the real murders? We’d have the Civil Liberties brigade sinking their teeth into our throats like bleeding vampire bats.’
‘I suppose that explains why he doesn’t start shouting for a lawyer,’ said Yates.
‘Of course it does. What does he want with a lawyer now? But pull him in a second time and he’ll have lawyers falling over themselves to help him. They’ll be squawking about police brutality and victimization. You won’t be able to hear yourself speak. His bloody lawyers will have a field day. First plastic dolls and then no bodies at all. He’ll get clean away.’
‘Anyone who can think that little lot up must be a madman,’ said the Sergeant.
‘Or a fucking genius,’ said Flint bitterly. ‘Christ what a case.’ He stubbed out a cigarette resentfully.
‘What do you want me to do? Have another go at him?’
‘No, I’ll do that. You go up to the Tech and chivvy his boss there into saying what he really thinks of Wilt. Get any little bit of dirt on the blighter you can. There’s got to be something in his past we can use.’
He went down the corridor and into the Interview Room. Wilt was sitting at the table making notes on the back of a statement form. Now that he was beginning to feel, if not at home in the Police Station, at least more at ease with his surroundings, his mind had turned to the problem of Eva’s disappearance. He had to admit that he had been worried by the bloodstains in the Pringsheims’ bathroom. To while away the time he had tried to formulate his thoughts on paper and he was still at it when Inspector Flint came into the room and banged the door.
‘Right, so you’re a clever fellow, Wilt,’ he said, sitting down and pulling the paper towards him. ‘You can read and write and you’ve got a nice logical and inventive mind so let’s just see what you’ve written here. Who’s Ethel?’
‘Eva’s sister,’ said Wilt. ‘She’s married to a market gardener in Luton. Eva sometimes goes over there for a week.’
‘And “Blood in the bath”?’
‘Just wondering how it got there.’
‘And “Evidence of hurried departure”?’
‘I was simply putting down my thoughts about the state of the Pringsheims’ house,’ said Wilt.
‘You’re trying to be helpful?’
‘I’m here helping you with your enquiries. That’s the official term isn’t it?’
‘It may be the official term, Wilt. But in this case it doesn’t correspond with the facts.’
‘I don’t suppose it does very often,’ said Wilt. ‘It’s one of those expressions that covers a multitude of sins.’
‘And crimes.’
‘It also happens to ruin a man’s reputation,’ said Wilt. ‘I hope you realize what you’re doing to mine by holding me here like this. It’s bad enough knowing I’m going to spend the rest of my life being pointed out as the man who dressed a plastic doll with a cunt up in his wife’s clothes and dropped it down a pile hole without everyone thinking I’m a bloody murderer as well.’
‘Where you’re going to spend the rest of your life nobody is going to care what you did with that plastic doll,’ said the Inspector.
Wilt seized on the admission.
‘Ah, so you’ve found it at last,’ he said eagerly. ‘That’s fine. So now I’m free to go.’
‘Sit down and shut up,’ snarled the Inspector. ‘You’re not going anywhere and when you do it will be in a large black van. I haven’t finished with you yet. In fact I’m only just beginning.’
‘Here we go again,’ said Wilt. ‘I just knew you’d want to start at the beginning again. You fellows have primary causes on the brain. Cause and effect, cause and effect. Which came first, the chicken or the egg, protoplasm or demiurge? I suppose this time it’s going to be what Eva said when we were dressing to go to the party.’
‘This time,’ said the Inspector, ‘I want you to tell me precisely why you stuck that damned doll down that hole.’
‘Now that is an interesting question,’ said Wilt, and stopped. It didn’t seem a good idea to try to explain to Inspector Flint in the present circumstances just what he had had in mind when he dropped the doll down the shaft. The Inspector didn’t look the sort of person who would understand at all readily that a husband could have fantasies of murdering his wife without actually putting them into effect. It would be better to wait for Eva to put in an appearance in the flesh before venturing into that uncharted territory of the wholly irrational. With Eva present Flint might sympathize with him. Without her he most certainly wouldn’t.
‘Let’s just say I wanted to get rid of the beastly thing,’ he said.
‘Let’s not say anything of the sort,’ said Flint. ‘Let’s just say you had an ulterior motive for putting it there.’
Wilt nodded. ‘I’ll go along with that,’ he said.
Inspector Flint nodded encouragingly. ‘I thought you might. Well, what was it?’
Wilt considered his words carefully. He was getting into deep waters.
‘Let’s just say it was by way of being a rehearsal.’
‘A rehearsal? What sort of rehearsal?’
Wilt thought for a moment.
‘Interesting word “rehearsal”,’ he said. ‘It comes from the old French, rehercer, meaning …’
‘To hell with where it comes from,’ said the Inspector, ‘I want to know where it ends up.’
‘Sounds a bit like a funeral too when you come to think of it,’ said Wilt, continuing his campaign of semantic attrition.
Inspector Flint hurled himself into the trap. ‘Funeral? Whose funeral?’
/> ‘Anyone’s,’ said Wilt blithely. ‘Hearse, rehearse. You could say that’s what happens when you exhume a body. You rehearse it though I don’t suppose you fellows use hearses.’
‘For God’s sake,’ shouted the Inspector. ‘Can’t you ever stick to the point? You said you were rehearsing something and I want to know what that something was.’
‘An idea, a mere idea,’ said Wilt, ‘one of those ephemera of mental fancy that flit like butterflies across the summer landscape of the mind blown by the breezes of association that come like sudden showers … I rather like that.’
‘I don’t,’ said the Inspector, looking at him bitterly. ‘What I want to know is what you were rehearsing. That’s what I’d like to know.’
‘I’ve told you. An idea.’
‘What sort of idea?’
‘Just an idea,’ said Wilt. ‘A mere …’
‘So help me God, Wilt,’ shouted the Inspector, ‘if you start on these fucking butterflies again I’ll break the unbroken habit of a lifetime and wring your bloody neck.’
‘I wasn’t going to mention butterflies this time,’ said Wilt reproachfully, ‘I was going to say that I had this idea for a book …’
‘A book?’ snarled Inspector Flint. ‘What sort of book? A book of poetry or a crime story?’
‘A crime story,’ said Wilt, grateful for the suggestion.
‘I see,’ said the Inspector. ‘So you were going to write a thriller. Well now, just let me guess the outline of the plot. There’s this lecturer at the Tech and he has this wife he hates and he decides to murder her …’
‘Go on,’ said Wilt, ‘you’re doing very well so far.’
‘I thought I might be,’ said Flint delightedly. ‘Well, this lecturer thinks he’s a clever fellow who can hoodwink the police. He doesn’t think much of the police. So he dumps a plastic doll down a hole that’s going to be filled with concrete in the hope that the police will waste their time digging it out and in the meantime he’s buried his wife somewhere else. By the way, where did you bury Mrs Wilt, Henry? Let’s get this over once and for all. Where did you put her? Just tell me that. You’ll feel better when it’s out.’
‘I didn’t put her anywhere. If I’ve told you that once I’ve told you a thousand times. How many more times have I got to tell you I don’t know where she is.’
‘I’ll say this for you, Wilt,’ said the Inspector, when he could bring himself to speak. ‘I’ve known some cool customers in my time but I have to take my hat off to you. You’re the coolest bastard it’s ever been my unfortunate experience to come across.’
Wilt shook his head. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I feel sorry for you, Inspector, I really do. You can’t recognize the truth when it’s staring you in the face.’
Inspector Flint got up and left the room. ‘You there,’ he said to the first detective he could find. ‘Go into that Interview Room and ask that bastard questions and don’t stop till I tell you.’
‘What sort of questions?’
‘Any sort. Just any. Keep asking him why he stuffed an inflatable plastic doll down a pile hole. That’s all. Just ask it over and over again. I’m going to break that sod.’
He went down to his office and slumped into his chair and tried to think.
13
At the Tech Sergeant Yates sat in Mr Morris’s office. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you again,’ he said, ‘but we need some more details on this fellow Wilt.’
The Head of Liberal Studies looked up with a haggard expression from the timetable. He had been having a desperate struggle trying to find someone to take Bricklayers Four. Price wouldn’t do because he had Mechanics Two and Williams wouldn’t anyway. He had already gone home the day before with a nervous stomach and was threatening to repeat the performance if anyone so much as mentioned Bricklayers Four to him again. That left Mr Morris himself and he was prepared to be disturbed by Sergeant Yates for as long as he liked if it meant he didn’t have to take those bloody bricklayers.
‘Anything to help,’ he said, with an affability that was in curious contrast to the haunted look in his eyes. ‘What details would you like to know?’
‘Just a general impression of the man, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Was there anything unusual about him?’
‘Unusual?’ Mr Morris thought for a moment. Apart from a preparedness to teach the most awful Day Release Classes year in and year out without complaint he could think of nothing unusual about Wilt. ‘I suppose you could call what amounted to a phobic reaction to The Lord of the Flies a bit unusual but then I’ve never much cared for …’
‘If you’d just wait a moment, sir,’ said the Sergeant, busying himself with his notebook. ‘You did say “phobic reaction” didn’t you?’
‘Well what I meant was …’
‘To flies, sir?’
‘To The Lord of the Flies. It’s a book,’ said Mr Morris, now uncertain that he had been wise to mention the fact. Policemen were not noticeably sensitive to those niceties of literary taste that constituted his own definition of intelligence. ‘I do hope I haven’t said the wrong thing.’
‘Not at all, sir. It’s these little details that help us to build up a picture of the criminal’s mind.’
Mr Morris sighed. ‘I’m sure I never thought when Mr Wilt came to us from the University that he would turn out like this.’
‘Quite so, sir. Now did Mr Wilt ever say anything disparaging about his wife?’
‘Disparaging? Dear me no. Mind you he didn’t have to. Eva spoke for herself.’ He looked miserably out of the window at the pile-boring machine.
‘Then in your opinion Mrs Wilt was not a very likeable woman?’
Mr Morris shook his head. ‘She was a ghastly woman,’ he said.
Sergeant Yates licked the end of his ballpen.
‘You did say “ghastly” sir?’
‘I’m afraid so. I once had her in an Evening Class for Elementary Drama.’
‘Elementary?’ said the Sergeant, and wrote it down.
‘Yes, though elemental would have been more appropriate in Mrs Wilt’s case. She threw herself into the parts rather too vigorously to be wholly convincing. Her Desdemona to my Othello is something I am never likely to forget.’
‘An impetuous woman, would you say?’
‘Let me put it this way,’ said Mr Morris, ‘had Shakespeare written the play as Mrs Wilt interpreted it, Othello would have been the one to be strangled.’
‘I see, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Then I take it she didn’t like black men.’
‘I have no idea what she thought about the racial issue,’ said Mr Morris, ‘I am talking of her physical strength.’
‘A powerful woman, sir?’
‘Very,’ said Mr Morris with feeling.
Sergeant Yates looked puzzled. ‘It seems strange a woman like that allowing herself to be murdered by Mr Wilt without putting up more of a struggle,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘It seems incredible to me,’ Mr Morris agreed, ‘and what is more it indicates a degree of fanatical courage in Henry that his behaviour in this department never led me to suspect. I can only suppose he was insane at the time.’
Sergeant Yates seized on the point. ‘Then it is your considered opinion that he was not in his right mind when he killed his wife?’
‘Right mind? I can think of nothing rightminded about killing your wife and dumping her body …’
‘I meant sir,’ said the Sergeant, ‘that you think Mr Wilt is a lunatic.’
Mr Morris hesitated. There were a good many members of his department whom he would have classified as mentally unbalanced but he hardly liked to advertise the fact. On the other hand it might help poor Wilt.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ he said finally, for at heart he was a kindly man. ‘Quite mad. Between ourselves, Sergeant, anyone who is prepared to teach the sort of bloody-minded young thugs we get can’t be entirely sane. And only last week Wilt got into an altercation with one of the Printers and was punched in the face. I th
ink that may have had something to do with his subsequent behaviour. I trust you will treat what I say in the strictest confidence. I wouldn’t want …’
‘Quite so, sir,’ said Sergeant Yates. ‘Well, I needn’t detain you any longer.’
He returned to the Police Station and reported his findings to Inspector Flint.
‘Nutty as a fruitcake,’ he announced. ‘That’s his opinion. He’s quite positive about it.’
‘In that case he had no right to employ the sod,’ said Flint. ‘He should have sacked the brute.’
‘Sacked him? From the Tech? You know they can’t sack teachers. You’ve got to do something really drastic before they give you the boot.’
‘Like murdering three people, I suppose. Well as far as I’m concerned they can have the little bastard back.’
‘You mean he’s still holding out?’
‘Holding out? He’s counterattacking. He’s reduced me to a nervous wreck and now Bolton says he wants to be relieved. Can’t stand the strain any longer.’
Sergeant Yates scratched his head. ‘Beats me how he does it,’ he said. ‘Anyone would think he was innocent. I wonder when he’ll start asking for a lawyer.’
‘Never,’ said Flint. ‘What does he need a lawyer for? If I had a lawyer in there handing out advice I’d have got the truth out of Wilt hours ago.’
*
As night fell over Eel Stretch the wind increased to Gale Force Eight. Rain hammered on the cabin roof, waves slapped against the hull and the cabin cruiser, listing to starboard, settled more firmly into the mud. Inside the cabin the air was thick with smoke and bad feelings. Gaskell had opened a bottle of vodka and was getting drunk. To pass the time they played Scrabble.
‘My idea of hell,’ said Gaskell, ‘is to be huis-closed with a couple of dykes.’
‘What’s a dyke?’ said Eva.
Gaskell stared at her. ‘You don’t know?’
‘I know the sort they have in Holland …’
‘Yoga bear,’ said Gaskell, ‘you are the naïvest. A dyke is—’
‘Forget it, G,’ said Sally. ‘Whose turn to play?’
‘It’s mine,’ said Eva. ‘I … M … P spells Imp.’