He was distracted from these considerations by one last desperate appeal from Eva to her Henry to acknowledge her as his devoted wife and mother of his lovely daughters, and Wilt’s refusal to do anything so utterly insane, as well as his complaint that he was sick and didn’t want to be harassed by strange women he’d never seen before. The effect of this statement was that the weeping Eva was helped from the ward. Her sobs could be heard from the corridor as she went in search of a doctor.
Inspector Flint seized the opportunity to go back to the bedside and bend over Wilt. ‘You’re a cunning bugger, Henry,’ he whispered. ‘Cunning as hell but you don’t fool me. I saw the nasty little glint in your eye when your missis took off. I’ve known you too long to be fooled by your tricks. You just remember that.’
For a moment he thought Wilt was about to smile but the gormless expression returned and Wilt closed his eyes. Flint gave up. He wasn’t going to get anything useful out of him in these awful circumstances. And the circumstances were getting more awful by the minute. The woman with the pulsating skull was having some sort of fit and one of the shaven multi-sexes was protesting to a nurse that he, she or it had already been given a forty-five-minutes oil enema and definitely didn’t need another. The whole thing was a bloody nightmare.
In Wilma Sheriff Stallard shared Inspector Flint’s horror though for very different reasons. It wasn’t so much that Maybelle was refusing to give him information about what had been going on at the Starfighter Mansion. She was giving far too much and he’d have preferred not to hear it.
‘They asked you what?’ he gasped when she told him the quads had asked her how many times a week Wally Immelmann fucked her and how many other gays there were in Wilma. ‘The filthy bitches. And they used the words ‘fucked’ and ‘asswise’?’
Maybelle nodded. ‘Yessir, they sure did.’
‘What in God’s name did they ask that for? It’s crazy. It’s not possible.’
‘Said they were doing a project on exploitation of coloured folk in the South for the school they go to back in Britain and they had to fill in a questionnaire,’ Maybelle said.
‘And what did you tell them, for Chrissake?’
‘I’d rather not say, Sheriff. Nothing more than the truth.’
The Sheriff shuddered. If the truth was anything like what he’d heard at a thousand decibels up near the lake, Wally Immelmann would have to get the hell out of Wilma but fast. Either that or be lucky to die in the Coronary Unit.
Chapter 30
Two days later Wilt was sitting in a chair explaining what it felt like not to know who he was to a doctor who seemed to find Wilt’s symptoms quite common and of rather less interest than Wilt himself.
‘And you really don’t know who you are? Are you quite sure about that?’ the psychiatrist asked for the fifth time. ‘Are you absolutely certain?’
Wilt considered the question very carefully. It wasn’t so much the question as the way it was put that concerned him. It had a familiar tone to it. In his years of teaching confirmed and convincing liars he had used that tone himself too often not to recognise what it meant. Wilt changed his tactics.
‘Do you know who you are?’ he asked.
‘As a matter of fact, I do. My name is Dr Dedge.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Wilt. ‘That is your identity. But do you know who you are?’
Dr Dedge regarded him with a new interest. Patients who distinguished between personal identity and who they were came into a rather different category from his usual ones. On the other hand, the fact that Wilt’s notes mentioned ‘Police inquiries following head injuries’ still inclined him to believe he was feigning amnesia. Dr Dedge took up the challenge.
‘When you say ‘who you are’ what exactly do you mean? ‘Who’ surely implies personal identity, doesn’t it?’
‘No,’ said Wilt. ‘I know perfectly well that I am Henry Wilt of 45 Oakhurst Avenue. That is my identity and my address. What I want to know is who Henry Wilt is.’
‘You don’t know who Henry Wilt is?’
‘Of course I don’t, any more than I know how I came to be in the ward.’
‘It says here that you suffered head injuries–’
‘I know that,’ Wilt interrupted. ‘I’ve got bandages round my head. Not that that is proof positive but even the most overworked NHS doctor would hardly make the mistake of treating my head when I’d broken my ankle. At least I don’t suppose so. Of course anything is possible these days. On the other hand, who I am is still a mystery to me. Are you sure you really know who you are, Dr Dredger?’
The psychiatrist smiled professionally. ‘My name happens to be Dedge, not Dredger.’
‘Well, mine is Wilt and I still don’t know who I am.’
Dr Dedge decided to go back to the safer ground of clinical questions. ‘Do you remember what you were doing when this neurological insult occurred?’ he asked.
‘Not offhand I don’t,’ said Wilt, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘When would that be, this neurological insult?’
‘When you suffered the head injuries.’
‘Bit more of an insult being beaten over the head, I’d have thought. Still, if that’s what you call it…’
‘That is the technical term for what occurred to you, Mr Wilt. Now do you know what you were doing just before the incident?’
Wilt pretended to think about the question. Not that it needed much thinking about. He had no idea. ‘No,’ he said finally.
‘No? Nothing at all?’
Wilt shook his head carefully. ‘Well, I can remember watching the news and thinking how wrong it was to stop Meals on Wheel to those old people in Burling just to save on the Council Tax. Then Eva–that’s my wife–came in and said supper was ready. I can’t remember much after that. Oh, and I washed the car some time and the cat had to go to the vet again. I can’t remember much after that.’
The psychiatrist made a number of notes and nodded encouragingly. ‘Any little thing will be of help, Henry,’ he said. ‘Take your time.’
Wilt did. He needed to find out how far back his memory would have been affected by a neurological insult. He’d nearly fallen into a trap when he’d said he didn’t know his own name. Clearly that didn’t fit the pattern. Not knowing who he was, on the other hand, still had some mileage to it. Wilt tried again.
‘I remember…no, you wouldn’t be interested in that.’
‘Let me be the one who decides that, Henry. You just tell me what you remember.’