‘Forget the wisecracks,’ said Sergeant Yates.
‘Now that,’ said Wilt, appreciatively, ‘is a more orthodox use of wise.’
‘What is?’
‘Wisecrack. It’s slang but it’s good slang wisewise if you get my meaning.’
Detective Sergeant Yates studied him closely. ‘This is a soundproof room,’ he said finally.
‘So I’ve noticed,’ said Wilt.
‘A man could scream his guts out in here and no one outside would be any the wiser.’
‘Wiser?’ said Wilt doubtfully. ‘Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing. Someone outside might not be aware that…’
‘Shut up,’ said Sergeant Yates.
Wilt sighed. ‘If you would just let me get some sleep…’
‘You’ll get some sleep when you tell us why you murdered your wife, where you murdered her and how you murdered her.’
‘I don’t suppose it will do any good if I tell you I didn’t murder her.’
Sergeant Yates shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘We know you did. You know you did. We know where she is. We’re going to get her out. We know you put her there. You’ve at least admitted that much.’
‘I keep telling you I put an inflatable…’
‘Was Mrs Wilt inflatable?’
‘Was she fuck,’ said Wilt.
‘Right, so we’ll forget the inflatable doll crap…’
‘I wish to God I could,’ sold Wilt. ‘I’ll be only too glad when you get down there and dig it out. It will have burst of course with all that concrete on it but it will still be recognisably an inflatable plastic doll.’
Sergeant Yates leant across the table. ‘Let me tell you some thing. When we do get Mrs Wilt out of there, don’t imagine she’ll be unrecognisable.’ He stopped and stared intently at Wilt. ‘Not unless you’ve disfigured her.’
‘Disfigured her?’ said Wilt with a hallow laugh. ‘She didn’t need disfiguring the last time I saw her. She was looking bloody awful. She had on these lemon pyjamas and her face was all covered with…’ He hesitated. There was a curious expression on the Sergeant’s face.
‘Blood?’ he suggested. ‘Were you going to say “blood”?’
‘No,’ said Wilt, ‘I most certainly wasn’t. I was going to say powder. White powder and scarlet lipstick. I told her she looked fucking awful.’
‘You must have had a very happy relationship with her,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I don’t make a habit of telling my wife she looks fucking awful.’
‘You probably don’t have a fucking awful-looking wife,’ said Wilt making an attempt to conciliate the man.
‘What I have or don’t have by way of a wife is my business. She lies outside the domain of this discussion.’
‘Lucky old her,’ said Wilt, ‘I wish to God mine did.’ By two o’clock they had left Mrs Wilt’s appearance and got on to teeth and the question of identifying dead bodies by dental chart.
‘Look,’ said Wilt wearily, ‘I daresay teeth fascinate you but at this time of night I can do without them.’
‘You wear dentures or something?’
‘No. No. I don’t,’ said Wilt, rejecting the plural.
‘Did Mrs Wilt?’
‘No,’ said Wilt, ’she was always very…’
‘I thank you,’ said Sergeant Yates, ‘I knew it would come out in the end.’
‘What would?’ said Wilt, his mind still on teeth.
‘That “was”. The past tense. That’s the give away. Right, so you admit she’s dead. Let’s go on from there.’
‘I didn’t say anything of the sort. You said “Did she wear dentures?” and I said she didn’t…’
‘You said “she was”. It’s that “was” that interests me. If you had said “is” it would have been different’
‘It might have sounded different,’ said Wilt, rallying his defences, ‘but it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to the facts.’
‘Which are?’
‘That my wife is probably still around somewhere alive and kicking…’
‘You don’t half give yourself away, Wilt,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Now it’s “probably” and as for “kicking” I just hope for your sake we don’t find she was still alive when they poured that concrete down on top of her. The Court wouldn’t take kindly to that.’
‘I doubt if anyone would,’ said Wilt. ‘Now when I said “probably” what I meant was that if you had been held in custody for a day and half the night being questioned on the trot by detectives you’d begin to wonder what had happened to your wife. It might even cross your mind that, all evidence to the contrary, she might not be alive. You want to try sitting on this side of the table before you start criticising me for using terms like “probable”. Anything more improbable than being accused of murdering your wife when you know for a fact that you haven’t you can’t imagine.’
‘Listen, Wilt,’ said the Sergeant, ‘I’m not criticising you for your language. Believe me I’m not. I’m merely trying as patiently as I can to establish the facts.’
‘The facts are these’ said Wilt. ‘Like a complete idiot I made the mistake of dumping an inflatable doll down the bottom of a pile shaft and someone poured concrete in and my wife is away from home and…’
‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Sergeant Yates told Inspector Flint when he came on duty at seven in the morning. ‘This one is a hard nut to crack. If you hadn’t told me he hadn’t a record I’d have sworn he was an old hand and a good one at that. Are you sure Central Records have got nothing on him?’ Inspector Flint shook his head.
‘He hasn’t started squealing for a lawyer yet?’
‘Not a whimper. I tell you he’s either as nutty as a fruit cake or he’s been through this lot before.’
And Wilt had. Day after day, year in year out. With Gasfitters One and Printers Three, with Day Release Motor Mechanics and Meat Two. For ten years he had sat in front of classes, answering irrelevant questions, discussing why Piggy’s rational approach to life was preferable to Jack’s brutishness, why Pangloss’ optimism was so unsatisfactory, why Orwell hadn’t wanted to shoot that blasted elephant or hang that man, and all the time fending off verbal attempts to rattle him and reduce him to the state poor old Pinkerton was in when he gassed himself. By comparison with Bricklayers Four, Sergeant Yates and Inspector Flint were child’s play. If only they would let him get some sleep he would go on running inconsequential rings round them.
‘I thought I had him once,’ the Sergeant told Flint as they conferred in the corridor. ‘I had got him on to teeth.’
‘Teeth?’ said the Inspector.
‘I was just explaining we can always identify bodies from their dental charts and he almost admitted she was dead. Then he got away again.’
‘Teeth, eh? That’s interesting. I’ll have to pursue that line of questioning. It maybe his weak link.’
‘Good luck on you,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I’m off to bed.’
‘Teeth?’ said Wit. ‘We’re not going through that again are we? I thought we’d exhausted that topic. The last bloke wanted to know if Eva had them in the past tense. I told him she did and…’
‘Wilt,’ said Inspector Flint, ‘I am not interested in whether or not Mrs Wilt had teeth. I presume she must have done. What I want to know is if she still has them. Present tense.’
‘I imagine she must have,’ said Wilt patiently. ‘You’d better ask her when you find her.’
‘And when we find her will she be in a position to tell us?’
‘How the hell should I know? All I can say is that if for some quite inexplicable reason she’s lost all her teeth there’ll be the devil to pay. I’ll never hear the end of it. She’s got a mania for cleaning the things and sticking bits of dental floss down the loo. You’ve got no idea the number of times I’ve thought I’d got worms.’