‘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 recognise 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.
Chapter 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 feelings.
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 bloodyminded 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 think 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.’