‘Makes two of us,’ said Wilt.
‘And I’ll tell you another thing, Wilt. ‘The trouble with bastards like you is that you’re too clever by half. You overdo things and you give yourselves away. Now if I’d been in your shoes, I’d have done two things. Know what they are?’
‘No,’ said Wilt, ‘I don’t.’
‘I’d have washed that bathroom down, number one, and number two I’d have stayed away from that hole. I wouldn’t have tried to lay a false trail with notes and making sure the caretaker saw you and turning up at Mr Braintree’s house at midnight covered in mud. I’d have sat tight and said nothing.’
‘But I didn’t know about those bloodstains in the bathroom and if it hadn’t been for that filthy doll I wouldn’t have dumped the thing down the hole. I’d have gone to bed. Instead of which I got pissed and acted like an idiot.’
‘Let me tell you something else. Wilt.’ said the Inspector. ‘You are an idiot, a fucking cunning idiot but an idiot all the same. You need your head read.’
‘It would make a change from this lot,’ said Wilt.
‘What would?’
‘Having my head read instead of sitting here and being insulted.’
Inspector Flint studied him thoughtfully. ‘You mean that?’ asked.
‘Mean what?’
‘About having your head read? Would you be prepared to undergo an examination by a qualified psychiatrist?’
‘Why not?’ said Wilt. ‘Anything to help pass the time.’
‘Quite voluntarily, you understand. Nobody is forcing you to, but if you want…’
‘Listen, Inspector, if seeing a psychiatrist will help to convince you that I have not murdered my wife I’ll be only too happy to. You can put me on a lie detector. You can pump me full of truth drugs. You can…’
‘There’s no need for any of that other stuff,’ said Flint, and stood up. ‘A good shrink will do very nicely. And if you think you can get away with guilty but insane, forget it. These blokes know when you’re malingering madness.’ He went to the door and paused. Then he came back and leant across the table.
‘Tell me, Wilt,’ he said. ‘Tell me just one thing. How come you sit there so coolly? Your wife is missing, we have evidence of murder, we have a replica of her, if you are to be believed, under thirty feet of concrete and you don’t turn a hair. How do you do it?’
‘Inspector,’ said Wilt. ‘If you had taught Gasfitters for ten years and been asked as many damnfool questions in that time as I have, you’d know. Besides you haven’t met Eva. When you do you’ll see why I’m not worried. Eva is perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She may not be bright but she’s got a built-in survival kit.’
‘Jesus, Wilt, with you around for twelve years she must have had something.’
‘Oh she has. You’ll like Eva when you meet her. You’ll get along like a house on fire. You’ve both got literal minds and an obsession with trivia. You can take a wormcast and turn it into Mount Everest.’
‘Wormcast? Wilt, you sicken me,’ said the Inspector, and left the room.
Wilt got up and walked up and down. He was tired of sitting down. On the other hand he was well satisfied with his performance. He had surpassed himself and he took pride in the fact that he was reacting so well to what most people would consider an appalling predicament. But to Wilt it was something else, a challenge, the first real challenge he had had to meet for a long time. Gasfitters and Plasterers had challenged him once but he had learnt to cope with them. You jollied them along. Let them talk, ask questions, divert them, get them going, accept their red herrings and hand out a few of your own, but above all you had to refuse to accept their preconceptions. Whenever they asserted something with absolute conviction as a self-evident truth like all wogs began at Calais, all you had to do was agree and then point out that half the great men in English history had been foreigners like Marconi or Lord Beaverbrook and that even Churchill’s mother had been a Yank or talk about the Welsh being the original Englishmen and the Vikings and the Danes and from that lead them off through Indian doctors to the National Health Service and birth control and any other topic under the sun that would keep them quiet and puzzled and desperately trying to think of some ultimate argument that would prove you wrong.
Inspector Flint was no different. He was more obsessive but his tactics were just the same. And besides he had got hold of the wrong end of the stick with a vengeance and it amused Wilt to watch him trying to pin a crime on him he hadn’t committed. It made him feel almost important and certainly more of a man than he had done for a long, long time. He was innocent and there was no question about it. In a world where everything else was doubtful and uncertain and open to scepticism the fact of his innocence was sure. For the first time in his adult life Wilt knew himself to be absolutely right, and the knowledge gave him a strength he had never supposed he possessed. And besides there was no question in his mind that Eva would turn up eventually, safe and sound, and more than a little subdued when she realized what her impulsiveness had led to. Serve her right for giving him that disgusting doll. She’d regret that to the end of her days. Yes, if anybody was going to come off badly in this affair it was dear old Eva with her bossiness and her busyness. She’d have a job explaining it to Mavis Mottram and the neighbours. Wilt smiled to himself at the thought. And even the Tech would have to treat him differently in future and with a new respect. Wilt knew the liberal conscience too well not to suppose that he would appear anything less that martyr when he went back. And a hero. They would bend over backwards to convince themselves that they hadn’t thought him as guilty as hell. He’d get promotion too, not for being a teacher but because they would need to salve their fragile consciences. Talk about killing the fatted calf.
Chapter 14
At the Tech there was no question of killing the fatted calf, at least not for Henry Wilt. The imminence of the CNAA visitation on Friday, coinciding as it apparently would with the resurrection of the late Mrs Wilt, was causing something approaching panic. The Course Board met in almost continuous session and memoranda circulated so furiously that it was impossible to read one before the next arrived.
‘Can’t we postpone the visit?’ Dr Cox asked. ‘I can’t have them in my office discussing bibliographies with bits of Mrs Wilt being dug out of the ground outside the window.’
‘I have asked the police to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible,’ said Dr Mayfield.
‘With conspicuous lack of success so far,’ said Dr Board.’
‘They couldn’t be more in evidence. There are ten of them peering down that hole at this very moment.’
The Vice-Principal struck a brighter note. ‘You’ll be glad to hear that we’ve managed to restore power to the canteen,’ he told the meeting, ’so we should be able to lay on a good lunch.’
‘I just hope I feel up to eating.’ said Dr Cox. ‘The shocks of the last few days have done nothing to improve my appetite and when I think of poor Mrs Wilt…’
‘Try not to think of her,’ said the Vice-Principal, but Dr Cox shook his head.
‘You try not to think of her with a damned great boring machine grinding away outside your office window all day.’
‘Talking about shocks,’ said Dr Board, ‘I still can’t understand how the driver of that mechanical corkscrew managed to escape electrocution when they cut through the power cable.’