‘Considering the problems we are faced with, I hardly think that’s a relevant point just at present,’ said Dr Mayfield. ‘What we have got to stress to the members of the CNAA committee is that this degree is an integrated course with a fundamental substructure grounded thematically on a concomitance of cultural and sociological factors in no way unsuperficially disparate and with a solid quota of academic content to give students an intellectual and cerebral..
‘Haemorrhage?’ suggested Dr Board.
Dr Mayfield regarded him balefully. ‘I really do think this is no time for flippancy,’ he said angrily. ‘Either we are committed to the Joint Honours degree or we are not. Furthermore we have only until tomorrow to structure our tactical approach to the visitation committee. Now, which is it to be?’
‘Which is what to be?’ asked Dr Board. ‘What has our commitment or lack of it to do with structuring, for want of several far better words, our so-called tactical approach to a committee which, since it is coming all the way from London to us and not vice versa, is presumably approaching us?’
‘Vice-Principal,’ said Dr Mayfield, I really must protest. Dr Board’s attitude at this late stage in the game is quite incomprehensible. If Dr Board…’
‘Could even begin to understand one tenth of the jargon Dr Mayfield seems to suppose is English he might be in a better position to express his opinion,’ interrupted Dr Board. ‘As it is “incomprehensible” applies to Dr Mayfield’s syntax, not to my attitude. I have always maintained…’
‘Gentlemen,’ said the Vice-Principal. ‘I think it would be best if we avoided inter-departmental wrangles at this point in time and got down to business.’
There was a silence broken finally by Dr Cox. ‘Do you think the police could he persuaded to erect a screen round that hole?’ he asked.
‘I shall certainly suggest that to them,’ said Dr Mayfield. They passed on to the matter of entertainment.
‘I have arranged for there to be plenty of drinks before lunch,’ said the Vice-Principal, ‘and in any case lunch will be judiciously delayed to allow them to get into the right mood so the afternoon sessions should be cut short and proceed, hopefully, more smoothly.’
‘Just so long as the Catering Department doesn’t serve Toad in the Hole,’ said Dr Board.
The meeting broke up acrimoniously.
So did Mr Morris’s encounter with the Crime Reporter of the Sunday Post.
‘Of course I didn’t tell the police that I employed homicidal maniacs as a matter of policy,’ he shouted at the reporter. ‘And in any case what I said was, as I understood it, to be treated in the strictest confidence.’
‘But you did say you thought Wilt was insane and that quite a number of Liberal Studies lecturers were off their heads?’
Mr Morris looked at the man with loathing. ‘To put the record straight, what I said was that some of them were…’
‘Off their rockers?’ suggested the reporter.
‘No, not off, their rockers,’ shouted Mr Morris. ‘Merely, well, shall we say, slightly unbalanced.’
‘That’s not what the police say you said. They say quote…’
‘I don’t care what the police say I said. I know what I said and what I didn’t and if you’re implying…’
‘I’m not implying anything. You made a statement that half your staff are nuts and I’m trying to verify it.’
‘Verify it?’ snarled Mr Morris. ‘You put words into my mouth I never said and you call that verifying it?’
‘Did you say it or not? That’s all I’m asking. I mean if you express an opinion about your staff…’
‘Mr MacArthur, what I think about my staff is my own affair. It has absolutely nothing to do with you or the rag you represent’
‘Three million people will be interested to read your opinion on Sunday morning,’ said Mr MacArthur, ‘and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this Wilt character didn’t sue you if he ever gets out of the copshop.’
‘Sue me? What the hell could he sue me for?’
‘Calling him a homicidal maniac for a start. Banner headlines HEAD OF LIBERAL STUDIES CALLS LECTURER HOMICIDAL MANIAC should be good for fifty thousand. I’d be surprised if he got less.’
Mr Morris contemplated destitution. ‘Even your paper would never print that,’ he muttered. ‘I mean Wilt would sue you too.’
‘Oh we’re used to libel actions. They’re run-of-the-mill for us. We pay for them out of petty cash. Now if you’d be a bit more cooperative…’ He left the suggestion in mid-air for Mr Morris to digest.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked miserably.
‘Got any juicy drug scene stories for us?’ asked Mr MacArthur. ‘You know the sort of thing. LOVE ORGIES IN LECTURES. That always gets the public. Teenyboppers having it off and all that. Give us a good one and we’ll let you off the hook about Wilt.’
‘Get out of my office!’ yelled Mr Morris.
Mr MacArthur got up. ‘You’re going to regret this.’ he said and went downstairs to the students’ canteen to dig up some dirt on Mr Morris.
‘Not tests,’ said Wilt adamantly. ‘They’re deceptive.’
‘You think so?’ said Dr Pittman, consultant psychiatrist at the Fenland Hospital and professor of Criminal Psychology at the University. Being plagiocephalic didn’t help either.
‘I should have thought it was obvious.’ said Wilt. ‘You show me an ink-blot and I think it looks like my grandmother lying in a pool of blood, do you honestly think I’m going to be fool enough to say so? I’d be daft to do that. So I say a butterfly sitting on a geranium. And every time it’s the same. I think what it does look like and then say something completely different. Where does that get you?’
‘It is still possible to infer something from that,’ said Dr Pittman.
‘Well, you don’t need a bloody ink-blot to infer, do you?’ said Wilt. Dr Pittman made a note of Wilt’s interest in blood. ‘You can infer things from just looking at the shape of people’s heads.’
Dr Pittman polished his glasses grimly. Heads were not things he liked inferences to be drawn from. ‘Mr Wilt,’ he said, ‘I am here at your request to ascertain your sanity and in particular to give an opinion as to whether or not I consider you capable of murdering your wife and disposing of her body in a singularly revolting and callous fashion. I shall not allow anything you may say to influence my ultimate and objective findings.’
Wilt looked perplexed. ‘I must say you’re not giving yourself much room for manoeuvre. Since we’ve dispensed with mechanical aids like tests I should have thought what I had to say would be the only thing you could go on. Unless of course you’re going to read the bumps on my head. Isn’t that a bit old-fashioned?’
‘Mr Wilt,’ said Dr Pittman, ‘the fact that you clearly have a sadistic streak and take pleasure in drawing attention to other people’s physical infirmities in no way dispose me to conclude you are capable of murder…’
‘Very decent of you,’ said Wilt, ‘though frankly I’d have thought anyone was capable of murder given the right, or to be precise the wrong, circumstances.’
Dr Pittman stifled the impulse to say how right he was. Instead he smiled prognathously. ‘Would you say you are a rational man, Henry?’ he asked.
Wilt frowned. ‘Just stick to Mr Wilt if you don’t mind. This may not be a paid consultation but I prefer a little formality’
Dr Pittman’s smile vanished. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘No, I wouldn’t say I was a rational man,’ said Wilt.