Wilt sat down. ‘So you’ve noticed that at last, have you, very observant of you I must say.’
‘I asked you a question.’
‘So you did,’ said Wilt. ‘Let’s just say I thought it appropriate.’
‘Appropriate?’
‘I was singing. I think that’s the slang term for it isn’t it for my sleep, so naturally…’
‘Are you telling me you made all that up?’
‘What the hell do, you think I did? You don’t seriously think I would inflict the Pringsheims and Eva on an unsuspecting public in the form of pork pies, do you? I mean there must be some limits to your credulity.’
Inspector Flint glared at him. ‘My God, Wilt,’ he said, ‘if I find you’ve deliberately fabricated a story…’
‘You can’t do very much more.’ said Wilt. ‘You’ve already charged me with murder. What more do you want? You drag me in here, you humiliate me, you shout at me, you keep me awake for days and nights bombarding me with questions about dog food, you announce to the world that I am helping you in your enquiries into a multiple murder thus leading every citizen in the country to suppose that I have slaughtered my wife and a beastly biochemist and…’
‘Shut up,’ shouted Flint, ‘I don’t care what you think. It’s what you’ve done and what you’ve said you’ve done that worries me. You’ve gone out of your way to mislead me…’
‘I’ve done nothing of the sort,’ said Wilt. ‘Until last night I had told you nothing but the truth and you wouldn’t accept it. Last night I handed you, in the absurd shape of a pork pie, a lie you wanted to believe. If you crave crap and use illegal methods like sleep deprivation to get it you can’t blame me for serving it up. Don’t come in here and bluster. If you’re stupid that’s your problem. Go and find my wife.’
‘Someone stop me from killing the bastard.’ yelled Flint, as he hurled himself from the room. He went to his office and sent for Sergeant Yates. ‘Cancel the pie hunt. It’s a load of bull,’ he told him.
‘Bull?’ said the Sergeant uncertainly.
‘Shit.’ said Flint. ‘He’s done it again.’
‘You mean…’
‘I mean that that little turd in there has led us up the garden path again.’
‘But how did he know about the factory and all that?’
Flint looked up at him pathetically. ‘If you want to know why he’s a walking encyclopedia, you go and ask him yourself.’
Sergeant Yates went out and returned five minutes later. ‘Meat One,’ he announced enigmatically.
‘Meet won?’
‘A class of butchers he used to teach. They took him round the factory’
‘Jesus,’ said Flint, ‘is there anybody that little swine hasn’t taught?’
‘He says they were most instructive.’
‘Yates, do me a favour. Just go back and find out all the names of the classes he’s taught. That way we’ll know what to expect next.’
‘Well I have heard him mention Plasterers Two and Gasfitters One…’
‘All of them, Yates, all of them. I don’t want to be caught out with some tale about Mrs Wilt being got rid of in Sewage Works because he once taught Shit Two.’ He picked the evening paper and glanced at the headlines. Police PROBE PIES FOR MISSING WIFE.
‘Oh my God,’ he groaned. ‘This is going to do our public image no end of good.’
At the Tech the Principal was expressing the same opinion at a meeting of the Heads of Departments.
‘We’ve been held up to public ridicule,’ he said. ‘First it is popularly supposed that we make a habit of employing lecturers who bury their unwanted wives in the foundations of the new block. Secondly we have lost all chance of attain Polytechnic status by having the joint Honours degree turned down by the CNAA on the grounds that those facilities we do provide are not such as befit an institution of higher learning. Professor Baxendale expressed himself very forcibly on that point and particularly on a remark he heard from one the senior staff about necrophilia…’
‘I merely said…’ Dr Board began.
‘We all know what you said, Dr Board. And it may interest you to know that Dr Cox in his lucid moments is still refusing cold meat. Dr Mayfield has already tendered his resignation. And now to cap it all we have this.’
He held app a newspaper across the top of whose second page there read SEX LECTURES STUN STUDENTS.
‘I hope you have all taken good note of the photograph,’ said the Principal bitterly, indicating a large and unfortunately angled picture of Judy hanging from the crane. ‘The article goes on…well never mind. You can read it for yourselves. I would merely like answers to the following questions. Who authorized the purchase of thirty copies of Last Exit From Brooklyn for use with Fitters and Turners?’
Mr Morris tried to think who had taken FTs. ‘I think that must have been Watkins,’ he said. ‘He left us last term. He was only a part-time lecturer.’
‘Thank God we were spared him full-time.’ said the Principal. ‘Secondly which lecturer makes a habit of advocating to Nursery Nurses that they wear…er…Dutch Caps all the time?’
‘Well Mr Sedgwick is very keen on them.’ said Mr Morris.
‘Nursery Nurses or Dutch Caps?’ enquired the Principal.
‘Possibly both together?’ suggested Dr Board sotto voce.
‘He’s got this thing against the Pill,’ said Mr Morris.
‘Well please ask Mr Sedgwick to see me in my office on Monday at ten. I want to explain the terms under which he is employed here. And finally, how many lecturers do you know of who make use of Audio Visual Aid equipment to show blue movies to the Senior Secs?’
Mr Morris shook his head emphatically. ‘No one in my department.’ he said.
‘It says here that blue movies have been shown,’ said the Principal. ‘in periods properly allocated to Current Affairs.’
‘Wentworth did show them Women in Love,’ said the Head of English.
‘Well never mind. There’s just one more point I want to mention. ‘We are not going to conduct an Evening Class in First Aid with particular reference to the Treatment of Abdominal Hernia for which it was proposed to purchase an inflatable doll. From now on we are going to have to cut our coats to suit our cloth.’
‘On the grounds of inflation?’ asked Dr Board.
‘On the grounds that the Education Committee has been waiting for years for an opportunity to cut back our budget,’ said the Principal. That opportunity has now been given them. The fact that we have been providing a public service by keeping, to quote Mr Morris, “a large number of mentally unbalanced and potentially dangerous psychopaths off the streets” unquote seems to have escaped their notice.’
‘I presume he was referring to the Day Release Apprentices,’ said Dr Board charitably.
‘He was not.’ said the Principal. ‘Correct me if I am wrong, Morris, but hadn’t you in mind the members of the Liberal Studies Department?’
The meeting broke up. Later that day Mr Morris sat down to compose his letter of resignation.
Chapter 19
From the window of an empty bedroom on the first floor of the Vicarage, Eva Wilt watched the Rev St John Froude walk pensively down the path to the church. As soon as he had passed out of sight she went downstairs and into the study. She would phone Henry again. If he wasn’t at the Tech he must be at home. She crossed to the desk and was about to pick up the phone when she saw the ivy. Oh dear, she had forgotten all about the ivy and she had left it where he was bound to have seen it. It was all so terribly embarrassing. She dialled 34 Parkview Avenue and waited. There was no reply. She put they phone down and dialled the Tech. And all the time she watched the gate into the churchyard in case the Vicar should return.