Wilt

by Tom Sharpe

  ‘Now then, Henry,’ said Inspector Flint, dropping an official octave nomenclaturewise in the hope that Wilt would respond, ‘about this blood.’

  ‘What blood?’ said Wilt, looking round the aseptic room.

  ‘The blood on the walls of the bathroom at the Pringsheims’ house. The blood on the landing. Have you any idea how it got there? Any idea at all?’

  ‘None,’ said Wilt. ‘I can only assume that someone was bleeding.’

  ‘Right,’ said the Inspector, ‘who?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Wilt.

  ‘Quite, and you know what we’ve found?’

  Wilt shook his head.

  ‘No idea?’

  ‘None,’ said Wilt.

  ‘Bloodspots on a pair of grey trousers in your wardrobe,’ said the Inspector. ‘Bloodspots, Henry, bloodspots.’

  ‘Hardly surprising,’ said Wilt. ‘I mean if you looked hard enough you’d be bound to find some bloodspots in anyone’s wardrobe. The thing is I wasn’t wearing grey trousers at that party. I was wearing blue jeans.’

  ‘You were wearing blue jeans? You’re quite sure about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So the bloodspots on the bathroom wall and the bloodspots on your grey trousers have nothing to do with one another?’

  ‘Inspector,’ said Wilt, ‘far be it from me to teach you your own business but you have a technical branch that specializes in matching bloodstains. Now may I suggest that you make use of their skills to establish …’

  ‘Wilt,’ said the Inspector, ‘Wilt, when I need your advice on how to conduct a murder investigation I’ll not only ask for it but I’ll resign from the force.’

  ‘Well?’ said Wilt.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Do they match? Do the bloodstains match?’

  The Inspector studied him grimly. ‘If I told you they did?’ he asked.

  Wilt shrugged. ‘I’m not in any position to argue,’ he said. ‘If you say they do, I take it they do.’

  ‘They don’t,’ said Inspector Flint, ‘but that proves nothing,’ he continued before Wilt could savour his satisfaction. ‘Nothing at all. We’ve got three people missing. There’s Mrs Wilt at the bottom of that shaft … No, don’t say it, Wilt, don’t say it. There’s Dr Pringsheim and there’s Mrs Fucking Pringsheim.’

  ‘I like it,’ said Wilt appreciatively, ‘I definitely like it.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Mrs Fucking Pringsheim. It’s apposite.’

  ‘One of these days, Wilt,’ said the Inspector softly, ‘you’ll go too far.’

  ‘Patiencewise? To use a filthy expression,’ asked Wilt.

  The Inspector nodded and lit a cigarette.

  ‘You know something, Inspector,’ said Wilt, beginning to feel on top of the situation, ‘you smoke too much. Those things are bad for you. You should try …’

  ‘Wilt,’ said the Inspector, ‘in twenty-five years in the service I have never once resorted to physical violence while interrogating a suspect but there comes a time, a time and a place and a suspect when with the best will in the world …’ He got up and went out. Wilt sat back in his chair and looked up at the fluorescent light. He wished it would stop buzzing. It was getting on his nerves.

  12

  On Eel Stretch – Gaskell’s map-reading had misled him and they were nowhere near Frogwater Reach or Fen Broad – the situation was getting on everyone’s nerves. Gaskell’s attempts to mend the engine had had the opposite effect. The cockpit was flooded with fuel oil and it was difficult to walk on deck without slipping.

  ‘Jesus, G, anyone would think to look at you that this was a goddam oil rig,’ said Sally.

  ‘It was that fucking fuel line,’ said Gaskell, ‘I couldn’t get it back on.’

  ‘So why try starting the motor with it off?’

  ‘To see if it was blocked.’

  ‘So now you know. What you going to do about it? Sit here till the food runs out? You’ve gotta think of something.’

  ‘Why me? Why don’t you come up with something?’

  ‘If you were any sort of a man …’

  ‘Shit,’ said Gaskell. ‘The voice of the liberated woman. Comes the crunch and all of a sudden I’ve got to be a man. What’s up with you, man-woman? You want us off here, you do it. Don’t ask me to be a man, uppercase M, in an emergency. I’ve forgotten how.’

  ‘There must be some way of getting help,’ said Sally.

  ‘Oh sure. You just go up top and take a crow’s-nest at the scenery. All you’ll get is a beanfeast of bullrushes.’ Sally climbed on top of the cabin and scanned the horizon. It was thirty feet away and consisted of an expanse of reeds.

  ‘There’s something over there looks like a church tower,’ she said. Gaskell climbed up beside her.

  ‘It is a church tower. So what?’

  ‘So if we flashed a light or something someone might see it.’

  ‘Brilliant. A highly populated place like the top of a church tower there’s bound to be people just waiting for us to flash a light.’

  ‘Couldn’t we burn something?’ said Sally. ‘Somebody would see the smoke and …’

  ‘You crazy? You start burning anything with all that fuel oil floating around they’ll see something all right. Like an exploding cruiser with bodies.’

  ‘We could fill a can with oil and put it over the side and float it away before lighting it.’

  ‘And set the reedbeds on fire?’ What the hell do you want? A fucking holocaust?’

  ‘G baby, you’re just being unhelpful.’

  ‘I’m using my brains is all,’ said Gaskell. ‘You keep coming up with bright ideas like that you’re going to land us in a worse mess than we’re in already.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Sally.

  ‘I’ll tell you why,’ said Gaskell, ‘because you went and stole this fucking Hesperus. That’s why.’

  ‘I didn’t steal it. I …’

  ‘You tell the fuzz that. Just tell them. You start setting fire to reedbeds and they’ll be all over us asking questions. Like whose boat this is and how come you’re sailing someone else’s cruiser … So we got to get out of here without publicity.’

  It started to rain.

  ‘That’s all we need. Rain,’ said Gaskell. Sally went down into the cabin where Eva was tidying up after lunch. ‘God, G’s hopeless. First he lands us on a mudbank in the middle of nowhere, then he fucks up the motor but good and now he says he doesn’t know what to do.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he go and get help?’ asked Eva.

  ‘How? Swimming? G couldn’t swim that far to save his life.’

  ‘He could take the airbed and paddle down to the open water,’ said Eva. ‘He wouldn’t have to swim.’

  ‘Airbed? Did I hear you say airbed? What airbed?’

  ‘The one in the locker with the lifejackets. All you’ve got to do is blow it up and …’

  ‘Honey you’re the practicallest,’ said Sally, and rushed outside. ‘G, Eva’s found a way for you to go and get help. There’s an airbed in the locker with the lifejackets.’ She rummaged in the locker and took out the airbed.

  ‘You think I’m going anywhere on that damned thing you’ve got another think coming,’ said Gaskell.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘In this weather? You ever tried to steer one of those things? It’s bad enough on a sunny day with no wind. Right now I’d end up in the reeds and anyhow the rain’s getting on my glasses.’

  ‘All right, so we wait till the storm blows over. At least we know how to get off here.’

  She went back into the cabin and shut the door. Outside Gaskell squatted by the engine and toyed with the wrench. If only he could get the thing to go again.

  ‘Men,’ said Sally contemptuously, ‘claim to be the stronger sex but when the chips are down it’s us women who have to bail them out.’

  ‘Henry’s impractical too,’ said Eva. ‘It’s all he can do to mend a fuse. I do hope he isn’
t worried about me.’

  ‘He’s having himself a ball,’ said Sally.

  ‘Not Henry. He wouldn’t know how.’

  ‘He’s probably having it off with Judy.’

  Eva shook her head. ‘He was just drunk, that’s all. He’s never done anything like that before.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘Well he is my husband.’

  ‘Husband hell. He just uses you to wash the dishes and cook and clean up for him. What does he give you? Just tell me that.’

  Eva struggled with her thoughts inarticulately. Henry didn’t give her anything very much. Not anything she could put into words. ‘He needs me,’ she said finally.

  ‘So he needs you. Who needs needing? That’s the rhetoric of female feudalism. So you save someone’s life, you’ve got to be grateful to them for letting you? Forget Henry. He’s a jerk.’

  Eva bristled. Henry might not be very much but she didn’t like him insulted.

  ‘Gaskell’s nothing much to write home about,’ she said, and went into the kitchen. Behind her Sally lay back on the bunk and opened the centre spread of Playboy. ‘Gaskell’s got bread,’ she said.

  ‘Bread?’

  ‘Money, honey. Greenstuff. The stuff that makes the world go round Cabaretwise. You think I married him for his looks? Oh no. I can smell a cool million when it comes by me and I do mean buy me.’

  ‘I could never marry a man for his money,’ said Eva primly. ‘I’d have to be in love with him. I really would.’

  ‘So you’ve seen too many movies. Do you really think Gaskell was in love with me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose he must have been.’

  Sally laughed. ‘Eva baby you are naïve. Let me tell you about G. G’s a plastic freak. He’d fuck a goddam chimpanzee if you dressed it up in plastic.’

  ‘Oh honestly. He wouldn’t,’ said Eva. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘You think I put you on the Pill for nothing? You go around in that bikini and Gaskell’s drooling over you all the time – if I wasn’t here he’d have raped you.’

  ‘He’d have a hard time,’ said Eva, ‘I took Judo classes.’

  ‘Well he’d try. Anything in plastic drives him crazy. Why do you think he had that doll?’

  ‘I wondered about that.’

  ‘Right. You can stop wondering,’ said Sally.

  ‘I still don’t see what that has to do with you marrying him,’ said Eva.

  ‘Then let me tell you a little secret. Gaskell was referred to me …’

  ‘Referred?’

  ‘By Dr Freeborn. Gaskell had this little problem and he consulted Dr Freeborn and Dr Freeborn sent him to me.’

  Eva looked puzzled. ‘But what were you supposed to do?’

  ‘I was a surrogate,’ said Sally.

  ‘A surrogate?’

  ‘Like a sex counsellor,’ said Sally. ‘Dr Freeborn used to send me clients and I would help them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like that sort of job,’ said Eva. ‘I couldn’t bear to talk to men about sex. Weren’t you embarrassed?’

  ‘You get used to it and there are worse ways of earning a living. So G comes along with his little problem and I straightened him out but literally and we got married. A business arrangement. Cash on the tail.’

  ‘You mean you …’

  ‘I mean I have Gaskell and Gaskell has plastic. It’s an elastic relationship. The marriage with the two-way stretch.’

  Eva digested this information with difficulty. It didn’t seem right somehow. ‘Didn’t his parents have anything to say about it?’ she asked. ‘I mean did he tell them about you helping him and all that?’

  ‘Say? What could they say? G told them he’d met me at summer school and Pringsy’s greedy little eyes popped out of his little head. Baby, did that fat little man have penis projection. Sell? He could sell anything. The Rockefeller Centre to Rockefeller. So he accepted me. Old Ma Pringsheim didn’t. She huffed and she puffed and she blew but this little piggy stayed right where the bank was. G and me went back to California and G graduated in plastic and we’ve been biodegradable ever since.’

  ‘I’m glad Henry isn’t like that,’ said Eva. ‘I couldn’t live with a man who was queer.’

  ‘G’s not queer, honey. Like I said he’s a plastic freak.’

  ‘If that’s not queer I don’t know what is,’ said Eva.

  Sally lit a cigarillo.

  ‘All men get turned on by something,’ she said. ‘They’re manipulable. All you’ve got to do is find the kink. I should know.’

  ‘Henry’s not like that. I’d know if he was.’

  ‘So he makes with the doll. That’s how much you know about Henry. You telling me he’s the great lover?’

  ‘We’ve been married twelve years. It’s only natural we don’t do it as often as we used to. We’re so busy.’

  ‘Busy Lizzie. And while you’re housebound what’s Henry doing?’

  ‘He’s taking classes at the Tech. He’s there all day and he comes home tired.’

  ‘Takes classes takes asses. You’ll be telling me next he’s not a sidewinder.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Eva.

  ‘He has his piece on the side. His secretary knees up on the desk.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a secretary.’

  ‘Then students prudence. Screws their grades up, I know. I’ve seen it. I’ve been around colleges too long to be fooled.’

  ‘I’m sure Henry would never …’

  ‘That’s what they all say and then bingo, it’s divorce and bobbysex and all you’re left to look forward to is menopause and peeking through the blinds at the man next door and waiting for the Fuller Brush man.’

  ‘You make it all sound so awful,’ said Eva. ‘You really do.’

  ‘It is, Eva teats. It is. You’ve got to do something about it before it’s too late. You’ve got to liberate yourself from Henry. Make the break and share the cake. Otherwise it’s male domination doomside.’

  Eva sat on the bunk and thought about the future. It didn’t seem to hold much for her. They would never have any children now and they wouldn’t ever have much money. They would go on living in Parkview Avenue and paying off the mortgage and maybe Henry would find someone else and then what would she do? And even if he didn’t, life was passing her by.

  ‘I wish I knew what to do,’ she said presently. Sally sat up and put her arm round her.

  ‘Why don’t you come to the States with us in November?’ she said. ‘We could have such fun.’

  ‘Oh I couldn’t do that,’ said Eva. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to Henry.’

  *

  No such qualms bothered Inspector Flint. Wilt’s intransigence under intense questioning merely indicated that he was harder than he looked.

  ‘We’ve had him under interrogation for thirty-six hours now,’ he told the conference of the Murder Squad in the briefing room at the Police Station, ‘and we’ve got nothing out of him. So this is going to be a long hard job and quite frankly I have my doubts about breaking him.’

  ‘I told you he was going to be a hard nut to crack,’ said Sergeant Yates.

  ‘Nut being the operative word,’ said Flint. ‘So it’s got to be concrete evidence.’

  There was a snigger which died away quickly. Inspector Flint was not in a humorous mood.

  ‘Evidence, hard evidence is the only thing that is going to break him. Evidence is the only thing that is going to bring him to trial.’

  ‘But we’ve got that,’ said Yates. ‘It’s at the bott …’

  ‘I know exactly where it is, thank you Sergeant. What I am talking about is evidence of multiple murder. Mrs Wilt is accounted for. Dr and Mrs Pringsheim aren’t. Now my guess is that he murdered all three and that the other two bodies are …’ He stopped and opened the file in front of him and hunted through it for Notes on Violence and the Break-Up of Family Life. He studied them for a moment and shook his head. ‘No,’ he muttered, ‘it’s not possible
.’

  ‘What isn’t, sir?’ asked Sergeant Yates. ‘Anything is possible with this bastard.’

  But Inspector Flint was not to be drawn. The notion was too awful.

  ‘As I was saying,’ he continued, ‘what we need now is hard evidence. What we have got is purely circumstantial. I want more evidence on the Pringsheims. I want to know what happened at that party, who was there and why it happened and at the rate we’re going with Wilt we aren’t going to get anything out of him. Snell, you go down to the Department of Biochemistry at the University and get what you can on Dr Pringsheim. Find out if any of his colleagues were at that party. Interview them. Get a list of his friends, his hobbies, his girl friends if he had any. Find out if there is any link between him and Mrs Wilt that would suggest a motive. Jackson, you go up to Rossiter Grove and see what you can get on Mrs Pringsheim …’

  By the time the conference broke up detectives had been despatched all over town to build up a dossier on the Pringsheims. Even the American Embassy had been contacted to find out what was known about the couple in the States. The murder investigation had begun in earnest.

  Inspector Flint walked back to his office with Sergeant Yates and shut the door. ‘Yates,’ he said, ‘this is confidential. I wasn’t going to mention it in there but I’ve a nasty feeling I know why that sod is so bloody cocky. Have you ever known a murderer sit through thirty-six hours of questioning as cool as a cucumber when he knows we’ve got the body of his victim pinpointed to the nearest inch?’

  Sergeant Yates shook his head. ‘I’ve known some pretty cool customers in my time and particularly since they stopped hanging but this one takes the biscuit. If you ask me he’s a raving psychopath.’

  Flint dismissed the idea. ‘Psychopaths crack easy,’ he said. ‘They confess to murders they haven’t committed or they confess to murders they have committed, but they confess. This Wilt doesn’t. He sits there and tells me how to run the investigation. Now take a look at this.’ He opened the file and took out Wilt’s notes. ‘Notice anything peculiar?’

  Sergeant Yates read the notes through twice.