The Wilt Alternative (26 page)

Inspector Flint goggled at him. 'Nothing? he spluttered.

'Nothing in law,' said Mr Gosdyke.

'Bugger the law,' shouted Flint. 'You think those sods in there give a tuppenny fuck for the
law?'

Mr Gosdyke conceded the point.

'Right,' continued Flint, 'so there's a houseful of armed terrorists who'll blow the heads off
her four blasted daughters if anyone so much as goes near the place. That's all. Can't you get
that into her thick skull?'

'No,' said Mr Gosdyke bluntly.

The Inspector sagged into a chair and looked balefully at Eva. 'Mrs Wilt,' he said, 'tell me
something. You don't by any chance happen to belong to some suicidal religious cult, do you? No?
I just wondered In that case let me explain the situation to you in simple four-letter words that
even you will understand. Inside your house there are '

'I know all that,' said Eva. 'I've heard it over and over again and I don't care. I demand the
right to enter my own home.'

'I see. And I suppose you intend walking up to the front door and ringing the bell?'

'I don't,' said Eva, 'I intend to be dropped in.'

'Dropped in? said Flint with a gleam of incredulous' hope in his eyes, 'did you really say
"dropped in"?'

'By helicopter,' explained Eva, 'the same way you dropped that telephone in to Henry last
night.'

The Inspector held his head in his hands and tried to find words.

'And it's no use your saying you can't,' continued Eva, 'because I've seen it done on telly. I
wear a harness and the helicopter...'

'Oh my God,' said Flint, closing his eyes to shut out this appalling vision. 'You can't be
serious.'

'I can,' said Eva.

'Mrs Wilt, if, and I repeat if, you were to enter the house by the means you have described,
will you be good enough to tell me how you think it would help your four daughters?'

'Never you mind.'

'But I do mind. I mind very much In fact I'll go so far as to say that I mind what happens to
your children rather more than you appear to and...'

'Then why aren't you doing something about it? And don't say you are, because you aren't.
You're sitting in here with all this transistor stuff listening to them being tortured and you
like it.'

Like it? Like it?' yelled the Inspector

'Yes, like it,' Eva yelled back. 'It gives you a feeling of importance and what's more you've
got a dirty mind. You enjoyed listening to Henry in bed with that woman and don't say you
didn't.'

Inspector Flint couldn't. Words failed him. The only ones that sprang to mind were obscene and
almost certain to lead to an action for slander. Trust this bloody woman to bring her solicitor
and the sod from the Personal Liberties mob with her. He rose from his chair and stumbled through
to the toy-room, slamming the door behind him. Professor Maerlis, Dr Felden and the Major were
sitting watching Wilt pass the time by idly examining his glans penis for signs of incipient
gangrene on the television screen. Flint switched the unnerving image off.

'You're not going to believe this,' he mouthed, 'but that bloody Mrs Wilt is demanding that we
use the helicopter to swing her through the attic window on the end of a rope so she can join her
fucking family.'

'I hope you're not going to allow it,' said Dr Felden. 'After what she threatened to do to her
husband last night I hardly think it's advisable...'

'Don't tempt me,' said Flint. 'If I thought I could sit here and watch her tear the little
shit limb from limb...' He broke off to savour the thought.

'Damned plucky little woman,' said the Major. 'Blowed if I'd choose to swing into that house
on the end of a rope. Well, not without a lot of covering fire anyhow. Still, there's something
to be said for it.'

'What?' said Flint wondering how the hell anyone could call Mrs Wilt a little woman.

'Diversionary tactics, old man. Can't think of anything more likely to unnerve the buggers
than the sight of that woman dangling from a helicopter. Know it would scare the pants off
me.'

'I daresay. But since that doesn't happen to be the purpose of the exercise I'd like some more
constructive suggestion.'

From the other room Eva could be heard shouting that she'd send a telegram to the Queen if she
wasn't allowed to join her family.

'That's all we need,' said Flint. 'We've got the press baying for blood and there hasn't been
a decent mass suicide for months. She'll hit the headlines.'

'Certainly hit that window with a hell of a bang,' said the Major practically. 'Then we could
rush the sods and '

'No! Definitely no,' shouted Flint and dashed into the Communications Centre. 'All right. Mrs
Wilt. I am going to try to persuade the two terrorists holding your daughters to allow you to
join them. If they refuse that's their business. I can't do more.'

He turned to the sergeant on the switchboard. 'Get the two wogs on the phone and let me know
when they've finished their Fascist Pig Overture.'

Mr Symper felt called upon to protest 'I really do think these racialist remarks are quite
unnecessary,' he said. 'In fact they are illegal. To call foreigners wogs '

'I'm not calling foreigners wogs. I'm calling two fucking murderers wogs and don't tell me I
shouldn't call them murderers either,' said Flint as Mr Symper tried to interject. 'A murderer is
a murderer is a murderer and I've had about as much as I can take.'

So, it seemed, had the two terrorists. There was no preliminary tirade of abuse 'What do you
want?' Chinanda asked.

Flint took the phone. 'I have a proposal to make,' he said. 'Mrs Wilt, the mother of the four
children you are holding, has volunteered to come in to look after them. She is unarmed and is
prepared to meet any conditions you may choose to make.'

'Say that again,' said Chinanda. The Inspector repeated the message.

'Any conditions? said Chinanda incredulously.

'Any. You name them, she'll meet them,' said Flint looking at Eva, who nodded.

A muttered conference took place in the kitchen next door made practically inaudible by the
squeals of the quads and the occasional moan from Mrs de Frackas. Presently the terrorist came
back on the line.

'Here are our conditions. The woman must be naked first of all. You hear me, naked.'

'I hear what you say but I can't say I understand...'

'No clothes on. So we see she has no weapons. Right?'

'I'm not sure Mrs Wilt will agree...'

'I do,' said Eva adamantly.

'Mrs Wilt agrees,' said Flint with a sigh of disgust.

'Second. Her hands are tied above her head.'

Again Eva nodded.

'Third. Her legs are tied.'

'Her legs are tied?' said Flint. 'How the hell is she going to walk if her legs are tied?'

'Long rope Half metre between ankles. No running.'

'I see. Yes, Mrs Wilt agrees. Anything else?'

'Yes,' said Chinanda 'As soon as she comes in, out go the children.'

'I beg your pardon?' said Flint. 'Did I hear you say "Out go the children"? You mean you don't
want them?'

'Want them!' yelled Chinanda. 'You think we want to live with four dirty, filthy, disgusting
little animals who shit all over the floor and piss.'

'No,' said Flint, 'I take your point.'

'So you can take the fucking little fascist shit-machines too,' said Chinanda, and slammed the
phone down.

Inspector Flint turned to Eva with a happy smile. 'Mrs Wilt, I didn't say it, but you heard
what the man said.'

'And he'll live to regret it,' said Eva with blazing eyes. 'Now, where do I undress?'

'Not in here,' said Flint firmly 'You can use the bedrooms upstairs. The sergeant here will
tie your hands and legs.'

While Eva went up to undress the Inspector consulted the Psycho-Warfare Team. He found them at
odds with one another. Professor Maerlis argued that by exchanging four coterminiously conceived
siblings for one woman whom the world would scarcely miss, there was propaganda advantage to be
gained from the swop. Dr Felden disagreed.

'It's evident that the terrorists are under considerable pressure from the girls,' he said,
'Now, by relieving them of that psychological burden we may well be giving them a morale
boost.'

'Never mind about their morale,' said Flint. 'If the bitch goes in she'll be doing me a favour
and after that the Major here can mount Operation Slaughterhouse for all I care.'

'Whacko,' said the Major.

Flint went back to the Communications Centre, averted his eyes from the monstrous revelations
of Eva in the raw, and turned to Mr Gosdyke.

'Let's get one thing straight, Gosdyke,' he said. 'I want you to understand that I am totally
opposed to your client's actions and am not prepared to take responsibility for what
happens.'

Mr Gosdyke nodded. 'I quite understand. Inspector, and I would just as soon not be involved
myself. Mrs Wilt, I appeal to you...'

Eva ignored him. With her hands tied above her head and with her ankles linked by a short
length of rope, she was an awesome sight and not a woman with whom anyone would willingly
argue.

'I am ready,' she said. 'Tell them I'm coming.'

She hobbled out of the door and down Mrs de Frackas' drive. In the bushes SGS men blanched and
thought wistfully of booby traps in South Armagh. Only the Major, surveying the scene from a
bedroom window, gave Eva his blessing. 'Makes a chap proud to be British,' he told Dr Felden. 'By
God that woman's got some guts.'

'I must say I find that remark in singularly bad taste,' said the doctor, who was studying Eva
from a purely physiological point of view.

There was something of a misunderstanding next door. Chinanda, viewing Eva through the
letter-box in the Wilts' front door, had just begun to have second thoughts when a waft of vomit
hit him from the kitchen. He opened the door and aimed his automatic.

'Get the children,' he shouted to Baggish. 'I'm covering the woman.'

'You're what?' said Baggish, who had just glimpsed the expanse of flesh that was moving
towards the house. But there was no need to fetch the children. As Eva reached the doormat they
rushed towards her squealing with delight.

'Back,' yelled Baggish, 'back or I fire!'

It was too late. Eva swayed on the doorstep as the quads clutched at her.

'Oh Mummy, you do look funny,' shrieked Samantha, and grabbed her mother's knees. Penelope
clambered over the others and flung her arms round Eva's neck. For a moment they swayed
uncertainly and then Eva took a step forward, tripped and with a crash fell heavily into the
hall. The quads slithered before her across the polished parquet and the hatstand, seismically
jolted from the wall, crashed forward against the door and slammed it. The two terrorists stood
staring down at their new hostage while Mrs de Frackas raised a drunken head from the kitchen,
took one look at the amazing sight and passed out again. Eva heaved herself to her knees. Her
hands were still tied above her head but her concern was all for the quads.

'Now don't worry, darlings. Mummy's here,' she said. 'Everything is going to be all
right.'

From the safety of the kitchen the two terrorists surveyed the extraordinary scene with
dismay. They didn't share her optimism.

'Now what do we do?' asked Baggish. 'Throw the children out the door?'

Chinanda shook his head. He wasn't going within striking distance of this powerful woman. Even
with her hands tied above her head there was something dangerous and frightening about Eva, and
now she seemed to be edging towards him on bulging knees.

'Stay where you are,' he ordered, and raised his gun. Next to him the telephone rang. He
reached for it angrily

'What do you want now?' he asked Flint.

I might ask you the same question,' said the Inspector. You've got the woman and you said
you'd let the children go.'

'If you think I want this fucking woman you're crazy,' Chinanda yelled, 'and the fucking
children won't leave her. So now we've got them all.'

What sounded like a chuckle came from Flint. 'Not my fault. We didn't ask for the children.
You volunteered to...'

'And we didn't ask for this woman,' screamed Chinanda his voice rising hysterically 'So now we
do a deal. You...'

'Forget it, Miguel,' said Flint, beginning to enjoy himself. 'Deals are out and for your
information you'd be doing me a favour shooting Mrs Wilt. In fact you go right ahead and shoot
whoever you want, mate, because the moment you do I'm sending my men in and where they shoot you
and Comrade Baggish you won't die in a hurry. You'll be...'

'Fascist murderer,' screamed Chinanda, and pulled the trigger of his automatic. Bullets spat
boles across a chart on the kitchen wall which had until that moment announced the health-giving
properties of any number of alternative herbs, most of them weeds. Eva regarded the damage
balefully and the quads sent up a terrible wail.

Even Flint was horrified. 'Did you kill her?' he asked, suddenly conscious that his pension
came before personal satisfaction.

Chinanda ignored the question. 'So now we deal. You send Gudrun down and have the jet ready in
one hour only. From now on we don't play games.'

He slammed the phone down.

'Shit,' said Flint. 'All right, get me Wilt. I've got news for him.'

But Wilt's tactics had changed again. Having run the gamut of roles from chinless wonder to
village idiot by way of revolutionary fanatic, which to his mind was merely a more virulent form
of the same species, it had slowly dawned on him he was approaching the destabilization of Gudrun
Schautz from the wrong angle The woman was an ideologue, and a German one at that. Behind her a
terrible tradition stretched back into the mists of history, a cultural heritage of solemn,
monstrously serious and ponderous Dichter und Denker, philosophers, artists, poets and thinkers
obsessed with the meaning, significance and process of social and historical development. The
word Weltanschauung sprang, or at least lumbered, to mind. Wilt had no idea what it meant and
doubted if anyone else knew. Something to do with having a world view and about as charming as
Lebensraum which should have meant living-room but actually signified the occupation of Europe
and as much of Russia as Hitler had been able to lay his hands on. And after Weltanschauung and
Lebensraum there came, even less comprehensibly, Weltschmerz or world pity which, considering
Fräulein Schautz's propensity for putting bullets into unarmed opponents without a qualm, topped
the bill for codswallop. And beyond these dread concepts there were the carriers of the virus,
Hegel, Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche who had gone clean off his nut from a
combination of syphilis, superman and large ladies in helmets trumpeting into theatrical forests
at Bayreuth. Wilt had once waded lugubriously through Thus Spake Zarathustra and had come out
convinced that either Nietzsche hadn't known what the hell he was on about or, if he had, he had
kept it very verbosely to himself. And Nietzsche was sprightly by comparison with Hegel and
Schopenhauer, tossing off meaningless maxims with an abandon that was positively joyful. If you
wanted the real hard stuff Hegel was your man, while Schopenhauer hit a nadir of gloom that made
King Lear sound like an hysterical optimist under the influence of laughing gas. In short, Gudrun
Schautz's weak spot was happiness. He could blather on about the horrors of the world until he
was blue in the face but she wouldn't bat an eyelid. What was needed to send her reeling was a
dose of undiluted good cheer, and Wilt beneath his armour of domestic grumbling was at heart a
cheerful man.