Wilt on High (7 page)

‘Can’t,’ said Josephine. ‘Sammy’s having her hair washed. She’s got nits. You smell funny too. What’s that on your collar?’

‘And all down the front of your shirt.’ This from Penelope.

‘Blood,’ said Wilt, endowing the word with as much threat as he could. He pushed past the pram and went into the bedroom, wondering what it was about the quads
that gave them some awful sort of collective authority. Four separate daughters wouldn’t have had the same degree of assertiveness and the quads had definitely inherited Eva’s capacity for making the worst of things. As he undressed, he could hear Penelope bearing the glad tidings of his misfortune to Eva through the bathroom door.

‘Daddy’s come home smelling of disinfectant and he’s cut his face.’

‘He’s taking off his trousers and there’s blood all down his shirt,’ Josephine chimed in.

‘Oh, great,’ said Wilt. ‘That ought to bring her out like a scalded cat.’

But it was Emmeline’s announcement that Daddy had said Mummy went into a trance when she wanted a fuck that caused the trouble.

‘Don’t use that word,’ yelled Wilt. ‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times and I never said anything about your bleeding mother going into a trance. I said –’

‘What did you call me?’ Eva shouted, storming out of the bathroom. Wilt pulled up his Y-fronts again and sighed. On the landing, Emmeline was describing with clinical accuracy the mating habits of female hamsters, and attributing the description to Wilt.

‘I didn’t call you a bloody hamster. That’s a downright lie. I don’t know the first thing about the fucking things and I certainly never wanted them in –’

‘There you go,’ shouted Eva. ‘One moment you’re telling
the children not to use filthy language and the next you’re using it yourself. You can’t expect them to –’

‘I don’t expect them to lie. That’s far worse than the sort of language they use and anyway Penelope used it first. I –’

‘And you’ve absolutely no right to discuss our sex life with them.’

‘I don’t and I wasn’t,’ said Wilt. ‘All I said was I didn’t want the house overrun by blasted hamsters. The man in the shop sold me that mentally deficient rat as a male, not a bloody breeding machine.’

‘Now you’re being disgustingly sexist as well,’ yelled Eva.

Wilt stared wildly round the bedroom. ‘I am not being sexist,’ he said finally. ‘It just happens to be a well-known fact that hamsters –’

But Eva had seized on his inconsistency. ‘Oh yes you are. The way you talk anyone would think women were the only ones who wanted you-know-what.’

‘You-know-what my foot. Those four little bints out there know what without you-know-whating –’

‘How dare you call your own daughters bints? That’s a disgusting word.’

‘Fits,’ said Wilt, ‘and as for their being my own daughters, I can tell you it’s –’

‘I shouldn’t,’ said Eva.

Wilt didn’t. Push Eva too far and there was no knowing what would happen. Besides, he’d had enough of women’s power in action for one day. ‘All right, I apologize,’ he said. ‘It was a stupid thing to say.’

‘I should think it was,’ said Eva, coming off the boil and picking his shirt off the floor. ‘How on earth did you get all this blood on your new shirt?’

‘Slipped and fell in the gents,’ said Wilt, deciding the time was hardly appropriate for a more accurate account. ‘That’s why it smells like that.’

‘In the gents?’ said Eva suspiciously. ‘You fell over in the gents?’

Wilt gritted his teeth. He could see any number of awful consequences developing if the truth leaked out but he’d already committed himself.

‘On a bar of soap,’ he said. ‘Some idiot had left it on the floor.’

‘And another idiot stepped on it,’ said Eva, scooping up Wilt’s jacket and trousers and depositing them in a plastic basket. ‘You can take these to the dry-cleaners on the way to work tomorrow.’

‘Right,’ said Wilt, and headed for the bathroom.

‘You can’t go in there yet. I’m still washing Samantha’s hair and I’m not having you prancing around in the altogether …’

‘Then I’ll wear my pants in the shower,’ said Wilt and was presently hidden behind the shower curtain listening to Penelope telling the world that female hamsters frequently bit the male’s testicles after copulating.

‘I wonder they bother to wait. Talk about having your cake and eating it,’ muttered Wilt, and absentmindedly soaped his Y-fronts.

‘I heard that,’ said Eva and promptly turned the hot
tap on in the bath. Behind the shower curtain Wilt juddered under a stream of cold water. With a grunt of despair, he wrenched at the cold tap and stepped from the shower.

‘Daddy’s foaming at his panties,’ squealed the quads delightedly.

Wilt lurched at them rabidly. ‘Not the only fucking place he’ll be foaming if you don’t get the hell out of here,’ he shouted.

Eva turned the hot tap in the bath off. ‘That’s no way to set an example,’ she said, ‘talking like that. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘Like hell I should. I’ve had a bloody awful day at the Tech and I’ve got to go out to the prison to teach that ghastly creature McCullum, and I no sooner step into the bosom of my menagerie than I –’

The front doorbell rang loudly downstairs. ‘That’s bound to be Mr Leach nextdoor come to complain again,’ said Eva.

‘Sod Mr Leach,’ said Wilt and stepped back under the shower.

This time he learnt what it felt like to be scalded.

Things were hotting up for other people in Ipford as well. The Principal for one. He had just arrived home and was opening the drinks cabinet in the hope of dulling his memory of a disastrous day, when the phone rang. It was the Vice-Principal. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some rather disturbing news,’ he said with a lugubrious satisfaction the Principal recognized. He connected it with funerals. ‘It’s about that girl we were looking for …’ The Principal reached for the gin bottle and missed the rest of the sentence. He got back in time to hear something about the boiler-room. ‘Say that again,’ he said, holding the bottle between his knees and trying to open it with one hand.

‘I said the caretaker found her in the boiler-room.’

‘In the boiler-room? What on earth was she doing there?’

‘Dying,’ said the Vice-Principal, affecting an even more sombre tone.

‘Dying?’ The Principal had the bottle open now and poured himself a large gin. This was even more awful than he expected.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Where is she now?’ asked the Principal, trying to stave off the worst.

‘Still in the boiler-room.’

‘Still in the … But good God man, if she’s in that condition, why the devil haven’t you got her to hospital?’

‘She isn’t in that condition,’ said the Vice-Principal and paused. He too had had a hard day. ‘What I said was that she was dying. The fact of the matter is that she’s dead.’

‘Oh, my God,’ said the Principal and swigged neat gin. It was better than nothing. ‘You mean she died of an overdose?’

‘Presumably. I suppose the police will find out.’

The Principal finished the rest of the gin. ‘When did this happen?’

‘About an hour ago.’

‘An hour ago? I was still in my office an hour ago. Why the hell wasn’t I told?’

‘The caretaker thought she was drunk first of all and fetched Mrs Ruckner. She was taking an ethnic needlework class with Home Economics in the Morris block and –’

‘Never mind about that now,’ snapped the Principal. ‘A girl’s dead on the premises and you have to go on about Mrs Ruckner and ethnic needlework.’

‘I’m not going on about Mrs Ruckner,’ said the Vice-Principal, driven to some defiance, ‘I’m merely trying to explain.’

‘Oh, all right, I’ve heard you. So what have you done with her?’

‘Who? Mrs Ruckner?’

‘No, the damned girl, for God’s sake. There’s no need to be flippant.’

‘If you’re going to adopt that tone of voice, you’d better come here and see for yourself,’ said the Vice-Principal and put the phone down.

‘You bloody shit,’ said the Principal, unintentionally addressing his wife who had just entered the room.

At Ipford Police Station the atmosphere was fairly acrimonious too. ‘Don’t give me that,’ said Flint who had returned from a fruitless visit to the Mental Hospital to interview a patient who had confessed (quite falsely) to being the Phantom Flasher. ‘Give it to Hodge. He’s drugs and I’ve had my fill of the bloody Tech.’

‘Inspector Hodge is out,’ said the Sergeant, ‘and they specially asked for you. Personally.’

‘Pull the other one,’ said Flint. ‘Someone’s hoaxing you. The last person they want to see is me. And it’s mutual.’

‘No hoax, sir. It was the Vice-Principal himself. Name of Avon. My lad goes there so I know.’

Flint stared at him incredulously. ‘Your son goes to that hell-hole? And you let him? You must be out of your mind. I wouldn’t let a son of mine within a mile of the place.’

‘Possibly not,’ said the Sergeant, tactfully avoiding the observation that since Flint’s son was doing a five-year
stretch, he wasn’t likely to be going any place. ‘All the same, he’s an apprentice plumber. Got day-release classes and he can’t opt out of them. There’s a law about it.’

‘You want my opinion, there ought to be a law stopping youngsters having anything to do with the sods who teach there. When I think of Wilt …’ He shook his head in despair.

‘Mr Avon said something about your discreet approach being needed,’ the Sergeant went on, ‘and anyway, they don’t know how she died. I mean, it doesn’t have to be an overdose.’

Flint perked up. ‘Discreet approach my arse,’ he muttered. ‘Still, a genuine murder there makes a change.’ He lumbered to his feet and went down to the car pool and drove down to Nott Road and the Tech. A patrol car was parked outside the gates. Flint swept past it and parked deliberately in the space reserved for the Bursar. Then with the diminished confidence he always felt when returning to the Tech, he entered the building. The Vice-Principal was waiting for him by the Enquiries Desk. ‘Ah, Inspector, I’m so glad you could come.’

Flint regarded him suspiciously. His previous visits hadn’t been welcomed. ‘All right, where’s the body?’ he said abruptly and was pleased to see the Vice-Principal wince.

‘Er … in the boiler-room,’ he said. ‘But first there’s the question of discretion. If we can avoid a great deal of publicity it would really be most helpful.’

Inspector Flint cheered up. When the sods started squealing about publicity and the need for discretion, things had got to be bad. On the other hand, he’d had enough lousy publicity from the Tech himself. ‘If it’s anything to do with Wilt …’ he began, but the Vice-Principal shook his head.

‘Nothing like that, I assure you,’ he said. ‘At least, not directly.’

‘What’s that mean, not directly?’ said Flint warily. With Wilt, nothing was ever direct.

‘Well, he was the first to be told that Miss Lynchknowle had taken an overdose but he went to the wrong loo.’

‘Went to the wrong loo?’ said Flint and bared his teeth in a mock smile. A second later the smile had gone. He’d smelt trouble. ‘Miss who?’

‘Lynchknowle. That’s what I meant about … well, the need for discretion. I mean …’

‘You don’t have to tell me. I know, don’t I just,’ said Flint rather more coarsely than the Vice-Principal liked. ‘The Lord Lieutenant’s daughter gets knocked off here and you don’t want him to …’ He stopped and looked hard at the V-P. ‘How come she was here in the first place? Don’t tell me she was shacked up with one of your so-called students.’

‘She was one of our students,’ said the Vice-Principal, trying to maintain some dignity in the face of Flint’s patent scepticism. ‘She was Senior Secs Three and …’

‘Senior Sex Three? What sort of course is that, for hell’s sake? Meat One was sick enough considering they were a load of butcher’s boys, but if your telling me you’ve been running a class for prostitutes and one of them’s Lord Lynchknowle’s ruddy daughter …’

‘Senior Secretaries,’ spluttered the Vice-Principal, ‘a very respectable course. We’ve always had excellent results.’

‘Like deaths,’ said Flint. ‘All right, let’s have a look at your latest victim.’

With the certainty now that he’d done the wrong thing in asking for Flint, the Vice-Principal led the way across the quad.

But the Inspector hadn’t finished. ‘I hear you’ve been putting it out as a self-administered OD. Right?’

‘OD?’

‘Overdose.’

‘Of course. You’re not seriously suggesting it could have been anything else?’

Inspector Flint fingered his moustache. ‘I’m not in a position to suggest anything. Yet. I’m asking why you say she died of drugs.’

‘Well, Mrs Bristol saw a girl injecting herself in the staff toilet and went to fetch Wilt …’

‘Why Wilt of all people? Last person I’d fetch.’

‘Mrs Bristol is Wilt’s secretary,’ said the V-P and went on to explain the confused course of events. Flint listened grimly. The only part he enjoyed was hearing how Wilt had been dealt with by Miss Hare. She sounded like a
woman after his own heart. The rest fitted in with his preconceptions of the Tech.

‘One thing’s certain,’ he said when the Vice-Principal had finished, ‘I’m not drawing any conclusions until I’ve made a thorough examination. And I do mean thorough. The way you’ve told it doesn’t make sense. One unidentified girl takes a fix in a toilet and the next thing you know Miss Lynchknowle is found dead in the boiler-room. How come you assume it’s the same girl?’

The Vice-Principal said it just seemed logical. ‘Not to me it doesn’t,’ said Flint. ‘And what was she doing in the boiler-room?’

The Vice-Principal looked miserably down the steps at the door and resisted the temptation to say she’d been dying. That might work with the Principal but Inspector Flint’s manner didn’t suggest he’d respond kindly to statements of the obvious. ‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps she just felt like going somewhere dark and warm.’

‘And perhaps she didn’t,’ said Flint. ‘Anyway, I’ll soon find out.’

‘I just hope you will be discreet,’ said the V-P, ‘I mean it’s a very sensitive …’

‘Bugger discretion,’ said Flint, ‘all I’m interested in is the truth.’