Wilt (11 page)

‘Liberal Studies means,’ said Mrs Chatterway, who prided herself on being an
advocate of progressive education, in which role she had made a substantial
contribution to the illiteracy rate in several previously good primary schools,
‘providing socially deprived adolescents with a firm grounding in liberal attitudes
and culturally extending topics…’

‘It means teaching them to read and write,’ said a company director. ‘It’s no good
having workers who can’t read instructions.’

‘It means whatever anyone chooses it to mean,’ said the Principal hastily. ‘Now if
you are faced with the problem of having to find lecturers who are prepared to spend their
lives going into classrooms filled with Gasfitters or Plasterers or Printers who see no
good reason for being there, and keeping them occupied with a subject that does not,
strictly speaking, exist, you cannot afford to pick and choose the sort of staff you
employ. That is the crux of the problem.’

The Committee looked at him doubtfully.

‘Am I to understand that you are suggesting that Liberal Studies teachers are not
devoted and truly creative individuals imbued with a strong sense of vocation?’ asked
Mrs Chatterway belligerently.

‘No,’ said the Principal, ‘I am not saying that at all. I am merely trying to make the
point that Liberal Studies lecturers are not as other men are. They either start out odd
or they end up odd. It’s in the nature of their occupation.’

‘But they are all highly qualified,’ said Mrs Chatterway, ‘they all have degrees.’

‘Quite. As you say they all hold degrees. They are all qualified teachers but the
stresses to which they are subject leave their mark. Let me put it this way. If you were to
take a heart transplant surgeon and ask him to spend his working life docking dogs’ tails
you would hardly expect him to emerge unscathed after ten years’ work. The analogy is
exact, believe me, exact.’

‘Well, all I can say,’ protested the building contractor, ‘is that not all Liberal
Studies lecturers end up burying their murdered wives at the bottom of pile shafts.’

‘And all I can say,’ said the Principal, ‘is that I am extremely surprised more
don’t’

The meting broke up undecided.

As dawn broke glaucously over East Anglia Wilt sat in the Interview Room at the
central Police Station isolated from the natural world and in a wholly artificial
environment that included a table, four chairs, a detective sergeant and a
fluorescent light on the ceiling that buzzed slightly. There were no windows, just pale
green walls and a door through which people came and went occasionally and Wilt went twice
to relieve himself in the company of a constable. Inspector Flint had gone to bed at
midnight and his place had been taken by Detective Sergeant Yates who had started again at
the beginning.

‘What beginning?’ said Wilt.

‘At the very beginning.’

‘God made heaven and earth and all…’

‘Forget the wisecracks,’ said Sergeant Yates.

‘Now that,’ said Wilt, appreciatively, ‘is a more orthodox use of wise.’

‘What is?’

‘Wisecrack. It’s slang but it’s good slang wisewise if you get my meaning.’

Detective Sergeant Yates studied him closely. ‘This is a soundproof room,’ he said
finally.

‘So I’ve noticed,’ said Wilt.

‘A man could scream his guts out in here and no one outside would be any the wiser.’

‘Wiser?’ said Wilt doubtfully. ‘Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing. Someone
outside might not be aware that…’

‘Shut up,’ said Sergeant Yates.

Wilt sighed. ‘If you would just let me get some sleep…’

‘You’ll get some sleep when you tell us why you murdered your wife, where you murdered her
and how you murdered her.’

‘I don’t suppose it will do any good if I tell you I didn’t murder her.’

Sergeant Yates shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We know you did. You know you did. We know where she is. We’re going to get
her out. We know you put her there. You’ve at least admitted that much.’

‘I keep telling you I put an inflatable…’

‘Was Mrs Wilt inflatable?’

‘Was she fuck,’ said Wilt.

‘Right, so we’ll forget the inflatable doll crap…’

‘I wish to God I could,’ sold Wilt. ‘I’ll be only too glad when you get down there and dig
it out. It will have burst of course with all that concrete on it but it will still be
recognisably an inflatable plastic doll.’

Sergeant Yates leant across the table. ‘Let me tell you some thing. When we do get Mrs Wilt
out of there, don’t imagine she’ll be unrecognisable.’ He stopped and stared intently at
Wilt. ‘Not unless you’ve disfigured her.’

‘Disfigured her?’ said Wilt with a hallow laugh. ‘She didn’t need disfiguring the last
time I saw her. She was looking bloody awful. She had on these lemon pyjamas and her face
was all covered with…’ He hesitated. There was a curious expression on the Sergeant’s
face.

‘Blood?’ he suggested. ‘Were you going to say “blood”?’

‘No,’ said Wilt, ‘I most certainly wasn’t. I was going to say powder. White powder and
scarlet lipstick. I told her she looked fucking awful.’

‘You must have had a very happy relationship with her,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I don’t make
a habit of telling my wife she looks fucking awful.’

‘You probably don’t have a fucking awful-looking wife,’ said Wilt making an attempt
to conciliate the man.

‘What I have or don’t have by way of a wife is my business. She lies outside the domain
of this discussion.’

‘Lucky old her,’ said Wilt, ‘I wish to God mine did.’ By two o’clock they had left Mrs
Wilt’s appearance and got on to teeth and the question of identifying dead bodies by
dental chart.

‘Look,’ said Wilt wearily, ‘I daresay teeth fascinate you but at this time of night I
can do without them.’

‘You wear dentures or something?’

‘No. No. I don’t,’ said Wilt, rejecting the plural.

‘Did Mrs Wilt?’

‘No,’ said Wilt, ’she was always very…’

‘I thank you,’ said Sergeant Yates, ‘I knew it would come out in the end.’

‘What would?’ said Wilt, his mind still on teeth.

‘That “was”. The past tense. That’s the give away. Right, so you admit she’s dead. Let’s go
on from there.’

‘I didn’t say anything of the sort. You said “Did she wear dentures?” and I said she
didn’t…’

‘You said “she was”. It’s that “was” that interests me. If you had said “is” it would have
been different’

‘It might have sounded different,’ said Wilt, rallying his defences, ‘but it wouldn’t
have made the slightest difference to the facts.’

‘Which are?’

‘That my wife is probably still around somewhere alive and kicking…’

‘You don’t half give yourself away, Wilt,’ said the Sergeant. ‘Now it’s “probably” and as
for “kicking” I just hope for your sake we don’t find she was still alive when they poured
that concrete down on top of her. The Court wouldn’t take kindly to that.’

‘I doubt if anyone would,’ said Wilt. ‘Now when I said “probably” what I meant was that if
you had been held in custody for a day and half the night being questioned on the trot by
detectives you’d begin to wonder what had happened to your wife. It might even cross your
mind that, all evidence to the contrary, she might not be alive. You want to try sitting on
this side of the table before you start criticising me for using terms like “probable”.
Anything more improbable than being accused of murdering your wife when you know for a
fact that you haven’t you can’t imagine.’

‘Listen, Wilt,’ said the Sergeant, ‘I’m not criticising you for your language. Believe
me I’m not. I’m merely trying as patiently as I can to establish the facts.’

‘The facts are these’ said Wilt. ‘Like a complete idiot I made the mistake of dumping an
inflatable doll down the bottom of a pile shaft and someone poured concrete in and my wife
is away from home and…’

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Sergeant Yates told Inspector Flint when he came on duty at
seven in the morning. ‘This one is a hard nut to crack. If you hadn’t told me he hadn’t a
record I’d have sworn he was an old hand and a good one at that. Are you sure Central Records
have got nothing on him?’ Inspector Flint shook his head.

‘He hasn’t started squealing for a lawyer yet?’

‘Not a whimper. I tell you he’s either as nutty as a fruit cake or he’s been through this
lot before.’

And Wilt had. Day after day, year in year out. With Gasfitters One and Printers Three,
with Day Release Motor Mechanics and Meat Two. For ten years he had sat in front of
classes, answering irrelevant questions, discussing why Piggy’s rational approach to
life was preferable to Jack’s brutishness, why Pangloss’ optimism was so
unsatisfactory, why Orwell hadn’t wanted to shoot that blasted elephant or hang that
man, and all the time fending off verbal attempts to rattle him and reduce him to the
state poor old Pinkerton was in when he gassed himself. By comparison with Bricklayers
Four, Sergeant Yates and Inspector Flint were child’s play. If only they would let him get
some sleep he would go on running inconsequential rings round them.

‘I thought I had him once,’ the Sergeant told Flint as they conferred in the corridor. ‘I
had got him on to teeth.’

‘Teeth?’ said the Inspector.

‘I was just explaining we can always identify bodies from their dental charts and he
almost admitted she was dead. Then he got away again.’

‘Teeth, eh? That’s interesting. I’ll have to pursue that line of questioning. It maybe
his weak link.’

‘Good luck on you,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I’m off to bed.’

‘Teeth?’ said Wit. ‘We’re not going through that again are we? I thought we’d exhausted
that topic. The last bloke wanted to know if Eva had them in the past tense. I told him she
did and…’

‘Wilt,’ said Inspector Flint, ‘I am not interested in whether or not Mrs Wilt had
teeth. I presume she must have done. What I want to know is if she still has them. Present
tense.’

‘I imagine she must have,’ said Wilt patiently. ‘You’d better ask her when you find
her.’

‘And when we find her will she be in a position to tell us?’

‘How the hell should I know? All I can say is that if for some quite inexplicable
reason she’s lost all her teeth there’ll be the devil to pay. I’ll never hear the end of it.
She’s got a mania for cleaning the things and sticking bits of dental floss down the loo.
You’ve got no idea the number of times I’ve thought I’d got worms.’

Inspector Flint sighed. Whatever success Sergeant Yates had had with teeth, it was
certainly eluding him. He switched to other matters.

‘Let’s go over what happened at the Pringsheims’ party again,’ he said.

‘Let’s not,’ said Wilt who had so far managed to avoid mentioning his contretemps with
the doll in the bathroom. ‘I’ve told you five times already and it’s wearing a bit thin.
Besides it was a filthy party. A lot of trendy intellectuals boosting their paltry
egos.’

‘Would you say you were an introverted sort of man, Wilt? A solitary type of
person?’

Wilt considered the question seriously. It was certainly more to the point than
teeth.

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he said finally. ‘I’m fairly quiet but I’m gregarious too.
You have to be to cope with the classes, I teach.’

‘But you don’t like parties?’

‘I don’t like parties like the Pringsheims’, no.’

‘Their sexual behaviour outrages you? Fills you with disgust?’

‘Their sexual behaviour? I don’t know why you pick on that. Everything about them
disgusts me. All that crap about Women’s Lib for one thing when all it means to someone like
Mrs Pringsheim is that she can go around behaving like a bitch on heat while her husband
spends the day slaving over a hot test tube and comes home to cook supper, wash up and is
lucky if he’s got enough energy to wank himself off before going to sleep. Now if we’re
talking about real Women’s Lib that’s another matter. I’ve got nothing against…’

‘Let’s just hold it there,’ said the Inspector. ‘Now two things you said interest me.
One, wives behaving like bitches on heat. Two, this business of you wanking yourself
off.’

‘Me?’ said Wilt indignantly. ‘I wasn’t talking about myself.’

‘Weren’t you?’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘So you don’t masturbate?’

‘Now look here, Inspector. You’re prying into areas of my private life which don’t
concern you. If you want to know about masturbation read the Kinsey Report. Don’t ask
me.’

Inspector Flint restrained himself with difficulty. He tried another tack. ‘So when
Mrs Pringsheim lay on the bed and asked you to have intercourse with her…’

‘Fuck is what she said,’ Wilt corrected him.’

‘You said no?’

‘Precisely,’ said Wilt.

‘Isn’t that a bit odd?’

‘What, her lying there or me saying no?’

‘You saying no.’

Wilt looked at him incredulously.

‘Odd?’ he said. ‘Odd? A woman comes in here and throws herself flat on her back on this
table, pulls up her skirt and says “Fuck me, honey, prick me to the quick.” Are you going to
leap onto her with a “Whoopee, let’s roll baby”? Is that what you mean by not odd?’

‘Jesus wept, Wilt,’ snarled the Inspector, ‘you’re walking a fucking tightrope with my
patience.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ said Wilt. ‘All I do know is that your notion of what is odd
behaviour and what isn’t doesn’t begin to make sense with me.’

Inspector Flint got up and left the room. ‘I’ll murder the bastard, so help me God I’ll
murder him,’ he shouted at the Duty Sergeant. Behind him in the interview Room Wilt put
his head on the table and fell asleep.

At the Tech Wilt’s absence was making itself felt in more ways than one. Mr Morris had
had to take Gasfitters One at nine o’clock and had come out an hour later feeling that he
had gained fresh insight into Wilt’s sudden excursion into homicide. The
Vice-Principal was fighting off waves of crime reporters anxious to find out more about
the man who was helping the police with their enquiries into a particularly macabre and
newsworthy crime. And the Principal had begun to regret his criticisms of Liberal
Studies to the Education Committee. Mrs Chatterway had phoned to say that she had found
his remarks in the worst of taste and had hinted that she might well ask for an enquiry
into the running of the Liberal Studies Department. But it was at the meeting of the
Course Board that there was most alarm.

‘The visitation of the Council for National Academic Awards takes place on Friday,’
Dr Mayfield, Head of Sociology, told the committee. ‘They are hardly likely to approve
the joint Honours degree in the present circumstances.’

‘If they had any sense they wouldn’t approve it in any circumstances,’ said Dr Board.
‘Urban Studies and Medieval Poetry indeed. I know academic eclecticism is the vogue
these days but Helen Waddell and Lewis Mumford aren’t even remotely natural bedfellows.
Besides the degree lacks academic content.’

Dr Mayfield bristled. Academic content was his strong point. ‘I don’t see how you can
say that,’ he said. ‘The course has been structured to meet the needs of students looking
for a thematic approach.’

‘The poor benighted creatures we manage to lure away from universities to take this
course wouldn’t know a thematic approach if they saw one,’ said Dr Board. ‘Come to think of
it I wouldn’t either.’

‘We all have our limitations,’ said Dr Mayfield suavely.

‘Precisely’ said Dr Board, ‘and in the circumstances we should recognise them instead
of concocting joint Honours degrees which don’t make sense for students who if their
A-level results are anything to go by, haven’t any chance in the first place. Heaven knows
I’m all for educational opportunity but–’

‘The point is,’ interjected Dr Cox, Head of Science, ‘that it is not the degree course
as such that is the purpose of the visitation. As I understand it they have given their
approval to the degree in principle. They are coming to look at the facilities the
College provides and they are hardly likely to be impressed by the presence of so many
murder squad detectives. That blue caravan is most off-putting.’