And so presently he was standing in the pub near the prison discussing Wilt with the Chief Warder with a frankness Wilt would have found only partly reassuring. ‘If you want my opinion,’ said Mr Blaggs, ‘educating villains is anti-social. Only gives them more brains than they need. Makes your job more difficult when they come out, doesn’t it?’
Flint had to agree that it didn’t make it any easier. ‘But you don’t reckon Wilt had anything to do with Mac’s having a cache of junk in his cell?’ he asked.
‘Wilt? Never. A bloody do-gooder, that’s what he is. Mind you, I’m not saying they’re not daft enough, because I know for a fact they are. What I’m saying is, a nick ought to be a prison, not a fucking finishing-school for turning half-witted petty thieves into first-rate bank robbers with degrees in law.’
‘That’s not what Mac was studying for, is it?’ asked Flint.
Mr Blaggs laughed. ‘Didn’t need to,’ he said. ‘He had enough cash on the outside, he had a fistful of legal beavers on his payroll.’
‘So how come Wilt’s supposed to have made this phone call?’ asked Flint.
‘Just what Bill Coven thought, he took the call,’ said Blaggs, and looked significantly at his glass. Flint ordered two more pints. ‘He just thought he recognized Wilt’s voice,’ Blaggs continued, satisfied that he was getting his money’s worth for information. ‘Could have been anyone.’
Flint paid for the beer and tried to think what to ask next. ‘And you’ve got no idea how Mac got his dope then?’ he asked finally.
‘Know exactly,’ said Blaggs proudly. ‘Another bloody do-gooder only this time a fucking prison visitor. If you ask me, they should ban all vi –’
‘A prison visitor?’ interrupted Flint, before the Chief Warder could express his views on a proper prison regime, which involved perpetual solitary confinement for all convicts and mandatory hanging for murderers, rapists and anyone insulting a prison officer. ‘You mean a visitor to the prison?’
‘I don’t. I mean an authorized prison visitor, a bloody licensed busybody. They come in and treat us officers like we’ve committed the ruddy crimes and the villains are all bloody orphans who didn’t get enough teat when they were toddlers. Right, well, this bitch of a PV, name of Jardin, was the one McCullum got to bring his stuff in.’
‘Christ,’ said Flint. ‘What did she do that for?’
‘Scared,’ said Blaggs. ‘Some of Mac’s nastier mates on the outside paid her a visit with razors and a bottle of nitric acid and threatened to leave her looking like a cross between a dog’s dinner and a leper with acne unless … You get the message?’
‘Yes,’ said Flint, who’d begun to sympathize with the prison visitor, though for the life of him he couldn’t visualize what a leper with acne looked like. ‘And you mean she walked in and announced the fact?’
‘Oh dear me, no,’ said Blaggs. ‘Starts off we’ve done for Mr – I ask you, Mister? – fucking McCullum ourselves. Practically said I’d hanged the sod myself, not that I’d have minded. So we took her down the morgue – of course it just happened the prison quack was doing an autopsy at the time and didn’t much like the look of things by the sound of it, using a saw he was, too – and he wasn’t having any crap about anyone doing anything to the bugger. Right, well when she’d come to, like, and he’s saying the swine died of drug overdose and anyone who said different’d end up in court for slander, she cracked. Tears all over the place and practically down on her knees in front of the Governor. And it all comes out how she’s been running heroin into the prison for months. Ever so bleeding sorry and all.’
‘I should bloody well think so,’ said Flint. ‘When’s she going to be charged?’
Mr Blaggs drank his beer mournfully. ‘Never,’ he grunted.
‘Never? But smuggling anything, let alone drugs, into a prison is an indictable offence.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Blaggs. ‘On the other hand, the Governor don’t want no scandal, can’t afford one with his job up for grabs and anyway, she’d done a social service in a way by shoving the bugger where he belongs.’
‘There is that,’ said Flint. ‘Does Hodge know this?’
The Chief Warder shook his head. ‘Like I said, the Governor don’t want no publicity. Anyway, she claimed she thought the stuff was talcum powder. Like hell, but you know what a Rumpole would do with a defence like that. Prison authorities entirely to blame, and so on. Negligence, the lot.’
‘Did she say where she got the heroin?’ asked Flint.
‘Picked it up back of a telephone box on the London Road at night. Never saw the blokes who delivered it.’
‘And it won’t have been any of the lot who’d threatened her either.’
By the time the Inspector left the pub, he was a happy man. Hodge was way off line, and Flint had a conscience-stricken prison visitor to question. He wasn’t even worried about the effect of four pints of the best bitter being flushed through his system by those bloody piss-pills. He’d already charted his route home by way of three relatively clean public lavatories.
10
But if Flint’s mood had changed for the better, Inspector Hodge’s hadn’t. His interpretation of Wilt’s behaviour had been coloured by the accident at the end of Nott Road. ‘The bastard’s got to know we’re onto him, ramming a police car like that,’ he told Sergeant Runk, ‘so what’s he do?’
‘Buggered if I know,’ said the Sergeant, who preferred early nights and couldn’t think at all clearly at one in the morning.
‘He goes for an early arrest, knowing we’ve got no hard evidence and will have to let him go.’
‘What’s he want us to do that for?’
‘Because if we pull him in again he can start squealing about harassment and civil bloody liberties,’ said Hodge.
‘Seems an odd way of going about things,’ said Runk.
‘And what about sending your wife out to a herb farm to pick up a load of drugs on the very day after a girl dies of the filth? Isn’t that a bit odd too?’ Hodge demanded.
‘Definitely,’ said Runk. ‘In fact, I can’t think of anything odder. Any normal criminal would lie bloody low.’
Inspector Hodge smiled unpleasantly. ‘Exactly. But we’re not dealing with any ordinary criminal. That’s the point I’m trying to make. We’ve got one of the cleverest monkeys I’ve ever had to catch on our hands.’
Sergeant Runk couldn’t see it. ‘Not if he sends his missus out to get a bottle of the stuff when we’re watching her, he’s not clever. Downright stupid.’
Hodge shook his head sadly. It was always difficult to get the Sergeant to understand the complexities of the criminal mind. ‘Suppose there was nothing remotely like drugs in that bottle she was seen carrying?’ he asked.
Sergeant Runk dragged his thoughts back from beds and tried to concentrate. ‘Seems a bit of a wasted journey,’ was all he could find to say.
‘It’s also intended to lead us up the garden path,’ said Hodge. ‘And that’s his tactics. You’ve only to look at Wilt’s record to see that. Take that doll caper for instance. He had old Flint by the short and curlies there, and why? Because the stupid fool pulled him in for questioning when all the evidence he had to go on was a blown-up doll of Mrs Wilt down a piling-hole with twenty tons of concrete on top of her. And where was the real Mrs Wilt all that week? Out on a boat with a couple of hippie Yanks who were into drugs up to their eyeballs and Flint lets them flee the country without grilling them about what they’d really been doing down the coast. Sticks out a mile they were smuggling and Wilt had set himself up for a decoy and kept Flint busy digging up a plastic doll. That’s how cunning Wilt is.’
‘I suppose when you put it like that it makes sense,’ said Runk. ‘And you reckon he’s using the same tactics now.’
‘Leopards,’ said Hodge.
‘Leopards?’
‘Don’t change their bleeding spots.’
‘Oh, them,’ said the Sergeant, who could have done without ellipses at
that time of night.
‘Only this time he’s not dealing with some old-fashioned dead-beat copper like Flint,’ said Hodge, now thoroughly convinced by the persuasiveness of his argument. ‘He’s dealing with me.’
‘Makes a change. And talking about changes, I’d like to go …’
‘To 45 Oakhurst Avenue,’ said Hodge decisively, ‘that’s where you’re going. I want Mr Smart-Arse Wilt’s car wired for sound and we’re calling off the physical observation. This time it’s going to be electronic all the way.’
‘Not if I have anything to do with it,’ said Runk defiantly, ‘I’ve enough sense to know better than start tinkering with a sod like Wilt’s car. Besides, I’ve got a wife and three kids to –’
‘What the hell’s your family got to do with it?’ said Hodge. ‘All I’m saying is, we’ll go round there while they’re asleep –’
‘Asleep? A bloke who electrifies his back gate, you think he takes chances with his bloody car? You can do what you like, but I’m buggered if I’m going to meet my Maker charred to a fucking cinder by a maniac who’s linked his car to the national grid. Not for you or anyone else.’
But Hodge was not to be stopped. ‘We can check it’s safe,’ he insisted.
‘How?’ asked Runk, who was wide awake now. ‘Let a police dog pee against the thing and see if he gets 32,000 volts up his prick? You’ve got to be joking.’
‘I’m not,’ said Hodge. ‘I’m telling. Go and get the equipment.’
Half an hour later, a desperately nervous Sergeant wearing gum boots and electrically safe rubber gloves eased the door of Wilt’s car open. He’d already been round it four times to check there were no wires running from the house and had earthed it with a copper rod. Even so, he was taking no chances and was a trifle surprised that the thing didn’t explode.
‘All right, now where do you want the tape recorder?’ he asked when the Inspector finally joined him.
‘Somewhere where we can get at the tape easily,’ Hodge whispered.
Runk groped under the dash and tried to find a space. ‘Too bloody obvious,’ said Hodge. ‘Stick it under his seat.’
‘Anything you say,’ said Runk and stuffed the recorder into the springs. The sooner he was out of the damned car, the better. ‘And what about the transmitter?’
‘One in the boot and the other …’
‘Other?’ said Runk. ‘You’re going to get him picked up by the TV licence-detector vans at this rate. One of these sets has a radius of five miles.’
‘I’m not taking chances,’ said Hodge. ‘If he finds one, he won’t look for the other.’
‘Not unless he has his car serviced.’
‘Put it where no one looks.’
In the end, and then only after a lot of disagreement, the Sergeant attached one radio magnetically in a corner of the boot and was lying under the car searching for a hiding-place for the second when the lights came on in the Wilts’ bedroom. ‘I told you the swine wouldn’t take any chances,’ he whispered frantically as the Inspector fought his way in beside him. ‘Now we’re for it.’
Hodge said nothing. With his face pressed against an oily patch of tarmac and something that smelt disgustingly of cats, he was incapable of speech.
*
So was Wilt. The effect of Dr Kores’ sexual stimulant added to his homebrew – Wilt had surreptitiously finished six bottles in an effort to find one that didn’t taste peculiar – had been to leave him mentally befuddled and with the distinct impression that something like a battalion of army ants had taken possession of his penis and were busily digging in. Either that, or one of the quads had dementedly shoved the electric toothbrush up it while he was asleep. It didn’t seem likely. But then again the sensation he was experiencing didn’t seem in the least likely either. As he switched on the bedside lamp and hurled the sheet back to see what on earth was wrong, he glimpsed an expanse of red panties beside him. Eva in red panties? Or was she on fire too?
Wilt stumbled out of bed and fought a losing battle with his pyjama cord before dragging the damned things down without bothering to undo them and pointed the Anglepoise at the offending organ in an effort to identify the cause of his agony. The beastly creature (Wilt had always granted his penis a certain degree of autonomy or, more accurately, had never wholly associated himself with its activities) looked normal enough but it certainly didn’t feel normal, not by a long chalk. Perhaps if he put some cold cream on it …
He hobbled across to Eva’s dressing-table and searched among the jars. Where the hell did she keep the cold cream? In the end, he chose one that called itself a moisturizer. That’d do. It didn’t. By the time he’d smeared half the jar on himself and a good deal on the pillow, the burning sensation seemed to have got worse. And whatever was going on was taking place inside. The army ants weren’t digging in, the sods were digging out. For one insane moment he considered using an aerosol of Flykil to flush them out, but decided against it. God alone knew what a load of pressurized insecticide would do to his bladder and anyway the bloody thing was full enough already. Perhaps if he had a pee … Still clutching the moisturizer, he hobbled through to the bathroom. ‘Must have been a fucking lunatic who first called it relieving oneself,’ he thought when he’d finished. About the only relief he’d found was that he hadn’t peed blood and there didn’t appear to be any ants in the pan afterwards. And peeing hadn’t helped. If anything, it had made things even worse. ‘The bloody thing’ll ignite in a minute,’ Wilt muttered, and was considering using the shower hose as a fire extinguisher when a better idea occurred to him. There was no point in smearing moisturizer on the outside. The stuff was needed internally. But how the hell to get it there? A tube of toothpaste caught his eye. That was what he needed. Oh no, it wasn’t. Not with toothpaste. With moisturizer. Why didn’t they pack the muck in tubes?
Wilt opened the medicine cupboard and groped among the old razors, the bottles of aspirin and cough mixture for a tube of something vaguely suitable for squeezing up his penis but apart from Eva’s hair remover … ‘Sod that for a lark,’ said Wilt, who had once accidentally brushed his teeth with the stuff, ‘I’m not shoving that defoliant up any place.’ It would have to be the moisturizing cream or nothing. And it wasn’t going to be nothing. With a fresh and frenzied sense of desperation, he lurched from the bathroom clutching the jar and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen and was presently scrabbling in the drawer by the sink. A moment later he had found what he was looking for.
Upstairs, Eva turned over. For some time she had been vaguely aware that her back was cold but too vaguely to do anything about it. Now she was also aware that the light was on and that the bed beside her was empty and the bedclothes had been flung back. Which explained why she’d been freezing. Henry had evidently gone to the lavatory. Eva pulled the blankets back and lay awake waiting for him to return. Perhaps he’d be in the mood to make love. After all, he’d had two bottles of his beer and Dr Kores’ aphrodisiac and she’d put on her red panties and it was much nicer to make love in the middle of the night when the quads were fast asleep than on Sunday mornings when they weren’t, and she had to get up and shut the door in case they came in. Even that wasn’t guaranteed to work. Eva would always remember one awful occasion when Henry had almost made it and she had suddenly smelt smoke and there’d been a series of screams from the quads. ‘Fire! Fire!’ they’d yelled, and she and Henry had hurled themselves from the bed and onto the landing in the altogether only to find the quads there with her jam-making pan filled with burning newspaper. It had been one of those rare occasions when she’d had to agree with Henry about the need for a thorough thrashing. Not that the quads had had one. They’d been down the stairs and out of the front door before Wilt could catch them and he’d been unable to pursue them down the street without a stitch of clothing on. No, it was much nicer at night and she was just wondering if she ought to take her panties off now and not wait, when a crash from downstairs put the thought out of her mind.
&
nbsp; Eva climbed out of bed and putting a dressing-gown on, went down to investigate. The next moment all thoughts of making love had gone. Wilt was standing in the middle of the kitchen with her cake-icing syringe in one hand and his penis in the other. In fact, the two seemed to be joined together.
Eva groped for words. ‘And what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded when she could speak.
Wilt turned a crimson face towards her. ‘Doing?’ he asked, conscious that the situation was one that was open to any number of interpretations and none of them nice.
‘That’s what I said, doing,’ said Eva.
Wilt looked down at the syringe. ‘As a matter of fact …’ he began, but Eva was ahead of him.
‘That’s my icing syringe.’
‘I know it is. And this is my John Thomas,’ said Wilt. Eva regarded the two objects with equal disgust. She would never be able to ice a cake with the syringe again and how she could ever have found anything faintly attractive about Wilt’s John Thomas was beyond her. ‘And for your information,’ he continued, ‘that is your moisturizing cream on the floor.’
Eva stared down at the jar. Even by the peculiar standards of 45 Oakhurst Avenue there was something disorientating about the conjunction – and conjunction was the right word – of Wilt’s thingamajig and the icing syringe and the presence on the kitchen floor of a jar of her moisturizing cream. She sat down on a stool.
‘And for your further information,’ Wilt went on, but Eva stopped him. ‘I don’t want to hear,’ she said.
Wilt glared at her lividly. ‘And I don’t want to feel,’ he snarled. ‘If you think I find any satisfaction in squirting whatever’s in that emulsifier you use for your face up my whatsit at three o’clock in the morning, I can assure you I don’t.’