‘Inspector Hodge speaking,’ he said, slurring the name so that it might well have been Squash or Hedge, ‘I’m calling from Ipford Police Station in connection with a Mr Wilt … A Mr Henry Wilt of 45 Oakhurst Avenue, Ipford. I understand he visited you last night.’ He waited while someone said he’d check.
It took a long time and another American came on the line. ‘You enquiring about someone called Wilt?’ he asked.
‘That’s correct,’ said Flint.
‘And you say you’re police?’
‘Yes,’ said Flint, noting the hesitancy in the questioner with intense interest.
‘If you’ll give me your name and the number to call I’ll get back to you,’ said the American. Flint put the phone down quietly. He’d learnt what he needed and he wasn’t having any Yank check his credentials.
He went back to his office and sat down with a calculated sigh. ‘I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I’m going to tell you, Mrs Wilt,’ he said.
Eva didn’t. She left the police station white-faced with fury. Not only had Henry lied to her but he’d been cheating her for months and she hadn’t had an inkling.
Behind her Flint sat on in his office staring almost ecstatically at a wall-map of Ipford. Henry Wilt, Henry Bloody Wilt, was going to get his comeuppance this time. And he was out there somewhere, somewhere in one of those little streets, holed up with a dolly bird who must have money or he would be back at his job at the Tech.
No, he wouldn’t. Not with Eva in pursuit. No wonder the bugger had left the car down the road. If he’d any sense he’d have left town by now. The bloody woman would murder him. Flint smiled at the thought. Now that would be poetic justice, no mistake.
*
‘It’s more than my life’s worth. I mean I’d do it, I’d happily do it but what if it gets out?’ said Mr Gamer.
‘It won’t,’ said Hodge, ‘I can give you a solemn assurance on that. You won’t even know they’re there.’
Mr Gamer looked mournfully round the restaurant. He usually had sandwiches and a cup of coffee for lunch and he wasn’t sure how well Boneless Chicken Curry washed down with a bottle of Blue Nun was going to agree with him. Still, the Inspector was paying and he could always get some Solvol on the way back to the shop. ‘It’s not just me either, it’s the wife. If you knew what that woman has been through these last twelve months you wouldn’t believe me. You really wouldn’t.’
‘I would,’ said Hodge. If it was anything like what he’d been through in the last four days, Mrs Gamer must be a woman with an iron constitution.
‘It’s even worse in the school holidays,’ Mr Gamer continued. ‘Those fucking girls … I don’t usually swear but there’s a point where you’ve got to … I mean you can’t begin to know how awful they are.’ He stopped and looked closely into Hodge’s face. ‘One of these days they’re going to kill someone,’ he whispered. ‘They bloody near did for me on Tuesday. I’d have been as dead as a dodo if I hadn’t been wearing rubber-soled shoes. Stole my statue from the garden and when I went round to get it …’
Hodge listened sympathetically. ‘Criminal,’ he said. ‘You should have reported it to us straight away. Even now if you made a formal complaint …’
‘You think I’d dare? Never. If it meant having them all carted off to prison straightaway I might but it doesn’t work like that. They’d come home from court and … it doesn’t bear thinking about. Take that poor sod down the road, Councillor Birkenshaw. He had his name up in lights on a french letter with a foreskin on it. Floated right down the street it did and then they went and accused him of showing his privates to them. He had a horrible time trying to prove he hadn’t. And look where he is. In hospital. No, it’s not worth the risk.’
‘I can see what you mean,’ said Hodge. ‘But this way they wouldn’t ever find out. All we need is your permission to –’
‘I blame the bloody mother,’ Mr Gamer went on, encouraged by the Blue Nun and the Inspector’s apparent sympathy. ‘If she didn’t encourage the little bitches to be like boys and take an interest in mechanical things it’d help. But no, they’ve got to be inventors and geniuses. Mind you, it takes some sort of genius to do what they did to Dickens’ lawn-mower. Brand new, it was, and God knows what exactly they did to it. Supercharged it with a camping-gas cylinder and altered the gear ratio too so it went like the clappers. And it’s not as though he’s a well man. Anyway, he started the bloody thing up and before he could stop it was off down the lawn at about eighty and mowing their new carpet in the lounge. Smashed the piano too, come to think of it. They had to call the fire brigade to put it out.’
‘Why didn’t he sue the parents?’ asked Hodge, fascinated in spite of himself.
Mr Gamer sighed. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘You have to live through it to understand. You don’t think they admit what they’ve done? Of course they don’t. And who’s going to believe old Duckens when he says four ruddy girls that age could change the sprocket on the driveshaft and superglue the clutch? No one. Mind if I help myself?’
Hodge poured another glass. Clearly Mr Gamer was a broken man. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now supposing you know nothing about it. Just suppose a man from the Gas Board comes to check the meter –’
‘And that’s another thing,’ said Mr Gamer almost dementedly, ‘gas. The bill! Four hundred and fifty fucking pounds for a summer quarter! You don’t believe me, do you? I didn’t believe it either. Had that meter changed and checked and it still came to the same. I still don’t know how they did it. Must have been while we were on holiday. If only I could find out!’
‘Look,’ said Hodge, ‘you let my man install the equipment and you’ve a very good chance of getting rid of the Wilts for ever. And I mean that. For ever.’
Mr Gamer gazed into his glass and considered this glorious prospect. ‘For ever?’
‘For ever.’
‘Done,’ said Mr Gamer.
Later that afternoon Sergeant Runk, feeling distinctly uncomfortable in a Gas Board uniform, and with Mrs Gamer asking pitifully what could possibly be wrong with the chimney because they’d had it lined when the central heating was put in, was up in the roof space. By the time he left he had managed to feed microphones through a gap in the bricks so that they lay hidden among the insulating chips above the Wilts’ bedrooms. 45 Oakhurst Avenue had been wired for sound.
19
‘I think we’ve got one hell of a problem, sir,’ said the Corporal. ‘Major Glaushof ordered me to ditch the car back at the Wilt guy’s house and I did. All I can say is those transmitters weren’t civilian. I had a good look at them and they were hi-tech British.’
Colonel Urwin, Senior Intelligence Officer USAF Baconheath, pondered the problem by looking coolly at a sporting print on the wall. It wasn’t a very good one but its depiction of a fox in the far distance, being chased by a motley crowd of thin, fat, pale, or red-faced Englishmen on horseback, always served to remind him that it was as well not to underestimate the British. Better still, it paid to seem to be one of them. To that end he played golf with an ancient set of clubs and spent his idler moments tracing his family tree in the archives of various universities and the graveyards of Lincolnshire churches. In short, he kept an almost subterranean profile and was proud of the fact that he had on several occasions been taken for a master from one of the better public schools. It was a rôle that suited him exactly and fitted in with his professional creed that discretion was the better part of valour.
‘British?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That could mean anything or nothing. And you say Major Glaushof has put down a security clamp?’
‘General Belmonte’s orders, sir.’
The Colonel said nothing. In his opinion the Base Commander’s IQ was only slightly higher than that of the egregious Glaushof. Anyone who could call four no trumps without a diamond in his hand had to be a cretin. ‘So the situation is that Glaushof has this man Wilt in custody and is presumably torturing him and no one is su
pposed to know he’s here. The operative word being “supposed”. Obviously whoever sent him knows he never returned to Ipford.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the Corporal. ‘And the Major’s been trying to get a message on line to Washington.’
‘See it’s coded garbage,’ said the Colonel, ‘and get a copy to me.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the Corporal and disappeared.
Colonel Urwin looked across at his deputy. ‘Seems we could have a hornet’s nest,’ he said. ‘What do you make of it?’
Captain Fortune shrugged. ‘Could be any number of options,’ he said. ‘I don’t like the sound of that hardware.’
‘Kamikaze,’ said the Colonel. ‘No one would come in transmitting.’
‘Libyans or Khomeini might.’
Colonel Urwin shook his head. ‘No way. When they hit they don’t signal their punches. They’d come in loaded with explosives first time. So who’s scoring?’
‘The Brits?’
That’s my line of thinking,’ said the Colonel, and wandered across to take a closer look at the sporting print. ‘The only question is who are they hunting, Mr Henry Wilt or us?’
‘I’ve checked our records and there’s nothing on Wilt. CND in the sixties, otherwise non-political.’
‘University?’
‘Yes,’ said the Captain.
‘Which one?’
The Captain consulted the computer file. ‘Cambridge. Majored in English.’
‘Otherwise, nothing?’
‘Nothing we know of. British Intelligence would know.’
‘And we’re not asking,’ said the Colonel, coming to a decision. ‘If Glaushof wants to play Lone Ranger with the General’s consent he’s welcome to the fan-shit. We stay clear and come up with the real answer when it’s needed.’
‘I still don’t like that hardware in the car,’ said the Captain.
‘And I don’t like Glaushof,’ said the Colonel. ‘I have an idea the Ofreys don’t either. Let him dig his own grave.’ He paused. ‘Is there anyone with any intelligence who knows what really happened, apart from that Corporal?’
‘Captain Clodiak filed a complaint against Harah for sexual harassment. And she’s on the list of students attending Wilt’s lectures.’
‘Right, we’ll start digging back into this fiasco there,’ said the Colonel.
*
‘Let’s get back to this Radek,’ said Glaushof, ‘I want to know who he is.’
‘I’ve told you, a Czech writer and he’s been dead since God knows when so there is no way I could have met him,’ said Wilt.
‘If you’re lying you will. Shortly,’ said Glaushof. Having read the transcripts of Wilt’s confession that he had been recruited by a KGB agent called Yuri Orlov and had a contact man called Karl Radek, Glaushof was now determined to find out exactly what information Wilt had passed to the Russians. Understandably it was proving decidedly harder than getting Wilt to admit he was an agent. Twice Glaushof had used the threat of instant death, but without any useful result. Wilt had asked for time to think and had then come up with H-bombs. ‘H-bombs? You’ve been telling this bastard Radek we’ve got H-bombs stashed here?’
‘Yes,’ said Wilt.
‘They know that already.’
‘That’s what Radek said. He said they wanted more than that.’
‘So what did you give him, the BBs?’
‘BBs?’ said Wilt ‘You mean airguns?’
‘Binary bombs.’
‘Never heard of them.’
‘Safest nerve-gas bombs in the world,’ said Glaushof proudly, ‘We could kill every living fucking thing from Moscow to Peking with BBs and they wouldn’t even know a thing.’
‘Really?’ said Wilt. ‘I must say I find your definition of safe peculiar. What are the dangerous ones capable of?’
‘Shit,’ said Glaushof, wishing he was somewhere underdeveloped like El Salvador and could use more forceful methods. ‘You don’t talk you’re going to regret you ever met me.’
Wilt studied the Major critically. With each unfulfilled threat he was gaining more confidence but it still seemed inadvisable to point out that he already regretted meeting the bloody man. Best to keep things cool. ‘I’m only telling you what you want to know,’ he said.
‘And you didn’t give them any other information?’
‘I don’t know any. Ask the students in my class. They’ll tell you I wouldn’t know a bomb from a banana.’
‘So you say,’ muttered Glaushof. He’d already questioned the students and, in the case of Mrs Ofrey, had learnt more about her opinion of him than about Wilt. And Captain Clodiak hadn’t been helpful either. The only evidence she’d been able to produce that Wilt was a communist had been his insistence that the National Health Service was a good thing. And so by degrees of inconsequentiality they had come full circle back to this KGB man Radek whom Wilt had claimed was his contact and now said was a Czech writer and dead at that. And with each hour Glaushof’s chances of promoting himself were slipping away. There had to be some way of getting the information he needed. He was just wondering if there wasn’t some truth drug he could use when he caught sight of the scrotal guard on his desk. ‘How come you were wearing this?’ he asked.
Wilt looked at the cricket box bitterly. The events of the previous evening seemed strangely distant in these new and more frightening circumstances but there had been a moment when he had supposed the box to be in some way responsible for his predicament. If it hadn’t come undone, he wouldn’t have been in the loo and …
‘I was having trouble with a hernia,’ he said. It seemed a safe explanation.
It wasn’t. Glaushof’s mind had turned grossly to sex.
*
Eva’s was already there. Ever since she had left Flint she had been obsessed with it. Henry, her Henry, had left her for another woman and an American airbase slut at that. And there could be no doubt about it. Inspector Flint hadn’t told her in any nasty way. He’d simply said that Henry had been out to Baconheath. He didn’t have to say any more. Henry had been going out every Friday night telling her he was going to the prison and all the time … No, she wasn’t going to give way. With a sense of terrible purpose Eva drove to Canton Street. Mavis had been right after all and Mavis had known how to deal with Patrick’s infidelities. Best of all, as secretary of Mothers Against The Bomb she hated the Americans at Baconheath. Mavis would know what to do.
Mavis did. But first she had to have her gloat. ‘You wouldn’t listen to me, Eva,’ she said. ‘I’ve always said there was something seedy and deceitful about Henry but you would have it that he was a good, faithful husband. Though after what he tried to do to me the other morning I don’t see how …’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Eva, ‘but I thought that was my fault for going to Dr Kores and giving him that … Oh dear, you don’t think that’s what’s made him do this?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Mavis, ‘not for one moment. If he’s been deceiving you for six months with this woman, Dr Kores’ herbal mixture had nothing to do with it. Of course he’ll try to use that as an excuse when it comes to the divorce.’
‘But I don’t want a divorce,’ said Eva, ‘I just want to lay my hands on that woman.’
‘In that case, if you’re going to be a sexual helot –’
‘A what?’ said Eva, appalled at the word.
‘Slave, dear,’ said Mavis, recognizing her mistake, ‘a serf, a skivvy who’s just there to do the cooking and cleaning.’
Eva subsided. All she wanted to be was a good wife and mother and bring the girls up to take their rightful place in the technological world. At the top. ‘But I don’t even know the beastly woman’s name,’ she said, getting back to practicalities.
Mavis applied her mind to the problem. ‘Bill Paisley might know,’ she said finally. ‘He’s been teaching out there and he’s at the Open University with Patrick. I’ll give him a ring.’
Eva sat on in the kitchen, sunk in apparent lethargy. But un
derneath she was tensing herself for the confrontation. No matter what Mavis said no one was going to take Henry away from her. The quads were going to have a father and a proper home and the best education Wilt’s salary could provide, never mind what people said or how much her own pride was hurt. Pride was a sin and anyway Henry would pay for it.
She was going over in her mind what she would say to him when Mavis returned triumphantly. ‘Bill Paisley knows all about it,’ she said. ‘Apparently Henry has been teaching a class of women British Culture and it doesn’t take much imagination to see what’s happened.’ She looked at a scrap of paper. ‘The Development of British Culture and Institutions, Lecture Hall 9. And the person to contact is the Education Officer. He’s given me the number to call. If you want me to, I’ll do it for you.’
Eva nodded gratefully. ‘I’d only lose my temper and get agitated,’ she said, ‘and you’re so good at organizing things.’
Mavis went back to the hall. For the next ten minutes Eva could hear her talking with increasing vehemence. Then the phone was slammed down.
‘The nerve of the man,’ Mavis said, storming back into the kitchen pale-faced with anger. ‘First they wouldn’t put me through to him and it was only when I said I was from the Library Service and wanted to speak to the Education Officer about the free supply of books that I got to him. And then it was “No comment, ma’am. I’m sorry but no comment.”’
‘But you did ask about Henry?’ said Eva who couldn’t see what the Library Service or the free supply of books could possibly have to do with her problem.