The Wilt Alternative:

  Mrs de Frackas turned her contempt on him. ‘And yours too, don’t I just. I haven’t been through the Suez Canal and Port Said for nothing you know.’

  Baggish stared at her. ‘Port Said? The Suez Canal? I never been to Egypt in my life.’

  ‘Well I have. And I know what I know.’

  ‘So what are we talking about? You know what you know. I don’t know what you know.’

  ‘Postcards,’ said Mrs de Frackas. ‘I don’t think I need say any more.’

  ‘You haven’t said anything yet. First the Suez Canal, then Port Said and now postcards. Will someone tell me what the hell these things have to do with washing children?’

  ‘Well if you must know, I mean dirty postcards. I might also mention donkeys but I won’t. And now if you’ll both leave the room …’

  But the implications of Mrs de Frackas’ imperial prejudices had slowly dawned on Baggish.

  ‘You mean pornography? What century you think you’re living in? You want pornography you go to London. Soho is full –’

  ‘I don’t want pornography and I don’t intend to discuss the matter further.’

  ‘Then you go down the cellar before I kill you,’ yelled the enraged Baggish. But Mrs de Frackas was too old to be persuaded by mere threats and it took bodily pressure to shove her through the cellar door with the quads. As they went down the steps Emmeline could be heard asking why the nasty man didn’t like donkeys.

  ‘I tell you the English are mad,’ said Baggish. ‘Why did we have to choose this crazy house?’

  ‘It chose us,’ said Chinanda miserably, and switched out the light.

  *

  But if Mrs de Frackas had decided to ignore the fact that her life was in danger, upstairs in the flat Wilt was now acutely aware that his previous tactics had back-fired on him. To have invented the People’s Alternative Army had served to confuse things for a while, but his threat to execute, or more accurately to murder Gudrun Schautz had been a terrific mistake. It put a time limit on his bluff. Looking back over forty years Wilt’s record of violence was limited to the occasional and usually unsuccessful bout with flies and mosquitoes. No, to have issued that ultimatum had been almost as stupid as not getting out of the house when the going was good. Now it was distinctly bad, and the sounds coming from the bathroom suggested that Gudrun Schautz had torn up the lino and was busy on the floorboards. If she escaped and joined the men below she would add an intellectual fervour to their evidently stupid fanaticism. On the other hand he could think of no way of stopping her short of threatening to fire through the bathroom door, and if that didn’t work … There had to be an alternative method. What if he opened the door himself and somehow persuaded her that it wasn’t safe to go downstairs? In that way he could keep the two groups separate and provided they couldn’t communicate with one another Fräulein Schautz would be hard put to it to influence her blood-brothers down below. Well, that was easy enough to do.

  Wilt crossed to the telephone and jerked the cord from the wall. So far so good, but there was still the little matter of the guns. The notion of sharing the flat with a woman who had cold-bloodedly murdered eight people was not an attractive one in any circumstances, but when that flat contained enough firearms to eliminate several hundred it became positively suicidal. The guns would have to go too. But where? He could hardly drop the damned things out of the window. The effect of a shower of revolvers, grenades and a sub-machine gun on the terrorists was likely to encourage them to come up and find out what the hell was going on. Anyway, the grenades might go off and there were enough misunderstandings floating around already without adding exploding grenades. The best thing would be to hide them. Very gingerly Wilt put his armoury back into the flight bag and went through the kitchen to the attic space. Gudrun Schautz was now definitely busy on the floorboards and under cover of the noise Wilt climbed up and edged his way along to the water cistern. There he lowered the bag into the water before replacing the cover. Then, having checked to make quite sure that he hadn’t missed a gun, he steeled himself for the next move. It was, he considered, about as safe as opening the cage of a tiger at the Zoo and inviting the thing to come out, but it had to be done and in an insane situation only an act of total lunacy could save the children. Wilt went through the kitchen to the bathroom door.

  ‘Irmgard,’ he whispered. Miss Schautz went on with her work of demolishing the bathroom floor. Wilt took another deep breath and whispered more loudly. Inside work ceased and there was silence.

  ‘Irmagard,’ said Wilt, ‘is that you?’

  There was a movement and then a quiet voice spoke. ‘Who is there?’

  ‘It’s me,’ said Wilt, sticking to the obvious and wishing to hell it wasn’t, ‘Henry Wilt.’

  ‘Henry Wilt?’

  ‘Yes. They’ve gone.’

  ‘Who have gone?’

  ‘I don’t know. Whoever they were. You can come out now.’

  ‘Come out?’ asked Gudrun Schautz in a tone of voice that suggested the total bewilderment Wilt wanted.

  ‘I’ll undo the door.’

  Wilt began to remove the flex from the door-handle. It was difficult in the growing darkness but after several minutes he had undone the wire and removed the chair.

  ‘It’s OK now,’ he said. ‘You can come out.’

  But Gudrun Schautz made no move. ‘How do I know it’s you?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wilt, glad of this opportunity to delay matters, ‘it just is.’

  ‘Who is with you?’

  ‘No one. They’ve gone downstairs.’

  ‘You keep saying “They”. Who are these “They”?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Men with guns. The whole house is filled with men with guns.’

  ‘So why are you here?’ asked Miss Schautz.

  ‘Because I can’t be somewhere else,’ said Wilt truthfully. ‘You don’t think I want to be here? They’ve been shooting at one another. I could have been killed. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.’

  There was a silence from the bathroom. Gudrun Schautz was having difficulty working out what was going on too. In the darkness of the kitchen Wilt smiled to himself. Keep this up and he’d have the bitch bombed out of her mind.

  ‘And no one is with you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then how did you know I was in the bathroom?’

  ‘I heard you having a bath,’ said Wilt, ‘and then all these people started shouting and shooting and …’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Look,’ said Wilt, deciding to change his tactics, ‘I don’t see why you keep asking me these questions. I mean I’ve taken the trouble to come up here and undo the door and you won’t come out and you keep on about who they are and where I was and all that as if I knew. As a matter of fact I was having a nap in the bedroom and …’

  ‘A nap? What is a nap?’

  ‘A nap? Oh, a nap. Well it’s a sort of after-lunch snooze. Sleep, you know. Anyway when all the hullabaloo started, the shooting and so on, and I heard you shout “Get the children,” and I thought how jolly kind of you that was …’

  ‘Kind of me? You thought that kind of me?’ asked Miss Schautz with a distinctly strangulated disbelief.

  ‘I mean putting the children first instead of your own safety. Most people wouldn’t have thought of saving the children, would they?’

  A gurgling noise from the bathroom indicated that Gudrun Schautz hadn’t thought of this interpretation of her orders and was having to make readjustments in her attitude to Wilt’s intelligence.

  ‘No, that is so,’ she said finally.

  ‘Well naturally after that I couldn’t leave you locked up here could I?’ continued Wilt, realizing that talking like some idiotic chinless wonder had its advantages. ‘Noblesse oblige and all that, what!’

  ‘Noblesse oblige?’

  ‘You know, one good turn deserves another and what-not,’ said Wilt. ‘So as soon as the coast was clea
r I sort of came out from under the bed and hopped up here.’

  ‘What coast?’ demanded Miss Schautz suspiciously.

  ‘When the blighters up here decided to go downstairs,’ said Wilt. ‘Seemed the safest place to be. Anyway, why don’t you come out and have a chair. It must be jolly uncomfortable in there.’

  Miss Schautz considered this proposition and the fact that Wilt sounded like a congenital idiot and took the risk.

  ‘I haven’t any clothes on,’ she said, opening the door an inch.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Wilt, ‘I’m awfully sorry. Hadn’t thought of that. I’ll go and get you something.’

  He went into the bedroom and rummaged in a cupboard and having found what felt like a raincoat in the darkness took it back.

  ‘Here’s a coat,’ he said, handing it through the doorway. ‘Don’t like to turn the bedroom light on in case those blokes downstairs see it and start pooping off again with their guns. Mind you I’ve locked the door and barricaded it so they’d have a job getting in.’

  In the bathroom Miss Schautz put on the raincoat and cautiously came out to find Wilt pouring boiling water from the electric kettle into a teapot.

  ‘Thought you’d like a nice cup of tea,’ he said. ‘Know I would.’

  Behind him Gudrun Schautz tried to comprehend what had happened. From the moment she had been locked in the bathroom she had been convinced that the flat was occupied by policemen. Now it seemed whoever had been there had gone and this weak and stupid Englishman was making tea as if nothing was wrong. Wilt’s admission that he had spent the afternoon cowering under the bed in the room below had been convincingly ignominious and had helped to confirm the impression she had gathered from his previous nocturnal exchanges with Frau Wilt that he was no sort of threat. On the other hand she had to find out how much he knew.

  ‘These men with guns,’ she said, ‘what sort of men are they?’

  ‘Well I wasn’t really in a very good position to see them,’ said Wilt, ‘being under the bed and so on. Some of them were wearing boots and some weren’t, if you see what I mean.’

  Gudrun Schautz didn’t. ‘Boots?’

  ‘Not shoes. Do you take sugar, by the way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very wise,’ said Wilt, ‘awfully bad for the teeth. Anyway here’s your cup. Oh I am sorry. Here, let me get a cloth and wipe you down.’

  And in the close confines of the little kitchen Wilt groped for a cloth and presently was mopping Gudrun Schautz’s coat down where he had deliberately spilt the tea.

  ‘You can stop now,’ she said as Wilt transferred the attentions of the towel from her breasts to lower areas.

  ‘Rightho, and I’ll pour another cup.’

  She squeezed past him into the bedroom while Wilt considered what other domestic accidents he could provoke to distract her attention. There was always sex, of course, but in the circumstances it hardly seemed likely that the bitch would be particularly interested in it and, even if she were, the notion of making love with a professional murderess would make arousal extremely difficult. Whisky droop was bad enough, terror droop was infinitely worse. Still, flattery might help, and she certainly had nice boobs. Wilt took another cup of tea through to the bedroom and found her looking out of the balcony window into the garden.

  ‘I shouldn’t go over there,’ he said, ‘there are more maniacs outside with Donald Duck shirts on.’

  ‘Donald Duck shirts?’

  ‘And guns,’ said Wilt. ‘If you ask me the whole bloody place has gone loony.’

  ‘And you have no idea what is happening?’

  ‘Well I heard somebody shouting about Israelis, but it doesn’t seem likely somehow, does it? I mean what on earth would Israelis want to come swarming all over Willington Road for?’

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Gudrun Shautz. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Do?’ said Wilt. ‘I don’t see there is much we can do really. Except drink tea and make ourselves inconspicuous. It’s all probably some ghastly mistake or other. I can’t think what else it can be, can you?’

  Gudrun Schautz could, and did, but to admit it to this idiot before she had the power to terrify him into doing what she wanted didn’t seem a good idea. She headed for the kitchen and began to climb into the attic space. Wilt followed, sipping his tea. ‘Of course I did try phoning the police,’ he said, dropping his chin even more gormlessly.

  Miss Schautz stopped in her tracks. ‘The police? You phoned the police?’

  ‘Couldn’t actually,’ said Wilt, ‘some blighter had pulled the phone out of the wall. Can’t think why. I mean with all that shooting going on …’

  But Gudrun Schautz was no longer listening. She was clambering along the plank towards the luggage and Wilt could hear her rummaging among the suitcases. So long as the bitch didn’t look in the water tank. To distract her attention Wilt poked his head through the door and switched off the light.

  ‘Better not show a light,’ he explained as she stumbled about in the pitch darkness cursing, ‘don’t want anyone to know we’re up here. Best just to lie low until they go away.’

  A stream of incomprehensible but evidently malevolent German greeted this suggestion, and after fruitlessly groping about for the bag for several more minutes Gudrun Schautz climbed down into the kitchen, breathing heavily.

  Wilt decided to strike again. ‘No need to be so upset, my dear. After all, this is England and nothing nasty can happen to you here.’

  He placed a comforting arm round her shoulder. ‘And anyway you’ve got me to look after you. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said and suddenly began to shake with silent laughter. The thought that she had only this weak and stupid little coward to look after her was too much for the murderess. Nothing to worry about! The phrase suddenly took on a new and horribly inverted meaning and like a revelation she saw its truth, a truth she had been fighting against all her life. The only thing she had to worry about was nothing. Gudrun Schautz looked into oblivion, an infinity of nothingness, and was filled with terror. With a desperate need to escape the vision she clung to Wilt and her raincoat hung open.

  ‘I say …’ Wilt began, realizing this new threat, but Gudrun Schautz’s mouth closed over his, her tongue flickering, while her hand dragged his fingers up to a breast. The creature who had brought only death into the world was now turning in her panic to the most ancient instinct of all.

  15

  Gudrun Schautz was not the only person in Ipford to look oblivion in the face. The manager of Wilt’s bank had spent an exceedingly disturbing afternoon with Inspector Flint, who kept assuring him that it was of national importance that he shouldn’t phone his wife to cancel their dinner engagement and refusing to allow him to communicate with his staff and several clients who had made appointments to see him. The manager had found these aspersions on his discretion insulting and Flint’s presence positively lethal to his reputation for financial probity.

  ‘What the hell do you imagine the staff are thinking with three damned policemen closeted in my office all day?’ he demanded, dropping the diplomatic language of banking for more earthy forms of address. He had been particularly put out by having to choose between urinating in a bucket procured from the caretaker or suffering the indignity of being accompanied by a policeman every time he went to the toilet.

  ‘If a man can’t pee in his own bank without having some bloody gendarme breathing down his neck all I can say is that things have come to a pretty pass.’

  ‘Very aptly put, sir,’ said Flint, ‘but I’m only acting under orders and if the Anti-Terrorist Squad say a thing’s in the national interest then it is.’

  ‘I can’t see how it’s in the national interest to stop me relieving myself in private,’ said the manager. ‘I shall see that a complaint goes to the Home Office.’

  ‘You do that small thing,’ said Flint, who had his own reasons for feeling disgruntled. The intrusion of the Anti-Terrorist Squad into his patch had under
mined his authority. The fact that Wilt was responsible only maddened him still further and he was just speculating on Wilt’s capacity for disrupting his life when the phone rang.

  ‘I’ll take it if you don’t mind,’ he said and lifted the receiver.

  ‘Mr Fildroyd of Central Investment on the line, sir,’ said the telephonist.

  Flint looked at the bank manager. ‘Some bloke called Fildroyd. Know anyone of that name?’

  ‘Fildroyd? Of course I do.’

  ‘Is he to be trusted?’

  ‘Good Lord, man, Fildroyd to be trusted? He’s in charge of the entire bank’s investment policy.’

  ‘Stocks and shares, eh?’ asked Flint, who had once had a little flutter in Australian bauxite and wasn’t likely to forget the experience. ‘In that case I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him.’

  He relayed this opinion in only slightly less offensive terms to the girl on the switchboard. A distant rumble suggested that Mr Fildroyd was on the line.

  ‘Mr Fildroyd wants to know who’s speaking,’ said the girl.

  ‘Well you just tell Mr Fildroyd that it’s Inspector Flint of the Fenland Constabulary and if he knows what’s good for him he’ll keep his trap shut.’

  He put the phone down and turned to the manager who was looking distinctly seedy. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Flint asked.

  ‘Matter? Nothing, nothing at all. Only that you’ve just led the entire Central Investment Division to suppose I’m suspected of some serious crime.’

  ‘Landing me with Mr Henry Wilt is a serious crime,’ said Flint bitterly, ‘and if you want my opinion this whole thing’s a put-up job on Wilt’s part to get himself another slice of publicity.’

  ‘As I understood it Mr Wilt was the innocent victim of –’

  ‘Innocent victim my foot. The day that sod’s innocent I’ll stop being a copper and take holy fucking orders.’

  ‘Charming way of expressing yourself, I must say,’ said the bank manager.

  But Flint was too engrossed in a private line of speculation to note the sarcasm. He was recalling those hideous days and nights during which he and Wilt had been engaged in a dialogue on the subject of Mrs Wilt’s disappearance. There were still dark hours before dawn when Flint would wake sweating at the memory of Wilt’s extraordinary behaviour and swearing that one day he would catch the little sod out in a serious crime. And today had seemed the ideal opportunity, or would have done if the Anti-Terrorist Squad hadn’t intervened. Well, at least they were having to cope with the situation but if Flint had had his way he would have discounted all that talk about German au pairs as so much hogwash and remanded Wilt in custody on a charge of being in possession of stolen money, never mind where he said he had got it from.