The Wilt Alternative (19 page)

'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.

'Irmgard,' 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 doorhandle. 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 whatnot,' said Wilt. 'So as soon as the coast
was clear 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.

'Righto, 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 Schautz. '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 shoulders. '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.

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 suffer 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 undermined 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.