Wilt on High (28 page)

‘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 underneath 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.

‘Of course I did,’ snapped Mavis. ‘I said Mr Wilt had suggested I contact him about the Library Service supplying books on English Culture and that’s when he clammed up.’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘You know I could almost swear he sounded scared.’

‘Scared? Why should he be scared?’

‘I don’t know. It was when I mentioned the name “Wilt,”’ said Mavis. ‘But we’re going to drive out there now and find out.’

Captain Clodiak sat in Colonel Urwin’s office. Unlike the other buildings at Baconheath which had been inherited from the RAF or which resembled prefabricated and sub-economic housing estates, Intelligence Headquarters was strangely at odds with the military nature of the base. It was in fact a large red-brick mansion built at the turn of the century by a retired mining engineer with a taste for theatrical Tudor, an eye to the value of black fen soil and a dislike for the icy winds that blew from Siberia. As a consequence the house had a mock
baronial hall, oak-panelled walls and a highly efficient central-heating system and accorded perfectly with Colonel Urwin’s sense of irony. It also set him apart from the rest of the base and lent weight to his conviction that military men were dangerous idiots and incapable of speaking E. B. White’s English. What was needed was intelligence, brains as well as brawn. Captain Clodiak seemed endowed with both. Colonel Urwin listened to her account of Wilt’s capture with very close interest. It was forcing him to reassess the situation. ‘So you’re saying that he definitely seemed uneasy right through the lecture?’ he said.

‘No question,’ said Clodiak. ‘He kept squirming behind the lectern like he was in pain. And his lecture was all over the place. Incoherent. Usually he takes off on tangents but he comes back to the main theme. This time he rambled and then this bandage came down his leg and he went to pieces.’

The Colonel looked across at Captain Fortune. ‘Do we know anything about the need for bandages?’

‘I’ve checked with the medics and they don’t know. The guy came in gassed and no other sign of injuries.’

‘Let’s go back from there to previous behaviour. Anything unusual?’ Captain Clodiak shook her head.

‘Nothing I noticed. He’s hetero, got nice manners, doesn’t make passes, he’s probably got some hang-ups, like he’s a depressive. Nothing I’d class as unusual in an Englishman.’

‘And yet he was definitely uneasy? And there’s no question about the bandage?’

‘None,’ said Clodiak.

‘Thank you for your help,’ said the Colonel. ‘If anything else comes to mind come back to us.’ And having seen her out into the passage he turned to look at the sporting print for inspiration. ‘It begins to sound as though someone’s been leaning on him,’ he said finally.

‘You can bet your life Glaushof has,’ said Fortune. ‘A guy who confesses that easy has to have had some treatment.’

‘What’s he confessed to? Nothing. Absolute zero.’

‘He’s admitted being recruited by this Orlov and having a contact man in a Karl Radek. I wouldn’t say that was nothing.’

‘The one being a dissident who’s doing time in Siberia,’ said Urwin, ‘and Karl Radek was a Czech writer who died in a Gulag in 1940. Not the easiest man to contact.’

‘They could be cover names.’

‘Could be. Just. I’d choose something less obviously phoney myself. And why Russians? If they’re from the Embassy … yes, I suppose so. Except that he met quote Orlov unquote in the bus station in Ipford which is outside Soviet embassy staff permitted radius. And where does he meet friend Radek? Every Wednesday afternoon by the bowling green on Midway Park. Every Wednesday same place same time? Out of the question. Our friends from the KGB may play dumb occasionally but not that dumb. Glaushof’s been dealt the hand he asked for and that doesn’t happen by accident.’

‘Leaves Glaushof up shit creek,’ said Fortune.

But Colonel Urwin wasn’t satisfied. ‘Leaves us all there if we don’t take care,’ he said. ‘Let’s go through the options again. Wilt’s a genuine Russian probe? Out for the reasons given. Someone running a check on our security? Could be some goon in Washington came up with the idea. They’ve got Shi’ite suicide squads on the brain. Why use an Englishman? They don’t tell him his car’s being used to make the test more effective. If so why’s he panicking during the lecture? That’s what I get back to, his behaviour in that lecture hall. That’s where I really begin to pick up the scent. Go from there to this “confession” which only an illiterate like Glaushof would believe and the state of Denmark really is beginning to stink to high heaven. And Glaushof’s handling it? Not any more, Ed. I’m pulling rank.’

‘How? He’s got a security blanket from the General.’

‘That’s where I’m pulling rank,’ said the Colonel. ‘Old B52 may think he commands this base but I’m going to have to disillusion the old warrior. About a great many things.’ He pressed a button on the phone. ‘Get me Central Intelligence,’ he said.

‘Orders are no one in,’ said the guard on the gate, ‘I’m sorry but that’s how it is.’

‘Look,’ said Mavis, ‘all we’ve come to do is speak to the officer in charge of Education. His name is Bluejohn and –’

‘Still applies, no one in.’

Mavis took a deep breath and tried to keep calm. ‘In that case I’d like to speak to him here,’ she said. ‘If we can’t come in, perhaps he’d be good enough to come out.’

‘I can check,’ said the guard and went into the gatehouse.

‘It’s no use,’ said Eva, looking at the barrier and the high barbed-wire fence. Behind the barrier a series of drums filled with concrete had been laid out on the roadway to form a zigzag through which vehicles could only wind their way very slowly. ‘They’re not going to tell us anything.’

‘And I want to know why,’ said Mavis.

‘It might help if you weren’t wearing that Mothers Against The Bomb badge,’ said Eva.

Mavis took it off reluctantly. ‘It’s utterly disgusting,’ she said. ‘This is supposed to be a free country and –’

She was interrupted by the appearance of a lieutenant. He stood in the doorway of the gatehouse and looked at them for a moment before walking over. ‘I’m sorry ladies,’ he said, ‘but we’re running a security exercise. It’s only temporary so if you come back tomorrow maybe …’

‘Tomorrow is no good,’ said Mavis. ‘We want to see Mr Bluejohn today. Now if you’ll be good enough to telephone him or give him a message, we’d be most obliged.’

‘Sure, I can do that,’ said the Lieutenant. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Just that Mrs Wilt is here and would like to make some enquiries about her husband, Mr Henry Wilt. He’s been teaching a class here on British Culture.’

‘Oh him, Mr Wilt? I’ve heard of him from Captain Clodiak,’ said the Lieutenant, expansively. ‘She’s been attending his course and she says he’s real good. No problem, I’ll check with the EO.’

‘What did I tell you?’ said Mavis as he went back into the guardhouse. ‘
She
says he’s real good. I wonder what your Henry’s being so good at now.’

Eva hardly heard. Any lingering doubt that Henry had been deceiving her had gone and she was staring through the wire at the drab houses and prefabricated buildings with the feeling that she was looking ahead into the drabness and barren years of her future life. Henry had run off with some woman, perhaps this same Captain Clodiak, and she was going to be left to bring up the
quads on her own and be poor and known as a … A one-parent family? But there was no family without a father and where was she going to get the money to keep the girls at school? She’d have to go on Social Security and queue up with all those other women … She wouldn’t. She’d go out to work. She’d do anything to make up for … The images in her mind, images of emptiness and of her own fortitude, were interrupted by the return of the Lieutenant.

His manner had changed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said abruptly, ‘there’s been a mistake. I’ve got to tell you that. Now if you’ll move off. We’ve got this security exercise on.’

‘Mistake? What mistake?’ said Mavis, reacting to his brusqueness with all her own pent-up hatred. ‘You said Mrs Wilt’s husband …’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ said the Lieutenant and, turning on his heel, ordered the barrier to be lifted to allow a truck to come through.

‘Well!’ said Mavis furiously. ‘Of all the nerve! I’ve never heard such a bare-faced lie in my life. You heard what he said just a moment ago and now –’

But Eva was moving forward with a new determination. Henry was in the camp. She knew that now. She’d seen the look on the Lieutenant’s face, the changed look, the blankness that had been in such contrast to his previous manner, and she’d known. Without thinking she moved into the drabness of life without Henry, into that desert beyond the barrier. She was going to find him and have it out with him. A figure got in her way and tried
to stop her. There was a flurry of arms and he fell. Three more men, only figures in her mind, and she was being held and dragged back. From somewhere seemingly distant she heard Mavis shout, ‘Go limp. Go limp.’ Eva went limp and the next moment she was lying on the ground with two men beside her and a third dragging on an arm.

Three minutes later, covered with dust and with the heels of her shoes scuffed and her tights torn, she was dragged beneath the barrier and dumped on the road. And during that time she had uttered no sound other than to pant with exertion. She sat there for a moment and then got to her knees and looked back into the camp with an intensity that was more dangerous in its implications than her brief battle with the guards.

‘Lady, you got no right to come in here. You’re just asking for trouble,’ said the Lieutenant. Eva said nothing. She helped herself up from the kneeling position and walked back to the car.

‘Eva dear, are you all right?’ asked Mavis.

Eva nodded. ‘Just take me home,’ she said. For once Mavis had nothing to say. Eva’s strength of purpose needed no words.

Wilt’s did. With time running out on him, Glaushof had resorted to a new form of interrogation. Unable to use more forceful methods he had decided on what he considered to be the subtle approach. Since it involved
the collaboration of Mrs Glaushof clad in garments Glaushof and possibly even Lieutenant Harah had found so alluring – jackboots, suspender belts and teatless bras figured high in Glaushof’s compendium of erotica – Wilt, who had been hustled yet again into a car and driven to the Glaushof’s house, found himself suddenly lying on a heart-shaped bed clad in the hospital gown and confronted by an apparition in black, red and several shades of pink. The boots were black, the suspender belt and panties were red and the bra was black fringed with pink. The rest of Mrs Glaushof was, thanks to her frequent use of a sun lamp, mostly brown and definitely drunk. Ever since Glausie, as she had once called him, had bawled her out for sharing her mixed charms with those of Lieutenant Harah she had been hitting the Scotch. She had also hit a bottle of Chanel No 5 or had lathered herself with the stuff. Wilt couldn’t decide which. And didn’t want to. It was enough to be cloistered (the word seemed singularly inappropriate in the circumstances) in a room with an alcoholic prostitute who told him to call her Mona.

‘What?’ said Wilt.

‘Mona, baby,’ said Mrs Glaushof, breathing whisky into his face and fondling his cheek.

‘I am not your baby,’ said Wilt.

‘Oh, but you are, honey. You’re just what momma needed.’

‘And you’re not my mother,’ said Wilt, wishing the hell the woman was. She’d have been dead ten years.
Mrs Glaushof’s hand strayed down his body. ‘Shit,’ said Wilt. That damned poison was beginning to work again.

‘That’s better, baby,’ Mrs Glaushof whispered as Wilt stiffened. ‘You and me’s going to have the best of times.’

‘You and I,’ said Wilt, frantically trying to find some relief in correct syntax, ‘and you may consider – Ouch!’