The Wilt Alternative (14 page)

'It's for you,' said the Major. 'Some bugger called Flint who says he's holed up in the
bank.'

'I thought I told you not to make any outgoing calls,' the Superintendent said angrily into
the phone. 'Relieve themselves? Of course they can... An appointment at three with Mr Daniles?
Who's he?... Oh shit... Where?...Well, empty the wastepaper basket for Chrissake... I don't have
to tell you where. I should have thought that was patently obvious... What do you mean it's going
to look peculiar?... Do they have to cross the entire bank?... I know all about the smell. Get
hold of an aerosol or something... Well if he objects detain the sod. And Flint, see if someone
has a bucket and use that in future.'

He slammed down the phone and turned back to the Major. Things are steaming up at the bank and
if we don't move swiftly '

'Someone's going to smell a rat?' suggested Wilt. 'Now, do you want me to draw my house or
not?'

'Yes,' said the Major, 'and fast.'

'There's no need to adopt that tone,' said Wilt. 'You may be eager to have a battle on my
property but I want to know who's going to pay for the damage. My wife's a very particular woman
and if you start killing people all over the carpet in the living-room...'

'Mr Wilt,' said the Major with determined patience, 'we shall do everything we can to avoid
any violence on your property. It is for precisely that reason we need a detailed plan of the
domestic... er... the house.'

'I think if we leave Mr Wilt to draw the plan...' said the Superintendent and nodded towards
the door. The Major followed him out and they conferred in the corridor.

'Listen,' said the Superintendent, 'I've already had a report from your trick-cyclist that the
little bastard's a mass of nerves and if you're going to start bullying him '

'Superintendent,' said the Major, 'it may interest you to know that I have a casualty
allowance of ten on this op and if he's one of them I shan't be sorry. War Office approval.'

'And if we don't get him in there, and his wife and children out, you'll have used up six of
your quota,' snapped the Superintendent.

'All I can say is that a man who puts his living-room carpet before his country and the
Western World...' He would have said a lot more had it not been for the arrival of the
para-psychologist with a cup of coffee.

'Fixed him a spot of nervebracer,' he said cheerfully. 'Should see him through.'

'I certainly hope so,' said the Superintendent. 'I could do with something myself.'

'No need to worry about it working,' said the Major. 'Used it myself once in County Armagh
when I had to defuse a bloody great bomb. Bugger went off before I could get to it but by God I
felt good all the same.'

The medic went into the office and presently reappeared with the empty cup. 'In like a lamb,
out like a lion,' he said. 'No trouble at all.'

Ten minutes later Wilt lived up to the prediction. He left the police station of his own free
will and entered the Superintendent's car quite cheerfully.

'Just drop me off at the bottom of the road and I'll find my own way home,' he said. 'No need
for you to bother to drive right up to the house.'

The Superintendent looked at him doubtfully. 'I hadn't intended to. The object of the exercise
is for you to go into the house without arousing suspicion and persuade your wife to come out by
telling her you've met this herbalist in a pub and he's invited you all round to look at his
collection of plants. You've got that straight?'

'Wilco,' said Wilt.

'Wilco?'

'And what's more,' continued Wilt, 'if that doesn't flush the bitch out I'll take the children
and leave her to stew in her own juice.'

'Stop the car, driver,' said the Superintendent hastily.

'What for?' said Wilt. 'You don't expect me to walk two miles? When I said you could drop me
off I didn't mean here.'

'Mr Wilt,' said the Superintendent, 'I must impress on you the seriousness of the situation.
Gudrun Schautz is undoubtedly armed and she won't hesitate to shoot. The woman is a professional
killer.'

'So what? Bloody woman comes into my house having killed people all over the place and expects
me to give her bed and board. Like hell I will. Driver, drive on.'

'Oh God,' said the Superintendent, 'trust the army to cock this one up.'

'Want me to turn back, sir?' asked the driver.

'Certainly not,' said Wilt. 'The sooner I can get my family out and the army in the better. No
need to look like that. Everything's going to be roger over and out.'

'I wouldn't be at all surprised,' said the Superintendent despondently. 'All right, drive on.
Now then, Mr Wilt, for God's sake stick to your story about the herbalist. The fellow's name
is...'

'Falkirk,' said Wilt automatically. 'He lives at Number 45 Barrabas Road. He has recently
returned from South America with a collection of plants including tropical herbs previously
uncultivated in this country...'

'At least he knows his lines,' muttered the Superintendent as they turned into Farringdon
Avenue and pulled into the kerb. Wilt got out, slammed the car door with unnecessary violence and
marched off down Willington Road. Behind him the Superintendent watched miserably and cursed the
para-psychologist.

'Must have given him some sort of chemical kamikaze mixture,' he told the driver.

'There's still time to stop him, sir,' said the driver. But there wasn't. Wilt had dived into
the gate of his house and disappeared. As soon as he had gone a head popped out of the hedge
beside the car.

'Don't want to give the game away, old boy,' said an officer wearing the uniform of a Gas
Inspector. 'If you'll just toddle along I'll call HQ and tell them the subject has entered the
danger zone...'

'Oh no you won't,' snarled the Superintendent as the officer twiddled with the knobs of his
walkie-talkie, 'there's to be strict radio silence until the family are safely out.'

'My orders are...'

'Countermanded as of now,' said the Superintendent. 'Innocent lives are at stake and I'm not
having them jeopardized.'

'Oh all right,' said the officer. 'Anyway we've got the area sealed off. Not even a rabbit
could get out of there now.'

'It's not simply a question of anyone getting out. We want as many to get in before we
move.'

'Rightho, want to bag the lot of them eh? Nothing like going the whole hog, what!'

The officer disappeared into the hedge and the Superintendent drove on.

'Lions, lambs, and now fucking rabbits and hogs,' he told the driver, 'I wish to heaven the
Special Ground Services hadn't been called in. They seem to have animals on the brain.'

'Comes of recruiting them from the huntin' an' shootin' set, I expect, sir,' said the driver.
'Wouldn't like to be in that bloke Wilt's shoes.'

In the garden of Number 9 Willington Road Wilt did not share his apprehensions. Stiffened by
the parapsychologist's nerve-bracer he was in no mood to be trifled with. Bloody terrorists
coming into his house without so much as a by-your-leave. Well, he'd soon show them the door. He
marched resolutely up to the house and opened the front door before realizing that the car wasn't
outside. Eva must be out with the quads. In which case there was no need for him to go in. 'To
hell with that,' said Wilt to himself, 'this is my house and I'm entitled to do what I damned
well please in it.' He went into the hall and shut the door. The house was silent and the
living-room empty. Wilt went through the kitchen and wondered what to do next. In normal
circumstances he would have left, but circumstances were not normal. To Wilt's intoxicated way of
thinking they called for stern measures. The bloody army wanted a battle on his domestic terrain,
did they? Well, he'd soon put a stop to that. Domestic terrain indeed! If people wanted to kill
one another they could jolly well do it somewhere else. Which was all very fine, but how to
persuade them? Well, the simplest way was to go up to the attic and heave Miss Bloody
Schautz/Mueller's suitcases and clobber out into the front garden. That way when she came home
she'd get the message and take herself off to someone else's domestic terrain.

With this simple solution in mind Wilt went upstairs and climbed the steps to the attic door
only to find it locked. He went down to the kitchen, found the spare key and went back. For a
moment he hesitated outside the door before knocking. There was no reply. Wilt unlocked the door
and went inside.

The attic flat consisted of three rooms, a large bedsitter with the balcony looking down on to
the garden, a kitchenette and beyond it a bathroom. Wilt shut the door behind him and looked
around. The bedsitter which had occupied his former Muse was unexpectedly tidy. Gudrun Schautz
might be a ruthless terrorist but she was also house-proud. Clothes hung neatly in a wall closet
and the cups and saucers in the kitchen were all washed and set on shelves. Now, where would she
have put her suitcases? Wilt looked round and tried another cupboard before remembering that Eva
had moved the cold-water cistern to a higher position under the roof when the bathroom had been
put in. There was a door to it somewhere.

He found it beside the stove in the kitchenette and crawled through only to discover that he
had to stoop along under the eaves on a narrow plank to reach the storage space. He groped about
in the darkness and found the lightswitch. The suitcases were in a row beside the cistern. Wilt
made his way along and grabbed the handle of the first bag. It felt incredibly heavy. Also
distinctly lumpy. Wilt dragged it down from the shelf and it dropped with a metallic thud on to
the plank at his feet. He wasn't going to lug that back across the rafters. Wilt fumbled with the
catches and finally opened the bag.

All his doubts about Miss Schautz/Mueller's profession vanished. He was looking down on some
sort of sub-machine gun, a mound of revolvers, boxes of ammunition, a typewriter and what
appeared to be grenades. And as he looked he heard the sound of a car outside. It had pulled into
the drive and even to his untrained ear it sounded like the Aston-Martin. Cursing himself for not
listening to his innate cowardice, Wilt struggled to get back along the plank to the door but the
bag was in the way. He banged his head on the rafters above and was about to crawl over the bag
when it occurred to him that the submachine gun might be loaded and could well go off if he
prodded it in the wrong place. Best get the damned thing out. Again, that was easier said than
done. The barrel got caught in the end of the bag and by the time he had disentangled it he could
hear footsteps on the wooden stairs below. Too late to do anything now except switch the light
off. Leaning forward across the bag and holding the machine gun at arm's length Wilt joggled the
switch up with the muzzle before crouching down in the darkness.

Outside in the garden the quads had had a marvellous afternoon with old Mrs de Frackas. She
had read them the story about Rikki Tikki Tavi, the mongoose, and the two cobras, and had then
taken them into her house to show them what a stuffed cobra looked like (she had one in a glass
case and it bared its fangs most realistically) and had told them about her own childhood in
India before sitting them down to tea in her conservatory. For once the quads had behaved
themselves. They had picked up from Eva a proper sense of Mrs de Frackas' social standing and in
any case the old lady's voice had a distinctly firm ring to it or as Wilt had once put it, if at
eighty-two she could no longer break a sherry glass at fifty paces she could still make a guard
dog whimper at forty. It was certainly true that the milkman had long since given up trying to
collect his payment on a weekly basis. Mrs de Frackas belonged to a generation that had paid when
it felt so inclined; the old lady sent her cheque only twice a year, and then it was wrong. The
milk company did not dispute it. The widow of the late Major-General de Frackas, DSO etc. was a
personage to whom people deferred and it was one of Eva's proudest boasts that she and the old
lady got on like a house on fire. Nobody else in Willington Road did and it was almost entirely
because Mrs de Frackas loved children and considered Eva, in spite of her obvious lack of
breeding, to be an excellent mother that she smiled on the Wilts. To be precise, she seldom
smiled on Wilt, evidently regarding him as an accident in the family process and one that, if her
observation of his activities in the summerhouse of an evening was correct, drank. Since the
Major-General had died of cirrhosis or as she bluntly said, hob-nailed liver, Wilt's solitary
communion with the bottle only increased her regard for Eva and concern for the children. Being
also rather deaf she thought them delightful girls, an opinion that was shared by no one else in
the district.

And so this bright sunny afternoon Mrs de Frackas sat the quads in her conservatory and served
tea, happily unaware of the gathering drama next door. Then she allowed them to play with the
tiger rug in her drawing-room and even to knock over a potted palm before deciding it was time to
go home. The little procession went out of the front gate and into Number 9 just as Wilt began
his search in the attic. In the bushes on the opposite side of the road the officer whom the
Superintendent had warned not to use the radio watched them enter the house and was desperately
praying that they would come out again straightaway when the Aston-Martin drove up. Gudrun
Schautz and two young men got out, opened the boot and took out several suitcases while the
officer dithered but before he could make up his mind to tackle them in the open they had hurried
in the front door. Only then did he break radio silence.

'Female target and two males have entered the zone,' he told the Major who was making a round
of the SGS men posted at the bottom of the Wilts' garden. 'No present withdrawal of civilian
occupants. Request instructions.'

In response the Major threaded his way through the gardens of Numbers 4 and 2 and accompanied
by two privates carrying a theodolite and a striped pole promptly set this up on the pavement and
began to take sightings down Willington Road while carrying on a conversation with the officer in
the hedge.