The Wilt Alternative

'Bejasus it will be nobody's fault but your own if we have to shoot the poor innocent creature Irmgard Mueller herself before eight in the morning if the wee babies are not returned to their mam, look you.'

'What?' said the Superintendent baffled by this new threat.

'I wouldn't want to be repeating meself for the likes of reactionary pigs like yourself but if you're deaf I'll say it again.'

'Don't,' said the Superintendent firmly, 'We got the message first time.'

'Well I'll be hoping those Zionist spalpeens will have got the message too begorrah.'

A muffled flow of Spanish seemed to indicate that Chinanda had heard.

'Well then that'll be all. I wouldn't want to be running up too big a telephone bill now would I?' And Wilt slammed the phone down. It was left to the Superintendent to interpret this ultimatum to Chinanda as best he could, a difficult process made almost impossible by the terrorist's insistence that the People's Alternative Army was a gang of fascist police pigs under the Superintendent's command.

'We know you British use psychological warfare. You are experts,' he shouted, 'we are not to be so easily deceived.'

'But I assure you, Miguel...'

'Don't try bluffing me by calling me Miguel so I think you are my friend. We understand your tactics. First you threaten and then you keep us talking...'

'Well as a matter of fact I'm not keeping...'

'Shut your mouth, pig. I'm doing the talking now.'

'That's all I was going to say,' protested the Superintendent. 'But I want you to know there are no police...'

'Bullshit. You tried to trap us and now you threaten to kill Gudrun. Right, we do not respond to your threats. You kill Gudrun, we kill the hostages.'

'I'm not in a position to stop whoever is holding Fräulein Schautz...'

'You keep trying the bluff but it doesn't work. We know how clever you British imperialists are.' And Chinanda too slammed the phone down.

'I must say he seems to have a rather higher opinion of the British Empire than I have,' said the Major. 'I mean I can't actually see where we've got one, unless you count Gibraltar.'

But the Superintendent was in no mood to discuss the extent of the Empire. 'There's something demented about this bloody siege,' he muttered. 'First we need to get a separate telephone link through to the lunatics in that top flat. That's number one priority. If they shoot...What on earth did he call the Schautz woman, sergeant?'

'I think the expression was "the poor innocent creature Irmgard Mueller",' sir? Do you want me to play the tape back?'

'No,' said the Superintendent, 'we'll wait for the analysts. In the meantime request use of helicopter to drop a field telephone on to the balcony of the flat. That way we'll at least get some idea who's up there.'

'Field telephone incorporating TV camera, sir?' asked the sergeant.

The Superintendent nodded. 'Second priority is to move the listening devices into position.'

'Can't do that until it gets dark,' said the Major. 'Not having my chaps shot down unless they're allowed to shoot back.'

'Well, we'll just have to wait,' said the Superintendent. 'That's always the way with these beastly sieges. Just a question of sitting and waiting. Though I must say this is the first time I've had to deal with two lots of terrorists at once.'

'Makes you feel sorry for those poor children,' said the Major. 'What they must be going through doesn't bear thinking about.'

Chapter 14

But for once his sympathy was wasted. The quads were having a wonderful time. After the initial excitement of windows being shattered by bullets and the terrorists firing from the kitchen and the front hall, they had been bundled down into the cellar with Mrs de Frackas. Since the old lady refused to be flustered and seemed to regard the events upstairs as perfectly normal, the quads had taken the same attitude. Besides the cellar was usually forbidden territory, Wilt objecting to their visiting it on the ostensible grounds that the Organic Toilet was insanitary and dangerously explosive, while Eva barred the quads because she kept her stock of preserved fruit down there and the chest freezer was filled with homemade ice cream. The quads had made a bee-line for the ice cream and had finished a large carton before Mrs de Frackas' eyes had got accustomed to the dim light. By then the quads had found other interesting things to occupy their attention. A large coal bunker and a pile of logs gave them the opportunity to get thoroughly filthy. Eva's store of organically grown apples provided them with a second course after the ice cream, and they would undoubtedly have drunk themselves into a stupor on Wilt's homebrew if Mrs de Frackas hadn't put her foot down on a broken bottle first.

'You're not to go into that part of the cellar,' she said looking severely at the evidence of Wilt's inexpert brewing in the shape of several exploded bottles. 'It isn't safe.'

Then why does Daddy drink it?' asked Penelope.

'When you get a little older you'll learn that men do a great many things that aren't very sensible or safe,' said Mrs de Frackas.

'Like wearing a bag on the end of their wigwags?' asked Josephine.

'Well I wouldn't quite know about that, dear,' said Mrs de Frackas evidently torn between curiosity and a desire not to enquire too closely into the Wilts' private life.

'Mummy said the doctor made him wear it,' continued Josephine adding an unmentionable disease to the old lady's dossier of Wilt's faults.

'And I stepped on it and Daddy screamed,' said Emmeline proudly. 'He screamed ever so loudly.'

'I'm sure he did, dear,' said Mrs de Frackas, trying to imagine the reaction of her late and liverish husband had any child been so unwise as to step on his penis. 'Now let's talk about something nice.'

The distinction was wasted on the quads. 'When daddy comes home from the doctor mummy says his wigwag will be better and he won't say "Fuck" when he goes weewee.'

'Say what, dear? asked Mrs de Frackas, adjusting her hearing aid in the hope that it rather than Samantha had been at fault. The quads in unison disillusioned her.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' they squealed. Mrs de Frackas turned her hearing aid down.

'Well, really,' she said, 'I don't think you should use that word.'

'Mummy says we mustn't too but Michael's daddy told him...'

'I don't want to hear,' said Mrs de Frackas hastily. 'In my young days children didn't talk about such things.'

'How did babies get born then?' asked Penelope.

'In the usual way, dear, only we were brought up not to mention such things.'

'What things?' demanded Penelope.

Mrs de Frackas regarded her dubiously. It was beginning to dawn on her that the Wilt quads were not quite such nice children as she had supposed In fact they were distinctly unnerving. 'Just things,' she said finally.

'Like cocks and cunts?' asked Emmeline.

Mrs de Frackas eyed her with disgust. 'You could put it like that, I suppose,' she said stiffly. 'Though frankly I'd prefer it if you didn't.'

'If you don't put it like that how do you put it?' asked the indefatigable Penelope

Mrs de Frackas searched her mind in vain for an alternative.

'I don't quite know.' she said, surprised at her own ignorance. 'I suppose the matter never arose.'

'Daddy's does,' said Josephine, 'I saw it once.'

Mrs de Frackas turned her disgusted attention on the child and tried to stifle her own curiosity. 'You did?' she said involuntarily.

'He was in the bathroom with mummy and I looked through the keyhole and daddy's...'

'It's time you had baths too,' said Mrs de Frackas, getting to her feet before Josephine could divulge any further details of the Wilts' sexual life.