In Mrs de Frackas' conservatory Superintendent Misterson had been watching the helicopter moving in towards the balcony window with the field telephone dangling beneath it, when the world had suddenly vanished. After the brilliance of the floodlights he could see nothing but he could still feel and hear and before he could grope his way back into the drawing-room he both felt and heard. He certainly felt the field telephone on the side of his head and he vaguely heard the sound of breaking glass. A second later he was on the tiled floor and the whole damned place seemed to be cascading glass, potted geraniums, begonia semperflorens and soilless compost. It was the latter that prevented him from expressing his true feelings.
'You bleeding maniac...' he began before choking in the dust storm. The Superintendent rolled on to his side and tried to avoid the debris but things were still falling from the shelves and Mrs de Frackas' treasured Cathedral Bell plant had detached itself from the wall and had draped him with tendrils. Finally as he tried to fight his way out of this home-grown jungle a large Camellia 'Donation' in a heavy clay pot toppled from its pedestal and put an end to his misery. The head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad lay comfortably unconscious on the tiles and made no comment.
But in the Communications Centre comments flew thick and fast. The Major yelled orders to the helicopter pilot while two operators wearing headphones were clutching their ears and screaming that some fucking lunatic was bouncing on the parabolic listening devices. Only Flint remained cool and comparatively detached. Ever since he had first learnt that Wilt was involved in the case he had known that something appalling was bound to happen. In Flint's mind the name Wilt spelt chaos, a sort of cosmic doom against which there was no protection, except possibly prayer, and now that catastrophe had struck he was secretly pleased. It proved his premonition right and the Superintendent's optimism entirely wrong. And so while the Major ordered the helicopter pilot to get the hell out, Flint picked his way through the rubble in the conservatory and disentangled his unconscious superior from the foliage.
'Better call an ambulance,' he told the Major as he dragged the injured man into the Communications Centre, 'the Super looks as if he's bought it.'
The Major was too busy to be concerned. 'That's your business. Inspector,' he said. 'I've got to see those swine don't get away.'
'Sounds as though they're still in the house,' said Flint as the sporadic firing continued from Number 9, but the Major shook his head.
'Doubt it. Could have left a suicide squad to cover their retreat, or rigged up a machine gun with a timing device to fire at intervals. Can't trust the buggers an inch.'
Flint radioed for medical help and ordered two constables to carry the Superintendent through the neighbouring gardens to Farringdon Avenue, a process that was impeded by the SGS men searching for escaping terrorists. It was half an hour before silence descended on Willington Road and the listening devices had confirmed that there was still human presence in the house.
There was also apparently something vertebrate lying on the Wilts' lawn. Flint, returning from the ambulance, found the Major grasping a revolver and preparing to make a sortie.
'Got one of the bastards by the sound of things,' he said as a massive heartbeat issued from an amplifier linked to a listening device. 'Going out to bring him in. Probably wounded in the cross-fire.'
He dashed out into the darkness and a few minutes later there was a yell, the sound of a violent struggle involving an extremely vigorous object and sections of the fence between the two gardens. Flint switched the amplifier off. Now that the massive heartbeat had gone there were other even more disturbing sounds coming from the machine. But what was finally dragged through the shattered conservatory was worst of all. Never the most attractive of women in Flint's eyes, Eva Wilt daubed in mud, weeds and soaked to the skin which showed through her torn dress in several places, now presented a positively prehistoric appearance. She was still struggling as the six SGS men bundled her into the room. The Major followed with a black eye.
'Well at least we've got one of the swine, 'he said.
'I'm not one of the swine,' shouted Eva, 'I'm Mrs Wilt. You've no right to treat me like this.'
Inspector Flint retreated behind a chair. 'It's certainly Mrs Wilt,' he said. 'Mind telling us what you were trying to do?'
Front the carpet Eva regarded him with loathing.
'I was trying to join my children. I've got a right to.'
'I've heard that one before,' said Flint. 'You and your rights. I suppose Henry put you up to this?'
'He did nothing of the sort. I don't even know what's happened to him. For all I know he's dead.' And she promptly burst into tears.
'All right, you can let her go now, chaps,' said the Major at last convinced that his captive was not one of the terrorists. 'You could have got yourself killed, you know.'
Eva ignored him and got to her feet. 'Inspector Flint, you're a father yourself. You must know what it means to be separated from your loved ones in their hour of need.'
'Yes, well...' said the Inspector awkwardly. Weeping Neanderthal women aroused mixed emotions in him and in any case his particular loved ones were two teenage louts with an embarrassing taste for vandalism. He was grateful for an interruption from one of the technicians in charge of the listening devices.
'Getting something peculiar, Inspector,' he said. 'Want to hear it?'
Flint nodded. Anything was better than appeals for sympathy from Eva Wilt. It wasn't. The technician switched the amplifier on.
'That's coming from Boom Number 4,' he explained as a series of grunts, groans, ecstatic cries and the insistent creaking of bedsprings issued from the loudspeaker.
'Boom Number 4? That's not a boom, that's a...'
'Sounds like a fucking sex maniac, begging the lady's pardon,' said the Major. But Eva was listening too intently to care.
'Where's it coming from?'
'Attic flat, sir. The one where you-know-who is.'
But the subterfuge was wasted on Eva. 'Yes, I do,' she shrieked, 'that's my Henry. I'd know that moan anywhere.'
A dozen disgusted eyes turned on her but Eva was unabashed. After all she had been through in so short a time this new revelation destroyed the last vestiges of her social discretion.
'He's making love to some other woman. Just wait till I lay my hands on him,' she screamed in fury and would have dashed out into the night again if she hadn't been seized.
'Handcuff the bitch,' shouted the Inspector, 'and take her back to the station and see she doesn't get out again I want maximum security this time and I don't mean maybe.'
'Doesn't sound as if her husband does either, come to that,' said the Major as Eva was dragged off and the unequivocal evidence of Wilt's first affair continued to pulsate through the Communications Centre. Flint emerged from behind the chair and sat down.
'Well at least she's proved me right. I said the little bastard was in this thing up to his eyeballs.'
The Major shuddered. 'I can think of pleasanter ways of putting it, but it rather sounds as if you're right.'
'Of course I am,' said Flint smugly. 'I know friend Wilt's little tricks.'
'I'm glad I don't,' said the Major. 'If you ask me we ought to get the psycho to analyse this little lot.'
'It's all going down on the tape, sir,' said the radio man.
'In that case turn that filthy din off,' said Flint. 'I've got enough on my hands without having to listen to Wilt having it off.'
'Couldn't agree more,' said the Major, struck by the accuracy of the term, 'the fellow must have nerves of steel. Dashed if I could get it up in the circumstances.'