The Wilt Alternative

'Mrs Wilt is obviously in an extremely disturbed mental state, Inspector. We must try to reassure her. I suggest you use the telephone...'

'No,' said Professor Maerlis 'Mrs Wilt may appear from this angle to have the proportions of an attenuated gorilla, but even so I doubt if she could reach the telephone without getting off the chair.'

'And what's so wrong with that?' demanded the Major aggressively. 'The Schautz bitch has it coming to her.'

'Perhaps, but we don't want to make a martyr of her. She already has a very considerable political charisma...'

'Bugger her charisma,' said Flint, 'she's had the rest of the Wilt family martyred and we can always claim that her death was accidental.'

The Professor looked at him sceptically. 'You could try, I suppose, but I think you'd have some difficulty persuading the media that a woman who has been suspended from a balcony on the end of two ropes, one of which had been expertly knotted round her neck, and who was subsequently hanged and/or decapitated, died in any meaningfully accidental manner. Of course it's up to you but...'

'All right, then what the hell do you suggest?'

'Turn a blind eye, old boy,' said the Major. 'After all Mrs Wilt is only human...'

'Only?' muttered Dr Felden. 'A clearer example of anthropomorphism...'

'And she's got to answer the call of nature sometime.'

'Call of nature?' shouted Flint. 'She's done that already. She's squatting there like a ruddy performing elephant...'

'Pee, old boy, pee,' continued the Major. 'She's got to get up to have a pee sooner or later.'

'Pray later than sooner,' said the psychiatrist. 'The thought of that ghastly shape getting off that chair would be too much to bear.'

'Anyway she's probably got a bladder like a barrage balloon,' said Flint 'Mind you, she can't be any too warm and there's nothing like cold for making one hit the piss-pot.'

'In which case it's curtains for La Schautz,' said the Major. 'Lets us off the hook, what?'

'I can think of happier ways of putting it,' said the Professor, 'and it would still leave us with the problem of Fräulein Schautz's evident martyrdom.'

Flint left them arguing and went out to look for the Superintendent. As he passed through the Communication Centre he was stopped by the sergeant. A series of squeaks and squelches was coming from one of the listening devices.

'It's the boom aimed at the kitchen window,' the sergeant explained.

'Kitchen window?' said Flint incredulously. 'Sounds more like a squad of mice tap-dancing in a septic tank. What the hell are those squeaks?'

'Children,' said the sergeant. 'Hardly likely, I know, but I've yet to hear one mouse tell another to shut its fucking trap. And it's not coming from inside the house. The two wogs have been complaining that they haven't anyone left to shoot. If you want my opinion...'

But Flint was already clambering across the rubble of the conservatory in search of the Superintendent. He found him lying in the grass beside the summerhouse at the bottom of the Wilts' garden, studying Gudrun Schautz's anatomy through a pair of binoculars

'Extraordinary lengths these lunatics will go to gain some publicity,' he said by way of explanation. 'It's a good thing we've kept the TV cameras out of range.'

'She's not up there out of choice,' said Flint. 'It's Mrs Wilt's doing and we've got a chance to take the two swine on the ground floor. They're out of hostages for the time being.'

'Are they really?' said the Superintendent, and transferred his observation to the kitchen windows with some reluctance. A moment later he was refocusing his binoculars on the compost bin.

'Good God,' he muttered, 'I've heard of rapid fermentation but...Here, you take a look at that bin by the back door.'

Flint took the binoculars and looked. In close-up he could see what the Superintendent meant by rapid fermentation. The compost was alive. It moved, it heaved, several bean haulms rose and fell, while a beetroot suddenly emerged from the sludge and promptly disappeared again. Finally, and most disconcerting of all, something that resembled a Hallowe'en pumpkin with matted hair peered over the side of the bin

Flint closed his eyes, opened them again and found himself looking through a mask of decaying vegetable matter at a very familiar face.

Chapter 22

Five minutes later Wilt was hauled unceremoniously from the compost heap while a dozen armed policemen aimed guns at the kitchen door and windows.

'Bang, bang, you're dead,' squealed Josephine as she was lifted from the mess. A constable bundled her through the hedge and went back for Penelope. Inside the house the terrorists made no move. They were being occupied on the phone by Flint.

'You can forget any deals,' he was saying as the Wilt family were led through the conservatory 'Either you come out with your hands up and no guns or we're coming in firing, and after the first ten bullets you won't know what hit you...Christ, what's that revolting smell?'

'It says it's called Samantha,' said the constable who was carrying the foetid child.

'Well take it away and disinfect the beastly thing,' said Flint, groping for a handkerchief

'I don't want to be disinfected,' bawled Samantha. Flint turned a weary eye on the group and for a moment had the nightmarish feeling that he was looking at something in an advanced state of decomposition. But the vision faded. He could see now that it was simply Wilt clotted with compost.

'Well, look what the cat dragged in. If it isn't Compost Casanova himself, our beanstalk hero of the hour. I've seen some sickening sights in my time but...'

'Charming,' said Wilt. 'Considering what I've just been through I can do without cracks about nostalgie de la boue. And what about Eva? She's still in there and if you start shooting...'

'Shut up, Wilt,' said Flint, lumbering to his feet. 'For your information, if it weren't for Mrs Wilt's latest enthusiasm for hanging people we'd have been into that house an hour ago.'

'Her enthusiasm for what?'

'Someone give him a blanket,' said Flint, 'I've seen enough of this human vegetable to last me a lifetime.' He went into the Conference Room followed by Wilt wrapped rather meagrely in one of Mrs de Frackas' shawls.

'Gentlemen, I'd like you all to meet Mr Henry Wilt,' he told the dumbfounded Psycho-Warfare Team, 'or should I say Comrade Wilt?'

Wilt didn't hear the crack. He was staring at the television screen 'That's Eva,' he said numbly.

'Yes, well, it takes one to know one, I suppose,' said Flint, 'and on the end of all those ropes is your playmate, Gudrun Schautz. The moment your missus gets up from that chair you're going to find yourself married to the first British female executioner. Now that's fine with me. I'm all in favour of capital punishment and women's lib. Unfortunately these gentlemen don't share my lack of prejudice and home hanging is against the law, so if you don't want to see Mrs Wilt on a charge of justifiable homicide you'd better come up with something quick.' But Wilt sat staring in dismay at the screen. His own alternative terrorism had been tame by comparison with Eva's. She was sitting there calmly waiting to be murdered and had devised a hideous deterrent.

'Can't you call her on the telephone?' he asked finally.

'Use your loaf. The moment she gets off.'

'Quite,' said Wilt hastily. 'And I don't suppose there's any way of putting a net or something under Miss Schautz. I mean...'

Flint laughed nastily. 'Oh, it's Miss Schautz now, is it? Such modesty. Considering that only a few hours ago you were pork-swording the bitch I must say I find...'