partly because it added verisimilitude to the undertaking. With Eva over his shoulder he would be bound to weave a bit. He reached the fence and dropped the doll over. In the process the wig fell off again. Wilt groped around in the mud and found it. Then he went round to the gate. It was locked. It would be. He would have to remember that. Details like that were important. He tried to climb over but couldn’t. He needed something to give him a leg up. A bicycle. There were usually some in the racks by the main gate. Stuffing the wig into his pocket Wilt made his way round the terrapin huts and past the canteen and was just crossing the grass by the Language Lab when a figure appeared out of the darkness and a torch shone in his face. It was the caretaker.
‘Here, where do you think you’re going?’ the caretaker asked. Wilt halted.
‘I’ve…I’ve just come back to get some notes from the Staff Room.’
‘Oh it’s you, Mr Wilt,’ said the caretaker. ‘You should know by now that you can’t get in at this time of night. We lock up at nine thirty.’
‘I’m sorry. I forgot,’ said Wilt.
The caretaker sighed. ‘Well, since it’s you and it’s just this once…’ he said, and unlocked the door to the General Studies building. ‘You’ll have to walk up. The lifts don’t work at this time of night. I’ll wait for you down here.’
Wilt staggered slowly up five flights of stairs to the Staff Room and went to his locker. He took out a handful of papers and a copy of Bleak House he’d been meaning to take home for some months and hadn’t. He stuffed the notes into his pocket and found the wig. While he was about it he might as well pick up an elastic band. That would keep the wig on Judy’s head. He found some in a box in the stationery cupboard, stuffed the notes into his other pocket and went downstairs.
‘Thanks very much,’ he told the caretaker. ‘Sorry to have bothered you.’ He wove off round the corner to the bike sheds.
‘Pissed as a newt,’ said the caretaker, and went back into his office.
Wilt watched him light his pipe and then turned his attention to the bicycles. The bloody things were all locked. He would just have to carry one round. He put Bleak House in the basket, picked the bike up and carried it all the way round to the fence. Then he climbed up and over and groped around in the darkness for the doll. In the end he found it and spent five minutes trying to keep the wig on while he fastened the elastic band under her chin. It kept on jumping off. ‘Well, at least that’s one problem I won’t have with Eva,’ he muttered to himself when the wig was secured. Having satisfied himself that it wouldn’t come off he moved cautiously forward skirting mounds of gravel, machines, sacks and reinforcing rods when it suddenly occurred to him that he was running a considerable risk of disappearing down one of the pile holes himself. He put the doll down and fumbled in his pocket for the torch and shone it on the ground. Some yards ahead there was a large square of thick plywood. Wilt moved forward and lifted it. Underneath was the hole, a nice big hole. Just the right size. She would fit in there perfectly. He shone the torch down. Must be thirty feet deep. He pushed the plywood to one side and went back for the doll. The wig had fallen off again.
‘Fuck,’ said Wilt, and reached in his pocket for another elastic band. Five minutes later Judy’s wig was firmly in place with four elastic bands fastened under her chin. That should do it. Now all he had to do was to drag the replica to the hole and make sure it fitted. At this point Wilt hesitated. He was beginning to have doubts about the soundness of the scheme. Too many unexpected contingencies had arisen for his liking. On the other hand there was a sense of exhilaration about being alone on the building site in the middle of the night. Perhaps it would be better if he went home now. No, he had to see the thing through. He would put the doll into the hole to make quite sure that it fitted.
