‘Yes.’
‘They express your opinion of police methods?’
Wilt pulled himself together. ‘They were jottings I was making for a lecture to Sandwich-Course Trainee Firemen,’ he explained. ‘They were simply rough ideas. They need amplifying of course…’
‘But you don’t deny you wrote them?’
‘Of course I don’t. I’ve just said I did, haven’t I?’
The Inspector nodded and picked up a book. ‘And this is yours too?’
Wilt looked at Bleak House. ‘It says so, doesn’t it?’
Inspector Flint opened the cover. ‘So it does,’ he said with a show of astonishment, ’so it does’
Wilt stared at him. There was no point in maintaining the pretence any longer. The best thing to do was to get it over quickly. They had found that bloody book in the basket of the bicycle and the notes must have fallen out of his pocket on the building site.
‘Look, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I can explain everything. It’s really quite simple. I did go into that building site…’
The Inspector stood up. ‘Mr Wilt, if you’re prepared to make a statement I think I should warn you…’
Wilt went down to the Murder Headquarters and made a statement in the presence of a police stenographer. His progress to the blue caravan and his failure to come out again were noted with interest by members of the staff teaching in the Science block, by students in the canteen and by twenty-five fellow lecturers gaping through the windows of the Staff Room.
Chapter 9
‘Goddam the thing,’ said Gaskell as he knelt greasily beside the engine of the cruiser, ‘you’d think that even in this pre-technological monarchy they’d fit a decent motor. This contraption must have been made for the Ark.’
‘Ark Ark the Lark,’ said Sally, ‘and cut-the crowned heads foolery. Eva’s a reginaphile.’
‘A what?’
‘Reginaphile. Monarchist. Get it. She’s the Queen’s Bee so don’t be anti-British. We don’t want her to stop working as well as the motor. Maybe it isn’t the con rod.’
‘If I could only get the head off I could tell,’ said Gaskell.
‘And what good would that do? Buy you another?’ said Sally and went into the cabin where Eva was wondering what they were going to have for supper. ‘Tarbaby is still tinkering with the motor. He says it’s the con rod.’
‘Con rod?’ said Eva.
‘Only connect, baby, only connect’
‘With what?’
‘The thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone. The con rod’s connected to the piston and as everyone knows pistons are penis symbols. The mechanised male’s substitute for sex. The Outboard Motor Syndrome. Only this happens to be inboard like his balls never dropped. Honestly, Gaskell is so regressive’
‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Eva.
Sally, lay back on the bunk and lit a cigar. ‘That’s what I love about you, Eva. You don’t know. Ignorance is blissful, baby. I lost mine when I was fourteen.’
Eva shook her head. ‘Men,’ she said disapprovingly.
‘He was old enough to be my grandfather,’ said Sally. ‘He was my grandfather.’
