Inspector Flint nodded encouragingly. ‘I thought you might. Well, what was it?’
Wilt considered his words carefully. He was getting into deep waters.
‘Let’s just say it was by way of being a rehearsal.’
‘A rehearsal? What sort of rehearsal?’
Wilt thought for a moment.
‘Interesting word “rehearsal”,’ he said. ‘It comes from the old French, rehercer, meaning…’
‘To hell with where it comes from,’ said the Inspector, ‘I want to know where it ends up.’
‘Sounds a bit like a funeral too when you come to think of it.’ said Wilt, continuing his campaign of semantic attrition.
Inspector Flint hurled himself into the trap. ‘Funeral? ‘Whose funeral?’
‘Anyone’s’ said Wilt blithely. ‘Hearse, rehearse.’ You could say that’s what happens when you exhume a body. You rehearse it though I don’t suppose you fellows use hearses.’
‘For God’s sake,’ shouted the Inspector. ‘Can’t you ever stick to the point? You said you were rehearsing something and I want to know what that something was.’
‘An idea, a mere idea,’ said Wilt, ‘one of those ephemera of mental fancy that flit like butterflies across the summer landscape of the mind blown by the breezes of association that come like sudden showers…I rather like that.’
‘I don’t,’ said the Inspector, looking at him bitterly. ‘What I want to know is what you were rehearsing. That’s what I’d like to know.’
‘I’ve told you. An idea,’
‘What sort of idea?’
‘Just an idea,’ said Wilt. ‘A mere…’
‘So help me God, Wilt,’ shouted the Inspector, ‘if you start on these fucking butterflies again I’ll break the unbroken habit of a lifetime and wring your bloody neck.’
‘I wasn’t going to mention butterflies this time,’ said Wilt reproachfully, ‘I was going to say that I had this idea for a book…’
‘A book’ snarled Inspector Flint. ‘What sort of book? A book of poetry or a crime story?’
‘A crime story.’ said Wilt, grateful for the suggestion.
‘I see,’ said the Inspector. ‘So you were going to write a thriller. Well now, just let me guess the outline of the plot. There’s this lecturer at the Tech and he has this wife he hates and he decides to murder her…’
‘Go on!’ said Wilt, ‘you’re doing very well so far.’
‘I thought I might be,’ said Flint delightedly. ‘Well, this lecturer thinks he’s a clever fellow who can hoodwink the police. He doesn’t think much of the police. So he dumps a plastic doll down a hole that’s going to be filled with concrete in the hope that the police will waste their time digging it out and in the meantime he’s buried his wife somewhere else. By the way, where did you bury Mrs Wilt, Henry? Let’s get this over once and for all. Where did you put her? Just tell me that. You’ll feel better when it’s out.’
‘I didn’t put her anywhere. If I’ve told you that once I’ve told you a thousand times. How many more times have I got to tell you I don’t know where she is.’
‘I’ll say this for you, Wilt,’ said the Inspector, when he could bring himself to speak. ‘I’ve known some cool customers in my time but I have to take my hat off to you. You’re the coolest bastard it’s ever been my unfortunate experience to come across.’
Wilt shook his head. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I feel sorry for you, Inspector, I really
