still the little matter of the guns. The notion of sharing the flat with a woman who had cold-bloodedly murdered eight people was not an attractive one in any circumstances, but when that flat contained enough firearms to eliminate several hundred it became positively suicidal. The guns would have to go too. But where? He could hardly drop the damned things out of the window. The effect of a shower of revolvers, grenades and a sub-machine gun on the terrorists was likely to encourage them to come up and find out what the hell was going on. Anyway, the grenades might go off and there were enough misunderstandings floating around already without adding exploding grenades. The best thing would be to hide them. Very gingerly Wilt put his armoury back into the flight bag and went through the kitchen to the attic space. Gudrun Schautz was now definitely busy on the floorboards and under cover of the noise Wilt climbed up and edged his way along to the water cistern. There he lowered the bag into the water before replacing the cover. Then, having checked to make quite sure that he hadn't missed a gun, he steeled himself for the next move. It was, he considered, about as safe as opening the cage of a tiger at the zoo and inviting the thing to come out, but it had to be done and in an insane situation only an act of total lunacy could save the children. Wilt went through the kitchen to the bathroom door.
'Irmgard,' he whispered. Miss Schautz went on with her work of demolishing the bathroom floor. Wilt took another deep breath and whispered more loudly. Inside work ceased and there was silence.
'Irmgard,' said Wilt, 'is that you?'
There was a movement and then a quiet voice spoke. 'Who is there?'
'It's me,' said Wilt, sticking to the obvious and wishing to hell it wasn't, 'Henry Wilt.'
'Henry Wilt?'
'Yes. They've gone.'
'Who have gone?'
'I don't know. Whoever they were. You can come out now.'
'Come out?' asked Gudrun Schautz in a tone of voice that suggested the total bewilderment Wilt wanted.
'I'll undo the door.'
Wilt began to remove the flex from the doorhandle. It was difficult in the growing darkness but after several minutes he had undone the wire and removed the chair.
'It's OK now,' he said. 'You can come out.'
But Gudrun Schautz made no move. 'How do I know it's you?' she asked.
'I don't know,' said Wilt, glad of this opportunity to delay matters, 'it just is.'
'Who is with you?'
'No one. They've gone downstairs.'
'You keep saying 'They'. Who are these 'They'?'
'I've no idea. Men with guns. The whole house is filled with men with guns.'
'So why are you here?' asked Miss Schautz.
'Because I can't be somewhere else,' said Wilt truthfully. 'You don't think I want to be here? They've been shooting at one another. I could have been killed. I don't know what the hell's going on.'
There was a silence from the bathroom. Gudrun Schautz was having difficulty working out what was going on too. In the darkness of the kitchen Wilt smiled to himself. Keep this up and he'd have the bitch bombed out of her mind.
'And no one is with you?' she asked.
'Of course not.'
'Then how did you know I was in the bathroom?'
'I heard you having a bath,' said Wilt, 'and then all these people started shouting and shooting and...'
'Where were you?'
'Look,' said Wilt deciding to change his tactics, 'I don't see why you keep asking me these
