You heard me,' said Eva, and loomed over him with a ferocity that put in question his ardent feminism, but before he could make a plea for his own personal liberty he was being hustled out of the house. A crowd of reporters had gathered there.
'Mrs Wilt,' said a man from the Snap, our readers would like to hear how it feels as the mother of quads to know that your loved ones are being held hostage.'
Eva's eyes bulged in her head. 'Feel?' she asked. 'You want to know how I feel?'
'That's right,' said the man, licking his ballpen, 'human interest '
He got no further. Eva's feelings had passed beyond the stage of words or human interest. Only actions could express them. Her hand came up, descended in a karate chop and as he fell her knee caught him in the stomach.
That's how it feels,' said Eva as he rolled into a foetal position on the flowerbed. 'Tell your readers that.' And she marched the now thoroughly cowed Mr Symper to his car and pushed him in.
'I am going home to my children,' she told the other reporters 'Mr Symper of the League of Personal Liberties is accompanying me and my solicitor is waiting for us.'
And without another word she got into the driver's seat. Ten minutes later, followed by a small convoy of press cars, they reached the road block in Farringdon Road to find Mr Gosdyke arguing ineffectually with the police sergeant.
'I'm afraid it's no use, Mrs Wilt. The police have orders to let no one through.'
Eva snorted. 'This is a free country,' she said, dragging Mr Symper out of the car with a grip that contradicted her statement 'If anyone tries to stop me from going home we will take the matter to the courts, to the Ombudsman and to Parliament. Come along, Mr Gosdyke.'
'Now hold it, lady,' said the sergeant, 'my orders...'
'I've taken your number,' said Eva, 'and I shall sue you personally for denying me free access to my children.'
And pushing the unwilling Mr Symper before her she marched through the gap in the barbed wire, followed cautiously by Mr Gosdyke. Behind them a cheer went up from the crowd of reporters. For a moment the sergeant was too stunned to react and by the time he reached for his walkie-talkie the trio had turned the corner into Willington Road. They were stopped half way down by two armed SGS men.
'You've no right to be here,' one of them shouted. 'Don't you know there's a siege on?
'Yes,' said Eva. 'which is why we're here. I'm Mrs Wilt, this is Mr Symper of the League of Personal Liberties and Mr Gosdyke is here to handle negotiations. Now kindly take us to...'
'I don't know anything about this,' said the soldier. 'All I know is that we've got orders to shoot...'
'Then shoot me,' said Eva defiantly, 'and see where that gets you.'
The SGS man hesitated. Shooting mothers wasn't included in Queen's Rules and Regulations, and Mr Gosdyke looked too respectable to be a terrorist
'All right, come this way,' he said, and escorted them into Mrs de Frackas' house to be greeted abusively by Inspector Flint.
'What the fuck's going on?' he yelled. 'I thought I gave orders for you to stay away.'
Eva pushed Mr Gosdyke forward. 'Tell him,' she said.
Mr Gosdyke cleared his throat and looked uncomfortably round the room. 'As Mrs Wilt's legal representative,' he said, 'I have come to inform you that she demands to join her family. Now to the best of my knowledge there is nothing in law to prevent her from entering her own home.'
Inspector Flint goggled at him. 'Nothing? he spluttered.
'Nothing in law,' said Mr Gosdyke.
'Bugger the law,' shouted Flint. 'You think those sods in there give a tuppenny fuck for the law?'
