down again, Wilt had resorted to ice-cubes.
'I do think you ought to see a doctor,' she said.
'I should have seen one before I married you,' said Wilt. 'I suppose you realize I might be dead by now. What the hell did you put in my beer?'
Eva looked miserable. 'I only wanted to help our marriage,' she said, 'and Mavis Mottram said'
'I'll strangle the bitch!'
'She said Dr Kores had helped Patrick and'
'Helped Patrick?' said Wilt, momentarily distracted from his ice-packed penis. 'The last time I saw him he looked as if he could do with a bra. Said something about not having to shave so much either.'
'That's what I mean. Dr Kores gave Mavis something to cool his sexual ardour and I thought...' She paused. Wilt was looking at her dangerously again.
'Go on, though I'd question the use of 'thought'.'
'Well, that she might have something that would pep...'
'Pep?' said Wilt. 'Why not say ginger and have done with it? And why the hell should I need pepping up any way? I'm a working man...or was, with four damned daughters, not some demented sex pistol of seventeen.'
'I just thought...I mean it occurred to me if she could do so much for Patrick...' (here Wilt snorted) '...she might be able to help us to have a...well, a more fulfilling sex life.'
'By poisoning me with Spanish Fly? Some fulfilment that is,' said Wilt. 'Well, let me tell you something now. For your information, I am not some fucking sex processor like that Magimix, and if you want the sort of sex life those idiotic women's magazines you read seem to suggest is your due, like fifteen times a week, you'd better find another husband because I'm buggered if I'm up to it. And the way I feel now, you'll be lucky if I'm ever up to it again.'
'Oh Henry!'
'Sod off,' said Wilt, and hobbled through to the downstairs loo with his mixing bowl of ice cubes. At least they seemed to help and the pain was easing off now.
As the sound of discord inside the house died down, Inspector Hodge and the Sergeant made their way back down Oakhurst Avenue to their car. They hadn't been able to hear what was being said, but the fact that there had been some sort of terrible row had heightened Hodge's opinion that the Wilts were no ordinary criminals. 'The pressure's beginning to tell,' he told Sergeant Runk. 'If we don't find him calling on his friends within a day or two, I'm not the man I think I am.'
'If I don't get some sleep, I won't be either,' said Runk, 'and I'm not surprised that bloke next door wants to sell his house. Must be hell living next to people like that.'
'Won't have to much longer,' said Hodge, but the mention of Mr Gamer had put a new idea in his mind. With a bit of collaboration from the Gamers, he'd be in a position to hear everything that went on in the Wilts' house. On the other hand, with their car transformed into a mobile radio station, he was expecting an early arrest.
Chapter 11
All the following day, while Wilt lay in bed with a hot-water bottle he'd converted into an ice-pack by putting it into the freezer compartment of the fridge and Inspector Hodge monitored Eva's movements about Ipford, Flint followed his own line of investigation. He checked with Forensic and learnt that the high-grade heroin found in McCullum's cell corresponded in every way to that discovered in Miss Lynchknowle's flat and almost certainly came from the same source. He spent an hour with Mrs Jardin, the prison visitor, wondering at the remarkable capacity for self-deception that had already allowed her to put the blame on everyone else for McCullum's death. Society was to blame for creating the villain, the education authorities for his wholly
