'If it's all the same to you I think it would be better written down,' said Wilt, playing for time and trying frantically to think what he could possibly confess. 'I mean, all I need is a pen and some sheets of paper.'
For a moment Glaushof hesitated before deciding that there was something to be said for a confession written out in Wilt's own hand. That way no one could say he'd beaten it out of the little bastard. 'Okay,' he said. 'You can use the table.'
Three hours later Wilt had finished and six pages were covered with his neat and practically illegible handwriting. Glaushof took them and tried to read. 'What you trying to do? Didn't anybody ever teach you to write properly?'
Wilt shook his head wearily. 'If you can't read, take it to someone who can. I've had it,' he said and put his head on his arms on the table. Glaushof looked at his white face and had to agree. He wasn't feeling too good himself. But at least Colonel Urwin and the idiots in Intelligence were going to feel worse. With a fresh surge of energy he went into the office next door, made photocopies of the pages and was presently marching past the guards outside communications. 'I want transcripts made of these,' he told the head of the typists' pool. 'And absolute security.' Then he sat down and waited.
Chapter 18
'A warrant? A search warrant for 45 Oakhurst Avenue? You want to apply for a search warrant?' said the Superintendent.
'Yes, sir,' said Inspector Hodge, wondering why it was that what seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to him should need querying quite so repetitively. 'All the evidence indicates the Wilts to be carriers.'
'I'm not sure the magistrate is going to agree,' said the Superintendent. 'Circumstantial evidence is all it amounts to.'
'Nothing circumstantial about Wilt going out to that airbase and giving us the run-around, and I wouldn't say her going to that herb farm was circumstantial either. It's all there in my report.'
'Yes,' said the Superintendent, managing to imbue the word with doubt. 'What's not there is one shred of hard evidence.'
'That's why we need the search, sir,' said Hodge. 'There've got to be traces of the stuff in the house. Stands to reason.'
'If he's what you say he is,' said the Superintendent.
'Look,' said Hodge, 'he knew he was being tailed when he went out to Baconheath. He had to know. Drives around in circles for half an hour when he comes out and gives us the slip'
'And that's another thing,' interrupted the Superintendent, 'your bugging the blighter's car without authorization. I consider that highly reprehensible. I want that understood clearly right now. Anyway, he may have been drunk.'
'Drunk?' said Hodge, finding it difficult to make the transition between unauthorized bugging being reprehensible, which in his opinion it wasn't, and Wilt being drunk.
'When he came out of Baconheath. Didn't know whether he was coming or going and went round in circles. Those Yanks drink rye. Sickly muck but it goes down so easily you don't notice.'
Inspector Hodge considered the suggestion and rejected it. 'I don't see how a drunk could drive that fast, not on those roads without killing himself. And choosing a route that'd take him out of radio contact.'
The Superintendent studied the report again. It didn't make comfortable reading. On the other hand there was something in what Hodge had said. 'If he wasn't pissed why leave the car outside someone else's house?' he asked but Hodge had already concocted an answer to that one.
'Shows how clever the little bastard is,' he said. 'Not giving anything away, that bloke. He knows we're onto him and he needs an explanation for all that run-around he's given us so he
