Wilt in Nowhere

Chapter 30

Two days later Wilt was sitting in a chair explaining what it felt like not to know who he was to a doctor who seemed to find Wilt’s symptoms quite common and of rather less interest than Wilt himself.

‘And you really don’t know who you are? Are you quite sure about that?’ the psychiatrist asked for the fifth time. ‘Are you absolutely certain?’

Wilt considered the question very carefully. It wasn’t so much the question as the way it was put that concerned him. It had a familiar tone to it. In his years of teaching confirmed and convincing liars he had used that tone himself too often not to recognise what it meant. Wilt changed his tactics.

‘Do you know who you are?’ he asked.

‘As a matter of fact, I do. My name is Dr Dedge.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Wilt. ‘That is your identity. But do you know who you are?’

Dr Dedge regarded him with a new interest. Patients who distinguished between personal identity and who they were came into a rather different category from his usual ones. On the other hand, the fact that Wilt’s notes mentioned ‘Police inquiries following head injuries’ still inclined him to believe he was feigning amnesia. Dr Dedge took up the challenge.

‘When you say ‘who you are’ what exactly do you mean? ‘Who’ surely implies personal identity, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Wilt. ‘I know perfectly well that I am Henry Wilt of 45 Oakhurst Avenue. That is my identity and my address. What I want to know is who Henry Wilt is.’

‘You don’t know who Henry Wilt is?’

‘Of course I don’t, any more than I know how I came to be in the ward.’

‘It says here that you suffered head injuries–’

‘I know that,’ Wilt interrupted. ‘I’ve got bandages round my head. Not that that is proof positive but even the most overworked NHS doctor would hardly make the mistake of treating my head when I’d broken my ankle. At least I don’t suppose so. Of course anything is possible these days. On the other hand, who I am is still a mystery to me. Are you sure you really know who you are, Dr Dredger?’

The psychiatrist smiled professionally. ‘My name happens to be Dedge, not Dredger.’

‘Well, mine is Wilt and I still don’t know who I am.’

Dr Dedge decided to go back to the safer ground of clinical questions. ‘Do you remember what you were doing when this neurological insult occurred?’ he asked.

‘Not offhand I don’t,’ said Wilt, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘When would that be, this neurological insult?’

‘When you suffered the head injuries.’

‘Bit more of an insult being beaten over the head, I’d have thought. Still, if that’s what you call it…’

‘That is the technical term for what occurred to you, Mr Wilt. Now do you know what you were doing just before the incident?’

Wilt pretended to think about the question. Not that it needed much thinking about. He had no idea. ‘No,’ he said finally.

‘No? Nothing at all?’

Wilt shook his head carefully. ‘Well, I can remember watching the news and thinking how wrong it was to stop Meals on Wheel to those old people in Burling just to save on the Council Tax. Then Eva–that’s my wife–came in and said supper was ready. I can’t remember much after that. Oh, and I washed the car some time and the cat had to go to the vet again. I can’t remember much after that.’

The psychiatrist made a number of notes and nodded encouragingly. ‘Any little thing will be of help, Henry,’ he said. ‘Take your time.’

Wilt did. He needed to find out how far back his memory would have been affected by a neurological insult. He’d nearly fallen into a trap when he’d said he didn’t know his own name. Clearly that didn’t fit the pattern. Not knowing who he was, on the other hand, still had some mileage to it. Wilt tried again.

‘I remember…no, you wouldn’t be interested in that.’

‘Let me be the one who decides that, Henry. You just tell me what you remember.’

‘I can’t, Doctor, I mean…well…I just can’t,’ he said, adopting the shifty whine he had heard so often in the Disadvantaged Single Sex Seminars he had been forced to attend as part of Ms Lashskirt’s Gender Affirmation Awareness Programme. Wilt was using that whine to his own advantage now.

In front of him Dr Dedge softened noticeably. He felt safer with that whine. It smacked of dependence. ‘I’m interested in anything you have to say,’ he said.

Wilt doubted it. What Dr Dedge was interested in was finding out if he was shamming. ‘Well, it’s just that I’m sitting in this room and suddenly I feel like I don’t know why I’m here or who I am. It doesn’t make sense. Sounds so silly, doesn’t it?’

‘No, not at all. This is a not uncommon occurrence. Does this sensation last long?’

‘I don’t know, Doctor. I can’t remember. I just know I have it and it doesn’t make any sense.’

‘And have you discussed it with your wife?’ Dr Dedge asked.

‘Well, no. Can’t say I have,’ said Wilt sheepishly. ‘I mean, she’s got enough on her plate without me not knowing who I am. What with the quads and all.’

‘Mrs Wilt…? Are you telling me you have quadruplets?’ asked the psychiatrist.

Wilt gave a sickly smile. ‘Yes, Doctor, four of them. All girls. And even the cat’s neutered. Got no tail either. So I just sit there and try to think who I am.’

By the time Wilt went back to the ward, Dr Dedge had no doubt that he was a deeply disturbed man. As he explained to Dr Soltander, the neurological insult had resulted in the emergence of partial amnesia as a complicating factor to a preexisting depressive condition. And a bed had become available in an isolation room because the previous patient, a youth on a drug charge, had hanged himself. Dr Soltander was glad to hear it. He had had enough of Wilt and more importantly he had had far more than enough of Mrs Wilt who had been besieging his ward and disturbing the terminally ill patients. ‘Best place for him and those bloody policemen.’

‘He’s in Psychiatry, is he? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,’ Inspector Flint said when he found Wilt was no longer in Geriatrics 3 next day. ‘If you ask me, he should have been certified years ago when he stuffed that inflatable doll down the hole. All the same, I don’t think he’s half as sick as he’s making out. I think he’s holding something back. I didn’t like the way he was acting when I was there.’

‘In what way, sir?’ Sergeant Yates asked.

‘Pretending he doesn’t know who he is and he’s never seen me in his life. Bullshit, Yates, pure Grade A unadulterated bullshit. And he doesn’t know Eva Wilt either? My eye and Betty Martin he doesn’t. He could have had half his brain removed and he’d still remember her. Mrs Wilt isn’t someone even a brain-damaged coma case would be capable of forgetting. No, our Henry was having her on. And me. Why, Yates, why? You tell me.’

But the Sergeant couldn’t. He was still having trouble with that ‘brain-damaged coma case’ and trying to work out how one could be in a coma without having some sort of brain damage. Didn’t make sense. But then half the things Inspector Flint said these days didn’t make sense to Sergeant Yates. Must be getting old or something.

‘Any new suspects out at New Estate?’

The Sergeant shook his head. ‘The place is loaded with junkies and hooligans. All those empty tower blocks. It would take a week or more to search them all. Anyway, they could have moved on somewhere else.’

‘True,’ said Flint and sighed. ‘Probably stoned out of their minds and don’t even remember doing him over. What beats me is why he wasn’t wearing trousers.’

‘Could be he was looking for a bit of–’ Yates began.

The Inspector stopped him. ‘If you’re suggesting Wilt’s gay, don’t. Not that I’d blame him if he was with a wife like Eva. Can’t be much fun having it off with a woman that size. We’ve checked with the staff at the Tech and, if what I’ve heard is true, he’s reckoned to be practically a homophobe. No, you can forget that idea. There’s something weird about this case. Anyway, that phone call from Oston gives us a line on what he’s been up to. I got the impression that this case isn’t a simple case of our Wilty being mugged. That Super spoke about Scotland Yard being called in which means they’ve got bigger fish to fry. Much bigger fish.’

‘Torching a manor house is big enough. I know Wilt’s not right in the head but I can’t see him doing that.’

‘He didn’t. That’s out of the question. Wilt wouldn’t know how to light a bonfire let alone a bloody great house. That’s definitely not on. And as for leaving his gear behind too. Not even Wilt would do that. Still, it does give us some sort of lead on where he’s been.’

The phone rang again in the next office. ‘It’s for you,’ Yates told him.

Flint went through and took it. Ten minutes later he returned with a smile. ‘Looks as if we’re off the case. They’re sending two CID men up from London to interrogate our Mr Wilt. I wish them luck. They going to need it if they think they can get any information out of the lunatic.’