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the craft of the wheelwright, the blacksmith and the

    handloom weaver which had done much to undermine the efforts of the Technical staff to

    instil in their students an appreciation of the opportunities provided by modern

    technology. Time and the intransigent coarseness of Plasterers had changed all that.

    Wilt’s ideals had vanished, to be replaced by the conviction that the man who said the pen

    was mightier than the sword ought to have tried reading The Mill on the Floss to Motor

    Mechanics Three before he opened his big mouth. In Wilt’s view, the sword had much to

    recommend it.
    As Dr Mayfield droned on, as question time with its ideological arguments followed,

    Wilt studied the pile hole on the building site. It would make an ideal depository for a

    body and there would be something immensely satisfying in knowing that Eva, who in her

    lifetime had been so unbearable, was in death supporting the weight of a mufti-storey

    concrete building. Besides it would make her discovery an extremely remote

    possibility and her identification out of the question. Not even Eva, who boasted a

    strong constitution and a stronger will, could maintain an identity at the bottom of a

    pile shaft. The difficulty would be in getting her to go down the hole in the first place.

    Sleeping pills seemed a sensible preliminary but Eva was a sound sleeper and didn’t

    believe in pills of any sort.
    ‘I can’t imagine why not,’ Wilt thought grimly, ’she’s prepared to believe in just about

    everything else.’
    His reverie was interrupted by Mr Morris who was bringing the meeting to a close.

    ‘Before you all go,’ he said. ‘there is one more subject I want to mention. We have been

    asked by the Head of Engineering to conduct a series of one-hour lectures to

    Sandwich-Course Trainee Firemen. The theme this year will be Problems of Contemporary

    Society. I have drawn up a list of topics and the lecturers who will give them.’
    Mr Morris handed out subjects at random. Major Millfield got Media,

    Communications and Participatory Democracy about which he knew nothing and cared

    less. Peter Braintree was given The New Brutalism in Architecture, Its Origins and

    Social Attributes, and Wilt ended up with Violence and the Break-Up of Family Life. On

    the whole he thought he had done rather well. The subject fitted in with his present

    preoccupations. Mr Morris evidently agreed.
    ‘I thought you might like to have a go at it after yesterday’s little episode with

    Printers Three,’ he said, as they went out. Wilt smiled wanly and went off to take Fitters

    and Turners Two. He gave them Shane to read and spent the hour jotting down notes for his

    lecture. In the distance he could hear the pile-boring machines grinding away. Wilt could

    imagine Eva lying at the bottom as they poured the concrete in. In her lemon pyjamas. It

    was a nice thought, and helped him with his notes. He wrote down a heading, Crime in the

    family, subheading (A) Murder of Spouse, decline in since divorce laws.
    Yes, he should be able to talk about that to Trainee Firemen.

Chapter 4
    ‘I loathe parties,’ said Wilt on Thursday night, ‘and if there’s one thing worse than

    parties it’s university parties and bottle parties are worst of all. You take along a

    bottle of decent burgundy and end up drinking someone else’s rotgut.’
    ‘It isn’t a party,’ said Eva, ‘it’s a barbecue.’
    ‘It says here “Come and Touch and Come with Sally and Gaskell 9 PM Thursday. Bring your

    own ambrosia or take pot luck with the Pringsheim punch.” If ambrosia doesn’t mean

    Algerian bilgewater I’d like to know what it does mean.’
    ‘I thought it was that stuff people take to get a hard-on,’ said Eva.
    Wilt looked at her with disgust. ‘You’ve picked up some choice phrases since you’ve met

    these bloody people. A hard-on! I don’t know what’s got into you.’
    ‘You haven’t. That’s for sure,’ said Eva, and