Wilt In Nowhere Part 10

Chapter 25.

When Wilt opened his eyes again Flint was still in the chair beside the bed. The Inspector had shut his own eyes when the old man in the next bed spat his dentures out for the fifth time and accompanied them with such a quant.i.ty of blood that some of it had landed on his trousers. After that he had ceased to be a grotty old man of eighty-one and was a decidedly dead one. Wilt had heard Flint say 'f.u.c.k' and various unpleasant noises going on but had kept his eyes firmly shut, only opening them in time to see Flint turn and look at him curiously.

'Feeling better, Henry?' Flint asked.

Wilt didn't reply. The police waiting to take a statement from him weren't at all to his liking. And in any case Wilt had no idea what had happened to him or what he might have done. It seemed best to have amnesia. Besides, he wasn't feeling any better. If anything Flint's presence made him feel decidedly worse. But before the Inspector could make any more inquiries a doctor came up to the bed. This time it was Flint who was questioned.

'What are you doing here?' the doctor asked rather nastily, evidently disliking the presence of a police officer in the ward almost as much as Wilt did. Flint wasn't enjoying being there either.

'Waiting to take a statement from this patient,' he said, indicating Wilt.

'Well, you're not likely to get one out of him today. He's suffering from severe concussion and probably amnesia. He may not remember anything. That's a frequent consequence of a severe blow to the head and subsequent concussion.'

'And how long does one have to wait before he gets his memory back?'

'Depends. I've known some cases where there's been no return at all. That's rare, of course, but it does occasionally happen. Frankly, there's no saying but in this case I should think he'll get some memories back in a day or two.'

Wilt listened to the exchange and made it a day or three. He had to find out what he had done first.

Eva returned to 45 Oakhurst Avenue in a state of total exhaustion. The flight had been awful, a drunk had had to be tied down for hitting another pa.s.senger and the plane had been diverted to Manchester because of a breakdown in the Flight Control computer. What she found when she finally got home temporarily galvanised her. The house looked as though it had been burgled. Wilt's ordinary clothes, along with his shoes, were scattered on the floor of the bedroom and to add to her alarm several drawers in the bedroom had obviously been clumsily searched. The same was true of the desk in his study. Finally, and in its own way most alarming of all, the mail had been opened and lay on a side-table beside the front door. While the quads, still relatively subdued, went upstairs she phoned the Tech only to be told by the Secretary that he hadn't been seen there and there was no saying where he was. Eva put the phone down and tried the Braintrees' number. They were bound to know where he was. There was no answer. She pressed the b.u.t.ton on the answerphone and heard herself repeatedly telling Henry to phone her in Wilma. She went back upstairs and felt in the pockets of Wilt's clothes but there was nothing to indicate what he had been doing or where he was. The fact that they were lying in a pile on the floor frightened her. She'd trained him to fold them up carefully and he'd got into the habit of hanging them over the back of a chair. From there she went to the wardrobe and checked his other trousers and jackets. None of them were missing. He must have been wearing something when he left the house. He couldn't have gone out naked. Eva's thoughts ran wildly to extremes. Ignoring Penelope's questions she went back downstairs and phoned the police station.

'I want to report a missing person,' she said. 'My name is Mrs Wilt and I've just got back from America and my husband is missing.'

'When you say missing do you mean'

'I'm saying he has disappeared.'

'In America?' asked the girl.

'Not in America. I left him here and I live at 45 Oakhurst Avenue. I've just come back and he isn't here.'

'If you'll just hold the line a moment.' The telephonist could be heard muttering to someone in the background about some ghastly woman and she could understand why her husband had gone missing. 'I'll put you through to someone who may be able to help you,' she said.

'You lousy b.i.t.c.h, I heard what you just said!' yelled Eva.

'Me? I didn't say anything. And I'll have you for using offensive language.'

In the end she was answered by Sergeant Yates. 'Is that Mrs Eva Wilt of 45 Oakhurst Avenue?'

'Who else do you think it is?' Eva snapped back.

'I'm afraid I have some rather bad news for you, Mrs Wilt. Your husband has been in some sort of accident,' the Sergeant told her. He obviously didn't like being snapped at. 'He's in the Ipford General Hospital and he's still unconscious. If you...'

But Eva had already slammed the phone down and, having told the quads in her most menacing manner to behave themselves really well, was on her way to the hospital. She parked and stormed through the crowded waiting room to the reception desk, pus.h.i.+ng aside a little man who was already there.

'You'll just have to wait your turn,' the girl told her.

'But my husband has been injured in a serious accident and he's unconscious. I've got to see him.'

'You'd better try A&E then.'

'A&E? What's that?' Eva demanded.

'Accident and Emergency. It's out the main door. You'll see a sign,' said the receptionist and attended to the little man.

Eva hurried out the door and turned left. There was no sign of Accident and Emergency there. Cursing the receptionist she tried to the right. It wasn't there either. In the end she asked a woman with her arm in a sling and was directed to the other end of the hospital.

'It's way past the main door. You can't miss it. I wouldn't go in, though. It's absolutely filthy. Dust everywhere.'

This time Eva did find it. The place was filled with children injured in the coach crash. Eva went back to the main door and found herself in what looked like a shopping mall with a restaurant and adjacent tearoom, a boutique, a parfumerie and a book and magazine stall. For a moment she felt quite mad. Then gathering her wits together she headed down a pa.s.sage following a sign which read 'Gynaecology'. There were more signs pointing down other corridors further on. Henry wouldn't be in a gynaecological ward.

Eva stopped a man in a white coat who was carrying a decidedly sinister-looking plastic bucket with a bloodstained cloth over it.

'Can't stop now. I've got to get this little tot to the incinerator. We've got another starting in twenty minutes.'

'Another baby? That's lovely,' said Eva without getting the implication of 'the incinerator'.

The nurse put her right. 'Another b.l.o.o.d.y foetus,' he said. 'Take a dekko if you don't believe me.'

He removed the bloodstained cloth and Eva glanced into the bucket. As the nurse hurried away she fainted and slid down the wall. Opposite her a door opened and a young doctor, a very young doctor, came out. The fact that he was a Lithuanian and had recently attended a seminar on Obesity and Coronary Infarcts didn't help. Fat women lying unconscious were his chance to show his expertise. Five minutes later Eva Wilt was in the Emergency Heart Unit, had been stripped to her panties, was being given oxygen and was about to be put on a defibrillator. That didn't help either. She wasn't unconscious long. She woke to find a nurse lifting her b.r.e.a.s.t.s for a defibrillator pad. Eva promptly hit her and hurled herself off the trolley and grabbed her clothes and was out of the room. She dashed to the toilet and got dressed. She'd come to visit her Henry and nothing was going to stop her. After trying several other wards she traipsed back to Reception. This time she was told that Mr Wilt was in Psychiatry 3.

'Where's that?' Eva asked.

'On floor 6 at the far end,' the receptionist told her to get rid of the wretched woman. Eva looked for a lift, failed to find one and had to walk up to floor 6 only to find herself outside Autopsy. Even she knew what an autopsy was. But Henry wasn't dead. He was in Psychiatry 3. An hour later she found that he wasn't. In the following two hours she had walked another mile and was furious. So furious in fact that she tackled a senior surgeon and screamed abuse at him. Then because it was getting late she remembered the girls at home. She'd have to go back to see they weren't up to any mischief and to make supper. In any case she was too exhausted to continue her search for Henry. She'd try again in the morning.

Chapter 26.

But by the time she arrived at the hospital the next morning, Inspector Flint had gone to get a cup of coffee and Wilt was still apparently unconscious. In fact Wilt was considering what the doctor had said.

'He may have amnesia and have no memory of what happened to him.' Or words to that effect. Wilt was now definitely in favour of having amnesia. He'd had no intention of making a statement. He'd had an awful night, much of it spent listening to a man on a heart monitor by the door dying. At one o'clock the Night Sister had come to the ward and Wilt had heard her whisper to the Ward Nurse that they'd have to do something about the man because he was coupling and wouldn't last till morning if they didn't iron the problem out. Listening to the sounds of the monitor Wilt could hear what she meant. The beeps were most irregular and as the night wore on they got worse, until just before dawn they petered out altogether and he could hear the poor old fellow's bed being wheeled out into the corridor. For a moment he thought of looking over to see what was going on but there was no point. It would only be morbid curiosity to see the corpse being carted off to the morgue.

Instead he lay sadly pondering on the mystery of life and death and wondering if there was anything in the 'near-death experience' and people who had seen the light at the end of the tunnel and a bearded old gentleman, G.o.d or someone, who led them into a beautiful garden before deciding they weren't to die after all. Either that or they hung around the ceiling of the operating theatre looking down at their own bodies and listening to what the surgeons had to say. Wilt couldn't see why they bothered. There must be something more interesting to do on the 'other side'. The notion that it was fascinating to eavesdrop on surgeons who'd just c.o.c.ked up one's operation suggested the 'other side' didn't have much to offer in the way of interest. Not that Wilt had much confidence in the existence of the 'other side'. He'd read somewhere that surgeons had gone to the trouble of writing words on top of the theatre lampshade that could only be seen by people and flies on the ceiling to check if the 'near-death' patients could really have been up there. None of those who had come back had ever been able to quote what was written there. That was proof enough for Wilt. Besides, he'd read somewhere else that the 'near-death' experience could be induced by increasing carbon dioxide content in the brain. On the whole Wilt remained sceptical. Death might be a great adventure, as someone had once put it, but Wilt wasn't keen on it all the same. He was still wondering where the blighter by the door had got to, and whether he was chatting with some other newly dear departed or simply lying in the mortuary cooling gently and getting rigor mortis, when the Night Sister came round again. She was a tall and well-scrubbed woman who evidently liked her patients to be asleep.

'Why are you still awake?' she demanded.

Wilt looked at her bleakly and wondered if she always slept well. 'It's that poor bloke by the door,' he said finally.

'The poor bloke by the door? What on earth are you talking about? He's not making any noise.'

'I know that,' said Wilt, staring at her pathetically. 'I know he's not making any noise. Poor sod can't, can he? He's shuffled.'

'Shuffled?' said the Sister, looking at him curiously. 'What do you mean, he's shuffled?'

Wilt stared at her more pathetically still. 'Shuffled off this mortal coil,' he said.

'Shuffled off this mortal coil? What are you babbling about?'

Wilt took his time. Obviously the Sister didn't know her Shakespeare.

'Pegged it, for goodness' sake. Kicked the bucket. Dropped off the perch. Handed in his dinner pail. Crossed that bourn from which no traveller returns. Died.'

The Sister looked at him as though he really had gone mad. Gone mad or was delirious.

'Don't be so stupid. There's nothing the matter with him. It's the heart monitor that's gone wrong.'

And with a remark about 'some people' she pa.s.sed on down the ward. Wilt peered in the direction of the door and was slightly aggrieved to see the man was still there sleeping peacefully. After what seemed ages he went to sleep himself. He was woken two hours later and presently a doctor examined him.

'What drugs were you on?' he asked.

Wilt stared at him blankly. 'I've never taken any drugs in my life,' he muttered.

The doctor looked at his notes. 'That's not what it says here. You were clearly on something during the night according to Sister Brownsel. Oh well, we'll soon find out with a blood test.'

Wilt said nothing. He was going back to suffering from amnesia and since he really couldn't remember what had happened to him he wouldn't be bluffing. All the same he was still worried. He had to find out what had been going on.

Eva arrived at the hospital accompanied by Mavis Mottram. Not that she liked Mavis but at least she was a dominant personality and would stand no nonsense from anyone. To begin with Mavis lived up to her hopes.

'Name,' she snapped at the girl at the reception desk and took out a small notebook. 'Name and address.'

'What do you want it for?'

'To report you to the Administrator for deliberately directing Mrs Wilt here to Psychiatry when you knew perfectly well where her husband was.'

The girl looked wildly around. Anything to get away from this gorgon.

Mavis went on. 'I happen to be a member of the council,' she said, omitting to mention that it was only the parish council, not the county council, 'and what's more I happen to know Dr Roche very well indeed.'

The receptionist went white. Dr Roche was the top physician and a very important man. She could see she was in danger of losing her job. 'Mr Wilt hadn't been logged in,' she muttered.

'And whose fault was that? Yours, of course,' said Mavis with a snarl and wrote something in her notebook. 'Now then, where is Mr Wilt?'

The receptionist checked the register and phoned someone. 'There's a woman here'

'Lady, if you don't mind,' hissed Mavis.

Behind her Eva marvelled at Mavis Mottram's authority. 'I don't know how you do it,' she said. 'When I try it never works.'

'It's simply a question of breeding. My family can trace its lineage back to William the Conqueror.'

'Fancy that. And your father was a plumber too,' said Eva, unable to keep a note of scepticism out of her voice.

'And a very good one too. What was your father?'

'My daddy died when I was young,' said Eva mournfully.

'Quite. Barmen frequently do. Of drink.'

'He didn't. He died of pancreat.i.tis.'

'And how do you get pancreat.i.tis? By drinking whisky and gin by the gallon. In other words by becoming an alcoholic.'

Before the spat could turn into a full-scale row the receptionist intervened. 'Mr Wilt has been moved to Geriatrics 5,' she told them. 'You'll find it on the second floor. There's a lift just along the pa.s.sage.'

'There had better be,' said Mavis and they set off. Five minutes later Mavis had another altercation, this time with a very formidable Sister who refused them entry on the grounds that it wasn't Visiting Hours. Even Mavis Mottram's insistence that Mrs Wilt was Mr Wilt's wife and ent.i.tled to see him at any time didn't have any effect. In the end they had to sit in the Waiting Room for two hours.

Chapter 27.

The discovery of Wilt's trousers covered with mud and what looked like dried blood, and with several holes burnt in them, in the lane behind the late Meldrum Manor interested the police at Oston.

'Ah, now we're getting somewhere. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d Battleby hired some swine to torch the place,' the Superintendent told the group of policemen a.s.sembled to find out what had really happened on the night of the fire. 'And what's more we've got the sod's name and address from an envelope in the back pocket. Name of Mr H. Wilt. Address 45 Oakhurst Avenue, Ipford. Does that ring a bell with any of you?'

A constable raised his hand. 'That's the name of the backpacker stayed at Mrs Rawley's B&B up Lentwood Way. You told me to check hotels. There aren't too many about these parts so I tried the bed and breakfasts too. He stayed at Mrs Crow's the night before. Wouldn't say where he was heading. Claimed he didn't know where he was and didn't want to know.'

A sergeant spoke up. 'My wife's from Ipford,' he said, 'and we get the _Weekly Echo._ There was a story in last week's about a man being found unconscious in the New Ipford Estate with his head bashed in and no trousers. Covered in mud he was too.'

The Superintendent left the room and made a phone call.

'Thank you. Spot on,' he said when he returned. 'He's in the Ipford General with concussion and suffering from amnesia. They're waiting for him to come round. In the mean time they're sending a specimen of the mud on his s.h.i.+rt up for us to check if it's the same as in the lane back of the Manor.'

'That's strange. I went up that lane the very next day in broad daylight and there were no trousers there then. I guarantee that,' said a young constable. 'The insurance bods did the same. You can ask them.'

The Superintendent pursed his lips. What interested him was that the jeans had motor oil and blood on them. He still hadn't forgotten or forgiven Mrs Rottecombe's insulting att.i.tude on the night of the fire. His 'nose' told him she was involved in the fire at Meldrum Manor in some way. And where had the Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement got to? The newspapers had taken their revenge with accusations that invited a suit for libel but there had not been a squeak out of the MP. Odd, very odd. But most suspicious of all the policeman ostensibly at the gate to guard Leyline Lodge but in fact to keep an eye on the house had reported that the garage doors hadn't been opened since Wilfred and Pickles had dealt with the two intrepid newsmen. And Ruth Rottecombe had taken to leaving her Volvo estate on the drive near the front door. Added to this the two bull terriers roamed the grounds so that even the usual tradesmen left whatever Mrs Rottecombe had ordered by phone outside the gate where she had to collect it. So she was still there. It was the locked garage doors that held the Superintendent's attention. They suggested that there was something inside that needed to be kept hidden. The Super's intuition told him that it would be as well to have a discreet word with the Chief Constable about the advisability of obtaining a search warrant. The Chief was known to detest the Rottecombes and the case against Battleby had alienated him even further. And since the destruction of their ancestral home and Bob Battleby's arrest for paedophilia there was nothing to fear from the rest of the influential Battlebys. That evening the Superintendent spent an hour with the Chief Constable explaining his suspicions and his dislike of Ruth Rottecombe, and found the Chief shared them.

'This whole thing stinks,' he said. 'That b.l.o.o.d.y woman's up to her ears in the rotten business but at least we've got that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Battleby. And her husband's in deep trouble too, thank goodness. I've had enquiries from...well, on high. You might as well say from the office of the Almighty himself, namely the Home Secretary. Take it from me the press coverage isn't doing the Central Office any good. They are as interested in knowing where he's got to as we are and I gained the impression they wouldn't be unhappy if the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was dead. Save sacking the blighter.'

By the time the Superintendent left he had been given permission to apply for a search warrant and to take any reasonable measures he felt like.

One of those measures had been to have the Rottecombes' phone tapped. All he'd learnt was that the wretched Ruth Rottecombe had phoned her husband's flat in London time and time again, and had done the same with his club and the Party Central Office, but no one had seen him.