Wilt In Nowhere Part 5

'Trying to pull social rank, are we? Coming the old high horse. It won't wash, not here and not with me. Now sit down or stand, just as you like, but you're going to answer some questions. First of all, did you know that 'Bobby Beat Me'...Ah, I see you did know the locals' name for him. Well, your little friend is very interesting about Thursday nights. Calls it 'Slap and Tickle Night' and would you be interested to know what he calls you? Ruthless mean anything to you, Ruth the Ruthless? Now, I wonder why he calls you that. Fits in with those filthy mags he's fond of. What do you say to that?'

What Mrs Rottecombe would have liked to say was unspeakable. 'I shall issue a writ for slander.'

The Superintendent smiled. There was blood on his teeth now. 'Very sensible of you. Nail the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. And after all they do say there's no such thing as bad publicity.' He paused and looked at his notes. 'Now, the fire, the actual fire that is known to have started just after midnight. Are you prepared to swear that at midnight you were in the company of the accused at the Club?'

'I was at the Club, yes, and Mr Battleby was there too. The Club Secretary can testify to that. I would not say I was in his company, as you put it.'

'In that case I suppose he drove himself there.'

Mrs Rottecombe tried to be patronising. 'My dear Superintendent, I a.s.sure you I had absolutely nothing to do with the fire. The first I knew about it was when the Secretary called me to the phone.'

That hadn't worked either. It had merely infuriated the Superintendent. As soon as she left he got the Sergeant to call the _News on Sunday_ and the _Daily Rag_ and give them the word that there was a story involving a Shadow Minister's wife to be had at Meldrum Sloc.u.m. A juicy story involving arson and s.e.x. Having done that he went home. His nose had stopped bleeding.

She was therefore in no condition to be shaken awake at 8.30 by an obviously demented husband. She peered blearily up into his ashen face. His eyes seemed to be starting out of his head and had an awful intensity about them.

'What's the matter?' she mumbled blearily. 'What's happened, Harold?'

There was a moment's silence while the Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement struggled to control himself and his wife slowly realised that he must have heard about the fire at the Manor.

'Happened? Happened? You're asking me what's happened?' he yelled when he could bring himself to say anything.

'Well, yes, as a matter of fact I am. And please don't bawl like that. And what are you doing here? You usually come home on Friday night.'

Mr Rottecombe's vicelike hands twitched convulsively in front of her. He had a terrible impulse to strangle the b.i.t.c.h. Even Ruth could tell that. Instead he controlled the urge by ripping the bedclothes off the bed and hurling them on to the floor.

'Go and look in the f.u.c.king garage,' he snarled and dragged her by the arm out of bed. For the first time in her married life Ruth the Ruthless was afraid of him. 'Go on, you b.i.t.c.h. Go and see what you've landed us in this time. And you don't need a f.u.c.king dressing gown.'

Mrs Rottecombe put her feet into a pair of slippers and tottered downstairs to the kitchen. For a second she paused by the door into the garage.

'What's wrong in there?' she asked.

The question was too much for Harold. 'Don't just stand there. Go!' he bellowed.

Mrs Rottecombe went. For several minutes she stood staring down at Wilt's body, her mind desperately trying to come to grips with yet another disaster. By the time she returned she had come to one conclusion. For once in her life she was innocent and in the crude parlance of her youth, she wasn't going to take the can back. She found Harold sitting at the kitchen table with a large brandy. Ruth took advantage of his att.i.tude.

'You don't seriously think I had anything to do with him being there,' she said. 'I've never seen the man in my life before.'

The statement galvanised her husband. He rose to his feet. 'I suppose it was too f.u.c.king dark,' he shouted. 'You pick up some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d...Was that swine Battleby too drunk to satisfy your s.a.d.i.s.tic needs so you find that bloke and...Dear G.o.d!'

The telephone was ringing in the study.

'I'll answer it,' said Ruth, feeling slightly more in control.

'Well? Who was it?' he asked when she came back.

'Only the _News on Sunday._ They want to interview you.'

'Me? That filthy rag? What the h.e.l.l about?'

Mrs Rottecombe took her time. 'I think we'd better have some coffee,' she said and busied herself at the stove with the electric kettle.

'Well, for goodness' sake, get on with it. What do they want to interview me about?'

For a moment she hesitated before deciding where to strike. 'Only about your bringing young men into the house.'

For a moment Harold Rottecombe was left speechless. The word 'only' did the damage. Incredulity struggled with fury. Then the dam burst.

'I didn't bring the b.a.s.t.a.r.d into the house, for Christ's sake. You did. I've never brought any young men to the house. And anyway he isn't young. He's fifty if he's a day. I don't believe this. I'm not hearing right. I can't be.'

'I'm only telling you what the man said. He said 'young men'. And that's not all. He also mentioned 'rent-boys',' said Mrs Rottecombe to deepen the crisis. It took the heat off her.

The MP's eyes bulged in his head. He looked as though he was going to have an apoplectic fit. For once his wife rather hoped he would. It would save a lot of very difficult explanations. Instead the phone in the hall rang again.

'I'll get it this time,' Harold yelled and stormed out of the kitchen. For a moment she heard him telling someone he'd already called a b.u.g.g.e.r to f.u.c.k off and leave him alone. Then she shut the door and poured herself a cup of coffee and planned her next move. Harold was a long time gone. He came back a chastened man.

'That was Charles,' he said grimly.

Mrs Rottecombe nodded. 'I thought it might be. Nothing like calling the Chairman of the Local Party a b.u.g.g.e.r and telling him to f.u.c.k off. And this was such a safe seat.'

The Member of Parliament for Otterton looked at her with loathing. Then he brightened up briefly and fought back. 'The good news is that your lover boy Battleby's been charged with a.s.saulting a police officer and is being held in custody pending the more serious charges of possessing obscene material of a paedophile nature, and very possibly arson. Apparently Meldrum Manor was burnt to the ground last night.'

'I know,' said Mrs Rottecombe coolly. 'I saw it afterwards. Anyway, that's not our problem. He'll probably dry out in prison.'

The phone ran again. Stunned by his wife's insouciance, Harold let her answer it.

'_Daily Graphic_ this time,' she announced when she returned. 'Wouldn't say why they wanted to interview you which means they're on the same track. Someone's been talking.'

Harold helped himself to another brandy with a shaking hand.

Mrs Rottecombe shook her head wearily. There were timesand this was one of themwhen she wondered how a man with so little gumption had done so well as a politician. No wonder the country had gone to the dogs. The phone rang again.

'For heaven's sake don't answer it,' Harold said.

'Of course we've got to answer it. We can't be seen to have cut ourselves off from the world. Now just leave this to me,' she told him. 'You'll only make a mess of things by shouting.'

She went back to the phone and Harold hurried through to his study and picked up the extension on his desk.

'No, I'm afraid he's still in London,' he heard her say only to learn that the caller, a reporter from the _Weekly Echo,_ had another source of information, and was she Mrs Rottecombe, wife of the Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement?

Mrs Rottecombe said coldly that she was.

'And at 4 a.m. you were in the company of a man called Battleby when the police seized some whips, a gag and handcuffs together with a quant.i.ty of paedophile S&M magazines in his possession?' It was less a question than a statement of fact.

Mrs Rottecombe lost her cool. And her head. 'That's a downright lie!' she shouted. Harold held the phone away from his ear. 'If you print that I'll sue for libel.'

'The source is good,' said the man. 'Very good. We've traced the call. This bloke Battleby's been charged. Got an arson rap against him too. Slugged a policeman. Source told us you've been giving 'Bobby Beat Me' his medicine for some time. Like with whips and him handcuffed. Known as 'Ruthless Ruth Rottecombe' locally, according to our information.'

Mrs Rottecombe slammed the phone down. Harold waited a moment and heard the reporter ask someone if they'd got that on tape. The answer was, 'Yes. And we've got a story too. He is the Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement. Juicy's the word and the b.i.t.c.h's reaction confirms the info we got from the cops.'

Harold Rottecombe replaced the extension. His hand was shaking uncontrollably now. His entire career was at stake. He went through to the kitchen.

'I knew this would happen!' he shouted. 'You have to get involved with the local p.i.s.s artist...Beat Me Bobby and Ruth the Ruthless. Oh, G.o.d. And you have to threaten them with libel. What a b.l.o.o.d.y mess.' He helped himself to some cooking brandy. The other bottle was empty. Mrs Rottecombe eyed him icily. Power and influence were slipping away fast. She had to find a socially acceptable explanation for her actions. It was too late to deny she'd a.s.sociated with the wretched Battleby but she could always claim she'd only done so to stop him losing his driving licence. Or was he simply a drunk? An idiot who could leave those p.o.r.n mags in his Range Rover where they could be seen had to be out of his mind. And accidentally set fire to his own house? Ruth Rottecombe knew that full-blown alcoholics frequently behaved insanely and Bob had been blind drunk last night. That was undoubtedly true. He'd been mad enough to hit that Superintendent but all the same...Not that she cared about Battleby. She had herself to think of. And Harold. He was up to his eyebrows too but even so a Shadow Minister still had influence. At least for the moment. There had to be some way of using that influence in a damage-limitation exercise. Finally there was that unconscious man in the garage. Mrs Rottecombe applied her mind to the problem. She had to keep Harold out of the scandal. As the MP gulped the brandy his wife acted. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the bottle from him.

'No more of that,' she snapped. 'You've got to drive back to London immediately and you'll be over the limit if you have any more. I'll stay here and deal with any further inquiries.'

'All right, I'll go, I'll go,' he said but it was already too late. A car had turned in to the drive and had pulled up outside the front door. Two men got out and one was carrying a camera. With a curse Harold Rottecombe dashed towards the back of the house and out across the lawn past the swimming-pool and over the low wall into the artificial ditch beyond it. He'd be hidden there. Ruth was right. He mustn't be known to have come back from London. He'd be off like a shot the moment they left. He sat down with his back to the wall and looked out across the rolling countryside with the dark thread of the river running in the distance down to the sea. It had all looked so peaceful before. It didn't now.

At the front door events were about to prove him right. Mrs Rottecombe's feelings for investigative journalists had developed from intense dislike to downright fury. She was followed by Wilfred and Pickles. The bull terriers had sensed the atmosphere of alarm that pervaded the house. There had been shouting downstairs, the telephone had rung rather more frequently than was normal and the master had used an expression they knew from bitter experience to mean trouble. As they stood beside her inside the front door they could smell her anger and fear.

Chapter 13.

Outside, the journalist and cameraman from the _News on Sunday_ were less perceptive. In any case they were accustomed to annoying and terrifying the people they were sent to interview. Even by the standards of the gutter press the _News on Sunday_ was held in awe by hardened editors and other newspaper men. It excelled in intrusive journalism. In short it purveyed pure sewage, and Butcher Ca.s.sidy and the Flashgun Kid, as the two reporters were aptly nicknamed by others in their profession, were sewer rats and proud of their reputation. They'd already made inquires in Meldrum Sloc.u.m about Battleby and 'Ruthless Ruth' and had had an interesting chat with an off-duty policeman. After that they had decided on their usual brutish approach and had driven over to Leyline Lodge. A sign on the gate which read 'BEWARE OF THE DOG' hadn't deterred them for a moment. Over the years they had encountered any number of dogs and, while not always coming away entirely unscathed, they weren't to be deterred. They had their reputation to maintain. A really juicy story about a Shadow Minister who was into rent-boys would do them no end of good.

Before ringing the doorbell they turned to survey the garden with its trees and shrubberies and beds of old roses. They were particularly impressed by a large oak tree which Ca.s.sidy would presently attempt to climb. It was the perfect setting for a high-cla.s.s s.e.xual scandal involving an important politician. For one brief moment, as the door began to open and they turned exuding false charm and bonhomie, they glimpsed Mrs Rottecombe's unsmiling face. A second later two heavy white objects hurtled towards them. Wilfred leapt at Butcher Ca.s.sidy's throat and fortunately missed. Pickles on the other hand went for a softer target and sank her teeth into Flashgun's thigh. In the ensuing rout the oak tree took on a new attraction. With Wilfred hard on his heels Butcher raced for that tree and managed to grab the lowest branch before Wilfred took a firm grip on his left ankle and locked his jaw. Flashgun, on the other hand, hampered by Pickles's attachment to his left thigh, had tried to get away through the rose bed. It was not the wisest route to take. By the time he reached the other side his hands were torn almost as badly as his leg was bitten and he was yelling for help. His yells were largely drowned by the Butcher's screams. At 70 pounds Wilfred was a heavy dog and given to shaking things he had locked on to.

As the screams continuedthey could be heard in Meldrum Sloc.u.mMrs Rottecombe acted. She got into the reporters' car, drove it out into the road and shut and locked the gate before sauntering back to the scene of such satisfactory carnage. By that time the Postmaster in Little Meldrum had phoned for an ambulance. It was clearly needed urgently if lives were to be saved. The Flashgun Kid shared the Postmasters opinion. Having dragged Pickles, still firmly attached to his thigh and, by the feel of things seemingly a permanent fixture, through the rose bed, he had tripped at the lawn's edge and was being dragged back the way he'd come through those same roses. They were old roses on _canina_ stock and exceedingly th.o.r.n.y. They had also been recently mulched with horse manure. Flashgun made the mistake of grabbing at them again and this time there could be no mistaking in Meldrum Sloc.u.m the imminence of death at Leyline Lodge. Butcher Ca.s.sidy shared that opinion. He clung to the branch of the oak with even more determination than he had pestered the mother, several mothers in fact, whose daughters had just been murdered, to find out how they were feeling about the deaths. Nothing on G.o.d's earth was going to make him let go. Wilfred was obviously of the same opinion. He'd got that ankle and he meant to keep it. He shook Butcher's leg, he worried it, he sank his teeth even deeper into it and took not a blind bit of notice of the suede shoe on Butcher's other foot that kept kicking him on the side of the head. Wilfred rather liked being kicked so gently. Mr Rottecombe had once in a moment of intense irritation kicked him a d.a.m.ned sight harder and Wilfred hadn't minded that either. Butcher's kicks merely tickled him.

Having provided evidence that the reporters had trespa.s.sed by climbing over the locked gate, Mrs Rottecombe returned from the road. Even she could see it was time to call the bull terriers off before Wilfred removed Butcher Ca.s.sidy's foot or the other wretch was savaged to death on the ground.

'That's enough of that,' she commanded, hurrying across to the oak. Wilfred ignored her. He was enjoying that ankle too much. Mrs Rottecombe resorted to sterner measures. She knew her bull terriers. There was no point in clobbering them over the head; the backside was far more vulnerable and in Wilfred's case more accessible. Seizing the dog's s.c.r.o.t.u.m with both hands she applied the nutcracker method with the utmost force. For a moment Wilfred merely grunted but the pain was too much even for him. He opened his mouth to voice a proper protest and was promptly dragged to the ground.

'Naughty dog, naughty dog,' Mrs Rottecombe scolded him. 'You are a very naughty doggie.'

To Butcher, now on top of the branch and scrambling on to an even higher one, there was something insane about those words. Naughty that f.u.c.king dog wasn't. It was a canine crocodile, a four-legged mantrap, and he was going to see the brute was put down fast and, he hoped, painfully.

Mrs Rottecombe turned her attention to Pickles who, being a b.i.t.c.h, lacked a s.c.r.o.t.u.m. Instead she seized the nearest weapon, a plant label which announced that the roses were Crimson Glory. Carefully wiping the horse manure and earth off the plastic (she didn't want dear little Pickles to get teta.n.u.s or any more terminal lockjaw than she was already displaying), she lifted the bull terriers tail and jabbed. If anything, Pickles's reaction was more immediate than that of Wilfred. She let go of the Flashgun Kid and shot across the rose bed into the deepest shrubbery to lick her wound. Mrs Rottecombe replaced the metal label and turned her attention to the savaged cameraman.

'What do you think you're doing here?' she demanded with a haughty lack of concern for his injuries that would have taken Flashgun's breath away if he had had any to spare. Flashgun didn't think, he knew what he was doing there. Dying. He looked up at the ghastly woman and managed to speak.

'Help me, help me,' he whimpered. 'I'm bleeding to death.'

'Nonsense,' said Mrs Rottecombe. 'You're trespa.s.sing. If you choose to trespa.s.s on private property, it's your own fault if you get bitten. There's a sign by the gate. It says quite clearly 'BEWARE OF THE DOG'. You must have seen it. You ignored it and trespa.s.sed and attacked a perfectly harmless family pet and then you are surprised when it defends itself. You are a criminal. And what is that other fellow doing up in my tree?'

Jones's eyes rolled in his head. A woman who could call the murderous brute which had been on the point of gnawing his leg off 'a harmless family pet' had to be clean off her f.u.c.king head.

'For Christ's sake...' he began but Mrs Rottecombe brushed his prayer aside.

'Name and address,' she snapped. 'Both your names and addresses.' Then realising she was still in her dressing gown, she turned towards the house. 'And just you wait where you are,' she said as she went. 'I intend to call the police and have you both prosecuted for trespa.s.s and cruelty to animals.'

The threat was too much for Flashgun. He sank back on to the horse manure and pa.s.sed out. It was left to Butcher Ca.s.sidy, now three branches further up the tree, to protest.

'Cruelty to animals, you f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h,' he shouted at her as she led the chastened Wilfred into the house. 'You're the one who's going to be done for cruelty. We'll f.u.c.king crucify you. You see if we don't. We'll sue you for everything you've got.'

Mrs Rottecombe smiled and patted Wilfred. 'Good dog, Wilfie. You're a good dog, aren't you? Nasty man kicked you, didn't he?'

She went into the house and fetched a tube of tomato puree from the kitchen. Holding him by the collar she poured the stuff on to his back. Then she led him out into the garden again and left him underneath the oak tree. He was still there when the ambulance came and shortly afterwards the police. There was blood from Butch's ankle all over the ground under the tree and quite a lot on Wilfred's back where it added authenticity to the tomato puree. Mrs Rottecombe had achieved her object. In an emergency she was a resourceful woman.

Chapter 14.

The Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement sat in the gra.s.s against the wall with his head in his hands. He knew now he should never have come home a day early. He was equally certain about his marriage. He should never have come within a mile of the d.a.m.ned woman who could let loose those terrible dogs on two reporters. The sounds of snarls and screams, not to mention the knowledge that there was an unconscious man, his head covered in blood, lying on the floor of the garage convinced him of that. Harold Rottecombe had no intention of being an accessory after the fact of the poor devil being there and possibly even of his murder. If that lot hit the headlines, as it was almost bound to now, his position not only as Shadow Minister but also as an MP would be ended. And it was all the fault of that insane b.i.t.c.h. He should never have married her. A new thought struck him. There had been something genuine about her horror when she'd returned from the garage which almost convinced him she hadn't put him there. Cut that 'almost'. She really hadn't known he was in there. In that case someone else was responsible. Harold Rottecombe searched for another explanation and found one. Someone was out to ruin his career. That was why the newspapers had been informed. Anyway it was too late to do anything about that now. The first thing he had to do was to get back to London by train. There was no way he could drive. A glance over the wall showed him the group of journalists and the TV men down at the bottom of the drive. They would be there all day and the police from Oston would undoubtedly come to the house. He couldn't use the train station there. He'd have to get to Slawford to catch the train to Bristol and London. The town was outside his const.i.tuency and he'd be less likely to be recognised there. Against that it was a h.e.l.l of a long way to have to walk.

On the other hand there was the river. It flowed through Slawford, and along the wall he could see the roof of the boat-house and a far better method than trudging for ten miles across fields occurred to him. He'd take the rowing boat and go downstream.

Behind him Ruth was putting her skills in tying people up to good use on Wilt. Having made sure he wasn't dead or dying she had bound his wrists together with several turns of Elastoplast which wouldn't leave any obvious marks like rope, and removed his jeans. Then she dragged him over to the Volvo estate, in the process getting some of Wilt's own blood on to the Y-fronts, and by using two planks rolled him with great difficulty into the back. Next she tied a handkerchief across his mouth so he could still breathe, and covered him with newspapers and several cardboard boxes. Finally she took his knapsack and jeans, locked the garage doors and returned to the house to wait for Harold to return.

After half an hour she called his name but there was no reply. She went out into the garden and looked over the wall. There was a patch of crushed long gra.s.s where he must have sat but no sign of him. He had evidently taken fright and scurried away. It was just as well. She had to deal with the reporters at the gate. They could wait for a bit. She wanted to see what was in the knapsack. She went back to the garage and by the time she'd been through the bag she was completely bewildered. Wilt's driving licence gave his address as 45 Oakhurst Avenue, Ipford. Ipford? But Ipford was away to the south. How come the wretched man had ended up in her garage? Like everything else it made no sense. On the other hand, if she dumped him somewhere near Ipford he'd have a job explaining what he had been doing without his trousers in a sleepy place like Meldrum Sloc.u.m. For ten long minutes Mrs Rottecombe sat and considered the problem before making her decision.

An hour later she went down the drive with Wilfred and Pickles and showed the group of media people there the supposed wounds the brutes from the _News on Sunday_ had inflicted on Wilfred.

'They trespa.s.sed on private property and tried to break into the house and then when Pickles caught them they were foolish enough to kick her. You can't do that to an English bull terrier and not expect the little darling to defend herself, can you, sweetie?' Pickles wagged her tail and looked pleased with herself. She liked being petted. Wilfred was far too heavy to pick up but his hindquarters were impressively swathed in bandages. 'One of the men attacked him with a knife,' she explained. 'That was a really horrid thing to do.'

'No, I'm not prepared to answer any questions,' she said when one reporter began to ask if it was true that'I am far too upset. I can't bear cruelty to animals and what those two men did was quite dreadful. No, my husband is in London. If you want to talk to him, you'll find him there. I'm going to get some rest. It's been a very distressing day. I'm sure you can see that.'

What the reporters could see was that Butcher Ca.s.sidy and the Flashgun Kid must have been completely insane to go anywhere near such fearsome dogs, and as for kicking the b.i.t.c.h...well, they must have been bent on suicide with that enormous Wilfred around. As Mrs Rottecombe went back to the house, opinion was divided among the men at the gate. Some were delighted that Butcher and Flashgun had finally met their match while others seemed to think they had shown immense courage, courage far beyond the call of duty, in pursuit of a story. No one was prepared to follow their example and presently the convoy moved off.

Mrs Rottecombe watched them go and then went back to the house to attend to Wilt.

She put his boots, socks and trousers into a garbage bag. She would dump them somewhere along the way. For a moment she considered taking Wilfred and Pickles but decided against it. She needed to be totally anonymous and people might remember seeing the dogs in the car. Then she checked the bottom of the drive from a bedroom window and was relieved to see that the reporters had left. At 9 p.m. she drove down to the road and was on her way south towards Ipford.

Chapter 15.

Being up at the cabin overlooking Lake Sa.s.saqua.s.see with the quads wasn't making Uncle Wally feel even slightly safer. Not that it was a cabin. As Sheriff Stallard had said Wally Immelmann had built himself an ante-bellum mansion there and had felled nearly every tree for half a mile around the place because Auntie Joan was frightened of bears and wasn't going to go walking in the woods where she couldn't see if there were bears about. And beyond the open s.p.a.ce she'd insisted on his erecting an extremely strong wire fence to make sure as h.e.l.l bears didn't get in and start marauding around the house and coming through the picture windows that looked out over the terrace and the swimming-pool (she wasn't swimming in the lake because she'd heard there were snakes that swam too, water moccasins and cottonmouths) and the barbecue area and all. It was the 'all' that excited the Wilt girls. And had always excited Wally which is why he had taken such pains and paid so much to collect it.

'That there is a Sherman tank. Went right through the Second World War,' he told them proudly. 'Up Omaha Beach on D-Day with General Pattonthey say he rode into battle on itand on all the way to Berlin. Well, not right to Berlin because that General Montgomery chickened out taking the city but it got pretty d.a.m.n close. Best battle tank there was. Now over here is a Huey 'copter with a Puff the Magic Dragon in the door. Knocked the sh...knocked the charlies out in 'Nam like they didn't know what hit them. That gun could fire thousands of rounds in no time at all. And this here is a howitzer that was with General MacArthur in Korea and when that baby fired, those yellow-bellies knew that Uncle Sam meant business. Same with this baby.' He indicated a flame-thrower. 'Went in on Okinawa barbecuing Nips like'