WILT IN NOWHERE

by Tom Sharpe

Chapter 1

‘God, what a day,’ said Wilt as he and Pe­ter Brain­tree sat in the gar­den of the Duck and Drag­on with their beers and watched a lone oars­man scull down the riv­er. It was sum­mer and the evening sun glint­ed on the wa­ter. ‘Af­ter that bloody En­ti­tle­ment meet­ing I had to tell John­son and Miss Flour they’ve been made re­dun­dant be­cause of the fi­nan­cial cuts, and then af­ter that I was told that the Com­put­er De­part­ment is go­ing to do next year’s timetable and I don’t have to both­er, the Vice-​Prin­ci­pal sends a memo to say there’s a glitch in the pro­gramme or some­thing and I’ve had to do it my­self.’

‘You’d think the one thing a com­put­er would be good at was sort­ing class­es and putting them in the right rooms. All it re­quires is log­ic,’ said Brain­tree, Head of En­glish.

‘Log­ic, my foot. Try us­ing log­ic with Mrs Rob­bins who won’t teach in Room 156 be­cause Lau­rence Seaforth is next door in 155 and she can’t make her­self heard for the din his dra­ma class makes. And Seaforth won’t move be­cause he’s used 155 for ten sol­id years and the acous­tics are just right for de­claim­ing ‘To be or not to be’ or Hen­ry V’s speech at Ag­in­court in mul­ti-​deci­bels. Try get­ting a com­put­er to take that in­to ac­count.’

‘It’s the hu­man fac­tor. I’ve had the same sort of trou­ble with Jack­son and Ian Wes­ley. They’re sup­posed to grade the same ex­am pa­pers and if Jack­son marks a pa­per high, Wes­ley in­vari­ably says it’s lousy. Hu­man fac­tor ev­ery time.’

‘In­hu­man fac­tor in my case,’ said Wilt. ‘I’ve been dra­gooned in­to tak­ing Ms Lash­skirt’s class in Gen­der As­sertive­ness be­cause the So­ci­ol­ogy De­part­ment refuse to have her and she has been off sick for a month. You want to try cop­ing with fif­teen ma­ture wom­en who are de­ter­mined to as­sert their as­sertive­ness and don’t need to learn how to. I come out of that class a bro­ken man. Last week I was fool enough to say wom­en were more suc­cess­ful on com­mit­tees than men be­cause they nev­er stop talk­ing. I might just as well have stuck a stick in­to a hor­net’s nest. And when I get home Eva gives me hell. Why does ev­ery­one feel the need to be so bloody ag­gres­sive these days? Look at that.’

A mo­tor launch had come round the bend in the riv­er and swamped the lone oars­man’s boat. He pulled in to the bank to bale it out.

‘There’s a speed lim­it on the riv­er and that bas­tard was ex­ceed­ing it,’ said Brain­tree.

‘There’s a time lim­it in our house and I’m ex­ceed­ing it,’ said Wilt. ‘Tonight we’ve got peo­ple com­ing as well. All the same if I’m go­ing to be late I may as well have an­oth­er pint to soft­en the blow.’

He got up and went in­to the pub.

‘Who’s com­ing tonight?’ Brain­tree asked when Wilt came back with two pints.

‘The usu­al. Mavis and Patrick Mot­tram and El­sa Rams­den with yet an­oth­er acolyte who writes and re­cites po­et­ry, I ex­pect. Not that I’m go­ing to be around. I get enough hell dur­ing the day.’

Brain­tree nod­ded.

‘I had La Lash­skirt and Ron­nie Lann at me the oth­er day in the Staff Room about rais­ing stu­dent con­scious­ness mul­ti-​sex­ual­ly. I told them the stu­dents I have are far more mul­ti-​sex­ual­ly con­scious than I am or ev­er was and be­sides I ob­ject to this em­pha­sis on sex­ual­ity for eleven-​year-​olds. Lash­skirt wants to run a course on oral sex and cli­toral stim­ula­tion for Nurs­ery Nurs­es. I said to hell with that.’

‘I can’t see that go­ing down with Mrs Rout­ledge. She’ll blow her top.’

‘Blown it al­ready. With the Prin­ci­pal no less at the Re­cruit­ment Meet­ing,’ said Brain­tree. ‘Told him she would raise the mat­ter with the Ed­uca­tion Au­thor­ity and see how they liked it.’

‘What did the Prin­ci­pal have to say about that?’ asked Wilt.

‘Said we had to keep up with mod­ern at­ti­tudes and prac­tices and how we need­ed to at­tract stu­dents. Num­bers are all that count these days. Old Ma­jor Mill­field then joined in and said sodomy was sodomy and since it was strict­ly for­bid­den in the Old Tes­ta­ment he couldn’t see how it could pos­si­bly be de­scribed as ‘a mod­ern prac­tice’. There was a right old bar­ney.’

Wilt sipped his beer and shook his head.

‘What beats me is why any­one should think that sort of stuff is go­ing to at­tract the sort of stu­dents we need. Wait till I tell Eva. She’d go out of her mind if she thought the quads were get­ting lessons about cli­toral stim­ula­tion and oral sex. That’s one rea­son she sent them to the Con­vent.’

‘I thought she did it out of re­li­gious con­vic­tion,’ said Brain­tree. ‘Didn’t she have some sort of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence a year ago?’

‘She had some­thing. With a crea­ture who claimed to be a New Age Pen­te­costal­ist. I pre­fer not to think what that some­thing was. Re­li­gious con­ver­sion it wasn’t.’

‘A New Age Pen­te­costal­ist? Don’t Pen­te­costal­ists speak with tongues?’

‘That’s not the on­ly thing this one did with her tongue. In the show­er. Yes, I know, you want to know, what were they do­ing in the show­er to­geth­er? Well, as a mat­ter of fact this mad cow–her name was Erin Moore by the way–well, Erin said it was a nec­es­sary part of the re­birth or bap­tismal pro­cess, a form of to­tal im­mer­sion so that the spir­it could en­ter the body. I think there was some con­fu­sion about spir­its and tongues. I wasn’t in the house at the time, thank heav­en, and Eva wouldn’t tell me af­ter­wards. Said it was too dis­gust­ing. The long and the short of it was Eva came off Pen­te­costal­ism like a shot and so did the mad cow with the tongue. Eva half killed her and the dam­age in the bath­room had to be seen to be be­lieved. The show­er rail came down and the show­er head. Eva used it as a bat­tleaxe. And the wall cab­inet. There was glass from bro­ken bot­tles ev­ery­where and of course the show­er pipe went berserk and writhed all over the place. Eva was too in­tent on mur­der­ing the bloody wom­an to think of turn­ing the wa­ter off. She chased the crea­ture round the house and out in­to the street, naked of course and bleed­ing. By that time the bath­room was flood­ed and wa­ter was stack­ing up above the kitchen ceil­ing. Nat­ural­ly that came down and burst. Half a ton of wa­ter cas­cad­ed down on to the top of the fridge. I sup­pose it’s warm and if there’s one thing Tib­by doesn’t like it’s wa­ter. Got a pho­bia about the stuff ev­er since the girls tried to give her swim­ming lessons in the gar­den pond and damned near drowned the poor beast. The con­se­quence of the down­pour from the bath­room was that she went up the wall, lit­er­al­ly, and round it. Eva’s very proud of the or­na­men­tal plates she’s col­lect­ed on the Welsh dress­er. They weren’t there by the time that cat had fin­ished. The elec­tric ket­tle went for a bur­ton, and the Mag­im­ix ma­chine. Both on the floor. And just to round things off the lights blew. In fact the en­tire elec­tric­ity failed. Looked like the place had been hit by a bomb and it cer­tain­ly cost a bomb to re­pair. As if that wasn’t bad enough the in­sur­ance peo­ple wouldn’t cough up be­cause Eva re­fused to tell the bloke who came round what had ac­tu­al­ly hap­pened. Said it had been an ac­ci­dent. He didn’t be­lieve that for a mo­ment. Show­er heads don’t get ripped off by ac­ci­dent and the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny wasn’t go­ing to be ripped off ei­ther. The on­ly good thing to come out of the ghast­ly busi­ness was that it got Eva off the God trot and no mis­take.’

‘And what hap­pened to the tongue la­dy?’

‘Went back in­to the loony bin she’d come out of. That is, when she was well enough to leave hos­pi­tal. Turned out she was a card-​car­ry­ing schizophrenic with re­li­gious ma­nia. For­tu­nate­ly she ex­plained her in­juries by say­ing she had been wrestling with an an­gel or a dev­il though she had no idea why she’d been wear­ing a show­er cap.’

‘Yes, but I still don’t un­der­stand why Eva sent the quads to the Con­vent if she’s gone off re­li­gion. The whole point about the Con­vent is that it’s re­li­gious and Catholic at that.’

‘Ah, but that’s be­cause you don’t un­der­stand how her mind works. Eva goes from one ex­treme to an­oth­er. She’s not hav­ing the girls go to a state school be­cause at the pri­ma­ry school they went to in Newhall the teach­er had the en­tire class sit in card­board box­es all morn­ing one day–they were six at the time–be­cause this was sup­posed to make them ‘aware’. Yes I know how you feel about ‘aware­ness’, it’s the same as ‘con­scious­ness-​rais­ing’, but they had to learn what it felt like to sleep rough in a card­board box in the street in Lon­don. That fin­ished Eva. She told the Head­mistress her daugh­ters weren’t go­ing to end up sleep­ing rough and she’d sent them to school to learn to read and write and do arith­metic, not to play sil­ly games in card­board box­es. She made the same point at the Par­ent-​Teach­er As­so­ci­ation meet­ing and want­ed to know when the school was go­ing to is­sue the six-​year-​olds with leather miniskirts and boots so they could be­come ‘aware’ what it was like to be a teenage whore. And you know what the peo­ple in Newhall are like.’

‘Don’t I just. Bet­ty’s moth­er lives over there and the house is al­ways full of Guc­ci so­cial­ists with in­comes up in the six fig­ures who still think Lenin had his heart in the right place.’

‘Af­ter that and the tongue la­dy Eva went to the oth­er end of the spec­trum. Costs a small for­tune at the Con­vent but at least they teach them prop­er­ly and be­lieve in au­thor­ity. Which re­minds me, I’d bet­ter be get­ting back. Eva’s in a nasty tem­per these days be­cause I won’t go hill­walk­ing in the Lake Dis­trict for the fifth year run­ning. Says she wants a fam­ily hol­iday.’

He fin­ished his beer and cy­cled back to Oakhurst Av­enue to find Eva in a sur­pris­ing­ly good mood.

‘Oh, Hen­ry, isn’t it won­der­ful. We’re go­ing to Amer­ica,’ she said ex­cit­ed­ly. ‘Un­cle Wal­ly has sent us free tick­ets. Aun­tie Joan’s ev­er so pleased. She phoned to see if we’d got the tick­ets and they ar­rived this morn­ing. Isn’t it’

‘Won­der­ful,’ said Wilt and went in­to the lava­to­ry to rid him­self of the beer and hide from the ju­bi­la­tion.

Chapter 2

Eva had had a glo­ri­ous day. From the mo­ment the tick­ets had ar­rived she had been busy cal­cu­lat­ing how much Un­cle Wal­ly was worth, won­der­ing what clothes would make the best im­pres­sion in Wilma, Ten­nessee and how she was go­ing to make the quads stop us­ing foul lan­guage. The lat­ter point was the most im­por­tant. Un­cle Wal­ly was deeply re­li­gious and didn’t ap­prove of strong lan­guage. He was al­so a Found­ing Fa­ther of the Church of the Liv­ing Lord in Wilma and it wouldn’t do to have Saman­tha say­ing ‘Fuck’ or some­thing worse in his pres­ence. Wouldn’t do at all. Aun­tie Joan would be shocked too. Eva had hopes for the quads: Mr and Mrs Wal­ter J. Im­mel­mann had nev­er been blessed with a fam­ily and Aun­tie Joan had once told Eva that Wal­ly was think­ing of mak­ing a will out in favour of the Wilt girls. Yes, it was vi­tal for Saman­tha to be on her best be­haviour. And of course Pene­lope, Josephine and Em­me­line too. In fact the whole fam­ily, the on­ly ex­cep­tion be­ing Hen­ry. Un­cle Wal­ly didn’t ap­prove of Hen­ry.

‘That hus­band of yours, hon­ey, I guess he’s a typ­ical En­glish­man and got his good points but I have to tell you with those four love­ly girls of yours you’re go­ing to need a bread­win­ner. And I mean a re­al one. Hen­ry doesn’t strike me as be­ing that am­bi­tious and en­ter­pris­ing. Like he takes life too easy. You got to put some spunk in­to him, know what I mean? Like jack him up and get him out there fight­ing. Make a fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to your won­der­ful fam­ily life. Seems to me he doesn’t do much of that.’

Eva had pri­vate­ly agreed that Hen­ry wasn’t am­bi­tious. She had spo­ken to him time and time again about get­ting a bet­ter job, leav­ing the Tech and go­ing in­to in­dus­try or in­sur­ance where there was lots of mon­ey to be made. It hadn’t done any good. Hen­ry was a stick-​in-​the-​mud. So now she placed all her hopes for the girls and her own old age on Un­cle Wal­ly and Aun­tie Joan–who had met Wal­ly when he was a US­AF pi­lot at Lak­en­heath in the fifties and she’d been work­ing in the PX. Eva had al­ways been fond of her aun­tie and she was par­tic­ular­ly fond of her now that she was mar­ried to Wal­ly Im­mel­mann of Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es in Wilma, Ten­nessee and had a new ante-​bel­lum man­sion there as well as a lake house up in the woods some­place whose name Eva could nev­er re­mem­ber. So as she bus­tled about the house and vac­uumed and did the chores be­fore go­ing off to the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre to help out with the old peo­ple–it was Thurs­day and Third Age lunch and a tea dance af­ter­wards–her mind was filled with glo­ri­ous ex­pec­ta­tions. She couldn’t ex­act­ly bring her­self to hope that Un­cle Wal­ly have an in­farct and die, or bet­ter still that he crash that twin-​en­gine plane he flew and that Aun­tie Joan be with him at the time; such thoughts were wicked and hid be­low the sur­face of Eva’s kind­ly mind. All the same they weren’t in their first youth and…No, she mustn’t think like that. She must think of the girls’ fu­ture and that was all a long way off. Be­sides just go­ing to Amer­ica was a great ad­ven­ture and it would broad­en the quads’ out­look and give them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see for them­selves how in Amer­ica any­one could make it big. Even Wal­ly Im­mel­mann, who be­fore he’d joined the US Air Force had been a sim­ple coun­try boy on a small farm, had gone on to be­come a mul­ti­mil­lion­aire. And all be­cause he had ini­tia­tive. Eva saw Un­cle Wal­ly as a far bet­ter role mod­el for her daugh­ters than Wilt. Which brought her all the way back to the prob­lem of Hen­ry. She knew what he’d be like in Wilma, get­ting drunk in low bars and re­fus­ing to go to church and ar­gu­ing with Wal­ly about just about ev­ery­thing. There’d been that hor­ri­ble evening in Lon­don when the Im­mel­manns had come over and tak­en them out to din­ner at their ter­ri­bly smart and fear­ful­ly ex­pen­sive ho­tel. What was it called? The Tav­ern by the Park. Hen­ry had got dis­gust­ing­ly drunk and Un­cle Wal­ly had said some­thing about Limeys not be­ing able to hold their liquor. Eva pushed the mem­ory to the back of her mind and gave her at­ten­tion to old Mr Ack­royd who said his piss bag had come un­done and would she put it back for him. All you had to do was…No, she most cer­tain­ly wouldn’t. He’d caught her out be­fore like that and she’d found her­self kneel­ing in front of his wheelchair hold­ing his pe­nis while the oth­er old peo­ple looked on with pruri­ent in­ter­est and had laughed at her. She wasn’t go­ing to get caught out again by the dirty old man.

‘I’ll get Nurse Turn­bull,’ she told him. ‘She’ll put it back so it won’t come out again.’ And leav­ing the mis­er­able Mr Ack­royd beg­ging her not to, she went out and fetched the formidable Nurse Turn­bull. Af­ter that she had trou­ble with Mrs Lim­ley who want­ed to know when the bus for Crow­bor­ough left.

‘In a lit­tle while, dear,’ Eva told her. ‘You won’t have to wait long now but I had to wait more than half an hour be­fore it came yes­ter­day.’

In half an hour, with any luck, Mrs Lim­ley would have for­got­ten that she was nowhere near Crow­bor­ough and that the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre was not the bus sta­tion, and she’d be quite hap­py again. And that af­ter all was what Eva came to the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre for, did ev­ery­thing for, to make peo­ple hap­py. In short she spent the morn­ing do­ing her lit­tle bit of good for the Third Age and went home still think­ing about go­ing to Amer­ica and how jeal­ous Mavis Mot­tram would be when she heard about it. In the af­ter­noon she pre­pared the smoked salmon sand­wich­es and dip for tonight’s meet­ing of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Group. And be­cause there didn’t seem enough smoked salmon she went round to the del­icatessen and bought some roll­mops just in case more peo­ple turned up than usu­al. And she put the vin­ho verde in the fridge to cool. But all the time her thoughts re­vert­ed to the prob­lem of what the quads should wear on the trip to Wilma. She want­ed them to look re­spectable but on the oth­er hand if she dressed them too smart­ly Aun­tie Joan might think…well, that she was spoil­ing them, and spend­ing too much mon­ey or worse still, had the mon­ey to spend. Eva went through a se­ries of per­mu­ta­tions in­volv­ing Aun­tie Joan be­ing En­glish her­self, hav­ing been a bar­maid and, ac­cord­ing to Eva’s mum, some­thing else on the side which was prob­ably why she was so gen­er­ous now. Against that there was the fact that Aun­tie Joan’s own mum had been a tight old skin­flint and no bet­ter than she ought to have been her­self, not when she was a girl that is, again ac­cord­ing to Mum in one of her bad moods; though Eva had once heard Mrs Den­ton hav­ing an aw­ful row with Joanie and shout­ing at her for giv­ing her­self to them Yanks for prac­ti­cal­ly noth­ing. ‘It’s ten pounds in the back of a car and twen­ty-​five if they want to go the whole way. You’re just de­mean­ing your­self for any­thing less.’ Eva had been eight at the time and had made her­self scarce be­fore they knew she’d been lis­ten­ing. So now when it was im­por­tant to play her cards right she had to be care­ful and not over­do things. Maybe if she didn’t look smart her­self Aun­tie Joan would feel sor­ry for her and think she spent all her mon­ey on the quads. Not that Eva mind­ed what Aun­tie Joan had done in her teens. Not when she was so rich and re­spectable now and mar­ried to a mul­ti­mil­lion­aire. Any­way the main thing was to see that the girls be­haved nice­ly and that Hen­ry didn’t get drunk and say rude things about Amer­ica not hav­ing a Na­tion­al Health Ser­vice.

In the lava­to­ry Wilt was al­ready think­ing rude things. He was bug­gered if he was go­ing to the States to be pa­tro­nised by Un­cle Wal­ly and Aun­tie Joan. She’d once sent him a pair of Bermu­da shorts with a tar­tan pat­tern and Wilt had re­fused to wear them even for the pho­to Eva had want­ed to send back with a thank-​you let­ter. He had to find some ex­cuse.

‘What are you do­ing in there?’ Eva de­mand­ed through the door af­ter ten min­utes.

‘What do you think I’m do­ing? Hav­ing a crap of course.’

‘Well, open the win­dow when you’ve fin­ished. We’ve got vis­itors com­ing.’

Wilt opened the win­dow and came out. He’d made up his mind.

‘It sounds a great op­por­tu­ni­ty. Go­ing to the States,’ he said as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink and dried them on a cloth Eva had laid out to shake some let­tuce in. Eva looked at him sus­pi­cious­ly. When Hen­ry said some­thing sound­ed great, it usu­al­ly meant the op­po­site and he wasn’t go­ing to do it. This time she was go­ing to see he did.

‘It’s just a pity I can’t come,’ he con­tin­ued and looked in the fridge.

Eva, who’d been putting the let­tuce in a clean, dry cloth, stopped.

‘What do you mean, you can’t come?’

‘I’ve got that Cana­di­an course to teach. You know, the one on British Cul­ture and Tra­di­tion I did last year.’

‘You said you weren’t go­ing to do it again. Not af­ter all that trou­ble there was last time.’

‘I know I did,’ said Wilt and helped him­self to the hum­mus with a piece of Ryvi­ta. ‘But Swin­burne’s wife is in hos­pi­tal and he can’t leave the chil­dren. So I’ve got to take his place. I can’t get out of it.’

‘You could if you re­al­ly want­ed to,’ said Eva and vent­ed her feel­ings by shak­ing the let­tuce cloth vig­or­ous­ly out the back door. ‘You just want an ex­cuse, that’s all. You’re fright­ened of fly­ing. Look how you were when we went to Mar­bel­la that time.’

‘I am not fright­ened of fly­ing. It was all those foot­ball hooli­gans get­ting pissed and fight­ing on the plane that had me wor­ried. Any­way that’s be­side the point. I’ve agreed to take Swin­burne’s place. And we’ll need the mon­ey the way you’re bound to spend it over there.’

‘You haven’t been lis­ten­ing. Un­cle Wal­ly’s pay­ing for the trip and all our ex­pens­es and…’

But be­fore they could get in­to a re­al ar­gu­ment the door­bell rang and Sarah Be­vis ar­rived. She was car­ry­ing a roll of posters. Be­hind her a young man held a card­board box. Wilt hur­ried out the back door. He’d go to an In­di­an restau­rant for a meal.

Chapter 3

Next morn­ing Wilt was up ear­ly and he cy­cled down to the Tech. He had to speak to Swin­burne and get him to agree to swap.

‘The Cana­di­an course has been scrapped. I thought you knew,’ Swin­burne told Wilt when he fi­nal­ly found him in the can­teen at lunch-​time. ‘Not that I care though I could have done with the mon­ey.’

‘Any par­tic­ular rea­son?’

‘Sex. Roger Man­ners screwed some wom­an from Van­cou­ver last year.’

‘What’s so spe­cial about that? He’s al­ways act­ing like a goat. The sil­ly ass is sex mad.’

‘Chose the wrong wom­an,’ said Swin­burne. ‘Got her preg­nant which wasn’t very wise be­cause her hus­band had had a va­sec­to­my. Came as a nasty sur­prise hav­ing a preg­nant wife. So nasty he flew over from Van­cou­ver and tracked Roger the Lodger down and then went to the Prin­ci­pal with the good news.’

‘Which was?’

‘That he was get­ting a di­vorce and Roger was the core­spon­dent. And sec­ond­ly that he owned a TV sta­tion and sev­er­al news­pa­pers across Cana­da and that he in­tend­ed to see the Tech got max­imum pub­lic­ity for run­ning a course on British Cul­ture and Tra­di­tion that in­clud­ed ex­tra­mar­ital sex. Bam went the course. I’m sur­prised you didn’t know.’

Wilt took the bad news back to Pe­ter Brain­tree.

‘I’ve got to think of some­thing quick. I’m damned if I’m go­ing to Wilma.’

‘It sounds a nice trip to me. All ex­pens­es paid, and Amer­icans are very hos­pitable. Or so I’ve al­ways un­der­stood.’

Wilt shud­dered.

‘Hos­pi­tal­ity is one thing but you ob­vi­ous­ly haven’t met Un­cle Wal­ly and Aun­tie Joan. Last time they were over here we had to go to din­ner with them at their ho­tel in Lon­don. And of course it had to be the biggest, newest and most ex­pen­sive ho­tel with din­ner served in their suite. It was unadul­ter­at­ed hell. First we had to have what Wal­ly calls ‘re­al’ dry mar­ti­nis. God alone knows what proof the gin was but I’d say it was liq­uid Sem­tex. I was stewed to the gills by the time lob­sters came. Then the biggest steaks I’ve ev­er seen. No wine. Un­cle Wal­ly reck­ons wine is for pan­sies so we had to switch to malt whisky and Coke. I ask you, malt whisky and Co­ca-​Co­la. And all the time Aun­tie Joan was bleat­ing on about how won­der­ful it was Eva hav­ing quads and how nice it was go­ing to be when we all came over to Wilma. Nice? Sheer mur­der and I’m not go­ing.’

‘Eva isn’t go­ing to be pleased,’ said Brain­tree.

‘Maybe not but I’ll think of some­thing. Stratagems and de­cep­tions that will make my not go­ing seem a pos­itive boom. We must ap­proach the prob­lem from the psy­cho­log­ical an­gle and ask why Eva is be­side her­self with joy. I can an­swer that. Not be­cause she’s vis­it­ing the Land of the Free for the first time. Oh no. She’s got a hid­den agen­da and that is to suck up to Un­cle blast­ed Wal­ly and Aun­tie J to such good ef­fect that, they be­ing child­less and there­fore nec­es­sar­ily with­out is­sue, will leave their vast for­tune to our four dear daugh­ters when they fi­nal­ly drop off the Dralon perch and go to the Bible Belt in the sky.’

‘You re­al­ly think…’ Brain­tree be­gan but Wilt raised a hand.

‘Hush, I am try­ing to. That be­ing Eva’s in­ten­tion, what will put the mock­ers on the di­abol­ical scheme? Frankly, lov­ing fa­ther that I am, I’d still have to say that hav­ing Pen­ny, Saman­tha, Em­my and Josephine about the house for two months ought to do the trick quite nice­ly. By the time they leave even Aun­tie Joan, who oozes sen­ti­men­tal­ity and drools on about how cute things are, will be dy­ing to be rid of them and Wal­ly will cel­ebrate their de­par­ture by throw­ing the biggest par­ty Wilma’s seen for years. The on­ly snag is that I would have to be there shar­ing the in­fer­no and get­ting the blame for their ap­palling be­haviour. No, I shall have to think of some­thing in the way of a pre-​emp­tive strike. I shall go away and med­itate.’

He did so through an hour of Gen­der As­sertive­ness for Ma­ture Wom­en none of whom had any­thing to learn about as­sert­ing them­selves. In fact they as­sert­ed them­selves so thor­ough­ly that all he had to do was to get them go­ing. Af­ter that he could sit back and nod and agree to ev­ery­thing they had to say. He had learnt the trick from Eva who was al­ways point­ing out how in­ad­equate he was as a hus­band, a fa­ther and a sex­ual part­ner. Wilt had long since giv­en up dis­put­ing his fail­ings and now let the tide of her dis­ap­proval roll over him with­out re­al­ly notic­ing it. He did the same with the Ma­ture Wom­en but first he had to pro­voke them. He did this now by point­ing out that there could be no such thing as male menopause be­cause men didn’t men­stru­ate. The re­sult­ing storm of dis­agree­ment oc­cu­pied the class very hap­pi­ly for the rest of the hour while Wilt won­dered why it was so easy to pro­voke peo­ple who had fixed ideas and al­so why, hav­ing got them go­ing, they adamant­ly re­fused to lis­ten to any coun­ter­ar­gu­ments. It had been the same with his old class­es of Gas­fit­ters and Print­ers. Then it had on­ly been nec­es­sary to say he thought cap­ital pun­ish­ment was wrong or that there was a per­fect­ly sound case for think­ing ho­mo­sex­uals were born that way and all hell would break loose. Wilt con­sid­ered Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s most vi­olent prej­udice and re­alised it was so­cial­ism. He par­tic­ular­ly loathed trades unions and equat­ed them with com­mu­nists, dev­il wor­ship­pers and the Evil Ax­is. Wilt had once ad­mit­ted he’d vot­ed for the Labour Par­ty and be­longed to a trades union. The ex­plo­sion that had fol­lowed sug­gest­ed Un­cle Wal­ly was about to die of apoplexy. Re­mem­ber­ing the oc­ca­sion, Wilt re­alised he had found the so­lu­tion to his prob­lem.

When the class fin­ished and the ma­ture wom­en dis­persed to as­sert them­selves some­where else, Wilt went across to the li­brary and took out six books.

‘And where do you think you are go­ing with those?’ Eva de­mand­ed when he got home and put them on the kitchen ta­ble and she spot­ted their ti­tles.

‘I’ve got to give a course on Marx­ist ide­ol­ogy and rev­olu­tion­ary the­ory in the Third World next term. Don’t ask me why but I do. And since I don’t know the first thing about rev­olu­tion­ary the­ory or Marx­ism and I’m not even sure there is a sec­ond world let alone a third, I have to bone up on it. I’m tak­ing them to Wilma.’

Eva was gap­ing at the ti­tle of an­oth­er large vol­ume which read _Cas­tro’s Strug­gle Against Amer­ican Im­pe­ri­al­ism._

‘Are you in­sane? You can’t take that to Wilma,’ she gasped. ‘Wal­ly would kill you. You know what he feels about Cas­tro.’

‘I dare­say he doesn’t like him very much…’

‘Hen­ry Wilt, you know per­fect­ly well…you know…you know he was in­volved with what­ev­er that at­tempt to in­vade Cu­ba was called.’

‘The Bay of Pigs,’ said Wilt and con­sid­ered say­ing how ap­pro­pri­ate it was for Wal­ly Im­mel­mann but Eva had found an­oth­er book.

‘_Gaddafi. The Libyan Lib­er­ator_. I don’t be­lieve it.’

‘Nor do I as a mat­ter of fact,’ said Wilt. ‘But you know what May­field’s like. He’s al­ways in­vent­ing new cours­es and we’ve all got to–’

‘I don’t care what you’ve got to do,’ Eva said fu­ri­ous­ly. ‘You are not go­ing to Wilma with those dread­ful books.’

‘You think I want to?’ said Wilt am­bigu­ous­ly and picked up an­oth­er. ‘This one is about how Pres­ident Kennedy want­ed to use the atom bomb on Cu­ba. It’s re­al­ly rather in­ter­est­ing.’

There was no need to go on but Wilt did.

‘Well, if you want me to lose my job, I’ll leave them be­hind. They’ve al­ready made five Se­nior Lec­tur­ers re­dun­dant this year and I know I’m on the short list. And with the pen­sion I’d get we wouldn’t be able to keep the girls at the Con­vent. We’ve got to think about their ed­uca­tion and their fu­ture and there’s no point my tak­ing the risk of get­ting the sack sim­ply be­cause Un­cle Wal­ly doesn’t like my read­ing about Marx­ism in Wilma.’

‘In that case you are not com­ing,’ said Eva, now thor­ough­ly con­vinced. ‘I’ll tell them you’ve had to stay here and teach dur­ing the hol­idays to pay for the girls to go to school.’ She stopped, struck by a sud­den thought. ‘That course for the Cana­di­ans. You said last night you couldn’t come be­cause you had to stand in for Swin­burne.’

‘Can­celled,’ said Wilt hur­ried­ly. ‘No prob­lem there. Not enough stu­dents.’

Chapter 4

Next day while Eva was busy in Ip­ford try­ing to de­cide what new clothes to buy for the quads Wilt made his own prepa­ra­tions. He knew now what he was go­ing to do: go on a walk­ing tour. He had found a rain cape in the form of an old army ground­sheet, a suit­ably shab­by ruck­sack and a wa­ter bot­tle from the Army &Navy stores, and had even con­sid­ered buy­ing a pair of kha­ki shorts that came down over his knees on­ly to de­cide that his legs weren’t the sort to ex­pose to the world and he didn’t want to go round the West Coun­try look­ing like a su­per­an­nu­at­ed Boy Scout. In­stead he chose blue jeans and some thick socks to go with the walk­ing boots Eva had bought for their fam­ily hol­iday in the Lake Dis­trict. Wilt wasn’t sure about the walk­ing boots. They were pur­pose-​built for fell walk­ing and he had no in­ten­tion of go­ing any­where near any­thing re­sem­bling a fell. Tramp­ing was all very well for them that liked that sort of thing but Wilt in­tend­ed saun­ter­ing and not do­ing any­thing too stren­uous. In fact it had oc­curred to him that it might be a good idea to find a canal and walk along the tow-​path. Canals had to stick to the flat and when they came to any­thing re­sem­bling a hill they very sen­si­bly made use of locks to get over them. On the oth­er hand he couldn’t find any canals in the part of the world he had in mind to walk across. Rivers were his best bet. On the whole they took even eas­ier ways than canals and there were bound to be foot­paths be­side them. And if there weren’t, he would take to fields pro­vid­ed there weren’t any bulls in them. Not that he knew any­thing about bulls ex­cept that they were dan­ger­ous.

There were oth­er con­tin­gen­cies he had to take in­to ac­count, like what would hap­pen if he couldn’t find any­where to sleep at night. He bought a sleep­ing-​bag and took the lot back to his of­fice and crammed it in­to a cup­board be­fore lock­ing it. He didn’t want Eva burst­ing in un­ex­pect­ed­ly (she did this ev­ery now and then os­ten­si­bly to col­lect some­thing from him like the car keys) and find­ing out what he re­al­ly planned to do while she was away.

But Eva had her own prob­lems to con­cen­trate on. She was par­tic­ular­ly wor­ried about Saman­tha who didn’t want to go to Amer­ica be­cause the cousin of a friend at school had been to Mi­ami and said she’d seen a man shot in the street there.

‘They’ve all got guns and the mur­der rate is ter­ri­ble,’ she told Eva. ‘It’s a very vi­olent so­ci­ety.’

‘I’m sure it’s not like that in Wilma. And be­sides, Un­cle Wal­ly is a very in­flu­en­tial man and no one would dare do any­thing to make him an­gry,’ Eva told her.

Saman­tha was not con­vinced.

‘Dad said he’s a bom­bas­tic old bug­ger who thinks Amer­ica rules the world…’

‘Nev­er mind what your fa­ther says. And don’t use words like that in Wilma.’

‘What? Bom­bas­tic? Dad says that’s the op­er­ative word. Amer­icans drop bombs in Afghanistan from thir­ty thou­sand feet and kill thou­sands of wom­en and chil­dren.’

‘And miss the re­al tar­gets too,’ said Em­me­line.

‘You know per­fect­ly well what word,’ Eva snapped be­fore the quads could re­al­ly get go­ing. She wasn’t go­ing to be drawn in­to us­ing ‘bug­ger’ her­self ei­ther.

Josephine didn’t help.

‘All bug­ger means is anal in­ter­course and–’

‘Shut your mouth. And don’t ev­er let me hear you us­ing lan­guage like that in front of…well, any­where. It’s dis­gust­ing.’

‘I can’t see why. It’s le­gal and gays do it all the time be­cause they don’t have…’

But Eva was no longer lis­ten­ing. She was fac­ing an­oth­er prob­lem.

Em­me­line had just come down­stairs with her pet rat. It was a long sil­ver-​haired tame rat she’d bought at a pet shop and had named Fred­dy and now she want­ed to take it to Wilma to show Aun­tie Joanie.

‘Well, you can’t,’ Eva told her. ‘That’s out of the ques­tion. You know she has a hor­ror of rats and mice.’

‘But he’s ev­er so friend­ly and he’d help her get over her pho­bia.’

Eva doubt­ed it. Em­me­line had trained it to make it­self com­fort­able un­der her sweater and move about. She fre­quent­ly did this when peo­ple came to tea and the ef­fect on vis­itors was one of hor­ror. Mrs Plan­ton had ac­tu­al­ly faint­ed at the sight of what ap­peared to be a pubescent breast mov­ing across Em­my’s chest.

‘In any case it’s il­le­gal to take an­imals out of the coun­try and bring them back again. It might have ra­bies. No, it’s not go­ing and that’s my fi­nal word.’

Em­me­line took Fred­dy up to her room and tried to think which of her friends would look af­ter it.

All in all it was a har­row­ing evening and Eva was not in a good mood when Wilt came home look­ing rather pleased with him­self. Eva al­ways had the feel­ing that when he looked like that he was up to some­thing.

‘I sup­pose you’ve been drink­ing again,’ she said to put him on the de­fen­sive.

‘As a mat­ter of pure fact I haven’t touched a beer all day. I have put my past ex­cess­es be­hind me.’

‘Well, I wish you had put a lot of your filthy lan­guage be­hind you too in­stead of teach­ing the girls to talk like…like…well, to use filthy lan­guage.’

”Troop­ers’ is the word you were look­ing for,’ said Wilt.

‘Troop­ers? What do you mean ‘troop­ers’? If that is an­oth­er filthy word I–’

‘It is an ex­pres­sion. Talk­ing like troop­ers means–’

‘I don’t want to know. It’s bad enough hav­ing Josephine talk­ing about bug­gery and anal in­ter­course with­out you com­ing home and en­cour­ag­ing them.’

‘I’m not en­cour­ag­ing them to talk about bug­gery. I don’t have to. They pick up far worse ex­pres­sions at the Con­vent. Any­way, I’m not go­ing to ar­gue. I’m go­ing to have a bath and think pure thoughts and then af­ter sup­per I’m go­ing to see what’s on TV.’

He stumped up­stairs be­fore Eva could get in a crack about the sort of thoughts he’d be hav­ing in the bath. In the event the bath­room was oc­cu­pied by Em­me­line. Wilt went down­stairs and sat in the liv­ing room look­ing at the book on rev­olu­tion­ary the­ory and won­der­ing how any­one in his right mind could still think bloody rev­olu­tions were a good thing. By the time Em­me­line had fin­ished with the bath­room it was too late for him to have his bath. In­stead he washed and went down to sup­per where Eva was find­ing it im­pos­si­ble to per­suade the quads to ac­cept the clothes she had cho­sen for them to im­press Aun­tie Joan with.

‘I’m not go­ing to wear a sil­ly dress that makes me look like some­thing out of an old cow­boy movie,’ Pene­lope said. ‘Not for any­one.’

‘But it’s ging­ham and you’ll all look so nice…’

‘We won’t. We’ll all look ridicu­lous. Why can’t we go in our own clothes?’

‘But you want to make a good im­pres­sion, and old jeans and bovver boots…’

Wilt left them still ar­gu­ing and took him­self off to the spare bed­room which he used as his study and looked at an Ord­nance Sur­vey map of the West Coun­try and the route he would fol­low on his tour. Bramp­ton Ab­botts, Kings Caple, Hoar­withy, Lit­tle Birch and up to Holme Lacy by way of Dewchurch. And be­yond that over the Dine­dor Hills to Here­ford and the great cathe­dral there with the Map­pa Mun­di–the map of the known world when the world was young–and then on again fol­low­ing the Riv­er Wye through Sug­was Pool, Bridge Sollers, Mansell Gam­age to Moc­cas and Bred­war­dine and fi­nal­ly to Hay-​on-​Wye and the lit­tle town of book­shops. He thought he would stay there for two or three days de­pend­ing on the weath­er and the books he bought. Af­ter that he would head north again by way of Up­per Hergest and Low­er, which seemed to be above it in the map. It was an old map with a cloth back to it and it was dif­fi­cult to read the names where it had been fold­ed. It didn’t show the mo­tor­ways or any­thing built af­ter the War but that too suit­ed him per­fect­ly. He didn’t want the new Eng­land, he want­ed old Eng­land and with names like those on the map he was bound to find it. By the time he went to bed the dis­pute down­stairs had burnt it­self out. Eva had giv­en way on the ging­ham dress­es and the quads had agreed not to go in their old­est and most patched jeans. Bow­er boots were out too.

Chapter 5

For the next fort­night Wilt kept out of the house as much as pos­si­ble and oc­cu­pied him­self with fin­ish­ing next year’s timetable while Eva bus­tled about try­ing to think of es­sen­tial things she might have for­got­ten to tell Hen­ry to do while she was away.

‘Now don’t for­get to give Tib­by her dried food at night. She has her main tin of Cat­tomeat in the morn­ing. Oh, and there’s her vi­ta­min sup­ple­ment. You crush that up in a saucer and put some cream from the top of the milk on it and stir…’

‘Yes,’ said Wilt, who had no in­ten­tion of feed­ing the cat. Tib­by was go­ing in­to the cat­tery on Roltay Road as soon as Eva and the girls were on their way to Wilma.

He solved an­oth­er prob­lem too.

He would take cash and use his Build­ing So­ci­ety sav­ings. They had al­ways been re­served for per­son­al emer­gen­cies and he’d nev­er told Eva of their ex­is­tence.

He made an­oth­er de­ci­sion. He wasn’t go­ing to take a map. Wilt want­ed to see things with a fresh eye and make his own dis­cov­er­ies. He would go wher­ev­er the coun­try­side took his fan­cy with­out any idea where he was and with­out con­sult­ing any map. He would sim­ply go over to the West and catch the first bus he could find and get out when he saw some­thing that in­ter­est­ed him. Chance would de­ter­mine his hol­iday.

Chapter 6

A week lat­er, hav­ing driv­en Eva and the girls to Heathrow and seen them dis­ap­pear through the De­par­tures Gate, Wilt came back to Oakhurst Av­enue and took Tib­by to the Bideawhile cats’ home in Old­sham se­cure in the knowl­edge that since he had paid cash and hadn’t used the usu­al cat­tery Eva al­ways went to she was un­like­ly to find out. Hav­ing dealt with that prob­lem Wilt had sup­per and went to bed. Next morn­ing he was up ear­ly and out of the house by sev­en. He walked down to the rail­way sta­tion to catch a train to Birm­ing­ham. From there he would trav­el by bus. His es­cape from Ip­ford and the Tech had be­gun. That evening would find him com­fort­ably in­stalled in a pub with a log fire and with a good meal in­side him and a pint of beer or bet­ter still re­al ale in front of him.

Eva wasn’t hav­ing quite the won­der­ful time she had ex­pect­ed. The flight had been de­layed for over an hour. The plane had reached the end of the run­way at Heathrow and was prepar­ing for take-​off when the Cap­tain an­nounced that a pas­sen­ger in first class had been tak­en ill and was too sick to make the jour­ney, and they were there­fore hav­ing to re­turn to the ter­mi­nal to have him car­ried off. As a re­sult they lost their turn in the take-​off line and worse still, be­cause they weren’t al­lowed to fly with the bag­gage of an ab­sent pas­sen­ger, his bags had to be found and re­moved too. Find­ing the sick man’s lug­gage meant tak­ing all the bags out of the hold and sort­ing through them one by one. By that time they were well be­hind sched­ule and Eva, who had nev­er flown in such a big plane be­fore, was be­gin­ning to be­come gen­uine­ly alarmed. Of course she couldn’t show it in front of the girls who were thor­ough­ly en­joy­ing them­selves press­ing but­tons so that the seats tilt­ed back­wards and try­ing on the ear­phones and let­ting down the ta­bles from the seat in front and gen­er­al­ly oc­cu­py­ing them­selves to the dis­com­fort of oth­er pas­sen­gers.

Then Pene­lope had in­sist­ed in a loud voice that she had to go to the loo and Eva had had to squeeze past the man at the end of the row to go with her. When they got back and Eva had squeezed back to her seat, Josephine said she had to go too. Eva took her and Em­me­line and Saman­tha just to be on the safe side. By this time–and they had tak­en their time try­ing out var­ious but­tons and the toi­let wa­ter–Eva need­ed to go her­self and just at that mo­ment it was an­nounced that pas­sen­gers had to re­turn to their seats for take-​off. Eva once more made the dif­fi­cult pas­sage past the man at the end of the row who said some­thing in a for­eign lan­guage which she didn’t un­der­stand but which she sus­pect­ed wasn’t very nice. Then when they had reached cruis­ing height and she could go again and in some­thing of a hur­ry too, what he had to say didn’t re­quire any knowl­edge of a for­eign lan­guage to tell her that it wasn’t nice at all. Eva got her own back by tread­ing on his foot when she re­sumed her seat. This time there could be no mis­tak­ing his feel­ings. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Mind where you’re tread­ing, la­dy. I ain’t no door­mat.’

Eva pressed the but­ton for the stew­ardess and re­port­ed the mat­ter.

‘This man–I won’t call him a gen­tle­man–said…’ She paused and re­mem­bered the quads. ‘Well, he used a rude word.’

‘He said ‘Fuck’,’ Josephine ex­plained.

‘He said ‘Fuck you’,’ Pene­lope added.

The stew­ardess looked from Eva to the girls and knew it was go­ing to be a bad trip.

‘Yes, well, some men do,’ she said pacif­ical­ly.

‘No, they don’t,’ said Saman­tha. ‘Not im­po­tent ones. They can’t.’

‘Shut your mouth,’ Eva snapped and tried to smile apolo­get­ical­ly at the stew­ardess who wasn’t smil­ing at all.

‘It’s true,’ Em­me­line joined in from across the aisle. ‘They can’t get erec­tions.’

‘Em­me­line, if I hear an­oth­er word out of you,’ Eva bawled. ‘I’ll…’ She was get­ting to her feet when the man be­side her got there first.

‘Lis­ten, la­dy, I don’t give a god­dam fuck what she said. You ain’t corn-​crush­ing my feet again.’

Eva looked tri­umphant­ly at the stew­ardess.

‘There you are, what did I tell you?’

But the man was al­so ap­peal­ing to the stew­ardess.

‘You got an­oth­er seat? I’m not spend­ing sev­en hours sit­ting next to this hip­popota­mus, I’m telling you I’m not.’

It was a thor­ough­ly un­pleas­ant scene and when it had been cooled down and the man had been found an­oth­er seat as far away from Eva and the quads as pos­si­ble, the stew­ardess went back to the gal­ley.

‘Row 31 is trou­ble. Keep your eyes open. Four girls and a moth­er who is built like a pow­er lifter. Sperm bank her with Tyson and there’s no one would go a sin­gle round with the ba­by.’

The stew­ard looked down the rows.

‘Thir­ty-​one is sus­pect,’ he said.

‘Don’t I know it.’

But the stew­ard was look­ing at the man in the win­dow seat. So were two men in grey suits five seats be­hind him.

That was the be­gin­ning of the flight. It didn’t get much bet­ter. Saman­tha spilt her Coke, all of it, on the trousers of the man by the win­dow, who said, ‘For­get it, these things hap­pen,’ though he didn’t say it very nice­ly and then went off to the toi­let. On the way there he no­ticed some­thing that caused him to spend a far longer time locked in­side than was need­ed for clean­ing his trousers or even re­liev­ing him­self. Still in the end he came out look­ing fair­ly calm and went back to his seat. But be­fore sit­ting down he opened the hand-​lug­gage com­part­ment above and found a book. It took him some mo­ments to get it out but in the end he suc­ceed­ed and to avoid hav­ing a Co­ca-​Co­la spilt on his trousers again he of­fered to sit in the aisle seat.

‘The lit­tle la­dy can have the win­dow,’ he said with a sweet smile. ‘I got more room for my legs here.’

Eva said that was re­al kind of him. (She was be­gin­ning to ad­just her lan­guage to Amer­ican and ‘re­al’ was just as good as ‘re­al­ly’.) She was al­so be­gin­ning to dis­tin­guish be­tween nice Amer­icans who didn’t com­plain when one of the quads spilt things on them and were po­lite and called them lit­tle ladies, and the oth­er sort who said ‘Fuck’ and called her a hip­popota­mus just be­cause she stepped on their toes. Af­ter that the flight con­tin­ued pret­ty har­mo­nious­ly. There was a movie which kept the girls in­ter­est­ed and Eva con­cen­trat­ed on what she was go­ing to say to Un­cle Wal­ly and Aun­tie Joan about how kind it had been of them to in­vite them over and pay for the tick­ets es­pe­cial­ly as there was no way she could have come; the quads’ ed­uca­tion cost so much and cloth­ing them etc. In fact she dozed for a while and it was on­ly when the stew­ardess­es came round with the trol­ley again and they had some­thing more to eat that she woke up and took par­tic­ular care to see that there was no more spilling on peo­ple’s trousers.

In fact she got talk­ing with the nice man in the aisle seat who asked if this was her first trip to the USA and where she was go­ing, and who was re­al in­ter­est­ed to learn ev­ery­thing about her and the girls and even went so far as to write their names down and said if they ev­er came down Flori­da way this was his ad­dress. Eva re­al­ly liked him; he was so charm­ing. And she told him all about how Wal­ly Im­mel­mann was head of Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es in Wilma, Ten­nessee, and had a lake­side house up in the Smok­ies and how her Aun­tie Joan had mar­ried him when he was at the air­base and an Air Force pi­lot fly­ing out of Lak­en­heath, and the man said he was Sol Campi­to and he worked with a Mi­ami-​based fi­nance cor­po­ra­tion and sure he’d heard of Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es, like ev­ery­one had it was so im­por­tant. An hour lat­er he took an­oth­er ‘hy­giene break’ which was a new term for Eva and meant go­ing to the toi­let again. This time he didn’t take so long and when he came back he put his book away in the lug­gage com­part­ment and said he was go­ing to get some shut-​eye be­cause he had to catch the shut­tle flight down to Mi­ami and it was a long trip from where he’d come, like Mu­nich, Ger­many, where he’d had some busi­ness. And so the flight wore on and noth­ing un­to­ward oc­curred ex­cept that Pene­lope kept ask­ing when they were go­ing to get to At­lanta be­cause she was bored and Sam­my wouldn’t let her have the win­dow seat so she could look out at the clouds. Be­hind them the two men in grey suits watched the man who had giv­en up his win­dow seat for Saman­tha. One of them took him­self off to the toi­let and was in there for five min­utes. He was fol­lowed half an hour lat­er by the sec­ond suit who stayed even longer. When he came back he shrugged as he sat down. Fi­nal­ly by the time Eva was get­ting re­al­ly tired the Jum­bo was slow­ly drop­ping down to­wards the land and the coun­try­side seemed to be com­ing up to them and the un­der­car­riage was locked down and the flaps were up and they were down with on­ly a slight thump and lurch and in­to re­verse thrust.

‘The land of the free,’ said the man with a smile when they were at the ter­mi­nal and could col­lect their bags from the over­head lock­ers; he was on his feet help­ing to get Eva’s and the quads’ stuff for them. And then he very po­lite­ly stood in the aisle in the way of the oth­er pas­sen­gers to let them file out first. In fact he let a num­ber of oth­er pas­sen­gers go in front of him and on­ly then moved him­self. By the time they had col­lect­ed their hold lug­gage from the carousel he was nowhere to be seen. He sat in the toi­let writ­ing the ad­dress and the names Eva had giv­en him be­fore he came out. Twen­ty min­utes lat­er Eva and the quads passed through Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms where they were held up for some time and a Ger­man Shep­herd took an in­ter­est in Em­me­line’s hand lug­gage. Two men stud­ied the fam­ily for two min­utes and then they were through and there was Un­cle Wal­ly and Aun­tie Joan and there was all the hug­ging and kiss­ing imag­in­able. It was won­der­ful.

It wasn’t quite so won­der­ful in a lit­tle room back in Cus­toms for the man who’d called him­self Sol Campi­to. The things from his trav­el bags were spread out on the floor and he was stand­ing naked in an­oth­er booth with a man with plas­tic gloves on his hand telling him to get his legs open.

‘Wast­ing time,’ said one of the men in the room. ‘Give him the cas­tor oil and blow the fuck­ing con­doms out quick­er, eh Joe? You crazy enough to have swal­lowed the stuff?’

‘Shit,’ said Campi­to. ‘I don’t do no drugs. You got the wrong guy.’

Four men in an of­fice next door watched him through a dark­ened ob­ser­va­tion win­dow.

‘So he’s clean. Met the con­tact in Mu­nich and left with the stuff. Now he’s clean. Then it’s got to be the fat Brit with the kids. How did you as­sess her?’

‘Dumb. Dumb as hell.’

‘Ner­vous?’

‘Not at all. Ex­cit­ed yes but ner­vous no way.’

The sec­ond man nod­ded.

‘To Wilma, Ten­nessee.’

‘And we know where she’s go­ing. So we keep her un­der ob­ser­va­tion. The tight­est pos­si­ble. OK?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Just make sure you keep un­der cov­er. The stuff that bas­tard’s said to have picked up from Poland is lethal. The good thing is we know from his note­book where that Wilt wom­an is head­ing with that four­some. Get there fast. This surveil­lance has top pri­or­ity. I want to know all there is to know about this Im­mel­mann guy.’

Chapter 7

Wilt’s day had be­gun bad­ly and got steadi­ly worse. All his hopes and ex­pec­ta­tions of the pre­vi­ous evening had proved ter­ri­bly wrong. In­stead of the home­ly pub with a log fire, and a good meal and sev­er­al pints of beer or bet­ter still re­al ale in­side him, and a warm bed wait­ing for him, he found him­self trudg­ing along a coun­try lane with dark clouds clos­ing in from the West. In many re­spects it had been a dis­as­trous day. He had walked the mile and a half to the sta­tion with his knap­sack on his back on­ly to find that there were no trains to Birm­ing­ham be­cause of work on the line. Wilt had had to take a bus. It was a com­fort­able enough bus–or would have been if it hadn’t been half filled with hy­per­ac­tive schoolchil­dren un­der the charge of a teach­er who did his lev­el best to ig­nore them. The rest of the pas­sen­gers were Se­nior, and in Wilt’s opin­ion Se­nile, Cit­izens, out on a day-​trip to en­joy them­selves, a pro­cess that seemed to con­sist of com­plain­ing loud­ly about the be­haviour of the hy­per­ac­tive kids and in­sist­ing on stop­ping at ev­ery ser­vice sta­tion on the mo­tor­way to re­lieve them­selves. In be­tween ser­vice sta­tions they sang songs Wilt had sel­dom heard be­fore and nev­er want­ed to hear again. And when fi­nal­ly they reached Birm­ing­ham and he bought a tick­et for Here­ford he had dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing the bus. In the end he did. It was a very old dou­ble-​deck­er bus with a fad­ed ‘Here­ford’ sign on the front. Wilt thanked God there were no oth­er pas­sen­gers in it. He’d had enough of small boys with sticky fin­gers climb­ing across his lap to look out the win­dow and of old age pen­sion­ers singing, or at any rate cat­er­waul­ing, ‘Gang­ing along the Scotswood Road to see the Blay­don Races’ and ‘We’re go­ing to hang out the wash­ing on the Siegfried Line’. Wilt climbed weari­ly in­to the back and lay down across the seat and fell asleep. When the bus left he woke up and was sur­prised to find he was still the on­ly pas­sen­ger. He went back to sleep again. He had on­ly had two sand­wich­es and a bot­tle of beer all day and he was hun­gry. Still, when the bus got to Here­ford he’d find a café and have a good meal and look for a bed and break­fast and in the morn­ing set out on his walk­ing tour. The bus didn’t get to Here­ford. In­stead it stopped out­side a shab­by bun­ga­low on what was clear­ly a dis­tinct­ly B road and the driv­er got out. Wilt wait­ed ten min­utes for him to re­turn and then got out him­self and was about to knock on the door when it opened and a large an­gry man looked out.

‘What do you want?’ he de­mand­ed. In the bun­ga­low a Stafford­shire bull ter­ri­er growled men­ac­ing­ly.

‘Well, as a mat­ter of fact I want to go to Here­ford,’ said Wilt, keep­ing a wary eye on the dog.

‘So what are you do­ing here? This isn’t bloody Here­ford.’

Wilt pro­duced his tick­et.

‘I paid my fare for Here­ford in Birm­ing­ham and that bus’

‘Isn’t go­ing nowhere near Here­ford. It’s go­ing to the fuck­ing knack­er’s yard if I can’t flog the fuck­er first.’

‘But it says ‘Here­ford’ on the front.’

‘My, oh, my,’ said the man sar­cas­ti­cal­ly. ‘You could have fooled me. You sure it don’t say ‘New York’? Go and take a dekko and don’t come back and tell me. Just bug­ger off. You come back and I’ll set the dog on you.’

He went back in­to the bun­ga­low and slammed the door. Wilt re­treat­ed and looked at the sign on the bus. It was blank. Wilt stared up and down the road and de­cid­ed to go to the left. It was then he no­ticed the scrap­yard be­hind the house. It was full of old rust­ing cars and lor­ries. Wilt walked on. There was bound to be a vil­lage some­where down the road and where there was a vil­lage there was bound to be a pub. And beer. But af­ter an hour in which he passed noth­ing more ac­com­mo­dat­ing than an­oth­er aw­ful bun­ga­low with a ‘For Sale’ sign out­side it, he took his knap­sack off and sat down on the grass verge op­po­site and con­sid­ered his sit­ua­tion. The bun­ga­low with its board­ed win­dows and over­grown gar­den wasn’t a pleas­ing prospect. Lug­ging his knap­sack Wilt moved a cou­ple of hun­dred yards down the lane and sat down again and wished he’d bought some more sand­wich­es. But the evening sun shone down and the sky to the east was clear so things weren’t all that bad. In fact in many ways this was ex­act­ly what he had set out to ex­pe­ri­ence. He had no idea where he was and no wish to know. Right from the start he had in­tend­ed to erase the map of Eng­land he car­ried in his head. Not that he ev­er could; he had mem­orised it since his first ge­og­ra­phy lessons and over the years that in­ter­nal map had been en­larged as much by his read­ing as by the places he’d vis­it­ed. Hardy was Dorset or Wes­sex, and Bov­ing­ton was Egdon Heath in _The Re­turn of the Na­tive_ as well as where Lawrence of Ara­bia had been killed on his mo­tor­cy­cle; _Bleak House_ was Lin­colnshire; Arnold Ben­nett’s _Five Towns_ were the Pot­ter­ies in Stafford­shire; even Sir Wal­ter Scott had con­tribut­ed to Wilt’s lit­er­ary car­tog­ra­phy with _Wood­stock_ and _Ivan­hoe._ Gra­ham Greene too. Wilt’s Brighton had been de­fined for ev­er by Pinkie and the wom­an wait­ing on the pier. But if he couldn’t erase that map he could at any rate do his best to ig­nore it by not hav­ing a clue where he was, by avoid­ing large towns and even by dis­re­gard­ing place names that might pre­vent him from find­ing the Eng­land he was look­ing for. It was a ro­man­tic, nos­tal­gic Eng­land. He knew that but he was in­dulging his ro­man­tic streak. He want­ed to look at old hous­es, at rivers and streams, at old trees and an­cient woods. The hous­es could be small, mere cot­tages or large hous­es stand­ing in park­land, once great man­sions but now in all prob­abil­ity di­vid­ed up in­to apart­ments or turned in­to nurs­ing homes or schools. None of that mat­tered to Wilt. He just want­ed to wash Oakhurst Av­enue, the Tech and the mean­ing­less­ness of his own rou­tine out of his sys­tem and see Eng­land with new eyes, eyes un­sul­lied by the ex­pe­ri­ence of so many years as a teach­er.

Feel­ing more cheer­ful he got to his feet and set off again; he passed a farm and came to a T-​junc­tion where he turned left to­wards a bridge over a riv­er. Be­yond it there was the vil­lage he had been look­ing for. A vil­lage with a pub. Wilt hur­ried on on­ly to dis­cov­er that the pub was shut for re­fur­bish­ment and that there were no cafés or B&B guest-​hous­es in the place. There was a shop but that too was shut. Wilt trudged on and fi­nal­ly found what he was look­ing for, an old wom­an who told him that, while she didn’t take lodgers in the nor­mal way, he could stay the night in her spare bed­room and just hoped he didn’t snore. And so af­ter a sup­per of eggs and ba­con and the down pay­ment of £15 he went to bed in an old brass bed­stead with a lumpy mat­tress and slept like a log.

At 7 the old wom­an woke him with a cup of tea and told him where the bath­room was. Wilt drank the tea and stud­ied the tin­types on the wall, one of Gen­er­al Buller in the Boer War with troops cross­ing the riv­er. The bath­room looked as if it had been around dur­ing the Boer War too but he had a shave and a wash and then an­oth­er ap­par­ent­ly in­evitable help­ing of ba­con and eggs for break­fast, and thanked the old wom­an and set off down the road.

‘You’ll have to get to Raughton be­fore you find a hos­tel,’ the old wom­an, Mrs Bish­op, told him. ‘It’s five miles down that­away.’

Wilt thanked her and went down that­away un­til he came to a path that led up­hill in­to some woods and turned off along it. He tried to for­get the name Raughton, per­haps it was Ror­ton, and what­ev­er it was he no longer cared. He was in the En­glish coun­try­side, old Eng­land, the Eng­land he had come to dis­cov­er for him­self. For half a mile he climbed up the hill and came out on to a stun­ning view. Be­low him a patch­work of mead­ows and be­yond them a riv­er. He went down and crossed the emp­ty fields and present­ly was stand­ing look­ing at a riv­er that flowed, as it must have done for thou­sands of years, down the val­ley, in the pro­cess cre­at­ing the flat emp­ty fields he had just crossed. This was what he had come to find. He took off his knap­sack and sat on the bank and watched the wa­ter drift­ing by with the oc­ca­sion­al rip­ple that sug­gest­ed a fish or an un­der­cur­rent, some hid­den ob­sta­cle or pile of rub­bish that was slid­ing past un­der the sur­face. Above him the sky was a cloud­less blue. Life was mar­vel­lous. He was do­ing what he had come to do. Or so he thought. As ev­er in Wilt’s life he was mov­ing to­wards his Neme­sis.

It lay in the venge­ful mind of a jus­ti­fi­ably em­bit­tered old wom­an in Mel­drum Slocum. All her work­ing life, ev­er since she had en­tered the ser­vice of Gen­er­al and Mrs Bat­tle­by forty-​five years be­fore, Martha Mead­ows had been the clean­er, the cook, the house­keep­er, the ev­ery help the Gen­er­al and his wife de­pend­ed on at Mel­drum Manor. She had been de­vot­ed to the old cou­ple and the Manor had been the cen­tre of her life but the Gen­er­al and his wife had been killed five years be­fore in an ac­ci­dent with a drunk­en lor­ry driv­er; the es­tate had been tak­en over by their nephew Bob Bat­tle­by and ev­ery­thing had changed. From be­ing what the old Gen­er­al had called ‘our faith­ful re­tain­er, Martha’, a ti­tle of which she had been ex­ceed­ing­ly proud, she had found her­self be­ing called that ‘bloody wom­an’. In spite of it she had stayed on. Bob Bat­tle­by was a drunk, and a nasty drunk at that, but she had her hus­band to think of. He’d been the gar­den­er at the Manor but a bout of pneu­mo­nia fol­lowed by arthri­tis had forced him to leave his job. Martha had to work and there was nowhere else in Mel­drum she could find em­ploy­ment. Be­sides, she had hopes that Bat­tle­by would drink him­self to death be­fore too long. In­stead he be­gan an af­fair with Ruth Rot­te­combe, the wife of the lo­cal MP and Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment. It was large­ly thanks to her that Martha had been re­placed by a Fil­ipino maid who was less dis­ap­prov­ing of what they called their lit­tle games. Martha Mead­ows had kept her thoughts to her­self but one morn­ing Bat­tle­by, af­ter a par­tic­ular­ly drunk­en night, had lost his tem­per and had thrown her things–the clothes she came in be­fore chang­ing in­to her work­ing ones–in­to the mud­dy yard out­side the kitchen; he had called her a fuck­ing old bitch and bet­ter off dead at that. Mrs Mead­ows had walked home seething with rage, and de­ter­mined on get­ting her own back. Day af­ter day she had sat at home be­side her sick hus­band–who’d re­cent­ly had a stroke and couldn’t talk–grim­ly de­ter­mined to get her re­venge. She had to be very, very care­ful. The Bat­tle­bys were a rich and in­flu­en­tial fam­ily in the coun­ty and she had of­ten thought of ap­peal­ing to them, but for the most part they were of a dif­fer­ent gen­er­ation to the Gen­er­al’s nephew and sel­dom came to the Manor. No, she would have to act on her own. Two emp­ty years passed be­fore she thought of her own hus­band’s nephew, Bert Ad­dle. Bert had al­ways been a bit of a tear­away but she’d al­ways had a soft spot for him, had lent him mon­ey when he was in trou­ble and had nev­er asked for it back. Been like a moth­er to him, she had. Yes, Bert would help, es­pe­cial­ly now he’d just lost his job at the ship­yard at Bar­row-​in-​Fur­ness. What she had in mind would cer­tain­ly give him some­thing to do.

‘He called you that?’ Bert said when she told him. ‘Why, I’ll kill the bas­tard. Call­ing my aun­tie a thing like that when you’ve been with the fam­ily all those years. By God, I will.’

But Martha shook her head.

‘You’ll do no such thing. I’m not hav­ing you go to prison. I’ve got a bet­ter idea.’

Bert looked at her ques­tion­ing­ly.

‘Like what?’

‘Dis­grace him in pub­lic, so he can’t show his face round here no more, him and that hussy of his. That’s what I want.’

‘How you go­ing to do that?’ Bert asked. He’d nev­er seen Martha so fu­ri­ous.

‘Him and that Rot­te­combe bitch get up to some strange things, I can tell you,’ she said dark­ly.

‘What sort of things?’

‘Sex,’ said Mrs Mead­ows. ‘Un­nat­ural sex. Like him be­ing tied up and…Well, Bert, I don’t like to say. But what I do say is I’ve seen the things they use. Whips and hoods and hand­cuffs. He keeps them locked away along of the mag­azines. Pornog­ra­phy and pic­tures of lit­tle boys and worse. Hor­ri­ble.’

‘Lit­tle boys? He could go to prison for that.’

‘Best place for him.’

‘But how come you’ve seen them if they’re locked away?’

‘Cos he was so drunk one morn­ing he was dead to the world in the old Gen­er­al’s dress­ing room and the cup­board was open and the key still in the lock. And I know where he keeps his keys, like the spare ones. He don’t know I do but I found them. On a beam over the old trac­tor in the barn he don’t ev­er use and can’t cos it’s bro­ken. Shoves them up there where no one would think of look­ing. I seen him from the kitchen win­dow. Keys of the back and front doors, key of his study and his Range Rover and the key of that cup­board with all that filth in it. Right, now here’s what I want you to do. That is if you’re pre­pared to, like.’

‘I’d do any­thing for you, Aunt Martha. You knows that.’

By the time he left Bert knew ex­act­ly what he had to do.

‘And don’t you come in your car,’ Martha told him. ‘I don’t want you get­ting in­to trou­ble. You hire one or some­thing. I’ll give you the mon­ey.’

Bert shook his head.

‘Don’t need to. I’ve got enough and I know where I can get some­thing to use, nev­er you wor­ry,’ he said and drove off hap­pi­ly, filled with ad­mi­ra­tion for his aun­tie. She was a sly one, Aun­tie Martha was. Thurs­day, she’d said.

‘Un­less I phones you oth­er­wise. And I’ll use a pub­lic phone. I’ve heard they can trace calls from homes and such­like, the po­lice can. Can’t be too care­ful. I’ll say…’ She looked at the cal­en­dar with the kit­ten on the wall. ‘I’ll say Thurs­day 7th or 14th or what­ev­er Thurs­day you’re to do it. And that’s all.’

‘Why Thurs­day?’ Bert asked.

‘Cos that’s when they play bridge at the Coun­try Club till af­ter mid­night and he gets so drunk she can do what she likes with him and she don’t go home till 4 or 5 in the morn­ing. You’ll have time enough to do what I told you.’

Bert drove past the Manor House, checked the lane be­hind it and then drove north with the map Martha Mead­ows had giv­en him. He paused for a mo­ment out­side the Rot­te­combes’ house, Ley­line Lodge, and de­cid­ed to come down again and make sure he knew ex­act­ly where to go. He’d bor­row a friend’s car for that trip too. He’d learnt a lot from Martha and he didn’t want to get her in­to trou­ble.

Chapter 8

Eva was not hav­ing a won­der­ful time. What she was go­ing through was keep­ing her wide awake with wor­ry half the night. Af­ter the ef­fu­sive greet­ings at the air­port from Un­cle Wal­ly and Aun­tie Joan and their de­light at see­ing the quads again, they had driv­en out to the pri­vate jet bear­ing the lo­go of Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es and had climbed aboard. The jet had been cleared for take-​off and present­ly they were fly­ing west to­wards Wilma. Be­low them the land­scape was dot­ted with lakes and rivers and af­ter a while they were over woods and hills, with signs of habi­ta­tion few and far be­tween. The quads peered out of the win­dows and to sat­is­fy their cu­rios­ity. Un­cle Wal­ly put the jet in­to a dive and lev­elled out quite low down so that they could see the ground even bet­ter. Eva, who wasn’t ac­cus­tomed to fly­ing and had nev­er been up in a small plane be­fore, felt queasy and fright­ened. But at least the girls were en­joy­ing the ride and Un­cle Wal­ly was en­joy­ing show­ing off his fly­ing skills to them.

‘She isn’t as fast as the jets I flew in the Air Force out of Lak­en­heath, Eng­land,’ he said, ‘but she’s good and ma­noeu­vrable and she cov­ers the ground fast enough for an old man like me.’

‘Oh, shoot, hon­ey, you ain’t old,’ Aun­tie Joan said. ‘I don’t like you us­ing that word. Ev­ery­body’s just as old as they feel and the way you feel, Wal­ly, feels pret­ty good and young to me. How’s Hen­ry these days, Eva?’

‘Oh, Hen­ry’s just fine,’ said Eva, read­ily adapt­ing to Amer­ican.

‘Hen­ry’s a great guy,’ said Wal­ly. ‘You got the mak­ings of a great man there, Evie, you know that? I guess you girls are mighty proud of your dad­dy, eh? Hav­ing a dad­dy who’s a pro­fes­sor is re­al­ly some­thing.’

Pene­lope be­gan the pro­cess of dis­il­lu­sion­ment.

‘Dad’s not am­bi­tious,’ she said. ‘He drinks too much.’

Wal­ly said noth­ing but the plane dipped a lit­tle.

‘A guy’s got a right to a lit­tle liquor af­ter a hard day’s work,’ he said. ‘That’s what I al­ways say, isn’t it, Joanie hon­ey?’

Aun­tie Joan’s smile sug­gest­ed that that was in­deed ex­act­ly what he al­ways said. It al­so sug­gest­ed dis­ap­proval.

‘I gave up smok­ing though,’ Wal­ly said. ‘Man, that stuff kills you and no mis­take. Feel a hun­dred and ten per cent bet­ter since I quit.’

‘Dad’s tak­en up smok­ing again,’ Saman­tha told him. ‘He smokes a pipe be­cause he says ev­ery­one is against smok­ing and no one is go­ing to tell him what to do and what not to do.’

The plane dipped again.

‘He re­al­ly says that? Hen­ry re­al­ly says that? That no one is go­ing to tell him what not to do?’ said Wal­ly, glanc­ing ner­vous­ly over his shoul­der at the two wom­en. ‘Would you cred­it that? And he ain’t much to look at man­hood­wise ei­ther.’

‘Wal­ly!’ said Aun­tie Joanie and there was no mis­tak­ing her mean­ing.

‘And you stop speak­ing about Dad­dy like that,’ Eva told Saman­tha with equal firm­ness.

‘Hell, I didn’t mean noth­ing by it,’ said Wal­ly. ‘Man­hood is just an ex­pres­sion.’

‘Yeah, and yours isn’t any­thing to write home about ei­ther,’ said Aun­tie Joanie. ‘Cracks like that just aren’t called for.’

Un­cle Wal­ly said noth­ing. They flew on and fi­nal­ly Josephine spoke up.

‘Boys aren’t the on­ly peo­ple with man­hoods,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a sort of man­hood too. It’s not a very big one though. It’s called a–’

‘Shut up!’ Eva shout­ed. ‘We don’t want to hear. Do you hear me, Josephine? No­body’s in­ter­est­ed.’

‘But Miss Sprock­ett said it was quite nor­mal and some wom­en pre­fer–’ A swift cuff from Eva end­ed this ex­po­si­tion of Miss Sprock­ett’s opin­ion of the func­tion of the cli­toris in one-​to-​one en­coun­ters be­tween wom­en. All the same it was clear that Un­cle Wal­ly was still in­ter­est­ed.

‘Gee, Miss Sprock­ett? That’s some name for a wom­an.’

‘She’s our bi­ol­ogy teach­er and she’s not like most wom­en,’ Saman­tha told him. ‘She be­lieves in prac­tis­ing mas­tur­ba­tion. She says it’s safer than hav­ing sex with men.’

This time there could be no doubt­ing Wal­ly’s shock or the aero­dy­nam­ic ef­fect of Eva’s sud­den at­tempt to reach Saman­tha and shut her up. As the plane lurched, Wal­ly fought to con­trol it and wasn’t helped by the blow on the side of his head in­tend­ed for Saman­tha who had seen it com­ing and had ducked.

‘Shit!’ shout­ed Wal­ly. ‘For Chris­sake ev­ery­one sit still. You want to ditch this kite?’

Even Aun­tie Joanie was alarmed. ‘Eva, do sit down!’ she yelled.

Eva sat back in her seat with a grim look on her face. Ev­ery­thing she had hoped to pre­vent was be­gin­ning to hap­pen. She sat look­ing livid­ly at Saman­tha and willed her to go dumb at least tem­porar­ily. She was go­ing to have to give the quads a good talk­ing-​to. For the rest of the flight there was a grim si­lence in the air­craft and an hour lat­er they touched down at the lit­tle air­field at Wilma. The Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es stretch limo in red and gold was wait­ing for them. So, dis­creet­ly hid­den in an un­marked car, were two men from the Drug En­force­ment Agen­cy who watched as the Wilt chil­dren climbed out of the plane. In the back sat a lo­cal cop.

‘You reck­on?’

‘Could be. Sam said they were in the same row ‘long­side the guy Sol Campi­to. Who’s the fat guy?’

‘Hell, that’s Wal­ly Im­mel­mann. Runs the biggest plant in Wilma.’

‘Any­thing on him? Like he’s done time in­side.’

‘On Wal­ly? Hell no, he’s clean as you can be in his busi­ness,’ said the cop. ‘Sol­id cit­izen. Pays his dues. Votes Re­pub­li­can and sub­scribes to ev­ery­thing he can. Backed Herb Re­ich for Congress.’

‘So that makes him clean?’

‘I didn’t say he was clean as a hound’s tooth. Just that he’s a big wheel round these parts. I don’t see him in­to drug run­ning.’

‘Just an­oth­er fuck­ing good ole boy? That right?’ said the DEA man who was clear­ly not a South­ern­er.

‘I guess so. I don’t mix in those cir­cles. I mean, man, that’s mon­ey.’

‘And how’s his busi­ness do­ing right now?’

‘Same as ev­ery­thing in Wilma. Pret­ty av­er­age, I guess. I don’t know. He down­sized last year but the lat­est is he’s di­ver­si­fy­ing in­to things out­side vac­uum pumps.’

‘So he could be…Shit, look at the one with the obe­si­ty prob­lem.’

‘That’s his wife, Mrs Im­mel­mann,’ said the cop.

‘Yeah, well it would be, wouldn’t it? Who’s the oth­er one needs li­po­suc­tion?’

The sec­ond DEA man checked the file.

‘Name of Wilt, Mrs Eva Wilt, moth­er of the four pack, 45 Oakhurst Av­enue, Ip­ford, Eng­land. Want to put out a check call on her?’

‘They were in the same row with Sol. Could be he was the de­coy. Yeah, call At­lanta and they can de­cide.’

They watched as the limo drove off. Af­ter it had gone the lo­cal cop got out and drove down to the Sher­iff’s of­fice.

‘What’s with those drug-​bust­ing shits?’ asked the Sher­iff who re­sent­ed North­ern­ers al­most as much as he re­sent­ed be­ing bossed around by the Feds. ‘Come march­ing in­to Wilma like they own the whole fuck­ing place.’

‘You ain’t go­ing to be­lieve this. They got Wal­ly Im­mel­mann tagged for a drug deal­er.’

The Sher­iff stared at him. The man was right. He didn’t be­lieve him.

‘Wal­ly in­to run­ning drugs? You got to be jok­ing! Oh my God, they must be out of their fuck­ing heads. If Wal­ly got to hear he was on a fuck­ing deal­er sus­pi­cion list he’d go apeshit. Would he ev­er. Like we got Mount St He­lens vol­cano right here in Wis­poen Coun­ty spew­ing brim­stone. Je­sus.’ He stopped and pon­dered for a mo­ment. ‘What ev­idence they got?’

‘The fat­so with the four girls. Dogs picked them out at the air­port. And Wal­ly is mov­ing in­to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. It fits.’

‘And the wom­an? Why not hold her for ques­tion­ing?’

‘I don’t know. Want­ed to see her con­tact, I guess. British. Name of Wilt.’

The Sher­iff groaned.

‘Where those two goons from, Herb?’ he said present­ly.

‘Unit down At­lanta. They–’

‘I got that al­ready. Like, where are they from? What’s their names and their home towns?’

‘Don’t give no names, Sher­iff. Flash their IDs and cre­den­tials from Drug En­force­ment and come to the high and mighty. Those boys in that game don’t have re­al names. Not good for their health, I’ve heard. Got num­bers. One’s from New Jer­sey, that I do know.’

‘New Jer­sey? So how come the Yan­kee’s do­ing du­ty down South? Don’t trust us lo­cal cops?’

‘They don’t do that, and that’s for sure. Want­ed to know if Mr Im­mel­mann was a good ole boy like it was a dirty word.’

‘Said that, did they?’ said the Sher­iff grim­ly. ‘Nice man­ners these North­ern ass­holes have got. Come on down and think they run the place.’

‘And the oth­er one…name of Palows­ki, yeah that’s right. I saw that much. He said Mrs Im­mel­mann was so fat she should be in­to li­po­suc­tion. Like that was a dirty word too.’

‘It is,’ said the Sher­iff. ‘OK, OK. They want to walk in­to a fire-​storm with Wal­ly Im­mel­mann, I’m not go­ing to stop them. They’re on their own from now on. We just say Yessir and Nos­sir and let the bas­tards fuck up re­al good.’

‘No co-​op­er­ation, sir?’

The Sher­iff sat back in his chair and smiled mean­ing­ful­ly.

‘Let’s just say we let them draw their own con­clu­sions. Ain’t our ass­es go­ing to be gored if they hit Wal­ly. Good ole boy in­deed. I reck­on he’ll good ole boy them so fast they won’t have time to shit them­selves.’

Chapter 9

For five days Wilt wan­dered hap­pi­ly along lit­tle coun­try lanes, across fields, through woods, down bri­dle-​paths and be­side streams and rivers, do­ing what he had hoped to do: dis­cov­er a dif­fer­ent Eng­land re­mote from the traf­fic and ug­li­ness of big cities and the sort of life he led in Ip­ford. At mid­day he would stop at a pub and have a cou­ple of pints and a sand­wich and in the evening find some small ho­tel or B&B where he could get a square meal and a room for the night. The prices were rea­son­able and the food var­ied but he wasn’t look­ing for any­thing mod­ern or lux­uri­ous and the peo­ple were friend­ly and help­ful. In any case, he was al­ways so tired–he’d nev­er done so much walk­ing in his life be­fore–that he didn’t care whether a bed was com­fort­able or not. And when one land­la­dy in­sist­ed rather un­pleas­ant­ly that he take his mud­dy boots off and not make a mess of her car­pets, he wasn’t both­ered. Nor did he ev­er feel lone­ly. He’d come away to be alone, and apart from a few old men in pubs who struck up con­ver­sa­tions with him and asked him where he was head­ing, and were puz­zled when he replied that he had no idea, he spoke to hard­ly any­one. And the fact was that he re­al­ly had no idea where he was or where he was go­ing. He de­lib­er­ate­ly didn’t want to know. It was enough to lean on a five-​bar gate and watch a farmer on a trac­tor mow­ing hay, or to sit by a riv­er in the sun­shine and stare at the wa­ter drift­ing by. Once he glimpsed a dark shape glide through the grass on the far bank and dis­ap­pear in­to the riv­er, and sup­posed it must be an ot­ter. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, when he had had rather more than his usu­al two pints of beer for lunch, he would find a shel­tered spot be­hind a hedge and, hav­ing made sure there were no cat­tle in the field (he was par­tic­ular­ly wor­ried about meet­ing a bull), he would lean his head against the knap­sack and snooze for half an hour be­fore go­ing on. There was nev­er any need to hur­ry; he could take all the time in the world be­cause he was go­ing nowhere.

So it con­tin­ued un­til on the sixth day the weath­er turned nasty in the late af­ter­noon. The land­scape had changed too and Wilt found him­self cross­ing a stretch of spongy heath land with marshy ar­eas he had to avoid. Sev­er­al miles ahead there were some low hills but the empti­ness and si­lence of the place had some­thing faint­ly omi­nous about it and for the first time he be­gan to feel faint­ly un­easy. It was al­most as though he was be­ing fol­lowed but when he looked back, as he did ev­ery now and then, there was noth­ing men­ac­ing in sight and no cov­er for any­thing to hide in. All the same the si­lence op­pressed him and he hur­ried on. And then it be­gan to rain. Thun­der rum­bled over the wood­ed hill­side be­hind him and oc­ca­sion­al­ly he caught a flash of light­ning. The rain be­gan to lash down, the light­ning grew clos­er and Wilt got out his anorak and wished it lived up to its mak­er’s promise that it was wa­ter­proof. Short­ly af­ter­wards he blun­dered in­to a wa­ter­logged area where he slipped and sat down in the mud­dy wa­ter with a squelch. Wet and mis­er­able he hur­ried on still faster, con­scious that the light­ning was now very close. By this time he was near to the low rise be­yond which he could see the tops of trees. Once there he would at least find some shel­ter. It took him half an hour and by then he was wet through, wet and cold and thor­ough­ly un­com­fort­able. He was al­so hun­gry. For once he had failed to find a pub and have some lunch. Fi­nal­ly he was in the wood and had slumped down against the trunk of an old oak tree. The crash of light­ning and the roll of thun­der were the clos­est he had ev­er been to a storm and he was frankly fright­ened. He rum­maged in his knap­sack and found the bot­tle of Scotch he’d brought for emer­gen­cies. And in Wilt’s opin­ion his present sit­ua­tion def­inite­ly came in­to the cat­ego­ry of an emer­gen­cy. Above him the dark­en­ing sky was made dark­er still by the clouds, and the wood it­self was a dark one. Wilt swigged from the bot­tle, felt bet­ter and swigged again. On­ly then did it oc­cur to him that shel­ter­ing un­der a tree was the worst thing to do in a thun­der­storm. He no longer cared. He was not go­ing back to that eerie heath with its bogs and wa­ter­logged pools.

By the time he’d swigged sev­er­al more times from the bot­tle he was feel­ing al­most philo­soph­ical. Af­ter all, if one came on a walk­ing tour to nowhere in par­tic­ular and with­out re­al­ly ad­equate prepa­ra­tions, one had to ex­pect these sud­den changes in the weath­er. And the storm was pass­ing. The wind was be­gin­ning to fall. The branch­es of the trees above him no longer thrashed around and the light­ning and thun­der had moved on. Wilt count­ed the sec­onds be­tween the flash and the thun­der. Some­one had once told him each sec­ond rep­re­sent­ed one mile. Wilt drank some more to cel­ebrate the fact that by that cal­cu­la­tion the eye of the storm was six miles away. But still the rain con­tin­ued. Even un­der the oak it ran down his face. Wilt no longer cared. Fi­nal­ly, when the sec­onds be­tween flash and crash had reached ten, he put the bot­tle away in the knap­sack and got to his feet. He had to push on. He couldn’t spend the night in the wood or, if he did, he’d be like­ly to go down with a bout of pneu­mo­nia. It was on­ly when he’d man­aged to get the knap­sack on his back–and this took some do­ing–and he took a few steps for­ward, that he re­alised how drunk he was. Drink­ing neat whisky on an emp­ty stom­ach hadn’t been at all sen­si­ble. Wilt tried to see what time it was but it was too dark to see the face of his watch. Af­ter half an hour dur­ing which he had twice fall­en over logs, he sat down again and got out the bot­tle. If he was go­ing to spend the night soaked to the skin in the mid­dle of some be­night­ed wood he might as well get thor­ough­ly pissed. Then to his sur­prise he saw the lights of a ve­hi­cle through the trees to his left. It was a good dis­tance away but at least it in­di­cat­ed that civil­isa­tion in the shape of a road ex­ist­ed down there. Wilt had be­gun to val­ue civil­isa­tion. He stuffed the bot­tle in­to the pock­et of the anorak and set off again. He had to reach that road and be near peo­ple. He no longer cared if he couldn’t find a vil­lage. A barn or even a pigsty would do as well as a B&B. Just some­where to lie down and sleep was enough for him now and in the morn­ing he would be able to see where he was go­ing. For the mo­ment it was im­pos­si­ble. Weav­ing his way down­hill he banged in­to trees and blun­dered through brack­en but he made progress. Then sud­den­ly his foot caught in the root of a thorn tree and he was falling head first in­to space. For a mo­ment his knap­sack, caught in the thorn, al­most stopped his progress. Wilt con­tin­ued falling, land­ed on his head in the back of Bert Ad­dle’s pick-​up and passed out. It was Thurs­day night.

Across the lane and a field, Bert Ad­dle was watch­ing Mel­drum Manor from the gate to the walled gar­den. He had driv­en down in a pick-​up he’d bor­rowed from a mate who’d gone to Ibiza for a spree of drugs and booze and, if he had any en­er­gy left, some sex and a few fights. Bert was be­gin­ning to won­der if the lights in the house would ev­er go out and the bas­tard Bat­tle­by and Mrs Rot­te­combe go off to the Coun­try Club. All he had to do now was get the keys from the beam in the barn and let him­self in through the kitchen door when Bat­tle­by left. Fi­nal­ly at 10.45 the lights went out and he saw the cou­ple shut the back door and drive off. Bert wait­ed to make sure they’d had enough time to get to the Coun­try Club. He’d al­ready put on a pair of sur­gi­cal gloves and half an hour lat­er he was in­side the kitchen and us­ing his torch up­stairs to find the cup­board in the pas­sage op­po­site the bed­room. It was pre­cise­ly where Martha had told him and in it were the things he need­ed. He went down­stairs with them and found the plas­tic garbage bin in the kitchen. He pulled it away from the sink, and put some oily rags and a gum­boot he’d brought with him in it. ‘There’s got to be plen­ty of smoke to at­tract the Fire Brigade,’ Aunt Martha had told him and Bert meant to see that she got what she want­ed. The gum­boot would smoke and smell to high heav­en as well. But first he had to move the Range Rover out of the yard and put the porno mags and some of the oth­er S&M equip­ment in the front seat. That done and the Range Rover’s doors locked he re­turned to the kitchen and lit the oily rag. As it be­gan to smoul­der he went out through the back door, took the keys out of his pock­et and locked it. He whipped across the yard in­to the barn and put them back on the beam. Then he was run­ning back to the pick-​up, threw the hood and two whips and a cou­ple of porn mag­azines in­to the back and drove up the lane to the road a mile be­yond. His next vis­it had to be Ley­line Lodge. The Rot­te­combes’ house was two miles fur­ther on and con­ve­nient­ly se­clud­ed. No lights were on. Bert drove on, stopped, got out and reached over the back to get the whips and hood and was hor­ri­fied to feel Wilt’s leg. For a mo­ment he ques­tioned his own find­ings. A man ly­ing in the back of the pick-​up? When had the bas­tard got in? Must have been in the lane. Bert wasn’t wast­ing any more time. He threw the S&M gear in­to the back garage, let down the back of the pick-​up and hauled Wilt out with a thump on to the con­crete floor. Then he was in the driv­er’s seat and had left Ley­line Lodge in a hur­ry. It was a wise move.

At Mel­drum Manor Mrs Mead­ows’s hopes that smoke would at­tract the at­ten­tion of the Fire Brigade had ex­ceed­ed her wildest dreams. They’d ex­ceed­ed her worst fears as well. She had failed to take the Fil­ipino maid’s ex­trav­agant taste in ex­ot­ic and ex­treme­ly pun­gent air fresh­en­ers, and Bat­tle­by’s de­tes­ta­tion of them, in­to ac­count. The pre­vi­ous morn­ing he had hurled six pres­surised cans of Jas­mine Flow­er, Rose Blos­som and Ori­en­tal Splen­dour in­to the garbage bin and told her nev­er to get any more. As a re­sult of Bert Ad­dle’s ac­tiv­ities they wouldn’t be need­ed. The smoke he had found so sat­is­fy­ing when the gum­boot be­gan to smoul­der had slow­ly but sure­ly turned in­to a rag­ing fire. By the time it had reached the pres­surised cans the Ori­en­tal Splen­dour lived up to its name and ex­plod­ed. The oth­er cans fol­lowed suit. With a roar that hurled flam­ing plas­tic across the kitchen and blew out the win­dows they an­nounced to Mel­drum Slocum that the Manor was on fire.

In her cot­tage Martha Mead­ows was busi­ly pro­vid­ing her­self with an al­ibi. She’d spent the ear­li­er part of the evening as usu­al in the Mel­drum Arms and had then in­vit­ed Mr and Mrs Sawlie round for a spot of sloe gin she’d made the win­ter be­fore. They were sit­ting com­fort­ably in front of the tel­ly when the cans ex­plod­ed.

‘Some­one’s car has back­fired,’ said Mrs Sawlie.

‘Sound­ed more like a grenade to me,’ said her hus­band. Mr Sawlie had been in the War. Five min­utes lat­er the over­heat­ed gas bot­tle for the kitchen stove reached burst­ing point. This time there could be no doubt that some­thing close­ly re­sem­bling a bomb had gone off. A red glow in the di­rec­tion of the Manor was fol­lowed by flames.

‘Gawd help us,’ said Mr Sawlie. ‘The Manor’s on fire. Best call the Fire Brigade.’

There was no need. In the dis­tance came the sound of Fire En­gines. The Sawlies crowd­ed out in­to the street to watch the blaze. Be­hind them Martha Mead­ows helped her­self to a very large sloe gin. What if Bert had got him­self killed? She gulped down the gin and prayed.

Chapter 10

At Mel­drum Manor the fire­men fought the blaze in vain. The fire had spread from the kitchen to the rest of the house and they had been de­layed by the Range Rover in the gate of the back yard. In the end they had been forced to break a side win­dow to un­lock the door and the car alarm had gone off. More de­lay and the dis­cov­ery of the S&M mags and equip­ment on the front seat. By the time the po­lice ar­rived the source of the fire had been dis­cov­ered.

‘As clear a case of ar­son as I’ve ev­er seen,’ the Fire Chief told the Su­per­in­ten­dent when he ar­rived. ‘Not a shred of doubt about it, not in my mind at any rate. The in­ves­ti­ga­tors will get the full ev­idence. Plas­tic dust­bin in the mid­dle of the room and a wall cup­board full of spray cans. The bloke must have been mad to think he could get away with it.’

‘There’s no chance it could have been an ac­ci­dent?’

‘All the doors locked and the win­dows blown out­wards and it’s an ac­ci­dent? Not on your nel­ly.’

‘The win­dows blown out­wards?’

‘Like a bomb went off. And some peo­ple in the vil­lage saw the fire­ball. Be­sides, who­ev­er set this lit­tle lot go­ing, had a key to the house. Like I said the bloke had to be mad or drunk.’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent was think­ing the same thing on­ly more so. Mad and drunk.

‘And take a dekko at what’s in the Range Rover,’ said the Fire Chief. They went down to the road and looked at the mag­azines on the front seat. ‘I’ve seen some filth in my time–peo­ple keep some pret­ty foul porn in their hous­es–but nev­er any­thing like this. Bloke ought to be pros­ecut­ed. Not my busi­ness, of course.’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent looked at the mag­azines and agreed about pros­ecut­ing. He had in mind a charge of be­ing in Pos­ses­sion of Ob­scene Ma­te­ri­al. He didn’t like porn at the best of times but when it in­volved sadism and lit­tle chil­dren he was sav­age. He didn’t like leather straps and hand­cuffs ei­ther.

‘You didn’t touch any­thing?’ he asked.

‘Wouldn’t if you paid me. I’ve got kids of my own, least­ways my daugh­ters have. I’d flog the bas­tards who do that sort of thing.’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent agreed. He’d nev­er seen porn as foul as this lot. In any case, he didn’t like Bob Bat­tle­by one lit­tle bit. The man had a rot­ten rep­uta­tion and a vile tem­per. And the clear in­di­ca­tion of ar­son was very in­ter­est­ing in­deed. Ru­mour had it that Bat­tle­by had lost a small for­tune gam­bling on the stock mar­ket and had been liv­ing off cash the Gen­er­al’s wife had left him. He’d have to look in­to Bat­tle­by’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion. There was talk that he was seen too of­ten in the com­pa­ny of the lo­cal MP’s wife, Ruth Rot­te­combe, and the Su­per­in­ten­dent didn’t like her one lit­tle bit ei­ther. On the oth­er hand, the Bat­tle­bys had in­flu­ence–and Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, par­tic­ular­ly Shad­ow Min­is­ters and their wives, had to be han­dled with kid gloves. He looked at the gag and the hand­cuffs and shook his head. There were some re­al weirdos and swine in the world.

On the road in front of the house Bob Bat­tle­by stared in dis­be­lief at the smoul­der­ing shell that had been the fam­ily home for over two hun­dred years. The news that the Manor was on fire had reached him at the Coun­try Club and, be­ing even drunk­er than usu­al, he had greet­ed it with dis­be­lief. The Club Sec­re­tary had to be jok­ing.

‘Pull the oth­er one. It can’t be. There’s no one there.’

‘You had bet­ter speak to the Fire Brigade your­self,’ the Sec­re­tary told him. He dis­liked Bat­tle­by when he was sober. The man was an ar­ro­gant snob and in­vari­ably rude. When he was drunk and had lost mon­ey in a game of pok­er he was in­finite­ly worse.

‘You had bet­ter be right, bloody right,’ Bat­tle­by told him threat­en­ing­ly. ‘If this is a false alarm, I’ll see you get the fuck­ing sack and…’

But what­ev­er he’d meant to say was left un­said. He slumped in­to a chair and dropped his glass. Mrs Rot­te­combe took the call in the Sec­re­tary’s of­fice and heard the news of the fire ap­par­ent­ly with­out emo­tion. She was a hard wom­an and her as­so­ci­ation with Bob Bat­tle­by was based sole­ly on self-​in­ter­est.

In spite of his drink­ing and his gen­er­al ar­ro­gance he was so­cial­ly use­ful. He was a Bat­tle­by and the fam­ily name count­ed a great deal when it came to votes. In­flu­ence and pow­er mat­tered to Ruth Rot­te­combe. She had mar­ried Harold Rot­te­combe short­ly af­ter he was first elect­ed to Par­lia­ment and she had sensed he was an am­bi­tious man who on­ly need­ed a strong wom­an be­hind him to suc­ceed. Ruth saw her­self as just such a wom­an. She did what had to be done and had no scru­ples. Self-​preser­va­tion came first in her mind and sex didn’t come in­to her mar­riage. She’d had enough sex in her younger days. Pow­er was all that mat­tered now. Be­sides, Harold was away in West­min­ster all week and she was sure he had his own pe­cu­liar sex­ual in­cli­na­tions. What was im­por­tant was that he kept his safe seat in Par­lia­ment and re­mained a Shad­ow Min­is­ter and, if that meant keep­ing in with Bob Bat­tle­by and sat­is­fy­ing his sa­do-​masochis­tic fan­tasies by ty­ing him up and whip­ping him on Thurs­day nights, she was per­fect­ly pre­pared to do it. In fact, she got con­sid­er­able sat­is­fac­tion from the act. It was bet­ter than stay­ing at home and be­ing bored to death by all the inane ac­tiv­ities like hunt­ing and shoot­ing and at­tend­ing bridge par­ties and cof­fee morn­ings and talk­ing about gar­den­ing that coun­try life seemed to in­volve. So she took her two bull ter­ri­ers for walks and was care­ful not to dress too smart­ly. And by act­ing as Bob’s driv­er and min­der she sup­posed his fam­ily must be grate­ful to her. Not that she had any il­lu­sions about what they re­al­ly thought of her. As she put it to her­self, they owed her, and one day when she was safe­ly in­stalled in Lon­don and the Gov­ern­ment had a re­al­ly sol­id ma­jor­ity she would see to it that they paid her back with due def­er­ence.

But now as she put the phone down she had the feel­ing that a cri­sis was loom­ing. If Bob, through some act of drunk­en care­less­ness like leav­ing a pan on the stove, had set the Manor on fire, there would be hell to pay. She left the of­fice thought­ful­ly and went back to him.

‘I’m sor­ry, Bob, but it is true. The house is on fire. We’d bet­ter go.’

‘On fire? Can’t bloody be. It’s a list­ed build­ing. Built two hun­dred years ago. Hous­es that old don’t catch fire. Not like the mod­ern rub­bish they put up nowa­days.’

Mrs Rot­te­combe ig­nored the im­plied in­sult to her own house and with the Club Sec­re­tary’s help got him up from the chair and out to her Vol­vo es­tate.

It was on­ly now as he stood sway­ing in the road­way sur­round­ed by fire hoses and stared at the smok­ing shell of the beau­ti­ful house–fires were burn­ing in the in­te­ri­or and be­ing doused by the fire­men when they flared up again–that some sense of re­al­ity re­turned to Beast­ly Bat­tle­by.

‘Oh God, what are the fam­ily go­ing to say?’ he whined. ‘I mean, the fam­ily por­traits and ev­ery­thing. Two Gains­bor­oughs and a Con­sta­ble. And the fuck­ing fur­ni­ture. Oh shit! And they weren’t in­sured.’

He was ei­ther sweat­ing pro­fuse­ly or weep­ing. It was dif­fi­cult in the dim light to tell which. He was still drunk and maudlin. Mrs Rot­te­combe said noth­ing. She had de­spised him be­fore; now she had noth­ing but ut­ter con­tempt. She should nev­er have as­so­ci­at­ed with the wimp.

‘It was prob­ably the wiring,’ she said fi­nal­ly. ‘When did you have it rewired last?’

‘Rewired? I don’t know. Twelve or thir­teen years ago. Some­thing like that. Noth­ing wrong with the bloody wiring.’

They were in­ter­rupt­ed by the po­lice Su­per­in­ten­dent.

‘A ter­ri­ble tragedy, Mr Bat­tle­by. A trag­ic loss.’

Bat­tle­by turned and looked at him bel­liger­ent­ly. A sud­den flare-​up in what had been the li­brary il­lu­mi­nat­ed his suf­fused face.

‘What’s it got to do with you? Not your bloody loss,’ he said.

‘Not mine per­son­al­ly, no, sir. I meant for you and the coun­ty, sir.’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent’s def­er­ence was tinged with hid­den anger. He would lard his ques­tions with ’sirs’ and take his time. No need to get up Mrs Rot­te­combe’s nose. On the oth­er hand, now was the time to see Bat­tle­by’s re­ac­tion to the filth in the Range Rover.

‘I won­der if you’d mind step­ping round to the back, sir?’

‘What the hell for? Why don’t you just bug­ger off. It’s not your fuck­ing house.’

Mrs Rot­te­combe in­ter­vened. ‘Now, Bob, the In­spec­tor is on­ly try­ing to help.’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent ig­nored his de­mo­tion. ‘It’s a ques­tion of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, sir,’ he said and watched care­ful­ly.

Mrs Rot­te­combe was shocked but the drunk­en Bat­tle­by mis­un­der­stood. ‘What the fuck! You know me al­ready. Known me for bloody years.’

‘Not you, sir,’ the Su­per­in­ten­dent said and paused sig­nif­icant­ly. ‘There’s some­thing else.’

‘Some­thing else, Chief Su­per­in­ten­dent?’ Mrs Rot­te­combe cor­rect­ed her pre­vi­ous mis­take. There was gen­uine anx­iety in her voice now.

The Su­per­in­ten­dent took ad­van­tage of it. He nod­ded slow­ly and added, ‘A bad busi­ness, I’m afraid. Not at all pleas­ant.’

‘Sure­ly not some­one dead…’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent didn’t re­ply. He led the way round to the Range Rover, step­ping over hose-​pipes and with the acrid smell of smoke in their nos­trils. Bat­tle­by stum­bled af­ter them. Mrs Rot­te­combe wasn’t help­ing him now. The smell and the Su­per­in­ten­dent’s sin­is­ter em­pha­sis was play­ing on her imag­ina­tion. In the dark­ness the Range Rover might have been an am­bu­lance. Sev­er­al po­lice­men stood near­by. On­ly when they got clos­er did she see it was Bob’s ve­hi­cle. So did he and protest­ed.

‘What the dev­il’s it do­ing out here?’ he de­mand­ed.

The Su­per­in­ten­dent an­swered with his own ques­tion. ‘I as­sume you al­ways keep it locked, sir?’

‘Of course I do. I’m not a damned fool. Don’t want it stolen, do I?’

‘And you locked it tonight, sir?’

‘What do you think? Ask­ing dumb ques­tions like that,’ said Bat­tle­by. ‘Of course I locked it.’

‘Just mak­ing sure, sir. You see, the fire­men had to break the side win­dow to move it out in­to the road, sir.’ There could be no mis­tak­ing the pur­pose of the re­peat­ed ’sir’, at least not for Mrs Rot­te­combe. It was in­tend­ed to pro­voke and it suc­ceed­ed.

‘What the fuck did they do that for? That’s break­ing and en­ter­ing. They had no right to–’

‘Be­cause you had locked it, sir, as you have just ad­mit­ted. The fire en­gines couldn’t get in­to the yard, sir,’ said the Su­per­in­ten­dent. More provo­ca­tion. He said it slow­ly as though ex­plain­ing the mat­ter to a back­ward child. ‘And now, sir, if you’d be so good as to give me the keys I’ll–’

But Bat­tle­by had been bait­ed far enough. ‘Oh, fuck off, cop­per,’ he said, ‘and mind your own busi­ness. My bloody house burns to the ground and all you want to do is–’

‘Give him the keys, Bob,’ said Mrs Rot­te­combe firm­ly. Bat­tle­by swore again and groped in his pock­ets and fi­nal­ly found them. He tossed them to­wards the Su­per­in­ten­dent who picked them off the ground and made a show of un­lock­ing the door on the pas­sen­ger’s side.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir, I’d like you to look at this ma­te­ri­al, sir,’ he said, block­ing Mrs Rot­te­combe’s view and switch­ing on the in­te­ri­or light. Ly­ing on the seat be­side the gag and the hand­cuffs were the mag­azines. The Su­per­in­ten­dent stood back and let Bat­tle­by see them. For a mo­ment he gaped at them.

‘Who the fuck put them there?’

‘I was hop­ing you could tell me that, sir,’ said the Su­per­in­ten­dent and moved away so that Mrs Rot­te­combe could see the col­lec­tion. Her re­ac­tion was more in­for­ma­tive. It was al­so more cal­cu­lat­ed.

‘Oh, Bob, how re­volt­ing! Where on earth did you buy that filth?’

Bat­tle­by turned his bloat­ed face on her livid­ly. ‘Where did I buy it? I didn’t buy it any­where. I don’t know what it’s do­ing there.’

‘Are you say­ing some­one gave it to you, sir? If so, would mind telling me who–’

‘No, I’m fuck­ing not,’ Bat­tle­by shout­ed, to­tal­ly los­ing con­trol of his tem­per. Mrs Rot­te­combe backed away from him. She knew now that she had to dis­tance her­self from him. Be­ing the friend of a man who had pic­tures of chil­dren be­ing raped and tor­tured was the last thing she need­ed. Ty­ing Bob up and whip­ping him was one thing but sadis­tic pae­dophil­ia…And the po­lice were def­inite­ly in­volved now. She want­ed out. The Su­per­in­ten­dent took a step clos­er to Bat­tle­by and peered in­to his pur­ple face and blood­shot eyes.

‘If you didn’t buy this ma­te­ri­al and no one gave it to you, just tell me how it hap­pens to be in your car, your locked car, sir. You tell me that. You’re not sug­gest­ing it got in there by it­self, are you, sir?’

There was no doubt­ing his sar­casm now. This was in­ter­ro­ga­tion prop­er. Mrs Rot­te­combe made an at­tempt to get away.

‘If you don’t mind…’ she be­gan but the Su­per­in­ten­dent’s tac­tics had achieved the ob­ject he had been hop­ing for. Bat­tle­by took a drunk­en swing at his face. The Su­per­in­ten­dent made no at­tempt to dodge the blow; it struck him full on the nose and blood ran down his chin. He was al­most smil­ing. The next mo­ment Bat­tle­by’s arms were be­hind his back, he was hand­cuffed and a large Sergeant was frog­march­ing him to a po­lice car.

‘I think we had bet­ter con­tin­ue this in­ter­view in a calmer at­mo­sphere,’ said the Su­per­in­ten­dent, not both­er­ing to wipe the blood from his face. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to ac­com­pa­ny us too, Mrs Rot­te­combe. I know it’s very late but we’ll need a state­ment from you. It’s not just a case of as­sault­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer in the course of his du­ty. There’s Pos­ses­sion of Ob­scene Ma­te­ri­al un­der the Act as well. You were a wit­ness to ev­ery­thing that oc­curred. And there is an­oth­er mat­ter, pos­si­bly a more se­ri­ous one.’

Mrs Rot­te­combe crossed to her Vol­vo and fol­lowed the po­lice cars to the po­lice sta­tion in Os­ton in a state of con­trolled fury. Bob Bat­tle­by was go­ing to get no help from her.

Chapter 11

‘You’re not go­ing to like this, Flint,’ Su­per­in­ten­dent Hodge of the Drug Squad in Ip­ford said with all the glee of a man who was fi­nal­ly be­ing proved right, and that at the ex­pense of a man he thor­ough­ly dis­liked. He set­tled his back­side on the edge of In­spec­tor Flint’s desk to em­pha­sise the point.

‘Don’t see how I am,’ said Flint. ‘Don’t tell me they’re putting you back on the beat. I mean, that would re­al­ly hurt me.’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent smiled nas­ti­ly. ‘Re­mem­ber what you told me about Wilt not be­ing in­to drugs? Said the blighter wasn’t that sort. Well, I’ve got news for you. The Drug En­force­ment Agen­cy in the States has faxed an in­quiry on Mrs Wilt in a drug-​deal­ing con­nec­tion. What do you say to that?’

‘I’d say you’d picked up some fan­cy transat­lantic lan­guage. Been see­ing too many old movies, have you? The Wilt Con­nec­tion. You’ve got to be jok­ing.’

‘They are re­quest­ing in­for­ma­tion about Mrs Eva Wilt, ad­dress 45 Oakhurst Av­enue–’

‘I know where the Wilts live, don’t I just,’ said Flint. ‘But if you are try­ing to tell me that Eva Wilt is in­to drug push­ing you’re clean round the twist. That wom­an is a lead­ing an­tidrug cam­paign­er like she’s a lead­ing cam­paign­er for ev­ery­thing else from Save the Whales to stop­ping the TV ca­ble com­pa­ny from dig­ging holes along Oakhurst Av­enue be­cause it hurts the cher­ry trees and they are part of the Ip­ford Rain­for­est. Pull the oth­er one.’

Hodge ig­nored the crack. ‘Of course she’s a lead­ing an­tidrug cam­paign­er. Gives her splen­did cov­er State­side.’

In­spec­tor Flint sighed. Re­al­ly, Su­per­in­ten­dent Hodge was get­ting to be a big­ger fool the more he was pro­mot­ed.

‘Where are we now? _Ko­jak?_ You should watch some­thing a bit more up to date than that old stuff. Not that I mind. At least I can sort of un­der­stand what you’re talk­ing about.’

‘Very wit­ty, I’m sure,’ said Hodge. ‘So if she’s so clean how come they’re ask­ing for in­for­ma­tion?’

‘Don’t ask me what Yanks do. I’ve nev­er un­der­stood. Any­way, what rea­son did they give?’

‘Pre­sum­ably be­cause they have her un­der sus­pi­cion,’ said Hodge and moved off the desk. ‘Our Amer­ican con­frères don’t give rea­sons. All they’re do­ing is ask­ing. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

‘Be nice if some peo­ple could be­gin to,’ said Flint when the door closed be­hind the Su­per­in­ten­dent. ‘And what was all that con­frères busi­ness about?’

‘I think he was just try­ing to show he can speak a bit of French as well as Amer­ican,’ said Sergeant Yates. ‘Though what a con­frère is, I’m blowed if I know.’

‘Means the cunt of my broth­er,’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘But men don’t have cunts.’

‘I know that, Sergeant, but try telling that to Hodge. He is one.’

He went back to more ur­gent cas­es than Eva Wilt push­ing drugs on­ly to be in­ter­rupt­ed by Sergeant Yates.

‘Beats me how he ev­er got back in­to the Drug Squad af­ter he fouled up the last time. Pro­mot­ed to Su­per­in­ten­dent too.’

‘Think sex, Yates, think sex, and in­flu­ence and wed­ding bells. Mar­ried the ugli­est wom­an in Ip­ford like the May­or’s sis­ter. That’s how. I thought even you knew that. Now let me get on with some work.’

‘The slimy shit,’ said the Sergeant and left the of­fice.

In Wilma, Sher­iff Stal­lard’s at­ti­tude to­wards the DEA agents was much the same. ‘They’ve got to be crazy,’ he told his Deputy over cof­fee in the lo­cal drug­store when Bax­ter re­port­ed that five more agents had booked in­to a near­by mo­tel and that there was al­ready a tap on Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s phone line. ‘He’ll raise Cain when he gets to know.’

‘Bug­ging the house is the next phase,’ said Bax­ter. ‘They’re mov­ing in at the week­end when he’s go­ing up to the lake house.’

The Sher­iff made a men­tal note to be out of town over the week­end. He wasn’t go­ing to take the rap for bug­ging Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s man­sion or even know­ing about it. He’d vis­it his moth­er down in Birm­ing­ham in the nurs­ing home.

‘You don’t know noth­ing about this, Bax­ter,’ he said. ‘You haven’t told me and they nev­er told you. We could be in deep shit if we don’t take good care of our­selves. You got any­one could do with ar­rest­ing on Sat­ur­day?’

‘Sat­ur­day? There’s that punk up Rose­lea beats the shit out of his wife Fri­day nights.’

‘Need some­one bet­ter than that,’ the Sher­iff told him. ‘How about pick­ing up Hank Ve­blen for the bur­glar­is­ing job he did last month and grilling him all Sat­ur­day Sun­day. Keep you busy do­ing that.’

‘Yeah, I reck­on Hank could do with some ques­tion­ing,’ Bax­ter agreed. ‘But he’ll call his lawyer and get sprung too quick. He’s got an al­ibi.’

‘Got to be some­one in town needs grilling. Think about it, Herb. You’re go­ing to need an al­ibi your­self if those goons go in­to the Starfight­er with bugs.’

‘Bound to be trou­ble Sat­ur­day some­place. I’ll find a rea­son.’

Un­cle Wal­ly’s mind was work­ing along the same lines. The prospect of go­ing up to Lake Sas­saquassee with Eva and the four girls was not one that had the great­est ap­peal for him.

‘I tell you, Joanie, I got pre­mo­ni­tions about them. You told me they were re­al nice. Cute, you said. Well, cute they ain’t. Not my sort of cute. Four fuck­ing hell-​cats is what they are. That one called Pen­ny’s been round ask­ing ques­tions of May­belle and the rest of the help.’

‘What sort of ques­tions, hon­ey? I didn’t hear about that.’

‘Like what we pay her and does she get enough time off and do we treat her right?’

‘Oh, that. Eva told me they’d be in­ter­est­ed. They’ve been giv­en a school project on life in the US.’

‘School project? What sort of school is it wants to know what the min­imum wage is and do I screw her of­ten?’

Even Aun­tie Joan was shocked.

‘Wal­ly, she didn’t ask May­belle that? Oh, my God. May­belle’s a Dea­coness in her church and re­al re­li­gious. They go round ask­ing her things like that she’s go­ing to walk out on us.’

‘That’s what I’m telling you. And that’s not all. Rube says they want­ed to know how many gays there are in Wilma, what pro­por­tion of the town and if they’re black or white and liv­ing to­geth­er as mar­ried folk. In Wilma! That gets out it won’t just be May­belle leaves. I’ll be go­ing too.’

‘Oh Wal­ly,’ said Aun­tie Joan and sat down heav­ily on the bed. ‘What are we go­ing to do?’

Wal­ly gave the mat­ter some thought. ‘I guess we’d bet­ter go up the lake af­ter all. There’s no one they can ask any­thing of up there. And you tell that Eva she’s got to stop them be­fore it gets out what they’re do­ing. How many mixed cou­ples of gays in Wilma? Je­sus, that beats ev­ery­thing.’

It didn’t. That af­ter­noon Aun­tie Joan had in­vit­ed the Revd and Mrs Coop­er over with their daugh­ters to meet her nieces. The oc­ca­sion was not a suc­cess. The Rev­erend en­quired what they learnt about God at their school in Eng­land. Aun­tie Joan tried to in­ter­vene but it was no good. Saman­tha had summed the Revd Coop­er up on­ly too ac­cu­rate­ly.

‘God?’ she asked in a be­wil­dered tone of voice. ‘Who is God?’

It was the turn of the Revd Coop­er to look ut­ter­ly be­wil­dered. It was ob­vi­ous that no one had ev­er put such a ques­tion to him be­fore.

‘God? Well, I’d have to say…I’d have to say…’ he fal­tered.

Mrs Coop­er took up the prob­lem. ‘God is love,’ she said sanc­ti­mo­nious­ly.

The quads looked at her with new in­ter­est. This was go­ing to be fun.

‘Do you make God?’ Em­me­line asked.

‘Make God? Did you say ‘make God’?’ asked Mrs Coop­er.

Aun­tie Joan smiled bleak­ly. She didn’t know what was com­ing but she had an idea it wasn’t go­ing to make things eas­ier. In fact it made things ex­treme­ly un­pleas­ant.

‘You make love and if God is love you must make him,’ said Em­me­line with a seraph­ic smile. ‘Peo­ple wouldn’t ex­ist if you didn’t make love. That’s how ba­bies are made.’

Mrs Coop­er gazed at her in hor­ror. She couldn’t find any an­swer to that one.

The Revd Coop­er could. ‘Child,’ he said loud­ly and in­ju­di­cious­ly. ‘You know not of what you speak. Those are the words of Sa­tan. They are evil words.’

‘They aren’t. They’re sim­ple log­ic and log­ic isn’t evil. You said God is love and I said–’

‘We all heard what you said,’ Eva said, drown­ing out the Revd Coop­er. ‘And we don’t want to hear any more from you. Do you un­der­stand that, Em­my?’

‘Yes, Mum­my,’ said Em­me­line. ‘But I still don’t un­der­stand what God is.’

There was a long si­lence bro­ken by Aun­tie Joan who want­ed to know if any­one would like some more iced tea. The Revd Coop­er silent­ly prayed for guid­ance. The phrase ‘out of the mouths of babes and suck­lings’ didn’t ap­ply. These four hor­ri­ble girls weren’t babes or suck­lings. All the same he had his mis­sion to pur­sue.

‘It says in the Bible that God cre­at­ed the heav­en and the earth. Gen­esis 1:1. We are all the chil­dren of God–’ he be­gan. Josephine in­ter­rupt­ed. ‘It must have made a ter­ri­ble noise, the Big Bang,’ she said, giv­ing the word ‘bang’ a dis­tinct­ly pe­cu­liar but un­mis­tak­ably lu­bri­cious em­pha­sis.

Eva had had enough. ‘Go to your room at once!’ she shout­ed as wrath­ful­ly as the Revd Coop­er felt.

‘I’m on­ly try­ing to find out what God is,’ said Josephine meek­ly.

Mrs Coop­er strug­gled with con­flict­ing feel­ings and de­cid­ed that South­ern hos­pi­tal­ity should pre­vail. ‘Oh, it’s quite all right,’ she cooed. ‘I guess we all need to learn the truth.’

Eva doubt­ed it. Aun­tie Joan clear­ly didn’t look as if she need­ed any more truth. A slug of liquor more like. Eva wasn’t risk­ing her hav­ing a stroke.

‘I’m sor­ry,’ she said to the Coop­ers, ‘but they must go to their room. I’m not hav­ing any more rude­ness from them.’

The quads filed out grum­bling.

‘I guess you have a dif­fer­ent sys­tem of ed­uca­tion in Eng­land,’ said the Revd Coop­er when they had gone. ‘And I heard they have re­li­gious ser­vice in school first thing ev­ery morn­ing. Seems they don’t give them Bible read­ing or any­thing.’

‘It isn’t easy bring­ing four girls the same age up all to­geth­er,’ said Eva, in a des­per­ate at­tempt to sal­vage some­thing from the dis­as­ter. ‘We have nev­er been able to af­ford a nan­ny or any­thing like that.’

‘Oh, you poor things,’ said Mrs Coop­er. ‘My, how dread­ful. You mean to say you all don’t have ser­vants in Eng­land? I wouldn’t have be­lieved it af­ter see­ing all those films with but­lers and cas­tles and all.’ She turned to Aun­tie Joan. ‘I guess you were lucky hav­ing the dad­dy you had, Joanie. A Lord who stayed with the Queen at San­drin…that house you told me about where they go duck hunt­ing. Why he’d just be bound to have a but­ler open the door for him and all. What was the name of the but­ler, you know the one who was so fat and drank port wine you told us about at the coun­try club that time San­dra and Al had their sil­ver an­niver­sary?’

A strange, chok­ing sound from Aun­tie Joan sug­gest­ed that her con­di­tion had wors­ened. The af­ter­noon was not a suc­cess. That evening Eva tried to put her fourth call through to Wilt. There was no an­swer. Eva went to bed that night and hard­ly slept. She knew now she should nev­er have come. Wal­ly and Aun­tie Joan knew that too.

‘We’d bet­ter go up to the lake to­mor­row,’ he said help­ing him­self to four fin­gers of bour­bon. ‘Get them out of the way.’

But as the quads were go­ing to bed Josephine found what Sol Campi­to had pushed among the things in her hand lug­gage. It was a small sealed gela­tine cylin­der and she didn’t like the look of it. The oth­er girls didn’t like the look of it ei­ther and swore they hadn’t put it there.

‘It could be some­thing dan­ger­ous,’ said Pene­lope.

‘Like what?’ asked Em­me­line.

‘Like a bomb.’

‘It’s too small for a bomb. And it’s too soft. When you squeeze it–’

‘Then don’t. It might burst and we don’t know what is in it.’

‘What­ev­er it is I don’t want it,’ said Josephine.

No­body want­ed it. In the end they threw it out the win­dow where it land­ed in the swim­ming-​pool.

‘Now if it’s a bomb it won’t do any harm,’ said Em­me­line.

‘Un­less Un­cle Wal­ly’s tak­ing his ear­ly-​morn­ing dip. He could be blown up.’

‘Serve him right. He’s a big mouth,’ said Saman­tha.

Chapter 12

By the time Ruth Rot­te­combe got to bed it was af­ter 7 a.m. Her night had been an ex­ceed­ing­ly un­pleas­ant one. The po­lice sta­tion at Os­ton was not a new one and while it might have held some quaint charm for old lags, it had held none what­so­ev­er for Mrs Rot­te­combe. For one thing it smelt and the smells were all hor­ri­ble and re­volt­ing­ly un­hy­gien­ic. To­bac­co smoke min­gled with the var­ious foul by-​prod­ucts of far too many beers and too much fear and sweat. Even the Su­per­in­ten­dent’s at­ti­tude had changed once they were in­side. His nose hadn’t stopped bleed­ing and the po­lice sur­geon sum­moned from his bed to take blood from a man who had failed the breathal­yser test was of the opin­ion that it might well have been bro­ken. The Su­per­in­ten­dent greet­ed this piece of in­for­ma­tion by ig­nor­ing Mrs Rot­te­combe’s pres­ence and giv­ing vent to his feel­ings about ‘that drunk­en bas­tard, Bat­tle­by’ in sev­er­al words of four let­ters. He al­so ex­pressed his be­lief that the drunk­en swine had in all like­li­hood burnt his own house down for the in­sur­ance mon­ey.

‘Doubt?’ he had said with a muf­fled snarl through the blood­stained hand­ker­chief. ‘Doubt? Ask Rob­son, the Fire Chief. He’ll tell you. A plas­tic dust­bin in the mid­dle of the kitchen catch­es fire of its own ac­cord and all the doors locked? It’s as plain as the nose…ouch. Wait till I’ve had him for forty-​eight hours.’

At this point Mrs Rot­te­combe had asked faint­ly if she could sit down and the Su­per­in­ten­dent re­gained some slight com­po­sure. It wasn’t much. She might be the wife of the lo­cal MP but she was al­so the reg­ular as­so­ciate of a sus­pect­ed ar­son­ist and pae­dophile and the bas­tard who had bro­ken his nose. One thing was cer­tain, she wasn’t above the Law. He’d show her that.

‘You can go in there,’ he said gruffly, in­di­cat­ing the of­fice next door. Mrs Rot­te­combe then made the mis­take of ask­ing if she could use the toi­let.

‘Feel free,’ he said and point­ed down a pas­sage. Five ut­ter­ly hor­ri­fy­ing min­utes lat­er, she emerged ashen. She had vom­it­ed twice and it was on­ly by hold­ing her nose with one hand while sup­port­ing her­self against a wall smeared with exc­re­ta that she was able to avoid sit­ting down. Not that there was a seat but even if there had been she wouldn’t have dreamt of sit­ting on it. In any case the wa­ter-​clos­et didn’t live up to its name.

‘Are those the best toi­let fa­cil­ities you can pro­vide?’ she asked when she came back and in­stant­ly re­gret­ted it. The Su­per­in­ten­dent raised his head. He had stuffed his nos­trils with cot­ton wool and they were al­ready a hor­rid red. His eyes weren’t much pleas­an­ter.

‘I don’t pro­vide any fa­cil­ities,’ he said, sound­ing like a bad case of ade­noids in a foul tem­per. ‘The Lo­cal Au­thor­ity does. Ask your hus­band. Now then, about your move­ments this evening. I un­der­stand from the oth­er sus­pect that you ha­bit­ual­ly meet at the Coun­try Club ev­ery Thurs­day night and…Well, would you care to ex­plain your re­la­tion­ship with him?’

In the face of that ‘the oth­er sus­pect’ Mrs Rot­te­combe drew on her re­serves of ar­ro­gance. ‘What’s that got to do with you? I find the ques­tion high­ly ir­reg­ular,’ she said haugh­ti­ly.

The Su­per­in­ten­dent’s nos­trils flared. ‘And I find your re­la­tion­ship ir­reg­ular too, Mrs Rot­te­combe, not to say pe­cu­liar.’

Mrs Rot­te­combe stood up. ‘How dare you ad­dress me in that man­ner?’ she squawked. ‘Do you know who I am?’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent took a deep breath through his mouth and let it out with a snort through his nose. Two red blobs fell on to the blot­ter in front of him. He reached for some fresh cot­ton wool and took his time re­plac­ing them.

‘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 bas­tard. 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 as­sure 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 Slocum. A juicy sto­ry in­volv­ing ar­son and sex. 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 bitch. 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 fuck­ing 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 bitch. Go and see what you’ve land­ed us in this time. And you don’t need a fuck­ing 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 at­ti­tude.

‘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 fuck­ing dark,’ he shout­ed. ‘You pick up some poor bas­tard…Was that swine Bat­tle­by too drunk to sat­is­fy your sadis­tic needs so you find that bloke and…Dear God!’

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 hell 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 bas­tard 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 bug­ger to fuck 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 bug­ger and telling him to fuck 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 as­sault­ing 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 times–and this was one of them–when 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 quan­ti­ty 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 bitch’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 piss artist…Beat Me Bob­by and Ruth the Ruth­less. Oh, God. And you have to threat­en them with li­bel. What a bloody 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 as­so­ci­at­ed 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 porn 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 snatched 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 Cas­sidy 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 Slocum 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 Cas­sidy would present­ly at­tempt to climb. It was the per­fect set­ting for a high-​class sex­ual 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 Cas­sidy’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 con­tin­ued–they could be heard in Mel­drum Slocum–Mrs 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 thorny. 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 Slocum the im­mi­nence of death at Ley­line Lodge. Butch­er Cas­sidy 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 God’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 damned sight hard­er and Wil­fred hadn’t mind­ed that ei­ther. Butch­er’s kicks mere­ly tick­led him.

Hav­ing pro­vid­ed ev­idence that the re­porters had tres­passed 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 Cas­sidy’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 scro­tum 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 fuck­ing 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 bitch, lacked a scro­tum. 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 tetanus 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 tres­pass­ing. If you choose to tres­pass 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 tres­passed 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 fuck­ing 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 tres­pass and cru­el­ty to an­imals.’

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

‘Cru­el­ty to an­imals, you fuck­ing bitch,’ 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 fuck­ing 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 grass 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 damned 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 bitch. 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 con­stituen­cy and he’d be less like­ly to be recog­nised there. Against that it was a hell 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 grass 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 Slocum. 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 tres­passed 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 Cas­sidy and the Flash­gun Kid must have been com­plete­ly in­sane to go any­where near such fear­some dogs, and as for kick­ing the bitch…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 Sas­saquassee 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 space she’d in­sist­ed on his erect­ing an ex­treme­ly strong wire fence to make sure as hell 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 Pat­ton–they say he rode in­to bat­tle on it–and on all the way to Berlin. Well, not right to Berlin be­cause that Gen­er­al Mont­gomery chick­ened out tak­ing the city but it got pret­ty damn 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–’

‘Bar­be­cu­ing whats?’ Em­me­line asked.

‘Japs,’ said Un­cle Wal­ly proud­ly. ‘Shoots flame out the noz­zle here and zaps a guy and you got a turkey roast up and run­ning on the hoof. Those bas­tards were torched in their hun­dreds. And this here is a na­palm bomb. You know what na­palm is. It’s great stuff. Like cook­ing oil and jel­lo. You want a vil­lage fry-​up all you need do is drop one of those and–boom!–you’ve got a char­lie roast­ed bet­ter than any­thing you’ve ev­er seen. Now this is a mis­sile I got from Ger­many when we won the Cold War. Put a nu­cle­ar war­head on that sweet­heart and a town five times the size of Wilma you wouldn’t even find on a map it would go so fast. The Russkies knew that, which is how we saved the world from Com­mu­nism. They weren’t go­ing risk nu­cle­ar an­ni­hi­la­tion, no way.’

All over the grounds there were the me­men­toes of ter­ri­ble wars but the pride of Un­cle Wal­ly’s mil­itary col­lec­tion was a B-52. It stood on the oth­er side of the house where it could be seen through the pic­ture win­dow even at night with lights set in the ground shin­ing up on it, a black mon­strous bomber with fifty-​eight mis­sions over Viet­nam and Iraq paint­ed in sym­bols on the side; it was, as Wal­ly said, ca­pa­ble of fly­ing twelve thou­sand miles and drop­ping an H-​bomb that would take out the biggest city in the world.

‘What does ‘take out’ mean, Un­cle Wal­ly?’ Josephine asked with seem­ing in­no­cence. But Wal­ly Im­mel­mann was too im­mersed in his dream of a world made safe by mass de­struc­tion to no­tice.

‘It means first you get the blast wave and sec­ond the fire­ball and third you get ra­di­ation and fif­teen, six­teen mil­lion peo­ple dead. That’s what it means, hon­ey. Used to keep them fly­ing round the clock, the Strate­gic Air Force, and all ready to go if the Pres­ident of the US of A pressed the but­ton. Course we got bet­ter weapons now but in their day that ba­by ruled the sky. And the world. We don’t need any­thing that big now. Got ICBMs and Stealth bombers and Cruise mis­siles and neu­tron bombs and stuff no one knows about that can cross the At­lantic like in less than an hour. Best of all there’s lasers in out­er space that can fry any­where on earth at the speed of light.’

By the time they got back to the house Un­cle Wal­ly was in a ge­nial and gen­er­ous mood.

‘Those girls of yours are smart, re­al smart,’ he told Eva who had been watch­ing rather ner­vous­ly from a dis­tance. ‘I’ve been giv­ing them a his­to­ry les­son why we win wars and no­body can get near us tech­nol­ogy­wise. Isn’t that so, girls?’

‘Yes, Un­cle Wal­ly,’ said the quads in uni­son. Eva looked at them sus­pi­cious­ly. She knew that uni­son. It was a por­tent.

That night while Un­cle Wal­ly was watch­ing base­ball and hav­ing his fifth bour­bon on the rocks, and Eva and Aun­tie Joan were talk­ing fam­ily back in Eng­land, Saman­tha found an old portable tape recorder in Wal­ly’s romper room. It was a reel-​to-​reel one with an au­to­mat­ic cut-​out when the tape came to the end and it had a four-​hour reel on it. By the time Wal­ly and his wife stag­gered up to the bed­room it was run­ning un­der the dou­blewide. And Wal­ly want­ed a hump.

‘Aw, come on, hon­ey pie,’ he said. ‘We aren’t get­ting any younger and–’

‘Speak for your­self,’ said Aun­tie Joan. She wasn’t in a good mood. Eva had told her that Maude, who was Aun­tie Joan’s sis­ter, had de­cid­ed to be­come a les­bian and was liv­ing with a gay who’d had a sex-​change op­er­ation. That wasn’t the sort of fam­ily news she want­ed. Wal­ly hump­ing her wasn’t what she want­ed ei­ther. Could be some­thing to be said for be­com­ing a les­bian.

‘I am speak­ing for my­self,’ Wal­ly said. ‘On­ly per­son I can speak for. You don’t have a god­dam prostate or if you do I haven’t heard that Dr Hell­ster I go to in At­lanta speak about it. He tells me I got to keep it up or else.’

‘Keep it up? You haven’t got it to keep up. Least­ways I haven’t no­ticed it late­ly. You sure you haven’t left it in the bath­room along with your hair­piece? Like try­ing to get some ac­tion out of a sea slug.’

‘Yeah,’ said Wal­ly, ev­ident­ly ig­nor­ing the com­par­ison with dif­fi­cul­ty. ‘And I’m not like­ly to get it up if you don’t give me some fore­play.’

‘Fore­play? You think a wom­an’s got to do the fore­play? You’ve got the wrong wom­an if you think that. You’re the one sup­posed to do the fore­play. Like with the tongue and all.’

‘Sweet fuck!’ said Un­cle Wal­ly. ‘At your age you want me play­ing the old mouth-​or­gan? Like whale blow­ing in re­verse? Shit. This is no time to be mak­ing cracks like that.’

‘Well, it isn’t the time to be ask­ing me to go down on you ei­ther.’

‘I wasn’t talk­ing about go­ing down. Last time you did that must have been around the time of the Wa­ter­gate hear­ings.’

‘Tast­ed like it too,’ said Aun­tie Joan. Af­ter more ar­gu­ment she agreed to lie back and pre­tend Wal­ly was Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger on bar­bi­tu­rates, some­thing that slowed him up.

‘On­ly thing slow­ing me up is find­ing the thing,’ said Wal­ly. ‘Like go­ing down Oak Creek Canyon on a wet night and no flash­light. You sure you still got a pussy? That sur­geon didn’t do a to­tal when you had that hys­terec­to­my?’

In the end he found what he had been look­ing for. Or thought he had. Aun­tie Joan put him right.

‘Ass­hole!’ she shrieked. ‘Je­sus, are you in­sane try­ing to brown-​ass me? Oh no, you don’t, Wal­ly Im­mel­mann. I’m fucked if you’re go­ing to sodomise me. You want to do that with some­one, find your­self a guy who likes it that way. I sure as shit don’t.’

‘Sodomise? I wasn’t try­ing to sodomise you,’ said Wal­ly, gen­uine­ly out­raged. ‘We been mar­ried all these years, thir­ty years, thir­ty god­dam years, I ev­er tried to sodomise you?’

‘Yes,’ said Aun­tie Joan bit­ter­ly. ‘Yes, you have and don’t I know it. Dr Co­hen says it’s–’

‘Dr Co­hen? You been telling Dr Co­hen I’ve been sodomis­ing you? I’m not hear­ing this. I can’t be!’ Wal­ly yelled. ‘Telling Dr Co­hen…Je­sus.’

‘I didn’t need to tell him. He’s got eyes in his head. He could see for him­self and he was dis­gust­ed. He says it’s against the law. And he’s right.’

Wal­ly was no longer in­ter­est­ed in hump­ing. He was sit­ting bolt up­right in the dou­blewide.

‘Against the law? That’s bull­shit. If it’s against the law how come gays are do­ing it all the time and we got an epi­dem­ic of Aids?’

‘Not that law. The Law of God. Dr Co­hen says it’s there in the Bible. ‘Thou shalt not–”

‘The Bible? What’s Dr Co­hen know about the Bible? That New Jer­sey kike think the Jews wrote the Bible, for Chris­sake? He’s got to be crazy.’

‘Wal­ly dear, who else?’ said Aun­tie Joan, seiz­ing the ini­tia­tive now that Wal­ly was off her and in­to a morass of ig­no­rance. ‘Who else wrote the Bible?’

‘What you mean, who else? Gen­esis did, and Joshua and Jon­ah. Guys like that. That’s who wrote the Bible.’

‘You’re for­get­ting Moses,’ said Aun­tie Joan smug­ly. ‘Like in Dr Moses Co­hen. Jews, Wal­ly dear. Jews. The Bible was writ­ten by Jews. Hadn’t you no­ticed?’

‘Je­sus,’ said Wal­ly Im­mel­mann.

‘Him too. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All Jews, Wal­ly, and that’s the gospel.’

Wal­ly slumped down on to the bed. ‘Sure, sure I know all that,’ he said with a whim­per. ‘And you have to go and tell Dr Co­hen I make a habit of sodomis­ing you. You’ve got to be crazy and I mean out of your head al­to­geth­er. Clin­ical­ly.’

‘I tell you I didn’t tell him. He could see for him­self when I went for my cer­vi­cal and he was dis­gust­ed. You should have heard what he said about men who did that sort of thing. Had me take a blood test.’

‘Don’t tell me!’ yelled Wal­ly and of course she did. At length and in the most ex­plic­it de­tail while he kept in­ter­rupt­ing her with threats of what he was go­ing to do to her. Like di­vorce her and he knew some guys who would fix her for good.

‘Big deal!’ Aun­tie Joan shout­ed back. ‘You think I haven’t got my­self in­sur­ance? Dr Co­hen gave me the name of a lawyer, a re­al good one, and I’ve seen him. You make one move against me, Wal­ly Im­mel­mann, and you’re go­ing to see what dope I’ve sworn on you. You wouldn’t be­lieve it.’

Wal­ly said he couldn’t be­lieve a wife would do a thing like that, be­tray­ing her hus­band to a fuck­ing doc­tor and a lawyer. They con­tin­ued shout­ing un­til he was ex­haust­ed and lay back in bed won­der­ing what he was go­ing to do. One thing was cer­tain. He was go­ing to have to change his doc­tor and go to Dr Lesky. It was the last thing he want­ed to do. Dr Lesky be­lieved in abor­tion. It wouldn’t look good go­ing to a doc­tor like Dr Lesky and be­ing the Dea­con of the Church of the Liv­ing Lord. Liv­ing Lorders didn’t go to abor­tion­ists and he wasn’t go­ing to that clin­ic for blacks and down-​and-​outs. You got more dis­eases there than cures. Even the doc­tors con­tract­ed them. Like Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es go­ing on wel­fare. Wal­ly lay in the dark­ness and tried to think how to get round Dr Co­hen. Be­ing a Dea­con and hav­ing it thought he was a sodomist wasn’t go­ing to do him any good in Wilma at all.

What the Drug En­force­ment Agents had been in­stalling in the Starfight­er Man­sion wasn’t do­ing him any good ei­ther.

‘We’ve put dou­ble bugs in ev­ery room and that way when he scans he finds one but he miss­es the oth­er. That’s on­ly ac­ti­vat­ed when we want it on so the scan­ner won’t pick it up first time. He won’t scan twice be­cause he’ll have found the first one and they nev­er check again,’ the elec­tron­ic de­vice ex­pert told the meet­ing. ‘And the way we know when to turn the num­ber 2s on is we’ve got video cam­eras so small they make a fly’s eye look big. No way you can spot them. They show us who’s there and the au­dios pick up ev­ery word. If this guy is run­ning any rack­et we’ll get the proof. The on­ly way he can talk in pri­vate is out­side in the open air and even then he can’t be too sure. Could be be­hind a shirt but­ton, any place. So we’ve got his ve­hic­ular trans­porta­tion all tapped and his house so tight we can tell if he wash­es be­hind his ears or been cir­cum­cised. On­ly thing puz­zling me is why we’re go­ing to all this trou­ble with this guy. I mean, this is Mafia equip­ment we’ve in­stalled and this has got to be small beer.’

‘Could be very big,’ Palows­ki said. ‘Our in­for­ma­tion from Poland is that this stuff is a new su­per high-​grade de­sign­er from a Rus­sian lab­ora­to­ry. No need to grow it and it’s a thou­sand times more ad­dic­tive than crack. Street val­ue in­to gi­ga­bucks and as easy to make as speed. Eas­ier. Which could ex­plain why Sol is miss­ing. Lose a sam­ple like that and you lose your life. Which is al­most cer­tain­ly what’s hap­pened to him. Now, Sher­iff Stal­lard says Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es is di­ver­si­fy­ing in­to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. That’s the ru­mour he’s heard. Some Ger­man firm is in­ter­est­ed in in­vest­ing with him and they’ve been in­vest­ing in Rus­sia too. That’s why the in­ter­est in Wash­ing­ton. My guess is this could be a sub­ver­sion gam­bit. Mil­itar­ily the Rus­sians are out of the game but if they can in­fil­trate a de­sign­er drug of this cal­ibre they don’t need a war to win.’

‘That guy is para­noid, I swear to God. He’s got Russkies on the brain,’ the elec­tron­ics ex­pert said af­ter­wards.

It was an opin­ion shared by Sher­iff Stal­lard when Bax­ter re­port­ed that the Starfight­er Man­sion had been wired for S&S like sight and sound.

‘You mean when Wal­ly Im­mel­mann…when Mrs Im­mel­mann goes to the bath­room some guy’s go­ing to be film­ing her on the can? I don’t be­lieve it. And I sure as hell don’t want to see any footage of her tak­ing a slash.’

‘It gets worse…’

‘Worse? Noth­ing could be worse than Joanie…Where’s the fuck­ing cam­era? And don’t tell me they’re shoot­ing from be­low. I’ll throw up.’

‘No, it’s a straight an­gle,’ said Bax­ter. ‘But they can zoom in. I mean, Sher­iff, they’re us­ing space tech­nol­ogy in there.’

‘You can say that again,’ said the Sher­iff, still ob­sessed with the thought of Aun­tie Joan on the toi­let. ‘What do they think there is to zoom in on? Those guys some sort of per­verts? I mean, they’ve got to be. They’ll be break­ing ev­ery ob­scen­ity reg­ula­tion there is. And what the hell do they want film­ing in there?’

‘Just in case Wal­ly tries to flush the stuff down. They want a record of it. And that’s an­oth­er thing. They’ve brought in the Shit Squad.’

‘You’ve told me,’ said the Sher­iff. ‘Pret­ty apt damned name for the bas­tards. I couldn’t put it bet­ter my­self.’

‘No, these guys are dif­fer­ent.’

‘I’ll say they are. The same as me they’re not. I don’t get any kicks out of spy­ing on fat wom­en piss­ing in the pri­va­cy of their own bath­rooms. You’ve got to be a gen­uine per­vert to like that.’

‘No, the Shit Squad are sewage ex­perts. They’ve hooked in­to all the ef­flu­ent com­ing out of the Starfight­er and are run­ning it in­to a tanker for anal­ysis. The thing is parked round the back of the old drive-​in movie screen and it’s enor­mous. Must take fif­teen thou­sand gal­lons a throw. And the lab truck is there too where it can’t be seen. They’ve got equip­ment in there that can trace drugs in ath­letes’ urine weeks af­ter they’ve tak­en them.’

Sher­iff Stal­lard was gap­ing at him. Noth­ing in a long ca­reer as a Law En­force­ment Of­fi­cer came any­where like this. ‘They’ve hooked…? Say it again, Bax­ter, say it again and slow­ly this time. This stuff is not get­ting through to me.’

‘It’s like this,’ said Bax­ter. ‘They’ve sealed off all the out­lets from the house, all the wa­ter and sewage pipes, and they’ve hooked this huge suck­ing de­vice on so that they can pump it–’

‘Shit,’ said the Sher­iff. ‘These guys are us­ing tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey to test all the urine comes out of Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s place? You’ll be telling me next they’ve got this satel­lite in statu­to­ry or­bit over Wilma.’ He stopped and looked in hor­ror up in­to the sky. ‘Could be read­ing the let­ters on my badge.’

‘I think the word is ’sta­tion­ary’. Sta­tion­ary or­bit. You said ’statu­to­ry or­bit’.’

Sher­iff Stal­lard turned his glazed eyes on his Deputy. He was be­gin­ning to feel quite mad. ‘Sta­tion­ary, Bax­ter, sta­tion­ary it can’t be. Wilma’s mov­ing at around three thou­sand miles an hour. Has to be be­cause that’s the speed the world goes round. Some­thing like that. You can work it out. The world goes round once a day and the cir­cum­fer­ence is twen­ty-​four thou­sand miles. So twen­ty-​four goes in­to twen­ty-​four thou­sand a thou­sand times. Work it out your­self. Well, if you’ve got a satel­lite out there squat­ting over Wilma…no, not squat­ting, let’s cut the squat­ting. I don’t want to think about that again. It’s up there even fur­ther out than Wilma, and Wilma’s way out enough for me the way those guys are act­ing, that ba­by has to be mov­ing even faster just to keep up. Right?’ Bax­ter nod­ded. ‘Good. So when I said ’statu­to­ry’ I mean ’statu­to­ry’. This op­er­ation has to be cost­ing mil­lions. So it’s got to be statu­to­ry. Wash­ing­ton’s ap­proval. And who’s been talk­ing about cut­ting the Fed­er­al deficit?’

He went back to his of­fice and took a Tylenol and lay down and tried to pre­tend noth­ing was hap­pen­ing. He couldn’t. The im­age of Joanie Im­mel­mann on the can over­whelmed him.

In Os­ton Po­lice Sta­tion Bob Bat­tle­by con­tin­ued to protest his in­no­cence. He hadn’t set fire to his own house. Why would he do a thing like that? It was a beau­ti­ful house and his fam­ily had owned it for hun­dreds of years. He was very fond of it and so on. As for porno mags and the oth­er stuff, he had no idea how they had got in­to his Range Rover. Per­haps the fire­men had put them there. It was the sort of muck peo­ple like fire­men tend­ed to read. No, he didn’t know any fire­men per­son­al­ly, they weren’t the class of peo­ple he usu­al­ly mixed with–but they were nev­er do­ing any­thing use­ful. They hadn’t saved his house from be­ing burnt to the ground, for in­stance, and read­ing porn, he sup­posed, helped them to pass the time. The hand­cuffs and the gag and whips? Did he re­al­ly imag­ine the fire­men made use of them, too, to pass the time? Well no, now that he came to think about it he didn’t sup­pose they did. They sound­ed more like things the po­lice might have a use for.

That com­ment didn’t go down at all well with the In­spec­tor putting the ques­tions in the ab­sence of the Su­per­in­ten­dent who was catch­ing up on his sleep. Bat­tle­by wasn’t so for­tu­nate. The ques­tions kept on com­ing and he wasn’t go­ing to get any sleep un­til he an­swered them cor­rect­ly. Where was his wife? He didn’t have one. Was he on good terms with his fam­ily? They could mind their own fuck­ing busi­ness. But that was ex­act­ly what they were do­ing; their busi­ness was ar­rest­ing crim­inals and, for his in­for­ma­tion, men who set fire to their own hous­es and pos­sessed Ob­scene Ma­te­ri­al of a pae­dophile na­ture, not to men­tion punch­ing Su­per­in­ten­dents in the face, came in­to the cat­ego­ry, sev­er­al cat­egories of crim­inals.

Bat­tle­by said he hadn’t set fire to his own house. Mrs Rot­te­combe could prove that. She’d been with him when he left the kitchen. The In­spec­tor raised his eye­brows. But Mrs Rot­te­combe had made a sworn state­ment that she’d been wait­ing for him in her car out­side the front door. Bat­tle­by made an even fouler sworn state­ment about Mrs fuck­ing Rot­te­combe, and mere­ly point­ed out that as the Ar­son Squad had be­gun their in­ves­ti­ga­tions and were be­ing helped by the In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny in­ves­ti­ga­tors who were the re­al ex­perts, they would soon know. What the In­spec­tor would like to know was the state of Bat­tle­by’s fi­nances. Bat­tle­by re­fused to an­swer. It didn’t mat­ter, they’d get a court or­der to see his bank ac­counts. It was nor­mal pro­ce­dure in cas­es of ar­son where so much in­sur­ance mon­ey was in­volved. He had in­sured it, of course? Bat­tle­by sup­posed so. He left mon­ey mat­ters to his ac­coun­tant. But the house was in­sured in his name? Of course it bloody was. Had to be. Af­ter all, his fam­ily had lived in it for two hun­dred and more years so it had to be in his name. Quite so. Now, about the Ob­scene Ma­te­ri­al…Mrs Rot­te­combe had made a state­ment say­ing he had asked her to tie him up and whip him and she’d re­fused…Like hell she had. The bloody bitch en­joyed whip­ping and tor­tur­ing peo­ple. She was in­to fladge in a big way…He stopped. Even in his state of al­most to­tal fa­tigue he could see from the In­spec­tor’s ex­pres­sion that he’d said the wrong thing. He asked to speak to his so­lic­itor. Of course he could. Just give them the num­ber and the lawyer’s name and he could phone him. Bat­tle­by couldn’t re­mem­ber his so­lic­itor’s tele­phone num­ber. The man was up in Lon­don and…Would he like a lo­cal so­lic­itor? No, he fuck­ing wouldn’t. The on­ly thing those dun­der­heads knew about was bound­ary dis­putes.

And so the ques­tion­ing had gone on and on and ev­ery time Bat­tle­by’s head drooped on to the ta­ble he was shak­en awake. He was even giv­en strong cof­fee and al­lowed to use the toi­let. Then the ques­tions be­gan again. A dif­fer­ent of­fi­cer took over at mid­day and put the same ques­tions.

Chapter 16

At Ip­ford Po­lice Sta­tion, In­spec­tor Flint shared the Sher­iff’s feel­ing about Drug En­force­ment Agents. He had just read Su­per­in­ten­dent Hodge’s re­port on Mrs Wilt and was ap­palled.

‘You can’t send this stuff across to Amer­ica,’ he protest­ed. ‘There wasn’t a shred of ev­idence the Wilts had any­thing to do with the dis­tri­bu­tion of drugs in Ip­ford. They were as clean as a whis­tle.’

‘On­ly be­cause some­one blew one for them,’ said Hodge.

‘Mean­ing?’ said Flint whose blood pres­sure had soared. ‘Mean­ing?’

‘Mean­ing they were tipped off we were on to them and they took cov­er in the Amer­ican air­base and dumped the stuff.’

‘I hope you’re not sug­gest­ing I had any­thing to do–’

‘Not you, Flint. Just take a dekko at the ev­idence. Wilt has this job teach­ing Yanks at Lak­en­heath and this guy Im­mel­mann’s been sta­tioned there. So Wilt’s got con­tacts with Yanks even be­fore he starts. That’s one. Two is PCP is an Amer­ican drug. De­sign­er drug and the Lord Lieu­tenant’s daugh­ter dies of an over­dose at the Tech where Wilt teach­es her. ODs on PCP. There’s more ev­idence, a whole heap of it and it all points one way. To the Wilts. You can’t de­ny it, Flint. And an­oth­er thing. Where else was Wilt teach­ing? In the hoosegow here in Ip­ford.’

‘Hodge, we don’t have hoosegows in Britain. You’ve got Amer­ica on the brain.’

‘All right. Wilt was teach­ing in the prison and mix­ing with some of the nas­ti­est vil­lains in the drug busi­ness. That’s three strikes against the bas­tard. Num­ber four is–’

‘Hodge, don’t let me in­ter­rupt you but you can’t have four strikes in base­ball. Miss three and you’re out. If you re­al­ly want to go transat­lantic, you’ve got to get these things right. You’ll nev­er make the Yan­kee Sta­di­um if you go on like this.’

‘Very fun­ny, I’m sure. You al­ways were known for your wit. Well, this time just stick to the ev­idence. Mrs Wilt’s aunt is mar­ried to a known drug im­porter in the States. OK, they’re le­git those drugs. On the sur­face. Then again he’s got a place in the Caribbean and a mo­tor boat that does over six­ty knots and on top of that he has planes. Lear­jets and Beechcraft. All the ap­pa­ra­tus for a high­ly lu­cra­tive drug push­er. And Mrs Wilt just hap­pens to vis­it him with her quads. Very good di­ver­sion­ary tac­tics those quads. And to top it all Wilt isn’t home and no one knows where he’s hid­den him­self. It adds up, it all adds up. You’ve got to ad­mit that.’

Flint hitched his chair for­ward. ‘Wilt’s hid­den him­self? No one knows where he’s got to? Are you cer­tain about that?’ he asked.

Hodge nod­ded tri­umphant­ly. ‘Add this to the cat­alogue,’ he said. ‘The day Mrs Wilt flies in­to At­lanta her hus­band goes to the build­ing so­ci­ety and draws out a large sum in cash. In cash. And where does he leave his cred­it cards and pass­port? At home. On the kitchen ta­ble. That’s right, on the kitchen ta­ble,’ he said as Flint’s face reg­is­tered as­ton­ish­ment. ‘Bed not made. Wash­ing-​up not done. Dirty plates still on the ta­ble. Draw­ers in the chest of draw­ers in the bed­room open. Car still in the garage. Noth­ing miss­ing ex­cept Mr Hen­ry Wilt. Not a bloody thing. Even his shoes are there. We got the clean­ing la­dy to check them out. So what does that tell you?’

‘It makes a change,’ said Flint sourly. He dis­liked be­ing wrong-​foot­ed, es­pe­cial­ly by clowns like Hodge.

‘Makes a change? What’s that sup­posed to mean?’ Hodge de­mand­ed.

‘It means just this. The first time I ran in­to Wilty, it was his wife was miss­ing. Sup­posed to be down a damned great pile hole at the Tech. On­ly it just so hap­pens Wilt has stuffed an in­flat­able plas­tic doll dressed in Mrs Eva bloody Wilt’s clothes down there and they put twen­ty tons of pre-​mix on top of her. In fact she is liv­ing it up with a cou­ple of daffy Amer­icans on a stolen boat on the Broads. So where is Mrs Wilt now? Sit­ting pret­ty…well, as near pret­ty as she’ll ev­er get at any rate, in the Unit­ed States and it’s our Hen­ry who is miss­ing. Yes, that makes a change. It does in­deed.’

‘You don’t think he’s done a run­ner?’ Hodge asked.

‘With Wilt I’ve giv­en up think­ing. I have not the faintest idea what goes on in that mad blighter’s mind. All I do know is it won’t be what you think it is. It’s go­ing to be some­thing you wouldn’t even dream of think­ing about. So don’t ask me what he’s done. I wouldn’t have a clue.’

‘Well, my guess is he’s get­ting him­self an al­ibi,’ said Hodge.

‘With his cred­it cards and all on the kitchen ta­ble?’ said Flint. ‘And none of his clothes miss­ing? Doesn’t sound much like a vol­un­tary dis­ap­pear­ance to me. Sounds more like some­thing has hap­pened to the lit­tle bas­tard. Have you checked the hos­pi­tal?’

‘Of course I have. The first thing I did. Checked ev­ery god­dam hos­pi­tal in the area. No one an­swer­ing his de­scrip­tion has been booked in. I’ve checked the morgues, the lot, and he is not around. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Flint firm­ly. ‘It does not. I’ve told you. Where Hen­ry Wilt is con­cerned I don’t even try to think. It hurts too much.’

All the same when Su­per­in­ten­dent Hodge left Flint sat on con­sid­er­ing the sit­ua­tion.

‘There isn’t a snow­ball’s chance in hell of Wilty be­ing in­volved in drugs,’ he told Sergeant Yates. ‘And can you see Eva Wilt in what that mad­man Hodge would call that ‘ball game’? I’m damned if I can. They may be crazy, the Wilts, but they’re the least like­ly peo­ple to start com­mit­ting re­al crimes.’

‘I know, sir,’ said Yates. ‘But Hodge is pre­sent­ing a pret­ty nasty pro­file to the Amer­ican au­thor­ities. I mean, it doesn’t look good all that stuff about Lak­en­heath and so on.’

‘It’s all pure­ly cir­cum­stan­tial. He hasn’t got even the tini­est shred of re­al ev­idence,’ said Flint. ‘Let’s just hope the po­lice over there see that. I wouldn’t want the Wilt fam­ily up be­fore an Amer­ican court. Not af­ter the OJ tri­al. Tele­vi­sion in the court­room and ev­ery­one be­comes a bloody ac­tor. And we know what twerps they are.’ He paused in thought. ‘I won­der where the hell our Hen­ry’s got to, though. That’s the re­al mys­tery.’

Chapter 17

‘I’m so wor­ried about Hen­ry,’ Eva told Aun­tie Joan. ‘I’ve tried call­ing him time and again–sev­en times to­day–and he’s nev­er in.’

‘Maybe he’s teach­ing this course you told me about. The one about Tra­di­tion and Cul­ture for Cana­di­ans.’

‘But that on­ly takes up an hour or two and he wouldn’t be teach­ing it at six in the morn­ing,’ said Eva. ‘I mean, the time dif­fer­ence is five hours, isn’t it?’

‘It’s five hours lat­er in the UK. The time there now must be around mid­night,’ said Aun­tie Joan. In his chair in front of the TV Un­cle Wal­ly groaned. He’d had a hard day try­ing to keep the thought of Dr Co­hen and the scan­dal of be­ing known as a sodomiser out of his mind. It was im­pos­si­ble. Life in Wilma could be­come im­pos­si­ble. The scan­dal had come at the worst pos­si­ble time just when he was think­ing of di­ver­si­fy­ing Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es in­to phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. And here he was sad­dled with a wom­an who didn’t know that En­glish time was five hours ahead of East­ern US time. Like she didn’t un­der­stand the sun rose in the east.

‘But then he must be at home,’ said Eva, her anx­iety reach­ing a new pitch. ‘I’ve been phon­ing him ev­ery day around this time be­cause he fin­ish­es his course by mid­day and he nev­er stays out late at night. Do you think I should try again?’

‘Yes,’ said Wal­ly. ‘I def­inite­ly think you should. He could have had an ac­ci­dent. Guy down in Al­aba­ma fell off a steplad­der last fall and his wife kept call­ing and he couldn’t reach the phone. Couldn’t make the fridge ei­ther. Died of star­va­tion. That and thirst. They didn’t find him un­til some kids broke in and there he was noth­ing but skin and bone.’

He didn’t have to say any more. Eva was al­ready in the bed­room try­ing to get through again.

‘You didn’t have to tell her that,’ said Aun­tie Joan. ‘That was a re­al mean thing to say.’

‘I did and it wasn’t. Like be­ing cooped up in prison with her and those nieces of yours.’

‘And yours, Wal­ly Im­mel­mann, your nieces too.’

Wal­ly smiled a nasty smile and shook his head. ‘I mar­ried you, hon­ey, not your fuck­ing fam­ily. Ain’t no blood re­la­tions of mine.’

Be­fore an­oth­er full-​scale quar­rel could de­vel­op Eva had re­turned with the news that the phone at home had rung and rung and Hen­ry still hadn’t an­swered.

‘Guy’s got good sense not to,’ said Wal­ly to him­self. He didn’t say it out loud.

‘Isn’t there some friend you could get to see where he is?’ Aun­tie Joan asked.

Eva said Hen­ry didn’t like the Mot­trams and he wasn’t on good terms with the neigh­bours.

‘His best friend is Pe­ter Brain­tree. I sup­pose I could try them.’

She went back in­to the bed­room and came out five min­utes lat­er.

‘They don’t an­swer ei­ther,’ she said. ‘It’s the sum­mer hol­idays and they al­ways go away.’

‘Per­haps Hen­ry has gone with them,’ said Aun­tie Joan.

But Eva wasn’t con­vinced. ‘He’d have told me if he’d been go­ing to do that. He def­inite­ly said he had to stay be­hind be­cause he has this course for the Cana­di­ans to teach. We need the mon­ey for the girls’ ed­uca­tion.’

‘From what they said to the Revd Coop­er…’ Wal­ly be­gan and was si­lenced by a look from his wife.

‘To­mor­row we’ll go out in the sail boat and have our­selves a pic­nic,’ she said. ‘It’s re­al­ly nice out on the lake this time of the year.’

In the swim­ming-​pool the quads were hav­ing a won­der­ful time.

‘Hon­est­ly, how those girls do en­joy the pool,’ said Aun­tie Joan. ‘They’re hav­ing a whale of a time.’

‘Sure are,’ said Un­cle Wal­ly. He reck­oned he knew why they were so pe­cu­liar. With a moth­er as dumb as Eva it was sur­pris­ing they could talk. For the first time he was sur­prised to find him­self feel­ing fond of them. They took his mind off his oth­er wor­ries.

But Eva’s thoughts were con­cen­trat­ed on Hen­ry. It wasn’t like him to be out all the time. And he couldn’t have gone away. If he had, he would cer­tain­ly have phoned to let her know. She didn’t know who to turn to. Be­sides, if any­thing had hap­pened to him like he’d been knocked over or been tak­en ill, some­one would have got in touch with her. She’d left her name and Aun­tie Joan’s ad­dress and tele­phone num­ber on the cork pin board in the kitchen where no one could miss it and just to be on the safe side had giv­en it to Mavis Mot­tram. Hen­ry might not like Mavis or Patrick Mot­tram and they cer­tain­ly didn’t like him–Mavis’s feel­ings amount­ed to loathing be­cause, Eva sus­pect­ed, she’d once made a pass at Hen­ry and he’d told her where to get off–but even so Mavis would have been the first to let her know if any­thing se­ri­ous had hap­pened. She’d rel­ish do­ing it. On the oth­er hand Eva didn’t rel­ish hav­ing to phone Mavis and ask her what Hen­ry was do­ing. She’d on­ly do that as a last re­sort. In the mean­time she tried to con­sole her­self with the thought that the girls were learn­ing so much and hav­ing such a good time with it.

She was un­know­ing­ly cor­rect on both counts. Josephine and Saman­tha had re­trieved the tape recorder from un­der the bed and on the ex­cuse that they just want­ed a qui­et day play­ing mu­sic in their room asked could they bor­row Un­cle Wal­ly’s ear­phones so as not to dis­turb him and Aun­tie Joan.

Un­cle Wal­ly jumped at the op­por­tu­ni­ty. ‘Make your­selves at home, feel free,’ he said en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, show­ing them his mu­sic work­room. ‘I built this sound sys­tem my­self and though I do say it, it’s got to be the best this side of Nashville, Ten­nessee. Man, I doubt even Elvis him­self had any­thing this pow­er­ful. I call it my mu­sic op­er­ations cen­tre. With the equip­ment I got in here I can blast a boat out of the wa­ter with Tina Turn­er at three miles. And deaf­en a fuck­ing…well, any­way a bear at five hun­dred yards. The way I look at it, girls, you got to have deci­bels, and I’m telling you the speak­ers I got in­stalled in the grounds up trees and you name it, all wa­ter- and weath­er­proofed, are so pow­er­ful I could play a tape of a Shut­tle launch and it would make more noise than the re­al thing. Did it for your aun­tie be­cause she don’t like bears too much so I got this gun­fire tape and I put it on a tim­ing de­vice so it goes off ev­ery hour we’re away. And I can vary it, too. Some­times on­ly ev­ery four hours and then three shots in a few min­utes. I got a ban­shee sound, too, that don’t do in­trud­ers any good. Come over the gate or the fence and sen­sors in the ground pick up the in­trud­er and all hell breaks loose. Tried it out one time on a guy who came to serve an in­junc­tion on me. He got through the gates OK and then I closed them au­to­mat­ical­ly be­hind him and let this ba­by go full bore. Couldn’t tell he was scream­ing till I switched it off. Could see he wasn’t hav­ing the nicest time be­cause he was try­ing to climb the gates to get out and run­ning around like he was crazy. He dived in the lake in the end and I had to fish him out be­cause he couldn’t swim. Couldn’t hear, ei­ther, by that time. I nev­er did get that in­junc­tion. I reck­on he lost it some­place like he lost his hear­ing for a while. Want­ed to sue but didn’t get no place. No wit­ness and bears don’t give ev­idence in court and be­sides, I’ve got in­flu­ence in these parts. When I talk peo­ple lis­ten to old Wal­ly Im­mel­mann and no mis­take. Learn some­thing, too.’

The quads had thanked Un­cle Wal­ly and had tak­en the ear­phones up to their room and lis­tened to him and Aun­tie Joan hav­ing their spat in bed. And they cer­tain­ly learnt some­thing, too. So while he was busy play­ing me­chan­ics with the Sher­man tur­ret and keep­ing his head down, the quads re­turned to the mu­sic op­er­ations cen­tre–Aun­tie Joan and Eva were bak­ing cook­ies in the kitchen and Eva was say­ing how dif­fi­cult Hen­ry had be­come and how he need­ed a new job in­stead of be­ing stuck at that stuffy old Tech–and went qui­et­ly about their busi­ness. It was not busi­ness Aun­tie Joan or Eva would have liked know­ing about and Un­cle Wal­ly’s feel­ings would have been in­ex­press­ible. They found an­oth­er long reel tape and made a copy of the one they had al­ready heard. Un­cle Wal­ly was most help­ful. He was be­gin­ning to think the on­ly thing wrong with those girls was that they went to a God­less school run by nuns. What they need­ed was a good Amer­ican ed­uca­tion and help with ac­quir­ing good old Amer­ican know-​how. So he came out of the tur­ret and showed them his equip­ment again and how to do things with it like with the timer and how to copy from reel to reel, and he was very im­pressed how quick­ly they picked it all up.

‘Those girls of yours have re­al tal­ent,’ he told Eva when they were hav­ing cof­fee in the kitchen mid-​af­ter­noon. ‘You should let them come over here for their school­ing. Put them in Wilma High School and they’d be re­al Amer­icans no time at all.’

Eva was pleased to hear it and said so. Un­for­tu­nate­ly Hen­ry was such a stick-​in-​the-​mud he wouldn’t ev­er con­sid­er em­igrat­ing.

By the evening the quads had got Un­cle Wal­ly to set up the mu­sic op­er­ations cen­tre and the tim­ing de­vice to play when they were all out on the lake hav­ing a pic­nic on the is­land where Un­cle Wal­ly had an­oth­er bar­be­cue.

‘I’d show you what this sys­tem can pro­duce in deci­bels ex­cept your aun­tie doesn’t like it re­al loud,’ he said. ‘Now what shall we play? Noth­ing too heavy. Your aun­tie just loves Ab­ba. I guess it’s kind of old-​fash­ioned for you but it’s sooth­ing and we’ll hear it re­al good.’ He put the reel on the ma­chine and fed the tape through and present­ly the house was filled with sound. In the kitchen Aun­tie Joan had to shout to make Eva hear what she was say­ing.

‘I hear that Ab­ba again I’m go­ing to go crazy!’ she screamed. ‘I keep telling him I don’t like it any more but he doesn’t lis­ten. Men! I said, ‘Men!”

Eva said Hen­ry didn’t lis­ten to her ei­ther. I mean, if she had told him he need­ed more am­bi­tion once she’d told him a thou­sand times. Aun­tie Joan nod­ded. She hadn’t heard a word.

In the mu­sic op­er­ations cen­tre Un­cle Wal­ly turned the tape off and smiled hap­pi­ly. ‘Re­vers­es it­self au­to­mat­ical­ly,’ he told the quads. ‘That way you get mu­sic non-​stop. I tell you one time I had Frankie Sina­tra singing ‘My Way’ up here for a month. Of course I’m not around but they told me you could hear it fif­teen miles away no prob­lem and that’s with the wind blow­ing the op­po­site di­rec­tion. A guy over Lossville way had to buy a ma­chine-​gun to stop the bear stam­pede from tram­pling his place to death they were so des­per­ate to get away their way. I’ve told your aun­tie she’s on­ly got to whis­tle ‘My Way’ and them bears are go­ing to hit the trail. Won’t come nowhere near her. And it’s got its own in­de­pen­dent pow­er plant. Guys try­ing to bur­glarise here can cut the main pow­er line it won’t make any dif­fer­ence. Got elec­tric­ity back­up. Now that’s what I call Amer­ican know-​how. I bet they don’t teach you that in Eng­land. And them Ro­man nuns don’t know noth­ing. Nev­er been…well, I guess you girls could ben­efit from some of that Amer­ican know-​how.’

The quads al­ready had. While he went to watch a movie and drink some whiskey they took the la­bel off the Ab­ba reel, put it on the one they had made and fed it through just like Un­cle Wal­ly had shown them. Then they wiped the Ab­ba reel and put it away in a box and went through to be nice to Aun­tie Joan and have some cook­ies.

Next day it rained and even Un­cle Wal­ly had to agree it was no time for go­ing out for a pic­nic.

‘Best be get­ting back to Wilma. I got an im­por­tant meet­ing to­mor­row and this rain’s go­ing to stick around.’

They packed in­to his four-​wheel­er and drove down the dirt road through the for­est. Be­hind them the timer on the mu­sic cen­tre ticked omi­nous­ly. It was set for six that evening and the vol­ume was at max­imum. Ac­cord­ing to Un­cle Wal­ly that was like one thou­sand deci­bels.

On the way Eva said she was go­ing to call the neigh­bours in Oakhurst Av­enue even though Hen­ry didn’t get along with them.

‘He’s very pri­vate,’ she said. ‘He hates peo­ple to know what he’s do­ing.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Un­cle Wal­ly. ‘It’s a free coun­try. Ev­ery­one’s en­ti­tled to pri­va­cy. That’s the First Amend­ment. No one has to in­crim­inate him­self.’

‘What’s ‘in­crim­inate’ mean, Un­cle Wal­ly?’ Em­me­line asked.

Un­cle Wal­ly swelled in the driv­er’s seat. He liked be­ing asked ques­tions. He had all the an­swers. ‘In­crim­inate one­self means to say things that could dam­age your rep­uta­tion or land you in court on a crim­inal charge. It’s like it’s three words, ‘In’ and ‘Crime’ and ‘State’. That’s the way to re­mem­ber things. Break them up in­to lit­tle lots.’

From their rent­ed house across the street Palows­ki and Mur­phy watched the jeep turn in to the Starfight­er Man­sion and the gates open au­to­mat­ical­ly.

‘Big Foot’s back,’ Mur­phy told the Surveil­lance Truck in the dis­used drive-​in over the scram­bler.

‘We got him on­screen,’ came the re­ply. ‘No prob­lem. Vi­sion sound on.’

Mur­phy sat back and had to agree that all sys­tems were work­ing per­fect­ly. The screen in the room showed Aun­tie Joan get­ting out of the four-​wheel­er and go­ing in­to the house.

‘On­ly prob­lem we’ve got is that Mrs Im­mel­mann. Need wide screen to get her all in,’ he told Palows­ki. ‘That’s sumo on steroids. And here comes an­oth­er bulk car­ri­er.’ Eva and the quads had en­tered the hall. ‘I don’t want to see ei­ther of them un­dress­ing. Put you off sex for life.’

Palows­ki was more in­ter­est­ed in the Wilt girls.

‘Clever us­ing kids like that. Quads. Like they’re spe­cial. No­body’s go­ing to sus­pect they’re car­ri­ers. That Mrs Wilt can’t have any feel­ings. She gets ten to twen­ty she’s go­ing to lose cus­tody. If I hadn’t seen that re­port from the Brits on her record I wouldn’t have thought it pos­si­ble she’d be in­volved. Too much to lose.’

‘Weight­wise she could af­ford to. But some peo­ple nev­er learn and those girls are more than good cov­er. Gets a good lawyer to plead for her and work up pub­lic sym­pa­thy it could be she wouldn’t do any time. De­pends how much they were car­ry­ing.’

‘Sol said a sam­ple, he thought. She could claim she don’t even know it’s there.’

‘For sure. Not that I care so much about her. It’s that Im­mel­mann bas­tard I’m out to nail. What’s the sched­ule for the oth­er house, the one up by the lake?’

Mur­phy talked to the Surveil­lance Cen­tre.

‘Says they should have moved in by now. You reck­on that place is im­por­tant?’

‘Got its own air strip. Could be the ide­al place for a lab to make the shit.’

But Mur­phy wasn’t lis­ten­ing. Aun­tie Joan had gone to the toi­let.

Chapter 18

Harold Rot­te­combe reached the boat-​house to find the bril­liant plan he had de­vised to save hav­ing to cut across the fields to Slaw­ford wasn’t go­ing to work. It was clear­ly out of the ques­tion. The riv­er, swollen by the down­pour that had driv­en Wilt to the whisky bot­tle, swirled past the boat-​house in full spate, car­ry­ing with it branch­es of trees, emp­ty plas­tic bot­tles, a whole bush that had been swept from the bank, some­one’s suit­case and, most alarm­ing­ly of all, a dead sheep. Harold Rot­te­combe eyed that sheep for a mo­ment–it passed too quick­ly for him to dwell on it for long–and in­stant­ly came to the con­clu­sion that he had no in­ten­tion of shar­ing its fate. The lit­tle row­ing boat in the boat-​house wouldn’t drift down­stream; it would hur­tle and be swamped. There was noth­ing for it. He would have to walk to Slaw­ford af­ter all. And Slaw­ford was ten miles down­riv­er. It was a long time, a very long time since Harold had walked ten miles. In fact it was quite a long time since he had walked two. Still, there was noth­ing for it. He wasn’t go­ing back to the house to face the me­dia mob. Ruth had got them in­to this mess and she could get them out of it. He set off along the riv­er bank. The ground was sog­gy from the tor­ren­tial rain, his shoes weren’t made for trudg­ing through long wet grass and, when he round­ed the bend in the riv­er, he found him­self con­front­ed by a barbed-​wire fence that ran down to the wa­ter’s edge. It stood in two feet of wa­ter where the riv­er had over­flowed. Harold looked at the fence and de­spaired. Even with­out the rush­ing wa­ter he would not have at­tempt­ed to climb round it or over it. That way lay cas­tra­tion. But sev­er­al hun­dred yards up the fence there was a gate. He head­ed for it, found it locked and was forced to climb painful­ly over it. Af­ter that he had to make sev­er­al de­tours to find gaps or gates in hedges and the gaps were al­ways too nar­row for a man of his size to squeeze through while the gates were in­vari­ably locked. Then there was the barbed wire. Even the hedges that would have looked at­trac­tive on a nice sum­mer day turned out on clos­er in­spec­tion to be fes­tooned with barbed wire. Harold Rot­te­combe, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for a ru­ral con­stituen­cy and pre­vi­ous­ly a spokesman for farm­ing in­ter­ests, came to de­test farm­ers. He’d al­ways de­spised them as greedy, ill-​in­formed and gen­er­al­ly un­couth crea­tures but nev­er be­fore had he re­alised the ma­li­cious de­light they ob­vi­ous­ly took in pre­vent­ing in­no­cent walk­ers from cross­ing their land. And of course with so many de­tours to make to find gates or some­thing he could get through, and parts of fields that were flood­ed, the ten miles he’d dread­ed looked like be­com­ing more like thir­ty.

In fact he nev­er reached Slaw­ford.

As he stag­gered weari­ly along he cursed his wife. The stupid bitch had been rav­ing mad to set the dogs on those two bloody re­porters from the _News on Sun­day_ in­stead of be­ing tact­ful. He was just con­sid­er­ing what he would do to her and com­ing to the con­clu­sion that short of mur­der she had him by the short and curlies, when it be­gan to rain again. Harold Rot­te­combe hur­ried on and came to a stream which led in­to the riv­er, and trudged up it look­ing for a place to cross. Then his sod­den left shoe came off. With a curse he sat down on the bank and dis­cov­ered his sock had a hole in it. Worse still his heel was blis­tered and there was blood. He took the sock off to have a look and as he did so (he was think­ing of tetanus) his shoe rolled down the bank in­to the wa­ter. The stream was flow­ing fast now but he no longer cared. With­out that damned shoe he’d nev­er get to Slaw­ford. In a fran­tic at­tempt to get his hands on it be­fore it was swept away he slid down the bank, land­ed painful­ly on a sharp stone and a mo­ment lat­er was flat on his face in the wa­ter and strug­gling to get up. As the wa­ter car­ried him down his head hit a branch that hung down over the stream and by the time he reached the riv­er he was on­ly part­ly con­scious and in no con­di­tion to deal with the tor­rent. For a mo­ment his head emerged be­fore be­ing sucked un­der by the cur­rent. Un­no­ticed, he passed be­low the stone bridge at Slaw­ford and con­tin­ued on his way to the Sev­ern and the Bris­tol Chan­nel. Long be­fore that he had lost more than his po­lit­ical hopes. The late Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment swept on his way to­wards the sea.

Chapter 19

Sher­iff Stal­lard and Bax­ter were on their way too. In the po­lice car on the dirt road that led to Lake Sas­saquassee. Alert­ed by the guy at Lossville, who’d had trou­ble with the stam­ped­ing bears, that Mr and Mrs Im­mel­mann were hav­ing a quar­rel that had to be heard to be be­lieved and if the po­lice didn’t hur­ry and get there soon some­one was go­ing to die, the Sher­iff was puz­zled. He couldn’t see how any­one who ad­mit­ted he was at home ten miles from the Im­mel­mann place could know what was go­ing on there. By the time he got with­in five miles he knew ex­act­ly. Even with the car win­dows shut it was pos­si­ble to hear Aun­tie Joan yelling that she was fucked if she was go­ing to be sodomised and that if Wal­ly want­ed to do that dirty thing with some­one he’d bet­ter find a gay who en­joyed it. The Sher­iff didn’t like it ei­ther and the man at Lossville said his wife couldn’t bear it. Lis­ten­ing to it, that is. He was think­ing of su­ing. He’d had enough trou­ble shoot­ing all those bears with­out a li­cence and they were pro­tect­ed an­imals and the fuck­ing po­lice…The Sher­iff turned the com­mu­ni­ca­tions off. He was more in­ter­est­ed in hear­ing about Dr Co­hen and it was com­ing through loud and clear. At four miles. Not that the Sher­iff knew that. He’d nev­er been up to the Im­mel­mann house be­fore. On the oth­er hand he’d nev­er heard any­one shout that loud even in the next room. The man at Lossville was right. This was a do­mes­tic dis­pute to end all do­mes­tic dis­putes. And the busi­ness about the Wa­ter­gate hear­ings tast­ing and where her pussy was and had she been to­talled when she’d had the hys­terec­to­my was too in­cred­ible to put in­to words. Least­ways not so fuck­ing loud the whole world could hear it.

‘How far now?’ the Sher­iff yelled above the din.

‘Got an­oth­er two miles,’ Bax­ter told him.

The Sher­iff looked at him as if he was a crazy. ‘What do you mean two miles? Stop the car. They’ve got to be right here. Some­where re­al close.’

Bax­ter stopped the car and the Sher­iff opened the door to get out. He didn’t get far. ‘Shit!’ he screamed, slam­ming the door shut and putting his hands over his ears. ‘Get the hell out of here.’

‘What did you say?’ Bax­ter yelled, try­ing to com­pete with Aun­tie Joan and the Book of Gen­esis be­ing writ­ten by a Jew of that name.

‘I said, let’s get the fuck out of here be­fore we go deaf. And call up the Pub­lic Nui­sance Ser­vices. They’ve got to have some­one who can deal with this. Tell them it’s a Num­ber One Emer­gen­cy Noise­wise.’

Bax­ter swung the car round on the wet dirt and the Sher­iff clung to his seat-​belt as they slith­ered near the edge of a long drop. Then they were head­ing back to Wilma and Bax­ter was try­ing to get con­tact. All he got was a guy at Lossville scream­ing that he was go­ing out of his mind and why didn’t some­one do some­thing like bomb the Im­mel­mann fuck­ing house. Some­thing sen­si­ble and would his wife please put that gun down be­cause shoot­ing him wasn’t go­ing to stop the god­dam noise. His wife could be heard say­ing she was go­ing to shoot her­self if those fuck­ing filthy rev­ela­tions didn’t stop.

‘Put out a Three AAA all bands!’ shout­ed the Sher­iff as the car hur­tled down the road.

‘A Three AAA?’ Bax­ter yelled back. ‘An Atom­ic At­tack Alert? Je­sus, we can’t do that. We could be start­ing a fuck­ing World War.’

He tried Emer­gen­cy Ser­vices again and couldn’t make him­self heard. But by then the do­mes­tic dis­pute was com­ing to an end. There was a brief mo­ment’s respite while the tape re­wound and then it start­ed again. Aun­tie Joan was scream­ing about sea slugs and Wal­ly leav­ing his toupee in the bath­room.

Sher­iff Stal­lard couldn’t be­lieve it. ‘But she’s said all that be­fore. Ev­ery sin­gle word. She’s got to be out of her mind.’

‘Could be they are on this new drug,’ said Bax­ter. ‘I mean, they got to be on some God-​aw­ful sub­stance to car­ry on like this.’

‘I wish to God I had some sub­stance to be on!’ yelled the Sher­iff and pon­dered the pos­si­bil­ity that he al­ready was. It had to be some­thing like that. He’d nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced a noise of this mag­ni­tude in all his ca­reer.

The same could be said for the Elec­tron­ic Surveil­lance Team that had been sent to bug the Bear Fort. They had just be­gun to climb the wire fence around the perime­ter when the clock and the tape timer struck six and si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly trig­gered the sound sys­tem and Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s most so­phis­ti­cat­ed de­ter­rent. The lat­ter was not in­tend­ed for bears. Wal­ly’s en­emy this time was bur­glaris­ers and he had used Amer­ican know-​how to ex­cel­lent ef­fect. In fact he had done more. He had de­vised a means of adding util­ity to the mere­ly aes­thet­ic and his­tor­ical in­ter­est of his col­lec­tion of mil­itary mem­ora­bil­ia. As the first bug­ging ex­pert dropped to the ground he set off the sen­sors and im­me­di­ate­ly four an­ti­air­craft search­lights swung round and fo­cused on him. So did the guns in the Sher­man and the oth­er ar­moured ve­hi­cles. The agents saw them com­ing and threw them­selves flat as the search­lights swung over them. The man on the far side of the fence didn’t. Blind­ed by the lights and deaf­ened by the sound of Aun­tie Joan’s yelling about not giv­ing Wal­ly any fore­play he stum­bled about help­less­ly and added his screams to the din. Be­hind the search­lights the en­gines of the ar­moured ve­hi­cles and the Sher­man roared in­to life and then the whole place lit up and the search­lights went out. By the time he could see (he still couldn’t hear) he was aware of the Sher­man bear­ing down on him. Agent Nur­dler wasn’t wait­ing. With a ter­ri­ble scream he head­ed for the wire and went up it with an agili­ty that was un­nat­ural to him. He was over the top and run­ning like mad through the trees when the tank veered away from the fence and re­turned to its orig­inal po­si­tion. The lights went out and apart from Un­cle Wal­ly de­mand­ing at a thou­sand deci­bels to know when in thir­ty years of mar­riage he’d ev­er tried to sodomise Aun­tie Joan peace reigned. The Im­mel­mann In­trud­er De­ter­rent had worked per­fect­ly.

The au­dio­vi­su­al equip­ment in the Starfight­er Man­sion was work­ing per­fect­ly too. Ev­ery de­tail of the ac­tiv­ities in the house was be­ing mon­itored in the Surveil­lance Truck in the drive-​in and while the bath­room se­quence star­ring Aun­tie Joan on the can was all too re­veal­ing, the oth­er peo­ple seemed to be be­hav­ing ac­cord­ing to sched­ule, the sched­ule al­ready firm­ly es­tab­lished in the minds of the DEA agents. Wal­ly Im­mel­mann was in his den chew­ing a cigar and al­ter­nate­ly pac­ing up and down the room and help­ing him­self to Scotch. Ev­ery now and then he picked up the phone to call his lawyer and then thought bet­ter of it and put it down again. He was ob­vi­ous­ly ex­treme­ly wor­ried about some­thing.

‘You think he smells us?’ Mur­phy asked Palows­ki. ‘Some guys got sixth sense. They can feel they’re un­der surveil­lance. Re­mem­ber that Pana­ma­ni­an down in Flori­da who was in­to voodoo. He was un­can­ny.’

‘Man mar­ries a broad like Mrs Im­mel­mann doesn’t have sixth sense. No way. Got no sense at all.’

‘They say be­hind ev­ery rich man there’s a great wom­an,’ said Mur­phy.

‘Great? Great doesn’t get near it. This time it’s gi­gan­tic.’

They switched to the quads who were busy fill­ing their ex­er­cise books with de­tails of Aun­tie Joan and Un­cle Wal­ly’s sex­ual habits for their project on Amer­ican cul­ture for their En­glish teach­er.

‘How do you spell ’sodomise’?’ asked Em­me­line.

‘Sodom and eye ess ee,’ Saman­tha told her.

‘Un­cle Wal­ly’s re­al­ly sex­ist. Talk­ing about her thing like that is hor­ri­ble.’

‘Un­cle Wal­ly is a wal­ly and he is hor­ri­ble. They’re both out-​of-​this-​world aw­ful. All that stuff he told us about the War and burn­ing the Japanese with that flame thing. What did he call it?’

‘A turkey roast on the hoof,’ said Josephine.

‘It sounds ab­so­lute­ly hor­ri­ble. I’m nev­er go­ing to touch turkey again. I’ll al­ways as­so­ciate them with lit­tle Japanese.’

‘Not all Japanese are lit­tle,’ Pene­lope point­ed out. ‘Some of those wrestlers are fear­ful­ly fat.’

‘Like Aun­tie Joan,’ said Saman­tha. ‘She’s dis­gust­ing.’

In the surveil­lance truck across the road Palows­ki and Mur­phy nod­ded agree­ment.

The next re­mark was of a dif­fer­ent and more in­trigu­ing sort.

‘I don’t know why we’re writ­ing all this down now. The in­crim­inat­ing ev­idence is all there on the tape.’

‘Miss Sprock­ett would have a fit if we played that to the class. She’s as butch as can be. I’d like to hear her opin­ion of Un­cle Wal­ly.’

‘It’s just a pity we haven’t got it on video,’ said Em­me­line. ‘Un­cle Wal­ly try­ing to find Aun­tie Joan’s ‘thing’ and giv­ing it to her up the bum. We could make our for­tunes.’

‘We could have made our for­tunes if you’d done what I want­ed in­stead of putting the back­up tape on the sound sys­tem,’ Josephine said. ‘I won­der what it sounds like. It’s long past six. Un­cle Wal­ly’s go­ing to go ab­so­lute­ly ba­nanas. He’d have paid a ter­rif­ic amount of mon­ey for that tape. An ab­so­lute for­tune. I mean if peo­ple find out–’

‘If?’ said Em­me­line. ‘I’d say he’ll kill us when he finds out.’

But Saman­tha shook her head. ‘He won’t,’ she said smug­ly. ‘I’ve hid­den the orig­inal tape where he’ll nev­er find it.’

‘Where?’ the oth­ers de­mand­ed but Saman­tha wasn’t telling.

‘Just some­where he’s nev­er go­ing to find it. I’m not telling you any­thing else. Em­my might go and tell him.’

‘I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t,’ said the ag­grieved Em­me­line.

‘You said that when we put that stuff on the Revd Vas­coe’s com­put­er and then you–’

‘It wasn’t me. It was Pen­ny said I was the one who put it there.’

‘Well, so you did. You were the one thought of it. And any­way I didn’t tell Mum­my. She knows you be­cause you’re al­ways the one who fouls things up.’

‘I don’t care about that,’ said Saman­tha. ‘And I’m still not telling and no one is go­ing to make me. So there.’

The dis­cus­sion moved on to the com­ing vis­it to the Flori­da Keys. Un­cle Wal­ly had said he want­ed to take them shark fish­ing in his boat and Aun­tie Joan and Eva want­ed to fly to Mi­ami to do some shop­ping.

But down­stairs Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s plans were be­ing al­tered by the sec­ond.

‘You telling me some­one’s tried to bur­glarise the Bear Fort?’ he shout­ed down the phone at Sher­iff Stal­lard who had got back to Wilma and had par­tial­ly re­cov­ered his hear­ing and had called to find out how to get in touch with Mr Im­mel­mann.

‘I don’t know about bur­glar­is­ing,’ the Sher­iff shout­ed back. ‘All I know is there’s a guy over Lossville says he’s go­ing to sue for nui­sance and con­tra­ven­tion of the Ob­scen­ity Reg­ula­tions. Had dif­fi­cul­ty hear­ing him my­self.’

‘Must be the fuck­ing bears have set the sys­tem off. That guy is al­ways com­plain­ing. And what’s he mean about Ob­scen­ity Reg­ula­tions? It’s on­ly a pro­longed Frankie Sina­tra. He sings ‘My Way’.’

‘If you say so, Mr Im­mel­mann, I guess I got to be­lieve you,’ said the Sher­iff. ‘Though frankly–’

‘I lie. The tape I got on is Ab­ba. The Ab­ba group. Re­al sooth­ing stuff from way back.’

For a mo­ment Sher­iff Stal­lard hes­itat­ed. He didn’t want to cross Wal­ly Im­mel­mann but if that was Ab­ba and re­al sooth­ing his name wasn’t Har­ry Stal­lard.

‘Any­way, I’m just call­ing to ask you to cut the stuff off. You got a re­mote con­trol or some­thing?’

‘A re­mote con­trol? Are you crazy? There’s no re­mote con­trol can cov­er twen­ty-​five miles with for­est and moun­tains in be­tween. You think I can bounce it off a satel­lite.’

‘I guess I thought you might have some way of shut­ting it off,’ said the Sher­iff.

‘Not from here I haven’t. Got my­self a gen­er­ator so the pow­er can’t be cut off. Any­how, what’s it to you?’

Sher­iff Stal­lard de­cid­ed the time had come to break the news. ‘I mean, what you and Mrs Im­mel­mann are dis­cussing over that sound sys­tem you’ve built up there isn’t some­thing you’d want to hear. The guy in Lossville says–’

‘Fuck the lit­tle shit,’ said Wal­ly. ‘I told you he is al­ways com­plain­ing.’ He paused. The Sher­iff’s last state­ment had hit him. ‘What do you mean, what me and Mrs Im­mel­mann are dis­cussing?’

Sher­iff Stal­lard grit­ted his teeth. This was go­ing to be the hard bit. ‘I don’t re­al­ly like to say, sir,’ he mut­tered. ‘It’s kind of in­ti­mate.’

‘In­ti­mate?’ Wal­ly yelled. ‘Are you fuck­ing drunk or mad or some­thing? Me and Mrs Im­mel­mann?’

The Sher­iff had had enough. He was get­ting re­al mad now. ‘And Dr Co­hen!’ he shout­ed back. There was a gasp and si­lence on the line. ‘You still there, Mr Im­mel­mann?’

Mr Im­mel­mann was still there. Just. He just wasn’t hear­ing right. He couldn’t be.

‘What was that last you said?’ he asked fi­nal­ly and in a weak voice.

‘I said you and Mrs Im­mel­mann are dis­cussing in­ti­mate per­son­al de­tails about…well, I guess you know what you were talk­ing about.’

‘Like what?’ Wal­ly de­mand­ed.

‘Well, like Dr Co­hen and–’

‘Shit!’ yelled Wal­ly. ‘You telling me the bas­tard over in Lossville…oh, my God!’

‘He called in to say it was all over the dis­trict up there, and we thought you might want to know.’

‘I might want to know? I might want…What else did he say?’

‘Could you cut it off is what he re­al­ly want­ed be­cause the noise is driv­ing his wife crazy. And what you and Mrs Im­mel­mann are shout­ing about, like your sex life and what she didn’t want you to do to her, isn’t help­ing.’

Wal­ly could well imag­ine it. The knowl­edge was driv­ing him crazy too, try­ing to work out how what he and Joanie had said in the bed­room was com­ing out of the sound sys­tem at a thou­sand deci­bels plus. It wasn’t pos­si­ble.

‘The thing is, there has to be some way to shut it down,’ the Sher­iff in­sist­ed. ‘We got the Na­tion­al Guard team mov­ing in. Maybe…Mr Im­mel­mann, are you all right?’

Some­thing in the Starfight­er Man­sion had crashed on to some­thing else, like a ta­ble.

‘Mr Im­mel­mann, Mr Im­mel­mann, oh shit!’ shout­ed the Sher­iff. ‘Bax­ter, get an am­bu­lance over there fast. Sounds like Wal­ly’s had a heart at­tack.’

Chapter 20

There are in parts of most En­glish in­dus­tri­al towns ar­eas of such ur­ban dere­lic­tion that on­ly the most des­per­ate­ly self-​pity­ing junkies and al­co­holics, the dis­cards of a con­cerned and car­ing so­ci­ety, choose to live there. A few old peo­ple, who would rather live any­where else but can’t af­ford to move, in­hab­it the top floors of the tow­er blocks and curse the day the lo­cal au­thor­ity de­mol­ished their nine­teenth-​cen­tu­ry back-​to-​backs in the 1960s os­ten­si­bly in the in­ter­ests of health and hy­giene. More cor­rect­ly, in the in­ter­ests of am­bi­tious ar­chi­tects anx­ious to earn rep­uta­tions and of lo­cal coun­cil­lors anx­ious to line their pock­ets with hand-​outs from de­vel­op­ers whose on­ly in­ter­est was in mak­ing vast prof­its.

One of these ar­eas is on the edge of Ip­ford and it was to­wards this that Mrs Rot­te­combe drove. She knew the place fair­ly well, too well for her ev­er to men­tion it now. One of her first long list of clients be­fore she had mar­ried Harold Rot­te­combe had had a cot­tage ten miles from Ip­ford and she had spent week­ends there. When the cus­tomer had most in­con­sid­er­ate­ly gone to his Mak­er while on the job she had moved hur­ried­ly to Lon­don to avoid the in­quest. She had changed her name and had adopt­ed that of a ma­ter­nal aunt who had Alzheimer’s and was in­ca­pable of re­mem­ber­ing who she her­self was let alone whether her niece was her daugh­ter or not. The ruse worked. Af­ter that, it was sim­ply a ques­tion of find­ing a re­spectable hus­band, and be­ing a shrewd and am­bi­tious wom­an she had made the ac­quain­tance of Harold Rot­te­combe by be­com­ing a work­er in his lo­cal con­stituen­cy of­fice. From there to the Reg­istry Of­fice had been an easy task. Harold, for all his po­lit­ical acu­men, had no idea what he had mar­ried. He would nev­er know un­less…un­less it came to a di­vorce. In short, Ruth Rot­te­combe, re­vert­ing to the lan­guage of her ado­les­cence, ‘had him by the balls’. And the fur­ther he climbed the greasy pole of pol­itics the less he would want her past to be­come pub­lic knowl­edge. So far, the on­ly mis­take she had made was in as­so­ci­at­ing with Bob Bat­tle­by. And, of course, in hav­ing to get rid of the man in the back of the Vol­vo in such a way that he couldn’t talk or, if he did, no one would be­lieve him. Who­ev­er he was, her in­stincts told her he was an ed­ucat­ed mar­ried man and not a re­porter for some filthy tabloid. Try­ing to ex­plain to his wife or the po­lice how he had lost his trousers was not go­ing to be an easy one.

By the time she reached Ip­ford it was get­ting dark. She skirt­ed the town and ap­proached the derelict es­tate by a back road. The place was far worse than she’d re­mem­bered. There was no one about and no lights in any of the win­dows, most of which were board­ed up. Il­lit­er­ates with spray cans had cov­ered walls with ob­scene graf­fi­ti. Ruth pulled in­to a dark al­ley­way where there were no street lights, parked un­der a loom­ing tow­er block and switched off the Vol­vo es­tate. She got out and looked cau­tious­ly around her and up at the black or board­ed-​up win­dows on ei­ther side of the al­ley. In the dis­tance she could hear the sound of lor­ries on the mo­tor­way but oth­er­wise there was no sound of life. Three min­utes lat­er she had re­moved the news­pa­pers and card­board box­es, un­wrapped the Elasto­plast from his wrists and re­moved the gag, and was drag­ging Wilt by the feet in­to the gut­ter, in the pro­cess bang­ing his head on the kerb. Then she slammed the back of the es­tate and drove on on­ly to find she was in a cul-​de-​sac. She re­versed the car and drove back the way she had come, her head­lights pick­ing out the al­most naked fig­ure of Wilt. She was glad to see his head had be­gun to bleed again. What she didn’t see was a ply­wood board cov­er­ing a win­dow stand­ing part­ly open on the sec­ond floor of the tow­er block above as she turned right and head­ed for the mo­tor­way. She was by this time tired but eu­phoric. She had rid her­self of a dan­ger­ous threat to Harold’s rep­uta­tion and her own in­flu­ence. What she for­got as she drove back to Mel­drum Slocum was to get rid of Wilt’s jeans, boots, socks and ruck­sack which were still un­der the card­board box­es. By the time she reached Ley­line Lodge she was ex­haust­ed and slumped in­to bed. Far be­hind her the ply­wood board in the tow­er block had long since closed again.

An hour lat­er a group of drunk skin­heads passed the head of the al­ley, spot­ted the body and came up to have a look at it.

‘A bloody old poofter,’ said one of them, draw­ing the con­clu­sion from the lack of Wilt’s jeans. ‘Let’s put the boot in.’ And hav­ing ex­pressed their feel­ings for gays by kick­ing him in the ribs a few times and once in the face, they stag­gered off laugh­ing. Wilt felt noth­ing. He had found an Old­er Eng­land than he’d ex­pect­ed but he still didn’t know it.

A fee­ble dawn had bro­ken when he was found by a po­lice car. Two con­sta­bles got out and looked down at him.

‘Best call an am­bu­lance. This one’s a right mess. Tell them it’s ur­gent.’

While the WPC used the car ra­dio the oth­er looked around. Above his head the ply­wood board opened.

‘Hap­pened around three hours ago,’ said an old wom­an. ‘A wom­an in a white car came and dragged him out. Then some young bas­tards gave him a kick­ing just for the fun of it.’

The con­sta­ble peered up at her. ‘You should have called us, moth­er,’ he said.

‘What with, I’d like to know? Think I’ve got a phone?’

‘Don’t sup­pose you have. What are you do­ing here any­way? Last time you were down the road.’

The old wom­an poked her head fur­ther out. ‘Think I’m stay­ing in one place round here? Not like­ly. I may be cab­bage-​look­ing but I ain’t that green. Got to keep mov­ing so those young swine don’t get me.’

The po­lice­man took out a note­book. ‘Get a look at the num­ber-​plate of the car?’ he asked.

‘What, in this dark? Course I didn’t. Saw a wom­an though. Rich bitch by the look of her. Not from round here.’

‘We can drive you down with us to the sta­tion. You’ll be safe enough down there.’

‘I don’t mean that. I want to go back where I came from. That’s what I mean, cop­per.’

But be­fore the con­sta­ble could ask where that was the Wom­an Po­lice Of­fi­cer re­turned with the news that no am­bu­lances were avail­able. There had been a ma­jor ac­ci­dent in­volv­ing two coach­es full of schoolchil­dren on a trip abroad, a petrol tanker and a lor­ry car­ry­ing pigs on the mo­tor­way twen­ty miles away and ev­ery avail­able am­bu­lance and fire en­gine had been sent to the scene.

‘Pigs?’ queried the con­sta­ble.

‘At least they think it was pigs. The Du­ty Sergeant’s been told the smell of roast pork is ap­palling.’

‘Nev­er mind about that. What about the school kids?’

‘They’re in the am­bu­lances. The two coach­es skid­ded on the pig fat and turned over,’ the WPC told him.

‘Oh well, we’d bet­ter put this bas­tard in the back of the car and take him down the hos­pi­tal our­selves.’

Above their heads the old wom­an had closed the ply­wood board again and dis­ap­peared. With Wilt ly­ing prone on the back seat they drove to Ip­ford Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and met with a hos­tile re­cep­tion.

‘Oh, all right,’ said a dis­traught doc­tor called by the nurse in A&E. ‘It will be dif­fi­cult with this damned ac­ci­dent. We haven’t any spare beds. We haven’t even a spare trol­ley. I’m not even sure we’ve got any spare cor­ri­dors, and just to make work­ing in what amounts to a hu­man abat­toir so ful­fill­ing, we’ve got a ma­jor catas­tro­phe on our hands, four doc­tors off sick and the usu­al short­age of nurs­ing staff. Why can’t you take him home? He’s less like­ly to die there.’

All the same, Wilt was fi­nal­ly lift­ed on to a stretch­er, and space in a long cor­ri­dor was found for him. For­tu­nate­ly, Wilt was still un­con­scious.

Chapter 21

Un­cle Wal­ly was not so lucky. He was ful­ly con­scious and wish­ing to hell he wasn’t. He had come out of In­ten­sive Care, had re­fused to see Aun­tie Joanie and was hav­ing a most un­pleas­ant con­ver­sa­tion with Dr Co­hen who was telling him a man of his age…well, a man of any age de­served an in­farct if he did what he’d done to his wife or any oth­er per­son for that mat­ter. It was, he said, con­tra natu­ra.

‘Con­tra what?’ Wal­ly gasped. The on­ly Con­tras he’d heard of had fought the San­din­istas in Nicaragua.

‘Against na­ture. The sphinc­ter is de­signed to let exc­re­ta out not–’

‘Shit! What’s ex­crecha?’

‘What you just said. Shit,’ said Dr Co­hen. ‘Now, like I was say­ing, the sphinc­ter–’

‘I don’t even know what a sphinc­ter is.’

‘Ass­hole,’ said Dr Co­hen am­bigu­ous­ly.

Wal­ly took um­brage. ‘You call­ing me an ass­hole?’ he yelled.

Dr Co­hen hes­itat­ed. Wal­ly Im­mel­mann might be a first-​rate busi­ness man but…The guy was sick. He didn’t want to kill the id­iot.

‘I am mere­ly try­ing to ex­plain the phys­io­log­ical con­se­quences of putting…putting things up some­one’s anus in­stead of in the nor­mal way.’

Wal­ly gaped at him and turned a nasty colour. He couldn’t find words for his feel­ings.

Dr Co­hen con­tin­ued. ‘Not on­ly could you give your dear wife Aids but–’

Wal­ly Im­mel­mann found words. ‘Aids?’ he yelled. ‘What’s all this about my hav­ing Aids? I haven’t got Aids. I’m not a fag­got.’

‘I’m not say­ing you are. I don’t care. What you do is your own busi­ness. I am mere­ly telling you that what you have been do­ing to your wife can be phys­ical­ly dam­ag­ing to her. Not can be. Is. She could be wear­ing tam­pons the rest of her life.’

‘Who says I do what you’re say­ing I do to her?’ de­mand­ed Wal­ly in­ad­vis­ed­ly.

Dr Co­hen sighed. He’d had just about all he could stom­ach from Wal­ly Im­mel­mann. ‘As a mat­ter of fact you do,’ he snapped. ‘You can be heard miles away shout­ing at Mrs Im­mel­mann about giv­ing it to her up the ass. Peo­ple are tak­ing tours up near Lake Sas­saquassee just to hear you.’

Wal­ly’s eyes bulged in his suf­fused face. ‘You mean…oh my God, they haven’t cut the loud­speak­ers off? They’ve got to.’

‘You tell them how. The po­lice can’t get near the place. They’ve had the Na­tion­al Guard and he­li­copters and…’

But Wal­ly Im­mel­mann was no longer lis­ten­ing. He’d had an­oth­er in­farct. As he was rushed back to In­ten­sive Care, Dr Co­hen left the hos­pi­tal. He was a kind­ly man and gays could do what they liked but screw­ing wives anal­ly when they didn’t like it dis­gust­ed him.

At the Starfight­er Man­sion things weren’t much bet­ter. Aun­tie Joan had tak­en to her bed and had locked the door, on­ly un­lock­ing it to go down to the kitchen to get her break­fast, lunch and din­ner. She and Eva were hard­ly on speak­ing terms and the quads had tak­en over Un­cle Wal­ly’s com­put­er and were send­ing email mes­sages to all their friends and a num­ber of ob­scene ones to all re­cip­ients on his busi­ness ad­dress list. Eva, who knew noth­ing about com­put­ers and was in any case too wor­ried about her Hen­ry, left them to their own and Un­cle Wal­ly’s de­vices. She spent her time on the phone to Eng­land call­ing up friends, even Mavis Mot­tram, to find out where he’d got to. No­body knew.

‘But he can’t just have dis­ap­peared. That’s not pos­si­ble.’

‘No, dear, and I didn’t say he’d dis­ap­peared,’ said Mavis with mock sym­pa­thy. ‘I just said no­body knew where he was.’

‘But that’s the same as say­ing he’s dis­ap­peared,’ said Eva, who had learnt some el­ements of log­ic from Wilt dur­ing their fre­quent ar­gu­ments. ‘You said no­body knows where he is. Some­one has to know. I mean, he may have gone on hol­iday with the Brain­trees. Have you tried them?’

At the oth­er end of the line Mavis took a deep breath. She had al­ways found Eva dif­fi­cult to deal with and she wasn’t pre­pared to be grilled by her now.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I haven’t. For the sim­ple rea­son that I don’t know their ad­dress or if they have gone on hol­iday and I’m hard­ly like­ly to know where they’ve gone.’

‘They al­ways take a cot­tage in Nor­folk for a month in the sum­mer.’

This time Mavis didn’t breathe deeply. She snort­ed. ‘Then why don’t you phone them?’ she snapped.

‘Be­cause I don’t know where the cot­tage is. All I do know is that it’s in Nor­folk some­where on the coast.’

‘Nor­folk?’ squawked Mavis. ‘If you se­ri­ous­ly think I’m go­ing to start search­ing cot­tages along the en­tire coast of Nor­folk…well, it’s out of the ques­tion. Why don’t you phone the hos­pi­tals and the po­lice? They’ve usu­al­ly kept an eye on your Hen­ry. Ask for Miss­ing Per­sons.’

All in all it was a most dis­agree­able and ac­ri­mo­nious ex­change, and it end­ed with Mavis putting the phone down with­out say­ing good­bye. Eva tried the house again but all she got was her own voice on the an­swer­phone. Apart from the quads, and she wasn’t go­ing to wor­ry them, Eva had no one to con­sult. Up­stairs Aun­tie Joan could be heard snor­ing. She’d tak­en an­oth­er sleep­ing pill and washed it down with Jack Daniels. Eva went out to the kitchen. At least there she could talk to May­belle, the black maid, and tell her her prob­lems. Even that didn’t help. May­belle’s ex­pe­ri­ence with men was even worse than Eva’s.

‘Men’s all the same. The sec­ond you turn your back they’s off like al­ley cats chas­ing oth­er girls.’

‘But my Hen­ry’s not like that. He’s…well, he’s dif­fer­ent from oth­er men. And he’s def­inite­ly not gay, if that’s what you’re think­ing.’ May­belle had raised her eye­brows sig­nif­icant­ly. ‘It’s just that he’s not re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in sex,’ Eva con­fid­ed.

‘Then he’s got­ta be dif­fer­ent. Nev­er met a man like that in all my life. That Mr Im­mel­mann sure isn’t. I reck­on that’s how come his heart’s so bad.’ She looked out the win­dow. ‘There’s those men again. I don’t know what they think they’re do­ing snoop­ing round the house all the time. And Mrs Joanie’s lost her voice or some­thing. Comes down and gets her­self some ice cream and brown­ies and goes on back up to her room and nev­er a word out of her. Guess she’s all up­set over Mr Im­mel­mann be­ing took bad.’

Up at the lake a blessed si­lence reigned. A spe­cial squad of to­tal­ly deaf Gulf War vet­er­ans had been re­cruit­ed to de­stroy the gen­er­ator with ex­plo­sives. Even then they had found the task dif­fi­cult and had had to use cloth­ing that looked like space­suits to get near the thing. But in the end they had suc­ceed­ed. The loud­speak­ers went dead and the Drug Squad moved in and ran­sacked the place. They found noth­ing more in­crim­inat­ing than a stack of porno videos hid­den in Wal­ly’s safe. But by the time they left, the house looked as though it had been van­dalised.

Chapter 22

But it was in the Starfight­er Man­sion in Wilma that the re­al bat­tle was about to be­gin. Aun­tie Joanie had wo­ken from her pill-​in­duced sleep de­ter­mined to vis­it Wal­ly and had driv­en down to the hos­pi­tal on­ly to learn that he was in In­ten­sive Care and could see no one. Dr Co­hen and the chief car­di­ol­ogist broke the news to her.

‘He’s not un­con­scious but his con­di­tion is ex­ceed­ing­ly grave. We’re think­ing of hav­ing him trans­ferred to the South At­lanta Heart Clin­ic,’ the car­di­ol­ogist told her.

‘But that’s where they do heart trans­plants!’ Joanie shrieked. ‘He can’t be that bad.’

‘It’s just that we haven’t the fa­cil­ities here in Wilma. He’ll be a heap bet­ter off at the Clin­ic.’

‘Well, I’m go­ing there with him. I’m not hav­ing him have a heart trans­plant with­out my be­ing with him.’

‘No one is talk­ing about a heart trans­plant, Mrs Im­mel­mann. It’s just that he’ll get the best treat­ment pos­si­ble down there.’

‘I don’t care!’ she screamed in­con­se­quen­tial­ly. ‘I’m go­ing to be with him to the end. You can’t stop me.’

‘No­body’s go­ing to stop you. You’re en­ti­tled to go where you like, but I won’t take re­spon­si­bil­ity for the con­se­quences,’ said the car­di­ol­ogist and end­ed the ar­gu­ment by go­ing back to In­ten­sive Care.

As she drove back to the Starfight­er Man­sion in a blaz­ing tem­per she made up her mind what she was go­ing to do. Tell Eva to get her­self and her brats out of the house.

‘I’m go­ing down to At­lanta with Wal­ly!’ she shout­ed. ‘And you’re go­ing back to Eng­land and I nev­er want to see you, any of you, ev­er again. Pack up and go.’

For once Eva agreed with her. The vis­it had been a dis­as­ter and be­sides, she was fran­ti­cal­ly wor­ried about Hen­ry. She should nev­er have left him alone. He was bound to have got in­to trou­ble with­out her. She told the quads to pack their things and get ready to leave. But they had heard Aun­tie Joan shout­ing and were way ahead of her. The on­ly prob­lem was how to get to the air­port. Eva put the ques­tion to Aun­tie Joan when she stormed down­stairs.

‘Get a bloody cab, you bitch,’ she snapped.

‘But I haven’t the mon­ey,’ said Eva pa­thet­ical­ly.

‘Oh, God. Nev­er mind. Any­thing to get you out of the house.’ She went to the phone and called the cab com­pa­ny and present­ly the Wilts were on their way. The quads said noth­ing. They knew bet­ter than to talk when Eva was in this sort of mood.

In the Surveil­lance Truck Mur­phy and Palows­ki were un­cer­tain what to do. No trace of any drug had been de­tect­ed in the ef­flu­ent com­ing from the Starfight­er Man­sion. Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s heart at­tack had made the sit­ua­tion even more dif­fi­cult and what they had seen and heard in the house didn’t sug­gest any ac­tiv­ity con­nect­ed with drugs. Do­mes­tic mur­der seemed more like­ly.

‘Best call At­lanta and tell them the sumo with quadru­plets is com­ing and let them de­cide the ac­tion,’ said Mur­phy.

‘Af­fir­ma­tive,’ Palows­ki agreed. He’d for­got­ten how to say yes.

Chapter 23

In Ip­ford Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal Wilt still hadn’t come round. He’d been moved from the cor­ri­dor to make room for six young­sters in­jured in the pig in­fer­no. Fi­nal­ly af­ter forty-​eight hours Wilt was tak­en in­to X-​ray and di­ag­nosed as suf­fer­ing from se­vere con­cus­sion and three bad­ly bruised ribs, but there was no sign of a frac­tured skull. From there he was wheeled to what was called the Neu­ro­log­ical Ward. As usu­al it was full.

‘Of course it was a crime,’ said the Du­ty Sergeant grumpi­ly when the doc­tor at the hos­pi­tal phoned the po­lice sta­tion to ask what ex­act­ly had hap­pened. ‘The bug­ger was mugged and dumped un­con­scious in the street be­hind the New Es­tate. What he was do­ing there we’ve no idea. Prob­ably drunk or…well, your guess is as good as mine. He wasn’t wear­ing any trousers. Be­ing in that dis­trict he was ask­ing for it.’

‘Any iden­ti­ty?’ the doc­tor asked.

‘One of our men saw him and thought he recog­nised him as a lec­tur­er at the Tech. Name of Wilt. Mr Hen­ry Wilt. He taught Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Stud­ies and–’

‘So what’s his ad­dress? Oh, nev­er mind, you can in­form his rel­atives he’s been mugged and is in Ip­ford Hos­pi­tal.’ And he rang off an­gri­ly.

In his of­fice In­spec­tor Flint leapt to his feet and barged in­to the pas­sage. ‘Did I hear you say ‘Hen­ry Wilt’?’

The Sergeant nod­ded. ‘He’s up at the hos­pi­tal. Been mugged ac­cord­ing to some quack who…’

But Flint was no longer lis­ten­ing. He hur­ried down to the po­lice sta­tion car park and head­ed for the hos­pi­tal.

It was a frus­trat­ed In­spec­tor Flint who fi­nal­ly found Wilt in the over­crowd­ed maze that was Ip­ford Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. To be­gin with he’d been di­rect­ed to Neu­rol­ogy on­ly to find Wilt had been moved to Va­sec­to­my.

‘What on earth for? I un­der­stood he had been mugged. What’s he need a va­sec­to­my for?’

‘He doesn’t. He was on­ly here tem­porar­ily. Then he was tak­en to Hys­terec­to­my.’

‘Hys­terec­to­my? Dear God,’ said Flint faint­ly. He could just be­gin to un­der­stand why a man who must pre­sum­ably have been an ac­tive par­tic­ipant in help­ing to foist those dread­ful quads on the world might de­serve a va­sec­to­my to pre­vent him in­flict­ing any more night­mares; hys­terec­to­my was some­thing else again. ‘But the blighter’s a man. You can’t give a man a hys­terec­to­my. It’s not pos­si­ble.’

‘That’s why he was moved to In­fec­tious Dis­eases 3. They had a spare bed there. At least I think it was ID 3,’ the nurse told him. ‘I know some­one died there this morn­ing. Mind you, they al­ways do.’

‘Why?’ asked Flint in­cau­tious­ly.

‘Aids,’ said the nurse, push­ing an obese wom­an on a trol­ley past him.

‘But they can’t put a man who’s been beat­en up and is bleed­ing in the same bed as a bloke who’s just died of Aids. It’s out­ra­geous. Bloody near con­demn­ing him to death.’

‘Oh, they ster­ilise the sheets and all that,’ said the nurse over her shoul­der.

It was a pale, frus­trat­ed and ap­palled In­spec­tor who fi­nal­ly found Wilt in Uni­sex 8 which was re­served for geri­atrics who had had a va­ri­ety of op­er­ations that re­quired them to wear catheters, drips and in sev­er­al cas­es tubes pro­trud­ing from var­ious oth­er ori­fices. Flint couldn’t see why it was called a uni­sex ward. Mul­ti-​sex would have been more ac­cu­rate though just as un­pleas­ant. To take his at­ten­tion away from a pa­tient of in­de­ter­mi­nate sex–for once Flint pre­ferred the po­lit­ical­ly cor­rect word ‘gen­der’–who clear­ly had an al­most con­tin­uous in­con­ti­nence prob­lem and what amount­ed to a pho­bic hor­ror of catheters, the In­spec­tor tried to con­cen­trate on Wilt. His con­di­tion was pret­ty aw­ful too. His scalp was ban­daged and his face bad­ly bruised and swollen but the Ward Sis­ter as­sured Flint that he’d soon re­cov­er con­scious­ness. Flint said he sin­cere­ly hoped so.

Short­ly af­ter­wards the old man in the next bed had con­vul­sions and his false teeth fell out. A nurse put them back and called the Sis­ter who took her time com­ing.

‘What’s the mat­ter with you?’ she de­mand­ed. Even to Flint’s med­ical­ly un­tu­tored way of think­ing, the ques­tion seemed gra­tu­itous. How the hell could the old fel­low know what was wrong with him?

‘How would I know? I just get these hot flush­es. I had a prostate op­er­ation on Tues­day,’ he said.

‘And a very suc­cess­ful one too. You’ve done noth­ing but grum­ble since you came here. You’re just a grot­ty old man. I’ll be glad to see the back of you.’

The nurse in­ter­vened. ‘But he’s eighty-​one, Sis­ter,’ she said.

‘And a very healthy eighty-​one he is too,’ the Sis­ter replied and swept off to deal with the pa­tient who had dragged his catheter out for the fifth time. It was per­fect­ly ob­vi­ous what ‘gen­der’ he was now. To avoid wit­ness­ing the rein­ser­tion of the catheter, and a fresh bout of con­vul­sions by the old man in the next bed, Flint turned to look at Wilt and found an eye star­ing at him. Wilt had re­cov­ered con­scious­ness and, if the eye was any­thing to go by, didn’t like what he was see­ing. Flint wasn’t en­joy­ing it much ei­ther. He stared back and won­dered what to do. But the eye closed abrupt­ly. Flint turned to the nurse to ask her if an open eye was an in­di­ca­tion that the pa­tient had re­cov­ered con­scious­ness but the nurse was hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty putting the old man’s den­tures back in­to his mouth again. When she had suc­ceed­ed Flint asked again.

‘Couldn’t say, not re­al­ly,’ she said. ‘I’ve known some of them die with their eyes wide open. Of course they glaze over a bit blue lat­er on. That way you know they’ve gone.’

‘Charm­ing,’ said the In­spec­tor and turned back but Wilt’s eyes were firm­ly shut. The sight of the In­spec­tor sit­ting be­side the bed had so star­tled him he had al­most for­got­ten his dread­ful headache and how aw­ful he felt. What­ev­er had hap­pened to him–and he had no idea where he’d been or what he’d done the vague­ly fa­mil­iar fig­ure sit­ting and star­ing at him was not a re­as­sur­ing one. Not that he recog­nised Flint. And present­ly he fell in­to a co­ma again and Flint sent for Sergeant Yates.

‘I’m off home for a bit of lunch and a kip,’ he told him. ‘Let me know the mo­ment he comes round and on no ac­count let that id­iot Hodge know he’s here. He’ll have Wilt charged for drug deal­ing be­fore the poor bug­ger’s con­scious.’

He went down the seem­ing­ly end­less cor­ri­dors and drove home.

Chapter 24

On the oth­er side of the At­lantic Eva and the quads sat in the air­port wait­ing for their plane. It had been de­layed first by a bomb threat and then, when it had been thor­ough­ly searched, by a me­chan­ical fault. Eva was no longer im­pa­tient or even an­gry with the quads or Aun­tie Joan. She was glad to be go­ing home to her Hen­ry but in­tense­ly wor­ried about his where­abouts and what had hap­pened to him. The girls played and squab­bled around her. She blamed her­self for hav­ing ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion to Wilma but at least she was go­ing home and in a way she was glad her mis­sion to get the Im­mel­manns to change their wills in the girls’ favour had failed so catas­troph­ical­ly. The prospect of a for­tune would have been bad for the quads.

From an of­fice over­look­ing the check-​in DEA of­fi­cials stud­ied the lit­tle group and won­dered what to do.

‘We stop them here, we’re not go­ing to find any­thing. If there ev­er was any­thing to find. Reck­on Palows­ki was right. This Mrs Wilt is a de­coy. The guys in Lon­don can check her out. No point in pulling her in here.’

What Ruth Rot­te­combe was do­ing was prepar­ing a prospect that would be very bad. For Wilt, at any rate. When she was wo­ken from her sleep af­ter her long drive back from Ip­ford by a phone call from the Su­per­in­ten­dent at Os­ton Po­lice Sta­tion to say he was com­ing up to in­ter­view her, she re­alised she hadn’t got rid of Wilt’s trousers and ruck­sack as she had in­tend­ed. They were still in the back of the Vol­vo. If the po­lice found them…Ruth pre­ferred not to think of the con­se­quences. She hur­ried out to the garage and took them up to an emp­ty trunk in the at­tic and locked it. Then she re­turned to the garage and moved the car over the spot where Wilt had fall­en and locked Wil­fred and Pick­les in­side. They would act as a de­ter­rent to any in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the place. Some­how she had been sure the po­lice would pay her an­oth­er vis­it and she had no wish to an­swer any more awk­ward ques­tions.

She need not have wor­ried. The po­lice had checked at the Coun­try Club and Bat­tle­by’s al­ibi seemed au­then­tic. He had been there at least an hour be­fore the fire had bro­ken out and the ar­son in­ves­ti­ga­tors had found no sign of a de­layed-​ac­tion de­vice. Who­ev­er had start­ed the fire, it couldn’t have been the beast­ly Bat­tle­by or Mrs Rot­te­combe. And they’d got the bloody pae­dophile on two charges, one of which would put him away for a very long time and ru­in the swine’s rep­uta­tion for life. The Su­per­in­ten­dent didn’t care so much about the ar­son. On the oth­er hand, while he de­test­ed Ruth­less Ruth, he had to be care­ful. She was the wife of an in­flu­en­tial Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment who could ask awk­ward ques­tions in the House about po­lice in­ter­ro­ga­tion meth­ods and ha­rass­ment. It would pay to be po­lite to her for the time be­ing. Talk­ing about the fire would give him a chance to study her.

‘I’m ex­treme­ly sor­ry to both­er you,’ he said when she opened the front door. ‘It’s just that there are some points in the case against Mr Bat­tle­by that are both­er­ing us and we thought you might be in a po­si­tion to en­light­en us. We are sim­ply con­cerned with the fire at the Manor House.’

Ruth Rot­te­combe hes­itat­ed for a mo­ment and de­cid­ed to be con­cil­ia­to­ry. ‘If I can be of any help, I’ll cer­tain­ly try. You’d bet­ter come in.’

She held the door open but the Su­per­in­ten­dent was not anx­ious to en­ter a house if those damned bull ter­ri­ers were loose in­side. It had tak­en all his courage to drive up and get out of the car.

‘About those two dogs…’ he be­gan but Mrs Rot­te­combe re­as­sured him.

‘They are locked in the garage. Do come in.’

They went in­to the draw­ing room.

‘Please take a seat.’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent sat down hes­itant­ly. This was hard­ly the re­cep­tion he’d ex­pect­ed. Mrs Rot­te­combe pulled up a chair and pre­pared to an­swer ques­tions.

The Su­per­in­ten­dent picked his words care­ful­ly. ‘We have checked with the Club Sec­re­tary and he has con­firmed that Bat­tle­by was at the Coun­try Club play­ing bridge for near­ly an hour be­fore the fire broke out. Sec­ond­ly, the kitchen door was un­locked. So it was per­fect­ly pos­si­ble that some­one else start­ed the fire.’

‘But that’s im­pos­si­ble. I locked–’ Ruth said be­fore re­al­is­ing she was walk­ing in­to a trap. ‘I mean, some­one must have known where the keys were kept. I hope you don’t think I–’

‘Cer­tain­ly not,’ said the Su­per­in­ten­dent. ‘We know you were at the Club at the same time. No, there’s no sus­pi­cion against you. I can guar­an­tee that. What in­ter­ests us more is a set of foot­prints in the veg­etable gar­den. They are those of a man who came down from the track be­hind the house. Now in the mud in the track we’ve al­so found tyre marks which in­di­cate that a ve­hi­cle was parked there and drove off hur­ried­ly some time lat­er on. It be­gins to look as though the fire was start­ed de­lib­er­ate­ly by a third par­ty.’

Mrs Rot­te­combe bri­dled at that ‘third’. ‘Are you sug­gest­ing Bob hired some­one to start the fire–’

‘I’m not sug­gest­ing any­thing,’ said the Su­per­in­ten­dent hur­ried­ly. ‘I sim­ply meant that some­one, some un­known per­son, en­tered the house and caused the fire. We al­so have ev­idence that he had been in the kitchen gar­den for some con­sid­er­able time, ev­ident­ly watch­ing the house. There are a group of foot­prints by the gate in the wall which in­di­cate that he had moved about wait­ing for a chance to en­ter the house.’ He paused. ‘What we are try­ing to find out is if any­one had a par­tic­ular grudge against the man Bat­tle­by, and we won­dered if you could help us.’

Mrs Rot­te­combe nod­ded. ‘I should think there were a great many,’ she said fi­nal­ly. ‘Bob Bat­tle­by was not a pop­ular fig­ure in the dis­trict. Those vile mag­azines in the Range Rover in­di­cate that he has pae­dophile ten­den­cies and he may have abused…well, done some­thing hor­ri­ble.’

It was her turn to pause and let the in­fer­ence sink in. The sug­ges­tion helped to clear her of any con­nec­tion with that side of Bat­tle­by’s in­cli­na­tions. What­ev­er she was she was not a child or, as the Su­per­in­ten­dent put it to him­self, a spring chick­en.

By the time he left he had not gained any use­ful in­for­ma­tion from her. On the oth­er hand, Ruth Rot­te­combe had a shrewd idea why Harold had found the un­con­scious man in the garage. He’d had some­thing to do with that dis­as­trous night and she saw no rea­son why she shouldn’t pro­vide the po­lice with his jeans cov­ered with ash near the burnt-​out Manor. She wouldn’t leave them there im­me­di­ate­ly but would wait un­til it was dark. Like af­ter mid­night.

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 quan­ti­ty 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 ‘Fuck’ 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 pas­sen­ger 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 but­ton 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 bitch, 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, push­ing 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 pas­sage 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 bloody 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 breasts 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, God 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 cocked 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 passed 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 pan­cre­ati­tis.’

‘And how do you get pan­cre­ati­tis? 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 pas­sage.’

‘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 en­ti­tled 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 bas­tard Bat­tle­by hired some swine to torch the place,’ the Su­per­in­ten­dent told the group of po­lice­men as­sem­bled 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 shirt 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 at­ti­tude 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 bloody wom­an’s up to her ears in the rot­ten busi­ness but at least we’ve got that bas­tard 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 bas­tard 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.

Chapter 28

By the time they found Geri­atrics 3 Wilt hadn’t been in Geri­atrics 5 Mavis Mot­tram had had enough. So had Eva. They head­ed for the door on­ly to be con­front­ed by a formidable Sis­ter.

‘I’m sor­ry but you can’t see him yet. Dr Soltander is ex­am­in­ing him,’ she said.

‘But I’m his wife,’ squawked Eva.

‘Very pos­si­bly. But’

Mavis in­ter­vened. ‘Show her your driv­ing li­cence,’ she snapped. ‘That will prove who you are.’ As Eva rum­maged in her hand­bag Mavis turned on the Sis­ter. ‘You can check the ad­dress. I as­sume you know Mr Wilt’s.’

‘Of course we do. We wouldn’t know who he was if we didn’t.’

‘In that case why didn’t you phone Mrs Wilt and let her know he was here?’

The Sis­ter gave up and went back in­to the ward. ‘His wife and an­oth­er dread­ful wom­an are de­mand­ing to see him,’ she told the doc­tor.

Dr Soltander sighed. His was a hard life and he had enough ter­mi­nal­ly ill old peo­ple to at­tend to with­out hav­ing any in­ter­rup­tions from wives and dread­ful wom­en. ‘Tell them to give me an­oth­er twen­ty min­utes,’ he said. ‘I may be in a bet­ter po­si­tion to make a prog­no­sis by then.’

But the Sis­ter wasn’t tack­ling Mavis Mot­tram again. ‘You’d bet­ter tell them your­self. They won’t lis­ten to me.’

‘Very well,’ mut­tered the doc­tor with a dan­ger­ous de­gree of pa­tience and went out in­to the cor­ri­dor. He could see at once what the Sis­ter had meant by ‘two dread­ful wom­en’. Eva was white-​faced and sob­bing and de­mand­ing to see her Hen­ry. Dr Soltander tried to point out that Wilt was un­con­scious and in no con­di­tion to see any­one and aroused the fury of Mavis Mot­tram.

‘It’s her le­gal right to vis­it her hus­band. You can’t stop her.’

The doc­tor’s ex­pres­sion hard­ened. ‘And who may you be?’

‘Mrs Wilt’s friend and I’ll re­peat that Mrs Wilt has ev­ery right to vis­it her hus­band.’

Dr Soltander’s eyes nar­rowed. ‘Not while I’m do­ing my rounds,’ he snapped. ‘She can vis­it him when I’ve fin­ished.’

‘And when will that be? In four hours?’

‘I’m not here to be cross-​ex­am­ined by you or any­one else. Now kind­ly take your friend in­to the Wait­ing Room while I make sure my ab­sence from the ward hasn’t re­sult­ed in any pre­ma­ture deaths.’

‘Pres­ence more like­ly,’ Mavis snapped back and took out her lit­tle note­book. ‘What’s your name? It isn’t Ship­man by any chance?’

The re­mark failed to have the ef­fect she had ex­pect­ed. Two ef­fects to be pre­cise. Eva’s aw­ful wail star­tled a num­ber of pa­tients sev­er­al wards down the cor­ri­dor and even some on the floor above. At the same time Dr Soltander leant for­ward with a sin­is­ter smile un­til his face was al­most touch­ing Mavis Mot­tram’s.

‘Don’t tempt me, my dear,’ he whis­pered. ‘One day I look for­ward to hav­ing you as a pa­tient.’

And be­fore Mavis could re­cov­er from the shock of be­ing nose to nose with such a sin­is­ter man he had turned and stalked back in­to the ward.

‘Now if you’ll just wait in the Vis­itors’ Room I’ll call you just as soon as Dr Soltander is through,’ the Sis­ter told them and ush­ered the two wom­en down the cor­ri­dor. By the time she re­turned to the ward the doc­tor had aban­doned Wilt and was tak­ing his fury out on In­spec­tor Flint by ex­plain­ing that his pres­ence was hin­der­ing what lit­tle treat­ment he could give the sick and dy­ing, and that in any case Wilt was not in any con­di­tion to be ques­tioned.

‘How the dev­il am I sup­posed to do the job of three doc­tors min­imum with blast­ed cop­pers lit­ter­ing the ward? You can bloody well go and wait with those two di­abol­ical wom­en. Sis­ter, show him out.’

‘And my job is to take a state­ment from this bloke when he comes round,’ Flint re­tort­ed.

‘Yes, well the Sis­ter here will let you know when he does.’

All the same the In­spec­tor wasn’t shar­ing the so-​called Vis­itors’ Room with Eva and Mavis Mot­tram. ‘You can phone me at the po­lice sta­tion when he’s awake,’ he told the Sis­ter and went down to the car park. For ten min­utes he sat there think­ing. Wilt had been found with­out trousers? And old Mrs Ver­ney had seen him be­ing hoist­ed out of a car by a wom­an. And kicked by some drunk­en louts. It was all very strange.

At Ley­line Lodge Ruth Rot­te­combe was no longer ruth­less. She was fran­tic. The po­lice had ar­rived ear­ly that morn­ing with a search war­rant and had in­sist­ed she open the garage doors to al­low a num­ber of white-​coat­ed and gloved foren­sic ex­perts to make a de­tailed ex­am­ina­tion of the place. Still in her dress­ing gown Ruth had watched them from the kitchen as they moved Harold’s Jaguar and then paid par­tic­ular at­ten­tion to the patch of oil un­der­neath. Ruth re­treat­ed to the bed­room and tried to think. She de­cid­ed to place the blame on Harold. Af­ter all the car was his and he’d ob­vi­ous­ly done a run­ner which she could now see was to her ad­van­tage. With him out of the way she was still in the clear. Af­ter all there was no ev­idence against her.

She was wrong. In the garage the po­lice had found all the ev­idence they need­ed, oil mixed with dried blood, strands of hair and best of all a frag­ment of blue cloth which matched the colour of the jeans they had found in the lane. There was al­so mud. They placed all these items in plas­tic bags and took their find­ings back to the po­lice sta­tion.

‘Now we’re get­ting some­where,’ said the Su­per­in­ten­dent. ‘If this stuff proves to be what it looks like we’ve got the bitch. Get foren­sic on to it pron­to. And get a match of the cloth with the jeans we found in the lane. If they’re the same she’s up shit creek with­out a ca­noe let alone a pad­dle. In the mean time see she doesn’t leave the house. I want a watch kept on her all the time. And while you’re about it bring me the file.’

He sat back and stud­ied his notes from the pre­vi­ous meet­ing. A bloke named Wilt, Hen­ry Wilt of 45 Oakhurst Av­enue, Ip­ford, found dumped in the street, ap­par­ent­ly mugged and now un­con­scious in hos­pi­tal there. And the back­pack­er who’d stayed at the B&Bs had used the same name. All it re­quired was a DNA check on his blood and that found on the floor of the Rot­te­combes’ garage and the case was be­gin­ning to build up. The Su­per­in­ten­dent gloat­ed at the prospect be­fore him. If he could get the ev­idence to prove that Ruth the Ruth­less was tru­ly in­volved, how­ev­er in­di­rect­ly, in set­ting the Manor on fire he would earn the grat­itude of the Chief Con­sta­ble who loathed the bitch. And if the Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment was forced to re­sign or bet­ter still was in­volved him­self, his own fu­ture looked very bright. He’d be cer­tain of pro­mo­tion. The Home Sec­re­tary would be de­light­ed. The Shad­ow Min­is­ter would cer­tain­ly lose his seat in the next elec­tion and his own fu­ture would be as­sured. The Su­per­in­ten­dent stared out the win­dow of his shab­by of­fice, then picked up the phone and called Ip­ford Po­lice Sta­tion.

Chapter 29

In Wilma Aun­tie Joan wasn’t in any mood to gloat. Wal­ly was still in the Coro­nary Care Unit and she had been as­sured he would soon re­cov­er which was good news. The bad news was that she was met by two men with Yan­kee ac­cents who in­sist­ed she take a look at the pool be­hind the house.

‘Who are you?’ she de­mand­ed and was shown their IDs which told her they were Fed­er­al Drug En­force­ment Agents. Aun­tie Joan want­ed to know why they were at the Starfight­er Man­sion.

‘Come on round the back and you’ll see why.’

Aun­tie Joan went re­luc­tant­ly and was hor­ri­fied to find the pool emp­ty ex­cept for a dead snif­fer dog ly­ing on the bot­tom. Two oth­er men dressed in pro­tec­tive cloth­ing and wear­ing gas masks were col­lect­ing bits of what had once been a gela­tine cap­sule. Not that it was recog­nis­able as such any more.

‘Like to tell us just what was hid­den down there?’ the man named Palows­ki asked.

Aun­tie Joan looked wild­ly at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.’

‘Like the dog drinks the wa­ter and the next mo­ment it dies but fast?’

‘What’s that got to do with me? My hus­band’s in In­ten­sive Care and you’re ask­ing me…Oh, God!’ She turned and head­ed for the house. She need­ed a stiff drink and three, at least three, Prozacs and some sleep­ing pills for good mea­sure. And then the phone rang. She let it. It rang again. And again. Aun­tie Joanie drank half a tum­bler of brandy and took four sleep­ing tablets. The phone rang an­oth­er time. She man­aged to get to it and slurred, ‘Fuck off,’ and sat down on the floor and passed out.

At Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es the deputy CEO wished to hell he had tak­en the day off. His morn­ing had been made hellish. He’d had calls from all over the coun­try from en­raged re­cip­ients of the quads’ emails.

‘He called you what?’ he asked the first caller, one of IE’s biggest cus­tomers. ‘There’s got to have been a mis­take. Why would he call you that? He’s sick in hos­pi­tal with a quadru­ple by­pass.’

‘And when he comes out he’s go­ing to find out just how sick he is. He’ll need more than a quadru­ple by­pass by the time I’ve fin­ished with the cunt-​suck­er. He wants an­oth­er mil­lion-​dol­lar or­der from us he ain’t go­ing to get it. He gets no more busi­ness out of me and what’s more I’m tak­ing him to court for defama­tion. A pe­nis-​gob­bler, am I? Well, you tell him…’

It was a most ap­palling call. The fif­teen oth­ers that came in dur­ing the rest of the morn­ing weren’t any bet­ter. Can­cel­la­tion or­ders poured in ac­com­pa­nied by phys­ical threats. So did ob­scene hate emails.

The deputy CEO told the sec­re­tary to leave the phone off the hook. ‘And while you’re about it you’d bet­ter be look­ing for an­oth­er job. I sure as shit am. Im­mel­mann’s gone crazy. He’s lost ev­ery cus­tomer we ev­er had,’ he shout­ed as he dashed out to his car.

In the Sher­iff’s of­fice Har­ry Stal­lard re­fused to be­lieve Bax­ter’s re­port. ‘A new snif­fer dog died af­ter lick­ing the wa­ter in the swim­ming-​pool? Why in the name of God should they emp­ty the pool? The dog prob­ably fell in and drowned.’

But Bax­ter was adamant. ‘There was some­thing dis­solved down the bot­tom and they want­ed to see what it was.’

‘Sure. One drowned hound dog.’

‘All I know is they had spe­cial wet suits and masks. And there was this spe­cial con­tain­er to put it in to fly it up to the Chem­ical War­fare Re­search Cen­ter in Wash­ing­ton for anal­ysis,’ Bax­ter told him. ‘They reck­on it could be linked to Al Qae­da it’s that tox­ic.’

‘In Wilma? In Wilma? That’s out-​of-​this-​world crazy. Who the hell’s go­ing to use a high­ly tox­ic sub­stance in a one-​horse town like Wilma?’

Bax­ter pon­dered the ques­tion. ‘Could be that Sad­dam Hus­sein bas­tard. Got to test it some­place, I guess,’ he said fi­nal­ly.

‘So why choose Wilma; he’s got all those Kurds he gassed? You tell me that.’

‘Or that oth­er guy Os­sam been…The one who did the Twin Tow­ers.’

‘Bin Laden,’ said the Sher­iff. ‘Sure. So he choos­es Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s swim­ming-​pool and takes out a hound dog? And that makes sense?’

‘Shit, I don’t know. Noth­ing makes sense. Hook­ing the toi­lets and all up to that tanker back of the old drive-​in was crazy.’

Sher­iff Stal­lard pushed his hat back and wiped the sweat from his face. ‘I don’t be­lieve what I’m hear­ing. This isn’t hap­pen­ing. Not in Wilma it’s not. It can’t be. Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s in with god­dam ter­ror­ists. And that ain’t pos­si­ble, no way, Bil­ly, no way. I mean it’s way out im­pos­si­ble.’

Bax­ter shrugged. ‘That mega-​deci­bel sound sys­tem was im­pos­si­ble too. You heard it. You know.’

The Sher­iff did know. He was nev­er go­ing to for­get it. He sat think­ing. Or try­ing to. In the end he suc­ceed­ed and the im­pos­si­ble be­came slight­ly more pos­si­ble and his own po­si­tion less in­se­cure. Peo­ple did go lo­co. ‘Get me May­belle,’ he said. ‘Bring her in. She’s the one who’ll know.’

One per­son who def­inite­ly didn’t know was Eva. She had fi­nal­ly been al­lowed out of the Vis­itors’ Room on­ly to be told that the pa­tient Wilt was still un­con­scious but she could go and see him pro­vid­ed Mavis Mot­tram didn’t ac­com­pa­ny her. Hav­ing been in Eva Wilt’s maudlin com­pa­ny for three hours Mavis had no in­ten­tion of spend­ing any more time or sym­pa­thy on her. She slunk out of the hos­pi­tal a bro­ken wom­an, curs­ing the day she’d met any­one so stupid and mawk­ish­ly sen­ti­men­tal. Eva’s feel­ings about Mavis had changed too. She was all bluff and brava­do and a bul­ly to boot and had no stay­ing pow­er.

Through the door of the ward Eva had glimpsed In­spec­tor Flint sit­ting by the bed, ap­par­ent­ly read­ing a news­pa­per. In fact he wasn’t read­ing it at all; he was us­ing it as a shield to hide what was be­ing done to a man who, if ap­pear­ances were any­thing to go by, had re­cent­ly been trepanned or had had an ex­ceed­ing­ly nasty ac­ci­dent with some sort of cir­cu­lar saw. What­ev­er it was Flint didn’t want to see it. He had nev­er been a par­tic­ular­ly squeamish man and his ex­pe­ri­ence of mu­ti­lat­ed corpses had hard­ened him to inan­imate hor­rors, but he was less able to cope with those in­volv­ing mod­ern surgery and in par­tic­ular found puls­ing brains in adult males (ba­bies were dif­fer­ent) de­cid­ed­ly un­nerv­ing.

‘Can’t you put a screen round the bed while you’re do­ing what­ev­er you are do­ing to that poor bloke?’ he’d asked on­ly to be told he could leave the ward if he was so wimp­ish and any­way it wasn’t a bloke but a wom­an and this was a uni­sex ward.

‘You could have fooled me,’ Flint re­tort­ed. ‘Though come to think of it, I dare­say uni­sex is about right. It’s im­pos­si­ble to tell what sex any­one is in here.’

It was not a re­mark that en­deared him to three wom­en near­by who had been un­der the il­lu­sion that they were still rel­ative­ly at­trac­tive and sexy. Flint didn’t care. He tried to in­ter­est him­self more vi­car­ious­ly in a scan­dal in­volv­ing a well-​known rug­by play­er who had gone to a mas­sage par­lour in Swansea on­ly to find his wife work­ing there and had tack­led the own­er or, as the lat­ter had put it from the wit­ness box, ‘had gone apeshit’, when he saw Wilt look­ing at him.

Flint put the pa­per down and smiled. ‘Hel­lo, Hen­ry. Feel­ing any bet­ter?’

From the pil­low Wilt stud­ied that smile and found it dif­fi­cult to in­ter­pret. It wasn’t the sort of smile to give him any con­fi­dence. In­spec­tor Flint’s false teeth were too loose for that and be­sides, he had seen Flint smile ma­li­cious­ly in the past too of­ten to find the sight at all re­as­sur­ing. He didn’t feel any bet­ter.

‘Bet­ter than what?’ he asked.

Flint’s smile dis­ap­peared and with it most of his sym­pa­thy. He be­gan to doubt whether Wilt’s brain had been af­fect­ed at all by be­ing mugged. ‘Well, bet­ter than you did be­fore.’

‘Be­fore what?’ said Wilt, fight­ing for time to find out what was go­ing on. It was ob­vi­ous he was in hos­pi­tal and that he had ban­dages round his head but that was about all that was ob­vi­ous.

Flint’s hes­ita­tion be­fore re­ply­ing did noth­ing to give him any con­fi­dence in his own in­no­cence. ‘Be­fore this thing hap­pened,’ he said fi­nal­ly.

Wilt tried to think. He had no idea what had hap­pened. ‘I can’t say I do,’ he replied. It seemed a rea­son­able an­swer to a ques­tion he didn’t un­der­stand.

That wasn’t the way In­spec­tor Flint saw it. He was al­ready be­gin­ning to lose the thread of the con­ver­sa­tion and as al­ways with Wilt he was be­ing led in­to a swamp of mis­un­der­stand­ing. The sod nev­er did say any­thing that was at all clear-​cut. ‘When you say you can’t say you do, just ex­act­ly what do you mean?’ he en­quired and tried to smile again. That didn’t help.

Wilt’s cau­tion went in­to over­drive. ‘Just that,’ he said.

‘And ‘just that’ means?’

‘What I said. Just that,’ Wilt said.

Again Flint’s smile van­ished. He leant for­ward. ‘Lis­ten, Hen­ry, all I want to know is–’

He got no fur­ther. Wilt had de­cid­ed on new avoid­ing tac­tics. ‘Who’s Hen­ry?’ he asked abrupt­ly.

A new look of doubt came on Flint’s face and his lean for­ward ground to a halt. ‘Who’s Hen­ry? You want to know who Hen­ry is?’

‘Yes. I don’t know of any Hen­rys. Ex­cept kings and princes of course and I wouldn’t know any of them, would I? Nev­er met one and I’m not like­ly to. Have you ev­er met a king or a prince?’

For a sec­ond the look on the In­spec­tor’s face had changed from doubt to cer­tain­ty. Now it swung back again. With Wilt noth­ing was cer­tain and even that was doubt­ful in these cir­cum­stances. Wilt was un­cer­tain­ty per­son­ified. ‘No. I haven’t met a king or a prince and I don’t want to. All I want to know–’

‘That’s the sec­ond time you’ve said that,’ said Wilt. ‘And what I want to know is who I am.’

At that mo­ment Eva shoved her way in­to the room. She had wait­ed long enough and she wasn’t spend­ing an­oth­er two hours in that re­volt­ing­ly dirty wait­ing room. She was go­ing to her hus­band’s side.

‘Oh, dar­ling, are you in ter­ri­ble pain, my pet?’

Wilt opened his eyes with a silent curse. ‘What’s it got to do with you? And who are you call­ing “dar­ling”?’

‘But…oh, God! I’m your Eva, your wife.’

‘Wife? What do you mean? I haven’t got a wife,’ Wilt moaned. ‘I’m a…I’m a…I don’t know what I am.’

In the back­ground In­spec­tor Flint agreed whole­heart­ed­ly. He didn’t know what Wilt was ei­ther. Nev­er had and nev­er would. About the near­est he’d ev­er got to it was that Wilt was the most de­vi­ous bas­tard he’d come across in all the years he’d been in the po­lice force. With Eva, now weep­ing co­pi­ous­ly, you knew pre­cise­ly where you stood. Or lay. At the bot­tom of the pile. To that ex­tent Wilt had told the truth. Fam­ily first with those ghast­ly quads; Eva sec­ond, along with her ma­te­ri­al pos­ses­sions–or, as Wilt’s so­lic­itor had once put it, ‘like liv­ing with a dish­wash­er cum vac­uum clean­er that thinks it thinks’–and fi­nal­ly what­ev­er lat­est fad or so-​called philo­soph­ical twad­dle she had heard about. Even Green­peace had found her mil­itan­cy too much. The Keep­er of the Seal Culling Sta­tion at Worth­combe Bay had, in giv­ing ev­idence in court against her from his wheelchair, said that if she rep­re­sent­ed Green­peace, he shud­dered to think what Green­war would be like. In fact the man’s lan­guage had been so filthy that on­ly his in­juries pre­vent­ed the mag­is­trate from hold­ing him in con­tempt. And fi­nal­ly at the very bot­tom of the pile was Mr Hen­ry Wilt, law­ful­ly wed­ded hus­band of Mrs Eva Wilt, poor bug­ger. No won­der he de­lib­er­ate­ly re­fused to recog­nise her.

He was dis­tract­ed from these con­sid­er­ations by one last des­per­ate ap­peal from Eva to her Hen­ry to ac­knowl­edge her as his de­vot­ed wife and moth­er of his love­ly daugh­ters, and Wilt’s re­fusal to do any­thing so ut­ter­ly in­sane, as well as his com­plaint that he was sick and didn’t want to be ha­rassed by strange wom­en he’d nev­er seen be­fore. The ef­fect of this state­ment was that the weep­ing Eva was helped from the ward. Her sobs could be heard from the cor­ri­dor as she went in search of a doc­tor.

In­spec­tor Flint seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go back to the bed­side and bend over Wilt. ‘You’re a cun­ning bug­ger, Hen­ry,’ he whis­pered. ‘Cun­ning as hell but you don’t fool me. I saw the nasty lit­tle glint in your eye when your mis­sis took off. I’ve known you too long to be fooled by your tricks. You just re­mem­ber that.’

For a mo­ment he thought Wilt was about to smile but the gorm­less ex­pres­sion re­turned and Wilt closed his eyes. Flint gave up. He wasn’t go­ing to get any­thing use­ful out of him in these aw­ful cir­cum­stances. And the cir­cum­stances were get­ting more aw­ful by the minute. The wom­an with the pul­sat­ing skull was hav­ing some sort of fit and one of the shaven mul­ti-​sex­es was protest­ing to a nurse that he, she or it had al­ready been giv­en a forty-​five-​min­utes oil en­ema and def­inite­ly didn’t need an­oth­er. The whole thing was a bloody night­mare.

In Wilma Sher­iff Stal­lard shared In­spec­tor Flint’s hor­ror though for very dif­fer­ent rea­sons. It wasn’t so much that May­belle was re­fus­ing to give him in­for­ma­tion about what had been go­ing on at the Starfight­er Man­sion. She was giv­ing far too much and he’d have pre­ferred not to hear it.

‘They asked you what?’ he gasped when she told him the quads had asked her how many times a week Wal­ly Im­mel­mann fucked her and how many oth­er gays there were in Wilma. ‘The filthy bitch­es. And they used the words ‘fucked’ and ‘as­swise’?’

May­belle nod­ded. ‘Yessir, they sure did.’

‘What in God’s name did they ask that for? It’s crazy. It’s not pos­si­ble.’

‘Said they were do­ing a project on ex­ploita­tion of coloured folk in the South for the school they go to back in Britain and they had to fill in a ques­tion­naire,’ May­belle said.

‘And what did you tell them, for Chris­sake?’

‘I’d rather not say, Sher­iff. Noth­ing more than the truth.’

The Sher­iff shud­dered. If the truth was any­thing like what he’d heard at a thou­sand deci­bels up near the lake, Wal­ly Im­mel­mann would have to get the hell out of Wilma but fast. Ei­ther that or be lucky to die in the Coro­nary Unit.

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.’

Chapter 31

‘This blast­ed busi­ness is get­ting out of hand,’ the Chief Con­sta­ble told the Su­per­in­ten­dent at Os­ton. He’d driv­en over in his wife’s small car to con­vey this mes­sage un­os­ten­ta­tious­ly. The dis­ap­pear­ance of the Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment had ag­gra­vat­ed an al­ready dif­fi­cult sit­ua­tion. The me­dia had re­turned in force and were en­camped out­side Ley­line Lodge in even larg­er num­bers than be­fore. ‘I’ve had the Home Sec­re­tary on the line ask­ing where the pre­cious Shad­ow Min­is­ter has got to and the Shad­ow Cab­inet are prac­ti­cal­ly hys­ter­ical at the ad­verse pub­lic­ity they are get­ting. First Bat­tle­by and the ar­son and pae­dophile charges, then the ghast­ly wom­an with those damned bull ter­ri­ers and now that id­iot Rot­te­combe’s dis­ap­peared. They’re send­ing some­one up from Scot­land Yard or MI5. I have an idea there’s some­thing else. Has to do with the Amer­icans but hope­ful­ly it’s not our pi­geon. Now then, I want those me­dia blighters out of the way when you pick her up. But it’s got to be done tact­ful­ly. Any ideas?’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent tried to think. ‘I sup­pose we could cre­ate some sort of di­ver­sion and get them away from the house for a time,’ he said fi­nal­ly. ‘It would have to be some­thing pret­ty sen­sa­tion­al. Ruth the Ruth­less is the one they’re af­ter. And I can’t say I blame them. She’ll make good head­lines.’

They sat in si­lence for a few min­utes, the Chief Con­sta­ble con­sid­er­ing the dam­age the wretched Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment and his sadis­tic wife had in­flict­ed on the coun­ty.

The Su­per­in­ten­dent was more pre­oc­cu­pied with his idea of a di­ver­sion. ‘If on­ly some lu­natics would let off a bomb. The Re­al IRA would be per­fect. The me­dia horde would be off like a shot…’

The Chief Con­sta­ble shook his head. One gag­gle of me­dia hounds was bad enough, a sec­ond swarm­ing over the place would on­ly bring more aw­ful pub­lic­ity. ‘I can’t take re­spon­si­bil­ity for any­thing like that. Be­sides, where the hell could you get a bomb? You’ve got to come up with some­thing less com­pli­cat­ed.’

‘I sup­pose so. I’ll let you know,’ he told the Chief Con­sta­ble who’d got up to go.

‘What we don’t want is any­thing that’s sen­sa­tion­al. You un­der­stand that?’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent said he did. He sat on in his of­fice think­ing dark thoughts and curs­ing the Rot­te­combes. An hour lat­er a Wom­an Po­lice Sergeant came in and asked if he’d like a cup of cof­fee. She was slim and fair-​haired and had good legs. By the time she’d fetched the stuff they called cof­fee he’d made up his mind. He crossed the room and locked the door.

‘Take a seat, He­len,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a job for you. You don’t have to take it but…’

By the time he had fin­ished the Sergeant had re­luc­tant­ly agreed. ‘What about those two bull ter­ri­ers? I mean, I don’t want to be torn to bits by them. What they did to those two re­porters wasn’t fun­ny.’

‘We’ll have tak­en care of them. Dropped some doped meat in­to the gar­den from a he­li­copter. They’ll be snor­ing their heads off in no time at all.’

‘I cer­tain­ly hope so,’ said the Sergeant.

‘We’ll go in this evening when those fel­lows down by the gate are tak­ing it in turns to go to the pub.’

In­side Ley­line Lodge Ruth Rot­te­combe was ex­pect­ing the raid. She’d been phoned a num­ber of times by the po­lice ask­ing her to go to Os­ton to an­swer some more ques­tions and had, af­ter the first call, sim­ply not both­ered to an­swer the phone. She took on­ly those she could iden­ti­fy on the LCD pan­el. She’d al­so been both­ered by a great many calls from the Cen­tral Of­fice de­mand­ing to know where the Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment had got to.

For a mo­ment Ruth was tempt­ed to say he was prob­ably holed up with a rent-​boy but Harold still had his us­es if on­ly she could find him. The jour­nal­ists be­sieg­ing the Lodge made it im­pos­si­ble to leave the house. She’d been up to the sky­light to check and had seen some­thing else that scared her. Two uni­formed po­lice­men in the field across the old stone wall. They weren’t hid­ing, ei­ther, just mak­ing it ob­vi­ous she was un­der surveil­lance. But why? It had to be some­thing to do with what the foren­sic men had found on the floor of the garage and tak­en away in plas­tic bags. That was the on­ly ex­pla­na­tion she could think of. Blood­stained earth from the man’s head wound. That had to be the an­swer. She cursed her­self for not hav­ing scrubbed the floor. As the sun be­gan to sink in the West Ruth the Ruth­less sat in her hus­band’s study and tried to think what to do. About the on­ly thing she could come up with was to lay the blame on Harold. Af­ter all, his Jaguar had been parked over the patch of oil and blood and there was noth­ing to in­di­cate she had moved it there.

She’d just reached this con­clu­sion when she heard the sound of a ve­hi­cle com­ing up the drive. It wasn’t the usu­al po­lice car but an am­bu­lance. What the hell was an am­bu­lance do­ing out­side the house? And where on earth were Wil­fred and Pick­les? They usu­al­ly went in­to the hall when a car ar­rived. She found them in their bas­kets in the kitchen, fast asleep. She prod­ded them with her foot but they didn’t stir. That was strange but be­fore she could do any­thing to wake them the am­bu­lance had turned in the drive­way and had backed up to the front door. For a brief mo­ment Ruth Rot­te­combe thought they must have found Harold. She opened the door and a mo­ment lat­er had been hus­tled in­to the back of the am­bu­lance by two hefty po­lice­wom­en dressed as nurs­es and was be­ing held face down on a stretch­er. Four con­sta­bles had en­tered the house on­ly to re­turn car­ry­ing the bull ter­ri­ers, still sound asleep in their bas­kets. They joined her on the floor. Ruth tried to turn her head but failed.

‘Where are the keys of the Vol­vo?’ a wom­an asked.

‘Don’t know,’ Ruth tried to scream but her face was pressed against the can­vas and her words were muf­fled.

‘What she say?’

For a mo­ment they lift­ed her head and this time Ruth called them fuck­ing bitch­es be­fore be­ing shoved down again.

‘Don’t wor­ry. I’ll find them,’ the Wom­an Sergeant called He­len said and got on the walkie-​talkie. ‘Just see you open the gate when I come down in the Vol­vo and clear that mob out of the way. I’ll be mov­ing fast.’

As the rear doors of the am­bu­lance were slammed shut she went in­to the house and the am­bu­lance drove off at high speed. Ten min­utes lat­er she emerged wear­ing Ruth Rot­te­combe’s skirt and twin set. She had the keys of the Vol­vo and was driv­ing very fast when she swung through the open gate, near­ly tak­ing a re­porter with her. As he leapt to one side she turned to the left at speed and took a side road to Os­ton.

‘Which hos­pi­tal they go­ing to?’ a cam­era­man who had tak­en refuge in the hedge asked one of the cops on the gate.

‘Blo­ces­ter, I’d say. That’s where emer­gen­cy cas­es go. Wouldn’t be any­where else. You turn right on the main road,’ he said and pad­locked the gate. The me­dia mob ran for their cars and set off in pur­suit. The lead­ing car was stopped by a pa­trol car a mile fur­ther on and the driv­er was threat­ened with dan­ger­ous driv­ing. Be­hind it the oth­er cars skid­ded to a halt. A mile ahead the am­bu­lance turned left, slowed down and wait­ed in a lay-​by for the Vol­vo. By the time the re­porters’ cars reached the T-​junc­tion and were head­ing for Blo­ces­ter, Ruth Rot­te­combe had been trans­ferred to the Vol­vo. And at Os­ton Po­lice Sta­tion she was tak­en through to a cell that had been oc­cu­pied by a drunk who had puked the pre­vi­ous night. It still stank of vom­it. Ruth had slumped on to the met­al bed bolt­ed to the floor and with her head be­tween her hands was star­ing at the floor. Out­side, the emp­ty am­bu­lance had turned and was mov­ing at nor­mal speed to­wards Blo­ces­ter. Af­ter three hours she was es­cort­ed to the Su­per­in­ten­dent’s of­fice, de­mand­ing to know why she had been treat­ed in this out­ra­geous fash­ion and promis­ing her hus­band would be mak­ing of­fi­cial com­plaint to the Home Sec­re­tary.

‘That’s go­ing to be a lit­tle dif­fi­cult,’ came the an­swer. ‘You want to know why?’

Ruth Rot­te­combe did.

‘Be­cause he’s dead. We’ve found his body and it looks very much as though he was mur­dered.’ He paused to let this news sink in. As Ruth sagged in her chair and was ap­par­ent­ly go­ing to faint he went on. ‘Take her back to her cell. She’s had a tir­ing day. We’ll ques­tion her in the morn­ing.’ There was no sym­pa­thy in his voice.

Chapter 32

Flint’s hopes that the two men from Lon­don would take him off the case had been dashed. In the first place they weren’t from Scot­land Yard or, if they were, the short­age of of­fi­cers in Lon­don was even more des­per­ate than he’d sup­posed. The Metropoli­tan Po­lice had to be re­cruit­ing abroad, in this case in Amer­ica. That was his first im­pres­sion when they en­tered his of­fice with Hodge grin­ning in the back­ground. The im­pres­sion didn’t last. The two Amer­icans sat down unasked and stared at Flint for a mo­ment. They ev­ident­ly didn’t like what they were see­ing.

‘You In­spec­tor Flint?’ the big­ger of the two asked.

‘I am,’ said Flint. ‘And who may you be?’

They looked dis­parag­ing­ly round the of­fice be­fore an­swer­ing. ‘Amer­ican Em­bassy. Un­der­cov­er,’ they said in uni­son and flashed ID cards so briefly Flint couldn’t read them.

‘We un­der­stand you’ve been in­ter­ro­gat­ing a sus­pect called Wilt,’ the thin­ner man said.

But Flint had been riled. He was damned if he was go­ing to be ques­tioned by two Amer­icans who wouldn’t iden­ti­fy them­selves po­lite­ly. Not with Hodge gloat­ing in the back­ground.

‘You can un­der­stand what you like,’ he said grim­ly and glared at Hodge. ‘Ask him. He’s the per­son who thinks he knows.’

‘He’s told us. The Su­per­in­ten­dent has been very co-​op­er­ative.’

It was on the tip of Flint’s tongue to say Hodge’s co-​op­er­ation wasn’t worth a fly’s fart but he re­strained him­self. If these ar­ro­gant bas­tards want­ed to pin a drug-​deal­ing charge on Hen­ry Wilt he was go­ing to let them walk in­to the morass of mis­un­der­stand­ing the mo­ron­ic Hodge would pro­vide. He had bet­ter things to do. Like find out why Wilt had been as­sault­ed and found half-​naked in the New Es­tate.

He got up and walked past the two Amer­icans. ‘If you want any in­for­ma­tion I’m sure the Su­per will give it to you,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘He’s the drugs ex­pert.’

He went out and down to the can­teen and had a cup of tea over­look­ing the car park. Present­ly Hodge and the two men came in­to view and climbed in­to a car with dark­ened win­dows parked next to his own. Flint moved back to an­oth­er ta­ble where he could see them but re­main out of sight him­self. Af­ter five min­utes the car was still there. The In­spec­tor gave them an­oth­er ten. No move­ment. So they were wait­ing to see where he went. The bug­gers could sit there all bloody day. He got up, went down­stairs and out the front door and walked to the bus sta­tion and caught a bus go­ing to the hos­pi­tal. He sat at the back in a thor­ough­ly bel­liger­ent mood.

‘Any­one would think this was Iraq,’ he mut­tered to him­self and was as­sured by an in­tense wom­an in the next seat that it wasn’t and was he all right?

‘Schizophre­nia,’ he said and looked at her in a dis­tinct­ly sin­is­ter man­ner. The wom­an got off at the next stop and Flint felt bet­ter. He’d learnt some­thing from Hen­ry Wilt af­ter all: the gift of con­fus­ing peo­ple.

By the time he reached the hos­pi­tal and the bus turned round he’d be­gun to de­vise his new tac­tics. Hodge and those two ar­ro­gant Yanks would be bound to go up to 45 Oakhurst Av­enue and ask Eva or, if she wasn’t there, the quads, where Wilty was and as sure as eggs were eggs she’d say, ‘At the hos­pi­tal.’ Flint went in­to the emp­ty bus shel­ter and took out his mo­bile and di­alled the num­ber he knew so well.

Eva an­swered.

Flint put his hand­ker­chief over the mouth­piece and as­sumed what he hoped was a high-​pitched la-​di-​da voice. ‘Is that Mrs Wilt?’ he asked.

Eva said it was.

‘I’m call­ing from the Methuen Men­tal Hos­pi­tal. I’m sor­ry to have to tell you that your hus­band Mr Hen­ry Wilt has been trans­ferred to the Se­ri­ous Head In­juries Unit for an ex­plorato­ry op­er­ation and–’ He got no fur­ther. Eva gave an aw­ful wail. Flint wait­ed a mo­ment and then went on.

‘I’m afraid he’s in no con­di­tion to have any vis­itors for the next three days. We’ll keep you in­formed of his progress. I re­peat, he’s to have no vis­itors no mat­ter who they are. Please en­sure he is not dis­turbed by any­one. We are par­tic­ular­ly anx­ious no at­tempt is made by the po­lice to ques­tion him. He’s in no con­di­tion to be put un­der any pres­sure. Is that clear?’

It was an un­nec­es­sary ques­tion. Eva was sob­bing nois­ily and in the back­ground the quads were ask­ing what the mat­ter was. Flint cut the mo­bile off and went up to the hos­pi­tal with a smile on his face. If Hodge and those two Amer­ican goons turned up at Oakhurst Av­enue they’d get a rough ride from Eva Wilt.

What Ruth Rot­te­combe was get­ting was a very rough ride in­deed. Now that Harold’s bat­tered body had been found still be­ing buf­fet­ed by the waves on the rocks of the North Cor­nish coast near Mor­wen­stow, and the lo­cal doc­tor’s orig­inal find­ing that the blow on his head had been in­flict­ed be­fore he drowned had been con­firmed by a foren­sic ex­pert he­li­coptered down from Lon­don, the po­lice were tak­ing a se­ri­ous view of his death.

So were the Spe­cial Branch men sent down to as­sist the lo­cal po­lice at Os­ton. They were par­tic­ular­ly in­ter­est­ed in the con­nect­ing ev­idence that the blood of the man named Wilt found on the New Es­tate in Ip­ford matched that on cloth found in the garage at Ley­line Lodge and on the jeans Ruth had dumped in the lane be­hind Mel­drum Manor. Worst of all from Ruth’s point of view was the fact that the num­ber-​plate of her Vol­vo es­tate had been record­ed by a mo­tor­way cam­era as she’d driv­en back from the New Es­tate at near­ly 100 m.p.h. in an at­tempt to get home be­fore dawn. The find­ing of Wilt’s knap­sack in the at­tic added to the ev­idence against her. For the first time she wished to hell Harold hadn’t been Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment. That fact made the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion very high pri­or­ity in­deed. Shad­ow Min­is­ters who died in sus­pi­cious, very sus­pi­cious, cir­cum­stances meant that the rules of in­ter­ro­ga­tion could be stretched. And to avoid any fur­ther in­tru­sions by the me­dia she had been moved from Os­ton to Ross­dale.

At the same time the po­lice me­thod­ical­ly searched Ley­line Lodge and took away a num­ber of canes and any heav­ier ob­jects which could have been used to in­flict the head wound on Harold Rot­te­combe’s head be­fore he had, as they imag­ined, been pushed un­con­scious in­to the riv­er. Urged on by the Par­ty Cen­tral Com­mit­tee of­fi­cials they dis­missed the pos­si­bil­ity that the Shad­ow Min­is­ter’s death had been ac­ci­den­tal.

‘He drowned in the riv­er and that’s for sure,’ the se­nior CID In­spec­tor told the po­lice group deal­ing with the case. ‘Foren­sic checked the wa­ter in his lungs and it wasn’t sea wa­ter. They’re ab­so­lute­ly def­inite about that. They can’t be cer­tain of the date he died but it was al­most cer­tain­ly a week to ten days ago. Prob­ably more. That’s one thing we know. Sec­ond­ly, his Jag is still in the garage so he didn’t drive down to the coast and chuck him­self off the cliffs. That goes with­out say­ing. An­oth­er thing, his wife had driv­en the car or moved it at any rate be­cause her fin­ger­prints were on the steer­ing-​wheel, weren’t they?’

The Su­per­in­ten­dent from Os­ton con­firmed this. ‘They in­di­cat­ed she was the last per­son to use the car,’ he said.

Then there was the blood on the floor of the Vol­vo es­tate where Wilt had bled. ‘Which con­firms what she was do­ing in Ip­ford. So we’ve got her on any num­ber of charges, and more im­por­tant­ly this bloke Wilt had the same type of head wound as her hus­band. So we go on ques­tion­ing her round the clock un­til she breaks. Oh, and one oth­er thing, we’ve been look­ing in­to her back­ground and it stinks. False birth cer­tifi­cate, pros­ti­tute spe­cial­is­ing in S&M, she’s done the lot. As hard as they come.’

‘Hasn’t she asked to phone her lawyer?’ an­oth­er de­tec­tive asked.

The CID Chief In­spec­tor smiled. ‘Phoned her hus­band’s lawyer and strange­ly enough he’s not avail­able. Says he’s on hol­iday. Well, that’s what he’s told me. Gone to France. Very wise of him. She can have le­gal aid, of course. Some dim­my who’ll do her more harm than good and she knows it so she’s re­fused.’

In the In­ter­ro­ga­tion Room Ruth the Ruth­less was re­fus­ing to an­swer ques­tions too.

Chapter 33

As Flint had hoped the ar­rival of Hodge and the two Amer­icans at 45 Oakhurst Av­enue was not a suc­cess. They found Eva in tears.

‘I don’t know where he is,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s just dis­ap­peared. We came back from Amer­ica and found he’d gone but I don’t know where. There was no note or any­thing and his cred­it cards were on the kitchen ta­ble, and his cheque­book. He hadn’t tak­en any mon­ey out of the bank so I don’t know what to think.’

‘Could be he’s had an ac­ci­dent. Have you tried the hos­pi­tal?’

‘Of course I have. The first thing I did but they were no help.’

‘Has he shown any in­ter­est in any oth­er wom­en?’ one of the Amer­icans asked, re­gard­ing her crit­ical­ly.

Eva’s tears stopped im­me­di­ate­ly. She had had enough of Amer­icans and par­tic­ular­ly plain­clothes po­lice ones who wore shades and drove up in cars with dark­ened win­dows.

‘No, he hasn’t,’ she snapped. ‘He’s al­ways been a very good hus­band so you can go to hell, ask­ing ques­tions like that.’

On this fu­ri­ous note she slammed the door in their faces. They went back to the car and dis­cov­ered they had a flat. From the up­stairs win­dow of their room the quads watched glee­ful­ly. Josephine had let the tyre down.

At the hos­pi­tal In­spec­tor Flint was sur­prised to be met in the cor­ri­dor by Dr Dedge. The psy­chi­atrist was look­ing des­per­ate­ly hag­gard and kept shak­ing his head in a help­less sort of man­ner.

‘Thank God you’ve come,’ he said, and grasp­ing Flint’s arm he dragged him in­to his of­fice, in­di­cat­ed a chair and slumped in­to one be­hind his desk. He opened a draw­er and took sev­er­al blue pills.

‘Hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time with our friend Wilt?’ Flint asked.

The doc­tor stared at him with bulging eyes. ‘Dif­fi­cult?’ he gasped in­cred­ulous­ly. ‘Dif­fi­cult? That bas­tard in there had the gall to get me out of bed at 4 a.m. this morn­ing to tell me I was de­scend­ed from the Pongid fam­ily’ He paused to get a glass of wa­ter and an­oth­er blue pill.

‘You mean to say you drove back here–’ Flint be­gan but Dr Dedge seemed to be hav­ing a chok­ing fit.

‘Drove? I didn’t drive. I’m forced to sleep in here on that bloody couch in the cor­ner in case yet an­oth­er lu­natic choos­es to hang him­self or go berserk in the night. That’s how short-​staffed we are. And I’m a high­ly qual­ified psy­chi­atrist spe­cial­is­ing in se­ri­ous cas­es of para­noid psy­chot­ic dis­or­der, not a damned night-​watch­man.’

Flint was about to say he sym­pa­thised when the doc­tor went on.

‘And to cap it all that swine in there sleeps all day and seems to spend all night de­vis­ing fiendish ques­tions for me and ring­ing the pan­ic but­ton. You don’t know what he’s like.’

Flint said he did. ‘He’s the mas­ter of in­con­se­quen­tial an­swers. I’ve ques­tioned him for hours on end and he al­ways goes off at a tan­gent.’

Dr Dedge leant for­ward on to his desk. ‘I’m not ask­ing him ques­tions. The bas­tard’s ask­ing me. At 4 a.m. he asked me if I re­alised I was 99.4 per cent a ba­boon be­cause that’s what DNA anal­ysis in­di­cat­ed. That’s what he meant by my an­ces­tral fam­ily be­ing mem­bers of the Pongid fam­ily.’

‘Ac­tu­al­ly he’s got it wrong. He didn’t mean ba­boon. He was talk­ing about chim­panzees,’ said Flint in an ef­fort to calm the man down.

It didn’t work. Dr Dedge looked wild­ly at him. ‘A chim­panzee? Are you mad too? Do I look like a ba­boon or a chim­panzee and I’ve nev­er had a DNA anal­ysis and what’s with my an­ces­tors be­ing Pongids? My fa­ther was a Dedge and my moth­er’s fam­ily name is Fawcett and al­ways has been since 1605. We’ve done a ge­nealog­ical tree on both sides of the fam­ily and there’s no one called Pongid on it.’

In­spec­tor Flint tried an­oth­er tack. ‘He’s been read­ing the pa­pers. There’s been all this stuff about Pongids be­ing old­er than Ho­minids and _Ho­mo sapi­ens._ The lat­est the­ory is–’

‘Fuck the lat­est the­ory!’ shout­ed the psy­chi­atrist. ‘I want some sleep. Can’t you take that ma­ni­ac off to the po­lice sta­tion and give him the third de­gree there?’

‘No,’ said Flint firm­ly. ‘He’s a sick man and–’

‘You can say that again and I’m go­ing to join him if he stays here much longer. Any­way, we’ve done scans and all the tests need­ed and they none of them in­di­cate any ac­tu­al dam­age to his brain–if that’s what’s in­side his blast­ed head.’

Flint sighed and went out in­to the cor­ri­dor and en­tered the Iso­la­tion Room to find Wilt sit­ting up in bed smil­ing to him­self. He’d rather en­joyed what he’d heard the doc­tor shout­ing next door. The In­spec­tor stood at the end of the bed and stared at Wilt for a mo­ment. What­ev­er he’d done to drive Dr Dedge vir­tu­al­ly out of his mind it was clear to Flint that Wilt had all or most of his sens­es about him. He de­cid­ed his tac­tics. He’d had a long con­ver­sa­tion on the phone with the Su­per­in­ten­dent in Os­ton and knew where Wilt had been. Two could play a game of bluff.

‘All right, Hen­ry,’ he said and took out a pair of hand­cuffs. ‘This time you’ve gone too far. Fak­ing the mur­der of your mis­sis by dump­ing an in­flat­able doll dressed in her clothes down a pile hole when you knew per­fect­ly well she was alive and on a stolen boat with those Cal­ifor­ni­ans was one thing, but ar­son and the mur­der of a Shad­ow Min­is­ter is an­oth­er. So you can wipe that smile off your face.’

Wilt’s smile van­ished.

Flint locked the door and sat down very close to the bed.

‘Mur­der? Mur­der of a Shad­ow Min­is­ter?’ said Wilt, now gen­uine­ly star­tled.

‘You heard me. Mur­der and ar­son in a vil­lage called Mel­drum Slocum.’

‘Mel­drum Slocum? I’ve nev­er even heard of the place.’

‘Then you tell me how your jeans were found in a lane be­hind the Manor House there which some bas­tard torched. Your jeans, Hen­ry, with burn marks and ash on them and you’ve nev­er heard of the place. Don’t give me that bull­shit.’

‘But I swear to God’

‘You can swear all you like but the ev­idence is there. First, the jeans with mud on them found in a lane be­hind the burnt-​out house. And the mud match­es that in the lane. Third, you were def­inite­ly in the garage be­long­ing to the mur­dered Shad­ow Min­is­ter. They’ve done a DNA test on that blood and it fits yours ex­act­ly. They al­so found your knap­sack in­side the house of the oth­er sus­pect. These are the facts. Un­de­ni­able facts. And just to cheer you up let me tell you Scot­land Yard are in­volved. This is not some­thing you can talk your way out of this time like you’ve done be­fore.’

Flint let this aw­ful in­for­ma­tion sink in­to Wilt’s be­wil­dered mind. He tried to re­mem­ber how all this had hap­pened but on­ly dis­joint­ed scenes came back to him.

‘Think, Hen­ry, think. This isn’t some prank. I’m telling you the gospel truth.’

Wilt looked at him and knew that In­spec­tor Flint was dead­ly se­ri­ous.

‘I don’t know what hap­pened to me and that’s the gospel truth too. I re­mem­ber not want­ing to go to Amer­ica to stay with Eva’s Aunt Joan and her hus­band Wal­ly Im­mel­mann. So I told her I had a class to pre­pare for next term and got some books Wal­ly Im­mel­mann would hate out of the li­brary and of course she made a fuss and said I couldn’t take them.’

‘What sort of books?’

‘Oh, books about Cas­tro’s won­der­ful Cu­ba and the Marx­ist The­ory of Rev­olu­tion. The sort of stuff he de­tests. I can’t say I like it my­self but he’d have had an apoplec­tic fit if I’d turned up in Wilma with the books I said I was go­ing to take. There were oth­ers but I can’t re­mem­ber them all.’

‘And your mis­sis swal­lowed that sto­ry?’

‘Hook, line and sinker,’ said Wilt. ‘Any­way, it was plau­si­ble. We’ve still got lu­natics who think Lenin was a saint and Stal­in was fun­da­men­tal­ly a kind­ly chap at heart. Some peo­ple nev­er learn, do they?’

Flint kept his thoughts on the mat­ter to him­self. ‘All right, I’ll ac­cept what you’ve told me so far. What I want to know is what you did next. And don’t give me any hog­wash about hav­ing am­ne­sia. The doc­tors say your brain hasn’t been dam­aged. At least not any more than it was be­fore you got in­to this scrape.’

‘I can tell you what I did up to a cer­tain point but af­ter that un­til I woke up in that Ter­mi­nal Ward I haven’t a clue. The last thing I re­mem­ber was be­ing in a wood soaked to the skin and stum­bling for­ward over a root or some­thing and falling. From then on, noth­ing. I can’t help you any fur­ther.’

‘OK, let’s go back a bit. Where had you come from?’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘That’s the point. I don’t know. I was on a walk­ing tour.’

‘From where to where?’

‘I didn’t know. In fact I didn’t want to know. I just want­ed to go nowhere. You see what I mean?’

Flint shook his head. ‘Not one bloody word,’ he said. ‘You didn’t want to know. You just want­ed to go. And that makes sense? Not to me it doesn’t. A lot of gib­ber­ish is what it sounds like to me. De­lib­er­ate gib­ber­ish. Like lies. You had to know where you want­ed to go.’

Wilt sighed. He’d known In­spec­tor Flint on and off for a good num­ber of years and he should have pre­dict­ed the In­spec­tor wouldn’t un­der­stand that he didn’t want to know where he was go­ing. He tried to ex­plain again.

‘I want­ed to get away from Ip­ford, the Tech, the rou­tine of go­ing to work, if you can call it work, and clear my mind of all that junk by find­ing Eng­land with­out any pre­con­cep­tions.’

Flint tried to grasp what Wilt was say­ing and failed as usu­al. ‘So how come you end­ed up in Mel­drum Slocum?’ he said in a des­per­ate at­tempt to get some san­ity in­to the con­ver­sa­tion. ‘You must have come from some­where.’

‘I told you. From a wood. And any­how I was pissed.’

‘And I’m pissed off with hav­ing the mick­ey tak­en out of me,’ snarled Flint and went back to Dr Dedge’s of­fice and banged on the door on­ly to be told to fuck off.

‘All I want to know is if that bloody man is well enough to go home. Just tell me that.’

‘Lis­ten!’ shout­ed the psy­chi­atrist. ‘I don’t give a damn whether he is well or not. Get him out of here. He’ll be the death of me. Is that good enough for you?’

‘Would you say he ought to be in a men­tal hos­pi­tal?’ asked Flint.

‘I can’t think of a bet­ter place for the swine!’ yelled Dr Dedge.

‘In that case I’ll need you to cer­ti­fy him.’

He was an­swered by a moan. ‘I can’t do that. He’s not cer­ti­fi­ably in­sane,’ the psy­chi­atrist said and opened the door. He was in his un­der­pants. He hes­itat­ed for a mo­ment and came to a de­ci­sion. ‘I tell you what I will do. I’ll rec­om­mend him for as­sess­ment and leave the doc­tors at the Methuen to make the de­ci­sion.’

And on this note he crossed to his desk and filled in a form and hand­ed it to the In­spec­tor. ‘That will get him off my back at any rate.’

Flint went back to Wilt. ‘You heard what he said. You don’t have to stay here any longer.’

‘What did he mean by as­sess­ment?’

‘Don’t ask me. I’m not a psy­chi­atrist,’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘Nor is he, come to that,’ said Wilt but he got out of bed and be­gan look­ing for his clothes. There weren’t any. ‘I’m not go­ing any­where dressed like this,’ he said, in­di­cat­ing the long night­dress he’d been giv­en in the Geri­atric Ward.

Flint went back to Dr Dedge whose tem­per hadn’t im­proved. ‘In the clothes he came in, of course,’ he snarled through the door.

‘But they were tak­en away as ev­idence that he’d been as­sault­ed.’

‘Try the Morgue. There’s bound to be a corpse down there with clothes his size. Now leave me alone to get some sleep.’

The In­spec­tor went down the cor­ri­dor, asked di­rec­tions to the Morgue and, hav­ing fi­nal­ly found it and ex­plained his rea­son for com­ing, was called a grave rob­ber and told to get the hell out. In a fury he went back and snitched a white coat from a male nurse’s dress­ing room when its own­er was in the lava­to­ry. Ten min­utes lat­er Wilt, dressed in the white coat which was far too short to cov­er his hos­pi­tal gown, was in the bus with Flint, on his way to the Methuen Men­tal Hos­pi­tal protest­ing ve­he­ment­ly that he didn’t need ‘as­sess­ing’.

‘All they’ll do is ask you a few sim­ple ques­tions and let you go,’ Flint told him. ‘Any­way, it’s a damned sight bet­ter than be­ing sec­tioned.’

‘And what pre­cise­ly does that mean?’ Wilt asked.

‘Be­ing de­clared in­sane and held against your will.’

Wilt said noth­ing. He’d changed his mind about be­ing as­sessed.

Chapter 34

In Wilma the Drug En­force­ment Agents had giv­en up their surveil­lance of the Starfight­er Man­sion. An au­top­sy of the snif­fer dog and the anal­ysis of the re­mains of the cap­sule on the bot­tom of the pool had in­di­cat­ed noth­ing in the least sus­pi­cious. The dog had died of nat­ural caus­es al­most cer­tain­ly brought on by a life­time’s di­et of drugs to give him the nose for hero­in, crack co­caine, ec­sta­sy, opi­um, LSD, mar­ijua­na and any­thing else that came on the mar­ket. In short the dog was a rav­ing drug ad­dict and re­cent­ly it had been forced to in­hale to­bac­co smoke, the lat­est banned sub­stance, to such an ex­tent that short­ly be­fore its death it had eat­en two cigarette butts in a des­per­ate ef­fort to as­suage this new ad­dic­tion. All in all it had been a thor­ough­ly sick dog.

The same could not be said for the wa­ter in the pool. It had re­cent­ly been emp­tied and re­filled and there were no traces of il­le­gal sub­stances in the one hun­dred thou­sand gal­lons of fresh wa­ter.

‘You should have hooked the pool out­let up to the anal­yser tank back of the old drive-​in,’ Mur­phy told the men who had been check­ing what came out of the toi­lets and bath­rooms in the Starfight­er.

‘You think we can get a hun­dred thou­sand gal­lons from a pool in­to this thing? You’ve got to be crazy. You should have tak­en a sam­ple right at the start.’

‘Oh sure, first thing you do is test for il­le­gal sub­stances in swim­ming-​pools. That’s ge­nius. Like dope car­ri­ers al­ways dump the stuff there. What they do then? Wait till the wa­ter evap­orates? Je­sus, we’ve got some re­al ge­nius­es round here.’

They re­port­ed back to the of­fice in At­lanta.

‘We’ve been giv­en the run-​around. Ei­ther Sol was suck­er bait and some­one else was run­ning the stuff or those Poles were sell­ing foot pow­der. What’s Wash­ing­ton say?’

‘Says you’ve screwed up.’

‘That fuck­er Campi­to was a fuck­ing de­coy,’ said Palows­ki as they left the of­fice. ‘Had to be. Just let me get my hands on the bas­tard I’ll cas­trate the swine.’

‘Too late,’ said Mur­phy. ‘They’ve found his body in the Ev­er­glades–or the bits of it the al­li­ga­tors left.’

As the DEA team pulled out of Wilma, Wal­ly Im­mel­mann lay in the Coro­nary Unit star­ing bleak­ly at the ceil­ing and curs­ing the day he’d ev­er got mar­ried to that fat bitch Joanie or al­lowed her to bring her god­dam niece over with those ter­ri­ble girls. They had ru­ined his mar­riage and his rep­uta­tion with that damned record­ing and he wouldn’t be able to show his face in Wilma again. Not that he cared too much about his mar­riage–at times he was grate­ful to the lit­tle bitch­es for wreck­ing it. In­finite­ly more in­fu­ri­at­ing were the busi­ness con­se­quences of their ob­scene emails. Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es had lost vir­tu­al­ly ev­ery cus­tomer he had cul­ti­vat­ed over the past fif­teen years and sev­er­al of them were threat­en­ing him with law­suits. He had tried to con­tact his lawyers on­ly to be told that they no longer wished to rep­re­sent a man who was mad enough to send mes­sages call­ing them ‘cock­suck­ers’ and ‘moth­er­fuck­ers’, not to men­tion an­nounc­ing to the world in the crud­est terms and at one thou­sand deci­bels that he made a habit of sodomis­ing his wife. Even Con­gress­man Herb Re­ich had been a re­cip­ient of one of the more abu­sive emails. To cap it all May­belle’s state­ment to Sher­iff Stal­lard hadn’t helped ei­ther. The news that the most promi­nent busi­ness­man in Wilma reg­ular­ly had sex with black em­ploy­ees had spread all over the coun­ty and al­most cer­tain­ly was known right across the State. In short, he was a ru­ined man. He’d have to leave town and change his name and hole up some­where he wasn’t known. And it was all that fuck­ing Joanie’s fault. He should nev­er have mar­ried the bitch.

In her cell in yet an­oth­er po­lice sta­tion in yet an­oth­er town Ruth Rot­te­combe felt the same way about her mar­riage to the late Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment. She should have known he was just the sort of id­iot to get him­self mur­dered at a time when she need­ed his sup­port and in­flu­ence most des­per­ate­ly. Af­ter all, that was what she had mar­ried him for, and she had cul­ti­vat­ed that drunk­en swine Bat­tle­by to en­sure that Harold’s seat in Par­lia­ment re­mained ab­so­lute­ly se­cure. She tried fran­ti­cal­ly to make sense out of the chaot­ic se­ries of events that had led up to his dis­ap­pear­ance, but the nois­es com­ing from a drunk who al­ter­nat­ed whin­ing pleas to be let out of the cell next to hers with vom­it­ing, and on the oth­er side what sound­ed like a foul-​mouthed psy­chot­ic on some ex­treme­ly pow­er­ful hal­lu­cino­genic drug, made any­thing ap­proach­ing ra­tio­nal thought im­pos­si­ble. So was get­ting any sleep. Ev­ery half-​hour the cell door was opened, the light turned on and a sin­is­ter fe­male de­tec­tive asked her in­sis­tent­ly if she was all right.

‘No, I’m fuck­ing not,’ she had squawked at her time and time again. ‘Haven’t you got any­thing bet­ter to do than turn the light on and come in and ask that damn-​fool ques­tion?’

Each time the de­tec­tive had said she was just mak­ing sure she hadn’t com­mit­ted sui­cide and she had fi­nal­ly left the light on all the time. Af­ter three such sleep­less nights Ruth Rot­te­combe was al­most pre­pared to con­fess she had mur­dered Harold. In­stead she re­fused to an­swer any more ques­tions.

‘I did not, re­peat not, mur­der Harold. I didn’t harm him in any way at all. I have no idea who did, ei­ther. And that’s my last word.’

‘All right, we’ll talk about some­thing we know you did do,’ the se­nior de­tec­tive said. ‘We have proof that you drove to Ip­ford New Es­tate with a man in the back of your Vol­vo es­tate and dumped him there. We al­so have proof that he had been in your garage and had been bleed­ing. You know all that so–’

‘I’ve told you I won’t an­swer any more ques­tions!’ Ruth shout­ed hoarse­ly.

‘I’m not ask­ing any. I’m telling you what is un­de­ni­able ev­idence.’

‘Oh, God, why can’t you stop? I know all that and it is de­ni­able.’

‘Right, but what you don’t know is that we have a wit­ness who saw you drag the man out of the back of your car and dump him in the road. A very re­li­able wit­ness in­deed.’ He paused to let this sink in­to Ruth Rot­te­combe’s weary mind be­fore go­ing on. ‘What we now need to know is why if, as you’ve said re­peat­ed­ly, you don’t have any idea what he had done to land up ly­ing un­con­scious and bleed­ing in your garage–you drove him down to that New Es­tate.’

Ruth be­gan to cry. This time she wasn’t fak­ing the tears. ‘Harold found him there when he came back from Lon­don. At least he said he had. He was out of his mind and tried to pin the blame on me. He was shout­ing and rav­ing and said I’d picked the man up to have sex with him. I thought he was go­ing to kill me.’

‘Go on. Give us the rest.’

‘He made me go out to the garage and look at the bloody man. I’d nev­er seen him in my life. I swear I hadn’t.’

‘What hap­pened then?’

‘The tele­phone rang and it was some bloody news­pa­per said they want­ed to in­ter­view Harold about bring­ing young men to the house, you know, rent-​boys.’

For an­oth­er hour they went on with the ques­tions and got nowhere. In the end they left her sob­bing in the In­ter­ro­ga­tion Room with her head on the ta­ble, and went in­to an­oth­er of­fice.

‘Could be true ex­cept for one thing,’ said the se­nior Scot­land Yard man. ‘That bit of cloth from this fel­low Wilt’s jeans found in the garage and the fact that they dis­cov­ered those jeans in the lane be­hind the Manor House two days af­ter the fire and they hadn’t been there when they searched the area the first time. Sec­ond, he wasn’t wear­ing any when he was picked up in Ip­ford. On top of that all his gear, the boots, socks and knap­sack, were in the at­tic of the Rot­te­combe house.’

‘You think she plant­ed the jeans there?’

‘I’m damned sure some­one did.’

‘Christ, what a case. And Lon­don’s de­mand­ing a quick ar­rest,’ said the Su­per­in­ten­dent.

They were in­ter­rupt­ed by a Wom­an Sergeant. ‘She’s passed out or is pre­tend­ing to have,’ she told them. ‘We’ve put her back in the cell.’

The CID man picked up the phone and called Ip­ford. When he put it down again he shook his head. ‘They’ve moved the bloke Wilt to a men­tal hos­pi­tal for what they call ‘as­sess­ment’, what­ev­er that means. I sup­pose to see if he’s a psy­chopath.’ He paused and con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­ities. There didn’t seem to be many ra­tio­nal ones.

One of the oth­er de­tec­tives took up the theme. ‘Who­ev­er set this lit­tle lot up had to be damned ab­nor­mal. And this bloke Wilt has been in some weird trou­ble be­fore. Could be he was paid to torch the house.’

The se­nior CID man gave the mat­ter some thought. ‘I sup­pose it’s just pos­si­ble but this In­spec­tor Flint doesn’t think so. Reck­ons the man Wilt’s too bloody in­com­pe­tent. Wouldn’t know how to set fire to a pile of news­pa­pers soaked in petrol, he’s that im­prac­ti­cal. In any case, if he’d come to set fire to the house he wouldn’t have left such an ob­vi­ous trail stay­ing at bed and break­fasts and giv­ing his re­al name. No, there has to be some­one else. What beats me is that he and that damned Shad­ow Min­is­ter had head wounds. The Shad­ow Min­is­ter’s dead and this oth­er fel­low might well have been if they hadn’t found him in the road when they did. No, I reck­on this Rot­te­combe cow knows more than she’s let­ting on. I don’t care if she has passed out. I’m go­ing to break her. She knows more than she’s telling. In any case her back­ground stinks. False birth cer­tifi­cate, high-​class pros­ti­tute who dupes an MP in­to mar­ry­ing her, and on top of that she goes in for sa­do-​masochism with that drunk­en pae­dophile swine, Bat­tle­by. And of course he’s tried to shift the blame on to her. Says she de­lib­er­ate­ly en­cour­aged him to be­come an al­co­holic so she could con­trol him. I wouldn’t be sur­prised if there wasn’t an el­ement of truth there.’

And so the ques­tion­ing went on and got nowhere.

Chapter 35

At the Methuen Men­tal Hos­pi­tal the fe­male psy­chi­atrist as­signed to as­sess­ing Wilt’s psy­cho­log­ical state was hav­ing as much dif­fi­cul­ty. Wilt had passed all the stan­dard vi­su­al and sym­bol­ic tests with such sur­pris­ing ease that the psy­chi­atrist could have sworn he’d spent con­sid­er­able time prac­tis­ing do­ing them. His ver­bal skills were even more dis­con­cert­ing. On­ly his at­ti­tude to sex re­mained sus­pi­cious. It ap­peared that he found cop­ula­tion bor­ing and ex­haust­ing, not to say lu­di­crous and fair­ly re­pul­sive. His ad­mi­ra­tion for the pro­cre­ative habits of earth­worms and amoe­bas who sim­ply re­pro­duced by di­vid­ing them­selves, vol­un­tar­ily in the case of amoe­bas and, as far as Wilt knew, in­vol­un­tar­ily by earth­worms when they were cut in half by a spade, seemed to in­di­cate a severe­ly de­pressed li­bido. Since the la­dy shrink was com­plete­ly ig­no­rant on the sub­ject of amoe­bas and earth­worms but keen on what lit­tle sex her looks at­tract­ed, this in­for­ma­tion came as a nasty rev­ela­tion to her.

‘Are you say­ing you would rather bi­sect your­self than sleep with your wife?’ she asked, hop­ing to draw the in­fer­ence that Wilt had a ten­den­cy to­wards a split per­son­al­ity.

‘Of course not,’ Wilt replied in­dig­nant­ly. ‘Mind you, when you meet my wife you’ll un­der­stand why I might be.’

‘Your wife does not at­tract you phys­ical­ly?’

‘I did not say that and in any case, I can’t see what that has to do with you.’

‘I am mere­ly try­ing to help you,’ said the psy­chi­atrist.

Wilt looked at her scep­ti­cal­ly. ‘Re­al­ly? I thought I had been brought here for as­sess­ment, not for pruri­ent in­quiries in­to my sex life.’

‘Your sex­ual at­ti­tude forms part of the as­sess­ment pro­cess. We want to get a round­ed pic­ture of your men­tal con­di­tion.’

‘My men­tal con­di­tion has not been af­fect­ed by be­ing mugged, left un­con­scious and beat­en over the head. I am not a crim­inal and by this time I should have thought you’d have recog­nised that I have all my wits about me. Hav­ing re­alised that, I sug­gest you mind your own busi­ness about my mar­ried life. And if you think I am some sort of per­vert, let me tell you that my wife and I have pro­duced four daugh­ters or, to put it ab­so­lute­ly cor­rect­ly, my wife Eva had quadru­plets four­teen years ago. I hope that sat­is­fies you that I am a nor­mal het­ero­sex­ual and a fa­ther to boot. Now if you want to make me do some more ab­surd­ly sim­ple men­tal tests, I will hap­pi­ly oblige. What I don’t in­tend to do is dis­cuss my mar­ital sex life any fur­ther. You can do that with Eva. I think I can hear her voice now. How clever of her to come to my side at such an op­por­tune mo­ment. Now, if you’ll ex­cuse me, I think I’ll get po­lice pro­tec­tion.’

Leav­ing the shrink open-​mouthed and gap­ing through her spec­ta­cles he hur­ried from the room and moved down the pas­sage away from the sound of Eva de­mand­ing to see her dar­ling Hen­ry. In the back­ground the quads could be heard telling some­one who didn’t like what he was con­front­ed with that he wasn’t see­ing dou­ble. ‘We aren’t twins, we’re quadru­plets,’ they sang in uni­son.

Wilt hur­ried on, try­ing to find a door that wasn’t locked and fail­ing. At that mo­ment In­spec­tor Flint emerged from his refuge in the Vis­itors’ Toi­let, Eva barged out of the Wait­ing Room and the psy­chi­atrist left her of­fice and peered short­sight­ed­ly to see what on earth was hap­pen­ing and col­lid­ed with Eva. In the mêlée that fol­lowed, the psy­chi­atrist, who had been bowled over and was helped to her feet by the In­spec­tor, re­vised her opin­ion of Wilt.

If the formidable wom­an who had knocked her down was Mrs Wilt–and the pres­ence of the four al­most iden­ti­cal teenage girls seemed to in­di­cate that she must be–she could ful­ly un­der­stand his lack of in­ter­est in mar­ital sex. And his need for po­lice pro­tec­tion. She groped around for her glass­es, perched them on her nose and re­treat­ed to her of­fice. Eva and In­spec­tor Flint fol­lowed; Eva to apol­ogise and Flint more re­luc­tant­ly to find out how Wilt’s as­sess­ment had gone.

The psy­chi­atrist looked at Eva doubt­ful­ly and de­cid­ed not to ob­ject to her pres­ence. ‘You want to know my opin­ion of the pa­tient?’ she asked.

The In­spec­tor nod­ded. In Eva’s com­pa­ny the less said the soon­est mend­ed seemed en­tire­ly ap­pro­pri­ate.

‘He seems to be per­fect­ly nor­mal. I did all the rou­tine tests we ap­ply in these cas­es and I should say he has no symp­toms of ab­nor­mal­ity. There is ab­so­lute­ly no rea­son why he should not re­turn home.’

She closed the file and stood up.

‘I told you so. There’s noth­ing wrong with him. You heard her,’ Eva said sharply to Flint. ‘You’ve got no right to hold him any longer. I’m go­ing to take him home.’

‘I re­al­ly think we should con­tin­ue this con­ver­sa­tion in pri­vate,’ said the In­spec­tor.

‘Don’t mind me. I just hap­pen to work here and this is my of­fice,’ said the psy­chi­atrist, ob­vi­ous­ly anx­ious to get this formidably dan­ger­ous wom­an who knocked peo­ple over out of the place. ‘You can go and con­tin­ue your dis­cus­sion in the Vis­itors’ Room.’

Flint fol­lowed Eva out in­to the pas­sage and in­to the Wait­ing Room.

‘Well?’ Eva said as the In­spec­tor shut the door. ‘I want to know what’s been go­ing on, bring­ing Hen­ry to an aw­ful place like this.’

‘Mrs Wilt, if you’ll just sit down, I’ll do my best to ex­plain,’ he said.

Eva sat down. ‘You’d bet­ter,’ she snapped.

Flint tried to think how to put the sit­ua­tion to her as rea­son­ably as pos­si­ble. He didn’t want her to go berserk. ‘I had Mr Wilt brought here for sim­ple as­sess­ment to get him out of the hos­pi­tal be­fore two Amer­icans from the US Em­bassy ar­rived to ques­tion him about some­thing that hap­pened in the States. Some­thing to do with drugs. I don’t know what it was and I don’t want to know. More im­por­tant­ly he’s sus­pect­ed of be­ing some­how in­volved in the mur­der of a Shad­ow Min­is­ter, a man called Rot­te­combe, and…Yes, I know he couldn’t mur­der–’ he be­gan but Eva was on her feet.

‘Are you mad?’ she yelled. ‘My Hen­ry wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s gen­tle and kind and he doesn’t know any­one in Gov­ern­ment.’

In­spec­tor Flint tried to calm her down. ‘I know that, Mrs Wilt, be­lieve me I do, but Scot­land Yard have ev­idence he was in the dis­trict when the Shad­ow Min­is­ter dis­ap­peared and they want to ques­tion him.’

For once in her life Eva re­sort­ed to log­ic. ‘And how many thou­sands of oth­er peo­ple were around wher­ev­er it was?’

‘Here­ford­shire,’ said the In­spec­tor in­vol­un­tar­ily.

Eva’s eyes bulged in her head and her face turned pur­ple. ‘Here­ford­shire? Here­ford­shire? You’re crazy. He doesn’t know any­one in Here­ford­shire. He’s nev­er been there. We al­ways go to the Lake Dis­trict for our sum­mer hol­idays.’

Flint raised the palms of his hands in sub­mis­sion. Wilt’s in­con­se­quen­tial an­swers were ev­ident­ly in­fec­tious. ‘I’m sure you do,’ he mut­tered. ‘I don’t doubt it for a mo­ment. All I’m say­ing–’

‘Is that Hen­ry is want­ed by Scot­land Yard for the mur­der of a Shad­ow Min­is­ter. And you call that all?’

‘I didn’t say he was want­ed by Scot­land Yard for mur­der. They just want him to help them with their in­quiries.’

‘And we all know what that means, don’t we just.’

The In­spec­tor strug­gled to get some sense in­to the tirade. And as ev­er with the Wilts he failed.

In the cen­tral con­course of the men­tal hos­pi­tal Wilt, who had spent half an hour search­ing for a way out, had failed too. All the doors were locked and, dressed as he was, he had been ac­cost­ed by four gen­uine­ly in­sane pa­tients two of whom protest­ed they weren’t de­pres­sives and didn’t in­tend to have elec­tric shock ther­apy again. An­oth­er two si­dled up to him clear­ly un­der the in­flu­ence of some very strong an­ti-​psy­chot­ic med­ica­tion and gig­gled rather alarm­ing­ly.

Wilt hur­ried on, un­nerved by these en­coun­ters and by the at­mo­sphere, and curs­ing the pe­cu­liar way he was dressed. Through a win­dow he could see an area of lawn with pa­tients wan­der­ing about or sit­ting on bench­es in the sun and be­yond them a high wire fence. If he could on­ly find his way out there he’d feel a lot bet­ter. But be­fore he could make his way in­to the open air, Eva shot out of the Wait­ing Room and hur­ried to­wards him.

‘We’re go­ing home, Hen­ry. Now come along. I’m not lis­ten­ing to any more non­sense from that dread­ful In­spec­tor,’ she or­dered. For once Wilt was in no mood to ar­gue. He’d had quite enough of the dim dis­tract­ed fig­ures around him and the op­pres­sive at­mo­sphere of the men­tal hos­pi­tal. He fol­lowed her through the main door and to­wards their car which was parked out­side on the grav­el, but be­fore they reached it a se­ries of screams echoed through the build­ing.

‘What on earth is go­ing on?’ Eva de­mand­ed of a small and ev­ident­ly de­ment­ed man who was scur­ry­ing past, pan­ic-​strick­en.

‘There’s a girl in there with breasts that move from one side to the oth­er like the clap­pers!’ he yelled as he ran past.

Eva knew who that girl was. With a silent curse she turned and pushed her way in­to the hos­pi­tal through the crush of pa­tients try­ing to es­cape the aw­ful sight of scur­ry­ing bo­soms. Em­me­line’s rat Fred­dy, en­cour­aged by the ef­fect it was hav­ing and at the same time alarmed by the shrieks, was up to its old tricks with a vigour it had nev­er shown be­fore. The sight of a third pubescent breast ap­par­ent­ly chang­ing from right to left and back again at a rate of knots was too much even for heav­ily se­dat­ed men­tal pa­tients. They had been faint­ly aware that they were not at all well but this was al­to­geth­er too much. Hal­lu­ci­na­tions couldn’t come any worse than this.

By the time Eva reached Em­me­line the rat was hid­den in her jeans. As mad hys­te­ria broke out in the con­course and spread through the en­tire hos­pi­tal and even in­to the Se­cure Area, Eva, drag­ging Em­me­line and the oth­er three girls, who were en­joy­ing the chaos Fred­dy’s im­ita­tion of a ram­pag­ing breast had caused, forced her way through the de­lud­ed mass strug­gling in the door­way and, thanks to her size and strength, out in­to the open air. By the time they reached the car Wilt was al­ready in­side it and cow­er­ing in the back seat.

‘Get in and cov­er your fa­ther,’ Eva or­dered. ‘We mustn’t let him be seen by the guard on the gate.’

The next mo­ment Wilt was on the floor and the four girls were kneel­ing on top of him. As Eva start­ed the car and drove down the drive she glanced in the rear-​view mir­ror and glimpsed a di­shev­elled In­spec­tor Flint hur­tle out of the door of the hos­pi­tal, trip and land face down on the grav­el. Eva put her foot on the ac­cel­er­ator and five min­utes lat­er they were through the gates and head­ing for Oakhurst Av­enue.

Chapter 36

In­spec­tor Flint ar­rived in his of­fice in a state of con­fu­sion. His con­ver­sa­tion with Eva had con­firmed him in his be­lief that what­ev­er mess Hen­ry Wilt had got him­self in­to he was not re­spon­si­ble for the death of Harold Rot­te­combe. Trip­ping on the grav­el and then be­ing tram­pled over by a herd of mad­dened lu­natics had giv­en him fresh in­sight in­to Wilt’s in­con­se­quen­tial view of life. Things just hap­pened to peo­ple for no good rea­son and, while Flint had pre­vi­ous­ly be­lieved that ev­ery ef­fect had to have a ra­tio­nal cause, he now re­alised that the pure­ly ac­ci­den­tal was the norm. In short, noth­ing made sense. The world was as mad as the in­mates of the hos­pi­tal he had just left.

In an ef­fort to re­gain some­thing ap­proach­ing equa­nim­ity he or­dered Sergeant Yates to bring him the notes on the Rot­te­combe mur­der case he’d re­ceived from the Chief Su­per­in­ten­dent who had been cross-​ex­am­in­ing Ruth the Ruth­less. Flint read them through and came to the con­clu­sion that, far from be­ing in­volved in the death of the Shad­ow Min­is­ter for So­cial En­hance­ment, Wilt had him­self been the vic­tim of an as­sault. Ev­ery­thing point­ed to the Shad­ow Min­is­ter’s wife. Wilt’s blood in the garage and in the Vol­vo, the fact that she was seen in Ip­ford New Es­tate and caught on the mo­tor­way cam­era in the mid­dle of the night, and in Flint’s opin­ion that she had been on sa­do-​masochis­tic terms with the pae­dophile ‘Bob­by Beat Me’ Bat­tle­by whose house had been torched. In ad­di­tion there was a mo­tive. Wilt had been in the lane be­hind Mel­drum Manor. His jeans had been found there two days af­ter the fire but they hadn’t been there when the po­lice had searched the lane on the day af­ter the fire. It fol­lowed that they had been put there in or­der to im­pli­cate him in the ar­son. Fi­nal­ly and most damn­ing of all his knap­sack, socks and boots had been re­cov­ered from the at­tic in Ley­line Lodge and he was hard­ly like­ly to have put them there him­self. No, ev­ery­thing point­ed to Mrs Rot­te­combe. Wilt had no rea­son to kill her hus­band and if the Shad­ow Min­is­ter sus­pect­ed or, worse still, knew his wife had con­nived in the fire, she had ev­ery rea­son to want him dead. At this point Flint spot­ted a flaw. Wilt hadn’t been found dead. He’d cer­tain­ly been as­sault­ed by some young thugs on the New Es­tate and the Rot­te­combe bitch had brought him there with­out his jeans or walk­ing boots. Why had they been re­moved? That was the mys­tery. He went back to the the­ory that she’d need­ed them to in­di­cate that he’d been in­volved in the ar­son of the Manor. But why leave them in the lane two days lat­er than the fire? That on­ly deep­ened the mys­tery. The In­spec­tor gave up.

In Here­ford Po­lice Sta­tion the Chief Su­per­in­ten­dent, urged on by Down­ing Street, hadn’t. He no longer be­lieved Wilt had had any­thing to do with the torch­ing of Mel­drum Manor or the death of the Shad­ow Min­is­ter. He had or­dered the po­lice at Os­ton to find wit­ness­es to Wilt’s jour­ney and to trace his route as far as they could. ‘You know where he stayed each night,’ he told the In­spec­tor there. ‘What I want now is for your men to check where he bought his lunch and get as clear an idea as you can where his walk took him and where it end­ed and when.’

‘You talk as if I have an army of con­sta­bles here,’ the In­spec­tor protest­ed. ‘I have pre­cise­ly sev­en, and two are ex­tras brought in from the next coun­ty. Why don’t you charge this man Wilt?’

‘Be­cause he was the vic­tim of an as­sault, not the per­pe­tra­tor of one. And I don’t mean he was just mugged in Ip­ford. He was bleed­ing from a head wound when he was in the Ley­line Lodge garage and when she drove him down to Ip­ford. He’s not on the sus­pect list any more.’

‘So what does it mat­ter where he went?’

‘Be­cause he may have been a wit­ness to the fire and who start­ed it. Why else did this wom­an take him down there? In any case, he has am­ne­sia. Can’t re­mem­ber who or what hit him. That’s the of­fi­cial psy­chi­atric re­port.’

‘What a hell of a case,’ said the In­spec­tor. ‘I’m dashed if I un­der­stand it.’

Which was ex­act­ly what could be said for Ruth the Ruth­less. De­prived of sleep, end­less­ly cross-​ex­am­ined and made to drink ex­treme­ly strong cof­fee, she was des­per­ate and un­able to give any co­her­ent an­swers to the ques­tions be­ing put to her. To make mat­ters worse she had been charged with hin­der­ing the course of jus­tice, fal­si­fy­ing a birth cer­tifi­cate and, thanks to Bat­tle­by’s se­ri­ous­ly dam­ag­ing al­le­ga­tions, pur­chas­ing the pae­dophile mag­azines he rev­elled in. The two so-​called jour­nal­ists Butch Cas­sidy and the Flash­gun Kid had had writs is­sued in re­la­tion to the at­tacks by Wil­fred and Pick­les and the me­dia were hav­ing a field-​day smear­ing her in the tabloids. Even the broad­sheet pa­pers were us­ing her rep­uta­tion to at­tack the Op­po­si­tion.

At 45 Oakhurst Av­enue Wilt was hav­ing some­thing of a hard time too, con­vinc­ing Eva that he didn’t know where his walk­ing tour had tak­en him.

‘You didn’t want to know where you were go­ing? You mean you’ve for­got­ten?’ she said.

Wilt sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. It was eas­ier to lie than to try to ex­plain.

‘And you told me you had to work for a course next term on Com­mu­nism and Cas­tro,’ Eva per­sist­ed. ‘I sup­pose you’ve for­got­ten that too.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘So you took those aw­ful books with you?’

Wilt looked mis­er­ably at the books on the shelf and had to ad­mit he’d left them be­hind. ‘I on­ly meant to be away a fort­night.’

‘I don’t be­lieve you.’

Wilt’s sigh was au­di­ble this time. It would be im­pos­si­ble to ex­plain his wish to see the En­glish coun­try­side with­out any lit­er­ary as­so­ci­ations to her. Eva would nev­er un­der­stand and al­most cer­tain­ly would sup­pose there was an­oth­er wom­an in­volved. ‘Sup­pose’ was too mild a word: she’d be cer­tain. Wilt went on to the of­fen­sive.

‘What brought you back so quick­ly from Wilma? I thought you were go­ing to be over there for six weeks?’ he asked.

Eva hes­itat­ed. In her own way she was suf­fer­ing from self-​in­duced am­ne­sia about the events in Wilma and in any case, com­ing home to learn her Hen­ry had been mugged and was in hos­pi­tal and in­ca­pable of recog­nis­ing her had been so trau­mat­ic, she hadn’t had a spare sec­ond to con­sid­er what had caused Un­cle Wal­ly to have an in­farct and Aun­tie Joan to turn so nasty and throw her and the quads out of the house. The on­ly an­swer she could come up with was that their re­turn had been ne­ces­si­tat­ed by Wal­ly Im­mel­mann’s two heart at­tacks.

‘Couldn’t have hap­pened to a bet­ter bloke,’ said Wilt. ‘Mind you, the way he swilled vod­ka with his steak at the Tav­ern in the Park and fol­lowed it up with that mur­der­ous drink he called A Bed of Nails, I’m sur­prised he’s lived so long.’

And with the hap­py thought that the ghast­ly Wal­ly was fi­nal­ly get­ting his come­up­pance he went to his study and made a long and un­com­pli­men­ta­ry en­try about Mr Im­mel­mann in his di­ary. He hoped it would be the bas­tard’s obit­uary.

Chapter 37

In the two sep­arate bed­rooms which they oc­cu­pied at 45 Oakhurst Av­enue the quads were each com­pil­ing dossiers for Miss Sprock­ett which, had he seen them, would def­inite­ly have fin­ished Un­cle Wal­ly off. Josephine was con­cen­trat­ing on his sex­ual re­la­tions with May­belle with em­pha­sis on ‘forced un­nat­ural acts’; Pene­lope, who had a nat­ural gift for math­emat­ics and statis­tics, was list­ing the vast­ly dif­fer­ent rates of pay be­tween whites and blacks at Im­mel­mann En­ter­pris­es and oth­er in­dus­tries in Wilma; Saman­tha was com­par­ing ex­ecu­tion num­bers in var­ious states and Wal­ly’s ex­pressed pref­er­ence for pub­lic hang­ings and flog­gings to be manda­to­ri­ly shown on prime-​time tele­vi­sion in­stead of less in­hu­mane meth­ods; and fi­nal­ly Em­me­line was de­scrib­ing his col­lec­tion of weapons and their use in lan­guage that was cal­cu­lat­ed to hor­ri­fy the teach­ers at the Con­vent, in par­tic­ular Wal­ly’s de­scrip­tion of flame-​throw­ers and ‘bar­be­cu­ing Nips’. All in all they were en­sur­ing that the hav­oc they had caused in Wilma it­self would be com­pound­ed by the jus­ti­fied dis­gust their dossiers would pro­voke among the par­ents of the girls at the Con­vent and their friends in Ip­ford.

Down at the po­lice sta­tion In­spec­tor Flint was en­joy­ing him­self too, be­rat­ing Hodge and the two men from the US Em­bassy.

‘Bril­liant,’ he said. ‘You come in with Hodge here and refuse to iden­ti­fy your­selves clear­ly or ex­plain why you’ve come and ex­pect me to kow­tow to you. And now you’re back to tell me there’s not a shred of ev­idence of any drugs in this man Im­mel­mann’s place. Well, let me tell you, this isn’t the Gulf and I’m not an Iraqi.’ By the time he’d fin­ished work­ing off his feel­ings he was in a good hu­mour. The Amer­icans weren’t but there was noth­ing they could say. They left and Flint could hear them call­ing him an ar­ro­gant Brit and, best of all, blam­ing Hodge for mis­lead­ing them. He went down to the can­teen and had a cof­fee. For the first time he ap­pre­ci­at­ed Wilt’s view of the world. Ruth Rot­te­combe still main­tained, in spite of the pres­sure brought to bear on her, that she had no idea who, if any­one, had mur­dered her hus­band, and the Scot­land Yard de­tec­tives were at long last be­gin­ning to be­lieve her. Harold Rot­te­combe’s shoe and the sock with the hole in it had been found, the shoe wedged in the stream and the sock on the ground in the field. Much as they want­ed a con­vic­tion, they were forced to ad­mit that his death might well have been pure­ly ac­ci­den­tal.

Wilt’s ac­count of get­ting drunk on whisky in the wood had been sub­stan­ti­at­ed by the dis­cov­ery of an emp­ty bot­tle of Fa­mous Grouse with his fin­ger­prints on it un­der a tree. His route had been worked out by the po­lice in Os­ton; there had been a thun­der­storm and ev­ery­thing fit­ted his ac­count ex­act­ly. All that re­mained was to un­cov­er the per­son who had set fire to the Manor House but that was prov­ing im­pos­si­ble too. Bert Ad­dle had burnt his boots and the clothes he had been wear­ing, and had washed and scrubbed the pick-​up he had bor­rowed. The friend who owned it and who had been in Ibiza on hol­iday at the time had no idea it had been used in his ab­sence.

In short, ev­ery­thing added to the mys­tery. The po­lice had ques­tioned ev­ery­one in Mel­drum Slocum who had been con­nect­ed with the Manor and the Bat­tle­by fam­ily in the hope that they would know of any­one who was in league with ‘Beat Me Bob­by’ to torch the place for him. But Bat­tle­by was so thor­ough­ly dis­liked as a boor­ish drunk that noth­ing came of that line of ques­tion­ing. Had any­one a suf­fi­cient grudge against the man? Mrs Mead­ows ner­vous­ly ad­mit­ted that he had sacked her but Mr and Mrs Sawlie were adamant they were with her when the fire start­ed and for an hour be­fore she had been in the pub. Above all the Fil­ipino maid was a ma­jor sus­pect be­cause of the pres­surised cans of Ori­en­tal Splen­dour and Rose Blos­som which had con­tribut­ed so ex­plo­sive­ly to the con­fla­gra­tion, but she had the per­fect al­ibi: it had been her day off and she had spent it ap­ply­ing to be­come a trainee nurse in Here­ford. She hadn’t got back to Mel­drum Slocum un­til the fol­low­ing morn­ing be­cause the train had bro­ken down.

Read­ing the re­port, Flint could find noth­ing to ex­plain the ar­son or the pos­si­ble mur­der of the Shad­ow Min­is­ter. The con­fu­sion would nev­er be un­rav­elled. For the first time in his long ca­reer as a po­lice­man he be­gan to ap­pre­ci­ate Hen­ry Wilt’s re­fusal to see things in terms of good and evil or black and white. There were grey ar­eas in be­tween and the world was dom­inat­ed by them to a far greater ex­tent than he had ev­er imag­ined. It was a rev­ela­tion to the In­spec­tor and a lib­er­at­ing one. Out­side, the sun shone bright­ly down. Flint got up and went out in­to that sun­shine and walked cheer­ful­ly across the park.

In the sum­mer-​house in the back gar­den at Oakhurst Av­enue Wilt sat con­tent­ed­ly, stroking Tib­by the tail-​less cat hap­py in the knowl­edge that this was his own ver­sion of Old Eng­land and that he would al­ways re­main a sub­ur­ban man. Ad­ven­tures were for the ad­ven­tur­ous and he had strayed from his prop­er role in life as hus­band to Eva with her mul­ti­tude of tem­po­rary en­thu­si­asms, and as the fa­ther of four un­con­trol­lable girls. He would nev­er again ven­ture from the rou­tine of the Tech, his chats over pints of bit­ter with Pe­ter Brain­tree at the Duck and Drag­on, and Eva’s com­plaints that he drank too much and had no am­bi­tion. Next year they would go to the Lake Dis­trict for their sum­mer hol­iday.

The End