by Tom Sharpe
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 an
d 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 obj
ects 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.