‘No cooperation, 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.’
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 in
to 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.
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.’