Wilt in Nowhere:

  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 you 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 swig 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.

  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 anti-drug 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 anti-drug 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 s
omething 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 hav
ing 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 A1 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—’