Wilt in Nowhere (7 page)

‘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.

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.

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.