Wilt in Nowhere

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.