Wilt in Nowhere

Chapter 13

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.