Wilt in Nowhere

Chapter 24

On the other side of the Atlantic Eva and the quads sat in the airport waiting for their plane. It had been delayed first by a bomb threat and then, when it had been thoroughly searched, by a mechanical fault. Eva was no longer impatient or even angry with the quads or Auntie Joan. She was glad to be going home to her Henry but intensely worried about his whereabouts and what had happened to him. The girls played and squabbled around her. She blamed herself for having accepted the invitation to Wilma but at least she was going home and in a way she was glad her mission to get the Immelmanns to change their wills in the girls’ favour had failed so catastrophically. The prospect of a fortune would have been bad for the quads.

From an office overlooking the check-in DEA officials studied the little group and wondered what to do.

‘We stop them here, we’re not going to find anything. If there ever was anything to find. Reckon Palowski was right. This Mrs Wilt is a decoy. The guys in London can check her out. No point in pulling her in here.’

What Ruth Rottecombe was doing was preparing a prospect that would be very bad. For Wilt, at any rate. When she was woken from her sleep after her long drive back from Ipford by a phone call from the Superintendent at Oston Police Station to say he was coming up to interview her, she realised she hadn’t got rid of Wilt’s trousers and rucksack as she had intended. They were still in the back of the Volvo. If the police found them…Ruth preferred not to think of the consequences. She hurried out to the garage and took them up to an empty trunk in the attic and locked it. Then she returned to the garage and moved the car over the spot where Wilt had fallen and locked Wilfred and Pickles inside. They would act as a deterrent to any investigation of the place. Somehow she had been sure the police would pay her another visit and she had no wish to answer any more awkward questions.

She need not have worried. The police had checked at the Country Club and Battleby’s alibi seemed authentic. He had been there at least an hour before the fire had broken out and the arson investigators had found no sign of a delayed-action device. Whoever had started the fire, it couldn’t have been the beastly Battleby or Mrs Rottecombe. And they’d got the bloody paedophile on two charges, one of which would put him away for a very long time and ruin the swine’s reputation for life. The Superintendent didn’t care so much about the arson. On the other hand, while he detested Ruthless Ruth, he had to be careful. She was the wife of an influential Member of Parliament who could ask awkward questions in the House about police interrogation methods and harassment. It would pay to be polite to her for the time being. Talking about the fire would give him a chance to study her.

‘I’m extremely sorry to bother you,’ he said when she opened the front door. ‘It’s just that there are some points in the case against Mr Battleby that are bothering us and we thought you might be in a position to enlighten us. We are simply concerned with the fire at the Manor House.’

Ruth Rottecombe hesitated for a moment and decided to be conciliatory. ‘If I can be of any help, I’ll certainly try. You’d better come in.’

She held the door open but the Superintendent was not anxious to enter a house if those damned bull terriers were loose inside. It had taken all his courage to drive up and get out of the car.

‘About those two dogs…’ he began but Mrs Rottecombe reassured him.

‘They are locked in the garage. Do come in.’

They went into the drawing room.

‘Please take a seat.’

The Superintendent sat down hesitantly. This was hardly the reception he’d expected. Mrs Rottecombe pulled up a chair and prepared to answer questions.

The Superintendent picked his words carefully. ‘We have checked with the Club Secretary and he has confirmed that Battleby was at the Country Club playing bridge for nearly an hour before the fire broke out. Secondly, the kitchen door was unlocked. So it was perfectly possible that someone else started the fire.’

‘But that’s impossible. I locked–’ Ruth said before realising she was walking into a trap. ‘I mean, someone must have known where the keys were kept. I hope you don’t think I–’

‘Certainly not,’ said the Superintendent. ‘We know you were at the Club at the same time. No, there’s no suspicion against you. I can guarantee that. What interests us more is a set of footprints in the vegetable garden. They are those of a man who came down from the track behind the house. Now in the mud in the track we’ve also found tyre marks which indicate that a vehicle was parked there and drove off hurriedly some time later on. It begins to look as though the fire was started deliberately by a third party.’

Mrs Rottecombe bridled at that ‘third’. ‘Are you suggesting Bob hired someone to start the fire–’

‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ said the Superintendent hurriedly. ‘I simply meant that someone, some unknown person, entered the house and caused the fire. We also have evidence that he had been in the kitchen garden for some considerable time, evidently watching the house. There are a group of footprints by the gate in the wall which indicate that he had moved about waiting for a chance to enter the house.’ He paused. ‘What we are trying to find out is if anyone had a particular grudge against the man Battleby, and we wondered if you could help us.’

Mrs Rottecombe nodded. ‘I should think there were a great many,’ she said finally. ‘Bob Battleby was not a popular figure in the district. Those vile magazines in the Range Rover indicate that he has paedophile tendencies and he may have abused…well, done something horrible.’

It was her turn to pause and let the inference sink in. The suggestion helped to clear her of any connection with that side of Battleby’s inclinations. Whatever she was she was not a child or, as the Superintendent put it to himself, a spring chicken.

By the time he left he had not gained any useful information from her. On the other hand, Ruth Rottecombe had a shrewd idea why Harold had found the unconscious man in the garage. He’d had something to do with that disastrous night and she saw no reason why she shouldn’t provide the police with his jeans covered with ash near the burnt-out Manor. She wouldn’t leave them there immediately but would wait until it was dark. Like after midnight.