Wilt in Nowhere

Chapter 27

The discovery of Wilt’s trousers covered with mud and what looked like dried blood, and with several holes burnt in them, in the lane behind the late Meldrum Manor interested the police at Oston.

‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. That bastard Battleby hired some swine to torch the place,’ the Superintendent told the group of policemen assembled to find out what had really happened on the night of the fire. ‘And what’s more we’ve got the sod’s name and address from an envelope in the back pocket. Name of Mr H. Wilt. Address 45 Oakhurst Avenue, Ipford. Does that ring a bell with any of you?’

A constable raised his hand. ‘That’s the name of the backpacker stayed at Mrs Rawley’s B&B up Lentwood Way. You told me to check hotels. There aren’t too many about these parts so I tried the bed and breakfasts too. He stayed at Mrs Crow’s the night before. Wouldn’t say where he was heading. Claimed he didn’t know where he was and didn’t want to know.’

A sergeant spoke up. ‘My wife’s from Ipford,’ he said, ‘and we get the _Weekly Echo._ There was a story in last week’s about a man being found unconscious in the New Ipford Estate with his head bashed in and no trousers. Covered in mud he was too.’

The Superintendent left the room and made a phone call.

‘Thank you. Spot on,’ he said when he returned. ‘He’s in the Ipford General with concussion and suffering from amnesia. They’re waiting for him to come round. In the mean time they’re sending a specimen of the mud on his shirt up for us to check if it’s the same as in the lane back of the Manor.’

‘That’s strange. I went up that lane the very next day in broad daylight and there were no trousers there then. I guarantee that,’ said a young constable. ‘The insurance bods did the same. You can ask them.’

The Superintendent pursed his lips. What interested him was that the jeans had motor oil and blood on them. He still hadn’t forgotten or forgiven Mrs Rottecombe’s insulting attitude on the night of the fire. His ‘nose’ told him she was involved in the fire at Meldrum Manor in some way. And where had the Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement got to? The newspapers had taken their revenge with accusations that invited a suit for libel but there had not been a squeak out of the MP. Odd, very odd. But most suspicious of all the policeman ostensibly at the gate to guard Leyline Lodge but in fact to keep an eye on the house had reported that the garage doors hadn’t been opened since Wilfred and Pickles had dealt with the two intrepid newsmen. And Ruth Rottecombe had taken to leaving her Volvo estate on the drive near the front door. Added to this the two bull terriers roamed the grounds so that even the usual tradesmen left whatever Mrs Rottecombe had ordered by phone outside the gate where she had to collect it. So she was still there. It was the locked garage doors that held the Superintendent’s attention. They suggested that there was something inside that needed to be kept hidden. The Super’s intuition told him that it would be as well to have a discreet word with the Chief Constable about the advisability of obtaining a search warrant. The Chief was known to detest the Rottecombes and the case against Battleby had alienated him even further. And since the destruction of their ancestral home and Bob Battleby’s arrest for paedophilia there was nothing to fear from the rest of the influential Battlebys. That evening the Superintendent spent an hour with the Chief Constable explaining his suspicions and his dislike of Ruth Rottecombe, and found the Chief shared them.

‘This whole thing stinks,’ he said. ‘That bloody woman’s up to her ears in the rotten business but at least we’ve got that bastard Battleby. And her husband’s in deep trouble too, thank goodness. I’ve had enquiries from…well, on high. You might as well say from the office of the Almighty himself, namely the Home Secretary. Take it from me the press coverage isn’t doing the Central Office any good. They are as interested in knowing where he’s got to as we are and I gained the impression they wouldn’t be unhappy if the bastard was dead. Save sacking the blighter.’

By the time the Superintendent left he had been given permission to apply for a search warrant and to take any reasonable measures he felt like.

One of those measures had been to have the Rottecombes’ phone tapped. All he’d learnt was that the wretched Ruth Rottecombe had phoned her husband’s flat in London time and time again, and had done the same with his club and the Party Central Office, but no one had seen him.