Wilt in Nowhere

Chapter 28

By the time they found Geriatrics 3 Wilt hadn’t been in Geriatrics 5 Mavis Mottram had had enough. So had Eva. They headed for the door only to be confronted by a formidable Sister.

‘I’m sorry but you can’t see him yet. Dr Soltander is examining him,’ she said.

‘But I’m his wife,’ squawked Eva.

‘Very possibly. But’

Mavis intervened. ‘Show her your driving licence,’ she snapped. ‘That will prove who you are.’ As Eva rummaged in her handbag Mavis turned on the Sister. ‘You can check the address. I assume you know Mr Wilt’s.’

‘Of course we do. We wouldn’t know who he was if we didn’t.’

‘In that case why didn’t you phone Mrs Wilt and let her know he was here?’

The Sister gave up and went back into the ward. ‘His wife and another dreadful woman are demanding to see him,’ she told the doctor.

Dr Soltander sighed. His was a hard life and he had enough terminally ill old people to attend to without having any interruptions from wives and dreadful women. ‘Tell them to give me another twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘I may be in a better position to make a prognosis by then.’

But the Sister wasn’t tackling Mavis Mottram again. ‘You’d better tell them yourself. They won’t listen to me.’

‘Very well,’ muttered the doctor with a dangerous degree of patience and went out into the corridor. He could see at once what the Sister had meant by ‘two dreadful women’. Eva was white-faced and sobbing and demanding to see her Henry. Dr Soltander tried to point out that Wilt was unconscious and in no condition to see anyone and aroused the fury of Mavis Mottram.

‘It’s her legal right to visit her husband. You can’t stop her.’

The doctor’s expression hardened. ‘And who may you be?’

‘Mrs Wilt’s friend and I’ll repeat that Mrs Wilt has every right to visit her husband.’

Dr Soltander’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not while I’m doing my rounds,’ he snapped. ‘She can visit him when I’ve finished.’

‘And when will that be? In four hours?’

‘I’m not here to be cross-examined by you or anyone else. Now kindly take your friend into the Waiting Room while I make sure my absence from the ward hasn’t resulted in any premature deaths.’

‘Presence more likely,’ Mavis snapped back and took out her little notebook. ‘What’s your name? It isn’t Shipman by any chance?’

The remark failed to have the effect she had expected. Two effects to be precise. Eva’s awful wail startled a number of patients several wards down the corridor and even some on the floor above. At the same time Dr Soltander leant forward with a sinister smile until his face was almost touching Mavis Mottram’s.

‘Don’t tempt me, my dear,’ he whispered. ‘One day I look forward to having you as a patient.’

And before Mavis could recover from the shock of being nose to nose with such a sinister man he had turned and stalked back into the ward.

‘Now if you’ll just wait in the Visitors’ Room I’ll call you just as soon as Dr Soltander is through,’ the Sister told them and ushered the two women down the corridor. By the time she returned to the ward the doctor had abandoned Wilt and was taking his fury out on Inspector Flint by explaining that his presence was hindering what little treatment he could give the sick and dying, and that in any case Wilt was not in any condition to be questioned.

‘How the devil am I supposed to do the job of three doctors minimum with blasted coppers littering the ward? You can bloody well go and wait with those two diabolical women. Sister, show him out.’

‘And my job is to take a statement from this bloke when he comes round,’ Flint retorted.

‘Yes, well the Sister here will let you know when he does.’

All the same the Inspector wasn’t sharing the so-called Visitors’ Room with Eva and Mavis Mottram. ‘You can phone me at the police station when he’s awake,’ he told the Sister and went down to the car park. For ten minutes he sat there thinking. Wilt had been found without trousers? And old Mrs Verney had seen him being hoisted out of a car by a woman. And kicked by some drunken louts. It was all very strange.

At Leyline Lodge Ruth Rottecombe was no longer ruthless. She was frantic. The police had arrived early that morning with a search warrant and had insisted she open the garage doors to allow a number of white-coated and gloved forensic experts to make a detailed examination of the place. Still in her dressing gown Ruth had watched them from the kitchen as they moved Harold’s Jaguar and then paid particular attention to the patch of oil underneath. Ruth retreated to the bedroom and tried to think. She decided to place the blame on Harold. After all the car was his and he’d obviously done a runner which she could now see was to her advantage. With him out of the way she was still in the clear. After all there was no evidence against her.

She was wrong. In the garage the police had found all the evidence they needed, oil mixed with dried blood, strands of hair and best of all a fragment of blue cloth which matched the colour of the jeans they had found in the lane. There was also mud. They placed all these items in plastic bags and took their findings back to the police station.

‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ said the Superintendent. ‘If this stuff proves to be what it looks like we’ve got the bitch. Get forensic on to it pronto. And get a match of the cloth with the jeans we found in the lane. If they’re the same she’s up shit creek without a canoe let alone a paddle. In the mean time see she doesn’t leave the house. I want a watch kept on her all the time. And while you’re about it bring me the file.’

He sat back and studied his notes from the previous meeting. A bloke named Wilt, Henry Wilt of 45 Oakhurst Avenue, Ipford, found dumped in the street, apparently mugged and now unconscious in hospital there. And the backpacker who’d stayed at the B&Bs had used the same name. All it required was a DNA check on his blood and that found on the floor of the Rottecombes’ garage and the case was beginning to build up. The Superintendent gloated at the prospect before him. If he could get the evidence to prove that Ruth the Ruthless was truly involved, however indirectly, in setting the Manor on fire he would earn the gratitude of the Chief Constable who loathed the bitch. And if the Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement was forced to resign or better still was involved himself, his own future looked very bright. He’d be certain of promotion. The Home Secretary would be delighted. The Shadow Minister would certainly lose his seat in the next election and his own future would be assured. The Superintendent stared out the window of his shabby office, then picked up the phone and called Ipford Police Station.