‘So he could be…Shit, look at the one with the obesity problem.’
‘That’s his wife, Mrs Immelmann,’ said the cop.
‘Yeah, well it would be, wouldn’t it? Who’s the other one needs liposuction?’
The second DEA man checked the file.
‘Name of Wilt, Mrs Eva Wilt, mother of the four pack, 45 Oakhurst Avenue, Ipford, England. Want to put out a check call on her?’
‘They were in the same row with Sol. Could be he was the decoy. Yeah, call Atlanta and they can decide.’
They watched as the limo drove off. After it had gone the local cop got out and drove down to the Sheriff’s office.
‘What’s with those drug-busting shits?’ asked the Sheriff who resented Northerners almost as much as he resented being bossed around by the Feds. ‘Come marching into Wilma like they own the whole fucking place.’
‘You ain’t going to believe this. They got Wally Immelmann tagged for a drug dealer.’
The Sheriff stared at him. The man was right. He didn’t believe him.
‘Wally into running drugs? You got to be joking! Oh my God, they must be out of their fucking heads. If Wally got to hear he was on a fucking dealer suspicion list he’d go apeshit. Would he ever. Like we got Mount St Helens volcano right here in Wispoen County spewing brimstone. Jesus.’ He stopped and pondered for a moment. ‘What evidence they got?’
‘The fatso with the four girls. Dogs picked them out at the airport. And Wally is moving into pharmaceuticals. It fits.’
‘And the woman? Why not hold her for questioning?’
‘I don’t know. Wanted to see her contact, I guess. British. Name of Wilt.’
The Sheriff groaned.
‘Where those two goons from, Herb?’ he said presently.
‘Unit down Atlanta. They–’
‘I got that already. Like, where are they from? What’s their names and their home towns?’
‘Don’t give no names, Sheriff. Flash their IDs and credentials from Drug Enforcement and come to the high and mighty. Those boys in that game don’t have real names. Not good for their health, I’ve heard. Got numbers. One’s from New Jersey, that I do know.’
‘New Jersey? So how come the Yankee’s doing duty down South? Don’t trust us local cops?’
‘They don’t do that, and that’s for sure. Wanted to know if Mr Immelmann was a good ole boy like it was a dirty word.’
‘Said that, did they?’ said the Sheriff grimly. ‘Nice manners these Northern assholes have got. Come on down and think they run the place.’
‘And the other one…name of Palowski, yeah that’s right. I saw that much. He said Mrs Immelmann was so fat she should be into liposuction. Like that was a dirty word too.’
‘It is,’ said the Sheriff. ‘OK, OK. They want to walk into a fire-storm with Wally Immelmann, I’m not going to stop them. They’re on their own from now on. We just say Yessir and Nossir and let the bastards fuck up real good.’
‘No co-operation, sir?’
The Sheriff sat back in his chair and smiled meaningfully.
‘Let’s just say we let them draw their own conclusions. Ain’t our asses going to be gored if they hit Wally. Good ole boy indeed. I reckon he’ll good ole boy them so fast they won’t have time to shit themselves.’
Chapter 9
For five days Wilt wandered happily along little country lanes, across fields, through woods, down bridle-paths and beside streams and rivers, doing what he had hoped to do: discover a different England remote from the traffic and ugliness of big cities and the sort of life he led in Ipford. At midday he would stop at a pub and have a couple of pints and a sandwich and in the evening find some small hotel or B&B where he could get a square meal and a room for the night. The prices were reasonable and the food varied but he wasn’t looking for anything modern or luxurious and the people were friendly and helpful. In any case, he was always so tired–he’d never done so much walking in his life before–that he didn’t care whether a bed was comfortable or not. And when one landlady insisted rather unpleasantly that he take his muddy boots off and not make a mess of her carpets, he wasn’t bothered. Nor did he ever feel lonely. He’d come away to be alone, and apart from a few old men in pubs who struck up conversations with him and asked him where he was heading, and were puzzled when he replied that he had no idea, he spoke to hardly anyone. And the fact was that he really had no idea where he was or where he was going. He deliberately didn’t want to know. It was enough to lean on a five-bar gate and watch a farmer on a tractor mowing hay, or to sit by a river in the sunshine and stare at the water drifting by. Once he glimpsed a dark shape glide through the grass on the far bank and disappear into the river, and supposed it must be an otter. Occasionally, when he had had rather more than his usual two pints of beer for lunch, he would find a sheltered spot behind a hedge and, having made sure there were no cattle in the field (he was particularly worried about meeting a bull), he would lean his head against the knapsack and snooze for half an hour before going on. There was never any need to hurry; he could take all the time in the world because he was going nowhere.
So it continued until on the sixth day the weather turned nasty in the late afternoon. The landscape had changed too and Wilt found himself crossing a stretch of spongy heath land with marshy areas he had to avoid. Several miles ahead there were some low hills but the emptiness and silence of the place had something faintly ominous about it and for the first time he began to feel faintly uneasy. It was almost as though he was being followed but when he looked back, as he did every now and then, there was nothing menacing in sight and no cover for anything to hide in. All the same the silence oppressed him and he hurried on. And then it began to rain. Thunder rumbled over the wooded hillside behind him and occasionally he caught a flash of lightning. The rain began to lash down, the lightning grew closer and Wilt got out his anorak and wished it lived up to its maker’s promise that it was waterproof. Shortly afterwards he blundered into a waterlogged area where he slipped and sat down in the muddy water with a squelch. Wet and miserable he hurried on still faster, conscious that the lightning was now very close. By this time he was near to the low rise beyond which he could see the tops of trees. Once there he would at least find some shelter. It took him half an hour and by then he was wet through, wet and cold and thoroughly uncomfortable. He was also hungry. For once he had failed to find a pub and have some lunch. Finally he was in the wood and had slumped down against the trunk of an old oak tree. The crash of lightning and the roll of thunder were the closest he had ever been to a storm and he was frankly frightened. He rummaged in his knapsack and found the bottle of Scotch he’d brought for emergencies. And in Wilt’s opinion his present situation definitely came into the category of an emergency. Above him the darkening sky was made darker still by the clouds, and the wood itself was a dark one. Wilt swigged from the bottle, felt better and swigged again. Only then did it occur to him that sheltering under a tree was the worst thing to do in a thunderstorm. He no longer cared. He was not going back to that eerie heath with its bogs and waterlogged pools.
By the time he’d swigged several more times from the bottle he was feeling almost philosophical. After all, if one came on a walking tour to nowhere in particular and without really adequate preparations, one had to expect these sudden changes in the weather. And the storm was passing. The wind was beginning to fall. The branches of the trees above him no longer thrashed around and the lightning and thunder had moved on. Wilt counted the seconds between the flash and the thunder. Someone had once told him each second represented one mile. Wilt drank some more to celebrate the fact that by that calculation the eye of the storm was six miles away. But still the rain continued. Even under the oak it ran down his face. Wilt no longer cared. Finally, when the seconds between flash and crash had reached ten, he put the bottle away in the knapsack and got to his feet. He had to push on. He couldn’t spend the night in the wood or, if he did, he’d be likely to go down with a bout of pneumonia. It was only when he’d managed to get the knapsack on his back–and this took some doing–and he took a few steps forward, that he realised how drunk he was. Drinking neat whisky on an empty stomach hadn’t been at all sensible. Wilt tried to see what time it was but it was too dark to see the face of his watch. After half an hour during which he had twice fallen over logs, he sat down again and got out the bottle. If he was going to spend the night soaked to the skin in the middle of some benighted wood he might as well get thoroughly pissed. Then to his surprise he saw the lights of a vehicle through the trees to his left. It was a good distance away but at least it indicated that civilisation in the shape of a road existed down there. Wilt had begun to value civilisation. He stuffed the bottle into the pocket of the anorak and set off again. He had to reach that road and be near people. He no longer cared if he couldn’t find a village. A barn or even a pigsty would do as well as a B&B. Just somewhere to lie down and sleep was enough for him now and in the morning he would be able to see where he was going. For the moment it was impossible. Weaving his way downhill he banged into trees and blundered through bracken but he made progress. Then suddenly his foot caught in the root of a thorn tree and he was falling head first into space. For a moment his knapsack, caught in the thorn, almost stopped his progress. Wilt continued falling, landed on his head in the back of Bert Addle’s pick-up and passed out. It was Thursday night.