Across the lane and a field, Bert Addle was watching Meldrum Manor from the gate to the walled garden. He had driven down in a pick-up he’d borrowed from a mate who’d gone to Ibiza for a spree of drugs and booze and, if he had any energy left, some sex and a few fights. Bert was beginning to wonder if the lights in the house would ever go out and the bastard Battleby and Mrs Rottecombe go off to the Country Club. All he had to do now was get the keys from the beam in the barn and let himself in through the kitchen door when Battleby left. Finally at 10.45 the lights went out and he saw the couple shut the back door and drive off. Bert waited to make sure they’d had enough time to get to the Country Club. He’d already put on a pair of surgical gloves and half an hour later he was inside the kitchen and using his torch upstairs to find the cupboard in the passage opposite the bedroom. It was precisely where Martha had told him and in it were the things he needed. He went downstairs with them and found the plastic garbage bin in the kitchen. He pulled it away from the sink, and put some oily rags and a gumboot he’d brought with him in it. ‘There’s got to be plenty of smoke to attract the Fire Brigade,’ Aunt Martha had told him and Bert meant to see that she got what she wanted. The gumboot would smoke and smell to high heaven as well. But first he had to move the Range Rover out of the yard and put the porno mags and some of the other S&M equipment in the front seat. That done and the Range Rover’s doors locked he returned to the kitchen and lit the oily rag. As it began to smoulder he went out through the back door, took the keys out of his pocket and locked it. He whipped across the yard into the barn and put them back on the beam. Then he was running back to the pick-up, threw the hood and two whips and a couple of porn magazines into the back and drove up the lane to the road a mile beyond. His next visit had to be Leyline Lodge. The Rottecombes’ house was two miles further on and conveniently secluded. No lights were on. Bert drove on, stopped, got out and reached over the back to get the whips and hood and was horrified to feel Wilt’s leg. For a moment he questioned his own findings. A man lying in the back of the pick-up? When had the bastard got in? Must have been in the lane. Bert wasn’t wasting any more time. He threw the S&M gear into the back garage, let down the back of the pick-up and hauled Wilt out with a thump on to the concrete floor. Then he was in the driver’s seat and had left Leyline Lodge in a hurry. It was a wise move.
At Meldrum Manor Mrs Meadows’s hopes that smoke would attract the attention of the Fire Brigade had exceeded her wildest dreams. They’d exceeded her worst fears as well. She had failed to take the Filipino maid’s extravagant taste in exotic and extremely pungent air fresheners, and Battleby’s detestation of them, into account. The previous morning he had hurled six pressurised cans of Jasmine Flower, Rose Blossom and Oriental Splendour into the garbage bin and told her never to get any more. As a result of Bert Addle’s activities they wouldn’t be needed. The smoke he had found so satisfying when the gumboot began to smoulder had slowly but surely turned into a raging fire. By the time it had reached the pressurised cans the Oriental Splendour lived up to its name and exploded. The other cans followed suit. With a roar that hurled flaming plastic across the kitchen and blew out the windows they announced to Meldrum Slocum that the Manor was on fire.
In her cottage Martha Meadows was busily providing herself with an alibi. She’d spent the earlier part of the evening as usual in the Meldrum Arms and had then invited Mr and Mrs Sawlie round for a spot of sloe gin she’d made the winter before. They were sitting comfortably in front of the telly when the cans exploded.
‘Someone’s car has backfired,’ said Mrs Sawlie.
‘Sounded more like a grenade to me,’ said her husband. Mr Sawlie had been in the War. Five minutes later the overheated gas bottle for the kitchen stove reached bursting point. This time there could be no doubt that something closely resembling a bomb had gone off. A red glow in the direction of the Manor was followed by flames.
‘Gawd help us,’ said Mr Sawlie. ‘The Manor’s on fire. Best call the Fire Brigade.’
There was no need. In the distance came the sound of Fire Engines. The Sawlies crowded out into the street to watch the blaze. Behind them Martha Meadows helped herself to a very large sloe gin. What if Bert had got himself killed? She gulped down the gin and prayed.
Chapter 10
At Meldrum Manor the firemen fought the blaze in vain. The fire had spread from the kitchen to the rest of the house and they had been delayed by the Range Rover in the gate of the back yard. In the end they had been forced to break a side window to unlock the door and the car alarm had gone off. More delay and the discovery of the S&M mags and equipment on the front seat. By the time the police arrived the source of the fire had been discovered.
‘As clear a case of arson as I’ve ever seen,’ the Fire Chief told the Superintendent when he arrived. ‘Not a shred of doubt about it, not in my mind at any rate. The investigators will get the full evidence. Plastic dustbin in the middle of the room and a wall cupboard full of spray cans. The bloke must have been mad to think he could get away with it.’