‘There’s no chance it could have been an accident?’
‘All the doors locked and the windows blown outwards and it’s an accident? Not on your nelly.’
‘The windows blown outwards?’
‘Like a bomb went off. And some people in the village saw the fireball. Besides, whoever set this little lot going, had a key to the house. Like I said the bloke had to be mad or drunk.’
The Superintendent was thinking the same thing only more so. Mad and drunk.
‘And take a dekko at what’s in the Range Rover,’ said the Fire Chief. They went down to the road and looked at the magazines on the front seat. ‘I’ve seen some filth in my time–people keep some pretty foul porn in their houses–but never anything like this. Bloke ought to be prosecuted. Not my business, of course.’
The Superintendent looked at the magazines and agreed about prosecuting. He had in mind a charge of being in Possession of Obscene Material. He didn’t like porn at the best of times but when it involved sadism and little children he was savage. He didn’t like leather straps and handcuffs either.
‘You didn’t touch anything?’ he asked.
‘Wouldn’t if you paid me. I’ve got kids of my own, leastways my daughters have. I’d flog the bastards who do that sort of thing.’
The Superintendent agreed. He’d never seen porn as foul as this lot. In any case, he didn’t like Bob Battleby one little bit. The man had a rotten reputation and a vile temper. And the clear indication of arson was very interesting indeed. Rumour had it that Battleby had lost a small fortune gambling on the stock market and had been living off cash the General’s wife had left him. He’d have to look into Battleby’s financial position. There was talk that he was seen too often in the company of the local MP’s wife, Ruth Rottecombe, and the Superintendent didn’t like her one little bit either. On the other hand, the Battlebys had influence–and Members of Parliament, particularly Shadow Ministers and their wives, had to be handled with kid gloves. He looked at the gag and the handcuffs and shook his head. There were some real weirdos and swine in the world.
On the road in front of the house Bob Battleby stared in disbelief at the smouldering shell that had been the family home for over two hundred years. The news that the Manor was on fire had reached him at the Country Club and, being even drunker than usual, he had greeted it with disbelief. The Club Secretary had to be joking.
‘Pull the other one. It can’t be. There’s no one there.’
‘You had better speak to the Fire Brigade yourself,’ the Secretary told him. He disliked Battleby when he was sober. The man was an arrogant snob and invariably rude. When he was drunk and had lost money in a game of poker he was infinitely worse.
‘You had better be right, bloody right,’ Battleby told him threateningly. ‘If this is a false alarm, I’ll see you get the fucking sack and…’
But whatever he’d meant to say was left unsaid. He slumped into a chair and dropped his glass. Mrs Rottecombe took the call in the Secretary’s office and heard the news of the fire apparently without emotion. She was a hard woman and her association with Bob Battleby was based solely on self-interest.
In spite of his drinking and his general arrogance he was socially useful. He was a Battleby and the family name counted a great deal when it came to votes. Influence and power mattered to Ruth Rottecombe. She had married Harold Rottecombe shortly after he was first elected to Parliament and she had sensed he was an ambitious man who only needed a strong woman behind him to succeed. Ruth saw herself as just such a woman. She did what had to be done and had no scruples. Self-preservation came first in her mind and sex didn’t come into her marriage. She’d had enough sex in her younger days. Power was all that mattered now. Besides, Harold was away in Westminster all week and she was sure he had his own peculiar sexual inclinations. What was important was that he kept his safe seat in Parliament and remained a Shadow Minister and, if that meant keeping in with Bob Battleby and satisfying his sado-masochistic fantasies by tying him up and whipping him on Thursday nights, she was perfectly prepared to do it. In fact, she got considerable satisfaction from the act. It was better than staying at home and being bored to death by all the inane activities like hunting and shooting and attending bridge parties and coffee mornings and talking about gardening that country life seemed to involve. So she took her two bull terriers for walks and was careful not to dress too smartly. And by acting as Bob’s driver and minder she supposed his family must be grateful to her. Not that she had any illusions about what they really thought of her. As she put it to herself, they owed her, and one day when she was safely installed in London and the Government had a really solid majority she would see to it that they paid her back with due deference.
But now as she put the phone down she had the feeling that a crisis was looming. If Bob, through some act of drunken carelessness like leaving a pan on the stove, had set the Manor on fire, there would be hell to pay. She left the office thoughtfully and went back to him.
‘I’m sorry, Bob, but it is true. The house is on fire. We’d better go.’
‘On fire? Can’t bloody be. It’s a listed building. Built two hundred years ago. Houses that old don’t catch fire. Not like the modern rubbish they put up nowadays.’
Mrs Rottecombe ignored the implied insult to her own house and with the Club Secretary’s help got him up from the chair and out to her Volvo estate.
It was only now as he stood swaying in the roadway surrounded by fire hoses and stared at the smoking shell of the beautiful house–fires were burning in the interior and being doused by the firemen when they flared up again–that some sense of reality returned to Beastly Battleby.
‘Oh God, what are the family going to say?’ he whined. ‘I mean, the family portraits and everything. Two Gainsboroughs and a Constable. And the fucking furniture. Oh shit! And they weren’t insured.’
He was either sweating profusely or weeping. It was difficult in the dim light to tell which. He was still drunk and maudlin. Mrs Rottecombe said nothing. She had despised him before; now she had nothing but utter contempt. She should never have associated with the wimp.
‘It was probably the wiring,’ she said finally. ‘When did you have it rewired last?’
‘Rewired? I don’t know. Twelve or thirteen years ago. Something like that. Nothing wrong with the bloody wiring.’
They were interrupted by the police Superintendent.
‘A terrible tragedy, Mr Battleby. A tragic loss.’
Battleby turned and looked at him belligerently. A sudden flare-up in what had been the library illuminated his suffused face.
‘What’s it got to do with you? Not your bloody loss,’ he said.
‘Not mine personally, no, sir. I meant for you and the county, sir.’
The Superintendent’s deference was tinged with hidden anger. He would lard his questions with ’sirs’ and take his time. No need to get up Mrs Rottecombe’s nose. On the other hand, now was the time to see Battleby’s reaction to the filth in the Range Rover.
‘I wonder if you’d mind stepping round to the back, sir?’
‘What the hell for? Why don’t you just bugger off. It’s not your fucking house.’
Mrs Rottecombe intervened. ‘Now, Bob, the Inspector is only trying to help.’
The Superintendent ignored his demotion. ‘It’s a question of identification, sir,’ he said and watched carefully.
Mrs Rottecombe was shocked but the drunken Battleby misunderstood. ‘What the fuck! You know me already. Known me for bloody years.’