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.
Chapter 29
In Wilma Auntie Joan wasn’t in any mood to gloat. Wally was still in the Coronary Care Unit and she had been assured he would soon recover which was good news. The bad news was that she was met by two men with Yankee accents who insisted she take a look at the pool behind the house.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded and was shown their IDs which told her they were Federal Drug Enforcement Agents. Auntie Joan wanted to know why they were at the Starfighter Mansion.
‘Come on round the back and you’ll see why.’
Auntie Joan went reluctantly and was horrified to find the pool empty except for a dead sniffer dog lying on the bottom. Two other men dressed in protective clothing and wearing gas masks were collecting bits of what had once been a gelatine capsule. Not that it was recognisable as such any more.
‘Like to tell us just what was hidden down there?’ the man named Palowski asked.
Auntie Joan looked wildly at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Like the dog drinks the water and the next moment it dies but fast?’
‘What’s that got to do with me? My husband’s in Intensive Care and you’re asking me…Oh, God!’ She turned and headed for the house. She needed a stiff drink and three, at least three, Prozacs and some sleeping pills for good measure. And then the phone rang. She let it. It rang again. And again. Auntie Joanie drank half a tumbler of brandy and took four sleeping tablets. The phone rang another time. She managed to get to it and slurred, ‘Fuck off,’ and sat down on the floor and passed out.
At Immelmann Enterprises the deputy CEO wished to hell he had taken the day off. His morning had been made hellish. He’d had calls from all over the country from enraged recipients of the quads’ emails.
‘He called you what?’ he asked the first caller, one of IE’s biggest customers. ‘There’s got to have been a mistake. Why would he call you that? He’s sick in hospital with a quadruple bypass.’
‘And when he comes out he’s going to find out just how sick he is. He’ll need more than a quadruple bypass by the time I’ve finished with the cunt-sucker. He wants another million-dollar order from us he ain’t going to get it. He gets no more business out of me and what’s more I’m taking him to court for defamation. A penis-gobbler, am I? Well, you tell him…’
It was a most appalling call. The fifteen others that came in during the rest of the morning weren’t any better. Cancellation orders poured in accompanied by physical threats. So did obscene hate emails.
The deputy CEO told the secretary to leave the phone off the hook. ‘And while you’re about it you’d better be looking for another job. I sure as shit am. Immelmann’s gone crazy. He’s lost every customer we ever had,’ he shouted as he dashed out to his car.