alarm that pervaded the house. There had been shouting downstairs, the telephone had rung rather more frequently than was normal and the master had used an expression they knew from bitter experience to mean trouble. As they stood beside her inside the front door they could smell her anger and fear.
Chapter 13
Outside, the journalist and cameraman from the _News on Sunday_ were less perceptive. In any case they were accustomed to annoying and terrifying the people they were sent to interview. Even by the standards of the gutter press the _News on Sunday_ was held in awe by hardened editors and other newspaper men. It excelled in intrusive journalism. In short it purveyed pure sewage, and Butcher Cassidy and the Flashgun Kid, as the two reporters were aptly nicknamed by others in their profession, were sewer rats and proud of their reputation. They’d already made inquires in Meldrum Slocum about Battleby and ‘Ruthless Ruth’ and had had an interesting chat with an off-duty policeman. After that they had decided on their usual brutish approach and had driven over to Leyline Lodge. A sign on the gate which read ‘BEWARE OF THE DOG’ hadn’t deterred them for a moment. Over the years they had encountered any number of dogs and, while not always coming away entirely unscathed, they weren’t to be deterred. They had their reputation to maintain. A really juicy story about a Shadow Minister who was into rent-boys would do them no end of good.
Before ringing the doorbell they turned to survey the garden with its trees and shrubberies and beds of old roses. They were particularly impressed by a large oak tree which Cassidy would presently attempt to climb. It was the perfect setting for a high-class sexual scandal involving an important politician. For one brief moment, as the door began to open and they turned exuding false charm and bonhomie, they glimpsed Mrs Rottecombe’s unsmiling face. A second later two heavy white objects hurtled towards them. Wilfred leapt at Butcher Cassidy’s throat and fortunately missed. Pickles on the other hand went for a softer target and sank her teeth into Flashgun’s thigh. In the ensuing rout the oak tree took on a new attraction. With Wilfred hard on his heels Butcher raced for that tree and managed to grab the lowest branch before Wilfred took a firm grip on his left ankle and locked his jaw. Flashgun, on the other hand, hampered by Pickles’s attachment to his left thigh, had tried to get away through the rose bed. It was not the wisest route to take. By the time he reached the other side his hands were torn almost as badly as his leg was bitten and he was yelling for help. His yells were largely drowned by the Butcher’s screams. At 70 pounds Wilfred was a heavy dog and given to shaking things he had locked on to.
As the screams continued–they could be heard in Meldrum Slocum–Mrs Rottecombe acted. She got into the reporters’ car, drove it out into the road and shut and locked the gate before sauntering back to the scene of such satisfactory carnage. By that time the Postmaster in Little Meldrum had phoned for an ambulance. It was clearly needed urgently if lives were to be saved. The Flashgun Kid shared the Postmasters opinion. Having dragged Pickles, still firmly attached to his thigh and, by the feel of things seemingly a permanent fixture, through the rose bed, he had tripped at the lawn’s edge and was being dragged back the way he’d come through those same roses. They were old roses on _canina_ stock and exceedingly thorny. They had also been recently mulched with horse manure. Flashgun made the mistake of grabbing at them again and this time there could be no mistaking in Meldrum Slocum the imminence of death at Leyline Lodge. Butcher Cassidy shared that opinion. He clung to the branch of the oak with even more determination than he had pestered the mother, several mothers in fact, whose daughters had just been
