was still in her dressing gown, she turned towards the house. ‘And just you wait where you are,’ she said as she went. ‘I intend to call the police and have you both prosecuted for trespass and cruelty to animals.’
The threat was too much for Flashgun. He sank back on to the horse manure and passed out. It was left to Butcher Cassidy, now three branches further up the tree, to protest.
‘Cruelty to animals, you fucking bitch,’ he shouted at her as she led the chastened Wilfred into the house. ‘You’re the one who’s going to be done for cruelty. We’ll fucking crucify you. You see if we don’t. We’ll sue you for everything you’ve got.’
Mrs Rottecombe smiled and patted Wilfred. ‘Good dog, Wilfie. You’re a good dog, aren’t you? Nasty man kicked you, didn’t he?’
She went into the house and fetched a tube of tomato puree from the kitchen. Holding him by the collar she poured the stuff on to his back. Then she led him out into the garden again and left him underneath the oak tree. He was still there when the ambulance came and shortly afterwards the police. There was blood from Butch’s ankle all over the ground under the tree and quite a lot on Wilfred’s back where it added authenticity to the tomato puree. Mrs Rottecombe had achieved her object. In an emergency she was a resourceful woman.
Chapter 14
The Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement sat in the grass against the wall with his head in his hands. He knew now he should never have come home a day early. He was equally certain about his marriage. He should never have come within a mile of the damned woman who could let loose those terrible dogs on two reporters. The sounds of snarls and screams, not to mention the knowledge that there was an unconscious man, his head covered in blood, lying on the floor of the garage convinced him of that. Harold Rottecombe had no intention of being an accessory after the fact of the poor devil being there and possibly even of his murder. If that lot hit the headlines, as it was almost bound to now, his position not only as Shadow Minister but also as an MP would be ended. And it was all the fault of that insane bitch. He should never have married her. A new thought struck him. There had been something genuine about her horror when she’d returned from the garage which almost convinced him she hadn’t put him there. Cut that ‘almost’. She really hadn’t known he was in there. In that case someone else was responsible. Harold Rottecombe searched for another explanation and found one. Someone was out to ruin his career. That was why the newspapers had been informed. Anyway it was too late to do anything about that now. The first thing he had to do was to get back to London by train. There was no way he could drive. A glance over the wall showed him the group of journalists and the TV men down at the bottom of the drive. They would be there all day and the police from Oston would undoubtedly come to the house. He couldn’t use the train station there. He’d have to get to Slawford to catch the train to Bristol and London. The town was outside his constituency and he’d be less likely to be recognised there. Against that it was a hell of a long way to have to walk.
On the other hand there was the river. It flowed through Slawford, and along the wall he could see the roof of the boat-house and a far better method than trudging for ten miles across fields occurred to him. He’d take the rowing boat and go downstream.
Behind him Ruth was putting her skills in tying people up to good use on Wilt. Having made sure he wasn’t dead or dying she had bound his wrists together with several turns of Elastoplast which wouldn’t leave any obvious marks like rope, and removed his jeans. Then she dragged him over to the Volvo estate, in the process getting some of Wilt’s own blood on to the Y-fronts, and by using two planks rolled him with great difficulty into the
