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.
In the Sheriff’s office Harry Stallard refused to believe Baxter’s report. ‘A new
