tactfully. Any ideas?’
The Superintendent tried to think. ‘I suppose we could create some sort of diversion and get them away from the house for a time,’ he said finally. ‘It would have to be something pretty sensational. Ruth the Ruthless is the one they’re after. And I can’t say I blame them. She’ll make good headlines.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes, the Chief Constable considering the damage the wretched Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement and his sadistic wife had inflicted on the county.
The Superintendent was more preoccupied with his idea of a diversion. ‘If only some lunatics would let off a bomb. The Real IRA would be perfect. The media horde would be off like a shot…’
The Chief Constable shook his head. One gaggle of media hounds was bad enough, a second swarming over the place would only bring more awful publicity. ‘I can’t take responsibility for anything like that. Besides, where the hell could you get a bomb? You’ve got to come up with something less complicated.’
‘I suppose so. I’ll let you know,’ he told the Chief Constable who’d got up to go.
‘What we don’t want is anything that’s sensational. You understand that?’
The Superintendent said he did. He sat on in his office thinking dark thoughts and cursing the Rottecombes. An hour later a Woman Police Sergeant came in and asked if he’d like a cup of coffee. She was slim and fair-haired and had good legs. By the time she’d fetched the stuff they called coffee he’d made up his mind. He crossed the room and locked the door.
‘Take a seat, Helen,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a job for you. You don’t have to take it but…’
By the time he had finished the Sergeant had reluctantly agreed. ‘What about those two bull terriers? I mean, I don’t want to be torn to bits by them. What they did to those two reporters wasn’t funny.’
‘We’ll have taken care of them. Dropped some doped meat into the garden from a helicopter. They’ll be snoring their heads off in no time at all.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ said the Sergeant.
‘We’ll go in this evening when those fellows down by the gate are taking it in turns to go to the pub.’
Inside Leyline Lodge Ruth Rottecombe was expecting the raid. She’d been phoned a number of times by the police asking her to go to Oston to answer some more questions and had, after the first call, simply not bothered to answer the phone. She took only those she could identify on the LCD panel. She’d also been bothered by a great many calls from the Central Office demanding to know where the Shadow Minister for Social Enhancement had got to.
For a moment Ruth was tempted to say he was probably holed up with a rent-boy but Harold still had his uses if only she could find him. The journalists besieging the Lodge made it impossible to leave the house. She’d been up to the skylight to check and had seen something else that scared her. Two uniformed policemen in the field across the old stone wall. They weren’t hiding, either, just making it obvious she was under surveillance. But why? It had to be something to do with what the forensic men had found on the floor of the garage and taken away in plastic bags. That was the only explanation she could think of. Bloodstained earth from the man’s head wound. That had to be the answer. She cursed herself for not having scrubbed the floor. As the sun began to sink in the West Ruth the Ruthless sat in her husband’s study and tried to think what to do. About the only thing she could come up with was to lay the blame on Harold. After all, his Jaguar had been parked over the patch of oil and blood and there was nothing to indicate she had moved it there.
