In Hereford Police Station the Chief Superintendent, urged on by Downing Street, hadn’t. He no longer believed Wilt had had anything to do with the torching of Meldrum Manor or the death of the Shadow Minister. He had ordered the police at Oston to find witnesses to Wilt’s journey and to trace his route as far as they could. ‘You know where he stayed each night,’ he told the Inspector there. ‘What I want now is for your men to check where he bought his lunch and get as clear an idea as you can where his walk took him and where it ended and when.’
‘You talk as if I have an army of constables here,’ the Inspector protested. ‘I have precisely seven, and two are extras brought in from the next county. Why don’t you charge this man Wilt?’
‘Because he was the victim of an assault, not the perpetrator of one. And I don’t mean he was just mugged in Ipford. He was bleeding from a head wound when he was in the Leyline Lodge garage and when she drove him down to Ipford. He’s not on the suspect list any more.’
‘So what does it matter where he went?’
‘Because he may have been a witness to the fire and who started it. Why else did this woman take him down there? In any case, he has amnesia. Can’t remember who or what hit him. That’s the official psychiatric report.’
‘What a hell of a case,’ said the Inspector. ‘I’m dashed if I understand it.’
Which was exactly what could be said for Ruth the Ruthless. Deprived of sleep, endlessly cross-examined and made to drink extremely strong coffee, she was desperate and unable to give any coherent answers to the questions being put to her. To make matters worse she had been charged with hindering the course of justice, falsifying a birth certificate and, thanks to Battleby’s seriously damaging allegations, purchasing the paedophile magazines he revelled in. The two so-called journalists Butch Cassidy and the Flashgun Kid had had writs issued in relation to the attacks by Wilfred and Pickles and the media were having a field-day smearing her in the tabloids. Even the broadsheet papers were using her reputation to attack the Opposition.
At 45 Oakhurst Avenue Wilt was having something of a hard time too, convincing Eva that he didn’t know where his walking tour had taken him.
‘You didn’t want to know where you were going? You mean you’ve forgotten?’ she said.
Wilt sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said. It was easier to lie than to try to explain.
‘And you told me you had to work for a course next term on Communism and Castro,’ Eva persisted. ‘I suppose you’ve forgotten that too.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘So you took those awful books with you?’
Wilt looked miserably at the books on the shelf and had to admit he’d left them behind. ‘I only meant to be away a fortnight.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Wilt’s sigh was audible this time. It would be impossible to explain his wish to see the English countryside without any literary associations to her. Eva would never understand and almost certainly would suppose there was another woman involved. ‘Suppose’ was too mild a word: she’d be certain. Wilt went on to the offensive.
‘What brought you back so quickly from Wilma? I thought you were going to be over there for six weeks?’ he asked.
Eva hesitated. In her own way she was suffering from self-induced amnesia about the events in Wilma and in any case, coming home to learn her Henry had been mugged and was in hospital and incapable of recognising her had been so traumatic, she hadn’t had a spare second to consider what had caused Uncle Wally to have an infarct and Auntie Joan to
