The Ice House

12

Chief Inspector Walsh gathered his men about him on the drive in front of the Grange and divided them into four groups. Three to search the properties inside, and a fourth to comb the outhouses behind the kitchen, the garage block, the greenhouses and the cellars. Robinson had come out of the house to join them.

"What are we looking for, sir?" asked one man.

Walsh handed some typed sheets round the groups. "Read these pointers, then use your common sense. If anyone here is connected with this murder, they are not going to make you a free gift of their involvement so keep your wits about you and your eyes open. The important facts to remember are these; one, our man died approximately ten weeks ago; two, he was stabbed; three, his clothes and dentures were removed; four, and most importantly, it would help if we knew who the hell he was. David Maybury and Daniel Thompson seem the most likely contenders and there's a brief description of both of them on those sheets." He paused to let the men read the descriptions. "You will notice that in terms of height, colouring and shoe size, the two are not dissimilar, but bear in mind, please, that Maybury will have aged ten years since his description was written. I shall head up the search in Mrs. Maybury's house, McLoughlin will take Miss Cattrell, Jones, Mrs. Goode and Robinson will mastermind the outhouses. If anyone finds anything, notify me immediately."

With a sense of reluctance, McLoughlin presented himself and his two men outside Anne's door and rang her bell. Nick Robinson's crowing account of his chat with her had set a pile-driver beating in his head. "Got your wires crossed there, old son," Nick had said breathily into his ear. "Given half a chance, I'd have a shot myself. They always say the bright ones are the least inhibited."

McLoughlin, starved of alcohol, poked stiff fingers into the fat man's beer gut and listened to the satisfying ejection of air. "You mean they stick a knife between your ribs when the performance is lousy," he hissed into the other man's face.

Robinson notched up a direct hit and chuckled between deep breaths. "I wouldn't know. I never have that problem."

McLoughlin tried to remember a time when his head hadn't hurt, when shutters stayed open in his mind, and when he hadn't felt sick. His feelings see-sawed violently between intense dislike of Anne coupled with certainty that she was responsible for the mangled body in the ice house, and a hot shame that set the sweat pouring under his arms whenever he thought of his behaviour of the morning. He bunched his fist till the knuckles gleamed white. "So why did she say she was a dyke?"

With a wary eye on the fist, Nick Robinson took a pace or two backwards. "Claims she didn't. Face it, Andy, she reckons you're a pompous ass so she took the piss." And it'll do you good, he thought. He liked McLoughlin, he had no reason not to, but the man fancied himself a cut above the rest of them which was why his wife's desertion had come so hard. The joke was that the Station had known about it for days, ever since Jack Booth had spilled the beans to Bob Rogers, but they had waited tactfully for McLoughlin to tell them himself. He never had. For two weeks he had come in every morning with a ferocious hangover and rambling stories about what Kelly had said or done the night before. Only his pride was hurt, they all knew it, and that not for much longer the way the WPCs were queuing up to get between his sheets. The clever money was on WPC Brownlow. And for Nick, fat, prematurely bald and with a penchant for WPC Brownlow himself, Anne's indifference to McLoughlin had been a soothing balm.

Anne opened the door and gestured them inside. McLoughlin removed the search warrant from his briefcase and gave it to her. She read it through carefully before handing it back with a shrug. There was no change in her manner towards him, no indication to him or his colleagues that he had overstepped that invisible mark beyond which behaviour is censured.

"Go ahead," she said, nodding towards the small staircase leading to her upper rooms. "I'll be in my study if you want me." She returned to her desk in the big sunlit room. "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" throbbed in the amplifiers.

Her spare room revealed nothing. McLoughlin doubted if it had been used for months, even years. There was a depression in the counterpane of one of the twin beds which implied that Benson or Hedges had found a comfortable retreat there, but no indication of a human presence. They moved on to her bedroom.

"Not bad," said one of the men approvingly. "The wife's just paid a fortune for pink frills, white melamine and mirrors. Can't get into the bloody bedroom now. Bet we could have done something like this for half the price." He ran his hand along the front of a low oak chest.

The room gave an impression of space because it contained so little: only the chest, a delicate wicker chair, and a low double bed with a pile of pillows and a bottle-green duvet. In a recess in one corner was a built-in wardrobe. A white carpet stretched to infinity with no line to show where carpet ended and white skirting boards began. Huge colour close-ups of glorious flowers against jet-black backgrounds marched in a brilliant band round white walls. The room both challenged the eye and relaxed it.

"You two go through the chest and wardrobe," said McLoughlin. "I'll have a look in the bathroom." He retreated gratefully to the normality of a pale pink bathroom but found nothing exceptional, unless two tins of shaving foam, a large packet of disposable razors and three used toothbrushes could be considered unusual possessions for a spinster. As he turned to the door, the corner of his eye caught a movement behind him. He spun sharply, heart struggling like a live thing in his mouth, and hardly recognised himself in the drawn and angry man who stared out of the mirror. He flicked the tap and splashed water over his face, dabbing it dry with a towel which smelt of roses. His head ached unbearably. He was at war with himself and the effort of trying to hold the warring parts together was destroying him. It was nothing to do with Kelly. The thought, unprompted, surprised him. It was inside him and had been inside him for a long time, a simmering rage that he could neither direct nor control, but which Kelly's departure had fired.

He went into the bedroom.

"Here's something, Sarge," said DC Friar. He was on the bed, reclining against the pillows in a posture absurdly reminiscent of Manet's " Olympia." He held a small leather-bound book in one hand and was chuckling over it. "Jesus, it's obscene."

"Off," said McLoughlin with a jerk of his head. He watched the man slide his feet reluctantly to the floor. "What is it?"

"Her diary. Listen to this. 'I cannot look on a penis, post-ejaculation, in a condom without laughing. I am transported immediately to my childhood and the time when my father's finger turned septic. He constructed a finger-stall out of industrial polythene-"to keep an eye on the bugger"-and summoned my mother and me to witness the exciting climax when the finger, after much squeezing, burst. It was a jolly occasion.' Jesus, that's sick!" He twitched the book out of McLoughlin's reach. "And this one, listen to this one-" he flicked a page-" 'Phoebe and Diana sunbathed nude on the terrace today. I could have watched them for hours, they were so beautiful.' " Friar grinned. "She's a dirty little bugger, isn't she? I wonder if the other two know she's a peeper." He looked up and was surprised by the expression of distaste on McLoughlin's face. He took it for prudery. "I was reading the entries for end of May, beginning of June," he said. "Take a look at June second and third."

McLoughlin turned the pages. Her handwriting was black and strong and not always legible. He found Saturday, June 2nd. She had written: "I have looked into the grave and eternity frightens me. I dreamed there was awareness after death. I hung alone in a great darkness, unable to speak or move, but knowing" (this word was underscored three times) "that I had been abandoned to exist forever without love and without hope. I could only yearn, and the pain of my yearning was terrible. I shall keep my light on tonight. Just at the moment, the darkness frightens me." He read on. June 3rd: "Poor Di. 'Conscience does make cowards of us all.' Should I have told her?" June 4th: "P. is a mystery. He tells me he screws fifty women a year, and I believe him, yet he remains the most considerate of lovers. Why, when he can afford to take women for granted?"

McLoughlin snapped the diary shut in his palm. "Anything else? Anything on her clothes?" The two men shook their heads. "We'll tackle the living-room."

Anne looked up as they went in. She saw the diary in McLoughlin's hand and a faint colour washed her cheeks. Damn, she thought. Why, of all things, had she forgotten that? "Is that necessary?" she asked him.

"I'm afraid so, Miss Cattrell." The Stones struck a final chord which lingered as a vibration in the air before fading into silence.

"There's nothing in it," she said. "Nothing that will help you, at least."

DC Friar muttered into his colleague's ear, loud enough for McLoughlin to hear. "Like hell there isn't! It's packed with fucking information!"

He wasn't prepared for the sudden grip of McLoughlin's fingers on the underside of his upper arm. They bit into the tender flesh like iron marlinspikes, gouging, probing, unrelenting in their viciousness. Quite unwittingly, he had reminded McLoughlin of Jack Booth.

A head taller than Friar, McLoughlin smiled gently down on him. His voice, curling lovingly round the Scots vernacular, murmured softly and sweetly: " 'Ye ugly, creepin blastit wonner, Destested, shunn'd by saunt and sinner, How daur ye set a fit upon her, sae fine a Lady! Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner, on some poor body.' " There was no emotion in his dark face but his knuckles whitened. "Recognise that, Friar?"

The DC pulled himself free with an effort and rubbed his arm. He looked thoroughly startled. "Give over, Sarge," he muttered uncomfortably. "I didn't understand a bloody word." He looked to the other constable for support but Jansen was staring at his feet. He was new to Silverborne and Andy McLoughlin scared the shit out of him.

McLoughlin placed his briefcase on the corner of Anne's desk and opened it. "It's from a poem by Robert Burns," he told Friar affably. "It's called 'To A Louse.' Now, Miss Cattrell," he went on, turning his attention to her, "this is a murder investigation. Your diary will help us establish your movements during the last few months." He removed a pad of receipts and wrote on the top one. "It will be returned as soon as we've finished with it." He tore off the piece of paper and held it out to her and, for a brief moment, his eyes looked into hers and saw the laughter in them. A surge of warmth lapped around the frozen heart of his solitude. She bent her head to study the receipt and his gaze was attracted to the soft curls round the base of her neck, tiny inverted question marks which posed as many problems for him as she did herself. He wanted to touch them.

"I don't record my movements in that diary," she told him after a moment, "only my thoughts." She looked up and her eyes laughed still. "It's poor fare, Sergeant, just bees in my bonnet. I fear ye'll dine but sparely on sic a place."

He smiled. Burns had written his poem after seeing a louse on a lady's bonnet in church. "Ye've nae got the accent, Miss Cattrell. Ye grate ma lug wi' your crabbet sound." She laughed out loud, and he hooked his foot round a chair and drew it forward to sit on. It was such a tiny face, he thought, and so expressive. Too expressive? Did sorrow come as easily as laughter? "You recorded some interesting thoughts in your diary on June second. You wrote"-he pictured the written page in his mind-" 'I have looked into the grave and eternity frightens me.' " He examined her closely. "Why did you write that, Miss Cattrell, and why did you write it then?"

"No reason. I often write about death."

"Had you just seen inside a grave?"

"No."

"Does death frighten you?"

"Not in the least. It annoys me."

"In what way?"

Her eyes were amused. They would always betray her, he thought. "Because I'll never know what happened next. I want to read the whole book, not just the first chapter. Don't you?"

Yes, he thought, I do. "Yet you feared it at the beginning of June. Why?"

"I don't remember."

" 'I dreamed there was awareness after death,' " he prompted her. "You went on to say that you would keep your light on that night because the darkness frightened you."

She thought back. "I had a dream and my dreams are very real. That one particularly vivid. I woke early, when it was still dark, and I couldn't think where I was. I thought the dream was true." She shrugged. "That's what frightened me."

"You told Mrs. Goode something on June third which troubled her conscience. What was that?"

"Did I?" He opened the diary and read the extract to her. She shook her head. "It was probably something trivial. Di has a sensitive conscience."

"Perhaps," he suggested, "you'd decided to tell her about the corpse you'd found in the ice house?"

"No, it certainly wasn't that." Her eyes danced wickedly. "I'd remember that."

He was silent for a moment. "Tell me why you don't feel sorry for that wretched man out there, Miss Cattrell."

She turned away to look for a cigarette. "I do feel sorry for him."

"Do you?" He picked up her lighter and flicked the flame for her. "You've never said so. Neither has Mrs. Maybury or Mrs. Goode. It's hardly normal. Most people would have expressed some sympathy, said 'Poor man' as the minimum gesture of regret. The only emotion any of you has shown so far is irritation."

It was true, she thought. How.stupid they had been. "We save our sympathies for ourselves," she told him coolly. "Compassion is a frail thing. It dies at the first touch of frost. You would have to live at Streech Grange to understand that."

"You depress me. I assumed compassion was one of your muses." He splayed his hands on the desk, then stood up. "You would have felt sorry for a stranger, I think. But you knew him and you didn't like him, did you?" His chair scraped back. "Right, Friar, Jansen, let's get on with it. We'll be as quick as we can, Miss Cattrell. At the end I will ask you to go upstairs with a WPC who will search you for anything you may have concealed in your clothing. You are welcome to stay while we work in here but, if you prefer to wait outside, one of the constables will wait with you."

She puffed a smoke ring into the air and stabbed its centre with the end of her cigarette. "Oh, I'll stay, Sergeant," she told him. "Police searches are meat and drink to me. It should run to a couple of thousand words on a woman's page somewhere. I rather fancy a headline like the pry trade or licence to snoop. What do you think?"

Sallow-faced bitch, he thought, as he watched the smoke drift from her mouth. The room stank of her cigarettes. "Please yourself, Miss Cattrell." He turned away. The blood swelled and throbbed and thickened in his head till he thought only a scream would relieve its pressure.

They went through everything with a fine-tooth comb and with infinite patience. Inside books, behind pictures, beneath chairs, through drawers; they ran long needles into the earth in the plant pots, felt for lumps under the fitted carpet, upended the sofa and poked deftly into its soft cushions; and when they had finished, the room looked exactly as it had done before they started. Anne, who had been moved courteously from her place behind her desk, was duly impressed.

"Very professional," she told them. "I congratulate you. Is that it?"

"Not quite," said McLoughlin. "Would you open the safe for me, please?"

She gave him a startled look. "What on earth makes you think I've got a safe?"

He walked over to the oak-panelled mantelpiece which was an exact replica of the one in the library. He pressed on the edge of the middle panel and slid it back, revealing the dull green metal of a wall-safe with a chromium handle and lock. He glanced at Friar and Jansen. "I found the one in the library this morning," he said. "Neat, isn't it?" He couldn't look at her. Her panic, brief though it had been, had shocked him.

She walked back to her desk, collecting her thoughts. She had always believed Phoebe the better judge of character, but it was Diana who was scared of McLoughlin.

"Would you open it, please?" he asked her again.

She took an unbroached packet of cigarettes from a carton of two hundred in her top drawer and tore the seal off it. He watched her patiently, saying nothing.

"Just who do you think you are?" snapped DG Friar angrily. "You heard the Sergeant. Open the bloody safe."

She ignored him, flipped the lid of the packet and turned the whole thing upside down, shaking a key into the palm of her hand. "How are you on Spenser?" she asked McLoughlin with a quirky smile. " 'A man by nothing is so well betrayed as by his manners.' It might have been written for your friend here."

She's stalling, he thought, she's afraid, and I hate her. God, how I hate her. "The safe, please, Miss Cattrell."

She walked over with a tiny shrug, unlocked the door and pulled it open. The safe was empty except for a carving knife with a blood-stained rag wrapped around its handle. The blade was black and crusted. McLoughlin felt sick. For all his anger, he hadn't wanted this. With a detached part of his mind, he wondered if he was ill. His head was burning as if he had a fever. He leant his shoulder against the mantelpiece to steady himself. "Can you explain this, please?" He heard his voice from a distance, harsh and unnatural.

"What's to explain?" she asked, taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

What indeed? The shutter clicked open and shut, open and shut, behind his eyes. He glanced at the cigarette packet on the desk. "Let's start with why you went to so much trouble to hide the key?"

"Habit."

"That's a lie, Miss Cattrell."

Tension had tightened the skin around his nose and mouth, giving him a curiously flat look. She thought of the steel hawser she had once seen in Shanghai, winding on to a huge capstan and drawing a crippled tanker into the docks. As the slack was taken up, it had risen from the concrete, shaking itself free of dust as it thinned and tautened, and then had come a moment of pure horror when it snapped under the strain and whipped with frightening speed through the defenceless flesh of a man's neck. He had seen it coming, she remembered, had put up his hands to protect himself. She looked at McLoughlin and felt an urge to do the same. "I want to phone my solicitor," she said. "I will not answer any more questions until he gets here."

McLoughlin stirred. "Friar, find Inspector Walsh for me and ask him to come to Miss Cattrell's wing, will you? Tell him it's urgent, tell him she wants to make a phone call. Jansen"-he flicked his head towards the French windows-"rustle up a WPC for a strip search. You'll find Brownlow somewhere outside." He waited till the two men had left then turned to the mantelpiece and stood staring at the open safe. After a moment he swung the door to and put his hands on the mantelpiece, lowering his head to look into the unlit fire. It was a gas replica of a real fire and the artificial coals were peppered with cigarette ash and dog-ends. "You should put them in a bin," he murmured. "They'll leave marks when they burn."

She craned her neck to see what he was looking at. "Oh, those. I keep meaning to hoover them up."

"I thought Mrs. Phillips did the hoovering."

"She does, but she discriminates against certain messes, or more accurately the makers of certain messes, and won't touch them with a barge pole."

He turned to look at her, resting his elbow on the mantelpiece. He was shaking like a man with ague. "I see." He didn't, of course. What sort of discrimination did Molly go in for? Racial? Religious? Class?

"She discriminates on moral grounds," Anne told him. Had he spoken his thoughts aloud? He couldn't remember, his head ached so much. "She's a good old-fashioned Puritan, only truly happy when she's miserable. She can't understand why the rest of us don't feel the same way."

"Like my mother," he said.

She gave her throaty chuckle. "Probably. Mine doesn't bother, thank God. I couldn't do battle with two of them."

"Does she live near here?"

Anne shook her head. "The last I heard of her she was in Bangkok. She remarried after my father died and set off round the world with husband mark two. I've rather lost track of them, to be honest."

That hurt, he thought. "When did you last see her?"

She didn't answer immediately. "A long time ago." She drummed her fingers impatiently on her desk. "Give me one good reason why I should wait for the Inspector's permission to make this telephone call."

Her voice vibrated with irritation. It made him laugh. Laughter swept over him like a kind of madness, wild, uncontrollable, joyous. He put a hand to his streaming eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry. There is no good reason. Please. Be my guest." The words, appallingly slurred, seemed to echo in his head and, even to his own ears, he sounded drunk. He clung to the mantelpiece and felt the hearth lurch beneath his feet.

"I suppose it hasn't occurred to you," observed Anne at his shoulder, as she shoved a chair behind his legs and folded him neatly on to it with the pressure of one small hand on the nape of his neck, "that it might be worth eating from time to time." She abandoned him to rummage through her bottom drawer. "Here," she said, a moment later, pressing an unwrapped Mars bar into his hand. "I'll get you something to drink." She took a bottle of mineral water from a small drinks cabinet, poured a tumblerful and carried it back to him.

His hand, clasping the Mars bar, hung loosely between his knees. He made no attempt to eat it. He couldn't have moved, even if he'd wanted to.

"Oh, shit!" she said crossly, putting the glass on a table and squatting on the floor in front of him. "Look, McLoughlin, you're a pain in the bloody arse, you really are. If you're trying to drink yourself into early retirement, fine, that's your choice-God knows why you joined the police force in the first place. You should be writing a biography of Francis Bacon or Rabbie Burns or something equally sensible. But if you're not trying for the chop, then do yourself a favour. Any minute now, that little toe-rag you sent off in search of the Inspector is going to come back through my door, and he'll wet himself when he sees you like this. Take my word for it, I know the type. And if there's anything left of you when Walsh has finished, then your friend the constable is going to piss all over it. He'll do it again and again and again, and he'll have an orgasm every time he does it. I promise you, you won't enjoy the experience."

In her own way she was beautiful. He could drown quite happily in those soft brown eyes. He took a bite out of the Mars bar and chewed on it thoughtfully. "You're a bloody awful liar, Cattrell." He moved his head gently from side to side. "You told me compassion was a frail thing, but I think you've just broken my neck."