The Ice House

20

Mrs. Thompson opened the door with a smile of welcome. She was dressed to go out in a neat blue suit and white gloves but there was a sad, rather dated air about her as if her fashion sense had expired with the '50s. Two suitcases stood behind her in the hall. Splashes of rouge on her cheeks and a touch of lipstick gave her face a bogus gaiety but when she saw the gathered policemen her mouth drooped tragically.

"O-oh." She breathed her disappointment. "I thought it was the Vicar."

"May we come in?" asked Walsh. Her inadequacies repulsed as effectively as cheap perfume.

"So many of you," she whispered. "Has the devil sent you?"

Walsh took her arm and eased her backwards, allowing his men in behind. "Shall we go into the sitting-room, Mrs. Thompson? No point in standing around on the doorstep."

She put up a feeble resistance. "What is this?" she beseeched, eyes welling, little heels digging into the hall carpet. "Please don't touch me."

McLoughlin slipped his hand under her other arm and, together, they whisked her through the sitting-room door and into a chair. While McLoughlin kept her seated with a firm hand on her shoulder, Walsh directed his men to a thorough search of the house and garden. He flashed the warrant under her eyes before tucking it back into his jacket pocket and sitting in the chair opposite her.

"Well, now, Mrs. Thompson," he said genially. "Off for your little rest by the sea?"

She shook McLoughlin's hand from her shoulder but remained seated. "I'm expecting the Vicar at any moment to take me to the station," she announced with dignity. McLoughlin noticed a thinning patch in her hair. He found it oddly embarrassing as if she had taken off part of her clothing and revealed something best kept hidden.

"Then I suggest we don't beat around the bush," announced Walsh. "We wouldn"t want to keep him waiting."

"Why are you here? Why are your men searching my house?"

Walsh steepled his fingers in his lap. "You remember that tramp you told us about, Mrs. Thompson?" She gave a brief nod. "We've found him."

"Good. Then you'll know I was telling you the truth about dear Daniel's generosity."

"Indeed, yes. He also mentioned that Mr. Thompson gave him a bottle of whisky and twenty pounds."

The sad eyes lit with pleasure. "I told you Daniel was a saint. He would have given the shirt off his back if the man had asked for it."

McLoughlin took the chair next to Walsh and leaned forward aggressively. "The tramp's name is Wally Ferris. I've had a long talk with him. He says you and Mr. Thompson wanted rid of him, that's why you were so generous."

"The ingratitude," she gasped, her lips parting on a tremor. "What did our Lord say? 'Give to the poor and you shall have treasure in Heaven.' My poor Daniel has earned his place there by his kindness. The same cannot be said of this tramp."

"He also said," continued Mcloughlin doggedly, "that he found your husband hiding in the shed outside."

She tittered behind her hand like a teenager. "Actually," she said, looking directly at him, "it was the other way round. Daniel found the tramp hiding in the shed. He went out to look for a paintbrush and tripped over a bundle of old clothes behind some boxes at the back. Imagine his surprise when the bundle spoke."

Her words carried conviction and McLoughlin knew a sudden doubt. Had he relied too heavily on an old man who, by his own admission, lived in an alcoholic haze? "Wally claims it was raining while he was in your shed. I've checked with the local meteorological office and they have no record of any rainfall on Wednesday, twenty-fourth May. The storms began two days later and lasted on and off for the next three days."

"Poor man," she murmured. "I told Daniel at the time we should have tried to get him to a doctor. He was drunk and very confused. You know, he asked me if I was his sister. He thought I'd come looking for him at last."

"But, Mrs. Thompson," said Walsh, allowing surprise into his voice, "if he was as drunk as you say, why did you give him a bottle of whisky? Were you not compounding his already severe problems?"

She cast her eyes to the ceiling. "He begged us in tears, Inspector. Who were we to refuse? Judge not and you shall not be judged. If the poor man chooses to kill himself with demon alcohol, I have no right to condemn him."

"But you do have the right to speed up the process, I suppose," said McLoughlin sarcastically.

"He's a sad little man whose only comfort lies in a whisky bottle," she said quietly. "It would have been cruel to deny him his comfort. We gave him money to spend on food, shoes for his feet and we urged him to seek help for his addiction. There was not much more we could do. My conscience is clear, Sergeant."

"Wally claims he came here on Saturday, May twenty-seventh." Walsh spoke casually.

She wrinkled her forehead and thought for a moment. "But it can't have been," she said with genuine puzzlement. "Daniel was here. Didn't we decide it was the twenty-fourth?"

McLoughlin was fascinated by her performance. It occurred to him that she had expunged the memory of murder from her mind and had convinced herself that the story she told was the real one. If that was so, they were going to have the devil's own job bringing a prosecution. With only Wally's testimony, backed by the woman in the council house, they wouldn't stand a chance. They needed a confession.

"The date is corroborated by an independent witness," he told her.

"Really?" she breathed. "How extraordinary, I don't remember seeing anyone with him and we are so secluded here." She fingered her cross and gazed at him with reproachful eyes. "Who could it be, I wonder?"

Walsh cleared his throat noisily. "Would it interest you to know where we found your husband's shoes, Mrs. Thompson?"

"Not really," she assured him. "I assume from the things you've said that the tramp-Wally-discarded them as useless. I find that hurtful to my dear Daniel's memory."

"You're very sure he's dead, aren't you?" said McLoughlin.

She produced her lace hankie like a magician and dabbed at the inevitable tears. "He would never leave me," came the refrain.

"We found the shoes in the woods at Streech Grange, not far from the ice house," said Walsh, watching her closely.

"Did you?" she asked politely.

"Wally spent the night of the twenty-seventh of May in the ice house and abandoned the shoes in the woods the next morning as he left."

She lowered the handkerchief and looked with curiosity from one to the other. "Really," she commented. Her expression was one of bafflement. "Is that significant?"

"You do know we've found a corpse in Streech Grange ice house, don't you?" McLoughlin remarked brutally. "It is male, aged between fifty and sixty, broad build, grey hair and five feet ten inches tall. He was murdered two months ago, around the time your husband went missing."

Her amazement was utter. For several seconds a kaleidoscope of emotions transformed her face. The two men watched closely, but if guilt was there, it was impossible to isolate. To the forefront was surprise. "I had no idea," she said, "no idea at all. No one's said anything to me. Whose corpse is it?"

McLoughlin turned to Walsh and raised a despairing eyebrow. "It's been in all the newspapers, Mrs. Thompson," said the Inspector, "and on the local television news. You could hardly have missed it. The body has decomposed to such an extent that we have not yet been able to identify it. We have our suspicions, however." He studied her pointedly.

She was taking deep breaths as though breathing were difficult. The rouge stood out on her cheeks in bright spots. "I don't have a television," she told them. "Daniel used to get a paper at work and tell me all the news when he came home."She struggled for air. "God," she said surprisingly, holding a hand to her chest, "they've all been keeping it from me, protecting me. I had no idea. No one's said a word."

"No idea we'd found a body, or no idea there was a body to find?" asked McLoughlin.

She digested the implications of this for a moment. "No idea there was one, of course," she snapped, eyeing him with dislike. She calmed her breathing with a conscious effort and tightened her lips into their customary thin lines. She addressed herself to Walsh. "I now understand your interest in Daniel's shoes," she told him. A small tic had started above her lip. "You are assuming they are connected in some way with this body you've found."

"Perhaps," he said guardedly.

A gleam of triumph showed in her eyes. "Yet this tramp you've found has proved they can't be. You say he spent the night of the twenty-seventh in the-what did you call it?"

"Ice house."

"In the ice house. I assume he wouldn't have stayed if the dead body had been there, too, so he must have abandoned the shoes before the body ever got there." She seemed to relax slightly. "I cannot see a connection, merely a bizarre coincidence."

"You're absolutely right," agreed Walsh. "In that sense, there is no connection."

"Then why have you been asking me questions?"

"The bizarre coincidence led us to the tramp, Mrs. Thompson, and to some interesting facts about you and your husband. We can prove he was alive in this house two days after you reported him missing and well outside the time for which you'd provided yourself with an alibi. Mr. Thompson has not been seen since, and a week ago we were presented with an unidentifiable body, corresponding to his description and less than four miles away. Frankly, we can make out an excellent case against you for the murder of your husband on or after the twenty-eighth of May."

The tic came faster. "It can't be Daniel's body."

"Why not?" demanded McLoughlin.

She was silent, gathering her thoughts.

"Why not?" he pressed.

"Because I had a letter from him about two weeks ago." Her shoulders slumped and she started to weep again. "It was a beastly letter, telling me how much he hated me and what a bad wife I'd-"

McLoughlin cut her short. "Will you show us the letter, please?"

"I can't," she sobbed. "I burnt it. He'd written such vile things."

There was a knock on the door and one of the uniformed policemen came in. "We've been through the house and garden, sir." He shook his head at Walsh's questioning look. "Nothing yet. There's still this room to do and Mrs. Thompson's cases. They're locked. We'll need the keys."

The little woman grabbed her handbag and held it to her middle. "I will not give you the keys. You will not search my cases. They contain my underwear."

"Fetch me a WPC," instructed the Inspector. He leaned towards Mrs. Thompson. "I'm sorry, but you've no choice in the matter. If you prefer it, I will ask the WPC to bring the cases in here and you may watch while she examines the contents." He held out his hand. "The keys, please."

"Oh, very well," she said crossly, delving into her handbag and producing two small keys tied together with a white ribbon. "Personally, I think the whole thing's outrageous. I intend to make a strong complaint to the Chief Constable."

Walsh wasn't surprised she objected to having her underwear scrutinised. Pieces of filmy black lacework, more at home in a brothel, he would have thought, than in the luggage of this drab, boring woman, were held up for inspection. But a truth he had discovered during his career was that some of the unlikeliest women possessed attractive lingerie. His own wife was a case in point. She had come to bed every night of their married lives in silks or soft satins, with only him to appreciate the effect. And for a long time he had appreciated it and done his best to show it, before years of indignant rejection had taught him that Mrs. Walsh did not don her lingerie for his benefit but for some private delight of her own. And he had long since given up trying to discover what that was.

The WPC shook her head as she re-locked the cases. "Nothing there, sir."

"I did tell you," said Mrs. Thompson. "Heaven knows what you think you're looking for."

"Your handbag, please."

She relinquished it with a moue of disgust. The constable emptied the contents carefully on to the coffee table, felt the soft leather bag for anything hidden in the lining, then sorted through the various objects. She glanced enquiringly at Walsh. "Seems OK, sir."

He gestured to her to return everything to the bag. "Would you rather wait outside while we search this room?" he asked Mrs. Thompson.

She settled herself deeply into her chair, gripping the cushion beneath her as if she expected to be wrestled from it. "I would not, Inspector."

As the search got underway, Walsh returned to the questioning. "You say you've had a letter from your husband. Why haven't you mentioned this before?"

She cringed away from him, tucking herself sideways into a tight ball in the chair. "Because I have only my pride left. I didn't want anyone to know how shamefully he's treated me." She dabbed at her dry eyes.

"What was the postmark?" asked McLoughlin.

" London, I think."

"Presumably the letter was handwritten," he mused. "He wouldn't have access to a typewriter."

She nodded. "It was."

"What sort of envelope?"

"She thought for a moment. "White," she told him.

McLoughlin laughed. "It won't wash, you know. You can't just keep pulling lies out of the hat and expect us to applaud your ingenuity. We'll check with your postman. In a place like this you'll have had the same postman for years, it's probably the chap who runs the little shop-cum-post-office near the church. Your letters will have been a source of great interest to him in the last couple of months. He's probably scrutinised every one carefully in the hopes of being first with news of the errant Daniel. You won't persuade us your husband's still alive by dreaming up letters, Mrs. Thompson."

She glanced beyond him to where the woman constable was going through the sideboard. "Ask the postman, Sergeant. You'll find I'm telling you the truth." She spoke with sincerity, but the look in her eyes was as level and calculating as any he'd seen. "If only I'd known what was in your mind, I'd have told you about the letter the first time you came."

McLoughlin stood up and leaned over her, resting his hands on the arms of her chair. "Why were you so shocked to hear about the body at the ice house? If you know your husband's alive, it couldn't mean anything to you."

"This man's threatening me," she snapped at Walsh. "I don't like it." She cringed deep into the chair.

"Back off, Andy."

"With pleasure." Without warning, he hooked his hand under her arm and stepped back sharply. She popped out of the chair like a champagne cork, then wriggled and spat with ferocity. He clung on to a flailing arm, dodged a swipe from the other and felt warm spittle smear his cheek. "The chair, sir," he called. "She's hiding something."

"Got it."

McLoughlin took a grip on both her arms, arching his body away to avoid the kicking points of her shoes., "Come on, you sods," he shouted angrily at the two constables. "She's pulverising me. Who's got the handcuffs, for God's sake?"

"Bastard!" she screamed. "Bloody fucking bastard!" She rolled another ball of spittle into her mouth and launched it at him. To his immense disgust, it caught his lip and dibbled inside.

The constables, galvanised out of frozen inactivity, snapped on the handcuffs and pushed the woman onto the sofa. She looked at McLoughlin's vain attempts to get rid of the venom and laughed. "Serves you bloody right. I hope you catch something."

"Looks like I've caught you," he said grimly. He turned to Walsh. "What is it?"

Walsh handed him a thin envelope. "She must have slipped it out of her bag when we were gawping at her blasted knickers." He chuckled good-humouredly. "Waste of time, dear lady. We'd have found it eventually."

McLoughlin opened the envelope. Inside were two aeroplane tickets, made out to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, for a flight to Marbella that evening. "Where's he been hiding all this time?" he asked her.

"Go to hell!"

"Mrs. Thompson! Mrs. Thompson!" exclaimed a shocked voice from the doorway. "Some control, I beg you."

She laughed. "Go and play with yourself, you silly little man."

"Is she mad?" asked the horrified Vicar.

"In a manner of speaking," said Inspector Walsh cheerfully.