The Ice House

2

Silverborne Police Station, a modern triumph of polished chrome features and sealed tinted windows, baked in the sun amid its more traditional neighbours. Inside, the air-conditioning had broken down again and as the hours passed and the atmosphere overheated so did the policemen. They grew sticky and squabbled amongst themselves like young children. Those who could, got out; those who couldn't, jealously guarded their electric fans and prayed for a quick end to their shift. For Detective Chief Inspector Walsh, sweating profusely over some paperwork in his office, the order to take a team to Streech Grange came like a miraculous breath of air through the sealed windows. He whistled happily to himself as he made his way to the briefing room. But for Detective Sergeant McLoughlin, detailed to assist him, the knowledge that he was going to miss opening time and the cold lager he'd promised himself was the last straw.

Diana heard the approaching cars before the others. She finished her brandy and put the glass on the sideboard. "Fingers out, girls. Here they come."

Phoebe walked over to the mantelpiece, her face abnormally white against the vivid red hair. She was a tall woman who was rarely seen out of checked shirts and old Levis. But on her return from the ice house she had taken the trouble to change into a long-sleeved, high-collared silk dress. There was no doubting she looked at home in the elegant room with its pastel shades and draped velvet curtains but, to Anne at least, she had the air of a stranger. She smiled distantly at her two friends. "I'm terribly sorry about this."

Anne, as usual, was chain-smoking. She blew a stream of grey into the air above her where she sat on the sofa, head resting against the back. "Don't be a fool," she said bluntly. "No one's going to hold you responsible because some idiot chooses to die on your property. There'll be a simple explanation: a tramp took shelter and had a heart attack."

"My thoughts precisely," said Diana, walking to the sofa. "Give me a cigarette, there's a dear. My nerves are like piano wires, waiting for a Rachmaninov concerto to hit them."

Anne chuckled and handed over the packet. "Do you want one, Pheeb?"

She shook her head and started to polish her spectacles on her skirt hem, absent-mindedly lifting it to waist level and revealing her lack of knickers. Anne found the vagueness of the gesture reassuring.

"There won't be any glass left if you go on doing that," she pointed out gently.

Phoebe sighed, dropped her skirt and put the spectacles back on. "Tramps don't have heart attacks on other people's property in the nude," she said.

The doorbell rang. They heard Molly Phillips, Fred's wife, walk to the front door and without a word, indeed quite by instinct, Anne and Diana positioned themselves on either side of the mantelpiece, flanking Phoebe. As the door opened it occurred to Diana that this might not have been a wise move. To the police mind, she feared, they would seem not so much to be supporting her-the intention-as guarding her.

Molly ushered in two men. "Chief Inspector Walsh and Detective Sergeant McLoughlin, madam. There's a whole lot more outside. Shall I ask Fred to keep an eye on them?"

"No, that's all right, Molly. I'm sure they'll behave themselves."

"If you say so, madam. Me, I'm not so sure. They've already scuffed their great clumsy feet over the gravel where Fred raked it so careful this morning." She glared accusingly at the two men.

"Thank you, Molly. Perhaps you could make tea for everyone. I'm sure it will be welcome."

"Right you are, madam." The housekeeper closed the door behind her and stomped off down the corridor towards the kitchen.

George Walsh listened till her footsteps died away, then he came forward and held out his hand. He was a thin stooping man who had a bizarre habit of jerking his head from side to side, like a sufferer from Parkinson's disease. It gave him an appearance of vulnerability that was deceptive.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Maybury. We've met before, if you remember." He could recall her vividly as she had been that first time, standing where she was now. Ten years, he thought, and she had hardly changed, still the lady of the manor, remote and aloof in the security of her position. The dramas of those years might never have been. There was certainly no evidence in the calm, unlined face which smiled at him now. There was a quality of stillness about her that was unnatural. The village called her a witch, and he had always understood why.

Phoebe shook his hand. "Yes, I do remember. It was your first big case." Her voice was low-pitched, attractive. "You had just been made Detective Inspector, I think. I don't believe you've met my friends, Miss Cattrell and Mrs. Goode." She gestured to Anne and Diana who shook hands solemnly in turn with the Chief Inspector. "They live here now."

Walsh studied the two women with interest. "Permanently?" he asked.

"Most of the time," said Diana, "when our work doesn't take us away. We're both self-employed. I'm an interior designer, Anne's a freelance journalist."

Walsh nodded, but Anne could see that Diana had told him nothing he didn't already know. "I envy you." He spoke the truth. He had coveted Streech Grange since the first time he had seen it.

Phoebe put out her hand to the other man. "Good afternoon, Sergeant McLoughlin. May I introduce Mrs. Goode and Miss Cattrell."

He was in his mid thirties, of an age with the women, a dark, brooding man with cold eyes. In the twist of his lips, he had brought with him the irritability of the Police Station, concentrated, malignant. He regarded Phoebe and her friends with weary contempt and paid lip-service to etiquette by brushing their fingers with his in the briefest of exchanges. His dislike, uncalled-for, slapped against their unprotected cheeks.

To the consternation of her friends, who could feel the vibrations of her anger, Anne rose recklessly to the challenge. "My, my, Sergeant, what have you been hearing about us?" She lifted a sardonic eyebrow then deliberately wiped her fingers down her Levis. "You're scarcely off your mother's breast, so won't have been around the last time the Grange was the centre of police attention. Let me guess now. Our reputation-" she indicated herself and the other two women-"has preceded us. Which of our widely talked-about activities upsets you the most, I wonder? Child abuse, witchcraft or lesbianism?" She searched his face with scornful eyes. "Lesbianism," she murmured. "Yes, you would find that the most threatening but, then, it's the only one that's true, isn't it?"

McLoughlin's temper, already fired by the heat of the day, nearly erupted. He breathed deeply. "I've nothing against dykes, Miss Cattrell," he said evenly. "I just wouldn't stick my finger in one, that's all."

Diana stubbed out her cigarette with rather more violence than was necessary. "Don't tease the poor man, Anne," she said dryly. "He's going to need all his wits to sort out the mess in the ice house."

Stiffly, Phoebe took the seat nearest her and gestured the others to sit down. Walsh sat in the chair opposite her, Anne and Diana on the sofa, leaving McLoughlin to perch on a delicate tapestry stool. His discomfort, as he folded his long legs awkwardly beneath him, was obvious to all.

"Take care you don't break that, Sergeant," snapped Walsh. "I don't like clumsiness any more than the housekeeper does. Well now, Mrs. Maybury, perhaps you'd like to tell us why you called us out."

"I thought Mrs. Goode explained it on the telephone."

He fished a piece of paper from his pocket. " 'Body in ice house, Streech Grange. Discovered at 4:35 p.m.' Not much of an explanation, is it? Tell me what happened."

"That's it, really. Fred Phillips, my gardener, found the body about that time and came and told us. Diana phoned you while Fred took Anne and me to look at it."

"So you've seen it?"

"Yes."

"Who is it? Do you know?"

"The body's unrecognisable."

With an abrupt movement, Anne lit another cigarette. "It's putrid, Inspector, black, disgusting. No one would know who it was." She spoke impatiently, her deep voice clipping the words short.

Walsh nodded. "I see. Did your gardener suggest you look at the body?"

Phoebe shook her head. "No, he suggested I shouldn't. I insisted on going."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "Natural curiosity, I suppose. Wouldn't you have gone?"

He was silent for a moment. "Is it your husband, Mrs. Maybury?"

"I've already told you the body is unrecognisable."

"Did you insist on going because you thought it might be your husband?"

"Of course. But I've realised since it couldn't possibly be."

"Why is that?"

"It was something Fred said. He reminded me that we stored some bricks in the ice house about six years ago when we demolished an old outhouse. David had been gone four years by that time."

"His body was never found. We never traced him," Walsh reminded her. "Perhaps he came back."

Diana laughed nervously. "He couldn't come back, Inspector. He's dead. Murdered."

"How do you know, Mrs. Goode?"

"Because he'd have been back long before this if he wasn't. David always knew which side his bread was buttered."

Walsh crossed his legs and smiled. "The case is still open. We've never been able to prove he was murdered."

Diana's face was suddenly grim. "Because you concentrated all your energies on trying to pin the murder on Phoebe. You gave up when you couldn't prove it. You never made any attempt to ask me for a list of suspects. I could have given you a hundred likely names; Anne could have given you another hundred. David Maybury was the most out-and-out bastard who ever lived. He deserved to die." She wondered if she had overdone it and glanced briefly at Phoebe. "Sorry, love, but if more people had said it ten years ago, things might have been less hard for you."

Anne nodded agreement. "You'll waste a lot of time if you think that thing out there is David Maybury." She stood up and walked over to sit on the arm of Phoebe's chair. "For the record, Inspector, both Diana and I helped clear years of accumulated rubbish out of the ice house before Fred stacked the bricks in it. There were no corpses in there six years ago. Isn't that right, Di?"

Diana looked amused and inclined her head. "It wouldn't have been the place to look for him, anyway. He's at the bottom of the sea somewhere, food for crabs and lobsters." She looked at McLoughlin. "Are you partial to crabs, Sergeant?"

Walsh intervened before McLoughlin could say anything. "We followed up every known contact or associate Mr. Maybury had. There was no evidence to connect any of them with his disappearance."

Anne tossed her cigarette into the fireplace. "Balls!" she exclaimed amiably. "I'll tell you something, you never questioned me either and in my list of a hundred possible suspects I should have featured in the top ten."

"You're quite mistaken, Miss Cattrell." Inspector Walsh was unruffled. "We went into your background very thoroughly. At the time of Mr. Maybury's disappearance, in fact throughout most of our investigation, you were camped with your lady friends on Greenham Common under the eyes not only of the guards at the American Air Force base but also of the Newbury police and assorted television cameras. It was quite an alibi."

"You're right. I'd forgotten. Touche, Inspector." She chuckled. "I was researching a feature for one of the colour supplements." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw McLoughlin's lips thin to a disapproving line. "But, hell, it was fun," she went on in a dreamy voice. "That camp is the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Frowning, Phoebe laid a restraining hand on her arm and stood up. "This is all irrelevant. Until you've examined the body, it seems to me quite pointless to speculate on whether or not it's David's. If you care to come with me, gentlemen, I will show you where it is."

"Let Fred do it," Diana protested.

"No. He's had enough shocks for one day. I'm all right. Could you make sure Molly's organising the tea?"

She opened the French windows and led the way on to the terrace. Benson and Hedges roused themselves from the warm flagstones and pushed their noses into her hand. Hedges's fur was still fluffy from his bath. She paused to stroke his head gently and pull his ears. "There's one thing I really ought to tell you, Inspector," she said.

Anne, watching from inside the drawing-room, gave a gurgle of laughter. "Phoebe's confessing to Hedges's little peccadillo and the Sergeant's turned green around the gills."

Diana pushed herself out of the sofa and walked towards her. "Don't underestimate him, Anne," she said. "You're such a fool sometimes. Why do you always have to antagonise people?"

"I don't. I simply refuse to kowtow to their small-minded conventions. If they feel antagonised that's their problem. Principles should never be compromised. The minute they are, they cease to be principles."

"Maybe, but you don't have to shove them down reluctant throats. A little common sense wouldn't come amiss at the moment. We do have a dead body on the premises. Or had you forgotten?" Her voice was more anxious than ironic.

Anne turned away from the window. "You're probably right," she agreed meekly.

"So you'll be careful?"

"I'll be careful."

Diana frowned. "I do wish I understood you. I never have, you know."

Affection surged in Anne as she studied her friend's worried face. Poor old Di, she thought, how she hated all this. She should never have come to Streech. Her natural environment was an ivory tower where visitors were vetted and unpleasantness unheard of. "You have no problem understanding me," she pointed out lightly, "you have a problem agreeing with me. My petty anarchies offend your sensibilities. I often wonder why you go along with them."

Diana walked to the door. "Which reminds me, next time you want me to lie for you, warn me first, will you? I'm not as good at controlling my facial muscles as you are."

"Nonsense," said Anne, dropping into an armchair. "You're the most accomplished liar I know."

Diana paused with her hand on the doorknob. "Why do you say that?" she asked sharply.

"Because," Anne teased her rigid back, "I was there when you told Lady Weevil that her choice of colours for her drawing-room was sophisticated. Anyone who could do that with a straight face must have unlimited muscle control."

"Lady Keevil," corrected Diana, looking round with a smile. "I should never have let you come with me. That contract was worth a fortune."

Anne was unrepentant. "I needed the lift and you can hardly blame me if I got her name wrong. Everything she said sounded as if it had been squeezed through a wet flannel. Anyway, I did you a favour. Cherry-red carpets and lime-green curtains, for God's sake! Think of your reputation."

"You know her father was a fruit wholesaler."

"You do surprise me," said Anne dryly.