The Ice House (14 page)

"We've each got a front doorbell. If you press the one with my name on, I'm the only one who hears it." But he knew that already, didn't he?

"Can I sit down?"

"No," she said sharply. He shrugged and walked towards the fireplace. "All right, yes, sit down. What are you doing here?"

He didn't sit down. "I wanted to talk to you."

"What about?"

"Anything. Eternity. Rabbie Burns. Safes." He paused. "Why are you so frightened of me?"

He wouldn't have believed she had any more blood to lose from her face. She didn't answer. He gestured towards the mantelpiece. "May I?" He took her silence for permission and slid back the oak panelling. "Someone's been here before me," he said conversationally. "You?" He looked at her. "No, not you. Someone else." He grasped the chrome handle and gave a strong pull. Too strong. Jonathan had forgotten to snap home the catches and the safe came out in a rush, sending McLoughlin staggering backwards. With a small laugh he lowered it to the floor and peered into the empty hole. "Are you going to tell me what was in here?"

"No."

"Or who removed whatever it was?"

"No."

He ran his fingers down the side of the safe and located the spring catches. "Very neat." He swung it back into position and shoved it home. "But you've been taking it in and out far more often than it was ever designed for. You're wearing away the ledge." He pointed to the bottom of the door. "It isn't parallel with the mantelpiece any more. It should be resting on a concrete lintel. Bricks are no good, they're too soft, too easily crumbled." He slid the oak panelling into place and folded himself into the chair opposite her. "One of Mrs. Maybury's building efforts?" he suggested.

She ignored that. "How did you know it wasn't the mantelpiece that was out of true?" Some of the colour had trickled back into her lips.

"I didn't, not until I opened the panel just now, but whoever's been at it in the meantime put it back even more carelessly than you did. Judging by the unsecured catches, they were presumably in a hurry. What was in there?"

"Nothing. You're imagining things." They sat in silence looking at each other. "Well?" demanded Anne finally.

"Well what?"

"What are you planning to do about it?"

"Oh, I don't know. Find out who cleaned it out, I suppose, and ask them a few questions. It shouldn't be too hard. The field isn't very wide, is it?"

"You'll end up with egg on your face," she said tartly. "The Inspector phoned through for a constable to be in here all the time I was away." He liked her better when she fought back. "So in that case, how could anyone have tampered with the safe? It must have dropped of its own accord."

"That explains the hurry," was all he said. He sank deeper into his chair and rested his chin on steepled fingers.

"I've nothing to tell you. You're wasting your time."

He closed his eyes. "Oh, you've got lots to tell me," he murmured. "Why you came to Streech. Why Mrs. Phillips calls this house a fortress. Why you have nightmares about death." He opened his eyes a fraction to look at her. "Why you panic every time your safe is mentioned and why you like to divert interest away from it."

"Did Fred let you in?"

"No, I climbed the wall at the bottom."

Her eyes were deeply wary. "Why would you do that?"

He shrugged. "There's a barrage of photographers at your gate. I didn't particularly want to be seen coming in."

"Did Walsh send you?"

She was as taut as piano wire. He reached out and took her hand, playing with her fingers briefly before letting them drop. "I'm not your enemy, Cattrell."

A smile flickered. "I'll bet that's what Brutus said as he stuck the knife into Caesar. I'm not your enemy, Caesar, and, hell, old chap, it's nothing personal, I just happen to love Rome more." She stood up and walked to the window. "If you're not my enemy, McLoughlin, then drop me, drop all of us, from the enquiry and look for your murderer somewhere else." The moon was pouring herself in a shimmering libation about the garden. Anne pressed her forehead against the cold glass and stared out at the awesome beauty of what lay beyond. Black roses with coronas of silver; the lawn glittering like an inland sea; a weeping willow, its leaves and branches wrought in sparkling tracery. "But you can't do that, can you? You're a policeman and you love justice more."

"How can I answer that?" he teased her. "It's based on so many false premises that it's entirely hypothetical. I sympathise with personal vengeance. I told you that this morning."

She smiled cynically into the glass. "Are you telling me you wouldn't have arrested Fred and Molly for murdering Donaghue?"

"No. I would have arrested them."

She looked at him with surprise. "That's a more honest answer than I expected."

"I wouldn't have had any choice," he said dispassionately. "They wanted to be arrested. They sat there with the body, waiting for the police to come."

"I see." She smiled faintly. "You make the arrest but you shed crocodile tears while you're doing it. That's a great way of salving your conscience, isn't it?"

He stood up and walked across to look down into her face. "You helped me," he said simply, putting his hands on her shoulders. "I'd like to help you. But I can't if you won't trust me."

He was so damn transparent, she thought, with his state-of-the-art cunning. She chuckled amiably. Two could play at this game. "Trust
me
, McLoughlin. I don't need your help. I am as innocent of personal revenge and murder as a newborn baby."

Abruptly, as if she were no more than a rag doll, he lifted her off her feet and twisted her towards the light, examining every inch of her face. As a face, it wasn't that special. She had laughter lines etched deeply round her eyes and mouth, frown lines on her forehead, but there was no menace lurking in her dark eyes, no shutters closed on nefandous secrets. Her skin gave off a faint scent of roses. He let go with one hand and ran the tips of his fingers along the curve of her jaw and down the soft line of her neck before, as abruptly, releasing her. "Did you cut his balls off?"

She hadn't expected that. She straightened her sleeves. "No."

"You could be lying through your teeth," he murmured, "and I can't see it."

"That's probably because I'm telling the truth. Why do you find that so hard to believe?"

"Because," he growled angrily, "my damn crotch is ruling my brain at the moment and lust is hardly an indicator of innocence."

Anne glanced down and gave a gurgle of laughter. "I see your problem. What do you plan to do about it?"

"You tell me. Cold showers?"

"God no. That would be Molly's choice. My advice is, when you've got an itch, scratch it."

"I'd enjoy it a little more if you scratched it."

Her black eyes danced. "Did you have the sense to eat something?"

"Sausage and chips about five hours ago."

"Well, I'm starving. I haven't eaten since lunchtime. There's an Indian take-away a couple of miles down the road. How do you fancy discussing your options over a Vindaloo?"

He lifted his hand to caress the curls round the base of her neck. The need to touch her was like an addiction. He was crazy, he didn't believe a damn word she said, but he couldn't help himself.

She saw the look in his eyes. "I'm not your type, McLoughlin," she warned. "I am selfish, self-opinionated and entirely self-centred. I am independent, incapable of sustaining relationships and am often unfaithful. I dislike babies and housework and I can't cook. I am an intellectual snob with unconventional philosophies and left-wing politics. I don't conform, so I'm an embarrassment. I smoke like a chimney, am often rude, loathe getting tarted up and I fart very loudly in bed."

He dropped his hand and grinned down at her. "And on the plus side?"

"There isn't a plus side," she said, suddenly serious, "not for you. I'll get bored, I always do, and when something better comes along, as it surely will, I'll dump you just as I've dumped everyone else. We'll have a halfway decent bonk from time to time, but you'll pay heavily in emotion for what you can buy free of strings in Southampton. Is that what you want?"

He regarded her thoughtfully. "Is this a regular turn-off, or am I privileged?"

She smiled. "Regular. I like to be fair."

"And what's the drop-out rate at this stage?"

"Low," she said ruefully. "A few sensible ones leg it. The rest plunge in thinking they're going to change me. They don't. You won't." She watched his expression. "Getting cold feet?"

"Well, I can't say I fancy it much," he admitted. "It sounds horribly like the relationship I had with my wife, dull, stifling and leading nowhere. I had no idea you were so narrow-minded. Put in 'frightened to explore' after 'selfish, self-opinionated and self-centred,' and I guarantee the drop-out rate, pre-copulation, will astonish you." He took her arm and steered her towards the window.

"Let's eat," he said. "My judgement's better on a full stomach. I'll decide then whether I want to sow my seed in sterile ground."

She pulled away. "Go fuck yourself, McLoughlin."

"Getting cold feet, Cattrell?"

She laughed. "I'll turn off the lights." She slipped back to the door and plunged the room into darkness. He took out his torch and waited by the windows. As she approached, she neatly avoided a small table with a bronze statuette of a naked woman on it. "Me," she said. "When I was a nubile seventeen-year-old. I had a bit of a thing going with the sculptor during one school holidays."

He lit it with the torch and studied it with interest. "Nice," he said appreciatively.

She chuckled as she followed him out. "The figure or the sculpture?"

"Both. Do you lock these doors?" he asked, sliding them to behind him.

"I can't, not from the outside. They'll be all right."

He put a hand on the back of her neck and walked her across the terrace on to the lawn. An owl hooted in the distance. He looked back at the house to get his bearings and half-turned her to the left. "This way," he said, flashing the torch ahead of them. "I parked the car in a lane that runs along the corner." Beneath his fingers he could feel the tightness of her skin. They walked in silence until they entered the woodland bordering the lawn. Away to their left, something scuttered noisily through the undergrowth. Her skin leapt with fear, jolting him as violently as it jolted her. "For God's sake, woman," McLoughlin growled, swinging his torch beam among the trees. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" He shone the torch into her eyes, suddenly angry. "You've buried yourself alive, erected a mountain of barbed wire over the mound, and you call it nothing. She's not worth it. Can't you see that? What the hell can she ever have done for you that you have to sacrifice your whole life in exchange? For Christ's sake, do you enjoy dying by inches? What happened to the Anne Cattrell who seduced sculptors in her school holidays? Where's the thorn in the Establishment's flesh who stormed citadels single-handed?"

She pushed the torch away and her teeth gleamed momentarily as she smiled. "It was fun while it lasted, McLoughlin, but I did tell you not to try and change me."

She was gone so fast that even his torch beam couldn't follow her.

He let her go and set off back to his car. He knew that if he went after her, her windows would be locked. He felt regret and relief in equal measure, like the suicide playing Russian roulette who hears the hammer click against an empty chamber. The Station was lousy with women wanting to console him. To hold a loaded gun to his temple by seeking his consolation with her was madness. He swiped in angry frustration at the branches of a tree and ripped the flesh on the side of his hand. He sucked the blood and swore profusely. He was in a mess, and he knew it. He needed a drink.

An owl screeched. Somewhere, far away, he thought he heard voices. He turned his head to listen but the silence only thickened about him. He shrugged and walked on, and it came again, a thread of sound, insubstantial-imagined? The skin on his scalp prickled uneasily. Damn the woman, he thought. If he went back, she would laugh at him.

He was cursing himself for a fool by the time he reached the terrace. He had seen no one, the house was in darkness and Anne was obviously already tucked up in bed. He flashed his torch across the flagstones and lit up her half-opened French window. With a frown, he walked over to it and shone his torch round the interior. He found her almost immediately. He thought she was asleep until he saw the blood glistening in her velvet cap of hair.

After the first paralysing moment of shock, he set to with such speed that time became elastic. In ten seconds he had worked up a sweat mat would be rare after an hour's strenuous effort. His torch beam found a table lamp which he switched on as he sank to his knees beside the crumpled heap of clothes. He felt for a pulse in her neck, couldn't find one; laid his head on her chest, no heartbeat. With one fluid movement he rolled the tiny body over, shoved a hand under her neck, pinched her nostrils closed and began mouth-to-mouth respiration. He needed help. The part of his brain that wasn't directly concerned with the resuscitation directed him backwards, drawing the lifeless body with him, feeling with his feet for the table with the bronze statuette. He found it. While he continued the regular in-flows of air, he gave a vicious backward kick and sent the heavy bronze smashing through the plate-glass window. The glass exploded outwards on to the terrace, shattering the silence of the night and sending Benson and Hedges into a frenzy of alarm in another part of the house. He realised with a sense of desperation that he was getting no response. Her face was grey, her lips blue. He placed the heel of his right hand over her breast bone and with the heel of his left hand pressed down, rocking forward, arms straight. While his mouth was free, he shouted for help. After five compressions, he gave her another mouth-to-mouth respiration, before returning to the heart massage. As he rocked forward on the third compression, he saw Jonathan press his fingers against the colourless neck and feel for the pulse.

"Give her another breath," said Jonathan. "There's a very faint pulse. My bag, Mum. It's in the hall."

McLOughlin breathed again into her lungs and, this time, when he turned his head to look at her chest it fluttered weakly. "Keep going," said Jonathan, "one breath every five seconds until she's breathing normally. You're doing great." He took his bag from a white-faced Phoebe. "Get some blankets," he told her. "Hot-water bottles, anything to keep her warm. And get an ambulance." He took out his stethoscope, pulled open Anne's shirt and listened for the heartbeat. "Brilliant," he said warmly. "It's weak, but there." He pinched her cheek and watched with relief as the sluggish blood tinged it faintly pink. Her breathing began to take on a regular rhythm. Gently, he pushed McLoughlin off. "OK," he said. "I think she's under her own steam now. We'll put her in the recovery position." With the Sergeant's help he pulled her arm across her midriff, then rolled her on to her front, turning her face gently to one side and bending her nearest arm and leg at the elbow and knee. Her breathing was slow but even. She muttered something into the carpet and opened her eyes.

"Hey, McLoughlin," she said distinctly before giving a huge yawn and falling asleep.

Mclaughlin's face was running with sweat. He sat back and wiped it with his shirt sleeve. "Can't you give her something?"

"Nothing to give. I'm not qualified yet. Don't worry. She's doing all right."

McLoughlin pointed to the bloody hair. "She may have a fractured skull."

Phoebe had come in quietly with a pile of blankets which she spread over the prone figure. She popped her own hot-water bottle at the feet. "Diana's on the phone for an ambulance. Jane's run down to wake Fred and get the gates open." She squatted by Anne's head. "Is she going to be all right?"

"I don't-" Jonathan began.

"Your daughter's outside?" McLoughlin interrupted, staggering to his feet.

Phoebe stared at him. "She's gone to the Lodge. They're not on the phone."

"Is anyone with her?"

Phoebe's face turned pale. "No."

"Jesus!" swore McLoughlin, thrusting past her. "Ring the police for God's sake, get some cars up here. I don't want to tackle a bloody maniac on my own." He shouted back to them as he ran down Anne's corridor: "Tell them someone's tried to murder your friend and may have a go at your daughter. Tell them to get a fucking move on."

He ran past Diana and burst out of the front door, his sweat turning ice-cold in the night air. It was four hundred yards to the gates and he reckoned Jane was a couple of minutes ahead of him. He set off at a blistering pace. Two minutes was an eternity to kill a woman, he thought, when a second was all it needed to smash an unsuspecting skull. The drive was in pitch darkness with the overhanging trees and bushes blocking out even the weak light of a shrouded moon. He swore at himself for not bringing his torch as he blundered unseeingly into the stinging branches at the edge of the way. He set off again, this time using the crown of the road for his guide, eyes straining to adjust themselves to the night. It was several seconds before he realised that the bobbing yellow pinpoint in the distance ahead of him was a torch beam. The drive had straightened out.

"Jane!" he yelled. "Stop! Wait there." He pounded on.

The torch swung round to point in his direction. The beam wobbled as if the hand that held it was unsteady.

"I'm a police officer," he called, his lungs straining. "Stay there."

He slowed to a walk as he approached her, hands held placatingly in front of him, chest heaving. The torchlight, wavering frantically now, danced across his face and dazzled him. He fished for his warrant card in his trouser pocket, holding it in front of him like a talisman. With a groan he put his hands on his knees, bent forward and whooped for breath.

"What's the m-matter?" she stammered in a shrill, frightened voice.

"Nothing," he said, straightening. "I didn't think you should come alone, that's all. Could you shine the torch on the ground? You're blinding me."

"Sorry." She dropped her hand to her side and he saw she was wearing a dressing-gown and carpet slippers.

"Let's go," he suggested. "It can't be far now. Shall I take the torch?"

She passed it to him and he caught a brief glimpse of her in its gleam as he turned to light the way ahead. She was like a bloodless ghost, white-faced and insubstantial with a cloud of dark hair. She looked absolutely terrified.

"Please don't be frightened. Your mother knows me," he said inadequately as they went on. "She agreed I should come after you." They could see the black mass of the Lodge in the distance.

She tried to speak but it was a second or two before the sound came. "I could hear b-breathing," she wobbled out.

"That was my lungs gasping," he said, attempting a joke.

"No," she whispered, "it wasn't you." Her step faltered and he swung the beam towards her. She plucked pathetically at her dressing-gown. "I've got my nightie on." Her lips were trembling uncontrollably. "I thought it was my father."

McLoughlin caught her as she slumped in a dead faint. In the distance, carried on the wind, came the faint sough of a siren.

"What did she mean, Mrs. Maybury?" McLoughlin was leaning wearily against the Aga, watching Phoebe make tea.

Anne had been rushed to hospital with Jonathan and Diana in attendance. Jane was asleep in bed with Elizabeth watching over her. Police were swarming all over the garden in search of a suspect. Phoebe, under pressure from McLoughlin, was answering questions in the kitchen.

She had her back to him. "She was frightened. I don't suppose she meant anything by it."

"She wasn't frightened, Mrs. Maybury, she was terrified, and not of me. She said: 'I've got my nightie on. I thought it was my father.' " He moved round so that he was facing her. "Forgetting for the moment that she hasn't seen her father for ten years, why should she associate him with the fact that she was wearing a nightie? And why should it terrify her? She said she heard breathing."

Phoebe refused to meet his eyes. "She was upset," she said.

"Are you going to make me ask Jane when she wakes up?" he demanded brutally.

She raised her lovely face. "You'd do that, I suppose." She made as if to push her spectacles up her nose, then realised she hadn't got them on and dropped her hand to the table.

"Yes," he said firmly.

With a sigh, she poured two cups of tea. "Sit down, Sergeant. You may not know it but you look dreadful. Your face is covered in scratches and your shirt's torn."

"I couldn't see where I was going," he explained, taking a chair and straddling it.

"I gathered that." She was silent for a moment. "I don't want you asking Jane questions," she said quietly, taking the other chair, "even less so after tonight. She couldn't cope. You'll understand that because I think you've guessed already what she meant by her remark." She looked at him enquiringly.

"Your husband abused her sexually," he said.

She nodded. "I blame myself because I had no idea what he was doing. I found out one night when I came home early from work. I was the evening receptionist at the doctor's surgery," she explained. "We needed the money. David had sent Johnny to a boarding prep-school. That day I had flu and Dr. Penny sent me home and told me to go to bed. I walked in on my poor little Jane's rape." Her face was quite impassive as if, long ago, she had realised the futility of nurtured anger. "His violence had always been directed at me," she went on, "and in a way I asked for it. While he was beating me, I could be certain he wasn't touching the children. Or I thought I could." She gave a mirthless laugh. "He took full advantage of my naivety and Jane's terror of him. He had been raping her systematically since she was seven years old and he kept her quiet by telling her he would kill me if she ever said anything. She believed him." She fell silent.

"Did you kill him?"

"No." She raised her eyes to his. "I could have done quite easily. I would have, if I'd had anything to kill him with. A child's bedroom doesn't lend itself to murder weapons."

"What happened?"

"He ran away," she said unemotionally. "We never saw him again. I reported him missing three days later after several people had phoned to say he hadn't kept appointments. I thought it might look odd if I didn't."

"Why didn't you tell the police the truth about him?"

"Would you, Sergeant, with a severely disturbed child your only witness? I wasn't going to let her be questioned, nor was I going to give the police a motive for a murder I didn't commit. She was under a psychiatrist for years because of what happened. When she became anorexic, we thought she was going to die. I'm only telling you now to protect her from further distress."

"Have you any idea what happened to your husband?"

"None. I've always hoped he killed himself but, frankly, I doubt he had the guts. He loved inflicting pain on others but couldn't take it himself."

"Why did he run away?"

She didn't answer immediately. "I honestly don't know," she said at last. "I've thought about it often. I think, perhaps, for the first time in his life he was afraid."

"Of what? The police? Prosecution?"

She smiled grimly, but didn't answer.

McLoughlin toyed with his teacup. "Someone tried to murder Miss Cattrell," he said. "Your daughter thought she heard her father. Could he have come back?"

She shook her head. "No, Sergeant, David would never come back." She looked him straight in the eye as she brushed a strand of red hair from her forehead. "He knows if he did, I'd kill him. I'm the one he's afraid of."

A very irritable Walsh sat in Anne's armchair and watched a policeman photographing prints on the outside of what was left of the French windows. It was a job that couldn't be put off till the morning in case it rained. The broken slivers of glass on the flagstones had been covered with weighted-down polythene. "There are going to be dozens of prints," he muttered to McLoughlin. "Apart from anything else, half the Hampshire police force have left their grubby paw marks round the shop." McLoughlin was examining the carpet by the French windows, looking for blood spots. He moved across to the desk. "Anything?" Walsh demanded.

"Nothing." His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion.

"So what happened here, Andy?" Walsh cast a speculative eye over his Sergeant, before glancing at his watch. "You say you found her at eleven forty or thereabouts. It is now one thirty and we have come up with some vague sounds in the distance and a woman with a fractured skull. What's your guess?"

McLoughlin shook his head. "I haven't got one, sir. I wouldn't even know where to start. We'd better pray she comes round soon and can tell us something."

Walsh levered himself out of the chair and shuffled over to the window. "Haven't you finished yet?" he demanded of the man outside.

"Just about, sir." He took a last photograph and lowered his camera.

"I'll leave someone here overnight and you can do the inside tomorrow." Walsh watched while the man packed up his equipment and left, carefully skirting the broken glass, then he shuffled back to the chair, playing up his age. He took out his pipe and began the process of filling it, watching McLoughlin closely from beneath the angry jut of his brows. "All right, Sergeant," he snapped, "now you can tell me just what the hell you've been up to. I don't like the smell of this one little bit. If I find you've been getting your priorities mixed, by God you'll be for the high jump."