Minette Walters - The Ice House

"How sure is your man of his dates?" Walsh asked Robinson.

"Pretty sure. He's going to check with the girlfriend but he remembers it being during that spell of very hot weather at the beginning of June, said the ground was dry as a bone both times so he didn't need to take anything for them to lie on."

Walsh made some notes on his pad. "Is that it?"

"I've had some conflicting reports about the three women up here. Almost everyone agrees they're lesbians and that they try to seduce the village girls into lesbian orgies. But two of them-in my view, sir, the two most sensible-said it was malicious rubbish. One's an old lady in her seventies or eighties who knows them pretty well, the other's my informant. He said that Anne Cattrell's had so many lovers she could give Fiona Richmond lessons on sex." He took a cigarette out and lit it, glancing through the smoke at McLoughlin. "If it's true, sir, it might give us another angle. Crime passionnel , or whatever the Frogs call it. It strikes me she's gone out of her way to make us think she's only interested in women. Why? Could be because she's done away with a jealous lover and doesn't want us to make the connection."

"Your informant's talking crap," McLoughlin said bluntly. "Everyone knows they're lesbians. Hell, I've heard more old jokes about that than I can remember." Jack Booth had had a fund of them. "It's hardly something new that Miss Cattrell's invented for our benefit. And if it's not true, why do they pretend it is? What on earth do they gain by it?"

Walsh was stuffing tobacco into his pipe. "Your problem, Andy, is that you generalise too much," he said acidly. "The fact that everyone knows something doesn't make it true. Everyone knew my brother was a tight-fisted bastard until he died and we discovered he'd been paying out two hundred quid a year for fifteen years to educate some black kids in Africa." He nodded approvingly at Robinson. "You may have something, Nick, Personally, I couldn't give a monkey's what their sexual habits are and, from what I've seen of them, they couldn't give a monkey's what people say or think about them. Which is why"-he glared at McLoughlin-"they wouldn't trouble to deny or confirm anything. But," he continued thoughtfully, lighting his pipe, "I am interested in the fact that Anne Cattrell's been shoving lesbianism down our throats since we got here. What's her motive?" He fell silent.

DS Robinson waited a moment. "Let me have a go at her, sir. A new face, she might open up. No harm in trying."

"I'll think about it. Has anyone else got anything?"

A constable raised a hand. "Two people I spoke to reported hearing a woman sobbing one night, sir, but they couldn't remember how long ago." "Two people in the same house?"

"No, that's why I thought it worth mentioning. Different houses. There's a couple of farm cottages just off the East Deller road, belong to Grange Farm. Both sets of occupants remembered hearing the woman but said they didn't do anything about it because they thought it was a lovers' tiff. Neither cottage could remember exactly when it was."

"Go and see them again," said Walsh abruptly. "You, too, Williams. Find out if they were watching telly when it happened, what programme was on, were they eating supper? Or if they were in bed, how late it was, were they awake because it was hot, because it was raining? Anything to give us an idea of time and date. If she wasn't sobbing because she'd just killed a man, she might have been sobbing because she'd just seen him killed." He pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, gathering his notebook and jacket as he did so. "McLoughlin, you come with me. We're going to have a chat with Mrs. Thompson. Jones, you and your squad pack up here and get everything back to the Station. You can take an hour's break, then I want you all here for a search of the house. There'll be warrants on my desk," he told Jones. "Bring them with you." He turned to Nick Robinson. "OK, lad, you go and have your quiet little chat about sex with Ms. Cattrell but don't go putting the wind up her. If she did chop our body up, I want to be able to prove it."

"Leave it to me, sir."

Walsh smiled his reptilian smile. "Just remember one thing, Nick. In her time she's eaten Special Branch men for breakfast. You represent a small bag of peanuts."

The door opened after some moments to reveal a drab little woman in a high-buttoned, long-sleeved black dress. She had sorrowful eyes and a pinched mouth. A gold cross on a long chain lay between her flat breasts and she needed only a coif and an open prayer book to complete the picture of devoted suffering.

Walsh proffered his identity card. "Mrs. Thompson?" he asked.

She nodded but didn't bother to look at the card.

"Chief Inspector Walsh and Sergeant McLoughlin. Could we come in? We'd like to ask you some questions about your husband's disappearance."

She pinched her lips into an unattractive moue. "But I've told the police all I know," she whimpered, the sorrowful eyes welling with tears. "I don't want to think about it any more."

Walsh groaned inwardly. His wife would be like this, he thought, if anything happened to him. Inadequate, tearful, irritating. He smiled kindly. "We'll only keep you a minute," he assured her.

Reluctantly, she pulled the door wide and gestured towards the living-room, though living-room , thought McLoughlin as he entered it, was a misnomer. It was clean to the point of obsession and bare of anything that might display character or individuality, no books, no ornaments, no pictures, not even a television. In his mind's eye, he compared it with the vivid and colourful room that Anne Cattrell lived in. If the two rooms were an outward expression of the inner person, he had no doubt who was the more interesting. Living with Mrs. Thompson would be like living with an empty shell.

They sat on the sterile chairs. Mrs. Thompson perched on the edge of the sofa, crumpling a lace handkerchief between her fingers, dabbing her eyes with it from time to time. Inspector Walsh took his pipe from his pocket, glanced around the room as if noticing it for the first time, then put the pipe away again. "What size shoes does your husband take?" he asked the little woman.

Her eyes opened wide and she stared at him as if he'd made an improper suggestion. "I don't understand," she whispered.

Walsh felt his irritation mounting. If Thompson had done a runner, who could blame him? The woman was ridiculous. "What size shoes does your husband take?" he asked again patiently.

"Does?" she repeated. "Does? Have you found him then? I've been so sure he was dead." She became quite animated. "He's lost his memory, hasn't he? It's the only explanation. He'd never leave me, you know."

"No, we haven't found him, Mrs. Thompson," said the Inspector firmly, "but you reported him missing and we are doing our best to trace him for you. It would help if we knew his shoe size. The missing person's report says size eight. Is that correct?"

"I don't know," she said vacantly. "He always bought his shoes himself." She peeped at him from under her lashes and, rather shockingly, flashed him a coy smile.

McLoughlin leaned forward. "Could you take me upstairs, Mrs. Thompson, and we'll find out from the pairs he left behind?"

She shrank into the sofa. "I couldn't possibly," she said. "I don't know you. It was a young policewoman who came before. Where is she? Why isn't she here?"

Inspector Walsh counted to ten and considered that Daniel Thompson must have been a saint. "How long have you been married?" he asked curiously.

"Thirty-two years," she whispered. The man was a saint, he thought.

"Could you pop up and fetch a pair of his shoes?" he suggested. "Sergeant McLoughlin and I will wait down here for you."

She accepted this without demur and slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind her as if the door would somehow stop them were they really intent on raping her in her bedroom. Walsh raised his eyebrows to heaven. "She needs her head examined."