Minette Walters - The Ice House

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."