Minette Walters - The Ice House

"Saving your life."

She glowered. "Frankly, the way I feel at the moment, it wasn't worth saving. Life should be effortless, painless and fun. None of those apply here. It's a gulag, run by sadists." She nodded in the direction of the ward. "That Sister should be locked up. She laughs every time she sticks the needles into me and trills that she's doing it for my own good. God, I need a fag. Smuggle some in for me, Jonny. I'll puff away under the sheets. No one will know."

He grinned. "Until the bed goes up in flames."

"There you are, you're laughing," she accused. "What's the matter with everyone? Why do you all find it so hilarious?"

WPC Brownlow, on duty on the other side of the bed, sniggered.

Anne cast a baleful eye upon her. "I don't even know what you're doing here," she snapped. "I've told you all I can remember, which is absolutely zero." She had been unable to talk freely to anyone, which was undoubtedly why the bloody woman had been stationed there, and it was driving her mad.

"Orders," said the WPC calmly. "The Inspector wants someone on hand when your memory comes back."

Anne closed her eyes and thought of all the ways she could murder McLoughlin the minute she got her hands on him again.

He for his part had collated the information on the tramp and relayed his description through the county. He rang a colleague in Southampton and asked him, for a favour, to check round the hostels there.

"What makes you think he came here?"

"Logic," said McLoughlin. "He was heading your way and your Council's more sympathetic to the homeless than most in this area."

"But two months, Andy. He'll have been on his way weeks ago."

"I know. It's a good description though. Someone might remember him. If we had a name, it'd make things easier. See what you can do."

"I'm pretty busy at the moment."

"Aren't we all. Cheers." He put an end to the grumbles by the simple expedient of replacing the receiver, abandoned a cup of congealing plastic coffee and left in a hurry before his friend could ring back with a string of excuses. With a light conscience, he set off for the Grange and a chat with Jane Maybury who had announced herself ready to answer questions.

He asked her if she would prefer to have her mother present, but she shook her head and said no, it wasn't necessary. Phoebe, with a faintly troubled smile, showed them into her drawing-room and closed the door. They sat by the French windows. The girl was very pale, with a skin like creamy alabaster, but McLoughlin guessed this was her natural colouring. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a baggy tee-shirt with BRISTOL CITY emblazoned across the chest. He thought how incongruous it looked on the waif-like body.

She read his mind. "It's the triumph of hope over experience," she said. "I go in for a lot of that."

He smiled. "I suppose everyone does, one way or another. If at first you don't succeed and all that."

She settled herself a little nervously. "What do you want to ask me?"

"Just a few things but, first, I want you to understand that I have no desire to distress you. If you find my questions upsetting, please say so and we'll stop. If at any point you decide you'd rather talk to a policewoman, again just tell me and I'll arrange it."

She nodded. "I understand."

He took her back to the night of the assault and quickly ran through her account of watching television and hearing the sound of the breaking glass. "Your brother was the first to go downstairs, I think you said."

"Yes. He decided it was a burglar and told Lizzie and me to stay where we were until he called for us."

"But did you stay?"

"No. Lizzie insisted on going downstairs after him to get through to Diana's wing. We didn't know at that stage which window had been broken. I said I'd check Mum's rooms and Jon ran through to where you were."

"What happened then?"

"Mum and Diana arrived in the hall at the same time as us. Mum followed Jonathan. I checked this room, Diana checked the library and Lizzie the kitchen. When I got back to the hall, Mum was running downstairs with some blankets and a hot-water bottle and yelling at Diana to call an ambulance. I said, someone ought to warn Fred to open the gate and Mum said, of course, she hadn't thought of that." She spread her hands in her lap. "So I took the torch from the hall table and left."

"Why you? Why didn't Mrs. Goode's daughter go?"

She shrugged. "It was my idea. Anyway, Lizzie hadn't come back from the kitchen."

"You weren't frightened? You didn't think of waiting for her to go with you?"

"No," she said, "it never occurred to me." She was surprised now that it hadn't. She thought about it. "To be honest, there was nothing to be frightened of. Mum just said Anne was ill. I suppose I thought she'd got an appendix or something. I just kept thinking what a nuisance it was that we had to keep the reporters at bay by locking the gates." Her voice rose. "And it's not as if I've never been up the drive before on my own. I've done it hundreds of times, and in the dark. I sometimes go and chat to Molly when Fred goes to the pub."

"Fine," he said unemotionally. "That's all very logical." He smiled encouragement. "You're a fast runner. I had the devil's own job to catch you and I was going like a train."

She unknit her fingers from the tangled bottom of her tee-shirt. "I was worried about Anne," she admitted. "I keep telling her she's going to drop dead of cancer any minute. I had this ghastly thought that that was exactly what she'd done. So I put a spurt on."

"You're fond of her, aren't you?"

"Anne's good news," she said. "Live and let live, that's her motto. She never interferes or criticises, but I suppose it's easier for her. She doesn't have children to worry about."

"My mother's a worrier," lied McLoughlin, thinking the only thing Mrs. McLoughlin Snr ever worried about was whether she was going to be late for Bingo.

Jane put her chin on her hands. "Mum's an absolute darling," she confided naively, "but she still thinks I need protection. Anne keeps telling her to let me fight my own battles." She twisted a lock of the long dark hair round her finger.

He crossed his legs and pushed himself down into the chair, deliberately relaxed. "Battles?" he teased gently. "What battles do you have?"

"Silly things," she assured him. "Molehills to you, mountains to me. They'd make you laugh."

"I shouldn't think so. You're just as likely to laugh at some of my battles."

"Tell me," she demanded.

"All right." He looked at her smiling, trusting face and he thought, pray God there is nothing you can tell me or that smile will never come again. "The worst battle I ever had was with my mother when I was about your age," he told her. "I'd sneaked my girlfriend into my bedroom for a night of passion. Ma walked in on us in the middle."

"Golly," she breathed. "Why didn't you lock the door?"

"No key."

"How embarrassing," said Jane with feeling.

"Yes, it was," he said reminiscently. "My girlfriend hopped it and I had to do battle with the old dragon in the nuddy. She gave me two choices: if I swore on oath I'd never do it again, I'd be allowed to stay; if I refused to swear, then she'd boot me out just as I was."

"What did you do?"

"Guess," he invited.

"You left, starkers."

He pointed his finger at her with thumb cocked. "Got it in one."

She was like a wide-eyed child. "But where did you get clothes from? What did you do?"

He grinned. "I hid in the bushes until all the lights went out, then I took a ladder from the shed and climbed up to my bedroom. The window was open. It was very easy. I crept back into bed, had a decent night's kip and scarpered with a suitcase before she got up in the morning."

"Do you still see her?"