Minette Walters - The Ice House

She glanced beyond him to where the woman constable was going through the sideboard. "Ask the postman, Sergeant. You'll find I'm telling you the truth." She spoke with sincerity, but the look in her eyes was as level and calculating as any he'd seen. "If only I'd known what was in your mind, I'd have told you about the letter the first time you came."

McLoughlin stood up and leaned over her, resting his hands on the arms of her chair. "Why were you so shocked to hear about the body at the ice house? If you know your husband's alive, it couldn't mean anything to you."

"This man's threatening me," she snapped at Walsh. "I don't like it." She cringed deep into the chair.

"Back off, Andy."

"With pleasure." Without warning, he hooked his hand under her arm and stepped back sharply. She popped out of the chair like a champagne cork, then wriggled and spat with ferocity. He clung on to a flailing arm, dodged a swipe from the other and felt warm spittle smear his cheek. "The chair, sir," he called. "She's hiding something."

"Got it."

McLoughlin took a grip on both her arms, arching his body away to avoid the kicking points of her shoes., "Come on, you sods," he shouted angrily at the two constables. "She's pulverising me. Who's got the handcuffs, for God's sake?"

"Bastard!" she screamed. "Bloody fucking bastard!" She rolled another ball of spittle into her mouth and launched it at him. To his immense disgust, it caught his lip and dibbled inside.

The constables, galvanised out of frozen inactivity, snapped on the handcuffs and pushed the woman onto the sofa. She looked at McLoughlin's vain attempts to get rid of the venom and laughed. "Serves you bloody right. I hope you catch something."

"Looks like I've caught you," he said grimly. He turned to Walsh. "What is it?"

Walsh handed him a thin envelope. "She must have slipped it out of her bag when we were gawping at her blasted knickers." He chuckled good-humouredly. "Waste of time, dear lady. We'd have found it eventually."

McLoughlin opened the envelope. Inside were two aeroplane tickets, made out to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, for a flight to Marbella that evening. "Where's he been hiding all this time?" he asked her.

"Go to hell!"

"Mrs. Thompson! Mrs. Thompson!" exclaimed a shocked voice from the doorway. "Some control, I beg you."

She laughed. "Go and play with yourself, you silly little man."

"Is she mad?" asked the horrified Vicar.

"In a manner of speaking," said Inspector Walsh cheerfully.

Anne laughed as McLoughlin told the story. Colour had returned to her face and lively enjoyment sparkled in her eyes. The only visible reminder that she'd been attacked was the brilliant red and white spotted scarf that she had tied, bandit-style, over her bandage. Against medical advice, she had discharged herself the day before, maintaining that five days in hospital was the absolute maximum that a sentient drug addict could tolerate. Bowing to the inevitable, Phoebe had brought her home after extracting a promise that she would do precisely as she was told. Anne gave the promise readily. "Just lead me to a cigarette," she said, "and I'll do anything you say."

What she didn't know was that Phoebe had also assumed responsibility for her safety. "If she leaves hospital, Mrs. Maybury, we won't be able to protect her," Walsh had pointed out, "any more than we can protect you. We simply haven't enough men to patrol Streech Grange. I shall be advising her to stay put in hospital, just as I've advised you to move out."

"Don't waste your breath, Inspector," Phoebe told him contemptuously. "Streech is our home. If we had to rely on you to protect us it wouldn't be worth living in."

Walsh shrugged. "You're a very foolish woman, Mrs. Maybury."

Diana, who was in the room with them, was incensed. "My God, you really are the pits," she snapped. "Two days ago you didn't believe a word Phoebe told you. Now, because Sergeant McLoughlin took the trouble to find some evidence, you tell her she's a fool for not running away on your bloody say-so. Well, let me tell you this, the only thing that's changed in the last two days is your mind." She stamped her foot in exasperation. "Why the hell should we run away today when we didn't run away yesterday or the day before that? The danger's the same for God's sake. And who do you imagine has been protecting us all this time?"

"Who, Mrs. Goode?"

She turned her back on him.

"We've been protecting ourselves of course," said Phoebe coolly, "and we'll go on doing it. The dogs are the best safeguard we've got."

Anne was propped on pillows in her favourite armchair, her feet resting on Phoebe's tapestry stool, an old donkey jacket which passed for a dressing-gown round her shoulders, a pencil stuck behind one ear. She was, McLoughlin thought, completely careless of other people's opinions. The message was simple: I am what you see; take it or leave it. He wondered if it came from supreme self-confidence or total indifference. Whatever it was, he wished he shared it. For his own part, he still felt the need of others' approval.

"So where is Mr. Thompson hiding?" she asked him.

"She wouldn't tell us, but it wasn't very difficult to find him. He turned up like a lamb, for the seven-thirty flight to Marbella."

"Skedaddling with the loot?"

McLoughlin nodded. Once caught and identified by Wally as the man in the shed, Daniel Thompson had offered to co-operate. The idea had come to them, he said, when they had found a book in the library describing the life of luxury enjoyed by British embezzlers on the Spanish riviera. Thompson's engineering business was on the decline and he had complained to his wife about the injustice of having to work his balls off to keep it alive when other men, faced with the same problem, simply absconded with the capital and lived it up in the sun. The answer was simple, announced Mrs. T., they too would follow the sun. They had no dependants, she had never liked England, positively loathed East Deller where the community was worthy and stultifying, and she had no intention of spending the next ten years scrimping and saving to keep Daniel's business from going broke. "The most extraordinary thing," said Thompson reminiscently, "was how easy it was to persuade people to invest in transparent radiators. It just proved to me how much money and how little sense there is floating around in the South." He reminded McLoughlin of Arthur Daley.

"What do you make transparent radiators from?" he'd asked him curiously.

"Toughened, heatproof glass," said Thompson, "the same sort of stuff they use for those saucepans. The idea was to add dyes to the water in the expansion tank and watch them flow through the system."

"Mrs. Goode said it could have revolutionised interior design."

The saintly Daniel sighed. "That was the terrible irony of it all. I think she may have been right. I opted for the idea because while it was feasible te make the things, it was also absurd enough to make bankruptcy a likely possibility. Imagine my surprise when, without any publicity, it started to take off. By that time, of course, it was too late. To turn the business into a success then would have presented enormous difficulties. On top of which, Maisie-the wife"-he explained hopefully-"had set her heart on the Costa del Sol. Sad, really," he mused with a faraway look in his eyes. "They might well have made my fortune and we could have retired to the sun anyway."

"Why did you bother with the disappearing act? Why not simply pack up, both of you, and go?"

Mr. Thompson beamed. "Moonlight flits worry people," he said, "make them suspicious, and we didn't want the Spanish to take against us. They're not as easy-going as they used to be. While Maisie remained, everyone merely felt sorry for her for having married so weak and inept a man."