Minette Walters - The Ice House

"So where have you been for the last two months?"

"East Deller," he said, as if surprised by the question, "until two nights ago when I went to a B & B so Maisie could pack up. Your visits were becoming a little too frequent for comfort."

"You were hiding in your own house?"

He nodded. "It was quite safe. Maisie phoned me at my hotel in London after the police had searched the house and garden the first time. I came home during the night of the twenty-sixth and lay low in the attic. We reckoned that was safer than my being on the loose with my description floating about."

"Wally saw you in the shed," McLoughlin pointed out.

"That was a mistake," he admitted. "We thought the shed would be the best hiding place because it would be easier to escape from if the police turned up unexpectedly. Of course it was also the easiest place for someone to walk into. Not that any normal person walking in would have mattered," he said without rancour. "Maisie had hidden me behind a stack of old boxes, no way I'd have been seen by a casual visitor." He tapped two pudgy forefingers together. "But the silly old fool was looking for a place to hide himself. I don't know who got the worse shock when he pulled the boxes aside, him or me."

"The police made two searches," McLoughlin said. "How did they miss you the second time?"

"Because we were expecting it. We worked out if the police made a surprise search and found nothing, they'd conclude I really had run away because of my business problems and abandoned Maisie to fend for herself. So Maisie made an anonymous phone call to stimulate another search. It was a nerve-racking two days waiting for it, but we were ready when it came. I simply hopped over the fence at the bottom of the garden and crouched in a bush in our neighbours' orchard until Maisie gave me the all-clear." He smiled amiably. He was, as Diana had described him, built like a tank. The smile split his chubby face into two half moons, the lower half pendulous with double chins. "After that we had no more trouble till you turned up with those shoes. Until then my disappearance had been a nine-day wonder."

McLoughlin acknowledged he was right. "You were taking a gamble, though. Neighbours must have been popping in all the time."

"Not after Maisie developed her wonderfully outrageous sex mania," said Thompson. "The women kept coming for a few days out of kindness, but it's amazing how rapidly embarrassment alienates people. Maisie should have gone on the stage, I've always said it. We got the idea of the attic from Anne Frank's diary," he volunteered.

"And she really didn't know about the body in the ice house? I find that extraordinary."

"It was a damn nuisance," said Thompson, showing annoyance for the first time. "She couldn't be seen to change her habits. If she had rented a telly or started buying papers, people might have thought she was taking an interest again. Wrong image, do you see?"

McLoughlin nodded. "And no one told her because they were afraid the body was yours."

Daniel sighed. "Hoist with our own petard."

"Why did you leave it so long to fly out? You could have gone weeks ago."

"We were greedy," confessed Thompson. "We wanted the money from selling the house. You're talking over a quarter of a million pounds for a property like that. It was the icing on the gingerbread. The plan was for Maisie to become more and more depressed until the obvious solution was to sell the house and move somewhere smaller which had no memories for her. No one would have questioned it. If the truth be told, they'd have been relieved to see the back of her. Then, with the money safely under our belts, we were off on a ferry to France and from there to sunny Spain."

"And you were intending to use your own passports?"

The other man nodded.

"You'd been reported missing, Mr. Thompson. You'd have been stopped."

"Oh, I don't think so, Sergeant," he said comfortably. "Six months on, brouhaha died down, hundreds of people on day trips, a middle-aged couple with a common name. What would they have against me anyway? My wife could testify I was no longer missing. And it's not as though there's a warrant out for my arrest, is there?" He cocked his head on one side and considered the Sergeant with amusement.

"No," McLoughlin admitted.

"I was incompetent," said Thompson. "I admit it freely. But no one person lost very much money through my failure." He folded his hands across his plump stomach. "My employees have all found other jobs and the Inland Revenue has agreed to honour their National Insurance contributions which I so rashly-how shall I put it-'borrowed' to keep the business afloat." He winked outrageously. "I give credit to my number two for that. He's done all the negotiations on their behalf, or so Maisie tells me. Splendid chap, great organisational flair, full of integrity. He's sorted out the mess I made and wound up the business. Mind you, he's said some harsh words to Maisie on the phone, called me an amateurish bungler, but I don't hold it against him." He flicked a speck of dust from his jumper. "My investors took a gamble on me which was sadly misplaced, but they have cheerfully cut their losses and moved on to more lucrative ventures. I'm delighted. It saddened me to have failed them."

"Hang on," said McLoughlin sharply. "You didn't fail them, Mr. Thompson. You embezzled their money."

"Who says so?"

"You admitted it yourself."

"When?"

McLoughlin turned to WPC Brownlow who had been taking shorthand notes. "Find that bit where he said he got the idea from British embezzlers living in Spain."

She flicked back through her notebook. "He didn't actually say he was an embezzler," she admitted after a couple of minutes, "only that his business was in decline."

"Skip on a few pages," said McLoughlin. "He said it was ridiculously easy to get people to invest in the radiator idea."

"It was," said Thompson. "It was a good idea."

"Dammit all," exploded McLoughlin, "You said it was absurd enough to make bankruptcy likely."

"And I was proved right. That's just what happened."

"You didn't go bankrupt because it wouldn't work. You salted the money away. You said yourself it could have been a great success."

Thompson sighed. "I'm sure it would have been, too, if I'd had more business sense. My problem, as I've tried to explain to you, is incompetence. Are you going to arrest us, Sergeant?"

"Yes, Mr. Thompson. I bloody well am."

"On what charge?"

"Wasting police time, for a kick-off, while I find someone who's willing to press a more serious charge."

"Who?"

"One of your creditors, Mrs. Goode."

"I'll get my solicitor to discuss an out-of-court settlement with her," he said comfortably. "Much more satisfactory than pursuing me through the courts."

"I'll get your wife on an assault charge."

"Poor Maisie. She's demented, you know." He winked with enormous enjoyment. "Doesn't know what she's doing half the time. A short spell of treatment with a sympathetic doctor will do her far more good than a police prosecution. The Vicar will agree with me on that."

"You're a pair of rogues."

"Harsh words, Sergeant. The truth is I'm a coward who couldn't face the disappointment of those who'd put their trust in me. I ran away and hid. Comtemptible, I agree, but hardly criminal." His gaze was level and sincere, but his double chins wobbled. Whether from mirth or contrition, McLoughlin couldn't say.

By the end of his account, Anne was laughing so much it hurt. "Did you let them go?"

He grinned sheepishly. "It was like trying to hold on to a couple of eels. Every time you thought you'd got a grip, they wriggled out of it. They're back home now, but due to answer a charge of obstruction in a couple of weeks' time. Meanwhile, I've got on to his number two, who's hopping mad at being taken for a ride, and told him to go through the books with an accountant and look for straightforward embezzlement."