Minette Walters - The Ice House

The other shook his head. "No idea. Presumably questioning the witness. He and Nick took off like scalded cats about two hours ago."

"Well, he's wrong." His voice was harsh. "It's not Maybury. Tell him that if he gets back before I do, will you?"

Not bloody likely, thought the Desk Sergeant, watching the angry young man shoulder open the doors and surge out on to the pavement. If McLoughlin was intent on self-destruction, he had no plans to go with him. He glanced at his watch and saw with relief that his shift was nearly over.

McLoughlin pulled Anne bodily out of her chair and shook her till her teeth rattled. "Was it David Maybury?" he shouted at her. "Was it?" he spat.

She didn't say anything and, with a groan, he pushed her from him. The donkey jacket slipped from her shoulders, leaving her clad only in a pair of men's pyjamas that were far too big for her. She looked oddly pathetic, like a child playing at being an adult. "I don't know," she said with dignity. "The body was unrecognisable, but I shouldn't think it was David. He's not likely to have come back here after ten years, assuming he was still alive."

"Don't play games, Anne," he said angrily. "You saw the body before it rotted. Who was it?"

She shook her head.

"Someone's ID'd it. They say it's David Maybury."

She licked her lips but didn't answer.

"Help me."

"I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," he said bitterly, "it matters to me. I believed in you. I believed in all of you."

Her face twisted. "I'm sorry."

He gave a savage laugh. "You're sorry? Jesus Christ!" He.gripped her arms again, his long fingers curling into the flesh. "Don't you understand, you little bitch? I trusted you. I've put my head on the line for you. Dammit, you owe me."

There was a long silence. When she spoke, her voice was brittle. "Well, hey, McLoughlin, never let it be said that Cattrell doesn't pay her debts." She pulled the cord on her pyjama trousers and let them slither to the floor. "Go ahead. Screw me. That's all you were ever interested in, wasn't it? A good fuck. Just like your precious boss ten years ago."

The sands shifted under his feet. He raised his hands to her throat and stroked the soft white flesh of her neck.

"You didn't know?" Her eyes glittered as she put her hands between his wrists and thrust them apart to break his grip. "The horny little bastard made Phoebe a proposition-a nice clean line drawn under the investigation in return for a weekly screw. Oh, he wasn't quite so vulgar. He dressed it up a bit." She mimicked Walsh's voice. "She was alone and vulnerable. He wanted to protect her. Her beauty had touched him. She deserved something better after her husband's brutal treatment." Her lip curled in derision. "She turned him down and told him where to stick his protection." A strident note made her voice unattractive. "My God, but she was naive. She never considered for one moment that the man held her future in his hands."

"I don't believe this."

She walked across to her armchair and took a cigarette from the packet on the arm. "Why not?" she asked coolly, flicking her lighter. "What makes you think you have a monopoly on wanting to ball murder suspects?" Her eyes mocked him. "God knows what it is, but there's something very attractive about us. Perhaps it's the uncertainty."

He shook his head. "What did you mean when you said he held her future in his hands? You said she was naive."

"Oh, for pity's sake," she countered scornfully. "Who told the world and his wife that Phoebe killed her husband? Who briefed the press, McLoughlin?"

He looked very thoughtful. "She could have sued."

"Who?"

"The newspapers."

"She was never libelled. They weren't so crude as to call her a murderess. They referred to her as 'an avid gardener' in one sentence, then in the next revealed that the police were digging up the flowerbeds. And all neatly sign-posted for them by your boss."

"Why didn't she put in a complaint?" He saw the expression on her face and held up his hands. "Don't say it. Her word against his and he was a detective inspector." He lapsed into silence. "So what happened?"

She drew on her cigarette and raked him with angry eyes. "Walsh couldn't produce the goods because of course David had never been murdered, so the investigation was eventually stopped. It was then the fun started. She found herself on the wrong end of a malicious smear campaign and there wasn't a soul in this bloody place who would give her the time of day. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown by the time I moved in. Jonny, at the age of eleven, had started to wet his bed and Jane-" She searched his face. "It's going to happen again. That bastard is going to throw Phoebe to the wolves a second time." She looked pale beneath the scarlet bandanna.

"Why didn't you tell me all this at the beginning?"

"Would you have believed me?"

"No."

"And now?"

"Maybe." He eyed her for a long time, rubbing his jaw in thoughtful silence. "You're a good journalist, Anne. Couldn't you have written Phoebe's side of it and got her off the hook?"

"You tell me how I can do that without giving Jane as her alibi and I'll write it. Phoebe would burn at the stake before she let her daughter become a sideshow for ghouls. Me, too, if it comes to that." She inhaled deeply. "It's not an alibi anyway. Jane might have fallen asleep."

He nodded. "In that case, why are you so sure he left this house alive?"

She turned away to stub out her cigarette. "Why are you so sure?" She looked back at him. "You are, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Because someone claims now it was David in the ice house?"

"No."

"Why then?"

He looked at her for a long moment. "Because you chose to bury yourself in Streech Grange. That's how I know he walked out of here alive."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a bloody awful liar, Cattrell."

"I wish you wouldn't keep saying that," she said crossly, stamping her foot, "and I'm freezing."

"So, stop waggling your fanny at me and put some clothes on," he said reasonably, reaching down for her pyjama trousers and tossing them across to her. He watched while she put them on. "It's a nice fanny, Cattrell," he murmured, "but I only came for the truth. I got rather more than I bargained for."

He drove to the forensic laboratories and searched out Dr. Webster in his office. "I was passing," he said. "I wondered if you'd had any new ideas on that corpse of ours."

If Dr. Webster found this approach a little unorthodox, he didn't remark on it. "I've the full report here," he said, tapping a folder on the desk beside him. "The typist finished this morning. You can take a copy back with you if you like." He chuckled. "Mind you, I don't think it's going to please George much, but there we are, he will push for instant opinions and they're not always accurate. Made any progress?"

McLoughlin made a see-saw motion with his hand. "Not much. Our most promising lead turned up alive. Now we're in the dark again."

"In that case I doubt that anything I've managed to piece together is going to help you much. Give me a description, better still a photograph, and I'll say yea or nay to whether he's on my slab. But I can't tell you who he is. George is on the phone every day, yelling for results, but miracles take time. Fresh bodies are one thing, bits of old shoe leather need patience to sort out."

"What about Maybury?"

The pathologist grunted impatiently. "You're all obsessed with that wretched man. Of course it's not Maybury. And you can tell George I've taken a second opinion and it agrees with mine. Facts are facts," he grumbled, "and in this case they are not open to interpretation."

McLoughlin breathed deeply through his nose. "How do you know?"