Minette Walters - The Ice House

Walsh stared at him for a moment, then took the paper and unfolded it. There were the same five names and descriptions, but with "Since Traced" scrawled across Daniel Thompson's box. The two young women were of no consequence because of their sex, which left the Asian lad. Mohammed Mirahmadi, who was too young, and the semi-senile Keith Chapel, sixty-eight, who had walked out of his warden-run hostel five months before, wearing a green jacket, blue jumper and bright pink slacks. A tight, cold fist gripped at Walsh's insides. He laid the paper on the desk. "The tramp didn't come into it until the next day," he muttered. "And how could this old man know about Streech Grange or the ice house?"

McLoughlin stabbed at the box with his finger. "Look at his initials," he said. "Keith Chapel. K.C. I rang the warden of his hostel. The old boy used to ramble on endlessly about a garage he'd owned and what a success it was until a woman spread lies about him and he was forced to sell up. You knew all about it. Dammit, it was you who prompted Mrs. Goode to tell the story."

"Only by hearsay," Walsh muttered. "I never met the man. He was gone by the time Maybury disappeared. I thought Casey was a name. Everyone called him Casey. It's in the file as Casey."

"You're damn right it's in the file. For a bit of hearsay, you gave it a hell of an airing. Great story, shame about the facts. Was that about the size of it?"

"It's not my fault if people thought she killed her parents. We just recorded what they told us."

"Like hell you did! You fed it to them first. Jesus, you even hoicked it out for my benefit the other evening. And I believed it." He shook his head. "What did she do, for pity's sake? Laugh? Call you a dirty old man? Threaten to tell your wife?" He waited for a moment. "Or couldn't she hide her revulsion?"

"You're suspended," Walsh whispered. His hands quivered with a life of their own.

"What for? Uncovering the truth?" He slammed his palm on to the missing persons' list. "You bastard! You had the bloody nerve to accuse me of negligence. Those trousers should have registered with you. You heard them described twice in twelve hours. How many men wear pink slacks, for Christ's sake? You knew a man had been reported missing wearing pink trousers. And it wasn't difficult to find Wally. If I'd had that information when I spoke to him-" He shook his head angrily and reached for his briefcase. "There's Dr. Webster's final report." He flung it on to the desk. "Judging by the fact that Wally felt K.C.'s clothes were fit to wear, I think we can safely assume they were neither ripped with a knife nor bloodsoaked. The poor old chap probably died of cold."

"He went missing five months ago," muttered the Inspector. "Where was he for the first two months?"

"In a cardboard box in a subway, I should think, just like all the other poor sods this bloody awful society rejects."

Walsh moved restlessly. "And Maybury? You know all the answers. So where's Maybury?"

"I don't know. Living it up in France, I expect. He seems to have had enough contacts out there through his wine business."

"She killed him."

McLoughlin's eyes narrowed. "The bastard ran away when the money dried up and left her and his two small children to carry the can. It was planned, for God's sake." He was silent for a moment. "I can't think of one good reason why he would have wanted to punish them but, if he did, he must have been praying for a shit like you to turn up." He walked to the door.

"What are you going to do?" The words were barely above a whisper.

McLoughlin didn't answer.

On his way down the corridor, he bumped into Nick Robinson and Wally Ferris. He gave the old man a friendly punch on the shoulder. "You might have left him his underpants, you old rogue."

Wally shuffled his feet and cast sideways glances at both policemen. "You lot gonna charge me then?"

"What with?"

"Didn't do no 'arm, not really. Wet frough I was wiv all that flamin' rain and 'im sittin' there quiet as a mouse. To tell you the trufe I didn't click to 'im bein' dead, not for a while. Put 'im down as one of my sort, but wiv a screw loose. There's a lot like that who've 'ad too much mefs and too little whisky. 'Ad quite a chat wiv 'im one way and anuvver." He pulled a lugubrious face. " 'E didn't 'ave no underpants, son, didn't 'ave nuffink 'cept the fings 'e'd folded up and put on the floor beside 'im." He gave McLoughlin a sly peep. "Didn't see no 'arm in taking 'em, not when 'e didn't need ' em and I did. Bloody parky, it was. I put 'em on over me own cloves."

Nick Robinson, who had had no success in getting Wally to talk, snorted. "You're saying he was sitting there stark naked, dead as a dodo, and you had a chat with him?"

"It was company," muttered Wally defensively, "an' it was a while before I got used to the gloom in the cave. You see some funny fings in my line of business."

"Pink elephants mostly, I should think." Robinson looked enquiringly at McLoughlin. "What's all this about the clothes?"

"You'll find out. What do you reckon he died of, Wally?"

"Gawd knows. Cold, I should fink. That place is freezin' wiv ve door closed, an' 'e'd wedged a brick against it. I 'ad to push pretty 'ard to get it open. It weren't nuffink nasty. 'E 'ad a smile on 'is face."

There was a sharp indrawn breath from Robinson. "But there was blood, wasn't there?"

Wally's old eyes looked shocked. "Course there weren't no blood. I wouldn't 'ave stayed if there was blood. 'E was in lovely shape. On the white side per'aps but that was natural. It was dark wiv all the rain outside." He wrinkled his nose. "Whiffed a bit, but I didn't 'old it against 'im. Dare say I didn't smell too good meself."

It was like something out of a Samuel Beckett play, thought McLoughlin. Two old men sitting in semi-darkness, chatting-one nude and dead, the other sodden, and in more ways than one. He didn't doubt for a minute that Wally had spent the night with K.C., rambling happily about this and that. Wally loved to talk. Was it a horrible shock, he wondered, to find in the sober morning light that he'd been chatting with a corpse? Probably not. Wally, he was sure, had seen many worse things. "So did you shut the door again when you left?"

The old man pulled thoughtfully at his lower lip. "Sort of." He seemed to be weighing the problem in his mind. "That's to say, I did the first time. The first time I shut it. Seemed to me 'e wanted to be left in peace or 'e wouldn't 'ave wedged a brick against it. Then that geezer in the shed gave me the whisky, an' I 'ad a few mouffuls, an' I got to finking about proper burials an' such. Seemed wrong some'ow to leave 'im wivout a chance of a few good words bein' said for 'im, wouldn't want it personally, so I nips back and opens the door. Reckoned 'e'd 'ave more chance of bein' found wiv ve door open."

It would be cruel, McLoughlin thought, to tell him that by opening the door he had let in the heat, the dogs, the rats and putrefaction. He hoped Walsh wouldn't do it.

"And that," Wally finished firmly, "is all I knows. Can I go now?"

"Not likely," said Nick Robinson, "the Inspector wants a word with you." He took a firm grip on Wally's arm and looked enquiringly at McLoughlin. "How about filling me in?"

.McLoughlin grinned evilly. "Let's just say, you got your wires crossed, old son."

He folded himself wearily into his car and sat for some time staring blankly through the windscreen. Some words of Francis Bacon kept repeating themselves in his mind like a memory-jerk mnemonic. "Revenge is a kind of wild justice. The more man's nature runs to it, the more ought law to weed it out." He rubbed his gaunt face. He had told Anne he sympathised with personal vengeance but he knew now that wasn't true. The end result of an "eye for an eye" was a world gone blind. With a sigh, he fired the motor and drew out into the traffic.