The Ice House Part 18

"Because his father drank too much. She's watching like a hawk to make sure Jonathan doesn't do the same."

G.o.d, and I can't blame her, thought Diana, yet how foolish her actions seemed when looked at objectively. "Does Jonathan understand?" she asked curiously.

"I think so."

"Do you understand?"

"Yes, but that's not to say you or Phoebe are right. My own view is you're both getting your knickers in a twist over something that may never happen."

"I'll drink to that," said Diana, clinking her gla.s.s against her daughter's, but if she hoped this new fragile accord would lead to confidences, she was disappointed. Elizabeth had kept her own counsel too long to give it free expression on such tenuous beginnings.

"She is nice," said Elizabeth unexpectedly. "Very different from you. She's short and rather dumpy and she wears pinafore dresses all the time. She cooks very well. Dad's put on about two stone since he married her." She smiled. "None of his shirts do up any more, or they didn't three years ago."

Good lord, thought Diana, so that's what he wanted. She thought of the slim young man she had married with the cadaverous good looks and the designer clothes, and she chuckled. "Poor old Steven."

"He's very happy," her daughter protested, quick to see a criticism.

Diana held up her hands in mock surrender. "I'm sure he is and I'm glad. Very glad," she said, and she was.

"I suppose I'll have to ask the police if it's all right for me to go back to London," Elizabeth hazarded after a moment.

"When do you want to go?"

"Straight after lunch tomorrow. Jon said he'd drive me to the station."

"We'll ask Walsh in the morning," said Diana. "He's sure to be up here bright and early to rap me over the knuckles for this afternoon's little naughtiness."

"Oh, Mum," scolded Elizabeth as if she were speaking to a child, "you will be careful, won't you? You've got such a temper when you're angry. Frankly, I think you're d.a.m.n lucky to have got off as lightly as you did."

"Yes," agreed Diana meekly, marvelling at how rapidly roles reversed.

Elizabeth pursed her lips. "Jon got into a fight today," she announced surprisingly, "but don't tell Phoebe. She'll have a fit."

"Where?"

"Silverborne. Some yobbos recognised him from that photo in the local newspaper, the one taken outside the hospital the night Anne was attacked. They called him a lessies' pimp, so he bopped one of them in the eye and took to his heels." She smiled. "I was rather impressed when he told me. I didn't think he had it in him."

Diana thought of David Maybury. Jonathan had it in him all right.

18.

Within twenty-four hours Anne had made such a rapid recovery that she was suffering severe nicotine withdrawal symptoms and announced her intention of discharging herself. Jonathan told her not to be such a fool. "You nearly died. If it hadn't been for the Sergeant, you probably would have done. Your body needs time to recover and get over the shock."

"d.a.m.n," she said roundly, "and I can't remember a thing about it. No near-death experiences, no free-floating on the ceiling, no tunnels with shining lights at the end. What an absolute b.u.g.g.e.r, I could have written it all up. That's what comes of being an atheist."

Jonathan, who for various reasons had come to view McLoughlin as a bit of a hero, certainly not all to do with coming to Anne's rescue, took her to task. "Have you thanked him?"

She scowled from him to the WPC beside her bed. "What for? He was only doing his job."

"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 s.a.d.i.s.ts." 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. G.o.d, I need a f.a.g. 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, sn.i.g.g.e.red.

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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sault and quickly ran through her account of watching television and hearing the sound of the breaking gla.s.s. "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 a.s.sured 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion. Ma walked in on us in the middle."

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

"No key."

"How embarra.s.sing," 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 c.o.c.ked. "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?"

"Oh, yes," he said, "I do my duty Sunday lunches. To tell you the truth, I think she regretted it afterwards. The house became very quiet when I left." He was silent for a moment. "Your turn now," he said.

She giggled. "That's not fair. Your battle was funny, mine are all pathetic. Things like: Will I or will I not eat my mashed potato? Am I working too hard? Shouldn't I go out and enjoy myself?"

"And do you?"

"Go out and enjoy myself?" He nodded. "Not much." Her lips twisted cynically and made her look older. "Mum's idea of my enjoying myself is to go out with boys. I don't find that enjoyable." Her eyes narrowed. "I don't like men touching me. Mum hates that."

"It's not surprising," he said. "She must feel it's her fault."

"Well, it's not," she said dismissively, "and I wish she'd realise it. The hardest thing in the world is to cope with someone else's guilt."

"What do you think happened to your father, Jane?"

The question hung in the air between them like a bad smell. She turned away and looked out of the window and he wondered if he had pushed too fast and lost her. He hoped not, as much for her own sake as for the sake of the enquiry.

"I'll tell you what happened the night he left," she said at last, speaking to the window. "I remember it very clearly but even my psychiatrist doesn't know all of it. There are bits I kept back, bits that at the time didn't fit the pattern and which I left out." She paused for a moment. "I hadn't thought about it for ages until the other night. Since then I've thought of nothing else, and I think now that what I left out may be important."

She spoke slowly and clearly as though, having geared herself to tell the story, she saw no point in making it garbled. She told him how, after her mother had left for work, her father had run her bath. That was the signal, she said, that he intended to have s.e.x with her. It was a routine he had established and which she had learned to accept. She described the entire process without a flicker of emotion and McLoughlin guessed she had rehea.r.s.ed it many times on the psychiatrist's couch. She spoke of her father's approaches and her removal to her bedroom as if she were commentating on a chess game.

"But he did something different that night," she said, turning her dark gaze on the Sergeant.

He found his voice. "What was it?"

"He told me he loved me. He'd never done that before."

McLoughlin was shocked. So much pain and without a word of love. Yet, after all, what good would kind words have done except make the man a hypocrite? "Why do you think that's important?" he asked dispa.s.sionately.

"Let me finish the story," she suggested, "and perhaps it will strike you, too." Before raping her this time, he had given her a present, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. "He'd never done that before either."

"What was it?"

"A little teddy-bear. I used to collect them. When he had finished," she said, dismissing the entire incident in four words, "he stroked my hair and said he was sorry. I asked him why because he'd never apologised before, but my mother came in and he never answered." She fell silent and stared at her hands.

He waited but she didn't go on. "What happened then?" he asked after several minutes.