The Ice House Part 19

She gave a mirthless laugh. "Nothing really. They just looked at each other for what seemed like hours. In the end, he got off the bed and pulled up his trousers." Her voice was brittle. "It was like one of those awful Whitehall farces. I do remember my mother's face. It was frozen, like a statue's. She was very pale except for the bruise on her face where he hit her the day before. She only moved after he'd left the room, then she lay beside me on the bed and hugged me. We stayed like that all night and in the morning he'd gone." She shrugged. "We've never seen him again."

"Did she say anything to him?" he asked.

"No. She didn't need to."

"Why not?"

"You know that expression 'if looks could kill.' " He nodded. "That was what was frozen on her face." She bit her lip. "What do you think?"

She caught him off guard. He so nearly said, I think your mother killed him. "About what?" he asked her.

She showed her disappointment. "It seems so obvious to me. I hoped it would strike you, too." There was a hunger in the thin face, a yearning for something that he didn't understand.

"Hang on," he said firmly. "Give me a minute to think about it. You know the story backwards. This is the first time I've heard it, remember." He looked at the notes he had been taking and cudgelled his brain to find what she wanted him to find. He had ringed the three things she said her father had never done before: love, present, apology. What was their significance? Why did she think he had done them? Why had he done them? Why would any father tell his daughter he loved her, give her a present and regret his unkindnesses? He looked up and laughed. It was stunningly obvious, after all. "He was planning to leave anyway. He was saying goodbye. That's why he disappeared without trace. He'd arranged it all beforehand." She let out a long sigh. "Yes, I think so."

He leaned forward excitedly. "But do you know why he would want to disappear?"

"No, I don't." She sat up straight and pushed the hair back off her face. "All I do know, Sergeant, is that it wasn't my fault." A slow smile curved her lips. "You can't imagine how good that makes me feel."

"But surely no one's ever suggested it was?" The idea appalled him.

"When I was eight years old, my mother caught me in bed with my father. My father ran away because of it and my mother was labelled a murderess. At the age of ten, my brother's personality changed. He stopped being a child and took his father's place. He was sworn to secrecy about what had happened and has never mentioned his father again." She played with her fingers. "My mother's guilt has been an irrelevancy beside mine." She raised her eyes. "What happened the other night was a blessing in disguise. For years I've sat with a psychiatrist who has done his level best to intellectualise me out of my feelings of guilt. To a certain extent he succeeded and I pushed it all to the back of my mind. I was the victim, not the culprit. I was manipulated by someone I had been taught to respect. I played the role that was demanded of me because I was too young to understand I had a choice." She paused briefly. "But the other night, perhaps because I was so frightened, it all came back to me with amazing clarity. For the first time, I realised how the pattern had changed the night he left. For the first time, I didn't need to consciously justify my innocence, because I saw that the misery and uncertainty of the last ten years would have happened anyway, whether my mother had found us or not."

"Have you told her all this?"

"Not yet. I will after you've gone. I wanted someone else to reach the same conclusion I had."

"Tell me what happened when you were going to the Lodge," he encouraged. "You said you heard breathing."

She compressed her lips in thought. "It's a bit of a blur now," she admitted. "I was fine till I came to the beginning of the long straight bit leading to the gates. I slowed down as I came round the bend because I was getting a st.i.tch and I heard what sounded like someone letting out a long breath, the sort of sound you make when you've been holding your breath for hiccups. It seemed to be very close. I was so frightened, I started to run again. Then I heard running footsteps and someone shouting." She looked at him sheepishly. "That was you. You scared me out of my wits. Now I'm not sure I heard breathing at all."

"OK," he said. "It's not important. And when you said you thought it was your father, that was just because you were frightened? There wasn't anything about the breathing that reminded you of him?"

"No," she said. "I can't even remember what he looked like. It was so long ago and Mum's burnt all his photos. I couldn't possibly recognise his breathing." She watched him gather his bits and pieces together. "Have I been any good?"

"Good?" On impulse, he reached forward and gave her hands a quick impersonal squeeze. "I'd say your G.o.dma's going to be pretty pleased with you, young lady. Forget about fighting battles, you've just scaled your own Mount Everest. And it's all downhill from now on."

Phoebe was sitting on a garden seat beside the front door, chin on hands, staring unseeingly at the flowerbeds which bordered the gravel drive. "May I join you?" he asked her.

She nodded.

They sat in silence for some minutes. "The dividing line between a fortress and a prison is a fine one," he remarked softly. "And ten years is a long time. Do you not think, Mrs. Maybury, that you've served your sentence?"

She sat up straight and gestured bitterly in the direction of Streech Village and beyond. "Ask them," she said. "It was they who put up the barbed wire."

"Was it?"

Instinctively, defensively, she pressed her gla.s.ses up her nose. "Of course. It was never my choice to live like this. But what do you do when people turn against you? Beg them to be kind?" She gave a harsh laugh. "I wouldn't do it."

He stared at his hands. "It wasn't your fault," he said quietly. "Jane understands that. He was what he was. Nothing you did or didn't do would have made any difference."

She withdrew into herself and let the silence lengthen. Above them swallows and house martens dipped and darted and a lark swelled its little throat and sang. At long last she took a handkerchief from her sleeve and held it to her eyes. "I don't think I like you very much," she said.

He looked at her. "We all carry our burden of guilt-it's human nature. Listen to anyone newly bereaved or divorced and you'll hear the same story-if only I had done thisa if only I tyadn't done thata if only I had been kindera if only I had realised. Our capacity for self-punishment is enormous. The trick is to know when to stop." He rested a light hand on her shoulder. "You've been punishing yourself for far too long. Can you not see that?"

She turned her face away from him. "I should have known," she said into her handkerchief. "He was hurting her and I should have known."

"How could you have known? You're no different from the rest of us," he told her brutally. "Jane loved you, she wanted to protect you. If you blame yourself, you take away everything she tried to do for you."

There was another long silence while she fought to control her tears. "I'm her mother. There was only me to save her, but when she needed me I never came. I can't bear to think about it." A convulsive tremor rocked the shoulder beneath his hand.

He didn't stop to consider whether it was a good idea but reacted instinctively, drawing her into the fold of his arm and letting her weep. They were not the first tears she had shed, he guessed, but they were the first she had shed for her lost self, that self who had come into an enchanted world, wide-eyed and sure that she could do anything. The triumph of the human condition was to face one small defeat after another and to survive them relatively intact. The tragedy, as for Phoebe, was to face the worst defeat too soon and never to recover. His heart, still bruised and battered, ached for her.

He stopped his car on the bend before the straight stretch of drive and got out. Close, Jane had said, which meant in all probability crouched among the rhododendron bushes along the edge of the way. His searches so far had been disappointing. While he had set a team to scour the ice house for a link with Mrs. Thompson, he himself had gone on hands and knees about the terrace for signs of Anne's attacker. If what he believed had happened, there would have been ample evidence of it. But Walsh was right. Bar some dislodged bricks and a cigarette end which was a brand that neither Fred nor Anne smoked, there was nothing. No weapon-he'd examined every brick and stone minutely for bloodstains; no footprints-the lawn was too hard from lack of rain and the flagstones too clean from Molly's regular sweepings; no blood, not even the tiniest speck, to prove that Anne had been hit outside and not inside. He had begun to wonder if he'd put too much faith in Phoebe's certainty-ten years was a long time and people changed-and she admitted herself it had only happened the once. But if she were wrong or if she were lying? He couldn't bring himself to explore either alternative. Not yet.

He sank to hands and knees again and began to inch along the drive. If there was anything, it wouldn't be easy to find. A team had been over here once without success but then he had told them to concentrate further down, near where he had caught her and where, for one brief moment, he had had the feeling that he and Jane were being watched. He crawled along the left-hand side, knees aching, eyes constantly alert, but after half an hour he had found nothing.

He sat back wearily on his heels and swore at the injustice of it. Just once, he thought, let me be lucky. Just once, let something come my way that I haven't had to work my b.l.o.o.d.y b.u.t.t off for.

He moved to the right-hand side of the drive and inched back towards the bend. Predictably, he was almost at the car before he found it. He took a deep breath and thumped his fist on the tarmac, growling and shaking his head from side to side like a mad dog. Had he only started on the right-hand side, he would have found the d.a.m.n thing over an hour ago and saved himself a lot of trouble.

"You are right, son?" asked a voice.

McLoughlin looked over his shoulder to find Fred staring at him. He grinned self-consciously and stood up. "Fine," he a.s.sured him. "I've just found the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who did for Miss Cattrell."

"I don't see him," muttered Fred, eyeing McLoughlin doubtfully.

McLoughlin crouched down and parted the bushes, sweeping leaves away from something on the ground. "Look at that. The forensic boys are going to have a field day."

With much panting and heaving Fred squatted beside him. "Well, I'll be blowed," he said, "it's a Paddy Clarke Special."

Nestling in the debris under the rhododendron, beautifully camouflaged, was an old-fashioned stone beer bottle with a dark brown crust clinging to its bottom. MeLoughlin, who had been thinking only in terms of some decent fingerprints and what looked like the imprint of a trainer in the soft damp earth beneath the dense bushes, flicked him a curious glance. "What on earth is a Paddy Clarke Special?"

Fred lumbered unhappily to his feet. "There's no harm in it, not really. It's more of a hobby than a business, though I don't s'pose the tax man would agree. He's got a room at the back of his garage where he makes it. Uses only traditional materials and leaves it to mature till it has the kick of a horse and tastes like nectar. There's not a beer to touch Paddy's Special." He stared glumly at the rhododendron. "You have to drink it on the premises. He sets great store by those bottles, says they breathe flavour in a way gla.s.s never does." He looked immensely troubled. "I've never known him let one out of the pub."

"What's he like? The type to beat up women?"

The old man shuffled his feet. "No, never that. He's a good sort. Mind you, the wife's got little time for him on account of he's married and not too particular about his vows, but-hit Miss Cattrell?" He shook his head. "No, he'd not do that. He and she are"-he looked away-"friends, as you might say."

An entry in Anne's diary swam before his eyes. "P. is a mystery. He tells me he screws fifty women a year, and I believe him, yet he remains the most considerate of lovers." "Does he smoke?"

Fred, who had supplied Paddy with many a cigarette over the years, thought the question odd. "Other people's," he said warily. "His wife's a bit of a tyrant, doesn't approve of smoking."

McLoughlin pictured her fireplace awash with cigarette ends. "Don't tell me," he said gloomily, "let me guess. He looks like Rudolph Valentino, Paul Newman and Laurence Olivier, all rolled into one." He opened his car door and reached for his radio.

"Tut, tut, tut," clicked Fred impatiently. "He's a big man, dark, full of life, clever in his way. Always reminds me of the one who plays Magnum."

Tom Selleck! I hate him, thought McLoughlin.

Sergeant Jones was leaving the Station as McLoughlin came in. "You know that tramp you're after, Andy?"

"Mm."

"Got a sighting from your friend the Vicar in East Deller. Wife claims she gave him a cup of tea."

"Any idea of a date?"

"No, but the Vicar remembers he was writing a sermon at the time and was annoyed by the disturbance, found himself praying to the Good Lord for deliverance from tramps, then had to reprimand himself for his lack of charity."

McLoughlin chuckled. "That sounds like the Vicar all right."

"Apparently he always writes his sermons on a Sat.u.r.day while he's watching the sport on telly. Any good?"

"Could be, Nick, could be."

19.

The phone rang on McLoughlin's desk the following morning. "You're a jammy b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Andy. I've got a lead on that tramp of yours," said his mate in Southampton. "One of the uniformed sergeants recognised the description. Seems he picked up the old boy about a week ago and took him to a new hostel out Shirley way. No guarantee he's still there but I'll give you the address. You can check it out for yourself. He's called Wally Ferris and he's a regular down here during the summer. Sergeant Jordan's known him for years." McLoughlin wrote down the address, Heaven's Gate Hostel, and thanked him. "You owe me one," said the other cheerfully and hung up.

Heaven's Gate was a large detached Victorian house, probably much sought after in the days before motor cars, but its appeal was diminished now by the busy thoroughfare which mewled and milled about its front door.

Wally Ferris bore no resemblance to the description McLoughlin had circulated, except in age and height. He was clean. Scrubbed rosy cheeks and gleaming pate with frill of washed hair dazzled above a white shirt, black slacks and highly polished shoes. He looked, for all the world, like an elderly schoolboy on his first day in cla.s.s.

They met in the sitting-room and Wally gestured to a chair. "Take a pew," he invited.

McLoughlin showed his disappointment. "No point," he said. "To be honest, I don't think you're the person I'm looking for."

Wally did a rapid about-turn and beetled for the door. "Suits me, son. I'm not comfortable wiv bluebottles and that's a fact."

"Hold on," said McLoughlin. "At least, let's establish it."

Wally turned and glowered at him, "Make yer bleeding mind up. I'm only 'ere because the lady of the 'ouse arst me. She's scratched my back, in a manner o' speaking, so I'm scratching 'ers. What you after?"

McLoughlin sat down. "Take a pew," he said, echoing Wally.

"Gawd, you're a shilly-shallyer and no mistake. Can't make yer mind up, can yer." He perched on a distant chair.

"What were you wearing when you came here?" asked McLoughlin.

"None of your effing business."

"I can ask the lady of the house," said McLoughlin.

"What's it to you, anyway?"

"Just answer. The sooner you do, the sooner I'll leave you in peace."

Wally sucked his teeth noisily. "Green jacket, brown 'at, black shoes, blue jumper and pink trews," he reeled off.

"Did you have them long?"

"Long enough."

"How long?"

"All different. 'Ad the 'at and jacket near on five years, I'd say."

"The trousers?"

"Twelve monfs or so. Bit on the bright side but a good fit. 'Ere, you're not finking I nicked 'em, are you? I was give 'em." He looked thoroughly indignant.

"No, no," said McLoughlin soothingly. "Nothing like that. The truth is, Wally, we're trying to trace a man who's disappeared and we think you may be able to help us."

Wally planted his feet firmly on the ground, one in front of the other beneath his, chair, poised to take flight. "I don't know nuffink about nuffink," he said with absolute conviction.

McLoughlin raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Don't panic, Wally. As far as we know, there's no crime involved. The man's wife asked us to find him. She says you came to the house the day before he disappeared. All we're wondering is if you remember going there, and if you saw or heard anything that might help us find out why he went."

Wally's rheumy eyes looked his suspicion. "I go to a lot of 'ouses."

"These two gave you a pair of brown shoes."

Something like relief flickered across the wizened features. "If the wife was there, why can't she tell you why 'er old man went?" he asked reasonably.

"She's become very ill since her husband went," said McLoughlin, stretching the truth like a rubber band. "She hasn't been able to tell us much at all."

"What's this chap done?"

"Nothing, except lose all his money and run away."

That struck a chord with Wally. "Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Does 'e want to be found?"

"I don't know. What do you think? His wife certainly wants him back."

Wally considered for several minutes. "No one bovvered to come looking for me," he said in the end. "Sometimes I wished they 'ad 'ave done. They was glad to see the back of me, and that's the trufe. Go on then. Arst yer questions."

It took over an hour, but in the end McLoughlin had a clear picture of Wally's movements during the last week in May, or as clear as the old man could make it, bearing in mind he had been tight most of the time. "I was give a fiver," he explained. "Some old geezer in the middle of Winchester popped it in me 'and. Put the lot on a gee-gee called Vagrant, didn't I. Came up eleven to one. Ain't 'ad so much cash for years. Kept me plastered for free weeks 'fore it ran out."

He had hung around Winchester for most of the three weeks, then, when he was down to his last few quid, he'd made his way along the back roads to Southampton in search of new pickings. "I like the villages," he said. "Reminds me of cycling holidays in my youf." He remembered stopping at the pub in Streech. "It was p.i.s.sing down," he explained. "Landlord was a decent sort, gave me no bovver." Paddy's wife, by contrast, was a fat old cow whom, for unspecified reasons, Wally didn't take to, but he winked ferociously a couple of times as he mentioned her. At three o'clock, they turned him out into the rain. "Ain't no fun when it's wet," he said lugubriously, "so I took meself off to a little shelter I know of and spent the afternoon and night there."

"Where?" asked McLoughlin when the old man fell silent.