Ice House

by Walters, Minette

  An awful lethargy stole over him then, like the lethargy a drowning man must feel in the moment before he gives up. His eyes looked into the middle distance above her head, seeking straws. There were none. He held her for a second or two, then gently disentangled himself. "Come home," he said. "It's yours as much as mine."

  "You're not angry?"

  "Not at all. I'm glad."

  Her wonderful eyes shone like stars. "Your mother said you would be."

  Straws, he thought, were useless to drowning men. It was the unquenchable longing for life that kept heads above water. "I'll have that shower, then I'll be off," he said. "I'll fetch the books and the paintings tomorrow, and maybe the records I bought before we were married." He glanced through the sitting-room door at the chromium coffee table, the oatmeal carpet, the net curtains, the white formica wall units and the dainty pastel three-piece suite, and he thought, no one has even lived here. He shook his head. "There's nothing else I want."

  She caught him by the arm. "You are angry."

  His dark face cracked into a grin. "No. I'm glad. I needed a push. I hate this place. I always have done. It's so"—he sought for a word—"sterile." He looked at her with compassion. "Like our marriage."

  She dug her fingers into his arm. "I knew you'd bring that up, you bastard. But it's not my fault. You never wanted kids any more than I did."

  He removed her hands. "That wasn't quite the sterility I was referring to."

  She was bitter. "You've found someone else."

  He moved to the telephone, took a piece of paper from his pocket and dialled the number written on it. "McLoughlin," he said into the mouthpiece. "We've identified the body. That's it, all over the newspapers tomorrow, so if he's any sense he'll lie low. Yes, it'll have to be tonight. Damn right, I want him. Let's just say I take what he did personally. So can you swing it?" He listened for a moment. "Just make the point that they've got away with murder again. I'll be with you by ten." He looked up and caught Kelly's eye.

  Water had gathered in great droplets round the mascaraed lashes. "Where will you go?"

  "I don't know yet. Maybe Glasgow."

  Tears turned to anger, and her anger lashed out at him as it always had done. "You've left that bloody job, haven't you? After all the begging I did for you to leave, you've left it because someone else asked you."

  "No one's asked me, Kelly, and I haven't left it, not yet."

  "But you will."

  "Maybe."

  "Who is she?"

  He found he wanted to hurt her, so there must be some feeling left. Perhaps there always would be. Seven years, however sterile, had left their mark. "She's my rose," he said, "my red, red rose." And Kelly, who had heard enough of hated Rabbie Burns to last a lifetime, felt a knot of panic tighten round her heart.

  Phoebe rocked Diana's shoulder and prodded her into wakefulness. "We've got visitors," she whispered. "I need help." Somewhere in the darkness behind her came the low growls of the dogs.

  Diana squinted at her out of 'one eye. "Turn the light on," she said sleepily.

  "No, I don't want them to know we're awake." She bundled Diana's dressing-gown on to her chest. "Come on, old girl, get a move on."

  "Have you called the police?" Diana sat up and shrugged her arms into the dressing-gown.

  "No point. It'll be over one way or another long before the police get here." Phoebe switched on a small torch and pointed it at the floor. "Come on," she urged, "we haven't much time."

  Diana pulled on her slippers and padded after her. "Why are the dogs here? Why aren't they outside? And where's McLoughlin?"

  "He didn't come tonight." She sighed. "The one night we needed him, he didn't turn up."

  "So what are you planning to do?"

  Phoebe lifted her shotgun from where she had propped it outside Diana's bedroom door. "I'm going to use this," she said, leading the way downstairs, "and I don't want to shoot the dogs by mistake. It'll be their turn to have a go if the bastards manage to break in."

  "Lord, woman," muttered Diana, "you're not intending to kill anyone, are you?"

  "Don't be a fool." She crept across the hall and into her drawing-room. "I'm going to scare the shit out of the creeps. They didn't get rid of me last time. They won't get rid of me now." She gestured Diana to one side of the curtains and, switching off the torch, took up a position on the other side. "Keep your eyes peeled. If you see anyone on the far side of the terrace, let me know."

  "I'm going to regret this," Diana groaned, twitching the curtain aside and peering into the darkness. "I can't see a bloody thing. How do you know they're out there?"

  "Benson came in through the cellar window and woke me. I trained him to do it after the first time these yobs had a go at me." She patted the old dog's head. "You're such a good boy, aren't you. It's years since I've had you patrolling the grounds and you haven't forgotten." The sound of the dog's tail swishing backwards and forwards across the carpet was loud in the quiet room. Hedges, unborn at the time of David Maybury's disappearance, crouched by his mistress's feet, muscles tensed for when his turn came. Phoebe scanned the wide terrace for signs of movement. "Your eyes will soon adjust."

  "There is someone," said Diana suddenly. "By the right-hand wall. Do you see him?"

  "Yes. There's another coming round Anne's wing." She gripped her shotgun firmly. "Can you unlock the windows without making a noise?"

  For a brief moment Diana hesitated, then she shrugged and applied herself carefully to the key. Phoebe, she argued, knew all there was to know about hell. She had been there. She wouldn't willingly go back a second time. In any case, the adrenaline was racing in her as strongly as it was racing in Phoebe. It was backs-against-the-wall time, she thought, when everyone, even rabbits, showed their teeth. "OK," she whispered, as the lock clicked quietly open. She peeped past the edge of the curtain again. "Oh, lord," she breathed, "there are dozens of them."

  Black figures crouched along the edge of the terrace like a troop of apes, but to think of them as such was to demean the animals. It is only man, with his single evolutionary advancement of reason, who takes pleasure in other people's pain. Diana's mouth went dry. There was something unbelievably chilling in mob hysteria where individual accountability was subordinate to the group.

  "Hardly dozens; five, six at the most. When I say, 'Now,' open the door wide." Phoebe gave a wild laugh. "We'll put the old adage to the test and wait till we see the whites of their eyes. I've always wanted to try it."

  There was confusion in the huddled mass as they seemed to crowd together about the terrace wall, then separate again. "What are they doing?" asked Diana.

  "Pulling bricks off the top by the look of it. Keep your head down if they start throwing them."

  One of the group seemed to be the leader. He used his arms to direct his troop, half to go down one side of the terrace, half to take the other side. "Now," muttered Phoebe urgently. "I don't want them splitting up."

  Diana twisted the handle and thrust the door open. Phoebe was through it in a second, her tall figure melting into the shadows. She had raised the heavy stock to her shoulder and was about to sight down the barrel when one large hand clamped itself over her mouth and another plucked the gun from her grasp.

  "I wouldn't if I were you, madam," whispered Fred's soft voice in her ear. He kept his hand firmly over her mouth and used his forearm on her shoulder to force her to her knees. Bent double, he laid the shotgun noiselessly on the flagstones then, urging her upright again, he caught her round the waist as if she were no more than a piece of thistledown, and lifted her through the drawing-room windows. He felt Diana's presence, rather than saw it. "Not a sound," he cautioned her in a tight whisper, "and close the window, if you please."

  "But, Fred—" she began.

  "Do as I say, Mrs. Goode. Do you want madam hurt?"

  Thoroughly shaken, Diana did as he said.

  Ignoring Phoebe's biting teeth, Fred hauled her unceremoniously across the room and bundled her in
to the hall. Diana pursued him. "What are you doing?" she demanded fiercely, buffeting him around his shoulders with bunched fists. "Put Phoebe down this minute." Benson and Hedges, alarmed by Diana's tone, threw themselves against Fred's legs.

  "This door, too, Mrs. Goode, if you please."

  She caught a handful of his sparse hair and tugged hard. "Let her go," she grunted.

  With a sigh of pain, he swung round, carrying both women with him, and kicked the door to with his foot. Seconds later the French windows shattered inwards into a thousand pieces. "There," he said amiably, setting Phoebe carefully on the floor and removing his hand from her mouth. "We're all right now, I think. If you wouldn't mind, Mrs. Goode, that is a little painful. Thank you." He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it round his bleeding fingers. "Good boys," he murmured, fondling the dogs' muzzles, "that's the ticket. I don't say I'm not annoyed about another window needing new glass, but this time we'll make sure it's paid for." He opened the door. "Would you excuse me, madam? I'd hate to miss the fun."

  Speechlessly, the two women watched his great bulk pad lightly across the broken glass and step out on to the terrace. Beyond, lit by brilliant moonlight, was a scene from Hieronymus Bosch. A grotesque tangle of misshapen figures writhed in hideous and noisy confusion upon the lawn. As Fred, with a curdling roar, charged across the terrace and launched himself atop the melee, Phoebe took in the situation at a glance, whistled up Hedges and pointed to one flying fugitive who had managed to pull himself free. "Off you go, boy." Hedges, barking with excitement, bounded across the grass, bowled his man over and pranced about him, howling his achievement to the moon. Benson, not to be outdone, waddled on to the terrace, sat comfortably on his haunches and raised his old muzzle in joyous unison.

  The row from dogs and flailing bodies was deafening.

  "Men!" exclaimed Diana in Phoebe's ear and Phoebe, with adrenaline still running rampant in her bloodstream, burst into tears of laughter.

  Chapter 24

  The confusion was short-lived. By the time Diana thought of switching on the drawing-room lights, the half dozen vandals had thrown in the towel and were being herded across the terrace by a panting semi-circle of McLoughlin, young PC Gavin Williams, out of uniform, Jonathan, Fred and Paddy Clarke.

  "Inside," ordered McLoughlin curtly. "You're all nicked."

  Stripped of their menace by the glare of the overhead lamps, they were an unprepossessing bunch of shuffling, sweaty youths with surly faces and evasive eyes. Diana knew them all by sight as lads from the village, but she could put a name to only two of them, Eddie Staines and nineteen-year-old Peter Barnes, son of Dilys and brother to Emma. She looked them over in amazement. "What have we ever done to you? I don't even know who most of you are."

  Barnes was a good-looking young man, tall, athletic, an ex-public school boy, now working in his father's print business in Silverborne. He sneered at her but didn't answer. Eddie Staines and the remaining four stared fixedly at the floor.

  "It's a reasonable enough question," said McLoughlin evenly. "What have these ladies ever done to you?"

  Barnes shifted his gaze. "Which ladies?" he asked insolently. "Do you mean the dykes?"

  Barnes's voice, unaccented, interested McLoughlin. The shouts on the lawn had all carried the strangled vowels of the working class. A slight shake of his head kept Diana quiet. "I was referring to Mrs. Maybury and her friends," he said in the same even tone. "What have they ever done to you?" He searched the line of unresponsive faces. "All right, for the moment you will be charged with aggravated assault on the owner of Streech Grange."

  "We never touched her," complained Eddie Staines.

  "Shut up," said Barnes.

  "Never touched who?"

  "Her. Mrs. Maybury."

  "I didn't say you did."

  "What was all that aggravated assault crap?"

  "She's not the owner of Streech Grange," McLoughlin pointed out. "Mr. Jonathan Maybury and his sister own this property."

  "Oh." Eddie frowned. "We thought it was the dyke's."

  McLoughlin arched an eyebrow. "Do you mean Mrs. Maybury?"

  "You soft in the head, or what?"

  "That," murmured McLoughlin mildly, "would appear to be your privilege. Eddie Staines, is it?"

  "Yeah."

  "Keep your big mouth shut, you ignorant turd," Barnes grated through clenched teeth.

  A cold gleam lit McLoughlin's eyes. "Well, well, Paddy, you were right. It's the jumped-up little oik who calls the shots. So what's his problem?"

  "His mother," was Paddy's laconic reply.

  The boy threw him a murderous glance.

  Paddy gave an indifferent shrug. "I'm sorry for you, lad. If you'd had half your sister's sense, you'd have got by. You'd have raised two fingers to that stupid bitch with her twisted ambitions, and you'd have kept your sanity. Try asking yourself who Emma's really screwing when she comes up here and spreads her legs." He glanced at McLoughlin. "Ever heard the expression, a beggar on horseback? A beggar comes into a bit of money, buys a horse to raise himself up, only to find he can't ride the damn thing. That's Dilys Barnes. She came a cropper when she set her sights too high and moved the family into Streech. No harm in that, of course. It's a free country. But you don't, if you've any sense, treat one end of the village like muck because you think they're beneath you, while you lick the backsides of the other end and brandish your painfully transparent family tree under their noses. That way, you alienate everybody."

  Peter's face worked unpleasantly. "Bastard!" he hissed.

  Paddy let it pass. "People laughed at her, of course. They would. Social climbing's a spectator sport in a place like this, and Dilys was never any good at it." He stroked his chin. "She's a very unintelligent woman. She couldn't grasp the first rule, that class is in inverse proportion to its relevance." His eyes flickered over Peter. "You'll need a translation, lad. The classier you are the less you have to talk about it."

  Barnes bunched his fists. "Fuck you, Paddy. Cheap Irish trash, that's all you are." Fleetingly, McLoughlin had the odd impression that the boy was enjoying himself.

  A deep laugh rumbled in Paddy's throat. "I'll take it as a compliment, lad. It's a long time since anyone's recognised the Irish in me." He dodged a flying fist. "Jesus Christ!" he said crossly. "You're even more stupid than your mother, despite your fancy education and the puffed-up ideas she's given you." He wagged a finger at Phoebe. "It's your fault, woman. You made a laughingstock of her and, believe me, you don't do that to the Dilys Barneses of this world. She has a poisoned callus on her soul for every slight, true or imagined, that she's suffered, and the biggest and the most venomous is the one you gave her. She's fed her venom to this little creep by the bucketload."

  Phoebe looked at him in astonishment. "I hardly know her. She made a scene by the village pond once but I was far too angry to laugh."

  "Before David went missing," he prompted. "He did the real damage. He repeated the story in the pub and it was all round the village before you could say Jack Robinson."

  Phoebe stared at him blankly and shook her head.

  He reached down to scratch the ears of the old Labrador lying at his feet. "When Benson was little more than a puppy? Dilys caught him humping her Pekinese." His eyes twinkled encouragingly. "Harangued you over the telephone for not keeping him under better control."

  "Oh, good God!" Phoebe clapped her hands to her face. "Not my Barnes pun. But it was a joke," she protested. "You're not going to tell me she took it personally. I was referring to her Peke. The damn thing was on heat and she let it out, reeking of pheromones."

  Paddy's great chuckle boomed about the room, stirring the heightened adrenaline into a responsive froth.

  Phoebe's voice shook. "It was all her fault anyway. She would keep calling Benson a dirty dog." Quite unconsciously, she took on the refined tones of Dilys Barnes. " 'Your dirty dog should be ashamed of himself, Mrs. Maybury.' God, it was funny. She couldn't bring herself to say tha
t Benson had rogered her ghastly bitch." She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "So I said, I was very sorry but, as she knew better than I, you couldn't stop dirty dogs poking into smelly barns." She looked up, caught Diana's eye and laughed out loud. The room quivered.

  Eddie Staines, not too bright but with a well-developed sense of humour, grinned broadly. "That's good. Never heard it before. That why they call old man Barnes 'the dirty dog' then? God, struth!" He doubled up as Peter Barnes, without any warning, swung a booted foot and kicked him in the groin. "Ah, Jesus!" He backed away, clutching his balls.

  McLoughlin watched this little sally with amused detachment. "And presumably Dilys got lumbered with Smelly?" he said to Paddy.

  The big man grinned. "For a month or two, maybe. Far as I recall, Dirty Dog stuck to Tony longer than Smelly Barnes stuck to Dilys, but the damage was done. Takes herself too seriously, you see. When you're eaten up with frustrated ambition, there's no room for humour." His eyes rested on the bitter young face of the boy. "Respectability," he said with heavy irony, "it's a sickness with her. With this one, too. They won't be laughed at."

  And that, McLoughlin knew, was as far as Paddy could take him. He had been suspicious enough of Peter Barnes to set him up, but he had no proof that the lad had struck Anne any more than he had proof that Dilys initiated all the slander against Phoebe. "She's far too cunning," he had said that morning. "She's a type. Pathologically jealous. You come across them now and then. They're usually women, invariably inadequate and their spite is always directed against their own sex because that's the sex they're jealous of. They are completely vicious. As often as not, the target is their own daughter."

  "So why single out Mrs. Maybury?" McLoughlin had asked.

  "Because she was the first lady of Streech and you buggers dropped her in the shit. For ten years, Dilys has been wetting herself because she can look down on Mrs. Maybury of Streech Grange. God knows, she was never going to do it any other way."