"What did she do?"
"Piled shit on shit, of course. People were ready to believe anything after you lot left, and murder was the least of the garbage Dilys fed them."
"What a sewer you live in, Paddy." McLoughlin spoke quietly, his voice level.
The big man surprised him. "If it is, it's Phoebe's fault," he had observed. "She's the focus for it all. Whatever the rights and wrongs, any normal woman would have sold up and moved on. The Grange isn't worth the price she's had to pay for it."
No, McLoughlin thought, Paddy was wrong about that. The Grange was worth whatever Phoebe had to pay, and she would go on paying because it was cheap at the price. The real cost was being borne by the people who loved her. He glanced across at her with a sudden irritation. God damn the woman! People loved her or hated her. The one thing no one seemed to feel was indifference.
"OK," he said abruptly into the silence, "you"—he jerked a finger at Eddie Staines—"are going to listen to a few home truths. You're not the brightest thing on two legs but you have to be brighter than this dickhead here." He scowled at Barnes, then held up a finger. "Number one, Eddie. Mrs. Maybury did not murder her parents. Colonel and Mrs. Gallagher died because their brakes didn't work, and their brakes didn't work because K.C. hadn't serviced the car properly. Had he done so, he would have found the corroded brake hose. Got that?"
"Yeah, but who corroded it?" asked Eddie triumphantly. "That's the question."
"Read the coroner's report," said McLoughlin wearily. "Colonel Gallagher took the car to K.C. because the brakes felt soft. He wrote a note to that effect and the note, in his handwriting, is in the file. K.C. ignored it." He held up a second finger. "Number two. Mr. David Maybury walked out of this house alive ten years ago. No one murdered him. He legged it because he had finally run through all of Mrs. Maybury's money and he didn't fancy working for his living."
"So who's arguing? Saw the bugger myself three months ago. Mind you, he's dead now." Eddie glared at Phoebe. "Hell of a way to get your own back, lady."
McLoughlin held up a third finger. "Number three, Eddie. That man wasn't David Maybury."
He looked sceptical. "Oh, yeah?"
"Oh, yeah. It was K.C. And it's not a matter for debate. It is a matter of proven fact."
There was a long silence. Very slowly, recognition dawned. "Hell, happen it was, too. Knew I knew him. But that Inspector of yours was damn sure it was Maybury."
Paddy snorted. "The only people who are ever damn sure of anything are idiots and politicians. Same difference, some would say."
They could almost follow Eddie's thought processes in the contortions of his face. "Still, I don't see it makes much difference. We're back to square one. If it was K.C. she did in this time, then stands to reason she did her old man in ten years ago. The only proof you thought she didn't was that I thought the old guy was him. You follow me?"
"I follow you," McLoughlin told him. "But the whole thing stinks. Didn't it occur to you that if it was Maybury this time, then you've been beating up on an innocent woman for ten years?"
"There was her parents—" He broke off as his brain caught up with his mouth. "Yeah, well, as I say, we're back to square one now."
"Anything but. Mrs. Maybury didn't kill K.C., Eddie. You did."
"Cobblers!"
"He wasn't murdered. He died of cold, starvation and self-neglect. You were the last person to see him alive. If you'd offered him a hand he wouldn't be dead now. He needed help, and you didn't give it to him."
"Now listen here, mister. You trying to set me up or something? The Inspector said he was stabbed in the gut."
Between the Scylla of Barnes and the Charybdis of Walsh, was it any wonder, thought McLoughlin, that Phoebe had retreated into her fortress? Without a twinge of regret, he rode roughshod over Walsh's thirty years on the Force. "The Inspector greased a few palms and was over-promoted," he said bluntly. "It happens in the police just as it happens everywhere else. They'll give him early retirement as a result of this cockup and get shot of him."
"Jesus!" said Eddie, impressed by so much honesty from a policeman.
"You cretin," muttered Peter Barnes. "He's running bloody rings round you."
McLoughlin ignored him. "Number four, Eddie," he went on. "When you and the scum you associate with come up here for a spot of queer-bashing, you miss the mark. There are no queers living in Streech Grange. Who told you there were?"
"It's common knowledge." Eddie looked uncomfortable. "The three dykes. The three witches. They're always called one or the other." He darted a quick glance at Peter Barnes. "Me, I'm not into queer-bashing."
"I see." McLoughlin transferred his attention to Barnes. "So it's you who's not keen on queers." He yawned suddenly and rubbed his eyes. "What happened? Someone try it on at that school you went to?" He saw the sudden pinching round the boy's nostrils and his brooding face cracked into a grin. "Don't tell me you enjoyed it, and now you're busting a gut to prove you didn't."
"Fucking perverts," the boy blurted out. "They make me sick." He spat at Phoebe. "Fucking perverts. They should be locked up." A well of loathing seemed to overflow. "I hate them."
Something malignant stirred in the depths of McLoughlin's dark eyes. He took a lightning step forward and clamped his hand across Barnes's mouth, digging his fingers and thumb into the soft flesh of the cheeks and forcing the boy up on to the balls of his feet. "I find you extremely offensive," he said softly. "You're a moronic little psychopath and in my book it's the likes of you who should be locked up, not the likes of Oscar Wilde. The only contribution you will ever make to society will be a negative one when you pass your prejudices and your miserably inadequate IQ to a succeeding generation." He levered Barnes up another inch. "In addition it makes me very angry to hear these women referred to as perverts. Do you understand me?"
Barnes tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat. McLoughlin dug his fingers deeper and Barnes nodded vigorously.
"Good," McLoughlin unlocked his fingers and pushed him away with the heel of his hand. He favoured Staines with a friendly smile. "I hope you can see where all this is leading, Eddie. You do realise I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. I am assuming you genuinely believed these people were guilty of something."
Eddie's good-humoured face puckered in worried concentration. "Listen, mister, I just came along to see justice done. I swear to God that's all I came for. We got the call you were letting her off again. This queer-bashing stuff, that's Peter's kick." He flicked a shy look at Phoebe and Diana. "Jesus, it doesn't make sense anyway. If you're not queer, why do you go along with it?"
Diana rolled her eyes to Heaven. "Do you know, I've often wondered that myself." She turned to Phoebe. "I've forgotten, old thing, why do we go along with it?"
Phoebe's rich laugh tumbled from her mouth. "Don't be such a fool." She looked at Eddie and raised her hands helplessly. "We've never had a choice. Hardly anyone ever speaks to us. Those who do, know all about us. Those who don't, assume whatever they want to assume. You have assumed we're gay." Her eyes laughed softly. "Bar copulating naked by the village pond with a series of men, I don't see how we could ever prove we weren't. In any case, would you have thought any better of us if you'd known we preferred men?"
"Yeah," said Eddie with an appreciative wink. "I bloody well would. Mind you," he continued thoughtfully, "none of this explains what happened to your old man. If the only reason he legged it was because the money'd dried up why didn't he get you off the hook when he read what was happening to you? It only needed a phone call to the police."
There was an awkward silence.
"You talk as if the man had a clear conscience," said McLoughlin at last. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the colour drain from Jonathan's set face. Dammit, he thought. Whichever way you turned, you were always caught between the rock and the hard place. "It's sub judice, Eddie, which is why we've never released details. But I can tell you this, the minute the man resurfaces he will be prosec
uted." He shrugged. "For the moment you'll just have to take my word that it suits his book if everyone thinks he's dead. He was a villain. We'll find him one day."
Even Paddy looked impressed.
"Jesus!" said Eddie again. "Je-sus!" He scrunched his foot on some broken glass. "Listen, lady," he offered, "about these windows." He gestured to the youths behind him. "We'll clear up and put some new ones in. It's only fair."
"You can do better than that, Eddie," said McLoughlin pleasantly. "It's names we want. Let's start with who attacked Miss Cattrell?"
Eddie shook his head with genuine regret. "I can guess, same as you can, but if it's proof you need, then I can't help you. Like I said, queer-bashing doesn't turn me on." He indicated one of his mates. "Me and Bob took a couple of birds to the flicks that night. I don't know about the rest of them."
A chorus of denials greeted this statement.
"Not me. I was watching telly with my folks."
"Jesus, Eddie, I was round your sister's place. You bloody know that."
"Fuck that. I only heard about it the next morning, same as you."
Above their heads, McLoughlin caught Paddy's eye and saw his own disappointment mirrored there. The truth had an unmistakable ring about it. "And what about you?" he asked Peter Barnes, knowing the little bastard would get away with it. "Where were you?"
Barnes grinned. "I was with my mother all evening until half-past midnight. Then I went to bed. She'll sign a statement if you ask her nicely." He raised his middle finger and jabbed it in the air at Paddy. "That's to you and your beggar crap, shithead." He giggled and crooked his arm over his other fist, thrusting the finger skyward. "And that's to your pathetic little setup. What a joke. It was so fucking transparent, a blind man could have seen through it. You think I haven't creepy-crawled this place, seen the tame fuzz they've got watching over them?" He giggled again.
Alarm bells rang in McLoughlin's head. What the hell sort of psychopath was this boy? A Charles Manson freak? Je-sus! "Creepy-crawled," he knew, was an expression the Charles Manson Family had used to describe the way they had entered Sharon Tale's house before they murdered her. "So what brought you up here?" he asked, loosing some handcuffs from his jacket pocket. "Gives you a buzz, does it, being arrested?"
"It sure as hell gives me a buzz to see you cretins screw up. That's got to be worth a slapped wrist and a fine any day. Hell, it was a bit of high spirits. Dad'll ante-up for the damage."
There was a moment of silence before Jonathan's cool voice spoke from the shattered window. "That seems reasonable," he said, "in return, I'll ante-up for the damage I'm going to do to you."
It was the element of surprise that held everyone frozen. Like a slow motion sequence they watched him cross the room, release the safety catch on his mother's shotgun, shove the barrel between Barnes's legs and pull the trigger. The explosion left them deaf. Through a dense cloud of dust they saw, rather than heard, the screams that issued from the boy's writhing mouth. They watched the pool of liquid collect on the floor at his feet.
McLoughlin, stunned, tried to intervene, only to find a pair of thick arms clamped around his chest, holding him back. "Jon!" he yelled, his voice muffled by the ringing echoes in his ears. "For God's sake! He's not worth it!"
"Leave him be, sir." It was Fred's voice. "He's waited a long time for this."
Shocked beyond belief, McLoughlin watched Jonathan Maybury drive Peter Barnes against the wall and ram the shotgun into the boy's screaming mouth.
Chapter 25
Gap-toothed where the windows yawned, its finery ruffled by birdshot, the old house slumbered on, a silent witness to many worse things in its four-hundred-year history. Within half an hour, three patrol cars had arrived to ferry the culprits to the Station with PC Gavin Williams in firm but reluctant charge. "It's down to you, Sarge," he protested. "You should be taking them in."
"Nn-nn. They're all yours. I've some unfinished business here."
"What do I do about Maybury, Sarge?"
McLoughlin folded his arms and didn't say anything.
"Barnes is bound to mention it."
"Let him."
"Shouldn't we charge Maybury?"
"What with? Accidental discharge of a licenced firearm?"
"You'll never get away with that. Eddie, for one, knows it wasn't an accident."
McLoughlin was amused. "I think you'll find Eddie's somewhat disenchanted with Peter Barnes. Apart from anything else, he doesn't take kindly to being set up as a fall-guy for Barnes's warped sense of humour. He tells me he and his mates were looking the other way when the accident happened."
Williams looked worried. "What do I say?"
"That's up to you, Gavin. I can't help you I'm afraid. When the gun went off, I had my back turned, taking down the names and addresses of the intruders. After that I couldn't see anything for dust."
"Hell, Sarge!"
"I thought you were taking down the names and addresses of all the witnesses to the vandalism. It's standard police procedure in incidents of this sort."
The constable pulled a wry face. "And how do you explain Barnes's confession? I mean if it was just an accident why would he want to stitch himself up? Jesus, Sarge, he was so bloody terrified, he was pissing all over the floor."
McLoughlin clapped him amiably on the shoulder. "Is that right, Gavin? I couldn't see a damn thing because of the dust in my eyes. So don't ask me what loosened his tongue, because I couldn't tell you, unless it was the shock of the gun going off. Explosions react on people in different ways. Left me temporarily blinded but with my ears working overtime. Some sort of compensation effect, I imagine. Couldn't see worth a damn, but I heard every word the little weasel said."
Williams shook his head. "I was in a blue funk. I thought the doctor shot his balls off."
So did I, thought McLoughlin. So did I. And so it seemed had Peter Barnes. Swept back by the violence of Jonathan's assault and numbed by the blast of the shotgun between his legs which had discharged itself harmlessly into Phoebe's drawing-room wall, he had burst into tears of self-pity as Jonathan rammed the barrel against his teeth and threatened to pull the second trigger. "I didn't mean to do it," he babbled. "I was creepy-crawling the house. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to do it," he screamed. "She came back. The silly bitch came back. I had to hit her."
Jonathan's finger whitened on the trigger. "Now tell me about nine years ago."
"Oh, God, help me! Somebody help me!" The front of his trousers was saturated with urine.
"TELL ME!" roared Jonathan, his face white and drawn with rage. "Someone ransacked this house. WHO WAS IT?"
"It was my dad," the boy screamed, sobbing convulsively. "He got drunk with some friends." His eyes widened alarmingly as Jonathan started to squeeze the trigger. "It's not my fault. Mum's always giggling about it. It's not my fault. It was my dad." His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed on the floor.
Jonathan lowered the gun and looked across at McLoughlin. "We never knew who it was. Mum, Jane and I locked ourselves in the cellar and waited till they'd gone. I have never been so frightened in my life. We could hear them shouting and breaking all the furniture. I thought they were going to kill us." He shook his head and looked down at the twitching boy. "I swore I'd make them pay if I ever found out who they were. They used the house as a toilet and wrote 'Murdering Bitch' all over the walls in tomato ketchup. I was only eleven. I thought it was blood." His jaw tightened.
McLoughlin shook off Fred's bear hug and started to slap the dust out of his clothes. "That was a hell of a close shave, Jon. What happened, for God's sake? Did you trip on some broken glass or something?"
"That's it, Sergeant," said Fred impassively. "I was watching. Could have been quite nasty if young Jon hadn't kept his wits about him."
"Yes, well, do something with the flaming thing before it goes off again." He watched Fred take the gun, break it open and remove the second cartridge. "Oh, for Christ's sake, Barnes, get up an
d stop belly-aching. You're damn lucky Dr. Maybury had the good sense to keep the barrel down." He hauled him to his feet and snapped on the handcuffs. "You're under arrest. Constable Williams will read you your rights."
The boy was still sobbing. "He tried to kill me."
"There's gratitude for you," said Paddy, shaking plaster from his hair. "Jon nearly blows his own foot off to protect the little scum and all he can do is accuse him." He looked at Jonathan's stricken face, saw the obvious danger signals, and glanced across at Fred with a Gary Lineker finger to eye gesture.
Calmly Fred took the boy's arm and steered him towards the door into the hall. "I suggest we check on the rest of the house, sir. I don't like the idea of Miss Cattrell alone upstairs." He closed the door firmly behind them.
Half an hour, thought McLoughlin, and it seemed more like a year. He smoothed the stubble on his jaw and stared thoughtfully at the young constable. "I can't help you, Gavin. You're a good copper and it's not my place to tell you what to do. You must make your own decision."
The young man glanced through the drawing-room door where Fred was helping Phoebe restore order. "I agreed to do the patrols with you because of him and the old lady really. They're decent folks. Seemed wrong to abandon them to yobbos."
"I agree," said McLoughlin dryly.
He frowned. "If you want my opinion, the Chief Inspector's got some explaining to do on this one. You should hear what Molly has to say about when she and Fred first came here. The house had been totally vandalised. Mrs. Maybury and the two kids were living in one bedroom which Miss Cattrell and the lad, Jonathan, had managed to clean up. According to Molly, Mrs. Maybury and Jane were so shell-shocked by the whole thing they didn't know if they were coming or going. Molly says you could still smell the piss even after three months, and the mould on the tomato ketchup had started to grow inwards, into the walls. It took them weeks to scrub the place clean. What's the Chief got against them, Sarge? Why wouldn't he believe them?"
Because, thought McLoughlin, he couldn't afford to. It was Walsh himself who, all those years ago, had created the climate of hate in which this woman and her two young children could be terrorised. For him, and for whatever reason, Phoebe had always been guilty, and his prolonged and hostile hounding of her had led inevitably to others meting out justice when he failed to prove it himself. "He's a small man, Gavin," was all he said.
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