Free The Ice House by Minette Walters Page A

Were they wrong? Was it not Phoebe, after all, who was the more vulnerable?
    "You're tired, old thing," she said calmly, putting her arm through the other woman's. "Let's go to bed and sleep on it."
    Phoebe's head drooped wearily. "I've got such'a bloody awful headache."
    "Hardly surprising in the circumstances. Take some aspirin. You'll be a new woman in the morning."
    They walked arm in arm down the corridor. "Did they ask you about Fred and Molly?" queried Phoebe suddenly.
    "A bit."
    "Oh, lord."
    "Don't worry about it." They had reached the stairs. Diana gave her a kiss and released her. "Walsh also asked me to describe the ice house," she said with reluctance.
    "I told you he was dangerous," said Phoebe, walking up the stairs.
    Diana's footsteps were loud in the silence. The phrase "quiet as the grave" came to haunt her as she took off her shoes and tip-toed along the corridor. She eased Anne's door open and looked round it. Anne was at the desk, working at her word-processor. Diana whistled quietly to attract her attention, then pointed at the ceiling. Together they crept up the stairs to Anne's bedroom.
    Anne followed her in, eyes alight with mischief and laughter. "My God, Di, this is so unlike you. You're always such a stickler for appearances. You do realise the place is still crawling with filth?"
    "Don't be an idiot. It's not a game this time, so just shut up and listen."
    She pushed Anne on to the bed and perched, cross-legged, beside her. As she spoke, her hands worked nervously, kneading and pummelling the softness of the duvet.

7
    The curtain was drawn aside and Phoebe Maybury appeared at the window. She stared out for a moment, her hair a fiery red where the lamplight caught it from behind, her eyes huge in her strained white face. Looking at her, George Walsh wondered what emotions had stirred her. Fear? Guilt? Madness even? There was something amiss in those staring eyes. She was so close he could have touched her. He held his breath. She reached out, caught the handle and pulled the window to. The curtain fell back into place and moments later the light was switched off. The murmur of Phoebe's and Diana's voices continued in the kitchen, but their words were no longer audible.
    Walsh beckoned to McLoughlin, whom he could dimly see, and led the way on soft feet across the terrace and on to the grass. He had been keeping a wary eye on the lighted windows of Anne's wing where her silhouette, seated at her desk, showed up strongly against the curtains. She had changed position frequently in the last half hour, but had not moved from her seat. Walsh was as sure as he could be that his and McLoughlin's short spell of eavesdropping had been unobserved.
    They set off silently in the direction of the ice house, McLoughlin lighting their way with a torch which he kept shaded with one hand. When Walsh judged them far enough away from the house to be unheard, he stopped and turned to his colleague. "What did you make of that, Andy?"
    "I'd say we just heard the clearest admission of guilt we're ever likely to hear," the other threw out.
    "Hm." Walsh chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. "I wonder. What was it she said?"
    "She admitted to relief at having got rid of her husband so easily." He shrugged. "Seems clear enough to me."
    Walsh started to walk again. "It wouldn't stand up in a court of law for a minute," he mused. "But it's interesting, definitely interesting." He came to an abrupt halt. "I think she's cracking at long last. I got the impression that Mrs. Goode certainly thinks so. What's her part in this? She can't have been involved in Maybury's disappearance. We had her thoroughly checked and there's no doubt she was in America at the time."
    "Accessory after the fact? She and the Cattrell woman have known Mrs. Maybury did it but have kept quiet for the sake of the children." He shrugged again. "Bar that, she seems straight enough. She doesn't know much about the ice house, that's for sure."
    "Unless she's