Free The Ice House by Minette Walters Page B

bluffing." He pondered for a few minutes. "Doesn't it seem odd to you that she can have lived here for eight years and not have seen inside that place?"
    The moon came out from behind a cloud and lit their way with a cold grey lustre. McLoughlin switched off the torch. "Perhaps she didn't fancy it," he observed with grim humour. "Perhaps she knew what was in there."
    This remark brought Walsh up short again. "Well, well," he murmured, "I wonder if that's it. It makes sense. No one's going to poke around in a place where they know there's a dead body. They're a hard-bitten trio. I can't see any of them going out of her way to do what's morally right. They'd harbour a corpse quite happily, provided it was out of sight. What do you think?"
    His Sergeant scowled. "Women are a closed book to me, sir. I wouldn't even pretend to understand them."
    Walsh chuckled. "Kelly been playing you up again?"
    The laugh pierced McLoughlin's brain, scintillating and sharp as a needle. He turned away and thrust his hands and the torch deep into the pockets of his bomber jacket.
Tempt me
, he thought,
just tempt me.
"We've had a row. Nothing serious."
    Walsh, who knew enough of McLoughlin's prolonged marital problems to be sympathetic, grunted. "Funnily enough, I saw her a couple of days ago with Jack Booth. She was swinging along without a care in the world, never seen her so cheerful. She's not pregnant, I suppose? She had a real bloom on her."
    The bastard should have hit him. It would have hurt less. "That's probably because she's gone to live with Jack," he said casually. "She left last week." Now laugh, you sod, laugh, laugh, laugh, and give me an excuse to smash your face in.
    Walsh, at a loss, gave McLoughlin's arm an awkward pat. He understood now why the lad had been so touchy the last few days. To lose your wife was bad enough, to lose her to your closest friend was a belter. My God! Jack Booth, of all people! He'd been best man at their wedding. Well, well. It explained a good deal. Why McLoughlin walked alone these days. Why Jack had suddenly decided to leave the force to work for a security firm in Southampton. "I had no idea. I'm sorry."
    "It's no big deal, sir. It was all very amicable. No hard feelings on either side."
    He was very cool about it. "Perhaps it's a temporary infatuation," Walsh suggested lamely. "Perhaps she'll come back when she's got over it."
    McLoughlin's teeth gleamed white inside his grin, but the night hid the black rage in his eyes. "Do me a favour, sir, that's about the last thing I want to hear. God knows we never had much to say to each other before she went What the hell would we talk about if she came back?" Jesus, he wanted to hit someone. Did they all know? Were they all laughing? He would kill the first person who laughed.
    He quickened his pace. "Thank God we didn't have children. This way, no one loses."
    Walsh, following a few steps behind, pondered the capriciousness of human nature. He could recall a conversation he had had with McLoughlin only months before when the younger man had blamed his marital problems on the fact that he and Kelly had no children. She was bored, he claimed, found her job as a secretary unsatisfying, needed a baby to keep her occupied. Walsh had wisely kept silent, knowing from experience with his daughter that advice on domestic disputes was rarely appreciated, but he had hoped quite fervently that Fate would intervene to prevent some wretched baby being born to keep this ill-matched couple occupied. His own daughter's first pregnancy at the age of sixteen when she was still at school and unmarried had been a shock to him, but the greater shock was to discover that his wife and daughter had never really liked each other. His daughter blamed two disastrous marriages and four children on her restless seeking after love; while his wife blamed their daughter for her wasted opportunities and lack of self-esteem. George tried to make up for past failings by taking an interest