"No, that's all right, Molly. I'm sure they'll behave themselves."
"If you say so, madam. Me, I'm not so sure. They've already scuffed their great clumsy feet over the gravel where Fred raked it so careful this morning." She glared accusingly at the two men.
"Thank you, Molly. Perhaps you could make tea for everyone. I'm sure it will be welcome."
"Right you are, madam." The housekeeper closed the door behind her and stomped off down the corridor towards the kitchen.
George Walsh listened till her footsteps died away, then he came forward and held out his hand. He was a thin stooping man who had a bizarre habit of jerking his head from side to side, like a sufferer from Parkinson's disease. It gave him an appearance of vulnerability that was deceptive.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Maybury. We've met before, if you remember." He could recall her vividly as she had been that first time, standing where she was now. Ten years, he thought, and she had hardly changed, still the lady of the manor, remote and aloof in the security of her position. The dramas of those years might never have been. There was certainly no evidence in the calm, unlined face which smiled at him now. There was a quality of stillness about her that was unnatural. The village called her a witch, and he had always understood why.
Phoebe shook his hand. "Yes, I do remember. It was your first big case." Her voice was low-pitched, attractive. "You had just been made Detective Inspector, I think. I don't believe you've met my friends, Miss Cattrell and Mrs. Goode." She gestured to Anne and Diana who shook hands solemnly in turn with the Chief Inspector. "They live here now."
Walsh studied the two women with interest. "Permanently?" he asked.
"Most of the time," said Diana, "when our work doesn't take us away. We're both self-employed. I'm an interior designer, Anne's a freelance journalist."
Walsh nodded, but Anne could see that Diana had told him nothing he didn't already know. "I envy you." He spoke the truth. He had coveted Streech Grange since the first time he had seen it.
Phoebe put out her hand to the other man. "Good afternoon, Sergeant McLoughlin. May I introduce Mrs. Goode and Miss Cattrell."
He was in his mid thirties, of an age with the women, a dark, brooding man with cold eyes. In the twist of his lips, he had brought with him the irritability of the Police Station, concentrated, malignant. He regarded Phoebe and her friends with weary contempt and paid lip-service to etiquette by brushing their fingers with his in the briefest of exchanges. His dislike, uncalled-for, slapped against their unprotected cheeks.
To the consternation of her friends, who could feel the vibrations of her anger, Anne rose recklessly to the challenge. "My, my, Sergeant, what have you been hearing about us?" She lifted a sardonic eyebrow then deliberately wiped her fingers down her Levis. "You're scarcely off your mother's breast, so won't have been around the last time the Grange was the centre of police attention. Let me guess now. Our reputation-" she indicated herself and the other two women-"has preceded us. Which of our widely talked-about activities upsets you the most, I wonder? Child abuse, witchcraft or lesbianism?" She searched his face with scornful eyes. "Lesbianism," she murmured. "Yes, you would find that the most threatening but, then, it's the only one that's true, isn't it?"
McLoughlin's temper, already fired by the heat of the day, nearly erupted. He breathed deeply. "I've nothing against dykes, Miss Cattrell," he said evenly. "I just wouldn't stick my finger in one, that's all."
Diana stubbed out her cigarette with rather more violence than was necessary. "Don't tease the poor man, Anne," she said dryly. "He's going to need all his wits to sort out the mess in the ice house."
Stiffly, Phoebe took the seat nearest her and gestured the others to sit down. Walsh sat in the chair opposite her, Anne and Diana on the sofa, leaving McLoughlin to perch on a delicate tapestry stool. His discomfort, as he folded his long legs awkwardly beneath him, was obvious to all.
"Take care you don't break that, Sergeant," snapped Walsh. "I don't like clumsiness any more than the housekeeper does. Well now, Mrs. Maybury, perhaps you'd like to tell us why you called us out."
"I thought Mrs. Goode explained it on the telephone."
He fished a piece of paper from his pocket. " 'Body in ice house, Streech Grange. Discovered at 4:35 p.m.' Not much of an explanation, is it? Tell me what happened."
"That's it, really. Fred Phillips, my gardener, found the body about that time and came and told us. Diana phoned you while Fred took Anne and me to look at it."
"So you've seen it?"
"Yes."
"Who is it? Do you know?"
"The body's unrecognisable."
With an abrupt movement, Anne lit another cigarette. "It's putrid, Inspector, black, disgusting. No one would know who it was." She spoke impatiently, her deep voice clipping the words short.
Walsh nodded. "I see. Did your gardener suggest you look at the body?"
Phoebe shook her head. "No, he suggested I shouldn't. I insisted on going."
"Why?"
She shrugged. "Natural curiosity, I suppose. Wouldn't you have gone?"
He was silent for a moment. "Is it your husband, Mrs. Maybury?"
"I've already told you the body is unrecognisable."
"Did you insist on going because you thought it might be your husband?"
"Of course. But I've realised since it couldn't possibly be."
"Why is that?"
"It was something Fred said. He reminded me that we stored some bricks in the ice house about six years ago when we demolished an old outhouse. David had been gone four years by that time."
"His body was never found. We never traced him," Walsh reminded her. "Perhaps he came back."
Diana laughed nervously. "He couldn't come back, Inspector. He's dead. Murdered."
"How do you know, Mrs. Goode?"
"Because he'd have been back long before this if he wasn't. David always knew which side his bread was buttered."
Walsh crossed his legs and smiled. "The case is still open. We've never been able to prove he was murdered."
Diana's face was suddenly grim. "Because you concentrated all your energies on trying to pin the murder on Phoebe. You gave up when you couldn't prove it. You never made any attempt to ask me for a list of suspects. I could have given you a hundred likely names; Anne could have given you another hundred. David Maybury was the most out-and-out bastard who ever lived. He deserved to die." She wondered if she had overdone it and glanced briefly at Phoebe. "Sorry, love, but if more people had said it ten years ago, things might have been less hard for you."
Anne nodded agreement. "You'll waste a lot of time if you think that thing out there is David Maybury." She stood up and walked over to sit on the arm of Phoebe's chair. "For the record, Inspector, both Diana and I helped clear years of accumulated rubbish out of the ice house before Fred stacked the bricks in it. There were no corpses in there six years ago. Isn't that right, Di?"
Diana looked amused and inclined her head. "It wouldn't have been the place to look for him, anyway. He's at the bottom of the sea somewhere, food for crabs and lobsters." She looked at McLoughlin. "Are you partial to crabs, Sergeant?"
Walsh intervened before McLoughlin could say anything. "We followed up every known contact or associate Mr. Maybury had. There was no evidence to connect any of them with his disappearance."
Anne tossed her cigarette into the fireplace. "Balls!" she exclaimed amiably. "I'll tell you something, you never questioned me either and in my list of a hundred possible suspects I should have featured in the top ten."
"You're quite mistaken, Miss Cattrell." Inspector Walsh was unruffled. "We went into your background very thoroughly. At the time of Mr. Maybury's disappearance, in fact throughout most of our investigation, you were camped with your lady friends on Greenham Common under the eyes not only of the guards at the American Air Force base but also of the Newbury police and assorted television cameras. It was quite an alibi."