"No," said Diana tiredly, staring at her hands, "it wasn't a con. I invested in a business he was running, all very legitimate and above board, but the bloody thing's gone bust and my money with it. Looking back, I must have been mad but it seemed like such a good idea at the time. It could have revolutionised interior design if it'd taken off."
"Why on earth didn't you talk to us about it?"
"I would have done but it came up during that week in January when you were both away and I was holding the fort here. Another backer pulled out at the last minute and I had twenty-four hours to make up my mind. By the time you got back I'd rather forgotten about it, then things started to turn sour and I decided to keep mum. I wouldn't be telling you now if the police hadn't found out about it."
"What business was it?"
Diana groaned. "You'll laugh."
"No, we won't."
She gave them a ferocious glare. "I'll throttle you if you do."
"We won't."
"See-through radiators," she said.
The watcher in the garden was masturbating in an ecstasy of voyeuristic thrill. How many times had he spied on these cunts, preyed on them, seen them nude. Once he had creepy-crawled the house. His hand moved in mounting frenzy until, with convulsive shudders, he climaxed into his handkerchief. He held the sodden cloth to his face to muffle his giggles.
"I'm off to bed," said Anne, putting her glass on a tray with the exaggerated care of the tipsy. "Apart from anything else, I'm pissed. I happily volunteer to wash up in the morning, but tonight I'm off games. I'd break the lot," she explained owlishly.
"Have you eaten anything this evening, Miss Cattrell?" scolded Molly.
"Not a thing."
Molly muttered angrily. "I'll have words with that Inspector in the morning. What a way to treat people."
Anne paused on her way to the door. "They brought me a corned beef sandwich," she said, scrupulously fair. "I didn't fancy it. There's something about corned beef." She thought for a moment. "It's the texture. Moist but crumbly. Reminds me of dog shit." With a wave, she departed.
Diana, who was watching Molly's face, held her glass in front of her mouth to hide her smile. Even after eight years of Anne's careless bombardment, Molly's sensibilities were still so easily shocked.
Anne drank a pint of water in the kitchen, took a banana from the fruit bowl and wandered, eating it, through the hall and down the corridor. She switched on the lights in her sitting-room and collapsed gratefully into an armchair, tossing the banana skin into the waste-paper basket… She sat for some time, her weary brain in neutral, while the water slowly diluted the effects of the alcohol. After half an hour she began to feel better.
What a day! She had been shitting bricks at the Police Station, wondering if Jon had picked up her hint, and she thought now that she had probably panicked unnecessarily. Could McLoughlin be that sharp? Surely not. The room had been searched by experts-two, three years ago- when Special Branch suspected her of having a leaked MOD document in her possession. They had found the safe but not the secret cache behind it. She rubbed her eyes. Jon had whispered to her that he'd put the envelope somewhere outside where it would never be found. If that were true, she was tempted to let it stay there, wherever "there" was. She hadn't asked for details. She ran hot and cold every time she thought of the contents of that envelope. God, she was a fool, but, at the time, a photographic record of that terrible brick tomb had made sense. She beat her fist against her head. Supposing Jon had opened it? But he hadn't, she told herself firmly. She could tell by the look in his eyes that he hadn't. But if he had? She thrust the thought away angrily.
McLoughlin held a fretful fascination for her. She kept going back to him, worrying at him, like a tongue against a loosening tooth. That business in front of the mantelpiece? Was it all a blind to cover his interest in the safe? She had looked into his face and seen only a deep, deep hurt, but an expression was only an expression, after all. She rubbed her eyes again. If only, she thought, if only, if only-There was a scream inside her, a scream that was as vast and as silent as the vast silence of space. Was her life always to be a series of if onlys?
There was a sharp tap on her French window.
She was so startled she flung her arm out and knocked her wrist on the occasional table beside her. She swung round, massaging the bruise, eyes straining into the night's blackness. A face was pressed against the window, eyes shielded from the bright glare of her lamps by a cupped hand. Fear flooded her mouth with sickly bile and the remembered stench of urine swamped her nostrils.
"Did I frighten you?" asked McLoughlin, easing open the unlocked window when she didn't get up.
"You gave me a shock."
"I'm sorry." Some shock, he thought.
"Why didn't you come to the front door?" Even her lips were bloodless.
"I didn't want to disturb Mrs. Maybury." He closed the glass doors behind him. "The light's on in her bedroom. She'd have to have come downstairs to let me in."
"We've each got a front doorbell. If you press the one with my name on, I'm the only one who hears it." But he knew that already, didn't he?
"Can I sit down?"
"No," she said sharply. He shrugged and walked towards the fireplace. "All right, yes, sit down. What are you doing here?"
He didn't sit down. "I wanted to talk to you."
"What about?"
"Anything. Eternity. Rabbie Burns. Safes." He paused. "Why are you so frightened of me?"
He wouldn't have believed she had any more blood to lose from her face. She didn't answer. He gestured towards the mantelpiece. "May I?" He took her silence for permission and slid back the oak panelling. "Someone's been here before me," he said conversationally. "You?" He looked at her. "No, not you. Someone else." He grasped the chrome handle and gave a strong pull. Too strong. Jonathan had forgotten to snap home the catches and the safe came out in a rush, sending McLoughlin staggering backwards. With a small laugh he lowered it to the floor and peered into the empty hole. "Are you going to tell me what was in here?"
"No."
"Or who removed whatever it was?"
"No."
He ran his fingers down the side of the safe and located the spring catches. "Very neat." He swung it back into position and shoved it home. "But you've been taking it in and out far more often than it was ever designed for. You're wearing away the ledge." He pointed to the bottom of the door. "It isn't parallel with the mantelpiece any more. It should be resting on a concrete lintel. Bricks are no good, they're too soft, too easily crumbled." He slid the oak panelling into place and folded himself into the chair opposite her. "One of Mrs. Maybury's building efforts?" he suggested.
She ignored that. "How did you know it wasn't the mantelpiece that was out of true?" Some of the colour had trickled back into her lips.
"I didn't, not until I opened the panel just now, but whoever's been at it in the meantime put it back even more carelessly than you did. Judging by the unsecured catches, they were presumably in a hurry. What was in there?"
"Nothing. You're imagining things." They sat in silence looking at each other. "Well?" demanded Anne finally.
"Well what?"
"What are you planning to do about it?"
"Oh, I don't know. Find out who cleaned it out, I suppose, and ask them a few questions. It shouldn't be too hard. The field isn't very wide, is it?"
"You'll end up with egg on your face," she said tartly. "The Inspector phoned through for a constable to be in here all the time I was away." He liked her better when she fought back. "So in that case, how could anyone have tampered with the safe? It must have dropped of its own accord."
"That explains the hurry," was all he said. He sank deeper into his chair and rested his chin on steepled fingers.
"I've nothing to tell you. You're wasting your time."