McLoughlin gave another huge yawn. He couldn't control them. "It's the truth, sir," he said wearily. Why was he trying to protect himself? This morning he would have welcomed an excuse to go. Perhaps he just wanted to know the end of the story, or perhaps he wanted vengeance.
Walsh was deeply suspicious. "If I find there's something been going on between the two of you, you'll be up on a discipline charge so damned fast you'll wonder what happened. She's a suspect in a murder enquiry."
The dark face cracked into a grin. "Do me a favour, sir, she's been treating me like Vlad the Impaler since I called her a dyke." He yawned again. "But I appreciate the compliment. In view of the bashing it's taken in the past couple of weeks, it does my ego good that you think I can pull a reluctant bird after twenty-four hours. Kelly wouldn't agree with you," he finished bitterly.
Walsh grunted. "Was it you who hit her?"
McLoughlin didn't have to feign surprise. "Me? Why would I want to hit her?"
"To get even. You're in the mood for it."
He stared at Walsh for a moment, then shook his head. "That's not the way I'd choose," he said. "But if Jack Booth ever turns up with a hole in his head, that might be down to me."
The Inspector nodded. "So what was Miss Cattrell doing for the half hour you watched her?"
"She sat in that armchair, sir."
"And did what?"
"Nothing. I presume she was thinking."
"You say the Maybury woman made no bones about wanting to kill her husband. Would she kill her friend too?"
"Possibly. If she was angry enough. But what was her motive?"
"Revenge? Perhaps she thought Miss Cattrell had talked to us."
McLoughlin shook his head slowly. "I imagine she knows Miss Cattrell better than that."
"Mrs. Goode? The Phillipses? The children?"
"Same question, sir. What was the motive?"
Walsh stood up. "I suggest we start looking," he said acidly, "before we all end up on point-duty. A weapon would be helpful. I want this entire house turned upside down, Sergeant. You can lead the search till Nick Robinson gets here. He'll be my number two in this investigation." He looked at his watch. "You'll be concentrating on the Maybury file. Be in my office at ten tomorrow morning. There's a pattern to all of this and I want it found."
"With respect, sir, I believe I can make a more valuable contribution here."
"You'll do as you're told in future, Sergeant," the older man snapped angrily. "I'm not sure what your game is, but I don't like people who try to steal a march over me."
McLoughlin shrugged. "Then I urge you not to get too sold on a pattern, sir. Mrs. Maybury has told you what she thinks happened and, as I pointed out this morning, Mrs. Phillips describes this house as a fortress. Why?"
Walsh eyed him thoughtfully for a moment then walked to the door. "You're being conned by some very professional liars, lad. If you don't sharpen up, you're going to look very foolish indeed."
16
There was a new sense of urgency about police activities. They moved into top gear with alacrity, demonstrating all too clearly that there was another gear to move into. It was as if the attempted murder of a known woman was on a different scale from the murder of an anonymous male stiff in the garden. Anne would have found it disquieting, except that she was in a coma in Intensive Care and knew nothing about it. Walsh would have denied it vigorously, but his irascible temper flayed his men instead when, after a thorough search of the house and grounds, they failed to come up with anything.
In the press, Streech Grange was likened, quite inappropriately, to 10 Rillington Place, as a setting for mass murder and decomposing remains. To Anne's friends, the burden of their association with it was heavy. In retrospect, their previous interrogations had the relaxed air of a social gathering. After the assault on Anne, the gloves came off and they were grilled dry. Walsh was looking for a pattern. Logic told him there was one. The odds against three unconnected mysteries in one house were so incalculable as to be beyond consideration.
For the children, it was a new experience altogether. As yet none of them had been questioned and it came like a baptism of fire. Jonathan hated his sense of impotence, of being involved in something over which he had no control. He was surly and uncooperative and treated the police with a sort of weary disdain. Walsh wanted nothing so much as to kick him up the backside, but after two hours of questioning he was satisfied there was nothing more he could get out of him. Jonathan had vindicated the three youngsters of the assault on Anne. According to him, they had changed into their nightclothes after the impromptu Lafite party, wrapped themselves in duvets and curled up in Jane's room to watch the late film on her television. The shattering glass, followed by McLoughlin's shouts for help, had startled them. No, they had heard nothing before that, but then the television had been quite loud. Walsh questioned Elizabeth. She was nervous but helpful. When asked for her movements on the previous evening, her account tallied exactly with Jonathan's, down to the most trivial detail. Jane, after a day's respite, gave a similar story. Unless they were in some fantastic and well-organised conspiracy, they had had nothing to do with the attempt on Anne's life.
For Phoebe it was a case of deja vu. The only difference this time was that her interrogators now had information she had withheld from them ten years previously. She answered them with the same stolid patience she had shown before, annoyed them with her unshakable composure and refused to be drawn when they needled her on the subject of her husband's perversions.
"You say you blame yourself for not knowing what he was doing to your daughter," said Walsh on more than one occasion.
"Yes, I do," she answered. "If I had known earlier, perhaps I could have minimised the damage."
He got into the habit of leaning forward for the next question, waiting for the tell-tale flicker of weakening resolve. "Weren't you jealous, Mrs. Maybury? Didn't it madden you that your husband preferred sex with your daughter? Didn't you feel degraded?"
She always paused before she answered, as if she were about to agree with him. "No, Inspector," she would say. "I had no such feelings."
"But you've said you could easily have murdered him."
"Yes."
"Why did you want to murder him?"
She smiled faintly at this. "I should have thought it was obvious, Inspector. If I had to, I'd kill any animal I found savaging my children."
"Yet you say you didn't kill your husband."
"I didn't have to. He ran away."
"Did he come back?"
She laughed. "No, he didn't come back."
"Did you kill him and leave him to rot in the ice house?"
"No."
"It would have been a sort of justice, wouldn't it?"
"It certainly would."
"The Phillipses, or should I say Jeffersons, believe in that kind of justice, don't they? Did they do it for you, Mrs. Maybury? Are they your avenging arm?"
It was always at this point that Phoebe's anger threatened to spill over. The first time he put the question it had come like a blow to the solar plexus. Afterwards, she was better prepared, though it still required iron self-control to keep from tearing and gouging at his hated face. "I suggest you ask Mr. and Mrs. Phillips that," she always said. "I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to answer anything on their behalf."
"I'm asking you for an opinion, Mrs. Maybury. Are they capable of exacting vengeance for you and your daughter?"
A pitying smile would curl her lips. "No, Inspector."
"Was it you who struck down Miss Cattrell? You say you were in bed, but we only have your word for it. Was she going to reveal something you didn't want revealed?"
"Who was she going to reveal it to? The police?"
"Perhaps."
"You're such a fool, Inspector." She smiled humourlessly. "I've told you what I think happened to Anne."
"Guesswork, Mrs. Maybury."