She shook McLoughlin's hand from her shoulder but remained seated. "I'm expecting the Vicar at any moment to take me to the station," she announced with dignity. McLoughlin noticed a thinning patch in her hair. He found it oddly embarrassing as if she had taken off part of her clothing and revealed something best kept hidden.
"Then I suggest we don't beat around the bush," announced Walsh. "We wouldn"t want to keep him waiting."
"Why are you here? Why are your men searching my house?"
Walsh steepled his fingers in his lap. "You remember that tramp you told us about, Mrs. Thompson?" She gave a brief nod. "We've found him."
"Good. Then you'll know I was telling you the truth about dear Daniel's generosity."
"Indeed, yes. He also mentioned that Mr. Thompson gave him a bottle of whisky and twenty pounds."
The sad eyes lit with pleasure. "I told you Daniel was a saint. He would have given the shirt off his back if the man had asked for it."
McLoughlin took the chair next to Walsh and leaned forward aggressively. "The tramp's name is Wally Ferris. I've had a long talk with him. He says you and Mr. Thompson wanted rid of him, that's why you were so generous."
"The ingratitude," she gasped, her lips parting on a tremor. "What did our Lord say? 'Give to the poor and you shall have treasure in Heaven.' My poor Daniel has earned his place there by his kindness. The same cannot be said of this tramp."
"He also said," continued Mcloughlin doggedly, "that he found your husband hiding in the shed outside."
She tittered behind her hand like a teenager. "Actually," she said, looking directly at him, "it was the other way round. Daniel found the tramp hiding in the shed. He went out to look for a paintbrush and tripped over a bundle of old clothes behind some boxes at the back. Imagine his surprise when the bundle spoke."
Her words carried conviction and McLoughlin knew a sudden doubt. Had he relied too heavily on an old man who, by his own admission, lived in an alcoholic haze? "Wally claims it was raining while he was in your shed. I've checked with the local meteorological office and they have no record of any rainfall on Wednesday, twenty-fourth May. The storms began two days later and lasted on and off for the next three days."
"Poor man," she murmured. "I told Daniel at the time we should have tried to get him to a doctor. He was drunk and very confused. You know, he asked me if I was his sister. He thought I'd come looking for him at last."
"But, Mrs. Thompson," said Walsh, allowing surprise into his voice, "if he was as drunk as you say, why did you give him a bottle of whisky? Were you not compounding his already severe problems?"
She cast her eyes to the ceiling. "He begged us in tears, Inspector. Who were we to refuse? Judge not and you shall not be judged. If the poor man chooses to kill himself with demon alcohol, I have no right to condemn him."
"But you do have the right to speed up the process, I suppose," said McLoughlin sarcastically.
"He's a sad little man whose only comfort lies in a whisky bottle," she said quietly. "It would have been cruel to deny him his comfort. We gave him money to spend on food, shoes for his feet and we urged him to seek help for his addiction. There was not much more we could do. My conscience is clear, Sergeant."
"Wally claims he came here on Saturday, May twenty-seventh." Walsh spoke casually.
She wrinkled her forehead and thought for a moment. "But it can't have been," she said with genuine puzzlement. "Daniel was here. Didn't we decide it was the twenty-fourth?"
McLoughlin was fascinated by her performance. It occurred to him that she had expunged the memory of murder from her mind and had convinced herself that the story she told was the real one. If that was so, they were going to have the devil's own job bringing a prosecution. With only Wally's testimony, backed by the woman in the council house, they wouldn't stand a chance. They needed a confession.
"The date is corroborated by an independent witness," he told her.
"Really?" she breathed. "How extraordinary, I don't remember seeing anyone with him and we are so secluded here." She fingered her cross and gazed at him with reproachful eyes. "Who could it be, I wonder?"
Walsh cleared his throat noisily. "Would it interest you to know where we found your husband's shoes, Mrs. Thompson?"
"Not really," she assured him. "I assume from the things you've said that the tramp-Wally-discarded them as useless. I find that hurtful to my dear Daniel's memory."
"You're very sure he's dead, aren't you?" said McLoughlin.
She produced her lace hankie like a magician and dabbed at the inevitable tears. "He would never leave me," came the refrain.
"We found the shoes in the woods at Streech Grange, not far from the ice house," said Walsh, watching her closely.
"Did you?" she asked politely.
"Wally spent the night of the twenty-seventh of May in the ice house and abandoned the shoes in the woods the next morning as he left."
She lowered the handkerchief and looked with curiosity from one to the other. "Really," she commented. Her expression was one of bafflement. "Is that significant?"
"You do know we've found a corpse in Streech Grange ice house, don't you?" McLoughlin remarked brutally. "It is male, aged between fifty and sixty, broad build, grey hair and five feet ten inches tall. He was murdered two months ago, around the time your husband went missing."
Her amazement was utter. For several seconds a kaleidoscope of emotions transformed her face. The two men watched closely, but if guilt was there, it was impossible to isolate. To the forefront was surprise. "I had no idea," she said, "no idea at all. No one's said anything to me. Whose corpse is it?"
McLoughlin turned to Walsh and raised a despairing eyebrow. "It's been in all the newspapers, Mrs. Thompson," said the Inspector, "and on the local television news. You could hardly have missed it. The body has decomposed to such an extent that we have not yet been able to identify it. We have our suspicions, however." He studied her pointedly.
She was taking deep breaths as though breathing were difficult. The rouge stood out on her cheeks in bright spots. "I don't have a television," she told them. "Daniel used to get a paper at work and tell me all the news when he came home."She struggled for air. "God," she said surprisingly, holding a hand to her chest, "they've all been keeping it from me, protecting me. I had no idea. No one's said a word."
"No idea we'd found a body, or no idea there was a body to find?" asked McLoughlin.
She digested the implications of this for a moment. "No idea there was one, of course," she snapped, eyeing him with dislike. She calmed her breathing with a conscious effort and tightened her lips into their customary thin lines. She addressed herself to Walsh. "I now understand your interest in Daniel's shoes," she told him. A small tic had started above her lip. "You are assuming they are connected in some way with this body you've found."
"Perhaps," he said guardedly.
A gleam of triumph showed in her eyes. "Yet this tramp you've found has proved they can't be. You say he spent the night of the twenty-seventh in the-what did you call it?"
"Ice house."
"In the ice house. I assume he wouldn't have stayed if the dead body had been there, too, so he must have abandoned the shoes before the body ever got there." She seemed to relax slightly. "I cannot see a connection, merely a bizarre coincidence."
"You're absolutely right," agreed Walsh. "In that sense, there is no connection."
"Then why have you been asking me questions?"
"The bizarre coincidence led us to the tramp, Mrs. Thompson, and to some interesting facts about you and your husband. We can prove he was alive in this house two days after you reported him missing and well outside the time for which you'd provided yourself with an alibi. Mr. Thompson has not been seen since, and a week ago we were presented with an unidentifiable body, corresponding to his description and less than four miles away. Frankly, we can make out an excellent case against you for the murder of your husband on or after the twenty-eighth of May."