The Ice House Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nothing untoward in that direction." He looked suddenly smug. "But I reckon I've got a lead in another direction."
    "You do, do you?"
    "Yes, sir. I'm betting Mr. and Mrs. Phillips were inside before they came to work here." He consulted his neat and tiny script. "Mrs. Phillips was very peculiar, wouldn't answer any of my questions, kept accusing me of browbeating her, which I wasn't, and saying: 'That's for me to know and you to find out.' When I told her I'd have to take it up with Mrs. Maybury, she damn near bit my head off. 'Don't you go worrying madam,' she said, 'Fred and me's kept our noses clean since we've been out and that's all you need to know.' " He looked up triumphantly.
    Walsh made a note on a piece of paper. "All right, Constable, we'll look into it."
    McLoughlin saw the boy's disappointment and stirred himself. "Good work, Williams," he murmured. "I think we should lay on sandwiches, sir. No one's had anything to eat since midday." He thought of the liquid lunch he'd lost into the brambles. He'd have given his right arm for a beer. "There's a pub at the bottom of the hill. Could Gavin get something made up for the lads?"
    Testily, Walsh fished two tenners out of his jacket pocket. "Sandwiches," he ordered. "Nothing too expensive. Leave some with us and take the rest to the ice house. You can stay and help the search down there." He glanced behind him out of the window. "They've got the arc-lights. Tell them to keep going as long as they can. We'll be down later. And don't forget my change."
    "Sir." Williams left in a hurry before the Inspector could change his mind.
    "He wouldn't be so bloody keen if he'd seen what was there," remarked Walsh acidly, poking the photographs with a skinny finger. "I wonder if he's right about the Phillips couple. Does the name ring a bell with you?"
    "No."
    "Nor with me. Let's run through what we've got." He took out his pipe and stuffed tobacco absentmindedly into the bowl. Aloud, he sifted fussily through what facts they had, picking at them like chicken bones.
    McLoughlin listened but didn't hear. His head hurt where a blood vessel, engorged and fat, was threatening to burst. Its roaring deafened him.
    He picked a pencil off the desk and balanced it between his fingers. The ends trembled violently and he let it fall with a clatter. He forced himself to concentrate.
    "So where do we start, Andy?"
    "The ice house and who knew it was there. It has to be the key." He isolated an exterior shot from the photographs on the desk and held it to the lamplight with shaking fingers. "It looks like a hill," he muttered. "How would a stranger know it was hollow?"
    Walsh clamped the pipe between his teeth and lit it. He didn't answer but took the photograph and studied it intently, smoking for a minute or two in silence.
    Unemotionally, McLoughlin gazed on the pictures of the body. "Is it Maybury?"
    "Too early to say. Webster's gone back to check the dental and medical records. The bugger is we can't compare fingerprints. We weren't able to lift any from the house at the time of his disappearance. Not that we'd get a match. Both hands out there were in ribbons." He tamped the burning tobacco with the end of his thumb. "David Maybury had a very distinctive characteristic," he continued after a moment. "The last two fingers of his left hand were missing. He lost them in a shooting accident."
    McLoughlin felt the first flutterings of awakening interest. "So it
is
him."
    "Could be."
    "That body hasn't been there ten years, sir. Dr. Webster was talking in terms of months."
    "Maybe, maybe. I'll reserve judgement till I've seen the postmortem report."
    "What was he like? Mrs. Goode called him an out-and-out bastard."
    "I'd say that's a fair assessment. You can read up about him. It's all on file. I had a psychologist go through the evidence we took from the people who knew him. His unofficial verdict, bearing in mind he never met the man, was that Maybury showed marked psychopathic tendencies,