"Good G.o.d," said Webster, surveying the ice-house floor with marked distaste. He picked his way carefully towards the centre of it, avoiding tattered pieces of hardened entrail which lay on the flagstones. He looked at the head. "Good G.o.d," he said again.

The head, still tethered to the upper torso by blackened sinew, was wedged in a gap in the top row of a neat stack of bricks. Dull grey hair, long enough to be a woman"s, spilled out of the gap. Eyeless sockets, showing bone underneath, and exposed upper and lower jaw bones gleamed white against the blackened musculature of the face. The chest area, anch.o.r.ed by the head against the vertical face of bricks, looked as if it had been skilfully filleted. The lower half of the body lay unnaturally askew of its top half in a position that no living person, however supple, could have achieved. The abdominal region had all but disappeared though shreds of it lay about as mute witnesses that it had once existed. There were no genitals. The lower half of the left arm, propped on a smaller pile of bricks, was some four feet from the body, much of the flesh stripped away, but some sinews remaining to show it had been wrenched from its elbow. The right arm, pressed against the torso, had the same blackened quality as the head with patches of white bone showing through. Of the legs, only the calves and feet were immediately recognisable, but at a distance from each other in a grotesque parody of the splits and twisted upside down so that the soles pointed at the ice-house roof. Of the thighs, only splintered bones remained.

"Well?" said Walsh after some minutes during which the pathologist took temperature readings and made a rough sketch of the lie of the body.

"What do you want to know?"

"Man or woman?"

Webster pointed to the feet. "From the size, I"d guess a man. We can"t be sure until we"ve done some measurements, of course, but it looks like it. If it"s not a man, it was a big woman and a mannish one."

"The hair"s on the long side for a man. Unless it grew significantly after death."

"Where have you been living, George? Even if it were down to the waist, it wouldn"t tell you anything about the s.e.x. And hair growth after death is minimal. No," continued Webster, "all things considered, I"d say we"re dealing with a man, subject to confirmation, of course."

"Any idea of age?"

"None, except that he"s probably over twenty-one and even that"s not certain. Some people go grey in their teens. I"ll have to X-ray the skull for fusion between the plates."

"How long has he been dead?"

Webster pursed his lips. "That"s going to be a b.u.g.g.e.r to decide. Old Fred out there said there was a bit of a stink when he stepped on it which would indicate a comparatively recent demise." He sucked his teeth thoughtfully for some minutes, then shook his head and examined the floor carefully, using a spatula to loosen some dark material near the door. He sniffed the spatula. "Excreta," he announced, "fairly recent, probably animal. You"d better take a cast of that to see if it"s got Fred"s boot prints. How long"s he been dead?" He shivered suddenly. "This is an ice house and several degrees cooler than it is outside. No obvious maggot infestation which implies the blowflies weren"t attracted. If they had been, there"d be even less of it left. Frankly, George, your guess is as good as mine how long dead flesh would keep in this temperature. There is also the small matter of decomposition being hastened by consumption. We could be talking weeks, we could be talking months. I just don"t know. I"ll need to consult on this one."

"Years?"

"No," Webster said firmly. "You"d be looking at a skeleton."

"Supposing he was frozen when he came in. Would that make a difference?"

The pathologist snorted. "You mean frozen as in fish fingers?" Walsh nodded. "That"s really too fantastic, George. You"d need a commercial freezer to freeze a man this size, and how would you transport him here? And why freeze him in the first place?" Webster frowned. "It wouldn"t make much difference as far as your investigation goes either. An ice house only keeps things frozen when it"s full of ice. A frozen man would defrost in here just like a turkey in a larder. No, that"s got to be out of the question."

Walsh was staring thoughtfully at the severed arm. "Has it? Odder things have happened. Perhaps he"s been in cold storage for ten years and was left here recently for someone to find."

Webster whistled. "David Maybury?"

"It"s a possibility." He squatted down and gestured to the distorted and tattered hand. "What do you make of this? Looks to me as if the last two fingers are missing."

Webster joined him. "It"s difficult to say," he said doubtfully. "Something"s had a d.a.m.n good go at it." He glanced about the floor. "You"ll have to sweep up very thoroughly, make sure you don"t miss anything. It"s certainly odd. Could be coincidence, I suppose."

Walsh stood up. "I don"t believe in coincidences. Any idea what he died of?"

"A first guess, George. Ma.s.sive bleeding from a wound or wounds in his abdomen."

Walsh glanced at him in surprise. "You"re very positive."

"A guess, I said. You"ll have to find his clothes to be sure. But look at him. The area from the abdomen down has been completely devoured, except for the lower halves of the legs. Imagine him sitting up, legs out in front of him, with blood pouring out of his belly. It would be seeping over precisely those parts which have been eaten."

Inspector Walsh felt suddenly faint. "Are you saying whatever it was ate him while he was still alive?"

"Well, don"t have nightmares about it, old chap. If he was alive, he"d have been in a coma and wouldn"t have known anything about it, otherwise he"d have scared the scavengers off. Stands to reason. Of course," he continued thoughtfully, "if he was defrosting slowly, the blood and water would liquefy to achieve the same result."

Walsh performed the laborious ritual of lighting his pipe again, billowing clouds of blue smoke from the side of his mouth. Webster"s mention of smell had made him aware of an underlying odour which he hadn"t previously noticed. For some minutes he watched the doctor making a close examination of the head and chest, at one point taking some measurements. "What sort of scavengers are we talking about? Foxes, rats?"

"Difficult to say." He peered closely at one of the eye sockets, before indicating the fractured thigh bones. "Something with strong jaws, I would guess. One thing"s for certain, two of them have had a fight over him. Look at the way the legs are lying and that arm, pulled apart at the elbow. I"d say there"s been a tug-of-war here." He pursed his lip"s again. "Badgers possibly. More likely dogs."

Walsh thought of the yellow Labradors lying on the warm flagstones, remembered how one of them had nuzzled the palm of his hand. With an abrupt movement, he wiped the hand down his trouser leg. He puffed smoke relentlessly into the atmosphere. "I follow your reasoning about why the animals should have gone for the abdomen and thighs, but they seem to have done a pretty good job on the top half as well. Why is that? Is it normal?"

Webster stood up and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. "G.o.d knows, George. About the only thing I"m sure of is that this whole thing is abnormal. I"ll hazard a guess that the poor sod pressed his left hand to his belly to try to stop the blood running out or hold his guts in, whichever you prefer, then did what I just did- wiped the sweat off his face and smeared himself with blood. That would have attracted rats or whatever to his left hand and arm and the upper half of his body."

"You said he"d have been in a coma." Walsh"s tone was accusing, "Maybe he was, maybe he wasn"t. How the h.e.l.l should I know? Anyway, people move in comas."

Walsh took his pipe out of his mouth and used its stem to point at the chest. "Shall I tell you what that looks like to me?"

"Go on."

"The bones on a breast of lamb after my wife"s skinned the meat off it with a sharp knife."

Webster looked tired. "I know. I"m hoping it"s deceptive. If it"s not-well, you don"t need me to spell out what it means."

"The villagers say the women here are witches."

Webster peeled off his gloves. "Let"s get out of here-unless there"s anything else you think I can tell you. My own view is I"ll find out more when I"ve got him on the slab."

"Just one thing. Do you reckon he got his abdominal wound here or somewhere else?"

Webster picked up his case and led the way out. "Don"t ask me, George. The only thing I"m sure of is that he was alive when he got here. Whether he was already bleeding, I wouldn"t know." He paused in the doorway. "Unless there"s anything in this freezer theory, of course. Then he"d have been good and dead."

4.

Three hours later, after the remains had been painstakingly removed under the direction of Dr. Webster, and a laborious investigation of the ice-house interior had revealed little of note beyond a pile of dead bracken in one corner, the door was sealed and Walsh and McLoughlin returned to Streech Grange. Phoebe offered them the library to work in and, with a remarkable lack of curiosity, left them to their deliberations.

A team of policemen remained behind to comb the area in expanding circles round the ice house. Privately, Walsh thought this a wasted exercise-if too much time had elapsed between the body"s arrival and its discovery, the surrounding area would tell them nothing. However, routine work had produced unlikely evidence before, and now various samples from the ice house were awaiting dispatch to the forensic labs. These included brick dust, tufts of fur, some discoloured mud off the floor and what Dr. Webster a.s.serted were the splintered remains of a lamb bone which McLoughlin had found amongst the brambles outside the door. Young Constable Williams, still ignorant of exactly what had been in the ice house, was summoned to the library.

He found Walsh and McLoughlin sitting side by side behind a mahogany desk of heroic proportions, the photographic evidence, developed at speed, spread fan-like in front of them. An ancient Anglepoise lamp with a green shade was the only lighting in the rapidly darkening room and, as Williams entered, Walsh bent the light away to soften the brightness of its glare. For the young PC, viewing the pictures upside down and in semi-darkness, it was a tantalising glimpse of the horrors he had so far only imagined. He read his small collection of statements with half an eye on McLoughlin"s face, where black hollows were etched deep by the shadowy light. Jesus, but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d looked ill. He wondered if the whispers he"d heard were true.

"Their statements about the finding of the body are all consistent, sir. 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 d.a.m.n 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.u.g.g.e.r 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I"d say that"s a fair a.s.sessment. 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, particularly when drunk. He had a habit of beating people up, women as well as men." Walsh puffed a spurt of smoke from the side of his mouth and eyed his subordinate. "He put himself about a bit. We turned up at least three little tarts who kept warm beds for him in London."

"Did she know?" He nodded towards the hall.

Walsh shrugged. "Claimed she didn"t."

"Did he beat her up?"

"Undoubtedly, I should think, except she denied it. She had a bruise the size of a football on her face when she reported him missing and we found out she was twice admitted to hospital when he was alive, once with a fractured wrist and once with cracked ribs and a broken collar-bone. She told doctors she was accident-p.r.o.ne." He gave a harsh laugh. "They didn"t believe her any more than I did. He used her as his personal punch bag whenever he was drunk."

"So why didn"t she leave? Or perhaps she enjoyed the attention?"

Walsh considered him thoughtfully for a moment. He started to say something, then thought better of it. "Streech Grange has been in her family for years. He lived here on sufferance and used her capital to run a small wine business from the house. Presumably most of the stock"s still here if she hasn"t drunk or sold it. No, she wouldn"t leave. In fact I can"t imagine any circ.u.mstances at all, not even fire, which would make her abandon her precious Streech Grange. She"s a very tough lady."

"And, I suppose, as he was in clover, he wouldn"t go either."

"That"s about the size of it."

"So she got rid of him."

Walsh nodded.

"But you couldn"t prove it."

"No."

McLoughlin"s bleak face cracked into a semblance of a grin. "She must have come up with one h.e.l.l of a story."

"Matter of fact, it was b.l.o.o.d.y awful. She told us he walked out one night and never returned." Walsh wiped a dribble of tar and saliva off the end of his pipe with his sleeve. "It was three days before she reported him missing, and she only did that because people had started to ask where he was. In that time she packed up all his clothes and sent them off to some charity whose name she couldn"t remember, she burnt all his photos and went through this house with a vacuum cleaner and a cloth soaked with bleach to remove every last trace of him. In other words she behaved exactly like someone who had just murdered her husband and was trying to get rid of the evidence. We salvaged some hair that she"d missed in a brush, a current pa.s.sport and photo that she"d overlooked at the back of a desk drawer, and an old blood donor card. And that was it. We turned this house and garden upside down, called in forensic to do a microscopic search and it was a waste of time. We scoured the countryside for him, showed his photo at all the ports and airports in case he"d somehow got through without a pa.s.sport, alerted Interpol to look for him on the Continent, dredged lakes and rivers, released his photo to the national newspapers. Nothing. He simply vanished into thin air."

"So how did she explain the bruise on her face?"

The Inspector chuckled. "A door. What else? I tried to help her, suggested she killed her husband in self-defence. But no, he never touched her." He shook his head, remembering. "Extraordinary woman. She never made it easy for herself. She could have manufactured any number of stories to convince us he"d planned his disappearance-money troubles, for a start. He left her well-nigh penniless. But she did the reverse-she kept stolidly repeating that one night and for no reason he simply walked out and never came back. Only dead men disappear as completely as that."

"Clever," said McLoughlin reluctantly. "She kept it simple, gave you nothing to pick holes in. So why didn"t you charge her? Prosecutions have been brought without bodies before."

The memories of ten years ago flooded back to try Walsh"s patience. "We couldn"t put a case together," he snapped. "There wasn"t one shred of evidence to dispute her b.l.o.o.d.y stupid story that he"d upped and left. We needed the body. We dug up half Hampshire looking for the blasted thing." He fell silent for a moment, then tapped the photograph of the ice house which lay on the desk in front of him. "You were right about this."

"In what way?"

"It is the key. We searched Streech gardens from end to end ten years ago and none of us looked in here. I"d never seen an ice house in my life, never even heard of such a thing. So of course I didn"t know the b.l.o.o.d.y hill was hollow. How the h.e.l.l could I? No one told me. I remember standing on it at one point to get my bearings. I even remember, telling one of my chaps to delve deep into those brambles. It was like a jungle." He wiped the stem of his pipe on his sleeve again before putting it back in his mouth. Dried tar criss-crossed the tweed like black threads. "I"ll lay you any money you like, Andy, Maybury"s body was in there all the time."

There was a knock at the door and Phoebe came in carrying a tray of sandwiches. "Constable Williams told me you were hungry, Inspector. I asked Molly to make these up for you."

"Why thank you, Mrs. Maybury. Come and sit down." Phoebe put the tray of sandwiches on the desk, then seated herself in a leather armchair slightly to one side of it. The lamp on the desk shed a pool of light, embracing the three figures in a reluctant intimacy. The smoke from Walsh"s pipe hung above them, floating in the air like curling tendrils of cirrus clouds. For one long moment there was complete silence, before the chiming mechanism of a grandfather clock whirred into action and struck the hour, nine o"clock.

Walsh, as if on cue, leant forward and addressed the woman. "Why didn"t you tell us about the ice house ten years ago, Mrs. Maybury?"

For a moment he thought she looked surprised, even a little relieved, then the expression vanished. Afterwards, he couldn"t be sure it had been there at all. "I don"t understand," she said.

Inspector Walsh gestured to McLoughlin to switch on the overhead lights. The muted lamplight disguised, deceived when he wanted to see every nuance of the extraordinarily impa.s.sive face. "It"s quite simple," he murmured, after McLoughlin had flooded the room with brilliant white light, "in our search for your husband, we never looked in the ice house. We didn"t know it was there." He studied her thoughtfully. "And you didn"t tell us."

"I don"t remember," she said simply. "If I didn"t tell you, it was because I had forgotten about it. Did you not find it yourselves?"

"No."

She gave a tiny shrug. "Does it really matter, Inspector, after all this time?"

He ignored the question. "Do you recall when the ice house was last used prior to your husband"s disappearance?"

She leant her head tiredly against the back of her chair, her red hair splaying out around her pale face. Behind her gla.s.ses her eyes looked huge. Walsh knew her to be in her mid-thirties, yet she looked younger than his own daughter. He felt McLoughlin stir in the seat beside him as if her fragility had touched him in some way. d.a.m.n the woman, he thought with irritation, remembering the emotions she had once stirred in him. That appearance of vulnerability was a thin cloak for the sharp mind beneath.