The row from dogs and flailing bodies was deafening.

"Men!" exclaimed Diana in Phoebe"s ear and Phoebe, with adrenaline still running rampant in her bloodstream, burst into tears of laughter.

24.

The confusion was short-lived. By the time Diana thought of switching on the drawing-room lights, the half dozen vandals had thrown in the towel and were being herded across the terrace by a panting semi-circle of McLoughlin, young PC Gavin Williams, out of uniform, Jonathan, Fred and Paddy Clarke.

"Inside," ordered McLoughlin curtly. "You"re all nicked."

Stripped of their menace by the glare of the overhead lamps, they were an unprepossessing bunch of shuffling, sweaty youths with surly faces and evasive eyes. Diana knew them all by sight as lads from the village, but she could put a name to only two of them, Eddie Staines and nineteen-year-old Peter Barnes, son of Dilys and brother to Emma. She looked them over in amazement. "What have we ever done to you? I don"t even know who most of you are."

Barnes was a good-looking young man, tall, athletic, an ex-public school boy, now working in his father"s print business in Silverborne. He sneered at her but didn"t answer. Eddie Staines and the remaining four stared fixedly at the floor.

"It"s a reasonable enough question," said McLoughlin evenly. "What have these ladies ever done to you?"

Barnes shifted his gaze. "Which ladies?" he asked insolently. "Do you mean the d.y.k.es?"

Barnes"s voice, unaccented, interested McLoughlin. The shouts on the lawn had all carried the strangled vowels of the working cla.s.s. A slight shake of his head kept Diana quiet. "I was referring to Mrs. Maybury and her friends," he said in the same even tone. "What have they ever done to you?" He searched the line of unresponsive faces. "All right, for the moment you will be charged with aggravated a.s.sault on the owner of Streech Grange."

"We never touched her," complained Eddie Staines.

"Shut up," said Barnes.

"Never touched who?"

"Her. Mrs. Maybury."

"I didn"t say you did."

"What was all that aggravated a.s.sault c.r.a.p?"

"She"s not the owner of Streech Grange," McLoughlin pointed out. "Mr. Jonathan Maybury and his sister own this property."

"Oh." Eddie frowned. "We thought it was the d.y.k.e"s."

McLoughlin arched an eyebrow. "Do you mean Mrs. Maybury?"

"You soft in the head, or what?"

"That," murmured McLoughlin mildly, "would appear to be your privilege. Eddie Staines, is it?"

"Yeah."

"Keep your big mouth shut, you ignorant t.u.r.d," Barnes grated through clenched teeth.

A cold gleam lit McLoughlin"s eyes. "Well, well, Paddy, you were right. It"s the jumped-up little oik who calls the shots. So what"s his problem?"

"His mother," was Paddy"s laconic reply.

The boy threw him a murderous glance.

Paddy gave an indifferent shrug. "I"m sorry for you, lad. If you"d had half your sister"s sense, you"d have got by. You"d have raised two fingers to that stupid b.i.t.c.h with her twisted ambitions, and you"d have kept your sanity. Try asking yourself who Emma"s really s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g when she comes up here and spreads her legs." He glanced at McLoughlin. "Ever heard the expression, a beggar on horseback? A beggar comes into a bit of money, buys a horse to raise himself up, only to find he can"t ride the d.a.m.n thing. That"s Dilys Barnes. She came a cropper when she set her sights too high and moved the family into Streech. No harm in that, of course. It"s a free country. But you don"t, if you"ve any sense, treat one end of the village like muck because you think they"re beneath you, while you lick the backsides of the other end and brandish your painfully transparent family tree under their noses. That way, you alienate everybody."

Peter"s face worked unpleasantly. "b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he hissed.

Paddy let it pa.s.s. "People laughed at her, of course. They would. Social climbing"s a spectator sport in a place like this, and Dilys was never any good at it." He stroked his chin. "She"s a very unintelligent woman. She couldn"t grasp the first rule, that cla.s.s is in inverse proportion to its relevance." His eyes flickered over Peter. "You"ll need a translation, lad. The cla.s.sier you are the less you have to talk about it."

Barnes bunched his fists. "f.u.c.k you, Paddy. Cheap Irish trash, that"s all you are." Fleetingly, McLoughlin had the odd impression that the boy was enjoying himself.

A deep laugh rumbled in Paddy"s throat. "I"ll take it as a compliment, lad. It"s a long time since anyone"s recognised the Irish in me." He dodged a flying fist. "Jesus Christ!" he said crossly. "You"re even more stupid than your mother, despite your fancy education and the puffed-up ideas she"s given you." He wagged a finger at Phoebe. "It"s your fault, woman. You made a laughingstock of her and, believe me, you don"t do that to the Dilys Barneses of this world. She has a poisoned callus on her soul for every slight, true or imagined, that she"s suffered, and the biggest and the most venomous is the one you gave her. She"s fed her venom to this little creep by the bucketload."

Phoebe looked at him in astonishment. "I hardly know her. She made a scene by the village pond once but I was far too angry to laugh."

"Before David went missing," he prompted. "He did the real damage. He repeated the story in the pub and it was all round the village before you could say Jack Robinson."

Phoebe stared at him blankly and shook her head.

He reached down to scratch the ears of the old Labrador lying at his feet. "When Benson was little more than a puppy? Dilys caught him humping her Pekinese." His eyes twinkled encouragingly. "Harangued you over the telephone for not keeping him under better control."

"Oh, good G.o.d!" Phoebe clapped her hands to her face. "Not my Barnes pun. But it was a joke," she protested. "You"re not going to tell me she took it personally. I was referring to her Peke. The d.a.m.n thing was on heat and she let it out, reeking of pheromones."

Paddy"s great chuckle boomed about the room, stirring the heightened adrenaline into a responsive froth.

Phoebe"s voice shook. "It was all her fault anyway. She would keep calling Benson a dirty dog." Quite unconsciously, she took on the refined tones of Dilys Barnes. " "Your dirty dog should be ashamed of himself, Mrs. Maybury." G.o.d, it was funny. She couldn"t bring herself to say that Benson had rogered her ghastly b.i.t.c.h." She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "So I said, I was very sorry but, as she knew better than I, you couldn"t stop dirty dogs poking into smelly barns." She looked up, caught Diana"s eye and laughed out loud. The room quivered.

Eddie Staines, not too bright but with a well-developed sense of humour, grinned broadly. "That"s good. Never heard it before. That why they call old man Barnes "the dirty dog" then? G.o.d, struth!" He doubled up as Peter Barnes, without any warning, swung a booted foot and kicked him in the groin. "Ah, Jesus!" He backed away, clutching his b.a.l.l.s.

McLoughlin watched this little sally with amused detachment. "And presumably Dilys got lumbered with Smelly?" he said to Paddy.

The big man grinned. "For a month or two, maybe. Far as I recall, Dirty Dog stuck to Tony longer than Smelly Barnes stuck to Dilys, but the damage was done. Takes herself too seriously, you see. When you"re eaten up with frustrated ambition, there"s no room for humour." His eyes rested on the bitter young face of the boy. "Respectability," he said with heavy irony, "it"s a sickness with her. With this one, too. They won"t be laughed at."

And that, McLoughlin knew, was as far as Paddy could take him. He had been suspicious enough of Peter Barnes to set him up, but he had no proof that the lad had struck Anne any more than he had proof that Dilys initiated all the slander against Phoebe. "She"s far too cunning," he had said that morning. "She"s a type. Pathologically jealous. You come across them now and then. They"re usually women, invariably inadequate and their spite is always directed against their own s.e.x because that"s the s.e.x they"re jealous of. They are completely vicious. As often as not, the target is their own daughter."

"So why single out Mrs. Maybury?" McLoughlin had asked.

"Because she was the first lady of Streech and you b.u.g.g.e.rs dropped her in the s.h.i.t. For ten years, Dilys has been wetting herself because she can look down on Mrs. Maybury of Streech Grange. G.o.d knows, she was never going to do it any other way."

"What did she do?"

"Piled s.h.i.t on s.h.i.t, of course. People were ready to believe anything after you lot left, and murder was the least of the garbage Dilys fed them."

"What a sewer you live in, Paddy." McLaughlin spoke quietly, his voice level.

The big man surprised him. "If it is, it"s Phoebe"s fault," he had observed. "She"s the focus for it all. Whatever the rights and wrongs, any normal woman would have sold up and moved on. The Grange isn"t worth the price she"s had to pay for it."

No, McLoughlin thought, Paddy was wrong about that. The Grange was worth whatever Phoebe had to pay, and she would go on paying because it was cheap at the price. The real cost was being borne by the people who loved her. He glanced across at her with a sudden irritation. G.o.d d.a.m.n the woman! People loved her or hated her. The one thing no one seemed to feel was indifference.

"OK," he said abruptly into the silence, "you"-he jerked a finger at Eddie Staines-"are going to listen to a few home truths. You"re not the brightest thing on two legs but you have to be brighter than this d.i.c.khead here." He scowled at Barnes, then held up a finger. "Number one, Eddie. Mrs. Maybury did not murder her parents. Colonel and Mrs. Gallagher died because their brakes didn"t work, and their brakes didn"t work because K.C. hadn"t serviced the car properly. Had he done so, he would have found the corroded brake hose. Got that?"

"Yeah, but who corroded it?" asked Eddie triumphantly. "That"s the question."

"Read the coroner"s report," said McLoughlin wearily. "Colonel Gallagher took the car to K.C. because the brakes felt soft. He wrote a note to that effect and the note, in his handwriting, is in the file. K.C. ignored it." He held up a second finger. "Number two. Mr. David Maybury walked out of this house alive ten years ago. No one murdered him. He legged it because he had finally run through all of Mrs. Maybury"s money and he didn"t fancy working for his living."

"So who"s arguing? Saw the b.u.g.g.e.r myself three months ago. Mind you, he"s dead now." Eddie glared at Phoebe. "h.e.l.l of a way to get your own back, lady."

McLoughlin held up a third finger. "Number three, Eddie. That man wasn"t David Maybury."

He looked sceptical. "Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. It was K.C. And it"s not a matter for debate. It is a matter of proven fact."

There was a long silence. Very slowly, recognition dawned. "h.e.l.l, happen it was, too. Knew I knew him. But that Inspector of yours was d.a.m.n sure it was Maybury."

Paddy snorted. "The only people who are ever d.a.m.n sure of anything are idiots and politicians. Same difference, some would say."

They could almost follow Eddie"s thought processes in the contortions of his face. "Still, I don"t see it makes much difference. We"re back to square one. If it was K.C. she did in this time, then stands to reason she did her old man in ten years ago. The only proof you thought she didn"t was that I thought the old guy was him. You follow me?"

"I follow you," McLoughlin told him. "But the whole thing stinks. Didn"t it occur to you that if it was Maybury this time, then you"ve been beating up on an innocent woman for ten years?"

"There was her parents-" He broke off as his brain caught up with his mouth. "Yeah, well, as I say, we"re back to square one now."

"Anything but. Mrs. Maybury didn"t kill K.C., Eddie. You did."

"Cobblers!"

"He wasn"t murdered. He died of cold, starvation and self-neglect. You were the last person to see him alive. If you"d offered him a hand he wouldn"t be dead now. He needed help, and you didn"t give it to him."

"Now listen here, mister. You trying to set me up or something? The Inspector said he was stabbed in the gut."

Between the Scylla of Barnes and the Charybdis of Walsh, was it any wonder, thought McLoughlin, that Phoebe had retreated into her fortress? Without a twinge of regret, he rode rough-shod over Walsh"s thirty years on the Force. "The Inspector greased a few palms and was over-promoted," he said bluntly. "It happens in the police just as it happens everywhere else. They"ll give him early retirement as a result of this c.o.c.k-up and get shot of him."

"Jesus!" said Eddie, impressed by so much honesty from a policeman.

"You cretin," muttered Peter Barnes. "He"s running b.l.o.o.d.y rings round you."

McLoughlin ignored him. "Number four, Eddie," he went on. "When you and the sc.u.m you a.s.sociate with come up here for a spot of queer-bashing, you miss the mark. There are no queers living in Streech Grange. Who told you there were?"

"It"s common knowledge." Eddie looked uncomfortable. "The three d.y.k.es. The three witches. They"re always called one or the other." He darted a quick glance at Peter Barnes. "Me, I"m not into queer-bashing."

"I see." McLoughlin transferred his attention to Barnes. "So it"s you who"s not keen on queers." He yawned suddenly and rubbed his eyes. "What happened? Someone try it on at that school you went to?" He saw the sudden pinching round the boy"s nostrils and his brooding face cracked into a grin. "Don"t tell me you enjoyed it, and now you"re busting a gut to prove you didn"t."

"f.u.c.king perverts," the boy blurted out. "They make me sick." He spat at Phoebe. "f.u.c.king perverts. They should be locked up." A well of loathing seemed to overflow. "I hate them."

Something malignant stirred in the depths of McLoughlin"s dark eyes. He took a lightning step forward and clamped his hand across Barnes"s mouth, digging his fingers and thumb into the soft flesh of the cheeks and forcing the boy up on to the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. "I find you extremely offensive," he said softly. "You"re a moronic little psychopath and in my book it"s the likes of you who should be locked up, not the likes of Oscar Wilde. The only contribution you will ever make to society will be a negative one when you pa.s.s your prejudices and your miserably inadequate IQ to a succeeding generation." He levered Barnes up another inch. "In addition it makes me very angry to hear these women referred to as perverts. Do you understand me?"

Barnes tried to speak but the words stuck in his throat. McLoughlin dug his fingers deeper and Barnes nodded vigorously.

"Good," McLoughlin unlocked his fingers and pushed him away with the heel of his hand. He favoured Staines with a friendly smile. "I hope you can see where all this is leading, Eddie. You do realise I am giving you the benefit of the doubt. I am a.s.suming you genuinely believed these people were guilty of something."

Eddie"s good-humoured face puckered in worried concentration. "Listen, mister, I just came along to see justice done. I swear to G.o.d that"s all I came for. We got the call you were letting her off again. This queer-bashing stuff, that"s Peter"s kick." He flicked a shy look at Phoebe and Diana. "Jesus, it doesn"t make sense anyway. If you"re not queer, why do you go along with it?"

Diana rolled her eyes to Heaven. "Do you know, I"ve often wondered that myself." She turned to Phoebe. "I"ve forgotten, old thing, why do we go along with it?"

Phoebe"s rich laugh tumbled from her mouth. "Don"t be such a fool." She looked at Eddie and raised her hands helplessly. "We"ve never had a choice. Hardly anyone ever speaks to us. Those who do, know all about us. Those who don"t, a.s.sume whatever they want to a.s.sume. You have a.s.sumed we"re gay." Her eyes laughed softly. "Bar copulating naked by the village pond with a series of men, I don"t see how we could ever prove we weren"t. In any case, would you have thought any better of us if you"d known we preferred men?"

"Yeah," said Eddie with an appreciative wink. "I b.l.o.o.d.y well would. Mind you," he continued thoughtfully, "none of this explains what happened to your old man. If the only reason he legged it was because the money"d dried up why didn"t he get you off the hook when he read what was happening to you? It only needed a phone call to the police."

There was an awkward silence.

"You talk as if the man had a clear conscience," said McLoughlin at last. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the colour drain from Jonathan"s set face. Dammit, he thought. Whichever way you turned, you were always caught between the rock and the hard place. "It"s sub judice, Eddie, which is why we"ve never released details. But I can tell you this, the minute the man resurfaces he will be prosecuted." He shrugged. "For the moment you"ll just have to take my word that it suits his book if everyone thinks he"s dead. He was a villain. We"ll find him one day."

Even Paddy looked impressed.

"Jesus!" said Eddie again. "Je-sus!" He scrunched his foot on some broken gla.s.s. "Listen, lady," he offered, "about these windows." He gestured to the youths behind him. "We"ll clear up and put some new ones in. It"s only fair."

"You can do better than that, Eddie," said McLoughlin pleasantly. "It"s names we want. Let"s start with who attacked Miss Cattrell?"

Eddie shook his head with genuine regret. "I can guess, same as you can, but if it"s proof you need, then I can"t help you. Like I said, queer-bashing doesn"t turn me on." He indicated one of his mates. "Me and Bob took a couple of birds to the flicks that night. I don"t know about the rest of them."

A chorus of denials greeted this statement.

"Not me. I was watching telly with my folks."

"Jesus, Eddie, I was round your sister"s place. You b.l.o.o.d.y know that."

"f.u.c.k that. I only heard about it the next morning, same as you."

Above their heads, McLoughlin caught Paddy"s eye and saw his own disappointment mirrored there. The truth had an unmistakable ring about it. "And what about you?" he asked Peter Barnes, knowing the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d would get away with it. "Where were you?"

Barnes grinned. "I was with my mother all evening until half-past midnight. Then I went to bed. She"ll sign a statement if you ask her nicely." He raised his middle finger and jabbed it in the air at Paddy. "That"s to you and your beggar c.r.a.p, s.h.i.thead." He giggled and crooked his arm over his other fist, thrusting the finger skyward. "And that"s to your pathetic little set-up. What a joke. It was so f.u.c.king transparent, a blind man could have seen through it. You think I haven"t creepy-crawled this place, seen the tame fuzz they"ve got watching over them?" He giggled again.

Alarm bells rang in McLoughlin"s head. What the h.e.l.l sort of psychopath was this boy? A Charles Manson freak? Je-sus! "Creepy-crawled," he knew, was an expression the Charles Manson Family had used to describe the way they had entered Sharon Tale"s house before they murdered her. "So what brought you up here?" he asked, loosing some handcuffs from his jacket pocket. "Gives you a buzz, does it, being arrested?"

"It sure as h.e.l.l gives me a buzz to see you cretins screw up. That"s got to be worth a slapped wrist and a fine any day. h.e.l.l, it was a bit of high spirits. Dad"ll ante-up for the damage."

There was a moment of silence before Jonathan"s cool voice spoke from the shattered window. "That seems reasonable," he said, "in return, I"ll ante-up for the damage I"m going to do to you."

It was the element of surprise that held everyone frozen. Like a slow motion sequence they watched him cross the room, release the safety catch on his mother"s shotgun, shove the barrel between Barnes"s legs and pull the trigger. The explosion left them deaf. Through a dense cloud of dust they saw, rather than heard, the screams that issued from the boy"s writhing mouth. They watched the pool of liquid collect on the floor at his feet.

McLoughlin, stunned, tried to intervene, only to find a pair of thick arms clamped around his chest, holding him back. "Jon!" he yelled, his voice m.u.f.fled by the ringing echoes in his ears. "For G.o.d"s sake! He"s not worth it!"