Minette Walters - The Ice House

Diana found Phoebe watching the ten o'clock news in the television room. The flickering colours from the set provided the only light and they played across Phoebe's glasses, hiding her eyes and giving her the look of a blind woman. Diana snapped on the table lamp.

"You'll get a headache," she said, flopping into the seat beside Phoebe, reaching out to stroke the softly tanned forearm.

Phoebe muted the sound of the television with the remote control on her lap, but left the picture running. "I've got one already," she admitted tiredly. She took off her glasses and held a handkerchief to her red-rimmed eyes. "Sorry," she said.

"What about?"

"Blubbing. I thought I'd grown out of it."

Diana pulled a footstool forward with her toes and settled her feet on it comfortably. "A good blub is one of my few remaining pleasures."

Phoebe smiled. "But not very helpful." She tucked the handkerchief into her sleeve and replaced her glasses.

"Have you had anything to eat?"

"I'm not hungry. Molly left a casserole in the Aga if you are."

"Mm, she told me before she left. I'm not hungry either."

They lapsed into silence.

"It's a bloody mess, isn't it?" said Phoebe after a while.

"I'm afraid so." Diana pushed her sandals off her feet and let them drop to the floor. "The Inspector's no fool." She kept her voice deliberately light.

Phoebe spoke harshly. "I hate him. How old would you say he is?"

"Late fifties."

"He hasn't aged much. He looked like a genial professor ten years ago." She considered for a moment. "But that's not his character. He's anything but genial. He's dangerous, Di. For God's sake don't forget it."

The other woman nodded. "And his incubus, Jock-the-Ripper? What did you make of him?"

Phoebe looked surprised as if the other woman had mentioned an irrelevance. "The Sergeant? He didn't say much. Why do you ask?"

With rhythmical movements, as if she were stroking a cat, Diana smoothed the woollen pile on the front of her jacket. "Anne's spoiling for a fight with him and I'm not sure why." She glanced speculatively at Phoebe, who shrugged. "She's making a mistake. She took one look at him in the drawing-room, labelled him 'Pig-ignorant' and made up her mind to walk all over him. Damn!" she said with feeling. "Why can't she learn to compromise occasionally? She'll have us up to our necks in shit if she's not careful."

"Have they spoken to her yet?"

"No, they've told her they'll talk to her tomorrow. They seem very relaxed about it all. We have their official permission to go to bed."

Phoebe closed her eyes and pressed long fingers against her temples. "What did they ask you?"

Diana twisted in her chair to look at her friend. "From what they implied, exactly what they asked you."

"Except that I walked out and refused to answer their questions." She opened her eyes and looked ruefully at the other woman. "I know," she said. "It was very silly of me but they made me so angry. Strange, isn't it? I stood up to hours of interrogation when David went. This time, I lasted five minutes. I found myself hating that man so much, I wanted to claw his eyes out. I could have done it, too."

Diana reached out again and briefly touched her arm. "I don't think it's strange-any psychiatrist would tell you that anger is a normal reaction to stress-but it's probably unwise." She pulled a face. "Anne will say I've bottled out, of course, but my view is we should give them all the co-operation we can. The sooner they sort it out and leave us alone, the better."

"They want to question the children."

"I know and I don't think we can prevent it."

"I could ask Jane's psychiatrist to write a report advising against it. Would that stop them?"

"For a day or two perhaps before they secured an order for a second opinion. That would declare her competent to answer questions. You know yourself, her own psychiatrist pronounced her fit eighteen months ago."

"Not for this." Phoebe massaged her temples vigorously. "I'm frightened, Di. I really think she's managed to blot it all out. If they make her remember now, God knows what will happen."

"Talk to Anne," Diana said. "She can be more objective than you. You may find that you're underestimating Jane's strengths. She is your daughter, after all."

"Meaning that I am less able to be objective?"

Go easy, Diana told herself. "Meaning that she will have inherited the rigid Gallagher backbone, you oaf."

"You're forgetting her father. However much I might like to pretend otherwise, there is some of David in each of them."

"He wasn't all bad, Pheeb."

Tears welled uncontrollably in Phoebe's eyes. She blinked them away angrily. "But he was, and you know it as well as I do. You told the Inspector so this afternoon and you were right. He was rotten to the core. In time, if we hadn't got shot of him, he'd have turned me and the children rotten too. He had a damn good try in all conscience." She was silent for a moment. "It's the only thing I hold against my parents. If they hadn't been so conventional I need never have married him. I could have had Johnny and brought him up on my own."