Minette Walters
The Ice House
© 1991
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.-Francis Bacon
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.
– Robert Burns, "To a Louse"
Southern Evening Herald -23rd March
GROWING POLICE ANXIETY
Following intensive questioning at airports, docks and ferry terminals in the search for the missing businessman, David Maybury, police have expressed concern for his welfare. "It is now ten days since he vanished," said Inspector Walsh, the detective in charge of the investigation, "and we cannot rule out the possibility of foul play." Police efforts are being concentrated on a thorough search of Streech Grange Estate and the surrounding farmland.
There have been numerous reported sightings of the missing man over the past week, but none that could be substantiated. David Maybury, 44, was wearing a charcoal-grey pinstripe suit on the night he vanished. He is 5'10" tall, of average build, with dark hair and eyes.
Sun -15th April
TO THE MANOR BURIED
Mrs. Phoebe Maybury, 27, beautiful red-haired wife of missing businessman David Maybury, looked on in fury as police dug up her garden in their search for her husband. Mrs. Maybury, an avid gardener herself, declared: "This house has been in my family for years and the garden is the product of several generations. The police have no business to destroy it."
Reliable sources say that David Maybury, 44, was in financial difficulties shortly before he disappeared. His wine business, funded by his wife and run from the cellars of her house, was virtually bankrupt. Friends talk of constant rows between the couple. Police are treating his disappearance as murder.
Daily Telegraph -9th August
POLICE TEAM DISBANDED
Police admitted last night to being baffled over the disappearance of Hampshire man, David Maybury. In spite of a long and thorough investigation, no trace of him has been found, and the team involved in the enquiry has been disbanded. The file will remain open, according to police sources, but there is little confidence in solving the mystery. "The public has been very helpful," said a police spokesman. "We have built a clear picture of what happened the night he vanished, but until we find his body, there's little more we can do."
1
"Fred Phillips is running." Anne Cattrell's remark burst upon the silence of that August afternoon like a fart at a vicar's tea-party.
Startled, her two companions looked up, Diana from her sketch-pad, Phoebe from her gardening book, their eyes watering at this abrupt transition from the printed page to brilliant sunlight. They had sat in contented stillness for an hour, grouped about a wrought-iron table on the terrace of their house where the wreckage of a lazy tea jostled with the flotsam of their professional lives: a pair of secateurs, an open paint-box, pages of manuscript, one with a circular tea stain where Anne had dumped a cup without thinking.
Phoebe was perched on an upright chair at right angles to the table, crossed ankles tucked neatly beneath her, red hair corkscrewing in flaming whorls about her shoulders. Her position was hardly changed from half an hour previously when she had finished her tea and guiltily buried her nose in her book instead of returning to the greenhouse to finish off a bulk order for five hundred Ivyleaf Pelargonium cuttings. Diana, unashamedly glistening with Ambre Solaire, reclined on a sun-lounger, the pleated skirt of her printed cotton dress spilling Over the sides and brushing the flagstones. One elegant hand toyed with the underbelly of the Labrador lying beside her, the other drew swirling doodles in the margin of her sketch-pad which should have been filled-but was not-with commissioned designs for a cottage interior in Fowey. Anne, who had been struggling between intermittent dozes to conjure up a thousand words on "Vaginal Orgasm-Fact or Fiction" for an obscure magazine, was drawn up tight against the table, chin on hands, dark eyes staring down the long vista of landscaped garden in front of her.
Phoebe glanced at her briefly then turned to follow her gaze, peering over her spectacles across the wide expanse of lawn. "Good lord!" she exclaimed.
Her gardener, a man of massive proportions, was pounding across the grass, naked to the waist, his huge belly lapping at his trousers like some monstrous tidal wave. The semi-nudity was surprising enough, for Fred held strong views about his position at Streech Grange. Among other things, this required Phoebe to whistle a warning of her approach in the garden so that he might clothe himself suitably for what he referred to as a parley-vous, even in the heat of summer.
"Perhaps he's won the pools," suggested Diana, but without conviction, as the three women watched his rapidly slowing advance.
"Highly unlikely," countered Anne, pushing her chair away from the table. "Fred's inertia would demand a more powerful stimulus than filthy lucre to prompt this bout of activity."
They watched the rest of Fred's approach in silence. He was walking by the time he reached the terrace. He paused for a moment, leaning one hand heavily on the low wall bordering the flagstones, catching his breath. There was a tinge of grey to the weathered cheeks, a rasp in his throat. Concerned, Phoebe gestured to Diana to pull forward a vacant chair, then she stood up, took Fred's arm and helped him into it.
"Whatever's happened?" she asked anxiously.
"Oh, madam, something awful." He was sweating profusely, unable to get the words out quickly. Perspiration ran in streams over his fat brown breasts, soft and round like a woman's, and the smell was all-pervading, consuming the sweet scent of the roses which nodded in beds at the edge of the terrace. Aware of this and of his nakedness, he wrung his hands in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, madam."
Diana swung her legs off the lounger and sat up, twitching a rug off the back of her chair and placing it neatly across his shoulders. "You should keep yourself warm after a run like that, Fred."
He wrapped the rug around him, nodding his appreciation. "What's happened, Fred?" Phoebe asked again.
"I don't rightly know how to say it"-she thought she saw compassion in his eyes-"but it's got to be told."
"Then tell me," she prompted gently. "I'm sure it can't be that bad." She glanced at Benson, the golden Labrador, still lying placidly by Diana's chair. "Has Hedges been run over?"
He reached out a rough, mud-caked hand from between the folds of the rug and with a familiarity that was quite out of character placed it on hers and squeezed gently. The gesture was as brief as it was unexpected. "There's a body in the old ice house, madam."
There was a moment's silence. "A body?" echoed Phoebe. "What sort of body?" Her voice was unemotional, steady.
Anne flicked a glance in her direction. There were times, she thought, when her friend's composure frightened her.
"To tell you the truth, madam, I didn't look too close. It was a shock, coming on it the way I did." He stared unhappily at his feet. "Stepped on it, like, before I saw it. There was a bit of a smell afterwards." They all looked in fascination at his gardening boots and he, regretting his impulsive statement, shuffled them awkwardly out of sight under the rug. "It's all right, madam," he said, "wiped them on the grass soon as I could."
The cup and saucer in Phoebe's hand rattled and she put them carefully on the table beside her secateurs. "Of course you did, Fred. How thoughtful of you. Would you like some tea? A cake perhaps?" she asked him.