McLoughlin pointed to the b.l.o.o.d.y hair. "She may have a fractured skull."

Phoebe had come in quietly with a pile of blankets which she spread over the p.r.o.ne figure. She popped her own hot-water bottle at the feet. "Diana's on the phone for an ambulance. Jane's run down to wake Fred and get the gates open." She squatted by Anne's head. "Is she going to be all right?"

"I don't-" Jonathan began.

"Your daughter's outside?" McLoughlin interrupted, staggering to his feet.

Phoebe stared at him. "She's gone to the Lodge. They're not on the phone."

"Is anyone with her?"

Phoebe's face turned pale. "No."

"Jesus!" swore McLoughlin, thrusting past her. "Ring the police for G.o.d's sake, get some cars up here. I don't want to tackle a b.l.o.o.d.y maniac on my own." He shouted back to them as he ran down Anne's corridor: "Tell them someone's tried to murder your friend and may have a go at your daughter. Tell them to get a f.u.c.king move on."

He ran past Diana and burst out of the front door, his sweat turning ice-cold in the night air. It was four hundred yards to the gates and he reckoned Jane was a couple of minutes ahead of him. He set off at a blistering pace. Two minutes was an eternity to kill a woman, he thought, when a second was all it needed to smash an unsuspecting skull. The drive was in pitch darkness with the overhanging trees and bushes blocking out even the weak light of a shrouded moon. He swore at himself for not bringing his torch as he blundered unseeingly into the stinging branches at the edge of the way. He set off again, this time using the crown of the road for his guide, eyes straining to adjust themselves to the night. It was several seconds before he realised that the bobbing yellow pinpoint in the distance ahead of him was a torch beam. The drive had straightened out.

"Jane!" he yelled. "Stop! Wait there." He pounded on.

The torch swung round to point in his direction. The beam wobbled as if the hand that held it was unsteady.

"I'm a police officer," he called, his lungs straining. "Stay there."

He slowed to a walk as he approached her, hands held placatingly in front of him, chest heaving. The torchlight, wavering frantically now, danced across his face and dazzled him. He fished for his warrant card in his trouser pocket, holding it in front of him like a talisman. With a groan he put his hands on his knees, bent forward and whooped for breath.

"What's the m-matter?" she stammered in a shrill, frightened voice.

"Nothing," he said, straightening. "I didn't think you should come alone, that's all. Could you shine the torch on the ground? You're blinding me."

"Sorry." She dropped her hand to her side and he saw she was wearing a dressing-gown and carpet slippers.

"Let's go," he suggested. "It can't be far now. Shall I take the torch?"

She pa.s.sed it to him and he caught a brief glimpse of her in its gleam as he turned to light the way ahead. She was like a bloodless ghost, white-faced and insubstantial with a cloud of dark hair. She looked absolutely terrified.

"Please don't be frightened. Your mother knows me," he said inadequately as they went on. "She agreed I should come after you." They could see the black ma.s.s of the Lodge in the distance.

She tried to speak but it was a second or two before the sound came. "I could hear b-breathing," she wobbled out.

"That was my lungs gasping," he said, attempting a joke.

"No," she whispered, "it wasn't you." Her step faltered and he swung the beam towards her. She plucked pathetically at her dressing-gown. "I've got my nightie on." Her lips were trembling uncontrollably. "I thought it was my father."

McLoughlin caught her as she slumped in a dead faint. In the distance, carried on the wind, came the faint sough of a siren.

"What did she mean, Mrs. Maybury?" McLoughlin was leaning wearily against the Aga, watching Phoebe make tea.

Anne had been rushed to hospital with Jonathan and Diana in attendance. Jane was asleep in bed with Elizabeth watching over her. Police were swarming all over the garden in search of a suspect. Phoebe, under pressure from McLoughlin, was answering questions in the kitchen.

She had her back to him. "She was frightened. I don't suppose she meant anything by it."

"She wasn't frightened, Mrs. Maybury, she was terrified, and not of me. She said: 'I've got my nightie on. I thought it was my father.' " He moved round so that he was facing her. "Forgetting for the moment that she hasn't seen her father for ten years, why should she a.s.sociate him with the fact that she was wearing a nightie? And why should it terrify her? She said she heard breathing."

Phoebe refused to meet his eyes. "She was upset," she said.

"Are you going to make me ask Jane when she wakes up?" he demanded brutally.

She raised her lovely face. "You'd do that, I suppose." She made as if to push her spectacles up her nose, then realised she hadn't got them on and dropped her hand to the table.

"Yes," he said firmly.

With a sigh, she poured two cups of tea. "Sit down, Sergeant. You may not know it but you look dreadful. Your face is covered in scratches and your shirt's torn."

"I couldn't see where I was going," he explained, taking a chair and straddling it.

"I gathered that." She was silent for a moment. "I don't want you asking Jane questions," she said quietly, taking the other chair, "even less so after tonight. She couldn't cope. You'll understand that because I think you've guessed already what she meant by her remark." She looked at him enquiringly.

"Your husband abused her s.e.xually," he said.

She nodded. "I blame myself because I had no idea what he was doing. I found out one night when I came home early from work. I was the evening receptionist at the doctor's surgery," she explained. "We needed the money. David had sent Johnny to a boarding prep-school. That day I had flu and Dr. Penny sent me home and told me to go to bed. I walked in on my poor little Jane's rape." Her face was quite impa.s.sive as if, long ago, she had realised the futility of nurtured anger. "His violence had always been directed at me," she went on, "and in a way I asked for it. While he was beating me, I could be certain he wasn't touching the children. Or I thought I could." She gave a mirthless laugh. "He took full advantage of my naivety and Jane's terror of him. He had been raping her systematically since she was seven years old and he kept her quiet by telling her he would kill me if she ever said anything. She believed him." She fell silent.

"Did you kill him?"

"No." She raised her eyes to his. "I could have done quite easily. I would have, if I'd had anything to kill him with. A child's bedroom doesn't lend itself to murder weapons."

"What happened?"

"He ran away," she said unemotionally. "We never saw him again. I reported him missing three days later after several people had phoned to say he hadn't kept appointments. I thought it might look odd if I didn't."

"Why didn't you tell the police the truth about him?"

"Would you, Sergeant, with a severely disturbed child your only witness? I wasn't going to let her be questioned, nor was I going to give the police a motive for a murder I didn't commit. She was under a psychiatrist for years because of what happened. When she became anorexic, we thought she was going to die. I'm only telling you now to protect her from further distress."

"Have you any idea what happened to your husband?"

"None. I've always hoped he killed himself but, frankly, I doubt he had the guts. He loved inflicting pain on others but couldn't take it himself."

"Why did he run away?"

She didn't answer immediately. "I honestly don't know," she said at last. "I've thought about it often. I think, perhaps, for the first time in his life he was afraid."

"Of what? The police? Prosecution?"

She smiled grimly, but didn't answer.

McLoughlin toyed with his teacup. "Someone tried to murder Miss Cattrell," he said. "Your daughter thought she heard her father. Could he have come back?"

She shook her head. "No, Sergeant, David would never come back." She looked him straight in the eye as she brushed a strand of red hair from her forehead. "He knows if he did, I'd kill him. I'm the one he's afraid of."

A very irritable Walsh sat in Anne's armchair and watched a policeman photographing prints on the outside of what was left of the French windows. It was a job that couldn't be put off till the morning in case it rained. The broken slivers of gla.s.s on the flagstones had been covered with weighted-down polythene. "There are going to be dozens of prints," he muttered to McLoughlin. "Apart from anything else, half the Hampshire police force have left their grubby paw marks round the shop." McLoughlin was examining the carpet by the French windows, looking for blood spots. He moved across to the desk. "Anything?" Walsh demanded.

"Nothing." His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion.

"So what happened here, Andy?" Walsh cast a speculative eye over his Sergeant, before glancing at his watch. "You say you found her at eleven forty or thereabouts. It is now one thirty and we have come up with some vague sounds in the distance and a woman with a fractured skull. What's your guess?"

McLoughlin shook his head. "I haven't got one, sir. I wouldn't even know where to start. We'd better pray she comes round soon and can tell us something."

Walsh levered himself out of the chair and shuffled over to the window. "Haven't you finished yet?" he demanded of the man outside.

"Just about, sir." He took a last photograph and lowered his camera.

"I'll leave someone here overnight and you can do the inside tomorrow." Walsh watched while the man packed up his equipment and left, carefully skirting the broken gla.s.s, then he shuffled back to the chair, playing up his age. He took out his pipe and began the process of filling it, watching McLoughlin closely from beneath the angry jut of his brows. "All right, Sergeant," he snapped, "now you can tell me just what the h.e.l.l you've been up to. I don't like the smell of this one little bit. If I find you've been getting your priorities mixed, by G.o.d you'll be for the high jump."

Exhaustion and jangling nerves combined in a prolonged yawn. "I was trying to steal a bit of a march, sir. I thought there might be promotion in it." Bold, bare-faced lies, he thought, nothing too concrete, not even a half-truth that Walsh could check up on. If Phoebe could get away with it, then so could he.

Walsh's frown deepened. "Go on."

"I came over the wall at the bottom to see what happened when she came back from the Station. I must have got here by about ten forty-five. The others had all gone to bed but Miss Cattrell was sitting in that chair you're sitting in. She finally switched off her downstairs light at about eleven fifteen. I hung around for another ten minutes then set off for the car. I hadn't gone far when I thought I heard voices, so I came back to investigate. Her window was slightly open. I shone my torch round inside and found her there." He jerked his head towards the middle of the room.

Walsh champed thoughtfully on the stem of the pipe. "It was lucky you did. Mrs. Maybury said you were giving her heart ma.s.sage when she came in. You probably saved her life." He lit the pipe and studied the Sergeant through the smoke. "Is this the truth?"

McLoughlin gave another huge yawn. He couldn't control them. "It's the truth, sir," he said wearily. Why was he trying to protect himself? This morning he would have welcomed an excuse to go. Perhaps he just wanted to know the end of the story, or perhaps he wanted vengeance.

Walsh was deeply suspicious. "If I find there's something been going on between the two of you, you'll be up on a discipline charge so d.a.m.ned fast you'll wonder what happened. She's a suspect in a murder enquiry."

The dark face cracked into a grin. "Do me a favour, sir, she's been treating me like Vlad the Impaler since I called her a d.y.k.e." He yawned again. "But I appreciate the compliment. In view of the bashing it's taken in the past couple of weeks, it does my ego good that you think I can pull a reluctant bird after twenty-four hours. Kelly wouldn't agree with you," he finished bitterly.

Walsh grunted. "Was it you who hit her?"

McLoughlin didn't have to feign surprise. "Me? Why would I want to hit her?"

"To get even. You're in the mood for it."

He stared at Walsh for a moment, then shook his head. "That's not the way I'd choose," he said. "But if Jack Booth ever turns up with a hole in his head, that might be down to me."

The Inspector nodded. "So what was Miss Cattrell doing for the half hour you watched her?"

"She sat in that armchair, sir."

"And did what?"

"Nothing. I presume she was thinking."

"You say the Maybury woman made no bones about wanting to kill her husband. Would she kill her friend too?"

"Possibly. If she was angry enough. But what was her motive?"

"Revenge? Perhaps she thought Miss Cattrell had talked to us."

McLoughlin shook his head slowly. "I imagine she knows Miss Cattrell better than that."

"Mrs. Goode? The Phillipses? The children?"

"Same question, sir. What was the motive?"

Walsh stood up. "I suggest we start looking," he said acidly, "before we all end up on point-duty. A weapon would be helpful. I want this entire house turned upside down, Sergeant. You can lead the search till Nick Robinson gets here. He'll be my number two in this investigation." He looked at his watch. "You'll be concentrating on the Maybury file. Be in my office at ten tomorrow morning. There's a pattern to all of this and I want it found."

"With respect, sir, I believe I can make a more valuable contribution here."

"You'll do as you're told in future, Sergeant," the older man snapped angrily. "I'm not sure what your game is, but I don't like people who try to steal a march over me."

McLoughlin shrugged. "Then I urge you not to get too sold on a pattern, sir. Mrs. Maybury has told you what she thinks happened and, as I pointed out this morning, Mrs. Phillips describes this house as a fortress. Why?"

Walsh eyed him thoughtfully for a moment then walked to the door. "You're being conned by some very professional liars, lad. If you don't sharpen up, you're going to look very foolish indeed."

16.

There was a new sense of urgency about police activities. They moved into top gear with alacrity, demonstrating all too clearly that there was another gear to move into. It was as if the attempted murder of a known woman was on a different scale from the murder of an anonymous male stiff in the garden. Anne would have found it disquieting, except that she was in a coma in Intensive Care and knew nothing about it. Walsh would have denied it vigorously, but his irascible temper flayed his men instead when, after a thorough search of the house and grounds, they failed to come up with anything.

In the press, Streech Grange was likened, quite inappropriately, to 10 Rillington Place, as a setting for ma.s.s murder and decomposing remains. To Anne's friends, the burden of their a.s.sociation with it was heavy. In retrospect, their previous interrogations had the relaxed air of a social gathering. After the a.s.sault on Anne, the gloves came off and they were grilled dry. Walsh was looking for a pattern. Logic told him there was one. The odds against three unconnected mysteries in one house were so incalculable as to be beyond consideration.

For the children, it was a new experience altogether. As yet none of them had been questioned and it came like a baptism of fire. Jonathan hated his sense of impotence, of being involved in something over which he had no control. He was surly and uncooperative and treated the police with a sort of weary disdain. Walsh wanted nothing so much as to kick him up the backside, but after two hours of questioning he was satisfied there was nothing more he could get out of him. Jonathan had vindicated the three youngsters of the a.s.sault on Anne. According to him, they had changed into their nightclothes after the impromptu Lafite party, wrapped themselves in duvets and curled up in Jane's room to watch the late film on her television. The shattering gla.s.s, followed by McLoughlin's shouts for help, had startled them. No, they had heard nothing before that, but then the television had been quite loud. Walsh questioned Elizabeth. She was nervous but helpful. When asked for her movements on the previous evening, her account tallied exactly with Jonathan's, down to the most trivial detail. Jane, after a day's respite, gave a similar story. Unless they were in some fantastic and well-organised conspiracy, they had had nothing to do with the attempt on Anne's life.

For Phoebe it was a case of deja vu. The only difference this time was that her interrogators now had information she had withheld from them ten years previously. She answered them with the same stolid patience she had shown before, annoyed them with her unshakable composure and refused to be drawn when they needled her on the subject of her husband's perversions.

"You say you blame yourself for not knowing what he was doing to your daughter," said Walsh on more than one occasion.

"Yes, I do," she answered. "If I had known earlier, perhaps I could have minimised the damage."

He got into the habit of leaning forward for the next question, waiting for the tell-tale flicker of weakening resolve. "Weren't you jealous, Mrs. Maybury? Didn't it madden you that your husband preferred s.e.x with your daughter? Didn't you feel degraded?"

She always paused before she answered, as if she were about to agree with him. "No, Inspector," she would say. "I had no such feelings."

"But you've said you could easily have murdered him."

"Yes."

"Why did you want to murder him?"

She smiled faintly at this. "I should have thought it was obvious, Inspector. If I had to, I'd kill any animal I found savaging my children."