by M. J. Trow
‘Guv! I’m sorry,’ she snorted with laughter, ‘I’m just trying to picture it ...’
‘It wasn’t funny at the time,’ he said, and allowed himself a small laugh, ‘but it was in retrospect, I have to grant you that. It sounded like a badly dubbed porn film. But I suppose she was just giving the client what he was after ... so to speak.’
‘So,’ Jacquie brought the conversation back to the job in hand, ‘she really was on the game, you think?’
Hall took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. ‘Hmm, that’s hard to say. It’s always difficult, as you know yourself, to bring these talented amateurs to court. But I should say as near as makes no difference, yes.’
‘Apart from what Hetty told me,’ Jacquie said, ‘I have made a bit of headway today, but I don’t know really how to tell you ...’
Hall looked at her through blank lenses. ‘What?’
‘Well ... it’s the C word ...’
‘Coincidence?’ He got up from the visitor’s hard chair and made for the door. ‘When it’s more than coincidence, tell me then.’
‘I’ll email you,’ Jacquie said. ‘When I’ve thought it through.’
‘Look forward to it,’ Hall said and left, closing the door carefully behind him, as ever. But she nevertheless heard him snort to himself as he walked away. ‘Coincidence! Hah!’
The desk sergeant looked up and his heart fell. He toyed with pressing his button, but it had been taped over by maintenance, pending its removal. He would miss his button.
‘Mr Maxwell,’ he said, with false bonhomie. ‘Can I help you?’
‘If you could just ask my wife to step down into the foyer for a moment,’ Maxwell’s smile was equally false, ‘that would be simply marvellous. I promise I won't keep her long.’
Without taking his eyes off Maxwell, the desk sergeant picked up the phone and punched a number. ‘Ma’am? I have your husband here ... Yes, of course.’ With a sour expression, the man looked Maxwell up and down one last time, then pressed a switch. The door into the inner sancta swung inwards, accompanied by a persistent buzz. ‘She says go up.’
Maxwell tipped his hat and sketched a bow. ‘Thank you. Usual offices?’
This was an old joke and the desk sergeant ignored it. ‘Third on the right, top of the stairs, yes, sir.’
Maxwell wondered if the man had had drama lessons some time in his dim and distant past. It wasn’t easy to put so much venom into one three letter word, but he did it with aplomb. He climbed the stairs, wondering quite why he had come. He had sorted it out by the time he tapped on his wife’s door. In the absence of Sylvia, the only place he could go when he needed a bit of a detox from Leighford High School was wherever his wife was – and at four in the afternoon, that place was here.
Jacquie was still behind her desk, but her whole demeanour was that of a woman ready to leap into action. Master of body language that he was, Maxwell immediately put out a restraining hand. ‘He’s all right. I’m all right. The Count is all right, as far as I know. Mrs Troubridge is all right ... um ... is that everyone?’
His wife visibly relaxed. ‘I don’t usually see you here at this time, that’s all.’ She glanced at the calendar icon on her laptop. ‘Wednesday?’ she ventured.
‘In all probability. It’s Beavers, as far as I remember. And if it isn’t Wednesday, it’s soccer or choir. Say one thing for the kid, he’s a busy little devil.’
She laughed. As an only child, she had been determined that Nolan would never want for company. He had taken the decision out of her hands, by being naturally gregarious and also nosy – there was no club that he hadn’t tried, including, for one hilarious week, ballet. But that was the only one that had beaten him, although the ballet teacher may have said that he had beaten it. With her worries allayed, she pushed her chair back and looked across the desk at her husband, rather more dishevelled as to hair than normal after a rather blustery ride over on white Surrey. ‘So why are you here?’
He shrugged. ‘Lonely?’
‘You? Since when have you been lonely?’ She could have bitten her tongue as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She could only imagine what it had been like for him when his wife and daughter had died, long years ago. But he took her words as she had meant them and answered accordingly.
‘Since Sylv left. Since Attila the Hen took over.’ He smiled at her. ‘So, I suppose, since Monday. But it seems longer. Much, much longer. The school isn’t the same. Mrs B and all her ladies and Daniel have downed hoovers; almost everyone is boycotting the daily meetings, which, don’t misunderstand me, is a good thing, but it does mean that the staff are split as never before. I mean, we have had the Huge Parking Space crisis of 1992, the Don’t Get Me Started Debacle of Oh Five, but this is more than anything that has gone before. No one is speaking, except in huddles. Even Mavis didn’t try to kill me this morning and that isn’t something I’m used to, believe me.’ He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, to its detriment. ‘And in all this, three of our kids have been made motherless and no one seems to have noticed. What are we becoming?’
Jacquie looked at the man sitting across from her and wondered, as she often did, how many layers he had. He had grown shells over the years to protect himself from life’s boulders raining down on him from on high, but the real, essential Maxwell couldn’t help peeping out, usually daily. She got up and went round the desk, just to give him a peck on the cheek, then went and sat again.
Maxwell grinned at her. ‘Small, but perfectly formed,’ he said, gesturing to his cheek. ‘You see, that’s all I needed. Maxwell’s himself again.’ As ever, his Richard III, channelled through Laurence Olivier, was perfection. ‘No, what I really came for – apart from a lovely kiss and to see your face in the hours of daylight, of course – was to see what’s what about the aforementioned deceased parents. Those of the staff who can still see anything beyond the ends of their own noses have been asking – although why they would think I know anything ...’ His voice trailed away and he adjusted an imaginary skirt, took off imaginary glasses and tossed back imaginary flowing platinum hair.
‘Why, Miss Smith, you’re lovely,’ Jacquie said, automatically. Then, more business-like, ‘I can't tell you anything you don’t know already, Max. Man, thirty-three, remember?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he waved a dismissive hand. ‘We all know that. But I know you, Detective Inspector Carpenter-Maxwell. You have not been sitting on your admittedly very attractive arse all day. You have more info or I’m a Dutchman.’
‘I still can’t tell you what it is, Mijnheer van Dijk.’
‘Droll. Very droll.’ Maxwell narrowed his eyes at his wife. ‘Do you mean you really can’t tell me, or you can’t tell me ...’ and he lowered his voice, ‘... here?’
‘Look,’ she also lowered her voice, ‘you know you always get it out of me in the end and I promise I’ll tell you everything when we get home. But I have a few emails to send, a few reports to read and then I’ll be done. Are you on Surrey?’
He nodded and raised a leg, pointing to his cycle clips.
‘Right, well, you get on home, start something scrummy for dinner and I’ll pick up Nole from whatever he’s doing today and when everyone is fed and ready for bed, I’ll tell you what I know.’
He smiled and bounced up and down.
‘If you’re good.’
‘As gold. Bitterballen and patats, to continue the Dutch theme?’
‘Why not? Rissoles and chips always go down a treat. But I think on balance, I’d rather have something I can just lie in and inhale. It’s been quite a day.’
‘Paella?’ Maxwell gave his scarf a twirl and headed for the door.
‘Perfect. You may have to pick up some rice on the way home. Other than that, it’s all there in the freezer.’
‘Right you are – see you later for something hot, yellow and Spanish.’ He flung the door open and cannoned into Henry Hall coming the other way. ‘That’s paella I’m talking about, Henry,’ he said
. ‘In case you were wondering.’
Hall shook his hand – it had been a while but neither man was much of a social hugger. ‘I never wonder when you are around, Max. I was just coming in to try to steal your wife for the evening, but it looks as though you already have plans.’
‘No,’ Maxwell said, trying to conceal his disappointment. ‘You can have her if you want her. One careful owner, you know the drill.’
Hall looked at the man and dithered for a moment or two. Over the years, they had clashed it was true, but when they had stopped crashing antlers, they had found they had much in common. They both loved Jacquie, for a start – and as starts go, it was as good a one as they could wish. Hall had had to concede, too, that usually Maxwell had his finger on the pulse of the beating heart of Leighford and had often beaten the police to the punchline; so he came to a decision.
‘Paella?’ he said. ‘Enough for one more?’
Maxwell looked over his shoulder at Jacquie. ‘You’d have to ask the Mem,’ he said. ‘I cook it, but she buys it. Only she knows if there is enough.’ It was an elegant let-out if she wanted one, leaving no bones broken.
‘Of course there’s enough,’ she said, smiling. ‘Just you, or is this a family invite?’
‘Oh, no – it’s work, really.’ Hall saw Maxwell’s face. ‘And you’re included, of course, though keep that bit to yourself. I would appreciate your input, actually. Call it a professional consultation.’
‘Oooh!’ Maxwell’s eyes lit up. ‘Expenses!’ He clapped a hand down on Hall’s shoulder and whirled out, turning back only to cry, ‘Krupuk?’
‘Why not,’ Jacquie said, laughing.
Hall sat down in Maxwell’s recently vacated chair. ‘Krupuk?’
‘Giant prawn crackers,’ she said. ‘You would need to have a printout of the previous conversation to really get the gist of that. But ... I’m surprised, guv, to tell you the truth. You don’t usually involve Max so ... overtly.’
Hall sighed. ‘I’ve read your emails, and seen the voicemails. I don’t do coincidences, as you know, and yet ... are these murders connected? How can they be?’
‘How can they not be?’ Jacquie was as sure of her ground as he was. ‘Max will clear the view,’ she said. ‘He can pick the bones out of anything. And he does a darn fine paella, too.’
Chapter Eleven
T
he room at the Ellisdon had, like hotel rooms the world over, windows which opened a meagre inch at the bottom. Geoff MacBride struggled with it for a moment or two, then gave up.
‘Whatever are you doing?’ Fiona Braymarr said, sleepily, from the bed. ‘Those windows don’t open any more than that. And anyway, it’s March. What do you want to open the window for, anyway? It’s not hot in here.’
MacBride thumped his hand on the glass and turned back to her, pulling the curtains closed behind him. ‘I’m not hot,’ he said, peevishly. ‘I just feel ... I feel a bit shut in. I’m not very well.’ He sat on the bed and suddenly shouted, ‘My wife has just been murdered, you know!’
She looked at him, her head on one side. ‘I do know,’ she said. ‘I’ve had several rather high-powered meetings about it today, as it happens.’
He was working himself up into a fury, one which had been a long time coming. ‘Meetings?’ he spat. ‘You’ve had meetings? Oh, well, dearie me. Poor little you. I, on the other hand, I have been quizzed by the police. I have driven over to the home of the rancid old bat I must call my ex-mother-in-law, I suppose, now, and asked ... no, begged her to let me see my children. Apparently, they are too traumatised to see me, so I had to come away, as she threatened to call the police if I carried on shouting at her front door. And you, you’ve had meetings?’ He subsided, the sweat sticking his rather meagre hair to his brow. A vein pulsed unattractively at a temple and he was a rather disconcerting shade of purple.
‘You should try to calm down,’ she remarked. ‘You won't get anywhere by having a stroke, will you?’
He looked at her, nostrils dilated, panting.
She could cope with him. She could cope with all men. It didn’t matter whether it was in a boardroom or a bedroom, she could cope with them and eventually bend them to her will. She put the thoughts of Maxwell to the back of her mind. He was proving less susceptible than most, but she would get there in the end. But this man; she gave a little smile. This man she could cope with any day of the week.
‘Don’t smirk!’ he snapped.
‘Darling,’ she purred. ‘I wasn’t smirking. I was smiling. When I said “stroke” it just reminded me of something.’
‘Oh, really?’ He really was in a very bad mood. ‘Some poor old buffer at one of your high-level meetings, was it? Some old git had a stroke?’
‘No, silly.’ She didn’t trot out the girlish laugh more often than she had to. It turned her stomach, but needs must, sometimes. ‘I was thinking about you and having a stroke.’ She whipped back the bedclothes. ‘Stroke this, why don’t you?’ It was a cliché, but it was one which had always worked thus far.
He curled his lip and leaned forward. ‘Are you serious? Are you serious? I am telling you about my ... my life. It’s unravelling, woman. And you lie there with your fanny out, like some tart. No, I do not want to stroke that! I don’t ever want to touch or see anything of yours, ever again. If I speak to you, you’ll be lucky.’ He stood up and looked at her with disgust all over his face. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ he said, half to himself.
She pulled the covers back up and sat up against the pillows, her folded arms keeping the duvet tucked in tight. ‘I know what you were thinking, though,’ she said. ‘I know what you’re thinking now. There’s a nice bit of ... what did you call it, you suburban little oik? There’s a nice bit of fanny. I’ll have some of that.’
He was putting on his coat, checking his hair in the mirror. ‘And you didn’t complain,’ he remarked.
‘Indeed not,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to be unpleasant. You’re a damned good lay, as it happens. Lots of little tricks. But don’t think I went along with this for the sake of your dick, darling. I did it because you are Chair of Governors at Leighford High School and chair of lord knows what else besides. I know you screw over anyone you want to, but I thought you might not screw me over if you were screwing me as well. And I was right.’ She gave him a smug smile. ‘You can't go back now on anything you said or did. Because I will wash my dirty linen in public, don’t you fret. Your alibi for the night your lovely spouse took a header off the balcony – gone. And I don’t mean that farrago of lies you spouted to the police; I mean the real alibi, the one you’ll need sooner or later. So, bugger off if you’re going. Stay if you want to. But don’t just stand there in your coat – you look like an idiot.’
Geoff MacBride was many things. He was a brilliant car salesman. He was an excellent chairman of any number of committees. He was a bad father and worse husband. And when he opened his flies, his brains fell out. He looked at her, lying there, outraged belligerence personified, red spots of anger on her cheeks, her eyes sparkling and her lips damp and parted.
And he unbuttoned his coat.
Metternich loved paella night. He wasn’t one for people food as a rule, but as Nolan didn’t consider mussels to be people food and so passed them under the table, the cat was happy to oblige with their discreet removal. It was a manoeuvre which Maxwell and Jacquie were happy to live with; it certainly beat stepping on a last night’s mussel in bare feet over breakfast into a cocked hat.
When the last grain of rice had been chased round the plate and the last drops of saffrony juice had been mopped up, Nolan asked politely if he may leave the table and did so, smiling beatifically at Henry Hall as he left the room.
Hall was impressed. Jacquie of course and by definition always obeyed the rules; even as he said that in the quiet of his brain, he knew that to not be strictly true, but to all intents and purposes, it was the case. Nolan’s father, on the other hand, was a card so wild it was impossibl
e to know what he might do next and, although mostly pleasant to those he brushed up in his daily meanderings, Hall had also seen him cut through rubbish, fools, bureaucracy and similar irritants like a knife through butter. And no one knew when or where the Maxwell axe would fall, the secret, though Hall didn’t know it, of his success in the classroom. A class on tenterhooks was a class which wouldn’t explode –yet.
‘He is such a great kid,’ Hall said, a little wistfully. He remembered his boys as nice kids too, but had far too few memories of them for his liking.
‘We like him,’ Maxwell remarked. ‘We’re thinking of keeping him.’
‘I heard that!’ a small voice called, from the landing above.
Hall looked stricken.
‘Don’t worry, Henry,’ Jacquie soothed. ‘Nolan has many failings, but one is always being a little slow to leave earshot. We’ve learned to adjust to it.’
‘But ... don’t you worry he might ...’ he looked from one to the other, ‘... overhear? I know you two talk about ...’ he couldn’t keep his eyes from the door, ‘things.’
‘No things until we know he is fast asleep,’ Maxwell said firmly. ‘He only lingers. He doesn’t use anything more dastardly than that. He’s just hoping to be invited to stay for dessert. But no such luck. He can hardly move as it is.’
‘He is a good little trencherman,’ Hall agreed. His youngest had gone through three horrendous years of eating only cold chicken and bread.
‘He’s always liked his food,’ Jacquie said, gathering the plates and taking them to the side. ‘He knows if he doesn’t eat it, the cat might have it. It’s a great incentive.’ She flicked the switch on the coffee maker. ‘Shall we go through while this does? Max, can you go and check for signs of washing; don’t worry about the neck, as we have a guest. No need to expose Henry to the screaming.’
‘I don’t always scream,’ Maxwell pointed out, reasonably, as he went out. ‘Sometimes it is more a ...’ and he ran up the stairs two at a time, to his and Hall’s amazement, ‘...hoodling sort of roar.’ He burst into Nolan’s room to gales of slightly hysterical laughter from within.
