by M. J. Trow
‘Sorry. I just thought. What about those meetings they have for the families of people with addictions?’
Jacquie was interested. That sounded more likely. ‘What, you mean like alcohol, gambling, that kind of thing? I don’t think Geoff MacBride or Louise Morley have that kind of addiction.’
‘No, maybe not,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘But they do – in the case of Mrs Morley, did – have an addiction, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ Jacquie said, slowly as it dawned on her. ‘Sex.’
‘Bingo!’ Maxwell said. ‘Try him with that. I bet that will get him talking.’
‘You do know you’re a genius, of course,’ Jacquie remarked.
‘Tchah! I’d be a fine genius if I didn’t,’ Zero Mostel said from the other pillow. ‘I knew the Count was onto something.’
‘Yes, he’s a genius too,’ she agreed.
And the next time sleep beckoned, they just fell right in.
Chapter Twelve
R
ick Shopley was none too happy at having Thomas Morley ripped from his grasp. He felt he was getting somewhere at last, if it was only by dint of wearing him down, layer by layer, as eventually water will do to a rock. So when DI Carpenter-Maxwell swanned in, bright and breezy, all mumsy, no doubt, and said she would like to ask him a few questions, he was annoyed, but also interested to see how it would go. Not well, he didn’t expect. The man was like a clam.
She sat down opposite the accused and folded her hands neatly in front of her. She had brought him a cup of tea, and herself a cup of coffee. Nothing for Shopley, the sergeant noticed sourly. How like a bloody woman to know that the evil, murdering bastard liked tea and not coffee.
‘Thomas,’ she said, gently. ‘Do you remember me? We met when you first came in?’
Morley nodded.
‘Good. I understand that my colleague has asked you how you know Mrs Denise MacBride and you don’t feel able to share.’
‘It’s private,’ he said, mumbling into his cup. It was so nice to have a proper cup of tea, not the horrible, scummy coffee which that horrible, scummy policeman brought him, time after time.
‘I know you don’t want to make us think less of her,’ Jacquie probed gently.
‘She can't help it if someone murdered her,’ he said, almost finding the strength to snap at her. ‘She’s the victim here, you know. Not the murderer.’
‘We know that, Thomas,’ Jacquie said. ‘But I think I know why you don’t want to share your thoughts with us.’
Shopley snorted. Namby pamby crap!
Jacquie turned in her chair, her mouth smiling, her eyes not so much. ‘Sergeant,’ she said, in the voice which made even Metternich run and hide, ‘I wonder if you could step outside for a moment. If you would then go and tap on DCI Hall’s door, say I sent you. He’ll know why.’
Shopley drew a breath to start his bluster.
‘If you could do that now, sergeant, that would be marvellous.’ Jacquie had absorbed some of Maxwell’s best tried and tested methods, the smile, the dead eyes and the reasonable tone being the top combination for any occasion.
Shopley tried to stare her down, but couldn’t. With a muttered oath, he left the room, not forgetting to slam the door.
Jacquie turned back to Morley, who had finished his tea and sat forward, his hands folded in unconscious postural echo. ‘I think I know where you met, Thomas. I have the address here. Would you like me to say it out loud, or would you rather read it first, see if I’m right?’
‘Is this recorder on?’ he asked.
‘Did Sergeant Shopley switch it on this morning, telling you he was doing so?’
Morley’s days and nights were beginning to blur, but he thought so. He nodded.
‘Would you like me to switch it off for a while? I can, if you want.’
He shook his head. He was rationing his words, as though he only had a few left to see him through for the rest of his life. Which would be much better from now on, whatever the outcome of all this. His life, Tommy’s life; they would both be better without Louise. He pulled the piece of paper towards him with just the tip of his forefinger, spinning it round to face the right way up as he did so. He peered at it, his hand moving automatically to his pocket to reach for his glasses, but he didn’t need them. Jacquie had written the words very carefully in large block capitals and he could make no mistake. His lips moved silently, and he went pale, then he looked up to meet her eyes.
‘How ... how did you know?’
‘It was ...’ how could she say it was something her husband and the cat had come up with? ‘It was a hunch. Based on what we know of the people concerned.’
‘We were both really ashamed,’ he whispered. ‘If you tell someone you are married to a sex addict, they just make rude gestures, and make off-colour comments. I couldn’t really talk to anyone at work; they’re nice enough blokes, but a few of them remember Louise and ... well, I just couldn’t talk to them. Denise didn’t have any friends, not really. Her mum is a nice lady, but she didn’t really understand. She didn’t like Geoff MacBride,’ he paused and a little smile played over his mouth. ‘I don’t know anyone who does, not really. But she didn’t know what Denise was talking about. We used to have a little laugh about it. She used to talk about “urges” and “demands” and how Denise’s dad had been “very good like that; no bother”. But that’s not what it’s about. Not really ...’
‘Did your wife and Denise ever meet?’
Morley was shocked. ‘Oh, no, I would never have let that happen. Denise was a lovely woman, DI Carpenter-Maxwell ... is that like Mr Maxwell, up at the school?’
She nodded.
‘Tommy likes him.’ He suddenly looked stricken. ‘How is Tommy? He doesn’t have anybody now, except me.’
‘He’s in a nice foster home,’ Jacquie told him. ‘Just him, with a really lovely couple. Older people. We thought he would be more comfortable with no other children, being an only one.’ Only child Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell, mother of one, knew how that went.
‘That’s kind of you,’ the man said. ‘He’ll really appreciate that. Some quiet. That’s all either of us ever wanted, you know. Some quiet.’
Jacquie knew it was important to get things back on track. ‘So, they never met, Denise and Louise?’
‘They might have bumped into each other, I suppose. Around town. But they didn’t know each other. Not to speak to.’
‘It’s just that, you can see how we’re placed, Mr Morley,’ Jacquie said. ‘Two women, both dead. And you seem to be the missing link.’
She waited patiently while he assimilated the appalling suggestion she seemed to be making.
‘I didn’t kill them, Mrs Maxwell,’ he said. She didn’t get called that, not here in the nick, but somehow, it sounded right. ‘I didn’t love Louise, I admit. I never had, I see it now. I won't tell you what my dad told me what I was when I married her, but he was right. I was just carried away with the thrill of the sex and everything. I didn’t come from that kind of family. And the baby ... I thought he was mine. She let me think that for just long enough for him to become the love of my life, then she told me he wasn’t. She was that kind of woman, you see, Mrs Maxwell. Get your heart and then squeeze the life out of it, right in front of your eyes. But I didn’t kill her. Nor did Tommy.’
‘What about Denise?’ Jacquie had to ask the question, though it felt like kicking a puppy. ‘Did you kill her?’
His eyes went wide, and he began to hyperventilate. Before she could react, he was on the floor, back arching, barking with the effort of getting some air into his lungs. She banged the emergency button on the wall and then was on her knees beside him.
‘Come on, Thomas,’ she said, quietly. ‘Come on, just breathe now. Don’t panic. Breathe. You’re having a panic attack, but you can come out of this on your own. Just let your muscles go slack. That’s it.’ She found she was holding her own breath and had to work hard to let it out. It wouldn’t do for the first aider t
o find them both flapping around on the floor like goldfish without a bowl. ‘Come on.’ She put a hand on his chest, not to help him breathe, but to let him know she was there. Where the hell was the bloody first responder?
The door crashed back and suddenly the room was full of people and equipment. She looked over her shoulder.
‘We don’t need the crash cart,’ she said. ‘Just someone to help me get him into a better position. And then if someone could call the duty doc – we should have him checked over, just in case. Thanks.’ She turned her attention to the man on the floor, who was starting to relax. ‘Thomas, Alice here and I are going to sit you up against the wall and then I’ll stay with you until the doctor comes.’
‘Didn’t. Kill. Denise.’
‘No, I’m sure you didn’t,’ she soothed, ‘but we’ll leave that for now, shall we?’
The civilian first aider crouched down on the other side and together she and Jacquie lifted Thomas Morley into a sitting position, slightly bent forward.
‘I’ll stay with him if you like, Detective Inspector,’ Alice offered. This beat typing out reports by a good margin.
‘Is that all right, Thomas?’ Jacquie asked. ‘Is it all right if Alice stays with you for a bit? The doctor will be here shortly. Just rest if you can.’
He put his head forward and nodded slightly, but enough. Alice sat down beside him, also with her back against the wall and began to speak quietly to him, about her cat, her dog, her car which was giving her trouble these cold mornings. Normal life. That was what Thomas Morley needed. Something he hadn’t had for fourteen years. Something he may never have again.
Henry Hall was sitting calmly, as was his wont, behind his desk when Jacquie poked her head around the door. He gestured for her to come in.
‘Sorry for the Shopley thing, guv,’ she said, sitting in his visitor’s chair. ‘I couldn’t be doing with him, with his snorting and grunting at every turn.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Hall said, carefully placing the top on his pen and stowing it in his inside pocket. Henry Hall was possibly the last person in the world who always used a fountain pen; even Maxwell, tired of being permanently ink-spattered, had embraced the biro decades before. ‘I needed to speak to him anyway, so you saved me a job. I’ve had a few concerns shared with me by colleagues.’
Jacquie quickly translated this in her head. So, his mates had finally decided to dob him in, had they? About time. The man put the I in Political Incorrectness. As well as the O in oik. ‘Well, that’s good. I knew you would just give him five minutes of the usual warning if he said I had sent him.’
‘How did you get on with Morley?’ Hall said, moving on. ‘And thank you again for dinner last night, by the way. Max is some cook.’
‘He’s had the practice,’ she smiled. ‘And it was a pleasure. Sorry we couldn’t progress things much, but I think we’ve made a bit of a breakthrough this morning. Except ...’
Hall raised an eyebrow.
‘He’s had a bit of a panic attack. Alice – the first aider, you know?’
He nodded.
‘Alice is with him, waiting for the doc. He’s okay; I think it was all a bit much, really. I guessed, you see.’
‘Did you?’ Henry Hall wasn’t stupid. He knew when he left 32 Columbine the night before that he had set Maxwell’s synapses firing. It was a little like lighting the blue touch paper and retiring to a safe place.
‘We, perhaps I should say. Max. Anyway, I put it to him that he knew Denise MacBride from an encounter group for the families of addicts, and it was right on the money.’
‘Addicts?’ Hall was puzzled. As far as he could remember, there was no drug problem in this case.
‘Sex, guv, not to put too fine a point on it. Both MacBride and Louise Morley were, to a degree, sex addicts. Well, MacBride still is, I suppose, unless losing his wife this way has made him regroup. But I somehow don’t think so. I’m not sure he qualifies, either. He just ... chases women. I’m not sure that he is that indiscriminate, either. But Denise saw him as such, so she just wanted support. As for Louise Morley ... well, she made a living out of it, I suppose, but the picture I’m getting is someone who was a bit rapacious, to say the least of it. So she might have got the diagnosis, had she asked for one. I don’t think she saw it as too much of a problem.’
Hall, remembering Hetty and the hoover permanently on in the hall, agreed.
‘But Thomas and Denise obviously became fond of each other. That’s as far as I’ve got so far. He collapsed at around that point.’
Hall sat back and folded his arms. ‘It’s taken away that coincidental element, though, hasn’t it?’ he said, as happily as he ever was. ‘Did Morley kill Mrs MacBride, though? Or his own wife? I know he could only have done one.’
‘Yes. And it also removes the Strangers on a Train idea. He might get someone to kill his wife for him, but not if he had to kill Denise MacBride.’
‘Yes, I do see that.’ Hall leaned forward again and reached for his pen. He had forms to fill out, after all. ‘I’ll let you get on, then. Are you going to see Morley again, after the quack has been, I mean?’
‘No. I’ll let him rest for a while. He looked exhausted, apart from anything else. I think Shopley has been giving him a hard time.’
‘I’ve told him he’s off the case,’ Hall said, ‘so don’t worry on that score. If he gives you any bother, let me know. He’s on a written warning next and I wouldn’t be sorry to give it.’
She stood up, dismissed, in the usual Hall way. ‘I’m popping over to see the forensics boys,’ she said. ‘They’ve been playing with the answerphone recordings.’
‘Good luck with that.’ Hall didn’t really hold with dickering about with recorded material. In his view, a few wobbly lines proved little, but it kept the boffins happy. ‘Are they looking for anything specific?’
‘I think mainly they’re trying to pin down where the calls were made from. Background noise, that kind of thing.’
‘Oh, you mean like a station, a party or something.’ Hall, though he would have denied it hotly, also watched CSI.
‘Something,’ she agreed and left, closing the door quietly as she did so. A lesson for Shopley, should he be lingering near.
Maxwell walked that morning through a school so silent and demoralised, it felt frankly dystopian. He was still mulling over why anyone would ever want to remake Omega Man – again – when he flung open the door to his office. No milling crowds of white-faced zombies, so good news thus far. There was a note on his desk, though, written in Mrs B’s immediately recognizable block capitals. It was like being shouted at, but he knew she meant well. The first time she had left him a note in her ordinary writing, he had assumed it was a kidnap demand, when all she really wanted was more J-cloths.
‘MR M!’ it bellowed. ‘MY SISTER’S GRANDSON HAS LOOKED INTO ALL THIS GOOGLE STUFF AND THE BLEEDING WOMAN NOT BEING ON IT. HE SAYS THIS MIGHT BE BIG. HE WANTS TO WRITE A BLOG ON IT, BUT I SAID HOLD UP TILL I’VE SPOKE TO YOU. I’M AT YOURS THIS MORNING AS YOU KNOW. RING ME THERE BUT RING ONCE, RING OFF, RING AGAIN OR I WON'T ANSWER. YOURS MRS B.’
He found he had been holding his breath, as he so often did when being spoken to by the real live woman, and let it out in a rush. He knew in principle what a blog was, of course, but how adept Mrs B’s sister’s grandson would be at constructing one, that was another matter. How could he gently mention apostrophes and the use thereof. Semi-colons. It was a possible minefield. And what did they mean by ‘big’? Leighford big? England big? World big? He needed time, so he folded the note into his pocket and began to think about starting the day.
He hadn’t heard the door. That was the excuse he gave later when people asked why he had screamed like that. In perfect silence, Morning Thingee had come into his office and was just standing there, a tear-sodden lump of misery. After the first shock, he immediately leapt into ministering mode and soon had her sitting on his softest chair, a mug of coffee on the table in front of h
er. Helen Maitland had been the first person to respond to his scream – which he later renamed ‘yell’ – and as soon as she saw the situation, she took up her most frequently called upon role, that of bouncer and explainer outside Maxwell’s door. Even she could only hazard a guess but, perhaps unsurprisingly in the circumstances, she was right on the money.
Maxwell handed the girl a wodge of tissues. This clearly was not the time when just one would do. She blew her nose extensively and then dropped them neatly in the bin and held out her hand for more.
‘Feeling a bit better?’ Maxwell asked. It was becoming a habit, having an office full of weeping women.
She nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but just collapsed in sobs again. Maxwell decided to leave her to make up her own mind when it would be possible for her to utter and he sat back, trying to look, at one and the same time completely engaged with her pain, but also completely disinterested, so she didn’t feel overwhelmed. It was a difficult trick and he still wasn’t sure it was quite perfected when she gave a final sniff that rattled the windows and she spoke.
‘I’ve had the sack.’
Maxwell blinked. ‘Pardon?’
‘I’ve just had the sack. Mrs Braymarr just came into the office and sacked me.’
‘Oh, she is here today, then?’
‘Yes,’ Thingee said. ‘Aren’t we lucky?’
‘But you must have had some kind of warning, surely?’
‘She told us all yesterday that we would have to apply for our own jobs. She said that there would be two less jobs in the office from next week, that we weren’t meeting targets, whatever that means. How can you have a target for answering the phone?’ Her voice rose to an outraged squeak. ‘I mean, you can only answer it when it rings, can't you?’
‘True. So ...’ whatever Maxwell thought of Fiona Braymarr, he still needed the facts to be straight. ‘So, you did apply for your own job, did you?’
‘’Course I did,’ she said. ‘I need my job. I would have said I like working here, but it wouldn’t be true, not since she came. She set us all against one another, like ...’ she went off at a tangent. ‘Do you watch David Attenborough at all?’
