Maxwell's Summer

by M. J. Trow

  Maxwell’s face must have said it all.

  ‘We have what they used to call an open marriage,’ she said. ‘He sleeps with whoever he likes.’ She let just the right number of seconds tick by, then she fixed Maxwell with her most voluptuous smile. ‘And so do I.’

  Not for the first time, Peter Maxwell had come to the conclusion that people were not all they seemed. Elliot Schwarzenegger had tried to come across as the high-flying business exec, a sort of Donald Trump with a brain and almost normal hair, but his death had put rather a dent in that. His wife, the long-suffering Flo, had shown a feisty side after all, now that she was free from his yoke and who knew, she would probably run for president one day. Jada, who had been so protective of the widow, had turned into a femme fatale before Maxwell’s very eyes. It shouldn’t have surprised him. People were infinitely complicated and multi-faceted, from the late Colonel Roddy to Tommy Lavender, the thickest boy at Leighford High, who was now a very highly paid rock star and could buy Peter Maxwell many times over.

  All this and more was whirling in the great man’s brain as he lay in his bed that night, watching the half moon throw its glow across the room via the open window. The heat of the day had dimmed, but it was still airless and Maxwell had not opted for the optional pyjamas he always took on holiday with him, just in case. He checked his watch, glowing in the dark. Half past two, that nothing time which had not found its way into film titles or song lyrics, a time which was neither the witching hour nor the break of day. The birds hadn’t started on their dawn chorus yet, so the sound of footsteps on gravel had Maxwell sitting up in bed. He wasn’t exactly used to nights at Haledown, so he had no idea what the score was. Did some poor benighted groundsman routinely patrol the grounds at this hour? One of the ancient security men, a martyr to sleep apnoea? Or was this some arcane Hale-ffinch ceremony, ending up with an orgy and cockerels being sacrificed on the lawn?

  He got up and crossed to the window, peering out under the window sash. A tall, statuesque figure was walking purposefully across the courtyard, making for the side gate and the stables. It was just along the path that he and James Brereton had found Elliot’s body. It was just around that corner that he had come across the late colonel, his throat slashed and bloody. There was a killer on the loose and Peter Maxwell didn’t know whether he was looking at that killer or his next victim.

  Either way, he couldn’t just go back to bed and turn over. He didn’t have time to find his still-packed pyjamas and anyway, they made him look like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, so he grabbed his Haledown bathrobe and shoved his naked feet into his shoes. He got back to the window just in time to see the figure pause, half turn and then disappear into the shadow of the matching stable block, making up the third side of the courtyard.

  He padded along the corridor and down the narrow, winding stair. The door was locked and for a moment he was a little puzzled. Surely, it wasn’t safe to lock people in at night; there had to be a way out. He cast his mind back to the rather patronising acclimatisation video Sally had insisted he watch and remembered. By turning right instead of left at the bottom of the stairs, he came out in a corridor running past the kitchens. The walls gleamed pale in the half moonlight and that indefinable smell of stately home kitchens hit his nostrils. It was genuinely impossible to describe it, a mixture of cabbage, boot polish, Silvo and generations of domestics. He reached the back door. Bugger! Locked too. His eyes scanned the row of hooks to his left; keys without number. Back in the day, the most important ones would have been dangling from the chatelaine of the chatelaine, probably Harry Hale-ffinch or Sally Baker in today’s terms. Now, they were all there, for all to use. Or misuse, as the case may be. He chose the two or three most likely and tried them all. Naturally, it was the last one that clicked and the door swung outward.

  Now, he was in the inner courtyard, a wall ahead of him. There had been no alarm noise and he already knew that the security cameras didn’t work, so any killer roaming the place at this hour would have had carte blanche thus far. Shit! The gate in the wall was locked too and something in Maxwell told him he didn’t have time to go back for the keys again. Putting all his faith in ivy and wisteria, he launched himself upwards, scrabbling hand over hand and feeling his shoes slipping on the twisting stems and shaking leaves. Anyone looking would have had an interrupted view of all his important little places from time to time, as the robe swung open as he struggled. At the top, he had to angle himself just so to avoid the spikes sunk into the cement. He grimly wondered if Colonel Roddy used to claim that this was barbed wire he had brought back from the Somme, then he dismissed it as an unworthy slur on the man’s memory and did a brilliant Batman by leaping to the ground.

  Caped crusader Maxwell was not. He landed badly on one knee and the gravel took off his skin. That was noise enough. He bit his lip to avoid adding the shrieked expletive he would normally have let out and hobbled on. Bugger! He’d ricked his ankle in the fall too, and it was the other leg. Doing an admirable impression of Mad Vince Price in House of Wax, he staggered and lurched his way across the gravel and reached the path.

  He stood still. Apart from his own slightly tortured breathing, all he could hear was the trickle of water from the fountain, like a little child laughing in the darkness. From the woods to the west he heard the owls calling, the white ghosts gliding silently over the meadow in search of prey.

  To his left, he could see the black outline of the stables, some of them made into the shops he remembered at his first meeting with Harry Hale-ffinch, that seemed like years ago. But the transformation was not yet complete and one end was still used for storage of feed and bedding. It was from there that he could hear slight movements and soft voices. Beyond that, from the new stables, came the occasional cough of a dog, the stamp of an insomniac hoof.

  He stopped, bending his head to catch the nearer sounds. There were voices, muffled and urgent, and the rustling of straw. He crept closer, wrapping his robe more tightly round him, his heart pounding, his eyes peeled. The old stable door was already ajar and he was able to sneak in without making it creak. He let his eyes get accustomed to the dark. The mangers of Hale-ffinch hunters long gone to inkwells and the knackers’ yard still jutted from the cobwebbed walls and the floor was littered with straw bales, fence posts, pony jumps and the assorted junk that outbuildings of stately homes always collect.

  And, talking of riding ... Ahead of him, a naked woman was straddling somebody lying on a bale, his feet sticking out and his heels bouncing on the uneven floor. They were whispering and murmuring and their ragged breathing grew louder as the seconds flew. Of all the times for Maxwell to sneeze, this was probably the worst. He was usually a ‘Massachusetts’ man – suitably enough – letting tip with a nasal explosion that registered on the Richter scale. When he absolutely had to, he could just about manage a ‘bishop’, a stifled half-sound created by closing his mouth and squeezing his nostrils. Even so, in these circumstances, even a bishop was deafening.

  Both riders froze, the girl throwing herself off the man and desperately trying to cover herself up, suddenly aware that two hands were never enough. He in turn sat upright, the only thing that was, now that Maxwell’s sneeze had cooled his ardour.

  ‘Sorry,’ Maxwell smiled at them, wiping his nose somewhat inelegantly on his sleeve. ‘Cobwebs.’

  ‘Sonofabitch!’ Jada hissed, scrabbling for her wrap, flung aside only moments before.

  ‘Er ... look, Max,’ Tom Hale-ffinch wondered where he’d dropped his trousers. Maxwell tried not to, but clearly the lord of the manor hadn’t finished. ‘This is all rather awkward. I mean,’ he grabbed a horse-blanket, stiff with hairs, sweat and age, ‘we don’t need this to go any further, do we? I mean, Harry and so on?’

  All kinds of blackmailing delights swam into Maxwell’s vision, but he’d been to a good school and dismissed them instantly. ‘Mum’s the word,’ he said.

  Jada had found her robe and was busy tying it round
her. ‘As for Frank,’ she purred, ‘you can tell him what you like.’ She looked Maxwell up and down. ‘And, say, while you’re here,’ she smiled, ‘I don’t suppose you and Tom ...’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful, Jada,’ Maxwell said, ‘But – and please don’t take this the wrong way, Tom – but the squire isn’t quite my type.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she wanted to know. Then, her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I get it. This is Tom,’ she jerked a thumb in his direction, ‘and you’re a peeping Tom, as you guys say; that Goddamned Godiva woman.’

  ‘Er, no,’ Maxwell said, almost apologetically. ‘I saw you on your way here, Jada, and I was worried. There is a murderer about.’

  She waved it aside. ‘Tom and I had more pressing matters,’ she said and suited the action to the word, pressing herself against his blanket.

  ‘Jada,’ he grinned nervously. ‘Really. I think it best ...’ He was keeping his blanket between them.

  ‘Oh, you stuffed Limey shirts,’ she snorted. ‘You’re all the same.’ And she flounced away.

  For a moment, the two men faced each other, Maxwell unable to see Hale-ffinch’s blushes in the half-light.

  ‘Max ...’ he began.

  Maxwell held up his hand. ‘I told you, Tom,’ he said. ‘Mother is an example of writing on the page. Goodnight.’

  All in all, a storm in a teacup. In an odd sort of way, it gave Maxwell’s ego a bit of a fillip. After all, he had, as politely as he could, turned Jada’s increasingly obvious pitch down over dinner and she had ended up with second best; a public school aristocrat with more money than God and twenty years Maxwell’s junior. So, perhaps there was a God.

  Getting back would pose the same problems he’d already faced – that bloody wall. He knew that Jada had gone before him, however; perhaps the guests had a front door key which she had used. So he decided to try that way instead. The huge eighteenth century frontage reared up before him and he tried the handle. Bugger. Nothing budged. Either Jada had gone this way and relocked the door or she’d found some other way in. He was just turning to his left to make for the kitchen wall again when he heard a scraping sound overhead. Instinctively, he looked up and saw a huge stone gargoyle hurtling towards him out of the night sky. He threw himself to the right, hitting his shoulder against the brickwork and shielding his face as the stone exploded like a cannonball in front of him, peppering his face and chest with flying gravel.

  He waited until his heart stopped thumping, then he eased himself into a sitting position and looked around. Above him, the parapet below the shallow roof and the curling chimneys remained unchanged, except that one of the gryphons that once stood there, looking defiantly out over the Haledown estate, was lying in pieces on the ground. In the movies, the house would have come instantly to life, with barking dogs and panicking servants.

  Instead of all that, as Maxwell sat there, still wondering how on God’s green earth he still managed to have an intact skull and unbroken limbs, an aristocratic voice above his head murmured, ‘Max?’

  Maxwell looked up into the uncertain eyes of Tom Hale-ffinch. ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Some sort of ...’ the lord of the manor looked vaguely skywards, ‘... accident?’

  ‘Some sort, yes.’ Maxwell extended an arm. He could have got up by himself, probably, but he didn’t want to risk it, especially with a witness. ‘I think I’ll ...’ he waved a general hand over his battered and bloody self.

  ‘Ah, yes, do.’ Tom Hale-ffinch was not a man to overreact, but even he was a little startled to see the state the man was in. All in all, taken all round, it really had been quite an evening. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then. Can I get the door for you?’

  ‘I wish you would.’ That was one problem solved. Maxwell didn’t fancy a repeat of the shenanigans he had gone through to get out. Hale-ffinch hauled Maxwell up, opened the door with a pass-key on a chain at his waist and wandered off, round the corner of the building as if they had just been enjoying an evening stroll. Maxwell would have clicked his tongue, only he was pretty sure it would hurt like hell if he did. So instead, he just took himself off to his room. Why shouldn’t the man have a pass key? It was his house, after all.

  He looked at himself in the mirror of his bathroom. He’d inched off the bloodied robe, reminding himself to apologize for it to his maid in the morning. His right shoulder was turning an interesting shade of purple and it was lacerated with gravel. Nothing appeared to be broken and perhaps only his pride was a little dented. He washed the cuts as well as he could and reached for his phone, the one he would never usually use, the one that Jacquie insisted he carry. He couldn’t ring her now. He had no idea what time it was, but it wasn’t first light yet and she couldn’t leave Nolan; neither could she bring him with her. So the magic number it was. 999.

  There was a squawk at the other end; some poor bastard who worked the night shify and never saw daylight.

  ‘Police,’ Maxwell answered the time-honoured question. Beeps beeped. Silent wires hummed. A male voice came back.

  ‘Leighford Police Station.’

  ‘There’s been a murder attempt,’ Maxwell said. ‘Haledown House.’

  There was a pause. Then, ‘Who on?’

  Maxwell’s turn to pause. ‘I assume you mean “on whom”? The answer is “me”.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  T

  he two men stood on the leads of Haledown as the first rays of dawn lent their hazy glow to the woods and the paddocks. It was going to be another hot day; the mist was already curling up from the grass and the all-but-invisible sun was spreading warmth across the land. Below them, between the house and the fountain, a dozen police cars, SOCO vehicles and a redundant ambulance were parked at random angles and spaces.

  ‘Careful where you tread, Max,’ Henry Hall said, the words to this man as redundant as the ambulance.

  ‘The gryphon,’ Maxwell mused. ‘Part lion, part eagle. It typifies strength and vigilance, which is why it – and, until recently, its oppo – was up here, watching over the grounds.’

  ‘Not particularly vigilant in your case, was it?’ Hall was looking along the stone ledge, noting the chips in the stonework. ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘There I was,’ Maxwell gave Hall his best Dixon of Dock Green, ‘proceeding in a westerly direction ...’ He caught the look on the DCI’s face and dropped the immaculate Jack Warner. ‘I saw a house guest walking just down there, towards the old stable block.’

  ‘Who?’

  Maxwell chuckled, shaking his head. ‘Now, Henry,’ he said. ‘I find myself in an invidious position ...’

  ‘Invidious, my arse, Max,’ Henry snapped. ‘You wake me up in the wee small hours with a tale that someone has tried to kill you ...’

  ‘What, you don’t believe me?’ It was a genuine Thirties gangster this time, part Jimmy Cagney, part George Raft.

  ‘Of course I do.’ Hall was patience itself. ‘Apart from Haledown’s previous over the last few days and the blood and the bruising - oh, and the smashed stonework – and, I have to say, the fact that it’s you ...’

  ‘Aw, shucks.’ Maxwell swayed his shoulders and head until both of these body parts reminded him of the events of an hour ago. And Anne of Green Gables disappeared. ‘All right.’ He was himself – and serious – again. ‘It was Jada Harper.’

  ‘Black girl?’ the DCI checked.

  ‘Careful, Henry,’ Maxwell warned. ‘Can you say that now?’

  ‘I think so,’ Hall said, ‘but it changes with the weather, so who knows?’

  ‘Yes, well, anyway, her.’

  ‘Where was she going?’

  ‘As it turns out, to the stables.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A tryst.’

  Henry Hall was one of two people at Leighford nick who knew what that word meant; the other was Maxwell’s wife. ‘Say on.’

  ‘The trystee – and I did promise him I wouldn’t say a word – was Tom Hale-ffinch.’

  ‘
The lord of the manor?’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘Claiming his droit de seigneur.’

  ‘You mean, they were at it?’

  ‘As at it as you can be with limited light, surrounded by straw and old bottles of horse liniment.’

  ‘Sounds kinda kinky,’ Hall commented. He, like Maxwell, remembered the Goodies.

  ‘I suspect that was the point,’ Maxwell said, ‘but an altogether more relevant point, Henry, and the reason why what I’ve just told you need go no further, is that neither of them could have pushed that gryphon off the wall.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ Only now was Maxwell actually thinking about it. ‘Yes, I’m sure of it. All right, neither of them was actually within my eyeline when the heavens fell, but there again, they wouldn’t have had time.’ He glanced down to the stables. ‘What do you reckon? Three, four minutes to get to the front door? In Tom’s case, he’d have had to put his trousers back on first. In those circumstances, we have to allow extra for him putting both legs down one leghole at least twice. Another three to get up here. Then,’ he peered closer at the crumbled masonry, ‘he’d have to push this gryphon. As it was, he was the first person to find me, sprawled on his doorstep as I was. And he came from the stables, at ground level.’

  ‘And Mrs Harper?’

  ‘Well, she did leave the stable before I did, but only by minutes. From what I’ve seen of her ...’ and he left Hall to wonder for a moment just how much that was, ‘she’d be able to give the gryphon the old heave-ho. But how would she know how to get up here? She’s only been here a few days. The only reason you found your way is that Tom showed you.’

  ‘So, where does that leave us?’ Hall asked.

  ‘Up shit creek,’ Maxwell shrugged as far as his shoulder would let him. ‘But I’ll tell you something; I’m going to have to re-negotiate my contract with Harry Hale-ffinch. There isn’t a clause to cover danger money.’