Maxwell’s Curse

by M. J. Trow

  ‘It’s the devil I wanted to talk to you about.’

  Maxwell frowned. ‘You’re not still looking for poppets, Chief Inspector? Voodoo or whatever.’

  Hall shook his head. ‘I can’t afford to make light of this, Mr Maxwell. The lady I mentioned a moment ago, Alison Thorn, the headteacher at Wetherton, is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Maxwell looked up. ‘Murdered?’

  Hall nodded, knowing Maxwell well enough to know the speed with which the man put two and two together. ‘Where were you on Sunday?

  ‘Yesterday?’ Maxwell got up to fill his coffee mug. ‘At home.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘No,’ Maxwell threw caution and his arteries to the winds and threw in three sugars for good measure. ‘Not all day. I went walking on the Shingle after lunch.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Alone except for a few hardy perennials exercising their dogs. I didn’t see anybody I knew.’

  ‘So, no one can vouch for you?’

  ‘No, Chief Inspector,’ Maxwell looked at his man over the rim of his mug, the one that told the world, rather incongruously, that he loved David Essex. Henry Hall looked tired and as grey as his suit. He’d come alone again, as he had the last time, without the usual entourage in tow. As far as anyone could ever tell with Hall, he seemed to

  Maxwell to be a man on the edge. ‘But then, can anyone vouch for you?’

  ‘My wife and kids,’ Hall nodded softly.

  ‘Ah, well,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘There you have the advantage over me. But if you’re suggesting I cycled over to Wetherton, killed this poor woman and cycled home again, I’m afraid I’ll have to come out with the cliché about straws and methods of grabbing them.’

  ‘Ms Thorn didn’t die in Wetherton, Mr Maxwell,’ Hall told him. ‘She died in her flat in Whitesmith Street. You can almost see it from your window.’

  ‘What killed her?’

  ‘Forensic will tell us that in due course. I’m much more interested in who. Tell me, did you find anything at Myrtle Cottage?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Don’t be evasive, Mr Maxwell, please. The home of Elizabeth Pride. You went there.’

  ‘You wanted me to.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Maxwell chuckled. ‘Mr Hall, I could go on fencing with you all day, I really could, but I honestly don’t think that would get either of us anywhere, do you?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Hall said without a trace of a smile. ‘You appreciate I had to ask – about Alison Thorn, I mean.’

  ‘On the grounds that you’re probably asking everybody else in Leighford, yes, of course. And it’s very flattering to have the personal attention of a Detective Chief Inspector.’

  Hall stood up suddenly, half turning for the door. ‘If I wasn’t so damned fond of you, Maxwell,’ he said, ‘I might take a really personal dislike; know what I mean?’

  Maxwell’s mouth was still open as the DCI saw himself out. It was an extraordinary thing to hear from Henry Hall.

  Extraordinary because it proved the man was human after all.

  ‘Jacquie?’

  ‘Max?’

  The Head of Sixth Form was lolling in his attic, Trumpeter Hugh Crawford sitting this one out while his recreator was busy dappling the flanks of his horse, standing patiently nearby.

  ‘I had a visit from your guv’nor today.’

  ‘Hall? What did he want?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it; I’m damned if I know. I suspect a confession would be favourite, but I got the impression he’d have settled for some counselling. He asked about Myrtle Cottage.’

  There was a pause. ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘Basically that Queen Anne was dead. What have you told him?’

  Another pause. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The calendar. I seem to be in possession of a pretty important clue and officially your people know nothing about it.’

  ‘I know, Max. I don’t know what to do about that. It’s a matter for your own conscience.’

  ‘My own …’ Maxwell hauled his feet off his modelling desk and sat upright, tugging off the forage cap. ‘I’m sorry, I must have misdialled. Is this Jacquie Carpenter, companion of a mile, anima divida mea or is it the bloody Samaritans?’

  ‘Max,’ he heard her sigh, ‘we’ve had this conversation so often. You know I can’t tell you things.’

  ‘Alison Thorn,’ he said. ‘At least tell me that.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘It was on the local news tonight. Hall specifically told me she’d been murdered. All you’d be doing is crossing tees and dotting eyes.’

  This time the pause was longer. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘She died on Sunday – am I right?’

  ‘Astley thinks mid to late afternoon.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Poison. He doesn’t know what, yet. Something organic.’

  ‘You mean plants?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘What do we know about this woman, Jacquie? Alison Thorn?’

  ‘She was a head teacher,’ he heard the voice on the end of the phone sounding less and less like the Jacquie he knew. ‘We’ve only just started on this one, Max. I can’t tell you any more. Look, I’ve got to go.’

  And she did. There was no love. Not even a goodbye. He didn’t notice her throw the phone across the room; didn’t see her tired face crumple; didn’t hear her start to cry.

  ‘And it’s good night from her,’ Maxwell said softly. He caught the eye of the great black and white beast in the corner, sitting on the pine chest like the sphinx. ‘I don’t know, Count, in answer to your unspoken question. What’s going on? What do we have here? A hot friend cooling? The hang-up that denotes a hang-up? Something I said? Or didn’t say? Christ knows!’ And he sat back in his canvas camp chair, staring at the half-finished warrior distorted under the bright light and the magnifying lens. Above him, through the skylight the canopy was a rich velvet studded with stars.

  ‘All right,’ he shook himself free of Jacquie, her distance, her coldness. He was old enough to be her father, for God’s sake. If it was over, before it had really started, well, perhaps that was how it was meant to be. All part of the grand plan of the Great Timetabler in the Sky, ‘back to basics’. For a weak, fleeting moment, he longed for Roger Garret’s flipchart, that sad invention dreamed up for captains of industry to handle their presentations. Why use a few well-chosen words when flow diagrams and pie charts were so much more appealing? The infection had snuck itself into schools where Deputy Headmasters were particularly prone to it. Looking at the cat as he was now, however, Maxwell thought the dim creature might appreciate it. Never mind, he’d have to imagine.

  ‘First – and I will be asking questions later, Count, so pin your ears back – Elizabeth Pride is left like an unwanted Christmas present on my doorstep. She has been frozen. Why? Because – yes, you’re getting into your stride now, aren’t you? Because she was murdered earlier and had to be kept for a while. Now why is that – of course, your next logical question – and I don’t know the answer to that one. Which date is significant? The last of the old Millennium, with its first footers and strange men and long leggety beasties? Or the shortest day – St Thomas grey, St Thomas grey? Or both?’

  The cat wasn’t talking.

  ‘The old girl was poisoned,’ Maxwell leaned back, his hands cradling his head, looking at the stars. ‘So was Albert Walters; so, allegedly, Alison Thorn. Andrew Darblay is the exception. No poison, just the caving in of his skull.’ He slid back the chair and began to pace the attic room, mechanically checking his half-finished Light Brigade for cobwebs. ‘Common factors – three of the four died by poisoning. Two of them had wounds in the nape of the neck. One of them – Darblay – with overt symbols of devil worship all around him; right in the middle of his own church. What’s the link?’

  He crouched suddenly to check the Brigade’s line-up – Lord Cardigan with his arm nonchalantly on his hip, Lew
is Nolan trotting over to William Morris to ask his permission to ride with the 17th. There was a gap where the Italian observers Govone and Landriani were going to go. For three years, he’d put off modelling them; he hadn’t a clue what uniforms they wore. ‘The link, Count, is … nonexistent!’ And he stood upright again. In the end, he succumbed and poured himself a large Southern Comfort, wincing as it hit his tonsils.

  ‘Elizabeth Pride, widow,’ he recited to himself from the mental CV he’d put together from his conversations with Jacquie and gleanings from Darblay and the media. ‘In her seventies, lived alone, apart from several of your kind – and, no, I don’t think any of them are as gorgeous as you, you vain bastard. She was a bit of a dragon, apparently. Had a reputation as a witch. Had the evil eye,’ Maxwell shot a glance towards his cat, ‘not unlike your good gentleman self. People who wanted her dead? The Cruikshanks in particular, Romanies who bore an ancient grudge. Plus, presumably, anybody else at whom she looked funny. Possibly, even, the Reverend Darblay.’

  He sat down again, sipping the spirits that cheered, warming to his theme. ‘Andrew Darblay. Nice bloke. Vicar of the old school. Probably hated the thought of women priests and gay clergy. Widower. Lived in Wetherton. Housekeeper came in during the day and said in the Advertiser that she didn’t think he had an enemy in the world – which, I have to admit, runs counter to every vicar I’ve ever met. They usually manage to offend somebody. Even Father Ted upset the Craggy Island Chinese Community, if you remember that classic episode, Count.’

  Metternich didn’t. He’d been out on the tiles at the time, testicles or no testicles. Come to think of it, no testicles.

  ‘His body was found by the police themselves, who’d presumably gone to interview him, as I did, about Elizabeth Pride. Jacquie told me he’d already reported a bogus journalist, namely, moi, provider of vitamin-enriched slime for your delectation and delight. Now, is that why they called back, I wonder? Or had something else occurred to them?’ He looked ruefully at the phone. ‘No good asking Jacquie as things stand at the moment,’ he mused. ‘The good clergyman was battered to death with your proverbial blunt instrument at some time on the Thursday morning. There was no poisoning or incision in the neck. But there were the black candles, the pentagram, the sheep’s heart. By bell, book and candle, eh, Count? I knew I should have called you Pyewacket. Or Grizzle or Greedigut.’ He leaned towards the animal’s broad, flat head. Metternich looked at him through one contemptuous eye and sauntered away, tail held high, bum at a rakish angle.

  ‘No need to take offence, Count,’ Maxwell called after him as the beast bounded down the attic stairs. ‘It’s no slur on your character, they’re just the names of familiars, witches’ imps that worked for the devil.’

  No reply.

  ‘Greymalkin!’ Maxwell shouted. ‘I could go further and call you Paddock! Not,’ he saw his reflection in the skylight and raised his glass, ‘that I’d be so vituperative.’

  He sat down on the chest the cat had just vacated. ‘Ah,’ he smiled, ‘happiness, Count, is a warm bum.’

  But Metternich was gone, out through the lounge in its half light, down the stairs to the cat flap in the kitchen and the night’s long hunt.

  ‘Albert Walters,’ Maxwell was still talking to himself, ‘lived and died on the Barlichway. What’s that, about five miles from Wetherton? He was of an age with Liz Pride and Jane Cruikshank. Did they know each other? Is that the link? And if it is, where does this Alison Thorn come in? They said Liz Pride was a witch. And Barney Butler told me old Albert was a magician. So who was Alison Thorn – Queen Mab?’

  The little ones had all gone by the time Peter Maxwell opened the classroom door at Wetherton First School. Time was of the essence and he needed to catch someone there before the caretaker shut up shop for the night. He’d dragooned the long-suffering Sylvia Matthews again, assuring her with all his charm and suavity that he didn’t just love her for her car, useful though the invention was. A year ago, six months even, Sylvia would have winced at that, but now she was more up-together and could hold Peter Maxwell at arm’s length. Even so, she told him, she couldn’t handle what he was about to do. She’d wait in the car.

  A grey-haired woman was wandering the room, straightening pictures and sticking Blu-Tack onto pieces of paper.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m Peter Maxwell,’ he said, ‘from Leighford High.’ He’d thought of a dozen aliases on his way over, as the leaden sky prepared for night and the sidelights became headlights on the curve of the A25. Face to face with this woman, he’d abandoned them all. An uncomprehending desolation was etched into every line of her features.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you a colleague of Alison Thorn’s?’

  The woman blinked. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said softly.

  ‘Did you know Alison? Are you a relative or something?’

  ‘No,’ he told her, ‘to both questions. Mrs … er … ?’

  ‘Mrs Whitemoor,’ she said. ‘Look, if you’re from the press, I really …’

  ‘No, Mrs Whitemoor. Look, your day’s over. I’m sure you want to get home, but could I have just five minutes of your time?’

  Mrs Whitemoor looked at the man. He was a stranger, barging into her classroom and her life, at a time when she needed it least. But his eyes were kind and his face seemed as sad as her own.

  ‘All day,’ she told him, ‘all day I’ve been trying to tell the children where she is, where she’s gone. I lied, Mr Maxwell. I told them she was in Heaven, not on a slab somewhere with her throat cut.’

  Maxwell blinked. ‘Her throat was cut?’

  Mrs Whitemoor turned away, suddenly unable to bear the probing questions. ‘The police told me she was poisoned, that someone cut her throat afterwards.’ She turned back to face him, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘She was a lovely person, Mr Maxwell and a great teacher. What kind of monster does that to a person like Alison? To any person?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to find out,’ he reached out and squeezed her arm gently.

  ‘Are you … a private detective?’

  ‘Unofficial,’ he said. ‘You see, on New Year’s Eve somebody left a body on my doorstep – literally.’

  ‘Good Heavens!’

  ‘I think whoever killed your lady also killed mine. Did you know Elizabeth Pride?

  ‘I’ve heard the name,’ Mrs Whitemoor nodded, ‘and I read about the case. I don’t live locally, you see. I live in Littlehampton.’

  In other circumstances, Maxwell would have offered his condolences for that, but now didn’t seem the time. ‘When did you see Alison last?’

  Mrs Whitemoor continued sticking her Blu-Tack to her pieces of paper, desperate to keep busy, afraid to sit down. ‘On Friday. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing all week, except for the visit from the police. That would have been Thursday, I believe.’

  ‘The police?’ Maxwell repeated. ‘They came on Thursday? Why?’

  ‘They wanted to look at some old school records. Amazingly, we’ve still got the logbooks from Victorian times.’

  ‘What were they looking for?’

  ‘Some people who were children here in the ’twenties. One, Alison said, was Albert Walters – he was the man found dead on the Barlichway Estate last week. Where a lot of our children come from.’

  ‘They do?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the only reason the school’s still open. We ship them in from Leighford every day.’

  Maxwell nodded. Somewhere, somehow, he heard the ring of a dropping penny. ‘And the others were Elizabeth Pride and Jane Cruikshank. I’m sure the boys in blue will have checked their maiden names by now and made the connection. Do you remember the name of the police officer?’

  ‘Er … Brand, I think. Alison got him to tell the children all about police work.’ Her smile at the memory turned to tears again. ‘None of us thought there’d be real police work to be done … on Alison herself.�
�

  She began to cry, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders heaving.

  Instinctively, he held her to him, stroking her hair, rocking gently with her. Nobody had cried for Elizabeth Pride or for Albert Walters. Only Mrs Spooner had cried for Andrew Darblay. Now, with Alison Thorn it was different. He hadn’t known the woman, yet he felt an iron lump in his throat. He felt the world would cry for Alison Thorn.

  12

  ‘Martin,’ DCI Hall was cradling a coffee cup. The lights in the Tottingleigh Incident Room weren’t burning blue, but they were radiating into another long, dark winter’s night. ‘Alison Thorn’s flat.’

  ‘We’ve found twelve sets of prints, guv,’ Stone told the waiting team as part of the day’s recap. ‘Hers, of course, a friend from the floor below, a Mrs Whitemoor who was a colleague – others we’re still checking.’

  ‘Men friends?’

  ‘None known. At least, not recently. Her address book has six assorted males other than her father. We’re checking them all out.’

  ‘How are the parents taking it?’ Hall asked.

  Stone shrugged. ‘Old man’s pretty solid, considering. Mother’s a basket case, on sedatives.’

  ‘It’s not every day someone poisons your daughter, then slits her throat.’

  ‘That’s a post mortem injury, guv,’ Kevin Brand said, leaning forward in the hideously uncomfortable seat that had numbed his bum all day.

  Hall nodded.

  ‘So, what are we saying?’

  ‘We’re saying that whoever administered the poison either stuck around to watch it take effect or came back later. Why, I don’t know. Who’s got anything on the neighbours?’

  Jacquie Carpenter had. ‘There was somebody calling door to door on the day in question. Bears some looking at.’

  ‘Any specific reason?’ Hall asked.

  ‘Well, according to the two neighbours who saw him, he had a collecting box in hand – Barnardo’s, they thought.’