Maxwell’s Curse

by M. J. Trow

Stone looked at the young DC who looked back at him. ‘See, what I find a little more than a coincidence,’ he said, ‘is that of those five deaths, two of them can be laid, if you’ll excuse the pun, at your door. Now that does strain credulity somewhat, doesn’t it? How well do you know the Brougham?’

  ‘The hotel? Not very,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’ve had the odd dinner there. Nothing special, I seem to remember. Quite nice uplit wall decorations, sort of Klimt meets Bauhaus.’

  ‘What time did Ms Ruger leave?’ Stone asked.

  ‘She didn’t stay long,’ Maxwell remembered. ‘Perhaps ten, a little after.’

  ‘She drove away?’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything?’ Stone changed tack.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Think back. Did she give you any information?’

  Maxwell sat upright in his chair. ‘As a matter of fact, she did,’ he said. ‘She gave me a press pass and invited me to Monday’s press conference – Dr Liebowitz.’

  ‘The shrink?’ Stone checked.

  ‘To put it in the vernacular, yes.’

  ‘Now that is interesting,’ nodded Stone as Grimshaw wrote furiously.

  ‘Is it?’ Maxwell was all innocence.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Stone assured him. ‘It’s very interesting that a woman who was going to die a little more than forty-eight hours after she left you should think you’d be interested in the services of a shrink. You see, Mr Maxwell, you’re one of those fascinating people we police officers have a special place in our hearts for.’

  ‘Oh?’ Maxwell bit his tongue to stop himself from commenting on the prepositionary faux pas.

  ‘The person we call,’ Stone smiled, ‘the last person to see someone alive.’

  ‘You mean no one saw Janet Ruger for forty-eight hours? The entire weekend?’ Maxwell was incredulous.

  ‘No one, Mr Maxwell,’ Stone assured him. ‘No one at all.’

  15

  Mark Ruger arrived in Leighford that Wednesday. He wasn’t exactly the distraught husband. In fact he’d stopped being Janet’s husband eight years ago, after it was clear that she was more in love with her career than she was with him. He went through the motions, identified his ex-wife’s body for the record and talked to the police.

  Jacquie Carpenter got the short straw, sifting through the remains of another person’s life. The dead woman had graduated from Essex University (well, somebody had to) and had worked on a whole variety of local papers before reaching Fleet Street. A spell on the Guardian had been the high-water mark in the early ’nineties and then, on a whim, she’d retired to rural Wiltshire with hubby to write the great British novel.

  Instead, she’d drifted, dabbling here and there, freelancing as she went. She was never at home, Mark told Jacquie, never there for anybody but herself. Oh, she was a clever woman certainly, but there was no heart, no soul. Why would anyone want her dead? Well, that was a different question. Not Mark Ruger certainly. He’d taken the coward’s way out years ago with letters to solicitors and amicable settlements. They’d metaphorically divided the sofa and the bed in half. Janet had the PC and Mark the Sheltie – it seemed a fair deal.

  And Jacquie was still typing up the report at Leighford nick when Jock Haswell announced a visitor. Zarina Liebowitz loomed larger in a confined space than she had at the press conference. Her earrings dangled onto her ample shoulders and the dress she was wearing seemed to be made of several miles of batik.

  ‘I was hoping for Henry Hall,’ she said in her Californian drawl.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jacquie. ‘The DCI isn’t available at the moment. You’ve got me.’

  ‘DCI?’ Dr Liebowitz replied. ‘That’s a kind of lieutenant, isn’t it?’

  ‘Kind of.’ Jacquie shrugged. She really had no idea.

  ‘Is there somewhere where we can go, my dear?’

  Jacquie drew herself up to her full five feet six. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Dr Liebowitz. I am a Detective Constable. I’m not anybody’s dear.’

  ‘Oh, now,’ the psychotherapist said. ‘I find that very hard to believe. I was assured every co-operation by your Chief Constable.’

  Jacquie Carpenter caught Jock Haswell’s eye across the corridor and the kindly desk man suddenly found something fascinating in the filing cabinet to check on. Jacquie led the way to Interview Room Two, with its desk, its chairs, its tape recorder.

  ‘Sorry this is a little … basic,’ she said.

  ‘This’ll do fine,’ Dr Liebowitz replied. ‘Murder is a pretty basic business, after all.’

  ‘Can I get you some coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks, honey – or aren’t you anybody’s honey either?’

  ‘Let’s get another thing straight,’ Jacquie offered the woman a seat and took the other one, across the desk from her. ‘The Chief Constable may have promised you every co-operation, but to be absolutely frank, I don’t know how helpful I can be.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ the doctor nodded, pulling out a packet of Marlborough. ‘Oh, do you mind?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Jacquie said; she who hadn’t touched the weed this century.

  ‘Perhaps I can help you.’

  ‘Oh?’ Jacquie’s tone may have sounded hopeful but her face said it all.

  ‘The murder weapon,’ Dr Liebowitz said. ‘Can I see it?’

  Jacquie shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. It’s at the lab undergoing tests.’

  ‘No matter,’ the psychotherapist lit up with the age-old skill of one who can puff on a cigarette while in full flow. ‘Let me tell you. The dagger that killed Janet Ruger has a double-edged blade, which is five or six inches long. The hilt is made of obsidian, probably with some kind of shamanistic motif. Am I right?’

  Jacquie remembered to close her mouth. ‘How did you … ?’

  ‘I’ve been here before, DC Carpenter, not once, but many times. The dagger is called an athame. The hilt is black, the colour of death and it would have to be consecrated, like any sacred tool, before use.’

  ‘Consecrated?’

  ‘Sure, to remove any traces of negative or psychic energy. In the hands of a white witch, it can never be used to draw blood. It corresponds to the element of the Air.’

  ‘In the hands of a white witch?’ Jacquie repeated.

  ‘What you guys used to call a wise or cunning woman. Somebody who works for good. In the hands of a black witch now …’

  ‘And that’s what we have here?’ Jacquie asked. ‘Black witchcraft?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Dr Liebowitz nodded, staring hard at Jacquie.

  ‘Look,’ Jacquie twisted in her chair. ‘Can we get something else straight? I mean, this is the twenty-first century.’ She was trying to sound like the DCI.

  ‘So?’ Dr Liebowitz shrugged. ‘I won’t bore you with the pedigree of witchcraft. Endor, Pendle, Loudon, Salem – it goes back a long way. And it’s too late in the day to start debating whether the Dark One is for real or a dimension of our own psyche. The situation as I see it – the reality in Leighford today – is that there are folks round here for whom he’s real enough.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Jacquie asked, drifting, increasingly, in a sea of psychosis she didn’t understand. ‘Some kind of organization?’

  ‘A coven,’ Dr Liebowitz said. ‘Thirteen people, maybe more. They meet regularly in each other’s houses at esbats. On high days and holidays, it’s the sabbat – Halloween, Walpurgis. And it’s a lot more trick than treat, believe me.’

  ‘Nobody believes in this nonsense,’ Jacquie said, wishing Peter Maxwell was there to back her up.

  ‘Oh, but they do,’ Dr Liebowitz told her. ‘Janet Ruger, for one.’

  Jacquie blinked. ‘Janet Ruger was a believer?’

  ‘If you mean did she dance skyclad, widdershins around a maypole, I’ve no idea. But I met this woman. Believe me, she’s involved.’

  ‘You met her where?’

  ‘Nottingham, ten years ago.’ />
  ‘Nottingham?’ Jacquie repeated.

  ‘A housing estate called Broxtowe.’

  ‘Had you met Crispin before?’ Jacquie asked.

  ‘Crispin Foulkes? No.’ Dr Liebowitz blew smoke rings to the ceiling. ‘He’s quite a dish, isn’t he? No, we kept missing each other at Broxtowe, though it’s because of him I’m here.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, him and the local social services. He knew my work, of course. I wrote my PhD on satanic abuse. It’s flattering he remembered.’

  ‘And Janet Ruger?’

  ‘Well,’ the good doctor became cosy, wriggling nearer on her plump elbows, ‘Janet came to see me on the night she died.’

  ‘She did? What time was this?’

  ‘This is the Sunday night. The day before my press conference. It would have been about half eleven.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the Barlichway Estate.’

  ‘The Barlichway? What were you doing there?’

  ‘I wanted to see the place for myself. It’s on estates like that the trouble often starts. It did at Broxtowe, Rochdale

  ‘You were there alone, just the two of you?’

  ‘Sure. Listen, honey … er, detective, I was brought up on the West Coast and believe me, you ain’t seen nothing ’til you’ve sampled the delights of downtown LA.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Jacquie asked.

  ‘At the Barlichway?’ Dr Liebowitz leaned back as far as her proportions and the police furniture would allow. ‘Visited the spot where Albert Walters was found. Bad karma.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And then I went back to my hotel and she to hers, I guess.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘This would be soon after twelve. I had the press conference the next day and there were some notes I needed to check.’

  ‘Did Janet Ruger say she was meeting somebody else, back at the Brougham?’

  ‘No,’ Dr Liebowitz said. ‘I can’t say that she did.’ She looked at her watch, glittering gold on the chubby arm. ‘Jesus, look at the time. Sorry, Detective, I’ve got to run. Listen, we’ll talk again, huh?’

  Jacquie was still in her chair as the big woman reached the door, ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we will.’

  Metternich looked up at Maxwell with his usual ‘And where have you been?’ kind of stare. It was always the same. Regular as clockwork when the old bastard was out, that plastic thing in the corner of the lounge would ring and bleep and then start talking to him as if he was standing there. Then it would flash like an alien and every time Maxwell would press a button and the voice would come again, from nowhere.

  ‘Hello, Mr Maxwell, it’s Barney. Barney Butler. Look, I think I’ve got something for you. That bloke’ and there was a gap, ‘around. And I think I know what …’ another gap. ‘But the reception round here on the old mobile isn’t … So if you don’t get this message, give me a bell, yeah?’

  ‘Thank you, Barney,’ Maxwell cancelled the missive, ‘Irish as always. I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t send me an e-mail in that I haven’t got a computer and all.’ He noticed the cat looking at him in the corner. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, Count – you are, after all, a cat of the world; do you think if dear old Herman Melville had been alive today, he’d have started Moby Dick with “Call me e-mail”? No?’

  He rang Barney’s mobile. It was switched off. Wasn’t it odd, he thought as he changed into the Drama department’s donkey jacket and his old gardening boots, how in the days of super-efficient communication and a world gone mad with gadgetry, it was actually more difficult to talk to somebody than ever.

  He took a cab in the wet Wednesday to the Barlichway and paid his fare at its edge. His boots squelched on the mud of the grassy rise the mountain bikers had made their own and he padded past the estate map that someone had can-sprayed with that immortal battle cry and mission statement rolled into one ‘Fuck off’. It was a far cry from the one Maxwell had painted, by hand, on a bridge near his home when he was a kid – ‘Marples Must Go’. He was never quite sure, at the confused age of thirteen, whether Marples was a particularly unpopular transport minister or an ancient lady detective: he’d just liked the ring of the phrase.

  Even in the desultory rain that drove from the west and bitter cold, a couple of sad-eyed skateboarders rattled round the windy corners of the Barlichway. A dog barked and, here and there, babies cried, cold and damp and abandoned, while mums got engrossed in Brookside and dads snored over the Tandoori takeaway they’d picked up on the way home.

  The Rat was lively as ever that Wednesday night and the rush of heat was welcome as Maxwell opened the door. At the far end, three of the great unwashed calling themselves Dogbreath were psyching up with a sound check, that utterly unnecessary precursor to live music. Electronic crap hurt Maxwell’s eardrums and he had to yell to make himself heard by the barman.

  ‘Barney about?’

  The barman looked up, froth trickling over his tattooed hand. ‘Barney Butler?’

  Maxwell nodded.

  ‘He’s in hospital, mate.’

  ‘Hospital?’ Maxwell frowned. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Dunno. Intensive care is all I heard. Fell out of a fucking window, they say.’

  Maxwell was out of the door like a bat out of hell, sprinting through the rain for the edge of the estate where he could hail a cab. Men like Barney Butler had grown up on the Barlichway. Even pissed as a fart they didn’t miss their footing or fall out of windows. He thought of poor sad Junot, Bonaparte’s old buddy, last seen wandering the streets of Madrid stark naked except for sword and epaulettes. He had jumped from a window. But then, Junot was mad. And Berthier, the little Corsican’s chief of staff, who had suffered a similar fate. But he was pushed. Barney Butler was no general. He wasn’t even a friend of Napoleon’s. Yet, he was in intensive care.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ the sister was adamant. ‘You can’t see him now.’ Maxwell looked through into the dimly lit room at Leighford General. Barney lay on his back, his head swathed in bandages, tubes trailing from his body to great, grey machines.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  The sister had had a long day and was already into a longer night. ‘We don’t know. Except that he was found in an alleyway with severe head and internal injuries.’

  ‘Will he be all right?’

  The sister shrugged. ‘Time’s the best healer,’ she said. ‘We’re doing all we can.’

  ‘He has a … partner,’ Maxwell said, struggling even now to be PC to this cold, starched woman. ‘Has she been to visit yet?’

  ‘You’re the first one,’ she told him. ‘Shame, isn’t it?’

  ‘Nurse,’ Maxwell took the woman’s arm. ‘Had he been drinking?’

  ‘Drinking?’ she frowned. ‘No, I don’t think so. Does that make a difference?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘All the difference in the world.’

  ‘Who’s there?’ It was an old woman’s voice, weak, hesitant.

  ‘My name is Peter Maxwell, Mrs Cruikshank. I’d like to talk to you.’

  There was a pause and the rattling of bolts. The door opened an inch or two, no more and Maxwell could see a lined old head peering out. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just a chat,’ Maxwell said. ‘About Elizabeth Pride.’

  He heard the scrapings of the old girl’s throat and heard her spit.

  ‘There are some people,’ he said, ‘who say you killed her.’

  ‘Fuck ’em,’ the old girl growled.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Maxwell, ‘that’s one solution. Look, it’s about forty below out here, Mrs Cruikshank. May I come in?’

  The door creaked wider until its hinges gave up the ghost and swung open. Maxwell climbed the steps and stood inside the caravan. He was ankle deep in rubbish.

  ‘Who are you?’ Jane Cruikshank looked ill and old. She huddled by a paraffin stove that gave off the old familiar smell that Maxwell remembered from
his childhood, when his bedroom was lit by a solitary lamp. For a moment he was there in that terrifying room, his wardrobe a gigantic shadow, its twin knobs the evil eyes of a monster just waiting for darkness to swallow him whole.

  ‘Peter Maxwell,’ he told her again. ‘Somebody left Elizabeth Pride’s body on my doorstep.’

  The old girl’s eyes widened for a second. ‘My boys’ll be back soon,’ she warned him, suddenly feeling very afraid, very alone. ‘They’re just out walking the dogs.’

  Maxwell had expected the Cruikshank boys. The taxi ride from the hospital all this way out here had cost him an arm and a leg and it was after midnight. But he hadn’t been able to wait any longer. People were dying all around him – Liz Pride on his garden path; Andrew Darblay having talked to him; Janet Ruger having sampled his sherry. Somebody had pushed Barney Butler out of a window because he’d talked to and was doing a favour for Peter Maxwell. Mad Max wanted some answers and he wanted them now, tonight.

  ‘Your grandsons,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘Joe and Ben.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘How do you know ’em?’

  ‘We met at Myrtle Cottage,’ he told her.

  ‘You got any tobacco?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t smoke. Tell me about the poppet.’

  ‘The what?’ Jane Cruikshank’s eyes were suddenly sharp, her mind alert. She was looking at the shadows that filled the room.

  ‘The police have talked to you, haven’t they? About a poppet, a doll used in witchcraft.’

  ‘’T’ain’t me,’ the old girl mumbled. ‘I told that copper it weren’t me. Have you seen it?’

  Maxwell nodded.

  ‘You haven’t … You haven’t seen another, have you? Another doll?’

  ‘No,’ Maxwell eased himself down on the edge of the battered old chair nearest the door. ‘Why?’

  ‘Nothing,’ the old girl looked away quickly. ‘No reason.’ Her voice was thick and rasping and her scrawny chest rose and fell under the shawl she clawed at convulsively. ‘My boys’ll be back soon, Joe and Ben.’

  ‘Why are they afraid of Myrtle Cottage?’ Maxwell asked. ‘And why is garlic hanging at the front door?’

  ‘That’s a blind,’ Jane Cruikshank hissed. ‘Beth Pride had the evil eye, she did. Killed my old dog. Drove my lad away and his missus. She’d have got my boys too, if’n I hadn’t stopped her.’