by M. J. Trow
Alison McCormick had a mother somewhere near Basingstoke. Someone from Leighford had been to see her; assuring, calming, softly softly. No cause for alarm at all, but her daughter had gone missing. Janet McCormick didn’t scream or get hysterical. She carried on with her washing, glancing out occasionally to the garden, where a pram was parked. Alison was always doing this. She’d always done it, ever since she was a kid. She’d be back, when her cash ran out or she got bored. This wasn’t quite the same, the somebody from Leighford pointed out. Alison wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a policewoman, missing from her post. That seemed to cut no ice with Janet McCormick. The girl would be back. Whatever she was up to, she’d be back.
She sat up suddenly, a horrible smell in her nostrils and over her face. She recognized it at once. Chloroform. And she felt the pain again as she tried to move her jaw. The pain of a rough hand over her mouth, the pressure of a cloth pad over her nose. But she couldn’t open her mouth. It was taped shut and she could feel saliva dribbling down her chin.
Her hands were roped together, in front of her, as though in prayer. She couldn’t move her legs either, because they were anchored via a chain to something – a wall, was it? She couldn’t see in the blackness.
She tried to think, to rationalize what had happened to her. She remembered driving out of the station, turning left along the High Street. She remembered what was playing on the radio – Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. The red weed had still been on her mind as she got home. She had backed into the garage, had closed and locked the door. Then it had happened. She was just thinking she ought to ring him, touch base with this new information when the hard hand had slapped around her lower face, a powerful arm wrenching hers behind her back. She’d seen the clouds scurry for a moment, then reel and twist. She’d felt her lungs tighten as she fought against the pad, trying not to inhale. But the pain was too much and the grip too strong and darkness had come to her.
And in the darkness she still was, chained to a wall, her clothes damp and clammy. It was June, she told herself. In the middle of a heat-wave. But here, it was like being below ground. She groped forward, as far as the ropes and the chains would allow. She felt wetness on her fingertips, a slime that was cold and dead.
Her whole body shuddered as she realized it. Jacquie Carpenter was lying in a grave.
Chapter Fifteen
It was lunchtime before Douglas Russell turned up at the dig, Maxwell’s sandwiches wilting in the midday heat. He mused to himself that he really should have brought them up from Surrey’s pannier a little sooner, but it had given him the chance to chat to Julian the Heavy.
‘Not packing today, Julian?’ he had asked cheerily, well within earshot of the patrolling policeman and the remnants of the paparazzi, smoking and sipping Pimms like spectators at a summer event.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Julian had shrugged, his eyes black behind the dark glasses, beads of perspiration standing out on his shaven head, a mad dog and an Englishman, all in one, in the midday sun.
Maxwell had gone through the motions for him, a little over-the-top perhaps, of pumping a pump action rifle and blasting the air in front of him. Julian had looked on amazed. He didn’t own a pump-action and the shotgun he did own he only carried at night, so what was all the pantomime about? George had thought temporarily about putting one on the cheeky bastard, but it was a little open for that.
‘Heard of one Arthur Wimble, Douglas?’ Maxwell was lying against a spoil heap, his straw hat down over his eyes in best Randolph Scott tradition, out on the studio prairies, with his saddle for a pillow.
‘Wimble?’ Russell was getting outside a can of lager. ‘No, I can’t say I have.’
‘What about the Metal Detectives’ Society?’
‘Oh, them,’ the geophysicist chuckled. We were back with the mutant ants again. ‘Yes, them I do know.’
‘In what context?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Well, in many ways,’ Russell told him, ‘they’re the best of a bad bunch. God knows how much important material has been destroyed over the years by these vandals with metal detectors. As a geophysicist, you can imagine I don’t see them as anything but rank outsiders. Well, about ten years ago, a sort of truce was called. Rather than these herberts creeping about at night wiping evidence and us having to lock, bolt and otherwise protect our gear, we invited them on board. They would have the thrill of the chase, plus the cut of the particular Treasure Trove and we would reap the benefits of their searches. The deal is that at the first series of whee-whees on the old electro-magnetic device, they’re on the phone to their nearest university or field office. It actually works quite well. Don’t tell me they’ve got to you?’
‘Got to me?’
‘As soon as we moved in here, they were pestering David, wanting to volunteer their services. He sent them packing.’
‘He did?’ Maxwell asked. ‘Why?’
‘Well,’ Russell said, ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but…’
‘Douglas!’ Tam Fraser announced his arrival. It wasn’t quite a fanfare or a hundred gun salute, but it didn’t need to be when you had a voice like Tam Fraser’s. ‘After lunch, can we go over those reports of yours? I’m finding anomalies all over the place.’
‘Of course, Professor.’ Russell finished his drink. ‘If there are anomalies…’
‘Oh, there’s no “if”, laddie.’ He sat down with his feet in Maxwell’s trench and fanned his fiery face with the wideawake.
‘Then I’d better go and re-check them.’ Russell saw his opening and left.
‘Aye, do that, dear boy.’ Fraser called after him. ‘That man,’ he turned to Maxwell with a broad smile, ‘hates my guts.’
The Head of Sixth Form lifted the hat from his face. ‘I’m sure not.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Fraser sighed. ‘He’s new school, y’see. He’s all amino acid racenization and uranium series disequilibrium. Me? I call a spade a spade,’ and he winked at his man. ‘There aren’t many of us left, are there, Maxwell?’
‘Us?’ Maxwell repeated, not sure if Tam Fraser would appreciate the old kemo sabe joke.
‘Dinosaurs, man; dodos, whatever vanished analogy you’d care to use. The point at issue is that our standards, our ways, were certainties. They were absolutes. Do you not sense that?’
‘Perhaps our walks of life are different,’ Maxwell tilted back the hat and sat up. ‘In my profession there are always a load of initiatives with different acronyms. They all boil down to re-inventing the wheel. I must admit, I am beginning to sound like an old 78 – “We did that in 1982”; “it didn’t work then and it won’t work now”; “that’s all right in the private sector”; “fine, if we had the money”. Sound familiar?’
‘Indeed it does,’ Fraser laughed.
‘But in archaeology, surely, it’s different. New techniques really are new techniques, taking us forward to a new understanding.’
‘Ach, that’s symposium twaddle, laddie. I’d hoped for better from you. No, take my word for it – it’s all just a reinvention of the wheel.’
At the end of a long day, Peter Maxwell threw his warm plastic lunchbox into the pannier of White Surrey and sauntered out of the gate. The paparazzi had gone now. Tam Fraser had given them their quote of the day – which wasn’t actually quotable in a family newspaper – and the on duty PCs had done their respective impressions of statues in not responding to them. George had replaced Julian on the late afternoon shift and they’d lap each other again in the wee, small hours. Did those men, Maxwell wondered, ever sleep?
‘Arthur sends his regards,’ Maxwell told him, buckling down the panniers.
‘Who?’ George remained rock solid, legs planted firmly apart, incongruous in his black suit and black shades. Maxwell’s hot, tired form reflected back at the Great Man in each of the lenses. Maxwell cloned? Now, there was a prospect.
‘Arthur Wimble. You know, metal detective here one night back in March. You or Julian or both dented his kneecaps, p
robably with the shotgun butt you keep tucked down your tights.’
He saw George’s lip curl. ‘I’d be very careful if I were you, Maxwell.’
‘Oh, I will,’ the Head of Sixth Form said. ‘Which is why we’re having this little conversation in broad daylight with a boy in blue standing over there. Incidentally, I think I’d fancy his night-stick against your shotgun butt any day. They’re really dinky things. Ever seen one in action?’
‘No,’ George scowled.
‘Pray you don’t,’ Maxwell scowled back. ‘Where is it, by the way?’
‘Where’s what?’
‘The object you took from Mr Wimble.’
‘What’d that be, then?’ George asked.
‘Don’t play dumb with me, George. There were two things actually. One was a Saxon dagger, four inch blade, bone handle – although I believe most of that had gone. And I know where that is – it’s in a packing case in Leighford Museum; I washed it myself a few days ago and labelled it up. So, presumably, you kindly returned that to Dr Radley at some point. No, the other thing is a piece of stone or marble, Mr Wimble couldn’t remember which. It had a Latin inscription. How’s your Latin, George?’
‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Fuck off out of it.’
‘You see, that was quite an important find.’ Maxwell was wiping dust off Surrey’s saddle.
‘Well, it wasn’t his,’ George growled. ‘It was on private property and he was trespassing.’
‘Indeed, but it wasn’t yours either, was it? Or Mr Cahill’s. It’s the job of a coroner to decide ownership of finds like that. So you think seriously about handing it in, all right? And I just might forget you and your oppo jammed a gun barrel into my neck the other night.’
‘We’re entitled to protect Mr Cahill’s property.’
‘Oh, sure, and you’re just obeying orders, eh, a bit like fifty million Nazis. You disappoint me, George. This is the twenty-first century – I thought you might have something more original to say by now. Oh, by the way,’ he swung his leg over Surrey’s crossbar. ‘No point in trying to put the frighteners on Arthur Wimble again. He’s not in the bungalow any more. I had the devil’s own job to find him. You have a nice evening now, y’hear?’
Peter Maxwell cycled over the flyover and headed north. This was not the way home, but he wasn’t going home. He was going to Jacquie Carpenter’s to find out where the hell she was.
‘Peter Maxwell!’
‘Jesus!’ The Head of Sixth Form hadn’t turned that fast in a long time. His back jarred and his pulse raced. He’d just left Surrey champing at the bit against Jacquie’s wall and had dutifully rung her bell. Nothing. No familiar shape beyond the frosted glass, no call of ‘Hang on. Won’t be a tick.’ ‘Henry Hall,’ he said, collecting himself. ‘Not conducting at Ally Pally tonight then?’ The DCI had been here a little while, lurking in the privet, testing the alertness of Neighbourhood Watch and finding it singularly lacking. Then it hit Maxwell. ‘Where’s Jacquie?’
‘It’s your key in the lock,’ Hall reminded him.
‘So it is,’ Maxwell said and turned it. The door swung wide. ‘Jacquie? Jacquie darling. It’s Max.’
He found himself pushed gently back against the door by the DCI. ‘Better let me go first,’ he said. ‘I get paid to do this.’
Maxwell had seen it done countless times on the telly. Good cop and bad cop; rookie and old hand; black man, white man, Clint Eastwood, Tyne Daly. The Magnums came out and one went high while the other went low, arms locked ahead, gun cocked, nerves like tensile steel. Maybe Henry Hall didn’t watch shows like that. He just sauntered into the lounge and looked around, then he sauntered into the kitchen, felt the kettle and cooker and doubled back to the stairs, halting Maxwell in mid-step.
‘I don’t make a habit of this,’ he said and was gone up the curve of the staircase, out of sight onto the landing. ‘Mr Maxwell, you’d better come up here.’
Peter Maxwell didn’t remember, in the years he had left, how he got to the top of those stairs, how he flew into the main bedroom, two at a time. On a wing and a prayer? Who knew? All he knew was that he found himself standing alongside Henry Hall, both of them staring down at an envelope on the double bed.
‘She didn’t have time to make this,’ Hall nudged aside a pillow with his pen. Then he tucked the biro end neatly into the space at the top of the envelope and handled the thing with his fingertips. ‘Fan mail,’ he said to Maxwell. Both of them could see it was addressed to him.
‘Mr Maxwell,’ Hall said softly. ‘I want you to go into all the other rooms. I want you to check carefully in drawers, wardrobes and cupboards. I want you to touch as little as possible and I want you to give me the roughest of ideas of anything that’s missing. Can you do that?’
‘Yes.’
Hall looked at his man. He knew Peter Maxwell of old. He knew him to be a maverick, a madman even, given to strange whims and doubtful tilts at windmills. But he also knew him to be one of the strongest men he’d ever met. But this…this was different. This was Jacquie Carpenter. And one man’s DS is another man’s life.
‘But what’s that?’ Maxwell hadn’t moved, but was pointing to the envelope in Hall’s hand.
‘That,’ the DCI reminded him softly, ‘is addressed to me.’
Maxwell spun on his heel.
The other rooms were as empty as the downstairs. Jacquie’s clothes were still in the wardrobe. Winter coat, scarves, gloves, boots. Lacy bras and knickers lay neatly in one drawer; more of them tumbled untidily out of laundry basket in the bathroom. Various lotions graced the shelves; her toothbrush dangled on its rack. Maxwell checked the airing cupboard. The immersion heater was off and Jacquie was a stickler for that. In more petulant moments she’d berate him for never turning his off and what a waste it was. An open pack of sanitary towels lay half-hidden under a pile of sheets.
‘She didn’t go of her own accord.’ He’d returned to Hall.
‘I know,’ the DCI said. He’d torn open the envelope and, still with fingertip precision, read the letter it contained.
‘“We have your policewoman. Stop the dig or she dies.”’
‘The Sepulchre Society of Sussex,’ said Maxwell. He didn’t have to look at the letterhead.
‘The same,’ nodded Hall grimly.
Time for a council of war.
The lights burned blue at Leighford nick that night. As the wind rose, moaning through the ash trees on Staple Hill and chiselled moon-silver ridges out to sea, a tired group of men and women sat hunched in the Incident Room, blinds drawn, emotions ragged.
‘What’ve we got SOCO-wise on Jacquie’s flat?’ Hall asked. Everybody knew it was not, technically, a scene of crime. Nothing had been disturbed. But Henry Hall had an officer down and two others missing; one, at least, an apparent kidnap victim. He’d drafted in new people, closed other cases, put yet more on hold. He needed officers out there, knocking on doors, asking questions. He’d square the cost with the Chief Constable later.
‘No sign of forced entry,’ Dave Garstang spoke for the mysterious Men in White who had spent hours going over the woman’s life. ‘We’re working on prints now, but apart from hers and Peter Maxwell’s, there aren’t any more to go on; one set’s fairly apparent, which we’re assuming is mother or cleaning lady – unless, of course, they’re the same.’
Levity wasn’t working this time. To lose one policewoman might be carelessness, but to lose two…and this one was Jacquie Carpenter. Could any of them, they’d secretly asked themselves all day, learn to cope with losing her?
‘Her car was in the garage. Garage was locked. Again, no unaccountable prints. She’s taken nothing with her that might indicate a sudden flit. No clothes. No suitcases.’
‘What about the letter?’ Hall was taking them down every avenue.
‘Same as the others,’ Steve Holland took up the story. ‘The others in the Sepulchre series. The paper and the envelope are both Wiggins, bog standard statione
ry available in any W.H. Smith’s and office suppliers throughout the land. The paper is ninety-gram and the printer is probably a Canon.’
‘Shit!’ It wasn’t like DCI Henry Hall to lose it, but the ridge in his jaw was proof he’d lost it now. ‘Know what’s so irritating about this case?’ he asked the room. This was the DCI asking, the guv’nor; and they all sensed the question was historic; a milestone in the history of Henry Hall and his people. They prepared to be enlightened. ‘Everything,’ he said, calmer now. ‘Everything is so bog-standard, as you put it, Steve, so ordinary. David Radley and Sam Welland – nice people just getting on with their job. We’ve found nothing in their past, no secrets, no foibles. Even forensics have produced nothing. How can anyone break a man’s neck, hang a woman, fix the brakes on a man’s car and kidnap one, possibly two people, without leaving any trace at all?’
They all knew the guv’nor was simplifying. Microscopic evidence had been found, linking Radley and Welland. There had to be some DNA on the envelopes, the letters, something – didn’t there? They glanced at each other, afraid of the hopelessness in each other’s eyes.
Nobody was going home.
* * *
Maxwell hadn’t slept. By the time he caught the 8.21 to Newbury, he looked and felt like shit. Southern Trains didn’t help. In place of the ancient retainers who would walk the stately aisle offering Brown Windsor soup and fillet of salmon for a paltry sixteen shillings, an incompetent floozy aged four gave him a hot plastic cup in exchange for a second mortgage. His knees were under his chin for most of the time and an exec hunched next to him was clicking implacably on his laptop. Six carriages away, another was talking Big Business on his mobile, declaring to the world how he and Paul Getty were ‘like that’. Maxwell didn’t doubt it for a moment. But it was a Sunday, for God’s sake. Why were these people still talking money on the Sabbath? At least, some of the trains were still running.
