Maxwell's War

by M. J. Trow

  ‘You saw him yourself, didn’t you?’ Maxwell asked. ‘And after all these years, you didn’t recognize him. Pity – you could have got them both.’

  ‘Well, well,’ Pickering seemed to relax, choosing his moment. ‘Better luck next time, eh? You’ve certainly done your homework, Mr Maxwell. That’s something us kids forget, isn’t it? That teachers are better at homework than we are.’

  ‘One thing I didn’t find out in my homework, Bob,’ Maxwell said softly, keeping the quiet tone going, not moving, not blinking, ‘is why Hannah Morpeth? She was only a child when Tom Sparrow died.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with me, Mr Maxwell. I’ll put my hand up to the other two. But not her.’

  ‘He’s got one shot in this pistol,’ Maxwell suddenly shouted. ‘When he’s fired it, he’s all yours.’

  He squeezed the trigger, both eyes open, his shoulder bucking backwards instinctively. Bonaparte’s nose exploded with the impact of the pellet and his hat shot skyward. In the same instant, there was the deafening roar of Pickering’s horse pistol and the smoke of it stung Maxwell’s eyes and filled Maxwell’s throat.

  Everyone was screaming, running, ducking for cover. Only Maxwell stood there, the empty musket across his chest, presenting arms. Jacquie rushed to him, cradling him, kissing him, the tears splashing on his shirt. The two policemen were there, jumping over the counter, seeing what could be done for Bob Pickering.

  In that split second as Maxwell fired, the re-enactor had swung the pistol up to his own head and blown away his cranium. Blood glistened on the red, white and blue of the draped flags and ‘Ça Ira’ sounded cracked and broken on the worn-out, blood-spattered tape.

  Peter Maxwell pressed his face into Jacquie’s hair and Jacquie’s shoulder. Then he looked over the counter at all that was left of Bob Pickering – and wished he hadn’t. The policemen began clearing the horrified crowd, going through the routine mechanics of sudden death.

  The blood-soaked black wig with its leaded braids and centre parting had blown off in the impact of the shot. It lay like a rag on Pickering’s counter, his hand still wrapped in its curls.

  16

  They held a memorial service for Miles Needham in the church of Michael and All Saints. He who hadn’t set foot in a church since his own christening, he who had broken the sixth commandment. It was Eight Counties Television who chose the church, appropriately enough little more than a musket shot from where he died. Father Mike did the honours one bright Saturday as Maxwell’s summer term came to an end. The flowers were astonishing. And the music. Half of showbiz was there and Sir Anthony Hopkins read the lesson.

  Waiting in the crowds outside, along with the tourists and the sun-seekers and the groupies, Mad Max leaned against the church wall. There were security men everywhere, and television crews angling their shots at the door through which the famous would emerge into a harsh, unflattering world.

  ‘Max,’ he turned at the softness of the voice. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Jacquie,’ Maxwell nodded, smiling at the girl. She was dressed in her finery, starched blouse and dark suit. ‘For Needham?’ he frowned.

  ‘For me,’ she said. ‘I’m resigning today.’

  He stood up. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s been hanging over me for some time,’ she said. ‘I’ve got no choice now.’

  ‘Jacquie …’

  ‘I endangered the life of a civilian, Max,’ she said, ‘I can’t just walk away from that.’

  ‘If you’re talking about me,’ he smiled, ‘think nothing of it. I hijacked you, remember, forced you to take me to Cuba, or failing that, Brighton

  ‘Max,’ she shook her head, smiling back at him, ‘you know Henry Hall. Does he have any sense of humour at all?’

  ‘No,’ Maxwell said. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘I didn’t have much respect for Miles Needham,’ she looked at the church where the organ was playing and the doors swung back, ‘and even less now. But he was a human being. I thought I owed him that.’

  ‘Jacquie,’ Maxwell said suddenly, turning the girl round and taking her to the far side of the flying buttress, ‘do you really want to resign? I mean, is Hall going to ask for your shield?’ Maxwell couldn’t help himself – he’d lapsed into Clint Eastwood again.

  ‘I think that’s very likely,’ she said. ‘And I do want to resign – no. No, I don’t. I want to be a little ray of light in a naughty world – is that arrogant of me, Max?’

  He chuckled, took her face in his hands and kissed her quickly on the nose. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it isn’t. How would Hall feel, do you think, if you handed him a murderer’s head on a plate?’

  Jacquie blinked. ‘Pickering’s dead, Max.’

  ‘Indeed he is, Jacquie,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘So who killed Hannah Morpeth?’ He patted the side of his nose. ‘Stick with me, kid,’ he drawled, although the Thin Man was well and truly lost on her. He spun round to watch the dark-suited, feather-hatted famous glide from church, careful to present their best sides to the cameras that flashed and whirred as the paparazzi closed in.

  ‘Angela!’ Maxwell extricated the woman from the throng, whisking her away to the deserted patio of the All Saints crypt. And Jacquie came too.

  ‘Was it a moving service?’ Maxwell held out one of Father Mike’s plastic chairs for her like the public schoolboy he was.

  ‘It was,’ Angela nodded, sitting down. ‘Hello,’ she’d just caught sight of Jacquie some paces to the rear. ‘It was good of you both to come.’

  ‘Our pleasure, really,’ Maxwell said. ‘I can’t speak for DC Carpenter, but I wanted to make sure the shit was well and truly dead.’

  ‘Max …’ Angela Badham blinked. ‘That’s not a very nice thing …’

  ‘Ah, sorry, Angela,’ Max frowned. ‘Not really Benenden language, is it? At least, not officially. Tell me, where did you get the replica surgeon’s knife in the end?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Max,’ Angela was suddenly on her feet. ‘Now I really must be going.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t from the props caravan,’ Maxwell hadn’t moved, ‘because Dan Weston had that well and truly under lock and key. And it wasn’t from that dear old fusspot Mr Stubbington because he couldn’t get you one in time, could he? By the bye,’ and he stood up behind her, ‘he’s got one now. Nip along there, to his antique shop in the High Street and he’ll be so glad you called back for it.’

  She spun round, her face hard behind the dark glasses, her eyes invisible to the prying world. ‘Max,’ she almost snarled, ‘I repeat – I don’t know what you’re …’

  ‘Save us the clichés, Angela,’ Maxwell rested his hands on his hips. ‘You loved Miles Needham. That was the bottom line, wasn’t it? The only sad thing was that he didn’t love you back. But that didn’t matter somehow, did it? The important thing was that anybody who crossed him must pay. John Irving was having an affair with his wife, so he got the offensive, threatening letters. Marc Lamont hated him, but you’d barely started on him when I stepped in and did a little of your job for you – I knocked him down, toppled him off his perch. And in full view of his adoring fans. But it was Hannah you really reserved the best for, wasn’t it? That’s why, DC Carpenter tells me, there was no sign of a struggle in her hotel room. She never suspected you. Dear, fussy, clipboard-carrying Angela, everybody’s favourite exec? “Beware the smiler with the knife.”’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a quotation, my dear,’ Maxwell humoured her, ‘From dear old Geoffrey Chaucer, the most unlikely pilgrim of them all.’

  ‘You’ve been too long in the sun, Max,’ Angela had the calmness of ice. She looked at Jacquie Carpenter writing silently at Max’s elbow on her grim little notebook. Then she turned and walked away.

  At the corner, where the buttress jutted from shadow to sunshine, a figure in a cardigan emerged, his glasses dangling on a chain.

  ‘Hello,’ he beamed, ‘I’ve got your knife, you know,’ and he looked p
ast her to Maxwell, a little pained, ‘although I’m not sure you want it now.’

  Angela Badham stood there, quivering, her nerve gone, her life over. She didn’t feel Jacquie’s hand, firm on her elbow. She didn’t hear Jacquie’s time-honoured words in her ear.

  ‘How did you know, Max?’ Jacquie asked, quietly slipping the steel cuffs on Angela’s wrists.

  ‘One little thing,’ Maxwell said, still looking at Angela’s grim, impassive face behind the shades, ‘when John Irving and I went to see Dan Weston at Eight Counties, we bumped into Angela – although I’m not sure it was that much of a coincidence on her part. Angela told John how sorry she felt for him – for Marc Lamont being offensive to him on the set at Willow Bay and how sorry she was to hear about Barbara. Now, as far as Angela was supposed to know, what was Barbara Needham to John Irving? She couldn’t even be sure they’d met. It was she who told me that Barbara had nothing to do with Eight Counties. No, somehow, Angela here had found out all about Babs and John – hence the threatening letters to them both. That was silly of you, wasn’t it, Angela?’

  The Johanna Factotum held up her head. She was staring straight in front of her saying nothing. Suddenly she turned to Maxwell. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ it was another cliché. ‘I merely went there at her request. She wanted to try out the knife – to practise with it. We started talking about Miles. And yes, you’re right, Mr Maxwell, I did love him. She laughed at me. That cold, self-centred bitch. Laughed at him, too. She said she was sorry he was dead, but she didn’t mean it, not a word of it. I don’t normally lose my temper, Mr Maxwell – you can’t in this job. But I did that once, that night. And I stabbed her. It was surprisingly easy, really, using two hands.’

  ‘Was it really worth it, Angela, to kill someone, just because they laughed at the man you loved?’

  Angela Badham’s face was a mask again. She turned away from him, in silence. And that was how it would stay, all through her remand, her trial and her years in Holloway.

  ‘I’ll be back, Max,’ Jacquie turned to him, smiling, leading the woman away.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘and make sure you’ve got your shield with you, Woman Policeman Carpenter.’

  ‘It was that wig, Mr Maxwell,’ Stubbington dithered. ‘She looks a little different without the black wig. By the way,’ he was frowning, ‘a moment ago – I didn’t understand all that conversation you had with the young lady, but I wasn’t too keen on the “dear old fusspot” bit.’

  ‘Bit of artistic licence, Mr Stubbington,’ Maxwell winked at him. ‘You aren’t old at all.’

  Peter Maxwell wandered down in his jacket and bow tie and shapeless hat to the water’s edge, where the surf roared along the line of Willow Bay and the last surfer was curling in to the blood-red shallows in another dying sun. For a moment he thought he saw Tom Sparrow’s body rising and rolling with the tide, but it was driftwood, nothing more. For a moment, he fancied he heard the muskets rattle and the bayonets level and the haunting catch of ‘Ça Ira’.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said to himself, ‘I came here to re-enact a war and I ended up fighting one.’ This time next week, it would be the Summer Fête Worse than Death. He must get his larynx into tannoy mode.

  DC Jacquie Carpenter picked up the phone in the closing Incident Room at Tottingleigh. She’d become a celebrity in the nick that day, bringing in Angela Badham on a charge of murder. There’d been cheers all round and hugs and kisses and pats on the back. A smacker from Jerry Manton, a squeeze from Paul Garrity, a nod from Dave Watkiss. The DCI thought he might overlook the Peter Maxwell business, the whole Brighton incident. After all, they’d got their man, messy as it turned out to be. And Jacquie? Well, promotion was not out of the question. As long, and Hall had underlined the words by taking off his rimless glasses, as long as in the future, Jacquie Carpenter behaved with full propriety and did not involve members of the public. Especially members of the public who were plainly mad and called Maxwell.

  Peter Maxwell was placing Lieutenant Henry Fitzhardinge Berkeley Maxse, glued and painted to perfection, in his place to the left rear of Lord Cardigan in his attic as the phone rang. Metternich the cat lifted one disapproving eyelid. He couldn’t believe it. Maxwell was doing it again, picking up that white plastic thing – the one that always got him into trouble. He buried his ear under his paw and pretended not to hear his master’s voice: ‘War Office.’