by M. J. Trow
He ate a good breakfast, everything being taken all in all. Whether he tasted any of it or not was another matter, but as far as Jacquie was concerned it was fuel, and it would come in handy later on if he could go through an interview with the police without fainting.
It seemed strange to walk out of a hotel without checking out and Jacquie briefly felt like a conman as she walked Tom Medlicott down to the car as though walking him to the gallows. He sat beside her, silently. It wasn’t that he was thinking deeply, or sulking, it was just that he could no longer be bothered to speak. She tried small talk. She tried the radio. In the end, she relied on the satnav for conversation.
‘In one hundred yards, bear left. In fifty yards, bear left. Correcting route. Please turn round when it is safe to do so.’
Poor thing, it had never really recovered from apparently driving on water. She almost replied to it, just to comfort its poor little silicon brain.
Suddenly, he spoke. ‘Is that the police station?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, reversing deftly into a parking space. She glanced up at the sign. ‘Have you got any change? It’s pay and display.’
‘Surely I don’t have to pay,’ he said, in dead tones. ‘My wife is missing.’
‘Well, yes,’ Jacquie conceded. ‘But that might be a little difficult to convey in a note to the traffic warden. Never mind, I’ve got some.’ She put in the maximum amount, although surely, she thought, this won’t take two hours.
And she was right. Filling in the forms took a matter of minutes and, with a promise that the details would be passed on to the Missing Persons Bureau, they were back on the street. Here, Tom Medlicott seemed to come to life.
‘That’s it?’ he asked. ‘That’s it?’
‘I don’t know what else you were expecting, Tom,’ she said. ‘They filled in the forms. Izzy is an adult, with no learning difficulties, medical problems, mental issues, financial issues or anything that makes her high risk. You saw that they had a note on file from my boss, Henry Hall, telling them that I would be doing preliminary work on the case, and I have. I know that DCI Hall will have been round to check your home address.’ She could hear herself becoming pompous, but it was unstoppable by now. ‘Now, we’re getting on the ferry and we’re going home.’
‘No!’ Tom shouted and made several startled shoppers turn and stare. ‘I’m staying here.’
‘And how will that help, Tom?’ Jacquie was beginning to get, if not angry, then at least very frustrated. ‘You can’t stay at the hotel, because it will be filling up with a new school party within hours. You don’t have a car, because, whether you are with me or not, I’m going to be on the first ferry I can squeeze on to. As far as I know, you have no real influence with the RNLI or the coastguard, so a trip round the Island looking at cliffs isn’t on any real agenda as far as I can see. And finally …’ Jacquie had run out of steam and she leant her forehead on his shoulder, ‘I don’t know what is finally, but I do know we’ve done all we can.’
He sighed, a sigh that seemed to come from a subterranean cavern deep in his soul. He leant his head on hers and almost whispered. ‘You’re right. Let’s go home.’
She hugged him tight and could hear his heart beating fast. A mother pulled her toddler out of the way. Honestly! The way people behaved in the street these days. And they weren’t kids either. They ought to know better, and just outside the police station as well. The woman made the noise that can only be spelt as ‘Tcha!’
‘Come on, Tom,’ Jacquie said, pulling gently away. ‘We’re making people go “Tcha” and that will never do. Come on,’ and taking his hand as though he were a child, she led him over the road to the car.
On the ferry, Jacquie feigned sleep to distance herself from Tom Medlicott and felt as low as a worm for doing so. Tom Medlicott meanwhile was feigning sleep to get away not just from Jacquie but from the world, which had suddenly become very big and hard to take. He couldn’t bear to look back. He had done that for hours the previous night, trying to identify that microsecond when Izzy chose to leave him. He couldn’t look forward, because that meant facing getting in the car which they had left parked at Leighford High, moving the seat back to accommodate his longer legs – Izzy had driven them to catch the coach. It meant driving back to the house, the house they had only lived in for a few months but which already bore Izzy’s traces; the smell of perfume in the bedroom, the pack of her favourite tea on the worktop in the kitchen. The tears squeezed past his closed eyelids and rolled down his cheeks and ran on, unheeded, until they soaked into his collar. He didn’t think he could still have tears, he had shed so many. He tried to tell himself that he was mourning a woman who was almost certainly alive and well and laughing at him with some other man somewhere. But even thoughts can ring hollow and the tears still fell.
Izzy Medlicott lay across a huge boulder which, despite its size, had been tossed up by the power of the tide long years ago. Its lower edge where it met the dry, sandy mud at the bottom of the cliff was blurred with moss and it felt warm in the sun. It hadn’t been lapped by the sea for months; only a winter storm would reach it now. She was curled up, apart from one arm that was lolling off the edge of the rock, the palm upturned, the fingers slightly bent. Caught in the fingers, trapped under a broken nail, was some grass and one flower of the sea pink which flowered all around and above up to the cliff edge. She seemed to be examining the tiny posy she held out for the bobbing gulls to see. She lay neat and tidy; Izzy Medlicott was always neat, always tidy. Her hair lifted slightly in the breeze, but always fell back, each lock in its appointed place. She could have been resting, taking in the still-warm rays of the late summer sun. She could have been sleeping, were it not for her eyes, which were wide open. She could have been alive, were it not for her neck, which had been broken, neatly, by a single blow, back there, up on the cliff top.
Chapter Eleven
Maxwell and Guy Minter were almost back to Columbine before Maxwell remembered a vital fact. He had no door key. To be fair to him, he had had no reason to bring one. He was with his wife and child. Mrs Troubridge was feeding Metternich, and as this had to be done in his own bowl in its designated corner of the kitchen, she had a key. The ‘other key’, as Maxwell knew it. Now she was in the hospital and Metternich was in the cattery, there was no way of getting in the house.
‘I’m sorry, Guy,’ Maxwell apologised. ‘I just didn’t think. Mrs Troubridge never goes anywhere. I’ve never really had to bother.’ Another reason to miss the mad old trout, Maxwell thought to himself.
‘Hold on, though. Don’t you have a cleaner? From the school?’ Guy was proving that he did listen to what Sylvia said.
‘We do, yes, we do. Mrs B. Wonderful woman. She also picks up the key from Mrs Troubridge.’
‘Ah.’ Guy pulled in to the side. ‘I wonder if there is any reason to go any further if you can’t get in to your house?’ he said, quite reasonably.
‘My dear chap, of course. You’re right. You can drop me off here.’ Maxwell prepared to get out of the car, albeit a trifle puzzled; it really wasn’t like Guy to be so inhospitable.
‘No, no.’ Guy restrained the Head of Sixth Form by hanging on to his arm. ‘Don’t be daft, Max. It’s just that it would be a waste of your time to be delivered to a house you can’t get in to – would you like me to take you somewhere else?’
Maxwell pondered. They had more friends now that Nolan was in the social whirl, but there was no one he would choose to go to in a crisis. Except Sylvia and Guy, and obviously they weren’t a choice on this occasion. The others all had several children at least and their houses seemed to Maxwell to be in a state of barely controlled hysteria. They made the couple in Outnumbered look like model parents. ‘No, not really … wait a minute, though.’ He broke off. ‘Has Sylvia explained about the notebook?’
‘Briefly.’ Guy was always cagey when it came to the passing on of possibly confidential information. He had learnt the hard way it was better to say nothin
g than the wrong thing. In fact, he knew as much as either Maxwell or Sylvia about the notebook, but could always listen again.
‘Well, it is clear that Gervaise – pronounced “Jarvis”, by the way, if it ever crops up – saw Izzy outside the hotel on the Night In Question, late. And, as you know, I don’t have Jacquie’s number to hand. But Henry Hall will have it, won’t he? He also knows a bit about Izzy’s disappearance. So, the cop shop, if you would be so good.’ Maxwell settled back in his seat and did up the seat belt once more.
Now Guy was in a major dilemma. He knew that Jacquie had been warned about Maxwell getting involved. People who confided in Sylvia were often confiding, all unknowingly, with Guy as well. Sylvia was Jacquie’s hole in the ground, her confessional, her all-hearing ear when Maxwell was the issue. She had loved him before Jacquie came on the scene, before Guy had turned her life upside down. She was the only person Jacquie knew who loved Mad Max as much as she did, warts and all, and was Maxwell’s listening post too, and so she often knew more about what was going on than either Jacquie or Maxwell did themselves. But Guy also knew that Maxwell could no more help getting involved than breathe. Plus, it was important that Jacquie got the information from the notebook as soon as possible, preferably while she was still on the Island. But, a visit from Maxwell to Henry Hall could seriously jeopardise Jacquie’s promotion. As in, cancel it, pretend it never was born. He sighed. Decisions weren’t his forte. He let the handbrake off and eased back into the traffic, on his way to the police station. When all other decision-making tools let you down, there was always one on which you could rely. Peter Maxwell would do just precisely what he wanted, so you might as well save your breath.
‘So, Henry,’ Maxwell said, after filling Jacquie’s boss in on the situation, ‘that’s about it, really. Oh, thanks for visiting Metternich, by the way.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Hall said. ‘How did you know I’ve visited him?’
Maxwell pointed to his wrist, where a pair of parallel scratches disappeared under his cuff. ‘His calling card.’ It was an excellent Basil Rathbone.
Hall rubbed his arm reminiscently and said, ‘He has a way with him, that’s for sure. Still, I think he was grateful.’
‘I’m sure he was. As are we all. And thanks for looking after Mrs Troubridge as well.’
‘That’s a bit different,’ Hall said and Maxwell waited for details, which he knew deep down would never come. ‘So you want to borrow my phone to call Jacquie?’
‘That would be very good of you,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’m hoping to catch her before she gets on the ferry, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I do see.’ Hall was being even less scrutable than usual.
‘I mean, I wouldn’t have got involved, as a rule.’ Maxwell tried an ingratiating smile, strength 4 on the Rictus scale. It got no response at all. ‘We have agreed, after all, that an investigation is no place for me.’ Looking at Hall’s poker face he could feel the hysterical laugh massing its forces behind his tonsils. ‘But … as sometimes happens, I … came upon a clue …’ He gave up. It was like pulling teeth.
Hall silently handed him his mobile. ‘It’s ringing,’ he said and swung round in his chair, so that Maxwell had to pretend he was alone whilst looking at the back of someone’s head.
‘DS Carpenter.’ The background noise was appalling, but Maxwell couldn’t work out quite where Jacquie was.
‘Darling?’ he said. ‘Jacquie? Where the devil are you?’
‘Darling?’ Jacquie held the phone away from her head to check on the incoming number. ‘Guv, are you all right?’
‘Guv? No, no, sweetness. It’s me. Max. I’m using Henry’s phone.’
‘I can see that. Or hear, perhaps I should say. Why are you on Henry’s phone?’ A small creeping sense of foreboding made its way down Jacquie’s spine. ‘Where are you, Max?’
He tried to make his tone light and playful. He knew what he had done wrong, but, like a puppy who has weed yet again on the floor, hadn’t been able to stop himself. ‘I’m in Henry’s office, precious. But I had to get in touch with you, it’s really important, and I couldn’t get in to the house and … well, it was very difficult. I needed to get in touch with you before you caught the ferry.’
‘Too late,’ she said, shortly. ‘As you can probably hear from the combined noise of about a dozen school parties, all worse than ours, and a million old ladies complaining about the cost of tea and a cake, I am on the ferry. I’ll speak to you when I get home.’ And she cut the connection.
Like most people who have been hung up on, Maxwell carried on the conversation. ‘Righty-ho, dear,’ he chirped. ‘See you later.’ He pressed what was almost certainly the wrong button and handed the phone back to Henry Hall, who had twirled back to face him across the desk. ‘She’ll see me later,’ he explained.
Hall’s face was still poker. ‘I expect she will,’ he said. He reached for the desk phone and raised an eyebrow. ‘Coffee? There’s something I would like to chew over with you, if you have a minute.’
Maxwell looked around him for the candid camera. It wasn’t often he heard those words from any police person, even the one he kept at home for his own amusement. To hear them from Henry Hall was quite disorienting. ‘Coffee would be … no, hold on. The coffee here tastes of tea, doesn’t it?’
‘When it doesn’t taste of cocoa, yes,’ Hall agreed.
‘Cocoa it is, then,’ Maxwell said and sat back, waiting to be amazed.
When it came, the cocoa, not absolutely unexpectedly, tasted of Oxo. But Maxwell was parched, so any old beverage in a storm. He sipped it, put down the styrofoam cup and leant back, arms folded. Henry Hall did exactly the same. Mano-a-mano.
‘First of all,’ Henry Hall kicked the conversation off, ‘I want to make something totally clear. That by having this conversation, you are not involved in an investigation of any kind. Not that this is an investigation. It’s just a chat.’
Maxwell inclined his head, somewhat regally. ‘Absolutely, Henry. A chat.’
‘So anything that I tell you is just for information for helping you to understand what I say. You are not to remember it, repeat it, use it to your own or anyone else’s advantage, in any shape or form.’
Maxwell was getting a little testy. He had never forgotten anything in his life, so telling him not to remember something was like telling him to fly out of the window; totally impossible. ‘Henry, let’s just take it as read. What’s it all about?’
‘Well, Mrs Troubridge.’
Maxwell slumped. He had thought it was something exciting. ‘What about her?’
‘Well – and I have to tell you, Max, I’m on my own here – I don’t think she fell. I think she was pushed. In fact, I’d go further—’
Maxwell felt obliged to intervene. ‘Henry, she has been a broken hip waiting to happen for years. There isn’t ten penn’orth of her and she dashes around like something demented in slippers made for a much, much bigger woman.’
‘And has she ever fallen over before?’ Hall raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, no, but, as I say, she’s a broken—’
‘Granted, old ladies break bits and bobs every day. She has a broken hip, as you know. She also has a rather good collection of bruises, quite literally from head to toe. And they all fit in with the fall, the doctors tell me.’ Henry Hall started to fiddle with a pencil on his desk, rolling it back and forth.
‘But?’
‘But I think she was attacked and then thrown down the stairs to make it look like an accident. Whoever did it showed great attention to detail. One slipper on, one at the top of the stairs, that kind of thing.’
‘The kind of thing you find after a fall?’ asked Maxwell, gently.
‘Again, granted.’ Hall leant forward, rolling his pencil before him like some tiny siege weapon. ‘Have you ever sat at a bedside?’
‘Certainly have,’ Maxwell said, smiling ruefully.
‘Boring, isn’t it?’
Maxwell nodded and
smiled. ‘Yes. And you feel really guilty about being bored, too.’
‘Yes,’ Hall said. There was a moment of silent shared memories, then Hall continued. ‘I got chatting to a nurse. You know, to break the silence. Lady Elizabeth Molester is a very quiet ward.’
Maxwell didn’t doubt it.
‘The nurse happened to have been the one who got Mrs Troubridge ready for her bed when she was admitted.’
Maxwell was leaning forward now as well. It wasn’t so much that Henry Hall was a great storyteller as that his timing on a punchline bordered on Maxwellian in its precision. ‘Yes?’ he breathed.
‘Her slipper,’ Hall said, leaning back triumphantly and throwing his pencil in the air, ‘was on the wrong foot.’ He missed the pencil and it rolled away under his desk, but nothing could steal the moment as the two men’s minds suddenly met in the middle.
‘Henry, have you ever seen an absolutely terrible film starring Robert Mitchum called One Shoe Makes It Murder?’ Maxwell asked.
‘I can’t say that I have.’
‘Well,’ Maxwell said, sadly, ‘I have, and that’s an hour and a half I’ll never get back. But, that said, it’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Well,’ said Hall, ‘I think so. It’s getting anyone else to agree with me that I’m finding difficult. It’s not just the slipper, of course. I’ve seen Mrs Troubridge skipping around like a two-year-old myself and she just doesn’t seem the type to go base over apex down a flight of stairs. And it’s not as if she doesn’t know the house like the back of her hand. How long has she lived there?’
‘Since they were built,’ Maxwell said. ‘Sometimes I think that perhaps she was there even before that. Living under a hedge, cooking up potions.’ He paused, fingers to lip. ‘But who would want to hurt her? I mean, I do, regularly, but that’s just because … well, just because she’s Mrs Troubridge, really. She loves us, that’s why she’s always there, waiting when I go in, waiting when I go out. Having Nole in for chocolate biscuits ten minutes before his tea … She is going to be all right, isn’t she?’ Suddenly, a Troubridgeless Columbine seemed a bleak prospect.
