Maxwell's Revenge

by M. J. Trow

  ‘My mother mentioned oleander.’

  ‘It’s not her, is it?’ said Astley. He’d never had a mother to speak of and even a pathologist likes to try a joke when standing with a pretty woman, at dead of night, over the unconscious body of her husband-to-be.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ said a groggy voice from the bed.

  Jacquie looked down, relief written all over her face. ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, reaching down to take his hand. ‘Don’t get up,’ as she felt him starting to struggle to his feet.

  ‘But I went to a good school,’ he mumbled. ‘On second thoughts, don’t worry,’ he muttered. ‘I think I’ll stay here.’ He looked across and saw Astley standing over him. ‘Oh, wait a minute, though. I appear to be dead. It is the Other Place after all.’

  ‘No,’ Astley said, ‘Not really. No need to fear the Reaper just yet. I was just checking.’ He looked up and spoke to Jacquie. ‘Don’t let him get up too quickly. Give him something to drink if he wants it. He’ll be after a painkiller any time, I should think. Give him one of these.’ He fumbled in his pocket. ‘I’m sure he’s had them before, with his habit of falling on fists and other people’s feet. Don’t let him drive or operate heavy machinery.’

  ‘But I was going to do the ironing,’ came the plaintive cry from the bed.

  ‘If this were anyone else,’ said Astley, ‘I would recommend you had him checked for brain damage. As it is, I think I can give him a clean bill of health.’ Astley doffed a metaphorical cap. ‘DS Carpenter. Mr Maxwell. I’ll bid you goodnight. Don’t walk into any more torches, Mr Maxwell, will you?’ And he went off down the corridor and knocked in a peremptory fashion on the double-locked door. ‘Come on,’ they heard him call. ‘Let me out. I’ve got a home to go to, even if you lot haven’t.’ Then he was gone, in a jangle of keys and a blast of bacon-scented air from Bill’s equivalent of afternoon tea.

  Maxwell sniffed. ‘Bacon?’ he asked. ‘I am rather peckish.’

  ‘Dr Astley said you weren’t to eat, just have a drink. He also left you these.’ She held out her hand with the painkillers on.

  ‘I might have just one,’ Maxwell said, wincing. ‘I’ve got the most terrible head suddenly.’

  ‘Well, you would,’ she said. ‘I’m just going out into the corridor to get you some water from the cooler. Don’t move.’

  ‘Water?’ Maxwell mouthed silently.

  When she got back, he was still lying down. This sent a small shudder of fear through her body; it wasn’t like him to either lie down under a setback or to obey any instruction of hers, no matter how sensible. She handed him a painkiller and he leant up on one elbow to take it.

  ‘No, seriously, why have I got such a headache and why am I here?’

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked into his eyes. At least his pupils were the same size as each other. ‘Max, you have had, have still got I should really say, a concussion. You were hit on the head by a torch.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you disturbed the poisoner in town. I won’t ask why you lied to me about where you were going when I dropped you off. I’m just glad you are all right and we’ll say no more about it.’

  ‘You’re dead right there,’ Maxwell said, bluntly. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. As far as I know, the last thing that happened to me was I got into your mother’s car outside the hospital. By the way,’ and he looked serious and clutched her wrist, ‘your mother’s car has had a little scrape, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Max.’ She patted his hand. ‘I know. Look, if you’ve managed to swallow Astley’s horse pill, why don’t you have a go at having a sleep?’

  He lay back. ‘Do you know, I think I will.’ He closed his eyes and pulled the blanket up to his chin. ‘Can I have a lie-in, do you think? It isn’t school tomorrow, is it?’ His eyes suddenly flew open. ‘I had a horrible dream,’ he said. ‘I dreamt I was Headmaster.’ He closed his eyes again and chuckled softly. ‘Wouldn’t that be funny?’

  She patted his shoulder and smiled, then bent down to kiss his cheek. ‘Hilarious,’ she said. ‘Night, night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.’

  ‘Night, night, Miss Mackenzie,’ he said, and started to snore.

  ‘Miss Mackenzie, indeed,’ she said, and went out into the corridor. ‘I’ve a good mind to lock you in.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Upstairs in her office, all was peace and quiet. Her message light was flashing on her phone, but instead of picking it up straight away, she waited, weighing her options. It was probably her mother, wound up by Mrs Troubridge to new heights of hysteria. But it might be Chichester, with a trace on the phone. She took a deep breath and picked it up, keying in her PIN.

  ‘DS Carpenter? Angus here.’ Did the man never sleep? ‘How y’doing? I’ve had a look at your phone number and it’s bad news. It’s pay as you go, bought Friday off of Asda in Brighton.’ Jacquie was pleased to have the detail, but it was a bit scary, she thought, that so much detail could be got so quickly. But Angus was continuing. ‘It’s switched off now, but I’ve asked the company to keep a check on it. As soon as it switches back on, they can give us a trace. Bye.’

  She saved the message and pressed for the next one.

  ‘Umm, DS Carpenter. Angus again. I’ve texted a mate of mine who has a voice recognition program. I sent the message as an MP3. I hope that’s all right. Umm, it’s a bit late now, you’re probably busy. Or in bed. Ha ha. I’ll ring you on your mobile in the morning.’

  She put down the receiver, looking thoughtful. It wasn’t like Angus to do anything off the clock. He sounded rather nervous as well. She hoped he meant it and called; he always struck her as a bit of a slave to wine, women and song. But mostly, wine.

  Before she could get up, her phone rang.

  ‘DS Carpenter.’

  ‘It’s Bill, Jacquie. On the desk.’

  ‘Yes, Bill?’ Had he forgotten that they had spoken not fifteen minutes earlier? Had he got short-term memory loss or had she?

  ‘Something a bit odd going on down here. I wonder if you could come down?’

  ‘It’s not Mr Maxwell, is it?’ Her heart was thumping in her throat.

  ‘No, no, not really.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ve checked the CCTV. He’s fine. Still asleep.’

  ‘I’m on my way, Bill.’ She put down the phone. Bill put the phlegm in phlegmatic so it must have been odd to get him on the phone. After all, he’d been there, done that, and under his regulation blue serge, for the use of, he’d got the T-shirt.

  She clattered down the steps to the front foyer, her heels echoing behind her in the cavernous stairwell. She almost burst through the doors and had to collect herself together. But there was no one there except the desk sergeant, moodily filling in his sudoku.

  ‘Bill? What is it?’

  ‘That was quick. It’s this.’ He held up a plant.

  ‘What is it?’ She was beginning to sound like one of Maxwell’s broken 78s.

  Bill cleared his throat. He was an avid Gardeners’ Question Time fan and he could do a Bob Flowerdew to make your eyes water. However, this time, he saw the glint in Jacquie’s eye and decided to be brief. ‘It’s a Kaffir lily. It is a border plant, really, but they force them for the supermarkets. It will flower like this for a bit and then you put it out.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Jacquie said. ‘But where did it come from?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. One minute it wasn’t here, next minute, it was. I was getting something out of the file, but I can’t have had my back turned for more than a minute.’

  ‘Is there a card?’

  ‘Yes. It’s addressed to DCI Hall.’

  ‘It’s poisonous, isn’t it?’

  Bill looked set to propound, so Jacquie stopped him.

  ‘If you know it’s poisonous, Bill, get on the phone to Leighford General now, quickly. Tell them that Mrs Hall has been given …’

  ‘Lycorine,’ said a voice from behind h
er.

  ‘Max?’ she spun round. ‘What are you doing up and about? And how do you know it’s lycorine? You didn’t seem to know much about plants when my mother was holding forth.’

  Maxwell and Bill exchanged the smallest of glances. Bill had a mother-in-law too. His was an expert on TV soaps, so he reckoned that Maxwell had a slightly better deal.

  Jacquie sighed. ‘Yes, all right. I get it. Well, Bill, you heard the man. Lycorine.’ She stepped into Maxwell’s arms. ‘Should you be up?’

  ‘I’ve had a nap, I feel a lot better. I’ve still got a hell of a headache and I feel as though my head is on a bit skew-whiff, but otherwise, I’m fine.’

  ‘How’s the memory?’

  ‘I remembered lycorine,’ he said, a little miffed. ‘What more do you want? I could give you a quick rundown on the reform of the Poor Law, if you’re up for it.’

  ‘I mean, of recent events.’

  ‘I remember leaving the hospital. Your mother’s car’s had a bit of a bump, by the way. I remember going into a pub.’ He sniffed his sleeve. ‘The Vine. After that … it’s a bit hazy. There were some coppers, I remember them.’ He smiled benignly at Bill. ‘There was something important about a shop …’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she said. ‘They’ve closed it and are searching it as we speak. Angus will be delighted with the overtime.’

  ‘Does he never sleep?’

  ‘I thought that. In fact, he left me a couple of messages …’

  ‘DS Carpenter?’ Bill was off the phone.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The hospital said thanks. They hadn’t even thought of that one, but they are starting treatment now. Oh, and DCI Hall is out of A&E. He’s on his way. May I ask, why was he in A&E?’

  ‘He had a thorn up …’ began Maxwell.

  ‘… his thumbnail,’ Jacquie quickly said. ‘As a gardener, you must know how painful that is, Bill?’

  The man looked puzzled. He had never had Henry Hall down for a wuss. Or for a gardener, come to that. He decided to change the subject. ‘Are you waiting for the DCI?’

  Jacquie chewed her lip. She wanted to see Henry, to debrief, but equally, she wanted to get home, to get Maxwell home, to see her little boy and, most of all, to lie down. ‘I tell you what, Bill. What time do you finish your shift?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Eight. That’s fine. Give me a ring at eight and tell me where the guv is then. I’ll contact him there. I’ve got a few bits he ought to know.’

  ‘Eight it is, then.’ The sergeant looked at the clock. ‘If you’re quick you can get at least four hours of sleep.’

  ‘Plenty,’ she said, brightly. ‘Night, then, Bill.’

  Maxwell fell into step behind her. He leant over the desk and pointed. ‘That’s a nine, by the way. And you’ve got two twos in the bottom left-hand square.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Bill said sourly. Everyone’s a critic.

  ‘Evening, all,’ added Maxwell and swung through the doors, holding his head only slightly to one side. How do you know when a door’s not a door? When you’ve jarred yourself. Or something.

  Jacquie reclaimed her Ka for the journey home. That way, she could introduce her mother gently to the fact that her car was a bit more battered and bruised than when she had last seen it. The guest bedroom faced the front and she really didn’t want her to sweep open the curtains in the morning and see the devastation displayed in glorious Technicolor.

  Jacquie and Maxwell travelled back to 38 Columbine in silence, broken only by the whirring of cogs in their brains. As she pulled on the handbrake, he grabbed her wrist.

  ‘Can we agree something?’ he said.

  ‘Possibly.’ She was wary. He had clearly got the sleuthing bit back firmly between his teeth and she was desperate for sleep.

  ‘This is what we do. We go in. We go up the stairs. We go to check on Nole. We go to bed. We go to sleep. We don’t discuss the case.’

  ‘This isn’t like you,’ she said. ‘I thought we would be up all night.’

  ‘I need processing time,’ he said. ‘I think I know who we’re looking for, but I also know you will disagree. I need to be sharp and my head feels full of cotton wool.’

  She looked at him. Could he be getting sensible in his old age?

  ‘Then, when we’ve talked it over in the morning, we can go out and catch him at it, or at least find out what he’s doing and stop him doing it again.’

  That would be a no, then.

  Maxwell’s first thought as he opened one eye was that someone was trying to prise off the top of his head. Then his giant intellect kicked in and he realised that that was very unlikely. Someone was actually trying to pull his ears off with red-hot pincers. Then he recognised the sound that was cutting through his skull like a blunt chainsaw. He kicked out randomly to rouse Jacquie and found only air.

  ‘Max?’ she appeared in the doorway, mouth full of foam, toothbrush waving. ‘Can you get that?’

  He grunted and flapped his hand vaguely at the bedside table. Finally, he found the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Maxwell? It’s Bill here. From the nick. Just ringing as arranged.’

  ‘Is it eight o’clock already?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Mr Maxwell. As you can imagine, it can’t come quickly enough for me.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Maxwell said, smiling. There was always a different perspective. ‘Thanks for ringing. Is DCI Hall in the police station?’

  ‘He’s at the hospital, at the moment. His wife is much better, so he’s just popped in to see her. He says to tell you he will come round to yours, if that’s all right.’

  The thought of Henry Hall phrasing it in quite those terms was a droll one and Maxwell smiled again. The top of his head stayed put; progress. ‘Thanks. I’ll tell … DS Carpenter.’

  The woman policeman of that name was back in the bedroom, licked and polished to perfection. She looked as if she had had a holiday, rather than three partial nights’ sleep in a row. ‘Is that Bill?’

  ‘Bye, then, Bill.’ Maxwell put the phone down.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes. Where’s Henry?’

  ‘He’s at the hospital.’ He hurriedly calmed her worried look. ‘Margaret is much better. He’s coming round here, afterwards.’

  ‘What?’ Jacquie looked around frantically.

  ‘Sweetheart, you look lovely. Your house looks lovely. Your baby looks lovely. Even your cat looks lovely. Your mother looks like a boot. I look beaten up. Everything is as it should be. And that’s even without Legs Diamond being in his heaven.’

  She sat on the bed and leant over to kiss him somewhere it wouldn’t hurt. It was easier than it usually was when he had had an altercation with a miscreant. It had sometimes been hard, over the years, to know where to even stick a pin between bruises. A simple torch over the head was nothing. He kissed her right on back.

  ‘Go and rally the troops,’ he said. ‘Your mother will need some TLC after an evening with Mrs Troubridge.’

  ‘Oh, God, you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and start breakfast. That way, we’ll have heard the worst before Henry gets here.’ She hurried away.

  Maxwell got up, gingerly. The room swam for a second or two, but soon righted itself and he went into the bathroom feeling quite confident. He kept returning to the last thing he could remember, trying to fill in the details. He knew that the more he fretted over it, the less likely it was to happen. He had had the same problem for years over B-feature film stars. He had once kept himself awake for night after night for weeks, trying to remember the name of … Well, it had seemed very important at the time. And now, he had at his disposal a woman who, as well as being beautiful and funny, could also use the invention of the devil, and the knowledge of the whole world of film geeks was just a click away, in what the young people called a computer. So he used the neural pathways grown dusty with neglect to recreate the minutes before the torch put his lights out. He muttered quietly to himself aroun
d his toothpaste as he cleaned his teeth.

  ‘Who you talk to, Dadda?’

  He nearly swallowed his toothbrush. If the little voice hadn’t made him jump, the small ice-cold hand placed on the gap between pyjama top and bottom would certainly have done the trick.

  ‘Hello, Nole. How’re you doing, my little mate?’

  ‘OK, Dadda. Who you talk to?’

  His son had many very attractive traits, some that Maxwell even recognised as his own particular genetic input. The persistence was not necessarily one of them, and he was pretty sure it came from the maternal side.

  ‘I was just thinking, Nole. Daddies think better out loud.’ This seemed to answer the question and Maxwell got on with brushing his teeth.

  ‘Ninja does think, Dadda.’

  Maxwell pebble-dashed the mirror with foam. ‘Does she, sweetheart? Well, Ninjas think better out loud as well, I suppose.’

  ‘I s’pose,’ Nolan shrugged one shoulder, then the other. Presumably, thought Maxwell, both at once was not always easy.

  Maxwell fought down an urge to ask what Ninja had been thinking, but with difficulty. It would have been good to get a handle on the woman’s thought processes, but he had been to a good school and so it was not to be.

  ‘Is Ninja up yet?’ Maxwell asked his son.

  ‘Yep.’

  The monosyllabic reply phase, his father thought. Oh well, it will only last for about another fifteen years. ‘Is Ninja in the kitchen with Mummy?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Let’s go in there, then, shall we?’ said Maxwell, walking back into the bedroom and shrugging on his bathrobe, proudly using both shoulders at once. ‘We can have some breakfast.’

  The boy’s eyes widened. ‘Not Ninja toast!’

  ‘No, Daddy toast, or how about some Coco Pops?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Mummy is having a visitor later,’ Maxwell said in a conversational tone as he carried the boy downstairs. ‘So no Coco Pops in anyone’s hair.’ Nolan looked downcast. ‘Well, all right. Just a few in your hair, but no hiding them today.’