by M. J. Trow
‘Er … just Metternich.’
‘Oh, that’s all right, then,’ she said. ‘At least there’s someone who can bear you out. Look,’ she suddenly pointed at the group, ‘he’s off.’
And indeed he was, running along the promenade towards the shops of the Sea Front, leaving behind the Tottingleigh Townswomen’s Twitchers gesticulating wildly.
‘Stay with Nolan, Ninja. Stay with Ninja, Nole,’ said Maxwell, or something very like it. Neither of them would have stirred anyway; though exciting, this was also quite scary. Maxwell hared off after the fleeing poisoner, jinking, dodging and diving through the scattering women.
‘He ran off when we told him about you.’ The spokesperson’s voice Dopplered as he hurtled past.
I bet he did, thought Maxwell, gathering speed. Lessing had an odd run, knees together and a strange gait; essentially, the quickest hobble in the world, like Mad Vince Price in the House of Wax. He covered the ground, though, and Maxwell, anxious not to lose him, wasn’t looking at his feet, but ahead, so stumbling was the order of the day. Add to that the pounding in his head every time a foot hit the floor and he soon began to drop behind. In the maze of footpaths crisscrossing the small park between the Sea Front and the High Street, he lost him altogether. He gave up the chase reluctantly, coming to a halt in a series of long but ever slower strides. He bent down to catch his breath and put his hands on his knees. Through the blood pounding in his head, he could just hear the slap of flat feet, running in an uneven stride through the park.
He walked back to where he had left Nolan and his Ninja. His breathing became easier as he walked and, by the time he reached them, it was impossible to tell that he had been gasping for oxygen not ten minutes before.
‘D’you catch the nasty man, Dadda?’ Nolan asked.
‘No, mate, sorry. He got away.’ He looked at Ninja, willing her to comment about ancient men outrunning him, but she was silent. She was privately very impressed that he would just run off like that, following into who knew what. She began to realise what her daughter saw in him. She smiled.
‘Bad luck,’ she said. ‘But he surely couldn’t have got far.’
‘I should think he was just about at the end of his run,’ Maxwell said. ‘But the little paths through the park are tortuous and he could have gone anywhere. I’ll just have to get on to Jacquie and they can pick him up at home.’
But Jacquie’s mother was not her mother for nothing. ‘Nonsense,’ she said, briskly. ‘With all this poison talk, I don’t expect the folk of Leighford are exactly out and about taking the air and a coffee and cake this morning. Let’s walk on into town and see if we can pick up his trail.’
‘My word, Ninj,’ Maxwell said, impressed. ‘Let’s do it. Come on, Nole, best foot forward.’ And off they strode, the Three Musketeers, to catch a murderer. A small niggle in the back of Maxwell’s mind was trying to get his attention, to tell him that Jacquie would have his nuts in a vice for this. He beat it down and tried to ignore it. If all else failed, he could always blame her mother. Or, at a pinch, the kid.
As they approached the recoalesced twitchers, the women backed away. It was all very well and exciting and all, but who was going to take them twitching, now that this madman had frightened away that nice Mr Lessing? Never mind, before he had run off, he had given out bottled water all round, so at least they wouldn’t get dehydrated when passing the sandwiches. They twittered greetings, Maxwell doffed his hat to them one last time, and they went their separate ways.
The walk into town wasn’t long, but before it was half over, Nolan was on his father’s shoulders, with very explicit instructions not to hold on to ears or hair, his usual favourite balance aids. He settled instead for the collar which was only marginally more comfortable and caused momentary choking sensations every few steps.
‘You really don’t seem very comfortable there, Max,’ Ninja observed after a while.
Maxwell struggled for breath and pointed to his collar, squeezing tight against his Adam’s apple.
‘Don’t pull Daddy’s collar, darling,’ his grandmother admonished. ‘It hurts. And he’s turning a funny colour.’
‘I want down,’ Nolan whinged. It wasn’t like him to be miserable and it dawned on Maxwell that it had been a bit of a twenty-four hours for the poor little chap.
‘Look, Betty, why don’t you take him home?’ Maxwell suggested. ‘I can take it from here. I really don’t want him any more involved, anyway.’ That little niggle was gaining ground.
‘I quite understand,’ she said. ‘But I can’t leave you. Jacquie would never forgive me.’
Maxwell swung Nolan back to the pavement while he gathered his thoughts. There seemed no way forward except to call Jacquie and have her take over. He looked at his watch; she would be heading towards the Vine by now. He could catch her there, but then he would have to explain and, with Hall there, it was always hard to nudge them off the straight and narrow police procedure. Hell. He looked up and for a frantic, heart-stopping moment couldn’t see his son. He grabbed Betty’s arm and got an unpleasant handful of Bingo wing. He let go hurriedly.
‘Ow,’ she said, rubbing her bicep. ‘Don’t worry. He’s over there, with that little girl.’
‘Ooh,’ Maxwell’s schmoozing muscle gave itself a bit of a flex. He recognised the child as one from Nolan’s nursery. He had often seen her and Nolan in sticky confabulation at the end of parties and the like. He headed towards them, hat at the doff, smile at the ready. The girl’s mother, sitting on a nearby bench, looked up from her Sunday supplement.
‘Hello,’ she smiled. She looked past him. The woman she saw gave her a turn. It looked as though Jacquie had been left in the oven too long.
Maxwell followed her gaze. ‘Jacquie’s mother, Mrs Carpenter,’ he said. He made no attempt to introduce them further, as he had no idea what the other’s name was.
She was an understanding soul. She reached out her hand and said, ‘Miranda, Mrs Carpenter. How are you? Down for a holiday?’
Before Ninja could start, Maxwell dived in. ‘We’ve hit a bit of a snag, Miranda, in fact. Betty, Mrs Carpenter, isn’t feeling too well, are you, Betty?’
She opened her mouth to speak but he was too quick for her.
‘No, not well at all. But it’s a bit difficult, with Nole, he’s so excited at having his Granny down, isn’t he, Betty?’
Again, he beat her to it.
‘Never mind, eh, Betty? Let’s get you home so you can have a rest.’
Miranda cut in this time. ‘Oh, Mr Maxwell, don’t worry. You know how well Nolan and Florence get on together. I expect Jacquie’s working, is she?’ She looked sympathetically at Maxwell. She had always rather fancied the look of him; old, certainly, but at least he had the advantage of being here. Florence’s dad was more of a serving suggestion, these days, access arrangements notwithstanding. And there was no telling where a favour might lead. If she scratched his back, who knew where he might scratch back.
‘Mmm,’ Maxwell said, ambiguously.
‘Well, what if I have Nolan for the afternoon? We’d all enjoy it, I know.’
Maxwell feigned surprise. ‘Miranda! That would be wonderful. Wouldn’t it, Betty?’
She nodded. She had fallen in with the plan at last.
‘Can we fetch him later? Jacquie will be back at home this afternoon. She’ll call you.’
The woman stood up and called her daughter. ‘We’re taking Nolan home to play, Flo,’ she said and the little girl jumped up and down. ‘Won’t that be fun?’ She turned again to Maxwell. ‘Does Nolan have any food fads?’
‘Not really,’ Maxwell said. ‘But, you won’t give him anything …’
‘Poisoned?’ she said. ‘No. We’re eating from the freezer and the cupboard at the moment. Like everyone else in Leighford, I should think.’
Maxwell smiled in relief. At last, someone who watched the local news. ‘That’s fine, then,’ he said. ‘Thanks so much, Miranda.’ And he leant forward and g
ave her a kiss on each cheek. ‘You are a star.’
‘Really, Max,’ Betty said, as they walked away towards the High Street, turning to wave at an oblivious Nolan every few steps, ‘I’ve never seen a performance like it.’
Maxwell looked contrite and was about to apologise.
‘Well done,’ she added and rubbed her hands together. ‘Let’s catch the bastard.’
‘Betty!’ he said. ‘I’m shocked.’
‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ she said. ‘Nolan isn’t the only chip off the old block, you know. I didn’t read all those Agatha Christies for nothing.’ And off she went, setting a cracking pace, towards Oliver Lessing, Nemesis in crimplene.
Chapter Twenty
Jacquie and Hall had found Leighford nick the easy way. As they turned into the road which ended in its car park, their attention was inevitably drawn to the crowd of thousands of Leighfordians, and their noise. The flaming torches and pitchforks were missing, but they otherwise were very clearly a Mob, with a capital ‘m’.
Jacquie let Hall’s muttered expletive go unremarked, but explained the situation anyway, if only to clear it in her own mind. ‘I expect stories of a poisoner on the loose have been somewhat exaggerated in the telling, guv,’ she said.
‘What do they want to exaggerate for?’ he asked, reasonably. ‘When I last counted, six people are in hospital, three others have had lucky escapes and one person is dead.’
‘Let’s check,’ said Jacquie and stuck her head out of the window. ‘Er, excuse me,’ she said to the nearest yelling woman. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s this poisoner, ennit?’ the woman said. Seeming glad to stop yelling for a moment, she leant down and looked in through the window. ‘There’s hundreds in hospital, I heard twenty people dead. They’re flying casualties off all over. The General can’t cope, they say. It’s terrible.’
‘It sounds awful,’ said Jacquie. ‘On the news, it just said …’
‘Huh!’ the woman sneered. ‘The news. What’s that got to do with it? They only say what they’re told to say. To stop panics and that.’
‘But it hasn’t stopped it, has it,’ said Jacquie, sweetly. ‘There must be over a thousand people here.’
The woman looked at Jacquie with suspicion. ‘If you’re not here to complain, why are you here?’ she said. She screwed her head round and looked inside the car. The walkie-talkie was in full view, as was Hall’s police pass, left out on the dash. ‘You’re bloody police, aintcha?’ She straightened up. ‘Hey, everybody. Over here. Rozzers. Senior, too, I reckon. Quick.’ But Jacquie had the window up as Hall reversed, for once without his usual caution, tyres snarling.
‘Careful, guv,’ Jacquie said, clutching the dash. ‘You’ll run someone over.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Hall through gritted teeth as he reached the road. He screeched round and hared off in the direction of the town centre car park. ‘This is Leighford, not Paris. We don’t do mobs here.’
‘I’d have thought not, guv,’ said Jacquie, looking back over her shoulder. ‘But that looked quite convincing to me.’
‘Better radio in,’ he said. ‘See how they are in there.’
She picked up the walkie-talkie and pressed the button. ‘Alpha Charlie Two, over.’
‘Come in, Alpha Charlie Two,’ said a harassed-sounding voice.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘To hell with all this “over” nonsense. Just the facts.’ Maxwell would have applauded Jacquie’s Dragnet’s Joe Friday, but the similarity hadn’t occurred to her.
‘We’re trapped,’ the voice came back, testily. ‘Was that you reversing out just then?’
‘You bet,’ Jacquie said. Hall nudged her. ‘Hold on, DCI Hall wants a word.’
He leant in closer to the radio. ‘Have you rung the media?’
‘God, no,’ crackled the radio.
‘Do it. They won’t be able to resist a man and a microphone. It’ll take the pressure off. Put it out on all points. I want squad cars and a chopper in the air, just in case. Who’s on duty?’
‘DC Illingworth, guv.’
‘Patch me through.’
Static crackled through Hall’s car and Hall’s head.
‘Guv?’
‘Rob. Looks like you’ve got Fort Apache, the Bronx on your hands.’
‘You know how it is,’ the DC told him. ‘A couple of loudmouths in the front office asking what they’re paying their taxes for, and suddenly you’ve got fucking anarchy. ’Scusing my French at all times.’
‘Bill’s calling for back-up,’ Hall said.
‘He’s done that already. We’ve got teams coming over from Pompey and Littlehampton.’
‘Mark out a perimeter for them,’ Hall ordered. ‘Er … Castle Street, the Park, Della and Mapleton. Pull the cordon in. Coordinate with the chopper which should be on its way. Any actual heads broken yet?’
‘No, guv.’ He could hear the chuckle in Illingworth’s voice. ‘We’ve got it covered.’
‘You’re sure, Rob?’
‘I’d rather they were here than at Leighford General. At least we can contain them.’
‘OK. Keep in touch.’ He sat straight again and concentrated on the turn into the car park.
‘Right oh, guv.’
‘It’s me,’ said Jacquie. ‘Can I have Bill back, please?’ She waited. ‘How are the fingerprints coming along?’
‘Bad news, Jacquie. Just nick personnel.’
‘Bugger. Never mind, it was always a long shot. Thanks. We’ll check back in later. Alpha Charlie Two out.’
‘Roger, Alpha Charlie Two.’ The crackling died abruptly as the radio went dead.
Hall pointed. ‘Isn’t that your car?’ he asked.
Jacquie looked in the direction of his finger. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is. That means Max has actually done as I asked him and taken Mum and Nole shopping.’
‘That’s good, then. We know where they are. I’m always a bit suspicious when your … Max is on the loose.’
‘That makes two of us, guv. But he won’t do anything when he’s got Nolan with him, at least I can be sure of that.’ She looked around at the almost empty car park. There was a minibus parked up near the sea defence, her own Ka and five other vehicles. Other than that, it was deserted. ‘You can’t usually get in here on a Sunday morning as sunny as this. Where is everyone?’
‘Outside the nick, threatening mayhem,’ Hall said, switching off the engine. ‘Rob will be all right. If anyone can talk sense to the great British public, he can. Even so, I’m not straying far from the radio.’ He got out and stretched. ‘God, Jacquie, it’s been a long few days, hasn’t it?’
‘It certainly has, guv,’ said Jacquie. ‘It’s hard to believe that all this kicked off last Thursday.’
‘I almost didn’t respond, you know, to the call from Leighford High. Well, to be accurate, I didn’t respond. Bob Davies took it into his own hands.’
‘You would have got involved eventually,’ said Jacquie, comfortingly.
Hall snorted. ‘We haven’t come out smelling of roses as it is, Jacquie,’ he said. ‘Imagine if we had taken longer even than we did. The press and that mob would have a field day.’
‘We’ll sort it, guv,’ Jacquie patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry.’ She knew he was thinking of Margaret, still in hospital but out of danger. He was thinking of the murdered Mel Forman, cut down because she had a weakness for prawns and an allergic teaching assistant. Randomness was the policeman’s enemy; there was nothing to get a hold of, nothing to follow. Perhaps Angus would have something for them that didn’t end in a no-through-road sign.
They fell into step, walking in the wake of her family, had they but known. They were West Sussex police persons, not Tonto, so they didn’t know what all the signs, written clearly in the sand, meant. There was the skid mark where Maxwell had shot straight off the blocks to stop an innocent old lady giving Nolan a sweet. There was the clean area near the end of the sea defence where a flock of tw
itchers had milled around, waiting for their guide. There were the flat-footed, pigeon-toed marks of Oliver Lessing, approaching his ladies. Then, the spiral ground deep into the verge of his turn and flight. The marks of his passage were obliterated by the deeply marked spoor of a running man, running to save more people from death or disaster. Oblivious of the historical record being scuffed aside by their own feet, they walked along the Front and crossed the road into the park.
‘We might bump into them while we’re in town,’ said Jacquie, for something to say.
‘Hmm, yes,’ said Hall absently. He was many miles away and in many different directions. He was with Margaret in the hospital, he was behind his desk, about to be crushed by teetering paperwork, he was facing a murderer, reading him his rights. Above all, he was with Rob Illingworth in Fort Apache, wondering how ugly the situation might become. The trouble was that, on the murderer front, the man had no face, no voice, nothing he could get a hold on. He was as insubstantial as air.
Jacquie knew better than to try and drag him back. When there wasn’t a case to work on, he could be like this for days. But somehow, he always came out the other side, fresh and enthusiastic, as far as anyone could tell, ready for the next challenge. The thing with this case was that it was happening so fast. It was like being bombarded with missiles, each one from an unexpected direction. Some of them were ping-pong balls, others bags of shit. And, possibly, the next one could well be a grenade with the pin missing.
As they walked through the deserted town centre, they fell naturally into the regulation two and a half miles an hour, measured, automatic. Her eyes swept from side to side, taking in everything, sifting, discarding, the gaze of a policeman on the beat. Out of the left-hand corner of her eye, she saw something familiar. She looked again, but it was gone. She couldn’t be sure what had caught her attention; old habits died hard.
They both heard the broken rattle of a police helicopter, droning in the distance. There was no siren to announce the reinforcements snarling into Leighford from east and west. Softly, softly, the DCI would have told them. Form your circle, park in side streets, wait. A few quiet words might still do the trick.
