by M. J. Trow
‘Oh, I see,’ the emu replied. ‘That explains a lot. Did he enjoy his lolly?’
‘You fiend,’ Betty screamed. ‘How dare you!’ Maxwell held her back. No need to rush this. He needed to be sure.
Lessing looked aggrieved. ‘It was only a lolly,’ he said. ‘Nothing to make a fuss about. Oh!’ He stopped, looking horrified. ‘He’s not one of these little chaps with allergies, is he? Peanuts, that sort of thing. Anaphylactic shock?’
‘No,’ Maxwell said, beginning to get the drift. ‘He’s fine in that respect, but a little finicky, I suppose you could say. Comes from being an only one, I suppose. We’re a little indulgent.’
‘You must have more,’ Lessing crowed. ‘It’s a terrible thing to become attached to just one child. I was the same with Dierdre. I know I was only her uncle, but … well, you know, Mr Maxwell, what a wonderful woman my Dierdre became.’
‘Um, yes, yes indeed,’ Maxwell gushed. ‘But, could we go back to the lolly?’
‘Yes, of course. Well, there the little chap was, in his buggy, looking a bit bored. I had a lovely organic aniseed lolly in my pocket and I gave it to him. No added colours or preservatives, Mr Maxwell. Nothing to hurt the little chap.’
Betty had subsided and was looking at Lessing as if she would like to shove his head up his rather unpleasant looking shorts. Maxwell put a hand on her arm to restrain her.
‘But, anyhow,’ Lessing was continuing, breaking up sticks and putting them in an incinerator. ‘I don’t expect you chased me halfway across Leighford to hear about my little kindnesses.’
‘No,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘Not really.’
‘I expect you would like to know about the poisoned prawn cocktails.’ He looked at them, cocking his head again from side to side, as if sizing them up. His busy hands continued to break up the branches, adding screwed up paper every now and again, and a slurp of meths.
‘So it was the prawn cocktails,’ Maxwell said. ‘But what about Freda?’
‘Freda? Oh, the dinner lady. Yes, well, surely you had that one worked out. I gave her an untampered-with one. Really, Mr Maxwell, you used to be so bright.’ He strained as he broke a larger branch over his thigh. He added the bits to the bin and patted his pockets aimlessly. ‘Do you have a match?’
They shook their heads.
‘A lighter? Oh, no, hold on, here it is.’ And he fetched out a Zippo from the depths of a pocket at the back of his shorts. ‘Smoking is so bad for one, but I still like a little sneaky cigarette when I can get one,’ he said.
‘But why did you do it?’ Maxwell said.
‘Mr Maxwell, I am, again, shocked at you. To avenge my Dierdre, of course.’
‘But no one who was poisoned killed Dierdre,’ Maxwell said. ‘You know as well as I do who killed Dierdre. They’re serving life. Mel Forman, the woman who died, she probably hadn’t exchanged two words with her.’
‘They were replacing her,’ hissed Lessing, white spittle appearing at the corners of his mouth. ‘My Dierdre. Replaced by someone else. Sitting in her office. Her chair. My little Dierdre.’ As soon as the venom had started, so nice old Mr Lessing, purveyor of unpleasant lolly flavours, was back. ‘So, come here, why don’t you? Watch the bonfire.’ He held his lighter to the paper in the bin and flames flew up immediately, with plumes of smoke. He disappeared in a fragrant smog. ‘Come on,’ his voice said, through the fumes. ‘Come closer. Come closer and I’ll tell you how I did it.’
Maxwell took a step towards him. ‘You raving shit!’ he snapped. ‘I always had you down for a pervert, using your binoculars for anything other than birdwatching, but this …’
Betty suddenly pulled on the back of his jacket. ‘No, Max. Don’t go any nearer. Look!’ She pointed to a leaf, curling over the edge of the bin.
‘At what?’ Even in a crisis, Maxwell couldn’t be ungrammatical.
‘That leaf. It’s oleander he’s burning, Max. It’s poisonous.’
‘I remember,’ he said, backing away. ‘Even the smoke is poisonous.’ He put his arm up over his nose and mouth and, turning, pushed Betty ahead of him and through the gate.
‘Come back, Mr Maxwell,’ they could hear him calling. ‘Come back and let me tell you all about it.’
‘Call Jacquie,’ Maxwell said. ‘Then an ambulance. Thing is, I’ve no idea where we are.’ He looked frantically around. This part of the town, dumb in the heat, was alien to him.
‘I’ll leave my phone open,’ she said. ‘They can do it by satellite.’
‘Excellent,’ said Maxwell. ‘And yet, how creepy.’
She moved a few doors down and turned around to get the best signal. She punched in Jacquie’s number. After a couple of rings, her daughter answered.
‘DS Carpenter.’
‘Darling, it’s Mum.’
‘Oh, hi, Mum. Good shopping trip? I can’t talk, we’re in a bit of a crisis right now. Can I call you back?’ And the phone went dead.
Betty Carpenter was not always a patient or a very nice woman and she would be the first to admit it, but she was resourceful. She rang the emergency services and decided to leave her daughter till later. But then, she would leave no stone unturned until that girl knew what guilt was. With swift efficiency she ordered an ambulance and police back-up. She turned to tell Maxwell the news.
Where he had stood was a definitely Maxwell-shaped hole. The gate to Lessing’s garden was open and she could hear falsetto screams from the other side of the fence.
‘Max!’ she yelled. ‘Come out of there, for God’s sake.’
‘No need to shout,’ he said, calmly, walking through the gate with an unconscious Oliver Lessing over his shoulder. He dumped him casually to the ground and neither of them minded when they heard a double thump as his head bounced on the ground. ‘I wasn’t letting him take that way out.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be an easy way,’ she said, drily. ‘I believe bloody diarrhoea is one of the symptoms.’
‘There’s no need to blaspheme, Betty,’ he said.
‘I mean …’ but then she caught the glint in his eye. ‘Oh, I see. Well, if you will take my advice one more time, Max, I think you should strip off. The poison might be lingering in your clothes.’
He looked at her closely. Was she joking? She looked very serious, certainly, and it was better to be safe than sorry. He solemnly stripped off his jacket, trousers and shirt. His hat joined the pile and he was haggling with her over his underpants when the ambulance crew arrived. It was only when they started laughing that he realised that his mother-in-law-to-be would take some very close watching in the years ahead.
Jacquie and Hall got to the nick without further incident, noting the back-up cars parked in alleyways, waiting for the word. The mob of outraged citizens was still there, outside the station’s frontage, but torn now, between giving interviews to various local news media, breaking down the doors of the nick because they had always wanted to and rushing off in search of the excitement as advertised by sirens going off all over town. The DC seemed to have it all in hand. The two police people crept in by the smokers’ stairs, crushing old dog ends underfoot and carrying the rank smell of old smoke with them up to the first landing.
Inside, a nervy-looking Incident Team had abandoned all pretence at following up the Incident. Instead, they were peering out of blind-drawn windows, psyching themselves up for whatever was to follow. There was glittering glass all over one end of the room where stones had crashed through windows.
‘That’s going to come out of the taxpayers’ pockets,’ Hall said and the mood lightened. ‘Rob.’ He shook the man’s hand. ‘Well done. Anything untoward?’
His DC smiled. ‘Let’s just say I’m glad I wore my brown trousers today,’ he said. He gestured to the window. ‘They’re breaking up out there.’ He checked his watch. ‘Football’s on in half an hour.’
‘And there’s a new crime scene at the Vine. Get through to some of your cars. Three ought to do the trick. Get them over there. Chopper still up?’<
br />
‘Last time I looked,’ Illingworth said.
‘Keep it there for now. I want reports on crowd movements every ten minutes.’
‘Got it,’ and Illingworth swung into action, quietly grateful that the DCI was back. Then, he turned. ‘Jacquie,’ he said. ‘A bit of bad news, I’m afraid.’
Her heart contracted. Her family were out there. ‘Yes?’
‘Your mother’s car. In the car park, you know? Wrecked, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Jacquie, hardly able to look at Hall. It was true what they said; every crowd had a silver lining.
In Hall’s office, the argument that Hall and Jacquie had put on hold during their walk resumed. ‘It isn’t Angus,’ said Jacquie. ‘I can prove it if you want.’
‘Well, proof would be nice.’ Hall slumped into his chair.
‘He rang me and left a message. It was timed at only minutes before Max was bopped on the head by a torch in Leighford.’
‘What does that prove?’ Hall was surly, a sure sign he was on dodgy ground.
‘Well, how could he have got from Chichester to here in only minutes?’
‘How do you know he was there? He could have been waiting inside the shop.’
‘No. He definitely rang from the lab. I could hear that mixing thing they always have going making a noise in the background.’
Hall thought for a moment. ‘He’s a clever bloke. He could have taped that and used it as a background.’
‘I’m sorry, guv. I don’t buy that. How would he know that he would need an alibi? And, another thing. Max said he smelt of tobacco, the bloke who hit him.’
‘Well, you’re arguing against yourself there, Jacquie,’ said Hall, pointing a triumphant finger. ‘Angus smokes like a trooper.’
Jacquie crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Guv, really!’ she said. ‘Angus is never far from a rollie, I’ll agree. But since when did you know him smoke anything other than something dodgy?’
Hall looked mulish. ‘How would Maxwell know?’ he said. ‘I don’t believe he could be that sure.’ But he sounded less certain and Jacquie saw her advantage and took it.
‘Finally,’ she said, ‘Max said that the man he grabbed was smaller than him, if not even below average height. Angus is like two yards of pump water. There’s no way you could mistake him for a short person, unless he came out of the shop on his knees.’
Hall threw up his hands. ‘I still think—’
‘I know what you think,’ Jacquie said, cutting him off. ‘You think that Angus gave himself a smaller dose, to put us off the scent.’
Hall nodded, and poked at a piece of paper with his pen. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well spotted.’
‘But, guv, that’s the only reason it could be Angus, don’t you see?’ Really, the man was so stubborn she just wanted to scream. ‘You can’t just say it is Angus because we’ve got a mob outside. We have to get the right man, otherwise we’ll be watching for poisoners for the rest of our lives. Please, guv.’
Deep down, Hall knew that Jacquie was right. If this was one of Maxwell’s beloved Westerns, the mob would be waving a noose, demanding that Sheriff Hall hand the sonofabitch over. He would fire a shot in the air and they’d all go home, muttering darkly about Randolph Scott. As it was … ‘All right. We’ll keep looking. But we’ll also keep Angus under surveillance.’
‘I think we should. I think the poisoner knows he had unravelled the voicemail. He might have another go.’ Please, please, listen, you cussed man; she tried to send subliminal messages to him.
He picked up the phone and dialled. ‘I’ll change the emphasis,’ he said to her, ‘from arrest to protection.’
While he made the call, she went into the corner of the room and redialled her mother’s mobile number. It was switched off. Probably at home by now, Jacquie thought, sleeping off the remains of her hangover. She certainly had seemed very strange on the phone earlier. Breathless. Excited, even. A small worm of doubt started to gnaw in Jacquie’s stomach.
‘Jacquie,’ Hall said. ‘Let’s get on with this then, shall we? Maxwell said he knew who had done this. Do you know who it is?’
‘He’ll have told the cat,’ said Jacquie, at a tangent.
‘Will the cat talk?’ Hall asked, straight-faced.
‘Unlikely,’ she said.
‘We’re at square one, then,’ said Hall. ‘I just don’t know where to go from here. The manager of the Vine had just taken on the new barman on Saturday. He could be anyone. He could be our man, but he could just be someone who, for reasons of his own, didn’t want to get involved in a police investigation. Let’s start again.’
‘What, guv? From Leighford High?’
‘Oh, God, no. I can’t stand that. This lunchtime. From when we went in.’
They picked the events over into tiny pieces, and then put them all back together again. It couldn’t be Angus, and yet, somehow, it had to be Angus. He was always after more hours; Hall believed he had been willing to kill for the extra work. People today killed for peanuts; in this case, they could kill with peanuts. Jacquie couldn’t believe that laconic Angus could be bothered to plan something like this and, although she knew that he wanted the cash, and liked his sleuthing and mild showing off in his lab, she knew in her heart of hearts that he was a gentle soul.
So, here they were again, whittled down to a smallish man, not too fit, smoker, homicidal maniac. Easy-peasy.
Hall’s phone rang.
‘Hall,’ he barked. ‘What? That was quick. Give me the list. Yep, right, uh huh, yes, I see. Wait a minute. Who? Are you sure? No, no, sorry, no offence. Thanks for being so fast with that. Yes, thanks. No, we don’t really think it’s him. No. Don’t worry.’ He put the phone down and looked across the desk at Jacquie. ‘SOCO,’ he said. ‘Prints from the bar. Loads of unidentified, of course. The Vine isn’t very hot on polish. But … well, let me make another call, then we’ll talk.’ He picked up the phone again and dialled zero for the desk. ‘Hello. Yes. DCI Hall. Just a quick question, I know you’re busy. Whose fingerprints were on that plant. Yes, I know about his. And hers. Anyone else? Really? I see, thanks.’ The phone went down and Hall was on his feet in one movement. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Jacquie over his shoulder.
‘Where are we going, guv?’ she asked, out of her seat and grabbing her bag.
‘Do you know where Bob Davies lives?’ he asked, randomly.
‘Er … no, I don’t,’ she said.
‘Well, you’re about to find out.’ And he made for the stairs.
Hall’s car was parked out in the shoppers’ car park so they commandeered a squad car, complete with driver and back-up. The mob had gone now, except for a small picquet of the most piqued of Leighford, DSS card-carriers to a man. And one retired colonel with shares in a supermarket. They passed the Volvo, alone now except for Jacquie’s Ka, in splendid isolation in the usually busy space. They had driven about half a mile further before the impact hit Jacquie.
‘Guv,’ she said. ‘My car is still in the car park.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I saw it. So what? They’re out shopping.’
‘But my mother didn’t answer her phone.’
‘They’re in a shop. She had no signal.’
‘Guv. She’s with Max. He thinks he knows who did it.’
Hall looked serious. ‘Call the station. See if any calls have involved them.’
‘What?’ Jacquie was almost climbing out of the car. ‘They’ve got Nolan with them.’
‘Well, make up your mind, Jacquie,’ Hall said. ‘I know Maxwell is completely crazy, but his madness stops short of anything that would hurt Nolan. So, there’s no need to worry.’
‘But … my car …’
‘Perhaps it wouldn’t start. Perhaps your mother had a drink …’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Jacquie was becoming very sensitive on that issue.
‘Nothing.’ Hall looked at her askance. Perhaps the last few days had been too much. ‘Either put it out
of your mind and come with me on this arrest or get out now.’ He waited, tapping one finger on the back of the driver’s seat. This was a habit of which he was unaware, but it drove all of his drivers almost to the point of homicide. ‘Make up your mind.’
‘Yes, Jacquie,’ muttered his driver. ‘Make up your sodding mind.’
After what seemed an eternity, she said, ‘OK, guv. I’m sorry. Let’s go.’
‘Thank Christ,’ the driver muttered and changed down for the hill that led to Davies’s house.
Davies lived in a bungalow on the outskirts of Leighford. It just had a number but, had there been a scrollwork plaque outside as sported by all its neighbours, it would have read ‘Screwed Over In The Divorce’. It was neglected and, even in the fag end of the loveliest summer in years, the garden was unkempt and somehow the dying flowers in the borders managed to look sinister in their damped-off death throes. The policemen all were reminded of a Tim Burton set – the whole thing was just one step to the left of normal.
The driver of Hall’s car stopped, out of habit, a few doors further on. The squad car following them stopped a few doors back. There was no real need for subterfuge, they knew; Davies was well up on all their tricks, but even so, there were the neighbours to consider in this rather seedy road. It was probably the most exciting thing that had happened there since the Silver Jubilee.
‘Stay here,’ Hall said to his driver. ‘Radio the other car and tell them to wait as well. If we need back-up, Jacquie has her radio with her and will just press alarm. Then come running.’
‘I thought that poisoners couldn’t hurt you, guv,’ said Jacquie. ‘Only by stealth.’
‘That’s an actual poisoner, Jacquie,’ said Hall. ‘Davies is a policeman who has chosen to poison people. He’s a completely different animal.’ He led the way down the path and knocked on the dusty door. An unexpected smell of a Sunday roast wafted out as Davies answered their knock.
‘Guv! Jacquie! How lovely to see you both,’ he said, smiling like a crocodile. ‘In you come. You’re just in time for lunch. Will you join me?’ They didn’t reply, just edged in past him into a hall that had seen better days. Every inch of the paintwork was Nicotine Yellow, a shade which even Dulux had a hard time marketing. ‘No, I didn’t think you would. There’s plenty, if you change your minds. This is rude, but would you mind if I carried on? It’s always nicer if it’s hot, don’t you think? Go on through. Yes, that’s it, right through, into the kitchen. I eat in the conservatory at the back.’
