by M. J. Trow
Bernard Ryan opened the door the minimum amount and hauled Maxwell though the gap by his lapel almost before his knuckles grazed the wood. The two men stood in the hall looking at each other and Maxwell found himself in unfamiliar territory in more ways than one; he was totally lost for words. Usually when he and Ryan met in a corridor, classroom or meeting they inclined their heads a fraction and muttered a minimal greeting and this time was no exception.
‘Max.’
‘Bernard.’
After that, it was hard to think of an opening. Finally, Ryan broke the stalemate. ‘I was wondering when you would get here,’ he said and he sounded so matter of fact that they might have been talking over tea-cups in Leighford’s twee-est cafe, about timetables and the length of assemblies.
Maxwell was confused. ‘Did you invite me?’ he said, puzzled.
‘No,’ the Deputy Head replied. ‘Since when did you need an invitation to a disaster? I thought that if you hadn’t caused it yourself, you would at least be the first on the scene.’
Maxwell was affronted and drew himself up accordingly. ‘I have no idea what you mean,’ he said.
Bernard Ryan drew a deep breath and lifted a hand, finger extended, to begin the list. Maxwell stopped him hurriedly.
‘I have possibly been occasionally involved in some unusual situations,’ he said, ‘but I admit you have hurt my feelings, Bernard. I came to offer my support and commiserations, that’s all.’
Ryan snorted and led the way into the sitting room. The curtains at the front were drawn to keep out the more pushy reporters’ noses. ‘Come off it, Max. Don’t forget we go back a long way. You’ve come to snoop around. Unless I miss my guess, you have already spoken to… let me see… Sylvia Matthews, Helen Maitland and James, not necessarily in that order. Plus your wife, of course.’ Maxwell didn’t reply and Ryan persisted. ‘Am I wrong?’
Maxwell sat back in his chair, a leather affair that looked as though it was going to be hard but was actually amazingly comfortable. In fact, the house was a surprise all round. Larger than one person would need, stylishly furnished. Very nice. He realised that he had been expecting Bernard to live in his late mother’s house, perhaps with his late mother still in the fruit cellar. This was a pleasant surprise. Eventually, he answered.
‘No, Bernard, you’re not wrong. With one transposition, you’ve even got the order right. But… I haven’t come to gloat or snoop. Jacquie doesn’t know I’m here.’ As he said the words, he knew they weren’t strictly true. ‘Well, perhaps I should say I haven’t told her I’m here. On previous showings, she has either sussed me already or soon will. But my point is, I am not here to get things out of you that the police haven’t. I’m actually here to tell you that I don’t think you did it.’
‘Them.’
‘You’re such a stickler, Bernard,’ Maxwell said. ‘Them. But I don’t see why you won’t give yourself an alibi.’
Ryan shrugged and if Maxwell was expecting more, he was doomed to disappointment.
‘If I may just speak out of turn for a minute…’ Maxwell began, to fill the gap, ‘Jacquie and the police don’t understand why you are being so stubborn. They aren’t reporters on a red-top, you know. They won’t sell your story to the highest bidder. All they need is a name, a place, just something to convince them that you couldn’t have killed Josie Blakemore…’
Ryan cut in with a sneer, ‘So, you have her name down pat, then?’ he said. ‘You’ve committed the whole thing to memory, I expect. Every sordid little detail.’
Maxwell was genuinely surprised. He had always assumed every teacher could remember a child’s name after one hearing, but he would have to accept he may be wrong on that score. He didn’t take Bernard up on that remark, but on another word. ‘Sordid?’
‘Yes,’ Ryan said. ‘Sordid. The clothes, the… signs. All that.’
‘I don’t think I know any of that,’ Maxwell muttered. ‘All I heard was that a girl who you tutored was found dead on the beach, having come to you for help over a family issue.’
Ryan looked at him doubtfully. ‘So, your wife told you nothing about the way she was found? Dressed like a hooker and left on the beach. Signs of…’
‘Sex?’ Maxwell leaned forward to look into the man’s eyes.
‘Yes. Well, that wasn’t a surprise to me, she had after all hinted that someone was behaving inappropriately. But the clothes didn’t make sense. She had been wearing her school uniform when I saw her last. I told them that, the police. And to be honest, she didn’t seem the sort of girl who would be off on the dunes with somebody.’
‘You think that’s what it was?’
Ryan shrugged. ‘It looks like that to me,’ he said.
‘Don’t men who molest girls usually do it rather more clandestinely than that?’ Maxwell asked. ‘Not that I’m an expert, but I don’t see a man who has been grooming a girl in the bosom of the family suddenly going out on the dunes. From what I hear as I wander the corridors of Leighford High, those dunes can be as busy as Cabot Cove on a balmy summer’s evening.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t him. Perhaps it was some spotty oik from school.’
‘St Olave’s?’ Maxwell was sceptical. For a start, it was an all-girls establishment and from what he had ever heard of it, the students were kept on a pretty tight leash, even the day girls.
‘Well, you know, they find the boys somehow.’
‘The main thing is, though, Bernard, we need to prove it wasn’t you, don’t we?’
‘We?’
Maxwell flung himself back in frustration. ‘The royal we, Bernard. The “we” as in people who think you are being totally stupid. Where were you, for God’s sake? With a prostitute? A married woman? At the dogs?’ Maxwell’s eyebrows rose. ‘Dog fighting? Dogging? What?’
Bernard Ryan took a long, shuddering breath and sat forward in his seat, his hands pressed together, fingers interlaced. He was white around his mouth and his eyes were closed. He looked rather like a picture of one of the more minor saints about to be torn limb from limb or pecked by ravens or whatever form of torture was to be his lot. Maxwell didn’t stir. Gordon had trained him well. Finally, the Deputy Head looked up and Maxwell realised he had never really looked the man in the eyes before. They were a deep brown, with golden flecks in them; he could briefly see why Sylvia Matthews had said he was not unattractive. Then, the eyes dropped again. The voice when it finally came through his dry lips had little resemblance to his usual hectoring tone.
‘I have come to a decision, Max,’ he said. ‘Since this all happened, many options have been open to me and most of them would shock people who know me. I have been contemplating suicide.’ He held up his hand before Maxwell could speak. ‘I know, no answer. I do know that. And I didn’t want to hurt… anyone. I thought of resigning and moving away, but that would be tantamount to admitting my guilt, and I am not guilty. And anyway, I like the way I live. I’m not sure I would want to manage on less money.’ He gave a dry chuckle. ‘That’s why I do the tutoring, in case you wondered. I really do like money. It’s as simple as that. So, anyway, I had come to the end of my options, all bar one, and that was to tell the police my alibi.’
Maxwell thought carefully then decided not to speak. This was a moment where masterly inactivity was key.
‘But I decided not to. That oik of a sergeant would promise me secrecy and then would make sure it was plastered over every report and ultimately newspaper and I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t want to…’
Maxwell couldn’t help himself. ‘Hurt anyone?’
Ryan nodded, still looking down at the floor between his knees. ‘Yes. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.’
‘And how does anyone feel about this?’ Maxwell asked gently.
‘Anyone says I should tell the police,’ Ryan smiled. ‘Some people trust the police. I don’t. Unless you have been arrested – as you have been, I know, Max – when you haven’t done anything, you can’t understand how it feels.’
‘Tell Jacquie,’ Maxwell said. ‘You know you can trust her.’
‘She has a job to do, just like all the rest,’ Ryan said.
‘But if your alibi checks out?’ Maxwell said, raising his hands and letting them fall with a slap on his knees.
‘It’s only one person,’ Ryan said. ‘Why should the police give it any more credibility than when it is just my word?’
‘Well, it’s twice as many people, for one thing,’ Maxwell said. How could the man be so dim?
‘So, anyway,’ Ryan said, sitting up straight and putting his hands on the arms of his chair and tossing his head to get rid of a lock of hair in his eyes. He looked not unlike the statue of Abraham Lincoln, sitting forever gazing into the reflecting pool – but all he was gazing into were Peter Maxwell’s eyes, as deep as any pool, and kinder. ‘So, anyway, I have decided to tell you.’ He raised a finger. ‘Don’t speak. Listen. I will only say this once.’
Maxwell fought down a picture of Michelle Dubois assuring René that he would not be hearing the instructions again. Memories of TV comedy classics could threaten the most serious of moments.
‘I do have an alibi,’ Bernard Ryan said, quietly. ‘I was with my lover all night. I only came home to change for school. I shouldn’t have left Josie. She was clearly distressed but I was selfish. We don’t get together very often. Joe doesn’t live here, you see. It’s only when there is business locally that we get to meet.’
‘Jo doesn’t come here, then?’ Maxwell checked.
‘Oh, no.’ Ryan gave a little laugh. ‘Married.’
Maxwell tipped his head and smiled. ‘You wouldn’t be the only one to be having an affair with someone married to someone else,’ he said. ‘Nor the last, I daresay.’
‘We both have a lot to lose,’ Ryan said. ‘I have my position to consider and Joe also… well, the press would be all over it.’
‘So, Jo is famous, then?’
Bernard Ryan could not resist a small smile. ‘TV,’ he said. ‘Business correspondent for satellite news.’
‘Wow!’ A little bit of LA crept in to Maxwell’s mouth. Well, it was the shock. ‘I can’t say that I am that familiar with satellite news channels. What does she look like? She’s not that amazing blonde, is she? The one with the…’
‘Jumping to conclusions, Max,’ Ryan said. ‘No, Joe isn’t the amazing blonde, although it is true in certain lights his hair has got some golden tints. Joe is the one with the sharp suit and the taste in rather crazy ties. His eyes are green in some lights, blue in another. He has a little stutter sometimes, when the Dow is doing exciting stuff.’ He paused and looked at Maxwell, smiling with relief now it was out in the open. ‘Got him, now?’
Maxwell nodded. ‘Got him,’ he said.
‘So,’ Ryan relaxed into his chair. ‘Now you know. We were in a rather nice hotel tucked away in the countryside out beyond Billingshurst. Joe’s company have a suite there for when their correspondents have news to chase outside of London. Joe has rather a lot of news to chase outside London.’
Maxwell was still pretty much speechless. Bernard Ryan, one-dimensional, boring, pernickety Bernard Ryan, had not only a secret life but a really interesting secret life. Had he been asked, Maxwell would have said that the nearest the man came to a secret passion was perhaps midnight snacks of left-over trifle, about which he would agonize for days. But no – he was having a crazy affair with a TV personality. The Bart Simpson which was never far beneath Maxwell’s surface came bubbling to the top. ‘Cool!’ he said.
‘Cool?’ Ryan was expecting any number of reactions, but not that.
‘Perhaps cool is the wrong word,’ Maxwell said, sitting up straight and running a hand through his barbed wire hair. ‘I think what I really meant was that it was cool that you are so clearly in love with this man. I hope he deserves you.’
‘Max!’ Maxwell was disconcerted to see tears in Ryan’s eyes. ‘I don’t think anyone has ever said anything as nice as that to me.’
‘Joe does, surely,’ Maxwell twinkled.
Ryan blushed like a girl. ‘Well… yes. But none of this changes the fact that he is married with two young children. I know these are modern times, but his career will nosedive if this comes out; he is on the shortlist to front the news programme when the anchor leaves after Christmas. He loves his wife. He adores his children.’
‘Who said you can have it all?’ Maxwell asked, rhetorically.
‘Well, yes. Quite. So, because I have less to lose, I have decided to keep quiet. He’s furious, but I won’t change my mind. So now perhaps you see why I can’t tell the police.’
‘Let me call Jacquie…’
‘No!’
‘She…’ The doorbell rang, followed quickly by a knock on the door. ‘There seems to be someone outside.’
‘It will be one of those vultures from the Press. Max, can you open it?’ Ryan seemed to have put his faith in Mad Max. Who would ever have thought it?
‘All right. If you’re sure.’
The knocking got more insistent and was joined by a voice, coming loud and clear through the letterbox.
‘Max! Peter Maxwell! Open this door. I know you’re in there!’
Ah, Maxwell thought as he moved more quickly to open the door as ordered. No need to call the police when the police could be relied upon to call on you.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Heart!’ Maxwell said, flinging open the door. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’
‘Fancy,’ Jacquie said shortly, shouldering past him and into the sitting room. She left the paparazzi speculating wildly in her wake. For a moment, Maxwell was surprised but then remembered she had been here before.
‘DI Maxwell,’ Ryan said, half-rising.
‘Please, don’t get up,’ the policewoman said, plonking herself down in the chair still warm from her husband’s bum. ‘It wasn’t really you I came to see, Bernard. I just came to reclaim some lost property.’
‘Jacquie, I…’
‘Just don’t get me started, Bernard,’ she interrupted him. ‘I’ll take him out of your hair now. He had no right to come and bother you.’ She stopped, looking from one man to another. ‘Am I missing something?’
Maxwell cocked an eyebrow at Bernard Ryan, who sighed and nodded. ‘Just her, though, Max. It isn’t to go any further.’
‘I promise,’ the Head of Sixth Form said. ‘Do you have a card, something so that we… er, Jacquie can check the details.’
‘Oh, yes, of course, how stupid of me.’ Ryan fished out his mobile and looked at Maxwell. ‘What’s your number? I’ll text it to you.’ Then he caught Jacquie’s eye and smiled. ‘What was I thinking. Jacquie, what is Max’s phone number?’
She reeled it off, and Maxwell was amazed all over again. Ryan punched some numbers and there was a faint wurble deep in Maxwell’s trousers.
‘You are carrying it, then?’ she said.
‘Of course,’ he said, bridling. Then he reached over and shook Ryan’s hand. ‘It’s been fun, Bernard. See you at the chalk face next week, then?’
The Deputy Head looked at Jacquie. ‘It will depend a lot on your wife,’ he said, ‘but hopefully, yes.’
‘See you then, then,’ he said and left the room.
The DI looked at her main, indeed her only, suspect with a questioning tilt of the head.
‘He knows,’ Ryan sighed. ‘We’ve had quite an interesting afternoon. It will be a shame to get back to normal.’
‘You won’t be giving him an easy time over cover, then?’ she asked, knowing the answer.
‘Of course not!’ He smiled at her and unexpectedly leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘It’s a shame things weren’t different. Max and I could have been friends, perhaps…’
Maxwell, in the hall, gave an all-over shudder. Over his dead body. Or someone’s at any rate.
The paparazzi at the roadside were agog. The bloke they thought must be famous had now come out of the house with that DI, the one they had seen here before. And he looked to be
in big trouble. They muttered into their iPhones, tapped on their tablets and got themselves very excited. All except the man from the Leighford Advertiser, of course, who just laughed up his sleeve.
The paps were right in one respect, though. Peter Maxwell was in big trouble. Very big trouble.
‘So,’ Jacquie said finally, after some intentionally hair-raising turns. ‘You went there because?’
‘Because?’ Maxwell said, wounded. ‘Because you knew I would go. Otherwise, why did you come to find me? I was just checking on Bernard. On a colleague, as you do.’
‘As you do, certainly,’ she snapped.
‘Legs said that Bernard has spoken very highly of me. Said he would have chosen me to be his teacher’s friend if he had had a tribunal.’
‘That was easy to say, seeing as how you were in California at the time.’
Maxwell was silent. Somehow he could tell her heart wasn’t in this. He could keep it going, but what would be the point in the long run? He cut straight to the chase. ‘I know where he was,’ he remarked, his voice as flat as a board.
‘Proof?’ she said.
‘Well, there is only one person involved, but presumably that is the case with alibis as often as not. How many of us go around getting alibis from hundreds of people – unless we need one, of course?’
‘Okay, I’ll buy it. Who is it?’
Maxwell chuckled. ‘That’s the problem. I have no idea. He’s famous, I gather. Name of Joe and on some satellite news programme. Business correspondent.’
‘Like Robert Peston?’
‘Presumably not like Robert Peston, no, as he has hair that has golden tints in the sun and eyes that are neither green nor blue.’
‘Oh. Oh! I see. So Bernard has a famous boyfriend. I won’t pretend my gob isn’t smacked, but why all the drama?’
‘Bernard has a married famous boyfriend. He was being fine and noble.’
‘And a pillock.’
‘Naturally. And a pillock.’ Normal service seemed to have been resumed, to Maxwell’s relief.
