by M. J. Trow
Ryan cleared his throat. ‘I wonder if you could pass on my thanks to Jacquie?’ he said. ‘Joe said that the whole thing was done very discreetly. He… well, he was over last night and he said it was all right.’
With relief, the elephant packed its trunk and said goodbye to the office.
‘Over?’ Maxwell pressed the handle down and the coffee smell filled the room. ‘I thought it was strictly hotels with you two?’ He glanced round and saw that Ryan was looking down at his hands, blushing slightly.
‘He came over to my house last night. He… he’s moving in.’
‘That’s a bit of a turn up, isn’t it?’ Maxwell asked, handing the man a mug. Anything to stop him twiddling his fingers and blushing like an adolescent on his first date. ‘What about his wife? His job?’
Ryan took a sip and burned his tongue. ‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘Hot. It turned out his wife had known for ages. Not about me. Just about Joe being gay. Wives can tell, I guess.’
Maxwell thought of Mrs Wilde and shrugged.
‘And work have just adopted a diversity initiative. I suppose they will be glad to have the token gay without having to advertise.’ He risked a smile. ‘Is it stupid to say I’m happy, Max?’
‘It’s never stupid to be happy, Bernard,’ Maxwell pointed out.
‘I suppose not. It’s just that it’s a bit new for me. I… only came out to Joe. I’d always hidden my sexuality before. Oh, on holiday. With the odd waiter, that kind of thing…’
Maxwell held up his hand. ‘Bernard,’ he said. ‘I’d love to share, I know you believe me when I say that, but let’s not forget you will be yelling at me before the week is out for not covering a lesson you had me down for. Let’s not say things we may regret.’
Ryan looked at him and blinked, like someone waking up suddenly. ‘You’re right, Max,’ he conceded. ‘It’s just that…’
‘You’re happy. Yes. Marvellous.’
There was a tap on the door and Maxwell flung himself at it as a starving man will leap on a crust.
‘Sounds like someone needs my words of wisdom, Bernard,’ he said. ‘And don’t forget you’ve got to share your happy news with the headmaster yet.’ He ushered the man out and grabbed the new visitor by the shoulder, hauling them into his office. Ryan looked stricken as the enormity of his next task dawned on him but Maxwell put him out of his mind by the simple expedient of closing the door on him.
He turned into the room, speaking as he did so. ‘Now, David, how did… You’re not David.’ This was clearly the case, as a woman of about thirty one or two stood in front of him. ‘No, hang on, don’t tell me. I know who you are. You’re… tip of tongue… Yes. You’re Lindsey Summers, oh, God… what year, though?’ He smiled at her, waiting for her to fill in the missing figure.
‘A long time ago, Mr Maxwell,’ she said. ‘And I never did my A levels. I got pregnant, if you remember?’
‘So you did,’ he said, softly. ‘I remember now. You were a damned good mathematician, if memory serves.’
‘Yes, well, it comes in handy working in Asda,’ she said, but with no bitterness in her voice. ‘I had April and for a while her dad and I were happy. But you know how it is – we were just kids.’
All this talk of happiness today, Maxwell thought. There’s a lot of it about, one way and another. ‘So it’s just you and April, is it, these days?’
The woman smiled. ‘No. I’ve got two others, little ones, you know. And another on the way.’ She cupped her stomach protectively. ‘But I always worry most about April. Her dad was a wild one. That was the attraction, I suppose.’
‘I don’t remember who…’
‘He wasn’t from Leighford High,’ she said. ‘He lived up on the Barlichway in a squat. He was only my age, mind you, but he’d left home. He was a rebel.’ Her face softened as she looked back down the years.
Maxwell kept his smile pinned on. He wasn’t quite sure why she was here, on the busiest day of his year.
‘Anyway, when April was about six months old, he just cleared off one night. I woke up and he was gone. I went back to my mother’s for a while but she was all I told you so and all the rest. I moved out and met Phil and we’ve been together ever since. But I left April with my mother while I went to work. Then when I had my Robbie, I had her back, but she didn’t settle. She lives where she wants, with us, with my mum.’
Maxwell felt it was time to move things on. ‘And now she’s at Leighford?’ he asked.
‘No. She came in Year Seven, but it wasn’t handy for my mum’s. When she’s with us, Phil takes her to school, but Mum hasn’t got a car. Makes sense she goes to school there.’
‘So,’ Maxwell thought he’d try another tack, but couldn’t think of one. ‘You’re here because…’
‘Sorry, Mr Maxwell. I’m not thinking straight. I’ve been over and over this in my head and so I think everybody knows. April’s got a bed at ours and over at my mum’s. For most of August, I thought she was there…’
‘And your mum thought she was with you.’
‘Right. That’s right, Mr Maxwell. She won’t tell us where she was, but she keeps crying and she doesn’t want to go out. She’ll only set foot outside if Phil goes with her. She’s been back for over a week and she isn’t getting any better. I remember how kind you were when I… well, when I fell for April. I just wanted to talk it over with someone other than Phil and my mum.’
‘Phil, he doesn’t hit you or April, does he?’ Maxwell had to ask.
‘God, no. He’s a softie, but he is getting a bit fed up. My mum just shouts. Tells her to pull herself together. Anyway, I just thought she’d been off with some lad, you know how girls are.’
He did indeed. ‘How old is she?’ he checked.
‘Fourteen. Fifteen in April.’
‘I see. So just fourteen, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you weren’t surprised to think she was off with some lad?’ he asked, a little more sharply than he intended.
‘Don’t you shout at me, Mr Maxwell,’ she said, her chin trembling. ‘I don’t know where else to go. Children’s services will probably take the other kids as well as April. I don’t know what to do.’
‘But, Lindsey,’ Maxwell said, putting a hand on her arm. ‘She’s back now.’
‘Yes, she is,’ the woman said, shaking his hand off and stepping back a pace. ‘She is back, and she’s not the same. This was no lad she was with. I don’t pretend I’m a perfect mother, Mr Maxwell. I’ve got three kids, four soon and not enough money. I work all the time just to keep us fed. I can’t watch her all the time. Where we live, the kids see things they shouldn’t see. I don’t want to draw you a picture, Mr Maxwell, but you’ve got no idea. April was off with lads as soon as she could be and I know they weren’t playing Scrabble. But she’s always been all right before. You know, afterwards. A bit of a row, a scrap and she’d be back home telling us how rubbish he was, things like that. But this time is different. She’d gone quiet. Until this morning.’
‘And this morning?’ Maxwell gently piloted her round to a chair and sat her down. He sat opposite and leaned forward. ‘What happened this morning?’
‘I found her in the bathroom, doing a pregnancy test.’
‘And?’
‘Positive.’ The woman shrugged. ‘It happens,’ she said, with a lopsided smile. ‘It wasn’t that. When she saw me there, she looked at me and she just crumbled. She asked me… she said, will he love me now? I said to her, boys, they don’t stay around when a baby’s on the way. And she said, boys don’t. Men do. I went cold, Mr Maxwell. Cold. Where’s she been? Who’s been at my baby?’
Maxwell sat back and looked at the woman opposite him. He could remember her when she was the brightest star in his Sixth Form. Her grasp of figures was innate, the Maths department had stars in their eyes and all she had had in hers was a layabout in a squat. But, as he knew too well, she wasn’t the first and she would not be the last. Two dead girls rose up behind the woman a
nd looked into his eyes. ‘Lindsey, did she tell you anything else?’
‘We talked for a while. She didn’t know his full name, or where he lived. She knows the area, but not the road. She went there in the dark and she said when she got away from him…’
‘Got away?’ Maxwell felt his scalp crawl.
‘Yes, she said… well, he tried to strangle her, she said. I thought she was probably making that bit up. You know, so I wouldn’t be cross, about the baby.’
‘Lindsey,’ Maxwell said, getting up but extending an arm to keep her in her seat. ‘I think you need to talk to my wife.’
‘Your wife? All the kids used to say you were gay.’ Even in her distress, Lindsey could be gobsmacked.
‘So, my subterfuge worked,’ Maxwell muttered, reaching for the phone and punching a number. ‘Thingee, dear one. Could you get me Mrs Maxwell please? On the phone or here. Here for preference. Mm. Yes. Thank you. How are you keeping, by the way? And congratulations. Yes. You’re welcome.’
Maxwell turned back to the woman who was looking as though she might be planning to leave.
‘Lindsey, don’t worry. I haven’t gone mad. My wife is a Detective Inspector and she’s investigating a couple of murders. No, don’t panic…’ The woman had jumped up and was looking set for flight. ‘Is April with someone?’
‘Yes, she’s at Mum’s.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh, yes. I took her myself. She knows better than to cross me again.’
‘Good. Ring your mother from here. Don’t worry her. Just make sure she keeps April with her. When my wife gets here, you can go together and interview April. She is a very rare thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A live murder victim.’
In the end, a police car had swept up to the main doors of Leighford High School. Staff sitting near windows overlooking the front of the building turned blasé eyes back to their lesson preparation and gave a mental shrug. Bernard Ryan. Up to whatever it was he was doing again. Been there. Done that. Bernard Ryan himself was crossing the foyer and, as he related to Joe later that evening, almost crapped himself with shock. But Jacquie, in full DI mode, swept past him without a glance and was through the door and up the steps to the Sixth Form mezzanine without a pause. Thingee carried on pecking away at a keyboard. She was spending rather a lot of time looking on mother and baby websites these days. Especially those which dealt with subjects like ‘Sex in pregnancy – how to keep your man happy’. She looked at Jacquie, then back to the screen and sighed.
Maxwell was sitting talking to Lindsey Summers, trying to keep her calm. Every now and again she would jerk and almost get up, like someone dreaming of falling. And in a way, she was falling. She just wasn’t dreaming at the same time. She had rung her mother and been told that April was on her bed, reading. She had been a bit sick – had she eaten something that had disagreed with her? Or was the silly little tart up the spout? Mrs Summers senior was not the most sensitive of women. The Head of Sixth Form turned at the sound of the tap on the door. The queue of Year 12 wannabees had shifted a few feet to the left to stand outside Helen Maitland’s office. Would it, they wondered, always be like this?
‘Dear heart,’ Maxwell said, leaping to his feet with almost indecent enthusiasm. ‘This is Lindsey… Miss Summers, I should say. It’s her daughter April…’
‘Thank you, Mr Maxwell,’ Jacquie said, formally. She stepped forward and extended a hand to the woman, who was standing waiting, with almost the same expression on her face as fifteen years ago when she had told Maxwell she was leaving the Sixth Form. ‘Miss Summers, I am Detective Inspector Carpenter-Maxwell and I understand you are concerned about your daughter, April.’
‘Yes, that’s right. But…’ Suddenly it all seemed a bit big and formal. Lindsey had a feeling that she had just rolled a snowball off an Alp and there was no telling how big it might be by the time it reached the bottom. Nor how many bodies it would contain. ‘I may be over-reacting.’
‘That’s possible,’ Jacquie said brightly. ‘But let’s go and have a word with April, shall we, then we’ll see. If you would just go down to the car with the constable here, I just need a word with Mr Maxwell.’ She ushered the woman out of the door and then turned to face her husband. ‘Thank you,’ she said, planting a kiss on his mouth. ‘That is a very good call.’
‘Just doing ma job, ma’am,’ Maxwell drawled, an amalgam of every old timer ever seen on screen; Gabby Hayes meets Arthur Hunnicut. Then, in what passed for normal, ‘It seemed to me that this girl may hold the key.’
‘Did she say anything specific?’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve still got a hunt and a half on your hands. The kid was in lurve and in the dark when they arrived, panic-stricken when she left so she has no real idea where the guy lives. He’s older, but we don’t know by how much and of course kids are useless at ages as we know. Lindsey thinks he could be as much as mid-thirties, but can’t be sure. The girl says he’s handsome, but have you seen the latest Dr Who heartthrob? He looks as though he has been hit in the face with a frying pan, so who knows what handsome means to a kid. So the world is still, I am afraid, light of my being, the crustacean of your choice.’
‘Never mind. We’re nearer than we were. And she’s still alive. That’s the main thing.’
‘No,’ he said, seriously. ‘The main thing is that she’s alive and also hopefully the last.’
‘True.’ She wiggled her fingers at him at the door. ‘Are you okay for Nole?’
‘He’s at Plocker’s. His mum is bringing him home around six.’
‘Wonderful. I don’t know when I’ll be home – soz.’
‘Soz indeed. We’ll see you when we see you.’ And he wiggled his fingers back at her and then crossed to the window, wondering how a woman who still looked amazing foreshortened as she was from three storeys up, could possibly be his wife. But he was heartily glad she was. Then he turned back to the Day Job, hauling open his door and yelling, ‘Right, you ’orrible little men – and women, of course – step this way for the Rest of Your Lives.’
‘Dads?’
‘Son?’
‘When I’m big enough to come to your school…’
‘Oh, mate! Let’s not go there.’
‘Well, I will be big enough, one day.’
‘Granted. All right then, when you’re big enough to come to my school…’
‘What things do you think I’ll be good at?’
‘What things are you good at now?’
‘Maffs. Stories. Singing.’ Nolan tried a few tra-las for good measure. ‘Recorder. Drawing. Colouring. Dance.’ Maxwell hoped the emphasis on the last word was because his son was running out of subjects rather than that hopping and skipping was where he saw his future lying. Ghastly images of Billy Elliot floated in his brain. ‘Did I say stories?’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘Well, any of those. I like them all and Mrs Whatmough says I am promising.’ He lifted his chin and looked at his father through ridiculously long eyelashes. ‘I don’t member promising her anything, but you can’t tell with Mrs Whatmough.’
Maxwell could believe it. ‘Well, Nole, you have a while before you have to choose. And by then, who knows? When Dads was a lad, the exams were known as O Levels and if you were very clever, you got a One. Then they brought in some things they called CSE and in those you had to get a One or it didn’t count but if you got a One it was an O Level. Then there were GCSEs and if you are clever you get an A star and if you get a D that doesn’t count either. Soon, they are going to be called something cockamamie like… ooh, I don’t know… MMQ.’
‘What does that stand for?’ Nolan wanted to know.
‘Mickey Mouse Qualification, or a Gove for short. With those, we’re back to numbers but a One isn’t good any more, a Nine is good and a One is bad.’
‘Nine?’ Even Nolan could see that was stupid. ‘Why nine?’
Maxwell sighed and ruffled his son’s hair. ‘
Who knows?’ he said. ‘Who knows? Quick game of Snap before bedtime?’
‘Can we play Scrabble?’ Nolan was already out of the chair and halfway across the landing heading for the games cupboard.
‘All right,’ Maxwell said. ‘But be gentle with me. You know you always win.’
Nolan stopped and turned. ‘Do you let me win, Dads?’ he asked.
Maxwell slumped and shook his head. ‘I did that once, when you were about two,’ he said. ‘Since then, it’s been a fair fight.’
Nolan pulled out the box and opened the lid. He looked up at his father and winked at the cat, stretched out on the sofa, possession being nine points of the law. ‘Best of three?’
Later that night, bloody but unbowed, Maxwell tucked the Scrabble King into bed and went one floor up into the attic to start work on another member of the Light Brigade, Private Charles Cooper of the 11th Prince Albert’s Own. Not much was known about this man. He had been a plumber beforehand and was killed in theCharge, so Maxwell could use a little licence. He thought he might make him look like Bernard Ryan and then, in years to come, he would be able to work back to when he was made. He was an historian. He couldn’t help it. He began by carefully gluing Cooper’s legs together and then the legs to the torso. The angle of the head was always a problem. The moment Maxwell had chosen to depict was the one when Louis Nolan (no relation to his son) had ridden up to Cardigan with the fateful order that would do for men like Trooper Cooper in the next twenty minutes. The Brigade were just sitting their horses, waiting. Now, for a challenge, he’d give the ex-plumber a boiled egg to eat, as some of the real men had. So, he head would be… he checked it through his modelling lens… like so.
He looked over his shoulder at the purring mound of cat on top of the old linen basket which, over the years, had taken on the shape of the animal’s body. ‘Awake, Count?’ he asked.
The purring changed tone and he took it for a ‘Yes.’
‘I wonder how the Mem is getting on with young April?’ he said. ‘I can’t think she is still with her, can you? It’s…’ he squinted over into the gloom beyond his lamplight, ‘. . . can you see the clock from there, Count? No? Well, let’s just call it late, then. Perhaps she’s out making an arrest, eh? That would be a bit of a result.’
