Maxwell's Return

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Yes. Morton.’

  ‘Darling,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Caroline.’ It wasn’t a greeting. Just a remark.

  ‘Darling… I… I’m asking you to come home. The house is so empty without you.’

  There was a silence at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Well, it would be, of course, with Mollie gone.’

  The tears were flowing now and she turned on her side so she didn’t choke. ‘Don’t be cruel, darling…’ she said. ‘It’s killing me having to act as though everything is all right all day at the office and then to come back here by myself. Darling?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  She sat up and heard her own voice grow shrill, taking on the fishwife tone he hated so much. ‘Who’s there? Who have you got there? I can hear her. There’s someone…’

  ‘Caroline,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you can hear yourself. You ring me to beg me to come back to you and then you start accusing me of… well, whatever it is you’re accusing me of this time. Let me think, who has it been so far? Secretaries; well, of course. Our office has the ugliest lot of staff of any law firm in the country. Colleagues; naturally. Sadly, you can’t insist that the courts only ever use plain prosecutors. Neighbours; goes without saying. But Mollie, Caroline? That took the biscuit and as far as I am concerned all bets are off. I intend to wait a while so I don’t look a total bastard and then I’m divorcing you. I wasn’t going to be so blunt, but you came to me, remember?’

  ‘But,’ and this time she did choke on her tears, ‘you love me!’

  ‘Did, Caro, did.’ His voice softened. ‘Look, are you going to be all right? I can come round if you like, but you must understand, it’s over. It really is.’

  She blew her nose and gave a determined sniff. She patted her hair into place as though he were next to her in the enormous, empty bed. ‘I don’t want to interrupt your evening,’ she whispered.

  ‘You’re not interrupting anything,’ he said. ‘Look, give me half an hour. I just want to wake up properly and have a shower or something. Freshen up. I’ll…’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, almost inaudible. ‘Thank you, darling.’

  ‘I’m just talking to Caroline,’ she heard him say.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ she screamed.

  ‘If you must know,’ he said, ‘I was talking to Suzanne. From the judges’ office, you know her I think.’

  ‘Why are you talking to Suzanne?’ she asked, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  ‘Because before you rang, you mad bitch,’ a woman’s voice sounded in her ear, ‘he was screwing the arse off me. So thanks for ruining what was working up to a perfect evening.’ In the background, she heard her husband’s voice raised in mild protest. ‘Well, it’s time she was told,’ the woman snapped and the line went dead.

  Caroline Morton bent over in pain, just as agonizing for not being real. She screamed soundlessly, jamming her knuckles into her mouth until she almost broke the skin. A cracked groan escaped her and she drummed her feet on the mattress, like a child having a tantrum. Then, with a sudden, convulsive movement, she sat up, wiped her eyes and took up the phone again. Scrolling through her contacts she chose one and waited as the call connected. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and cleared her throat, ready for when it answered.

  ‘Hello?’ a sleepy voice said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Carpenter-Maxwell?’ she said, crisply. ‘It’s Caroline Morton here. I would like to give you some information about the death of my sister. I believe I know who her murderer is.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell lay on her face, her arm dangling over the side of the bed, her fingers slowly relaxing so that the phone dropped to the floor. Through the pillow, Maxwell could just hear her muttering ‘No, no and hell no!’ Could it be that bad if she was attempting a take-off of Will Smith in Men in Black? He risked a question.

  ‘Anyone I know?’ He leaned back, ready for the reply but she was too tired to rise to it.

  ‘Mollie Adamson’s half sister. Apparently, she knows who the murderer is.’ It took him a moment to translate, the whole being filtered through the pillow, but he was pretty sure that was the gist.

  ‘That’s good.’ The question hovered at the end of the sentence.

  She nodded her head, face still down in the pillow.

  ‘Is she likely to be right, do you think?’

  This time the head circled. ‘No. Yes. I have no idea.’ She sat up and turned to face him. ‘What time is it?’ she asked and he screwed round to look at the clock behind him on the bedside table.

  ‘Half past one.’ He groaned. ‘Why did she wait until now?’

  ‘If it was anyone other than her, I would say she has an axe to grind. Most people who come in or ring in the middle of the night do it on the back of a row. But she wouldn’t row. She would pontificate. That’s her style. Oh, I won’t deny she was upset about her sister, but…’ she flicked the bedclothes back with a sigh, ‘. . . she wants to meet me at the Nick. I suppose I’d better go.’

  Maxwell stopped her with an arm across her chest. ‘I don’t often do this,’ he said. ‘In fact, thinking back, I don’t think I have ever done this before. But I am doing it now. I am forbidding you to go in.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Shock made her eyes wide. ‘You’re doing what?’

  ‘Forbidding you. You are exhausted. You haven’t seen your son awake for days. You’ve hardly seen me awake, and I’m allowed to stay up late. Leave it to someone who is already up and at the Nick. Surely, they still have night shifts, don’t they, or has that nice Mrs May dispensed with those while your back is turned?’

  ‘Most police stations are daytime only… well, skeleton staff, you know. But Leighford Nick still has a proper night staff. Processing all the bingers.’ She flopped back on the bed and turned her head to look up at him. ‘Are you really forbidding me?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Okay,’ she turned over and groped for the phone. ‘I’ll just tell the desk to take her statement. She won’t be happy.’

  He patted her on the bum. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘you put me in mind of the Rokeby Venus in that position.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ she said, then, into the phone, ‘Yes, hello, who’s that? It’s DI Carpenter-Maxwell here. Yes, hello. I have someone coming in shortly, a Mrs Caroline Morton. Could you just take a statement and tell her I will get back to her tomorrow? No, sorry, something’s come up. Be discreet – she can be a bit… Oh, right, at court. Yes. You’ll know what she’s like then. Thanks. Yes, tomorrow. Lovely, thanks.’ She pressed with her thumb to disconnect and then switched off the light. ‘I never liked him,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That desk man. So I’m glad it’s him who will have to deal with Caroline Morton. She’s going to be pissed.’

  ‘Oh, you think that’s why she rang? Been drinking?’

  ‘No, American pissed, not English pissed.’

  ‘Oh, American pissed.’ He paused, then patted her bum. ‘I forgive you,’ he said. ‘It was clearly just a slip of the tongue.’

  But DI Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell was already asleep.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Although the words were polite enough they lost their sweetness when delivered through lips stiff with anger.

  ‘I’m afraid that the Detective Inspector is unable to see you right now,’ the desk man said. He was enjoying this. This cow had put him through the mill in court more than once and it was good to have the whip hand for once. ‘Something came up.’ Mind you, he had no time for Detective Inspector Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell either, so this was two birds with one stone time.

  ‘Something came up?’ the woman screeched. ‘I came up. All the way here, to be precise. How dare she?’

  ‘I can arrange for someone to take your statement, ma’am,’ the desk man said blandly. ‘If you would just like to take a seat over there for a moment
…?’

  ‘No, I would not like to take a seat over there, you moron,’ the woman spat. Now he came to look at her, the desk man could see she was in a bit of a state. Been crying, for sure. He couldn’t smell drink but who knew, these days. She could easily be on something else. He took another surreptitious sniff. Not weed. Something else, then. She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Did you just sniff me?’ she shrieked. ‘Did you just bloody sniff me? You pond life. How dare you? I want to speak to your superior.’

  ‘Well…’ the desk man took his time. This couldn’t last much longer and he wanted to make the most of it. ‘I’m afraid my actual line manager is off sick at the moment, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Stress, or so I believe. Would you like to speak to someone else?’

  ‘Yes,’ she hissed, through gritted teeth.

  ‘Let me just look through my sheet, please, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Protocol, I’m sure you understand.’ He turned his back on her and started leafing through a file, checking the hierarchy. What he found pleased him more than anything had pleased him for months. Very slowly, he put the file back in the right place on the shelf and turned back to the now incandescent woman. ‘I can make you an appointment to speak to my next available line manager, ma’am,’ he said, placing both hands on the desk in the time honoured manner and leaning forward with a friendly smile. ‘I’m sorry it can’t be now, but I’m afraid that Detective Inspector Carpenter-Maxwell isn’t here right now. Something has come up, apparently.’

  And it wasn’t until that moment that Caroline Morton hit him, but she gave it all she had and he went down like a pole-axed steer, files and shelves cascading down over his prone body. In a cacophony of sirens and alarms, the night staff came running, one over-zealous policewoman rugby tackling the solicitor to the ground where she lay, unprotesting.

  ‘Can I see DI Carpenter-Maxwell now?’ she asked, from under thirteen stone of policeness.

  But it was morning before she finally got her wish.

  ‘Toast?’

  ‘And peanut butter? And jelly?’ Nolan was still in American breakfast mode. He had stopped using American words when he remembered, but American breakfasts, as far as he was concerned, were here to stay. ‘Are we having pancakes?’

  ‘Not today, Nole,’ his mother said. ‘Back to school today, remember?’

  The boy looked down at his bare knees, below new and rather stiff shorts. He felt the weight of the new shoes on his feet, saw through the kitchen door the new Mrs Whatmough-issue duffle coat hanging on the hook. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Can’t we ever have pancakes again?’ He turned his eyes to look into his mother’s face, pleading.

  She planted a kiss on his nose. ‘Weekends,’ she assured him.

  ‘And holidays?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Birthdays?’

  ‘Don’t push it.’

  There was a sudden scuffling noise and a stifled curse as Maxwell fell over the cat at the foot of the stairs and then he was in the kitchen, looking over his shoulder at a black and white streak heading off and out as fast as he could. ‘I will swing for that animal,’ he said, taking his seat and looking round. ‘No pancakes?’

  ‘Don’t start,’ said his wife.

  ‘Weekends, holidays and birthdays,’ Nolan told him, bringing him up to speed.

  ‘That sounds fair,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘Toast it is, then.’ Jacquie rescued a piece from the toaster and sat down.

  ‘Thank you for letting me sleep last night,’ she said. ‘I was exhausted.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ the Head of Sixth Form said. He too was kitted out for school, in a jacket that had begun to long for better days and his pre-cycle-clip-creased trousers. The Jesus scarf would not kick in until after half term. ‘Are you feeling a little more rested now, Sleeping Beauty?’

  Nolan rocked in his chair in silent laughter. ‘Dads, you called Mummy Sleeping Beauty.’

  ‘Indeed I did,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘But now she’s awake, perhaps just Beauty would be better.’ He raised an eyebrow at his son, but he needed no hints.

  ‘Yes,’ Nolan said and his smile was smeared with peanut butter. ‘You look beautiful, Mummy.’ Then, compliment forgotten, he bent to his toast.

  Jacquie looked at them, her men, like two peas in a pod in some lights and muttered a little thank you to the sky, just for luck. She glanced at the clock and jumped to her feet. ‘Oh, chaps!’ she said. ‘Look at the time. I must be off.’ Nolan puckered up and she planted a kiss on a peanut butter-free area. To Maxwell, she sent a kiss through the air. ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ and in a flurry of bags and coat, she was gone.

  The two sat in silence for a moment, then Nolan broke it.

  ‘Wasn’t Mummy taking me to school this morning?’ he asked, a touch plaintively.

  ‘Well, I thought so, mate,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘She seems to have forgotten. Never mind, perhaps we…’

  There was a thundering of feet on the stairs and Jacquie barrelled back into the kitchen.

  ‘Sorry, Nole,’ she panted. ‘Can you get your coat on, sweetness? I’m dropping you at school, aren’t I?’ She wiped the peanut butter off his face and partly into his ear. Phlegmatic child that he was, he poked it out for himself and wiped it surreptitiously on the lining of her coat. ‘Got everything? Kiss Dads. ’Bye then. Let’s try this again,’ and the two of them went down the stairs, a little more carefully this time. It wouldn’t look good to deliver Nolan on Day One to Mrs Whatmough in a bent condition.

  When the door had slammed, Peter Maxwell sat still for another couple of seconds, just listening to the house stop shuddering, then gave a little chuckle and got up to put the dishes in the washer. He wouldn’t go back to having a silent house for a million pounds. He had lived in one of those for long enough. But, he thought to himself, with a start like this morning’s, the rest of the day had better go smoothly, that’s all!

  Henry Hall was at the coffee machine as Jacquie approached her office. He gave her a quizzical look. ‘I believe we have a friend of yours down in the cells,’ he said, with no preamble.

  ‘A friend of mine?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘Caroline Morton,’ he said.

  ‘In the cells?’ Jacquie tried to think what she could possibly have said on the phone to come up with that result.

  ‘She laid out Sid Lewis last night. Right uppercut, by all accounts. He’s in hospital with his neck in traction. So she’s in the cells.’

  Jacquie looked sheepish. ‘That might be my fault, guv,’ she said. ‘I agreed to meet her, but then… well, I was just so tired. I rang in and asked them to get a statement.’

  ‘Sid isn’t one of nature’s gentlefolk,’ Hall said. ‘He probably looked at her funny.’

  ‘Even so…’

  ‘And, it gets stranger than that.’

  ‘It does?’ She was pressed as to see how.

  ‘She asked for a solicitor, and when the next one on the list came, it was her old man.’

  ‘Odd. He must have known she was here, surely?’

  ‘It seems not. They have been separated for around six months, if her screams through the door have been accurately noted. I’ve got the night staff’s report in here, if you’ll just come through.’ He pushed open the door to his office and ushered her in. He picked up the night file from his desk and riffled through the pages. ‘Blabla, hmm… No, here it is. “Mrs Morton was placed in Interview Room Three and charged with assaulting a police officer. She asked for a solicitor and…” hmm, where is it? Yes. This. “Mr Morton was shown in and Mrs Morton threw her handbag at him, saying that the bastard had left her for some slag from the Crown Court and he could…” oh, yes, well I’m sure you get the drift.’

  ‘She didn’t say they were separated when we spoke at the hospital.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Now I think of it, she didn’t say they weren’t, but I just assumed they were together, from the way she spoke. Anyway, I suppose I had better go down and see her. She says she has information that may le
ad to Mollie’s… oh, hang on. She’s fingering the husband, isn’t she?’

  Henry Hall closed the file with a soft snap and looked ruefully at Jacquie. ‘I’m afraid so. Good guess, by the way.’

  She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I knew as soon as I forgot Nolan this morning that today wouldn’t go well.’

  ‘You forgot Nolan? You’ve had him a while, now, Jacquie. Surely you’re used to him by now.’

  From anyone else, that would have been a joke. But as it came from Henry Hall, Jacquie knew it wasn’t. Shaking her head, she made for the cells, leaving him to smile to himself as he sat down. He only smiled when he was alone, and even then, they were strictly rationed, so there would be no more for a week or two.

  There was no need to ask which cell Caroline Morton was in, because the noise carried right along the corridor. Tired from screaming, she had settled for pounding rhythmically on the door. The flick of the grille stopped her and she raised a tear-stained face to look into Jacquie’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, so you’re here,’ she said, in a lacklustre voice. ‘Been busy?’

  Jacquie spoke crisply and without emphasis. ‘Mrs Morton, do I need help to get you to an interview room, or will you be all right to come with me without an escort?’

  The woman shrugged and stepped back to let Jacquie open the door. ‘I’ll come quietly,’ she said, then gave a mad little laugh. ‘Do you know, I’ve often seen that written down, but I’ve never had the need to say it myself. Silly phrase, really.’