Maxwell's Return

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Mr Maxwell?’ asked the stranger sitting across in his own favourite chair. ‘I’m Jason, I work with your wife.’

  Maxwell struggled upright and was not proud of how long that took him. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Nothing as far as I know,’ the stranger said carefully. He had heard how this old git managed to muscle in to all the cases his wife worked on and he didn’t want to give him any info that could be traced back. ‘The hospital rang last night and the guv’nor sent me here so I could babysit so the DI could go down there.’

  ‘And Jacquie was all right with that?’ Maxwell was surprised.

  ‘Not at first,’ he said, ‘but she showed me where everything was and it was all fine anyway. Your lad is a good sleeper, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maxwell said, finally gaining an upright posture. ‘I’d better go and start getting him ready.’

  ‘Oh, he’s up,’ Briggs said. ‘I came in to check whether he is really allowed two bowls of Cocoa Pops and nothing else for breakfast.’

  ‘Not really,’ Maxwell said, silently applauding his son’s chutzpah. ‘But we’ll make an exception for today. So, Jacquie is…’

  ‘I rang the station, Mr Maxwell,’ the sergeant said. ‘She stayed at the hospital and then went straight in. She says to tell you see you tonight.’

  ‘Right.’ Maxwell was feeling a little redundant. ‘I should ring to get Nole a lift to school.’

  ‘That’s no problem, Mr Maxwell,’ the man was quick to save him the trouble. ‘I have a kiddy seat in my car. I’ll take him. Let you get yourself sorted ready for school.’ Was there something more than a little condescending in that remark, Maxwell wondered. ‘What time can he be there? Only, I don’t want to be late myself. Apparently the DI found out some useful stuff at the hospital and I should be at briefing.’

  Maxwell, the redundant, said, ‘Eight o’clock there’s someone there.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ The sergeant looked at his watch. ‘Nole!’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Are you done in there? We need to get a wiggle on.’

  Nolan appeared in the doorway, chocolate moustache well in place from his binge. Good luck to his teachers this morning, as he hit the ground running full of sugar and little else. ‘Morning Dads. Did you sleep all night in here?’

  ‘Uh huh. Are you all set?’

  ‘Yes. Jason…’ he caught Maxwell’s expression out of the corner of his eye, ‘Sergeant Briggs got me ready. Mummy had to go to work.’ He bounced off to get his coat and there were sounds of jumping from the landing until he managed to knock it off its peg.

  ‘He’s a great lad,’ Briggs observed. ‘Bright.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Maxwell said. ‘Very like his mother, lucky boy.’

  A tousled head topped with a cap on crooked stuck itself around the door and the child sketched a kiss at his father. Richmal Crompton, thou shouldst be living at this hour, Maxwell thought, throwing a kiss right back. With the usual noise of thundering feet on the stairs, the two were gone and the noise of a worryingly powerful engine echoed up from the street. Maxwell lay back on the sofa and waited for his joints to remember how to work, then, without even the benefit of shining morning face, went unwillingly to school.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Sylvia Matthews’ face swam into focus. ‘Are you feeling all right, Max? You look like shit. In fact,’ she pulled his jacket to one side, ‘isn’t that yesterday’s shirt?’

  ‘I have several like this in fact,’ he said, ‘but, yes, it is yesterday’s shirt. It’s a long story but it isn’t big nor is it clever so let’s just leave it at the fact that I do feel like shit as well. I fell asleep on the sofa and feel as though I have been run over by a herd of stampeding buffalo.’

  ‘As long as that’s all,’ she said, sitting down opposite him. ‘Did you have any breakfast?’

  ‘Yes, mummy, I did. I am also wearing a vest.’ He looked more curmudgeonly than the occasion warranted and she waited for the second shoe to drop. ‘I’m feeling old. Leave me alone.’

  ‘Max, you sound like a four year old. Have you heard anything from Charlotte?’

  ‘No. I checked with Thingee as I came in this morning. She hadn’t heard. Nor has that rather scary woman Legs has installed in HR, the one with the single eyebrow. She put a pension forecast form in my pigeonhole at break. Is she trying to tell me something?’

  ‘Only that you look like shit, I expect,’ Sylvia said, comfortingly, ‘and she’s trying to be helpful. Did you talk to Jacquie about Charlotte?’

  ‘No, she was at work, apparently. Honestly Sylv, it really is a long story. She was at the hospital, presumably with the latest attack victim. Our little problem is really not that big, not in the scheme of things.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Sylvia Matthews knew when enough was enough. ‘Is she all right, the girl?’

  ‘I don’t know any details, but she’s awake, which is more than the first two will ever be again. April got off lightest of all, if being pregnant with your abuser’s child is light.’

  ‘She’s having a termination, though, isn’t she?’

  ‘So her mother says, but they are a very mixed up family, the Summers. So who knows what decision today will bring.’ He glanced up at the clock. ‘In fact, judging by the last two days I have been in this room at this time, I’m about due a visit from her mother.’

  They both looked at the door, almost willing the woman to appear.

  ‘I may have escaped my karma today. I could do with a nice normal afternoon trying to drum Nazi economic policy into Year Thirteen. Hector Gold did a first rate job, but he kept shelving this topic and who can wonder at it. Still, it will keep me awake just long enough, so I won’t knock it. Guns or butter?’ He held up each hand in turn as though weighing the options.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was the choice that Herman Goering gave the German peoplewhen that nice Mr Hitler was in the Brown House. He expected them to choose guns, of course, but looking at his waistline, I suspect he had a bit of both.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to catch a few minutes, then,’ Sylvia said, getting up. ‘I just popped by to see if you’d heard anything.’

  ‘No. Have you seen that slimeball Baines?’

  ‘He did stick his head around my door. Just to say he hadn’t heard any more. He is a piece of work, isn’t he? I wonder who he had upstairs.’

  ‘Some poor unsuspecting girl who doesn’t know any better,’ Maxwell said. ‘I hope he gets a nice desk job soon so all those lovely abs and pecs go like jelly. Then he won’t find receptionists so easy to fool.’

  She ruffled his wiry hair, making no difference to the final appearance at all. ‘I’m glad you’re not bitter, anyway,’ she said with a smile. She was still closing the door when he had put his head back against the chair and was halfway asleep again.

  Jacquie finished her presentation to the team and stood in front of the white board.

  ‘Any questions?’ she asked.

  ‘I have one,’ a voice said from the back. It was one of the old stagers, a sergeant who had been around for what seemed like forever, never wanting promotion or indeed to do a hard day’s work. He often had pertinent things to say, though, so the rest of the team turned in their chairs to look at him. ‘I know it’s a while since I went courting…’ Guffaws met this. He had been married at twenty to a woman who had ruled him with a rod of iron ever since. ‘. . . but when I did go courting, one of the first things you asked each other was your name.’ He put on a mincing voice, ‘“Oh, Sandra. My favourite name!”’

  Jacquie smiled and waited for the laughs to die down. ‘That’s a good point… what’s your name, by the way?’ More guffaws. ‘No, seriously, Den, that is a good point and one we hoped would take us forward in the April Summers situation. But he had gone to great lengths to make sure she never saw his post, never heard anyone else speak to him, didn’t even answer his phone with his name. He called her by endearments all the time, said names were for strangers, or some such slop
py tosh.’

  ‘So this one…?’ Den persisted.

  ‘She was swept up into his aura. He’s very good at making a girl feel special, loved, even within the first few minutes.’

  ‘Hypnosis?’ a young WPC at the front asked and immediately regretted it. She’d been watching too much Derren Brown.

  ‘No,’ Jacquie said with a smile. She remembered how it felt to be the new kid on the block. ‘Nothing like that. Just plain, old-fashioned charm. He holds their hand. Looks deep into their eyes. He took April Summers to a hotel and had the bed covered with rose petals.’

  There were a few grimaces on the face of the back-row element but some of the women looked quite wistful.

  ‘It wouldn’t work on an older woman, one with a bit of experience,’ Henry Hall chipped in, ‘which is why he preys on the younger, more impressionable girl.’

  ‘Is that why, guv?’ Jason Briggs already had Brownie points to further order for babysitting the DI’s kid, but a few more never hurt. ‘I thought we were looking at the paedo lists.’

  ‘No,’ Henry Hall said, firmly. ‘This is not a paedophile. We’ve talked to profilers and they all agree that this is not someone drawn to children. He is drawn to anyone he can manipulate. If he met a woman older than him who nevertheless was taken in by his rather cheesy charm, he would be onto her like a rat up a pipe. He just hedges his bets by going for the youngsters.’

  Jacquie took back the conversation and stepped to one side and ran down the list of things known about their quarry.

  ‘If you will just look at this list,’ she said, ‘and take it away with you, I would be grateful. I know not all of you are assigned just to this case, but see if anything else that comes your way rings any bells. Our man is aged between 25 and forty. We’ve stretched the limit a bit because we know kids are notoriously bad at guessing adult ages. He is fair rather than dark, but not very light blonde. His hair is long enough to gel and look ‘bed-head’ – any of you lads who don’t know what that is, ask.’ More laughter. Henry Hall looked on proudly – the girl was doing good. ‘He is good-looking. Names mentioned have been Daniel Craig and David Beckham, who I know don’t resemble each other, but I have taken it to mean that he has a pleasant face with even features and rather a twinkle in his eye. His height is not defined very well – both the girls we have spoken to are tiny, so if he is over about five eight, he will seem tall. Kirsty Hilliard’s friends didn’t see him to notice and April Summers’ friends have all forgotten. The summer holiday is a long time when you’re fourteen. He lives in Leighford, in quite a decent house, but April can’t really describe it or where it is.’

  ‘Is this April kid okay? You know, in the head?’ Den was on his hind legs again. ‘Surely, a kid of that age would know where she was.’

  ‘She had been a virtual prisoner for some weeks,’ Jacquie pointed out, ‘and the man she thought loved her had just tried to throttle her. I suppose map references were not her first priority at that point.’

  The sergeant nodded. The DI had a good point there.

  ‘From talking with psychologists and looking at demographics, we think he may be either a professional or a high-functioning white-collar worker of some kind. We’re talking perhaps solicitor, teacher, doctor, something of that order. And that is not,’ she clarified, ‘because there have been a solicitor and a teacher briefly in the frame. Both men have been cleared and they are no longer of interest. The builder who we were pointed at by a victim’s parent is too old and frankly too plain to fit the bill. He also has a cast iron alibi for at least one of the murders.’

  ‘Yes,’ came an anonymous voice from the back. ‘He was doing one of the victims’ mums at the time.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Jacquie sat on that one quickly. Mrs Blakemore had nothing to be proud about, but she nor her dubious boyfriend had anything to do with the deaths either. ‘So,’ she picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, ‘I haven’t been to sleep since I woke up yesterday morning, so if I could just leave you to mull this over, I’m going home for five minutes’ shuteye and a shower. In no particular order.’ She walked past Henry Hall on her way out. ‘Is that okay, guv?’

  He patted her on the shoulder as the Incident Team broke up to go about its collective business. ‘We all need sleep, Jacquie,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a ring if anything develops. Thanks for last night. How did Jason do at the babysitting?’

  ‘Well, he’s still standing. He said everything went well, except that for some reason, Max slept on the sofa. I’ll get to the bottom of that tonight, I suppose. Never a dull moment. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Tomorrow will do,’ Hall said. ‘As I say, I’ll ring if I need you in the meantime.’

  ‘That would be good. As long as you’re sure…’

  ‘Do it. Before I change my mind.’

  Jacquie needed no second bidding and made for the stairs and, ultimately, bed.

  Maxwell felt a little better after his workout with Year Thirteen. They weren’t the brightest apples in the barrel, any of them, but he had tried his best to enthuse them about the banking metier of Hjalmar Schacht and now his brain at least had a couple of synapses which worked. Even so, the end of the day had never been so welcome and this early in the term the prognostications for his still being on his legs and functioning come December were not good. He stood irresolute at the sink in the corner for a moment, then decided to leave the coffee until he got home. It was Nolan’s day for Beaver scouts and so Mrs Plocker was i.c. supper – perhaps tonight was the night he might actually get to eat something English for a change, something without added cheese from a can or maple syrup. He dried his mug from lunchtime, hung it on its hook and turned to go. And almost swallowed his tongue. Was today going to be the day he died of shock? The odds were looking good.

  ‘Lindsey,’ he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice. ‘I don’t think I heard you knock.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘Mr Maxwell, you’ve got to help me. April’s gone.’

  Euphemisms spun in Maxwell’s head. Surely, a termination this early carried almost no risk of death, but there was always allergic reaction. Suicide! No, surely not… ‘Gone?’ was all he could manage in the end.

  ‘I went to call her this morning, to go to the GP, you know, and she wasn’t there.’

  ‘Lindsey,’ Maxwell said, reasonably. ‘That was, what? Eight hours ago. Where have you been since then?’

  ‘Out looking,’ she said. ‘We checked my mum’s place, and all her friends from school. We checked… well, everywhere.’

  ‘Have you been to the police?’

  ‘No.’ Lindsey Summers had the grace to look shamefaced.

  ‘Why ever not?’ Maxwell was appalled but not surprised. ‘She was abducted for weeks in the summer and now she’s disappeared again and you haven’t been to the police? Lindsey, what are you thinking?’

  The woman looked mulish. Maxwell remembered that look from her days at school, especially the day when she told him she was leaving to go and have her baby in a squat with a lowlife. That baby was missing now and she was still as stubborn as any donkey. ‘They’ll take my kids.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Social Services.’

  ‘Oh, They. I don’t think you’ve averted that by not reporting it to the police, Lindsey, if I can be blunt.’ Maxwell was not a cruel man, but his patience was being sorely tried. No man who has woken up to a sideways view of a complete stranger sitting in his house should have to cope with stupidity on this level. The woman’s lip began to tremble and he sighed. ‘Come on, Lindsey. Let’s go and see what we can do. Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll ring Mrs Maxwell at work, see if she can help us out. Is that all right?’ He found himself bending down slightly, patronising away as though the woman were five. ‘Yes?’ She nodded and turned away.

  Maxwell picked up the phone and dialled the number of Leighford Nick from memory.

  ‘Hello. It’s Peter Maxw… oh, do you? . . . Yes, I sup
pose it is quite distinctive… Oh, has she? Thanks. I’ll try her there.’

  He turned to the weeping woman. ‘Mrs Maxwell has gone home from work. Give me a minute and I’ll ring there.’ This time, he rang without even looking at the phone. ‘Hello, heart. Yes, they said. Have you had a kip, now? . . . Look, petal, I have Lindsey Summers here with me and she… well, she seems to have mislaid April. Could you… yes, we’ll wait here.’

  Again, he turned to his visitor.

  ‘She’s on her way. Would you like me to get someone up here until she arrives? Mrs Matthews, for instance.’ He was silently begging her to say yes, but she shook her head. ‘Would you like a coffee, then? Tea?’

  ‘I’d love a nice cup of tea,’ the woman answered and Maxwell wondered, not for the first time, how any crisis would manage without a nice cup of tea. Had anyone offered a nasty cup of tea in trying circumstances, he wondered. He put the kettle on and decided to wait until Jacquie arrived but in the end, he couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Where do you think April is?’ he said.

  ‘We’ve looked everywhere,’ she replied, which was really no reply at all.

  ‘I didn’t ask that,’ he said mildly, handing her her tea.

  ‘I think she’s gone back to that bastard, if I’m honest,’ she said, cradling the mug.

  ‘How could she do that? She doesn’t know where he lives, does she?’

  ‘She said not,’ the girl’s mother said. ‘But I don’t know whether we can believe anything she ever said about it. I think she knows quite well where he lives.’

  Maxwell thought it was time to stand up for Plod-dom everywhere and his wife in particular. ‘The police do know what they’re doing, Lindsey. They know how to question people.’

  ‘Yeah, but she’s a lying little madam,’ she said, bitterly. ‘She’s been lying nearly since she was born, that one. All that crying. Lies.’ She hid her face in her mug, so he couldn’t see her expression.