by M. J. Trow
‘So where’s that darling boy of yours while you’re sitting there enjoying my coffee and my company?’
‘Mercifully for all of us, Jacquie met up with this lady called Pam – short for Epaminondas, I shouldn’t wonder – in her Maternity clinic. Well, between the heavy breathing and sticking their elbows in bowls of tepid water, they got on like a house on fire. She and her husband live out towards Fyleigh and the babies are quite happy to kick seven kinds of shit out of each other, so we tend to drop him round there at the moment. It’s good of Pam, she’s one of those people they used to call “a brick” in the 1930s – before brickage became synonymous with stupidity, that is.’
‘So how do Carolina and this Mendoza bloke fit into it all?’ Helen asked.
‘Well, I’m not exactly sure,’ Maxwell confessed. ‘Juanita was having English lessons with Carolina, and no doubt they’d meet up for a jar or whatever the Spanish equivalent for girlies is.’
‘Sangria,’ said Helen solemnly, past-mistress as she was of package-deal holidays to Iberia.
‘No doubt,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘Rodrigo Mendoza teaches Spanish at Hampton. He knows Juanita too. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? All the continentals hanging together, as he put it.’
‘And he’s vanished into thin air.’
‘Well, there’s vanishing and vanishing.’ Maxwell could be a cryptic old fart when the mood was on him. ‘Carolina seemed upset.’
‘Hmm,’ commented Helen, talking of cryptic.
Maxwell caught the nuance and raised an appropriate eyebrow. ‘And what does that mean, Assistant Mine?’
‘Well, I don’t pretend to know the girl very well, but there’s something about her. I don’t know. A bit too simpering, don’t you think?’
Maxwell nodded. ‘She crawls against walls and prostrates herself in obeisance when I enter the room,’ he’d noticed. ‘I don’t have a problem with that.’
‘Perhaps toadying is what young women do in Spain,’ Helen suggested.
‘Come on, Mrs Maitland, she’s a young kid in a hostile land. Living by herself, coping with all the little hellraisers in this place – and the kids. And all of it in a foreign language. If I could reach my hat, after the day I’ve had, I’d take it off to her.’
‘Yes, all right,’ sighed Helen. ‘And as vicious, unfeeling bastards go, you’ve got a bloody soft centre, Peter Maxwell.’
‘That’s why I let you interview the sobbing girls,’ he winked at her. ‘But it doesn’t help me with my Spanish problem.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Helen finished her coffee. ‘This family – the Hendersons? They might know something. God, is that the time? I’ve got a barbecue tonight. Whose bloody idea was that?’
Now Mr Maitland was a quiet, retiring mouse. Very nice as quiet, retiring mice went, but quiet and retiring nonetheless. So Maxwell knew the answer to that one straight away. ‘That’ll be yours, Helen,’ he said.
The sun was still a demon as Maxwell and Surrey took the Tottingleigh Road. It was along here that the High Flyer from Portsmouth had rattled east in the golden days of coaching, postillions blasting for shepherds to clear the way and toll keepers to haul upright their turnpikes. That, of course, was then and tarmacadam and No Overtaking signs had replaced the smooth-cobbled camber and the well-worn ruts of wheels. Progress. You’d have to argue with Peter Maxwell about that.
Maxwell had met the Hendersons before, but never chez-ont. He was genuinely impressed by the sweep of the drive and the rhododendron garden. For a moment, as usually happened in these cases, Maxwell flushed scarlet in the Marxist sense and became a stolid member of the lumpenproletariat, but the moment had gone by the time he reached the front door, and he was himself again. The place itself was neo-Georgian, with the accent on the neo in that Mr Henderson was a builder who seemed to own most of Sussex. The ghastly twice-life-size wild boars sejeant on either side of the Doric doorway gave a sort of clue that more was more to Mr Henderson.
He rang the doorbell, half expecting a solemn-looking butler in frock coat and Gladstone wing collar to be standing there, asking him pompously for his card and inquiring whether, as it was after three of the clock, this was a morning call. As it was, it was Mrs Henderson, rather more dowdy than Maxwell remembered her, peering around the leaded panes at him.
‘Peter Maxwell.’ The Great Man swept off his cap with a flourish. Fiona Henderson looked him up and down, taking in the cycle clips and the wild, barbed-wire hair that had just been blown to Arthur Scargill proportions by the breeze along the Flyover. Perhaps they should rename it the Combover? ‘We met in May,’ he reminded her. ‘Took your Spanish au pair off your hands.’
‘Mr Maxwell, of course.’ Fiona Henderson was not an unattractive woman in a builder’s wife sort of way. She had a very well coiffured head of auburn hair, not natural like Jacquie’s, but rather old copper and definitely from a bottle. Once she’d recognised her visitor, she seemed to relax and straightened so that she was nearly his height. ‘Won’t you come in? Is there a problem?’
Think of every naff piece of interior décor you’ve ever seen and you’ve got the picture that faced Peter Maxwell that lazy, hazy afternoon. It was as though Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen had had a nervous breakdown and had been given about three minutes to redress a house. Not that the stuff was cheap, far from it, but it simply lacked class.
‘I was out by the pool,’ she said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
It was Mint Julep weather and Peter Maxwell was a Southern Comfort man deep down, but he went for the middle ground. ‘I’ll just have a glass of water, if I may.’
‘Ice and lemon?’
‘Kind.’
The pool was about the size of Leighford High School, rather distressingly in the shape of a kidney. Giant plants that seemed to be hand-me-downs from Kew loomed at every angle of the building and the sun beat mercilessly on the sliding glass roof. It was like a mini Millennium Stadium. Maxwell found himself reclining on a steamer-chair which had the word ‘Titanic’ stencilled boldly on the back. Tasteful. Mrs Henderson was actually quite a striking figure, figurewise – or was it the weird light thrown from the pool? The water was impossibly blue, like the eyes of the actor Max von Sydow.
‘Cheers, Mr Maxwell,’ she clinked her White Russian against his glass of water.
‘Lang may your lum reek,’ Maxwell toasted, although it was clear that the Henderson house had never seen a chimney in its life.
‘Now,’ she sat on the steamer-chair opposite, crossing her legs at the ankles like the memorial brass of some crusader. ‘Juanita Reyes. Is anything the matter?’
‘Well,’ Maxwell winced, as he swallowed too much ice and his life flashed before him. ‘I wondered if you had her address?’
‘Address?’ She blinked. ‘You mean in Spain?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Maxwell…where is Juanita?’
It was time for the man to come clean. ‘Well, that is rather the problem, Mrs Henderson; I don’t know. She left a few days ago and no one appears to have seen her since.’
‘Really?’ the woman straightened slightly before burying her nose in her glass again. ‘Isn’t that rather unusual?’
‘I’d say so, yes,’ he told her. ‘So I’m wondering if I could contact her or at least her family.’
‘But if she’s not there,’ Fiona Henderson reasoned, ‘Won’t that alarm her people?’
‘If she’s not there, Mrs Henderson,’ Maxwell said, ‘I think they have every right to be alarmed. Can you tell me how you came across her?’
‘Yes. Like you, we answered an advert in the Leighford Advertiser. Gerald – you’ve met my husband?’
Maxwell had.
‘Gerald is away a lot on business and Katie was becoming a bit of a handful. If I remember rightly, Juanita came to us from an agency in London. Gerald and I arranged to meet her there. It was all very formal, all very professional. Gerald did the paperwork.’
‘I’m surprised Jacquie and I didn’t hav
e to go through all that,’ Maxwell said.
‘How long has she been with you now? Three months?’
Maxwell nodded. ‘Something like that.’
‘These people are like the Inland Revenue,’ she laughed. ‘I’m sure they’ll catch up with you sooner or later. Gerald will have passed on your details to them, I’m sure.’
‘So, was there a problem?’ Maxwell asked. ‘With Katie, I mean.’
‘Well, I have to admit, Mr Maxwell, my daughter is not the most…shall we say…reasonable of children. Oh, Juanita never complained, but Gerald and I talked it over. Better to send her to boarding school. She needed company of her own. A little discipline. It didn’t do me any harm and Gerald…well,’ she pursed her lips, ‘Gerald was always overfond. Given that situation, Juanita was a tad redundant.’
‘So you placed the ad in the paper?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I did.’
‘She lived in with you?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Yes; as you see, we have plenty of room here.’
‘Tell me, Mrs Henderson, were there any men friends?’
Was it the light from the pool or did Fiona Henderson’s face darken imperceptibly? ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ she said.
‘No one, for example, by the name of Rodrigo Mendoza?’
‘I said,’ she repeated, ‘There was no one.’
‘And Juanita didn’t leave anything behind?’
‘Of course not,’ she told him. ‘Why should she?’
‘No reason,’ he shrugged. ‘So, that Spanish address?’
‘Right,’ she stood up and left her drink on the table. ‘I shan’t be a moment.’
Maxwell let his head loll back on the soft cushion. If only he’d taken that left turn at Albuquerque as Bugs Bunny used to say, all this could have been his. Oh, not the naff fixtures and fittings. But the size, the scope. Instead of this silly pool, his Light Brigade could be laid out here almost to scale, the half a league stretching beyond the palm trees to the nasty little bar that Gerald Henderson had had plumbed in at the far end. Maxwell could really cope with the Wall lounging here. But then, presumably, if he lived in a house this size, there’d be no need for the Wall, because he wouldn’t be working. No Leighford High, no Wall. No nervous breakdown, no chalkface. No…
‘Sant Lluis.’ Fiona Henderson broke the reverie.
‘Sorry?’ Maxwell was on his feet; he’d been to a good school.
‘Juanita’s home town. On Menorca. Sant Lluis. Here,’ she passed him a computer printout. ‘I can’t pronounce the road name, if that’s what it is.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Henderson.’ Maxwell finished his drink. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Tell me,’ he paused beyond the pool. ‘How long was Juanita with you?’
‘About six months,’ she told him. ‘Why?’
Maxwell shrugged. ‘No reason,’ he said. ‘I just wondered if she was the sort of girl who did a runner every now and again, just for jolly?’
‘She was always here when we employed her, Mr Maxwell.’ It sounded like a reproach and perhaps it was. Had Maxwell been over-casual in that he had lost a girl in his employ? He merely smiled and went on his way, thanking Fiona Henderson again and unhooking Surrey from the neck of a wild boar.
‘Interview commencing 9.21 a.m. Wednesday 5th July. DI Bronson and DCI Hall in the presence of James Doolan and solicitor.’
‘Walter Harriot,’ the solicitor added for the record.
The four men were sitting in Interview Room Number Two at Leighford police station, shielded from the morning sun by the venetian blinds. This place had a history of its own; things had been said here that it were better the outside world knew nothing about.
‘Mr Doolan,’ Henry Hall opened the batting. ‘Can you tell us your relationship with David Taylor?’
‘Relationship?’ Jimmy the Snail had a charming Irish lilt, County Mayo via West Sussex. ‘I don’t think I follow.’
Hall was more simplistic. The bland bastard could play this game all day. ‘Did you know David Taylor?’
‘I did,’ Doolan conceded.
‘In what capacity?’
‘We were business partners.’
‘What sort of business?’ George Bronson was cutting to the chase. He had a shorter fuse than his boss and low-life like Doolan irked him.
‘Er… I don’t think my client is under any obligation to answer that.’ Harriot was starting to earn his crust.
‘It’s a harmless question,’ Hall corrected him. ‘Unless, of course, Mr Doolan’s business is of an illegal nature.’
‘Is that an accusation, Chief Inspector?’ Everything about Walter Harriot irritated George Bronson – his dapper tie and highly polished lace-up brogues, his expensive designer haircut and his smarmy I-know-the-law approach.
‘Oh, we’ll leave the accusations till later,’ Henry Hall said.
Doolan looked at his man. The bloke with the ginger hair he could ignore. Oh, he was stocky enough, but he’d have learned all his strong-arm stuff at Hendon or wherever the fuck they trained coppers these days. Jimmy the Snail had men who could take him out, even if Jimmy himself was getting a bit long in the tooth these days. No, if he had a problem at all, it was going to come from the other fella, hiding behind his blank glasses. He was quiet, careful. Doolan couldn’t see the bastard’s eyes, but he knew he was watching every move. He’d have to tread warily here.
‘You and Mr Taylor were business partners in Brighton?’ Bronson went on.
‘We were,’ Doolan nodded.
‘That’s past tense?’ Hall took him up on it.
For a moment, Walter Harriot leaned across to advise his client, but Jimmy the Snail had been here before. He could handle this.
‘It is indeed, Chief Inspector,’ he said. ‘And I just knew you’d been to a good school.’
‘When did you last see your partner?’ Bronson asked. Peter Maxwell would have recognised something like it as an old painting.
‘Ooh,’ Doolan leaned back, running a careless finger round the glass rim of the ashtray on the table in front of him. ‘Now you’ve asked me. Let’s see. It would have been the New Year, I believe. We met at a party.’
‘Did you part on good terms?’ Hall asked.
‘I must advise my client…’ Harriot began.
‘No, no, Walter, it’s OK, I’m fine. I always part on good terms with people, Chief Inspector. Even you and the boy here.’
‘Do you know Leighford, Mr Doolan?’ A change of tack here. Not only had Hall asked two in a row, but he was off on the friendly policeman kick. In the good old days, Bronson would have flipped a polythene bag over Doolan’s head by now and invited him to kiss his arse goodbye. Ah, God be praised for PACE, the EU and Political Correctness.
‘I think I came here as a kid,’ Doolan beamed. ‘Tell me, was there a Freak Show on the Promenade? This would be about 1970?’
‘A little before my time,’ Hall said. ‘Do you know Dead Man’s Point?’
Doolan looked blank. ‘What an emotive name,’ he said, folding his arms. ‘Could you show me on a map? Only, I’m a very visual learner, apparently. Have to see things written down.’
‘So,’ Bronson saw his opening. ‘The plans of the Nat West Bank in Hove 1997. You must have seen that on a regular basis – to get the layout of the building, I mean?’
‘Oh, get real, Inspector,’ Harriot chuckled. ‘What sort of question is that?’
‘All right,’ it was Bronson’s turn to change tack. ‘What was your relationship with a Mr Edward Hallop?’
‘Don’t know him,’ Doolan shrugged.
‘Ben Tilman?’
Ditto.
‘Anastas Doropoulos?’
‘Inspector,’ Harriot adopted a pained expression. ‘Are you just ambling through the phone book or is there some point to these names?
Bronson looked at Hall for the go ahead. The DCI nodded.
‘We have reason to believe that whatever your client’s business is or has been ove
r the years, it involved lending money to the gentlemen whose names I have mentioned. Edward Hallop has been in a wheelchair since 1993. He says your client put him there.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he?’ the brief said.
‘My dad told me there was a Father Christmas, too,’ Doolan said. ‘It took me years to get over that one. A terrible thing, isn’t it, to discover your father’s a liar? But then,’ he winked at Bronson, ‘you see, I knew who my father was.’
Hall felt his oppo tense and raised his hand to the level, just below table height. Doolan saw it and smiled.
‘Do go on,’ Harriot smarmed.
Hall noticed the ridge in Bronson’s jaw jumping as he spoke, reading the rap sheet in front of him. ‘Ben Tilman disappeared in the early March of 1998. He was last seen drinking in your client’s company, in a pub in Brighton.’
‘Tilman!’ Doolan clicked his fingers. Suddenly, he was all helpfulness. ‘That was his name. Yes, I must come clean on this one, Walter,’ he smiled to the man beside him. ‘I was introduced to him by a mutual acquaintance. We played a few hands of poker. That was at the Hanging Oak, right?’
Bronson nodded. This Irish bastard had played this game before.
‘Anastas Doropoulos,’ the Inspector said levelly.
‘I expect he’d be a Greek gentleman,’ Doolan smiled.
‘A Greek gentleman whose dinghy capsized somewhere off Peacehaven in August 2004.’
Doolan shook his head. ‘Well, there you go,’ he said. ‘Those waters are surprisingly treacherous, aren’t they? Bit like the Irish Sea on its day off.’
‘Are we done here?’ Walter Harriot wanted to know.
‘We haven’t started yet,’ Bronson assured him.
‘My client came here of his own volition,’ the solicitor reminded everybody, for the sake of the tape, ‘and it’s a rather tedious drive back.’
‘And we’re very grateful,’ Hall said. ‘Inspector.’ He glanced at the tape.
Reluctantly, Bronson switched it off.
‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ Harriot said.
Doolan extended his right hand. ‘It’s been a real pleasure, Chief Inspector,’ he said.
