by Jodi Taylor
‘I was being amazingly, stupendously, spectacularly wonderful. And so were a lot of other people.’
‘I kept thinking I was on my own. All on my own.’
‘No,’ I said quietly, because it was important she knew this. ‘You were never on your own. Not for one single second.’
‘Why? What did you organise?’
‘It was a wonderful example of St Mary’s teamwork. Just for once, we all got our acts together. Edward will be very proud.’
‘If he’s not bailing us all out of prison.’
‘Trust me to do better than that.’
‘All right – amaze me.’
‘Well, as I said, a team effort. Professor Rapson and Mr Swanson knocked up a little something in their lab. I don’t know what it was, but it had to replicate the effects of drinking five or six large brandies in less than fifteen minutes.’
‘Wow. I could do with some of that. It sounds amazing.’
‘Yes. If St Mary’s is ever in desperate need of cash, we could certainly market it. Mrs Partridge put it in his milk – because it might be important in the future if you and Dr Bairstow have to testify that we couldn’t possibly have drugged him because you all drank the tea with no ill-effects.’
She was bewildered. ‘Why?’
‘It’s just possible there might be a court case.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. And then Mrs Partridge did the business with the hip flask. And then while you were keeping him occupied, Markham, playing to his strengths, broke into his car. That took him about four seconds. He was worried he might have lost his touch but it turned out he hadn’t.’
I left it at that. Make her ask.
‘Why?’
‘He stole his laptop,’ I said vaguely.
‘What for?’
‘So that Polly Perkins could . . . enhance . . . his browser history and then download some truly repulsive and horribly illegal stuff on to a data stick for Mrs Partridge to drop into his coat pocket.’
She was looking quite stunned at this point. It is the duty of every husband to rock his wife’s world. Although my usual means of rocking my wife’s world are usually slightly more private and slightly less illegal. In most countries, anyway. Time to distract her again.
‘Oh, and Dieter broke his rear light.’
‘Why?’
‘I think he just wanted to be involved. Then you kept him talking while Markham got everything back into the car. Mr Lindstrom appropriated the directional microphone from Number Five – about which I shall be chatting to him later on – and Peterson suggested filling the boot of his car with horse urine. I’m not sure what that was all about but he’s insisting on full credit and who am I to argue. The Security Section provided the burner phones – I’ve been instructed not to ask where from – and off we went to frame an eminent surgeon and utter bastard.’
She sat up straight and looked at me. I can never get enough of that look. ‘And you pulled everything together and made it work.’
‘Yes,’ I said modestly. ‘Yes, I did. And off he went, only to be pulled over on the Rushford ring road. He was slurring quite badly by that time.’
‘But he hadn’t been drinking.’
‘So, he kept protesting, despite the evidence of the breathalyser. And both Dr Bairstow and Mrs Partridge are prepared to swear he was in a bad way when he left here. Apparently they tried to dissuade him from driving but he wasn’t having any of it. And then he dropped his flask on his way out, which Mrs Partridge has been keeping safe – and is it evidence, officer?’
She took a moment to think. ‘What will happen to him?’
‘Well, he could still get away with it, of course. His lawyer could argue he had just discovered the nature of the contents of the laptop and data stick, was properly horrified and actually on his way to hand it in to the police when stopped. His subsequent behaviour could be accounted for by drink . . .’ I assumed a plummy barrister voice. ‘. . . But my client is a busy man with many pressures upon him which, regrettably, he sometimes alleviates with alcohol. He apologises profusely to the court and is willing to accept any punishment the court deems fit. Of the other charges, my lord/your honour/whoever, he is obviously completely innocent. No one blames the police for the zeal in which they acted. My client is the first to admit he did not present himself in the best light and throws himself upon the mercy of the court.’
I resumed a normal voice. ‘And so on. But the whole point is, Max, guilty or not, his credibility is shot. No one is ever going to listen to anything he has to say ever again. And certainly not about us. Or Matthew. He may or may not go to prison but the important thing is that he’s been neutralised. His reputation is ruined. He can’t hurt you or Matthew ever again and that was my priority.’
‘Leon, I’m not his daughter. Matthew isn’t his grandson.’
‘Doesn’t matter, Max. This is all Ronan-instigated. Your father didn’t want Matthew. The whole point was to cause trouble for us. Whoever they decided he was, Matthew would probably have ended up in care, and the abuse he suffered as a child would be laid at our door. And, of course, we’d be unable to produce the infant everyone expected to see. Some of us would have landed in prison and there would have been a massive scandal.’
‘And now, thanks to you . . .’
I smiled at her. ‘While I’m eager to bask in your unfamiliar approval and respect – it was a team effort. We should do something nice for Polly, as well. As if her job isn’t bad enough having to tip toast crumbs out of your laptop twice a week, she waded through some pretty grim stuff today.’
‘Weekend for two at a spa hotel,’ she said.
‘For us or for her?’
‘Well, now you come to mention it . . .’
She trailed away and a silence fell. My guess was that only now was the full impact dawning on her. What could have happened. Because of that bastard John Maxwell . . .
I . . . get . . . quite . . . angry . . . when I think about what he did. Because he was her father and he’d betrayed her. I’ve seen little girls and their daddies. There’s a magic there. John Maxwell was her daddy. It was his job to love her and protect her from the bad things in this world. Not be one of them. He should have guided her and kept her safe and praised her and been proud of her. Because he was her daddy.
She said sadly, ‘Was I so very bad that my parents hated me so much?’
I swallowed hard. ‘Yes, I expect you were. And you haven’t changed a bit, have you?’
She laughed shakily and gently rubbed my arm. ‘Well, I discovered quite early on that if I sat in the front garden eating the stale bread put out for the birds then people would give me sweets over the fence.’
I couldn’t help laughing, too. ‘We’re a precious pair, aren’t we? I don’t know who’s comforting who.’
‘I don’t think that matters, does it? And it’s whom.’
‘Lucy, I promise you – he can’t do you harm ever again.’
‘Because you’ve fixed it.’
I nodded. ‘It’s what I do. Broken pods or broken lives – sooner or later, everything comes to fear my fixing powers.’ I deepened my voice, uttering portentously, ‘I am The Fixer.’
It’s probably a good job the door opened at that moment to reveal Mrs Partridge with a tray, bringing tea and biscuits in much the same way they brought the good news from Aix to Ghent. As you see, Max is not the only one who can make historical references.
‘No milk,’ she said, hastily, scrambling off my lap.
I had a sudden nasty thought. ‘Mrs Partridge, where’s the milk jug? Our police force is disconcertingly thorough. I hope it’s had an unfortunate accident and the remains been disposed of.’
‘Good heavens, no,’ she said serenely. ‘It’s part of a set and Mrs Mack would be most displeased. I’ve always found hiding in plain sight
to be most effective. The milk jug in question, along with five or six of its fellows, is currently in R&D being utilised in the collection and retention of a number of dubious fluids. One is holding a quantity of urine; another is full of something radioactive – although not tremendously so, they reassure me; for reasons that were not made clear to me, another contains six fluid ounces of neat alcohol; one contains something that requires the protection of a bell jar; and the last is giving off worrying amounts of toxic smoke. Worrying to normal people, anyway. I suspect that should our milk jug be discovered, the fact that it might contain traces of a chemical substance will not seem unusual at all. In fact, and I’m sure you will agree with me, in this establishment, a milk jug actually containing milk would certainly give rise to some comment.’
The tea set was Dr Bairstow’s best. She began to arrange cups, saucers and the sugar bowl on the low table, continuing calmly, ‘I can confirm that all traces of Miss Perkins’ activities have been destroyed and the appropriate hard drive is in the furnace. As are all the gloves and equipment used. Should the police appear to follow up Mr Maxwell’s inevitable accusations against us, the hip flask in question is in a sealed plastic bag locked in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. I can also confirm that Dr Bairstow and I suspected Mr Maxwell had been drinking when he first arrived here. Especially after he dropped his fingerprint-covered flask under his chair. He denied it was his property, however, and departed, determined to drive despite our best efforts to prevent it.’
Cutlery and crockery arranged to her satisfaction, she headed towards the door. ‘Will there be anything else, Chief Farrell?’
I shook my head. I know when I’m outclassed.
She frowned at Max. ‘Drink your tea, Dr Maxwell.’
Max nodded obediently. ‘Yes, Mrs Partridge.’
She regarded us sternly for a moment and then withdrew, closing the door quietly behind her.
I pulled Max back down again. ‘You’ll have to pour the tea,’ I said. ‘There’s something heavy on my lap.’
I watched her as she poured. The first one was for herself because she likes it weak and the second – something that had a bit more body – was for me.
The sun picked out the gold in her hair exactly as it had done that moment we met on the stairs. I sometimes wonder if, somehow, somewhere, there isn’t a staircase with two figures, forever clasping each other’s hands, smiling at each other, frozen in the moment, perpetually on the brink of something wonderful.
She passed me my tea. I asked her why she hadn’t stirred it – just to facilitate her path to recovery – and she shot me a look.
‘You’ll suffer for that later, Farrell.’
‘How short-lived is an historian’s gratitude,’ I said, and sipped away, thinking again of that tiny tableau at the side of the road and wondering what was happening to John Maxwell at this very moment. I rather hoped it involved rubber gloves.
He was finished. Even if he didn’t go to prison, there are always those harpies who maintain there’s no smoke without fire and certainly wouldn’t ever let a lack of facts get in their way.
And if he did go to prison – well, they don’t call it the criminal justice system for nothing.
And even if none of that happened, even if John Maxwell’s name and connections were enough to clear him, Clive Ronan wasn’t the sort to regard failure with sympathetic understanding.
Revenge is sweet.
THE END
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Phil Dawson of Risk Management Operations Ltd for his invaluable advice on police procedures.
Author's Note
I should be working. I should actually be researching Persian female apparel circa 300BC. I should be absorbed in textiles and patterns and styles and not in any way thinking about Professor Rapson. I shouldn’t be imagining putting my feet up and drinking wine with Peterson. I certainly shouldn’t be staring out of the window listening to an imaginary conversation between Max and Professor Rapson. I’m never going to be a proper author at this rate.
I was on my way to Peterson’s office for our Friday afternoon meeting. The one where he opens a bottle of wine, I get out the glasses and we both put our feet up and have a huge moan about the previous week. Sometimes the meetings are quite long.
Anyway, I was making my way around the gallery, juggling the half dozen or so files I’d brought with me as camouflage – because it doesn’t do the other ranks any good at all to see a couple of senior officers setting a bad example – although, to be fair, most people were outside watching the Security and Technical Sections eviscerate each other in the name of sport – when Professor Rapson erupted, literally, from his lab shouting, ‘Eureka!’
He was fully clothed. Trust me – it was the first thing I checked.
I said, ‘Good afternoon, professor,’ because that’s how Markham would do it. Apparently now he’s Head of Security, standards must be maintained. What sort of standards of course, he never says.
‘Ah, Max. Good news. I’ve done it.’
‘So I gathered, professor. Jolly well done.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I know it’s been a while, but we got there in the end.’
‘Excellent news, professor,’ I said, trying to ignore the glass-of-wine-shaped hole in my life and failing dismally. ‘I look forward to reading your report.’
‘No, no, you don’t understand, Max. I’ve really done it.’
I stopped thinking about wine and concentrated. This was Professor Rapson, after all. I asked the question I should have led with. ‘Exactly what have you done, professor?’
‘Well, as you know, Max, water is very heavy.’
I stared at him. He looked comparatively normal. His hair was standing on end. He had a huge acid burn on one sleeve of his lab coat, of which he appeared completely oblivious, and was wearing one brown and one black shoe. So, as I said – normal. He was, however, waving around a beaker of clear fluid. I stepped back because it could be anything. The Elixir of Life. Cerebral brain fluid – although if it was his, it would probably be a little murkier. An untraceable deadly poison that would kill us all in seconds. Anything, really. He raised the beaker to his lips and drank deeply. I braced myself but nothing dreadful seemed to happen to him.
‘Water, Max. Water. I’ve done it.’ He raised the empty beaker. I half expected a flash of lightning and shouts of ‘It’s alive! It’s alive!’ but that usually relates to Markham.
‘What were you expecting, professor?’
‘Well, water, obviously, Max.’
Never had a glass of wine seemed so far away.
‘Professor, please tell me – what is the project you’ve been working on?’
‘Oh yes, of course. Well, as I said, Max, water is heavy. Leon’s always complaining about the weight of the tanks and how that messes up his calculations and he’s right, so I thought I’d have a go.’
‘At what, professor?’
‘Desiccated water.’
Oh, God . . .
‘What?’
‘Desiccated water, Max. Powdered water. The answer to all our problems. We reduce water down to a fine powder, bag it up in plastic and hey presto! Portable water. No more tanks, no more heavy water bottles – just stick a couple of packs in your supplies and away you go. Small packs for your pocket. Something larger if you want a bath. Simple. Quick. Easy. Convenient.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That’s brilliant, professor. Well done.’
‘Thank you,’ he said modestly. ‘I’m just off to show Chief Farrell.’
‘He’ll be thrilled,’ I said, happily sacrificing Leon’s Friday afternoon, but wine deprivation can do that to a girl. ‘You must give him a complete demonstration. Several, in fact.’
‘I will,’ Professor Rapson said, hair standing even more on end as he prepared to depart at top speed.
‘Just one question, professor.’
‘Mm?’
‘How do you reconstitute the powder?’
‘What?’
‘The powder. How exactly do you reconstitute desiccated water?’
‘Oh, that’s easy.’
‘Yes?’
He regarded me as an idiot.
‘You just add water.’
Author's Note
I can’t remember what I should have been working on when I wrote this snippet. I know I should have been concentrating on something less Markham’s bottom-centric because this was in my Accent Press days and they were never that happy when I wandered off-piste. I mean, yes, I still got the Accent Press designated ten-minute window time – that was in my contract – but if they weren’t happy with your weekly word count then they wouldn’t actually open the window, so you just stood gasping like a dying goldfish at this tantalising glimpse of the outside world and fresh air.
I called it Markham and the Anal Probing because I never thought it would make it into print and I just wanted to give my editor something to worry about. A bit of a shock now it looks as if the public are about to get their hands on it. I shall plead oxygen deprivation . . .
And then there was the day when Markham managed to get himself snatched by aliens – or so we thought at the time. I was summoned to Dr Bairstow’s office to find Markham and Peterson already present. We looked at each other.
‘Any clues?’ I asked.
They shrugged.
‘You can go in now,’ said Mrs Partridge, so in we went.
Dr Bairstow looked up from his desk. ‘There you are.’
We agreed that yes, here we were.
He gestured at his briefing table on which reposed several archive boxes and a fat folder. ‘The County Archivist has been good enough to make available various documents requested by Dr Dowson. A condition was that we do not expose them to the hazards of a random delivery service.’
It was not clear whether it was the company or its delivery that was random, but we nodded anyway.
