Maxwell's Chain

by M. J. Trow

  His musing was interrupted by the doorbell. He went down the stairs, hoping it wasn’t some colleague come to fetch him after all. Bernard Ryan, had the staying power of a gnat. He flung open the door and that was when the second strange thing in fifteen minutes happened to Peter Maxwell.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Is everyone here?’ Henry Hall scanned the room, sweeping his blank gaze from side to side.

  Everyone looked to their left, then right. Although chairs weren’t allocated as such, over time people started sitting in ‘their’ spot. They knew when someone was missing. Gradually, heads nodded as all were accounted for.

  ‘All right, then,’ said Hall. In Maxwell’s mouth, that would have become a Jim Carrey take-off. In Hall’s, it was just three words. ‘I want this meeting to briefly touch on the phone found on the dunes. Then, we’ll go on to the Arundel connection.’

  Eyebrows rose questioningly all over the room.

  ‘Only some of you know this so far, which is why I have the screen up. Colin has prepared a Power-Point presentation gathering all the threads and we will go through this in due time. First, though, we have the phone.’ He held it up, sealed in its evidence bag. ‘At last, we have everything this phone has to tell us. Numbers, names to go with those numbers, although that doesn’t apply to many. We know where it was bought and when. We have the ringtone. Now, I don’t know how many of you bother with all the little bits your phones will do. I admit that I use mine for calls and the odd alarm if I’m away from home for the night. But, apparently, it is possible to assign a ring tone for different callers. So, for example, you might have a telephone ring sound for your mother, a piece of music for your wife or girlfriend.’

  ‘Different music for each one, though, guv, otherwise you might get caught out!’ called DS Bob Davies, always quick with the backchat, from the back of the room. Muffled chuckles.

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry Hall flatly. In his world, a wife and a girlfriend were mutually exclusive. ‘So, we’ve tried out the ring tones to see if she has anyone she wants to keep from anyone else. And, sure enough, we found she had one number that was different.’ He pressed a key on his laptop on the desk in front of him and absolutely nothing happened. Colin leant forward and whispered something. ‘Oh, yes.’ Henry Hall pressed another button first, then the first one. A jangling tone with an irritating computerised voice shouting ‘Hello’ made them all jump. To everyone’s relief, he pressed the button again. ‘That’s the main tone,’ he said. ‘But for just one number, she had programmed in this.’ He looked down helplessly and then gestured to Colin, who went round behind the desk and did his stuff. This time the noise was less jarring, but still annoying, as the tune was one of those on the edge of everyone’s memory, but not quite memorable enough. All over the room, people were clicking their fingers, closing their eyes and mouthing words they couldn’t quite recall.

  ‘Do we know whose number that is, guv?’ asked Alan Kavanagh.

  ‘No, unfortunately. That is one of the pay-as-you-go ones. Now, any other questions before we go on to the next item?’

  Heads shook. Those who did and those who didn’t know what was going on next were equally agog. Arundel was where Lara Kent came from. Seat of the Earls of Norfolk, sleepy little town. Nothing much happened there, ever. The phone was Lara Kent’s. Some of the newer hands were hoping that Darren Blackwell wasn’t being back-burnered, but anyone who had known Henry Hall for any length of time knew that the dead boy was as much in Hall’s head as the dead girl. He might not be too good at pressing buttons, but his brain had the best computer system they knew; nothing forgotten, nothing beneath his notice. He would have been shocked had he known how like Maxwell he was, deep down there where the little grey cells jostled each other for position.

  ‘Arundel, then. Last evening, just as it got dark, a jogger tripped over a body on the disused railway line just outside the town. This wouldn’t normally be anything to do with us, of course, but there are two things that make it rather our business. First, we have a missing woman, reported just the day before this body was found. Second, the jogger who tripped headlong was none other than the stepfather of our first victim.’

  ‘A hell of a coincidence,’ said the usual voice at the back.

  ‘No such thing,’ barked Hall. ‘A name crops up twice, it crops up for a reason.’

  ‘Like Bill Lunt,’ muttered Alan Kavanagh.

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Hall. ‘But he seemed almost to ask for it. This guy…well, Jacquie and I met him and immediately had alarm bells ringing. The mother seemed dodgy too – she’s not the sort to grass on her old man. She’s too pleased with herself for catching him in the first place. For ‘old man’ read ‘toy boy’. He’s being questioned under caution now in Chichester and as soon as they’ve had their crack at him, I shall be going up to have a go myself.’

  ‘Do we have a positive ID on the victim yet?’ This from Jacquie, trying to keep her partiality under wraps, but having to ask the question nonetheless.

  ‘Not as yet,’ Hall said. ‘We aren’t certain it is our missing person, but, as I said, I don’t believe in coincidences.’

  ‘Anyone going with you, guv?’ Kavanagh had his hand in the air, like a crawling schoolboy, but without the shining face.

  ‘Yes,’ Hall said shortly. ‘Well, everyone, I think we can say that’s all for now. Collect your updates from the desk at the…’

  A cough from Colin brought him up short.

  ‘Sorry, of course, yes. Colin here has produced a Power-Point presentation of the facts as we have them at the moment. He will run you through it, I’m sure.’ He personally didn’t think that the presentation would give them any more facts than they had already. He knew, as Peter Maxwell knew, that all Power-Points did was show off somebody’s ICT skills – they advanced the condition of mankind not one jot. A suspect, a really dodgy suspect, had ‘found’ another body. Sealed and delivered, as far as he was concerned. And no, he wasn’t going to take Alan Kavanagh, who he personally couldn’t stand. The man invaded your space and Henry Hall of all people hated that. He would, of course, take Jacquie. And, if he knew his man, they could give Maxwell a lift home at the end of the day.

  Bill Lunt walked into his own shop as if into the lions’ den. He never felt entirely happy out there with the staff he called his, in the shiny world of digital cameras and their paraphernalia, in that smell of plastic and brushed metal, new and heartless. And an endless succession of punters who claimed to know more than he did and who all seemed to have exclusive, never-before-seen photos of Diana that they would reveal to a disbelieving world one day, when the price was right. Photography to Bill Lunt was a dark, arcane art, chemicals, red dark, old leather and sweaty fingers trying not to blur the image with their excited trembling as the perfect shot swam into focus in the tray. He’d read a while ago the theory that da Vinci, the cryptic old bastard, had taken photographs four hundred years before Niepce. He couldn’t get the idea out of his head.

  The staff, all two of them, gave him what he assumed was a warm welcome. They were fairly charmless, both of them, but they knew a pixel from a pixie and in the modern camera shop, that was basically all they needed to be able to do.

  ‘Hello, Mr Lunt,’ the lad said, dark hair flopping over his earnest face. Lunt always thought of him as looking rather like a pork pie, rather shiny, rather greasy, rather flaky.

  ‘Hello, Richard,’ he said and, rather to his surprise, found himself shaking hands with the boy. ‘Umm…’ How did you continue a conversation that by all usual standards ought to go ‘I’m sorry I’ve been out of the shop a bit the last week, but I am a murder suspect and you know how it is. Busy, busy.’

  ‘No worries, Mr L,’ the lad said. ‘We knew you didn’t do it.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ The girl slouched over and stood in front of her boss, one hip stuck out, her arms folded in front of her, propping up a tiny bust and allowing her pierced navel to just show beneath her sleeve. Swirls of blue and wh
ite make-up made her eyelids heavy. This was her day-wear. By night, she was a Goth. ‘We all knew you never done it.’

  ‘Thank you, Jade.’ Emma had materialised at his elbow. ‘Mr Lunt is very grateful for your loyalty, but I think a little printing is probably called for. There seems to be getting quite a backlog.’

  The girl swapped hips, but otherwise didn’t move. ‘What was it like, Mr Lunt?’ she breathed at him on a wave of nicotine, inadequately hidden by gum. ‘Was it gruesome?’

  ‘Well, I hardly…’ but he didn’t have the chance to complete his sentence. Emma had shooed the girl back to her post at the computer over which she had, against all the odds, complete mastery. Gum and Goth. It was the beginning of the end of civilisation. Emma shook her head; God alone knew what Mr Maxwell would make of it all.

  ‘Don’t encourage them, Bill,’ she hissed. ‘They do little enough as it is.’ Sighing, she picked up a pile of delivery notes and went to check the stock. Somebody had to keep the wheels turning.

  Feeling a little like a lost soul, Bill Lunt went behind a counter and stared lifelessly out into the grey February morning. He wished now he’d never mentioned anything to Peter Maxwell; wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

  Jacquie and Henry Hall were, yet again, in a car heading towards Arundel. This time, though, Hall had all his faculties, which was just as well since he had volunteered for the driving on this occasion. And they were in his Lexus, which gave him space and elbow room. Jacquie’s Ka gave him an elbow up his nose. They drove in silence for quite a way, Jacquie’s nerves making the interior of the car crackle with tension. Finally, she had to ask the question.

  ‘Guv, have Chichester really not identified the body yet?’

  ‘Jacquie, why would I lie to you? No, they haven’t. They are trying to contact Mrs Troubridge’s sister, but so far with no luck. Until they’ve given that their very best shot, they can’t announce anything. And, because it is quite likely to be her, they’ve not issued a description or anything to the media. I would imagine Mrs Troubridge is quite frail?’ He looked enquiringly at Jacquie.

  She was puzzled, and then sorted it out. ‘Oh, I see. Our Mrs Troubridge weighs about six stone wringing wet and has the attitude of a brick shithouse. There is nothing and nobody she won’t take on and there are usually no prisoners. The sister, I don’t know at all. Until the other day, I didn’t even know she had one. But if genetics means anything, I shouldn’t imagine she’s too easily shocked. On the other hand, having your sister’s face plastered everywhere would be quite stressful for anyone, frail or not.’

  ‘There was an element of bruising as well, though stabbing was the means.’ He risked taking a hand off the wheel and passed it over his face, a sure sign of his frustration. Henry Hall was strictly a two hands at ten to two man, even when stationary in traffic as they now were, negotiating Chichester. He saw the spire of the cathedral to his left and the chill-looking water in the low-lying fields. ‘A photo, even made up, would be a bit distressing. But I’m sure she’ll turn up soon and we can progress this, Jacquie.’

  They didn’t break their silence again until they got to the nick. Hall knew this one well. Jock Hazelton used to run it when Henry was a rookie. Ex-Met, ex-Para, tough as nails. He’d retired one Friday and they found him dead in his car on the Sunday morning. Nothing suspicious. Nothing untoward. Nothing to live for. They’d cleaned the place up since Hall was here last, but it had the usual posters, the usual missing and the damned, the usual spider-plant to trap the unwary who might sit too close and become enmeshed in its cobwebs.

  There were introductions all round and the visitors were taken to the not-very-secret secret room behind the mirror in the interview room. It was life imitating art. No police stations had these until dear old shouty Trevor Eve used one in Waking the Dead. Now, they were de rigeur.

  Mike Crown wasn’t looking his usual toned and tanned Lothario self. He sat at the pockmarked Formica table in police station issue white suit, looking at his hands, locked together with tension in front of him. Even from the distance and allowing for the darkening effect of the mirror, he was deathly pale and there were distinct beads of sweat on his forehead. A policeman sat silently in a corner. There was no brief present, because Mike Crown was pretty sure he didn’t need one.

  The door to the interview room opened and DCI Helen Marshall walked in and sat opposite Crown, her back to the two Leighford coppers. Helen was about as different from Jane Tennison of Prime Suspect fame, as it was possible to be. She was thirty something, with two kids, a loving husband, a Lhasa Apso, no drink problem and no hang-ups. If she wasn’t real, you couldn’t invent her. She’d impressed Hall as soon as they met at the annual West Sussex conference three years ago. And you didn’t get to impress Henry Hall by being flaky.

  ‘Now, then, Mr Crown,’ she said on a sigh, pressing her palms flat on the table and leaning back, flexing. ‘We haven’t got terribly far, have we?’ Helen Marshall had the tone of a rather disappointed infant school teacher off to a fine art. Everyone she questioned had been to infant school once; it was astonishing how often it got results. ‘All we have so far is that you jog every day, unless you are working out at the gym and sometimes even then. So yesterday evening, you were just doing your usual circuit when you fell over a body in your path. Have you any idea what the odds are of doing that?’

  Crown bit his lip and shook his head. He looked close to tears.

  Jacquie nudged Hall and leant closer to mutter, ‘He looks almost human, guv.’

  ‘Don’t let looks deceive you, Jacquie,’ said Hall with his usual dose of cynicism. ‘Especially his. He’s been using them since he was in the cradle, I don’t doubt. He’s our man, no problem.’

  Meanwhile the DCI was pressing her point. ‘I must insist, Mr Crown, that we find it a little beyond normal coincidence,’ Jacquie heard the hiss of indrawn breath from Hall, ‘that you should be involved in two murders in one week.’

  ‘Involved?’ Crown was outraged, sitting upright now, staring the woman in the face. ‘Involved? My stepdaughter was murdered when neither her mother or I had seen her in over a year. And then I trip over, trip over, a body while I am out jogging. And you call that involved?’ He showed a bit of spirit by folding his arms and burying his chin in his chest. ‘That’s it,’ his muffled voice came, ‘I’m not saying anything else until my solicitor gets here.’

  ‘That is your right, Mr Crown, of course,’ said Helen Marshall, brushing her hair back from her face. She smiled at him, nasty policewoman becoming nice policewoman before his very eyes. ‘But if, as you contend, you have nothing to hide, then why not answer just a few more questions and then perhaps you could go home.’

  ‘Naughty,’ muttered Hall. ‘I’ll have to pretend I didn’t hear that.’ He knew as well as anyone how magic that word ‘home’ sounded to a man who might not see that particular place again for twenty years.

  ‘Inspired to send a woman,’ Jacquie said, as impressed as Hall by the DCI’s technique. ‘She’ll get more out of him than any man would.’

  ‘Not so much inspired as essential,’ Hall muttered to her. ‘She’s the guv’nor here. And she’s good. And attractive. And therefore, disliked by almost everyone in the station.’

  It’s a shame Alan Kavanagh didn’t come after all, thought Jacquie. They would have that in common, at least.

  Crown had lifted his head again. This was a woman, for Christ’s sake. Women were only good for one thing. He wasn’t going to let her browbeat him. He squared up to her. ‘Listen,’ he said, sharply. ‘I am not perfect and I suppose that we might just as well say here and now that you will uncover lots about me that isn’t very nice. I am married to a much older woman and I did it for the money. And her pretty daughter, who actually turned out not to come with the package, but no matter, because the money was nice. I also have various mistresses scattered around the county; I won’t call them girlfriends because that would be silly, bearing in mind their ages. I put the one into
one night stand and I’m not ashamed of any of it. And they aren’t local, because I don’t shit on my own doorstep. So, as I sit here, I am looking at the end of my marriage, because my wife is besotted but not that besotted. But what I am not looking at is going to prison for murder, because I haven’t killed anybody! I’ve got alibis from here to Land’s End, if you’ll let me have my diary.’

  Helen Marshall sat back smiling and flicked a cheeky glance at the mirror on the wall.

  Hall shook his head. ‘I hope you’re making notes, Jacquie,’ he said. The DS was rapidly going off the woman as he spoke.

  ‘Well,’ the DCI went on. ‘That’s a nice piece of character self-assassination, Mr Crown, but you see we’ve heard it all before. Paint a black picture of yourself, admit to being a slime-ball of the worst water and hope we’ll think “Wow, he’s an honest guy. He can’t possibly be guilty”. Because all your “confessions” don’t amount to a hill of beans, do they?’ She was leaning forward now, arms still folded, face hard in the neon light. ‘Humping housewives isn’t a crime unless the housewives object. If being married to a shit like you keeps your wife happy, then, hey, who cares? Fancying her daughter isn’t a crime either…unless of course you tried it on, she wasn’t having any and you killed her.’

  ‘No,’ Crown shouted, thumping the table with his fist. The constable in the corner shifted, but a single hand gesture from Helen Marshall kept him in his place.