Maxwell's Chain

by M. J. Trow

  ‘What?’

  She laughed and kissed him. ‘That I’m gorgeous?’

  He reached round and pulled her onto his lap. ‘Damned straight. Now, woman, just take these plates out and come back and help me ferret a murderer out of my head. I know he’s in there somewhere and I just need to think it through.’

  ‘It’s a shame there isn’t some kind of Internet database like the one for TV and film, where you can just put in a few vague details and the answer pops out.’

  Maxwell looked questioningly at her.

  ‘You know, Max. You want to know an actor, for instance, and you know a film he’s been in, so you put that in and you scroll down and find him. Then, you can click on him and…what?’

  ‘Well, for goodness’ sake, you don’t need to be Barry Norman to know that any film buff worth his salt could do that without clicking and nonsense. I can give you key grip, best boy and even wardrobe mistress for most of them, by the way. And so it should be with this damned case. I have so many facts it’s embarrassing. I actually found the first body, for heaven’s sake. There are so many people, so many clues, phones, scarves, lists…but no links.’

  ‘There are some.’

  ‘I know there are similarities. Such as Lara Kent and Darren Blackwell were homeless, she less so than him, but still of no fixed address. But what about Dierdre? She was hardly a down and out.’

  ‘There’s more than that. Darren’s brother’s phone number was on Lara Kent’s mobile.’

  ‘Did I already know that?’

  ‘There’s no reason why you should, but nothing would surprise me.’

  ‘Why was that, do you think? Kevin Blackwell is still at school. He’s unlikely to have met Lara Kent.’

  ‘Again, Max, I must ask you if you actually work with children or just know about them on principle. They may behave tolerably well in school, especially if they know you are on the case. But they are all after one thing…’

  ‘I know all about that. Apparently, it has actually been known to happen in some lessons. Maths, mainly. And mostly towards the back. In my day, it was all about bike sheds.’

  ‘…and that is to be taken for someone years older than they are.’ She ignored him. ‘They probably met in some pub, or club or something.’

  ‘That would hold water if Kevin Blackwell looked older than his years,’ Maxwell sipped his Coke as if it were a rare Benedictine. ‘But in fact he is particularly fresh-faced, except for the spots, which presumably are the result of being impregnated with chip fat. He works in one of his parents’ shops some nights, I believe. The Cod Delusion – down on the Front. Against my wishes, needless to say.’

  ‘Well, it’s down to him that you got that free pickled onion,’ Jacquie pointed out.

  ‘Generous to a fault; I teach him critical thinking, document handling, a thorough understanding of the intellectual pursuits and he gives me a pickled onion. Has he been questioned?’

  ‘Everyone whose numbers we could identify has been questioned. Most of them – and there weren’t that many – were just acquaintances. Kevin couldn’t even remember her. He said he tends to just put numbers in his phone when he meets someone and then forget them, likely as not, the next day.’

  ‘And had he?’

  ‘Had he what?’

  ‘Put her number in his phone.’

  ‘That’s not really the question though, is it? She had his number.’

  ‘Now, there’s a double entendre. But that doesn’t mean he gave it to her. What if Darren gave her the number? What if Darren met her and wanted to stay in touch? He didn’t have a phone. But his brother did. Before Darren could get to Kevin to explain what he’d done, he was killed himself.’

  Jacquie looked him in the eyes, comprehension dawning in her face. ‘I really don’t know if we even checked that,’ she admitted. ‘I must…’

  ‘Don’t say you must ring Henry,’ he said, almost sharply. ‘Let’s just get on with this brain storming…’ He looked upwards. ‘…sorry, Gods of Political Correctness, I mean thought showering… and see where we come out, shall we? So…we have a possible connection between Lara and Darren. All we need is one between Lara, Darren and Dierdre and we’ve solved the case.’ He sat back, content.

  ‘Just one tiny thing, though, Max,’ Jacquie pointed out.

  ‘Yes? And that is?’

  ‘Who murdered these linked people? And, more importantly, perhaps, have they stopped?’

  Maxwell looked serious. ‘I hadn’t even thought about that,’ he admitted. ‘Why do we do that? Always assume a serial killer has stopped, with each killing. Of course he hasn’t stopped. These killings might be just steps on a road, links in a chain that… Oh, there it goes again!’ He stopped, and clutched his forehead.

  ‘Max! Oh, Max, what is it?’ Jacquie, heart in her mouth, flew to his side.

  He looked up at her, with stricken face. ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. There’s nothing the matter. I just had another of those half-fired synapse moments. I know I know something. I just can’t quite call it to mind. I’m fine. Really. There’s life in the old dog yet.’

  Relief made her snappy. ‘Well, just don’t be so melodramatic, Max. It scared me.’ Sometimes, in the winter firelight, he looked every second of his ninety nine years. Other times, he was younger than Nolan – he could still outrun him. She went back to her seat. ‘Where were we?’

  But Maxwell had moved on, to something even more important than murder. ‘I’ve been thinking, Jacquie. Perhaps we should…’

  The doorbell broke into his sentence. Jacquie jumped up. ‘That’ll be Nole back from his party,’ she said and they both went down the stairs to gather their little carousing boy into their arms.

  Sure enough, the little bloke was at the door, fast asleep, covered almost from head to foot in sticky, chocolaty goo, on the shoulder of one of the nursery staff.

  ‘He had a lovely time, Mr Maxwell,’ said the girl, recognisable under her knitted Inca hat as a recent Highena. ‘Mrs Maxwell. He might need a bit of a wash.’

  Maxwell leant closer. ‘Are you sure it’s the right one, Rebecca?’ he asked the girl.

  She looked shocked, then recovered. This was, after all, Mad Max. She chuckled. ‘Definitely,’ she said. ‘He’s the only one left so he must be yours, by a process of elimination.’

  Jacquie took the boy from her and his head lolled against her shoulder, into his, and her, favourite spot. ‘Come on, little’un,’ she murmured to him. ‘Bed, I think. The wash can wait until tomorrow.’ Maxwell secretly wished he’d had a mummy like Jacquie. She kissed his chocolate cheek. ‘Mmm, chocolate.’ Her Homer Simpson was coming on in leaps and bounds. Maxwell watched them go up the stairs and turned to Rebecca, stamping her feet and rubbing her hands together.

  ‘Cold enough for snow, Rebecca?’ he asked her.

  ‘It’s February, Mr Maxwell,’ she said. ‘A bit late for snow, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aah, a child of the global warming generation,’ he said, fondly. ‘I’ll be proved right, just you wait and see.’

  ‘Well, goodnight, Mr Maxwell,’ the girl said. She held out her hand and for a moment he almost shook it. Then he realised she was holding out a brightly coloured plastic bag, adorned with a tag. ‘Nolan’s goodie bag. From the party.’

  ‘More chocolate?’

  She grinned. ‘No, no. Some parents have a no chocolate clause with us. So it has non-edibles in it. A door plaque, a toy…suitable for his age, of course.’

  ‘How thoughtful,’ muttered Maxwell, actually thinking darker thoughts to himself. A no-chocolate clause? The world had gone mad and he hadn’t even noticed.

  ‘Not all parents are as…’ she was stuck for a word.

  ‘Careless? Casual? Hippy? Dangerous?’

  ‘…normal,’ she continued, ‘as you and Mrs Maxwell. They read a lot of magazines,’ she confided. ‘We have to be careful. Anyway, night night.’ And off she went down the path, the tassels on her
hat bouncing cheerfully.

  Maxwell closed the door and went up the stairs. ‘Me and Mrs Maxwell. Normal. Hmmm.’

  He went into the sitting room and poured himself a Southern Comfort. It was early, but it was cold and his brain needed a bit of soothing. He swirled the liquid in the glass and stared into its amber depths. He could hear the burblings from the baby alarm in the corner, soft snatches of singing, a single sharp cry from Nolan, shushed by his mother and then just quiet breathing and the distant sound of a door softly closing and footsteps on the landing getting quieter. Then they got louder, but in the real world, not through the fluffy filter of the loudspeaker. And Jacquie was in the room, a smear of second-hand chocolate on her cheek. Maxwell decided not to tell her about it. It might come in handy if he got hungry later on.

  ‘Asleep?’ he asked her.

  ‘Like a log. I’ll give him his bath in the morning. I’ve never seen chocolate in so many places before. It’s even up his nose. He must have bathed in it.’

  ‘He’s your son, all right.’

  ‘I expect he’ll come on to Southern Comfort soon enough,’ she smiled, tapping the glass as she sat down opposite him. The soft thunk of the cat flap downstairs announced Metternich’s arrival. They glanced at the clock. ‘He’s early,’ observed Jacquie.

  ‘Because of the snow, I expect,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘Max.’ Jacquie threw her head back in exasperation. ‘It isn’t snowing. It isn’t going to snow. It’s February.’

  ‘As you say. But we’ll see. Anyway, to get back to these murders.’

  ‘Yes. Where were we?’

  ‘Links.’ He crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured her something or other left over from Christmas. Southern Comfort he only kept for special people. ‘How are they linked? We suspect a link between Lara and Darren and it will be easy to check on whether Kevin has her number on his phone. We need a link between Lara, Darren and Dierdre.’

  ‘Or just Darren and Dierdre.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Maxwell looked puzzled, cut off in mid stream.

  ‘Well, you said they are like links. Links only attach to the next one along, not to all of them. If that was how it worked, you wouldn’t get a chain, just random tangles.’

  He sat up straight, slopping his drink on Metternich who had curled up on the pouffe at the side of his chair. ‘Sorry, Count,’ Maxwell said absently. All in all, the cat was used to it. ‘That’s it! We should be looking at a link from Dierdre for the next murder. It might be just as tenuous as that she taught Darren at school.’

  ‘That means it could have been any one of sixty or so people, then. I don’t suppose she was his only teacher. It might have been you, anyone.’

  ‘No, not me,’ he told her. ‘Darren chose sciences, before he gave up on everything that is.’ He subsided back into his chair. ‘Rats! Sorry, Count,’ he said again, on a reflex. They usually spelt out rodent-related words to avoid over-exciting the great black and white animal. But Metternich was intent on licking Southern Comfort out of his fur and might not be coherent for the rest of the evening. ‘That’s not it, then.’ He sat, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip.

  ‘If it was simply that Lara and Darren met somewhere, could that not be the link between Darren and Dierdre. You did say she preferred…’

  Maxwell sprang to the dead woman’s defence. ‘No, no. Don’t misunderstand me. She preferred men younger than her, not boys. I mean, I came into the younger than her category. Though, I admit, only just. Thirties, even forties, were her choice. Just a bit less…’ he patted his midriff regretfully, thinking of the doughnuts and grease he had packed into it that day, ‘…spongy, than the men in her generation.’ He looked up and smiled, the boy peeping through the age-old eyes.

  ‘I didn’t mean to insult her,’ Jacquie said, recognising the tactic, deflecting the serious with the comic. ‘I just wondered. Perhaps they might have just…I don’t know, chatted in a bar, or something.’

  ‘That’s certainly possible,’ Maxwell said. ‘Where, though? And when? And who saw them? It would have to be someone who knew who Dierdre was, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily. She was quite memorable, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. She certainly had a rather unique lizard-like quality not often seen in the urban setting. Third eyelid and so on – the basilisk stare.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And she did like a little drinkie, so I’m told.’

  ‘Like at the 1989 Christmas party?’

  ‘Very like that,’ he agreed, raising his drink in honour of Jacquie’s CID memory. ‘So, we need to find out where Darren liked to drink and see if it was Dierdre’s kind of stamping ground. I don’t think she was much of a slummer.’

  ‘But, if she was meeting people…younger men, Mike Crown perhaps, then she wouldn’t go to her normal haunts, would she? What if she met someone she knew? You’re always warning people about shitting on their own doorsteps, but then, you know some funny people.’

  ‘True. Oh, round in circles again. You know, Supreme Being, I almost begin to hope for another murder. It’s hard to see a pattern with only three.’

  ‘Max! That’s terrible!’

  ‘Agreed. And, to save having to wait for someone else to die, why don’t you check for anything before Lara Kent. See if that fits the pattern.’

  ‘And how do you suggest I do that?’

  ‘Nip in to work and look on your Differencing Machine. Print it off and bring it back here, to the nerve centre, the giant brain. The Count and I will watch the boy and await your return with bated breath.’

  ‘No. I won’t do it. Henry would go mad. Everyone will have gone home. It’s Friday, after all, and the investigation into Dierdre still belongs to Chichester.’

  ‘Yes, and “when I’ve had a coupla drinks on a Saturday,” as the old song goes, “Glasgae belongs tae me.” So they will all have gone home. Smashing. You won’t be disturbed, then.’

  ‘Max, I just won’t do it. And that’s final.’ She reached over and took a swig of her drink. ‘There! I can’t go, now. I’ve had a drink. I can’t drive.’

  ‘You had one mouthful of Tia Maria on top of pie and chips and a doughnut. I think you’re still all right to drive.’ He closed his eyes and began to whistle soundlessly. After a minute he opened his eyes. ‘Are you still here? Oh, wait! What’s that sound. I don’t…no, I’ve worked it out. It’s the sound of someone being strangled, bludgeoned or otherwise being done away with. Oh, good. That’s something else to help us catch the killer of three… oh, no…four people.’ He closed his eyes again and this time, hummed a tune, in a very Maxwellian – in other words, tuneless – way. It sounded vaguely Stravinsky.

  She stared at his impassive face for a moment and then suddenly stood up. ‘If I get found out, Peter Maxwell, you are going to be so sorry.’

  ‘Yes, indeedy. But you won’t be found out, will you?’ He opened his eyes and smiled. ‘Hurry back. Or you might get snowed in.’

  ‘Snow, be buggered,’ she muttered and then threw a cushion at him before storming off down the stairs.

  He heard the door slam. ‘Right, Count,’ he said. ‘Let’s get that brain of yours working. We need to have more or less solved this one before she gets back. Or no more pilchards for you.’

  The cat twisted his head round to fix Maxwell with his golden eyes.

  ‘I said no more pilchards. The Bobsey twins spoilt you, but I won’t.’ He met the amber gaze implacably. ‘I won’t.’ Metternich extended a lazy paw, velvet wrapped around iron-tipped claws. They flexed into the sensitive bit just inside Maxwell’s knee. ‘The hell I won’t.’ John Wayne had never moved so fast as Maxwell as he leapt to his feet. It was also unlikely, or at least had never appeared in any biography, official or unofficial, that John Wayne had ever opened a tin of pilchards. But if he had, it would not have been with as much panache as did Peter Maxwell.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jacquie drove to the nick, her brain almost steaming with mixed feelings of annoyance and exc
itement. Looking back was something that almost always happened automatically when a murder was detected. But the speed with which the three in this group had happened had somehow interrupted the flow and, as far as she knew, no check had been made into similar crimes in the recent past. And of course, as bloody always, Mad Max was right. Like everything else in life, killing took practice. You learnt as you went. The time, the place, the target. Nothing was certain, nothing could be left to chance. But the first time was always going to be trial and error. There was no blueprint, no murder simulation room with mock-up victim and a Murder For Dummies lying on the table. If this was a serial killer, the chances were that Lara Kent was his second victim, not his first.

  The good news was that there was only one car in the CID area of the car park. The bad news was, it was Alan Kavanagh’s. Still, she thought as she made her way up the back stairs, he was not likely to be in the office. He was probably just in the canteen, prior to going home. She pushed open the fire door at the end of the corridor and saw, with sinking heart, that a light was on in the incident room. Never mind, just brazen it out.

  ‘Hello, Alan.’ Breezy, workmanlike, that would suit the situation best.

  He looked up and his face lit from within. ‘Jacquie! What brings you here?’ He checked his watch.

  She had the urge to say, ‘Not you,’ but decided against it. In fact, suddenly, she felt it necessary to give him the accurate, unadorned truth. ‘Max and I were talking and he had an idea. So, I’m here to check it out.’

  ‘A bit of freelancing, eh?’ Kavanagh said in what he imagined was a roguish way, trying to remember if he’d combed his hair that day. ‘Can I help?’

  Again, she considered her options and decided on the simplest. ‘Why not?’ She needn’t tell him much. And, as not exactly the brightest copper in the small change he wouldn’t add much of his own, but as another pair of eyes, another scrolling finger, he might serve. ‘I need to look back to see if there are any recent murders that might have a link to Lara Kent.’