Maxwell’s House

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Right.’ Johnson sat on the chair opposite Maxwell. ‘We’ve done the introductions,’ he said, calmer than when they’d taken their leave in the yard outside. ‘Let’s get down to business.’ He nodded to Halsey who flicked a switch on a machine stacked in the corner of the bare room.

  ‘Interview commencing,’ Johnson leaned forward to talk into a microphone on the table, checking his watch simultaneously, ‘at ten thirty-eight. DI Johnson and DC Halsey in the interview room with Peter Maxwell. Speak into that, please.’

  Maxwell glanced at the microphone, then chewed his little finger. ‘The day war broke out, my missus said to me …’

  ‘Your own voice,’ Johnson growled.

  Pity really. It was the best Rob Wilton Peter Maxwell had ever done.

  ‘Aren’t I allowed a phone call?’ Maxwell removed the finger from his mouth, but his body hadn’t moved.

  ‘Who you gonna call?’ Johnson sneered. ‘Ghostbusters?’

  Halsey sniggered and pulled up a second chair. The policemen now faced Maxwell, they on one side of the table, he on the other, like strangers obliged to share in a restaurant. No one was comfortable. No one intended to show it.

  ‘You are here under your own free will?’ Johnson put the formalities forward for the benefit of the tape. ‘No one has forced you?’

  ‘No,’ said Maxwell. ‘No one.’

  ‘I have to advise you,’ Johnson was glancing over a sheaf of notes, ‘that Mr Hall and I were not entirely happy about the answers you gave us in connection with the murder of Jennifer Hyde.’

  ‘Really?’ Maxwell allowed his left eyebrow to crawl upward. ‘In what way?’

  ‘I’ve read the file too,’ Halsey butted in. ‘It sucks, mate.’ He fixed Maxwell with his steely, dark eyes. ‘From beginning to end.’

  ‘Take this bit, Peter …’ Johnson said.

  ‘If you don’t mind, Detective Inspector,’ Maxwell broke his clasp for the first time and all six legs, his and the chair’s were on the floor, ‘I’d rather you called me Mr Maxwell.’

  Johnson’s grin was a sneer. ‘Well, now, Peter,’ he said, ‘I was hoping to keep this friendly.’

  ‘So was I,’ said Maxwell, ‘and your rather feeble attempt to patronize me is not the way to go about it.’

  Johnson straightened up, stacking his papers with a thump that made the tape’s needle bounce to the far side of its arc. Maxwell leaned back again. For all Johnson seemed to be a graduate of the school of body language, Maxwell had founded it.

  ‘Very well,’ the senior policeman said. ‘When you … broke up, I believe is the phrase you teachers use … when you broke up at the end of last term, where did you go?’

  ‘To Cornwall,’ Maxwell told him. ‘On holiday.’

  ‘Bit unusual, that, isn’t it?’ Halsey frowned.

  ‘To go to Cornwall?’ Maxwell smiled. ‘I think you’ll find thousands of people do it. I couldn’t get into Mevagissey on the Thursday morning for the queue of traffic’

  ‘No,’ Johnson grinned, ‘no, Peter … er … Mr Maxwell. See, you’re missing the point. What my colleague means is that you left school rather precipitately.’

  Maxwell was impressed. This wasn’t bad for a man with three O levels to his name. He must have been to night school. ‘Did I?’ he asked.

  ‘We made some enquiries,’ Johnson told him, ‘up at the school. Seems you’re the life and soul of the end-of-term party usually. Knees-ups in the staff room, presentations to leaving teachers, that sort of thing. Some of your colleagues claimed you’re usually one of the last to leave.’

  ‘Nothing to go home to, I guess.’ Halsey lit a cigarette. ‘Bachelor like you. Must be a lonely life. Empty. Desolate, even.’

  Maxwell leaned forward and his eyes burned back into Halsey’s. ‘I’m not the type’, he said, ‘to kill for company.’

  Johnson’s mouth fell open. ‘Now,’ he said, his voice stunned with mock exasperation, ‘whoever said anything about killing? Did you, George? Did you say anything about killing?’

  ‘Not a word, Inspector.’ Halsey hadn’t taken his eyes off Maxwell’s. ‘Not one blessed word.’

  ‘So you see our dilemma.’ Johnson wasn’t at all bad at playing the nice policeman, considering he’d had so little practice. ‘Here we’ve got half a dozen of your colleagues – your friends – who have told us you usually hang about in the staff room at the end of term and here you’re telling us you buggered off to Cornwall.’

  ‘So I broke the habit of a lifetime,’ Maxwell shrugged. He could tell the police weren’t impressed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘there was a deal with Hamilton’s Coaches, here in Leighford. If you caught the coach that left Tottingleigh at four thirty, you’d be in Exeter by seven and Penzance by two in the morning. Cheap excursion rates because of the weird timing. Check with the company.’

  ‘We did, Mr Maxwell,’ Johnson said, still smiling with his thin, smug lips. ‘You see, they don’t have a record of you travelling on any of their coaches that weekend.’

  ‘What?’ Maxwell sat upright again.

  Johnson flashed a look at Halsey. He sensed his man’s composure about to crack. ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s all just a mistake,’ he went on. ‘You know how it is, computer error or something. It’s just that all records from that Friday to the Monday have been wiped. Almost as if … Are you familiar with Apple Macintosh, Mr Maxwell?’

  The pending Head of Sixth Form looked his man in the face. ‘As far as I am concerned,’ he said, ‘one of those is a fruit, the other is a type of raincoat.’

  ‘Oh, very droll,’ Halsey scoffed. ‘I’m glad you’re still laughing, sunshine.’

  ‘One of those little coincidences, I expect.’ Johnson was getting into his stride now.

  ‘The driver,’ Maxwell snapped his fingers. ‘I gave the driver my ticket.’

  ‘Of course you did.’ Johnson frowned and nodded in mock-earnest support. ‘But unfortunately Hamilton’s drivers don’t keep their stubs once they’ve collected them. Normally, you see, the computer records all bookings, so there’d be no need.’

  ‘Cheque stubs,’ Maxwell said. ‘Look at my cheque book. My bank statement.’

  ‘Oh, we have no doubt that you booked on that coach,’ Johnson said. ‘Or a coach, certainly. You probably even paid the fare.’ He rested his elbows on his papers and jutted his jaw forward so that he and Maxwell were eyeball to eyeball. ‘But the fact is, you don’t have the first bloody bit of corroborative evidence to prove you caught the four thirty from Tottingleigh, do you? None whatsoever.’

  For the second time in his life, Peter Maxwell couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. And he’d been wrong. The nightmare he thought had begun when he’d seen Nick Ross reporting Jenny Hyde’s murder on the television had not started then. It was starting now.

  ‘Well,’ Johnson leaned back, thoroughly enjoying Maxwell’s predicament. ‘We’ll leave that for now, shall we? So you left the school at what time?’

  ‘Er … I don’t know. Just before three, I think.’

  ‘The kids went home at two,’ Halsey reminded him.

  ‘That’s right. Last day of term is always short. Assembly followed by a bash in the staff room – a “knees-up”, as you put it.’

  ‘Anybody retiring this time?’

  ‘No.’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘The odd supply bod, that’s all. They come and go.’

  Johnson nodded, peering at Maxwell through Halsey’s cigarette haze. ‘How far would you say it was from Leighford High to the Red House?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Maxwell weighed it up in his mind. ‘About a mile and a half, I suppose.’

  ‘How long would it take? For you to do the journey, I mean?’

  ‘Why would I want to do the journey?’ Maxwell was careful enough to ask.

  ‘Ah,’ Johnson beamed, ‘that’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it? Why indeed? Just humour me, Mr Maxwell. How long would it take?’

  ‘Well, by car …’


  ‘No, not by car,’ the Detective Inspector was quick to cut in. ‘You don’t drive, do you?’

  He saw Maxwell’s eyelids flicker. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not any more.’

  ‘By bike,’ Johnson narrowed it down. ‘Say you were travelling by bike.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘Let’s see. It’s uphill towards the house, isn’t it? About twenty minutes; perhaps more if you hit traffic at the flyover.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Johnson said. ‘So if you left the school at three o’clock, you’d be there by half-past.’

  ‘Assuming that’s what I did.’

  ‘Yes,’ Johnson nodded acidly, ‘assuming that. And of course, Jennifer Hyde didn’t die until about four o’clock. That means that you had half an hour with her.’

  ‘Long enough,’ Halsey pointed out, ‘long enough to rip the poor kid’s blouse and bra …’

  ‘Long enough for me to run seven miles if I was Superman.’ Maxwell refused to be ruffled. ‘I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Your bike was,’ Johnson countered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or one very like it. Seen leaning up against the wall of the Red House on the afternoon in question.’

  ‘If Jenny died at four o’clock,’ Maxwell said, ‘I was already in the waiting-room at the coach station.’

  Johnson slid his chair away from the table and crossed purposefully to the window. The blinds were down, but he parted the slats and looked out. The rain trickled like tears down the glass with the cold, hungry darkness beyond. ‘How did you get there?’ he asked.

  ‘Where?’ Maxwell had lost his thread. For all his outward coolness, he was a mass of jangled nerves inside.

  ‘The coach station.’ Johnson turned to him, wide-eyed. ‘Isn’t that where you said you were?’

  ‘I walked.’

  ‘Where was your bike?’ Halsey asked.

  ‘At home,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘How did you get to school that morning?’ Johnson worried his man like a terrier.

  ‘I walked.’

  ‘Who saw you?’

  ‘On which journey?’

  ‘Either.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maxwell flustered. ‘In the morning, kids. In the afternoon …’

  ‘The kids had all gone home,’ Halsey blurted at him.

  ‘Nobody. Somebody. I don’t remember.’

  There was a pause. A mocking silence that hung on Maxwell like a stone. Johnson wandered back to his seat as if it was the last place he actually wanted to be. ‘You know,’ he said, grinning broadly at Maxwell, ‘there’s one line in the course of our enquiries which is always music to my ears.’

  ‘Really?’ Maxwell couldn’t quite see what was coming.

  ‘Yes.’ Johnson nodded, as though to the village idiot. ‘That line “I don’t remember.’”

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ Johnson put his face close to Maxwell’s, ‘when I hear it, it usually means someone’s lying.’

  Maxwell said nothing. Just sat there and looked at his adversary.

  ‘Questioning paused at ten fifty-eight,’ Johnson said and switched off the microphone. ‘I expect Mr Maxwell could do with a cup of tea, George,’ he said, genially. ‘I know I could.’

  ‘Right, guv.’ The beefy detective hauled up his chair and slid it against the wall, a smirk hovering around his lips. Then he was gone and the world was full of David Johnson.

  ‘Right, you self-satisfied bastard,’ the policeman loomed over Maxwell, ‘I’m going to tell you a story

  Maxwell looked levelly at him. ‘Not the best Max Bygraves I’ve heard,’ he said.

  ‘Cut the crap!’ Johnson ordered. ‘If you think a double murder is anything to laugh at, you pervert, I’ll soon change your mind about that.’ He slapped a buff envelope down on the table between them. ‘Have a look,’ he snarled. ‘A bloody good look.’

  Maxwell hesitated. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?’ Johnson’s eyes were bright under the strip light.

  Maxwell fumbled with the manilla and half a dozen glossy black and white photographs fell out. They showed the twisted body of Jenny Hyde, her lips drawn back from her teeth, her hair splayed wide, her eyes staring. And cold. And dead.

  Maxwell shut his eyes. Just because he still could. They snapped open again when he felt Johnson’s hand on his shoulder. ‘Take a good look, I said,’ the Inspector was shaking him, ‘because that’s what you did to her. That’s how you left her, all alone in the house. Wouldn’t play, would she?’

  Maxwell’s hand clasped over Johnson’s and wrenched it from his jacket.

  ‘Wouldn’t let you touch her? What did you do, get her tits out? Put your hand up her skirt?’

  The door clicked open with a sharpness that made Maxwell jump.

  ‘Not now, George.’ Johnson hadn’t turned, hadn’t taken his eyes off his man.

  ‘Dave,’ a soft voice said.

  The look on Johnson’s face said it all. The lacklustre bastard had arrived with that impeccable bloody timing of his. Just when he’d got his man on the ropes. In another minute, he’d have got a confession out of him. Either that or he’d have rammed that bloody college scarf down his perverted throat.

  ‘Your shift finished twenty minutes ago, Dave,’ Hall said, patting his man on the shoulder. ‘You get off home, now. I’ll finish up here.’

  ‘Guv …’ Johnson straightened.

  ‘Now, Dave.’ Hall’s jaw was firmer than Johnson had ever remembered it. He knew an exit cue when he heard one and took it.

  Hall closed the door in the Inspector’s wake, then turned to Maxwell, still sitting in his chair. ‘We’re all a bit on edge,’ he said, by way of explanation. It was not an apology.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Maxwell nodded.

  ‘You had a right to call your solicitor,’ Hall told him.

  ‘I haven’t got one,’ Maxwell said. ‘Nor an accountant. Nor a dentist and not much of a doctor.’

  Hall sat down and opened the file, then he saw the photographs still scattered on the desk. He gathered them up. ‘If you feel there have been any irregularities here …’ He looked over his glasses at Maxwell and watched the Head of Sixth Form shake his head.

  ‘No, no,’ Maxwell sighed. ‘As you say, we’re all a bit on edge.’

  ‘Mr Maxwell,’ Hall said, ‘you’re an intelligent man. Informed. You have a right to have a lawyer present and you need not speak to me at all. You know that.’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘The right of silence. Yes.’

  ‘You also know that any statement you make to me must be heard by at least two police officers and recorded with time and place. You know that?’

  Maxwell nodded again.

  Hall chewed his lower lip. Then his gaze fell on the last photograph as it disappeared into the envelope. ‘“And Lancelot mused a little space,”’ he murmured. ‘He said “She hath a lovely face” …’

  ‘“God in his mercy, lend her grace …”’ Maxwell continued for him.

  Hall smiled. ‘I expect you think I’m something of a cliché,’ he said. ‘A detective spouting poetry. All rather Dalgleish and Morse.’

  It was Maxwell’s turn to smile. ‘Let’s just say after the last half an hour, it comes as a pleasant relief.’

  The door clicked open again. It was DC Halsey with a tray of tea. ‘Oh,’ he pulled up short, ‘I thought …’

  ‘Very thoughtful … er … George.’ Hall was always at pains to remember new men. It gave them a sense of belonging to a team. ‘Sadly, you’ve forgotten to bring a cup for me. Mr Maxwell?’ and he passed the solitary mug to the Head of Sixth Form.

  ‘Er … DI Johnson …?’ Halsey probed.

  ‘Went off duty five minutes ago,’ Hall told him. ‘Working too hard, that man,’ he said. ‘We all are.’

  ‘Right, sir.’ Halsey hovered in the doorway.

  ‘No sugar, thanks, George.’ Hall turned to the consta
ble, who saw the cold reflection in the Chief Inspector’s glasses in a new light for the first time. He let the plastic tray drop to his side and ducked out.

  Maxwell had never been so grateful for a cuppa in his life. It was hot, sweet and irrepressibly wet. He gulped at it.

  ‘Mr Maxwell.’ Hall leaned forward again, his elbows on the table, his face supported on his hands. ‘I’d like to have an off the record chat with you,’ he said. ‘No heavies. No microphones. Just you and me.’

  ‘Fine,’ Maxwell shrugged.

  ‘You see …’ Hall struggled for the right words. ‘I wonder if you can appreciate my predicament. Here I am with a murdered girl. What do you think we look for in situations like that?’

  Maxwell shook his head, scanning the clinical white wall in search of an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘A sex maniac’

  Hall smiled. ‘Well, that’s right,’ he nodded. ‘That’s what the public expects us to look for. Some dribbling lunatic with eyes rolling in his head leaping out of the shrubbery with his mac open.’

  Maxwell chuckled.

  ‘But that’s not how it is.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ Hall shook his head. ‘No. Most cases of rape, assault, murder, they’re committed by someone known to the victim. Oh, the random maniac exists, certainly, and he’s bloody hard to catch. But I think … well, I know, really … that Jenny knew her killer. She went willingly with him to the Red House. What I don’t know is why.’

  ‘I thought …’ Maxwell spoke for them both. ‘I thought Tim Grey.’

  ‘So did I.’ Hall nodded as Maxwell cradled the hot mug in both hands. ‘Until this morning.’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘I haven’t really had time to take all this in,’ he said. ‘I only heard about it tonight. On the news. It said Tim was strangled.’

  ‘Yes.’ Hall sounded distant, detached. ‘Yes, that’s right. He was killed in the same way Jenny was.’

  ‘With a ligature?’

  ‘No, not with a ligature,’ Hall lied. ‘Bare hands.’

  ‘But I thought …’

  ‘What?’ Hall edged closer. ‘What did you think, Mr Maxwell?’ It was a crude trick, but it had worked before. It might work again.