by M. J. Trow
She was in a quandary. She should get everything going. But that would mean going in, giving statements. Having a house full of police and, worst of all, having Nolan rousted out of bed and being questioned. She couldn’t have that. Definitely not. She sat down and drummed her fingers on the table.
‘Suggestion?’ Maxwell said, softly.
‘That would be nice,’ she murmured and reached for his hand.
‘Ring Henry. At home. Let him make the decisions. Tell him there is no way on this earth that you are leaving this house tonight. If police come, you won’t let them in. You have let down the portcullis and drawn up the drawbridge. The moat is full of piranhas and you’ll see him in the morning. How does that sound?’
‘I’m a detective inspector,’ she pointed out.
‘Sorry. How does that sound, Detective Inspector?’
She smiled at him. ‘It sounds good,’ she said, and reached for the phone.
Henry Hall had put things in place. Jeff O’Malley was now a wanted man. A watch was being kept on the Mosses’ poor battered house. Camille could be seen pottering about from room to room but there was no sign of her father and she didn’t seem to be interacting with anyone inside. The watchers weren’t to know that she wouldn’t have interacted if the Band of the Blues & Royals had been sharing her accommodation, but the bottom line was that Jeff O’Malley wasn’t there.
A watch was also being kept on Mrs Troubridge’s house. A detective was stationed in the front bedroom of a very excited neighbour across the way. He was armed, as far as the neighbour knew, with a walkie-talkie and a pair of high-powered binoculars. The high-powered rifle was still in its bag and hadn’t been assembled yet. Time enough to do that when the understandably nosy neighbour was tucked up in bed.
All squad cars had a description of the Mosses’ people carrier and a grumpy but secretly excited Pansy Donaldson had been roused at home to see if she knew the registration. She certainly did, she had replied with asperity, as for some time a part of it had been printed in reverse on the top of her leg. So, to cut a long story short, the net was closing in on Jeff O’Malley and it was getting tighter by the minute. He was described as armed and dangerous, wanted in connection with three, repeat three, murders and also some GBH. He was not to be approached if spotted. This was exciting. More LA than Leighford, that was for sure. Something for the permanent record, apprehending a felon of this magnitude. Eyes were peeled and yet, still, as the night wore on, there was no sign.
When all the eyes in 38 Columbine were closed, Maxwell’s flew open. He crept to the bedroom door and sneaked along the landing to the foot of the attic stairs. The third one up was a bit of a squeaker, so he avoided it carefully and soon was clicking on the overhead light and nestling his modelling ambience forage cap on his wiry hair.
Metternich yawned and stretched on his linen basket. Never one for the great outdoors, when it was cold he was a strictly indoor animal, just nipping out for pees, poos and predation. All three had been dealt with earlier, so he was in the mood to talk.
‘Have you been keeping up with this case at all, Count? It has been a bit complicated and I know you are quite fond of Hector in your own way, but you’ll have to put that to one side. The finger is definitely pointing at an American so far, but it is pointing so much at Jeff O’Malley, I can hardly believe it could be him.’
Metternich chirruped as he chewed on a particularly recalcitrant tangle in his belly fur.
‘Exactly. We don’t believe in coincidence do we, you, me and Henry Hall, but we don’t believe in big neon signs over people’s heads saying “I’m the guy” either. So, we need to look further afield. If it’s an American, it can’t be O’Malley, because he was in the station when the third murder was committed. But why, I hear you ask, are the three murders being tied together?’
The cat stopped chomping for a minute and looked silently at his human, an eyebrow raised in question. The question was, ‘Are there any cat treats in that drawer?’ but as usual, the silly old fool didn’t seem to grasp the point.
‘The clue of the American chocolate bar is quite unusual, you must admit, and it is strange that in a short space of time following the arrival of a violent ex-cop from California, there are three vicious murders, and a lot of distress for ordinary people, if you count Mrs Whatmough as ordinary, as a blackmailer runs riot through the town. There is an element of rough justice in this that is a bit theatrical as well; I think if O’Malley wanted to deal out justice it would be short if not very sweet. But even so, Count, even so, it seems to me that for a man who can’t find his way to the front door, to have cut such a swathe is a bit of a hard picture to frame.’
Metternich sat up suddenly and began to wash over his ears, first one side, then the other. Still no treats, but a cat likes to be tidy.
‘It may be more of a case, I think, of someone who has lived here for a long time, perpetrating small little bits of unpleasantness now and again, suddenly finding the perfect scapegoat to hide behind while he steps up his campaign. But I think that Jeff O’Malley is not the man to use as a scapegoat. I think this scapegoat might turn out to be the sort of animal who turns round and bites you in the arse. Or perhaps I should say in this context, “ass”.’ He looked at the animal who had owned him for so long. He was still looking pretty chipper, though in summer now his black bits tended to go a bit ginger. They never mentioned it, though, and the animal himself affected not to notice. He could still kill with the speed of a bullet and toss a fully grown adult field mouse over his haunches with one deft kick, so don’t mess.
The big yellow eyes bore into Maxwell’s, unblinking. Could the old buffer grasp nothing? They were supposed to understand every word you said, weren’t they?
The Head of Sixth Form opened a drawer. ‘I’d forgotten about these,’ he said, opening a packet. ‘Do you fancy a cat treat, Count?’ and he flicked one onto the floor.
The cat jumped down and hoovered it up. Finally!
Chapter Nineteen
Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear and, for the first time in weeks, there was no frost. Much of the snow had disappeared now; the roads were suddenly clear, with just great grey banks at some major junctions, and the odd snowman which had been packed down hard now looked like a headless and truncated penguin, if it looked like anything at all.
Maxwell opened the door and sniffed the breeze. ‘Do you know,’ he remarked to the world in general, ‘I do believe I will give White Surrey a bit of an outing today. I can always leave the poor old chap at school if it isn’t safe this afternoon and hitch a lift with Hector.’ He turned and called up the stairs. ‘I’m cycling in, chaps. Will somebody throw me my cycle clips down?’
Someone upstairs was on the ball and the two pieces of quite sharp metal whizzed past his ear like a nunchuck. ‘Thank you, whoever that was,’ he called.
‘Getcha next time,’ Hector called back, to muffled giggles from Nolan.
‘I’m off, then,’ Maxwell said and wheeled White Surrey out from the garage and gave himself a moment to acclimatise. Then, he swung his leg over the saddle and pedalled away, filled with his usual mild amazement that it was still possible. He seemed to have got away with it fairly well. Timing was everything, of course, and he was careful to make his departure while Jacquie was checking her emails, to see if Handsome Harry Schmidt of the LAPD had replied to hers of Tuesday inst. In an unusual display of what in another man might be construed as jealousy, he had asked Hector if the lieutenant was, indeed, handsome. It took a while, as even Hector was not familiar with the correct pronunciation, but eventually he understood who Maxwell was talking about.
‘Gee, Max,’ he had said. ‘I never thought about Harry that way, but yes, I guess he is handsome. Not that young, probably around forty, but very distinguished. All his own hair.’ Maxwell had taken time off to preen his own luxuriant locks at that point and Hector had smiled. ‘All his own very stylish hair, looks a lot like a toupee, but it’s all his own. Tan, of cour
se. Yes, I think the ladies like Harry Schmidt a lot. What’s the matter? Jealous?’
‘Of course not,’ Maxwell said. ‘Jacquie knows that beauty is more than skin deep.’
‘He’s a real nice guy as well.’ Hector Gold knew how to twist a knife. Then, the clincher. ‘He has a lovely family. Just the one wife, that’s as rare as your own hair in LA. I think it’s six children. Could be more. His wife pops one out mostly every two years or so. Yeah, lovely family, the Schmidts.’
So Maxwell rode away, with one less niggle on his horizon, but already planning the complex manoeuvres that a successful day would inevitably bring.
Jacquie was also mulling over a complex priority list as she turfed Nolan out at Mrs Whatmough’s estimable academy, and was so lost in thought she nearly ran the woman over as she suddenly stepped forward from behind a parked car. She wound down the window and leant across.
‘Goodness, Mrs Whatmough. I nearly ran you over. Did you want to speak to me?’
To Jacquie’s surprise, the woman pulled open the car door and climbed in. ‘I just need a word, Mrs Maxwell,’ she said. ‘I must know how you are getting on with the case. Sarah, you know.’
‘I’m afraid we’re not any further forward, Mrs Whatmough, really. There was another murder on Monday as well, as you may have noticed in the news.’
‘Is that connected?’ she said. ‘I must admit that I take little interest in crime as a rule, but I didn’t see any similarities.’
‘You’re quite right,’ Jacquie agreed. ‘But we are looking at this statistically. Three murders since Christmas Day are a lot in Leighford and so we are looking for links, no matter how tenuous. We may be wrong. Please don’t worry; we will soon have the killer, I’m sure.’ She looked closely at the Headmistress. ‘You look very pale, Rosemary. Are you feeling OK?’
With an effort, Rosemary Whatmough pulled herself together and opened the car door. ‘Thank you, Mrs Maxwell. I am quite well, but … if you could let me know how you are getting on, I would be so grateful.’
‘As soon as I know anything, I’ll let you know.’ Jacquie let the clutch out slightly and gave the accelerator the tiniest press. Rosemary Whatmough could take a hint and slid out of the car door with an elegance rare in a woman of her build. She stood on the pavement and waved Jacquie on her way as though nothing had happened.
Henry Hall was in Jacquie’s office when she arrived, two cups of coffee already installed. Jacquie grabbed hers and took a mighty swig.
‘My word, that was welcome,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been ambushed by Mrs Whatmough.’
‘Has she confessed?’ Hall said, with a hint of genuine hope in his voice.
‘Sadly, no. But there is definitely more to this than meets the eye. Any news on O’Malley?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Jacquie, but we will be keeping the watch on Mrs Troubridge’s house until they get him and they are also staking out the Mosses’ house. Oh, listen to me. Staking out. Watching, I mean. This Americana is beginning to affect me adversely.’
‘Is the Americana the link?’ Jacquie asked.
‘Sometimes I think yes, then again, I think no. The problem is that if it is O’Malley, he came here and hit the ground running, with a list of people to blackmail, people who had done wrong – that is if we take the vigilante bit of his personality, and I’m not sure I believe in vigilantes, in fact. Who could have been feeding him the information? He had never met anyone from Leighford. He didn’t know until a few weeks before that he would ever come to Leighford. I think he’s involved. I think he probably knows who it is and he’s keeping the facts to himself until he can use them to his own advantage. But I don’t think he did it. And here’s why.’
He stopped to take a mouthful of coffee. Henry Hall did not believe in coincidence. He did not believe in serendipity, karma, fate or anything else which came under his umbrella of weird and flaky. When he had suddenly realised in the middle of the night where he had heard a certain name before, he had not risen from his bed shouting ‘Eureka!’ He had simply clicked on the small portable reading light he kept by the bed for the purpose, and in the margin of his newspaper, next to the almost completed crossword puzzle of the night before, he wrote one word, switched the light off and went back to sleep with a sigh. Now, he pushed a file, dirty along the spine and rather old, but also rather full, across the desk to her.
‘Mind the spiders,’ he said. ‘It’s come over from Records. No one has looked at it since the subject went to prison last.’
Jacquie took it from him and pulled it towards her. She looked at the name and her eyes widened. ‘This man isn’t in prison, guv,’ she said. ‘He’s—’
Hall couldn’t help himself. He had worked this one out and was going to take the credit, but only in front of Jacquie. ‘Yes. He’s the neighbour, both above and below, of Jacob Shears, victim of this parish. Mr Michael Melling is a convicted sex offender, on the list for life. I knew I knew the name when I saw the statements.’
Jacquie was appalled. ‘He seemed so … nice.’
‘Many do,’ Hall said, ‘you know that. It’s how most of them are so successful. I honestly think he is harmless these days. His record shows he did all the SOTP courses and the rest in prison and they work some of the time, I hope.’
Jacquie was thinking back. Thinking back to how Pete Spottiswood had had the man taped from the start. Thinking of what a kind man he seemed to be when Tia was so upset. ‘Surely, though, guv, he’s not the murderer?’ she asked, confused.
‘No, of course not.’ Henry Hall was leaning back, his hands laced in their customary position. ‘He is the victim.’
There was only one reaction and Jacquie provided it. She sat up, slopping her coffee and gaping. Then, she said, ‘Victim?’
‘I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and I’ve even thought about Bob Thorogood’s remark about it being one of us.’ He glanced across at her. ‘It isn’t, by the way,’ he reassured her. ‘And it certainly isn’t me, as some people in this nick have been suggesting.’
‘I obviously don’t keep up with the gossip, guv,’ Jacquie said, feeling her rank press on her back.
‘You’ll get the knack of running with the hare and the hounds, but it’s hard work, believe me. Anyway, I don’t believe it is a policeman. But I do believe that what we have is a street-cleaner, like Peter Sutcliffe. He – or she – thinks that they are the only ones who can clean up the society they live in. We’re looking for someone who feels superior. Who thinks they know the lot. A teacher, perhaps. There are inevitably rather a lot of people who have Max in the frame.’
‘There are always a lot of people who have Max in the frame,’ she pointed out. ‘There was a book with him as favourite for doing that domestic, Christmas before last, when that woman cut her husband’s head off and then went for a walk with it in a pram.’
Hall looked at her and almost smiled. ‘But no one really thinks he did it,’ he pointed out. ‘They just want to get him on something, for always being right and for having married you.’
She blushed. It suited her, did she but know it.
‘Anyway, I think that our vigilante, whatever he is – milkman, brain surgeon, tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor – is picking up on old crimes and putting them right.’
‘Sarah Gregson, though. What had she done?’
‘She killed her mother.’
‘What?’ Today was certainly piling on the surprises.
‘Well, no, she didn’t, of course. But her mother was dying and in pain and she killed herself. And just before she did so, she asked Sarah to help her, and she refused. She was living with a lot of guilt. Her “demons”, her husband called it.’
‘And Matthew Hendricks abused his children and his wife.’
‘And Michael Melling was a sex offender.’
She sat back in her chair and blew out her cheeks. ‘So, we could have loads more still to come. And the field is wide open. It’s nothing to do with Sarah Gregson.’
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‘That’s true. But I think that Jeff O’Malley has found who it is, or he is closer than we are, at the very least. If we can find him, we might be able to find the murderer that way.’
‘From what I hear, he won’t tell us anything he doesn’t want to,’ Jacquie reminded him.
‘We could – we almost certainly will – deport him for what he’s done already. We have a bargaining tool right there.’
‘Perhaps. Are you putting a man on Melling’s shop?’
Hall had considered this, but had decided that the killer was unlikely to return to the scene of the crime. He would probably consider that a solicitor had probably done something dodgy, if only his affair with his secretary, and would leave it at that. ‘No. Michael Melling is safe, I think. We need to look at other people who we might have met already who would fit the bill. Who else likes to control?’
‘Vicars?’ Jacquie asked, clutching at straws.
‘Possibly. But not Giles Mattley, if that’s who you mean. He is a genuinely nice man. I know he’s not the one.’
‘He’s not the guy.’ Jacquie couldn’t help it, but Henry Hall didn’t watch American TV and had no idea what she was talking about.
‘We haven’t exhausted teachers,’ he reminded her. ‘Mrs Whatmough, Hector Gold, to name but two.’
‘We haven’t exhausted policemen either,’ she riposted. ‘Sandra Bolton, Bob Thorogood, since you mentioned him. Pete Spottiswood. Did you know he used to be a nurse?’
Hall looked suitably amazed.
‘Nurses like to control. All those hospital corners and bedpans.’
This was starting to sound like a parlour game. ‘What about doctors?’ Hall asked. ‘Landscape gardeners, chopping your trees down without asking, and then there’s all that space to bury a body.’
‘Cleaners,’ said Jacquie. ‘Tidying up all your stuff you want left out and having all the time in the world to go through your papers and find out all your secrets.’
