by M. J. Trow
‘Sorry,’ she said again.
‘Can you tell me?’
There was a pause. ‘Not really.’ Then, ‘Oh, sod it. Paula Freeling’s gone missing.’
‘Who?’ Maxwell sat on the bed while Metternich took his moment to slink across onto the duvet.
‘The other woman in the Ofsted team. She’s disappeared.’
‘God.’
It all came flooding back to Maxwell. It was Paula Freeling who had not joined them at breakfast that morning; Paula Freeling whom Sally Meninger had gone to find. And neither of them had come to the breakfast room before he’d had to leave. ‘When was this?’
‘When was she last seen, you mean?’
Maxwell sensed the lack of logic in it. ‘Something like that,’ he said.
‘She didn’t appear for breakfast at the Cunliffe. More than that, her bed hadn’t been slept in.’
‘So she was last seen last night?’
‘The team took to playing a little gin rummy before retiring,’ Jacquie told him. How unlikely was that? Maxwell thought. ‘She went up before the others, about ten fifteen, ten thirty. Just said goodnight, as usual. We’re checking the obvious places, of course, next of kin, friends.’
‘Dragging the rivers?’ To Maxwell, as much as to Jacquie, that, too, was an obvious place.
‘We haven’t got to that yet,’ she said.
‘I expect,’ he said, ‘You want to know what I was doing at the Cunliffe last night?’
‘I know what you were doing,’ she said. ‘But Henry Hall doesn’t. And he would like a word.’
‘Ah.’
‘Max. Darling. You will be careful with this one, won’t you?’
‘Careful is my middle name, heart of hearts. Along with McGanderpoke.’
‘All the same, I worry.’
‘I know you do,’ he laughed at her, ever so gently. ‘Is there any need, any special need, I mean? God, I sound like Sally Greenhow.’
‘Something … I don’t know. Indefinable. I can’t explain it, Max. Really, I can’t. Just … well, just watch your back is all.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I will.’
‘I’ll call you.’
‘Darn tootin’,’ he laughed and hung up.
He turned to the mirror and hauled off the immaculately tied bow tie with a sigh. What a waste. ‘So, Count. What’ll it be? Frozen toad-in-the-hole for me, I think and scrag end of rat for you, eh? I’m not really sure I’m getting the better deal there.’
Bob Portal was coming on. Maxwell had glued his oilskin shako in place, although he knew perfectly well that many officers in Cardigan’s Light Brigade wore their forage caps on campaign, not unlike the one now resting on the back of his head.
‘Shit!’
Metternich had noticed that was often His Lord and Master’s response when that ringing sound echoed from downstairs. The Master Modeller hung up his glue, threw down his cap and hurtled down the attic stairs. They’d invented cordless phones, for God’s sake; why not cordless doors? He didn’t recognize the shape through the distorting twists of his frosted glass front door. The cat of course went by the smell as much as the sight and did a U-turn on the stairs, not altogether happy with this one.
‘Mr Maxwell,’ the voice said as he opened the door. ‘It’s late. I shouldn’t have come.’
‘Not at all, Ms Meninger. Won’t you come in?’
She hesitated in the doorway. ‘If you make it Sally,’ she said.
‘Sally it is,’ he nodded. ‘Most people call me Max.’
That was true enough. Only a brave few also called him Mad.
Chapter Six
‘I won’t waste time on pleasantries,’ she said, looking round for an ashtray. ‘Do you mind?’ The ciggie was in her hand already.
‘Do I mind the lack of pleasantries or do I mind your smoking?’
‘Either,’ she said. ‘Both.’
He slid an ashtray from the drawer of his coffee table. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘I don’t suppose you have a vodka?’
‘’Fraid not. I’m a Southern Comfort man myself.’
‘That’s fine.’
He poured for them both and handed her a cut glass of the amber nectar. ‘So … Sally,’ and he raised his glass to her.
She exhaled sharply. ‘Like I said, I shouldn’t have come.’
‘But you’re here now.’ He lolled back, giving her time, giving her space.
‘I thought about how this would go. Ever since this morning when you joined us for breakfast.’ She looked at the ceiling. ‘Got your repairs done?’
He caught the look on her face and burst into laughter. ‘Pathetic, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘A little subterfuge that was forced on me by Laughing George, your ever-eager Cunliffe lackey. I’d hoped to sneak in to the hotel anonymously and that would give me all night to dream up a better excuse for being there. But when Decibels George greeted me with such bonhomie and announced to the world who I was, well, I had to think rather more quickly.’
‘So why were you really there?’ Sally too leaned back, opposite Maxwell, posturally echoing him. ‘At the Cunliffe?’
‘A man is dead,’ he said solemnly.
She sat upright, flicking ash into its receptacle. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m here. I’m told you have a reputation for … getting to the bottom of things like this.’
‘What are things like this, Sally?’ he asked her. ‘I’ve a feeling you know considerably more than I do.’
She hesitated for a moment then stubbed out her cigarette and fumbled in her handbag. She put a large brown envelope down on the table between them.
‘What is it?’ he asked. To Peter Maxwell, a buff envelope meant a bill.
‘It’s for you,’ she told him.
‘I repeat …’
‘It’s five thousand in cash,’ she said quickly, watching his face, gauging his mood. ‘There’s more where that came from.’
He put his glass down next to it, looking at the envelope as though it were a loaded revolver.
‘I know what you earn, Max,’ she said. ‘You’re on a Scale Four. Retirement’s … what … three, four years away?’
‘Five,’ he corrected her. ‘Assuming the government doesn’t have its wicked way and keep us all on until we’re ninety. But I’ll forgive the ageist slur. How much more?’
‘What?’
‘You said there was more. How much more?’
‘That depends …’
‘On what?’
‘Max,’ she paused, wanting to slow down the conversation, steady the moment. ‘I don’t want you to go all moralistic on me, start spouting Puritan cant and throw me out. There’s too much at stake.’
‘Au contraire.’ Maxwell sat back again, playing it her way. ‘As the late, great Sir Robert Walpole once said, “Every man has his price”.’
‘And what’s yours?’ she fished out another cigarette and her face flashed fire in Maxwell’s lamplight as she lit it.
‘That all depends on what this is for.’ He tapped the envelope with his foot. ‘What does this buy you?’
Sally thought for a moment. ‘Discretion,’ she said. ‘Circumspection. At the very least an open mind.’
‘Ah.’ Maxwell reached for the bottle to replenish their drinks. ‘Those old things.’ He could give Sally Meninger a very long list of children he taught whose minds were perfectly open, always. ‘You know, Sally, this could be an expensive time for you.’
She looked at him carefully. Had she so easily got his measure? ‘Okay, Sir Robert,’ she said. ‘Name your price.’
‘Well, you see,’ he told her, ‘that’s the problem. It’s not just my price, is it? It’s Ben Holton – he’s on a Scale Three, by the way. Sally Greenhow likewise. Then there’s dear old Paul Moss on a Two. Your cheapest option is Jeff Armstrong, but even so that’s quite a tally. What’s the government paying people like you these days – fifty, sixty grand?’ He shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t pay for my
modelling habit.’
‘I don’t see …’
‘We were all there, Sally,’ he reminded her. ‘Monday night in the Vine. We all saw your little display.’
She was flicking ash again. ‘I wasn’t talking about that,’ she said darkly.
‘Oh,’ he smiled at her. ‘You mean the other.’
‘It wasn’t what it seemed.’
‘No,’ Maxwell said. ‘It rarely is.’ And he picked up the envelope. ‘Take this away, Sally,’ he said. ‘I don’t want your money. Whatever you’re up to is your business. I want no part of it.’
She hesitated for a moment, gnawing her lip with uncertainty. Then she took it and stuffed it back into her handbag. She was on her feet already. He stood up with her.
‘Must you go?’ His tone was mocking, chill. He didn’t indeed want to sound like a Puritan, but the woman had insulted him, annoyed him. She however was softer. She stubbed out the cigarette and stood close to him.
‘I actually came for your help,’ she said.
‘I know,’ he nodded.
‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘I don’t mean the money. I told you … your reputation.’
‘Talk to the police, Sally,’ he said. ‘I’d only muddy your waters.’
‘You don’t know that.’
He looked into her large, blue eyes. Was there a softness behind them he hadn’t seen before? A vulnerability? Under the pencil skirt and the coiffured hair and the silk scarf was there a little girl lost?
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s start this again, shall we?’ and he motioned her to sit down.
‘Where shall I start?’ she asked him.
‘Why not,’ he smiled, ‘at the beginning.’
This time the doorbell rang more persistently. This time, through the twisted glass and under the porch light, Maxwell knew the shape all too well.
‘Chief Inspector Hall,’ the Head of Sixth Form beamed, looking at his watch. ‘On the late shift? I was about to retire.’
‘Hmm,’ Hall looked at him. ‘We all have that to look forward to. Do you mind?’
‘Mi casa, su casa, Chief Inspector,’ and Peter Maxwell led the man up the stairs to his lounge. Here, for Maxwell, was a state of relative devastation. Hall took it in with his trained snooper’s eye. Two glasses, one half full on the coffee table. Several cigarette ends in the ashtray, in the house of a man Hall knew didn’t smoke. ‘You’ll think my house a common stews,’ the Head of Sixth Form said, paraphrasing Kipling, ‘and me a careless host. I was going to leave it all ‘till the morning, you know how it is.’
Henry Hall didn’t. His wife was a stickler for tidying everything away that night. With three boys in the house, it was all too easy and chaotic to leave it all ‘till the morning. Hall took a subtle sniff. Had Maxwell changed his aftershave recently?
‘Can I offer you a drink, Chief Inspector?’ Maxwell asked.
‘It’s a little late for me,’ Hall declined. ‘I’ll have a seat, though.’
‘Sorry,’ Maxwell brushed a pile of exercise books aside. ‘Please.’
When they were sitting comfortably, Hall launched into it. ‘Can you tell me what you were doing at the Cunliffe last night?’ he asked.
Maxwell wasn’t surprised by this. He’d seen the policeman only half dozing in the hotel lobby and Jacquie had tipped him the wink. Even so, it was a little odd that the DCI himself should come calling, a domiciliary and at this hour. ‘Which version would you like?’
Hall looked at him. ‘You mean there’s more than one?’
‘There’s the one I told the hotel’s desk porter and the Ofsted team and there’s the truth.’
‘You really are a work of art, Mr Maxwell,’ Hall was shaking his head at the sheer effrontery of the man.
‘Both, then,’ said Maxwell. ‘The subterfuge was that my roof had caved in. The truth was I wanted to find out what happened to Alan Whiting.’
‘Well, you certainly call a spade a spade.’
‘Look, Chief Inspector, we’ve been here before, you and I. Sudden deaths are the meat and two veg of your life because you’re a detective. They happen around me because … Well, I wish I knew. It’s been like this ever since Jenny Hyde, remember?’
Hall did. Jenny had been a student at Leighford High and she’d been strangled, her body dumped at a decaying old house at the edge of the town. It was then he’d first met Peter Maxwell, as mad as his nickname. ‘Jenny Hyde was different surely?’
‘One of Maxwell’s Own,’ the Head of Sixth Form said. ‘Yes. That’s why I got involved. All right, so I didn’t know Alan Whiting from Adam and he wasn’t in my sixth form. But he died feet from where I teach, as much on my patch as it is on yours. More. That sort of makes it my business, I’d say.’
‘I’m sure you would,’ Hall nodded. ‘But I’m sure you’ll understand when I say you’re wrong.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘So what is this? The “stay out of it or we’ll give you a smacking” speech?’
Henry Hall was never known to smile. ‘I’m laughing inside, Mr Maxwell,’ he said. ‘But in all seriousness, there are two ways this can go. Either you tell me everything you know – and not just your movements on the day in question, but everything – or I arrest you for interfering in a police investigation.’
‘Well,’ Maxwell leaned back. ‘That certainly cuts out the middle man.’
‘Talking of middle men,’ Hall’s glasses were as blank as ever, even in the late night dimness of Maxwell’s lounge, ‘Where is Jacquie in all of this?’
‘Ms Carpenter and I …’
‘…are just co-conspirators,’ Hall finished the sentence for him. ‘Yes, I know.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘If you care for her at all, Mr Maxwell,’ he said, ‘you’ll leave this one well alone. I’ll see myself out.’
The long, good Friday began under a golden sun. The Geography Department might launch the odd government warning about Global Warming, but ordinary people thought it was great. The Saga People were out and about bright and early too as Maxwell’s White Surrey whizzed past their coach. He caught the glare of the sun dazzling on their bright new hairdos and their flashing old teeth as he skirted the seafront and made for the hill.
‘Good morning,’ he swept his hat off to the paparazzi at the school gates. ‘I’ve got some great dirt on the Pope, if you’re interested. Catch me later.’
‘Who the fuck was that?’ the Mirror man wanted to know.
‘One of the idiots we entrust with our children’s education,’ the Mail man told him. And that little vignette summed up the state of our newspapers today.
He tethered Surrey in the usual place and roared at Gary Spenser, ‘I’m sure Mr Diamond wouldn’t approve of that, Garrence,’ and he swiped the lad’s grubby copy of Men Only, ‘and it’ll be at least twenty years before you’re eligible to read any of this. Assuming, of course, that you can still see by then.’
‘Aw, sir!’ Gary whined, but he knew a fair cop when he saw one. No point in taking this one to the Court of Human Rights.
Maxwell tossed the mag into his office bin as he reached the door, only to find Dierdre Lessing standing inside with a face like a smacked arse. ‘Senior Mistress,’ he bowed. ‘This is an unlooked-for pleasure.’
Dierdre Lessing had interfered with Maxwell’s Sixth Form before – not in any way in which the News of the World might be interested, but just enough to make the Great Man see red.
‘Your weekend reading, Max?’ she nodded at the magazine.
‘Tut!’ he flung his hat onto the table. ‘Fie, for shame that you should even think such a thing. I’m a rubber man myself.’
Dierdre didn’t doubt it. She closed the door. This was ominous. Any minute now she’d plunge the room into blackness and slash him with her carefully secreted Bowie knife.
‘Can we talk?’
He checked his watch. ‘I have a small window in my day,’ he said. ‘Before I throw my pearl necklace to assorted swine. What’s the matter, Dierdre?
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‘Max,’ she was looking out of the window where the snail schoolboys were dragging themselves into the building, not a satchel between them, but a mobile each. ‘We’ve had our differences over the years, I know.’
Vive la difference, thought Maxwell, but he was too much of a public schoolboy to say so. ‘There have been times,’ he conceded, ‘when I felt we weren’t singing from the same hymnbook.’
‘Max,’ she turned to face him, ‘I’ve got something on my mind, something I shouldn’t know, but I do. Oh, dear, this is being so disloyal.’
He crossed to her, risking the Gorgon stare that could have turned a lesser man to stone. ‘Has this anything to do with Alan Whiting’s death?’ he asked her.
She nodded, looking down. Maxwell had never seen Dierdre upset before. Someone had pushed her tenderness button. ‘I’m afraid it might,’ she said.
He sat her down, taking her shoulders in his grip. ‘Come on, old girl. Maybe that hymnbook was the same after all. I was probably just reading mine upside down.’
She looked up at him as he sat on the nasty County-Hall-chosen furniture alongside her. Her eyes were brimming with tears. ‘It’s James,’ she said. ‘James Diamond.’
‘What is?’ he frowned.
She took a breath and launched herself, like many a battleship Maxwell thought she resembled. ‘Yesterday, about half two it was, I went to see the Head. It’s the old shorts issue again, you know.’
Maxwell did. Every year the shorts issue came up, the brazen hussies of Year Twelve and Ten wearing the skimpiest of netherwear. This year of course the obsession for driving red hot needles into one’s navel and showing a Faberge-like cluster of jewels to a gawping world, contrived to make it less and less likely the girls would be wearing anything below the waist come September. Looked at in a positive way, it would save time behind the bike sheds later.
‘I should have knocked,’ Dierdre was saying, as though to her Father Confessor. ‘I should have knocked and I didn’t. Oh, Max, it was terribly wrong of me. So is this …’ She was halfway to her feet when he stopped her.
