Maxwell's Inspection

by M. J. Trow

  ‘There’s a great castle at Skipton,’ Maxwell told them. ‘Moat, dungeons, the whole nine yards.’

  ‘Fuck the castle, Mr Maxwell, with respect,’ said Duggsy from his position bent double in the back. ‘Where’s the nearest bloody pub?’

  They settled for the Goat and Gargoyle off the High Street where the metal frames of the street market stalls littered the tarmac and rubbish still piled high on the pavements. Southerners though they all were, they tucked into their chips with gravy with relish – all except Maxwell, who wasn’t fond of relish. The drinks and the grub, like the petrol, were on Maxwell.

  ‘Where are we then, Mr M?’ Duggsy got outside his pint of something dark and menacing from Yorkshire.

  ‘Skipton, you twat,’ said Wal. ‘I know that and I haven’t been navigating.’

  ‘I mean, in terms of our enquiries, you stupid shit,’ Duggsy countered, with all the wit and repartee at his disposal. It had been a long day for them all.

  ‘Well, the odd thing is, lads,’ Maxwell sucked the gravy from his chip, ‘that it turns out Sally Meninger and Pamela Whiting are sisters.’

  ‘Well, there’s a turn up,’ Iron Man was rolling his own.

  ‘It’s certainly a step in an odd direction,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘As is the fact that Paula Freeling was a tea-leaf.’ The Hippos knew lots of those and they were strangely unmoved by the news. Maxwell might as well have said she was a Liberal Democrat.

  ‘How you gonna play it with the tart, then, Mr M?’ Duggsy had a way of cutting to the chase. ‘Me and Wal ain’t much on the heavy side, but we’ll slap her about if you like.’

  ‘Nice of you to offer, boys,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘But I think we’ll do the softly, softly approach first. Are we laybying again tonight, Iron?’ He dreaded the answer.

  The drummer paused in mid-lick, his tongue stuck to his roll-up. ‘It was good enough for Hendrix,’ he croaked. A glazed look came into the eyes of the guitarists. Maxwell was out of his league. To him, Jimi Hendrix was just a great jacket. He checked his watch.

  ‘While you boys were getting some in,’ he said, ‘I cased the joint. Only two likely hotels. My guess is it’ll be the Wheatsheaf. That’s where I’ll start. It’s nine now. If I’m not back by last orders, you have my official permission to head south.’

  Wal nodded appreciatively. ‘Still got time to make Guildford,’ he said.

  And Maxwell was gone.

  Henry Hall sat alone in his conservatory that night. Moths danced around the light and the fan twirling lazily above his head did nothing to move the still, heavy air. From where he sat he could hear the stream ripple at the end of his garden and the soft hum of the traffic on the A259. All day, he’d been closeted with his Murder Team in the Incident Room, checking this, rechecking that. His Press Officer had threatened to resign, hand in her badge because of the barrage of calls she’d received that day alone. Why was there no progress, everybody wanted to know from the Chief Constable to the editor of Woman’s Weekly. Surely, someone had seen something in the photographer’s? And as for the Alan Whiting killing, that was nearly two weeks old, for God’s sake. What were they paying these outrageous police salaries for? And what about the overtime? The last two questions had mostly come from the Chief Constable.

  He’d drafted extra bodies in from the north of the county, men and women going door to door in a town they didn’t know, on a case they’d only heard about the previous week. Pat Prentiss was on the diary found in Craig Edwards’ studio, sending out his boys in blue to check bookings, timings, suss the ground. What was the punters’ relationship with the dead man? How had they chosen him for the job? It was all about body language. Ask the questions and watch the reactions. A turn of the head, a flicker of the eye, a sudden, involuntary twitch of the hands, a tightness of the throat. Flash a warrant card, shake a hand and feel the clamminess of the palm. But it was the eyes. Always the eyes that gave the game away. That and the loud, persistent, obtrusive cough.

  Geoff Baldock was rightly in DI Bathurst’s dog-house for his maverick performance. But the over-zealous little shit knew his computers and the DI had put him on Edwards’ hard drive to download the images. Nothing suspicious so far. Nothing sweaty. Nothing under-age. Just more of the same; grinning kids with no teeth; graduating students; smirking newly-weds.

  And then, there was Jacquie. If truth were told, Henry Hall worried about Jacquie. He always had. He noticed things about people, about people he reckoned in particular. And something was wrong with Jacquie. In quiet moments, when everybody’s head was down in the Incident Room and the air was palpable, he’d seen her soft, downcast gaze. He didn’t need to know the reason. The reason was Peter Maxwell.

  Hall looked out of his conservatory window, at his own reflection, lolling shirt-sleeved on the cane-backed settee. He looked beyond in the darkness to the far line of twinkling street lights that led to Columbine, Maxwell’s home. He’d be there now, cradling his Southern Comfort, playing with those stupid toy soldiers, plotting yet more mayhem and confusion for Wednesday morning.

  And then there was James Diamond. What did Maxwell call him? Legs? Anyone less like Ray Danton’s fictional gangster, with the fedora, the spats and the machine gun, Hall couldn’t imagine. What was all that about? Aless-than-enchanted Phil Bathurst had told his DCI that morning that the man had come into the station to confess, not to one murder but to three, each with less likelihood and conviction than the last. Few people in the town rated Diamond very highly; Peter Maxwell rated him not at all. Had he finally flipped, as so many teachers had before him? Driven to dribbling lunacy by the pressure of having an Ofsted Inspector killed in his school? Hall shook his head. A greater man would have dined out on that for the rest of his life.

  The doorbell made him jump and he focused beyond the glass to recognize the face of Geoff Baldock. He beckoned him in and the lad slid back the door and stood there, like the cat that’s got the cream.

  ‘I’m sorry, guv. I know it’s late,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Just come off duty?’ Hall asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then you’re due one of these,’ and he crossed to his drinks cabinet to pour them both a Scotch. ‘I assume there’s a good reason why you’ve snuck round the back of private premises and disturbed your superior at this hour.’

  ‘Didn’t want to disturb Mrs Hall and the little Halls, guv,’ Baldock smiled.

  ‘Thoughtful of you,’ Hall nodded, offering the lad a seat. ‘But the little Halls are out at some God-awful disco tonight, so don’t push it. What’ve you got?’

  ‘These, guv. From Edward’s hard-drive. Took a bit of finding, but they’re not your run-of-the-mill Esplanade type stuff.’

  Hall looked at the photos the DC had splayed on the coffee table. There were a series of action shots, dim and indistinct in places, but the meaning was clear enough. A naked woman was straddling a man twice her age and by the blur of her body, was bouncing up and down. The room appeared to be a hotel room. It was single-bedded, with a cheap, nasty carpet.

  ‘I particularly like these,’ Baldock pointed to the handcuffs that held the man’s left wrist to the bedhead.

  ‘It’s why you joined the force, no doubt,’ Hall nodded. ‘Do we have any ID?’

  ‘Not yet, guv. And there’s more where this came from. I thought you’d like to see these for starters.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Hall nodded. ‘Well, Detective Constable, let’s see if you can wipe the blot from your escutcheon, shall we? What do you make of them?’

  Baldock sat on the edge of his seat opposite his boss, sampling the spirit. ‘Taken from an open window,’ he said. ‘Three weeks ago. Look at the date. Edwards must have been perched on some kind of platform, ladder, something. This has to be on the first floor. Could be any one of a couple of dozen hotels or B & Bs in Leighford.’

  ‘Or the far side of the moon,’ Hall offered a helpful alternative.

  ‘Quite,’ Baldock conceded. ‘But wherever it was taken, Ed
wards was supplementing his income. Photographer by day. Peeping Tom by night.’

  ‘Hardly hardcore though, is it?’ Hall mused. ‘Couldn’t have been hoping to make much on Weirdo Street. So what’s his motive?’

  ‘Self-abuse?’ the lad suggested.

  ‘No,’ Hall was shaking his head. ‘No. Try again.’

  ‘Er …’

  ‘Look at the faces.’

  ‘Er …’

  ‘They’re clear, aren’t they? The bodies may be blurred, but the features are unmistakeable. Get another print out and take the heads off. We’ll go door to door on this in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not sure what they’re doing is against the law, guv,’ Baldock said. ‘Even in a hotel room.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Hall agreed. ‘And it’s not even against the law if this lady and gentleman aren’t married to each other. But it would make very interesting viewing for the actual spouse of one or both of them, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  Hall shrugged. ‘Blackmail. Confirmation of an affair. I think our Mr Edwards was a bit of a private eye on the quiet, at the predictably grubby end of the market, of course.’

  ‘Right.’ Reality dawned on Baldock.

  ‘Well, get on with it, lad.’ Hall took the DC’s Scotch from him. ‘Back to the photocopier. I want to know who those two are by lunchtime at the latest.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ a hangdog Baldock was already on his feet.

  ‘Oh, and constable,’ Hall stopped him at the door. ‘Well done.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t wait ‘till breakfast,’ Peter Maxwell stood in the corridor outside Sally Meninger’s room at the Wheatsheaf, aching in every limb from another lay-by night.

  ‘Good God,’ she said softly, trying to gather her wits.

  ‘No, but close,’ Maxwell said. ‘Got a minute, Inspector?’ and he brushed past her into the room. ‘I’ve seen quite a few insides of hotel rooms in the last few hours. This isn’t the best, but I suppose it’s home for now.’

  ‘Max, what are you doing here?’ She stood, hands on hips, already dressed and ready for the off.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ he asked.

  ‘I would have given you a “very good” you know,’ she said, ‘had the inspection gone ahead at Leighford. Perhaps even an “excellent”. You really didn’t have to chase me all the way up here.’ She smiled at him playfully and closed the door.

  ‘If I’d taken the money and run, you mean?’

  She dropped the smile. ‘Oh, that. Look, I’m deeply ashamed of that,’ she said. ‘It was pointless and childish. Please forget it.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve tried,’ Maxwell said, flinging himself down in her armchair. ‘Like all our other lurid conversations, I’ve tried to wipe them from my memory. But it’s no good. You see, I’ve been taken for a ride and not just by those three down there,’ he flicked aside the nets and jerked his head in the direction of the window.

  Sally crossed to it and saw a white van in the car park, battered, scruffy with the legend Yawning Hippos painted badly on the side. Three men lolled against it, dragging on suspicious-looking ciggies, swigging from six packs.

  ‘Good God,’ she said again.

  ‘You’ll remember the lads from the Vine,’ he said. ‘Oh not exactly chart material, but they can carry a tune in a bucket. Duggsy’s the lead vocalist, friendly guy. Got a girlfriend called Tracey, but you can’t have everything. Wal’s the bass player. IQ of about forty, but he means well. Then there’s the drummer, Iron Man …’

  ‘Is there a point to all this?’ she cut him short. ‘Only I’d like a little breakfast before I carry out my inspection today.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think there’ll be an inspection, today, Sally,’ Maxwell let the nets fall, ‘or any other day. You see, the lads down there know all about you. Two of them went to Leighford High and while they weren’t exactly Oxbridge or victor ludorum, well, they’ve got a soft spot for the old place. And they don’t like the way you used it as a venue for your weird little games.’

  ‘I’m going now.’ She snatched up her handbag and room key.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ Maxwell said loudly, fingering the nets again. ‘You see, I’m an ex-public schoolboy. Never been known to hit a woman in my life. Remember that immortal line from The Go Between? “Always remember it’s never a lady’s fault.” But the Hippos? Well, they’re chaps of an altogether different kidney. Wouldn’t know a Go-Between from a knuckle sandwich. Three tugs on this curtain and you’re history, Ms Meninger.’

  She turned to him, mouth open, silenced for the moment. ‘That’s preposterous,’ she said eventually. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  Maxwell shook his head. ‘Not a very good John McEnroe,’ he felt bound to comment.

  ‘I don’t respond to threats,’ she snapped.

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘How, I wonder, will you respond to this?’

  He pulled a folded scarred photograph from his jacket pocket and held it out to her. Hesitantly at first, she took it. ‘Well?’ she raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I supposed to know who this is?’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Maxwell said. ‘Do you remember Petrocelli?’

  ‘Who?’ Sally looked blank.

  ‘My, my.’ The Head of Sixth Form shook his head, ‘We are being economical with our age, aren’t we? Petrocelli was an American cop show of the seventies. Or, to be precise, a lawyer show. Barry Newman played him, a hick attorney building his own house in the middle of Nevada somewhere. Or was it New Mexico?’

  ‘Does this have any purpose?’ she sighed.

  ‘Indeed, indeed,’ he smiled. ‘Well, Petrocelli just happened to have a mind like a razor and his favourite phrase in court when he was getting to the truth and persuading the jury was “let me take you back”.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. So let me take you back, Ms Meninger, to a dim and distant night, Tuesday if memory serves. I’d gone into a local hostelry called the Vine to slake the chalk dust and drown my sorrows with a few colleagues. We were all feeling pretty got at – you know how Ofsted inspections can be, when who should walk in but a couple of those self-same inspectors. They looked to be all over each other in the most adolescent way, but on closer inspection (and you’ll excuse the pun) she was all over him. Does any of this seem familiar?’

  ‘I have to go,’ she spun on her heel.

  ‘I know what you did this summer,’ he shouted and it stopped her. Then, quieter, ‘I went to answer the call of nature and caught these same inspectors at it in the gents – not an edifying spectacle, but then it wasn’t supposed to be, was it? No sooner had the female of the pair emerged from the cubicle of shame, than that gentleman there whose photograph I notice you are still holding, entered stage left. Now,’ he got to his feet, ‘this is where I’ll admit to being just a teensy bit hazy, but you said something like “typical” or “fantastic” or something and vanished. I called him Joe Public. Now, I know his name was Craig Edwards. Well, you can’t win them all, can you?’

  ‘Look,’ she put the photograph down. ‘I know Alan and I behaved stupidly. I tried to apologize for that. I even, God help me, offered you money …’

  ‘Yes,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘You also tried to implicate my Headmaster, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘Oh, he’s not my idea of what a Headmaster should be. No fire in his eye, no steel in his stride, no gravel in his voice. But he’s a human being, Sally. He doesn’t deserve you.’

  ‘James and I …’

  ‘You see,’ it was his turn to interrupt. ‘You didn’t let me finish about Iron Man down there. Now, Iron’s not as other men – a few numbers short of a gig in some ways, but he doesn’t miss much. He saw you and Edwards going at it hammer and tongs in the Vine car park afterwards. He’d fouled up, hadn’t he? Got his times wrong or something. You had to rethink the whole thing.’

  ‘Max,’ she lean
ed towards him, licking her lips as though she were about to eat him, then smiling. ‘You’re talking bollocks.’

  ‘He’s dead, Sally,’ Maxwell told her.

  ‘What?’ she stood bolt upright as though he’d slapped her.

  ‘Craig Edwards, Joe Public, the man you harangued not a fortnight ago, is dead. Murdered.’

  Her face had drained of colour. ‘You’re lying,’ she blurted.

  ‘My God,’ he looked deep into her eyes. ‘You really didn’t know, did you?’

  She blinked, her lips suddenly parchment-dry, her throat tight in panic. ‘Um … Hall said there’d been another murder, on the day we left Leighford. But he didn’t say who and I didn’t make the connection.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘What happened?’

  Maxwell sat next to her. Instinctively, he fetched her a glass of water from the bathroom. He needed Jacquie more than ever now and not just as the companion of a mile. ‘I don’t know the details,’ he said. ‘But it’s the same MO as the others. Sally, when I came here this morning, I’d hoped to get the truth out of you. Except,’ he lapsed into his Jack Nicholson, ‘you couldn’t handle the truth.’ He eased the glass from the grip of her fingers. ‘For a while I thought you’d tried to seduce Whiting and he wasn’t having any. In a fit of pique you set the fire alarm and killed him. You could have bought the skewer in any High Street store – Skewers ‘R’ Us and so on – and hidden it in your handbag. True, you were with me when the alarm sounded, but it is possible you got some kid to do that for you or maybe even hapless, unsuspecting Paula Freeling. After that, I didn’t see you. I was too busy getting kids to move. You would have had time to double back, do the deed and join us all on the tennis courts before you were missed.’

  ‘For God’s sake …’ she muttered, eyes wild.

  ‘Then there was Paula. Did you know, like Bob Templeton, about the old duck’s little habits? Glitzy objects just stuck to her fingers, didn’t they? I’m sure she’d be all too ready to conspire with you with a little whistle-blowing threat from you. Had she rung the alarm for you and then realized why you’d asked her? Not to test the school’s fire drill efficiency, but as a cloak to kill Whiting? Or had she just got back too soon and caught you checking the scene of the crime? It would have been an easy matter to whisk her out of the Cunliffe that night and stash her somewhere. Now it would have got difficult, though. To find somewhere safe you’d need to have hired a lock-up and that’s not easy in a strange town without attracting too much attention. The boys in blue will have been house-to-house. They’d have turned over your stone.’