by M. J. Trow
Jacquie nodded. ‘The dead of night.’
‘Exactly. The time when the teeniest problems seem huge. He’s as scared for me as he is for himself. We’ve talked to our GP, of course. The man’s useless. Wall-to-wall Valium isn’t the answer. Catching the killer is.’
Jacquie smiled. ‘I’m not sure your GP’s the right man for that job,’ she said. ‘Let us have a go.’
‘Us the police? Or us, you and Maxwell?’ Cissie asked.
Jacquie nodded, her face solemn now. ‘Perhaps a bit of both.’
It was late afternoon by the time Jacquie Carpenter got to Haslemere. Peter Maxwell could have told her that the town was mentioned in the Domesday Book and between 1582 and 1832 sent two members to Parliament. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, had died at Adworth House beyond the town’s fringes. Jacquie knew none of this. All she knew, as she crawled through the sluggish traffic in the High Street, was that Peter Maxwell had vanished.
‘Drinkie?’ It was an offer that Janet Muir made several times a day, if not to others, then at least to herself, via those scampering little demons in her brain. She looked rather a fright in her housecoat and turban.
‘It’s a bit early for me,’ Jacquie said, taking the proffered armchair.
‘Nonsense, my dear,’ Janet slurred. ‘There’s no such thing as too early. We’ve already talked to the police, you know.’ She was creating a very large gin and tonic in the open-plan kitchen. ‘I assume you are here in a professional capacity?’
Jacquie nodded. ‘Always. I’m looking for Peter Maxwell.’
‘Ah, yes. Your better half – or I expect he sees it that way.’
‘Not exactly.’ Jacquie found it difficult to keep her cool in this woman’s presence. What she really wanted to do was to tear her eyes out. ‘I understand he was here.’
‘Yes, he was.’
‘When?’
‘Oh, my dear.’ Janet winced as the juice of the juniper hit her tonsils. ‘Now you’ve asked me. One day is very like another, really, isn’t it?’
‘It is quite important,’ Jacquie insisted.
‘What?’ Janet, slurred as she was, could pick up another woman’s angst at the drop of an olive. ‘Afraid he’s run off with someone? He does have a certain twinkle, I suppose.’ She became wistful. ‘If you like that sort of thing.’
‘Could it have been Tuesday?’ Jacquie persisted.
‘It could have been Mardi bloody Gras.’ Janet rinsed her tonsils again. ‘No doubt Andrew would know.’
‘Is he here?’
‘Fuck knows. I heard him go out earlier. We lead very separate lives, he and I. He has his articles and what he still nostalgically calls Fleet Street; I have CHOOH. If I’m not stinking by lunch-time, I feel somehow unfulfilled.’
‘So you can’t tell me when Maxwell was here or when he left?’
‘I do remember the bat.’ Janet Muir was frowning, pointing at Jacquie with a long-nailed finger jutting out from the glass.
‘The bat?’
‘Maxwell was just leaving and I fell over it. Andrew had left the bloody thing lying in the hall. If I weren’t so rational, I might be tempted to think he was trying to do me in.’
‘Are you talking about a cricket bat?’
‘Part of Andrew’s obsession with yesteryear.’ Janet leaned towards her. ‘He’s made such a dog’s bollocks of his adult life, all he’s got is memories.’
‘Could I … see the bat?’ Jacquie asked.
‘See it?’ Janet frowned. ‘What the fuck for?’
‘Humour me,’ was the policewoman’s answer.
‘I haven’t the first idea where it is. I remember telling Andrew to move it.’
‘It might be evidence,’ Jacquie said.
‘Evidence?’ Janet hiccoughed. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Mrs Muir … Janet … I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the pathologists have found fibres in the hair of both dead men – Quentin and Bingham. Those fibres are wood and they come from the willow tree.’
There was a pause while Janet Muir stood swaying. ‘So?’
‘So, cricket bats are made from willow.’
Jacquie could see realization dawn on the woman’s face. Her reaction now could go either way. It would either be loyalty or …
‘The utter bastard!’ Janet spat the words and marched past Jacquie, her heels clacking on the polished parquet floor. She wobbled as she tried to round a tight bend in the hall, then there was a crash, followed by another. ‘Shit!’ Janet Muir was wrestling, as any woman must at various times in her life, with the contents of her understairs cupboard. Jacquie heard a door slam and a staccato thud as Janet took to the stairs.
‘Up here!’ she barked at Jacquie, and the policewoman instinctively obeyed, following the furious Janet up the staircase, first to one floor, then to the next. Mrs Muir kicked open a bedroom door and stood there, looking around in contempt. Then she crossed to a louvred wardrobe and wrenched open the door. She rifled through shirts hanging there, throwing trousers and shoes across the room.
‘Mrs Muir,’ Jacquie shouted above the row, but the woman wasn’t listening to the voice of reason. She spun round, an ancient cricket bat in her hand, new tape wound around its centre.
‘Here!’ she snarled. ‘The murder weapon.’
‘It seems to have been damaged,’ Jacquie noted calmly.
‘Doesn’t it?’ hissed Janet. ‘Let’s see what’s underneath. Splintered wood? Blood? Brains?’
But Jacquie stopped her, easing the bat from her grasp. ‘We have people,’ she said softly, ‘who will do that professionally. Can I take it away with me?’
Janet’s eyes were still flashing wildly and she was gnawing her lip. Then she took a deep breath and sat down on her husband’s bed. ‘He always hated Quentin, you know.’
Jacquie sat down alongside her. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said.
‘Oh, yes. You see, Andrew is a competitor, one who likes to win. That’s why he hates me. He never beats me, you see, not at anything. Quentin was the sporty one, captain of jolly old games and all that crap. I’ve lost count of the nights I’ve fallen asleep listening to Andrew’s pathetic venom.’
‘So you helped him?’ Jacquie asked.
‘What?’ Janet leaned back to get the younger woman into focus. ‘Are you mad?’
‘What sort of car do you drive, Janet?’
‘Car? A Peugeot. Why?’
‘What colour is it?’
Janet rose unsteadily. ‘What the fuck is this? Twenty bloody questions?’
‘As many as I need to ask.’ Jacquie’s voice was firm.
‘Green. Dark green. They used to call it bottle, I believe, but when applied to cars, I understand they call it racing.’
‘Is he a strong man, your husband?’
‘What are you talking about now?’
‘Janet.’ Jacquie stood up facing the woman. ‘Are you seriously telling me you think your husband killed Quentin and Bingham?’
‘You told me about the bat.’
‘That’s only a potential weapon,’ Jacquie said. ‘And we don’t yet know if it’s the one. I’m talking about motive. Did Andrew say he wanted revenge, wanted to call this reunion to get it?’
‘I don’t remember,’ Janet slurred.
‘Janet. This is vital.’
‘Look.’ Janet Muir stepped away from Jacquie, breaking free of her, standing on her own with her hands in the air, trying to hear through the clamouring voices in her head. ‘My husband is a bitter, vindictive man. He had a job in Fleet Street which he blew because he wasn’t up to it. He could have had the Mail, but he didn’t have the bottle. Time after time, the glittering prizes went somewhere else. And what does he do now? Turns out trash for small-time magazines at a thousand quid a throw. Yes, he hated George Quentin; Quentin who always outran him, outplayed him, out-teamed him. George Quentin, who could buy Andrew twenty times over.’
‘And you helped him?’
Janet swivelled round, staring at the
girl.. ‘You keep saying that. Why should I have helped him?’
‘It took two people,’ Jacquie said, ‘to hoist Quentin’s body on to that bell rope at Halliards. I’ve danced with your husband, Janet. Arnie Schwarzenegger he ain’t. I doubt he could have managed that alone.’
‘You’re right,’ Janet murmured. ‘That failure couldn’t do anything by himself. Look, do me a favour, will you? Just let me be there when you arrest him. It would make my day. What am I talking about? It would make my bloody year!’
She checked his home number for the umpteenth time as she drove north-east to join the artery of madness that is the M25. Her heart thumped as it always did when she heard his voice.
‘You’ve reached Peter Maxwell. I’m probably buried alive in essay-marking and lesson preparation. There again, I could be down the pub. Leave any message after the Blair and the cat’ll get back to you.’
Jacquie would have settled for that – Metternich’s rasping purr over the wires, to reassure her that something was normal in the world.
‘Max, it’s me. I’ve probably used up all your tape by now, judging by the bleeps, but for God’s sake, get back if you can. I’m on the mobile.’
His mobile was as dead as a doornail. ‘The Vodafone subscriber you are calling is not answering at the moment. Please try again later,’ an electronic voice told her. Why was it, in this age of instant communication, you couldn’t get hold of the one person you wanted to reach?
The rain set in as she reached the M4 interchange and turned due east, a steady rhythm hammering on the roof of her little car, the wipers humming like bees’ wings. So Richard Alphedge was falling apart with fear. That she’d seen before. And Cissie was doing her best to protect, to stay loyal. But what price loyalty in the Muir household? Janet seemed convinced that Stenhouse had done it and Jacquie had the possible murder weapon on the seat behind her to prove it. She’d waited as long as she dared at the Haslemere town house, but there was no sign of Andrew Muir and she couldn’t wait any longer. Who knew where Max was, what he was going through? And where was Muir? Would they find a neat pile of clothes on a shingle beach somewhere? Perhaps at Leighford? And would he become the next Lord Lucan, with a row of question marks where a murderer should be?
She rang the bell at the door of Flat 6 and a tall, sultry girl answered it in a long, white towelling robe.
‘Veronica?’
‘Jacquie? I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you with wet hair. Come in, you’re soaked.’
It was the huge nude which Jacquie saw first above the glow of the artificial coals. Uplighters added a dreamy sensuousness to the pastels of the walls and a gentle mood music flooded the apartment. Beyond the rainy tears on the picture window, the lights of west London twinkled in their neon orangeness.
‘Get those off.’ Veronica handed her a soft white towel. ‘You’ll catch your death.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Jacquie said. ‘Can I just drape my coat somewhere?’
‘Sure.’ Veronica took the jacket and disappeared. When she came back, there were Martinis in her hands. ‘Hair of the dog?’
Jacquie could actually have done with a cocoa, but from what she remembered of Veronica at Halliards, and looking at her now, she wasn’t sure she knew how to make it. She took the glass and sat on the vast cream settee next to the fire. ‘I’m looking for Max,’ she said.
‘Max?’ Veronica sipped her drink.
‘Has he been here?’
‘Yes … er … day before yesterday.’
‘Wednesday?’
‘That’s right. He wanted to talk to Ash, but Ash wasn’t here.’
‘What time was this?’
‘He called into the shop in the morning. I brought him back here for lunch.’
‘And what time did he leave?’
‘Oh, now you’re asking. Ten, eleven perhaps.’
‘That night?’
Veronica looked confused. ‘No, no, the next morning. Yesterday. Oh dear, this is awkward.’
‘What is?’ It was Jacquie’s turn to be confused.
‘Well, Max said you wouldn’t mind.’
‘Mind what?’
Veronica smiled and managed a short, brittle laugh. ‘Oh dear …’ and she glided away.
Jacquie was still turning round when the dark-haired girl came back into the room, carrying a small picture.
‘What do you think of this?’ Veronica asked.
At first, Jacquie wasn’t sure which way up it was. Then it dawned. Two naked women were entwined around each other, padlocks through their genitals and bandages around their eyes.
‘It’s the latest acquisition for the shop,’ Veronica told her. ‘A Michele Dennison. Paint on gouache. Isn’t it exquisite?’
‘I can think of a few of my colleagues who would call it filth,’ Jacquie said.
‘Men!’ Veronica snorted. ‘Oh, they have their place in the scheme of things. But there are times, Jacquie, when only another woman understands.’ She ran a long index finger around the curve of Jacquie’s cheek, sliding it down her neck towards the damp collar of her blouse. ‘Don’t you agree?’
Jacquie kept to the point. ‘I am looking for Max.’
Veronica let the painting fall on to the settee, opened her bathrobe and straddled the girl with her naked thighs. ‘Have you ever made love to another girl, Jacquie?’
Jacquie had moved faster in her life, but she couldn’t really remember when. She threw the taller girl aside and stood on the fur rug, quivering with fury. ‘No, I haven’t. And I don’t intend to start now. Where was Max going when he left here?’
Veronica smiled, closing her bathrobe. ‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ she purred. ‘Max found it … shall we say … congenial.’
Jacquie looked hard at the siren on the settee. ‘You’re saying you slept with Max?’
Veronica nodded. ‘Slept with implies a bed, doesn’t it? Well then, yes, I slept with him, in the king-size next door. We had our first fuck, though, in my Audi in the carpark.’
‘Give it up, Veronica.’
Both girls started at the sound of a male voice. David Asheton stood on the raised area that led to the bedrooms, wearing a towelling robe identical to Veronica’s.
‘Ah.’ Veronica recovered her Martini from the coffee table. ‘The green-eyed, limp-dicked monster.’
Asheton stormed across the lounge and poured himself a drink. ‘What are you doing here, Jacquie?’
‘Looking for Max,’ she told him, wondering when it would be his turn to open the robe.
‘He’s not here.’
‘Clearly. Where did he go?’
‘To see the Preacher, I think. Why?’
‘He hasn’t been in touch. Where’s my coat?’
Asheton glanced across at the lovely girl on the settee. Then he glanced at Jacquie. ‘You don’t need to go yet, surely?’
Jacquie looked at them both, the sad old lecher and his weird mistress. ‘There’s nothing to keep me here,’ she said.
‘Oh, but there is.’ Veronica got to her feet and sauntered across to the drinks cabinet, hips swaying provocatively as she moved. ‘Something you ought to know about the Preacher.’
‘What about him?’
‘He came to my room.’ She glanced at Asheton. ‘Our room, at the Graveney, that Friday night.’
‘What for?’ Jacquie asked.
Veronica arched an eyebrow, as though to have to say it was beneath contempt.
‘Is this relevant?’ Jacquie was looking around for signs of her coat.
‘We went to Halliards.’
Jacquie’s attention was fixed on Veronica now. ‘Why?’
Veronica took a sip of the freshened Martini. ‘He said he hated the place. He’d always loathed his schooldays. Ash, Bingham, Alphedge, Max – he hated them all. Especially Max. He particularly despised Max. He didn’t say why. He told me he wanted to make out – such a quaint, colonial expression that, isn’t it? He wanted to make out on the chapel altar. Someth
ing to do with showing his disgust at the hypocrisy of the place.’
‘Ash.’ Jacquie looked at him. ‘Is this true?’
Asheton shrugged. ‘Am I my concubine’s keeper?’ he asked. ‘I’d had a skinful that night and I sleep the sleep of the dead. It’s possible.’
‘Possible! You dickweed!’ Veronica snarled at him, then crossed to Jacquie. ‘Max was good,’ she smiled at the girl, ‘but the Preacher was better. It gave me the creeps at first, breaking into that place at night. Later on, though, when the Preacher got going, I didn’t give it a second thought. I went to a snobby school too. It gave us both a kick to do it there. Almost as if … all the old gels from Roedean and the old boys from Halliards were watching us.’ She laughed. ‘You should try it some time.’
‘You broke into the chapel?’ Jacquie asked her.
Veronica nodded. ‘Mm-hmm.’
‘That’s odd,’ Jacquie said. ‘When I passed that way the next morning, when I got Max’s call about finding the body, the chapel door was padlocked. I don’t remember any sign of a break-in.’
Veronica shrugged. ‘Figure of speech. Obviously the Preacher had a key.’
Jacquie stormed across the carpet and turned the corner that led to the stairs. Her coat hung there, still wet, on a hook.
‘Jacquie, you can’t leave yet,’ Asheton was saying. ‘It’s a filthy night out there.’
Jacquie looked at them both, her Puritan hackles suddenly rising. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But it’s not as filthy as the lies in here.’
12
The rain had set in by the time Jacquie Carpenter had reached the Lodge. It had taken her the best part of an hour to find it – a large, rambling building set back from the road and guarded by ancient rhododendrons whose dark leaves dripped silver droplets in the dark.
She’d asked directions at an all-night service station and had used the opportunity to try Maxwell again. Nothing. Just his warm, comforting voice and the ever-growing number of electronic bleeps.
She stood now on the porch, grateful for the overhang of the gable above her, but not exactly ecstatic about the blinding glare of the security light that bathed her.
