Maxwell's Mask

by M. J. Trow

  ‘Good lad.’

  Collinson led him into the newer part of the theatre. Maxwell had seen the odd production at the Arquebus. He’d been dragged, against his will, to see The Boyfriend and had nodded off in Death of a Salesman. He’d left A Streetcar Named Desire at half time; they were showing The Quatermass Experiment on the telly and he’d forgotten to set his timer; a man had his standards, when all is said and done. But this was a part of the building he’d never seen before. Some schizophrenic architect had had a field day with the Arquebus. The stage, auditorium and foyer were pure Grand Guignol, with a proscenium more arch than Eddie Izzard. But the Green Room, rehearsal units and offices were Nineties Noir, all harsh light, dark brickwork and stark angles. Bewildering.

  ‘Take a pew, Mr Maxwell. May I call you Peter?’

  ‘Max will do.’

  ‘Max it is.’

  The door swung open behind them. ‘Well, well.’ Collinson’s beam froze like a rictus. ‘Dan Bartlett. Artistic Director. This is Peter Maxwell.’

  In a weaker light, Dan Bartlett could have passed for a rather seedy Bill Nighy. His dark hair hung floppily over his forehead and ears and he wore a long coat over a crisp white shirt and a pair of leather trousers. His skin was the colour of David Dickinson and you just knew the tan was courtesy of the sunbed at Chez Paul, the beauty parlour in Wellington Road. He had an empty pizza box under his arm.

  ‘From Leighford High.’ Maxwell shook the man’s hand.

  ‘You’re working on this disaster, are you?’ Bartlett asked. Emerging into the light, he looked like Nosferatu.

  ‘Not that bad, surely?’ Maxwell tried to lighten the moment.

  ‘If you’ve only just joined, then you’ll find out soon enough. What time is this thing likely to wind up, Patrick? I’ve another engagement.’

  ‘How long is a piece of string, old boy.’ Collinson was hunting in MFI-fronted cupboards, looking for coffee. ‘I thought Ashley was going to lay all the refreshments out.’ He raised his eyes heavenwards and tutted. ‘You just can’t get the staff. Same for you, I expect, Max, at the High School?’

  ‘Don’t get me started on that one.’

  ‘Christ, it’s pissing down.’ Another new arrival crashed his way into the boardroom. This man was about a thousand years younger than anyone Maxwell had met so far. His thick thatch of hair curled over his upright collar and he dripped onto the cord carpet. There was a hint of corpulence about the man, although he was wrapped against the elements and it was difficult to tell.

  ‘Ashley,’ Collinson put out another cup. ‘We’re honoured. This is Peter Maxwell, overseeing Leighford’s production. Our theatre manager, Ashley Wilkes.’

  ‘Ashley…?’ Maxwell paused before he took the man’s hand.

  ‘Yes, I know.’ The Theatre Manager raised his head in an acknowledgement born of years of resentment. ‘My mother had this thing for Leslie Howard. Please don’t tell me you’re a film buff, Mr Maxwell.’

  ‘I dabble,’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘And don’t worry. My mother was frightened by the burning of Atlanta while she was carrying me. Just as well, or I’d have been called Vivien.’

  ‘Matilda, darling!’ Bartlett was on his feet, all gush and concern, like Old Faithful. Everybody who had found a seat was on their feet, standing awkwardly as though at a wake. Matilda Goodacre was as statuesque as Maxwell remembered her from her Maastricht days. The years had been kind – she clearly had a self-portrait in the attic – and the rain appeared not to have touched her at all.

  ‘Daniel.’ She was all ice, from the purse of her lips to the tips of her shoes. He kissed the air somewhere near her cheek in time-honoured theatrical tradition.

  ‘How are you, m’dear?’ Collinson fussed, helping her off with her coat and looking the epitome of concern.

  ‘About the same as last night, Patrick.’ She accepted the chair young Ashley had slid back for her. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Peter Maxwell.’ He held out his hand. ‘From Leighford High.’

  ‘Ah, yes, you’re with the schoolchildren, aren’t you?’

  It had been Maxwell’s lot for rather a long time now. ‘Please accept my condolences, Mrs Goodacre,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Maxwell.’ She wriggled to accommodate her ample self in the steel-framed chair. Usually at committee meetings she spent the first ten minutes complaining loudly about the monstrosities of modern living; but tonight it seemed less than appropriate. ‘And I do appreciate it. Now, listen to me, all of you.’ She clasped her expression-filled hands in front of her and waited for their full attention. Even in grief – especially in grief – Matilda Goodacre loved to be centre stage. ‘I am touched by your concern, and I realise how awkward all this is. Last Thursday night, in what we can only call an Act of God, my darling husband…’ her voice caught for a moment as she made her way, like a spoon through treacle, through what was clearly a well-rehearsed speech, ‘…my darling husband, Gordon, met his untimely end. It is, of course, tragic, and I alone must come to terms with it as best I can. But Gordon would not want us sitting here, moping. The Arquebus was his life – as it is mine.’

  ‘Hear, hear’s rumbled through the room.

  ‘He would want us to carry on,’ Matilda carried on. ‘Hence tonight’s little get-together. I am glad you are here, Mr Maxwell. You represent the future.’

  This was a first. To most people, Maxwell represented the past.

  ‘We all look forward to the Little Shop of Horrors. And after that Ernie Ferguson is giving us his Everything in the Garden.’

  ‘Jesus!’ The heartfelt moan came from Dan Bartlett, but everyone else ignored him.

  ‘So!’ Matilda Goodacre straightened her megalithic shoulders. ‘Patrick. Do we have an agenda?’

  ‘Indeed, Matilda,’ and Collinson broke off his coffee-making duties to lay a sheaf of papers before each of them, Maxwell excepted.

  ‘Do we have a Treasurer tonight?’ Madame Chairman asked.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ Collinson sighed. ‘Yes, Martita’s here somewhere. You know what she’s like.’

  Matilda waved the air with all the grace of somebody or other’s last Duchess. ‘We’ll fill her in later. Feel free to chip in, Mr Maxwell, as we go. Any apologies – other than Gordon’s, of course.’

  For the next hour and a half, Peter Maxwell learned anew why they called such places board-rooms. After this, he vowed he’d never snore in a staff meeting again and the games of Bollocks Bingo he’d initiated so often were now strictly reserved for addresses by the Chairman of Governors. So it was with an air of immense gratitude that he said his goodnights and shuffled downstairs to the foyer, grateful to feel his feet again and longing for the wind in his face.

  ‘Psst!’ Noises stage left. Maxwell halted on his way down the plush corridor.

  ‘Miss Winchcombe?’ he peered at the wizened face half hidden in the shadows.

  ‘It’s Mr Maxwell, isn’t it?’ she said, frowning at him and glancing left and right in quick succession.

  ‘It is,’ he nodded, secretly grateful for the reminder.

  ‘I misheard earlier.’ She huddled him into a confined space behind a pillar, for all the world as if they were playing sardines. ‘But now it all fits into place. You’re the teacher who solves murders, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well…it’s never really been put quite like that…’

  ‘I’ve seen you in the paper. In the Leighford Advertiser. You’re a sort of Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you? A consulting detective.’

  ‘Miss Winchcombe,’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘You mustn’t believe all you read in the papers, especially…’

  ‘Mr Maxwell,’ she said solemnly. ‘Gordon Goodacre didn’t die in an accident. Someone killed him. Deliberately, I mean.’

  ‘Martita!’

  They both froze at the sound of her name.

  ‘There you are.’ Dan Bartlett flashed into the half-light, peering around the pillar. ‘We’ve been looking for you. Come along, Matilda and Patrick need your
Treasurer’s Report.’ He checked his watch. ‘Treasurer’s Reports are always delivered at eight-thirty, you know that,’ he said patronisingly. He took the old lady firmly by the elbow, then half turned. ‘Sorry about that, Mr Maxwell,’ he whispered. ‘Few accounts short of a ledger, I’m afraid. Good luck with that…effort you’re doing.’

  And Maxwell forced open the front door of the theatre, glad for the sting of the rain and the comforting ridge of White Surrey’s saddle under his buttocks. Miss Winchcombe might not know the difference between a raven and a writing desk, but he did…didn’t he?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Murder, she said.’

  ‘Max, you’ve been wrestling with this all night; give it a rest.’

  He was actually wrestling with his bow tie at that hour of the morning, a half-eaten round of toast left languishing on a surface he couldn’t quite call to mind.

  ‘What did Jane Blaisedell say again – about Gordon Goodacre, I mean?’

  It was morning in the Maxwell household, in a little town house on a quiet estate on the edge of a sleepy seaside town on the south coast. A teacher and his partner were talking about killing again. Nothing odd about that.

  Jacquie sighed and passed him his cycle clips, undress, officers for the use of. ‘It was just a freak accident, that was all. These things happen.’

  Maxwell looked at the pregnant woman who shared his house, his thoughts, his life. Her he trusted; her he loved. Jane Blaisedell? Well, Jane Blaisedell was another kettle of fish altogether. Maxwell would die rather than admit it, but Jacquie’s bestest new friend in all the world was just a little on the limited side. And she had an edge about her that he didn’t altogether like. ‘I suppose they do,’ he sighed in retaliation.

  He snapped on the cycle clips over the turn-ups of his countryman’s trousers, hauled the bright Jesus scarf around his neck and took a final slurp of coffee.

  ‘Toast?’ she reminded him.

  ‘Of course.’ He clicked his fingers and drew himself to attention, raising his cup aloft. ‘How remiss of me. To the prince over the water.’ It was an immaculate John Laurie for all the sun was still struggling over the yardarm and Maxwell hadn’t finished gargling yet. ‘Don’t wait up, heart.’

  ‘Max, what time will you be home, for God’s sake? It’s Tuesday.’ Even a non-teacher knew that schools didn’t have meetings on Tuesdays. There were very strict professional association rules about that.

  ‘So it is. Half past four of the clock, with a prevailing wind.’

  She waddled closer to him, planting a kiss on the end of his nose. ‘You have a nice day, you mad old buffer.’

  ‘I’ll give it my best shot,’ he smiled, cradling her cheeks in both hands. ‘Oh, darling. Could you drop my green trousers in to the dry cleaners? Oh, and put that ad in the Advertiser, there’s a good girl. Oh, no chance of paella tonight, I suppose? And for God’s sake take it easy – you’re expecting, remember.’

  ‘Yes.’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘It’s called working for two. On yer bike, Peter Maxwell.’

  But Peter Maxwell didn’t get on his bike. Not quite then. Because, having checked the mail for little tiny bills and realising yet again that he wasn’t earning enough, he wheeled Surrey to the verge of Columbine and who should be inspecting her Michaelmas daisies there but the redoubtable neighbour whom Peter Maxwell loved as himself – well, nearly.

  ‘Mrs Troubridge.’ He raised his battered hat.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Maxwell.’ The old girl waved her Speedy Weedy at him. ‘Isn’t this glorious after all that rain?’

  Indeed it was. If wheezy young John Keats had wanted a better morning to fire off his mellow fruitfulness line, he couldn’t have found one. The last wasps of the summer that had died droned in the privet, looking for one last kill before autumn claimed them; miserable, psychotic bastards. Across the grass that rolled away from Columbine to the Flyover and the sea, a thousand spiders had woven their gossamer carpet and it shimmered like so much silver in the pale morning sun.

  ‘Heavenly,’ he said, propping himself against Surrey’s crossbar. ‘I believe I met a friend of yours last night,’ he fished.

  ‘Really?’ Most of Mrs Troubridge’s friends were no longer of this world, it had to be said.

  ‘Martita Winchcombe.’

  Mrs Troubridge’s face fell. ‘Oh. Her.’

  Maxwell was good at body language. The fact that his neighbour had just hacked off a late rose with her hook-billed pruner was perhaps a slightly less challenging message than usual.

  ‘Not a friend, then?’

  ‘Martita Winchcombe and I have not spoken since the January of 1946. I’d rather not go into details, Mr Maxwell; let’s just say it involved Mr Troubridge and a loose Venetian blind. I don’t think I need say more.’

  ‘Er…indeed not, Mrs Troubridge. That pretty well sums it up, I feel sure. It’s just that…well, in the light of what you’ve told me, I suspect that my next question will be a little redundant.’

  ‘Question?’

  ‘Well, would you say,’ Maxwell was choosing his words carefully, ‘that Miss Winchcombe’s judgement is sound?’

  ‘Redundant because we haven’t spoken in sixty years? Yes, I can see your point. However,’ the old girl folded her pruner with a finality that was awful, ‘Martita Winchcombe was mad as a tree when she was twenty. What she must be like now, I can’t begin to imagine. Mr Maxwell, did she tell you she was a friend of mine?’

  ‘Not in as many words, no. I just assumed, you and she being of an age…’

  ‘How dare you!’ Mrs Troubridge bridled. ‘Martita Winchcombe is three years my senior. Surely that must be obvious, even…’ she pulled herself up to her full five feet one, ‘to a man.’

  ‘Of course,’ Maxwell frowned. ‘It was very bad light in the Arquebus.’

  ‘Oh, she’s still there, is she? Interfering busybody. Oh,’ she lightened. ‘Do forgive me, Mr Maxwell. You’ve pressed the wrong button, I fear, this morning.’

  ‘My mistake, Mrs Troubridge.’ He doffed his hat again. ‘Well, I must away and make the lives of a lot of children really wretched.’

  ‘Jolly good!’ she smiled beatifically, a boon as she was to denture manufacturers.

  And he swung into the saddle of Surrey and was gone, pedalling like a thing possessed, his wild scarf flung behind him.

  The day named after the great god Tiw had not gone well. An over-reacting Bernard Ryan, Deputy Headteacher without portfolio, or aptitude or talent, had called the police to a Year Nine cat fight. It was all claws and handbags and in the good old days a single cuff round the ear would have settled it. Maxwell had been at a Curriculum Managers’ meeting all morning and by half-ten had lost the will to live; and he still had the pleasure of Deena Harrison later that evening.

  He sat for a moment in the relative quiet of his office in the Sixth Form Block, watching the dust gathering on his spider plant and fitfully dozing with a cup of coffee perched on his chest. From the walls around him, those he had loved looked fondly down. Marlene Dietrich was showing him her frillies in The Blue Angel; Mary Astor was proving she had White Shoulders; the bell was clearly tolling, not for Maxwell, but for Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman; and just to remind him of his day job, a kid with a red face and terrifying white eyes was one of the Children of the Damned. How well he knew them.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Maxwell.’ The door crashed back and an apparition in a green overall stood there, fag in one hand, the invention of the late head of the FBI in the other. ‘Only if I don’t do you now, that bloody supervisor’ll be on my back again. Bosses, eh? Ain’t they the bane of yer bleedin’ life? How’s that young lady of yours? Any day now, ain’t it? Must get on.’ And the hoover roared into life as Maxwell meticulously answered her questions one by one. He hadn’t actually realised that Mrs B had the hots for him and that she was driven by lust as well as duty; or that she engaged in exotic Eastern sex with her line manager in the cleaning department.

  ‘Tch
a!’ he snorted. ‘Indeed they are. She’s fine, thanks, Mrs B. November, actually. Yes, I’m sure you must. No rest for the wicked.’

  But Mrs B was already well into her rendition of extracts from Les Mis and, what with the hoover, didn’t hear a word of it. He was on his way to rinse his cup when he all but collided with a girl in the corridor.

  ‘Deena?’

  ‘Mr Maxwell.’ The hair was different. Frizzed rather than straight. As if she had just stepped from the shower. She’d lost a few pounds too, although it wasn’t in Peter Maxwell’s nature to stare too long and hard at the nubile bodies of his ex-students. Not, anyway, when somebody might be looking. She held out a firm hand to grip his. ‘Mr Diamond told me you’d be working with me.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased,’ she beamed, her dark eyes as bright as he remembered them. ‘It’ll be like old times.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I’ll be so grateful to learn from you.’

  He laughed. ‘My dear girl. A-level History was a long time ago. You’re a red carnation woman now, unless I miss my guess.’

  ‘A red…oh, yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘As I understand it,’ Maxwell swept on, ‘you’re in the driving seat now. I’m just tagging along for legal reasons.’

  ‘Now, now.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘I’ve heard things about you.’

  ‘Ah, none of those are true,’ Maxwell assured her. ‘I’ve burned all the negatives.’

  ‘Your Cyrano,’ she said. ‘Not a dry eye in the house.’

  ‘My Cyrano?’ he repeated. ‘You weren’t a twinkle in your father’s eye when I did that.’

  ‘It’s in the blood,’ she assured him. ‘Like falling off a bike. You never forget.’

  There was rather an over-richness of metaphor there for Maxwell’s taste, but then, the girl had gone to Oxford; you couldn’t expect too much.

  ‘I just popped in to apologise for last night. The last-minute rehearsal cancellation, I mean. The Arquebus big-wigs had some sort of committee meeting and I didn’t have a chance to get a message to you.’