Maxwell's Mask

by M. J. Trow

  Wilkes straightened up, fumbled in the join of the curtains and hauled one of them back a little. ‘A ladder. Or more precisely, two of them. Only one, the longer one, actually hit him, but the police I spoke to thought the weight of the shorter had bought the longer down with it.’

  ‘They were…what? Free-standing?’ Maxwell was running his hand over the chains and padlocks that held the ladders in place.

  ‘Mr Maxwell,’ Wilkes said solemnly. ‘Back in my office I’ve got Health and Safety qualifications as long as your arm. All that’s hunky dory, but if people choose not to follow instructions…what can you do?’

  ‘And that’s what Gordon did?’ Maxwell checked. ‘Chose not to follow instructions?’

  ‘Must have,’ Wilkes shrugged. ‘When I came in to open up the next morning…’

  ‘The door was open?’

  ‘… No, locked. The point is that only one of the chains was in place. The other was dangling, the padlock lying on the ground. Gordon must have been using the others earlier and either forgot to re-padlock or was hit before he’d finished.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Maxwell wanted to know.

  ‘Called an ambulance,’ Wilkes told him. ‘Silly, really. It was an absolutely pointless thing to do. The paramedics were marvellous. Of course, by that time Gordon had been dead for at least ten hours. I blame myself entirely.’

  ‘No, no,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’m sure no one is pointing the finger at you.’

  ‘Who did Martita Winchcombe warn you against?’ the Theatre Manager asked.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ There was a change in the atmosphere at that moment, a certain coldness that Maxwell couldn’t quite explain.

  ‘Come off it, Mr Maxwell. I’ve been up front with you. How about a bit of honesty in exchange?’

  ‘Like what?’

  Wilkes squared to his man. This arrogant son-of-a-bitch needed taking down a couple of pegs. ‘Dan Bartlett told me she’d been talking to you on the night she died. What was all that about?’

  ‘That?’ Maxwell smiled. ‘That was our mutual fascination for Double Entry Bookkeeping.’

  It was already Saturday morning when DCI Henry Hall finally called it September 22. He let his specs fall to the paperwork cluttering his desk and rubbed his eyes. On the corner where his woodwork still showed through, a smiling family looked lovingly at him. His eldest boy was gone now, through the labyrinthine ways of life, a struggling lawyer. Little Greg was treading that thin line that separated the men from the boys they taught and was starting his PGCE course at Portsmouth. Jack was discovering that girls were rather more fun than football, especially in the back row of the Screen De Luxe. And Margaret? He broke the habit of a lifetime and smiled in the secrecy of his solitude as he looked at her loving face. She was Margaret. Let that be enough.

  ‘Guv?’

  The voice made him lose the smile and snap on the specs. It reminded Jane Blaisedell of the late Christopher Reeve playing Clark Kent. And Henry Hall, she mused, probably had as much to hide as the inept, awkward schmuck who was really Superman.

  ‘Jane?’ He peered over his rimless glasses to catch the face in the shadows beyond the desk-top. ‘Haven’t you got a home to go to?’

  ‘I’m on my way, guv. Just thought I’d fill you in on Anthony Wetta.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The lad with George Lemon in the break-in to the Winchcombe house.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Park yourself. What did you get?’

  She sat down opposite her boss, her neck aching from reading her VDU screen for what seemed like for ever. ‘The back door was open.’

  ‘Was it now?’

  ‘Our problem is we don’t know how meticulous the old girl was. Did she habitually leave the door open? Was this a one-off? Or did somebody have a key and forget to lock up after they killed her?’

  ‘What kind of person,’ Hall was talking to himself really, ‘goes to the lengths of stringing a wire or whatever across the stairs and then not only leaves Blu-Tack evidence behind, but ruins the whole accident effect by leaving the door open? Locking it then would have put us off the scent rather more. How did you get the lad to talk?’

  ‘Usual,’ she smiled. ‘Matches under the fingernails and twenty hours solid of past Eurovision Song Contest videos.’

  The levity was wasted on Hall.

  ‘We had a mutual exchange of views,’ Jane said, realising that flippancy was no way forward. ‘He’s going to be in and out of somebody else’s property all his life, but he’s no killer. He’s quite a nice kid, actually.’

  ‘No doubt that’s what the magistrate’s court’ll decide too, after the social reports and the school… Goes to Leighford High, doesn’t he?’

  ‘On and off,’ Jane told him. She’d seen the boy’s attendance record, those nasty little electronic printouts that Maxwell loved so much.

  ‘Do you happen to know,’ Hall asked, hiding, as always, behind the blankness of his lenses, ‘who his History teacher is?’

  ‘Mad Max!’ Jane Blaisedell called through her open window.

  The Great Man half turned, peering through the driving rain into the interior of the girl’s four-by-four. ‘Was I speeding, Woman Policeman?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no, sir.’ She did a pretty mean George Dixon for a female who wasn’t even a twinkle in her dad’s eye when that particular copper walked Dock Green. ‘As long as you’re pushing that thing, most of us are quite safe. ’Course, I’m not all that happy about your rear reflector.’

  ‘Nobody ever is,’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘It has, I have to admit, blighted my life.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Max, get in. Shove that rust heap in the back. You must be soaked.’

  ‘There, there,’ Maxwell stroked Surrey’s dripping framework as he hoisted the bike onto the rear seat. ‘The nasty lady didn’t mean it. You just lie there for a bit, get your breath back. We’ll have a nice cup of cocoa later.’ And he hopped in alongside Jane Blaisedell, Jacquie’s friend.

  ‘Mad as a tree.’ She shook her head as he fumbled for the seat belt.

  ‘Kind,’ muttered Maxwell, ‘kind. How goes it in the world of Mohocs, Coney Catchers and Cosh Boys, girl in blue?’

  She slammed the vehicle into gear. ‘I don’t know how Jacquie puts up with you,’ she said. ‘I’d have had you committed bloody years ago.’

  ‘Ah, but she can’t find the paperwork.’ Maxwell tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘How is that woman of yours?’ she asked, as they snarled towards the Flyover. ‘And how dare you stay out so late? Been on the tiles like that damned cat of yours?’

  ‘Do you know Mrs B?’ Maxwell asked her. ‘Does for me up at the school and at home now that the Mem can’t see her toes any more. She’s prone to asking me questions in batches. I answer in similar vein; so, here goes: Bonny as all get out. I got a puncture somewhere along Bracken Avenue. The only tiles I’ve ever been on are those in my own kitchen, thank you very much. And as for my cat, he has had no meaningful love life since 1996 when I shelled out a fortune to an overpaid veterinary surgeon to dampen his ardour somewhat, using two bricks. What’s the score on the Winchcombe murder?’

  She crashed her gears, whether by accident or design he couldn’t tell. Jacquie often did the same, but that was usually when he was getting to her and her composure was slipping. Jane Blaisedell was an altogether tougher proposition.

  ‘The DCI was asking after you tonight.’ She ignored his fishing expedition.

  ‘Really? Henry?’ Maxwell smiled in the darkness. ‘How sweet. Long time no see,’ he lied. ‘How is the old upholder of public morals?’

  ‘Infuriating as ever,’ Jane told him. ‘And what makes you think the Winchcombe death is murder? The Advertiser didn’t say so.’

  ‘The Advertiser didn’t say diddly squat,’ Maxwell said. ‘Because even an outrageous, muck-raking rag like that can’t print what you don’t tell them.’

  ‘I ask again,’ Jane said, drumming her fingers on the steering whe
el at the slowness of the traffic lights. ‘What makes you think the old girl was murdered?’ Jane Blaisedell’s middle name was persistence.

  ‘Call it…male intuition,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘Bollocks!’ Jane snorted. ‘I hope you’re not pestering Jacquie with all this.’

  ‘Now, would I?’ Maxwell spread his arms for agony and loss. She flashed him an old-fashioned look he pretended to miss in the bad light.

  ‘The DCI told me specifically not to talk to you,’ Jane said. ‘In fact, he went further. He said if I was to happen upon you with a puncture by the roadside, I was to drive my vehicle at and over you, reversing for good measure. I, of course, told him I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Really?’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘Why, pray, Woman Policeman?’

  ‘Because, beyond all the laws of reason and good taste, you’re shacked up with my bestest friend in all the world. And it wouldn’t be fair to her.’

  ‘You say the nicest things,’ he laughed.

  And then they were there, the four-by-four grumbling alongside the kerb at Columbine. ‘Get out,’ she said cheerily. ‘And don’t forget that thing in the back.’

  ‘Ssh, Surrey, ssh.’ Maxwell stroked the handlebars as he lifted the injured thing out of the back. He turned at the wound-down window. ‘Thanks a million, Jane.’

  ‘You’re welcome, you mad old bastard.’

  But his hand held the rising window. ‘We are talking murder, aren’t we?’

  Her face twisted into a smile. How long had Jacquie faced this? The disingenuous smile, those sad, gorgeous eyes? What, as Homer Simpson frequently asked rhetorically, are you going to do?

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she told him. ‘That we are.’ And he watched her tail-lights twinkle out of sight through the rain.

  She sat cross-legged in the blaze of candles in the otherwise darkened room. She breathed in the scent, the smoke and let her hands hang loose, upturned on her naked knees. There was a jolt. A bump. A scrape as though something heavy hit wooden floorboards and the candle flames guttered.

  There was a sigh, half human, half not. And a word. She listened carefully, cocking her head to one side, trying to catch it if it came again. It sounded like…but it couldn’t be…it sounded like ‘Murder’.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Well, Donald.’ Jim Astley hauled the green cap off his head and what was left of his hair sprang upwards. ‘Give me a masterclass in geriatric passing over.’

  The heavy rain had driven Astley off the golf course late that Saturday morning. Had it not been for the weather, the inside of Leighford General’s morgue would not have seen him in a month of Saturdays. As it was, no need to overtax himself. He was getting a bit long in the tooth for this job, rummaging about in dead people’s insides all day. At least, as some Roman had observed a long time ago, the dead don’t bite.

  ‘Run of the mill,’ his assistant said, checking his notes and the naked, operated-on body that lay before him. ‘Half the conditions known to man, anything from osteoporosis on down.’

  ‘Except?’ Astley sank into a chair, resting his glasses above his hairline.

  ‘Except this.’ Donald had been Astley’s mortuary assistant now for years. He was bright and efficient in a paramedic sort of way; simply couldn’t handle the pressure of being the man who made the decisions, called the shots. He was also the victim of too much linguine and found it a little difficult, if truth were told, to bend over bodies these days.

  ‘Go on.’ Astley was resting his head against the wall, his eyes closed, his still-gloved hands clasped in his lap. He wasn’t sleeping these nights. He and Mrs Astley hadn’t shared a bedroom for years, still less a bed. Even so, her nocturnal rambles kept him awake too often as she rummaged in the empties, engaging in wild, hooting conversations in which she revelled the night away with imaginary companions. The Romans had a name for that too – delirium tremens. He knew he should have her committed, but there was still a tiny remnant of compassion in Jim Astley and he couldn’t go through with it. The papers were in his study at home, second drawer on the left in his desk. One day…one day.

  ‘Cause of death is a dislocated vertebra,’ Donald said, looking again at the odd angle of the neck above Astley’s neat Y-shaped scalpel work.

  ‘Consistent with?’

  ‘Consistent with a fall,’ Donald said. ‘There are no contusions on the skin.’ He felt the scrawny neck with podgy, rubber fingers. ‘Nothing to suggest a scrap. No sign of fingermarks or ligature that might cause a break.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So…’ Donald checked his notes again, the mortal remains of Martita Winchcombe reflected in each of his glasses lenses, as if Nature had doubled death in some bizarre cloning experiment. ‘She fell down stairs.’

  ‘Bravo, Donald.’ Astley clapped his gloved hands with mocking softness. ‘Thank God for police reports, eh? Look at her ankles, man.’

  ‘Ankles?’ Donald was confused. He thought he was doing pretty well, really, all things considered. Violent death didn’t come his way often, not in sleepy Leighford. He didn’t want to be a full-blown pathologist, but he didn’t want to be found wanting either. ‘Ah.’

  ‘Are you on the Damascus Road yet, Donald?’ Astley asked. ‘Any blinding flashes of divine inspiration?’

  ‘Horizontal abrasions.’ Donald had indeed seen the light. ‘On both shins.’

  ‘From which you conclude?’

  Damn. Conclusions. Decisions. Not Donald’s forte. These were the moments he hated. ‘Tripwire?’ he ventured.

  ‘Bugger me sideways!’ Astley opened his eyes and Donald hoped that wasn’t an order. ‘Spot on. It’s in the police report, of course.’

  ‘It is?’ Donald blinked, riffling the pages on his clipboard. ‘Where?’

  ‘Here.’ Astley picked up the single sheet on his desk and waved it at him. ‘Well, you didn’t think I’d leave it there, did you? That would make life far too easy. I wanted you to work for your money today. Yes, it’s routine, all right.’ He crossed to the body and stood alongside Donald. ‘Routine murder. Some sharp-eyed SOCO noticed Blu-Tack on each side of the stairs. He guessed – rightly – that the Blu-Tack held wire, strung across said stairs. It was high enough that the old girl wasn’t likely to step over it and low enough for her not to notice it. You and I would have crashed through it, ripping it from the Blu-Tack, muttering something along the lines of “What the fuck was that?” and gone on our merry way. But Martita Winchcombe was seventy-nine and not that nimble on her pins. As you say – half the conditions known to man.’

  He smiled down at the peaceful, sleeping, grey face of the old lady, the top of her cranium missing. ‘So, whoever did this to you, Martita, old thing, knew quite a bit about you, didn’t they? They even wrapped you in a blanket. Why was that, I wonder? Did they think you’d catch cold? And they took away the wire, the murder weapon, but they left the Blu-Tack traces.’ And he broke into an old song totally unknown to Donald. ‘A set of stairs that bears some Blu-Tack traces.’ Yep, the old boy was losing it, all right.

  Astley straightened and looked at his oppo. ‘Know what Henry Hall’s looking for here, Donald?’

  The fat man had given his decision for the day. He’d roll over for this one. He shook his head.

  ‘A beginner,’ Astley told him. ‘A novice. Somebody who makes mistakes. And somebody with a peculiar streak of compassion that could land them in the slammer for the rest of their natural.’

  He looked up at the grey, frosted skylight overhead. ‘Clean up here, will you? I think the rain’s easing off.’

  ‘So what have we got?’ the DCI wanted to know. Still no Incident Room. Still a wish not to frighten the natives. No panic in the streets. While Jim Astley braved the dying drizzle to get to the golf course and Donald put Miss Winchcombe away before trotting round to KFC for a Bargain Bucket, Henry Hall was marshalling his troops in downtown Leighford, within a walk of the sea.

  ‘Murder, by person or persons unknown.’ DC Gavin Henslow chanced
his arm. Someone had to open the bidding. Gavin Henslow was actually a bright young copper, but like all bright young people in any walk of life, he came across as a pain in the arse. Everybody knew that Henry Hall was university, fast-track, smartarsed, but he was also the guv’nor and that made it different. Henslow was still wet behind the ears, the ink not dry on his warrant card. Nobody intended to make life easy for him.

  ‘All right, Gavin.’ Hall sat stolidly behind the front desk as his team had collected in front of him; all the usual suspects. ‘That’ll do for the coroner’s court. I think here at Leighford CID we need a little more.’

  ‘Suspect knows the victim.’ It was Jane Blaisedell’s turn. She sat in front of her VDU, her shoulders aching, her eyes feeling like gooseberries.

  ‘How do we know that?’ Hall was putting them through their paces.

  ‘No sign of a break-in,’ Giles Finch-Friezely came back, leaning forward in his chair, sipping a ghastly canteen coffee.

  ‘Not even when Batman and Robin tried to stage one.’

  A chuckle ran round the room. The Batman that was Anthony Wetta had been in and out of Interview Rooms various at the nick so often in the last few months, DS Bill Robbins had considered charging the little bastard rent. It was Robbins who held the floor now. ‘Where are we on prints, guv?’ Robbins was Tweedledum to Dave Walters’ Tweedledee. In a bad light they could have passed for brothers, except that Robbins wore the suit and Walters didn’t. They’d both cut their teeth back in the Miners’ Strike, when King Arthur took on Queen Margaret and the result had been a foregone conclusion. And they were both, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, looking forward to imminent retirement. You could do that in these great forty-three police services of ours. Life was a bitch, but they let you out early for good behaviour.

  ‘Giles?’ The guv’nor had been on advanced courses in deflection. There were times when the buck had to stop with him. Today was not one of them.

  ‘Well,’ he sighed. ‘That’s proving something of a long process, Sarge. We’ve eliminated the old lady’s, of course, and the lads who found her – although they seem to have remembered halfway through to put their gloves on. Apart from that, we’ve got butchers and bakers and candlestick makers. Apparently, Miss Winchcombe had a friend who shopped on line for her, so deliveries came to the house.’