Maxwell's Academy

by M. J. Trow

  ‘When do I get to see my girls?’ MacBride countered.

  ‘As soon as possible, sir,’ Shopley told him. ‘This won’t take long.’

  ‘Er,’ Geoff MacBride was trying to concentrate, clear his mind of the demons crowded into it. ‘I don’t know. Eight? Seven? Last night, not late – that’s as accurate as I can be. It was just an ordinary evening. I didn’t know ...’

  Shopley ignored the potential histrionics. ‘Where was this, sir?’ he started scribbling.

  ‘At home, of course.’

  ‘Did you go out, sir?’

  ‘Out?’ MacBride was tapping his finger on the polystyrene cup, watching the ripples on the greasy surface of the tea as though the answer lay there. ‘Um, yes. Yes. I went for a drive.’ He had come close to spilling his guts to that rather lovely DI, but he had himself a little more in hand now. This guy didn’t look the type to understand that a man’s wife didn’t understand him. Judging by his clothes, rumpled and lived in, he didn’t even have a wife, let alone an extra-mural sex life of Byzantine complexity.

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you often do that, sir?’

  MacBride felt the red mist rising. Every question this shaven-headed shit asked him was like a needle in his testicles. Christ, he realized as his skin crawled, he thinks I killed her. ‘No.’ The distraught widower was trying to keep it all together but everything was unravelling fast. His old granny used to recite some guff about when first we practice to deceive – well, he thought he had had plenty of practice, but he was making a right hash of this, he knew it in his bones. ‘No, I had a new Captur,’ – how he wished he hadn’t chosen that model out of the many in his head. A psychologist would make hay with that – ‘I needed to try out.’

  ‘At night, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ MacBride shouted, suddenly tired of the Torquemada thing. ‘Checking the lights, the performance in frosty conditions. It’s just a little extra service I give my clients.’

  Shopley nodded. ‘I’m sure they appreciate it, sir,’ he smiled. ‘Tell me, was your wife going out too? As far as you know?’

  ‘She didn’t say so,’ MacBride told him.

  ‘Perhaps she went to the showroom to meet you,’ Shopley suggested. ‘When you took the car back.’

  MacBride was silent and Shopley made a note.

  ‘So,’ the DS filled the gap in the conversation, ‘you expected to find her at home when you got back?’

  Geoffrey MacBride was a far from stupid man. Sergeant Shopley was digging a big hole for him to fall into.

  ‘Ordinarily, yes, but I didn’t go home. I went for a drink.’

  ‘Where was that, sir?’ Shopley sat poised, pen in hand.

  ‘The Ellisdon.’

  ‘Ah,’ Shopley nodded. ‘The new hotel, overlooking the Dam. Very nice.’

  ‘Yes.’ MacBride’s mind was racing. ‘Yes. I got talking to some people. Had a couple too many; you know how it is. A few years ago, I’d have risked it. But these days ... well, you boys in blue; CCTV. Can’t be too careful.’

  ‘No, indeed, sir. Er ... these people you met at the Ellisdon, could you give me their names, please?’

  ‘Oh, God.’ MacBride took a swig of tea, as classic a case of displacement activity as Shopley had ever seen. ‘Um, now you’ve asked me. I didn’t know them. One of them was Alan, I think. The other ... no, it’s gone.’

  ‘Locals, were they?’

  ‘No,’ MacBride shook his head, then realised he was being too emphatic and stopped abruptly. ‘No, reps. Moved on by now, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Shopley said, with another of his disconcerting smiles. ‘No doubt they will be in the hotel register. What room were you in, sir? Just for the record, you know.’

  MacBride had no option but to throw his toys out of the pram. He was so far in the shit now that a tantrum was his only recourse. This hatchet faced idiot was not an idiot at all – in fact, as he looked into the DS’s eyes, he saw contempt there and he just lost it. In his panic, he almost sounded sincere. ‘Look here, sergeant,’ he blustered. ‘Enough is enough. I don’t understand why I am being treated like some kind of criminal here, just because I had a few drinks with some strangers.’ Was it his imagination, or did Shopley’s eyebrow raise just a tad? ‘My wife is dead. My girls must be distraught. I must get home.’ He got up, knocking the table so the tepid tea spilled over and ran over the edge and on to his trousers. ‘I must go home.’

  Shopley skilfully avoided the spilt tea and closed his notebook carefully. ‘Yes, sir, of course.’ He opened the door and called to a passing policeman. ‘Constable, show Mr MacBride to the car park, will you?’ He turned to the car salesman. ‘A car is waiting for you, sir. We’ll be in touch.’

  MacBride’s smile was little more than a grimace. Rick Shopley leaned against the wall and watched him go, then opened his notebook again. This was not the one he used in court, not the one he left out on his desk. This was the one he used to jot down what was really going on. And he smiled as he clicked his biro and wrote – ‘guilty as fuck.’

  Chapter Eight

  T

  hat February Tuesday was treating no one very well. Maxwell simmered through the rest of the day planning, as were many of the staff, to boycott the daily meeting called by Fiona Braymarr. James Diamond had not even returned to the building after his day of looking around the other schools. Long, long ago he had decided that he was not really cut out for teaching five year olds. He had never understood the paroxysms of delight some of his colleagues went into when speaking of their enthusiasm, their eagerness to learn, the sheer joy of being in a room with thirty wriggling, weeing, snot-streaked kids at once. So he had not had a great day.

  Bernard Ryan had had a much better day. He had spent most of it at home, having pleaded the headaches before morning break. The only one of the SLT left standing was poor beleaguered Jane Taylor, who really did have a headache, but hadn’t been as fast as Ryan when it came to skiving off. Amongst the rest of the staff, panic, bloody-mindedness and insane levels of stress spun their toxic web and tangled them in it.

  Watching from his balcony, Maxwell could almost smell the fear. Had the staff been a herd of wildebeest, Fiona Braymarr was the lioness, stalking them through the grasses of the Serengeti. Maxwell had just reached the point of decorating the scene with a whispering David Attenborough when his phone rang in his office, he answered it with less than his usual elan. ‘Maxwell.’

  ‘Max?’ Jacquie was immediately on edge. Where was Mr Burns’ ‘Ahoy ahoy’? What about ‘War Office’? ‘Are you all right? Is someone with you?’

  ‘Yes, I’m all right. No, not a soul is here. And I mean that literally. And as you know, when I say literally, it is literally true.’

  ‘As long as ...’

  ‘Can I tell you about this when we get home? We’ve been Braymarred. If there isn’t such a word, there should be. I’m sure it will be in the Oxford Inconcise by the next edition. How are you? It’s nice to hear a human voice.’

  ‘As bad as that? My day is not going too well, but at least I haven’t been Braymarred. We will need you this afternoon, if you can manage it. Tommy Bromley’s dad still hasn’t turned up and we’ll need to get him sorted. As his appropriate adult last night, some continuity would be good. But only if ...’

  ‘I’ll come now, if you want me to.’

  ‘Ah. Well, around three would be early enough. But now would be better, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Better put it in writing, but I am on my way. How’s Tommy?’

  ‘Still saying it’s all his fault.’

  ‘And how is Mr MacBride? The girls aren’t in today; I checked.’

  ‘Max, we’ll have you wearing Sylv’s uniform as soon as you like. You may have missed your calling.’

  His chuckle made her feel a bit better. She worried when he was down. ‘Second nature, woman policeman, second nature.’

  ‘He went home.
He told a complete tarradiddle when it came to his movements and the man is as slimy a git as you would meet in a long march, but even so, I don’t see him doing it. He might talk her off a balcony, but I can't picture him doing any shoving. And anyway ...’ in the distance, Maxwell could hear a door opening and a voice, but not the words. ‘Anyway, it’s not always easy to make a hair appointment when I’m so busy, so if I could ring you back?’

  ‘Yes, modom,’ Maxwell said. ‘We’ll soon have those roots up to snuff. See you soon.’

  But she had gone.

  Jacquie turned to face her visitor. It was only Henry; she needn’t have prevaricated on the phone. Time was, you could almost get Henry Hall riled – but not quite – by letting him know that Maxwell was on the case, but not now. Not only had Henry mellowed over the years, but Maxwell had been right too often to be ignored.

  ‘Have you got a minute, Jacquie?’ he asked. ‘We’ll be having a meeting about this MacBride business shortly and a press conference this afternoon. We’ve already got twitterings from above. The man is too high-profile to ignore but not high-profile enough to be able to farm the investigation out, worse luck. I’ve got Jim Astley’s preliminary report here. Can you give it a quick once-over and then do me a précis? I’m up to my eyes with this poor kid who’s stabbed his mother. Hetty is in bits, to add to my woes.’

  Jacquie took the file and opened it, to show willing, but she needed to put the record straight. ‘Max doesn’t think ... I don’t think that Tommy killed his mother.’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ Henry said. ‘A Leighford High kid.’

  ‘Not one of His Own, though,’ Jacquie said. ‘He hadn’t really met him until yesterday. It’s just his teacher’s nose. And my cop’s nose, come to that. And don’t forget Hetty.’

  ‘They were on their own in the house,’ Henry began.

  ‘Exactly. So, where is the dad? And who made the call?’

  ‘We haven’t found the dad. And it was the boy who made the call.’

  ‘There you are, then.’ She swivelled her chair back to face the desk. ‘He didn’t do it. The dad did it. Now, I’ll just flick through this and send you an email. When’s the meeting?’

  Hall looked at his watch, then at the clock above the door. Ever since Jacquie had known him he had done that. Belt and braces. Good old Henry. ‘In an hour. I’ll give you a ring just before.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jacquie felt sorry for him. He had a cold – or flu as he would insist – and his sister was giving him grief. He had two murders in one night. Leighford was not always the quiet backwater it seemed on the surface, but two was pushing it, even so. She focussed on the file. It was typed by Donald, she could tell, judging by the rather exotic spelling and sentence construction, but it seemed straightforward enough. Head injuries. Anti-depressive drugs in system, consistent with prescribed dose. History of suicidal thoughts ... cleaned fingernails. What on earth did that mean? She thought for a moment and then pulled the keyboard closer. ‘Dear Henry,’ she wrote. If Hall had been staked out over an anthill and asked to list what he loved about Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell, near the top of the list would be the fact that she treated every email as though it were a proper letter. No ‘hi’ for her. No plunging straight in with no preamble. Always ‘Dear Henry’ and always ‘best wishes, Jacquie’ at the end. After the salutation, she paused. She didn’t want to give the fingernails undue prominence, but, still ... cleaned fingernails? Who would do that when the dead woman was displayed like the latest coupe in the lit window of a car saleroom? It meant that she was killed elsewhere ... she began to type. This was going to be one of those cases, she could tell.

  Thomas Morley was not a brave man. Even his best friend would say that, except that Thomas Morley had no best friend. Or any kind of friend, come to think of it. Once, he had. He remembered those days. When he had just left school and was working for the bus company. He was too young to be a driver, so he worked in the office; he didn’t know then that scheduling the buses that circled Leighford like some kind of demented prayer wheel would sop up fifteen years of his life. But when he had started there, everything was new and bright. He and his mates would go out on payday and have a moderately raucous time, always leaving enough in their pay packets to give to their mums for rent and food. Then, one day, he looked up from his desk and a vision of loveliness walked in and took his breath away.

  A tear ran down his cheek as he remembered his first view of the woman who became his wife. She was tall, taller than him by perhaps an inch, but he still had some growing left in him, his mother would always say, as she kissed him goodbye in the mornings. She was blonde, she was blue-eyed, she was gorgeous in all the right places. It didn’t take five minutes for Thomas Morley to be in love. It didn’t take five days for Louise the lovely temp to have him in the stationery cupboard, shagging his brains out. It didn’t take five weeks for her to tell him she was up the spout, the kid was his and they had better get married. It didn’t take six months until the kid was born but long before then, Thomas Morley knew he had been had. She was a shrew, a harridan, a bitch in blonde’s clothing. He had wanted to die, but one look into the worried eyes of little Tommy as the midwife placed him in his arms was enough to keep him living. He might not be his, but they were in it together. Essentially, they were all they had.

  Then, last night, he had come home late. He had muttered to himself all the way home, gathering some rather odd looks from passers-by. It had been a colleague’s leaving do. He had known him since they had started work together, back in the days when he was happy, before he knew a hen could peck so hard and so deep. He had asked permission of course that morning, asked Louise whether he could go out. He could rerun the conversation word for word in his head. He supposed it was because they were the last words he heard her speak. Or perhaps it was because he had heard them, or something like them, over and over and over since he said ‘I do’.

  He had dropped the question in amongst the breakfast banalities. ‘Old Mike is leaving the office. It’s his leaving do tonight. I thought I might go, unless we’ve something planned.’ He said this as though their social calendar was chock full, but for the last fourteen years to his knowledge, no one had willingly stepped over his threshold.

  ‘He’s got a promotion, I expect,’ she had said. ‘More than you’ll ever get, you worthless heap of shit.’

  ‘Lou, not in front of the boy,’ he had said.

  She had looked the child up and down, a sneer pulling up one side of her lip. How had he never noticed how thin, how hateful her mouth was, not seen it before it was too late? ‘He doesn’t care,’ she said. ‘He knows you’re crap. Don’t you, Tommy? You know he’s crap?’

  Tommy had concentrated hard on his cornflakes, his eyes behind his glasses full of tears.

  ‘Don’t nag the lad,’ his father said. ‘If you’re angry with me, take it out on me. Not him.’

  She stood back from the table, hands on hips. ‘Ooh,’ she said, in a mocking voice. ‘Big man, all of a sudden. Because you’re going out with the boys tonight.’

  ‘So, I can go, then?’ He knew he sounded like a whining teenager, but in so many ways that was how she had kept him. She had found herself a spineless nineteen year old and that’s how she had kept him, all this time.

  ‘Of course you can't, arsehole,’ she said. ‘You!’ She poked their son in the ribs. ‘Bugger off to school. I need to talk to your dad.’

  Tommy had slipped off his chair and slid from the room without another word, glad to be gone.

  His mother turned to the stove and picked up a skewer, kept alongside for the purpose. She lit the gas and Thomas Morley rolled up his sleeve, resignation having taken the place of fear and pain long before ...

  He found he was clenching the cheap quilt of the B&B in his fists. The latest weal still hurt, but not as much as the first had done. It had been hurting more when he had come home and had trouble opening the front door. It was because his wife’s body was sprawled in the hall, a knife
buried in her chest. And on the stairs, his boy who was not his boy, his Tommy. They had looked at each other and in the horror, there was relief. Before he had even got inside the hall properly, Tommy had given him his orders. He was good at taking orders.

  ‘Dad,’ the boy had said. ‘It wasn’t me, honest. I found her like this. But you’ll have to go, Dad. When they see the marks, what will they think? I’ll call the police. Just go, Dad. I’ll be all right.

  And, because he was so very good at taking orders, Thomas Morley had left his boy, sitting on the stairs, waiting for the police to come and take him away.

  So, no, Thomas Morley was not a brave man. But it was time he did something about that. He stood up, put on his anorak, the one his wife had bought him from the charity shop, the one he had to wear rather than the good one his mum had given him for Christmas. He squared his shoulders and went to find his boy.

  Peter Maxwell was not really a taxi person. True, he didn’t drive, hadn’t sat behind the wheel of a car since his little family – he refused to think of them as his ‘first’ family; they had come first, but that was in another country, the country of the past – had died on a wet road, so many years ago. He got around through the medium of lifts and bike, but White Surrey was not the way to arrive when one was an Appropriate Adult – the messages given out by cycle clips, soaking wet hair and trouser bottoms from the unrelenting winter weather and lips so cold it was hard to speak, where just somehow so ... inappropriate. So, taxi it was. At one time, not so long ago, he would have inveigled a lift from Sylvia Matthews. At one time, he would have stayed until the end of school, no matter what. But Sylv wasn’t there and time at Leighford High School was something that Maxwell would rather not have too much of – so, taxi it had to be. But a man has his pride, so he paid the taxi off at the kerb outside the nick.

  ‘That’s ...’ the driver checked the meter, ‘four fifty to you, guv,’ the driver said.

  Maxwell rummaged in his pocket and came up empty. With a tut, he swivelled the other way, to release the other buttock and hence his wallet. As he did so, he heard a faint click. It was either his hip or the central locking and a quick glance at the cabbie’s face in the rear view mirror told him which.