Maxwell’s Curse

by M. J. Trow

  ‘All wounds to the head were delivered when Darblay was on the move – witness the relatively defined extent of fracture fissures. A great deal of pulping and laceration to the brain …’ he smiled benignly at Donald, and lapsed uncharacteristically into Hercule Poirot, ‘ze little grey cells, n’est-ce pas?’

  It was a bit before Donald’s time and he’d always refused to watch David Suchet on principle.

  ‘… severe haemorrhage and rupture of blood vessels are the cause of death.’ Astley straightened, feeling his back go again and made a mental note to get that buxom piece Sophie Clark working on it that night at Beauregard’s.

  ‘What’s this heart thing all about, then?’ Donald was busy with his tape measure in the corner.

  ‘Now,’ Astley slipped his mask off his neck from where he’d draped it to drink his coffee. ‘That is curious. The blood it’s swimming in – or was before it dried up – is human. And I’d be prepared to bet it’s Darblay’s. But the heart itself is that of an ovis aries, the common sheep and before you ask I haven’t the first bloody idea what breed it was. The most interesting question of all of course is what it was doing on the high altar of your typical English perpendicular church. Luckily, Donald,’ and he prised off his rubber gloves, ‘you and I need not concern ourselves with such imponderables. That sort of conundrum we can safely leave to Mr Plod.’

  8

  ‘You know, you’re actually pretty good,’ Prissy Crown purred, patting the hard wooden bench beside her. Hard it may have been, wooden it certainly was, but to Peter Maxwell it was bliss itself. He had pulled muscles where he didn’t know he had muscles and his hair was plastered over his forehead under the mesh of the mask.

  ‘Was, dear lady,’ he wheezed. ‘And you’re being kind. I was only ever B-team material.’

  ‘Sophie, tell him.’ Prissy needed a second opinion.

  ‘Your riposte needs work,’ the taller girl said. They both looked resplendent in their whites. Maxwell had borrowed an old pair of track-suit bottoms and trainers from Lost Property at school and his fencing jacket didn’t fit him anywhere. ‘I gather you’re not used to the electric?’

  ‘My dear girl,’ he sought refuge in his towel to wipe the sweat from his eyes, barely remembering to tilt the mask back first. ‘When I was fencing, there was a young bloke called Cyrano de Bergerac who was the club’s teaboy.’

  He noted with dismay the vacant look on both their faces, ‘De Bergerac, seventeenth-century swordsman, big nose? … Jose Ferrer, Gerard Depardieu? … Oh, forget it. Suffice it to say I’m rusty.’

  Prissy was sitting with her face close to his. ‘You certainly impressed me with a sabre. How are you with a foil?’ And she was on her feet, hauling him upright. ‘Sophie, do the honours, will you?’

  The blonde girl trotted off to check the machinery, then re-hooked the contestants to their wires. Maxwell checked the weapon Prissy had given him. It was light after the sabre and nestled neatly into the palm of his hand.

  ‘There’s something very phallic,’ Prissy said, ‘about a man with a sword in his hand.’ She stroked his arm and wandered to her place on the piste.

  Minutes ago, they’d paired Maxwell up with Ron, who had the face and body of an old-age pensioner and the speed and reflexes of Superman. What Maxwell hadn’t known was that Ron was Beauregard’s secret weapon. They always trotted him out to face newcomers, especially any who had the rashness to claim experience. They just switched Ron on and let him loose. Maxwell’s button hadn’t touched him once whereas Maxwell’s jacket was metaphorically cut to shreds.

  ‘En garde!’ Sophie Clark called them to order. Maxwell crouched, his left arm behind his back, his knees bent, the point of his blade in a line with Prissy’s mask. He felt and heard their blades slide together. ‘Fence!’

  She drove him back with a series of attacks, fast, hard, the steel ringing in the otherwise deserted gym. The competition wasn’t for an hour yet and the opposing team hadn’t shown up. A couple of spectators lounged on the rail of the gallery overhead. Prissy was grunting with the effort as she lunged at the end of the piste. Maxwell saw it coming and flicked the blade aside, catching the girl under the ribs. Her squeal and the buzz coincided and Sophie yelled out the score.

  ‘A palpable hit,’ murmured Maxwell.

  ‘Lucky!’ was Prissy’s verdict and she may have been right. Maxwell sensed he wouldn’t have it so easy next time. Again he faced her, her blade probing his defences. His legs were tired, his lungs tortured and the mask didn’t help. It blurred his vision and suffocated him so that he found himself using less than orthodox methods to beat her back. Prissy was grunting again, her teeth bared under the mask, her nostrils flaring.

  ‘Fuck!’ and her lunge went wild. This time his point prodded her midriff and the buzzer sounded again.

  ‘All right,’ she snarled, en garde again. ‘This time attack me, you bastard.’

  Maxwell stood there. ‘A lady always makes the first move,’ he said and parried her thrusts. He wasn’t ready for the flèche however and she hurled herself at him, aiming low and thudding the point into his crotch.

  ‘Foul!’ Sophie shouted. But Prissy wasn’t listening. Recovering her balance, she went for the attack again, crouching like a puma on the scent, her hair flinging out behind the grips of the mask, the blade a blur in her gloved hand. They were off the piste now, Maxwell retreating every tortured step, desperately keeping her point away from his throat. The pain in his groin was mind-numbing and his eyes watered behind the gauze.

  ‘Prissy!’ Sophie was yelling, but the woman’s blood was up and there was no stopping her now. Her cord had unhooked itself and she was free of its electric encumbrance. She lunged again, the blade higher this time and Maxwell scythed to the left. He felt his back against the gym wall and had nowhere else to go. His own cord was trailing on the ground, detached from his jacket. The steel slashed and scraped and Maxwell used all his force to hold the girl’s sword arm down. She ripped off the mask, panting with the exertion and he did the same, assuming the bout was over. In an instant their lips were together and her tongue probing as her foil had done. Maxwell dropped his foil and firmly disentangled himself from the woman. Their bodies straightened. Maxwell felt Prissy’s groin grinding against his own and he gently but firmly held her at arm’s length.

  ‘Let’s call that a draw, shall we?’ he asked, looking steadily down at her.

  ‘Good idea,’ Sophie was alongside the pair, relieving Prissy of her foil. ‘Time for a cold shower.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Maxwell winced. He was still coming to terms with three feet of tempered steel colliding with his gonads. Whatever Prissy had had in mind a minute ago, she was likely to be disappointed in all sorts of ways.

  Prissy smiled and licked her lips. ‘Thanks, Maxwell,’ she said. ‘See you after the competition,’ and she winked as she flounced away, rolling her hips with more sway than was strictly necessary.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sophie said. ‘She can get a bit carried away at times.’

  ‘Doesn’t wear a sword to bed, does she?’ Maxwell asked, watching her go.

  Sophie paused. ‘Do you want to find out?’ she asked.

  Maxwell’s eyebrows rose. ‘Don’t tell me between Aerobics and Fencing, you also run a dating agency?’

  Sophie pulled an odd face, an expression Maxwell hadn’t seen before. ‘You’d be amazed at what goes on here,’ she said.

  Maxwell had showered and checked his multiple bruises. He’d stashed his gear into his hold-all and was just creeping along the landing, close to where he’d had his odd encounter of three nights ago. He’d hoped to reach the side door and winch himself gingerly onto the saddle of White Surrey, before Prissy Crown noticed he’d gone. He nearly made it too.

  ‘Max!’

  He turned. Prissy had changed out of her fencing whites and was standing in the foyer below, a skimpy black top stretched over her breasts, the nipples like organ stops. Her hair hung wetly around her shoulders. H
e waved.

  ‘I think I owe you a drink,’ she said.

  ‘Actually, Prissy, I must be getting back …’ And he loitered down the stairs.

  ‘Just one for the road,’ she added softly and linked her arm with his.

  ‘What happened to the competition?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘Suddenly didn’t give a damn,’ she said.

  Beauregard’s Bar was dark, with coloured lights rotating in myriad patterns across the ceiling. This wasn’t the one he’d talked to Jim Astley in on his last visit. This one was lit with lava lamps and thudded to rock music. It was for members only and energetic young things were gyrating in the swirling light show in the centre, myriad shafts bouncing off the ceiling.

  He bought them both drinks and tried to sit as far from Prissy as possible. That wasn’t easy. With the instincts of a man-killer, she insinuated herself alongside him and sat with her breasts on display on the table, her cleavage like a poor man’s Grand Canyon.

  ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you,’ she said and proceeded to massage Maxwell’s groin.

  ‘That’s okay,’ he gently moved her hand away.

  She leaned back, lolling now on the plush length of the seat, her legs splayed, her jeans undone at the top. She sipped her daiquiri, ‘I’m glad you came, Maxwell,’ she purred. ‘I’m frightened, you see.’

  Maxwell had seen fright before. In many people, at many times. Some cried, some whimpered, some screamed. Others sat there, rocking, silent, their limbs numb with fear, paralysed by the booming thud of their own pulses. What he had never seen was a woman so frightened that she was flaunting her not inconsiderable body and giving him the come on.

  ‘Of what?’ he felt it his duty to ask.

  ‘Ken,’ she said. ‘Willoughby. Sophie. They’re involved in something.’

  ‘Involved?’

  She sat up, leaning forward again. ‘Are you fucking Jacquie Carpenter?’ She was looking into his dark eyes.

  ‘No.’ He could still just about manage polite-mode. ‘I’m drinking a Southern Comfort and talking bollocks to a mad woman.’

  She slammed down her drink, her face white with fury. Then she softened, smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose you would think that. Oh, Maxwell, I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, but I get … so intense.’ She rummaged in her bag, pulling out a small foil packet. ‘Do you?’

  He shook his head. He didn’t need that. Fifty valium a day was enough for Peter Maxwell. She sighed and stashed it away again. Just her luck to be stuck with Mr Squeaky.

  ‘For some time now, Willoughby … Willoughby’s been going out, at odd hours. He told me it was bridge. But that’s bollocks. He’s been seeing Sophie.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Maxwell said.

  Her eyes caught his. ‘No, you don’t understand. I don’t give a flying fuck about that. Willoughby and I went our different ways as far as bed went years ago. If he was just slipping Sophie one now and again, nolo problema. But Ken’s involved.’

  ‘Ménage a trois?’ Maxwell suggested.

  ‘You’re missing the point.’ Prissy was twisting her fingers together, trying to make sense of it all in what passed for her mind, ‘I’m not talking about sex, Maxwell, it’s something altogether … well, sinister isn’t too wide of the mark.’

  ‘Hello, people.’ They both jumped at the voice barking at them over the thumping music.

  ‘Hello, Cris.’ Prissy sounded less than pleased to see Crispin Foulkes. To Maxwell, the social worker was like the Seventh Cavalry, all bugles and buckskin jackets and salvation. He might as well have been whistling the ‘Garryowen’.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ Foulkes asked.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Prissy said, snatching up her bags. ‘I’ve got to be going. See you round, Maxwell,’ and she smiled at him.

  ‘Something I said?’ Foulkes asked as they watched her go, hips swinging into the night.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Maxwell said. ‘I only fend the woman off.’

  ‘Sexually?’ Foulkes sat down in Prissy’s place.

  ‘That too,’ Maxwell nodded, ‘but I was thinking of a fencing bout. Ever faced her?’

  ‘No fear,’ Foulkes laughed. ‘I’m not man enough. Anyway, I’m no fencer. Tried it once at school. Hopeless. No, I’ll stick to the weights. Bit of judo, that sort of thing. I’m glad I bumped into you.’

  ‘Not as glad as I am,’ Maxwell beamed. ‘Let me get you a drink.’

  ‘Actually, Max, I won’t. Not here. I wanted to have a chat, but I can’t hear a blasted thing above this row. Look, my flat’s not far away. Fancy a Chinese?’

  ‘Do you know, I do,’ Maxwell said. ‘Must be all this wrestling I’ve been doing.’

  Maxwell fished around for the last bit of crispy duck and pushed the carton away. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Mind you, I shall want another in a minute.’

  Both men laughed. Foulkes’ flat was in a wing of a Victorian house, still redolent of spring sunshine with new emulsion and furniture wrapped in polythene bags. Only the essentials were out and working – cooker, freezer, telly, computer. The social worker had apologized for the mess. He’d only been here since December and his caseload was already so huge, his social life was on hold.

  ‘So you thought I was some sort of warlock,’ Maxwell said, sipping the cold beer Foulkes had poured him.

  The social worker raised both his hands, laughing. ‘I’m sorry, Max,’ he said. ‘Idiotic of me, I know, but after the things I saw in Broxtowe … Well, you wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘I thought that was all tosh,’ Maxwell said. ‘Satanic abuse and so on.’

  Foulkes shook his head. ‘I have to keep an open mind. It’s like child pornography on the Net. Perverts say it’s harmless – just computer images. But they’re not, Max, they’re real children. And they’re being abused somewhere in the world every day of the week. Then there was all that business in North Wales last year.’

  ‘But I don’t see how my calendar …’

  ‘Midwinter Solstice, Beltane, Lammas, Samhain, four of the eight major Sabbats of Wicca, the Old Religion. I suppose I’m paranoid now, looking for the links wherever I go.’

  ‘But it’s not my calendar.’

  ‘Not?’ Foulkes looked up from his remaining noodles.

  ‘Look, Crispin,’ the Head of Sixth Form sat upright, facing his man. ‘If I tell you something, can you assure me it’ll go no further? It could get someone I know into a lot of trouble – not to mention me.’

  ‘Confidentiality goes with my territory, Max,’ Foulkes said. ‘Like the confessional and the Official Secrets Act all rolled into one.’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘I half-inched the calendar from the house of the old woman I found on my doorstep on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘Yes, I read about that. Elizabeth … what’s her name … Prior?’

  ‘Pride.’

  ‘What were you doing there? At her house, I mean?’

  ‘That’s a long story,’ Maxwell said, ‘and I can’t go into it now. Does that make any difference? I mean the fact that the calendar was hers not mine?’

  ‘It might,’ Foulkes said, deep in thought. ‘You seem very well informed about this business, Max. Would I be chancing my arm to suggest that the friend you want to protect is Jacquie Carpenter?’

  Maxwell raised a hand. ‘Now, come on, Crispin,’ he said. ‘Play the white man. And I didn’t say the person I know is a friend, did I?’

  ‘Touché!’ Foulkes laughed, acceding to the cryptic old bastard’s point.

  ‘Don’t,’ Maxwell shuddered. ‘Too many painful memories.’

  They’d told Martin and Alex Stone that if nothing had transpired by Monday, they’d have to induce. With little Janey it had been easy – like shelling peas as the midwife had put it. But this one was different, a big bugger with a bone idle streak. Martin Stone was picturing the moving scan in his mind when he heard his name echoing down the long corridor of relevance.

  ‘Martin?’

  �
�Guv?’

  The DCI was looking at him, inscrutable as ever. Damn! That was a few demerits in anybody’s book. Stone was on his feet, telling himself to concentrate. He hadn’t taken in Simon Reilly’s photographs of the laid-out corpse of the Reverend Darblay, nor the nastier ones that closed in with chilling full frontal morbidity on the shattered head. Perhaps it was just as well. He’d had the nightmares before and he didn’t want all that in Alex’s lap. She had enough to contend with.

  He reached the front of the Incident Room as someone snapped off the carousel’s smoky beam and the neon strips restored mock daylight.

  ‘Andrew Darblay?’ Hall reminded the man of his mission.

  ‘Yes, guv, thank you. The Reverend Darblay was sixty- three. He’d been rector of Wetherton for nearly twenty years.’

  ‘Family?’ somebody asked.

  ‘A wife, Dorothy, died of leukaemia a while back. No kids. He was well-liked by the churchgoers, a dwindling band of course these days. One or two we’ve spoken to found him a bit of a fuddy duddy …’

  ‘Goes with the territory, doesn’t it?’ somebody asked.