by M. J. Trow
As he went up the stairs, he could hear a hum of voices from the dining room; Henry filling Jacquie in on the case, he had no doubt. He tried walking more quietly, but they were onto him and had left the door open. Jacquie was standing back into the room, but positioned so that she could see him coming along the landing.
‘Nice try, Max,’ she said. ‘We’re wise to you.’ He went through into the dining room and stood there, bags aloft. ‘We won’t bother with bowls, just put the cartons on the table and we’ll pick and mix.’
Soon there was a savoury smell from the plastic boxes on the table, mushroom and beef, noodles, crab, duck. When they had made inroads into the food, Maxwell turned to Hall.
‘So, Henry. How’s the case progressing?’
His gravitas not even dented by the noodle stuck to his chin, Hall answered calmly, ‘Nicely, thank you, Max,’ and went back to his rice. He looked up again and said to Jacquie, ‘Thanks for the forks, by the way. I’ve never really got to grips with chopsticks.’
‘Nor me,’ she said. ‘Although I always think it looks like fun, the way they eat Chinese food on American cop shows. They have those cartons and chopsticks and never drop anything down themselves or lose the whole mouthful onto the table.’
‘And the way they call it Chinese food,’ Maxwell said. ‘Rather than Chinese food. There’s rather a lot of it in Stakeout I seem to recall. Maybe that’s why they made Another Stakeout, because you feel like another one soon after.’
Maxwell could fill aeons of otherwise silence with junk-food talk from films alone. He regaled Henry and Jacquie with the mountains consumed by Robert Morley in Too Many Chefs and the upmarket home delivery of serial loony Rod Steiger in No Way to Treat a Lady. In fact, it was the way various ladies had been treated recently that Maxwell really wanted to talk about; but he’d have to bide his time. ‘Would anyone like a coffee?’ Jacquie asked. ‘A beer?’
‘No, I’m absolutely full,’ Hall said. ‘That was lovely. Thank you.’
Maxwell looked at him. What a thoroughly nice man he was, he thought. How sad that he would have to annoy him intensely, yet again, when he started digging in this case. Because it was a case, whatever anyone else thought. And it was a lot more complicated than a missing wife. It was pointless trying to muscle in, though. He would have to winkle it out of Jacquie later, or work it out with a pencil on his own.
‘Darling,’ he said to Jacquie. ‘Did you order me a cab?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It should be here …’ She checked the kitchen clock by leaning over and peering through the doorway. ‘Anytime now, really. I checked with the ward as well. Because Mrs Troubridge has not had many visitors, except apparently her son,’ she smiled as both men’s heads spun round. ‘Don’t get excited. If it is her son, he is you to the life, guv. Because she hasn’t had many visitors, they are willing to stretch visiting time a bit, but even so, you won’t get long with her.’ A distant toot in the road told them that she was right in her estimate of the time. ‘There he is. Aren’t our taxi drivers wonderful?’ She reached up for a kiss as Maxwell got up, wiping his face in case of random noodling. ‘I’ll pick you up at … what shall we say?’
‘Ten?’ he said. ‘I’ll walk down to the pub and wait in there. Then you won’t have to worry about time if you get chatting.’ He smiled innocently and left the room.
They waited until they heard the door slam and his distant voice hail the cab driver before Henry spoke.
‘I suppose he knows all about it,’ he said, resignedly.
‘I haven’t said a word,’ she said, almost truthfully. But they both knew that it was only a matter of time before Peter Maxwell knew all that they did, with probably a little more for luck.
Chapter Fourteen
As Maxwell descended the stairs, he was repeating to himself a mantra he often used when shopping or using public transport. ‘No Old Leighford Highenas, no Old Leighford Highenas, no Old Leighford Highenas.’ For once, his prayers were answered and the driver sitting in the sagging seat of a Ford Mondeo at the kerb was both unknown to Maxwell and as old as the hills. The fact that the car smelt of an old ashtray was a mystery to Maxwell at first, as there were signs on every flat surface admonishing the passenger not to smoke. As the cabbie turned round to ask Maxwell his destination, his breath was a clue; he could give a person ten years’ worth of secondary smoking with a single exhalation.
‘The hospital, please,’ Maxwell said, trying not to breathe in.
‘A&E?’ the cabbie asked.
‘No, no thank you. The main door, if that’s possible.’ Maxwell turned round to find his seat belt. This had the added advantage of getting out of the man’s breath, which could only be a good thing, health-wise.
‘Oh,’ the man said, swinging the car up the incline to the main road, ‘it’s just I pick up a lot of blokes your age, take them to A&E.’ He tapped his own chest. ‘Heart. The old dicky ticker.’
‘Do people get taxis to take them to the hospital with a heart attack?’ Maxwell asked. ‘I would have thought an ambulance would be rather quicker.’ And, he added to himself, rather less likely to give you lung cancer.
The man sucked in his breath, which was a mercy. ‘Nah, they don’t want the neighbours to see, see. If they get a cab, they might be going anywhere, out, on holiday. But once the neighbours see an ambulance … well, there’s no knowing what they might think, is there?’
If Maxwell had learnt anything in all his years at the chalkface, it was how to tell that your conversation was going nowhere. But the driver had missed that lesson and carried on regardless.
‘They start avoiding them, crossing the street, that kind of thing.’ He sighed. ‘’S’what happened to me, when I had my triple bypass. Got a scar down the middle like a zip. Very neat job. But it’s always just a repair, like. Never the same again. Oh, yes. I could still go at any time.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Just like that.’ He sighed again. ‘Oh, yes. Any time.’ He waited. This was clearly Maxwell’s clue to join in.
‘Goodness. How terrible,’ he said. ‘Isn’t driving for a living perhaps a bit …?’ He wasn’t sure how to end the sentence. ‘Potentially lethal for your passengers’? ‘Of a really stupid idea’? ‘Illegal’? They would all fit, but he settled for, ‘Stressful?’
‘Nah. I keep healthy, see. I was tole, up at the hospital, that it was just sheer bad luck give me my heart attack. They couldn’t believe it. Said my arteries was blocked right up, but when I said what I ate they couldn’t believe it. No, what with the vitamins and that, I should never have had a heart attack. But still …’ he paused briefly whilst manoeuvring into the hospital car park, ‘… you gotta go of something, aintchya?’ He hauled on the handbrake and screeched to a halt. ‘That’s ten quid to you, then.’
Maxwell handed the note over the back of the seat and was out of the car like greased lightning. ‘Well, thank you very much,’ he said and was gone, in through the automatic doors. Glad to be alive. Still.
The driver stuffed the note into his shirt pocket. ‘Mean bugger,’ he said to himself. ‘No tip. The quiet ones are always the mean buggers.’ He threw the car into gear and pulled out into the path of an ambulance, which blasted its horn. The cabbie made a generic gesture and carried on out of the hospital grounds. ‘Bugger,’ he muttered. ‘Blasting his horn like that. I could have died.’ He savoured the thought and almost whispered, as if to remind himself of his own fascinating mortality, ‘I could go any time, just like that,’ and he clicked his fingers. ‘Just like that.’ He enjoyed this time in the evening, no one going anywhere much. Just time for a bag of chips and a fag. Humming with anticipation, he drove off into the gathering night.
As soon as Maxwell had gone, Henry had said, resignedly. ‘I suppose he knows all about it.’
‘I haven’t said a word,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know much to tell him, to tell you the truth, except just that there is a dead body in the frame somewhere.’
‘Yes,’ Henry said, shortly. ‘An
d that dead body is Izzy Medlicott’s first husband.’
If his head had suddenly burst open to reveal a flight of doves, Jacquie could not have been more amazed. ‘What? I mean … how on earth did you find out about that? What made you look?’
‘You know I said that the story reminded me of something? Well it was that an art teacher had been found dead at the bottom of a ladder. In Northampton somewhere, little village, his name was Paul Masters. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. The important thing for us is that his ex-wife is now Izzy Medlicott.’ He sat back, imperturbable as always, arms folded.
‘Guv … I really don’t know what to say.’ She screwed up her face in thought. Something was chewing at the back of her brain.
‘OK, Jacquie?’ he asked.
‘It’s something that Izzy said, on the first evening, I think. We were chatting out on the decking and trying not to notice that Pansy was getting seriously pissed. We were talking about old sayings. She comes from Northamptonshire, I’m not sure exactly where, and her granny was full of sayings, funny words for the weather, that sort of thing. Then I said my favourite was my mother’s. She always says, when someone is getting married and becomes, say Smith where they were South … hang on, I want to get this right … um … “change the name and not the letter, change for the worse and not the better.” And Izzy said something like “too right!” or something like that.’
Hall looked interested, but puzzled.
‘Well, guv, don’t you see? Mmmmmasters to Mmmmmmedlicott. She seemed to imply she had changed for the worse.’
‘True,’ Hall agreed. ‘Did you get that impression?’
‘No. They really did seem happy. But, if she was still fond of her ex – do you have his date of birth, by the way? Tom said he was older.’
Conscious of his audience, Hall said, ‘Yes, he was older. Quite a bit, actually.’
‘And I think Tom must be six or seven years her senior, not much, in the scheme of things, but still, it shows a pattern perhaps,’ Jacquie added.
‘Yes,’ Hall said. ‘She sounds like a lady who likes to be looked after.’
‘Oh, definitely,’ Jacquie agreed. ‘This makes it all rather different, doesn’t it? The ex being dead, Izzy and Tom not necessarily as happy as we thought … well, everything. I started off thinking this might be a nice straightforward case, but it isn’t.’
‘No,’ he said, shortly. ‘It certainly isn’t. For a start, we don’t know whether we’re looking for Izzy Medlicott alive and hiding, or dead.’
‘Dead? Why should she be dead?’ Jacquie knew the answer, but wanted Henry Hall to say it.
‘Suicide. A falling-out with a secret lover, perhaps, if she had help killing her ex-husband. It could be the “someone else” she was seen with the night before husband number two reported her missing.’
‘Pardon?’ Jacquie was even more puzzled now. ‘Where did that bit of info come from?’
‘Max. He got it from a kid’s notebook. He rang to … oh, of course. He didn’t tell you. Sorry, I thought he would have mentioned it since.’
‘Um, no. I think that may have been my fault.’ She reran the conversation in her head and realised that yes, it was definitely her fault.
‘Well, it’s nothing much, really. She might well have come back in after that, just out for a breath of air, that sort of thing. It can be difficult, sharing a room if your other half snores, or something. I know Margaret often lies awake in hotels because of my snoring. She just goes into one of the other bedrooms at home.’
‘Izzy did mention Tom snored, and that he slept really soundly.’
‘There we are, then. So, that might not be a clue after all.’ Hall shifted in his chair.
‘I’m sorry, guv. Let’s go into the sitting room. These chairs can be a bit hard on the bum.’
‘No, it’s just I seem to be sitting on something.’ He reached under his leg and brought out a small plastic piglet. ‘Ah.’
‘Sorry,’ Jacquie reached over for it. ‘They get everywhere. My mother bought Nolan a farm for … well, I don’t know why, really. Just a present, I suppose. She’s trying to wean him off being a policeman or a teacher.’
‘So she thinks farming would be a good option?’
‘Or accountant, but he’s a bit young for double-entry bookkeeping as yet. We will move, though, shall we? I’ve been driving for a lot of today and I could do with being a bit more spread out.’
They picked up their mugs and moved through into the other room, where Hall made himself comfortable after finding three lambs, a farmer’s wife and a hen under his cushion. ‘I see that he believes in free range,’ Hall said.
Jacquie laughed. ‘He is a bit of a lad,’ she said. ‘The farm has more or less given way to card tricks.’
‘His granny is rather broad-minded, then,’ Hall observed.
‘No. Needless to say, that was Max. He thinks busking may be the way forward. He was practising on …’ she put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, dear. Sorry, guv.’
He leant forward. ‘It’s all right,’ he said awkwardly, patting her knee. ‘It’s all right.’ He had no idea what the problem was, but he could wait.
‘Sorry.’ She gave a sniff and carried on. ‘He was practising on Mrs Troubridge and Millie last week.’ The mention of Mrs Troubridge reminded her and she glanced at the clock. Plenty of time yet before she had to go and fetch Maxwell. ‘I hope she’s going to be OK.’
Hall said nothing. He decided to return to the case in hand, as a safer option. ‘So, the sighting the night before could well not mean anything. Do we know where Izzy Medlicott was in the week before the trip?’
Jacquie drew herself up a bit straighter and went into briefing mode. ‘No, we don’t. She is having a career break at the moment, so her time is totally free.’
‘Career break? How can they afford a nice new house and a career break?’ Henry Hall was bouncing right back.
‘Apparently, she has just had a bereavement …’ Jacquie slowed and stopped. ‘Surely not!’
‘No, that won’t do. Masters only died a week or so ago and they certainly won’t have sorted out a will or anything. Was it a family member?’
‘I remember now. It was her father. Because Tom said she was doing it all because her parents had divorced. There was money from the sale of the house, things like that.’
‘So they have no financial worries?’ Hall was mentally ticking the usual boxes.
‘No. On the contrary, I should say. Tom has an ex-wife and family, two children I think he said, but they aren’t in touch. I don’t know whether he has to find child support or anything.’ Jacquie was trying to remember the details of a conversation which hadn’t seemed too important at the time. ‘But, why are you asking me this? Don’t you have Tom at the station?’
‘We did, yes. But the police surgeon took a look at him and said it wouldn’t be a good idea to question him tonight. She gave him a couple of tablets to take and the car took him home.’ He noticed her expression. ‘Don’t worry, Florence Nightingale. Fran Brannon went with the car and made sure he was settled before she left him. He’ll be OK. But, anyway, until we know the details of the dead man’s estate and who benefits, it isn’t necessarily vital to know every detail of their finances.’ Hall went on to the next point. ‘Knowing what you know now, how did they seem to get on? Tom Medlicott and his wife?’
‘Well. Very well. They weren’t lovey-dovey, but on a school trip, you’re not anyway. The kids are always there, watching you like hawks. They don’t miss a trick. We didn’t know that Pansy drinks, but the kids soon picked it up. They could gauge her hangover to the second and when she came out of it they made sure they were as far away as possible.’
‘That’s Pansy Donaldson, is it?’ Hall was staggered. No one, not police or civilian, got in to Leighford High School without running the gauntlet that was Pansy Donaldson.
‘That’s right.’ Jacquie smiled. ‘She likes a splash of gin with her gin.’
‘My word
.’ Hall sat back, steepling his fingers and looking thoughtful. ‘Pansy Donaldson, a drunk.’
‘So it turns out,’ Jacquie said. ‘Sylvia and Guy I think you know. You’ve probably met them here.’
‘School nurse. Umm …’
‘Yes. Younger husband. That’s them.’ Jacquie was used to filling in that particular gap. She never quite saw why people had so much more of a problem with their much smaller age gap, because of the way round it was, than the gap between her and Maxwell. That was mainly because she seldom got to hear the things her colleagues said about her and Maxwell – and that was probably for the best. ‘Well, they seemed to get on all right with them. We got on all right with them as well, although to tell you the truth, she was a bit – I don’t think I want to say snooty, but some people might.’
‘I see. Difficult to read?’ Hall was trying to get things straight.
‘Yes. Even for me. Max couldn’t get her sorted either. Nolan didn’t even bother and he usually bats his eyelashes at all adults, just to keep his hand in.’
‘Aloof.’ Hall had brought out a notebook from his pocket, so quietly she scarcely noticed. He jotted something down. ‘Right. Do you have a photo of her? I got the uniform boys to ask Medlicott and he could only come up with some wedding shots.’
Medlicott. Surname only could be a bad thing. Jacquie still couldn’t believe that he was acting. No one was that good. ‘I’ve probably got some in the camera. I haven’t had a chance to do anything with that yet.’
‘Could you have a look now? We need to get on to this as soon as possible. It’s difficult, of course, because it isn’t really our case in any respect. The dead man belongs to Northants police. The misper belongs to Hampshire.’ He sat there, writing calmly in his little book, then looked up. ‘Could you, Jacquie? It would be a help.’
‘OK, guv.’ She got to her feet and rummaged in a bag. ‘I won’t be a minute. I’ve just got to get this hooked up to the computer. I’ll give you a shout, shall I?’