by M. J. Trow
‘Mr Maxwell!’ she said, amazed that he should be there of all places, at the previously appointed time. She looked over her shoulder. ‘It’s your father, Nolan.’
‘Yes,’ Nolan said, wriggling to the front of the unlikely duo. ‘Dads, we’re in the middle of a film. Can I come round when it’s finished?’
‘Well…?’ Maxwell raised an interrogative eyebrow at Mrs Troubridge, aka Mary Poppins.
‘I’d be delighted,’ she said. ‘Besides, That Woman is next door cleaning, so it wouldn’t be suitable for Nolan.’ She clutched him to her side, to protect him from Mrs B, in absentia though she was.
‘Mrs B?’ Maxwell asked. ‘I wasn’t sure she would be coming any more. I understand that Hector…’
‘Mr Gold is most fastidious,’ Mrs Troubridge said smugly. ‘He couldn’t contemplate That Woman’s slapdash ways.’
‘But I thought you and Mrs B were friends these days,’ Maxwell remarked.
‘Not friends, Mr Maxwell,’ Mrs Troubridge hissed. ‘I don’t think you could call us friends.’
Maxwell smiled and looked down at Nolan, who was starting to squirm a little in Mrs Troubridge’s iron grip. For a little old lady, she had a lot of core strength. ‘Well, in that case, Mrs Troubridge, if Nolan could stay a while, that would be wonderful. I do have an errand to run, possibly, so…’
‘Any time,’ Mrs Troubridge twittered. ‘His bed is made up, as always, so don’t worry. He can always go to bed here if you and Jacquie are going to be late.’
‘And Metternich?’ Maxwell loved to wind his neighbour up on the subject of the cat and just let her go till the clockwork wore down.
‘You know my views,’ Mrs Troubridge said, bridling. She looked like a very tiny, very wizened Les Dawson. ‘But I have some sachets to hand, of course. If he calls.’
Metternich could smell a sachet of cat food, opened or unopened, at an as yet undetermined distance and so Maxwell knew he would be fine. All he need do now was to track down Bernard Ryan and the next stage could commence. He tipped his hat to Mrs Troubridge, kissed Nolan on the top of the head and went down one path, up another and opened his own front door, to the distant whine of the hoover.
It was clear from the first second that Mrs B, ‘that woman’, who cleaned up at the school and chez Maxwell, had not changed in the seven months since Maxwell had seen her last. He did not mean that in the underwear sense, of course, if only because underwear and Mrs B were such non-sequiturs it didn’t bear thinking about. No, it was as if she had been poised there, Dyson in hand at the end of the hallway, just waiting for this golden moment.
‘Hello, Mr M,’ she roared over the machine, as if she had forgotten how to switch it off. ‘Ain’t you brown? Bet the old lungs are full of smog, though, eh? Did you meet Brad Pitt at all? Ooh, and what about that Mr Ryan, up at the school? There’s more than that to meet the eye. But it’s really nice to have you back.’
Maxwell had missed the staccato rattle of Mrs B’s conversations; she was a one-woman Gatling gun. But he could match her, bullet point for bullet. ‘Yes, I suppose I am. Yes, smog is a Californian problem, but, as you see, I have survived. Sadly, Bradley was out when we called. What about Mr Ryan indeed? Yes, there always is. And it’s nice to be back, Mrs B and to gaze upon your radiant features.’
‘Whatever,’ Mrs B said, and gave the skirting board an extra hard whack, to hide her confusion.
The Leighford Nick desk sergeant had become quite complacent while the Maxwell family had been in California. He had got quite used to answering the phone without his adrenalin flooding his system, even though he knew that news of fresh disasters might even so be on the other end. At least it wouldn’t be Maxwell. But now, here he was again and his visit to the good old U S of A hadn’t changed him a bit. With no attempt at conversation, the desk man merely pushed the button for Jacquie’s extension and put the phone down. He only forebore to wipe his hand down the side of his trousers because he was in the middle of dealing with one of Leighford’s madder old biddies, here to report a missing cat; she had forgotten, for the eighth time that week, that Tiddles had gone to that great litterbox in the sky when that nice Mr Brown had been at Number Ten.
‘DI Carpenter-Maxwell.’
‘I love the way that rolls out,’ Maxwell was doing his very best Wile. E. Coyote.
‘Hello, Max,’ she said, with a hint of suspicion and a soupcon of having someone in the room with her. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Results surprisingly good, Nolan and Mrs Troubridge like two little birds in their nest and Mrs B is wielding a handy hoover. All well with you?’ He hoped the question was loaded with innuendo.
She got the subliminal message and dropped her voice a tone. ‘All is well at this end,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s back at home where they may not be for long, but apart from that, it’s all hunky dory.’
‘Wonderful!’ he exclaimed. ‘Er… I may be out when you get back. Nole is with Mrs T and your dinner is in the lodger. ’Bye.’ And he hung up quickly. If she asked no questions, she would hear no lies and that was the best way all round.
‘Max!’ she hissed down the phone but knew she was too late. He was too far away for her to reach the house before he was long gone, but she had a way of checking his destination. She glanced round at Jason Briggs, who was trying not to look as if he were eavesdropping at the far side of the room. ‘Excuse me, Jason, I must just make a call. Child care. Such a problem.’ She flashed him a sweet smile and went out onto the landing and dialled a familiar number.
‘Leighford High School.’ Thingie One hated results day. Lots of irate parents who couldn’t believe their little geese had failed everything, wanting to speak to Diamond just drove her crazy, but the worst was over now.
‘It’s Mrs Maxwell here,’ Jacquie said, cutting the preamble. ‘I assume Mr Maxwell had left, has he?’
‘Oooh, Mrs Maxwell,’ Thingie One burbled, trying to decide whether she should ask the woman if she had met Brad Pitt. ‘He’s looking ever so well, we thought. The sunshine must have suited him.’
‘Yes, it did.’ Jacquie knew it was easier to go through the motions and she forced a smile into her voice. ‘He’s gone though, has he?’
‘Oooh, yes. A while ago. We were saying, he’s still got his bike, then.’
‘Oh, yes, you won’t part Mr Maxwell from his bike.’ Jacquie managed a chuckle. Perhaps going home would have been quicker. ‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘No,’ Thingie One thought for a moment. ‘Home, I think. Oh, no, wait a minute. He asked me where Mr Ryan lived.’
Gotchya, thought Jacquie. Did she know this man or what? ‘Oh, right.’
‘It’s ever such a shame, we were all saying this morning. Well, I know Mr Ryan…’
‘Yes. So, he’s going to see Mr Ryan, is he?’ she asked.
‘Well, he didn’t say so, no. We thought perhaps he was going to send a card, or something. You know, kind of sympathy.’
The picture that that conjured up almost rendered Jacquie speechless, but she managed to say goodbye before hanging up the phone. She would need to finish her de-brief with Jason and then she would be on her way. Maxwell would have to arrange transport, so that gave her a while in hand. She couldn’t stop him before he got to Ryan’s house, but she could nip it more or less in the bud. She turned and pushed open the door.
‘Well, Jason, sorry about that. So, your views on Bernard Ryan?’
‘Well, he clearly did it, ma’am. We just need to pin it on the sick bastard, don’t we?’
So, she thought with a sigh, the old adage of innocent until proven guilty was clearly alive and well and living in Leighford Nick.
Not.
CHAPTER SIX
The girl looked up from her meal, the milk moustache making her look younger than her fourteen years. She was beginning to get a bit bored and was ready to go home. What had started out as fun had now become just like being at home, with rules and regulations,
don’t do this, do do that all the time. The flattery, the presents, everything had stopped pretty much. Except the sex. That was still very much on the menu. And, she had to admit, enough was as good as a feast in that department, too. The first time it had been magical. He had taken her out to dinner. Proper dinner, not just some fast food rubbish like the boys at school might spring for. He had brought her some clothes to wear, proper clothes that made her look years older than she was, that fitted her like a glove. Then, he had taken her back to his hotel, not behind some church hall leaning against a skip. The room had been like fairyland; low lights, the curtains drawn back from the huge picture window, the lights of the marina bobbing far below. There had been rose petals, actual rose petals on the bed and when she had started to undress herself ready to get it over with like she generally did, he had stopped her and slowly done it for her, only loosening his own clothes gradually so that, in the end, they both were naked at the last minute together. So, this was why they called it lovemaking, she had thought, as she sank onto the bed, drunk with bliss. This wasn’t sex. This was love. And that had lasted for a week or two. And, even now, it could be spectacular if he was in the mood. But normally these days it was as if he wasn’t thinking of her at all. As if he were thinking of someone else entirely.
‘I think I’d like to go home now,’ she said. ‘If I’m away much longer, my mum will start to get suspicious. And school will be starting soon as well. If I’m not back for then, they’ll look for me.’ She wasn’t at all sure that was true, but she hoped it might be.
He looked at her and seemed to consider. ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Off you go.’ He turned back to the newspaper he was reading. ‘I expect you’re right. You don’t want her to get suspicious, do you?’
She looked at him, her milk and sandwich forgotten. She hadn’t wanted him to agree; she had wanted him to beg her to stay, tell her he could never love anyone like her. All the stuff he had told her a few weeks ago when they had met along the beach, when they had just walked and walked for miles, talking. The friends she was walking with had stared at him. He was so handsome. He was old, of course, she knew that. He had to be… thirty? Forty? Well, she’d never been any good with ages. At school, in the history lessons, the mad bastard she had had in Year Seven, he’d asked them all how old they thought he was. She had put eighty, but loads of the others had put even more. She knew he wasn’t eighty, she just wanted to wind him up. But he’d just laughed.
And now, she was being told to go. This wasn’t right. She was his soulmate. He’d told her so, often. He couldn’t just let her go back home. ‘I… I don’t mean I’d like to go home,’ she said. ‘I just thought you might want me to.’
He put the paper down now, folding it in half and sticking it down the side of his chair. He got up and walked over to her, lifting her chin in his hand so she was looking up into his eyes. He reached across with his thumb and wiped a crumb from a corner of her mouth. She smiled up and him and he smiled down at her. He reached around behind her and picked up a towel, left on the back of the chair, ready to go in the wash. Still smiling, he wrapped the towel around her neck. Her smile became puzzled but he blotted it out by kissing her gently on the lips.
She didn’t start to struggle until the towel started to get quite tight. He was pulling and pulling, with his mouth pressing harder on hers, so her head was pushed right back. She could feel her teeth digging in to the soft skin inside her mouth and she tasted blood. She tried to raise her arms, but she felt somehow tired and weak. Her feet drummed on the floor and everything started to go dark, although her eyes were wide and staring. From somewhere, and she was quite certain it was from outside her head, a bell was ringing. Then there was some banging. And then, like a miracle, the pressure on her throat stopped and he stepped away from her. He dropped the towel, first using it to wipe his mouth where her blood had stained his lips.
‘Stay there,’ he grated. ‘You’ll enjoy that the next time. It’s time you started the next stage.’ He tried a smile, but it didn’t quite work. ‘You’ll love it. I do it because I love you.’
Stuck in the chair like a rabbit in the headlights, she heard the noise continue. The bell was ringing and someone was also banging on the door. Faintly, she could hear someone calling. It was a woman’s voice, and it was starting to sound a bit annoyed. He wiped his mouth again and went into the hall, closing the kitchen door behind him.
‘All right, all right,’ she heard him call. ‘I’m on my way.’
She heard the door open and a woman’s voice, slightly petulant but also upset-sounding, came through the closed kitchen door. ‘Where were you? We’ve got things to discuss.’
‘Have we?’ she heard him say. ‘Like what?’
The woman started to cry and it went quiet, out in the hall. Somehow, the woman’s tears galvanized the girl and she slid silently out of the chair and over to the back door. Sometimes it was locked, but not today. There was a ten pound note on the side, ready for when the milkman called. He didn’t like tradesmen waiting at the door, he had explained to her. They might see his little princess and he didn’t want them talking. People wouldn’t understand. They would want to part them. She got used to hiding, ducking, diving. But that was over now. She pocketed the tenner and was away, sprinting up the passage at the side of the house and away up the road. She didn’t know where she was, but she knew where she wanted to be. And that place was Somewhere Else.
Jacquie had never known a de-brief take so long. If Jason Briggs had been deliberately slowing things up, he could not have made a better job of it. He fumbled through his notebook, lost himself in the tape of the interview and generally didn’t seem to know his arse from a hole in the ground. Jacquie was at a distinct disadvantage. Ninety nine percent of her knew that Bernard Ryan was innocent. That her husband, Mr Body Language, had worked with the bloke for years and couldn’t believe he had done it was almost all she needed to know. Add to the mix the fact that Ryan was quietly adamant that he didn’t know Mollie, despite the fact that there was a tenuous link with Josie Blakemore via St Olave’s and her gut reaction became stronger. But then, there was the problem of the alibi. It always came down to that alibi. And he wouldn’t budge on it. Even so, in the end they had had no choice but to bundle him into a police car and send him home, with instructions not to leave the country. He had volunteered his passport and that, for now, was that. Jason wanted to beat him to a pulp. Jacquie wanted him to climb down off his high horse and tell them where he had been. Somewhere between the two lay closure on this case. Finally they talked themselves to a standstill and she had grabbed her bag and made for the car park and the world beyond the Dam.
Maxwell had found things just as difficult to get going. Ringing for a cab had sounded easy and the ringing part had certainly not presented a problem. Finding one that would take him out of town for less than the national debt of a small emergent nation was altogether another, but finally he had struck lucky with a driver who was kicking his heels before picking up a fare from Gatwick, so going out over the Dam was on the way for him and they came to an arrangement, involving driving past and pausing at an ATM. He felt slightly guilty as he walked down the path and got into the cab when he noticed Mrs Troubridge’s door open a crack and Metternich slither in. Whether Mrs Troubridge liked it or not, there wasn’t a bolt that could keep Nolan in or the Count out; they made him proud.
All the way to Bernard Ryan’s house his phone was making the small wurbling noises he had learned to ignore. He had promised Jacquie years ago that he would always carry it. He had even agreed to be sure it had battery. But there was nothing she could do to make him answer it and he didn’t feel bad – she knew the score. She should know to quit while she was ahead. He tucked it deeper into his pocket and tried to ignore his vibrating leg.
‘Somebody wants to get hold of you, mate,’ the cab driver observed eventually. Why didn’t the mad old git answer the thing? That ringtone was beginning to get on his wick.
‘Hmm?’ Maxwell decided to act dumb.
‘Your phone.’ The driver spoke louder. ‘Somebody’s ringing you a lot. It might be urgent. Should you answer it?’
‘No,’ Maxwell said with a beatific smile. ‘It will just be my fan club secretary. They just won’t leave me alone.’ He sat back, looking at the passing countryside with a slight smile on his face, his hands calmly folded in his lap.
The driver turned his rearview mirror slightly, to get a better view. ‘Fan club?’ he asked.
Maxwell caught his eye in the mirror. ‘Oh, yes. A necessary evil in my position, sadly.’ Then he looked out of the window again.
‘So, you’re famous, then?’
‘For my sins.’ Maxwell looked rueful.
‘Would I have… seen you in anything?’
‘Ha ha,’ Maxwell gave a theatrical laugh. ‘Possibly.’ The man could luvvie for England.
The driver was racking his brain. Now he came to think about it, the geezer did look a bit familiar. A quiz show, perhaps? Or comedy, with that hair. ‘Are you on the telly or in films?’ he asked eventually, swinging around a corner into a rather select estate.
Maxwell extended a hand, rocking it from side to side. ‘I go wherever the work is, my dear chap,’ he said fruitily, trying to sound like a mixture of Donald Wolfitt and Stephen Fry – actually not as hard a task as he had first expected.
The cab driver checked his sat nav. ‘Well, guv, we’re here,’ he said. ‘’Ere, who are all those people?’
‘Ah,’ Maxwell said, a histrionic hand to his brow. ‘They have tracked me down again.’ He leaned forward with the requisite handful of notes. ‘The price of fame,’ and he was out of the cab and bounding up the drive to rap on the front door. ‘No pictures,’ he cried, ‘no autographs, I beg.’
The reporters outside Ryan’s house were understandably confused, except the one from the Leighford Advertiser. ‘Mad Max,’ the Old LeighfordHighena muttered. ‘I was wondering when he’d get here.’