by M. J. Trow
‘Sylv, don’t fret all afternoon, now. We’re all on great form; it’s two other people I’m worrying about. See you later.’
She smiled at the phone. ‘In a while,’ she said and replaced the receiver. She turned to the boy standing in the doorway. ‘Now, then,’ she said. ‘You’ve caught what in where, did you say?’
The Form Tutors had done the roll-calls and handled the tours of the school bit. Two hundred and thirty eight eleven year olds already had no idea where they were or who anybody was. And they had just had Maths and Double Science. So, as usual, it was left to the master to bring them back to the keen, bright-eyed questers for knowledge they had been only four hours ago by giving them an experience they would never forget.
Maxwell hurtled across the stage, dragging his left leg behind him. He carried a ruler in his hand and his right shoulder was hunched. ‘A horseI’ he shrieked in his finest Larry Olivier, ‘A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ His glittering eyes lashed his audience. For hundred and seventy six eyes stared back at him, wide in disbelieving horror. Who was this maniac and where had he escaped from?
Maxwell drew himself up to his full height, dropped the shoulder and smiled. ‘That,’ he said, in his normal voice, ‘was how William Shakespeare thought King Richard III looked, sounded and behaved. Alas, he was wrong on all counts. I know, because when I was your age, I met the king. And in the years to come at Leighford High, when your English teachers try to explain Shakespeare to you, you can tell them that Mr Maxwell knows all about it.’ He then undid centuries of good work and stood St Francis of Assisi on his head – ‘Where there is harmony, let me sow discord. It might not be politically correct, children, but it will make you think.’
The minions had not stirred. Not dared even to look at each other. Some of them had older siblings at this school. Some of them had mums and dads who had gone here. And one or two of them had mentioned Mad Max. But none of the two hundred and thirty eight that day had reckoned on madness as extreme as this.
‘Where’s Bosworth?’ Maxwell asked a spotty kid in the front row. Nothing.
‘Leicester?’ he asked somebody else. Nothing again.
‘Don’t feel embarrassed,’ he smiled. ‘Geography Departments all over the country have been short-changing you people for years. But get them on climate-change and there’s no stopping them. What’s White Surrey?’
The ginger girl with the teeth had no idea.
‘A halberd?’
The lad with the train-tracks didn’t know that either. Maxwell was toying with asking what a beavor was, but he couldn’t risk the loss of pension and left that sort of thing to the Science Department.
‘Right,’ he sighed. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do.’ He looked out through the newly-cleaned windows to the green of the playing fields. ‘It’s a lovely day. Who wants to go outside?’
Most of the hands shot skywards, some because they thought they might be able to escape from this lunatic.
‘We’re going to pretend, boys and girls,’ he said, ‘that it is August 22nd, 1485. And we’re going to restage a battle.’
The lads laughed and cuffed each other. They were with him already. The girls were less sure. ‘And if you think History is all about boys,’ Maxwell called above the excitement, ‘you’re right. It is. But there are exceptions. Boudicca, Cleopatra, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan of Arc – all women. And all of them put the frighteners on thousands of men.’
Now it was the girls’ turn to laugh. And once again, Mad Max had the whole of Year 7 in the palm of his hand.
There were no bruises at the end of the day, no bad tempers or hurt feelings. Just two hundred and thirty eight kids who went home to tell their mums or dads or both about the amazing Mr Maxwell and how they knew how to handle a halberd. And an arquebus. And a crossbow. The rest of the day? It was all right.
Peter Maxwell pushed open the outer door to Sylvia Matthews’ domain and inhaled the comforting smell of cotton wool, Savlon and general warm cleanliness. It was here that every child and most teachers in the school came with scratches, bumps, rashes and collywobbles, with worries large or small and went away comforted. He had been gravitating here himself for years and if he didn’t know how much she loved him, he was probably the only one. The smell was now overlaid with freshly brewed coffee with a slight hint of Hobnob.
‘Sylv?’ He never liked to broach her inner sanctum without warning. Heaven only knew where she might be sticking a plaster at that very moment.
‘Come through,’ she called back. ‘There’s no one here…’
‘Except us chickens,’ he completed the old joke, so old they had almost forgotten the rest. He flopped down in the corner chair and let his head rest on the back. ‘Bosworth doesn’t get any easier,’ he said.
‘Who won this time?’ she asked, stirring in the milk.
‘It was a nail-biting finish,’ he said, ‘but History was not rewritten this time.’ He took the proffered mug. ‘Thanks. How was your day?’
She sat opposite him and smiled. ‘The usual mix of minor bumps and the odd meltdown at being in Big School. Other than that, uneventful, except I gather Charlotte… oh, that’s Thingee Two… is off sick.’ She leaned forward. ‘So, what was it you wanted to talk about?’
‘That, partly,’ he said. ‘I had Lindsey Summers in this morning… you remember her?’
Sylvia Matthews had an almost computerlike recall of all the girls who had come to her sobbing about being pregnant, despite the fact that they had ‘done it’ standing up, with their feet in cold water and all the other old wives’ tales. Lindsey Summers stood out as one of the few who had told her calmly that she was pregnant, that she was going to have the baby and give it a life better than her own had panned out to be so far. She nodded her head.
‘There have been two girls found dead now, I suppose you know, the one Bernard was in the frame for and another, found in Willow Bay.’
‘Don’t tell me the other one is Lindsey’s!’ Sylvia was appalled. It somehow seemed so much worse that she should die young after such a start.
‘No, she isn’t, but Lindsey’s daughter, April, is a victim of the same man, I am convinced. She disappeared over the summer – long story – and it turns out she was living with a man years older, who more or less kept her prisoner. And now, she’s pregnant. Except that her mother told me today she is planning a termination.’
‘The best thing, surely.’ Sylvia didn’t believe in storybook endings. ‘If this man is the killer, he won’t be playing mummies and daddies any time soon. But surely, if she was living with him, she can take the police there. Catch him.’
‘She ran away in a panic, arrived there in the dark. She doesn’t know where it is except in the widest terms and the police can’t knock on every door in Leighford hoping to find him. It’s worse than a needle in a haystack.’
‘DNA?’
‘Yes, from the baby. If she goes ahead with the termination, it’s easy. If she changes her mind again, there would need to be court hearings, all kinds of hoops to jump through.’
‘An amniocentesis does carry risks,’ Sylvia agreed. ‘It isn’t something that should be carried out lightly.’
‘Lightly?’ Maxwell said. ‘It could save lives.’
‘Or lose one,’ the school nurse said, calmly. ‘It’s not an easy decision to make. Do you risk one life to save several, when the several are not in immediate danger?’
‘We’ve got off the subject,’ Maxwell said, ‘and now I can hardly remember what the subject is.’
Sylvia thought she might as well change the subject, as Maxwell had lost track of it so thoroughly. ‘You’d heard about Charlotte, then? I thought it was being kept quiet.’
‘Thingee One told me. She had no choice, really – she answered the phone to me this afternoon and I asked her why. I think my mind was full of April and then when I heard… I suppose I wondered whether she was losing the baby or… well, I just wondered.’
‘Can anyone keep a
nything from you, Max?’ Sylvia asked.
‘No one told me anything,’ he said. ‘It was a train of thought. Don’t blame Sarah.’ Somehow, the subject had become too serious to use nicknames.
‘You’re right,’ Sylvia said. ‘Charlotte is having a termination. She went into Leighford General last night. She didn’t make the decision lightly, but in the end, she couldn’t see herself bringing up a baby on her own. They hadn’t been together very long and I think it knocked the stuffing out of the relationship as soon as she told him.’
‘Do the kids know?’
‘That Mr Baines is giving that secretary one?’ Sylvia lapsed into the vernacular and the years dropped away. Maxwell smiled to see the teenage girl peeping out through the nurse’s world-weary eyes. ‘Of course they do. Do they know she’s pregnant? Possibly not. The news only leaked out at the very end of term and so they have never seen her with a bump. She is only around nine weeks even now. They may have got away with it.’
‘I haven’t seen him to speak to yet. Not that we have much in common – he’s a little hearty for me; all jock-straps and pretending there’s such a thing as Sports Science. She’s a sweetheart – I’m sorry that it has worked out like this for her.’
‘I’ve seen a bit of her over the holiday. She doesn’t have anyone to talk it over with, really. Her parents have moved away and she didn’t know how to tell her mother, let alone discuss it with her. She had doubts about the relationship even before she got pregnant. He works all hours, coaching, that kind of thing. I suppose it goes with the territory.’
‘As I said – too hearty.’
‘Yes, running, PE, cricket, soccer… apparently he’s never met a game he doesn’t like.’
‘I don’t see how they would ever find anything to attract them in the first place.’
‘Christmas party, or so I understand. Something to do with the girls’ showers, but I didn’t dwell.’
‘No, fair enough, Sylv. There is such a thing as too much information. I gather they hadn’t got so far as moving in together.’
‘That was the clincher, I think. She wanted to move in with him, or at least set up a nursery in both houses, but he wouldn’t agree to anything like that. She seemed quite cowed by him, but I suppose that would make sense. He’s a good bit older than her and a teacher.’
‘A PE teacher, Sylv,’ Maxwell admonished her.
‘Yes, yes,’ she flapped her hand at him, ‘yes, a PE teacher. But I think the relationship was never very equal, from what she has been saying. I’ve never liked the man, I have to say. Always a bit slow to send dented kids down to me, for example. Do you remember Nick Hessel? Ginger. Bit gangly.’
‘I remember him. Nice lad, despite the ginger.’
‘Well, he had a broken arm, got it in PE and Baines wouldn’t let him come down and have it looked at. It displaced in the end, lad passed out and it rather got above Baines’ remit. I can’t believe the parents didn’t sue.’
‘I suppose Legs headed them off at the Pass.’
‘No doubt, but what I’m getting at is that Charlotte is well rid of Baines.’
‘Is she leaving?’
‘Why should she?’ Sylvia asked, a trifle tersely.
‘No reason in the world, except that she is a relative kid and he is a thirty something teacher, as I believe you have already mentioned.’
‘Sorry, Max.’ Sylvia leaned forward and patted his knee. ‘It’s just that I get a bit hot under the collar when I think about him. I’ve heard a few things from Charlotte… sorry.’
‘My fault,’ he said, ever the public schoolboy. ‘But, is she?’
‘Is she…?’
‘Leaving.’
‘No, but he is. Apparently, he has a job in January, some school along the coast. He missed the resignation day, but they are willing to wait. Apparently, he teaches there already, evening classes, that kind of thing.’
‘Keen,’ Maxwell observed.
‘Mean, more likely,’ Sylvia said. ‘Apparently, he has never taken Charlotte out. They always met at her place, very occasionally his, but she would do all the catering. He never put his hand in his pocket. That’s another reason she has made the decision she has – she said she didn’t want to spend the rest of the child’s life trying to drag money out of Baines. She has had to grow up fast, poor girl.’
Maxwell drained his cup and put it down, preparing to go.
‘Is that it, Max?’ Sylvia asked him. ‘This conversation seems to have gone off piste rather.’
‘No, not really,’ he said. ‘I just needed to get my head around things. Two women – because April Summers is a woman in this context, despite her age…’
‘Which is?’
‘Fourteen,’ he sighed. ‘Two women, both taking a big decision, essentially alone. I just needed to talk it through. Find out how hard it must be for them. And I find out it isn’t hard; it’s next to impossible.’
‘Sometimes it’s the only way. How likely is it that the DNA will help, do you think?’ she asked.
‘It depends. Jacquie doesn’t seem to think that this man is known to the police. There have been no complaints, no reports. Just two dead girls and one traumatised one. And when I say “just” of course, I don’t mean to minimise the importance. I just mean…’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘It’s very strange, Sylvia. The girls don’t go to this school, but the links are still so strong. It can only be a matter of time before it is one of our girls. And then it will all hit the fan, what with Bernard having been involved already. I don’t know whether he can survive any more.’
‘He has Joe,’ she remarked.
‘Good Lord Above, woman,’ he said, getting up. ‘Is there anything you don’t know.’
‘Lots,’ she smiled. ‘I’m always hazy on the date of the Battle of Towton, as you well know.’
‘1461,’ he said, automatically. ‘29th March.’
She waited.
‘Sunday,’ he added, with a smile. ‘It was snowing like buggery.’
‘I do happen to know about Bernard’s domestic arrangements, though,’ she said, ‘because I have become, by a strange default mechanism, his confessor. It’s like having a fourteen year old lad in here, telling me about his first date. I have to rein him in sometimes – as you rightly say, there is such a thing as too much information.’
‘Well, if I had some explosive news burning a hole in my tongue, I would come to you as well, Sylv, so the man is showing some sense at least. But…’
‘He has Joe, whose employers have turned out to be very understanding. Apparently, they are leaving him in the closet for now, ready to produce him if they need to up their cred with the LGBT brigade.’
‘The…?’
‘Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, you old dinosaur. I went on a course. We all had training while you were away, as a matter of fact.’
‘In Los Angeles, we had more than training – every day was a practical exam, believe me. I’m glad Bernard is happy but I’ll give you my final verdict when I find out how many covers he has given me this week. But I must be off. The Mem is due home early tonight; First Day Debrief with Nole and then a night with our feet up.’ He smiled at Sylvia and put a gentle hand on her arm. ‘I miss our first day back suppers.’
‘Ratatouille,’ she said, laying her hand over his.
‘With just the right amount of rat,’ he agreed and, with a peck on her cheek, he was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
As Maxwell skidded to a halt outside 38 Columbine, he was pleased to see that Jacquie’s car was already there and when he opened the front door his son was in full cry.
‘And then she made me read it out, Mummy!’
‘How did you get on?’ he heard his wife say, over the unmistakeable sound and smell of pancake production.
‘Weeeellll,’ Nolan could prima donna for England, ‘I couldn’t do all the voices, but I think I did quite well. I’ve never been very good at mouses.’ Maxwell smiled as he climbed
the stairs. Without the occasional grammatical lapse, it was easy to mistake Nolan for a short and well-preserved octogenarian.
‘Ask the Count,’ Jacquie said. ‘He knows better than anyone how a mouse sounds.’
‘That’s true,’ Nolan agreed. ‘I’ll ask him later.’ He turned his head and a grin split his face. ‘Dads! I was just telling Mummy, I had to read out loud today, and I did the voices, except the mouses.’
‘That’s my boy,’ Maxwell said, blowing a raspberry on the boy’s cheek and then heading off to do the same to his wife.
‘Blow on Mummy!’ Nolan egged him on from his place at the table, then thought twice. ‘No, don’t, Dads. She’s doing pancakes.’
‘So I see. Yum.’ The Head of Sixth Form looked into the face of the Detective Inspector and saw a lot there that had hopefully passed the boy by. ‘Have you laid the table? Got the syrup out?’
‘No.’ The child was scrambling down from the table.
‘Spit spot.’ Maxwell could do a mean Julie Andrews when the occasion demanded it. With Nolan’s back turned, he leaned his head on his wife’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. ‘Bad day?’
‘Not too good. Yours?’
‘Unusual. Tell you later.’
‘Mmm. Post-pancakes.’
‘No better time.’ He planted a kiss on her neck and turned to help his son lay the table. ‘Nole, you are a left-handed booby, what are you?’ He turned the cutlery round the right way.
‘A left-handed booby.’ Nolan waddled away, hands tucked in and feet spread out, a booby to the life.
‘Okay, chaps,’ Jacquie turned from the cooker with a pile of pancakes on a plate. ‘How many do you have room for? And do you want them with bacon?’
‘Loads. Yes.’ The child looked at his mother and added, ‘Please.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
And they sat there, the most nuclear of nuclear families, and swapped tales of Mrs Whatmough, Legs Diamond and the old lady who had come in to see Jacquie because she had lost her dog.