by M. J. Trow
‘Well, well,’ Maxwell said, ‘I’ve seen some roses in my time.’
‘Do you grow ’em?’ The old boy turned to him. Since his Ethel had gone he’d had nobody to talk to about his roses. Nobody seemed to have the time to listen any more.
‘Nah,’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘Couldn’t grow a bunion by myself. But my neighbour at home, she’s got some first-class blooms. Is the key this way?’ And he elbowed past the old boy into a dilapidated kitchen.
‘Here it is.’ The old boy reached the key down from a shelf. ‘’Ere, where’s your squad car?’
‘Cutbacks,’ Maxwell scowled. ‘I’ve got to sign a chit to take a bike out.’
‘Get away! I tell yer, it’s the bloody government.’
‘Well, there it is,’ Maxwell nodded grimly.
‘Do you know what I get for my disability?’
‘Yes, it’s a bloody shame, isn’t it, Mr … er …?’
‘Jackson. D’you know I was a colour sergeant in the war?’
Maxwell paused and took a good look at the man. ‘I knew it,’ he said.
‘What?’ The old boy squinted at him through misty lenses.
‘By your bearing. I knew you’d seen service.’
‘Normandy, mate, me. I’d be off next month, you know, for the fiftieth. Only I can’t afford it. The bloody froggies ’ave pinched all the ’otel rooms, y’know. Christ, if it wasn’t for us, they wouldn’t ’ave ’otels.’
‘You never said a truer word.’ Maxwell had lured the old boy as far as Rachel King’s front door. Now it was time for fond farewells. ‘Er … I’m sorry, Mr Jackson,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t let you in.’
‘What? Oh, no, right. ‘Course not. No. Well, I’ll just wait outside, then, shall I?’
‘No, no. You just carry on with your roses. It’s a grand evening for it. I’ll pop the key back when I’ve finished.’
‘Oh, right. I can tell you all about ’er, y’know. That Mrs King.’
‘Can you?’ Maxwell clicked the key in the Yale and the door swung inwards. ‘Perhaps you’d do that, then. I don’t suppose it’ll hurt if you come in for a minute.’
‘Well, I told your mates, of course.’
‘Of course. Who was it you spoke to? Do you remember?’ He led the man into Rachel’s hall. There was a scattering of post on the mat. Somebody had piled other mail on the hall stand.
‘Nah. Some kid who hadn’t finished shitting yellow. Curly hair.’
‘Inspector McBride.’
‘Yeah, that’d be it. Shifty bastard. Course, I never ’ad any time for coppers. Not since them MPs in the war …’
‘Have you lived here long, Mr Jackson?’ Maxwell was reading the addresses on the envelopes. Apparently, Mrs Rachel King, along with half the inhabitants of the county, was already eligible for a substantial cash prize and her six lucky numbers would go forward into the Grand Prize Draw to be held in August. But only of course if she returned them within seven days. Well, mused Maxwell, she wouldn’t be doing that now.
‘Eight years come July,’ the old boy said. ‘I ’ad a bit of a windfall, see. Bloody great door fell on me in the factory and I got compensation. Did all right too. Ethel and me could buy this place with a real garden and everything. And then, guess what? She ups and dies, don’t she?’ He shook his head. ‘Now what did you want to go and do that for, Ethel?’
Maxwell looked at the decaying wreck of a man before him. It was like looking into a mirror. There but for the grace of God and twenty years went Peter Maxwell. ‘You were going to tell me about Mrs King?’ he said.
‘Oh, yes.’ Jackson tried to edge his way into the lounge, but Maxwell blocked him with his bulk. ‘Well, she was a nice woman. Proper lady. Always well turned out. Got a good job, of course.’
‘Really?’ Maxwell raised an eyebrow. ‘I understood she was a teacher.’
‘Well, that’s it, yes,’ Jackson nodded. ‘That’s a good job in my book, mate. All that money and all them holidays. Last year she went to Bermuda.’
‘Did she now?’
‘For all six bleedin’ weeks in the summer.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Nah. She was loaded.’
‘She was?’
‘Oh, yeah. Got a house in the Algarve, wherever the bloody ’ell that is. Bit of all right, though, weren’t she?’
‘Er … I don’t know.’ If Maxwell was going to impersonate a police officer, he had to go all the way. ‘I never really met her, I don’t think.’
‘Yeah, bit of a one for the men.’
‘She had men friends?’
‘Yeah, lots of blokes used to come ’ere. No sign of an ’usband, though.’
‘You told my colleagues all this, of course. Inspector McBride?’
‘Yeah. Didn’t they tell you?’ The old man frowned.
‘I haven’t had a chance to read the full report, yet,’ Maxwell hedged. ‘Tell me, Mr Jackson, was there anyone in particular? Anyone who visited a lot?’
‘There was this one bloke, yeah. Younger than the rest. What do they call them? Toyboys?’
‘Could you describe him to me?’
‘Nah. Your Inspector blokie asked me that. He had brown hair and he was young. That’s all I know.’
‘Did he stay the night, this young bloke?’ Maxwell asked, leaning against Rachel’s door that led into Rachel’s lounge.
‘Dunno,’ Jackson shrugged. ‘Contrary to what you might think, I am not a naturally nosy person. My Ethel used to say …’ and the old boy paused. ‘Well, what does it matter now, eh? Terrible thing, ain’t it, mate? Old age? Y’know, it’s only yesterday, it seems to me, I was up to my neck in water wading ashore on the Normandy beaches. Where’ve they gone, eh? All them bloody years?’
‘Where indeed?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Anyhow,’ Jackson shrugged off the mantle of gloom he found himself wearing more and more often these days and wobbled towards the door, ‘you’ve got some murdering bastard to catch,’ he said. ‘You ain’t gonna do that with me rabbiting on, are yer? ’Ere, do you like cocoa?’
Maxwell smiled. ‘I love cocoa,’ he said.
‘Right.’ The old boy hovered in the doorway. ‘You give me a shout when yer ready and you and me’ll have a cup, shall we? I’ve got some shortbread somewhere.’
‘That’ll be great,’ said Maxwell, and he watched the man go, whistling through his roses.
Maxwell had never impersonated a police officer before. He’d never consciously lied to anyone, except habitually at parents’ evenings, when he told Mr and Mrs So-and-so that he was sure little Johnnie/Ermintrude/Ali would be a credit to them come exam time. Now, he had committed a felony. Well, in for a penny. He closed the door on Mr Jackson and the all-seeing, unseeing world of Glenalmond Close and checked the kitchen. The drawers were full of cutlery or clothes pegs or instructions for electrical gadgets. Nothing different. Nothing unusual. But then, the police had been here already. They’d have found anything, wouldn’t they? Taken it away with them in anonymous black plastic bags. But then, the police didn’t know the whole story, did they? They hadn’t got the blackmail note, the one Sally Greenhow had half-inched from Harper-Bennet’s room.
And as the thought crossed his mind, he saw it. A memo written on the wipeable wall board. In block capitals. Reminding Rachel to cancel the milk. With trembling fingers, Maxwell fumbled in his inside pocket and held the note at arm’s length alongside the board.
He was no graphologist. But the tall uprights of the Ns gave it away. If there’d been any doubt in his mind, it had gone now. Rachel King was a blackmailer.
Maxwell drifted from the kitchen, back through the hall with its unopened mail, and made for the stairs. He’d just reached the landing when he heard the door bell ring. He froze, half turning. He checked his situation. It wasn’t likely he could be seen from the glass-panelled door, but he could make out a figure, distorted by the bubbles. A man certainly. Had the fuzz come back? He could hear their enquiries now. ‘
And what exactly were you doing in the dead woman’s house, sir? With a blackmail note in your possession, in her handwriting, which we know nothing about?’ McBride would throw away the key.
Then he heard voices, saw the figure at the door move away. Maxwell braced himself on the banister rail and leapt the stairs two at a time, trying to land as he’d seen Metternich the cat land, and doing it rather badly. He ducked through into the lounge looking for the back door. Then the voices stopped him. Rachel’s secondary glazing was not of the best and although he couldn’t make out words, he recognized the sounds. Mr Jackson was talking to Rachel’s visitor. And Rachel’s visitor was Father Jordan Gracewell.
He heard the volume increase, heard Jackson say as he fiddled with the lock, ‘He’s in here now. I’ve told him all about you. He’ll want to have a word.’
Then he heard the bell ringing again and Jackson hammering on the glass. ‘Officer. Officer. Are you there?’ And he saw Jordan Gracewell making a run for it, sprinting down the path and along the pavement until the privet hid him from view.
‘Are you there?’ Jackson was shouting through the letterbox now. ‘He’s come back. That young bloke I was telling you about. Only … he’s gone again. ‘’Ere! I say! What the bloody ’ell’s going on?’
What was going on was that Peter Maxwell had found the dining-room and with it, the french window to the garden at the back. He flicked the key and saw himself out, cutting through the public footpath that dissected the little estate and out on to the roads and the world beyond.
Mad Max Maxwell spent that Sunday morning wandering the beaches of Bournemouth, watching the demented English paddling and building sandcastles and throwing frisbees and hitting their children. And all the time, he was wrestling with the problem of who killed two women. By evening, he thought he knew. By supper time – fish and chips in vinegar and grease – he was certain. And he made his phone call.
‘Sally?’ Maxwell leaned into the plastic-domed booth in the Bed and Breakfast lobby where the hideous red and cream carpet swirled its way on and up the stairs.
‘Max?’ the startled girl answered. ‘Where are you? No, don’t tell me!’
‘Sally, are you all right?’
‘Is the Pope a Seventh Day Adventist?’
‘Well,’ Maxwell beamed as an old guest zimmered her way past him, ‘I have to confess I’ve occasionally had my doubts. What’s the matter?’
‘Max … oh, Max …’ and her voice trailed away.
‘Max?’ A male voice had taken over.
‘Alan?’
‘Look, I don’t dislike you, Max. On the contrary, I’ve often spoken up for you when you’ve behaved like a prize prat in the past, but this has got to stop. Where the fuck are you?’
‘Bournemouth,’ Maxwell told him. ‘Alan, what’s going on? What’s wrong with Sally?’
‘Well, the bottom line, I suppose, is that she had the misfortune to go on that bloody silly course with you.’
‘I see.’ Maxwell was still beaming at the old lady, bearing in mind the speed of her movements through the lobby. ‘And the top line?’
‘The top line is that the police have been questioning her. No, Sal,’ he heard Alan back away from the receiver, ‘I’m handling this now. Enough is enough.’ Alan was back with Maxwell. ‘She’s been through hell in the last twenty-four hours. And all because of your bloody ego. You’re like some goddam knight errant, aren’t you? Thundering around the country tilting at windmills. Well, Don Quixote, you can do it by yourself from now on. Sancho Panza here isn’t coming out to play any more. The filth know about the blackmail note.’
‘Ah.’
‘Sally doesn’t know where you are. And doesn’t want to know. But I do. Could you be a little more precise? Then I’ll get on to Malcolm and McBride and drop that little gem into their earholes. I think we’d all feel a little safer with you behind bars.’
‘Thanks for your support, Alan,’ Maxwell said, ‘and tell Sal I’m sorry. She’s the last person in the world I’d want to land in it.’
‘Well, how touching,’ Alan sneered. ‘You’re all heart, Max.’
‘Tell her something else, Alan, will you?’ Maxwell said. ‘Tell her I know who killed Liz and Rachel.’
15
That night something happened. Sally Greenhow tossed and turned until the early hours. Then she got up, disentangling herself from the cradling arms of her husband, and left. By the time she’d had a chance to clear her head and reflect on the brief note she’d left him on the kitchen table, she was rattling towards the west and the dawn was coming up like thunder out of Sussex to her back.
She felt so stupid. So furious with herself, sniffing back the tears as she drove. All she could think of was Alan and the row they’d had after the police had let her go. He hadn’t meant to shout, of course. And nor had she. It was just the tension of the day, the hour. They’d kissed and made up afterwards and made love in the king-size bed he’d had imported from Sweden, the one less than a foot off the floor. But then, in the quiet of the night-time, after she’d had a ciggie and dipped into the latest Rendell and he had drifted into sleep, draped over her shoulder, an apparition came to Sally Greenhow. A man, in battered armour, riding a clapped-out bike wobbled into view. He was balancing a lance across his handlebars and beneath the uptilted visor of his helmet were the steady eyes of Mad Max. The image was so real she’d heard the whirring of his chain and the creak of his saddlebags as he passed. She couldn’t, in the darkness, make out what he was tilting at, the lance level now under his armpit, the pedals flashing in the fleeting vision. All she knew was that it was huge and black. And she’d had this sudden sense of dread. It hit her like a wave and she’d sat bolt upright. Maxwell was riding into the dark. Alone. And suddenly she knew she had to be with him.
A similar thought had occurred to Superintendent Malcolm.
‘If there’s one thing Stony Warren got right,’ he told John McBride that Sunday night, ‘it was to wind up Peter Maxwell and see which way he goes.’
‘The trouble is,’ McBride said, ‘he’s gone too far, hasn’t he? I’m going to throw the book at him for withholding that blackmail note.’
‘Technically,’ Malcolm reminded him, ‘it was Sally Greenhow who withheld the note.’
‘Complicity, then,’ McBride said. ‘We’ll get him on that.’
‘Very likely, John,’ the Superintendent nodded, ‘but let’s see exactly where he is first.’
‘St Bede’s,’ McBride said, passing a sheaf of papers to a passing DC. ‘That’s where we’ll find Mr Maxwell.’
Mr Maxwell took his time over the full English breakfast. Mrs Elderflower’s mixed grill had more grease than the West End show, but when you had arteries the hardness of which would put a diamond to shame, it really didn’t matter very much. And anyway, Mrs Elderflower’s tea was out of this world.
What made it all particularly glorious was not just the sunshine streaming in on to the slabs of cold toast waiting in their elegant chrome rack, but the fact that this was a Monday morning. Sixth Form assembly followed by an hour of Key Stage 3 with 9S4, attempting to explain Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement – largely akin to wading through treacle in snorkel and flippers.
‘Everythin’ all right, ducks?’ Mrs Elderflower had had a rough night. One of her curlers was still in and her upper lip, or at least the line of scarlet lipstick that traced it, was making a determined bid to reach her nostrils.
‘Fine, thanks.’ Maxwell waved a limp sausage at her and beamed broadly.
He collected his overnight bag, his Italian ice-cream salesman’s jacket and his panama, paid his dues and left. But he didn’t take the bus to St Bede’s. He took the bus to Higham Corner and padded on down the road to number 12, Elphinstone Gardens.
Briefly, Maxwell was buggered. The obliging Father Brendan had given him Jordan Gracewell’s address, but had neglected to tell him the place was subdivided into flats. There was a barrage of six bells by the door f
rame and none of them carried the name Gracewell. So Maxwell rang Flat 1 and assumed the bonhomie of a travelling salesman. He was assuming more personas than Kirk Douglas in The List of Adrian Messenger.
An elderly lady peered around the door. Maxwell beamed and doffed his panama. Luck was a lady this morning. Maxwell was particularly good with elderly ladies.
‘Good morning, my dear. My name is Peter Mawhinny. Of Mawhinny and Murdoch, Ecclesiastical Suppliers. I’m looking for Father Jordan Gracewell.’
‘Pardon?’ The old girl was still in her nightie and hideous quilted housecoat.
Pump up the volume, thought Maxwell and launched himself again. ‘Peter Mawhinny of Mawhinny and Merton, Ecclesiastical Suppliers. Er … Father Gracewell. I have some merchandise to offer him. For his church.’
‘Oh, the Father doesn’t have a church, Mr Maw … He’s a school chaplain, you know.’
‘Indeed?’ Maxwell did his best to look interested. ‘Well, anyway, could you tell me which is his flat?’
‘Oh, he’s not there.’
‘Not?’
‘Pardon?’
‘I said, “Is he not?” ‘
‘No.’ The old girl did her best to focus on her visitor. ‘I just told you that.’
‘Can you tell me where he is?’ Maxwell was shouting now.
‘St Bede’s,’ the old resident told him. ‘And there’s no need to shout, you know, young man. I have twenty-twenty hearing.’
‘Yes, of course. In case I miss the Father at St Bede’s though and have to call again later, could you tell me which is his flat?’
‘Well, I don’t know if I should. He’s a very private person, you see. Keeps himself to himself.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Maxwell was still doing his best to smile. ‘Tell me, Miss … er …?’
‘Mrs,’ she corrected him, ‘Mrs Verlander.’
‘Mrs Verlander. Does the Father have many visitors?’
‘What a funny question.’ Mrs Verlander frowned, still ready to slam the door in a second should Mr Maw … prove to be a pervert.