by M. J. Trow
His mouth felt like the bottom of a budgie’s cage and his head as though a vice was squeezing it. He couldn’t face breakfast and thought he might drown in a bath, so he risked a shower and wished he hadn’t. He unwrapped the bandage that Suki Lee had lovingly wound round his temples and winced as the water stung the jagged gash that followed his hairline. This was odd. He’d lost count of the games he’d played at school and university, but he’d never known a wound like this. He even neglected to rinse his important little places in his eagerness to see for himself the result of sending a man to play a boy’s game.
His face looked green in the bathroom mirror and there was a still-bloody slice running dramatically from his hair to his eyebrow, swollen and bruised. ‘Here’s looking at you, kid.’ At least his Bogart hadn’t lost its edge.
As if still in a dream, he heard the door bell. Shit. He checked his watch on the bathroom shelf. That would be the postman needing his signature. He wasn’t sure whether he was up to that – the man may have to settle for his mark this morning. He lifted down the towelling robe that was made of lead and staggered down the stairs. The post lay scattered on the mat, but there was a figure beyond the frosted glass of his front door that he recognized. And it wasn’t the postman.
‘Max, for fuck’s sake!’ and Jacquie’s arms, strong and frightened were around his neck.
‘Well,’ he said softly, trying to close the door and hold on to her at the same time. ‘Now all Columbine knows I’m back. Thanks, heart of darkness.’
She stood back, wincing along with him as she ran her fingertips so gently over his forehead. ‘Jesus, you silly, silly man,’ she was saying, the tears brimming from those clear, grey eyes. ‘What possessed you to play in that stupid, stupid match?’
‘It’s a man thing, Woman Policeman,’ he said and let her help him back upstairs. ‘Liniment and jock straps. It’s what made the public school system great.’
‘You didn’t check your messages.’ She was pointing back at the flashing lights. ‘They’re probably all from me.’
‘Sorry,’ he managed. ‘The weekend’s been something of a blur, I’m afraid.’
She got him into the lounge and sat him down, turning off the table lamp and tucking his feet up on the pouffé. ‘When I couldn’t get a reply on your mobile, I rang Henry Hall. He said you’d been hurt, knocked out. By the time I got t Grimond’s, you’d gone. I’d have come yesterday but …’
And he held his finger to her lips. ‘But you’re up to your eyes in a murder enquiry,’ he said softly. ‘This is only a tap on the head, to paraphrase the old joke. You shouldn’t be here, darling, you should be in Selborne. Anything broken yet?’
‘I should be asking you the same question,’ she fussed. ‘Let me get you to bed.’
‘I’m not sure I’m up to that,’ he whispered, glancing down to his lap. ‘Could be a soft tissue fracture. Besides,’ he sat up, ‘what day is it?’
‘Monday.’
‘Precisely. Let me see … ah, how soon they forget. Twelve Bee on the Ulster Question, followed by Seven Eff Twenty Eight on Walking and Chewing Gum.’
‘Max, you can’t seriously be intending to go to work?’
‘Got it in one, WP. I can see why you made sergeant.’
‘I forbid it,’ she shouted, immediately wishing she hadn’t.
His eyes widened as he struggled to his feet. ‘Saddle White Surrey for the field today,’ he swung himself round as best he could, giving her his second-best Olivier.
‘No, no,’ she was shaking her head. ‘No bike. You leave Surrey in the shed. If you insist on being daft, I’m taking you in.’
‘Ah, ever the policeman,’ he smiled. ‘And all right, I accept. I think I’ve got a loose chain on old Surrey anyway, otherwise I wouldn’t be giving in so easily. Help me upstairs, heart and while I struggle into my underpants, tell me the news.’
She tucked her arm under his and they made for the bedroom. She knew her Mad Max; how pointless argument was at moments like this. If she pushed it, he’d be telling her how Leighford High had never had to do without him for s long and that it must be on the point of collapse by now.
‘Let it go. Max,’ she said, propping him by the bed and hunting for a shirt. ‘It’s over now.’
‘Over – and you’ll excuse my French – my arse,’ he growled. ‘I had to walk away, Woman Policeman. There were two men dead at Grimond’s and I walked away.’
‘I suspect,’ she put him right, ‘you had to be carried. How on earth did you get that wound on your head?’
‘Selwyn, Ape and Splinter,’ he told her. ‘The rough equivalent of an artic.’
‘Do you remember it?’ She was sitting by hi on the bed now, looking closely at his head.
‘Not exactly. It was all a bit of a blur, as I said.’
‘And this,’ she tweaked the jagged wound and Maxwell saw stars.
‘Jesus Christ!’ He doubled up.
‘I’m sorry, darling.’ She looked as pained as he did. ‘It may have been an artic that hit you, but was an artic carrying a pencil.’
He looked down at the piece of broken graphite in the palm of her hand.
‘An inch or two to the right and you’d have lost an eye. Is that how Grimond’s win all the matches?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, recovering from the pain through a mist of tears. ‘I wish we could ask Tim Robinson. How did West’s team react to that by the way? The undercover man?’
‘I haven’t told them,’ Jacquie said. ‘Hall insisted that I didn’t. I may be on loan to West, but I’m not an open book. If West wants to know that, he’ll have to ask Hall himself. I’m not doing it. Oh, Max,’ she put an arm around his neck. ‘Won’t you please reconsider this? Going to Leighford is madness.’
‘Ah,’ he smiled. ‘If only somebody had said that to me twenty-three years ago. It is, I fear, too late now. Come on,’ and he staggered to his feet. ‘Last one in Legs Diamond’s office gets ’em in.’
18
‘Good God!’ Dierdre Lessing, Senior Mistress at Leighford High, was staring out of the staff room window at the apparition inching its way across the car park. ‘Is that Peter Maxwell?’ It was a Monday morning in late spring and the endless round of life in a comprehensive school somewhere on the south coast was about to be disturbed.
Ben Holton, the Head of Science, was just collecting a much-appreciated lesson-cover slip from his pigeon hole. ‘Good God, yes. Stroke, d’you think? He’s a funny age.’ Ben Holton had known Peter Maxwell, as had they all, for years. The Head of Science had had hair when they’d first met. Now it was merely a monkish fringe above a perpetually furrowed forehead.
‘Funny colour, too.’ Paul Nicolson, the Head of Drama had joined the others. Still reeling from the partial success of his Macbeth he now faced the grim reality of the Practical Drama Season ‘Where’s he been?’
Dierdre turned away. ‘Poncing about at some private school or other. One of Mr Diamond’s less than sensible suggestions.’ It was an unusually disloyal remark from Dierdre Lessing.
‘That’s right,’ Nicolson clicked his fingers. ‘I was in the papers. Grimond’s in Hampshire. They’ve had a couple of suspicious deaths, among the staff, I mean. Makes Leighford look quite normal. Didn’t you read about it?’
‘I saw it on the News,’ Holton said, his only reading matter being the New Scientist. ‘Why am I filling in a French lesson again, pray?’
Dierdre patted him on the shoulder. ‘No problem for a multi-tasker like you, Ben,’ she said. ‘Maxwell did it.’
‘Did what?’ Nicolson asked, checking the mail that had arrived that morning.
‘The suspicious deaths. They’ll turn out to be murder and Maxwell’s the culprit.’
‘Right.’ Nicolson nodded, well aware of the Senior Mistress’ view of the Head of Sixth Form.
She gave him her iciest stare. ‘Just wishful thinking,’ she purred.
On the tarmac below them, Maxwell made it to the front door and stood t
here for a moment, stock still. He’d just climbed six steps and it felt like the Matterhorn.
‘You all right, Mr Maxwell?’
The Head of Sixth Form turned to his inquisitor, a pretty, blonde GNVQ student in Year 12. ‘I am, Ellen,’ he smiled, ‘and thank you for asking. Just getting used to the smell of the old place again. How was it for you?’
Ellen had never really known what Peter Maxwell was talking about, even before he became her Year Head and was just her History teacher. But that was because he was Mad Max. He did look a funny colour, though. Maxwell waved to her as he passed on and made it to the mezzanine floor, too and to his office. Nothing seemed out of place. Still the same chaos of paperwork, the waiting piles of marking, the unread memos from the Senior Management Team, that spider’s web from the Cretaceous period that Mrs B. his cleaner, seemed to find invisible.
Helen Maitland, known to generations of sixth formers as ‘The Fridge’ on account of her white bulk, looked horrified when she clapped eyes on him. But then, that was her usual reaction, whether it be to the electricity bill or Year Ten’s summer exam results.
‘I was going to ask you how it all went, Max,’ she said, patting his tweedy shoulder. ‘Now, I don’t think I will.’
‘This little thing?’ he pointed vaguely in the direction of his head, ‘Why it ain’t nuthin’ at all, honey-chile. Just the result of banging my head against the bastions of privilege.’
‘Huh, huh,’ she smiled, nodding patronizingly. ‘I’ll buy that. Sit you down. What’ve you got first?’
‘Year Twelve.’
‘Wait here. I’ll get you some coffee.’
He sank gratefully into the low, soft chair in the corner of her office, the one next to his. He heard the bell, the damned one without mercy, clapping electronically in his ears and away down the corridors of power. He was vaguely aware of kids clattering past in ones and twos, back packs and carrier bags in their hands, but mostly the latter, on the grounds that Tesco was cheaper than Nike. He picked up their usual Monday morning conversation.
‘What about East Enders, then, eh?’
‘That Nicholson’s a real wanker. I hate him.’
And comments like that even a concussed Maxwell couldn’t let go. He swung upright, leaning out of Helen’s doorframe with difficulty. ‘Not as much as he hates you, Morgan, you freak.’
Morgan stopped in his tracks. ‘Oh, hi, Mr Maxwell. Didn’t see you there, sir.’
‘Clearly,’ Maxwell agreed and was grateful to sit down again, young Morgan an altogether more careful lad from now on.
Maxwell didn’t know how long he waited there. He only knew he should be up to his elbows in Sir Edward Carson and Ulster by now and he was still sitting. Year Twelve would be gibbering. They’d had supply teachers for a fortnight, that strange band of unaccountables, the hand-holders and the breach-holders who daily patched up the crumbling edifice that was British education. Time they had some real teaching.
‘No, you don’t.’ It was Sylvia Matthews, the school nurse, holding him down in his chair, very gently with a single finger. ‘Good God, man.’
Maxwell saw Helen Maitland at Matron’s elbow. ‘Traitor!’ he hissed, ‘I thought you were an unconscionably long time making coffee.’
‘That needs stitches, Max,’ Sylvia was fussing. ‘I’m taking you to Casualty.’
‘I can’t bear the soaps,’ he muttered, ‘you know that. But perhaps – just perhaps, mark you … a day at the chalk-face is a bit much at this moment. Call me a cab, Nursie and I’ll find somewhere to sleep it off.’
‘Cab be buggered,’ Sylvia said. ‘Helen, tell Reception, will you? I’m taking Max home. Christ, you didn’t cycle here, did you? Tell me you didn’t.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Jacquie dropped me.’
‘And if I know her,’ Sylvia was bundling the Great Man up and out of Helen’s office, ‘that wasn’t her idea either. Come on.’
‘Can I at least check my mail first? Pension plans, begging letters from Lord Puttnam and Estelle Morris – none of these will be there, but there’s bound to be a load of crap from the NUT and exams boards various.’
‘Here it is.’ Helen Maitland had read her boss’s mind and stuffed it all into a folder under his left arm.
‘Ah, what would I do without you ladies?’ He tried to put an arm around them both, but only succeeded in dropping his folder.
‘Get him out of here, Sylvia,’ Helen sighed. ‘Max, for God’s sake take care of yourself. How did you do it, by the way?’
‘I stuck my nose in,’ Maxwell told her, patting the side of it gently. ‘Somewhere it wasn’t wanted.’
Helen watched him go, sighing. ‘Nothing new; there, then.’
Dierdre Lessing was still at the staff room window when she saw Maxwell and Sylvia hobbling out to her car. ‘Ten minutes,’ she checked her watch. ‘That’s a record, even for Maxwell. Perhaps he left the iron on. Why that woman wastes her time on him, I have no idea.’
‘That’s not very fair,’ Ben Holton said, still rummaging through his Science correspondence. ‘Max is a cornerstone of this place.’
She looked at him witheringly. ‘Should you still be here? I thought you had a French cover.’
It wasn’t until Maxwell was sprawled on his settee that he bothered to check the folder Helen Maitland had given him. He’d only left his lounge an hour ago and it seemed like years. He’d toyed with getting back to his creation of Trumpeter Perkins of the 11th Hussars, still waiting, half- assembled, in his attic, but the thought of focussing on minutiae with a head like his wasn’t really likely to happen. So, feeling guilty as he always did when he wasn’t chipping away at his own chalk face, he began rummaging in the post.
‘Jesus!’ he whistled through his teeth and reached for his cordless, punching out the only number sequence he’d ever managed to commit to memory, except of course every date known to man.
‘Jacquie?’ he heard her voice. ‘Can we talk?’
‘Not now, Max,’ she whispered. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Helen and Sylvia insisted I took the rest of the day off.’
‘Good. Talk later.’ And she’d gone.
Shit. That wasn’t what he’d hoped for at all. He’d hoped to discuss the plain white envelope that was lying on his lap, the one he’d just torn open, the one with the Petersfield postmark. He’d hoped to discuss the Swedish porn import that had fallen out of it and the note appended to it that read ‘We know all about you, Maxwell.’ In the event, he’d have to go it alone.
He staggered back into his shoes and got himself gingerly down the stairs again. There was no doubt about it, a town house was not the most sensible proposition for a man who saw double. He knew he’d just negotiated only fourteen stairs, but he could have sworn there were twenty-eight. He was still fumbling for his Barbour in the hall when he realized his answerphone was flashing again. He remembered Jacquie deleting all her messages before they set off for school, so this was something else, probably that officious bastard Bernard Ryan, First Deputy, demanding Maxwell send in some work.
‘Mr Maxwell? This is John Selwyn of Grimond’s. Mr Graham gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind me ringing you at home like this; and I hope you’re not feeling too rough after the match. We’d like to invite you to a debate, tonight if you can. Start at eight o’clock, after prep, in Tennyson. We hope you can be there. You’re our guest of honour. Ciao!’
‘Well, what a coincidence, John,’ Maxwell murmured. ‘I was just on my way to see you too.’
The cab took him north-west again, along wet lunchtime roads, the tyres hissing on the tarmac. He was awake this time, his head still throbbing, but his brain fully operational. And he had some questions to ask. He had some ghosts to lay.
‘That’s it, sir,’ Denise McGovern said. ‘The last one. Now it’s the main school.’
Henry Hall was sitting in George Sheffield’s chair in George Sheffield’s outer office. He had hours
of taped interviews, thousands of words. But nothing concrete. Nothing to tell him who pushed Bill Pardoe off a roof or caved in Tim Robinson’s skull. Nothing about a paedophile ring. Just nothing.
‘Now that you’ve seen the staff, where are we on all this?’
‘I wish I knew,’ Hall said, tapping his teeth with his pencil. ‘I …’ But he never finished his sentence. There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Parker, the school steward, stood there. ‘But, might I have a word?’
‘Of course,’ Hall ushered the man to a chair. ‘It’s Mr Parker, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right, sir.’ Hall and Jacquie had interviewed the man days ago, along with his wife, Mrs Oakes and her kitchen staff and the groundsmen. Hall had the impression that all the domestics were as tight-lipped as buggery. They were Grimond’s through and through and they weren’t talking to the law. Parker sat down, awkwardly, uncomfortable with senior police officers he considered his betters. ‘We spoke last Tuesday, if I remember right.’
‘What can I do for you, Mr Parker?’
‘Well, sir, one of my jobs is to sort out the stationery and get it out to the Departments, you know.’
Hall nodded. Denise McGovern was watching the steward intently.
‘Well, we had a new consignment of envelopes in on Saturday. We’ve got our own crested paper, of course, but the envelopes are plain.’
‘And?’ Hall wasn’t following.
‘Well, I took a load out to replace the old ones that had nearly run out.’
‘Could you get to the point, Mr Parker?’ Hall asked. His case would be two weeks old tomorrow and he was treading water.
‘Well, when I checked the old stock, sir, in that department where I went, I noticed, well … couldn’t help noticing, really, the old stock, sir, it was the same as … just the same as the envelopes that used to come for Mr Pardoe, sir.’
Denise McGovern sat up, but Henry Hall’s hand was in the air, waving gently, keeping her in her seat.
‘These would be the packages that arrived for him, the ones that came … what, once a week?’