by M. J. Trow
‘Man could lose his job.’
‘Or worse.’
‘So what do you recommend?’
‘Your sixth form, Max.’ Holton knew when it was time to pass a buck. He had a higher degree in it.
‘Don’t be ownier than thou about this, Ben. And I won’t embarrass us both by asking you exactly where his hands were at the time. I’m going in search of a jug of cold water. Hold this for me, will you?’
Holton was glad he was only talking about his drink.
The rush of cold air on his face was welcome as White Surrey crested the rise. A younger man would have left the ground and done wheelies at this point, but Peter Maxwell was not a younger man. Another Grad ball was over. He’d made his speeches, presented his daft prizes, got his laughs. The World’s Worst Driver, the Man Most Likely to Become PM, the Best Hung Sixth Former etcetera, etcetera. It came as no surprise to anyone that Hayley Skeggs had been voted the Girl Most Likely To and this had been amply proved by Jeff Armstrong or it would have been if Peter Maxwell hadn’t arrived in the nick of time. He’d coughed loudly to give the pair time to adjust their clothing, told Hayley to go back to the party and gave young Armstrong the fright of his life. He painted a vivid picture of the story as it would appear in the Daily Sport and the Guardian respectively. For a while the Design Teacher toyed with going home and shooting himself; then he relented and filled in the entry form for the Benedictine Order. Either way, Maxwell had saved him from himself.
The Head of Sixth Form wished them all well, the kids of Maxwell’s Own, as they launched themselves into the rest of their lives. ‘If you can walk a straight line,’ he said to the Gorilla Club, ‘thank a teacher.’ And they carried him shoulder high around the Old Mill, laughing, whooping and chanting ‘Mad Max! Mad Max!’ At one point he was vaguely aware of a camera flashing and of Dierdre Lessing hissing her disgust at the proceedings.
That was then. Now, as the sobering breeze of the early morning hit him, reality kicked in. Jacquie had not arrived. He’d bought her ticket, rung her, left messages. He’d waited until the last minute to hear her key in the lock, the bounce of her Ka horn at the kerb. It hadn’t happened. So he’d looked out his Full Dress cycle clips and wheeled Surrey into the evening.
‘Going somewhere special, Mr Maxwell?’ Mrs Troubridge had trilled, as he was on his way out, a watering can in her bony hand.
Maxwell turned to face her in his Cyrano mask. ‘Just down the chippie,’ he called and he’d vanished into the Leighford night.
The old girl would be asleep now, her teeth beside her in a glass, her hair in curlers and her Dorothy L Sayers half read on her counterpane. That repellent old man, Mr Troubridge, her late husband, would be grinning at her from the silver frame on her dressing table. Maxwell knew all this because he’d often entered her Cartland-pink boudoir in order to change the old besom’s light-bulb. Metternich the cat, gnawing on something indescribable in the privet, watched the wheel-warrior come home, a huge phallic nose on top of his head. There had to be a purpose to it all.
But Maxwell wasn’t concerned with his ancient neighbour or the serial killer cannibal with whom he shared a house. He was concerned with what met him on the step of Number 38 Columbine as he swung out of Surrey’s saddle. It appeared to be a wino at first, huddled in the doorway like something out of cardboard city. Then, recognition dawned. ‘Headmaster?’
The less than demon headmaster clambered to his feet, a little shakily at first. ‘Max,’ he slurred. ‘She’s gone. I couldn’t face the Graduation Ball. I had nowhere else to go.’
Maxwell steadied the man. He’d heard the gossip. He didn’t need the details. You could have stayed put, he thought. If your wife’s gone, there’s plenty of room. You could get three 38 Columbines into Legs Diamond’s gaffe. ‘You’d better come in,’ he said and parking Surrey as best he could, eased open the door and let them both in.
‘Max,’ Diamond looked at the man, in the Head of Sixth Form’s oddly swaying entrance hall. ‘You’re a friend. A true friend. Bernard Ryan. Dierdre Lessing. They’re all arseholes. Utter shits. But you, ah…’ he grinned inanely, ‘Oh, we’ve had our differences …’
‘And will, no doubt, continue to do so, Headmaster.’ He turned the man round and put his hand on the banister, pointing Diamond up the stairs. ‘Come on, it’s way past our bedtime. And that’s not an invitation, by the way, womanless as we both seem to be at the moment.’
Legless Diamond did his best on the risers and treads.
Craig Edwards lay next to the desk in his office. On the walls around him, his own victims smiled down – three kids with lollipop grins and a St Bernard; an old and loving couple; brides and grooms without number. All of them oblivious of the fact, as the Leighford traffic built that Saturday morning, the sun dazzling on windscreens, that the man who had stood before them, posing, arranging, clicking shutters and angling lights, was dead.
‘Clean thrust to the throat,’ Jim Astley was wiping his glasses and huffing on the lenses as Henry Hall arrived in a clatter of constables.
‘Same MO as the other two?’ the DCI wanted to be sure.
‘Near as dammit. Talk him through it, Jacquie. I’ve got a suicide on the slab and contrary to public opinion, corpses don’t wait for ever.’
The police surgeon-cum-pathologist looked at Hall for a moment. He saw a man who was drowning rather than waving. ‘Bit of a facer, this one, Henry. Moonlighting as an Ofsted Inspector, was he?’ He chuckled and winked. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.’
Craig Edwards’ office was being transformed into a crime scene. Other arc lights and tripods replaced his own, men in odd white gear were running paintbrushes over door handles and chair backs. Rubber-gloved hands were searching carefully through drawers and filing cabinets. Outside in the street, a growing crowd of ghouls was peering through the front windows, asking obvious questions of the uniforms told to keep them back. Holidaymakers expecting a bit of sun, sea and sand had a bonus – a grisly murder just off the High Street. Postcards would never be the same again – ‘Weather lovely. Kids a pain. Some bloke got killed today.’
‘Craig Edwards,’ Jacquie was talking Henry Hall through it in the room behind the drawn blinds, eerily lit by the SOCO arc lights, ‘photographer.’
‘Are you all right, Jacquie?’ Hall asked. His DS looked tired or perhaps it was just the lights.
‘I’m fine,’ she said firmly, trying the briefest of smiles. ‘Just too many of these, that’s all.’
It should have been the Grad Ball last night and she hadn’t gone. Like Cinders, she’d stayed at home and no fairy godmother had come to her rescue. Turning a pumpkin into a coach and four was a detail in comparison with patching things up with Peter Maxwell.
Hall nodded. He’d seen too many of those too, and you never, ever got used to it; the stillness of the corpse, the silence of the scene. He knelt beside the body, feeling the dead man’s hand with the back of his own. Cold, but not stone cold.
‘This is recent,’ he said, frowning up at Jacquie.
‘Couple of hours ago, Astley reckons,’ she said.
Hall automatically checked his watch. ‘Eight at the latest,’ he said. He automatically took in the dead man’s appearance too. He was … what, thirty-five, forty perhaps, medium build, on the short side, perhaps five seven. Weight? Difficult to tell lying down, but perhaps eleven, twelve stone. He had a carefully cultivated three-day beard growth and brown eyes gazing dully out under half-closed lids, one slightly more open than the other. His mouth was open, as though he’d love to tell Henry Hall something, if only he could. A thin film of saliva still clung to his pale lips. His black leather jacket was thrown open and his shirt was stained with dark splashes and rivulets. There was a black hole between the collar points, slightly to the left of the Adam’s apple.
‘Astley thinks the attack took place out there,’ Jacquie pointed to the area by the front door, partitioned off by a screen. ‘Blood droplets on the flotex.’
‘Small-time photographer. Weddings, christenings, stag nights. Usual things. Had these offices for three years. He was in Bournemouth before that. And originally from Leytonstone.’
Hall straightened. ‘Not exactly David Bailey,’ he commented. ‘Who found the body?’
‘A friend,’ Jacquie said, checking her notebook. ‘Mr John Anderson. He’s next door in the developing room. Bit shaken, needless to say.’
Hall nodded. Murder did that to people. ‘You’ve spoken?’
It was Jacquie’s turn to nod.
‘Right. With me then. Any anomalies, any deviation from what he told you, let me know about it. Jacquie,’ he closed to her so that the alien-suited SOCO team couldn’t hear it. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to say, ‘No, you nosey interfering bastard, I’m not all right. I’m tired of being woken up in the wee small hours with news that some poor sod has had his wind-pipe severed or his skull smashed in or his face blown away. I’m tired of the man I love using me like something out of Ask Jeeves. I’m tired of being taken for granted. Oh, Jacquie’s all right. She’s tough. She can cope. Anyway, she’s got to be a bit weird to hang out with that mad old teacher – whatsisface?
‘Really, sir,’ was how it came out in the end. ‘I’m fine.’
She led him though a deserted studio where the back wall was a matte blue and lights and cables decorated the spaces. Beyond that was a door and a room lit with a single red bulb.
‘Mr Anderson?’ Hall spoke to the man sitting on a stool inside. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Hall, can we talk out here?’
Anderson took Hall’s hand and passed from the dulling scarlet light into flesh and blood reality. Even so, he didn’t look well. He was a dapper little man with the air of an aging art student about him, a goatee, spiky hair and an earring that caught the SOCO lights.
‘I understand from DS Carpenter here that you found the body.’
Anderson nodded.
‘I realize this is extremely painful for you, but I need to understand what happened.’
‘Yes, I …’ Anderson cleared his throat. ‘I got here about nine, maybe nine fifteen. Craig was already dead. I knew that at once. I didn’t touch anything. At least, I don’t think so. I rang emergency services.’
‘On the phone through there?’ Hall pointed to the dead man’s desk.
‘No, on my mobile. It’s sort of … instinctive. I’ve never waited so bloody long in my life.’
‘Response time?’ Hall asked Jacquie.
She checked her notebook. ‘Eight minutes,’ she said.
‘Well,’ Anderson insisted. ‘It felt like fucking forever.’
‘How well did you know the deceased, sir?’ Hall asked.
‘Craig? Oh, I don’t know. Couple of years, I guess. I occasionally do the odd bit of work for him, you know, bit of lighting, driving. That’s what I do; lighting engineer.’
‘And this morning…?’
‘Oh, Craig crashed at mine last night. He’d had a bit of a skinful and I live in Tottingleigh where he’d had a job, so he called round. I’ve got a spare room, so he crashed. He’d left his film behind and I reckoned he’d need it, so I brought it in.’
‘What time did he start work on Saturdays, Mr Anderson?’ Hall wanted to know.
‘Any time,’ Anderson shrugged. ‘He was his own man, pretty well. Look, can I have a ciggie?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Hall. ‘Scene of crime. It causes complexities.’
‘Right,’ Anderson sighed. It had not been a good morning and it showed no signs of improving. ‘No, Craig was a law unto himself, really. Most Saturdays he’d be off doing weddings or parties. I tried his place first and when he wasn’t there, I tried here.’ He glanced across to the desk behind which the feet of Craig Edwards poked out like those of the Wicked Witch of the East under Dorothy’s house on her arrival in Oz. ‘S’pose I was too late.’
‘He must have left your house early,’ Hall was thinking aloud.
‘Yeah,’ Anderson nodded. ‘I didn’t hear him go. Like that, was Craig. Not much of a breakfast man and talk about quiet.’
Hall nodded. ‘Mr Anderson, there’s a lot I need to know. Could you go with DS Carpenter to Leighford police station? We need a statement.’
‘Er … yeah, sure, of course. I just want to get the bastard who did this.’
‘Indeed,’ Hall nodded. ‘We all do.’
He watched them go, his quietly professional DS and the shambling witness who’d stumbled on a murder, and he wandered into the darkroom. That was odd. He slid open drawers, checked cupboard doors, rifled filing cabinets, all with the rubber gloves of his calling. Then he called through to the team going about their business. ‘This is not a trick question, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘But there’s a small prize for the one who can tell me what you expect to find in a photographer’s studio.’
There was a pause. Had the guv’nor finally lost it? ‘Film,’ somebody called back.
‘Bingo,’ said Hall. ‘So would I. But because there isn’t any, I shan’t be giving out the prize after all.’
And Henry Hall never did find out which one of the white-coated SOCO gentlemen muttered, ‘No surprises there, then, welching bastard.’
It must have been nearly eleven when the doorbell rang. The shape beyond the twisted glass was not that familiar, but Maxwell recognized it all the same.
‘Mrs Whiting,’ he smiled. ‘How are you?’
‘I was wondering, Mr Maxwell, if you’d made any progress.’
‘Precious little, I’m afraid. Er … won’t you come in?’
Pamela Whiting suited black. Her skin looked like alabaster against it and the severely cropped hair merely accentuated the hard lines of her mouth and jaw.
‘You know where the lounge is.’ He followed her up the stairs, trying, as all ex-public schoolboys always did, not to stare at her bum.
A dishevelled-looking James Diamond scrambled to his feet. Try as he might, Maxwell couldn’t get used to the man without his three-piece. He was scruffily dressed in jeans and polo top and the fact that he had a neck under his shirt caused the Head of Sixth Form quite a stir.
‘Mrs Whiting,’ Maxwell thought he’d better do the honours. ‘This is my Headmaster, James Diamond.’
The Head didn’t notice the fact that Maxwell had called him by name again or that he had endearingly used the personal pronoun. He was simply staring at Pamela Whiting with his mouth open.
‘Oh, God,’ he managed at last. ‘Mrs Whiting. I am really so sorry,’ he said, grasping her right hand in both of his. ‘What can I say?’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ she told him flatly. ‘You may be in loco parentis, Mr Diamond, but I can hardly hold you responsible for my husband’s death.’
‘Unfortunately,’ he muttered, ‘the police do.’
‘What?’
‘Shall we all sit down?’ Maxwell suggested, swiftly brushing a cloud of Metternich hairs off an armchair. ‘Pamela,’ he leaned forward. ‘Can I get you a drink? Tea? Coffee?’
‘No, thank you, Max,’ she said. ‘It’s been quite a morning one way and another.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, I think there’s been another murder.’
Maxwell and Diamond exchanged glances. ‘Who?’ they chorused.
‘I don’t know. I was out shopping in the High Street and came upon this large crowd – I don’t know the name of the road. There were police cars and an ambulance. It could have been an accident, I suppose, or a suicide. But I overheard people saying it was murder.’
‘In the street?’ Maxwell checked.
‘No, in a photographers’, I understand. Gentlemen, I have to inform you of the rather striking fact that your town is not safe. What are the odds in seaside suburbia?’
‘I’ll drink to that
,’ Maxwell nodded and reached for his Southern Comfort. ‘Headmaster?’ He held up a spare glass.
‘It’s a little early for me, Max.’ Even under suspicion for murder, Diamond couldn’t resist being soberer than thou. Besides, his head was still exploding from his intake of the previous day and every gesture was rather slow and exaggerated, the sharp edges of everything just a little blurred.
‘It’s a little early for me, too,’ Maxwell conceded, but poured a large one anyway.
‘Then I saw a ghost.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Maxwell had only taken the merest sip by this time. Surely, it hadn’t clouded his judgement already?
‘I saw Paula Freeling.’
‘What?’ Diamond blinked at her.
‘Where was this?’ Maxwell asked, less surprised than his Headmaster to hear that news.
‘In the High Street,’ Pamela told him. ‘Turning out of the photographer’s road where all the commotion was.’
‘Why do you think it was her?’ Maxwell pursued it.
‘I’ve got her picture on my bedside table at the hotel, Max,’ Pamela said. ‘That and the awful one of Alan the press borrowed. I’ve got all the press cuttings, national and local. Believe me – I’d know that woman in my sleep.’
‘You couldn’t be mistaken, Mrs Whiting?’ Ever the rational scientist, Diamond was famous for his blinding glimpses of the obvious.
‘Of course,’ she shrugged. ‘But I am not an hysterical woman going to pieces over the loss of her husband. Nor do I believe in the supernatural. Something very odd is going on in Leighford, Mr Diamond. Has either of you any idea what?’
Diamond looked uttered bewildered and left Maxwell to speak for them both.
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘But leave it with me, Pamela. I know a woman who does.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Have I done something to upset you?’
The sound of his voice made her jump as she switched on the light.
‘Max. For Christ’s sake, I didn’t see you there.’ Jacquie stood quaking in the doorway, her key still in the lock, her mind a thousand miles away, coping with murder.