by M. J. Trow
‘Who judged the judge?’ the Sun wanted to know, before it got down to the nitty-gritty of Kirsty’s breast measurements on page three. On his way back from the Tesco’s run, Maxwell had paused to scan the lot. He read the tabloids as they stood and took the others home. He was starting to get funny looks from the security staff. He pedalled in the gathering dusk over the flyover, the dynamo of his bike, White Surrey, humming like the bees’ wings that were his legs. His old college scarf flapped around him and his hat was rammed low on his head as he whistled round the corner into Columbine and wheeled his faithful boneshaker to bed in the outhouse.
Tomorrow was Friday, the day he’d get off; the day he’d told James Diamond he had a funeral to go to. That wasn’t strictly true, of course. He had no idea when they’d bury George Quentin. But now he had two funerals to go to, two murders to solve. And he wouldn’t start with Quentin. He’d start with Ryker Hill.
The rain of the last two days had gone and a frost had coated West Sussex in the early hours of Friday morning. Maxwell wheeled Surrey off the road and leaned it against the dull silver of a tree trunk. The mud tracks were iron hard this morning and a pale sun was doing its damnedest to burn off the hoar of the morning. He tramped the crisp bracken, crunching it underfoot, ducking under the frozen ribbon that was the police tape. ‘Do not cross’, but he’d crossed it, the Rubicon that marked the resting place of Cret Bingham.
He heard a dog bark in the distance, somewhere high in the woods. The road was – what? – a hundred yards away, two? He couldn’t be exactly sure where the body had been found. Anything from the site would have gone. But he’d passed this way recently, only last week, after the Staff Meeting Without End during which James Diamond – ‘Legs’ to Maxwell, in honour of the Chicago gangster of the same name – had worried along with his colleagues about the likelihood of an impending Ofsted examination. He hadn’t cared for the apathy of his staff; still less the curiously loud muttered response from his Head of Sixth Form – ‘More a case of Off-fuck, I think.’ He’d never forgiven Maxwell for burning the effigy of Chris Woodhead, the outgoing director of Ofsted, in the school skip that time. Maxwell had vehemently denied it, of course, but, as Diamond reasoned with his deputies, who else could it have been?
Maxwell remembered he’d seen an old settee lying by the path, just to the right of where he stood now. There was a kettle somewhere, handle rusted, spout gone; a supermarket trolley. Possibly, if he looked hard enough on the conveyor belt of other people’s leavings, a cuddly toy! It always annoyed him how people came to lovely woodland glades to dump their rubbish. It’s a beautiful spot; watch some bastard spoil it.
Someone had spoiled it now, all right. Spoiled it for ever. Mad Max looked up at the silver birch branches, naked against the sky. He was looking for the bastard now. And he wouldn’t be spoiling anything else.
7
It was noon by the sun – or would have been could Maxwell have seen it through the gathering cloud – by the time he’d reached King’s Bench Walk. Typical of the eminent jurist Anthony Bingham had become, before the company broke up at the Graveney, he had left the others his office address only.
Maxwell was suitably impressed by the opulence of the man’s chambers. A wiry-looking clerk with the air of a pompous Boston terrier opened the large, black-painted door.
‘My name is Peter Maxwell; I was a close friend of Anthony Bingham.’
‘Yes?’ The Boston terrier apparently couldn’t see the connection.
‘I wondered if I might have a moment with his colleagues?’
‘I have no information about the funeral,’ the clerk said. ‘Perhaps you can call back?’
Maxwell’s foot was surprisingly fast against the already closing door. ‘Well, I could.’ He smiled. ‘But of course, if I did that, it would almost certainly be with a camera crew and sound team. Do you think Anthony’s learned colleagues would mind being pestered by the media? I’ve got Jeremy Paxman lined up …’
And the door mysteriously swung open again. He was shown into a vestibule the size of Leighford High’s gym. ‘Wait here,’ the Boston terrier snapped. ‘Spy’ cartoons of judges great and terrible looked benignly down at Maxwell. The kindly Mr Justice Stephens, madder than a snake and related to Virginia Woolf; the amiable Mr Justice Humphreys, who christened his son Christmas; the appalling Lord Chief Justice, Rayner Goddard, prone, it was said, to needing a spare pair of trousers each time he passed a death sentence. They all made Mr Justice Bingham look quite ordinary.
‘Mr Maxwell?’ A large man in a black coat and pin-striped trousers emerged from the secrecy of an oak door. He held out his hand. ‘I’m Philip Massendon.’
Maxwell took the outstretched hand. He knew the face. Massendon had been at the centre of a cash-for-questions row some years ago and he had maintained his innocence loudly to any newspaper within earshot. He looked larger in real life.
‘Look,’ Massendon said, ‘I’m due at the House – or at least I was half an hour ago. Does it take you out of your way?’
‘Not at all,’ Maxwell said. ‘It’s good of you to see me.’
Massendon was handed a metal box by the clerk, who also helped him haul on a coat that represented a year’s wages for Peter Maxwell. At the kerb outside, under the limes that lined King’s Bench, a sleek black car waited.
‘Get back to the Lord Chief,’ Massendon called to his clerk. ‘Tell him I can do Thursday, but the Mannering business is taking longer than expected.’
‘Very good, sir.’ And the black door closed.
A chauffeur held the passenger door open and the judge clambered in. ‘One door closes, another opens,’ he muttered. ‘Scotch, Maxwell?’
Maxwell declined. He sat opposite Massendon, with his back to the engine as the chauffeur seat-belted up and made for the Strand. The judge poured himself a stiff one from the limo’s bar and pulled a pained face as it hit his tonsils. ‘The doctor says if I have many more of these I shall be facing another kind of judge altogether.’ He pointed skyward. ‘That great colleague in the sky. What’s the story on Anthony?’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me,’ Maxwell said.
Massendon sized the man up for the first time. He didn’t look like paparazzi, though he’d hinted to the clerk he was. ‘You’ll forgive me,’ the judge said, ‘if I ask you to declare your interest.’
‘He was an old school-friend,’ said Maxwell. ‘I hadn’t seen him in years until last weekend. We had a reunion.’
‘Oh, yes. Where did Anthony go?’
‘Halliards.’
‘That’s right.’ Massendon rinsed his teeth with Scotch again. ‘I’m a Wykehamist myself. Bit of a blow, this.’ He leaned forward and tapped the glass. The chauffeur’s intercom clicked on. ‘Jenkins, are you armed?’
‘Thirty-eight, sir,’ the voice crackled back.
Massendon caught Maxwell’s enquiring look. ‘High Court judges have minders, anyway,’ he explained. ‘People like Jenkins are primarily drivers, but they are also trained in various martial disciplines. The Lord Chancellor is insisting since Bingham that they carry guns too. I should have had you frisked, really, but I just can’t get used to all this.’
Maxwell held open his coat. ‘I’m not packing,’ he drawled in his best Clint Eastwood.
Massendon nodded. ‘Glad to hear it. So how can I help? On Anthony, I mean.’
‘He was on his way to see me,’ Maxwell explained.
‘Was he, now?’
‘The police have been here, I assume.’
‘The Met have asked their usual penetrating questions, yes. None of us could be of much assistance, really.’
‘You know there was another murder at Halliards?’
Massendon did. ‘Thanks to the fourth estate,’ he said, and tapped on the window again. ‘Get through here, Jenkins, or we’ll never get there.’ The limo lurched to the left without signalling and Massendon beamed to a motorcycle officer who would have obligingly felt the collar of any ordinary mor
tal offending in that way. ‘No, the odd thing was, Anthony said nothing about it. Come to think of it, he was rather tight lipped last Monday.’
‘You saw him … at what time of day?’
‘Luncheon. We dined at the Garrick. His shout. He was out of sorts. I made some comment and he bit my head off. Not like Anthony. He was normally quite a balanced sort of chap. Ah, here we are.’
The limo had purred down a side entrance to the Mother of Parliaments, past security men without number and coppers in uniform, and Jenkins switched off the ignition. Massendon looked at Maxwell in the dim light of the subterranean garage. ‘Airey Neave died back there.’ He jerked his head out of the rear window. ‘The IRA got him. We’re none of us safe, Mr Maxwell. Not me; not you. Anthony had stumbled on to something. I told the boys in blue that.’
‘What?’ Maxwell needed to know. ‘What had he stumbled on to?’ This was an emergency; prepositions at the end of sentences could go to the Devil.
Massendon clicked open his door and Jenkins was outside, glancing right and left with his hand inside his jacket. ‘Judges have enormous case loads, Mr Maxwell. Anthony’s death may be connected with any of them. And before you ask, that’s classified. Let the Met do their job, will you? They’ve been doing it for some time now. Jenkins, get Mr Maxwell out of here, would you? He doesn’t have a pass and you know how paranoid this lot are.’
‘Mr Massendon.’ Maxwell was out of the car and alongside his man. ‘Anthony Bingham wasn’t just a friend of mine; he was on his way to see me when he died. I feel … well, responsible.’
‘No, no, my dear fellow, never feel that. God, if we all felt responsible for what happened around us, we’d none of us get through a single day.’ And he turned to go. Then he turned back, staring steadily into Maxwell’s dark eyes, into Maxwell’s soul. Thank God, Maxwell thought, he couldn’t pop his black cap on any more. ‘Look,’ Massendon said, ‘I can’t help you – ethics of chambers and all that – but I know a woman who can. She’s been unkindly described as the Temple bicycle by her critics – and believe me they are legion; but she just may be able to shed some light. Her name is Anne. Jenkins, take Mr Maxwell to the Mews, will you? Call for me at four. Surely to God even the Lord Chancellor will have finished by then.’
It didn’t take Jenkins long to lose Maxwell altogether. He knew this was Chelsea, but after Tite Street, with its still-Wildean frontage to the river, the limo had snarled through a rabbit-warren until it halted outside an unobtrusive house in a cobbled mews.
‘No doubt you can catch a cab from here.’ Jenkins had spoken for the first time and he and the limo were gone.
Maxwell rang the bell and a disembodied voice answered. ‘Yes?’
‘My name is Maxwell.’ He spoke to the grilled box near the latch. ‘Mr Justice Massendon sent me.’
There was a pause and Maxwell saw the nets shiver in an upstairs window. A click and a whirr followed and he was inside. The hallway was tasteful, plushly carpeted and professionally papered. An elegant woman was walking down the stairs to meet him.
‘Anne?’ he asked, sweeping off his tweed hat.
‘I’m Anne Dickinson,’ she said. ‘Mr … ?’
‘Maxwell.’ He held out a hand. She didn’t take it. ‘I’m …’
‘A fraud.’ She’d already turned on her heel. ‘And a graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge.’
Maxwell was taken aback. ‘You know your collegiate scarves,’ he said with admiration.
‘And my old school ties.’ She ushered him into a deceptively large first-floor lounge and turned to face him. ‘In my line I meet quite a few. That’s Old Halliardians.’
He applauded. ‘Very good. And your line is … ? Not wig- and gown-making, surely?’
Anne Dickinson threw herself down on the settee. She was still an attractive woman, with brass-blond hair, although the years were threatening to catch up with her. ‘You know what my line is or you wouldn’t be here. Does Philip owe you a favour?’
‘Philip?’
‘Philip Massendon. You said he sent you.’
‘He did. But I was hoping it was you who could do a favour for me.’
She looked him up and down, then lit a cigarette and offered him a chair. ‘I’m not sure you can afford me, Mr Maxwell,’ she said. ‘I don’t come cheap. For less than a k, I don’t come at all.’
Maxwell cut to the chase. ‘Anthony Bingham.’
Anne Dickinson sat upright, stubbing the cigarette out in a Wedgwood ashtray. ‘I don’t like where this is going,’ she said.
‘Ms Dickinson.’ Maxwell unwrapped the scarf from around his neck, and sat back in her armchair. ‘I’m an old friend of Anthony’s, from way back. You noticed the tie.’
‘So?’
‘So, the man is dead.’
‘Yes.’ Her mouth was hard as she said it. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘He was on his way to see me when he died. They found his body a mile or so from my home.’
‘I don’t see …’
‘Philip Massendon thought you might be able to help.’
‘Did he, now?’
‘Was he wrong?’ Maxwell searched the woman’s face. Her eyes were triangular, which to the Chinese denotes ambition, but there was a sensuousness around the mouth. It was probably the association of ideas, but she reminded him of Christine Keeler, friend of KGB generals and British war ministers, who had snatched the headlines in Maxwell’s last year at school.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Anything,’ Maxwell told her. ‘Everything. I hadn’t seen Anthony for thirty-seven years until last weekend – that’s a helluva gap to fill.’
She lit another cigarette with an expertise born of years of neurotic socializing. ‘I first met Tony, what, ten years ago? His marriage was on the skids and he needed solace. That’s what I do, Mr Maxwell.’ She blew smoke rings expertly towards the ceiling. ‘Solace. Philip calls it solaciting, but it’s not very funny and I don’t need comments like that.’
‘You and Philip don’t get on?’ Maxwell asked.
‘I was his mistress for a little over eighteen months. Then I met Tony.’
‘I see.’ Maxwell’s eyes were being opened. ‘So Tony … Anthony … rather took Massendon’s place, did he?’
‘Undeniably,’ Anne Dickinson said. ‘What was particularly galling for Philip was that Tony was a far better lover. We used to joke about it, Tony and I – Philip’s little endowment. I’m afraid he didn’t see the joke.’
‘Were you still having a relationship with Anthony?’
‘Good Lord, no. Oh, I suppose we were together for about two years. He found preferment and I found Lincoln’s Inn. That’s the way the legal cookie crumbles.’
‘When did you see Anthony last?’
‘Heavens, I don’t know. Oh, he still called round for the odd bit of solace now and again; you know, when the affairs of state became too much, he’d renew ours. He was always very considerate, however …’
‘Can you remember precisely?’ Maxwell asked. ‘Can I pin you down?’
She looked at him through half-lidded, sultry eyes. ‘I’m not sure you could.’ She smiled. ‘September. Over a month ago. He popped round one lunch-time; a Thursday, I believe.’
‘For solace?’
‘Yes, but I gave him lunch too.’
‘Did he seem his usual self?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Tell me, Ms Dickinson, was Anthony in the habit of confiding in you, his thoughts, feelings and so on?’
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Do you remember anything that Thursday? Something that was bothering him?’
She smiled. ‘He had his mouth full for part of the time,’ she said. ‘But no, nothing in particular. The usual whinges about chambers – what arseholes they all were. But that’s de rigueur among lawyers, Mr Maxwell. They all hate each other.’
‘Someone hated Anthony Bingham enough to want to kill him,’ Maxwell reminded her. ‘Do you have an ad
dress?’
‘I thought you were a friend of his,’ she said.
‘So I was, but that was a long time ago. I’ve lost it.’
‘Denbigh Street, Pimlico. Number eighteen.’ She blew smoke down her nose. ‘Now, was there anything else? I’m expecting someone.’
Maxwell took in the tight pedal-pushers, the skimpy top pulled taut across the nipples, and didn’t doubt it for a moment.
‘It’s been quite a blow, Mr Maxwell.’ The lady in the crisp white apron bustled in with the tray.
‘I’m sure it has, Mrs Daniels.’ Maxwell took the cup she held out to him.
‘Now.’ Mrs Daniels sat down on the chair, looking wistfully at the photograph of the bewigged judge on the table. ‘Where were we?’
‘Monday,’ Maxwell reminded her. For a moment the impact of the jasmine tea unsettled him, then he recovered.
‘Of course. I prepared Mr Bingham’s breakfast as usual. Bligh was due to call at nine-thirty.’
‘Bligh?’ Maxwell sniffed a naval connection.
‘Mr Bingham’s driver. Justices of the High Court always have drivers, Mr Maxwell.’
‘So I understand,’ Maxwell said. ‘Tell me, was there anything … odd about Anthony that morning?’
‘Well, not at first,’ Mrs Daniels said. ‘Then he had the phone call. I told the police about it.’
‘Phone call?’ Maxwell frowned. ‘What time was this?’
‘Um … about nine o’clock, I think.’
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know. A woman certainly.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I took the call, Mr Maxwell. Justices of the High Court do not take calls themselves, you know. It could be a cold sell. What would Mr Bingham do with double glazing or life insurance … ? Oh dear.’