by M. J. Trow
‘Did she give a name?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Who?’
‘The lady caller.’
‘Not at first. She said it was personal, but I told her I couldn’t accept an anonymous call; I had to have a name. She told me she was Joanna Smith, but she refused to tell me what she wanted. I took the call in the drawing room, but when Mr Bingham picked it up he transferred the call to the study. There were raised voices.’
‘You didn’t … er … ?’ Maxwell glanced at the phone.
‘Listen to the conversation? Mr Maxwell, please. It has been my privilege to be housekeeper to Mr Bingham now for nearly eight years. I do not listen to other people’s telephone conversations and I do not peep through keyholes.’
‘Forgive me, Mrs Daniels, but the telephone call could explain a great deal about Anthony’s death. What happened afterwards?’
‘Mr Bingham was clearly agitated. He kept looking at his watch and never got round to finishing his breakfast. He told me to contact his chambers and cancel his day’s engagements. Luckily he wasn’t due in court until Wednesday.’
‘And then he left?’
‘Yes. He asked me to throw a few things into an overnight bag and when Bligh arrived, he told him to take the day off.’
‘And he didn’t tell either of you where he was going?’
‘Only that he had someone to see, urgently.’
‘That was probably me. He must have guessed I wouldn’t be at home and probably remembered where I worked. Mrs Daniels, this Joanna Smith; did you know her? Had you heard the name before?’
‘No, Mr Maxwell.’ The housekeeper shook her head. ‘The police took away Mr Bingham’s phone book and diaries, but it was a withheld number. Well, that’s standard in the legal profession, of course. Even Justices come into contact with some extraordinarily low life.’
‘Who did you speak to?’ Maxwell asked. ‘From the police, I mean.’
‘There was a DCI Wentworth, from the Met; I’ve met him before on official business at the court. The other was a woman, not local.’
‘DCI Tyler?’ Maxwell asked.
‘That’s right. Rather a deep type, I thought. Didn’t give much away.’
‘No, indeed.’ Maxwell sighed. ‘They never do.’
The carpets in Sussex Gardens hadn’t got any less lurid since Maxwell’s student days. He’d met a girl from the LSE (but he was the forgiving type) and they’d spent a night of torrid lovemaking together in one of those idyllic little love-nests behind Paddington Station. The B & Bs always had a quaint fifties air about them, as though they ought to be lived in by the first generation of Jamaicans to step off the boat, or dodgy young Cambridge spies with names like Burgess and Maclean. The same smell had hit Maxwell that had hit him all those years ago; old sausages and cheap perfume.
‘How much?’ His jaw dropped slightly on being told the tariff for the night. He seemed to remember it had done much the same back in ’65, with the bee-hived Stephanie on his arm, clinging like a limpet to his beatnik jumper. He wasn’t sure this was the same hotel, but the landlady looked at him just as suspiciously now as her mother may have done all those years before.
‘Mr and Mrs Maxwell, is it?’ the old crone had asked, scanning the students’ fingers for signs of rings. ‘Sure it isn’t Smith?’
‘By yourself, are you?’ the slightly newer crone had asked, looking for luggage and marking him down secretly as a paedophile. ‘We don’t have no Net facilities ’ere.’
‘Good, good.’ Maxwell beamed. ‘I’m all surfed out; suffering from a surfeit, you might say.’
Clearly that was the last thing the old crone would say, and she wandered off to do whatever it is proprietresses of cheap hotels do.
That night, Maxwell rang Jacquie.
‘It’s good to talk.’ It was the best Bob Hoskins she’d heard in a while.
‘Max, where are you?’ she asked.
‘The Ritz.’ Maxwell sprawled on the bed. ‘I’ve just thrashed Mr Al Fayed at backgammon and I take over his yacht and the corner shop in Knightsbridge tomorrow morning.’
She laughed. ‘Seriously, Max.’
‘Seriously, I’m in bed-sit, dropoutsville in search of the bastard who killed Cret Bingham. Sussex Gardens, to be precise.’
‘Max …’
But he interrupted. ‘Now, no lectures, Jacquie. Some teachers go fishing over half-term, some paint the parlour. There’s even an ugly rumour, which I can’t believe, that some of them prepare lessons for next week. Me? I solve crimes. How about you?’
‘You know,’ she told him firmly, ‘I can’t help.’
‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘And I didn’t call to put you on the spot. I miss you, that’s all. What’s that old song Sir Cliff used to sing?’ ‘Miss You Nights”? “And the warm wind that embraced me just as surely kissed your face.” Not quite Byron. But not bad.’
‘Oh, Max.’
They looked, both of them, into the middle distance and saw each other’s faces.
‘Willow,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘The fibres found embedded in Anthony Bingham’s skull and hair; the pieces of wood. They were willow.’
‘Willow!’ Maxwell was sitting up. ‘What about George Quentin?’
‘Max,’ she said softly, ‘I’ve just broken every rule in the book telling you what I have. George Quentin is somebody else’s patch, remember? I’m just a passer-by up there.’
‘Nadine Tyler’s working with the Met,’ Maxwell told her, ‘on Cret’s case.’
‘Of course she is. It’ll be a three-pronged attack, Max. That’s how it works these days. We don’t call the Yard in any more. They’re just as likely to call us. Quentin died in Warwickshire – that makes it the local CID’s business. Bingham died in Leighford – that’s our pigeon. But they both lived in the smoke, hence the Met. Actually, there’s a further complication there.’
‘Oh?’
‘According to what we have, George Quentin was in business in the City. That means the City force. My guv’nor’s driving up tomorrow.’
‘Saturday?’
‘Vandeleur Negus are opening up specially for him.’
‘Are they, now? Time?’
‘Uh-huh, Max. Love may be blind, but this little neck of mine only sticks out so far.’
He wisely stuck to toast for breakfast. And kept the dubious-looking coffee to one cup. Then he was gone, taking out a second mortgage to hire a cab to convey him eastward. The Old Lady beamed at him as the black vehicle growled along Threadneedle Street. He swung left into Bartholomew Lane and left again along Throgmorton Street. He toyed with tipping the cabbie, then remembered he hadn’t gone for the £2,000 threshold payment and thought better of it.
The offices of Vandeleur Negus put the ‘o’ into opulence. They soared to the leaden sky of a City Saturday while the pigeons flapped across those air-conditioning pipes that Prince Charles so publicly hated. An electronic door slid open and a security man the size of the Tower stood there.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Hall.’ Maxwell flashed his NUT card. ‘West Sussex CID.’
‘Mr Vandeleur’s expecting you,’ the Tower said. ‘I’ll take you up.’
Maxwell was already suffering from oxygen deprivation by the time the lift shuddered to a halt.
‘Keith Vandeleur.’ A snowy-haired cadaver of a man was rising from his massive seat beside a huge mahogany desk. Behind him, a picture window gave a better view than the London Eye. It was like Hitler’s playroom at the Berghof.
‘Henry Hall,’ Maxwell lied, taking the man’s outstretched hand. ‘It’s good of you to give up your Saturday.’
‘I didn’t expect you till eleven,’ Vandeleur said, obligingly giving Maxwell a timeframe by which he needed to be out of there.
‘Sorry about that.’ Maxwell took the indicated leather chair. ‘Got quite a bit on.’
‘George Quentin,’ Vandeleur said. ‘Hell of a player. Er … no Roger Bacon?’
Th
e only Roger Bacon Peter Maxwell knew was a monk who’d discovered gunpowder. And he’d been dead for seven hundred years.
‘Bacon?’ He chanced his arm.
‘DCI, City force. I understood you’d both be here.’
‘Ah, sorry.’ Maxwell smiled, in an ‘I know a lot of Bacons’ sort of way. ‘Roger was called elsewhere last night. I’ll have to brief him later. Tell me about George Quentin.’
‘Good golfer was George,’ Vandeleur remembered, clasping his hands across his scrawny linen-shirted chest. ‘That’s what I liked about him. A ruthless bastard after my own heart.’
‘It’s who was after his heart I’m concerned with, Mr Vandeleur.’
‘Quite. Rum business. Was it you I spoke to on the phone yesterday?’
‘Er … no, that would be my sergeant. Sergeant Rackham.’
‘Ah, right. So, am I correct in this? He was hanged?’
Maxwell nodded. ‘I can’t tell you too much, of course.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘When did you see him last?’
‘George? Er … Friday. Week yesterday, that is. He was quite excited. Had this old school reunion. Personally, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. I hated my old school. Even tried in my amateur way to burn the place down. Oh!’ Vandeleur laughed. ‘Shouldn’t really be telling you about all this, should I?’
Maxwell laughed with him. ‘One case at a time.’
‘Yes, there was some nonsense about a joke,’ Vandeleur remembered.
‘A joke?’
‘Yes. I was having coffee with George and he said he’d had this phone call, asking him not to go to the agreed gathering place – some hotel, wasn’t it?’
Maxwell nodded. ‘The Graveney.’
‘Well, this call apparently asked him to go directly to the school.’
‘On the Friday night?’
‘Presumably,’ Vandeleur said. ‘You’d need to check it with Paulo.’
‘Paulo?’
Vandeleur looked at his man. ‘I’d have thought Roger would’ve been on to that. Paulo is – or rather was – George’s lover.’
Maxwell’s face must have said it all.
‘Come, come, Inspector. This is the twenty-first century; half the bloody government are left-footers these days. It can’t come as that much of a surprise to you.’
‘Sorry,’ Maxwell flustered. ‘I haven’t been well.’
‘Mind you, I think it was the making of George. Being bent gave him an edge. He had to prove himself, I think. And keep proving himself. That’s important in our line. No room for sentiment in the money game, you know.’
Maxwell nodded. ‘Indeed not. Look, these multi-force things are always a little delicate. You know Roger well, I take it?’
‘He’s done the odd little favour for us,’ Vandeleur said.
‘Well, there you are.’ Maxwell became confidential. ‘And I don’t want to do the guy down – I’ve only met him once. You couldn’t give me an address, could you? For Paulo, I mean? I’m afraid Roger’s been a little remiss.’
‘Sure.’ Vandeleur turned to a computer screen and exercised his mouse. ‘Lived with George. Yes, I thought so.’ Letters flickered on to the screen. ‘Grange Road. Acton. I never could understand what led George to live there. It was up and coming a few years back, I suppose. By the way …’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m no bigot. Far from it. But when you talk to Paulo, you might want one or two beefy blokes with you.’
‘Really?’
‘Psychotic,’ Vandeleur confided. ‘I’ve little experience of that whole milieu, Inspector, but I know a malevolent young queen when I see one.’
Peter Maxwell saw himself out and, as he did so, slipping out of a side door, he heard a voice he thought he knew.
‘Hall,’ the voice was saying to the Tower that was Vandeleur Negus’s security guard. ‘Do I have to spell it for you?’
8
Grange Road, Acton had up and come all right. A modest semi that in Leighford might make a hundred grand was Monopoly money here. Maxwell rang the bell and a swarthy young man answered it, wearing an expensive silk shirt nearly open to the waist and hand-made jeans.
‘Henry Hall, West Sussex CID.’ Maxwell believed in consistency in his lying. ‘I’m investigating the murder of George Quentin,’ He was flashing his NUT card again.
‘From West Sussex?’ The dark young man frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s a double killing,’ Maxwell explained. ‘But I’d rather not discuss it on the doorstep.’
The young man let him in. There were tea chests and cardboard boxes everywhere, with piles of books and ranks of CDs.
‘You are … ?’
‘Paulo Escobar. I live here. With Georgie.’ He leaned against a door frame in the hall, folding his arms. ‘I already talk to the police. My papers are in order.’
‘You’re moving.’ The West Sussex CID would be proud of Maxwell’s powers of deduction.
‘There is nothing to stay for. I go back to Bilbao.’
‘How long have you known Mr Quentin?’
Escobar pushed himself away from the door frame and threw himself down in a spare armchair. He lit a cigarette. ‘Five years.’
‘How did you meet him?’
Escobar grinned. ‘On the Heath,’ he said. ‘He pick me up.’
‘For sex?’
‘For company.’
‘So he was lonely?’
Escobar shrugged.
‘Was he ever married?’ Maxwell asked, still trying to make sense of the man who was the boy he knew.
Escobar shook his head. ‘He never said. He liked boys.’
‘Boys?’
‘People of my age.’
‘When did you see him last?’
‘Friday. He left for work at seven-thirty.’
‘And where was he going after that?’
‘To some old friends. His school.’
‘Did he mention any names of these friends?’
‘One or two.’ Escobar blew smoke down his nostrils.
‘Could you tell me what they are?’ It was like pulling teeth.
‘Er … sure. There was Asheton. Er … Maxwall …’
‘Maxwell,’ Maxwell corrected him.
‘That is what I say,’ Escobar insisted. ‘Why you not write this down?’
‘Write it down?’ Maxwell didn’t follow.
‘When I have been arrested, the police they always write things down.’
‘Been arrested often, have you?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Si.’ Escobar shrugged. ‘Soliciting. GBH. That sort of thing.’
‘We know these names already,’ Maxwell said. ‘This is just confirmation. Tell me, Paulo, was George … was Mr Quentin excited about the weekend? I mean, he didn’t seem in any way upset or worried?’
Escobar shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember that. He have a telephone call on Thursday night.’
‘Call?’ Maxwell frowned. ‘Do you know who it was from?’
‘A woman.’ It was all coming back to Escobar now.
‘Did she give a name?’
‘No.’ Escobar shook his head. ‘I took the call. She say, “Is that Mr George Quentin’s residence?” I say, “Who is it wants to know?” She say, “An old friend.” I give the phone to Georgie. You know who killed him?’
Maxwell shook his head. ‘Not yet, Mr Escobar,’ he said. ‘We’re still working on it. Did Mr Quentin say anything when he put the phone down? Or do you remember any of the conversation from this end?’
Escobar thought for a moment, idling with the thick gold chain around his neck and considering his answer. ‘Georgie say, “Excellent idea. Very good. That will get the party going. Halliards it is, not the gravy.”’
‘What do you think he meant?’
Escobar shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Afterwards he just went to have a shower. He didn’t talk about the call.’
‘This wom
an’s voice. Would you know it again?’
‘No.’ Escobar was sure. ‘But it was a foreign voice.’
‘Foreign?’ Maxwell repeated.
‘St. Irish or Scottish. Something like that.’
Peter Maxwell couldn’t really see what all Vandeleur’s fuss had been about. Escobar was a little on the Iberian side, but he didn’t seem remotely aggressive; perhaps Keith Vandeleur had been confusing him with a whole other body of homosexual. Back in Sussex Gardens that night, Maxwell took stock. George Quentin had been looking forward to the Halliards reunion when a woman, arguably of the Celtic persuasion, had rung him with what may have been a change of plan. He was to go direct to Halliards and not to the Graveney. But why? And at whose instigation?
Maxwell idly flicked through the television channels.
Celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire flashed on to the screen.
‘I don’t, thanks, Chris,’ he said, and phoned a friend instead.
DCI Nadine Tyler had set up her incident room in the annexe behind Leamington nick, overlooking the leafy expanses of the Jephson Gardens. Her life was on hold at the moment, as it always was when a major enquiry was under way; come to think of it, that’s how her life usually was. The coffee in the machine didn’t taste any better, but it was Sunday and there’d been a corpse on Dr Nagapon’s slab now for eight days. A wise old copper had told her once, when she was a neurotic DS on the climb, that a murder that wasn’t solved in forty-eight hours wasn’t going to get solved. She’d spent the last fifteen years trying to prove him wrong.
‘Good morning,’ she addressed the team in front of her. There were the usual muttered responses. Hard-bitten coppers in rolled-sleeved shirts, pissed off because here was another Sunday away from home. Whole generations of kids had grown up without their dads, away in incident rooms. The DCI sat down. ‘I’ve had requests from all and sundry for another press conference,’ she said. ‘Have we anything new to give them?’
Nothing.
‘Ben?’
DI Thomas hated Nadine Tyler with every bone in his body. But then he felt much the same about everyone else. Mrs Thomas had realized that well over fourteen years ago and she had buggered off, taking the Aga, the telly and an insurance salesman with her. Thomas wasn’t bitter; he was positively poisonous.