by M. J. Trow
‘We’ve no real leads on the car seen near Halliards on the Friday night,’ he told the team. ‘Of the old boys meeting for the reunion, Maxwell, Alphedge and Muir came by car; Bingham and Wensley by train. We presume the dead man caught a train too. The City police tell us it was most likely the six-thirty from Paddington, if he arrived in Leamington, but there is no record of a cheque payment or credit card.’
‘So he paid by cash?’ Tyler wanted it clear in her mind.
‘According to the City boys, Quentin left work at five-fifteen – enough time to get to the station, and that was the next available train. If he came in via Coventry, it would have been the five-fifty from Euston. After that we don’t know.’
‘Nothing on taxis, Dave?’
‘Nothing, ma’am.’ Dave had been ringing and trudging round all week, showing photographs, jogging memories.
‘London tell us there’s another little problem.’ The DCI had already given up on the coffee. ‘Because the Bingham enquiry is linked with this one, West Sussex CID have been following up leads, working, as we are, with the Met and City forces. We’re all anxious, of course, that nothing falls between the gaps, so to speak, but there seems to be somebody else nosing around, probably a PI, but nobody’s got a handle on him so far. He passed himself off as a West Sussex detective yesterday, interviewing Quentin’s boss and his lover.’
‘Any angle there, ma’am?’ DS Vernon wanted to know.
‘The City boys are checking the financial situation. We may have to bring in the Fraud Squad, because Quentin was quite a wheeler-dealer. There’s always a potential motive on the gay front, and his lover has a record against people who looked at George funny. There doesn’t seem to be any history of violence between the pair, though. West Sussex and the Met are keeping us informed. Who’s doing the follow-ups?’
‘I’m on the Alphedges,’ Vernon told her. ‘Going up tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ve got Asheton and his bit on the side,’ said DS Dempster. ‘Start in on that tomorrow.’
‘Good. Tim, you’re on John Wensley?’
‘It’s a hotel address in Brum,’ Tim Hanlon told his guv’nor. ‘I hope he’s still there.’
Nadine Tyler laughed her braying laugh. ‘You’ve got a thing about Wensley, haven’t you?’ she said.
‘Let’s just say I know an oddball when I see one, ma’am,’ Hanlon responded.
‘You’re on the Muirs, Greg?’
Greg Pines nodded. Ever the conversationalist was Greg.
‘Which leaves you, Ben …’
‘With Maxwell,’ DI Thomas said. ‘And his copper girlfriend.’
‘All right. Remember, everybody. We’re looking for inconsistencies, changes of story, however slight. Before you tackle these people again, be totally familiar with every word of their original statements. Any deviations from that, I want to know about it.’ The DCI stood up. ‘Ben, a word?’
The team sloped off to their VDU screens, past ghastly photographs of a dead man with his eyes bulging and a swollen tongue bursting from his mouth. Every time she passed them, Nadine Tyler tried not to look. But every time she had to, to remind herself why she was there.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Cut the crap.’ She turned to her grey-faced number two. Ben Thomas was overweight, his blue shirt cutting into his crimson neck. Cardiac arrest was likely to be his next collar. ‘Do you want to tell me what you’ve got against this Maxwell?’
‘Too clever by half, ma’am,’ was the DI’s considered opinion. ‘I didn’t appreciate his sidekick taking over like she did.’
‘DC Carpenter, wasn’t it?’ Nadine Tyler checked her notes. ‘What was she supposed to do, Ben? She was on the spot and she was a copper. She seems to have handled things pretty well, pressed the right buttons, kept everybody’s size elevens off most of the murder scene. If there’s a conflict of interests …’
‘I’ll just do my job,’ he all but barked at her. ‘You can count on that.’
She let the silence say it all. ‘When do you start?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘This Maxwell’s a teacher, isn’t he? Won’t it be half-term?’ Thomas shrugged. ‘Catch him at home. It’ll be nice. A day at the seaside.’
Like everybody else in the world, Ben Thomas had been to Leighford when he was a kid. They’d had donkey rides then, along Willow Bay and the Shingle, before the Save the Unborn Gay Quadruped lobby had gone into action and spoilt it all for ever. He remembered a freak show too, when a five-piece midget band had played requests for a couple of bob. Happy, different days.
There was no reply at number 38 Columbine, the address that Peter Maxwell had given; but there was always Mrs Troubridge, the neighbour, programmed as she was to appear on her front doorstep at the arrival of a strange car next door.
‘He’s not in, dear. Mrs B will be in to feed the cat later. Can I help?’ The old girl appeared to be some ghastly cross between Barbara Cartland and Barbara Castle.
‘CID.’ Thomas flashed his warrant card.
‘Oh dear, is he in trouble again?’
‘Again?’ Thomas didn’t like the sound of this. He’d more or less promised that stuck-up bitch he worked for that he’d go in open handed, with no baggage as it were. Now he wasn’t so sure.
‘Oh, like iron filings to a magnet with our Mr Maxwell.’ Mrs Troubridge smiled, waving the secateurs which were her flimsy excuse for being in the garden in the first place. ‘The police are always here. Are you local?’
‘No, madam,’ Thomas told her. ‘Warwickshire.’
‘Oh, that’s Shakespeare country, isn’t it? How delightful. Still, rather too many darkies these days for my liking, I expect.’
Agree with her though he did, Thomas thought it best to move on. ‘Do you know when Mr Maxwell will be back?’
‘Well, Mrs B – that’s his cleaner, illiterate and unconventional but a heart of gold – she told me he’s away for the week. It’s half-term, apparently. He’s a teacher, you see. Charming man and so very clever.’
‘Is he really?’ Thomas was unimpressed.
‘Oh, enormously. Apparently he was captain of his college’s team on the very first University Challenge, you know, with that nice Bamber Gascoigne; not that horrible Jeremy Paxton – he brings me out in spots.’
‘Tell me, Mrs … er …’
‘Troubridge,’ the old lady purred, adjusting her lariat of pearls.
‘What’s his relationship with DC Carpenter?’
‘Jacquie? Oh, you naughty man. What are you implying?’ And she caught him a nasty one on the arm with her secateurs, luckily closed.
‘I’m not implying anything, madam,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m merely asking questions. It’s my job.’
‘Well …’ Mrs Troubridge became confidential. ‘I’m not sure what he’s been up to in Warwickshire, but she does call at the oddest hours. Whether they actually sleep together, I don’t know. Is that a crime, by the way? I mean, I know it’s not for us civilians, but what about you policemen? I mean, you can’t vote, can you? Or appear on duty with a partially grown moustache? I merely wondered what the regulations were about sleeping around?’
‘Yes, madam, that’s an interesting question. I must go away and look it up.’
DI Thomas was the last person Jacquie Carpenter expected to see in the Tottingleigh incident room. All day, she’d been sifting through computer records, until she didn’t want to see another set of tyre tracks or a VDU screen again.
‘I was looking for Peter Maxwell.’ Thomas had been sent through by the desk man.
‘He doesn’t work here,’ Jacquie told him. ‘But I do and I’m busy.’
‘So am I,’ said Thomas loudly, staring the girl down. A couple of colleagues looked up.
‘Everything okay, Jacquie?’ one of them asked.
‘Fine, Tom.’ She didn’t take her eyes off the inspector. ‘I was just about to go and get a cup of coffee. Won’t you join me, Mr Thomas?’
He followed her
to the drinks machine. ‘Is your stuff better than this?’ she asked, handing him a plastic cup with dubious brown liquid inside.
He tried it. ‘No,’ he said, and it seemed to break some ice. The DI actually smiled. Incident rooms were the same the world over.
‘How do you want to play this?’ she asked. ‘Am I a witness, suspect or colleague?’
‘At the moment,’ he told her, finding a seat in a corner, ‘you’re all three. Is there somewhere we can talk?’
She scraped back a chair from the wall so she was sitting opposite him. ‘Right here,’ she said.
Thomas got the message. Jacquie wasn’t going to be compromised and she was on her own turf. He’d have to play this one carefully.
‘I’m following up on everybody connected with Halliards the weekend before last. You gave two statements, one to me and DS Vernon at the school; a second at Leamington nick. Do you want to see a copy of these statements?’ He had his briefcase by his left foot.
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Having had time to think,’ he said, ‘is there any addition or alteration you wish to make to those statements?’
‘No.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘Is that the witness bit over?’
‘More or less.’ He nodded and grimaced as he sampled the coffee again. ‘Now, to the suspect bit. Did you kill George Quentin?’
Jacquie was aware that there were eyes on her back. She half turned and the heads went down, everybody in the room suddenly intent on their own little piece of the Bingham enquiry. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I did not.’
Thomas leaned forward. ‘Do you know a man who did?’ he asked.
‘I might,’ she told him. ‘The problem is, I don’t know who it is.’
‘What is your relationship with Peter Maxwell?’
She felt the eyes again. ‘Is that relevant?’ she asked.
‘It might be,’ Thomas told her. ‘You see, it took two to lift a dying man on to a balustrade and drop him over at the end of a rope. Now, at school, maths was never really my thing, but even I know that two and two make a killer.’
‘Folie a deux?’ Jacquie snorted. ‘Who do you imagine Maxwell and I are, Bonnie and Clyde?’
She suddenly realized she’d been shouting, and now there was someone alongside her, a steadying hand on her shoulder.
‘Sir …’ She half formed the words and half rose. ‘This is DI Thomas, Warwickshire CID.’
The inspector was on his feet, his hand held out. It was not taken. ‘DCI Hall,’ Hall said, looking hard into the man’s face. ‘The next time you wish to talk to one of my officers, on any topic whatsoever, you will contact me personally with such a request in advance and it will be in writing. Do we understand each other, Inspector?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Thomas said, looking decidedly sheepish for a moment.
‘Good. Now, come into my office. There are some things we need to clear up. Jacquie, got a minute? I could use your input on this.’
‘I didn’t think you were a mobile person.’ She lay in the bath that night, cucumber where her face used to be.
‘Jacquie, you sound odd,’ he told her.
‘I’ve been talking non-stop today,’ she said. ‘My jaw’s aching.’
‘Ah, what an honest confession from a woman. And I’m not a mobile person. You gave it to me, remember? Saying it was time I was dragged screaming into the twenty-first century.’
She did, but not for one moment did she believe Peter Maxwell would ever use the thing. ‘Are you still in Sussex Gardens?’
‘Yep.’ He yawned. ‘Heartbreak Hotel. What news on the Rialto?’ He’d kicked off his shoes and was lying on the bed, his feet up the wall, more or less where he was going with boredom.
‘We’re in the frame, Max, you and I,’ she told him.
‘What? Prime suspects, you mean?’
‘I had the misfortune to be grilled by DI Thomas today. You remember Smiler?’
‘Indeed I do.’ Maxwell had slid his feet down to assume a more conventional position. ‘Say on, o fount of info.’
‘Warwickshire CID are obviously doing follow-ups on all of us there that weekend. I got the short straw.’
‘You poor darling. He’s obviously got the hots for you.’
‘Scrummy.’ She edged a sponge aside with her toe, luxuriating in the warmth of the suds. ‘I thought it was you he fancied.’
‘Ah, I should be so lucky. Did he give anything away?’
‘Not until the DCI turned up. Then he was sweetness and light. Mind you, the DCI was the firmest I’ve known him.’
‘Well, well.’ Maxwell clicked his tongue. ‘Old Henry’s just gone up in my estimation.’
‘He had a hard weekend,’ Jacquie told him. ‘Following up the Quentin thing in the City. Seems he was pipped to the post by someone passing themselves off as him.’
‘No!’ Maxwell was outraged. ‘Must be very difficult to play Henry Hall. Not the most animated of people.’
‘Max, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’
He feigned ignorance and hurt. ‘I, dear heart? I am cut to the quick. No, I’ve been trying to get hold of Stenhouse and his missus. No luck yet. I’ll give it another shot tomorrow and then I’ll try Alphie. This place is beginning to get me down.’
‘Do you want to know the common ground?’ she asked him. ‘Quentin and Bingham?’
He paused. ‘Jacquie?’ He was sitting up. ‘A few days ago you told me I was on my own. Something about your pretty little neck.’
He heard her snort some bubbles. ‘A few days ago I wasn’t top of some thick shit’s murder suspect list. Suddenly I see things in a rather different light.’
He chuckled. ‘Come on now, Jacquie. Come off the fence. What do you really think of DI Thomas?’
She laughed with him. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Similarities. Both Quentin and Bingham were battered over the head with a blunt, wooden instrument, made of willow.’
‘Cricket bat,’ Maxwell said.
There was a silence. ‘Do you know that?’
‘Not for a fact, no,’ he told her. ‘But neither of them died by random selection. Whatever this is all about, Halliards is at the heart of it. A cricket bat would be poetic, don’t you think?’
‘Who was the poet in the Magnificent Seven?’ she asked.
‘That would be me,’ he told her. ‘Similarity on.’
‘Both attacks came from behind.’
‘Of course. Quent was no slouch. He used to be fast and strong. There are not many people would be able to get one over on him face to face. Did you know he was gay?’
‘The DCI interviewed his lover, um … Paulo somebody.’
‘Escobar,’ Maxwell told her. ‘That’s just a lucky guess, by the way.’
She blew bubbles again. ‘Max, was he that way at school?’
‘Quent? Never! Well … God, I don’t know.’
‘Would you have known?’
‘Not necessarily. Oh, it went on, of course. It does in all single-sex places. There were stories about the Preacher and the school cat. Not to mention the chaplain …’
‘The chaplain?’
‘I said,’ he shouted, ‘you weren’t to mention the chaplain! Ah, the old ones are the best.’
‘And there,’ she said, ‘the similarities end. A dark-coloured car was seen in or near the Halliards grounds on Friday night, Thomas told us.’
‘When all of us were whooping it up at the Graveney.’
‘All except George Quentin,’ she reminded him.
‘And the Preacher, who was late.’
‘Even so,’ she was staring at the swirling patterns of the steam, ‘that doesn’t tally. The pathologist estimated Quentin’s time of death at about two, two-thirty Saturday morning. Where were you then?’
‘Policewoman Carpenter,’ he said, appalled. ‘Are you interrogating me?’
She laughed. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time. Just because you’re paranoid, Max, it doesn’t mean everyon
e’s not after you.’
‘How right you are,’ he said.
‘There are actually more differences in the two killings than similarities.’ She was talking to herself really. ‘Quentin found indoors, hanged. Bingham in the open, bludgeoned. There was a clumsy attempt to cover that up.’
‘How?’
‘He was hidden under an old settee.’
‘That’s because,’ Maxwell was thinking aloud too, ‘the deaths served different purposes.’
‘How?’ she asked.
‘Quent was deliberate, public, a set piece, based on the legend.’
‘Legend?’ She sat up and a couple of her cucumber slices fell off. ‘What legend?’
‘Well, the hanged boy … oh, for Christ’s sake, Jacquie, didn’t I tell you about that? Yes, I did.’
‘No you bloody didn’t, Peter Maxwell,’ and she was out of the bath, cucumber slices flying in all directions. She grabbed a towel and padded along the landing, rummaging furiously in her bedroom for a notepad. ‘What, tell me, what?’
‘Well, it’s nothing, really,’ he told her. ‘Just one of those silly old school stories the boarders used to scare themselves shitless with in the dorm after lights out. I will confess, I had forgotten about it entirely. Even seeing poor Quent dangling there didn’t jog my memory.’
‘Go on, go on. Oh, shit!’ She couldn’t find a pen that worked and her towel refused to stay up.
‘The legend of Halliards is that a lad hanged himself. He was supposed to be so miserable at the place – and God knows I can understand that – that he hanged himself from the bell rope one night. That was back in, oh, God knows, 1840 something. All schools over a century old have stories like that.’
‘And who’d have known about that?’ she asked.
‘Any of us,’ Maxwell said. ‘All of us.’
‘And who’d have known more than anyone else, Max?’ she asked, already knowing the answer. ‘Who was the historian of the Magnificent Seven?’
‘Um, that would be me too,’ he said.
9
The cab dropped him at the gate and he walked the rest of the way. The sun threw short, sharp shadows through the gaps in the privet and the dew was still bubbling on the grass. Kept an immaculate lawn, did Richard Alphedge. Maxwell rounded the pampas, rather past its best now that winter was coming on, and he was quietly impressed. If the house wasn’t Lutyens, it was his smarter younger brother, with the unmistakable mock-Tudor elegance of those pre-Great War years, before life got so drab and grubby.