by M. J. Trow
In the morning, they went to the police station.
‘Would you like to tell us,’ DCI Henry Hall looked at the sandy-haired man with the silver beard across the desk from him, ‘where you were on the day Anthony Bingham was killed?’
‘How is my client supposed to know that?’ the grey-suited brief wanted to know.
‘Let’s get one thing straight, Chief Inspector.’ Andrew Muir ignored his lawyer. ‘Whatever my wife says, I know nothing at all about the death of Bingham, or for that matter George Quentin.’
‘Do you know the Leighford area, sir?’ Hall asked.
‘The first time I came to this godforsaken part of the world was when your boys in blue came to collect me from Haslemere nick. I would not, ordinarily, pass water over a seaside town in England, in or out of season.’
Hall looked at DS Rackham to his right. ‘I see,’ he said.
They were, all four of them, sitting in Interview Room 2 at Leighford police station. It was Tuesday morning, Day Fifteen of a murder enquiry.
‘Chief Inspector,’ the brief tried again.
‘Clifford, will you please shut up?’ Muir snapped. ‘The sole reason I have you here is so that I say nothing that may incriminate me.’
‘Andrew …’ Clifford didn’t like the way this was going.
‘Do you have reason to believe you may incriminate yourself, Mr Muir?’ Hall had seen the loophole and leaped through it.
‘Look …’ Muir spread his hands on the interview-room desk like a man at the end of his tether. ‘For reasons best known to herself, my wife has put me in the frame for murder. Well, she’s like that.’
‘You mean she does it habitually, sir?’ Rackham asked.
‘Of course not!’ Muir thundered. ‘It’s hardly every day one’s old buddies shuffle off the mortal coil. What I mean is that Janet takes a delight in watching me squirm; she’s not a nice woman, Chief Inspector.’
‘She says you have no alibi for the night of George Quentin’s death,’ Hall told him.
Muir sighed, leaning back in his chair. ‘Well, in the words of the great Mandy Rice-Davies, she would, wouldn’t she?’
‘Are you saying she’s lying?’ Hall queried.
‘Lying and my wife, Chief Inspector, are the greatest double act since Laurel and Hardy. If you are asking me can I prove that I spent all night in my hotel room at the Graveney, sleeping like a baby, feet away from the Blood Beast I married, I would have to answer “No”. If she is saying I wasn’t there, then the troublemaking bitch is lying through her teeth. Have I made myself clear, Chief Inspector?’
‘Clear, Mr Muir.’ Hall nodded solemnly. ‘But not, I regret, in the clear.’
‘So, Mr Wensley.’ DCI Nadine Tyler looked up at the man from the notes on him that lay strewn across her desk. ‘You didn’t kill George Quentin?’
The Preacher shook his head.
‘You didn’t go to Halliards school that night, having arranged to meet him there? You didn’t half demolish his skull and then finish the job by attaching him to the bell rope?’
‘My client has already denied this.’ A tired David Vincent sighed, tapping the table with his pen-top. ‘On several occasions.’
Nadine Tyler ignored him. ‘You didn’t arrange to meet Anthony Bingham on Ryker Hill, stove in his head and stash the body under an old settee?’
‘Oh, come on, Chief Inspector.’ Vincent sat up, bored rigid by the whole endless experience. ‘We’ve been through this with you. We’ve been through this with DCI Hall in Leighford. My client has rights, you know. I think he’s been through enough.’
‘He’s been through mental institutions,’ the DCI continued, turning on Vincent for the first time, ‘for murdering his own parents. And he’ll keep going through whatever I choose to put him through until I get some answers.’
‘You mean until you get a result?’ Vincent was shouting back.
‘People, people.’ Wensley’s hands were in the air, his voice calm, his smile almost serene. ‘I didn’t kill anybody. Yes, I was at Halliards on the night Quent died, but I couldn’t get into the building. I didn’t have a key.’
‘And while you were at the school, while … in the grounds, what did you see?’
‘A rat, in the swimming pool,’ Wensley remembered. ‘It was scurrying over the debris. It caught my eye.’
‘What else?’
‘A car. Parked under the bushes, near the front gate.’
‘What sort of car?’
Vincent had had enough. ‘Chief Inspector, my client has answered these questions repeatedly. He doesn’t know one car from another. Can I suggest the Warwickshire CID get cracking on tyre tracks in the area? Can I also suggest that your time for holding my client is up. Are you going to charge him or release him?’
Tyler twisted the simple gold band on her middle finger. It was displacement activity. Really, she wanted to hit the interfering little shit, but if she did that, she could kiss her career goodbye.
‘Why did you hit Peter Maxwell over the head?’ she asked.
Wensley faltered, for the first time in this interview. Nadine Tyler hadn’t seen that before. Not even when she and Hall had asked about the killing of his parents. The Preacher’s face had stayed calm, emotionless. Now the jawline was a hard ridge and she saw him swallow. ‘I didn’t,’ he said.
‘Who did, then?’ The DCI was a shark, smelling blood.
‘That file,’ Vincent cut in, like Richard Dreyfus to the rescue. ‘Where did you get it?’
Nadine Tyler’s eyes flickered across to him. ‘Leighford CID. Why?’
‘And where did they get it?’
Nothing.
‘John?’ Vincent turned to his client.
‘The file was kept at the lodge.’
‘Under lock and key?’
‘In an open filing cabinet.’
Vincent’s face said it all. He was crowing, delighting in the moment. ‘Under what precise circumstances did Leighford CID come by this file, DCI Tyler?’
‘It’s not a secret …’ Wensley began, but Vincent stepped in.
‘Was it obtained legally, with an authorized warrant?’ The brief was in full flight. ‘If so, I want the name of the applying office and the magistrate who issued the warrant. If not,’ he leaned forward, staring into Nadine Tyler’s eyes, ‘I want the balls of the bastard in blue who took it nailed to the wall by lunch-time.’ He stood up sharply, scraping back his chair, checking his watch. ‘John Wensley and his counsel leaving the interview room – assuming, of course, there are no objections – at ten-forty-two.’
Vincent led Wensley out. Neither of them heard the expletives that followed, but then neither of them would have believed they’d come from the lips of DCI Nadine Tyler. The tape was already switched off.
‘John Wensley’s lawyer, David Vincent, wants your balls nailed to a wall, DC Carpenter.’ Hall was standing looking out of his incident room window, a cup of rapidly cooling coffee in his hand. ‘What do I tell him? Sorry, I can’t oblige. The officer in question is suffering from penis envy!’
‘Sir?’ Jacquie was frowning as the DCI turned to face her.
‘Did you help yourself to the file on Wensley?’ Hall asked.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Jacquie said. ‘You were pleased a couple of days ago. “Well done,” you said. “Good work.”’
‘I don’t need the action replay,’ Hall said coldly. The only way you knew that Henry Hall was angry was that he turned a whiter shade of pale. ‘Two days is a long time in a murder enquiry. That was then. Wensley’s walked because you obtained evidence illegally. He might be some airhead who doesn’t know what time of day it is, but his lawyer is the pushy type – wants to make a name for himself. And if he can do that at the cost of the odd copper’s career, then believe me, he will. Where’s Maxwell?’
‘Maxwell?’ Jacquie faltered.
Hall’s face said it all. ‘Jacquie, I am not going to repeat every word and phrase to give you time to think. Whe
re is he?’
‘Do you want my resignation, sir?’ Jacquie felt her heart thumping. This wasn’t the first time she’d walked this line. It was a lonely one.
Hall sighed. ‘No, Jacquie,’ he said quietly. ‘This murder enquiry is two weeks old. I want some results. Now, for the last time, where’s Maxwell?’
‘At the Alphedges’,’ she told him. ‘Richard Alphedge is missing.’
Hall sat down quickly, his eyes locked on hers. ‘When?’
‘Sunday, lunch-time. Vanished at his golf club. Cissie Alphedge and Maxwell have reported it to the police.’
‘Right. Get up there. Find out what’s happening. Find out what Maxwell knows. We may well be looking for a third body.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Oh, and Jacquie …’ Hall stopped her as she reached the door. ‘Next time you offer to resign, I might just take you up on it.’
They put out fliers on Richard Alphedge later that day. Passers-by were asked if they had seen this man. Most of them hadn’t. As the rain set in from the west by early evening, disheartened PCs in dripping helmets and capes gave up the door-to-door. One old dear felt sure she’d seen him in Coriolanus at Chichester recently. Yet another remembered him from Crossroads the first time around. But no one had seen the real Richard Alphedge, not on the street, not anywhere.
His car was in the double garage, his shotgun prop still resting in the hall. That night, Jacquie and Maxwell sat in Cissie’s lounge in the Lutyens house, while Cissie curled up with a sedative and a good book. She couldn’t read a line and sobbed quietly to herself, turning fitfully on the damp pillow until the sleeping tablet kicked in and darkness overtook her.
‘This is so bizarre, Max.’ Jacquie was curled up on Maxwell’s lap, cradled by his arms. ‘I don’t get it at all.’
‘We’re not talking about kidnapping.’ Maxwell was trying to make sense of the thing. ‘Are we? I mean, wouldn’t we have heard by now?’
Jacquie nodded. ‘Usually,’ she said. ‘It’s been three days. Having said that, there’s no rhyme or reason. Some kidnappers make contact straight away. Others after up to a week.’
‘God,’ Maxwell moaned. ‘I don’t know how Cissie will hold up under that.’
‘She’s strong,’ Jacquie said. ‘Women are, you know. It’s the survival thing.’
‘Isn’t it also true that in most kidnappings the victim’s already dead by the time the call comes through?’
Jacquie was quiet for a moment. ‘There is that pattern, too,’ she said. ‘There’s a much more likely scenario, Max.’
‘Go on.’ He looked down at her clear grey eyes gazing up at him.
‘Alphedge’s fears were correct. He was next, after all. Whether you were meant to be the third and it went pear shaped, I don’t know. But if Alphedge was the fourth, then that’s it. The killer met him on the golf course and either killed him there or took him away and did it somewhere else.’
‘So we’re looking for a body?’ Maxwell was essentially a man who liked his ‘t’s crossed and his ‘i’s dotted.
Jacquie pulled his arms more tightly around her. ‘I don’t like being so matter-of-fact when Cissie’s upstairs,’ she said, her voice imperceptibly lower. ‘But yes.’
Maxwell sighed. ‘Well, at least that rules out John Wensley. He was in police custody at the time.’
Jacquie nodded. ‘He was. But there’s one name I haven’t been able to throw into the equation yet,’ she said.
‘Indeed,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘Paulo Escobar, spinster of this parish. Tomorrow, young lady, how about you and I find the Don?’
Jacquie frowned up at him. Old sherry adverts like that were before her time.
They drove first to George Quentin’s place in up-and-coming, down-and-going Acton. Jacquie’s mobile was switched on and she’d written the number down clearly for Cissie. Any news, anything at all, and the actress was to ring. ‘We’re not far,’ Jacquie had said, ‘just at the end of a phone line.’
But George Quentin’s place was locked and barred. Peering in through the windows, Maxwell could see that the place was devoid of furniture, Escobar’s packing cases gone, dust where the Persian carpets used to be. Junk mail addressed to ‘the occupier’ lay scattered over the hall floor like the random fall of the Tarot pack and the Hanged Man.
So they drove to the Lodge.
A black, shiny face peered around the door, the pearly smile fading as its owner realized who’d arrived.
‘Hello, Angel,’ said Maxwell. ‘Remember me? I was the guest who nobody wanted to leave a few days ago.’ He pushed past her into the hall, looking around the airy space.
‘The Reverend John ain’t here,’ she told them.
‘We’re not looking for the Reverend John, Angel,’ Jacquie said. ‘We’re looking for Paulo. Where is he?’
‘Paulo?’ A look of confusion crossed the woman’s face; or was it panic?
‘You don’t want us to ransack the place, do you?’ Maxwell asked. Just being in the Lodge, with its sanctimonious smell, brought back the headaches.
‘You ain’t got no rights,’ Angel asserted.
‘Angel’ – Jacquie turned to face her, flashing her warrant card for the first time – ‘this is a murder enquiry. Two men, perhaps three, are dead. We want … we need some answers.’
‘I don’t know nothin’.’ Angel was waddling away.
‘Is that what Jesus would say?’ Maxwell stopped her in her tracks. The black woman turned to face him.
‘You takin’ the Lord’s name in vain, mister?’ she growled.
Maxwell crossed the parquet floor to her. ‘What did Jesus say about murder, Angel?’ He looked down at her. ‘What did the Lord say?’
‘Thou shalt not kill,’ Angel intoned.
Maxwell nodded. ‘Well, somebody has, Angel,’ he said quietly. ‘Somebody has killed twice.’
‘You sayin’ it was the Reverend John?’ Angel was swaying, her eyes fixed on Maxwell’s.
‘No,’ he told her. ‘It’s not John. Any more than it was John who hit me over the head. Why did you do that, Angel? Why did you hit me over the head?’
Jacquie’s eyes flashed from one to the other. What was Max talking about? Was this trauma, some sort of delayed shock?
‘You was goin’ to take the Reverend John away,’ Angel snarled, scowling at her man. ‘You think he’s a killer. Well, he ain’t. No, suh. I couldn’t let you take him away. The Reverend John, he’s a good man.’
‘Max …’ Jacquie began, but the Head of Sixth Form raised his hand. He was on a roll.
‘Yes, he is, Angel,’ he said. ‘He’s a very good man. But Paulo, now, he’s not, is he? We think Paulo is a bad man, Angel. And we need to talk to him.’
A door creaked behind the two and they all jumped a mile. At the top of the stairs, a dark-haired young man in designer jeans stood, one hand resting lightly on the rail, the other slowly tossing and catching a clasp knife.
‘I used to have one of those.’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Made in Saragossa. Mine had a beautiful tortoiseshell handle. Of course, they’re illegal now in this country.’ He’d reached the foot of the curving steps.
‘You wanna see?’ the young man said in his fractured English. ‘You wanna see the tortoiseshell up close, uh? Uh?’ He darted forward, the blade out, slicing through air.
‘Max!’ Jacquie was at his elbow.
Maxwell held out his right arm to keep the girl back. He knew she wasn’t armed, and for all her police training she would be no match for the knife-wielding Spaniard.
‘Do you know The Gun?’ Maxwell was climbing the stairs, riser by riser. ‘It’s an excellent little tale from the pen of the late C.S.Forester. All about this huge cannon lumbering across Spain in the Napoleonic Wars. There’s a first-rate knife fight in that.’
‘What the fuck you say?’ the Spaniard asked.
‘The Gun, Paulo,’ Maxwell explained, his arms outspread by way of explanation. ‘Do try and keep up.’
Below him,
Jacquie was on the first stair, her heart in her mouth.
‘They made it into a film called The Pride and the Passion. Dear Ol’ Blue Eyes, ol’ Francis Sinatra, was a guerrilla leader, pretty handy with one of those. Then, of course, there was Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’ He was sufficiently close to his man now that if Escobar lunged he’d reach his target. ‘Where good ol’ Paul explains the rules of a knife fight.’
Jacquie’s hand was already in her bag, fumbling for the mace can, when it happened. Maxwell’s left foot came up and caught the Spaniard hard between the legs, thudding into his groin. His eyes widened and his blade dipped just long enough for Maxwell to grab his arm and throw him sideways, sending him bouncing off the wall and rolling down the stairs until he curled in a broken heap at the bottom.
‘Haven’t seen that one either?’ Maxwell asked, brushing himself down and steadying his spinning head. ‘Well, probably just as well.’
15
DCI Hall was getting nowhere. It didn’t help that he had to liaise with his oppos the length and breadth of the Home Counties. If ever there was a case for a national police force, this was it.
‘What did Holmes throw up?’ Hall and Rackham were both of the computer generation, although both had kids who could do it better, faster, more instinctively.
‘Bugger all, guv, if you’ll pardon my French.’
It was a Thursday, wet and wild, with the wind whirling rubbish on the street corners of Leighford. DCI Hall wasn’t in much of a mood to pardon anything. He watched the rain bounce on his window; beyond, a sea of umbrellas ebbed and swelled along the High Street, swarming shoppers doing battle with the elements.
‘Sorry I’m late, guv.’ Jacquie Carpenter crashed in, looking like a drowned rat.