Maxwell's Mask

by M. J. Trow

‘To the right as you leave the lounge,’ Carole reminded him.

  ‘Right. And the book wasn’t there either?’

  ‘No. I was about to try the first bedroom – his – when I found him.’

  Hall shuffled a little. ‘I realise this is difficult for you, Mrs Bartlett, but I wonder…’

  She closed her eyes, but whether to obliterate the worst of her memories or to focus on them, neither Hall nor Jane could tell. ‘He was lying with his feet towards me. They were black. Or at least, one of them was. He was totally naked, but there was a towel under his body. His back was arched, I remember, like a coat hanger. It was…quite grotesque.’ She turned away sharply, as though something out of the window had caught her attention.

  ‘What did you do?’ Hall took her away from the moment.

  ‘I called the police. You people.’

  ‘Did you use your husband’s phone or your mobile?’

  ‘I don’t carry mobiles, Chief Inspector,’ she told him. ‘Ghastly, intrusive things. I used Daniel’s land line.’

  ‘And you waited?’

  ‘Yes. But while I was waiting, I checked the bedrooms, both of them, for the Sheridan. Absolutely no sign.’

  Jane looked at Hall and he at her. He could see her shoulders square, the muscles in her jaw ridge. He moved quickly to defuse the situation. The cold-hearted bitch had just found the body of her ex-husband and went on calmly looking for a book. Why not have a coffee and watch some daytime television?

  ‘So you believe the book has been stolen?’ he asked.

  ‘I assume so,’ Carole Bartlett shrugged.

  ‘Who knew about it?’ Hall asked. ‘Apart from you, obviously.’

  ‘God knows. Daniel was notoriously tight with money, except when it came to entertaining his lady friends. But he was also appallingly up himself. You noticed the photos, I suppose?’

  ‘Photos?’ Hall repeated.

  ‘In his lounge. Daniel with Larry Olivier. Daniel with Kenneth Branagh. Daniel licking every orifice of Dame Judi Dench. He was nauseating, Chief Inspector. It’s no wonder someone killed him.’

  It was Hall’s turn to shift in his seat. ‘You think your husband was murdered?’ he asked.

  ‘Chief Inspector,’ she said. ‘I was in that ghastly piece of ribbon development breeze-blockage for nearly an hour after your people arrived. “Could you just wait in here for a moment, madam?”’ – it was a passably good DS Walters. ‘Those idiots in white overalls have inescapably loud voices and precious little respect. For all they knew, my late husband and I were hopelessly in love and they virtually had their casual, matter-of-fact scene of crime conversations all around me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hall apologised on behalf of his SOCO team. ‘I’ll have a word.’

  ‘You do that,’ she nodded. ‘And when you find the individual who did this, do two things for me, will you? Get my Sheridan back off him and give him a medal.’

  ‘A police person?’ Dierdre Lessing wanted confirmation. She was the Senior Mistress at Leighford High, now Assistant Headteacher i/c Special Needs and Student Services, and she came from Hell as far as Peter Maxwell was concerned.

  ‘A woman,’ Bernard Ryan, the Deputy Head, affirmed. Ryan was a chinless wonder promoted way above his capabilities. If they’d left him to teach Business Studies, he might just have coped. As it was, well…

  ‘Talking to Maxwell?’

  ‘Took him out of his lesson, apparently.’

  ‘But he’s living with one, isn’t he? Policewoman, I mean.’

  ‘I believe he is.’

  ‘Disgusting!’ Dierdre snarled. ‘So what’s he up to now, Bernard? It’s no good. He’ll have to go.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Look, we’ve got a bloody show to put on in three weeks. Is this some sort of joke?’

  Deena Harrison was in full flow that evening as in the sky above the auditorium of the Arquebus, the clouds built in the darkness to the east. Here on the ground, her long-suffering cast tried yet again to get it right.

  ‘Feed me!’ a vaguely Afro-Caribbean voice rumbled from inside the cardboard and resin creation that was Audrey II, the man-eating plant. David Balham wasn’t a bad actor as far as projection went. And his singing voice was OK too, in a tune-in-a-bucket sort of way. It was just that he couldn’t move. Puberty had hit him hard three years earlier and he had difficulty controlling his feet after that. There was probably a Syndrome to cover it, but Angela Carmichael didn’t have time for any of that. So she put him in Audrey II as a damage limitation exercise. The line tonight was rather more John Inman than James Earl Jones and Deena couldn’t let it pass.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ she shrieked, fists clenched at her sides, back like a ramrod, eyes flashing in the reflected light of the stage. ‘You’ve just got to cope with that thing, David. I’m not asking for the moon. Just coming in on cue would be nice. Again!’

  Maxwell was about to intervene, as he had often been about to intervene in the last few days. He hadn’t remembered Deena being this feisty. On the contrary, she’d always been rather sweet, engaging. Trust her? No. Like her? Yes, most people did. But this was a different Deena, one driven by…who knew what? But Maxwell had barely risen to his feet in the fifth row back to suggest taking five so that everybody could cool off when a shaken-looking Patrick Collinson came thundering down the aisle. His normally crimson face had an odd pallor about it and he stepped nervously up on stage.

  ‘Ashley.’ He was talking to the man in the sound box upstairs at first, then, ‘Everybody. I hate to interrupt, but can you gather round?’ His voice was coming and going as he moved in and out of mike range. The girl chorus, The Tendrils, came down from their perches, Seymour and Audrey I broke their awkward clinch and Mr Mushnik appeared from behind a stand of aspidistras. A slightly asphyxiated head popped out, gratefully, from the fronds of Audrey II; David Balham could breathe again. Deena stood with her arms folded waiting for the old git to make his point and get off. She knew of old the acerbity of the Advertiser’s reviewer. This show wouldn’t be ready and he’d tear them to shreds. “Lacklustre”, “brave”, “under-rehearsed” – this was the best they could hope for.

  ‘What’s the matter, Patrick?’ Ashley Wilkes’ voice boomed over the PA and the assembled cast saw his silhouette against the glass.

  ‘It’s Dan,’ Collinson flustered, trying to focus on the silhouette’s face, hovering in the lighting box. ‘Dan Bartlett. He’s dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Max, I’m not very good company, I’m afraid.’

  Patrick Collinson sat slumped in the snug of the Vine. Unlike the Volunteer, this place was not Regenerated. Picture Moe’s from the Simpsons, with Fifties butcher shop sawdust on the floor and a jukebox that still played A Horse With No Name and you’ve got part of the idea. From his seat beside Collinson, Peter Maxwell could see three under-age drinkers. He’d do his duty in that context presently, but now he had more pressing matters. ‘I didn’t expect a cabaret,’ he told the Secretary. ‘You just looked like you needed a drink, that’s all.’

  ‘Look,’ Collinson muttered. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, made that stupid, over-the-top announcement in front of your kids. It wasn’t fair. Will that girl be all right?’

  ‘Sally Spall? She’ll be fine. The wailing wasn’t really connected with your news in fact. It’s a tough call being Audrey and her boyfriend’s just dumped her. Last straw, I’m afraid. Although I understand her parents are over the parrot about it.’

  ‘Last straw for Dan, certainly,’ and Collinson gulped his brandy.

  ‘My shout.’ Maxwell waved at the barman. It was rather an imperious gesture for the infant end of the twenty-first century, but Dave Wakeham, appearing tonight on pints and optics, reckoned the Great Man. He had, after all, single-handedly got him a Grade C in GCSE History. Greater love hath no History teacher. ‘Same again, Dave.’ And the shots were forthcoming.

  ‘Is he all right, Mr Maxwell?’ the lad asked, jerking his head in the direction of
the Arquebus’ secretary. ‘I’ve seen blokes his colour before. Usually before they drop dead of a heart attack. Gives the place a bit of a bad name, you know.’

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ Maxwell said, using the Americanism he detested so that Dave could follow the conversation. ‘Had some bad news tonight, that’s all.’

  ‘The pork scratchings are on special offer.’ The barman was well in tune with the finer things in life.

  ‘Joy,’ Maxwell beamed. ‘A bit later, eh?’ and the lad left. Maxwell turned to the matter in hand. ‘Do you know what happened?’

  ‘To Dan?’ Collinson tried to compose himself. ‘Electrocuted,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘It’s just incredible. A worn cable, or something. What’s happening, Maxwell?’

  The Head of Sixth Form didn’t know. But he knew a woman who might.

  ‘Nothing from Jane, then?’ Maxwell was stirring his cocoa.

  ‘Contrary to public opinion,’ Jacquie put her knitting down, that quaint old, half-forgotten pastime that women rediscover when they’re pregnant, ‘women do not dash to the nearest mobile and indulge in idle speculation.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ he laughed. ‘Jane Blaisedell could goss for England.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ and it was all of three seconds before both of them exploded into uncontrollable laughter, Jacquie’s bump wobbling along with her. Clearly, it had the measure of its parents already.

  ‘Mind you,’ Maxwell said, ‘she was off hooks with me this morning.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘My dear girl, since casting the last of my pearls before the Gadarene swine, I have attended a two-hour staff development meeting (whatever that means), cooked my own supper while you were at breathing classes, clipped the back hedge and sewn my left arm back on. This is the first chance I’ve had to sit down.’ ‘Tut tut,’ Jacquie shook her head, smiling. ‘You housewives.’

  ‘How did the breathing go?’ he asked. ‘Seriously.’

  ‘Fine,’ she told him. ‘No problems. Everything going according to plan – swimmingly, in fact. Sonny Jim spends most of our time doing the butterfly stroke, by the feel of it.’

  He reached over and patted Jacquie’s bump.

  ‘Let’s not change the subject.’ She knocked his hand gently away. ‘Jane Blaisedell.’

  ‘Wanted to know,’ Maxwell carefully blew the skin off his cocoa, ‘the last words of Martita Winchcombe.’

  ‘Which you, of course, Mister Memory, were able to reel off.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ Maxwell told her in all modesty. ‘But what I didn’t say was that people generally regarded the old duck as a few scenes short of an act. Dan Bartlett certainly…’

  ‘But Dan Bartlett’s dead,’ Jacquie didn’t need to remind him.

  ‘And Mrs Troubridge is of like opinion. Have you seen her lately?’

  ‘Have I?’ Jacquie rolled her eyes, rearranging herself on the sofa, placing a cushion just so, so that she could feel her back again. ‘She harangued me for nearly an hour this morning on how it wasn’t good for people “in my condition” – it sounded like leprosy – not to have a husband.’

  ‘I hope you retaliated,’ Maxwell retorted. ‘Even I am forced to concede that this is the twenty-first century.’

  ‘Max, to the Mrs Troubridges of this world a partner is someone you play bridge with.’

  ‘And to the Mr Maxwells, come to think of it,’ he told her. ‘She didn’t give you her love life, did she, instalment by instalment?’

  ‘She did,’ Jacquie sighed. ‘Although it was so full of euphemisms I wasn’t quite sure what she was talking about. “Let’s just say, my dear, that Mr Troubridge bought a ticket and got off halfway”. By the time she got to Ventnor on her honeymoon, I’d lost the will to live.’

  ‘Ah,’ he sucked his teeth. ‘Now we’ll never know.’

  ‘What’s going on, Max?’ she asked him.

  He looked at her, face wreathed in cocoa steam. ‘In what respect, heart of hearts?’

  ‘At the theatre.’

  He sat bolt upright, slamming the cocoa down on the coffee table and pretending to shake her. ‘I asked you that!’ he screamed quietly.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ she protested, laughing. ‘You asked me if I’d heard from Jane. Not at all the same animal.’

  ‘Does maternity leave relieve you of your Peelite oath, Woman Policeman? Never to divulge to folks outside the Force any juicy titbits of goss that come your way in the course of your inquiries?’

  ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘And we’ve had this conversation, maternity leave or not, ever since I’ve known you.’

  ‘So, let’s get this straight, then.’ Maxwell lolled back, arms folded. ‘You can pick my brains, poor befuddled creatures that they are, but you won’t tell me anything. Is that how this works?’

  ‘Something like that,’ she nodded. ‘Bringing to mind clichés like “Ve vill ask ze questions” and so on.’

  ‘No dice.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Max.’ She hauled on his arm, pulling him backwards and forwards. ‘Come on. I’ll do the supper.’

  ‘Too bloody right,’ he told her. He was working for three now.

  ‘And the coffee tomorrow. You can have a lie-in.’

  He looked are her, sensing a ground-breaking arrangement in the wind. ‘You teach Nine Aitch Three the significance of the Corn Laws Lesson Four tomorrow and you might have a deal.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ she snorted.

  ‘It’s only because you can’t!’ he whined in a perfect Private Pike from Dad’s Army. ‘Isn’t it, Uncle Arthur? Isn’t it? Isn’t it?’

  She hit him around the head with a cushion. It would have to do until science found a permanent cure. ‘Fact for fact,’ she suggested. ‘How about it?’

  He looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Well…’

  ‘I’ll still do the coffee in the morning.’ She was driving a hard bargain, but he’d see the wisdom of it as the alarm went off and he could afford the luxury of rolling over and saying ‘Sod it!’

  ‘Done!’ he said and shook her hand smartly. ‘Three deaths in connection with the Arquebus theatre.’

  ‘But only one at the Theatre.’

  ‘The first,’ he nodded. ‘Gordon Goodacre. What do we know?’

  ‘Ladder fell on him. Apparently accident.’

  ‘That’s so unsatisfactory, Jacks,’ he slapped his knee. ‘Working alone like that. No witnesses. No forensics. Nothing. Just something going bump in the night.’

  ‘You can’t get over that, can you?’ She shook her head.

  ‘What if it’s the key?’ he asked her. ‘What if the other two deaths hinge on that one?’

  ‘With the theatre being the link.’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘I asked Graham Costigan, the Head of Maths, what were the odds of three people from one organisation dying in the space of ten days of each other. Know what he said?’

  Jacquie shook her head.

  ‘“Fucked if I know,”’ Maxwell quoted. ‘“I’m just a Maths teacher.” It’s Archimedes, Mandelbrot and Fermat all over again. Say what you like, comprehensives just can’t get the staff.’

  ‘But you think the odds are unlikely?’

  ‘Don’t you?’ he frowned. What sort of woman was he shacking up with here?

  ‘Yes,’ she frowned back, echoing his posture. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘All right. Let’s backtrack. What do we know about Goodacre?’

  ‘Got a dragon for a wife.’

  ‘Yes. Eleanor of Aquitaine meets Lady Macbeth. And?’

  ‘He helped out at the theatre, presumably in fear of said wife.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Maxwell asked, retrieving his cocoa again, ‘that she killed him?’

  ‘You’ve met her,’ Jacquie shrugged. ‘Is she the type?’

  Maxwell laughed. ‘Don’t get me on stereotyping,’ he said. ‘But, yes, I think she’s capable. On the other hand, I get the impression she’d rather call h
im out and demolish his skull with a pickaxe, toe to toe. There’s nothing clandestine about Matilda Goodacre. She’d do it, then call the police, conduct her own defence, get off and write a best-selling play about it, with her in the title role, of course.’

  ‘Death two, then.’ Jacquie moved them both on.

  ‘Martita Winchcombe. Had enemies.’

  ‘Really?’ Jacquie narrowed her eyes. ‘Who?’

  ‘The person who wired her stairs, for one. Our next door neighbour, perhaps.’

  ‘Mrs T?’ Jacquie snorted. ‘Never in a million years.’

  ‘Jealousy, my dear.’ He patted her wrist. ‘The old green eye. A motive at least.’

  ‘What, that rubbish about Mr Troubridge and the venetian blind?’

  ‘It made my eyes water,’ Maxwell confessed.

  ‘How long’s he been dead?’

  ‘Mr Troubridge? God knows. Before I moved in, certainly. Got to be thirty years.’

  ‘Rather a long time to fester, then, isn’t it?’ Jacquie asked.

  ‘Ah,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold.’

  ‘Cold, yes,’ Jacquie agreed. ‘But not put in the freezer, taken out and defrosted.’

  ‘Martita wanted to consult me,’ Maxwell said.

  Jacquie leaned back, clasping her hands over the new life inside her. ‘So that’s it!’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That’s what all this is about. She came across La Mancha to engage your trusty lance and Rosinante. And you just can’t resist saddling up, can you? Going for those bloody windmills again.’

  He leaned across and kissed her. ‘You wouldn’t have me any other way,’ he smiled.

  ‘Maybe yes, maybe no,’ she told him.

  ‘Which brings us to murder three.’

  ‘Let me rein you in there, Don Quixote.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘I’ll grant you Martita Winchcombe was murder. Jane said the SOCO evidence was overwhelming. The jury’s still out on Goodacre. And as for Dan Bartlett…who knows?’

  ‘Jane Bloody Blaisedell, for one!’ Maxwell told her, as their conversation came full circle. ‘And this, in the parlance of Fifties cinema, is where I came in.’