Maxwell's Chain (14 page)

‘Yes, I know that, but how do you know this small fact? You don’t work on the front desk. You’re working on the murders so surely they wouldn’t give you a misper to deal with.’

‘Misper? Max, I’m going to stop you watching
television. No, they wouldn’t give me a missing person to deal with, except that for some creepy reason I don’t want to dwell on, Alan Kavanagh knows where I live and put the file on my desk.’

‘Do you think it has any connection with the others? The deaths, I mean.’

‘I don’t see one. I can’t see one between the first two, let alone between them and a little old lady. I think she may have just gone a bit more doolally than usual and wandered off.’

‘She has been a little bit strange lately, you said so the other morning.’

‘Max, I said she was off hooks with you and probably Metternich. That is perfectly normal on planet Troubridge. I expect you looked at her funny or Metternich used her cotoneasters as a urinal, that’s all. Even so, I’ll spend a bit of time on it, go the rounds and see if I can find out a bit more. I’ll have to speak to Henry, but I don’t see that it would be a problem. Apart from anything else, we’ve got much better pictures of her at home than this one on the report.’

‘Do you need me to help in anything?’

‘Not right now. I…I just wanted to tell you straight away. I know you’re quite fond of the old trout in fact.’

Maxwell chuckled, a quick back projection of his
years with Mrs Troubridge playing on the screen in his mind. ‘We go back a way, I must admit. I hope she’s all right. I really wouldn’t want any harm to come to the cantankerous old biddy.’

‘Same here,’ said Jacquie. ‘I’ll find her, Max. Don’t worry. Love you,’ and she put the phone down quickly. She knew his lighthearted response masked a real concern over the old dear’s possible plight. She had been there when he first moved to Columbine, his grief over the loss of his first family healed over, but still raw in the long watches of the night and the hours of weekends and school holidays. Sparring with Mrs Troubridge was a hobby that kept the worst of the pain away in those days. Jacquie considered the options. Best case scenario, the old lady had got on a bus to somewhere and was wandering dazed and confused in Devizes or some such place. Worst case, she was about to be washed up on a beach somewhere, with unexplained dents in her head. With fingers crossed, Jacquie tapped on Henry Hall’s door.

‘Come.’ God, how she hated that. How much breath did it take to also say ‘in’?

‘Guv, I wondered if I…’

‘No, sorry Jacquie, you can’t.’

‘I’m sorry, perhaps if I could tell you what…’

Henry Hall looked up at her, two perfect little
fluorescent tubes reflected in his lenses. ‘No, you can’t have time off from two murder investigations to look into the disappearance of your neighbour.’

Jacquie looked crestfallen. ‘Sorry, guv, I didn’t know…’

‘No, well,’ his head was down to his paperwork again. ‘I try to keep abreast and I know it can’t be easy for you. But, no, sorry. Perhaps when we have this cracked.’ He almost smiled. That in itself was such a rare occurrence she didn’t know what to make of it. Was it sardonic? Cynical? Wind? Who could say?

She stepped back out into the communal office and felt at a bit of a loss. Her first thought was to ring Peter Maxwell. He always knew what to do, in or out of a crisis. Then, she thought again and on those second thoughts, what could he do? He couldn’t leave school yet; it was Wednesday – Ten Gee Four. Nobody could manage Ten Gee Four last thing in the afternoon, except Liberty Valance – and Peter Maxwell. And then, they were horribly
short-staffed
, weren’t they? Perhaps he’d have to do bus queue duty or something. And he knew nothing of the circumstances; better to leave it till they went home. Then perhaps they could do a search of the town themselves, looking for the places only Mrs Troubridge would go. She looked back at Hall’s closed door. What a shit!
Someone
had to do something.

Alan Kavanagh’s phone rang and he spoke into the receiver for a moment. Then, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand. ‘Jacquie,’ he called across the office. ‘That murdering toerag Lunt is in reception. D’you want to just tell the guv’nor for me? Save my legs.’

She looked at him as if he had crawled out from somewhere and turned on her heel. ‘Run your own errands, Alan, there’s a good boy,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I’m off to the canteen. I’ve heard a rumour we get coffee breaks.’ And she went down the back stairs to avoid meeting the Lunts. Sometimes, even nice people take the coward’s way out.

At Leighford High School, tucked away in the sanctuary of Matron’s office, Maxwell was sitting thoughtfully. Sylvia Matthews knew how fond Maxwell was of his old neighbour, although she herself would not have wee’d on her if she was on fire. You read about these things all the time in the papers, families looking fruitlessly for missing grannies, granddads, more sadly, uncles, aunties, friends of their old dad’s from way back who now had no one. And now, here it was, happening to someone she knew. She avoided platitudes and just waited for him to speak. That was why she was so popular with anyone in trouble. Her advice, when
sought, was sensible, well thought out and optional.

‘Well,’ Maxwell finally said. ‘Whatever was the mad old besom thinking? Going off like that?’

‘Who reported her missing?’ Sylvia asked him. ‘She doesn’t speak to the Other Side, does she?’

Maxwell was confused for a minute. He had no idea that ouija boards and similar were in the armoury of the State Registered Nurse. Then he realised what she meant. ‘No, no, she doesn’t. Ever since their youngest kicked a ball over.’

‘I assume it did lots of damage?’

‘No, not a bit. But it might have done and so they stopped speaking. Mrs Troubridge is very old school. Children should be seen but not heard. Come to think of it, in her book, they shouldn’t even be seen. Apart from Nolan, of course. He basically can do what he likes!’

‘How long ago was that?’ she prompted.

‘Ooh, let me see. Their Lucas is ten, now, so it must be…God, twenty years ago. Twenty-five? It was when the houses were pretty new, anyway.’

Sylvia was puzzled. ‘If their Lucas is ten…how can it be twenty-five years ago?’

‘No, no, it wasn’t
Lucas
who kicked the ball. No, it was his dad when
he
was about ten. She can bear a grudge for England, that woman.’ He lapsed into silence again.

‘But, still,’ Sylvia comforted. ‘I’m sure she’ll be OK.’

Maxwell shook himself and sat up straighter. ‘You’re right, Sylv,’ he said. ‘Anyway, Jacquie’s on it, so it will all be sorted soon.’

‘Of course it will,’ Sylvia said. ‘Now, was that all? Only, I’ve got my girls to check on soon.’

‘Any girls in particular?’

‘The pregnant ones, Max. My usual contingent of about seven.’

He looked amazed. ‘Seven pregnant girls? In the school? Right now?’

She laughed and poked him with her pen. ‘How can you have missed them, Max? Jasmin Yelland is due in seven weeks. She can hardly walk about.’

‘Jasmin Yelland? But she’s in my History set in Year Eleven.’

‘Precisely, Max. That’s why I find it hard to credit you haven’t noticed. Do you take any notice of these kids at all when you’re teaching them?’

‘Of course I do. But they tend to hunch down in their desks, you know. They all look the same shape from the front of the room. I was telling them only the other day about pregnant women avoiding the Drop in the eighteenth century by pleading the belly. Jasmine didn’t turn a hair.’

She ushered him out. ‘Perhaps that’s because she’s
not sitting in a condemned cell as we speak. Take a closer look next time you see her. I think you’ll be surprised.’

‘I think
she
will be if I take
too
close a look. Do they know who the dads are?’

‘Sometimes. Jasmin does, but she’s not telling. A few of them are in therapy about it, if you know what I mean. Keeping it in the family. One of them seems to be implying the Angel Gabriel came to her.’

Maxwell nodded. ‘I blame the
Da Vinci Code
. So, that’s why the list was so long when you asked me if any of these kids are in trouble. It would have been easier to list the ones who aren’t.’

Maxwell found himself on the other side of her door. He was gobsmacked. He found himself looking at midriffs as he walked through the crowds of students thronging the corridor and had to give himself a mental shake. All that glittering metal was making his eyes go funny. He’d be getting an odd reputation, if he went on like that.

White Surrey, patched and worn but not beaten, delivered Maxwell home at the end of another eventful day. People had teachers all wrong. They thought they just swanned around with a cup of coffee in one hand and a good book in another, then spent forty-five minutes with their feet up on a
desk, drinking one and reading another while thirty dear sweet children quietly absorbed knowledge from impeccably covered text books packed full with up to the minute information perfectly crafted to help them in their courses. The truth was very different, but who would believe it; crap coffee, no books, good or bad, and as for thirty well-behaved children – it was a myth as elusive as the Holy Grail, but apparently there was a school somewhere, up north, the legend went, that did actually have thirty well-behaved children in it. But not all at once, of course. That would be silly.

But, although the day had been tiring as always and his sleuthing with Sylvia had been less than useful, throwing up as much red herring as a Grimsby trawler in spawning season, he still spared a minute for short reflection outside Mrs Troubridge’s dark home. He hoped that he and Jacquie wouldn’t be the only people to miss her. That would be sad. Then the cold of the late afternoon seeped in a bit too far and he went inside, to be greeted by a lovely disembowelled offering, which Metternich had artistically spread on the rug. That cat is just
too
generous, if he has a failing, thought Maxwell and shut the door, looking for the dustpan and brush to wipe up after Hannibal Lecter’s nastier brother.

The grey weather had not let up all day and now it was almost dark. The sun was setting low in the west just to remind everyone it still existed and the sky was pale pink, barred with dark clouds scudding across it in the strengthening wind. February Fill Dyke, February brings the snow; call it what you like, it was bloody cold.

So Mike Crown had his head tucked well down in his sweatshirt hood as he jogged along the old railway line, derelict since the days of Beeching, his torch ready to light to help him over the last half mile or so until the lights of home shone out to him. You didn’t keep a body like his without a bit of work and jogging relaxed his mind. It also kept him out of the house, away from his mad old dad and his clinging wife. He preferred older women as a rule, always had. A bit of cash, a bit of experience, a bit of gratitude. But perhaps marrying one had been a bit of a mistake. Still, moving on should be easy; there was always another one ready to make him comfy.

The next older woman he met, though, made him far from comfy. From her less than convenient resting place across his path, she made him fall over, wrench a knee and badly graze his hands. At least she wasn’t clingy or needy. She was just dead.

Maxwell had the house nice and warm, lamps low, pie in the oven, table laid, all ready for when Jacquie came in. As a former bachelor of some standing, he was a dab hand at the culinary arts and so opening a box was a piece of cake to him.

Jacquie looked weary as she climbed the stairs and flopped against him as they both had a little think about Mrs Troubridge. If she was wandering about, she’d be dead by now, thought Jacquie, rather illogically. The night was really cold and was limbering up for the snow that often fell at half term, now tantalisingly near.

Nolan, delivered by his best friend’s mother from nursery, was bathed and delightful, full of organic lamb and rice, which looked and smelt indescribable, but which he always hoovered up with squeals for more. He and Maxwell had watched a Mr Men
DVD, rewinding again and again to hear the late, great Arthur Lowe intone that there was a goose loose in the lane until they nearly split their sides. There had been a brief and manly chat about the day, with obviously a little more detail in Maxwell’s version, and so Jacquie sat at peace, cuddling her little boy and leaning against her big one. Maxwell had covered Hegel’s Dialectic with the boy last week, so today’s mano-a-mano had been very much a post-revisionist thing.

When Nolan’s eyelids could no longer even pretend to be open, they mentioned Mrs Troubridge out loud for the first time. Nolan was the apple of her eye and she of his, so they didn’t even want to mention her name in case he wanted to see her straight away, as he often did. And spelling the old girl’s name out,
à la
‘w-a-l-k-i-e-s’ as people did for the more discerning dog, was an intellectual rigour neither of them was quite up for by that time of a Wednesday.

‘I can’t believe it, Max,’ Jacquie said. ‘According to the file, she just disappeared at the bus station.’

‘I can’t quite work out why she was…Wait a minute. Do I not remember you saying her sister was coming to stay?’

‘Oh, God, you’re right. Or was she going to stay with her? I can’t remember and you know how she
goes…’ there was a pause as they both reconsidered the present tense but she let it go, ‘on about things. I tune out.’

‘Well, that would explain the bus station. I suppose she had gone to meet her, or check times or something. Perhaps that’s it, perhaps she has just gone to stay with her sister. We’re worrying for nothing.’ Maxwell sighed and sat back, problem solved. It was the Marie Celeste and the Creation of the Universe all rolled into one.

‘Then who reported her missing?’ Jacquie’s timing was impeccable. ‘It must be her sister and so she can’t have got there.’

‘True,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘Damn you, Holmes, I was beginning to feel quite hopeful, there. What else did the file say?’

‘Well, that’s it. Nothing. It’s very early days and if it wasn’t for the address, I don’t know whether it would have got to us at all yet. After all, it’s not as if she’s a frantic DIYer and we’ve stopped hearing the Black and Decker through the wall. We have to wait a while before we start working on any missing person.’

‘Even someone as old as Mrs T?’

‘Yes. I agree, there should be different rules, but there aren’t.’

‘So, basically, she went to the bus station and
disappeared into thin air.’ As Jacquie had surmised earlier, the cinematic that was Maxwell was indeed conjuring up images of the tweedy Miss Froy, caught up in a world of espionage as dated as it was daft. But then, a grimmer thought struck him. ‘Our hoodies came by bus.’

‘Wrong timing.’ Jacquie had got there as well. ‘We already had them in the nick by then.’

‘God, yes. Anyway, I shouldn’t think that even that number of them could make someone disappear into thin air.’

Deep in her bag down the side of the sofa, Jacquie’s phone rang. They looked at each other with resignation. It had to be work, that was what the phone was for, except calls from Maxwell and it clearly wasn’t him.

‘I have to answer it,’ Jacquie said. ‘It might be about…you know…’

‘Go on, then,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’d rather know.’

Jacquie rummaged for her phone and got there just as it stopped ringing. Classic. She hit redial and waited. No reply – she looked up at Maxwell in exasperation. ‘They must be leaving me a message, I hate that.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Maxwell said, encouragingly. ‘I always hate that.’

She raised an eyebrow at him. They both knew
he thought that messages ought to be brought by a Galloper on a lathered horse from Some Other Part Of The Field. She waited impatiently for the text to tell her she had a message. It seemed like ages. Then it was another æon until the voicemail answered and then another millennium until she got to the newest message.

Which was from the night sergeant at the nick. ‘DS Carpenter. DCI Hall asks can you give him a ring. It’s…um, it’s not good news, I’m afraid.’

She rang off and sat down. Her legs had gone all wobbly. She thought she could bear these things, she who had seen bodies, sometimes strewn over a fair distance. She had had to break news far worse than this to more parents, husbands, wives than little Nolan, for instance, had had hot dinners. She always thought of Maxwell when she did so, hearing that worst news of all, all those years ago, when the tyres screamed on the wet tarmac and his world turned upside down. She had to give herself a moment before she rang Henry Hall.

Maxwell stood up and came and wrapped his arms around her. Thank goodness for those arms. Without them she would have sunk long ago. After soaking up all the love she could, she carefully unwrapped him and picked up the phone. She dialled Henry Hall’s direct number.

‘Jacquie. Thanks for getting back.’ Jacquie knew perfectly well that Henry Hall had a house, a wife, kids. Yet somehow he always seemed to be there, in his office, behind his desk, glasses blank, his mind an enigma.

‘Guv.’ Jacquie’s throat was dry and her lips felt stuck to her teeth. ‘What’s going on?’

She heard him sigh at the other end. ‘We’ve just had a call from the Arundel nick. Mike Crown has just tripped over a body.’

She nearly passed out with relief and put a thumb up to Maxwell. He grinned and silently clapped his encouragement. ‘Mike Crown as in…?’

‘Lara Kent, yes. That’s why they rang. If you remember, we asked them if he had any previous before we paid them the visit.’

‘Yes, that’s right. But…a body. That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, guv?’

‘You know I don’t believe in those, Jacquie. When someone says it’s a coincidence, I always get suspicious. And you’re about the twelfth person to say it. So now I’m
very
suspicious indeed.’

‘My message said it was not good news, guv. I think this sounds pretty good – he’s obviously lying about the tripping over. We wondered about him from the start; he’s a much better bet than Lunt.’ They had and he was. There was a pattern about
murder. The old cliché about killers returning to the scene of the crime was just that. But some of them never left it, ‘finding’ the body, offering help, volunteering for searches, being that
teensy
bit too helpful, too ready to please. ‘So why not good news?’

‘Because…I’m sorry, Jacquie, I don’t mean to condescend. Is Maxwell there?’

‘Yes.’ She was puzzled now. Henry Hall never wanted to speak to Maxwell at the best of times. And this was in the middle of a break in the middle of a murder inquiry. Hall was usually ready to consign Maxwell to the deepest dungeon about now, the oubliette of the Chateau d’If.

‘Can you put him on?’

Mutely, Jacquie passed the phone to Maxwell.

‘Hello, Henry. How can I help you?’ Maxwell was pulling all sorts of interrogative faces at Jacquie who answered with some of her own. Thank God they still hadn’t quite perfected the technology of Phone-o-Vision.

‘Sorry…Max.’ The name was dragged out of him with red hot pincers, by the tone of Hall’s voice. ‘I just felt it would be better to tell
you
. The body that was discovered earlier this evening – Jacquie will doubtless be telling you the circumstances – is described as being of an elderly woman. We are
obviously thinking it may be your Mrs Troubridge.’

‘God.’ Maxwell was struck as dumb as he ever would be, not because Hall had called her
his
Mrs Troubridge, but because, after the briefest of hopes, it could be the old lady after all. ‘Where was this, did you say?’

‘Arundel. A disused railway line.’

Maxwell felt hopeful again. ‘That’s not her usual kind of stamping ground, Henry, I have to say. I haven’t known her leave Columbine for years.’

‘No. But since when did murder victims behave normally? The only person to behave more oddly than a murderer is usually their victim.’ Maxwell concurred. What was Evelyn Hamilton, the first victim of the war-time blackout killer Gordon Cummins doing sitting in an air-raid shelter when there wasn’t an air-raid on? And why did she have £80 in her handbag, a colossal sum for those days. Always questions; never answers.

‘Yes, I accept that. But, Henry, she’s a very old lady.’

‘But perfectly hale and hearty, I understand.’

‘Well, yes.’ Maxwell paused. This wasn’t going anywhere and he needed to tell Jacquie what was going on. ‘All right, Henry. If you need us for anything. Identification, that kind of thing.’

‘Thanks. We probably will. According to our
records, she just has a sister. A bit younger, but not by much. If you’re sure you won’t find it…’ but Henry Hall knew that was a platitude that didn’t apply to Maxwell. He also knew that he would walk over hot coals rather than let Jacquie do it. ‘Yes, well, thanks again. It’s a different nick, so we may be a day or two. Paperwork, collaboration, you know. We’ll be in touch.’ And he cut the connection.

‘That was odd.’ Maxwell turned to Jacquie. ‘He says the body was an elderly woman.’

Jacquie didn’t answer, just sat there staring at him with eyes like saucers.

‘He thinks it may be Mrs Troubridge. But I don’t.’

She got up and rested on his chest again. ‘That’s sweet, Max, but we must face facts.’

‘She was found on a disused railway line, Jacquie. What on earth would Mrs Troubridge be doing on a disused railway line?’

‘What was she doing at the bus station?’

‘Point taken.’ He moved her away and looked into her eyes. ‘If it’s possible, let’s try not to dwell on this. Henry says it could be a day or two, so we may be worrying unnecessarily. I don’t even know why the police force there got in touch with your blokes. There must be loads of missing people.’

Jacquie had to think for a moment just how
much Maxwell might know. Usually, the answer to that question would be ‘everything’, but probably not on this occasion. She decided to put it in a nutshell. ‘The bloke who found her is the stepfather of the body you and Bill Lunt found on the dunes,’ she said, all in one breath. ‘Henry doesn’t believe in coincidence, so when a name crops up again in any investigation, he gets to sniffing around. It was the finder, not the body that made them ring. Henry just put two and two together.’

‘Let’s hope he’s making five,’ Maxwell said. ‘Since the subject has cropped up, how did Bill’s interview go?’

‘Something and nothing,’ she said, recognising a change of subject when one bit her on the nose. ‘The phone has rather changed things. They have got the numbers off it and none relate to him. They are mostly pay-as-you-go, non-registered things. They really should stop that; it’s just too easy for anyone a bit crooked. One in particular was there more than others, along with a few saucy texts; nothing David Beckham wouldn’t be proud to send. Bill is almost sorry his fifteen minutes of fame are over. Emma came in with him. She’s like a Rottweiler when she’s riled, isn’t she? I wouldn’t like to cross her. She’ll be in the frame next if she’s not careful.’

‘Emma? She wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ Maxwell
chuckled; but then, in the context of History lessons at Leighford High, he’d never seen her with her dander up.

‘No, but she’d certainly give it a good telling off,’ Jacquie asserted. She had seen Alan Kavanagh actually change colour when he had met them on the stairs as they left the building. And that was when Emma was feeling calmer.

The baby alarm in the corner burbled and then exploded with a wail. A diversion – that child really
did
have excellent timing. They tossed a coin, Maxwell’s famous two-headed zloty. All right, he won, but he went with Jacquie anyway.

At eight a.m. precisely that Thursday a strange thing happened to Peter Maxwell. Well, perhaps not that strange, as his recent professional life had been peppered with suspensions, warnings, sudden and mysterious deaths and other alarums and excursions, but this was definitely a first. Just as he was getting himself together to brave the February weather, choosing the old Jesus tie to complement the old Jesus scarf, the radio whittering in the background, a few words in the whitter attracted his attention.

‘Whitter, burble, natter, Leighford High School, natter rhubarb.’ It was almost like S4C’s News programmes, but he had caught the gist now
and gave it his fuller attention. ‘…a previously unprecedented move, Leighford High School has been temporarily closed due to the large numbers of staff absent. The Head Teacher, James Diamond, spoke this morning to our reporter, Anne Fallows.’ The grey tones of Legs Diamond filled the kitchen for what Maxwell hoped would be the only time. ‘Yes, Anne.’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘Yes, Anne’ – what a media tart that man was. ‘The staff and students at Leighford High School have been hit by the recent virus that is going round. Due to the large numbers of absences, which my remaining staff have been working tirelessly to cover, I have no option but to close the school for the rest of this week. I would therefore ask parents to not send their children in this morning, or tomorrow. Over the weekend, we will be contacting all families affected by this with detailed plans for the immediate future. We’ll be in touch by phone and email. Supply cover is at breaking point all over the county and it takes time to mobilise the various Agencies.’

Peter Maxwell knew perfectly well that Legs Diamond couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, much less mobilise anything. It was rather like the Russian army at the start of World War One, but not so well organised.