Maxwell’s Curse (10 page)

‘Old bags!’ DS Martin Stone had had enough. ‘Couldn’t you just kill ’em?’ Perhaps DCI Henry Hall was the wrong man to put that question to. The pair’s eyes met across a crowded Leighford police station a little after breakfast that day.

‘Personally, no,’ was Hall’s straight-faced reply, ‘but it’s our task to find a man who might.’

‘Sorry, guv,’ Stone looked like a man who’d been up all night.

‘No news yet, then?’ Hall leaned against the doorframe.

‘Another false alarm last night. Just before one. Raced round to the Maternity Unit getting funny looks from the speed trap unit on Wildman’s Hill. All hands to the pumps and nothing. It’s getting us down.’

‘How’s Alex coping?’

Stone shrugged. ‘Like you do.’

Hall winked and slapped the man’s arm. That was as avuncular as the tight-lipped bastard got. He who had gone through all this three times. He went into the small dark rectangle that was Interview Room One. There was no window here; just the cold whiteness of artificial light bearing down on the sparse grey hair of old Jane Cruikshank. He nodded at the WPC sitting bolt upright by the door. He took in the small, almost frail old woman sitting in the pool of light in the centre of the room, a table and machinery in front of her.

He pulled back the chair opposite and sat down, switching on the tape-recorder to his right. ‘DCI Hall commencing interview number two at nine thirteen. Has anybody given you a cup of tea, Mrs Cruikshank?’

The hard grey eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. ‘Nobody’s given me the time of day, sonny,’ she told him. ‘Just asked me questions. That kid, that sergeant of yours, he’s a tosser, ain’t he?’

‘He’s got a lot on his mind,’ Hall said softly, leaning back in his chair. ‘Marianne, get Mrs Cruikshank a cup of tea, would you? Mrs Cruikshank, you don’t mind that the WPC is leaving us alone, do you?’

Jane Cruikshank cracked a broad gappy grin. ‘Don’t worry, sonny,’ she said, ‘you’ll be safe with me. Three sugars, ducks. And lots of milk. I like my tea milky.’

Hall nodded at Marianne. ‘WPC Fisher leaving the room at nine sixteen.’ He waited for the door to close.

‘I don’t know nothin’ ’bout them tyres,’ she told him.

‘Mrs Cruikshank, neither do I,’ he said. ‘Have you been told you can have a lawyer present?’

She spat savagely to her left. ‘Yeah, that young tosser told me. What do I want with a lawyer? My boys will sort this out, you’ll see. I don’t want no lawyer.’

‘Your boys,’ Hall was leafing through the interview notes Stone had left on the table, ‘your grandsons, er … Ben and Joe.’

‘That’s them.’ The old girl nodded, as though chewing on an invisible pipe stem. ‘They’re not bad boys, mister. We’re not like other people. Not settled. They ain’t got much schooling one way and another. Me, I was born in a Vardo wagon. I remember doing the horse fairs before the war. Course, they was different days … Why did you bring me here?’

‘Why did you threaten my officers with a shotgun?’

‘I got a right,’ Jane Cruikshank sat bolt upright on her dignity. ‘Wakin’ folks up – Godfearing folks, mind you – at some Godforsaken hour. ’T’ain’t natural. I got a right.’

‘Do you have a licence for the gun?’

‘’T’ain’t mine,’ the old woman told him. ‘I told you, we’re not like other people.’

‘No, you can break the law whenever you like, can’t you?’ Hall looked at her. Like Stone, he felt the red mist rising. He’d met them before, society’s misfits who knew all their rights and none of their responsibilities. He, who had once been so tolerant, so reasonable. He was starting to feel like Attila the Hun. The door’s click saved him from throwing the book, and possibly the table, at old Jane Cruikshank.

‘WPC Fisher returning at nine twenty,’ he checked his watch.

‘What?’ the old girl took the cup that cheered, for all it was in a nasty pale institution green. ‘No chocolate biscuits? I was hoping for a Penguin.’

‘What’s this?’ Hall suddenly produced from his jacket pocket a tattered rag doll, perhaps six inches tall, with string tied crudely to form a bulging head and limbs.

Jane Cruikshank’s lips froze inches from her cup. ‘Where did you get that?’ Her voice was like winter, her face a fungus grey.

‘Have you seen it before?’ he asked her, ignoring her question.

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head slowly, not taking her eyes off the doll. ‘Not that one …’

‘Not that one,’ Hall took up the theme. ‘Another, then? One like it?’

‘No,’ she shook her head faster. ‘No, nothing like that.’

Hall leaned back, keeping the doll in his grip, in her eye-line. ‘You’re not telling me the truth, Mrs Cruikshank,’ he said. ‘My officers found this in your caravan this morning.’

‘What?’

‘It was stuffed down behind your chair – the old rocker in the corner.’

‘That’s a lie,’ the old girl growled. ‘I’ve never seen it before. I don’t know nothing about poppets … Why am I here? What are you talking about, you tosser?’

‘You know perfectly well why you’re here, Mrs Cruikshank. DS Stone explained it to you. You’re here in connection with the murder of Elizabeth Pride.’

Jane Cruikshank stared into Hall’s eyes, then she threw the tea all over him and smashed the cup and saucer on the floor. WPC Fisher was on her feet in an instant, but Hall’s hand checked her. He calmly wiped the liquid dripping from his glasses and looked at the old woman, quivering feet from him.

‘Get me a fucking lawyer,’ she snarled.

Jacquie had finished her report nearly an hour ago. She’d proofread it on the computer screen, printed it out, proofread it again. She didn’t want to face the DCI. Not today. What she’d done had been stupid. She’d faced a madwoman with a shotgun, endangering not only her own life but those of her colleagues as well. The DCI didn’t go for heroes. She knew that. There were procedures to be followed, a book of rules. What was the point in writing them if they weren’t followed?

‘Jacquie?’ the DCI’s head popped around the door in the Tottingleigh Incident Room. ‘A word?’ And she followed him into his office.

At first she stood there, paper in her hand.

‘The report?’ he asked her.

‘Oh, yes, sir. Sorry.’

He sat down behind the desk, scanning the pages, putting a finger across his lips. Only then did he look up.

‘She called it a poppet,’ he said.

‘Sir?’

‘The rag doll you found in Jane Cruikshank’s caravan. She called it a poppet. Any idea what that means?’

Jacquie shrugged. ‘Sweetheart, darling?’ she guessed.

He let it go at that. ‘She’s never seen it before,’ he said.

‘What? Oh, come on, guv.’

‘I’ve been in this business a long time, Jacquie. I know the signs. Believe me, she hasn’t seen it. But she was afraid of it.’

‘Afraid?’ Jacquie blinked. ‘Why?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know.’ He picked up the Biro on his desk and tapped with the end of it. ‘Get me Peter Maxwell,’ he said.

‘Sir?’

Hall stood up. ‘This morning, Jacquie, you behaved with extraordinary recklessness facing what might have been a loaded shotgun. I don’t like heroes. Heroines I like still less. If you can’t handle being part of a team – this team perhaps you picked the wrong job. And since when do you help yourself to private property like this doll without a search warrant?’

Jacquie had been expecting it, but the speed of attack took her by surprise, caught her off balance. ‘I …’

‘The old girl’s demanding a lawyer. When he gets here, you can kiss this … evidence … goodbye. Now don’t add coyness to stupidity. Call Peter Maxwell.’

‘Sir,’ and she left before the tears started.

7

She lay sprawled in his arms as the chimes of his grandfather clock announced eleven.

‘Whatever happened to Sandy Gall?’ he asked her.

‘What?’ Jacquie cocked her head to look up at him, slumped on the settee as he was.

‘Train of thought, really. News at Eleven used to be News at Ten and Sandy Gall was an old newsreader. Do they go to a sort of journalists’ graveyard, do you think? Or does the devil grab their souls and force them down to the Other Place to read everlasting autocues?’

‘It’s funny you should mention the devil,’ she murmured, nestling her head in the warm space between his neck and his chest.

‘Is it? Why?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just a conversation I had last night. Look,’ she sat up again, ‘are you sure you’re all right?’ She was frowning into his face.

‘Just because I suddenly remembered Sandy Gall doesn’t mean I’ve got galloping concussion.’ He crossed his eyes over the bridge of his nose, ‘And both of you should be aware of that.’

She laughed. With him. Because nobody ever laughed at Peter Maxwell. Not more than once, anyway. ‘Even so,’ she scolded, ‘you’re being very coy about what happened.’

‘Coyness be my friend,’ he said, reaching across for his Southern Comfort.

‘I want to know,’ she insisted.

‘Shall I switch on the tape recorder, Woman Policeman?’

‘Max, please. This is important.’

‘All right,’ he chuckled, humouring her. He looked into the steady grey eyes, the soft mouth. ‘If you want to know, I think somebody hit me over the head.’

‘What?’ she was frowning again, not grasping the significance of what he was saying.

‘I’d been talking to Dr Astley …’

‘Oh?’

‘One piece of interrogation at a time, please,’ he batted aside the question he knew was hovering behind the parted lips. ‘I’d got up to leave the bar. I was walking along a landing.’ He closed his eyes to remember it. ‘The stairs were to my left. A corridor stretched ahead, leading to the squash court spectator galleries, I think. There was a thud – that must have been my head saying hello to something hard. You will note, detective, that I do not have my wounds before.’

She had noted that. She’d already kissed and stroked the swollen ridge at the back of his skull and recognized it as the impact of a wall or door.

‘Baseball bat,’ Maxwell offered as another solution.

She reached round and ran her fingers through his iron-grey curls again until he winced. ‘Sorry,’ she bit her lip the way that women do. ‘I think a baseball bat would do a bit more damage, Max,’ she said.

‘In the hands of Robert de Niro, yes.’

‘De Niro?’

‘Al Capone in
The Untouchables
. You remember the scene – somebody had looked at him funny so he spread their brains out over the breakfast table. Just another everyday story of psycho folk.’

‘But why should anybody want to knock you out?’ she asked.

‘Children are definitely getting more stupid,’ he answered her in riddles. ‘When they’re ten, they ask “Why is grass green?” But when they’re five they ask “Why is grass?” Now, that’s an altogether more imponderable one, isn’t it? The Big One. But an even bigger one is that you’ve just posed, love of my loaf. Who would want to knock me out? Well,’ he twisted his lip in thought, ‘I’ve been at Leighford High now the best part of twenty years. Pissed off a lot of kids in that time.’

‘Not enough for ABH, Max, surely?’

‘You’ve never seen one of my lessons,’ he winked at her.

‘No,’ she smiled, ‘I haven’t. And I’d like to. I dropped History early on at school. Too many dates.’

‘Cobblers!’ he cuffed her playfully around the ear. ‘All right, when you ever get time off again for good behaviour I’ll work with you on A level. How about that?’

‘I’d never get beyond Walpole,’ she laughed.

‘My dear girl,’ he said, eyes wide with impressedness, ‘Knowing the man’s name gets you a D grade these days. Maybe I can still pull a few strings at Jesus – call in some favours, you know.’

And they laughed together in the lamplight.

‘You’ve been here for hours,’ he said.

‘You’re right.’ She stretched and sat up again. ‘And I should be going.’

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’ It was his turn to scold her. ‘What about this morning’s phone call?’

‘Oh, that,’ she dismissed it. ‘The DCI had his arse in his hand. It was my fault really.’

‘What was?’

‘It’s nothing, Max. I fouled up. Went in alone when I should have waited for back-up. It wasn’t important.’

‘Jacquie,’ he was looking hard into her face, her clear eyes. He held her cheeks in both hands. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’

‘Hall wants to pick your historical brains. I rang Leighford but they told me you were teaching.’

‘I’ve heard that rumour too,’ he nodded, ‘and I’ve been waiting all evening for you to tell me what the bloody hell he wants.’

She hauled herself away from him, gently, holding his hands as she got up. ‘Sorry, Max,’ she shook her head. ‘I’m not exactly the DCI’s blue-eyed girl at the moment. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’

‘I shan’t sleep, you know.’ He was on his feet too, his arms around her neck. She draped her arms over his.

‘Neither shall I,’ she said. And he kissed her, ‘But …’

He got her scarf and coat and saw her to the door. ‘I’ll walk you to the car,’ he said.

‘No,’ she turned to him under the light over the door, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow. Let me know what Hall says.’

‘Depend on it,’ and Maxwell kissed her again.

Neither of them heard the dark Peugeot purr away into the Leighford night, its engine muffled, its headlights off. He watched her crunch away over the freezing driveway, the one where Elizabeth Pride had lain nine nights ago.

‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ he muttered to the menacing black and white beast sidling between his feet. Thank God, sighed Metternich on an outward purr. He thought she’d never go.

Teachers, at secondary schools at least, have free periods. They’re not free at all, of course. Even an NQT can tell you there’s no such thing as a free period. They’re a single hour in the day when you can at last get to grips with that pile of marking that’s been building since 1975. Or, if you’re very lucky, you can cover for Miss Whatserface who hates the job and is continually and inexplicably missing on the days she’s got 10C6, so you’ve got them.

Today was a treat for Peter Maxwell. He hadn’t been nabbed for cover and his marking was more or less up to date. Wednesday was pure luxury, a two hour stretch, including lunch when, if he was careful, he wouldn’t see a kid at all. But today, a tall man in a dark car picked him up in the car park and took him away.