Maxwell's Inspection (3 page)

That Monday however, there was just one standing by his office door. And it wasn't one of Maxwell's Own. It was a woman, brunette, attractive, pencil-pleat skirted,
with a silk scarf and an elegant Celtic brooch to hold it in place. She was … what… forty, perhaps? Perhaps less. She spun on her heel to face him.

‘Mr Maxwell?' Her hand was thrust out. He glanced at it. No dagger. That was a start.

‘That's right.' He took her hand. It was slim, but the grip was firm for a woman. Perhaps she worked out, pumping iron in her spare time for WWF.

‘I'm Sally Meninger. This week I'll be taking a look at the pastoral provision in the school. I understand you're a history teacher.'

‘Right again,' he said. ‘Won't you go in?'

He followed her into his office, that Inner Sanctum where he sometimes had the luxury of closing the door.

‘Then we'll be seeing rather a lot of each other. I'm Humanities too.'

‘Joy,' Maxwell smiled. ‘Coffee?' He ushered her to a soft chair.

‘Good Lord,' Sally Meninger was taking in Maxwell's walls. His décor, it was true, took some handling. Ahead of her, Rita Hayworth smouldered seductively, assuring the cinematic world that there
never
was a woman like
Gilda
. An ex-president of the United States to her right appeared to be in bed with a chimp called
Bonzo
and to her left a black-trimmed parasol tossed on the air currents somewhere on the Irish coast over the head of
Ryan's
Daughter
. Above Maxwell's already bubbling kettle, Butch and the Kid were making a determined run for it, thumb-breakers blazing against half the Bolivian army.

‘Did they make it, do you think?' he asked her,
nodding
in the poster's direction. ‘Butch and the Kid. Did they get out?'

‘You're the historian,' she smiled, crossing her legs and declining his coffee with a shake of the head.

‘And you?' he was stirring after her shake.

‘Sociology, originally,' she told him. ‘All rather a long time ago, I'm afraid.'

‘Tell me about it,' he said.

‘So, did they?'

‘Hmm?'

‘Butch and the Kid. Did they escape?'

Maxwell sat down opposite her, dropping the scarf and hat to one side. ‘Butch's sister said they did. They came home from Bolivia one day and lived to a ripe old age. ‘Course, she was a few bullets short of a six-gun. Is this your first visit to Leighford, Miss Meninger?'

‘Wearing my Ofsted hat, yes. I came here as a child, of course. You still had donkey rides then, I seem to
remember
.'

‘Ah, yes,' Maxwell nodded. ‘That was before Women Against Donkey Abuse took over. WADA. How they've enriched our lives.'

He saw her write something on her sheet. He didn't have to see what it was. He knew. It would read
something
like ‘Chauvinist Pig'. Good start.

‘How long have you been wearing your Ofsted hat?' he asked her.

‘Six years,' she told him.

‘Ah, so you were one of Chris Woodhead's Finest, then?'

She smiled. It was like the silver plate on a coffin.

‘Good job?' he asked her.

‘Depends on the school,' she shrugged. ‘Sometimes it's a positive pleasure.'

‘And other times?'

She looked into his eyes. ‘Sometimes it can be pure bloody murder.'

‘Oy! Sultans of Swing!' Gerry Cosgrove was in no mood to muck about. His missus had kept him up half the night with her snoring and the brewery delivery had been late. He'd caught his thumb between a couple of barrels and his back was playing up. To cap it all, it was Monday night, the place was empty and his Live Music was guilty of offences under the Trades Descriptions Act; he wasn't sure they were actually alive and he was bloody certain they weren't playing music. ‘Come on, it's ten past nine. How much of a break do you blokes want?'

‘Sorry, squire,' Duggsy was Lead Guitar and Vocals, the spokesman of the group. His top was grunge, his hair retro punk, his jeans Milletts. ‘Monday night, ain't it?'

‘Yeah, well, there's not a whole lot I can do about that,' the landlord told him. ‘Where's your drummer?'

Duggsy checked behind him. ‘Having a slash, I shouldn't wonder.'

‘Still?' Cosgrove seized the moment to collect a few empties on the beer-wet table nearby.

‘Well, he's old, inne?' Duggsy explained. ‘You gotta be a bit, y'know, understandin' ain'tcha?'

‘No,' Cosgrove bore down on the lad. ‘No, that's
precisely
where you're wrong. Ah,' he glanced up as six
people
bustled into the bar, ‘Don't look now, but rent-a-crowd's arrived. Your audience just doubled.'

‘Bit of acoustic then, Wal?' Duggsy turned to Mr Bassman as the landlord hurried off to look genial. Wal was a beige replica of Duggsy, but terminal acne had hit
him at sixteen and had never quite gone away.

‘Nah, can't be arsed,' Wal muttered. ‘Where the fuck's the Iron Man?'

‘Probably can't find his way back.' Duggsy finished his drink. ‘Lord Muck over there's getting a bit pissed off. I may have to hack into Postman Pat in a minute. Fuckin' hell!'

‘What?' Wal looked up from checking his leads.

‘That's only Mad Fucking Max!'

‘Never!'

‘As I live and breathe. Look, over there. With that lot just come in.'

‘'Ere, that's that tit Mr Holton. I always hated him.'

‘I seem to remember he wasn't overly fond of you, Wal, me ol' mucker. Must be Teachers' Nite Out.'

A wiry man with spiked black hair and a pony tail swaggered his way from the furthest corner, the flickering lights from the pinball machines catching the studs on his leathers and the collection of piercings that adorned his otherwise unremarkable face.

‘Well, about fuckin' time, Iron,' Duggsy batted him with his guitar-case, mercifully the soft one. ‘We were about to begin our overture.'

‘Sorry, man,' the drummer muttered. ‘Bit of me old trouble.' He took a serious drag on whatever he was smoking and bared his teeth to the flashing lights that suddenly rotated. The barman switched off Chris Tarrant, much to everyone's relief and the band struck up.

‘Mother of God, what's that?' It was Ben Holton who reacted to the sound first. He still remembered the Vine in the old days, when it reinvented itself from a spit and sawdust dive to a mock-Tudor eaterie. Herring-bone
covered 
the walls and a rather plastic-looking breastplate and halberds gleamed over the huge grate.

‘That,' shouted Sally Greenhow over the noise, ‘is the Yawning Hippos. Two of them are old Leighford Hyenas.' She had long ago adopted Maxwell's terminology for the alumni of the old place.

‘Really?' Maxwell screwed up his eyes to make them out. For all the Vine was virtually empty tonight, a thick haze with a sweet smell which hung like a pall over the place, soaking into the rich swirls of the carpet and
coating
the leaded panes. ‘Which ones?'

‘Lead and bass guitars,' Sally said, fumbling for her change. It was, she insisted, after the day they'd all had, her shout.

‘That'd be those things with leads dangling from them,' Maxwell was reassuring himself. ‘Good God, yes. You remember William Thing, Ben.'

‘Thing?' Holton repeated, letting his lips dip into the froth.

‘Well, that's only an approximation of course. Everybody called him Wallie when those books came out because he was so nondescript. Couldn't find him in a crowd and so on.'

‘Still is,' Paul Moss chipped in, gathering up two drinks and heading for a table as far from the band as
possible
. ‘That's why he's playing bass.'

‘The crooner,' Maxwell was waving a finger at him
trying
to find the name in the vast vaults of his memory, ‘is Matthew Douglas, who once vied with fourteen others for the coveted title of the stupidest boy in Ten Eff Three; Class, if I remember, of ‘99.'

‘Well, haven't they come on?' Holton muttered,
stumbling 
after Moss to the corner and squeezing himself into one of the snuggeries, the alcoves that lined the far wall.

‘Oh, I don't know,' Sally sauntered with him. ‘The Hippos have quite a following.'

‘So I see,' said Holton, looking round at the deserted pub.

‘Well, people,' Maxwell raised his Southern Comfort. ‘Here's to a bloody war and a sickly season.' Maxwell's toasts were usually incomprehensible, but as The Yawning Hippos ritually murdered the Nine Inch Nails, the others intoned ‘Here! Here!'

Peter Maxwell didn't get out much. What with all the marking and the preparation, the endless worry over his three hundred charges in the Sixth Form, well, there just weren't enough hours in the day, were there? At least, that was what he'd told Sally Meninger first thing this
morning
as they parried and riposted their way around the opening moves of a routine Ofsted inspection. He didn't expect it to work for a moment. If the woman couldn't sense bullshit when she smelt it, she shouldn't have been on the team in the first place.

‘So, how was it for you, Miss Greenhow?' he asked her, lolling his head briefly on her shoulder. ‘Much earth movement? Or are we talking whimpers rather than bangs?'

‘Mine was all right,' she told the group between sips of her lager. ‘I think he said his name was Harding.'

‘Bald bloke,' Paul Moss clicked his fingers,
remembering
him from a chance encounter in the corridor. ‘No offence, Ben.'

Ben Holton had stopped taking offence years ago. Cheap jibes about the Crucible Theatre and the Benson
and Hedges Masters passed him by these days.

‘That's right,' Sally said. ‘Reminded me of an uncle of mine.'

Maxwell and Moss, the historians in the party, sucked in their teeth simultaneously. ‘Ooh,' wailed Maxwell. ‘The worst sort. They lull you, you see, Sal. Find out in advance what your uncles look like and then send in a ringer. It's an old Ofsted ploy, isn't it, Paul?'

‘One of the oldest, Max,' the Head of History nodded gaily.

‘Then, just when you think it's safe to come into the classroom. Wham!' he bounced the flat of his hand on the table and expertly caught the beer mat, ‘It's a Scale 5. Retraining. Failing School.'

Sally caught him one with her handbag strap. ‘They don't award numbers any more,' she said. ‘Too divisive, apparently. Seriously though, I hear Tommo had a hard time.'

‘Tommo?' Maxwell looked at her aghast; Stuart Tomkinson was one of the best. ‘When was this?'

‘This afternoon. Lesson Four, I think.'

‘Ah,' said Moss. ‘That would have been Ten Gee Three, the dirty thirty.'

‘Well, yes,' Sally said. ‘Except that Jason's with us all week in the Slammer. Dave Barton's under a two week suspension and rumour has it that Samantha Westerby's gone to live with her granny in Edgbaston.'

‘Well, there is a God, then.' As a scientist, Ben Holton had been looking for proof like this all his life. And to think, it had taken an incident in Leighford to confirm it.

‘Not like Tommo, though.' Maxwell savoured the amber nectar as it hit his tonsils. ‘From what I know of the
man, he's pretty good.'

‘Maybe she doesn't like Geography teachers,' Moss suggested.

‘Got some taste there,' Maxwell conceded. ‘Who did he have?'

‘It would be Sally Meninger,' Moss reasoned. ‘She's Humanities. Max, you had her this morning.'

‘Ah,' Maxwell was at his most enigmatic. ‘Had in what sense, dear boy? My private life is my private life. A
public
schoolboy never divulges …'

‘'Scuse me,' a young voice made Maxwell look up. A girl stood there, seventeen, eighteen perhaps. ‘Are you Mr Maxwell?' Twelve teachers' eyes were on her. Actually, eleven, because Jeff Armstrong had got something in one of his at the weekend and he was still wearing the NHS patch, much to the hilarity of his kids all day.

‘Indeed I am, Miss … er …'

‘I'm Tracey.'

‘Of course you are,' Maxwell beamed.

‘Duggsy says “Hello” and have you got any requests?'

‘Duggsy?'

‘Matthew Douglas. Over there.'

The lead guitar and vocalist was gesticulating as much as he could while getting his fingers round a riff and his tonsils around
Hey Joe.

‘Well,' Maxwell chuckled, ‘that's very kind, but aren't
I
supposed to ask
him
?' He caught the blankness in Tracey's eyes. ‘Not the other way round.'

‘Oh, yeah,' the blonde girl wobbled her breasts at him, grinning inanely. ‘Only he, like, remembers you from school. And just thought it would be, like, nice.'

‘Like, it is,' Maxwell smiled. ‘Tell him if he can't do
I'm 
a Pink Toothbrush
by Max Bygraves, what he's doing is just fine. Oh,' he fished a tenner out of his wallet, ‘tell the lads to have a drink on me.'

‘Oh, thanks, Mr Maxwell,' and she scuttled away, her buttocks nearly as bouncy as her breasts.

‘Soliciting again, Max?' Ben Holton muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

‘One of the perks of the job. Good God!' The eleven eyes were fixed in the direction of Maxwell's stare. Wobbling a little uncertainly on what Maxwell knew as Fuck-Me shoes, Sally Meninger, the Ofsted Inspector,
giggled
her way to the bar. Hooked on her arm was another of her number, loosening his collar and looking a little unnerved.

‘Christ, that's Alan Whiting, the chief inspector,' Sally hissed. It was. Maxwell had not seen Whiting today. Not in fact since his preliminary visit some weeks before. But it was him, all right; sandy hair, glasses, a rather thick-set bloke with pale eyes and the merest hint of an Irish brogue.

‘And that's Sally Meninger,' Maxwell mumbled.

Jeff Armstrong was adjusting his patch. ‘Is it me or is she pissed?'

‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?' Holton asked. He was always of a rather Presbyterian frame of mind, for an atheistic scientist, of course.

‘Bloody Hell!' Paul Moss was ever the master of wit and repartee.

‘I'm going to start giggling in a minute,' Sally said.

Maxwell moved her lager aside. ‘No more of those for you, my girl,' he frowned. ‘I'm going to ask mine host for a large black coffee. Is there a Mrs Whiting?' He was
asking 
the company in general.

‘Is there a Mr Meninger?' Holton countered.

‘Trust me, Ben,' Maxwell was shaking his head. ‘She's not your type.'

Holton was watching the way the female Ofsted Inspector was perching on her bar stool, rather admiring the cut of her jib. ‘Oh, I don't know.'

‘Got your mobile, Sal?' Maxwell asked.

‘Yes. Why?'

‘Just a quick call to Annette Holton and all the Little Holtons. Time she galloped to the rescue, I think.'

‘You're right,' said Sally solemnly. ‘Shall I ring it for you, Max?'

‘Bollocks!' the Head of Science growled. ‘All the same, she's coming on a bit strong, isn't she? For a colleague, I mean?'

He glanced around. Sally Greenhow was the only female colleague in the party and whatever was going on in Ben Holton's mid-life-crisis mind, it didn't tally at all with what was in hers.

‘Perhaps it's standard practice, d'you think?' Paul Moss suggested. ‘After all, they're far from home. Working hard. Perhaps they're playing hard, too.'

‘They certainly are,' Armstrong could tell, even with one eye. ‘She's practically got his … Oh, God, they've seen us.'

Sally Meninger was waving at them. One by one they looked away, except Peter Maxwell. He was public school. Dance, shipwreck, minor incursion, major
disaster
, slightly embarrassing situation in a pub – it was all one to him. He waved back.

‘For Christ's sake, Max,' Sally hissed, suddenly
fascinated 
by the bubbles in her lager glass. ‘What are you … Oh … er … hello.'

Sally Meninger was swaying tipsily next to their table, her skirt rucked up a little, her cleavage just so. Public schoolboy that he was, Maxwell stood up.

‘Well, isn't this nice?' the Ofsted Inspector giggled. ‘Is this a regular haunt of yours?'

She was met with a babble of platitudes. It was actually one of the few places far enough away from Leighford High not to be a magnet for half the kids in the school. Unless you included the Band of course.

‘Alan and I were just having a quiet little drinky.' She waved in his direction and blew him a kiss. ‘Won't you join us?'

More babbles as Maxwell sat down again.

‘I'm not sure,' Sally Greenhow looked steadily up at the swaying woman, ‘that that's a very good idea.'

For a moment, the ice refroze in Paul Moss's gin, then Sally Meninger burst out laughing. ‘You know – and I can say this, can't I, as one Sally to another – you're absolutely right. Professional. That's the key word. Alan's favourite, in fact. Well, one of them. I can't tell you what the others are – you see, it wouldn't be professional, would it?' And she turned on her Fuck-Me shoes and bounced away every bit as alluringly as Tracey.