Maxwell's Return (23 page)

She tapped the side of her nose. ‘I haven’t spent the last Millennium working with you without something rubbing off, Peter Maxwell,’ she said. ‘I jotted it down today, in the lunch hour. I just had a feeling I might need to know it.’

He fell into step with her up the drive and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Sylvia Matthews,’ he said, ‘you are a marvel.’

‘Why, thank you,’ she said, putting the key in the door. ‘You’re right, of course.’ She gestured to the sitting room, to the left of the hall. ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll just put the kettle on, then we can phone.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The ringing phone woke her instantly, and DI Jacquie Carpenter-Maxwell was in day job mode before the receiver reached her ear.

‘Hello. DI Carpenter-Maxwell speaking.’

‘Jacquie.’ Henry Hall never bothered identifying himself. There was no mistaking those clipped tones. ‘Kirsty Hilliard is awake. The hospital are being cagey, there doesn’t seem to be a very coherent memory there yet, but we need someone there, in case she remembers anything. I don’t want anyone messing up things by asking the wrong kind of question.’

‘Guv… Max is out and it’s a bit late for Mrs Troubridge. Can someone else go?’

‘I thought of that,’ Hall said. ‘Jason is on his way over. He can babysit.’

‘Jason? Babysit?’ The two words didn’t seem to belong in the same sentence.

‘I know he comes across as being a bit of a geezer, Jacquie, but Jason actually has a couple of kids of his own. He isn’t actually living with them at the moment, but he knows which end is up and anyway, as I remember it, Nolan sleeps like a poleaxed steer once he’s down. That’s
right, isn’t it?’

‘Yes… but, guv…’ Jacquie ran through all the excuses but decided it was pointless. Henry Hall didn’t often come the heavy. As bosses went, he was always very reasonable and he had after all let her go to LA, leaving himself with a hornets’ nest of sickness, stress and mild incompetence. ‘That’s fine. I’ll get down to the General now.’

‘Thanks, Jacquie. Take a book or something. It may be a long night.’

‘Sounds enticing. See you in the morning.’

‘I’ll look forward to it. Goodnight.’ And with his usual briskness, Henry Hall was gone. Jacquie was still fighting off the pins and needles in her leg as she got reluctantly up off the sofa when the doorbell rang. Mary Poppins had arrived.

Maxwell was unsurprised to find that Sylvia Matthews had a phone and address book, kept meticulously up to date. That she had versions on her mobile phone, her tablet, her laptop and her PC he had no doubt, but thumbing through the pages felt a lot more natural to him and he quickly found Thingee’s number, although oddly, under the Ws rather than the Ts. There was just a mobile number listed and he rang it, wondering as he always did why an eleven digit number for a mobile should seem so
cumbersome and be so impossible to remember, when an eleven digit number for a landline should stick in the mind for ever. Ah, for the days of ‘Press Button B, Caller.’ He listened as it rang and then went to voicemail.

‘The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone. If you wish to rerecord your message…’

He rang off and sat waiting for Sylvia to come in with the coffee. Perhaps she was just out of signal. Perhaps she had taken a leaf out of his own book and had left the dratted thing at home in a drawer, although even as he thought it, he dismissed it as impossible. No one under forty ever went more than a linear yard from their phone if they could help it. No, she was either avoiding answering or she couldn’t for some reason. He tapped his foot and tried to think things through rationally. Leaving suicide on the list of possible outcomes, but low on the list, there were a number of options. If he were in Thingee’s situation, unlikely though that clearly was, he would go… where? Apparently not home to mother. She had confided in Sylvia and yet she wasn’t here. So her own home would be the next place in line; the fact that she wasn’t answering her phone was probably just a red herring.

‘Penny for your thoughts.’ Sylvia put down the tray of coffee and broke into his reverie.

‘Sorry, Sylv. Just thinking about what to do next. She isn’t answering her phone.’

‘She may be asleep. She’s had a bit of a trying day.’ If there was one thing at which Sylvia Matthews excelled, it was seeing the bright side of things.

‘Yes, but it isn’t
late
late, is it?’ Maxwell looked at his watch. ‘Ten. That’s nothing. Ten is the new eight, or so I’m told.’

‘Even so… I may have over-reacted, Max.’ Sylvia had unleashed the dogs of war and didn’t even remember crying havoc.

‘No, no, you were right to call. You’re worried about her and no wonder. Where does she live? We’ll go round.’ He reached across and took a mug from the tray and took a swig. ‘God, Sylv! How do you make coffee so hot?’

‘Boiling water probably has something to do with it,’ she said. ‘Do you think we should check on her?’

‘Let’s make a plan and stick to it. If she isn’t at home, we’ll check on Andrew Baines’ place, just to be sure and if she isn’t in either place, we’ll call it a night. Jacquie can have a clandestine check tomorrow to make sure she isn’t in hospital anywhere, she can have a drive-past to see if there are signs of life at her house. If she doesn’t surface, I daresay there are things she can do relating to mobile phones – I can’t imagine what, but that always seems to work on TV.’

Sylvia smiled across at him. He was the oddest mixture of calming omnipotence and total naivety but somehow, it worked. ‘Drink up, then,’ she said. ‘Sooner we’re gone, the sooner we’re back.’

‘I’ve never really understood that,’ Maxwell said, sipping gingerly at his drink. ‘Look, Sylv, this is never going to cool down. Let’s not drink it and say we did. Hmm?’

‘You’re right. I’ll just leave Guy a note to say what’s happening. The place looks like the Marie Celeste.’ She scribbled on the pad she kept on the coffee table for all such eventualities. She might not be at the cutting edge of health care any longer, but old habits die hard.

Maxwell was already in the hall, opening the front door. ‘Do you need me to navigate?’ he asked over his shoulder.

‘Are you going to do a takeoff of the woman on the satnav?’ Sylvia asked, suspiciously.

‘I may do, I may do,’ he said. And he did, sort of – ‘Let go of the steering wheel when it is safe to do so.’

‘In that case, no. I’ll take my chances.’ She shooed him out and slammed the door behind her. ‘It’s not far. Let’s go.’

They only took ten minutes and they were there, outside an anonymous block of flats with a keypad and buzzer at the door. ‘Wilson’ was marked as being in 302 and Sylvia pressed the relevant button. There was no reply.

‘We could press for someone else,’ Maxwell said, extending a finger to do just that.

‘No, we couldn’t,’ Sylvia pulled his arm down and held on tight. ‘That kind of tactic is best left to the police. We’ll try Andrew Baines
first.’

Jacquie opened the front door and let a slightly embarrassed Jason Briggs in.

‘I hope you don’t mind this,’ he said. ‘DCI Hall seemed to think it would be all right.’

‘DCI Hall was in as much of a cleft stick as I am,’ Jacquie retorted. ‘If he wants me at the hospital, I need a babysitter.’

‘I thought your husband…’

‘Yes,’ Jacquie again cut him off at the pass. ‘He isn’t under house arrest, though, and he happens to have gone out.’

‘I didn’t mean any offence, ma’am,’ Briggs said, following her into the sitting room. ‘I just heard that he was… well, very good at looking after the nipper.’

Jacquie relented. This situation was much worse for Briggs than for her. ‘None taken,’ she said. ‘And please call me Jacquie when you are here as a babysitter. I’ll just show you Nolan’s room. He sleeps through the night about 364 days a year, and hopefully this will be one of them. If it turns out to be the other one, then just read him something and he’ll soon drop off. Like a Gremlin, don’t feed him after midnight.’

‘Is your husband likely to be late back?’ Briggs asked. He had no
particular plans for the evening, but he wasn’t sure how long he was expected to stay.

Jacquie looked at the clock and shrugged. ‘He shouldn’t be, but his plans are really dependent on other people. Look, Jason, why don’t you stay over? I can’t expect you to stay up all night just hanging around. The spare room is next to Nolan’s. You could leave the door open – believe me, if he wakes up, the whole street knows about it. You won’t miss it, I promise.’

Briggs perked up. He liked his bed and was good for nothing without eight hours shut-eye. ‘Is that all right?’

‘Of course,’ she said, leading the way along the landing. ‘This one’s Nole’s, this one’s yours. Family bathroom along there; spare toothbrush in the cabinet, still wrapped. Help yourself. There’s TV in the bedroom – no Sky in there, I’m afraid, but we do have films on demand so help yourself. Ummm – I think that’s it. How are you at waking up in the morning?’

‘Rubbish,’ he grinned.

‘I’ll give you a shout, then,’ she said. ‘Call me if you run into any problems. Must go. ’Bye.’

And she was gone. Looking around, Jason Briggs made a note to himself; become a DI asap. And marry a teacher. The moaning buggers clearly earned more than they were willing to own up to.

Andrew Baines lived in an altogether more spacious house than Charlotte Wilson and it was easy to see why she would have wanted to bring up a child there rather than in her flat. It was a semi-detached, built between the wars and with a bow window, recessed porch and clearly a reasonably sized garden behind, judging by what they could see in the dark down the side alleyway between the house and next door. There was no garage, but half the front garden was given over to hard-standing and his car was there. Good news – at least he might be in.

Maxwell rapped on the door with his knuckles; the lion knocker was painted pretty much shut. They heard movement inside and then the door opened a crack.

‘Max? Sylvia?’ Baines opened the door. ‘Is everything all right? Are you having car trouble or something?’

‘No, Andrew,’ Maxwell said. ‘We’re looking for Charlotte.’

‘Gosh, this is embarrassing. I thought everyone knew we had split up,’ Baines said, opening the door but not stepping aside.

‘She discharged herself from the hospital today,’ Maxwell said. ‘She had gone in for a termination, but I’m sure you knew that. Look, can we come in? This isn’t the kind of thing that really lends itself to doorstep chats.’

‘Oh, sorry, yes, of course. Come in.’ Baines stepped back and
ushered them to the right into the sitting room, which was furnished in what Sylvia always thought of as bachelor eclectic. A sofa from his mother’s, a sideboard from his gran and a computer desk from Ikea.

‘Thank you,’ Maxwell said, sitting down. ‘We went to see Charlotte. She had become… well, somewhat distressed and she wanted to talk to me.’

‘Why?’ Baines didn’t sit, but stayed standing in the doorway.

‘I’m not totally sure,’ Maxwell said. ‘I think she just wanted to see a friendly face. Someone older. Not involved.’

‘That must be hard to find,’ Baines said, leaning against the door jamb. ‘Charlotte seemed to be sharing her lot with anyone within earshot.’

‘Andrew!’ Sylvia said. ‘The poor girl was upset. Scared of the future.’

‘No need for that,’ the PE teacher said. ‘I would have looked after her.’

‘Really? She seemed to think you were washing your hands of her and the baby.’ Sylvia’s words could have etched diamonds and Maxwell decided to give her her head.

‘Well, I’ve got a new job, I suppose. I wasn’t planning to move, though. I would have seen her all right.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘I don’t expect the social services would have given me much option.’

‘I think that what she was thinking of was support of a more personal nature,’ Maxwell said. ‘Not financial.’

‘We hadn’t been together five minutes,’ Baines said, turning on the charm. ‘Not in the scheme of things. She let me down, getting up the duff.’

Maxwell felt Sylvia tense and held her arm. ‘I don’t get the impression she did it deliberately,’ he said, smoothly.

Baines shrugged. ‘Whatever you say. Anyway, if she’s decided to go and get rid of it, that’s it, isn’t it? Why are you here?’

‘We told you,’ Sylvia said through gritted teeth. ‘Looking for Charlotte.’

‘Well, she isn’t here. Have you tried her flat?’

‘She doesn’t seem to be in. And she isn’t answering her phone.’

‘Let me try her.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mobile and punched a number. Still on speed dial, Maxwell noticed. They all looked around the room while they waited for her to answer. Then, Baines spoke urgently into the phone. ‘Char? Is that you?’

Maxwell’s head came up and Sylvia Matthews reached out for the phone, but Baines turned his back on them, finger in ear and head bowed.

‘I’ve got Maxwell and Sylvia Matthews here… looking for you, it seems.’ He swung back to face them and looked them one by one straight in the eye. ‘Worried about you, babe. Yes… Do you want to…? I see. Yes. Laters.’

He broke the connection and went to the door and opened it, standing with it wide and inviting.

‘She’s fine. She’s not answering the phone right now, but recognized my number. She doesn’t want to speak to anyoneat the moment and will probably not be in this week. That’s it. I think we should all leave her alone, don’t you? Thanks for dropping by.’

Maxwell got up slowly and put a supporting hand in Sylvia’s back as he shepherded her through the door. He couldn’t vouch for her behaviour and wasn’t too sure about his own.

‘Thanks for ringing her, anyway,’ he said. ‘We feel a lot better knowing she’s somewhere safe.’

‘Any time,’ Baines said. ‘See you both tomorrow, I suppose.’

‘Yes. Indeed.’ Maxwell went out of the door and just as he reached the path, heard a voice call.

‘Andrew?’

Maxwell turned and looked at Baines, who gave him a man-of-the-world grimace. ‘Company,’ he said, with a charming smile. ‘Must go.’ And he shut the door in the Head of Sixth Form’s face. From the porch, Maxwell heard his footsteps thundering up the stairs. Eager. He hadn’t let the grass grow under his feet, and that was a fact.