Maxwell's Grave Read online

  Mechanically, he nudged the over-zealous Year Seven kids to the correct side of the corridor and removed the white baseball cap from Jason Pillockface’s head for the umpteenth time that week – ‘Oh, sir!’ the lad wailed as his civil liberties were taken from him. But these were the actions of a veteran of countless classroom campaigns and Maxwell wasn’t even thinking about them. In his head, Jacquie’s words whirled, the last sentence on Martin Toogood’s computer. ‘The affairs of men.’ Was that it, then? Had the clever, fast-track graduate cracked it? How had Maxwell put it to Jacquie? ‘They’ve just killed a pretty decent bloke – Radley – for all the wrong reasons.’ So, who stood to gain from Radley’s death? It was the first question Henry Hall would have asked himself and his team, Maxwell knew that. Who would inherit the mantle? The Chair at Wessex? And a conspiracy? Was that what Toogood meant? The assassination of JFK – the second gunman on the grassy knoll. The murder of RFK – the gloating woman in the polka-dot dress. The moon landing, with the dear old stars and stripes flapping in a wind where there was no wind. Nobody believed that load of old tosh. Or did they, in the face of overwhelming evidence? He turned into Aitch Four as Year Thirteen settled down to be entertained for one last time. He really wanted to put the Radley case before them, get their take on it, use their fresh, young, inquisitive minds. To hit them with Toogood’s enigma. As it was, he had a job to do.

  ‘The parting of the ways, children,’ he boomed as he closed the door. ‘And the best bit of advice I can give you, as always, is?’

  ‘Read the question!’ they chorused.

  ‘Damn right!’ he winked.

  ‘I want to see the man in charge. I assume it is a man?’ the tall Scotsman stood facing Sergeant Wilson that Wednesday afternoon.

  ‘In charge of what, specifically, sir?’ Tom Wilson had been County Pedantic champion four years running back in the Nineties. You never lost it.

  Tam Fraser leaned forward to look the man closely in the face. ‘I haven’t time to piss about, laddie.’ He said. ‘You take those stripes of yours and get me somebody with pips on his shoulder – or is that analogy lost on you?’

  ‘That’ll be Detective Chief Inspector Hall,’ Wilson said, unperturbed. He’d met belligerent Scotsmen before, albeit usually reeling pissed under the lion rampant shawls of the tartan army a little after the final whistle. ‘Who shall I say…?’

  ‘Tam Fraser,’ the Scotsman said through Wilson’s protective glass. ‘Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, and you haven’t the time for me to list all my publications.’

  There is a God, then, thought Wilson and he’d just met him, but he couldn’t say so. The desk man in any nick in the country had to be all things to all men. Lost cats, kids with their thumbs stuck up kettle spouts, Brinks Mat heists, serial murder – he’d seen the lot. A pompous old fart with a degree wasn’t about to faze him.

  ‘So what do you make of it?’ Fraser asked Henry Hall when the DCI had had time to read the letter the professor had shown him. Wilson had mechanically gone through the motions of ringing through to DCI Hall who had asked him to bring Fraser through. And here they were, in Hall’s office, at the end of another day, each of them trying to cope, in his own way, with murder.

  ‘Oddballs,’ Hall shrugged, passing the letter back.

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ Fraser agreed, although he’d expected a rather more penetrating analysis, ‘but don’t you see any implications here?’

  ‘Implications?’ It had been a long day for Henry Hall. Maybe he wasn’t at his best with the amount of sleep he’d had.

  ‘This…organization, pressure group, call them what you will, are threatening my people at the dig.’

  ‘Hardly threatening,’ Hall reassured him.

  Fraser adjusted his pince-nez to focus on the letter. ‘“We find it reprehensible”,’ he read, ‘“that you are defiling the bodies of our ancestors by disturbing their last resting places and we would like to warn you that unless you close the dig down now, we cannot answer for the consequences.” Where I come from,’ Fraser folded the letter again, ‘that constitutes a threat.’

  Hall looked at him. ‘There’s no address.’

  ‘No,’ Fraser agreed. ‘Just as whoever killed wee David didn’t leave his business card. I wouldn’t have your job for all the tea in China.’

  Hall held out his hand for the note to be passed back. The paper shone white in his lenses. ‘“The Sepulchre Society of Sussex”,’ he read. ‘All very alliterative.’

  ‘Aye, peachy,’ Fraser agreed. ‘Have you heard of them?’

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question, Professor.’

  ‘This particular group, no.’ Fraser sat back, legs crossed at the knee. ‘But I’m familiar with the ethic. Aboriginals in particular get themselves in a snit about it, whiteys come along and desecrate – as they see it – the graves of their forebears. The fact that we’re learning a phenomenal amount about their own ethnic past on their behalf seems to have escaped them. But then, I can’t say I’m surprised. Archaeology is not an option in schools, History’s disappearing…’

  If only, thought Henry Hall; he was thinking specifically of Peter Maxwell.

  ‘Colleagues of mine have been roughed up in the Philippines,’ Fraser went on, ‘and there was a particularly nasty incident in Wyoming eight years back. You’d think the Lakota would be happy enough with Kevin Costner turning them into nice people on the big screen, wouldn’t you? The bottom line, Chief Inspector, is what do you propose to do about it?’

  Hall put the letter to one side. ‘When did this arrive?’ he asked.

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘At the site?’

  ‘No, of course not, we haven’t got an address there. It was sent to my colleague Douglas Russell, at his hotel.’

  ‘The Quinton.’

  ‘If you say so. I’ve only been here since this morning. I’ll have to find somewhere, I suppose.’

  ‘So you’ve effectively taken over from Dr Radley?’

  ‘Taken over?’ Fraser chuckled. ‘Good God, no. I’m sixty-two, Inspector; my days of grubbing about in the earth are well and truly over – or so I thought. No, I’m just a caretaker until Upstairs at the university decide what to do about David’s replacement. In the meantime, our window on the dig is closing rapidly. Golf course! I ask you!’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ Hall said.

  Fraser leaned further back in his seat. ‘I want protection,’ he said. ‘For my people.’

  ‘Protection?’ Hall frowned. ‘Professor Fraser, I’m conducting two murder enquiries simultaneously at the moment. That’s apart from everything else going on, on a day-to-day progress at a station like this one.’

  ‘Man, you should have been in the Gorbals in the good old days. Ach, that’s another story.’ He narrowed his eyes as he tried, as many had before, to get the measure of the man in front of him. ‘You do know,’ he said with his stately, gravel voice, pointing at the letter, ‘that these people killed David Radley, don’t you?’

  George and Julian prowled their windy ridge again that night, their shaven heads pale under the moon.

  ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ Julian hissed, rummaging for his ciggies in the pockets of his body warmer.

  ‘Stop whingeing,’ George told him, taking a swig from his hip flask. ‘Belter?’

  ‘Nah,’ Julian flexed his shoulders. ‘Got to stay focused.’

  ‘Ere, I saw that geek today.’

  ‘Which of the many?’ Julian asked. ‘This is an archaeological dig. The whole fucking place is crawling with geeks.’

  ‘That Arthur Wimble bloke. Remember I caught him helping himself to a bit of tat a few weeks back?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Recovered from his smacking, has he?’

  ‘Conditional rehabilitation, Julian,’ George corrected him. ‘Gotta get with the jargon, y’know.’

  Julian’s fag glared briefly as he lit it. ‘What time you got?’

  ‘Half three,’ George peered at hi
s luminous dial. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Ten o’clock. By them spoil heaps.’

  Both men crouched, making their bulk less conspicuous. George was right. A shadowy figure, dark, furtive, was flitting between the gate and the furthest of the heaps, jet against the blackness.

  ‘Looks like fucking van Helsing,’ Julian said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Van Helsing. You know, vampire hunter. Bloke in the film. What’s his face? Jackman. Hugh Jackman.’

  ‘That’s all we fuckin’ need. Vampires.’

  ‘No, it’s that long coat, that hat. Some bloody weirdo.’

  ‘Metal detector?’ the men’s voices were at a sub-whisper. There wasn’t a breath of wind below the ridge and they could hear ‘van Helsing’s’ feet crunch on the gravel.

  ‘Can’t see one,’ Julian was forcing his eyes to scan the darkness. ‘Don’t suppose it’s a bloody ghoul, do you?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ George asked. ‘Ghoul?’

  ‘Well, there’s bodies, isn’t there? I remember when I was a kid in London. There was the Vampire of Highgate. Somebody was hacking into vaults and stuff.’

  ‘Get away.’ George came from Romford. ‘What for?’

  Julian looked at him. ‘To have sex with the corpses. It’s what they get off on, these people. Necromancers, they’re called. People who have affairs with dead women. Makes your hair curl, don’t it? I seen this documentary on Channel Five…’

  If he’d had any hair, George might have agreed with him. ‘But the corpses are bloody Saxon, ain’t they?’ The senior security man was bringing all his powers of logic into play. ‘That’s like the olden times. Can’t be much fun in that, surely? Where would you put your todger, for a start?’

  ‘He’s on the move.’ Julian snatched at his oppo’s sleeve.

  The dark shadow was flitting across the site now, the long coat like a cloak flying behind him.

  ‘Not windy, are you, Julian?’ George nudged his number two.

  ‘Me?’ he said quickly. ‘No fucking way. You tooled?’

  He saw the barrels of George’s Purdey gleam under his coat. ‘I can’t actually fire this thing you know,’ George reminded him. ‘There’d be bloody hell to pay.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Julian said. ‘But he don’t. Let’s do it.’ And he stood up, bellowing. ‘Oi. You!’

  And the shadow paused for a second, looking up at the equally dark figures on the ridge.

  George and Julian crawled down the ridges, stumbling over gravel heaps, sliding on shale, scattering spades and trowels. George, shotgun levelled, bounced over the guy ropes of the main tent and hurtled round the corner, only to collide with Julian, running from the other angle.

  ‘Where’d he go?’ Julian hissed, his left buttock giving him gyp where he’d wrenched it skirting the ash grove.

  ‘I thought you had him,’ George spun round, barrels at the ready.

  ‘I thought you did.’

  George straightened, smoothed down his tie and broke the gun over his arm. ‘Well, that’s it, then.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Julian agreed, wondering where he’d dropped his fag, then louder, ‘Well, he’d better watch it, whoever he is. We’ll have the dogs with us tomorrow night.’

  ‘Bloody right,’ George confirmed, suddenly as windy as his oppo. Whoever it was had vanished like a ghost. ‘Got a ciggie, Julian?’

  Chapter Eight

  Peter Maxwell had occasionally been summoned to the Senior Management Team meetings they held every Thursday afternoon. That was when there was some post 16 initiative in the offing and they needed his unique input. They needed it again now, but it had nothing to do with post 16. The meetings were held, not in the cubby-hole belonging to Bernard Ryan, nor the bone-strewn lair of Dierdre Lessing, but in the nasty, cheap, bright office of James Diamond, BSc, MEd Some of the more acceptable examples of GCSE Art tried desperately to liven the bland wallpaper. Derry Irvine it was not.

  James Diamond looked greyer than usual, of a piece with his suit. There was an untouched glass of water on the oval table in front of him.

  ‘The crux of the matter, Max,’ he was saying, ‘is John Fry. We don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Supply cover, Headmaster,’ Maxwell spread his arms, and got up to go. What could be simpler? If only all of life’s little problems could be solved so easily. ‘Will that be all?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Maxwell!’ Bernard Ryan snapped. ‘We don’t need your flippancy.’ The Deputy scowled at the Head of Sixth Form that he’d hated on sight.

  ‘Exactly,’ Maxwell smiled, doing up his jacket and wrinkling his nose at the Deputy Head. ‘I expect, somewhere deep down, you have plenty of your own.’

  ‘No, Max,’ Diamond stopped him a look of desperation on his face. ‘Please. Wait a minute. Look, you…you’ve had more experience of this sort of thing than most of us. We…we need your help, dammit.’

  Maxwell looked at them, denizens of the oval office. Indeed they did. Bernard Ryan had an unerring nose for making the wrong decision and doing it without style. When Maxwell had lost it with the man last year and called him an inept Machiavellian in a governors’ meeting, he’d had to go away and look up ‘inept’ as well as ‘Machiavellian’. Every year he didn’t do the timetable – the timetable did him. Dierdre Lessing coiled in her lair, slithering over the bones of dead men. Countless careers had crashed as a result of her bitching, not a few good men frozen by her basilisk stare. And then, there was James Diamond himself. Where do you start with a man like that? The truth? James Diamond couldn’t handle the truth. Maxwell was nearly fifty-six; he just didn’t have the time.

  The Head of Sixth Form sat back down again, opening the jacket, coiling one leg over the other, like a rather macho Quentin Crisp. ‘How much do you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Dierdre?’ Diamond delegated.

  ‘No one has seen John since last Wednesday,’ the Gorgon said, hating herself and Diamond for having to treat Maxwell as an equal rather than the oik he so plainly was. ‘He rang in to leave a message on the school answerphone. Said he wouldn’t be in on Thursday. His back was playing up again. He left work for his classes.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ Maxwell checked. He couldn’t remember when he’d set work for his classes last.

  ‘When we had no word on Monday morning of this week, Emma rang his home. There was no reply.’ Emma’s real name was Thingee, as Maxwell knew full well. Her oppo, Harriet, who manned the school switchboard in the afternoons, was called Thingee Two. It wasn’t rocket science.

  ‘He’s got a mobile, presumably?’ It was a fair assumption; everybody but Peter Maxwell did. He had carried one in the past, just to please Jacquie, but suddenly, one summer, he’d rebelled. He’d thrown it into the sea in a fit of Luddism. And, do you know, he didn’t miss the damn thing at all.

  ‘Emma doesn’t have a list of mobile numbers – not unless there’s a trip involved and then somebody usually takes the school mobile. You know all this, Max.’ Dierdre hated Peter Maxwell with a passion, hated him because she knew he knew where the bodies were buried and had a long list of her incompetences which at any moment might appear in an after-dinner speech or the front page of the TES or the News of the World. And she hated him, too, because he was always so bloody right.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he told her. ‘I just wonder how much the Advertiser knows as we speak.’

  ‘Exactly,’ mumbled Diamond. ‘That was my next gambit. What do we tell the Press?’

  ‘Nothing until they ask,’ Maxwell said. ‘Have they asked?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Ryan told him. ‘But it’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘Prepare a Press statement against the day, then,’ Maxwell said. ‘Nothing committal. It’s all in the hands of the police, blah; in whom you have the utmost confidence, etc etc and as matters are sub judice, your hands are tied.’

  ‘Is it that simple?’ Diamond asked, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it.

  ‘For
the moment,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘One bridge at a time, Headmaster. We’ve got a long way to go and must be steady. Is there anything else?’

  ‘Yes, Max,’ Diamond looked nervously at his colleagues. ‘Yes, there is. Look, ever since the incident in the Red House all those years ago, you’ve been involved in…shall we say, unpleasant incidents. I…we would like you to get involved in this one.’

  ‘Involved, Headmaster?’ Maxwell frowned, leaning forward and stroking his chin. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Yes, you do, Max,’ Dierdre snapped, tired of fencing with the man. ‘It must be obvious even to you that John Fry has run off with this wretched tart in Year Eleven. We’re all of us anxious to keep the whole sordid business under wraps. You have a certain…rapport with lowlife like Fry. I never liked him.’

  ‘Let me understand this, Headmaster,’ Maxwell leaned further forward still in the half-circle of no-hopers. ‘You want me to find John Fry?’

  ‘Yes,’ muttered Diamond. ‘Whatever classes you’ve got tomorrow, Max, we’ll cover them. Tell the others you’re on some conference or other. It’s half-term next week…’

  ‘So I won’t need cover,’ Maxwell beamed, clicking his fingers and leaning back. ‘Timing’s damn-near perfect, Headmaster. What with budgetary restrictions and so on. Well done!’

  ‘Maxwell!’ growled Diamond. ‘Do you want me to beg?’

  ‘Do you have so little faith in the police?’ the Head of Sixth Form asked. ‘They do have rather superior resources to mine.’