Maxwell's Point Page 13

  ‘Aren’t you Peter Maxwell?’ She leaned over the counter like a gargoyle straight out of Notre Dame.

  ‘I might be, I might be,’ he chose to reply in his best Homer Simpson.

  ‘You owe the library a maximum fee as a result of losing Windows for Dummies four years ago. We’ve sent you plenty of reminders.’

  ‘Indeed you have,’ Maxwell nodded, leaning on the woman’s counter, echoing her posturally, ‘and I have replied to all of them in like vein. “A window” – and I’m quoting now from my favourite reply – “is an opening, usually made of glass, which allows light into a room.” Conversely – and again I quote “a dummy is a rubberoid instrument designed to soothe fractious babies by resembling a nipple.” – Oh, dear, I’ve shocked you. The Americans call them pacifiers – dummies, that is, not nipples. Now, I am a man of the world, Librarian, and I am aware that the book to which you refer is neither about glass apertures in walls nor infant comforts. That may possibly give you some idea of the likelihood of my having borrowed the wretched thing in the first place. I am not now, nor have I ever been, remotely interested in computing.’

  ‘Our records are never wrong.’ Ms Roxbury bridled, furious at the man’s arrogance.

  ‘Oh, come now, dear lady.’ Maxwell threw his arms wide. ‘Your records are stored on the very machines we are talking about. A very wise man once told me you only get out of one of those contraptions what you put into it. His name was Bill Gates.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Ms Roxbury arched an eyebrow.

  Maxwell surveyed the staff at Leighford Library. One was a hundred and sixty-eight years old. Another hadn’t yet learned to shave. And the third was a combination of the two – Ms Roxbury.

  ‘I rest my case,’ Maxwell said. Then he froze and pulled himself up to his full height. ‘Madam,’ he said with a gravel that could freeze blood. ‘You appear to have moved the Local History section.’

  ‘County policy,’ Ms Roxbury spoke with all the weight of local government behind her. ‘Due to a lack of interest, alack, in local studies, all such material has been removed to Public Records.’

  ‘Public…?’ Maxwell was aghast. He closed to her, remembering to close his mouth, despite the shock of the news he’d just heard, praying that his heart was still beating. ‘Are you telling me,’ he asked, ‘that you have placed priceless artefacts in the hands of Malcolm Desmond? Malcolm “eBay” Desmond? It defies belief. Not, you understand, that I know what “eBay” is.’

  ‘All I wanted, Count,’ Peter Maxwell was sprawled on his sofa, his infant son doggo on his chest, ‘was to ascertain the local low-down on Dead Man’s Point.’

  The cat was unmoved. He had no idea where this place was or of its significance. It was just part of his Master’s madness; you learned, in the end, to live with it.

  ‘Yes, I know it’s remarkable that libraries are open on Sundays, when in our day etcetera etcetera…’ (it was a good Yul Brynner in The King and I) ‘but they do close on Thursdays by way of compensation, so let’s not get too dewy-eyed about it. Or dewey-decimalled for that matter. The plain fact is, I’m no further forward.’

  ‘Bedtime, young man.’ Jacquie hurtled round the corner, a pile of fresh nappies under one arm.

  ‘Young man,’ Maxwell gurgled. ‘How sweet you are.’

  ‘Not you,’ Jacquie scowled at him. ‘Come on, little one.’ She hauled Nolan up onto her other shoulder. ‘Wooden hill to Bedfordshire time. You boys, human and feline, chew the fat for a while. Supper in half an hour, OK?’

  ‘Wonderful, heart,’ Maxwell said, reaching for the Southern Comfort he’d all but forgotten about. ‘And don’t say “OK”. It’s unbecoming of an officer and a lady.’

  Metternich yawned. It had been a long, hot, summer’s day, not exactly full of soda and pretzels and beer, because, to be brutally frank, he didn’t really like those things. The leftover chicken was scrummy, though, for lunch, and he’d ambushed a vole for High Tea. He’d have liked a bit of a doze, but the sidewhiskered old fart would keep whittering on.

  ‘You see, I can’t help thinking,’ Maxwell winced anew as the amber nectar hit his tonsils, ‘that all this has to do with Steph Courtney and that rather bizarre little scene she witnessed at The Dam. But what did she see, Count, eh? Oh, you with your twenty-twenty hindsight vision wouldn’t find it a problem, would you? But it was a naked body. And the good lady who shares this house with us let slip in an unguarded moment that David Taylor, spinster not of this parish, was killed while naked. Killed by a man and a woman. What’s that, then? Some sort of Lonely Hearts re-creation? Oh, it’s before your time, Count – two charmers called Beck and Fernandez lured lonely men with promises of nuptial bliss and killed them for their money. Anyhoo,’ he heard the bedroom door click and Jacquie’s feet on the stairs, ‘that’s enough about her. She’s walking in.’

  ‘That little man is really pooped,’ Jacquie said. Maxwell poured her a large one as she reached ground level. ‘Must be all that chicken.’

  ‘Yep,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘Bit of a trencherman is our Nole. Well, heart – decision time.’

  Jacquie flopped down in the chair opposite the sprawling mass that was her partner in crime. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Mañana, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’ll do it?’ he asked her.

  ‘I’m the one with the warrant card,’ she smiled.

  ‘I’m the one with the colleague who speaka da lingo.’

  ‘Well, that’s right,’ Jacquie said. ‘Do you know, I hadn’t thought of that. You can get…thing to ring.’

  ‘No, dearest,’ Maxwell was patience itself. ‘Thing – or to be accurate, Thingee is the morning receptionist at Leighford High. Not to be confused with Thingee Two, who is on in the afternoons. They’re both lovely people, but I’m not sure they’re up for long distance calls to Menorca to ask a Spanish couple where the Hell their daughter is.’

  ‘No, no,’ Jacquie was getting her head around the Tia Maria, ‘I was talking about that Spanish girl – what’s her name? Carolina? She could do it. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll step in with my Interpol hat on.’

  ‘And very nice you’ll look, too,’ Maxwell nodded sagely.

  Sarah Rossiter didn’t much like the look of the pallid young man with the hoodie who was sitting in the front office of the Advertiser whizzing through the microfiche on the screen. He had taken his hoodie off, to be fair, but even so, there was something about his stare that she didn’t care for. And he’d asked to see anything they had on the Taylor murder. He had one of those annoying i-Pod things stuck in his ears, the bass coming through loud enough to bring on one of her heads. How he could hear anything with that noise going on she couldn’t imagine. And not content with all that, he suddenly dashed out of the office, nearly bowling over the two journalists nattering in the doorway.

  Bernard Ryan was in full cry that Monday morning as the eager Young Turks that were Leighford High students dragged themselves onto the premises.

  ‘You’re late.’ He caught the eye of a hooded young man lurching along by the limes that shaded the gates. The Deputy Head wasn’t quite sure whether he attended Leighford High or not, but dressed like that, he must have been one on Maxwell’s Own. It was only nine o’two and the sun was already blazing. The lad under the hood must have been awash with sweat, but Peter Maxwell recognised the syndrome. Earlier forms of life had sacrificed all to be the slaves of fashion – broken ribs, ruptured diaphragms, infertility, blood poisoning – all in the name of looking one’s best.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Ryan,’ Maxwell swung out of Surrey’s saddle with a grace and agility surprising in one so old. ‘The traffic’s a nightmare on the Flyover this morning.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you, Max.’ Ryan bridled as soon as the hoodie was out of earshot.

  ‘No, really?’ Maxwell was aghast. He toyed for a moment with handing the man Surrey to park, but he sensed that Bernard Ryan had probably reached the nadir of respect in this school as it was, and Peter Maxwell never kicked a m
an when he was down. Unless it was James Diamond, the Headmaster. ‘Seen Señorita Vasquez this morning? Pretty creature apart from the nose? Flouncy dress and castanets?’

  ‘Yes, I know who she is, Max. Don’t you know the meaning of political correctness?’

  Maxwell’s look would have killed an older man. Or one more sensitive. As it was, Bernard Ryan was probably mid-to-late thirties, born in that deadly decade when education was already going to the dogs. When he was a young teacher they’d brought in Inclusion – Jack’s as good as his master. He was still a young teacher when they’d invented Syndromes and naughty little buggers were found to have all kinds of disorders and deficiencies that not only explained, but excused their behaviour. And Bernard Ryan had swallowed it all, hook, line and sink school.

  ‘Wash your mouth out, Bernard,’ Maxwell bridled in hushed tones. ‘And think yourself lucky that I’m not a bleeding victim of fucking Tourettes, that’s pissing all.’ He wheeled Surrey towards the Languages Block, turned and winked. ‘You have a nice day, now, y’hear.’

  ‘Smile and Come In’ was written in various languages on the double doors. Maxwell parked Surrey at a rakish angle designed to trip up the German Assistant and obligingly pushed up the corners of his mouth. He tipped his hat to the CCTV camera overhead.

  ‘Look at him,’ snarled Dierdre Lessing, the Assistant Headteacher, Girls’ Welfare, half a mile away in Reception, watching the screen monitors as she usually did at that time of the morning. ‘What a reprobate.’

  Thingee glanced up from her endlessly ringing phone. She liked Mr Maxwell. OK, he didn’t know her name and he all but patted her bum given half a chance, but he was that vanishing breed, a gentleman and a scholar. And there had been one, magic day, when Thingee was very new, when Peter Maxwell had intervened when a particularly obstreperous parent had rung the school, complaining as particularly obstreperous parents will. She remembered every word of the dialogue. It was etched on her heart.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello? Who am I talking to?’

  ‘Do you mean “To whom am I talking?” This is Peter Maxwell, Head of Sixth Form here at Leighford High. I have just taken the phone from the receptionist here to whom you have just been appallingly rude.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Whatever your beef is, low-life, take it elsewhere. All policy decisions at this school are taken by the Headteacher, Mr Diamond. Vent your spleen, if you must, on him, but do not, on any account, raise your voice or swear in the telephonic presence of our receptionist. And for the fact that you are able to make this call at all, thank a teacher.’

  ‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ the disembodied parent had said.

  ‘Au contraire, sir,’ Maxwell responded. ‘I just have. And if you call this number again with the attitude you currently hold, I think I can guarantee you will be charged with making malicious phone calls. We do, after all, know where you live.’ And he’d slammed the receiver down, winking at the girl. ‘Done and done, Thingee. Telephone manner? I’ll say.’

  So when Peter Maxwell raised his titfer at the CCTV screen, Thingee couldn’t help but smile. And when that old cow Lessing said what she said, it was all Thingee could do to stop herself kicking her in the shins.

  ‘Carolina,’ Maxwell hailed his colleague. ‘Are you free?’ His Mr Humphries was a little wasted on the Spanish girl, but he did it anyway.

  ‘I have no lesson at the moment, Mr Maxwell,’ she admitted.

  ‘Splendid. Fancy making a call?’

  ‘A call?’

  Maxwell deftly removed the baseball cap from Dom Creddle. The hapless lad hadn’t expected to see Mad Max this far south in the building and he’d been taken unawares. ‘End of the day, Dominic. My office. Three of the clock sharp. Or I put this disgusting piece of sartorial inelegance through the shredder.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Dom Creddle hadn’t really understood the last line, but the time and place were already burned into his brain. It was enough.

  ‘To Menorca,’ Maxwell swept the girl into the Modern Languages Office, piled high with text books and tapes, looking vainly for a telephone he knew must be there somewhere.

  Carolina looked blanker than usual.

  Maxwell handed her the phone number that Fiona Henderson had given him just days ago. He’d held off doing what he was now doing for long enough. ‘Juanita’s home,’ he said. ‘She still hasn’t come back and we’re getting a tad worried now.’

  ‘No, no,’ the girl’s face had darkened. ‘I cannot…’

  ‘But you said you were free,’ Maxwell reminded her. ‘Your first lesson isn’t until nine-fifty. Seven Bee, I believe.’ Maxwell could read a timetable with the best of them; there was one on the wall in front of him now.

  ‘No, I mean, it is difficult…’

  ‘Carolina,’ Maxwell frowned. ‘It is quarter past ten in Menorca. Probably only slightly more scorching than it is here. You speak Spanish. I’d like you to ask Mr and Mrs Reyes, who also speak Spanish, if their daughter is with them. Or if they know where she is.’

  ‘No, no,’ Carolina was shaking her head rapidly, gnawing her lip and wishing the ground would swallow her up.

  ‘If you can’t do this,’ Maxwell said softly, ‘if you won’t do this, I shall have no option than to file a missing persons report. That means that the Menorcan police will be calling on Mr and Mrs Reyes. If they don’t know where she is, that might not be a very pleasant experience for them. They are bound to fear the worst; parents are like that. Do you understand?’

  Carolina’s response was to burst into tears.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Julian McConnell suddenly popped his head around the door, looking concerned in a Bootle sort of way.

  ‘Spanish with tears,’ Maxwell smiled at him. ‘I’ve just had to tell Carolina her home has been overrun by Moors. Oh, no, wait a minute – that was thirteen-hundred years ago. Doesn’t time fly?’

  ‘Max…’ Julian McConnell was in the room now, all fluster and concern. He was about to do the all linguists together thing. What’s the horrid man said to you, darling? sort of approach. Maxwell wasn’t having any.

  ‘Julian,’ he blocked his advance with his bulk. ‘This is a personal matter. I’d be very grateful if you’d butt out.’ He smiled engagingly and Julian McConnell thought it best to beat a retreat. After all, he was a French teacher and discretion had always been the better part of Valois. He closed the door behind him.

  When Carolina Vasquez emerged from her flood of tears, Peter Maxwell was leaning against a wall, offering her a box of tissues in an unimpressed sort of way. She took one and blew, shattering the relative silence of the Modern Languages Block (Janet Ferguson hadn’t started teaching yet).

  ‘Now,’ Maxwell said, only now pinging off his cycle clips and tossing his shapeless tweed cap onto a dog-eared pile of Le Medecin Malgré Lui nobody could be bothered to throw away now that the same nobody taught literature any more. ‘Would you like to tell me what this is all about?’

  ‘You are joking?’ Jacquie stared at him incredulously.

  ‘Scout’s Honour.’ Maxwell gave the Nazi salute. The evening sun was glowing on the wall of 38 Columbine and Maxwell and his lady were sitting on the patio, finishing their wine, biding their time. ‘You’ve sat there while I cooked this fabulous alfresco meal,’ she swept her hand dramatically over the fish supper remnants she’d picked up at the Chip and Fin on her way home, ‘sat there while we both ate it and now you tell me! You unutterable bastard!’

  Maxwell pulled a face. ‘It’s not a bad Marlon Brando in The Mutiny on the Bounty, although I think you’re slightly misquoting, but I must urge restraint, companion of a mile. Not a hundred yards in that direction,’ he jerked his thumb over the privet hedge, ‘is a lady of advanced years who would be shocked by such language. And not a million miles up there,’ he pointed to the partially open window of Nolan’s nursery, ‘slumbers our son and heir, of extremely tender years. Time enough for him to pick up language like
that when he starts playschool.’

  ‘I just can’t believe it.’ Jacquie was ignoring him. ‘Juanita a tea leaf.’

  ‘That’s what Carolina said. Sounded kosher to me.’

  ‘But there’s nothing missing,’ Jacquie sat back, trying to rationalise it.

  ‘No, not from here, darling. but what about Mrs T?’

  ‘What’s to steal?’ Jacquie muttered. She wouldn’t have offended Mrs Troubridge for all the money in the world, but she did have a point. ‘Her priceless collection of Mantovani records?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know until we’ve asked her.’

  ‘No, no,’ Jacquie was frowning, putting her glass down on the cool of the cast iron and putting pieces together in her head. ‘Juanita steals something, from us, from Mrs Troubridge, from the church plate, whatever and drives away into the night. Or rather, day. Leaving a ten-month-old baby and at least half her clothes behind.’

  ‘Guilt.’

  ‘Do what now?’ Homer Simpson was infectious.

  ‘Well, according to Carolina, whatever Juanita stole, it was a one-off, spur of the moment thing. She’s not a tea leaf in the accepted sense, still less a regular burglar with a fence in downtown Tottingleigh. She’s stolen something. Good, Catholic girl, from a loving home. Can’t you just see her fiddling with her rosary and saying ‘Hail Marys’ without number? It all got to her that day and she panicked. Drove into the wide blue yonder.’

  ‘So where is she now?’

  ‘Lying low, trying to decide what to do.’

  ‘Here in England?’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘That’s what Carolina thinks.’

  ‘Has she heard from her?’ Jacquie asked.

  ‘The day after she went, yes. E-mail. Said she was in Barnstaple.’

  ‘Barnstaple?’ Jacquie repeated. ‘Well, I suppose somebody has to be. Max, what do you know about this Carolina Vasquez?’

  He looked at her, clicking his tongue, shaking his head. ‘You’re a suspicious old besom, Woman Policeman,’ he said.