Maxwell's Point Page 27

  ‘Not at all,’ the Deputy Head said. ‘I still haven’t the first clue why you wanted me to do it. You don’t even play, do you?’

  ‘The kind of game I’m talking about,’ Maxwell said, ‘Nobody plays for long. Do me a favour, will you? As someone who’s been at the chalkface a tad longer than you – actually have a holiday, OK?’

  Neither Aaron Felton nor Jacquie Carpenter had ever heard Peter Maxwell use the OK word before. It must have been that bump on the head.

  ‘So what’s the upshot?’ Jacquie was helping Maxwell into his jimmies. The night was still, as they eventually said in Throw Momma From The Train, sultry, but he’d rather have some padding between his cuts and bruises and the bed. And, adore Jacquie though he did, he wasn’t sorry to be sleeping in the spare room.

  ‘We’ll just have to wait and see,’ he said; shrugging was totally beyond him.

  Jacquie would settle for that. Her man was still in one piece, just about. And if the gamble hadn’t come off, well, so be it. Maxwell had been wrong. And she knew all too well, it was better to be wrong and alive than right and dead.

  ‘I had a call while you were partying the night away,’ she said. ‘From my place of work.’

  ‘Oooh,’ he did his best to raise an eyebrow. ‘Call out?’

  ‘No,’ she said, easing him down on the pillows. ‘Just confirmation from the lab. Somebody had half-sawn through Surrey’s cables using a file. Bog-standard, the lab thinks. B&Q.’

  ‘Give me a month or two,’ he said, ‘and I’ll finish the list of who might have done that.’

  ‘Don’t make light of this, Max,’ she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘We’re talking about attempted murder.’

  He nodded, pushing her on the chin with a gentle, slow motion swipe. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But all this is going to be over soon.’

  ‘Is it, Max?’ she asked. She held his face softly and kissed him on the tip of the nose, the only bit of him she reckoned didn’t hurt and she couldn’t even be sure of that. ‘You get some sleep now,’ she said.

  Maxwell had half drifted off. Drunken old farts with cherry faces came and went in his vision. He heard the sound of glasses. People talking about casual water and bunkers and single Staplefords. Sadie and the Pony Girl were writhing together in a lascivious embrace, Chester Harris between them, coming up for air every so often. The Point loomed there too, in his half-waking, half-dreaming, a dead man with a silver crucifix round his neck, his chest saturated with blood and a messy pulp where his head used to be.

  ‘Max.’ Was that Jacquie’s voice in the middle of it all? ‘Max, darling?’

  He woke up, jarring his shoulder as he did so, to find Jacquie looking down at him. ‘I’m sorry to wake you, my love,’ she said, ‘but I thought you ought to see this. We’ve had an email from Juanita. She wants to meet you at the Point.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ‘No, Jacquie.’ Hall was shaking his head. ‘It’s not going to be possible.’

  Jacquie Carpenter looked at her DCI. In an unguarded moment, Sheila Kindling had confided to her what a bastard she thought he was. It wasn’t her place to say so, of course, but she hoped the Detective Sergeant understood, woman to woman. She, Sheila, just had to tell somebody.

  The Detective Sergeant understood all right. Here was living proof, right here in front of her, across the desk in his office at Leighford Nick.

  ‘Guv,’ she began. ‘I’ve put myself on the line, here. So has Max.’

  Hall’s hand was already in the air. ‘Let me stop you right there,’ he said. ‘You and I have had these conversations, Jacquie, without number. Peter Maxwell has no legal right whatsoever to go poking his nose around in other people’s business. We are the professionals, you and I. This is our job. It’s what they pay us for.’

  ‘Is that what all this is about?’ she asked. ‘Ego? The plain truth is that Peter Maxwell is bloody good at what he does. The fact that he’s my partner and the father of my child doesn’t mean jack shit in this context. If I didn’t know the bloke from Adam, I’d have to concede he gets results.’

  ‘He gets in the way,’ Hall insisted.

  ‘The Red House case,’ she rounded on him, giving him the chapter and verse he always insisted on. ‘My first murder. Who solved it?’

  ‘The jury’s still out,’ Hall shrugged.

  ‘The Ofsted murders?’

  ‘Maxwell may have been influential,’ Hall conceded.

  ‘The re-enacters? That film company down on Willow Bay.’

  ‘I thought that was you,’ Hall told her.

  She had one trump card left and she used it now, closing to her boss with a bravado and a steel she didn’t know she had. ‘When the theatre caught fire last year,’ she said levelly, ‘who pulled you out of the burning building?’

  He paused, then nodded. ‘That would be Peter Maxwell,’ he said.

  ‘Too bloody right it would,’ she said.

  And he growled right back. ‘The answer is still “No”.’

  So Maxwell, back at Columbine, now that the hols were really here, weighed his options. What did dear old Clint Eastwood do in Dirty Harry? He carried a .44 Magnum in his shoulder holster and sellotaped a switchblade to his ankle. That must have hurt like buggery to take off and anyway, Maxwell didn’t own one. He had a comb that looked like one; they’d used it in Grease at Leighford High some time back, but it wouldn’t fool anybody. And it sure as Hell wouldn’t slide with a sickening thud into anybody’s flesh; he’d have to do the sound effects himself.

  And what did poor old Richard Widmark do as Billy Gannon in Warlock? His own brother, the no-good, low-down stinkin’ rat, had stabbed him in his gun hand, but even so he went after Henry Fonda in Main Street the next day, unwrapping his bandages, hoping to get the sympathy vote.

  Maxwell weighed his options more deeply. Come to think of it, Clint Eastwood had a partner with a radio link-up only yards away from him the whole time when he went to meet young psycho Andy Robinson. And even so, Robinson crippled the partner, beat Eastwood half to death and got away with a sizeable bag of cash, if memory served. And as for Richard Widmark, he was lucky Henry Fonda was about to retire that day anyway. Fonda, with his gold-handled Colts, outdrew the crippled Widmark not once, but twice, threw his guns into the sand of Main Street and quietly rode away, probably into the sunset.

  Now Maxwell knew what it felt like to be crippled. And he knew the Point. Exposed. Open. Uneven ground. If he had to run, he’d had it. And who would he be facing? Cool, noble, essentially good Henry Fonda? Or vicious, unstable, unpredictable Andy Robinson? He shook himself free of it. All that was celluloid fiction. He was either going to meet Juanita Reyes or…and he could narrow it down, by his own logic, to one of three. Of course, if it was little Juanita Reyes, all red-eyed and remorseful, come to beg his forgiveness for abandoning little Nolan, how would he feel with a Colt .45 heavy on his hip, and a .44 Magnum under his armpit and a flick knife taped to his leg?

  It didn’t help that he’d had a screaming row with Jacquie that morning and that she’d driven Nolan away without so much as a backward glance. She hadn’t wanted him to go to the party last night. And now that it was just possible that someone was nibbling at the bait, she certainly didn’t want him to go to the Point. But he was going anyway; she saw it in his eyes. So she’d screamed and ranted and Nolan had done the same. He didn’t know why, but he knew that Mummy was cross and scared and that made him cross and scared too. It seemed to have something to do with Daddy or whoever this bloke was in the horror make-up. All good practice for his first proper Halloween.

  And, of course, what Maxwell didn’t know, was that all day, Jacquie had been hammering on to Henry Hall to provide just the back up that Clint Eastwood had. And it wasn’t going to work for him either.

  He caught a cab from Columbine, waved to Mrs Troubridge endlessly battling with her privet. Mercifully, the old girl hadn’t noticed the bandages and the limp before he got into the car, otherwise
he’d have been there all day explaining what had happened. She merely gawped at him in astonishment and Maxwell had to explain it all to the taxi driver instead.

  The Point car park was thinning out now as the evening drew on. The shadows were sharp from the three parked cars and Luigi was about to draw down his blinds at the end of another long, hot Leighford day.

  ‘Bloody ’ell, mate,’ he bellowed. ‘What in God’s name happened to you?’

  ‘Slipped on an ice cream, Luigi,’ Maxwell told him.

  ‘Not one of mine, I hope,’ the ice cream man guffawed. ‘I ain’t picking up the insurance tab.’

  ‘No, no,’ Maxwell smiled slowly. Even the saunter from the cab had taken it out of him. ‘Have you got the time?’

  ‘Half six, near as dammit,’ he said. ‘Fancy a Ninety Nine? That’s your tipple, ain’t it?’

  ‘It is indeed, Luigi,’ Maxwell said. ‘Well remembered. But no thanks; I’m meeting someone.’

  ‘A doctor I hope,’ Luigi laughed.

  ‘No. A girl. Early twenties. Short. Dark hair. Pretty. Seen anyone like that around in the last few minutes?’

  ‘Nah.’ Luigi shook his head. ‘I tell you who I have seen, though. That old pervert.’

  Maxwell’s face straightened. ‘The old bloke?’ he checked. ‘Shorts, vest, knapsack?’

  ‘That’s him. He was heading for the Point not five minutes ago. Makes my flesh crawl that bloke. I don’t know why the police haven’t given him a bloody good hiding.’

  ‘It’s early days,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘Thanks, Luigi. You have a good night, now.’

  ‘Yeah, mate. You too. And don’t go slipping on no more ice creams.’

  And he slid down the grille with a terrible finality of metal. Maxwell moved towards the path. This was worse than he thought. Every step was a nightmare. All right, he hadn’t been off his face last night, despite letting the good folk at the Wilbraham Club believe he had been, but the Southern Comforts he had downed had helped him cope with the pangs and twinges. That was then and the painkillers the hospital had given him weren’t even touching the sides today.

  He leaned heavily on the wooden rail by the steps, grateful that there were only four of them. The wood felt smooth and warm under his hand. Now he was in the deep shadows of the oaks, cool in the canopy that rustled overhead. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel now, the sun bright on the short, cropped grass below the cloudless blue. Another long, hot Leighford day.

  The breeze was stiffer than he’d expected up here on the Point. He was standing on the dunes where the rabbits dug, the wind lifting tiny eddies of sand at his feet. Here was where the tape had fluttered that Jacquie’s people had tied there, where Jim Astley’s make-shift tent had stood and where Patches had half dug up the body of Wide Boy Taylor. The Downers had come this way too, intrigued to discover what their dog had unearthed, then horrified in their turn. And before any of that, those toerags Pearson and Thomas from Leighford High had helped themselves to the most crucial clue of all – the clue that in a few minutes, perhaps, might catch a killer.

  Maxwell swung to his left, trying to cope with the rising ground. Ahead of him stretched the path, snaking inland to his left, through the upright ears of corn, more than ready for the harvest. To his right, the cliffs fell away sheer and the gulls slid silently on the air currents, unperturbed by the faster, darting swallows, flitting in and out of their sandstone nest holes.

  Here was where Benji Lemon had gone over, noiselessly, without a struggle. Others had gone that way, too; sad, lonely people unable to face the world any more, unable to cope. Were they marks of erosion on the cliff’s edge or were they the last ghastly scrabblings of Lemon’s boots on the rim of the world, to which he clung so desperately and so hopelessly?

  Maxwell felt the old pull again, as he always did, of the downward surge. Just to peer over the edge, just a little further…

  ‘Well, well,’ a voice made him stop. ‘You’re a little bit off the beaten path, aren’t you? Not your usual haunts at all, this.’

  Maxwell turned to see a scrawny man with silver hair and a white, wispy beard. His glasses were glinting in the evening sun. Maxwell had only ever seen him in dappled shade before, like the creature of the night he was.

  ‘Mr Lessing,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you at the party last night?’

  ‘Party?’ The old man’s usual sneer had vanished. ‘What party? I don’t know what you’re talking about. And how do you know my name?’

  ‘More or less for the same reason you know mine.’ Maxwell hobbled towards him. He had to admit, the old pervert was one of his three wise men who had cottages by the sea, one of his unholy trio of suspects, but he was also the least likely. Well, you couldn’t win them all. And he was really quite relieved, because of all three, this was the one who could do him the least physical harm. Just as long as he kept his wits about him. Just as long as he didn’t stand too close to the edge.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me,’ Lessing said, the crooked smile having returned. ‘I’m just on the lookout for herring gulls.’

  ‘You’re on the lookout for anything that moves,’ Maxwell corrected him. ‘Female, preferably. Under age all the better. But couples fornicating would do just as nicely.’ With a speed that surprised him, given his delicate condition, he snatched the haversack from the old boy.

  ‘Give me that,’ Lessing hissed, but even in his crocked state, Maxwell was stronger. He whipped out an expensive pair of binoculars.

  ‘Handy for bird-watching,’ he nodded, flinging them carelessly on the grass with a thud. Then the camera, equally pricey. ‘Of course, what more natural than to record the fledglings in their nests? Zoom lens, too. Oops, there, I’ve gone and dropped it. Ah, now then,’ his hand reached the bottom of the bag. ‘Now I wonder what function these serve in the world of ornithology?’ He held up a tiny pair of briefs and a bra, reading the label out loud. ‘“To fit ages ten to fourteen”. That would be in bird years, would it, Mr Lessing?’

  ‘Now look,’ the old man’s eyes were blinking uncontrollably, watering in the still powerful sun. ‘You’ve no right. They’re my property.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure the binocs and camera are,’ Maxwell said. ‘One to observe teenage girls in their…what? Gardens? Bathrooms? Bedrooms? Courting couples canoodling in cars. It must have been a great day for you when dogging became an official pastime of the younger generation. Handed it to you on a plate, didn’t they? I’m surprised you bother with all this skulking around and ornithology front. Why not just knock on a car door and say “Hello. I’m a weirdo. Mind if I join in?” I’m sure if the couple are blind and not too choosy about wrinkly old flesh, you’d be all right.’

  Lessing was stumbling backwards, Maxwell in full flow now. ‘The camera, of course, is to record such sightings on digital. Now, I take my hat off to you here, Mr Lessing,’ and he did, a sweeping, mocking gesture that hurt like hell, but which he felt was worth it. ‘Because you’re rather older than I am and I just bet you’re more than familiar with the murkier sites on the Cybernet Highway. Downloading, uploading, freeloading – I haven’t the first idea what it all means, but you do and you do it with the best of them, don’t do, sharing your nasty little fantasies with like-minded filth across the world. So, yes, you own the binoculars. You own the camera. But you don’t own the undie set.’ Maxwell was shaking his head. ‘These,’ he pointed to the little wisps of cotton still in his hand. ‘These you stole. Otherwise, what would be the point? Items of underwear from Matalan or Tesco or whatever; big deal. But items of underwear from little Doo-dah’s mother’s washing line – that’s the real McCoy, isn’t it? Because you know who little Doo-dah is and you can picture her wearing said items.’ He tossed them in the old man’s face.

  Lessing screamed as he lost his balance and scrabbled on his back on the ground. ‘No, don’t hurt me, please.’

  ‘Hurt you?’ Maxwell growled, bending over the wreck as far as he could. ‘If it weren’t for
the fact that the police would try to pin the Point murders on me, I’d push you over the edge myself, you repellent old bastard.’

  He straightened up, calming himself down, fighting down the urge to kick the whimpering, gibbering pervert all the way back to the car park. He’d proved one thing to himself, however. However much he’d like it to be, this was not the man who’d garrotted Wide Boy Taylor and buried him near the oaks. Not the man who’d driven a kitchen knife into Gerald Henderson’s chest and dropped him under the bushes at the Botanical Gardens. And if he was the man who pushed Benji Lemon over the cliff face behind him, then Benji Lemon must have been fast asleep at the time.

  ‘Now, get out of my sight while you can still walk,’ Maxwell grunted. His head throbbed like Hell and the horizon was beginning to wobble in his vision. Lessing scrambled to his feet, leaving behind all the impedimenta of his perversion. ‘Unless of course you’d care to write another letter to my headmaster complaining that I am the Point murderer.’

  And he was gone.

  Chester Harris only heard snatches of this bizarre conversation as he made his way from the Botanic Gardens. Partly because he was some distance away and the wind did weird things with the sound up here. And partly because he was trying to have his own bizarre conversation on his mobile.

  ‘I still don’t know how you got my mobile number,’ he was saying, striding out along the path where the corn was waist high. The sun was blazing off his blond hair and beard and he couldn’t see very far ahead because the bloody thing was dazzling.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ the voice said. ‘Can you see anything, ahead on the coastal path? Where are you?’

  ‘Look, I don’t know why the hell I’m doing this. First you people let murders take place in my Gardens, then you accuse me of indecency. Why the hell should I help you?’

  The voice on the other end of the phone was trying to stay as calm as possible. ‘Because if you don’t, Mr Harris,’ she said, ‘A man is going to die. There’ll be another murder at the Point. And the man is my husband.’