Maxwell's Revenge Read online

  Maxwell rose, as always, to the occasion. ‘I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,’ he smiled and metaphorically doffed his hat. The poor woman was startlingly ugly, more especially so when standing next to the porcelain-pretty Miss Mackenzie. Still, live and let live was one of his many mottoes. Thank goodness the discrimination laws were so tight these days. Thou shalt not discriminate on the grounds of age, sex, creed, sexual orientation or the ability to stop clocks and turn milk.

  ‘How patronising,’ she hissed, the words wafting to him on charnel house breath of staggering awfulness.

  He came nearer to rudeness than was usual with him and, mouth breathing to minimise the stench, he nodded to them all and almost ran down the corridor to his class.

  The questions began almost as soon as he was through the door.

  ‘Are they the ones to replace Miss Lessing, sir?’

  ‘Ain’t she ugly, sir, that big one?’

  ‘Yeah, sir, she won’t get the job, will she?’

  ‘Cor, I don’t half mind that little one. Which one do you fancy, sir?

  ‘We’ve been all right, sir. Why do we need to replace Miss Lessing?’

  ‘Why aren’t you Headteacher, sir?’

  Maxwell used a technique honed on the north face of Mrs B, cleaner, gossip and misunderstander par excellence; he took each question one at a time and let them dig the bones out as best they could. ‘Yes. That’s rather unpleasant, Mike, but essentially accurate. I’d like to think not, but you didn’t hear that from me. You won’t catch me that way, Tess, and I’m glad to see you have that orientation uncertainty settled at last. Good question. And again, good question; too sensible, I like to think. Now then, since this is the first time I have seen you in your A2 incarnation, let’s get the textbooks given out.’

  The class looked around aimlessly but couldn’t see any books.

  He noticed their puzzlement. ‘First test safely passed; there are no textbooks. Cutbacks. So, let’s see – who knows anything about Gladstone? That’s apart from me, of course.’

  Paul Bloxham waited with his heart in his mouth outside Maxwell’s office, sharp at 12.30. He wasn’t really worried; he knew that Maxwell wasn’t a vindictive man, but his punishments were justly famous for their ingenuity. There was a story, apocryphal, but Paul Bloxham didn’t know that, that Mad Max had once made a kid from Year Eight lick the whole library clean because she had spilt crisp crumbs on the floor. The other rumour was that he had made another kid clean his bike with a Q-tip. That one was actually true. So it was with moderate trepidation that he heard the Great Man’s bouncy tread come along the corridor behind him.

  ‘Hello there, Paul,’ Maxwell said brightly. ‘Nicely on time. I like that. Punctuality is the politeness of princes, you know.’

  Bloxham nodded. It was a race memory, handed down from child to child, that it was best to agree with the mad old sod.

  ‘Come in, come in. I’m just going to have my lunch. You don’t mind, do you?’ He motioned the boy to a seat and took a bag out of the fridge. ‘Do you like egg sandwiches?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘They’ve got cress in them. Made with salad cream, really nice. Ambrosia of the gods.’

  The boy still looked doubtful. ‘They’re not from the canteen, are they?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. I brought them from home.’

  The lad had to agree they did look rather nice. Cut from corner to corner, really posh and on nice-looking bread. He nodded. ‘I will have a bit, sir, if it’s all right.’

  Maxwell proffered the paper plate and the boy took a quarter and bit into it.

  ‘’S lovely,’ he muttered, mouth full.

  ‘I’ll tell the missus,’ Maxwell beamed. ‘She makes a good sandwich.’

  Like most of the school, Bloxham was confused by Maxwell’s domestic arrangements. How an old fart like him had managed to snaffle a cracker like Jacquie was beyond them, as it was occasionally beyond the man himself. Bloxham had seen her out in the town with the Great Man occasionally and had debated with his oppos whether she was his daughter or his bit on the side. Only Jacquie seemed to think the relationship quite normal. Sandwich eaten, Bloxham just sat there. He was offered a crisp, which he took. One of those fancy ones, caramelised onion and camembert, aka cheese and onion, but very nice all the same. He declined the swig of Orangina, to Maxwell’s relief.

  ‘OK then, Paul, off you bugger,’ said Maxwell, standing up and brushing the crumbs off his lap. ‘I’ve got a lunch to go to. Thanks for your company.’

  Bloxham was confused. ‘Is that it, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes indeed. Sitting quietly for a bit, that’s what you need. You’re all knees and elbows, lad, you need to slow down, think who you might be knocking over. Count to ten a bit more often. Especially in Maths.’ He ushered the lad into the corridor and watched him with a smile as he half galloped, half slunk away. ‘Now,’ he rubbed his hands together, ‘time for some fun, I think,’ and, suitably full of decent grub, he made his way to the dining room to watch everyone else gannetting away on one sandwich each and a prawn cocktail for the VIPs. ‘What larks.’

  The dining room at Leighford High was a game of two halves. The Formica tables and benches of the students’ end gave way seamlessly to Formica tables and chairs for the staff. Many of the chairs had at least one rubber foot missing off a leg, but never four, as that would have given a stability which would encourage staff to linger, and that would never do. The roiling mass on the student side was thinning out now as Maxwell arrived and he made his way through them to the staff end, where pleasantries were being exchanged as far as possible around a faceful of Brie-and-cranberry sandwich. The caterers had gone a little mad; a whole summer of no school functions to service had given the head chef time on his hands in which to conjure up fresh horrors. In fact, Leighford had been spared his worst excesses. Tottingleigh Infants were appointing a new Head on this very day and they were at this same moment enjoying, should that be the word, the delights of Thai chicken and pineapple on rye. The Brie sandwiches had been made well in advance, as was the caterers’ way, and to Maxwell’s initial horror it looked as if everyone was tucking into a piece of raw meat, due to cranberry ooze. The favoured few were spooning down the prawn cocktails from the day before. The candidates were struggling with the shell-on prawn on the top, holding a glass and a fork at the same time. Some race memory of interview technique had convinced them that shelling the darned thing and eating it neatly would somehow stand them in good stead. Only Miss Mackenzie had opted to stash her prawn behind a dusty spider plant and say no more about it.

  Maxwell, comfortably full with egg, cress and crisps, was not drawn to the sandwiches, and the prawn cocktails had all been spoken for. He picked up a jelly with fruit in, set in a waxed paper bowl. He had had a weakness for them since he was three and went to his first birthday party. The flavour – sugar and a fruit not yetinvented – had never changed and the texture of the bits encapsulated in the goo was still that of cardboard and plasticine. Nevertheless, he spooned it in with relish.

  ‘Max,’ hissed Sylvia at his elbow. ‘Where have you been? This do is dying on its feet.’

  ‘I didn’t realise I was the Turn,’ he said. ‘What would you like? “Hiawatha” or “The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery”? I’ve been having lunch upstairs and a chat with one of Leighford’s characters.’ He looked round. ‘I don’t seem to be missing much.’

  ‘Just the paint drying. They aren’t a very inspiring bunch, are they?’

  ‘Sylv, don’t be pass-remarkative. I’m sure they’re all lovely women, in their own ways. Incidentally, shouldn’t there have been a token man among them? I mean, I know “Senior Mistress” is no longer an acceptable term, but the job’s the same – girls’ welfare. In these PC times, you’d think …’

  Sylvia wasn’t rising to it. ‘The angelic-looking one is a bit scary. People who look like that are rarely as nice as they seem.’

  ‘Mind like a razor, I suspe
ct. Puts me in mind of Reese Witherspoon. She scared the shit out of Matthew Broderick in Election and Ms Mackenzie scares the shit out of me. Ms Smollett?’

  ‘Miss. Miss Smollett. She has a certain military charm, perhaps, for those so inclined.’

  ‘Miss – and you’re right, a definite Miss – Whiplash. Without the sex appeal. But, I suspect, with the whip.’

  She poked him with her spoon. She had only eaten the jelly and had left the cardboard and plasticine alone. ‘Max, don’t. If she gets the job, I’ll never be able to look her in the face. What about Miss Bevell?’

  ‘Mrs, extraordinarily enough. And that’s Bevell, by the way, like Ravel, he of the Boléro. If it was Bevell, of course, she’d have the edge. But I didn’t get a close look; her breath could strip paint.’

  ‘You noticed that. I found myself looking to see if I had stepped in something.’

  ‘No, Sylv. My money is on angel-face. She is ruthless, mark my words. The only trouble is that Legs might be on a bit of a reverse-psychology thing. We all expect him to be a sucker for a pretty face, so he’ll go with one of the others. And if he did, it could go either way. But I think he will expect us to expect that and so, to confuse us, he will go with his natural first choice.’

  Sylvia Matthews was confused already. She tried to work it out on her fingers, but failed. In the end, she admitted as much. ‘I’m sorry, Max, I’ve forgotten what the first choice was.’

  He handed her his bowl with a magnanimous gesture. ‘Sylv, the one who will get the job is—’

  ‘Miss Mackenzie!’ someone shouted. The cry was almost simultaneous with a crash of breaking glass and tumbling cutlery. Maxwell and Sylvia turned in the direction of the noise in time to see Legs Diamond jack-knife in pain and crash to the floor, taking Bernard Ryan with him. After that, there was chaos; it was hard to tell who was actually lying on the floor and who was kneeling there to help them. Some people who had keeled over had pulled others with them in their attempts to stay upright. Helen Maitland was lying under Mrs Bevell, her head averted and her leg at a rather unnatural angle.

  Sylvia went into first-aid mode in a second, leaving Maxwell to stand aghast for several more, before he too was down among the bodies, sorting wheat from chaff, sheep from goats, the sick from the injured or merely curious.

  It was no place for the squeamish. In the crush of the fallen, it soon became obvious that they fell into two basic categories: those who were vomiting uncontrollably and those who were being vomited on. Sylvia, using skills most people would rather be without, quickly sorted them into these groups and tended those who had clearly eaten something that disagreed with them very badly indeed. Amongst the wounded were Helen Maitland, who had taken the full weight of Mrs Bevell as the woman fell, and clearly had a broken leg. Being the stalwart she was she had quietly put herself in as comfortable a position as she could under the circumstances and contented herself with screaming at anyone coming too near, shock coursing through her body. She, Sylvia decided, would keep. One of the PE staff had gashed his head badly on some broken glass and one of the secretaries had fainted. They could all just get over it on their own; she knew that more serious casualties were among the vomiting. She gestured Maxwell over.

  ‘Max.’ She whispered. ‘There’s something very odd here. Poisoning, I think.’

  ‘I’m not too surprised,’ he said. ‘Those prawn cocktails were made and out on the counter yesterday lunchtime. Salmonella, I’ll warrant.’

  ‘No,’ Sylvia said, brooking no argument. ‘There’s not a bug alive can make everybody sick at the same moment and so quickly. If it was a stomach bug, the first we would know would be when they didn’t come in tomorrow. No, this is poison. Get rid of any lingering kids. Dial 999.’ She looked down into the face of Legs Diamond, which moments before had been creased in pain. It was smooth now, no expression. He was totally unconscious and barely breathing. She met Maxwell’s eyes. ‘Do it, Max. People are dying here.’

  Maxwell scrambled to his feet and ran from the dining room, shepherding frightened children ahead of him. He was a public schoolboy, for God’s sake. You should see him in a shipwreck. Staff behind him were recovering from the initial shock and were marshalling what thoughts they had and attending their friends and colleagues who were still on the ground. The place looked like a battlefield and sounded like one: groans and sobs, overlaid with soothing voices.

  ‘On yer bikes, everybody.’ Maxwell was an oasis of calm in a sea of chaos. ‘Nothing to see here. Please step away from the dining room. And if I see any of today’s events on anybody’s phone cameras, just remember, I know where you all live.’

  A kind of peace began to reign.

  Then, suddenly, a scream which went up everyone’s spine like broken glass. A new teacher from the Business department leapt to her feet, her knuckles in her mouth. ‘Oh, God, she’s dead!’ She looked wildly about her and screamed again. ‘She’s dead. Somebody help! She’s dead.’

  Sylvia raised her head and caught the eye of Paul Moss, kneeling at Helen Maitland’s side. ‘Paul, go and calm her down, would you? Helen, you’ll be OK.’ All the woman could do was nod and even that sent arrows of pain through her body. She’d wanted a rest, but not like this. ‘Paul.’ Sylvia called him and he turned. ‘Get her away and then see whoever she’s talking about. They’re probably just passed out, like the Head.’

  ‘OK, Sylvia.’ Paul was a re-enactor at the weekends, and he was Head of History, when all was said and done. He played with soldiers like Maxwell did, only his were life-size and tended to run bayonets through themselves with monotonous regularity. He was a pretty good first-aider. ‘Come on, dear,’ he said, putting his arm round the girl. He might learn her name in time, but now wasn’t the moment for niceties. ‘Off you go and sit down. I’ll deal with this.’

  The girl wouldn’t move; panic had her rooted to the spot. In a whisper that spoke of the child she still almost was, she said, ‘She’s dead. I know she’s dead.’

  ‘No, I’m sure she’s not,’ but Paul Moss was no longer as certain as he looked. The NQT was pointing at her Head of Department, a very nice woman with whom he had exchanged possibly three words in the whole time she had been at the school. She lay on her side, her arms folded across her stomach. Her head was arched back in a very uncomfortable looking way, with her face half-turned to the floor. Her head was pillowed in a pool of vomit and her mouth was still streaked with strings of spit. In all, she did not present a very pretty picture and she certainly wouldn’t have stayed like that had she had an option.

  Pushing the girl to the edge of the dwindling crowd, he bent down and touched the woman’s shoulder lightly. She rolled over on to her back, but her expression did not change. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, her sightless eyes half rolled up into her head. Paul Moss had been a History teacher for years – he had taught war, death and destruction with equanimity. And yet he had never stared death in the face until now. After a brief pause while the shock sank in, he did what he always did in an emergency. He lifted his head and shouted, ‘Max! Over here!’

  ‘He’s calling 999,’ someone offered.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m here.’ The kids were beyond the dining hall doors now, jabbering excitedly, peering in, but Mad Max had told them the handles were electrified now and that was good enough. No one touched them. And, like a guardian angel, the man was standing over him, taking him by the shoulder and moving him aside. ‘What is it, Paul?’

  Paul Moss shook his head. ‘I … I think she’s dead, Max,’ he said.

  Maxwell looked down at the woman’s face and put his arm round his Head of Department. There was no way to make this easier. ‘Yes, Paul. She is, I’m afraid.’ He turned him away from the sight. ‘Go over there and talk to Sophie. She looks in a bit of a state.’

  ‘Sophie? Is that her name? OK.’ Like most people in the middle of a nightmare, Paul Moss clung to facts. Sophie. Right. He would talk to Sophie. It didn’t dawn on him to wonder how the hell M
ad Max knew her name. This was a guy who called his wife-to-be woman policeman. Paul walked off like a zombie.

  Maxwell knelt down and felt for a pulse in the woman’s neck. There was none, as he knew there wouldn’t be, but he had to be sure. He took off his jacket and covered her face; he knelt there for a moment with his head bowed before he got back to his feet.

  ‘Max, was that a prayer?’ A member of the Religious Studies department was looking at him with big eyes.

  ‘No, Nicola. I don’t pray. But everyone deserves a bit of dignity and poor Mel had little enough, at the end.’

  The teacher looked down at the shrouded figure. ‘Oh, God, I didn’t know. That’s Mel? But she can’t be dead! She’s only young.’

  ‘There’s no sell-by date on a person, sadly,’ Maxwell said, looking round for Sylvia.

  ‘But she was so nice.’

  ‘Again, no guarantees. God moves in a mysterious way, as I am sure you have told many a class.’

  ‘I only teach comparative religions, but I dare say you’re right. Look, Max, I’ll stay with her. You go and see if you can do anything for anyone else.’

  He looked down at her, only a kid, really, and scared to death. But she couldn’t leave a nice, youngish woman alone there, under his jacket, dead on the floor. He held her close for a moment and then was off, weaving his way through the thinning field of victims, to where Sylvia was still bent over Legs Diamond, now neatly stowed in the approved Red Cross recovery position. She looked up when she recognised the cavalry-twilled legs approaching, with the cycle-clip crease still visible.

  ‘Are they on their way?’ she asked, her anxiety giving her voice an unaccustomed tremor.