Maxwell's Point Read online

  ‘Excellent. The marks of the chain links are very clear on the right, so something was used as a kind of tourniquet to twist the chain on the left. Hyoid bone,’ Astley’s scalpel hit something hard, ‘broken in two places.’ He straightened, much to the relief of his back. ‘This was a vicious one, Donald. He wouldn’t have gone quietly. Killed indoors, by the way.’

  ‘Oh?’ Donald paused. ‘How do we know?’

  ‘We know nothing, Donald,’ Astley told him, pursing his lips afterwards as he always did when Donald got too pushy. ‘I know because there are fibres all over the back of the body and legs. And he was naked when he died.’

  ‘Somebody dressed him?’ Donald asked.

  ‘Corpses don’t dress themselves,’ Astley looked over his pince-nez at the man. ‘Not in my experience.’

  ‘So this is a sex thing, then?’

  Astley screwed up his face. ‘He may have been sodomising every choir boy between here and Dungeness, Donald,’ he said. ‘But that’s not what we do here in pathology, is it? We don’t indulge in idle speculation. We leave that sort of amateurism to Henry Hall.’

  Henry Hall sat in his office in Leighford Nick, a range of depositions in front of him. Out there, beyond the glass, his Murder Team had assembled, those hapless human beings who were going to have to put their own lives on hold for a time, while they worked out how the man at the Point lost his. They’d done this before, all of them. And as sure as God made little green men from Mars, they’d be doing it again one day. Hall looked at his SOCO photographs – the car park, empty in its black and white starkness apart from police vehicles. The little steps that led up to the lane that wound its way through the trees, the gnarled oaks blown and stunted by the winter winds. The sudden dips and hollows in the sandy soil where the short, rabbit-chewed grass vied with spurge and sea pinks, all curiously grey in the photography. One wistful vista could have come straight out of South Coast Visitor, a moody shot of the sunset over the sea and the eroded sandstone of the cliffs. Then, the serious business began – the close-ups of a dead man, in ghastly colour this time; the arm that Patches had half dug up; the torso with its cheap jewellery and ruptured throat; the legs uncovered by SOCO. All of it so badly done, so shallow and so near to the cliffs. So near to the cliffs and so near to the road.

  Why was that?

  CHAPTER THREE

  There’s something about an Incident Room. Oh, they’d upgraded themselves in terms of technology. When Henry Hall was a green, wet-behind-the-ears copper, there were shoe boxes where now there were computers. At least shoe boxes didn’t shut down suddenly for no reason. It was almost impossible – unless you were very peculiar – to complete an illegal operation on them. And they hardly ever needed defragging. That said, they were kind of slow. Cross-referencing a car number plate could take weeks. As for tyre-tracks, forget it. But it wasn’t the technology that Hall noticed every time he set one up; it was the tension, the air of expectancy, of urgency. In the United States of America, a homicide takes place every three minutes; that’s how long it takes to boil a very runny egg in Leighford. Now that was a good thing and a bad thing. Good in that murder was rare in this little seaside resort along the South Coast. And bad in that Murder Teams were rusty and had to be brought up to speed quickly – instantly, in fact, before the trail went cold. Forty-eight hours was the allotted time to find a murderer. After that, it wasn’t impossible, but the odds lengthened uncomfortably.

  Bringing up to speed was the DCI’s job and Henry Hall stepped out of his office to do it. The hubbub died down as he took centre stage.

  ‘Yes, George.’

  George Bronson was the new DI on the block. ‘New’ was a bit of a misnomer actually, because his dad used to be the desk man at Leighford back in the Seventies and George had served his time in the Thames Valley force before too many corny old jokes about Inspector Morse had made him leave. He hadn’t got round to changing his name, however, so people still called him Charles behind his back. Some of them meant the Polish-American actor of Magnificent Seven and Death Wish fame (actually, only Peter Maxwell); others (that was everybody else) the moustachioed thug-turned-celebrity of Her Majesty’s detention centres various. There was one thing in common; George was built like a brick shithouse.

  ‘Dr Astley’s working on the body as we speak,’ the DI told everybody. ‘Preliminary reports suggest our boy is middle-aged and was strangled with his own jewellery.’

  There were a few camp ‘coo-ies’ until Hall’s expressionless stare silenced them.

  ‘We don’t have an ID at the moment, but we don’t think he’s local.’

  ‘Why not?’ Hall wanted to know. A Murder Team had a job to do, but Hall saw them as learning exercises too – keep everybody in the loop.

  ‘No missing persons reported, guv,’ Bronson told them all. ‘Astley’s rough guess at this stage is that the body had been in the ground between two and three weeks. In that time we’ve had three missing persons across the manor – one of them’s turned up and the other two are the wrong sex and the wrong age.’

  ‘Anything wider?’ Hall asked. ‘Who’s on inter-force?’

  ‘That’ll be me, guv,’ Sheila Kindling was a bright young thing, newly seconded. There was a book going round among the lads on whether she was a natural blonde or not. Benny Palister had drawn the straw to find out, but the date hadn’t gone wonderfully and Benny found himself going home alone after the first course. He was still trying to work out, three months on, what he could have said to upset her. Surely there was nothing offensive in ‘How do you like it?’ this far beyond the Millennium? The woman must have been brought up in a convent.

  ‘We’re making the usual enquiries country-wide,’ Sheila told them, tucking her biro behind her right ear as she usually did when the spot-light was on her. ‘Nothing conclusive so far.’

  ‘Well, it’s early days,’ Hall acknowledged. ‘Jacquie, you’ve talked to witnesses.’

  Jacquie Carpenter sat in the second row. ‘Yes, guv. Nothing else known at this time. A middle-aged couple – the Downers – found the body. We’re working on crowd elimination, but by the time the scene was sealed off, there were quite a few of them.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hall scowled, ‘and I’m not a happy bunny about that, people. Rubber-neckers we can do without. First, because following up on them wastes our time. And second, because they’re likely to have compromised the crime scene. That was sloppy. George, have a quiet word with the ice-cream man – what’s his name? Luigi? Let him know we don’t approve. Next time,’ he lashed them all with his cold, vacant stare, ‘and there will be a next time, somewhere, somehow, I want that eliminated. Right, compromised or not – Geoff, what have we got from SOCO?’

  Geoff Hare was Jacquie’s opposite number on the non-distaff side. He was thirty something, rather good looking in a Peter Lorre sort of way, though, as you’d expect, his eyes were a little on the poppy side and he didn’t have much of a thatch. ‘How scientific do you want this, guv?’ he asked.

  ‘Just the basics, Geoff,’ Hall told him. ‘We don’t want to confuse anybody.’

  A few chuckles. That was good. Everybody was up. Everybody was alert.

  ‘Right,’ Hare crossed to the whiteboard, ‘Tom?’

  The AV man switched on the gubbins and a beam of light threw a map of Dead Man’s Point onto the screen.

  ‘For the benefit of anybody new to the area – that’ll be you, Mr Bronson…’

  ‘Oh, ha!’ the DI grunted.

  ‘…here we are. Leighford Seafront. The Shingle. Willow Bay. And here,’ he tapped it with a finger, ‘Dead Man’s Point. So called because…’

  ‘Spare us the History lesson,’ Hall checked him, looking straight at Jacquie, she who was living with the oldest giver of History lessons in the world.

  ‘OK,’ Hare smiled. A second image flicked onto the screen, this time a photograph. ‘This is the view from the rocks below,’ he said. ‘It’s a fifty- or sixty-foot drop.’

 
‘Didn’t a bloke go over there a few years back?’ somebody asked.

  ‘Suicide,’ Hall remembered. ‘Widower couldn’t cope any more.’

  ‘Sad,’ somebody else commented.

  ‘Geoff,’ Hall wanted them all on the here and now, whatever local reputation the Point had.

  Another image hit the whiteboard. ‘This is an aerial shot,’ Hare said. ‘Sorry about the quality. New camera on board the chopper apparently. Leaves something to be desired in the crispness department.’ He helped them out with his pointing finger. ‘Here’s the road, obviously, Ringer’s Hill and the Point car park. Then, we’ve got the trees to the right and that leads to…’

  The next photograph was clearer, taken as it was from ground level, ‘…the steps and the path through said trees. Then…’ the slide show went on with a clinical thoroughness, ‘we’re out onto the coastal path proper. SOCO tell me we’ve got sandstone cliffs here, falling away and pretty eroded.’

  ‘Lot of work there last year,’ George Bronson remembered. ‘Couldn’t take the mother-in-law because they were having to shore it up.’

  ‘Going to throw her over, were you, Inspector?’ somebody chipped in from the back.

  Bronson didn’t turn as the chuckles spread. ‘When I do, Jenkins, you can accompany her on the way down. Just to make sure she’s all right.’

  Hare waited for the noise to subside. For once, Hall didn’t intervene. Let it happen. Unless it breaks concentration, leads in the wrong direction, let it happen. It builds a team, cements relationships, does the job. Let it happen. ‘Sandstone cliffs, so the soil is very light. Easy to dig, but conversely, holes fill up quickly with sand.’

  ‘So what are you saying, Geoff?’ Jacquie asked. ‘A two man job, the burial?’

  ‘It could have been,’ Hare conceded. ‘Whatever, it wasn’t well done.’

  ‘What do you conclude from that, Geoff?’ Hall asked, sipping his by-now-lukewarm coffee.

  ‘Done in a hurry, I’d say, guv. Foxes may have dislodged enough earth for the Downers’ dog to find the body. Dr Astley will tell us if any fingers are missing.’

  ‘Early June,’ Hall mused. ‘Height of the season. Who’s on this? How busy is the Point at this time of year?’

  ‘Difficult to say, guv,’ Benny Palister opened his mouth for the first time that morning. ‘Tourist Board don’t keep stats like that. It’s not your lovers’ lane type place.’

  ‘I can confirm that,’ Hare chipped in, to a chorus of ‘Aye ayes’ from the Back Row Element. ‘SOCO found nothing of what my old Forensics Tutor at the Shop used to call “the detritus of lovemaking”. No knickers, johnnies or even used tissues.’

  ‘No hayfever sufferers, then?’ somebody wanted to know.

  ‘No,’ Palister went on. ‘The path goes to the east for nearly three miles out towards Littlehampton. To the west not much more than a mile before it hits the Shingle and terminates at Willow Bay. And the going gets rough to the east. Serious climbing needs to be done along the Middens. Just before you get to Star Rock. Not for the faint-hearted.’

  ‘You could do most of it, though?’ Hall checked. ‘Any age? Moderate disabilities?’

  By now the ciggies were out. The addicts in any workplace thought more clearly when their nerves weren’t frayed. And the Incident Room was the one place where smoking was allowed, by order of the General Officer Commanding, Henry Hall.

  ‘We’re still faced with the fact,’ Jacquie said, ‘that we don’t know how busy the place gets. But,’ she was looking at the photo still on the screen in the thickening smog of the ciggie smoke, ‘it’s damn near the road.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Hall nodded, pointing at her with an approving finger. ‘Let’s go with that, people. From the shallow grave of the man with no name to the car park is…what…two hundred yards? Three?’

  ‘I paced it at near four, guv,’ Hare said.

  ‘Four hundred yards.’ Hall stood corrected. ‘All right. Conclusions?’

  ‘Mr Nobody was brought by car,’ somebody said.

  ‘When?’ Hall pushed them.

  ‘Early June – 4th, 5th? Night.’

  ‘Night,’ Hall echoed. ‘Who’s got an almanac? We can’t be certain about the date until Astley’s done his stuff, but we can find out what the moon was doing on the likely dates and what time it got dark. And get on to the Met Office; Sheila, that’s your job. Sun, rain, hail – I want to know what the weather was like in the first two weeks in June.’

  ‘Bloody hot, guv,’ someone intervened. ‘Same as now.’

  ‘Let’s not get casual on this one,’ Hall warned them. ‘We’re doing it by the book and we’re doing it precisely. George,’ he swivelled to his DI, ‘get over to the lab, will you? It may be Friday afternoon, but I don’t want a Friday afternoon job from them. Nor do I want us all to be kicking our heels for two days. When you’ve chivvied Luigi, chivvy them along too, will you?’

  Bronson smiled. ‘Chivvy is my middle name, guv,’ he said.

  ‘Murder, she said.’

  Peter Maxwell was sprawled on his settee, his son sprawled across his chest. Opposite them, Jacquie Carpenter was grateful to put her feet up on the pouffé.

  ‘Come on, Max.’ She shook her head. ‘Delusional. Teenage girls from here back to Salem, Massachusetts. You know the score.’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ he snorted. ‘In fact, heart of darkness, I told you. You may have attended the half hour lecture on hormonal imbalance in the pubescent female, but I have to work with the little buggers – oh, saving your presence, old man,’ and he put his hands belatedly over the baby’s ears. ‘You thought Salem was a car boot until I took you on that educational canter through the History of Witchcraft for Beginners.’

  ‘How bloody dare you!’ she trilled, her eyes big. ‘You don’t have a monopoly on female delinquency and if you weren’t hiding behind the kid, I’d throw something at you.’

  ‘All right,’ he laughed. ‘I’ll concede you know what you’re talking about most of the time. So why don’t you buy this one?’

  She sipped her coffee. ‘Why do you?’

  ‘That’s it,’ he muttered, tutting. ‘That’s it. Answer a question with a question. All right. The bottom line is that I suppose I trust Steph Courtney. Sure, I’ve known lots of liars in my time, practitioners of the Big Whoppa theory. It’s usually to gain attention or to get them out of trouble. And yes, you’re right, it’s usually girls.’

  ‘Steph Courtney’s not the type to be in trouble, then?’ Jacquie checked.

  Maxwell shook his head. ‘She forgot her exercise book in Year Seven once. Inconsolable.’

  ‘Come on, Max,’ Jacquie urged him. ‘She’s in Year Eleven now. On Study Leave, aren’t they? I dare say there are a few distractions out there for her. You know, sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll.’

  ‘Oh, probably,’ Maxwell conceded. ‘I’m not saying she’s Mary Poppins. But the fact that she’s temporarily off roll at the moment points in the not guilty direction. Why should she come into school – to see me in particular – when there’s no need to?’

  ‘Attention-seeking.’ Jacquie was playing devil’s advocate, but she couldn’t resist a certain smugness. She did it so well.

  ‘Balanced girl,’ Maxwell countered. ‘Only child, so there are no siblings to put her nose out of joint. Two parent family. I taught the dad. Seem to be loving. At least, they’ve been together since Steph joined the school.’

  ‘That’s sort of superficial,’ Jacquie felt bound to say. ‘How do you know Daddy isn’t playing away? Just ’cos he didn’t do it in your History lessons. Mummy hasn’t got a cocaine habit? Both of them aren’t into Satanic Abuse?’

  Maxwell looked at her. ‘It’s obviously being so positive keeps you cheerful,’ he said.

  Jacquie laughed. ‘I’m sorry, Max, but you do take my point.’

  Maxwell did. He’d been at the chalkface now, man and probationer, since old Socrates used to walk about Greece talking to people in some vague belief he w
as educating them. No, you never knew kids well. You daren’t. ‘Don’t get involved’, a wise old Head of Department had once told him when he, Maxwell, was still wet behind the ears. They can only fire you for two things – fingers in the till or in the knickers. Oh, he’d known colleagues who’d dated pupils, even married them in some cases. But that was then. It all seemed like a different world now. No, it wasn’t wise to close a door with you and a student on one side of it, for fear of accusations of rape. And that was just from the boys.

  ‘I didn’t think you taught her,’ Jacquie went on. ‘So why you?’

  ‘Father-figure,’ Maxwell posited. ‘Impossibly handsome, a brain the size of the great outdoors. But that’s enough about me.’

  It went very quiet.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he guffawed, then settled himself as Nolan stirred, his little fingers twitching in his dream-sleep. ‘I’m sorry,’ softer now, ‘I assumed that was what you saw in me, too.’

  ‘What I saw in you,’ she twisted up her face and wrinkled her nose, ‘was a mad old bastard who needed to be taken into care. So here I am. My role in life, my cross to bear.’ And they laughed together.

  ‘It’s probably…’ he began.

  ‘Yes?’ she waited.

  ‘It’s probably that from time to time I get caught up in the odd bit of skulduggery. Have you ever noticed?’

  Had she ever noticed? For years, ever since Jacquie Carpenter had known Peter Maxwell, he’d been there at her elbow, usually, in fact, in front of her elbow, digging, ferreting with that razor mind, teasing murder enquiries, worrying evidence along with the sheep, tramping crime scenes without number. Ever since the early days, when one of Maxwell’s Own was found strangled in the haunted ruin they called the Red House. It had never gone away since then. And Jacquie’s life and Jacquie’s career had been shared with this man – the career she’d nearly lost because of him; the life she still had because of him. It wasn’t a bad trade, really.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she purred, chuckling. ‘All right, so you’re the Miss Marple of Leighford High School and you trust Steph Courtney. Tell me again what she said.’