Maxwell's Mask Read online

‘Who?’

  ‘Bed,’ Maxwell repeated. ‘A minute ago, you said “Bed said”. I didn’t catch the rest.’

  ‘No, I never!’ George was looking at him now, for the first time, the fear in his eyes turning to hostility, panic.

  The sound of silence.

  ‘All right, Nurse Matthews.’ Maxwell broke the moment and leapt to his feet, bored with the whole charade, tired of the game. ‘Call the police, will you? Whatever this is, it’s out of our hands now.’

  ‘All right!’ George was on his feet, trembling, crying, the words tumbling from him in a torrent. ‘Me and Bed broke into a place last night. There was a dead old lady in the hall. I fell over her… On her…’ and he collapsed in a quivering heap on the ample chest of Nurse Matthews. A goodly percentage of Leighford’s alumni had been there before him.

  Maxwell waited while she calmed him down, patting his distressing hair, passing him tissues and giving him strict, no-nonsense orders about blowing his nose. He sat down and waited until George had composed himself.

  ‘We didn’t kill her, Mr Maxwell,’ the boy said, his lip quivering. ‘She was already dead. Bed reckoned she’d fallen downstairs.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s right, George,’ Maxwell told him. ‘But we can’t just leave her there, can we? What if she’s got no friends? No family? We need to sort this out. Maybe then you can get some sleep.’

  ‘But I don’t know where it is,’ George whined.

  Maxwell looked at Sylvia, acting, as he usually did, on impulse. ‘Can you take me there, George? You and Bed?’

  ‘Not Bed,’ George shouted. ‘He’d fucking kill me…er…I mean he’d kill me. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘No, George.’ Sylvia wrapped an arm around him. ‘You should have. It’s great that you have.’

  ‘What’s your problem, George?’ Maxwell asked, matching her female softness with his macho masculinity. ‘You’d make three of Bed. You could sort him out easily.’

  ‘It ain’t him,’ George explained. ‘It’s his brothers. They’re built like brick shithouses…er…toilets.’

  ‘All right,’ Maxwell said. ‘Just you and me, then.’

  George looked at the man, blinking. He was…what? Eighty-three, eighty-four? Wearing that poncy bow tie and those tweedy old togs. What did he look like? And what would it do to George’s street cred to be seen with him? ‘I dunno,’ he said.

  Maxwell shrugged and leaned back with his head on the wall and his arms folded. ‘It’s the Old Bill then,’ and he reached across for the phone.

  ‘OK, OK!’ George shouted. ‘But you ain’t coming round my house. I’ll never live it down.’

  Maxwell chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, George. I won’t lower the tone of the neighbourhood. What shall we say? Ten o’clock? The Old Spike?’

  George looked from one to the other – the kind, almost beautiful face of the School Nurse, her blue eyes smiling at him. And the lived-in, unfathomable face of the Head of Sixth Form. He was going out on a date with Mad Max. What, he wondered a little before his fifteenth birthday, was the world coming to?

  ‘This is not sensible, Max,’ Jacquie warned, sliding the salt across the kitchen table.

  ‘A three-egg omelette? Oh, come on, heart of hearts. They still had rationing when I was a shaver. I was forty-two before the threat of nuclear war receded, give or take a Middle Eastern megalomaniac or two. Give me a break, will you? It’s one of my civil liberties to be able to take responsibility for my own cholesterol. Can I have survived all that and not cope with three eggs?’

  ‘I am talking,’ she said archly, ‘as well you know, about your little escapade tonight. The implications don’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Ordinarily, no,’ Maxwell agreed, tucking in to the excellent little Spanish number Jacquie had rustled up. ‘But I know enough about kids to realise that we won’t get anything out of George Lemon beyond the time of day because he’s terrified of the Cypriot connection.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Anthony Wetta?’

  ‘Bed? No. I gave George my word. Besides, Bed’s an altogether tougher nut to crack. Oh, I could do it, of course, given Skeffington’s Gyves or the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter. But either of those little torture gadgets would play merry Hamlet with the concept of political correctness. And anyway, think of the mess… I’m not sure the rack would fit in my classroom.’

  ‘I’m thinking of you,’ she told him. Jacquie always was. They’d known each other now for nearly ten years. She’d been a struggling DC in those days, smoking too much, drinking ditto. They’d found a body at the Red House – and it was one of Maxwell’s Sixth Form, one of His Own. Oddly, she couldn’t remember the first time she’d actually seen him. And Christopher Marlowe was wrong with all that tosh about love at first sight. Peter Maxwell grew on you, like an old warm jumper she’d grown to like, to love and now, could not live without, its warmth and softness holding her, caressing her, keeping her – sometimes – together.

  He reached across and patted her hand. ‘I know,’ he smiled. ‘We’ll be careful out there.’ They both remembered Hill Street Blues on the telly, with its flaky cops working out of a Precinct from Hell and the kindly old sergeant’s message to his people as they went out to face the mean streets. It packed more of a punch than dear old George Dixon’s ‘Mind ’ow you go’ and ‘Look after dear ol’ Mum’, but essentially it said the same.

  ‘If this turns out to be genuine,’ Maxwell said, ‘the dead woman, I mean, what’ll your people do to George Lemon?’

  ‘He won’t get much more than a caution,’ Jacquie told him. ‘First offence and – apparently – nothing taken. Anthony Wetta, now… Well, I’m afraid he’s on file already.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maxwell sighed. ‘I thought he might be.’ And he put his fingers in the corners of his mouth. ‘Cracking eggs, Grommit,’ he croaked, in a near-perfect Peter Sallis.

  There was no moon that night to light their way. Only clouds scudding darkly, threatening rain for the morning. He kissed her at the car door and jogged up the hill that led to the Old Spike. Jacquie shook her head. She didn’t approve of what he was doing, with all her training and experience. Maxwell should have passed George Lemon and his night terrors over to the police this morning. Come to think of it, Sylvia Matthews should. She knew perfectly well that telling Max anything like this was like waving a red rag at a bull. Mixing her metaphors madly, she knew that all anyone had to do was wind him up and let him go. On the other hand, she couldn’t help chuckling. The man she loved, the Cambridge historian, all tweeds and college scarf and elbow patches and bow tie, was jogging up the hill on the edge of the Dam in trainers, jeans and a hoodie. He was, indeed, a funny age.

  The Old Spike wasn’t a spike at all any more than there had ever been a dam on the open stretch of gorse-strewn headland that went by that name. It was one of those things that just grew up with time, those myriad factettes about places that no one remembered. The Spike, they said, was a beacon from the Armada, when nervous Englishmen scanned the horizon for the huge and deadly Spanish sails, dripping with Catholic symbols and glittering with gilt. Others said it went back much further, to the time when flaxen-haired Saxons watched the mists of another September, long ago, when William the Bastard’s Normans rode the high seas. Only Peter Maxwell seemed to know that it was actually a Napoleonic early warning system as the Leighford Fencibles manned their posts and tried desperately, in that long tense summer of 1804, to learn one end of a musket from another. Now it was just a twisted tangle of metal, a rusting monstrosity the local council kept meaning to take down. It was a health and safety issue and might upset our near neighbours, the French.

  ‘Jesus!’ George Lemon couldn’t believe his eyes. Mad Max was madder than anyone realised. The old git was in fancy dress, lolling against the base of the Spike like something out of Shaun of the Dead.

  ‘Evening, George.’

  ‘Mr Maxwell,’ the lad managed.

  ‘Got your bearings, then?’


  George thought they were things that whizzed round in his bike gears. He wasn’t going to enjoy tonight. Together, the unlikely pair retraced the steps the lads had taken the previous night. From the Spike, they took one of the dozen or so bike trails that criss-crossed the Dam, dipping down into the oak-treed hollow where Bud cans nestled among the nettles and marked the last resting place of a Morrison’s trolley. A thick length of rope with a tyre tied to its free end hung strangely silent and still from a high oak branch. Then they were out on Sycamore Grove, keeping to the shadows at George’s request. He had family in this street; he was sure Mr Maxwell understood.

  As they swung left into Martingale Crescent, George’s resolve left him and he stopped dead. ‘I thought it was,’ he said, waving an uncertain arm ahead. ‘That’s the place. On the corner.’

  ‘That Victorian place?’ Maxwell realised he’d asked a question too far. ‘That big house with the bushes?’

  George nodded. ‘I can’t do this, Mr Maxwell,’ he blurted suddenly. ‘I can’t go back in. What if she’s still there?’

  ‘I expect she will be, George,’ Maxwell told him. ‘That’s why we’re here; remember?’

  George remembered. But he didn’t want to remember. He backed off into the privet that lined the pavement, then turned and fled, years of pasta and chips taking their toll long before he reached the darkness of the Dam again. Ahead was the Barlichway and home and a return of the nightmares before the cops came calling. And Maxwell didn’t chase him. Time was when he would have done, but then time was when he wouldn’t have got involved in things like this anyway. Perhaps it was all too weird. Perhaps it was time to hang up his board-marker and shuffle off to that great Staff Room in the sky. But not yet awhile; he had a few jobs to do first.

  The house was solid, unimaginative, pale yellow in daylight, an even paler grey by night. Dark rhododendrons ringed it and a tall cedar guarded the scruffy lawns. The summer had been long and hot and it had taken its toll on the untended gardens of old ladies. He crossed the weedy gravel, feeling it springy underfoot, and tried the porch door. Locked. He put his nose to the stained glass and looked through. He couldn’t make out much. There was another door ahead of him, more solid, opulent with a fanlight that read Dundee. An old umbrella lay furled in a cane stand to his right and an ancient pair of green wellies to his left. He pulled the hood more securely over his hair and trotted around to the right, past the bushes and onto the rear lawn. Here was a smaller door, glass-panelled, and it was wide open.

  His hand reached into the hoodie pocket for his mobile, the one Jacquie insisted he carry. He was already late in using it. As soon as he’d found the house, he’d promised her, he’d ring. She’d contact the station and the ambulance service and the wheels of officialdom would grind into action. Except that he wasn’t absolutely sure that this was the house. He only had George Lemon’s word for that and remembering George’s recent and memorable interpretation of why the eighteenth-century penal system was called the Bloody Code, that didn’t say a lot really. He needed more proof.

  The kitchen in which he now stood had been modernised several times since someone had built the place back in the days of Empire. Its work surfaces were gleaming Formica and the torch beam stabbed into dark recesses, highlighting cobwebbed corners and an already-growing mustiness. All the way from the Spike, Maxwell had been coaxing more information out of George Lemon. He knew the boys had gone in by the back door into the kitchen, but after that it got a little vague and George had clammed up.

  The torch lit the way as Maxwell took the single step that led into the hall. He could understand why the boy had got the jitters. There was an indefinable something about this house, a sense of disquiet. It was the sort of place where, just for a second, yet always, you sensed there was something at your elbow. He heard the clock chime and the torch beam flashed back at him from its dull glass face. Half past ten. If the occupier was an old lady, she’d probably be in bed by now. And a forgetful old lady might leave the back door open. Then again…

  He saw the ‘then again’ at the bottom of the staircase and shone his torch on the bundle of clothes. He held his breath in the way he imagined George Lemon had done and he knelt down to confirm his suspicions.

  ‘Jesus,’ he whispered through clenched teeth as first a gnarled hand and then a head of wild, white hair flopped out of the blanket. The place, he suddenly knew, was freezing cold, for all the mild, dry night outside. It was like a tomb. This time he had the mobile in his hand.

  ‘Jacquie.’

  She was glad to hear his voice; a signal this nonsense was over. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Martingale Crescent,’ he told her. ‘A house called Dundee. Big Victorian place on the bend, you can’t miss it.’

  ‘Are you all right, Max?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he told her, not sure if that strictly was true. ‘You’d better give your lads a call. It’s Martita Winchcombe and she’s dead as a doornail.’

  It was a little before two when they got round to him. Peter Maxwell had been sitting in Leighford Police Station for the best part of two hours. Pretty little Jane Blaisedell, Jacquie’s friend, had nipped in as often as she could, bringing him tea and a couple of Jammie Dodgers. What she couldn’t give him was any information – and that was what he wanted most.

  ‘Mr Maxwell, I am Detective Chief Inspector Hall. For the record and for the tape, this is Detective Sergeant O’Connell.’

  Maxwell looked at them. Henry Hall was a bland bastard, his small, sharp eyes forever hidden behind blank lenses, his jaw firm, his manner serious. O’Connell Maxwell had never seen before, although Jacquie had talked about him from time to time before she’d gone on maternity leave. He had a shock of dark auburn hair and a skin ravaged by the terminal acne that is sometimes the downside of puberty. Maxwell had yet to work out what the upside was.

  ‘Mr O’Connell.’ Maxwell reached out a hand. The Detective Sergeant sat impassive on the other side of the desk. Maxwell drew the hand back. ‘Henry,’ he smiled. ‘How the hell are you?’

  ‘I’m well, Mr Maxwell,’ the DCI told him. ‘Could you just tell us what you were doing in Miss Winchcombe’s house this evening.’

  ‘Snooping,’ Maxwell said. He’d done this before, more times than young O’Connell had had hot dinners, he expected. Ever since the Red House, when he’d been in the frame for murder, he had or had not been helping the police with their inquiries, depending on your point of view.

  ‘Would you care to clarify that?’ O’Connell frowned, jotting down notes as the interview went, despite the fact that the tape was whirring. He and Maxwell did not go back any way at all and in the space of two minutes the Head of Sixth Form had managed to get right up the Detective Sergeant’s nose.

  Maxwell thought only butter was clarified, but he’d been flippant with the police before and it rarely paid off. ‘Acting on information received,’ he said.

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ O’Connell wanted to know.

  ‘I think,’ Hall stepped in quickly, ‘this kind of phraseology is Mr Maxwell’s idea of a joke.’

  ‘Thank you, Henry, yes. I went to the house to verify what we all now, tragically, know – that Martita Winchcombe was dead.’

  ‘And why should you assume she was?’ O’Connell asked.

  Maxwell looked at them both. He’d gone a long way to avoid what he knew he had to say next, but he had to say it all the same. ‘One of my lads was trying to burgle the place. He stumbled, quite literally, across the body.’

  ‘One of your lads?’ O’Connell took him up on it, frowning. ‘Up at the school?’

  Maxwell nodded. ‘Year Ten,’ he said.

  O’Connell’s scowl turned to a grin as he glanced at Hall. ‘Knew it would be,’ he said.

  ‘Ah,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘The Year Group from Hell. Have you ever got chalk under your fingernails, Sergeant?’

  ‘If you mean, have I ever done any teaching, no thanks. But I was in Year Ten myself once. I
remember…’ but the look from both the other men in the room made him shut up. ‘We’ll need a name, of course,’ he said.

  ‘I was hoping…’

  ‘Mr Maxwell, you know the score,’ Hall reminded him. Heads of Sixth Form might choose to turn a blind eye from time to time; detective chief inspectors didn’t have that luxury.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Maxwell sighed. ‘George Lemon. I can get you his address tomorrow. There was another lad involved, albeit only by hearsay – Anthony Wetta.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ O’Connell grunted. ‘Comes from a long line of gentlefolk up the East End way. Who says crime doesn’t run in the family?’

  ‘I still don’t see your involvement.’ Henry Hall had tangled with Peter Maxwell before. He was the Saint, he was the Toff, he was Lord Peter Wimsey, he was the Four Just Men all rolled into one. Unfortunately, this bastard was real.

  ‘George was traumatised by finding the old girl dead,’ Maxwell explained. ‘Reluctantly, he told me the gist. But George is not the brightest card in the pack. He couldn’t remember exactly where the house was. He’s not the sort to volunteer information to you gentlemen, despite the fact that at Leighford High we teach Citizenship and are constantly extolling the virtues of an honest, upright life, so I reasoned the only way to find her was to get him to take me to the place in question.’

  ‘But he wasn’t with you when we arrived,’ O’Connell reasoned.

  ‘Did a runner,’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘I told you – he was traumatised. I don’t know how I’d have reacted falling over a corpse at fourteen.’

  ‘Did you know the deceased?’ O’Connell asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘Yes?’ Henry Hall looked up. For a moment, Maxwell was sure he saw the devious bastard’s eyes flicker behind his rimless glasses, but it may have been the subdued lighting and the lateness of the hour.

  ‘Perhaps “knew” is too strong a word,’ Maxwell said. ‘We’d met.’

  ‘In what context?’ Hall wanted to know.