Maxwell's Crossing (11 page)

Henry Hall sighed. ‘I know the case.' He looked down too, but if he was praying it was to the God of Coincidence, who he knew to be a figment of his own imagination. He stood up. ‘Thank you, Reverend Mattley. We'll be in touch, and again, I am sorry for your loss.'

‘What about the thousand pounds?'

‘We will have to discover if it is …' there was no good way to say it, ‘the proceeds of a crime. If it isn't, then I would imagine it is yours, if you are your wife's heir.'

The man shook his head and turned for the door. ‘Have you ever lost anyone you love, Mr Hall?' he asked.

Hall swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘My mother,' he said. ‘My wife, almost, once.'

‘Ah, and there you have the advantage of me,' Mattley said and this time didn't brush away his tears. ‘Almost, once. I have lost mine not once, but again and again and again. When you finally give her back to me, Mr Hall, please make sure it is for good.' And he was gone, the door swinging behind him.

Jacquie Maxwell called from the foot of the stairs as she got in, stamping the snow from her shoes. There hadn't been a winter like it for years, the Met Office kept assuring everyone, causing Maxwell to mutter darkly about the fiction that was Global Warming and wondering again how any of ‘those people' slept at night. Nolan had done a project on Global Warming in his first few weeks at Mrs Whatmough's estimable establishment, although to be fair, bearing in mind the age group, it had mostly been a collage of pictures of polar bears. Nolan had included a fairy in his, which his teacher had found quite endearing until he explained that his daddy thought the whole nine yards was just a fairy story to worry the readers of the
Daily Mail.
His teacher had given him a long look and written something cryptic in his permanent record which may or may not come back to bite him
when he applied for his father's old college in the years ahead.

‘Hello, chaps,' she called. ‘Anyone in?'

She was rewarded by scampering feet and her son's head appeared around the corner at the top of the stairs. ‘Mums!' he called. ‘That was quick! Did you catch the man?'

What a lovely simple view her son had of her job, she thought, climbing the stairs towards him. He was, as always, gathering himself together for a leap into her arms. ‘Not till I'm on the landing,' she said, raising a warning finger. ‘Remember what happened to Mrs Troubridge.'

‘
I
didn't make her fall downstairs,' Nolan said, outraged.

‘I know you didn't, poppet,' Jacquie said, scooping him up. ‘But she did fall down them, didn't she? Stairs are dangerous if you don't take care.'
And we have so many,
she thought.
We must be crazy, living in this tall house with a small child and a psychopathic cat whose newest hobby was waiting until you were halfway up or down a flight and then leaping out at you. He'd be sorry if his meal ticket broke its leg.
‘Where's Dads?'

‘He's making lunch,' Nolan told her, squeezing round her neck with one arm and giving her a wet kiss on the cheek.

‘You're very cuddly,' Jacquie laughed. ‘I'm suspicious.'

‘You're a Woman Policeman,' Maxwell told her, appearing from the kitchen. ‘You're meant to be
suspicious. Come and join us. We are just about to sit down to lunch.'

Jacquie sniffed the air. There was no smell of Sunday roast or anything approaching it. She went into the kitchen. ‘Pasta shapes on toast?' she said, appalled. ‘Where's the Sunday dinner?'

‘Still in the fridge,' Maxwell said. ‘You caught us out. We were going to cook it later, so you could eat it with us properly, rather than heated up.'

‘And with the time we save,' Nolan said importantly, sliding down his mother and climbing onto his chair, ‘we were going bogging.'

‘Bogging?' Jacquie was confused.

Maxwell was dividing the pasta-covered toast in front of him onto two plates. Pushing one of them towards Jacquie, he said, in explanation, ‘Tobogganing.'

‘Tobogganing,' Nolan echoed. ‘What I said.'

‘Oh, sledging!' Sometimes their geographical differences made all the difference.

Maxwell smiled. ‘I suppose it depends on whether you use a sledge or a toboggan. As it turns out, we will be using a toboggan.'

‘We don't have a
sledge
,' Jacquie said, with a forkful of pasta halfway to her mouth. She had just realised she was hungry.

‘We do,' Nolan said. ‘Hec … Mr Gold has got me one. He rang up this morning and said he hadn't seen snow like this since he left …' he glanced at his father for confirmation, who mouthed ‘Minnesota' at him, ‘since he left where he used to live. So he
got a boggan and we're going to the Dam and going bogging. He's checked and there is lots of snow and that's where we're going.' He shovelled in another mouthful of pasta and started on the tomatoey toast. ‘Aren't we, Dads?'

‘Indeed we are. Are you coming?' he asked Jacquie. ‘It should be fun.'

‘Just Hector?' Jacquie asked.

‘Let's hope so,' he smiled. ‘I don't think the Californians born and bred are very enthusiastic about this weather. According to Hector, it has seriously impeded Camille's attendance at the nail bar. She likes to keep her nails maintained, apparently.'

Jacquie looked down at her hands, her nails short, neat and clean but not what anyone would call maintained. She thought for a moment. ‘Let's do it,' she said. ‘I can't remember the last time I went sledging. It was always a bit difficult when I was a kid. We didn't really have many hills. My dad used to have to drag me along the road. It's not the same.'

‘Tell me a story about my granddad,' Nolan said. ‘Tell me the story about when he fell over on the beach and it looked like a monster had crawled out of the sea, you said. Tell me about when he used to try to fly a kite.'

Sometimes, Maxwell found it sad that his little boy had started life with just one grandparent, although the redoubtable Betty was quite enough for any child all on her own. He had fond memories of his own grandparents and even a few hazy recollections of a
sweet-smelling little old person sitting quietly in a corner who he realised later was his great-grandmother. Nolan would miss all that when he was older, a whole page missing in his family history. But for now, they were going bogging.

‘Talk while you eat, Mums,' Maxwell said, suiting the action to the words. ‘Hector will be here in …' he glanced up at the clock, ‘about three minutes and we've got to get our woolly combs on yet. Chop chop.'

‘Dads! That should be chomp chomp!' Nolan could hardly eat for laughing.

‘Whatever,' drawled Maxwell. He usually hated smart-arses but the fact that this one was his son just underlined the basic truth of genetics so he let it go. ‘Let's just do it. We don't want to miss an afternoon's bogging, now do we?'

Henry Hall was not much given to introspection, but his interview with the Reverend Mattley had made him thoughtful. He had come down without a notepad and fished in his pocket for a piece of paper. The man's obvious distress and love for his wife had removed him from the list of suspects in Hall's view, but he realised after the man had gone that he had not asked him the reason for their separation. To remind himself to ask these questions later, he wrote ‘demons'. Then, after a bit of thought, he underlined it and added a question mark.

There was a tap at the door and Pete Spottiswood stuck his head round. ‘Guv?'

Hall looked up. ‘Shouldn't you be back at the scene? What are you doing here? Auntie's dog been taken ill?'

Spottiswood smiled grimly. He knew it would be a long time before he lived down his faux pas over Christmas. He was a frequent liar, just not a very good one. He could never remember what he had said. He decided to play it straight. ‘No, guv. It's fine, thank you. A sure-fire bet in the 6.30 at Brighton next Thursday. I've brought Sandra back with me. I think you'll want to hear what she has to say.' He reached behind him and produced the WPC like a rabbit out of a hat.

‘Guv.' She stood there, still pinched from the cold, eyes red with crying.

‘Sandra.' Hall had an idea that some of the rookies were scared of him, but they didn't usually cry.

Spottiswood was reluctant to give up the limelight. ‘Sandra knew the dead woman, sir. She has something to tell you.'

Hall looked down at the piece of paper on the table in front of him and folded it twice and put it in his pocket. Standing up, he said, ‘Let's get out of here, Sandra. We'll go up to my office. Pete?'

‘Yes, guv.'

‘Can you get us a couple of cups of coffee, please? Then you can get back to the scene. See if SOCO have any preliminary thoughts. Did I see Donald there?'

Spottiswood personally thought he would be hard to miss. ‘Yes, guv.'

‘See if he can give us a time for the post-mortem report being ready. We'll need toxicology, alcohol, that sort of thing.'

‘There'll be alcohol,' Sandra Bolton said. ‘I was with her last night and we had a few drinks. Only a couple, so after all this while there won't be much. She was certainly not over the limit to drive.' She started to cry again, quietly.

Hall looked at her and his face was even more set than usual. ‘WPC Bolton, are you telling me that you were out drinking with Sarah Gregson last night and you have taken …' he glanced at the clock on the wall, ‘you have taken over five hours to tell anyone?'

The woman nodded, miserably.

Hall sighed. ‘Come on, then,' and he ushered her out. ‘Up to my office. Pete, get someone to come and minute this.' He turned to Sandra Bolton. ‘You do understand that we have to take this seriously, Sandra? It may go further and we have to have a record.'

‘I'll minute, guv,' Spottiswood said, eagerly.

‘Thanks, but I've seen your shorthand. Send someone from the front office. And don't forget the coffee.' He led the way up the back stairs. He wished he hadn't sent Jacquie home. He had a feeling that this was going to need a woman's touch.

The phone was ringing when the Maxwells tumbled in through the front door. They were all wringing wet, but had had a marvellous time with Hector, who was indeed an expert tobogganer. He had even coined
a new word for their experience, which covered both Jacquie's and Maxwell's vocabulary; slebogganing. The American and Nolan had bonded immediately, and just as well, because Maxwell and Jacquie had turned out to be a major disappointment on the makeshift piste on the slope behind the Dam. It hadn't helped that half of Year Nine from Leighford High were there, the lads jeering (though quietly) at Maxwell's Winter Sports efforts, the girls cooing over Nolan who was still little and cute enough to bring out the incipient mother in them all. He was now slung over his father's shoulder like a deadweight and Jacquie answered the phone in the kitchen.

On his way into the sitting room where he planned to crash into his chair, having decanted his sleeping son on the sofa, Maxwell could only hear a muffled hum of a very one-sided conversation from across the landing. After a moment or two, Jacquie appeared in the doorway, holding the phone away from her and mouthing at Maxwell.

He mouthed back, ‘What?'

She tried again, but still with no success. She was clearly enunciating at least four syllables, but they didn't seem to make any sense.

‘What?' he mimed, in the silent version of a slightly testy shout. Marcel Marceau would have turned silently in his grave.

She gave up, dropping the arm holding the phone to her side. ‘It's Mrs Whatmough on the phone,
dear
,' she said. ‘Apparently, although she knows that I am a
very senior police person, she would prefer to speak to you.'

At the sound of his Headmistress's name, Nolan twitched in his sleep and made a lemon-sucking face. Maxwell stopped his task of stripping off the soggy siren suit and stood to attention. ‘Mrs Whatmough?'

‘You can say it out loud now, Max. I find it helps. Here you are.' She handed him the phone. ‘I'll take Nolan's wet clothes off.'

Maxwell made frantic hushing sounds. ‘We're probably not allowed to get him wet.'

‘He's not a Gremlin, Max. Are you going to take this call?' She held the phone out to him and shook it.

Maxwell took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair and gave himself a relaxing shake from shoulders to toes, as taught in music and movement at his infant school so many millennia ago. Then, with tummy and tail tucked in, he took the phone and reluctantly put it to his ear.

‘Mrs Whatmough! Hello. We were just drying him off, so he doesn't get a chill … Nolan. Yes, tobogganing.'

The phone gave an impatient quack.

‘Yes, he had a helmet on.' He raised his shoulders at Jacquie, trying to make her complicit in the lie. ‘Yes, indeed. Exhausted. Anyway, how may I help you?'

Rosemary Whatmough was not quite herself on this Sunday afternoon. Her Pekinese, around whom her non-school life, such as it was, revolved, did not like having wet belly fur, so had had to be accommodated on newspaper in the utility room, and she was not sure
who hated it the most, but she suspected it might well be the dog, who was making its extreme bad temper manifest by disembowelling a sofa cushion. In the middle of this outrage, Mrs Whatmough had received a phone call which had made the snow pale into insignificance and almost her first thought had been to call Peter Maxwell, for whom she secretly carried a bit of a torch. Not so much a torch, possibly, more of a glimmer, but she was not one to wear her heart on her sleeve in any case, so that was not the issue. No, she wanted to get to the bottom of the inconvenient behaviour of one of her staff and she knew he had a bit of a knack in that direction.

‘I beg your pardon?' Maxwell said, aghast, at the end of her monologue. ‘Murdered? I had no idea …' He looked down at Jacquie, kneeling on the rug removing Nolan's soggy shoes and rubbing his feet dry. Catching the look in her eye, he backed out and continued the conversation on the landing. ‘I did know there had been a murder, of course, but I didn't realise … No, my wife doesn't tell me things about her work. Confidentiality, Mrs Whatmough, confidentiality.'

The angry quacking from the telephone made it clear that Mrs Whatmough understood all there was to understand about confidentiality and indeed had more or less written the book on it. Her point was that a teacher from
her
school had been murdered and … a strange sound made Maxwell listen harder.

‘Mrs Whatmough, are you all right? Are you crying?' The Head of Sixth Form almost felt that he should look
outside, to see if a flock of pigs were flying overhead. It was certainly cold enough for hell to have frozen over. ‘Mrs Whatmough, please. This isn't getting us anywhere, is it? Are you able to get the car out?'