Maxwell’s House (15 page)

‘Be careful,’ Sally Greenhow had warned him as he tumbled out of the Peugeot. He’d kissed her hand and gone inside. On his last visit the haunting ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ had filled the night. Now it all seemed to be no tune known to man. He ordered a double Southern Comfort from the spotty lad who ran the bar and found a seat in the corner.

How long he stayed there, he didn’t know. People came and went, girls with bums encased in tight, short skirts, lads in trainers or Doc Martens. Some he recognized from Leighford High, all of them looking rather older than they actually were and most of them under the legal age for drinking. The lad on the bar didn’t give a damn. If they showed him folding stuff, he served them.

A few of them recognized Mad Max too and veered away. Only some thick shit he’d taught in Year 11, perhaps three years ago, hailed him.

‘All right, sir?’ and he raised his pint in Maxwell’s direction.

Maxwell raised his third Southern Comfort in retaliation. It was usually the way. They couldn’t stand you in school, made your life one long hell, but outside, on the street, in the pub, in the dark of Little Willie’s, it was all mates together. Maxwell couldn’t even remember the thick shit’s name.

He’d been watching all night for a tall, fair-haired youth who attracted girls. He’d asked the barman, on his second drink, if Maz ever came in. ‘Who wants to know?’ had been the response. When Maxwell told him he did, the barman didn’t know any Maz. He knew a Baz. But Baz was doing three years in Maidstone. He wouldn’t be in tonight.

Maxwell had had enough Southern Comfort. The room was beyond that vague wobble – it was positively swimming. He’d had enough of the noise too. It was hammering through his head like a pneumatic drill. He downed the last of his glass and grabbed his hat. A totally pointless evening.

‘Oi, watch it, Grandad.’ He collided with a blonde girl in a mock leather jacket, almost as passé as he was.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘’Ere, it’s Mr Maxwell, ain’t it?’

‘Um?’ For the life of him, Maxwell couldn’t place the name. The face he knew certainly, the full mouth, the rows of ear-rings glittering in both lobes. He’d never seen the cleavage before, either, but that would have developed after she’d left school. She’d never joined the sixth form; that much was certain.

‘It’s Janice,’ she jogged his memory. ‘Janice Dodds. I’ve got a kid now.’

‘Well, well.’ Glancing at her frontage, Maxwell was surprised she didn’t have several. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Wot you doin’ ’ere, then?’ she asked him, hauling him down beside her. ‘After a bit of skirt?’ and she winked and drove her elbow into his ribs. She crossed her legs without an inch of suavity and he couldn’t help glancing down as men will. Perhaps that was the bit of skirt Janice had in mind? There certainly didn’t seem to be much of it.

‘No,’ he smiled, ‘I was just having a quiet drink.’

‘That’s a laugh round ’ere,’ she bellowed over the din. The lights flashed red and blue and green, casting lurid shadows on the dancers who gyrated in the centre of the floor. ‘I thought you was after a bit. Old blokes come in ’ere all the time.’

‘Do they?’

‘Oh, yeah. One the other night had his tadger out under the table. Laugh!’ and she did, rather like a donkey in labour. Not that Maxwell had ever heard a donkey in labour.

‘Are you here with your husband?’ he asked the girl.

She snorted and blew bubbles in her drink. ‘You must be jokin’,’ she told him. ‘Nah, I’m ‘ere wiv Kay.’

‘Kay’s your friend?’

‘Yeah.’ She looked at him oddly. ‘Yeah, that’s right. ’E’s just ’avin’ a slash. ’E’ll be ’ere in a minute.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Maxwell said. ‘Kay’s a man.’

‘Of course he’s a man. I ain’t come ’ere wiv another girl since I was fourteen. ’E’s a proper gent is Kay.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Maxwell’s eyes focused on the figure who suddenly stood before them, beer in hand, staring at him. ‘Yes, indeed. Keith Miller is a proper gent.’

‘We’re going.’ Miller was talking to the girl.

‘They call you K?’ Maxwell was with them, batting people aside as all three of them made for the exit.

‘Piss off, Max,’ he heard Miller grunt and Maxwell collided with a column, his concentration broken, his quarry gone. Frantically he looked around him. There. On the steps. By the door. Janice was being dragged by the wrist, teetering on her ludicrous platform soles, glancing back to see where Maxwell was. He launched himself at the steps, bounding up two at a time, jostling past a couple necking at the top. Then he was out in the night and the tarmac glistened at his feet.

‘Keith!’ He could see them running across the car-park, could hear the girl’s heels clattering like some demented typewriter. It had been a long time since Peter Maxwell had run like this, a long time since his sprinting days at Jesus. Still, some things you didn’t forget. Like falling off a bike really. His hand gripped Miller’s sleeve and he spun him round. ‘Just a word, Keith,’ Maxwell gasped.

‘Let go of me, Max.’ Miller’s eyes flashed in the darkness. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘Hurt me?’ Maxwell watched his breath snake out on the damp air. ‘Why would you want to do that, Keith?’

‘Just leave well alone!’ Miller barked and fumbled with his keys in the lock.

‘How well did you know Jenny Hyde?’ Maxwell asked him.

‘Shit!’ Miller’s key had slipped from the lock.

‘Keith,’ Maxwell spun him round, ‘I have to know.’

It had been a long time since Peter Maxwell had had a fist fight too. In his day there were vague rules and some misguided knight-errantry within him had told him never to throw the first punch. So it was now. He felt the breath leave his body as Miller’s fist came from nowhere and caught him in the pit of his stomach. He felt his knees hit the tarmac and his lungs hit his chin. His reaction was faster, however, than Miller had expected and Maxwell threw himself forward so that his head thudded into Miller’s groin.

‘Bastard!’ the younger man hissed, reeling away from the car and clutching his crotch.

Maxwell was back on his feet by the time Miller was able to straighten.

‘What’s the matter, Keith?’ he rasped, fighting to regain his breath, through the shock and the winding he had received. ‘Guilty conscience?’

‘Come on, you two!’ Janice Dodds’s shrill tones tried to break the tension of the moment.

There were shouts from the neon-lit forecourt of Little Willie’s as punters realized a punch-up had started and hurried over to watch or join in, as they saw fit. Maxwell was ready for the next one. Clearly, Keith Miller had been misjudged by Janice Dodds. He wasn’t a proper gent, after all, and he proved it by lashing out with his right boot. Maxwell caught it with his left hand and wrenched to the right, throwing the younger man heavily against his car. Then he broke all the rules he’d ever lived by and drove his elbow into the man’s kidneys. Miller slumped forward over the bonnet.

‘Bloody right!’ someone shouted. ‘Good on yer, granddad.’

Janice was reaching down, trying to peel Keith Miller off the car, to see how badly he was hurt. She was knocked sideways as he hauled himself up and caught Maxwell high in the ribs with both fists clasped together. Then the boot came up again, once, twice, three times in quick succession and Maxwell went down. He felt Miller’s boot hit his head, his back, his head again. Then there was a scraping of boots on tarmac and he heard Janice screaming at her proper gent, ‘Fuckin’ leave ’im alone. You’re fuckin’ killin’ ’im.’

Miller pushed her away and scrabbled for his keys again. Then he was in the car and was gone. A pair of hands cradled Maxwell’s head. He felt cold, old, finished. ‘Well, then,’ he coughed in the wake of the car’s rear lights, ‘we’ll call it a draw, shall we?’ He could just make out the contorted face of Janice Dodds peering into his own. ‘It’s a line’, he managed, ‘from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’ He didn’t remember any more.

15

‘Do you give your cat milk or what?’

Peter Maxwell recognized the words but the voice was alien at first.

‘Can you hear me?’ It got louder.

He realized he was lying on his own settee, blinking up at the over-made-up face of Janice Dodds. ‘Yes. Yes,’ he replied to her questions.

‘Do you give your cat milk?’ she asked again.

‘Yes,’ Maxwell repeated.

‘Wassisname?’ she asked.

‘Metternich.’ He tried to straighten.

‘Now, come on,’ she steadied him, ‘you’ve got a great big lump on your ’ead. You don’t wanna to be jumping about for a while.’

‘Janice.’ Maxwell felt his temple. She was right. A great big lump. And his jaw wasn’t working too chipperly either. ‘How did I get here?’

‘In a taxi, darlin’,’ she said. ‘The fare was two pound twenty-five. I found it in your pocket. ’Ope you don’t mind.’

‘Er … no.’ Maxwell couldn’t even focus on his living-room, much less the small change that may or may not have been in his jacket pocket. ‘The cab-driver didn’t think it odd, my bleeding over his plastic?’

‘Nah, ’e thought you was pissed. Anyhow ’e was too busy coppin’ the view up my skirt to notice you.’

Maxwell groaned as the pain hit him in the side.

‘Oh,’ she put her arm around his neck, ‘an’ I reckon Kay broke one or two o’ your ribs an’ all.’

‘I reckon you’re right,’ Maxwell winced.

‘Why?’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘Why did you ’ave a go at ‘im?’

‘I thought you said he was a proper gent.’

‘Did I?’ She dropped her arm and shrugged. ‘Well, nobody’s perfect. ’E’s got a bloody terrible temper, ’as Kay. An’ ’e’s gotta be twenty years younger than you.’

‘Well, perhaps ten.’ Maxwell had a bruised ego somewhere, as well as a bruised body. ‘How did you know where I lived?’

She reached to her left and wagged his wallet at him. ‘I may not have done very good in GCSEs but I can fuckin’ read like the next one.’ She pulled out a card. ‘Peter Maxwell, Thirty-eight, Columbine Avenue, Leighford, West Sussex, Haitch Ell One Five, Two Eff Oh. Who’s this?’

Maxwell forced his eyes to focus on the faded, crumpled photograph in the girl’s hand. For an instant, he wanted to reach out, snatch it from her. But he didn’t have the strength. And he didn’t have the will.

‘My wife,’ he said. ‘My wife and daughter.’

‘I didn’t know you was married,’ she said. ‘At school we all thought you was gay.’

‘Thanks,’ and even to smile cost him dearly. ‘I’m a widower,’ he told her. ‘My wife and daughter … They were killed in a car crash before I came to Leighford. By a police patrol car chasing some tearaways. If she were alive today, my little girl would be twenty-two.’

‘Oh, that’s ever so sad,’ Janice said, her bright eyes like saucers. ‘What was ’er name? Your little kid?’

‘Jenny,’ he said. ‘It was Jenny.’

‘Mine’s Tracey,’ Janice beamed. ‘She’s two an’ a ’alf.’

‘Of course it is,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Lovely name. God …’ and the pain caught him again.

‘Look, Mr Maxwell, you oughter be in hospital. You could die, y’know.’

‘I could,’ he nodded. Secretly he thought he already had. ‘What time is it, Janice?’

‘Half-past two.’

‘Christ. Look, shouldn’t you be getting back? I mean, your baby …’

‘Me muvver’s looking after Trace. She didn’t expect me back for ages anyhow.’

‘What if someone saw you?’ Maxwell asked her, bringing his lolling head forward as quickly as he dared. ‘Coming here, I mean?’

‘Nah, it’s a nice place,’ she assured him. ‘Oh, I see. You mean, seen wiv you? I ain’t proud,’ and she was about to dig him in the ribs when she remembered his predicament. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m worried about you. Mean, you’re bloody knockin’ on, aintchya? Lie down.’

‘What?’ But even as he said it, she’d tucked his feet up on the sofa and had hauled up his shirt tails. ‘Bloody ‘ellfire. You’re all black and blue.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘It goes with being a colourful character.’

‘No wonder they used to call you Mad Max. ’Ere, you got any cocoa?’

‘In the kitchen.’ He pointed vaguely to it. ‘The cupboard on the left.’

‘D’ya want anything in it? Brandy or somefink?’

‘What?’ Maxwell coughed. ‘And ruin a perfectly good cup of cocoa? No thanks. What I would like, Janice, are some answers.’

‘Oh yeah?’ She peered oddly at him. ‘Like what?’

‘Like what Keith Miller’s got to do with girls like Jenny Hyde?’

She got up and he heard her rattling the kettle, running the tap.

‘I’m not asking too much, am I?’ he called, but the pain was too much and he had to lie back, thinking of England the while, of course.

She filled the doorway, leaning against the frame, hand on hip, the eternal piece of chewing gum rotating slowly around her mouth. Languidly she blew a bubble. ‘Nah,’ she said finally, ‘I was wrong about ’im. ’E ain’t a proper gent, ’e’s a proper shit.’

Well, Maxwell thought; that at least was progress.

‘Mind you …’ She’d gone again, rummaging in his cupboards for cups. Metternich the cat had loped off upstairs to sulk. ‘I don’t know all the details.’

‘You must know some.’ Maxwell managed to raise his voice again. The beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.

‘You’re runnin’ a temperature.’ She was next to him again, wiping his face with a tea towel. ‘Poor little bleeder. You know,’ she peered closely at him, ‘you’re smaller than I remember.’

‘Size isn’t everything,’ Maxwell reminded her.

‘That’s just as bloody well,’ Janice giggled. ‘’E’s ’ad a lot of girls.’

‘Who?’

‘Kay. Look, I’m not proud. It’s not easy, y’know, bein’ a single parent family. Especially with what them bastards in the government are tryin’ to do. So I took up wiv Kay cos ’e’s a meal ticket. Y’know, the odd nosh, a few drinks at the bar. An’ if that means a knee-trembler now and then, well …’

‘I hope I haven’t spoiled all that for you,’ Maxwell said.

‘Nah.’ She patted his knee, probably the only part of his body that didn’t feel it had been squeezed through a mangle. ‘There’s plenty more where ’e come from.’

‘About the girls …’ Maxwell couldn’t leave it there.

In a moment, Janice had gone away and come back again with two steaming mugs of cocoa. ‘Like I say,’ she flounced down again, smoothing her leather skirt over her solid thighs, ‘I don’t know all the details.’ She saw his crest fall and took pity on him. ‘But, yeah, I do know some of ’em,’ and she winked. ‘But first,’ and she clasped her hands on her knees, ‘I got to know why you want to know.’

‘Because I have to,’ Maxwell told her. ‘You’ve heard about Tim Grey?’

‘That lad what was murdered?’

‘One of my sixth form. At Leighford High. Before that, Jenny Hyde.’

‘She was done in months ago. Some maniac raped her.’

‘Well, not exactly, Janice.’ He sipped the cocoa but it hurt going down. ‘A maniac killed her, certainly, but she wasn’t raped.’

She squinted at him over her nose. ‘How do you know?’

He never remembered her arguing with him at school. But then she’d been five years younger and Maxwell had been on his own turf – the intellectual rigours of GCSE History. Now it was a different story.

‘I spoke to the doctor on the case. It was made to look like rape; that’s not quite the same thing.’

‘Why should anybody want to make it look like rape?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was hoping Kay could tell me.’

‘Nah,’ she dismissed it. ‘’E’s’ not a killer. Oh, ’e’s got a foul temper, yeah – well, you saw that tonight. But ’e’s never knocked me around.’

‘How long have you been going with him, Janice?’

‘Ooh, about three months. Before that ’e used to ’ang around wiv a Chichester girl and then there was Lucy Somefink-or-other from Tottingleigh. You wouldn’t know her – she didn’t go to Leighford High. ’E just fancied ’isself, that’s all. His wife was always up the spout and didn’t come across. Always the headaches, y’know.’

Maxwell knew as he forced his lips to the mug again. Maxwell knew.

‘I never heard ’e was with that Jenny Hyde. But I’m not sayin’ ’e wasn’t. I just don’t know. ’Ow’s your ’ead now?’

‘I’ll let you know when I’ve found it again,’ he said and flopped back on the settee.

‘I bet Maz’d know, though. ’E knows everyfink, does Maz. He’s a fuckin’ shit, mind. You gotta watch ’im.’

‘Maz?’ His head snapped forward again and he instantly regretted it.

‘Malcolm, then.’ She spelt it out. ‘Malcolm Whatsit … oh, I forget his other name. If it wears a skirt, Maz’d know all about it.’

‘Where do I find him?’ he asked.

‘Over at Barlichway. In a squat. I dunno the address. But it’s down by the railway. I could take you there.’

‘You’ve done more than enough,’ he said.

‘Nah. But look,’ she gulped down the last of her cocoa, ‘you’re all in. You need a bit of shuteye. D’you want me to put you to bed or are you all right down ’ere?’

‘Here will be fine,’ he said.

‘I’m on the social at the moment,’ she told him, ‘so I’m free in the mornin’, but I gotta take Tracey to the clinic. She’s got the squits somethin’ awful. What time d’you want me round? I’ll take you to Maz. You won’t be goin’ into school wiv ribs like that.’

‘No,’ he tried to chuckle, but soon regretted it. ‘I won’t be going into school tomorrow. Janice …’

‘What?’ She paused on his sheepskin.

He reached out a hand. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You’ve made an old man tolerably happy.’

She reached down and patted his crotch. ‘Yeah, well, I’d make you even ’appier, but I’m not sure you’re up to it. I’ll see myself out. Good-night.’

The only sound at first was the clack of her platforms on the glistening pavement. Then, the growl of the car engine, snarling behind her, drowned out her footsteps. She walked faster, aware of the headlights, but it was too late.

He wound down the window and leaned out. ‘You working, darling?’

‘Not for you, wanker,’ she sneered.

The car screeched and jolted alongside of her. Two men got out, one at the front, one at the back and Janice Dodds disappeared inside.

She did not come in the morning. She did not come at noon. Peter Maxwell had spent a horrendous night, of the sort you get once in a lifetime. He certainly hadn’t slept and Metternich the cat, sensing that the alien presence had gone, ignored his shattered master’s wounds and lay throughout the wee small hours on his chest. It felt like fifteen men, but Maxwell didn’t have the strength to boot him off and put all his concentration into breathing with the minimum of pain.

‘No pain, no gain,’ he muttered to himself as he watched the September morning climb the walls. It would soon be half-term in the world and he was an old man in a hurry. Somehow he lifted Metternich off and sat up. It was only then that he realized how much better he’d felt lying down. Steadying himself on the coffee table, he hauled himself upright and crawled along the furniture. He knew he couldn’t make the bathroom so he dabbed his burning face and bursting head with cold water from the kitchen tap and draped his jacket over one shoulder. He certainly couldn’t manage the other.

‘Very jaunty,’ he said as he caught sight of himself in the mirror. ‘Very gay hussar. Jesus, Maxie, is that you?’ He daren’t peer too close. He looked like Hurd Hatfield at the end of Dorian Grey, when the man’s sins had caught up with him. There was a purple ridge running from his hairline to his eyebrow and both his eyes were black. He fumbled for his wallet and his scarf. The hat he would leave behind as he wasn’t sure it would fit on his head. He would go to Barlichway. He’d catch a cab. Better still, ring for one. He’d knock on every damn door in the area if necessary, but he’d find Maz. But first he had to find the stairs.

Chief Inspector Henry Hall didn’t like the way the wind was blowing. There were two men in front of him in his incident room office and he didn’t like either of them. What was worse, and this was an altogether new sensation, he didn’t trust them.

‘Well then,’ he said softly, his eyes cold behind the gold-rimmed specs, ‘this surveillance that I didn’t order; what fruit did it bear?’

‘Fruit, guv?’ DC Halsey chuckled, frowning at the same time.

Hall leaned forward, the relaxed pose gone, the fist quietly clenched on the desk. Only the face remained unchanged; immobile. ‘I assume, Detective Constable, that you are an obnoxious shit by birth and inclination and not just putting it on for my benefit.’

Halsey blinked, clearly dumbfounded. He cleared his throat. ‘I request a transfer, sir,’ he said.

‘Excellent.’ Hall sat back again. ‘That’s four hours’ paperwork before it even reaches Mr Johnson here. I ask again, Dave – the surveillance?’

‘Maxwell was visited by a Mrs Sally Greenhow from Leighford High at twenty thirteen hours last night.’

‘Do we know her?’

‘She was interviewed by DC Carpenter earlier this month. Routine stuff. She’d taught Jenny Hyde at some time in the past, but had no known recent link.’

‘What’s her connection with Maxwell?’ Hall wanted to know.

Johnson shook his head. ‘Colleagues,’ he said. ‘Both in the History Department. But she doubles up in Special Needs, whatever that is.’

‘A frequent visitor to his home?’

Johnson shrugged again. ‘We don’t know,’ he said, and couldn’t resist adding, ‘Of course, if I’d been able to set up surveillance earlier …’

‘… I’d have been two men short earlier,’ Hall observed. ‘You’ve yet to convince me, Dave.’

‘It’s my guess there’s something going on between them.’ Johnson put his cards on the table.

‘Why?’ Hall asked.

‘How would you describe Sally Greenhow, George?’ Johnson turned to the constable.

‘Young, quite pretty. Quite … girlish, really.’

‘Pubescent.’ Johnson underlined it for his boss. ‘Slim. Little tits.’

‘So?’ Hall scowled. Johnson certainly had a way with words.

‘Well, don’t you see the pattern, guv?’ Johnson was exasperated, his hands outspread.

‘Not yet.’ Hall remained a wall of obstinacy.

‘Little girls,’ Johnson said. ‘Jenny Hyde. Sally Greenhow. Others we don’t know about.’

‘You’re reaching, Dave,’ was Hall’s comment.