Maxwell's Island (20 page)

Millie got in the car and looked around, perplexed. ‘Where is Nolan?' she asked. ‘You surely haven't left him at home all alone?'

‘No,' Jacquie said, tersely. ‘Of course not. He is staying with some friends of ours. The school trip was a little stressful. Max and I needed a break for a day or two.'

‘Really,' Millie said, acidly. ‘Well, I must say, had I ever been lucky enough to have a child, especially one as lovely as Nolan,
I
shouldn't just leave him with any Tom, Dick or Harry because I wanted a break.'

‘Goodness me, Millie,' Maxwell said, mildly. ‘Keep your wig on. We are lucky to have Nolan, I especially am lucky to have him, and we don't just fling him at the nearest passer-by. But even if we did, I don't really think it is anyone's place to say so.' He might have been a public schoolboy, but even Maxwell had his limits. Neither David Starkey nor Jeremy Paxman were overkeen to mix it with him.

The sweet Millie was back in an instant. ‘Oh, no, no offence intended,' she purred, making the dashboard vibrate. ‘I just feel very strongly about family, as you know.'

Maxwell, who had come as near to hating history as he ever would come in his life whilst listening to her stories of genealogy adventures, nodded, his head lolling tiredly. He almost drifted off as Jacquie negotiated all the short cuts a woman policeman learns and got them to the station in record time. She stopped at the front entrance and leapt out and wrenched Millie's door open, virtually dragging the woman out.

‘Well, lovely to see you again, Millie. Where do you need the train for?'

‘Brighton, but …'

‘Lovely. Far platform. Around every half an hour at this time, I believe. Smashing to see you again. Bye bye.' She leapt into the car and was off, as if Leighford Station was the starting point of a race and she was in pole position.

Maxwell turned and waved out of the rear window as Millie's waving figure grew smaller as the distance between them grew, rather more quickly than the speed limit strictly allowed. Then they turned a corner and she was gone.

‘Tom, Dick or Harry?' exploded Jacquie. ‘Who the hell does she think she is?'

‘Well …'

‘Don't say Millie bloody Muswell or you can go and share her hotel room with her, Mister, and no mistake.' Jacquie was an excellent driver, which was just as well, because the phrase ‘to cut corners' was seldom as accurate as it was now. She flung the car round as though she was on a crash test circuit and, seat belt notwithstanding, Maxwell was flung from side to side as if he was the dummy of the same ilk. Something had upset her, and it wasn't a bit of lip from Millie Muswell. Experience told Maxwell to just hang on and wait; she would tell him in her own good time.

‘Sodding, buggering, sodding bugger,' Jacquie exploded as soon as they got through the front door at 38 Columbine and burst into tears.

‘Sweetheart,' Maxwell said, scooping her up, to get a kick on the shin and a thump on the arm for his pains. Plan B. ‘Jacquie.' He shook her. ‘What is the matter with you? Ever since …' he stopped shaking her and lowered his voice. ‘Ever since you got that phone call, you've been like a thing
possessed.' A horrible thought crept like cold water up the back of his neck, over his scalp and seemed to settle in the fine skin round his eyes, making it hard to focus. ‘What was it? Is it Mrs Troubridge? She seemed very …'

Jacquie shook her head, reached into her pocket and, pulling out a handkerchief, blew her nose hard. ‘No,' she said, squaring her shoulders and looking him in the eye, almost defiantly. ‘It's Izzy. Some kids looking for a quiet spot for a barbecue, smoke a few joints, generally not get interrupted, found her. She's dead at the bottom of a cliff, with a broken neck.' And finally, she fell into his arms and cried, cried for the dead woman, her husband and everything sad in the world.

Henry Hall was sitting quietly at his desk, full of a Chinese meal, but not so full that he couldn't cheerfully have eaten another, when his phone rang.

‘No calls,' he said sharply, then listened to the desk sergeant who was on the other end. ‘Is it? Put them through.' He waited only semi-patiently to the series of clicks and whirrs that this instruction set in motion.

‘Is that DCI Hall?' A woman's voice, clipped and businesslike came through.

‘Speaking.'

‘Sergeant Carpenter-Maxwell gave me your number and asked me to ring. This is Hampshire Police.'

‘Right.' Henry Hall armed himself with a pencil, ready to take down some numbers, names, case numbers. ‘Fire away.'

‘Nothing to fire with, really, DCI Hall,' the woman said, flatly. ‘I am just ringing to tell you
that, pending visual identification, we believe we have found the body of Isabelle Medlicott.'

Hall dropped his pencil and also almost dropped the phone. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I thought you were just ringing to … well, to make contact.' He found his pencil again and pulled a larger piece of paper towards him. ‘Where was she found?'

‘At the bottom of a cliff, not much more than half a mile from the hotel where the group was staying. As I understand it, they did go out to look for her.'

‘I believe so, yes,' said Hall, making notes.

‘If you should come across any of the people involved in that search, then I would appreciate if you could make it clear to them that it would have made no difference had they found her. Death was instantaneous.'

After he got used to the feeling that the woman was reading from a script, Hall appreciated her style. ‘I assume she struck a rock, or something. With her head?' Without small talk from the other end, not so much as an ‘uh-huh' it was like talking into a bucket.

‘She may well have done, yes,' the policewoman said. ‘In fact, there are contusions on Mrs Medlicott's body, but they are all post-mortem. In fact, our pathologist is of the opinion that her neck was broken at the cliff top.'

Henry Hall felt the world stop turning. His life flashed before him, especially the bit spent sitting next to Mrs Troubridge's bed, looking
at all the many and varied bruises on her body. In his memory, it seemed that there were some, around her neck, that had nothing to do with a fall downstairs. ‘Strangled?' he asked.

‘No. He thinks a chop. She has grass and soil under her fingernails, so we think that it was a push, but she saved herself. Then, the murderer leant over and gave her a karate chop with the side of the hand. He must have been quite powerful.'

‘Definitely a man?' Hall had to check, but a man was beginning to take shape in his mind. Not too powerful in the Arnold Schwarzenegger sense, perhaps, but fit enough.

‘I should say so, but, of course, we must never say never, DCI Hall. Anyway, I'm sorry to be ringing you so late and with such sad news. I understand that Sergeant Carpenter-Maxwell was a friend of the family.'

‘She knows them, yes,' Hall said. He didn't want to label Jacquie as a friend. It was going to be bad enough trying to tie everything together, what with different forces and only a thread in his brain to link them, without having Jacquie off the case because of conflict of interest.

‘She seemed quite upset,' the woman remarked.

‘She would be, yes. She … it's very complicated.'

‘I see. Well, apart from keeping you in the loop, DCI Hall, I rang to ask if you could send someone out to inform the husband. Sergeant Carpenter-Maxwell was very insistent that we didn't phone
him. She said he is under medication at the moment, is that right?'

‘He is, yes,' Hall confirmed. ‘He came in to the station, but we took medical advice and our police surgeon gave him a sedative and we took him home.' He sensed the woman's heightened awareness on the other end of the phone.

‘He's been in to the station? May I ask why, particularly?'

‘We just wanted a chat. We only had second-hand information and I felt that since this had happened on a school trip, we needed extra confirmation, in case this should become a child protection issue.' Hall was proud of himself; he had managed to justify himself without lying too much.

Back in her night-dark office, his caller smiled. Clever. Very clever. There was some other issue here that he wasn't going to share. However, he clearly wasn't going to tell her what his agenda was and, with all the other things on her desk, she didn't really want to know all that much. So she let him off the hook. ‘I see. You have his address, then?'

‘Yes, we do.' She seemed to have bought it, to his surprise.

‘Well, DCI Hall, if I could leave it with you, then? I'm not sure how to arrange identification if Mr Medlicott is too ill to travel, but we can talk that over tomorrow, perhaps.'

‘Be glad to,' Henry said. ‘Could I have a contact
number for you?' She gave it and he wrote it down. ‘Thank you. Goodnight.' He put the phone down and rubbed his eyes, which were suddenly feeling rather tired. Then he picked up the phone again and dialled zero for the front desk. ‘Do we have a WPC around at the moment?' he asked.

‘Yes, guv,' the desk sergeant said. ‘We've got …' There was a pause as he turned to look at the duty roster. ‘Sorry, guv. My mistake. I thought we had Mel, but she's off sick. Do you want me to call someone in?'

‘No, no. Don't do that,' Hall said. Staff off sick could become part of a vicious circle if the powers that be weren't careful and he had seen it many times. Staff off sick means everyone else works twice as hard. Working twice as hard means going off sick, with stress, viruses or just good old fedupitis. Best not start that cascade off. He sighed and said, ‘I'll do it. Just send anyone you've got to the car park and I'll be down there in a minute.'

‘Need anything special, guv? Ram, anything like that?' The desk sergeant watched a lot of American TV and was beginning to lose the flavour of life on the streets of Leighford.

‘No. Nothing special. A box of tissues might come in handy, though.'

‘Oh,' the desk man understood at once. ‘One of those. OK, guv. Will do.' And the phone went down with a clatter.

Henry Hall sat for a moment, hands flat on his
desk. He took a deep breath and stood up, reaching behind him for his jacket. He hated these jobs, but he was glad he had drawn the short straw. He would be on the spot to see how Medlicott reacted to the news of his wife's death. He had had to shelve one theory – suicide – because surely even the most determined suicide didn't push themselves off the cliff with a well-aimed karate chop. So now he had just the two theories – wandering maniac or conspiracy. He had long ceased to believe in the wandering maniac, so that left him with one theory, which he could put to the test as soon as he got to the Medlicott's house. He checked he had his keys, switched off his desk light and ran down the back stairs to the car park.

Maxwell and Jacquie had settled down in their respective seats in the sitting room with their respective favourite drinks in hand. Metternich stretched out along the back of the sofa and every now and then touched a paw to Jacquie's shoulder. She turned her head and nuzzled his back.

‘You're an old softie,' she said. The cat, outraged, got up and walked away, his tail high, his pencil sharpener bum swaggering from side to side. You give them an inch …

‘Oops,' Maxwell told her. ‘You've offended him now.'

‘Well, he is,' she said, taking a sip of her gin and tonic, not quite Pansy-style, but pretty near. She
curled her feet up under her and sighed. ‘Sorry for being so wet earlier,' she said.

‘Sweetie,' Maxwell said. ‘You had every right. You've had a hell of a day, well, hell of a week, really. School trips are far more stressful than anybody thinks, though I must say the kids this time deserve to be mentioned in despatches. I've never known such a good year group. I thought we had the difficult ones; I think someone must have got the paperwork mixed up.'

‘Some of them were a bit strange,' Jacquie said. ‘The one with the notebook.'

‘Ah, the lovely Jarvis,' Maxwell said.

‘I thought his name was Gervaise,' Jacquie said. ‘That's what it had on the list.'

‘Long story. My favourite was the one who folded everything. Did you notice her?'

‘Oh. Do you know, I wondered where all those little pellets of paper were coming from. Which one was that?' She was enjoying this, even if it was just pencil sharpening to stay away from the job in hand.

‘It was that tiny little girl, the one with the plait with about three hairs in it. She folded everything, not just paper. She was sitting next to the one with the ears, you know the one.' He chuckled, just picturing it.

‘How could you miss? She looked like a taxi with the doors open.'

‘Yes, very unfortunate for the poor child. We
were coming back from … Carisbrooke, I think it was. I took a stroll down the bus and there they were, the folder had folded the ear kid's ears right in. They looked like little envelopes. Uncanny, it looked, and then, suddenly,' he was leaning forward, drawing her in, ‘they popped out.' He sprang upright, hands in the air.

Jacquie was laughing now. ‘Poor kid. What did she do?'

‘Just folded them back in. It was like earigami.'

Jacquie was disappointed. ‘I thought that was a true story,' she complained. ‘But you did it just for the joke.'

‘No,' he protested. ‘It really happened. I just thought of the joke, just now. Ask Sylv. She took a picture.'

‘Talking of pictures,' Jacquie said. ‘I've downloaded the pictures from the camera. Henry wanted one of … one of Izzy.'

Maxwell decided to ignore it for the present. ‘Are they good? The pictures?'

‘Some are. The problem was we were always with so many people. Not just the kids and staff but holidaymakers, all over the shop. And I would swear there isn't a single one without Pansy in it.'

‘Surely not that one of Nole and me cleaning our teeth?'

She laughed. ‘No, perhaps not that one.' She twirled her glass and watched the last shards of ice break up and disappear. ‘We've got to talk about
it, Max. We can't pretend it hasn't happened, can we?'

‘No,' he said, solemnly. ‘We can't. But I think we can leave it until tomorrow. You're so tired I don't know how you're still upright. There's nothing we can do tonight. Henry will see to it that Tom is told properly, sympathetically. Tomorrow, when we all feel a bit brighter, you can call Henry and see if there is anything you can do.' It almost cost him an arm and a leg, but he didn't ask her a single question about what she knew about the case. He could feel the words bouncing around in his head, in his mouth, beating on the inside of his skull to be let out. But he knew that this wasn't the time. With his wife, as with good comedy, timing was everything, so he would wait.

Jacquie wasn't so tired that she didn't wonder what Maxwell was up to; why wasn't he bombarding her with questions? Perhaps she
was
too tired. She wasn't concentrating. She put down her glass and yawned, stretching. ‘I think I will go up to bed. I'm pooped.'

‘Of course you are, heart. I'll come and tuck you in, then I might do a spot of modelling. Is that OK?'

She stood up and reached out a hand to him. ‘That would be lovely. Come on, then, up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.' She pretended to haul him hand over hand to his feet and they went upstairs.

While she was in the bathroom, he turned back the duvet and fluffed her pillows. He turned on her bedside light and turned off the main one, so that when she came back all she could see was an inviting patch of sheet in a pool of warm light, the man she loved standing there with her book in his hand, ready to hand her into bed like a very attentive butler.

‘Oh, no reading, I don't think,' she said, turning on her side. She switched her light off and reached up, lips pursed cartoon-style for a kiss. ‘Night night. See you in the morning.'

‘Night night,' he said, ‘Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite.' He looked down at his wife with a smile, but she was already asleep.

It was not true that Peter Maxwell could only think straight when he was talking to his cat. He had many cogent thoughts when sitting apparently asleep in staff briefings at Leighford High School, as James Diamond could ruefully attest. He could follow a train of thought through the most labyrinthine of A level Politics debates, blowing the arrogant and the ignorant out of the water having apparently been sitting marking in a corner of the room. But when it came to unravelling a crime, especially the crime of murder, his favourite sparring partner was definitely Metternich, the cat who thought for himself.

Maxwell switched on the modelling lamp which
hung over his work table. A deep pool of shadow was over the basket which had, through long usage, become the Count's favourite seat. It had once belonged in the bathroom, but now, matted with a lightly padded covering of black and white hair, it was generally agreed that the cat could have it. He showed as some white patches in the gloom, which stirred slightly when the light snapped on.

Maxwell adjusted the vintage forage cap which gave him his inspiration till it was at the correct angle. He picked up the partially constructed James Olley of the 4th Light Dragoons and chose a suitable brush and pot of colour. He held his breath as he applied the first delicate stroke and then exhaled gently, so as not to disturb the tiny fragments of paper, the shards of plastic which, in the fullness of time, might well become a vital piece of some other figure.

Metternich was far too polite to begin the conversation. There was a certain protocol which prevailed in these private chats and the cat had indeed known occasions when Maxwell came up to the loft just to be quiet by the simple expedient of not speaking. But somehow, something in the air tonight kept the beast on his perch, though his superfine hearing could detect the scrabbling of bats in the eaves, the swish of tiny feet through the grass at the edge of the lawn. Given the time and the solitude, he could have heard the moths beating their powdery way towards the glow of
the street light. All of them were fair game, some tastier than others. Moths, for example, made him sneeze. He'd take a frog if one crossed his path, but preferred not to, because they made him dribble. And if a frog followed a moth, he could be all night cleaning the resultant goo off his whiskers. Bats just tasted of old shoes marinated in wee. Voles made good presents, but there was nothing quite like a nice corn-fed mouse, best at this time of year. Metternich preferred to eat seasonally; he liked to watch Jamie Oliver as well as the next mammal. These mouse-based musings were interrupted as Maxwell turned to him and said something he didn't catch.