Maxwell's Island (26 page)

Maxwell, Jacquie and Mrs Troubridge were all stunned into a mildly catatonic state. Finally, she said, softly, ‘Well, that was nice, Mr Maxwell. An old pupil.'

‘Yes, indeed,' Maxwell said. ‘Always nice to catch up. But anyway, Mrs Troubridge, how are you? It's so nice to see you looking better.'

She leant slightly in his direction and Jacquie leant also, to hear what she said. ‘As soon as I saw you, Mr Maxwell, I started to feel better. I knew you wouldn't let her hurt me.'

‘Who, Mrs Troubridge?' Jacquie said. ‘Let who hurt you?'

The old lady furrowed her brow. ‘That's the trouble,' she said. ‘I don't know.' She shook her head. ‘It's probably part of my dream. It's all so confused. There was so much in it that I don't understand. Two television sets, I remember that. Side by side. And definitely a wardrobe. And Metternich.' Again, she furrowed her brow. ‘I've got to feed him, haven't I? He'll be hungry.' She released her hands from theirs and tried to throw back the covers. ‘We don't want another Incident, do we?'

‘It's all right,' Maxwell said. ‘Metternich isn't hungry. You need to stay here until you're quite well. We're looking after the house for you. Mrs B will be watering the plants and so forth. She'll be in to see you, later on, when she's finished her rounds with the trolley.'

‘Who?' Mrs Troubridge looked from Jacquie to Maxwell, confused.

‘Mrs B,' Jacquie said. ‘You know, the lady who cleans our house.'

‘Polishing?' Mrs Troubridge asked, her eyes swivelling from side to side.

‘Well, yes, and other things. She will be looking after your things as well, while you're in here.'

‘Tell her not to polish the wardrobe!' Mrs Troubridge called. ‘Don't let her hurt me!'

The nurse wasn't to be stopped this time. She appeared like a genie at the foot of the bed. ‘I think Mrs Troubridge has had enough excitement for one day, don't you?' she asked, rhetorically. ‘I think it's time you both went.'

It would be a step too far to kiss Mrs Troubridge. So they patted a shoulder each and walked away, turning to wave as they went. But Mrs Troubridge was in the nurse's hands now, and she didn't see them go. They could just hear her, faintly, start to count down from one million.

Pausing only to prise Nolan from the arms of Sylvia and Guy and a sobbing Lucy, and via a fish and chip supper, the Maxwell family had an early night. They had made a solemn undertaking not to discuss the case and so Maxwell was like a pressure cooker that needed its valve adjusting, especially since the visit to Mrs Troubridge. But Jacquie was unshakeable. She had deafness so selective that she
only seemed to hear Nolan or comments about food or television. Maxwell's attempts to sneak one in under the wire by asking her how she thought Mrs Troubridge would like one of Jamie Oliver's school dinners, or what she thought Mrs Troubridge would think of the weatherman's jacket were ignored. Finally, he gave in to the inevitable and played a rather one-sided game of Scrabble with Nolan – one-sided because a new rule, invented by his son that very evening, meant that the biggest person only got to play with consonants. Nolan won 703 to 4. A personal best.

Sunday was much the same, with additional antiques, pub lunch and animals. Maxwell had never hated his job, so Mondays held no terrors for him. But he found himself, that Sunday night as he cleaned his teeth ready for bed, looking forward to a Monday more than he had for a long time.

As he watched in the darkness, the LED on the clock rearranged themselves silently to say ‘00:01:01'. He poked his wife in the back. ‘It's Monday,' he pointed out.

‘I'm ignoring you,' she said. ‘And also asleep.'

‘But, technically …'

‘I'm
asleep
,' she repeated. ‘I'll see you in the morning.'

And finally, he was asleep too, his dreams full of old ladies flying past on leathern wings, chased by Metternich, trying to claw them out of the air.

Monday. Monday. Hate that day. Legs Diamond didn't do whole-school assemblies; his doctor advised against it because it was more or less carte blanche for trouble. Put over a thousand kids together in a sports hall with the acoustics of … well, a sports hall, really, and the inevitable result was likely to be bedlam.

So the Head Teacher did it a year group at a time with the relevant Year Head at his elbow, in the school hall which was altogether more cosy and certainly more purpose-built. He had weighed up over the weekend how best to approach this and there was no good way. So he consulted Maxwell. Even before Surrey's saddle was cool, propped and padlocked in Maxwell's secret place, Uriah Heep was at the Head of Sixth Form's elbow, asking, and not for the first time, for advice.

‘Sixth Form first,' Maxwell had told him, ‘then the kids on the trip. It's an awful thing to say,
Headmaster, but there's a hint of a silver lining in that Tom Medlicott hasn't been here long. Anyone of longer standing and the hysteria would be worse.' Or, Maxwell forebore to say, if it was one of the SLT, the party would be wilder.

‘Quite right,' Diamond nodded. ‘I'll get Pansy on it. Er … you don't want counselling, do you?'

‘Thank you, Headmaster,' Maxwell smiled, ‘but I keep my own counsel. And I'll tell my Sixth Form.'

‘Quite,' Diamond said, after a while. ‘Quite,' and he scurried off in search of his office amanuensis.

Maxwell's Own, his Year Twelve and Thirteen, usually had their assembly on Wednesday, so a Monday slot was odd. There was something in the wind, they all knew that, and a book was starting on the possibilities even as Maxwell took his place front and centre.

The usual hush fell. The tutors stood at the back. They knew the score from the staff briefing and knew they had witnessed another nail in the coffin of school trips. First it had been the mountain ranges of paperwork generated by Risk Assessment; then it had been litigious parents and insurance demands – ‘Have you been injured on a school trip recently and it wasn't your fault?' Now, it was dead teachers and their wives. The Sixth Form's book was more exotic – Mr Diamond had had the nervous breakdown he'd been negotiating
his way towards for years; a Year Seven kid had got stuck in quicksand on the trip and was still there, being fed food and oxygen by a tube; Mad Max was pregnant.

‘There's no easy way to say this,' the Head of Sixth Form said … and all was revealed.

By the time the Isle of Wight party had assembled in the library, Peter Maxwell had hotfooted through the school to join them. Legs Diamond hovered near the juvenile fiction and didn't understand the mimed shorthand when Conan the Librarian offered him a cup of tea from across the room. Her name wasn't really Conan, of course, but then she wasn't really a librarian either, so what the hey?

‘Mobile phones,' Maxwell said to the horde. ‘Where do I want them? Here, on this table. When do I want them? Now.' They looked at each other like the returning survivors of the Donner Party and one by one came out and laid the offending beasts in front of Maxwell. Sixteen; not a bad haul. Nobody queried the command. Nobody challenged it. Nobody so much as hinted at the infringement of a human right. They already knew Mad Max too well for any of that nonsense.

The Head of Sixth Form drew aside and left the podium to his boss. Diamond surveyed the serried ranks. Was it him or did they look younger than ever?

‘I hope you enjoyed your Getting To Know You Week,' he said, ‘but now I'm afraid I have some
rather bad news.' He looked at Maxwell and never felt so alone in his life. It went with holding the top spot, picking up the biggest cheque, but it wasn't much consolation now. ‘Mr Medlicott, your Art teacher, has died. So, unfortunately, has his wife.'

Conan had not been at the staff briefing and all but dropped her cup. She stood as open-mouthed as the kids. Diamond looked at Maxwell who nodded. ‘You will hear all sorts of stories in the days and weeks ahead,' he said. ‘I want you to ignore them. Because of the … unusual nature of all this, it is possible that the police will want to speak to you …'

The sudden hubbub was like a tsunami around the room, but it ebbed when Maxwell raised his hand.

‘If that is the case,' Diamond went on, ‘you have the right to have your parents present. In fact, I insist that you do.'

‘Please, sir.' One little boy did his Oliver impression. He hadn't put his hand up since Year Three, but in his shock he had reverted.

‘Yes … um …?'

‘What happened to Mr Medlicott? Was he murdered?'

‘Memories,' said Maxwell to shield his Head Teacher from the onslaught that would surely follow. ‘Your memories of this week will last for ever. Think of the good times. Don't let the bad ones spoil it for you.'

‘Photographs,' Diamond said suddenly. ‘Who's got some photographs of the trip?'

Virtually every hand shot skywards. Most of the piccies lay in the phones in front of the teachers now.

‘Well,' Diamond felt inspired. ‘Why not print them out? I'm sure the library staff can help you with that.' He raised a questioning eyebrow at Conan, who shook her head frantically. ‘Excellent,' he nodded at her. ‘Thank you. Print them out and then we'll have a little memory corner, shall we, right here in Mrs Wantage's library.' The woman glowered at him, but the deed was done.

‘Is that like when someone puts flowers at a roadside accident?' Jazmyn wanted to know.

‘That's right, um … yes. It'll be a little reminder of Mr and Mrs Medlicott.'

Some of the hands had not gone down from the previous question. Others were in the air for the first time. They were like First Formers again, a wriggling, squirming Reception Class bursting to know more. Maxwell read their minds. ‘There's no more we can say at the moment, people. Take a little time, if you want to, then back to your classes. You can start the picture gallery at lunchtime. It's the best way.'

One or two of the girls began to cry. There were even trembling lips among the boys. Solemnly they came forward, the sixteen, to reclaim their phones and to find a picture of Mr Medlicott, whose face was already fuzzy in their imagination.

The day had been very difficult, one thing taken with another. The staff had been rather more reticent than the kids, generally speaking, but even so Maxwell, and, he was sure, Sylv and Pansy, had spent the day fending off questions. Pansy was rather better built for fending, but they were all feeling a little frayed by the end of the day. The rumour mill had been grinding well, and beheadings, dismemberments and various other atrocities loomed large in the questions coming at them from all directions. The photo gallery had grown apace and the atmosphere there was surprisingly unmaudlin. There were lots of pictures of staff looking less than their best, one corner being given over almost exclusively to Maxwell asleep, with various kids pointing at his open mouth. He was not too surprised to see that there was at least one when Jacquie was the culprit; she had fitted in well, but it wasn't until now he had realised just
how
well. He would have to have words.

Maxwell had enjoyed the ride home; Surrey had decided not to squeak, wobble or otherwise show signs of age and for that, Maxwell was grateful. The sun was warm but the breeze was showing signs of autumn chill as he swept round the curve into Columbine and up the path. As he tucked his faithful steed away in the garage, he saw Mrs Troubridge's key hanging on its nail. He really just wanted a cup of tea and a think, but now he had reminded himself of his responsibilities, he thought
he might just as well check next door now as later.

Jingling the key in his hand, he walked down and then up the path again; he would have to carve a hole in that hedge if he was going to be doing this much, he could see. He opened the door carefully and stepped over the few items of post that were on the mat and turned and picked them up, shuffling quickly through them. Two circulars, a phone bill and a postcard. The circulars he binned and then peeked in through the window of the phone bill, checking for the prevailing colour of ink. Black, so that was all right. He'd wait for the red one; it wasn't likely to be huge, after all. The postcard showed a rocky coastline and some rather attractive castles. Maxwell the historian was immediately intrigued and he tried and failed to persuade himself that he really shouldn't turn it over to find out who it was from and where precisely it was. The writing on the reverse was quite spidery, but easy to read. He let his eyes drop to the bottom right of the message area and saw, to his surprise, the name – Araminta. He put it in his pocket to take with him when he visited next; it would cheer the old trout up.

He did a whistle-stop tour of the rest of the house and all was clearly in order. Perhaps the thinnest of a thin new layer of dust had fallen, soon to be moved randomly around by Mrs B, but that was all. He let himself out through the back door, checked the garden, then out through the front door, up the path, down the path, through
his door, up the stairs and was finally standing in front of the kettle; it still seemed strange to think that he had been inches away through the wall not ten minutes before and was now standing in his own kitchen, knackered. Ah, the miracles of modern town planning. While the kettle boiled, he checked the postcard again and filled the time by soaking up the architecture of what turned out to be Rhodes. Oops, he had better not let Jacquie see it – it might be a sore subject, especially with what had happened in the previous week.

Accidentally on purpose, he turned it over and read it. He didn't know whether Miss Troubridge was a drinker, but her writing style was certainly a little strange. ‘Dear Jessica,' it said, ‘HEre i am Like a bad Penny, sending a postcard hoME. i know you say I never HAVE thought aBout sEnding thEse Nice cards FrOm the Unusual Nooks anD crannies And memoRiEs of me and YOU Are Lingering Longer these days. wRITE when you can, your loving Araminta.' There was no other reason for it, the woman must be drunk. He put the card down on the table and made his tea. He sat in his favourite chair, staring at nothing much. The day had gone more or less as expected. Diamond had done a difficult job well, the picture gallery in particular being inspired. It had really brought back the week, seeing everyone milling around, in the background. Pansy Donaldson in particular had been hard to miss. The dark glasses
were always in position in the morning shots and it was almost possible to tell the time of day of the photo by whether she was wearing them or not. Maxwell sipped his tea and let his mind wander. Something wasn't quite adding up and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He reached down by the side of his chair and felt for the phone. He dialled with as little fuss as possible, not wanting to interfere with his train of thought. The phone he had called rang for ages and just as he was about to give up, it was answered.

‘Leighford High School.'

‘Who is that?' Maxwell asked.

‘Who is that?' the voice retorted.

‘Oh, Bernard,' Maxwell said. He couldn't think of anyone else who would ask him of all people who he was. ‘Are you going to be in school much longer?'

‘I rarely leave much before six-thirty, Max, as I thought you knew. Why?'

‘Well, I was rather hoping I might come back and look at something important.'

‘The school is locked and alarmed, Max, I'm afraid,' Ryan said, pompously. Any school with Bernard Ryan in it had every right to be alarmed.

Maxwell was puzzled. ‘I'm assuming you can get out, though, Bernard, can't you?' he asked, wondering briefly whether the kids were right and that Ryan
did
actually live in a cupboard.

‘Of course.' It was obvious that the Deputy
Head was not going to make this easy for the Head of Sixth Form.

‘Well, why can't you let me in, if you can let yourself out?' he asked, patiently, having long ago grasped the fundamental workings of a door.

‘How will I know when you get here?' Ryan said, as if laying the ace.

‘I could ring you from outside,' Maxwell said. ‘I do have the technology, Bernard, whatever you may have heard. I'll only be about twenty minutes or so. Would that be all right? For you to let me in?'

There was a silence, then Ryan said, in his usual curmudgeonly fashion, as though every word was going to have to be accounted for one day, ‘All right, then. Ring me when you're outside and I'll let you in. Don't let this become a habit, though.' And the phone went down with a crash.

Maxwell rang off himself and put the handset down carefully in its rest. A good response to that was that he didn't make a habit of chasing murderers, but since that would be patently untrue, he didn't even bother to think it. He could still remember the good old days, when he had his own key to the school and came and went as he pleased; a time before the Age of Paranoia. He swigged the last of the tea and stood up. Being occasionally of a tidy disposition, he took his cup into the kitchen. Straightening up from putting it in the dishwasher, he saw the card on the table. He glanced at the
clock. It was Nolan's day at Tumble Tots with Plocker and his mother. It was Jacquie's first day back at work and the middle of a murder inquiry. It looked as though he was probably a more or less free – or as a more self-pitying person would see it, neglected – man. He would have time to pop in and see Mrs Troubridge and give her her postcard. She would be cheered up hearing from her twin and he might be able to catch her on the mother planet for long enough to find out why Araminta was writing like some kind of mad person. He popped the card in his pocket and went to wake up Surrey.

He swept up the rise to the main road, swore colourfully, making a lone pedestrian blench, turned round and went back for his phone.