Maxwell’s Match (19 page)

Henry Hall looked at Maxwell. The bastard had an infuriating way of being right. And perceptive. And prescient. He was an irritating shit. But in the past, he had caught killers.

‘Bill Pardoe was married,’ he said calmly. ‘The photograph of the boy in his study is his son.’

‘Who told you that?’ Maxwell asked.

‘Never mind,’ Hall said.

‘And what do you conclude from that?’ Maxwell was fishing for England.

‘Nothing, particularly. It doesn’t preclude his homosexuality. All this,’ he tapped the mag on his desk, ‘could be a later manifestation. It could be the reason why Mr Pardoe was no longer married.’

‘Have you found the wife? The son?’

‘Uh-uh.’ Hall waved a finger. ‘One piece of information only. That was the deal. Your turn.’

Maxwell smiled. He didn’t think for a moment that Hall would fall for that one, but it was worth a try. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tim Robinson was having a fling with Cassandra James, Captain of Austen House.’

Hall frowned. ‘Where did you hear that?’

Maxwell tapped the side of his nose, lapsing into his Magwich. ‘I got me sources,’ he rasped, ‘and I ain’t no grass, Mr ’All, sir.’

‘No,’ Hall sighed. ‘And your information’s not worth much, either.’

‘You don’t buy the Robinson-James liaison?’

‘Not for a moment,’ Hall said. ‘I’d hoped for more from you, Mr Maxwell. I expect if I act on every bit of tittle-tattle I’d heard about Leighford, I could close the place down. You’re chasing shadows.’

‘Cassandra?’ Maxwell popped his head around the study door, high in the eaves of Northanger. The dark-haired girl rose languidly from the seat next to the old fireplace and swayed across room. ‘Could I have a word?’

‘It’s prep period,’ she told him, indicating pile of history books she’d just left.

Maxwell cocked his head to one side to read spine of one of them. ‘Ah, Kershaw,’ he smiled. ‘Okay, let’s talk Hitler, shall we?’

‘Are you an historian?’ she asked archly.

‘History teacher,’ he said. ‘Is that close enough?’

She led him up a narrow flight of stairs that skirted Ms Shaunessy’s domain, past the rowing trophies on the wall. The April sunset was still glowing beyond the cedars that ringed the lake where Tim Robinson died. The pair went into corridor where Maxwell had never been before and through a door marked Prefects’ Study. This was a slightly girlie version of Tennyson, where Maxwell had watched
The Witchfinder
, but it had less of the odour of liniment and one or two fewer jock straps. She sat down on a settee and waited for him to join her.

‘So,’ she said. ‘What do you think of Ian Kershaw?’

‘First rate,’ Maxwell said. ‘But I’m an Alan Bullock man myself. Besides, I’m here to talk about Tim Robinson.’

‘Mr Robinson? Oh.’

What, Maxwell wondered, was buried in that single ‘oh’? He looked into the girl’s eyes and could certainly understand where Tubbsy was coming from. ‘What did you think of him?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked, curling up on the settee and slipping her feet under her bum.

‘Intellectual curiosity,’ Maxwell told her. ‘Murders don’t happen every day.’

‘Nearly every day at Grimond’s,’ she said, wide- eyed. ‘At least recently.’

‘He taught you fencing,’ Maxwell tried to steer her back to the point.

‘After a fashion,’ she yawned, stretching so that her breasts jutted out under her blouse and her navel jewellery came into view.

‘You mean he wasn’t very good?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, he wasn’t. Not a patch on Richard Ames, for instance.’

‘So …’ Maxwell was feeling his way carefully. ‘It’s
Mr
Robinson, but
Richard
Ames?’

‘What are you inferring?’ she frowned.

Maxwell had met girls like Cassandra James before. They were poison, enjoying playing games with teachers, male teachers in particular, flaunting their new-found sexuality, sure of the irresistibility of their charms.

‘Nothing.’ Maxwell had played the game before. ‘Should I be?’

‘I’ve known Richard since I was fourteen,’ she said, ‘when we amalgamated with Grimond’s. Robinson’s only been here this term.’

‘Did he, Robinson, that is, just in casual chat, perhaps, tell you anything about himself? Friends? Family?’

She shrugged. ‘No. Strong silent type was Mr Robinson. I got the impression he didn’t like us much.’

‘Us?’

‘Grimond’s. Private schools. I don’t know. He didn’t seem the type.’

‘Type?’ Maxwell could play the ingénue to perfection.

‘You know, a private schoolmaster. He seemed rather … well, I know it’s terribly un-PC to say it, but rather working class.’

‘Like me, you mean?’ Maxwell smiled.

‘You’re not working class, Mr Maxwell.’ She smiled too, dimples flicking at the corners of her mouth. She ran a finger along the lapel of his jacket. ‘I’d say you went to a school very much like this one.’

‘Would you?’

Cassandra nodded. ‘No girls, of course. Not done, then, was it?’

Maxwell laughed. ‘In the Dark Ages? No, it wasn’t. Tell me, Cassandra, Mr Robinson; did any of the girls have a crush on him?’

‘A crush?’ Cassandra snorted. ‘Oh, God, what a ’thirties word. Do you mean was he fucking any of them?’

‘Well,’ Maxwell said, ‘I wasn’t going to be so direct, but thank you for saving time.’ Nothing like cutting straight to the chase in a murder enquiry.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, twisting her face in an effort to think. ‘Pru Vallender’s a possibility. Shy, quiet type. They’re always the ones who’ve been doing it for years.’

‘Not you, then?’ Maxwell ventured.

The girl’s eyes smouldered and her fingers splayed out on his chest. ‘No,’ she said archly. ‘He wasn’t my type.’

‘John Selwyn more your man?’ he asked innocently.

Cassandra looked deep into the man’s eyes. ‘John’s very sweet,’ she purred, ‘but he’s only a boy. I go for the older man.’ She let her hand slide down to Maxwell’s waistband, leaning across so that her mouth was inches from his and her sweet breath warmed his face. ‘Would you like to fuck me, Mr Maxwell?’

He took her hand firmly but gently and placed it back on Ian Kershaw’s book, where it could probably do less damage. ‘I wouldn’t like the lawsuit and the police investigation that would follow if I did, Cassandra,’ he said. ‘But thank you for the offer.’

She recoiled quickly, then her right hand snaked out and she slapped him stingingly across the face. No sooner had his vision cleared from that than the door burst open and Janet Boyce stood there, all jeans and outsize jumper. ‘Cassie, I … oh.’

‘It’s all right, Janet,’ the taller girl snarled, jerking upright. ‘Mr Maxwell was just leaving.’

Maxwell rose to his feet, smiled at them both and said, ‘We’ll talk again, Cassandra … somewhere a bit more public next time.’

‘You know, I had an offer I couldn’t refuse today.’ Maxwell stretched out on Jacquie’s bed at Barcourt Lodge.

‘Don’t tell me Dr Sheffield’s offered you a job?’ She was pouring another glass of wine for them both.

‘No. Cassandra James offered to sleep with me.’

Jacquie looked across at him. ‘Did she now? And what did you say?’

‘I said I’d think about it,’ Maxwell beamed and winced as the cushion hit his head from the far side of the room. ‘The point is, Woman Policeman, why the change of heart?’

‘Max, you don’t mean she was serious?’

He looked at her outraged. ‘It isn’t so farfetched, surely? You do it.’

‘I,’ she curled up archly in the armchair opposite him, ‘am the older woman. You could be her grandfather.’

‘Thanks,’ he leapt off the bed and strangled her with his glass-free hand, before squatting on the floor next to her, ‘But you’re missing the point dear heart. Miss James has been all ice since the moment we met. Difficult. Stand-offish. Until this evening.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know. Tubbsy told me she and Robinson were having a fling. I was acting on information received.’

‘And were they?’

Maxwell chuckled. ‘I said Cassandra offered to sleep with me, not tell me the truth. I have absolutely no idea. She said she preferred older men.’

‘I wonder if Ms Shaunessy knows about her,’ Jacquie murmured.

‘I wonder if Tim Robinson did.’

‘You think there’s something in Tubbs’ idea, then?’

Maxwell nodded. ‘Yes, I do. But I’m not sure it’s quite as straight forward as all that. Have you talked to him?’

‘No. He keeps ducking out, like the bloody Scarlet Pimpernel. He’s on for tomorrow now. Ten-thirty. That makes him the last of the teaching staff. We begin the sixth form just before lunch.’

‘Start with Cassandra. I’ll be interested to know what you make of her.’

‘Max, in all seriousness, you took a chance being alone with her. We have rules about interviews.’

‘So do we, dear heart.’ He raised his glass to her. ‘But the day I follow them, Hell will freeze over. If a kid comes to me upset, I hug them. What could be more natural than that?’

‘Nothing, unless she’s a twisted little minx who wants to get inside your trousers and trot off to the
News of the World
with the glad tidings. I seem to remember when we met you were suspended for something similar – set up by a vindictive pupil.’

‘Indeed,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘An occupational hazard, I’m afraid. And they’ve lightened up the rules since then. Little Cassandra is having a fling with John Selwyn, Captain of Tennyson.’

‘Head Boy. Head Girl. How sweet. She told you this?’

He shook his head. ‘I saw them. Or rather, heard them.’

‘What?’ Jacquie sat up. ‘Where was this?’

‘The boat-house.’

‘The …’

He held up his hand. ‘All right. I know, I should have told you.’

‘When was this, Max?’

‘The night before they found Tim Robinson.’

‘Jesus, Max.’ She was on her feet, pacing the room. ‘You should have told me.’

‘Yes, I just said that,’ he reminded her. ‘I didn’t because I wasn’t sure. In fact, I’m still not absolutely a hundred percent. It was after you’d dropped me at Grimond’s, do you remember? I was passing the boat-house and I heard a couple at it. I recognized Cassandra’s voice at once. The man’s? Well, I thought it was Selwyn’s, but now …

‘You think it could have been Robinson?’

He nodded. ‘It’s possible.’

‘So what are you saying? Cassandra’s two timing Selwyn with the PE teacher. The lad finds out, loses it and caves in his head? Come on, Max.’ Jacquie wasn’t buying it.

‘Most male-female murders are domestic, aren’t they?’ Maxwell pursued it. ‘The eternal triangle, straight line, rhombus, whatever bloody trigonometrical figure you care to choose.’

‘It’s possible,’ she admitted. ‘But what about, Pardoe?’

‘Don’t know.’ Maxwell sipped the wine again. ‘But then, until today, I didn’t know he was married, either.’

She stopped pacing, turning from the window to look at him. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Your Lord and Master.’

‘The DCI? God.’

‘One and the same. Look, what did you mean on the phone last night? It sounded like Henry was falsifying evidence.’

Jacquie was nodding, her eyes frightened, her face pale.

Maxwell sat up. ‘That’s not the Henry Hall I know.’

‘Nor I.’ She shook her head.

‘What’s the score, Jacquie?’ He put down his glass and got up, walking across to her, taking her in his arms.

‘Robinson,’ she said, looking up at him. She broke away, pacing the room again. ‘Look, I went out on a limb for Hall last night, Max. I went to the Incident Room at Selborne, talked to West.’

‘And?’

‘They’re working on Robinson’s bike, tracing its manufacturer. He’s sending officers round to the Blundells …’

‘Good luck to them,’ Maxwell chuckled.

‘No, Max, you’re missing the point. Hall was disinterested. He could have done this already, should have done. The bike was standing here, in the sheds at Grimond’s. He didn’t go near it.’

‘That’s not exactly falsifying evidence, darling.’ He crossed to her again, stroking her hair, looking into those worried grey eyes. ‘Missing the odd angle, perhaps, but …’

‘Why did we go to Robinson’s, Max?’ she asked him. ‘Hall and I, I mean?’

‘Looking for evidence,’ he shrugged. ‘Anything that might explain his death.’

‘Or removing evidence.’ Jacquie held his hand ‘Oh, Max, I’m frightened.’

‘Whoa, now.’ He held her head as she hugged his chest, smoothing the tied-back hair. ‘I don’t understand.’ It wasn’t a confession many people heard from Mad Max.

She lifted her head, looking into his face. ‘We were there far less than twenty minutes.’

‘Yes, you told me.’

‘Hall went straight upstairs when we arrived.’

‘So?’

‘So, I don’t know what he did up there. What if he took something away?’

‘What?’ Maxwell asked.

‘Christ, I don’t know. A letter, photographs, diary, drugs, somebody’s underwear, something which would tell us who killed Robinson and Hall’s just sitting on it.’

He looked at her, in the half light of her hotel room, courtesy of the West Sussex Constabulary. Then he held her shoulders firmly. ‘If Henry’s sitting on something,’ he said, ‘we’ve got to get him off his arse.’

He wandered along the rubbish-strewn street Drunken couples lurched past him, making for an Indian or a KFC. He kept his collar turned up, his face in the shadows. The kid he was following stumbled into an alleyway. It was dark here, where the cats prowled by the dustbins. Monday was market day. There were pickings.

‘Hello, son.’

The boy turned, slipping on potato peelings, slimy under his trainers. ‘Who are you?’

‘Dave. You all right?’

‘Yeah.’

He felt the man’s hand steady his arm. ‘You’ve had a few.’

‘Just a few,’ the boy chuckled.

‘What do they call you?’

‘Brian.’

‘Okay, Brian.’ Dave put an arm around the lad’s shoulder. ‘Let’s get you home, shall we? Where do you live?’

‘I’m all right,’ Brian slurred.

‘Course you are,’ Dave grinned in the darkness, training his electronic remote on the dark car parked in the shadows. ‘All the better for a little car ride, though, eh? Trust your uncle Dave, huh? Come on.’