Maxwell’s Reunion (25 page)

‘To protect Wensley. To protect the Church. I read her file, too, guv …’ Jacquie waited for the bombshell. There wasn’t one. So she went on. ‘It makes Wensley look like Mr Average. She was born in Watts …’

‘That’s downtown LA, guv,’ Rackham cut in. ‘Black ghetto.’

‘Thanks for the sociology lesson.’ Hall’s face had not flickered.

‘Abuse,’ Jacquie went on, ‘racial, sexual, physical – you name it. She was on the streets at twelve, a hooker.’

‘So the Church of God’s Children specializes in misfits.’ Hall nodded.

‘One of their people found her off her face on heroin. Saved her life.’

‘And now she wants to save Wensley’s?’

‘That’s about it.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Godalming, next cell to Escobar.’

Rackham grunted. ‘Bloody place will be full of ’em.’

‘Why was she over here in the first place?’ Hall asked.

‘The Church moves them around, apparently. It’s her stint in the UK, and, of course, her file follows her everywhere.’

‘Well, it’ll be a bit thicker now, won’t it?’ Rackham said. ‘What did she hope to achieve?’

Jacquie shrugged. ‘Angel’s not very bright, Graham,’ she said, ‘and I suppose she’s just been scarred too much by what life has thrown at her. She listens at keyholes – just another little trait in her less-than-endearing personality. She got the idea that Maxwell was out to get Wensley, cause trouble for the Church. We might take out writs; she hit him with a crucifix.’

‘Apt,’ Hall said.

‘Heavy,’ Jacquie told him. ‘She showed us the very one. Then, of course, she had a problem. Maxwell was out like a light, lying on the gravel by the front door. Angel didn’t know what to do. She just knew she had to hide him. If she couldn’t see him, he wasn’t there. So she dragged him inside and down the cellar steps. She found a room and locked him in it.’

‘You arrested her?’ Hall queried.

Jacquie nodded.

‘On what charge?’

‘At the moment, GBH, guv. I wanted to talk to you first before we decide on kidnapping, attempted murder. There’s a DI Jacobs from Surrey CID waiting for a call from one of us.’

Hall tapped the table with his Biro top. ‘What are your feelings, Jacquie?’ he asked.

‘Close the bloody place down,’ was Rackham’s informed comment.

‘Jacquie?’ Hall had been ignoring detective sergeants for years.

She looked at him. ‘Maxwell doesn’t want to press charges,’ she said.

Rackham threw his hands in the air. ‘Does he ever?’ he asked.

‘He feels – as do I – that the woman’s been through enough. Kidnapping, attempted murder – it’s all getting a bit heavy.’

‘I’ll talk to this Jacobs,’ Hall said. ‘In the meantime, why did Escobar pull a knife on Maxwell?’

‘Same thing,’ Jacquie said. ‘Angel sees the Church as her saviour; Escobar feels he owes Wensley. Anything that might harm that – Maxwell snooping, me snooping – they see as a threat. Then, of course, there’s Richard Alphedge …’

Peter Maxwell crossed his last ‘t’ a little after half past five. ‘There, Count,’ he said. ‘That’s the last of the UCAS references for this year. Cheltenham HQ will be delighted to learn that Jason Lee Crump has an IQ off the wall, is already working for NASA at weekends, has to keep fending off calls from Sven Goran Eriksson, who’s desperate for him in the English squad, and he’s also this year’s runner-up for the Booker Prize. And if they believe that lot, they’ll believe anything!’ He slammed the file shut. ‘Thingee Two can work her wonders getting all that on her WPPC or whatever tomorrow. Now, to serious matters.’ He hauled himself over to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large one. ‘Murder.’

The cat yawned. Why didn’t the old idiot stick his tongue in a bucket of rainwater if he was thirsty? And anyway, the colour on that stuff he did drink …

‘So …’ Maxwell wiggled his backside down on to the settee, crossing his legs at the ankles on the pouffé like the effigy on some latter-day crusader’s tomb. ‘We now know that I was not the third on some maniac’s hit list, I just turned my back on the wrong woman, that’s all. Which means,’ and his face darkened at the thought of it, ‘that poor old Alphie might well be.’ He looked at the phone, thinking of Cissie. He’d left her with every assurance, with Jacquie’s mobile number and that of his own landline. He checked his watch. No, he wouldn’t ring her just yet.

‘Person or persons unknown.’ He closed his eyes, partly to focus, partly to ease the pounding in his head that Angel’s crucifix still gave him. ‘Lure George Quentin to Halliards, smash his skull and hang him. Let’s analyse that one first.’ He sipped the amber liquid, rolling it around his tongue, teasing his tonsils. ‘Ritual,’ he said, opening his eyes again, staring at the single cobweb on the ceiling that had clearly eluded the eagle gaze of Mrs B, who did for him on Wednesdays. ‘The legend of the Halliards boy who hanged himself. Poor little bastard probably failed a SAT test or just couldn’t grasp the enormous subtleties of Hider’s Lebensraum. Why am I being flippant, Count?’ Maxwell reiterated a question everybody seemed to ask him these days. He let his eyes roll sideways towards the feline bastard. ‘Because it’s the only way to get through the day. So,’ he shut his eyes again, ‘this was a killing with a message.
Sic semper tyrannis
. Was that it?’ He was sitting up now. ‘Come, come, Count, you remember your Latin GCSE, surely? No, you’d have taken Classical Civilisation, wouldn’t you? The non-thinking man’s classics. Endless reruns of Gladiator and Spartacus videos.
Sic semper tyrannis
, Count – so it always is with tyrants. John Wilkes Booth, the bit player, yelled it to the audience in Ford’s Theatre, after he’d put a derringer ball through President Lincoln’s brain. Booth was a Southerner, y’see; didn’t like Mr Lincoln, who had just trounced the South in a little war thing they had over there. So, is that why Quent died? To avenge a wrong?’

Maxwell got off the settee and started to pace the floor. Metternich the cat couldn’t take much more of this. He’d have to start retaliating by licking his bum any minute.

‘So what had Quentin done?’ Maxwell was asking himself. ‘And to whom? He swiped my cigarette cards that time in the Lower Fourths, certainly, but I wouldn’t have hanged him for it. Oh, I know, Count, quite. You never said a truer word. Here I am, reasonable, rational, balanced, pinko-liberal … Well, all right, I exaggerate. But that’s the whole problem in a nutshell, isn’t it? A rational person trying to catch an irrational one. Shouldn’t that mean I’ve got the upper hand here? No.’ He flopped back on to the settee again. ‘No, it just means I’m out of my depth.’

There was a silence. Metternich couldn’t bear it and purred, just for the hell of it. No rhyme. No reason.

‘All right.’ Maxwell was back in the fray again, forcing the grey matter through its paces. ‘Assuming we’re right that Quent wasn’t the random victim of a maniac – and the whole scenario precludes that, really – what about opportunity? Quent hadn’t checked in at the Graveney and gone out again; he’d never arrived. Somebody arranged to meet him at Halliards, at an appointed time, and they killed him. Now, apart from me …’ Maxwell caught Metternich’s head coming up, the feline equivalent of a raised eyebrow. ‘Oh, ha,’ his master snarled, ‘that leaves … Stenhouse and Janet. He arranged the whole thing, had a key and owns a damaged cricket bat which could be a murder weapon, although apparently the lab says not. The two of them together could have lifted Quent on to the balcony with the noose round his neck. Then there’s Ash and Veronica. According to her,’ – he got up for a Southern Comfort refill, ‘she went to Halliards that night with the Preacher and they had it away in the chapel. God, the old chaplain would’ve died. I’m not sure he realized what women were for. Sorry, that’s a rather politically incorrect comment, isn’t it? But, man to man, Count, as we are … Yet, Veronica didn’t see or hear a thing. Still, she was busy and the chapel is a fair way from the entrance hall and the bell rope. Now, the Preacher, of course, denies all this. Yes, he was there, wandering the grounds for reasons he can’t or won’t explain, but there’s no mention of Veronica in his version. And the chapel was locked the next morning – Stenhouse told the Preacher he hadn’t got a key. So either the Preacher or Veronica had keys or Veronica is telling porkies.’

Maxwell weighed the situation. ‘I think we have to accept, Count, distress you though it will, that our Veronica is a rather kinky lady. If she’s not doing it, she’s talking about doing it – rather like Year Ten, in fact. Then there’s Alphie and Cissie. They alibi each other, of course. Neither of them mentions going out again after they went to bed. The Graveney doesn’t have security cameras, apparently, so we can’t check that. Anyway, Alphie’s gone. Done a runner?’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘If he has, he hasn’t let Cissie in on it. Of course,’ he took another sip, ‘there is a possibility we’re overlooking in all this. Yes, well, just be patient, will you? I’m getting to it. What if Cret did it? What if Cret killed Quent? He’s a big bloke, could probably lift Quent by himself if push came to shove. And then somebody else killed him. Tit for tat. That would explain the good old blunt instrument – nothing poetic like the Halliards bell rope. Which brings us …’

‘… to motive, Jacquie.’ Maxwell was getting his face around a full English. ‘You know it’s very good of you to do this.’

‘I didn’t like the look of you yesterday,’ she said, ‘when I dropped you at school. Thought you needed some looking after.’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Bad hair day?’

‘Bad head day.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘You’re right. This whole thing is about motive. Once we’ve got that, we’ve cracked it. Sorry, is that obvious?’

He was shaking his head. ‘There’s nothing obvious about this one, darling,’ he said. ‘It’s been a real eye-opener for me. I had no idea what a bunch of oddballs I was at school with.’

She shrugged. ‘They’re just people, Max. It’s the same all over.’

He nodded. ‘Maybe. But they’re so damned unhappy. Look at Stenhouse. Dead-end job, wife who hates him. The Preacher – so strung out I don’t want to think about it. And as for Ash and Veronica … Well …’

‘Did you sleep with her?’ Jacquie didn’t want to look him in the face. Not then.

‘What?’ Maxwell swallowed a corner of his fried bread. It hurt like hell?

‘She said you did.’

He chuckled. ‘Sorry. That whole experience must have been so distasteful I blinked and missed it.’

She looked at him now and her lips curled into a smile. ‘Well, good,’ she said.

There was a relative silence while Maxwell chewed his bacon. ‘You’d been worrying about that, hadn’t you?’ he asked.

‘I’d no right …’ she said.

Maxwell shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said.

‘If it’s any consolation,’ Jacquie was cradling her coffee in both hands, ‘I didn’t either.’

‘What? Sleep with Ash?’

‘Either.’ She looked at him, wide eyed. ‘Both.’

‘Ah.’ Maxwell paused with the thick Irish sausage inches from his lips. ‘Well, chacun à son goût, as the French have it.’

‘It was how the Ashetons have it that bothered me,’ Jacquie told him. ‘Ash is impotent.’

Maxwell nodded. ‘I know. Still, after a hard day at the chalkface I know how he feels.’

‘I’m talking about motive, Max,’ Jacquie said.

‘Say on, Woman Policeman.’ Maxwell poured himself another cup. It may have been Jacquie’s kitchen-diner they were sitting in, but when it came to coffee with which to face the barbarian hordes, it was su casa mi casa.

‘What if they do this for a hobby, Ash and Veronica?’

‘What, swap you mean?’

‘Well, keys on the mat is a little before my time. It’s your generation.’

‘Oh, no.’ Maxwell laughed. ‘You’re not putting that one on me. My generation put a man on the moon.’

‘And they put keys on mats,’ Jacquie insisted.

‘How does all this fit with Quent?’

‘Well, he was gay.’

‘So?’

‘So …’ Jacquie poured herself a second coffee too. ‘What if Veronica tried it on, not with the preacher, but with Quentin?’

‘Go on.’

‘He doesn’t want to know. There’s an ugly scene. Rejection is something Veronica doesn’t handle well – I know.’

Maxwell bridled. ‘As do I.’

Jacquie hit him – gingerly, of course, because of his head. But inside she was glad. ‘Veronica loses her cool, lashes out and all but kills him.’

‘With a cricket bat?’

‘It’s plausible,’ Jacquie said. ‘It was a school, Max. There could have been bits of kit all over the place.’

‘All right, why the school in the first place?’

‘That I don’t know, yet. Some weird game that Ash and Veronica were playing? Except that Ash didn’t know that Quent was gay.’

‘And Quent didn’t know that Ash was impotent.’ Maxwell nodded. ‘What a pair.’

‘Hang-ups,’ Jacquie said solemnly. ‘That’s what this is all about. Hang-ups.’

‘Hangs-up I believe you’ll find is the correct term, Woman Policeman. Oh, Christ, look at the time.’

‘You’ve got another half an hour yet, Max,’ Jacquie said. ‘I’ll take you.’

‘Drop me off at Columbine, there’s a love. If I don’t get back on White Surrey’s saddle soon, he’ll rust.’

‘It’s like falling off a bike, Max.’ She smiled. ‘You never forget.’

The local boys were out combing outhouses for Richard Alphedge. It had been four days and so far there had been nothing. No phone call. No sightings. No word.

‘Publicity stunt, darling,’ the actor’s agent said to the one person in the entire country who’d bothered to call. ‘If I know Richard – and sadly I do – he’ll be holed up in a cottage somewhere, waiting for the world to give a fuck. Well, he’ll have a rather long wait, won’t he? Goodbye.’

DI Ben Thomas was back at Halliards that Friday. It was bitterly cold, but at least the rain had stopped. Holmes was helping the Warwickshire CID with their enquiries, trying, as was Leighford, to sift the dozens of tyre tracks at the main gate. Everybody knew the place was empty. An old mattress leaned against the hedge that old Gregson, the groundsman, had once lovingly tended. The ubiquitous supermarket trolley lay upside down to the left of the drive, rusting in the winter weather. Already, local kids had used the windows as target practice. But none of them went too close or crossed the police tape that still flapped there. A bloke had hung hisself inside – best not get too near.