Maxwell’s Ride (27 page)

LeStrange stared at the Head of Sixth Form. ‘Mr Maxwell,’ he said, ‘you’ll forgive me again, but what proof have we of your affiliation to our cause?’

‘What would you like?’ Maxwell asked him. ‘Recitation of a few pages of
Mein Kampf
? My solemn promise not to eat another Chicken Vindaloo?’

LeStrange’s face fell. ‘Archie,’ he said. ‘I thought you said he was sound.’

‘Seeing is believing,’ Godden said.

‘Ah, yes,’ LeStrange smiled. ‘How do you feel, Mr Maxwell, about a little initiation ceremony?’

‘A sort of Bar mitzvah?’ Maxwell beamed.

LeStrange ignored him. ‘I think you’ll find this one a little more taxing, Mr Maxwell. Chanting slabs of the Talmud won’t do it, I’m afraid.’

‘I’ll give it a whirl,’ Maxwell said. ‘What do I do?’

‘Enjoy the show,’ LeStrange grinned. ‘Archie, see the fellow on the door, will you? You and Mr Maxwell relax. I’ll see you afterwards. Mr Maxwell, are you by any chance carrying a mobile phone?’

‘Yes, I am, as a matter of fact,’ Maxwell confessed.

‘Could you hand it in at the door for me? They aren’t allowed in the auditorium and anyway they interfere with the electronics of my act.’

‘Delighted,’ Maxwell said and swung the thing out of his pocket, spinning the loop around his finger like Robocop. Nothing. Clearly this pair of White Knights were not film buffs. What sort of organization was Maxwell joining?

‘Follow him, sir?’ Jacquie Carpenter repeated.

DCI Hall nodded. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked her.

‘No, it’s just that …’

‘Then get to it. I can’t spare a partner for you and anyway, SAS or not, I get the impression this is one observant cookie. He doesn’t know you and he might not be expecting a woman tail.’

‘I hope he’s not expecting a tail at all, guv,’ she said.

Hall nodded again. ‘Jacquie,’ he said, looking her in the face, ‘I don’t like doing this. Tails are always risky. We both know that. But there’s something not quite right about our Mr Hamlyn.’

‘What? You mean he’s a psycho?’

‘Well, that’s just it. I don’t think he is. At least he’s not a killer. But that doesn’t mean you can afford to turn your back on him. Watch yourself, Jacquie. Keep in contact with us all the time. If this man so much as scratches himself, I want to be kept informed. Understand?’

Jacquie nodded. ‘Guv …’

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing,’ she told him. ‘It’ll keep.’

All the way along the corridor and down the cold concrete lairs she rehearsed what she
should
have said. She should have told him that the man she loved was in this thing up to his neck. That she had broken every rule in the book by copying the tape of Hamlyn’s interview with Dr Bartlett. And she should have told Hall that every nerve in her body was twisted with worry. He’d gone, she didn’t know where. But she’d been a policewoman now for nine years. Some things became instinct, reflex. You didn’t analyse, didn’t rationalize, you just knew. There was a smell about some things, a tangible odour. Jacquie Carpenter knew the smell of danger. And she smelt it now.

It
was
a brilliant show, all the razzle-dazzle of the world of make-believe, the world of magic. And it was only afterwards that things turned a little sour. It was as Maxwell retrieved Sylvia’s mobile from the man at the door, he was barged into by the exiting crowd. Before he could stoop to pick it up, Archie Godden, never a man for a tight space, trod backwards and the sound of crunching plastic said it all.

‘Sorry, Max,’ Godden smiled sheepishly. ‘Get you a new one tomorrow, eh?’

Neil Hamlyn took a cab to the station. Bugger! That meant Jacquie abandoning her car and going with him. He caught the ten forty-three to Bournemouth. She hung around the platform, careful to keep her back to him as far as possible and her shades on. He talked to no one, nodded to no one. Why should he? She couldn’t believe Leighford was his home town. How, she wondered, had he got to Magicworld in the first place? A man in flak jacket and full combat gear, carrying a high-powered hunting rifle. Had he caught a train? A bus? Hailed a cab? No, someone would have dropped him off. But who? All the Incident Room had met was brick walls. Neil Hamlyn had no past and no present. He’d given them his address, in Leighford, but the squalid little flat he lived in was as anonymous as the man himself. It was as though Neil Hamlyn had chosen a street and house number at random and placed a few basics there, fastidiously, painstakingly, antiseptically. She’d seen him on that bloody video tape, the one stolen from Maxwell’s. She’d seen him in the flesh, though always from a distance. What was it about those cold, dead eyes? The eyes of a killer? Perhaps. But there was something more.

A harsh and largely incomprehensible voice barked over the tannoy. She caught the relevant bit about the destination and waited for Hamlyn to make his move. Once he was safely on board, she waited for the conductor’s whistle, then hauled open a door of the end carriage and hopped up.

He’d positioned himself with his back to the engine, his holdall beside him, his combat gear on, his flak jacket and beret in the bag. He stared out of the window, silent, unseeing, as the train lurched into motion and Jacquie found a seat. She flicked open her Danielle Steele and sat midway from the window, checking over her shades every now and then that he was still there.

A funny little Asian buffet attendant rolled the trolley past her, enquiring whether she’d like any teas or coffees, cold drinks or sandwiches.

She smiled up at him, shaking her head. By the time he’d gone, so had Neil Hamlyn. She found herself staring at an empty seat. Shit! She half stood, checking ahead and back. He couldn’t have got past her. He could only have gone forward, to the front of the train.

She grabbed her bag, the one with the telescopic night stick and the can of mace and hurtled down the aisle, buffeted as the train rattled on its brave curve west. The first loo she came to was occupied, so she waited, as casually as she could, until a drunk lurched towards her, crimson-faced and swaying.

‘Hello, darling. Oh, hello, hello, a queue I see, I hate to queue before I pee.’ And he doubled up with laughter. ‘You going to Bournemouth, then?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said. He was unaware of her stony face or the anxious glances she sent to the toilet door.

‘Well, that’s where I’m going,’ he said. ‘Look, the bloke with the drinks cabinet’s back there. I’m going to have a little one for the road – or should I say the rail. Ha, ha,’ and he steadied himself against the rattling wall as his own sense of humour overtook him again. ‘Won’t you join me? G ‘n’ t or something? Scotch?’ He put his arm around her.

She inched away.

‘No, now come on,’ he slurred. ‘Do you know, you remind me of a girl I once knew. Yep. Corker, she was. Went like a train. Ha, ha.’

She closed to the idiot, staring steadily up at him, her mouth set, her jaw firm. ‘Are you going to fuck off or am I going to plant my knee in your nuts?’

‘Wha … ?’ The drunk had had some rebuffs in his time, but this was a new experience. Even in his less than vertical state, he noticed the girl’s determination and pretty powerful thighs. Maybe he’d just find another loo somewhere and pester somebody else. They heard a flush and the narrow door clicked open. A little old lady stood there, with a Mary Whitehouse hairdo and somebody else’s teeth that parted company with her gums as she spoke.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘My dear, is this man bothering you?’

‘Er … no, no,’ Jacquie said. ‘Not at all.’

‘It’s good of you to cover for him, my dear, but I’m all too familiar with his wretched habits, I’m afraid. Lionel, get back to your seat – and give me that hip flask, you dreadful boy.’

‘Oh, Mother!’ Lionel had turned more crimson than ever, fumbling in his pockets to comply, but Jacquie had gone, hurtling along the aisles, batting aside the doors, fighting her way through buggies and their attendant toddlers and young mothers. Christ! If she’d lost him … Then, suddenly, there he was, moved to a no-smoker and sitting patiently, his arms clasped in his lap, still staring out of the window. This time she carried on past him, then swung round and tucked in three seats back, head down, book out, her heart back in its place.

The lights burned blue. Peter Maxwell sat up in his bed. This was his second night away from home. His second night of borrowing pyjamas and bath robes and he realized again that he was in fact a prisoner. The only phone he could use now was the prison’s own and he didn’t feel safe enough to use it. The prison this time was Anthony LeStrange’s unpretentious little pad in Gordon Square. He’d been here before, of course, in the pursuance of his enquiries, but that was then. Now, Chris Logan was dead and Tiffany was missing and Maxwell had the uneasy feeling of a man with his head in a tiger’s mouth. And the man who made tigers appear and vanish slept across the corridor from him now, his oppo of the Wagnerian leanings one down from that. Maxwell’s head was reeling, his heart pounding as he padded down the landing. It was three days since he’d seen Tiffany, since someone had snatched her from Sylvia’s front door. He was seething about that. Seething and terrified for her at the same time. She wasn’t at Archie Godden’s. But Archie Godden had a friend, a like-minded fascist bastard whose house was even bigger.

He tried the spare rooms, empty and abandoned. Some of them were unfinished, all of them cold. The carpets were plush under his toes and a grandfather clock ticked in the still watches of the night. Nothing. A barn of a place with no heart, no soul, no golden girl called Tiffany. He went back to bed and tried to sleep.

It must have been nearly three when he heard the rattle of the door. For a magician’s house, this one creaked and groaned and he remembered the Toby Twirl books of his childhood, where the brave personified little pig was always landing himself in the most appalling danger and Professor Bison was the magician in question. ‘Toby’ sat upright in bed now, wishing for that little cow-catchered train called the Dilly-Puff which would whisk him away to safety. A shadow crossed the room, huge on the walls, gigantic on the ceiling.

‘Max?’

He switched on the bedside lamp and breathed again.

‘For fuck’s sake, Archie, don’t tell me you’ve come for a bedtime story.’

‘Actually,’ the critic slumped heavily into the peacock chair in the corner. ‘I’ve come to tell you one.’

‘Do you know what time it is?’

‘Yes. Look, Max, we’ve got a problem …’

‘The fly in the ointment, yes, I know.’

‘No, no. That’s taken care of. It’s Tony. He’s … well, I know it sounds melodramatic, but I think he’s gone mad.’

‘Really?’ Maxwell was beginning to wonder just who ran the asylum.

‘I think he killed Larry Warner.’

‘Yes,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘Archie, it’s late. We’ve already had this conversation.’

‘No, we haven’t, Max.’ Godden was no longer the opinionated bastard, with a conceit to match his waist measurement. This was a man running scared. A man on the edge. ‘Look, it takes a lot to rattle me. Oh, I’m like most people, I suppose, deep down, a bloody hypocrite. No, I don’t like blacks and Jews and queers and yes, I do my bit to keep the bastards in their places. But I’m a philosopher, Max, a man of words. A man of music …’

Maxwell wondered if there was anything under his bed he could vomit into.

‘I’m not Action Man. I confess I’ve done a few illegal things in my time, but murder? No, my God, no – I draw the line at that.’

‘But you said … All right,’ Maxwell corrected himself, ‘you implied, that Tony LeStrange had killed Larry Warner.’

‘I was trying you out,’ Godden told him, pale and shaking in the lamplight. ‘I had to know if I could trust you. If you recoiled at that prospect, well, a quick change of subject and forget it. But you wanted to know more. I’ll admit I was using Charts as a front, to route funds in a certain direction. When Warner found out, I was all for buying him off … Tony had other ideas.’

‘Who else is involved in this, Archie?’ Maxwell asked.

‘Just me and Tony,’ Godden said, burying his face in his hands. ‘The mountebank and his zany. I never thought he’d actually do it, Max. The fucking maniac killed him, shot him on that idiotic Water ride.’

‘How?’ Maxwell asked.

‘What?’

‘Archie,’ Maxwell sat on the edge of the bed, knee to knee with his man, suddenly, unaccountably, feeling oddly sorry for him. ‘When we talked about this before, you came out with some line … er … about magicians being in two places at once.’

‘I was fishing, Max,’ Godden blurted. ‘I wanted to know how much you know. You were there with Deirdre Lessing. You went to see Tony. You even went to Amy Weston and Bob Hart – what the fuck possessed you to do that? They’ll blab. Honest bloody Bob. Some sort of crypto-socialist and Miss Poet Laureate of the Bleeding Heart. They’ll crucify us. And I haven’t the first bloody idea what Hilary St John will do – he’s always blown hot and cold. They’ll go to the police.’

‘No, they won’t,’ Maxwell assured him.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because LeStrange has got my niece. And I told them he had. They won’t go to the police.’

Godden sat bolt upright. ‘What?’

‘She was taken from outside a friend’s house three days ago.’

‘Jesus! Is she here?’

‘No, I’ve looked. Anyway, I’d smell her.’

‘What?’

‘Calvin Klein.’

‘That’s quite common, isn’t it?’

‘I’d know it on my niece, believe me.’

‘Well, there we are.’ Godden was shaking his head, ‘Max, I’m sorry. For you. For her. But it just proves my point. Tony LeStrange is insane. He’s killed once. And now he’s kidnapped … God, this is impossible.’

‘He’s killed twice,’ Maxwell corrected him. ‘He killed Chris Logan too – though I’ve got to carry a share of that particular blame. The point is, Archie, how do we stop him?’

‘Harold Wiseman.’

‘Who?’

‘Another member of Charts. Another honest one, thank God, along with Amy and Bob.’

‘The impresario,’ Maxwell clicked his fingers. ‘Got a theatre in Bournemouth.’

‘That’s right. But, wait a minute. He wasn’t at the Garrick when you and Deirdre met us all for tea over that wretched little theatre of yours. He couldn’t make it, if I remember rightly.’