Maxwell's Mask (24 page)

He stood up, stretching, looking at the pale sliver of moon that shone on the silent sea now that the rain had stopped and the clouds had broken. ‘Oh, you and I know it's all bunkum, Count, but we're men of the world, educated, refined, sophisticated. Some people are afraid of their own shadows. In fact, shadows are what ghosts are all about. All right, so you've got twenty-twenty vision and can hear a dormouse fart three fields away. But how often have you caught sight of something, oh, just fleeting, just now and again and thought to yourself “What the hell was that?” And then, you see, Count, unlike you feline types, we humans have this wretched thing called imagination. And we
like
to be scared shitless. That's why we watch video nasties. That's why the hapless heroine in a spooky old house after dark never switches on the lights. What would be the fun? Hand-held cameras wobbling jerkily in Minnesotan woods; Japanese girls crawling, silent and hideous, out of wells; that drowned, rotting corpse that gets Harrison Ford in
What Lies Beneath;
we just love it.'

He sat back down again, hanging the forage cap on its peg. ‘So, a séance is just an extension of all that really. It's people sitting in a circle, some of 
them sad, some of them silly, trying to do the impossible and reach the Other Side. Except there is no Other Side. Life's a beach and then you die.'

He caught sight of the photograph of Jacquie on the shelf above him, smiling at a party with a copper's helmet tilted over her left eye. ‘Well,' he smiled. ‘Perhaps not so much of a beach after all. And as for dying,' he sighed, finishing his glass, ‘not just yet awhile. Now,' he clambered to his feet and switched off the lamp, ‘be off with you and reduce the Leighford rodent population, there's a good chap. It's past my bedtime – you won't mind if I don't wait up?'

‘What's all this about, Ashley?' Patrick Collinson was perplexed. He stood in the Committee Room at the Arquebus with a letter in his hand.

‘Surely, final tax demands don't hold any night terrors for you, Patrick?' The Theatre Manager had not had a good day and it wasn't yet lunchtime. On Saturday mornings, the Little Extras playgroup took over the Arquebus and although the entire committee agreed that it was admirable, in theory, to encourage the next generation of players and playgoers, the reality was altogether different. And the reality hit Ashley Wilkes every week. They arrived with pushy mothers, each convinced that their little darling was the next Shirley Temple, Jodie Foster, Nahum Tate or Dakota Fanning, depending on their taste in Hollywood stardom history.

The little darlings were all over Wilkes' theatre now, squawking and squabbling in the auditorium, stuffing crisp packets down the backs of seats,
scattering Smarties in all directions. The Little Extras' leaders were of the limp-wristed,
pinko-liberal
persuasion. Secret lefties to a man and woman, they had no concept of control and resorted to so many countdowns to silence that the concept became meaningless. Only half an hour to go, so Wilkes was prepared to grit his teeth for a while longer.

‘Tax demands be damned,' Collinson roared. ‘I've been invited to a séance.'

Wilkes blinked at him. ‘You too?' he said,
grim-faced
.

‘What?'

The Theatre Manager rummaged in the debris that was his desk. ‘Snap, I suspect,' and he held up a letter of his own.

Collinson snatched it, comparing the pieces of paper. Identical. From an address in Acacia Grove. Good address. Word-processed. And signed by the same hand. ‘Who is this Rowena Sanders?' he demanded to know.

‘Some local medium,' Wilkes told him. ‘You know, tea leaves and “You'll meet a tall, dark, handsome man, dearie. Cross my palm with silver”.' For a non-actor, Ashley Wilkes could turn out a mean characterisation when the mood took him.

‘That's a fortune teller, Ashley,' Collinson said. ‘I suspect this Sanders woman would take serious umbrage at you mixing the two.' 

‘What does it matter, Patrick?' Wilkes said. ‘It's all a load of bollocks anyway. I can't see why you're upset.'

‘I'm not upset,' Collinson retorted. ‘But we're all busy people. And I find it quite bizarre.'

Wilkes turned to face him, ignoring the screaming coming from the stage. ‘Don't you want to know who killed Martita?' he asked. ‘Dan?'

‘Of course I do,' Collinson said, flinging himself down into his usual chair around the committee table. ‘But I'd prefer it if twelve jury people decided that after due deliberation and the process of law carried out by a competent police force. Some fairground faker mumbling and swaying from side to side isn't going to do it.'

‘Well,' Wilkes shrugged. ‘No one's going to force you, Patrick. It's still, despite ominous rumours to the contrary, a free country. You can have your own chair of course.'

‘Chair?' Collinson looked confused.

‘The séance is being held here.'

‘What?' Collinson was on his feet. ‘How do you know? It doesn't say that in the letter.'

‘No,' Wilkes agreed. ‘I had a phone call from Ms Sanders this morning – on that very phone, spookily enough – asking if we could hold it here.'

‘And you said yes?' Collinson was incredulous.

‘Too right I did. And I'm charging the mad old biddy.'

‘This is a committee matter, Ashley.' No one had 
a higher horse than Patrick Collinson when he chose to saddle up. ‘We must all discuss hiring policy.'

‘Policy, yes,' Wilkes corrected him. ‘Not day to day operations. That's my job.' He held up his hand against Collinson's further blustering. ‘It's a done deal, Patrick. Lighten up. If you don't want to join us tomorrow night, you don't have to. I'll let you know who dunnit.'

Collinson fumed, but inwardly this time. He knew Wilkes was right. ‘Do we know who else is joining this charade?' he asked.

‘A séance, Henry?' Margaret Hall had heard some pretty bizarre things from her husband over the years; most recently, the hiring of Magda Lupescu. It went with being a copper's wife and the mother of a copper's kids.

‘That's what the letter says.' Hall was trying to concentrate on his newspaper.

‘You're not going?'

He looked at her. Darling Margaret, honest, good, dependable. She could always be relied upon to bring in that hint of common sense when everything else seemed to be falling apart. ‘Is that a question?' he asked her, ‘or a statement?'

‘Well,' she sat down across the kitchen table from him, ‘are they legal?'

In the safety and sanctity of his own home, Henry Hall smiled. ‘Oh, yes,' he said. ‘A lot of 
people laugh at them. Some people are unnerved by them. Say they tempt fate. Open the gates of Hell, depending on how rabid your religion is.'

‘Do you know this Rowena Sanders?' she asked him.

‘No,' he said, folding away the paper, since clearly he wasn't going to get much chance of reading it. ‘But I know the woman who's set the whole thing up.'

‘Who's that?'

‘Unless I miss my guess, it's Fiona Elliot, the niece of the dead woman. She's into spiritualism. Seems to think we can get some words of wisdom from Martita Winchcombe on the Other Side.'

Margaret snorted. She couldn't help herself.

‘Snigger away,' Henry said quietly, looking into her eyes. ‘But about now, I'll take all the help I can get.'

They were still looking at each other, locked in the silence of their different perspectives, when the phone rang. Margaret got there first, with the speed born of long years of things that go ring in the night.

‘Hello, Tom,' she said resignedly. Didn't that bloody place
ever
give her husband some time to himself? She passed the cordless. ‘Tom O'Connell.'

‘Tom?' Hall said. ‘What's up? Hmm. Really? All right. Wilkes. Yes. And Collinson.' A pause. ‘Really? Well, that is interesting. Do we have an address? Right. Bring her in.' He checked his 
watch. ‘I'll see you at twelve. Interview Room One. Don't let her make her call before I've had a chance to talk to her. And don't let Jane Blaisedell anywhere near this one. Thanks, Tom. Good work.'

And he hung up.

‘A breakthrough?' Margaret asked. In all the years they'd known each other, PC Henry Hall hadn't given too much away; DC Henry Hall had said even less; DS and DI Hall were positively monosyllabic and the DCI in front of her today sometimes took a Trappist vow. But when
that
moment came in a case, then Henry Hall could be positively garrulous.

‘Could be,' he said.

‘Well, it took a while, guv,' Giles Finch-Friezely said. ‘As you know we fingerprinted everybody connected with the Arquebus, except…er… Mr Maxwell and his kids from Leighford.'

‘Just as well.' Hall was getting outside a coffee in his office at Leighford nick. Peter Maxwell would have invoked every civil liberty since Magna Carta to explain why the taking of fingerprints was an option and that Englishmen had never bowed to arbitrary arrest, suspension of habeas corpus, deforestation or the levelling of hedgerows without a bloody good reason. Perhaps even Peter Maxwell would concede that murder was reason enough, but Hall didn't want to go there unless he had to. ‘Hit me with it.'

‘We've got Ashley Wilkes' and Patrick Collinson's dabs all over the Winchcombe and Bartlett houses.'

‘No surprises there,' Hall nodded. ‘They all work at the Arquebus.' He riffled through the pile of depositions on his desk. ‘Both of them admitted to visiting both places on several occasions. Tell me about the others.'

‘Partials,' Finch-Friezely admitted, ‘but clear enough for our purposes. In the kitchen, lounge, bathroom and bedroom at Bartlett's bungalow and Deena Harrison – the saliva on the glass. No question.'

‘Deena Harrison,' Hall repeated. ‘Any link with the Winchcombe house?'

Finch-Friezely shook his head. ‘Not a dicky bird, guv. I'd stake my reputation on it.'

Hall looked at the lad, earnest, dedicated,
hard-working
. ‘You may have to, son,' he said. ‘So,' he took a sip of the ghastly stuff that passed for coffee, ‘what was Deena doing in Dan Bartlett's house? And more importantly, when? When that great day dawns when science gives us that little advance, Giles, you and I can hang up our truncheons and go home. Any word from Tom?'

Tom O'Connell slammed his fist down on the roof of his car. He snatched the walkie-talkie out of the open window and patched through to the nick.

‘Guv? Tom. I'm at the Arquebus. There's no sign 
of Deena Harrison at her home. Place looks kind of shut down to be honest. I've tried the theatre. The Manager says he hasn't seen her for days. She's done a runner. Yeah. Sure. I'll probably find one in the house somewhere. Yeah. Right. OK. Sorry, guv. All points it is.'

The phone rang at 38 Columbine a little after lunch. Jacquie was out shopping, insisting she still had the use of her legs, had some spotty kid to help her pack and if, indeed, her waters were to break, what better place than Tesco's? Spillage in Aisle Fourteen.

So Maxwell sat at home, worrying and only half concentrating on the load of old tat produced by Nine Eff Three in lieu of a decent piece of homework. Like a bullet from a gun, he was out of his chair and bounding across the room. The cat called Metternich raised one exhausted eyebrow. What
was
that all about, that ludicrous ritual? A shattering and repeated ringing and humans talking into white plastic things. It defied belief.

‘War Office,' Maxwell said.

‘Max. It's Jane.'

‘Hello, darling.'

‘Is Jacquie there?'

‘'Fraid not. Can I help?'

A pause. Jane Blaisedell had spilled a lot of beans to Peter Maxwell over the last few days. Surely, one more couldn't hurt? ‘There's an all points out for
Deena Harrison,' she told him. ‘You haven't seen her, have you?'

‘No,' Maxwell told her. ‘Not for a few days. I wanted to talk to her myself, as a matter of fact.'

‘Oh, why?'

Jane Blaisedell may have spilled beans to Maxwell, but in the bean-spilling department, he was rather more circumspect. ‘About the show,' he said. ‘We're on in a couple of weeks and it's all getting a bit fraught about now.'

Jane knew that feeling.

‘Why are you looking for her?' Maxwell asked, although he was fairly sure he knew the answer.

‘Sorry, Max,' Jane said, her voice hard, her demeanour professional. ‘That's classified.' And the
brrr
told him she'd gone.

It started just before nine o'clock. Jacquie had tracked down a DVD of the ever-elusive
Seventh Seal
as a treat for Maxwell and they were just about to settle down to watch a very young Max von Sydow playing chess with chilling Death when there was a ring of his bell and shouts in the night.

Maxwell crossed the lounge in a couple of strides. His front lawn was obscured by a crowd of people, men and women, looking up at his windows and muttering. All they needed was flaming torches and they could have been the extras from the village marching on Frankenstein's laboratory to stop his hellish experiments. 

‘Come on, Maxwell!' he heard one of them shout. ‘We know you're up there. Come on down. We want some answers.'

‘Max?' Jacquie was alongside him. ‘Who are they?'

‘Well,' Maxwell frowned. ‘It could be the new style Ofsted inspection,' he said. ‘We were warned there'd be a new approach. Little advance notice. A more direct attack. That sort of thing.'

‘Max!' Jacquie screamed at him as they thumped his glass partitioned door again. ‘Be serious.'

‘Seriously.' He moved her away from the window. ‘The one with the mouth is Mr Spall, father of my leading lady – oh,' he caught the fear in her face, ‘after you, of course, sweetness.'

‘Max, you're not going down?' She gripped his arm.

‘Just think of it as an ad hoc parents' evening,' he told her. ‘A sort of proactive PTA.'

‘Max, this is dangerous,' she said.

He knew that perfectly well. Parents didn't normally arrive in a body at a teacher's house. ‘Dinna fret yoursel,' he said. It was a perfect Mel Gibson as William Wallace.

‘I'm calling for back-up,' she told him, snatching up the cordless and thumping buttons.

‘I'm not sure how much use Legs Diamond, Dierdre Lessing and Bernard Ryan are going to be in a crisis,' he chuckled. ‘But try them anyway. And you,' he pointed to her. ‘You stay here, Woman 
Policeman.' And there was iron in his voice.

He took the stairs slowly, one by one, listening to the babble outside. As he wrenched the door open, it stopped and the gaggle stood there, staring at him in their parkas and anoraks. Some faces he knew. Some he didn't. He was John Wayne. He was Robert Mitchum. He was Dean Martin. In any of the remakes of Rio
Bravo
you care to name, defending the jail against the rowdies bent on freeing the baddies. Except that this was Leighford. West Sussex. England. And the people in front of him were mums and dads. And they were more scared than he was.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' Maxwell said quietly. ‘How good of you to call.'

‘What's going on, Mr Maxwell?' the mouthy Mr Spall wanted to know. ‘In the theatre. People are dying and our children are in the middle of it.'

Cries of ‘Hear! Hear!' and a sudden cacophony of agreement. Maxwell held up his hand. He'd been expecting this for days. The great British public is slow to anger, slow on the uptake, but once they're roused… They were oxen in the furrow, she-wolves defending their cubs.