Maxwell's Retirement (20 page)

‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘I’ve got your mobile number.’ And he reeled it off, number perfect.

‘My word, Angus,’ Jacquie said, appalled. ‘How very …’

‘Amazing. I know. I’ve got that sort of mind.’

Jacquie had been going to say creepy, but amazing would do. ‘Right. Bye then, Angus.’ And she was off down the stairs at a steady trot, trying not to listen for footsteps behind her.

Sylvia Matthews kept glancing across at Maxwell in the front seat of the police car. The hapless uniformed man in the driver’s seat was trying desperately to keep up with the narrative, complete with actions, that Maxwell was delivering in his usual inimitable style. He appeared to be miming bringing a string of flags
out of his backside now – surely, that couldn’t be right. She turned back to the queasy row in front of her; they couldn’t all have seen the body, could they? And anyway, to listen to the more rational of her colleagues, it really wasn’t gory at all. But being a teacher was a two-way street; they taught the kids Reading, Geography, Social and Life Skills, Maths, and the kids taught them how to be whiny, needy and melodramatic. Ah well, she had a jumbo pack of Nurofen and it was amazing what they could achieve, given with the right amount of confidence.

Pansy Donaldson was watching Maxwell too. That poor policeman, shut up in a car with that madman. He appeared to be pointing to his bottom now; the depths to which that man could sink were simply unbelievable. Whatever could his buttocks have to do with the case in hand? She had watched him leave the room on many occasions, and, as far as she could see, they were nothing to write home about. Totally disgusting. No wonder the youth of today were sinking in depravity.

‘Pansy? Mrs Donaldson?’ She could hear someone calling her name from a long, long way off. ‘Pansy? Are you all right? You were grinding your teeth.’

She came to with a jump. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Diamond. Miles away. It has turned into quite a day, hasn’t it?’

Diamond was staggered at the woman’s take on life. Quite a day? Yet again, his school was embroiled in some seedy crime scene. Yet again, Maxwell seemed to know more than simply being on the spot would really explain. One of them would have to go soon, or Diamond knew he would be booking a one-way ticket to the funny farm. He made do with, ‘Yes, indeed, Pansy. It has turned into quite a day. I’m going back to school now. I’ve checked with the police.’

‘I’ll come with you, Mr Diamond. You will need help, the Press, that sort of thing.’

He passed a weary hand over his face. ‘I’d just like some time on my own, Pansy, to tell you the truth. Perhaps you can go and visit Nicole in the hospital. See how she’s doing? Would you do that for me?’

She couldn’t recognise a brush-off if it bit her on the leg, thought Helen Maitland, overhearing the exchange. But if the result of that was an afternoon blissfully Pansy-free, then she was all for it. She stepped forward. ‘You’re looking rather peaky, Headmaster.’ He flinched. Maxwell seemed to be catching, rather like Swine Flu or the moronic interrogative. ‘Can I give you a lift? I brought half the PE Department with me this morning. I’m sure they would be happy to drive your car back to school for you.’

Legs looked across to where the PE staff were
seeing who could hang upside down from a tree for longest without losing consciousness. They had more paint on them than Seven Ex Pea after an interactive art class. The space not taken up with paint was covered in mud. His car was a BMW, with beige leather seats. Pansy, hearing Helen’s offer, was looming nearer. Filthy seats versus Pansy. Pansy versus filthy seats. ‘What a kind offer, Helen,’ he said. ‘I would like that, thank you.’ He fished out his keys and she took them over to the PE gang, who whooped and jumped in the air, crashing stomachs together and giving each other extravagant high fives. Bill Grogan got the keys and would be driving. Diamond groaned, but he was still confident that he had made the right decision.

Helen glanced across at the police car. Maxwell was clambering out, and was saying a few last words to the policeman. She called him over and he came at a loping run, close to the ground, looking left and right. ‘It’s all right, Max,’ she said. ‘It’s only me. You can relax.’

He looked crestfallen. ‘It’s the clothes. I just don’t seem to be able to shake it off.’

‘I’m just giving Mr Diamond a lift back to school,’ she said brightly, doing the best Joyce Grenfell Maxwell had heard in a long time. ‘Would you like to join us?’ She tried to ignore the sound of two grown men who should know better giving vent to instantly suppressed groans;
working together was bad enough. Travelling together was beyond the pale.

‘I’d love to,’ he said.

‘I’d love to,’ said Diamond, just that second later.

‘Right, then. My car’s over there. If you’d like to let yourselves in, I’ll just let the police know we’re going.’

‘No, no,’ Maxwell said. ‘You two get in the car. You know how hopeless I am at all this clicking business. Give me a good old-fashioned key you can turn, that’s what I say. I’ll just tell the DCI we’re going.’ And he walked off normally, to Helen’s relief, to where Henry Hall was standing with a small clutch of constables.

‘DCI Hall,’ he said, formally. ‘Mr Diamond is feeling unwell and Helen Maitland and I are going to take him back to school, if that’s acceptable.’

It wasn’t really acceptable for anyone to leave the site, with an unidentified body hovering over them, so to speak, but Hall was always glad to see the back of Maxwell. He would often enough have to engage the man’s brain, but he preferred to do it where there was no one else to see.

‘That’s absolutely fine, Mr Maxwell,’ he said, keeping it equally formal. ‘We may have to be in touch later.’

‘I quite understand,’ Maxwell said and, only just resisting the urge to salute, went back and got in the back of Helen’s car. ‘Let’s go, then,’
he hissed, in the manner of a bank robber in a getaway car.

Helen released the handbrake and eased slowly away from her parking space. ‘Leighford High, then,’ she said. It was halfway between a statement and a question.

‘Hmm. I need to pick up Surrey,’ Maxwell said, ‘but then I’ll be off home, Headmaster, if I may. I’ve got to pick up my emails at home.’

The two people in the front of the car turned round to stare at him, in Helen’s case much to the detriment of basic road safety. He gestured her to turn back before he would respond.

‘I expect that surprises you, but I’m not as much of a dinosaur as you all seem to think. I am perfectly adept at surfing the superhighway,’ he said, hoping he had got at least one of the phrases right.

‘Well done, you,’ Helen said. She would believe it when she saw it. She changed the subject. ‘Did I hear that Doreen thought she had seen the dead guy somewhere before?’ she asked Maxwell.

‘She said so, yes. But I think we all know the general standard of Doreen’s short-term memory.’

‘Yes,’ Diamond piped up. ‘Every morning, she brings me coffee, milk, two sugars and a Snickers bar.’

‘Every morning,’ Helen said. ‘That’s good, then, isn’t it? If she never forgets.’

‘I’m borderline lactose intolerant and a
single peanut could kill me,’ Diamond said. ‘My digestion has never been the same since … the incident.’ He could never bring himself to refer in any more detail to the mass attempt on the lives of his staff by means of poison. It was true that he had never been the same since. But then, he hadn’t really been the same before.

‘Perhaps it’s a really cunning attempt on your life, Headmaster,’ said Maxwell, from the back.

‘I’m sorry, Max, if I don’t laugh,’ Diamond said. Maxwell wondered why he was bothering to apologise just this one time. What about all the million others when he had failed to crack a smile? ‘The whole thing is still very painful for me. I get nightmares, you know. It’s all very unpleasant.’

‘Sorry, Headmaster,’ and for once, Maxwell actually meant it. Helen caught his eye in the rear-view mirror and he could tell from her eyebrow position that nasty things would happen if he didn’t shut up. The rest of the journey went by in silence, broken only by Maxwell’s sighs as he thought of something he knew he would be better off keeping to himself. Like, where were the missing girls? Who was the dead man? Why on earth had Diamond ever appointed Pansy Donaldson? How had he managed to go this long without rechristening her Pansy Potter, the Strongman’s Daughter, beloved of schoolboy
Beano
readers in the Fifties?

Halfway up the drive of Leighford High School, Helen pulled up and turned to Maxwell. ‘I’ll let you out here, Max, shall I? Handier for the bike sheds?’

‘Thanks, Helen,’ he said, attempting to hop out but finding that his legs had more or less seized up. ‘Ooh, paintballing is a young man’s game, I’m discovering.’

Helen opened her door and came round to help him out. ‘I told them there should be an age limit,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking of poor Mavis here, as well as you.’

‘What do you mean, as well as me?’ Maxwell was aghast.

‘Well, when she goes, you’ll be the oldest member of staff.’ Having extricated him and made sure that he was basically in working order, she got back into her idling car and drove away, round to the car park at the rear. He stood and watched her go. He didn’t feel like the oldest member of staff. Some days he didn’t feel older than Nolan. His feet dragged for more than one reason as he went round the building’s corner to the bike rack. Surrey was safe and sound, every speck of rust intact. He could leave it wherever he liked and for some reason no one ever stole so much as a screw.

He swung his leg over the crossbar, but something didn’t seem quite right. He looked down and found, to his surprise, that his leg
hadn’t gone anywhere, but was still firmly attached, via his foot, to the ground. He stared at the offending limb and, by concentrating really hard, managed to swing it just high enough to straddle the bike. Pushing off was another challenge which it took some time to achieve, but finally, he was on his way home.

It was a strange feeling, skimming through town, that no one whose doors Maxwell passed knew of the events in Paintballers’ Wood as the Press would soon no doubt name it. No one? No, that probably wasn’t true.
Someone
knew. The same someone who had broken a man’s neck and dumped him in a ditch like an old supermarket trolley.

Surrey hissed around Fletcham’s Corner and Maxwell joined the rest of society by breaking the law and riding on the pavement, just long enough to get past the roadworks.

A lollipop person was risking instant death by stepping into his path at the head of a string of tots from St Ivel’s or whatever that snobby little prep school was called. Jacquie had been talking about sending Nolan there, but purple wasn’t really the lad’s colour.

Missing girls and a fly-blown corpse. Even before he reached the Flyover and the road to Columbine, Peter Maxwell was looking death in the face again.

It was déjà vu all over again. There was a little old lady camped out on his doorstep. But this time, it was Mrs Troubridge. She clambered to her feet when she eventually focused on him, using the hedge for leverage as he wheeled Surrey to a halt.

‘Mr Maxwell,’ she said, accusingly. ‘I was beginning to think you were trying to avoid me.’

Maxwell managed to look shocked. ‘Mrs Troubridge, I am hurt and amazed.’ He was certainly amazed; as far as he could see they had been very successful in avoiding her.

‘Perhaps it’s just me,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Here’s your post, by the way.’ She handed over a mangled sheaf of envelopes. ‘Mostly junk mail. But I’m sorry, Mr Maxwell, I digress. I’ve been very stressed since yesterday, as you can imagine. Not to say significantly out of pocket. Children eat so much, don’t they?’

Mrs Troubridge’s non sequiturs usually came
straight out of left field, but this was odder than usual. Had Nolan been popping round for midnight snacks? Had she found footprints in the butter? He decided to ignore his instincts and actually chase this particular intellectual hare. ‘What children, Mrs Troubridge? Nephews? Nieces?’

‘No, Mr Maxwell.’ Her little brow was furrowed at his stupidity. ‘The girls who are staying with me. Well, I couldn’t leave them outside, could I? I know it is officially spring, but really, the weather can be so treacherous. And you were so busy yesterday, what with that … business with your cleaning lady. Problem with wages, was it? Something of that nature?’

‘No, Mrs Troubridge, no. But … these girls. Who are they?’

‘They talk so quickly, Mr Maxwell. And mumble as well. It’s so hard to understand what they say, an—’

‘Mrs Troubridge!’ Maxwell bellowed in her ear. It was so loud her hair seemed to blow back like a dog with its head out of a car window. ‘What girls?’

‘They call each other Zee and Lee. I don’t know if they are their names; girls can be so odd, can’t they, Mr Maxwell?’ It sounded like a plea.

‘Girls are always odd, Mrs Troubridge, in my experience. Are they still with you?’

‘Oh, yes. They didn’t get up until gone twelve.
They seem to be quite upset about something, Mr Maxwell, and they wouldn’t tell me where they lived or anything. But I knew that if they wanted to see you, it must be something important.’ She looked down at her feet and Maxwell felt a seminal moment approaching. ‘You are someone you feel you can trust, Mr Maxwell. You and Mrs Maxwell are the first people I would come to if I was a girl and I was in trouble.’ She looked up at him and for once she didn’t look truculent or argumentative. ‘I’m glad you live next door.’

Maxwell could believe there was a time when Mrs Troubridge had been in trouble – but a girl? Never. There was only one thing to do, and Maxwell did it willingly. He bent down and put his arms round her and gave her a hug, as hard as he dared, because she always looked as if she might break. ‘Mrs Troubridge,’ he said, after a moment.

‘Yes, Mr Maxwell?’ Her voice sounded muffled, from her face being pressed into his shoulder.

‘Can you help me up? My back seems to have gone.’

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked, beginning to sag under his weight.

‘I’m not sure. Jacquie usually just puts her knee in my back and pulls on my shoulders. But you’re in the wrong position for that, I suppose.’ Was it his imagination, or were they sinking lower?

‘I really can’t hold you up any longer, Mr Maxwell.’ Even in extremis, Mrs Troubridge was always formal. Her knees buckled and slowly, like a mighty redwood giving up the ghost in a forest after hundreds of years of life, the combined edifice of Maxwell/Troubridge fell onto the path, his arms still locked around her shoulders. They lay there for a few moments, each individually checking off limbs and finding them still, nominally at least, in working order.

‘Well, that was one way of doing it, Mrs Troubridge,’ Maxwell said at last. ‘What happens now? You are lying on my arm and I am lying on my jacket, so I can’t get up. You?’

She gave a few experimental tugs. ‘It’s no good, Mr Maxwell,’ she said. ‘You seem to have my skirt quite entangled in your bicycle clips, let alone the fact that you have somehow got your watch strap caught in my cardigan.’

It wasn’t the time for small talk, but it seemed churlish to just lie there in silence. Maxwell was racking his brain for a comment that would not sound too flippant but which would not draw immediate attention to their plight when he heard the blissful sound of Mrs Troubridge’s front door opening.

‘Hello?’ He called. ‘Julie? Leah? Is that you? I seem to have fallen on Mrs Troubridge. Can you give us a hand?’

The door closed again. For pity’s sake, he
knew they were having a hard time, but really! They surely couldn’t intend just to leave them there, locked together like some kind of mating ritual from one of David Attenborough’s more racy programmes? The door opened again and this time was followed by the sound of footsteps on the path. Then kind hands were disentangling them, hands under the armpits hoisted him expertly to his feet and then he could see his rescuers. Julie and Leah indeed, fit and well. In a trice they had Mrs Troubridge on her feet and were dusting her down and kissing her old cheeks and making her chirrup with pleasure.

‘Mrs T,’ Julie said. ‘We’ll be back shortly. Just got to talk to Mr Maxwell for now.’

‘You are an angel,’ Leah said, giving her a gentle squeeze. ‘We won’t forget this. Honestly.’

‘Oh, girls,’ she twittered. ‘It was nothing, really. Nothing your own grannies wouldn’t have done.’

There was a moment’s pause while they both pictured their grannies. They shook their heads in unison. ‘Nope,’ Julie said. ‘Our grannies wouldn’t have done this. Just you, Mrs T. You’re a doll.’

She tottered away down Maxwell’s path and up her own, looking a little dishevelled but otherwise none the worse for wear. The girls turned to Maxwell, who was holding himself up as best he could by leaning on the door-frame. It was against all the rules, but he would have to
lean on one of these girls while the other opened the door. Perhaps if he just eased himself over to one side it would be enough.

‘Can you see the keyhole?’ he asked through clenched teeth.

Leah peered round behind his shoulder. ‘Just about,’ she said. ‘Where are your keys?’

‘In my pocket,’ he said. ‘The one half way down my leg.’ This was a relief. At least anyone seeing her forage would not get the wrong idea.

‘Got it,’ she said. ‘Right, brace yourself, Mr Maxwell. We’re going in.’ The key refused to turn. ‘Is this the right key?’ she asked.

‘There’s a knack,’ he grunted. ‘Lean over to the left. Pretend you’re left-handed, that’s the secret.’

‘You’ll have to lean over a bit more, Mr Maxwell,’ the girl said. ‘OK, there, that’s got it.’ The door swung open. ‘In we go.’

‘Can you get up the stairs, Mr Maxwell?’ Julie asked.

‘I have a method,’ Maxwell said, trying to move his mouth only slightly, so as to not jar his back. ‘It’s not pleasant viewing, though. Best plan is if you go upstairs and put the kettle on. I’ll join you as best I can.’

The girls went reluctantly up the stairs, glancing back anxiously at Maxwell as he slid down the wall until he reached a stair about four up the flight. Leaning on the wall and bracing his back, he edged up the stairs as though negotiating
a snow chimney halfway up an Alp. He’d get there, by hook or by crook. Perhaps a crook would help, under one arm. Perhaps a Stannah stairlift. The girls went into the kitchen and started making tea.

The mug was steaming on the coffee table when Maxwell arrived, hot and sweaty from K2. ‘Thanks, girls. I need that now.’ He leant forward as much as he dared and picked up the mug in both hands. ‘Ah, the cup that cheers, but doth not inebriate.’

‘That’s tar water, Mr Maxwell,’ Julie said. ‘Background to the Industrial Revolution, Year Nine.’

‘You lovely girl,’ Maxwell said approvingly. ‘But I shouldn’t be pleased with you, all things being equal. Where the hell have you been? They’ve practically had the dogs out.’ Only now had he remembered to haul off his hat. The cycle clips would have to wait.

‘We haven’t been gone long,’ Julie protested. ‘I thought people had to be missing for over twenty-four hours before the police took any action.’

‘An adult, yes. Even a teenager if they are the disappearing kind. But you two – one of you misses the dentist, the other leaves her young sister in the lurch. It just wasn’t
you
, if you can see what I mean.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Leah exploded. ‘I made sure my mum would be there for Anneliese. She
promised.’ Silence from the other two said more than words. ‘Oh, don’t tell me. I know I shouldn’t trust her, but you have to sometimes, you know?’

‘I didn’t even remember the dentist,’ Julie said. ‘So I certainly didn’t do that on purpose.’

‘So,’ Maxwell said, leaning back gingerly, ‘neither of you meant to disappear in a sheet of fluorescent sparks. You just meant to slide into the background for a while.’

‘That’s right!’ Leah said. ‘We left our phones on the bus, but we pushed them to the side of the back seat, so probably they haven’t been found yet.’

‘You didn’t by any chance leave your diary, did you, Julie?’ Maxwell asked casually.

The girl went white. ‘I’ve lost my diary,’ she said, her voice deep with tension.

‘I found it,’ he said. ‘It was down the seat on a bus I was on this morning. No phones, though.’

‘You didn’t … read it, though, did you?’ she asked anxiously.

‘I didn’t have the time, but in fact as soon as I knew it was a diary, I wouldn’t have read it anyway. But I’m afraid I have bad news. I gave it to my wife, who as I understand it is handing it in to forensics.’

‘Oh. My. God.’ Leah turned to Julie in a mock dramatic way. ‘They’ll read your diary.’

Julie jumped to her feet and fetched her friend a stinging slap across her face. ‘Don’t you laugh
at me!’ she screamed. ‘They can’t read my diary. They mustn’t read my diary.’

Maxwell struggled upright and sat, listing badly to the right, on the edge of his chair. ‘Julie, calm down. Both of you, please.’ They were both crying, storms of hysterical tears. He knew that this was not just for the lost diary, or for the slap, but for the weeks and months of stress which they had been going through. ‘I’ll ring Mrs Maxwell and try to stop the diary being read. I don’t expect for a minute they will be dealing with it yet; they found a dead body up at the paintballing centre this afternoon and that will be taking precedence.’ He winced and eased himself into a more comfortable position.

‘Is that why you’re dressed like that?’ Leah asked, with a sniff, watching his image become clearer through her tears. ‘I did wonder.’

‘Aren’t you a bit, like, old for paintballing?’ Julie added.

Maxwell looked thoughtful. This was the second time in just over an hour that he had been reminded how old he was. The difference was that Helen knew how old he was; these girls probably thought he was about seventy. ‘I didn’t think so, before I went,’ he said finally.

‘A body, though,’ Julie said. ‘Not a teacher?’ There was a bit of dread, a bit of hope in her voice.

‘Not that Mrs Donaldson, in the office?’ There was just hope in Leah’s voice.

‘No,’ Maxwell said. ‘No to both of those options. The man is a stranger, we think. Certainly nobody recognised him. Well, except one of the dinner ladies.’

‘Not Doreen?’ Julie asked. ‘Only, if it’s Doreen, she’s as mad as a cake. She can’t remember an order, from you saying it, to her picking up her spoon.’

‘I’d heard that,’ Maxwell said. ‘But she seemed quite sure, even though she couldn’t remember any details.’

‘I wonder who he is?’ Leah said. ‘It’s quite sad, isn’t it, that he was just lying there and nobody knew? Or cared.’

‘Yeah,’ echoed Julie. ‘I wonder who he is.’

‘We’ll soon know who he is,’ Jim Astley said breezily to Henry Hall. The police surgeon for Leighford was not known for his bonhomie. His wife drank and was no longer welcome on the social circuit. Had anyone asked him, as a keen young houseman, what his ambitions were, he would probably have said an expensive private clinical practice and a K by the time he was forty. That was nearly twenty years ago and none of it had happened. Instead, here he was, reduced to slicing up dead people to try to put them, somehow, back together again. He was standing in the ante-room to the post-mortem suite and was gloving up prior to getting up close and
personal with John Doe. ‘Donald is in there now doing the fingerprints. We’ll run those through the system and we’ll be sure to come up with the answer.’

‘You seem very sure that he’ll be in the system,’ Hall said. It was his experience that most dead bodies were just dead bodies. They weren’t wanted criminals, famous people or even someone who once did a bit of shoplifting. They were just a person who happened to be dead.

‘He is,’ Astley said smugly. The doors crashed back and Donald squeezed through. His years of MacDonalds and KFC had made him twice the man he once was and the scrubs had an upsetting gap at the back where they didn’t quite meet. Several feet of pale and meaty Donald were on view. Hall tried not to look. ‘Tell Mr Hall why we know our man is in the system, Donald.’

‘You tell him,’ Donald said sullenly. ‘It was only me that noticed, after all.’

‘Oh, he’s got one on him this afternoon and no mistake,’ Astley said, quite fondly, as if Donald was a slightly recalcitrant pet. ‘Well,
Donald
noticed when he stripped our chap off that he had very few bumps and bruises, which to be honest had me surprised. It’s not easy to break someone’s neck and not at least bruise an arm or anything. But I digress. One mark that was very clear was on the right leg. Ankle, to be precise. The old talocrural joint. There was a kind of scuffing, as
though he had worn something heavy and slightly loose around it. There was also some damage to the bottom of the fibula, as if, well, as if …’

‘For God’s sake,’ said Donald, who hadn’t eaten for half an hour and whose blood sugar was correspondingly low. ‘He’s been wearing a tag and someone levered it off. That’s how we know he’s in the system.’