Maxwell's Return (27 page)

‘Let’s catch him first.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Look, is Sylvia still likely to be here? I don’t like the look of Lindsey at all. She
seems to have withdrawn completely. That can’t be good for her in her condition.’

Maxwell looked in through the open door, to where April’s mother was sitting staring into her empty cup. ‘That sounds like a plan. Then we can go and start looking for April properly.’

‘
We
?’ Jacquie looked quizzically at her husband. She could get away with a lot with Henry Hall, that was a given, but having Maxwell trotting through the streets of Leighford in a stab vest looking under bushes for a missing schoolgirl was not on the list of acceptable behaviour.

‘You, heart, of course. I mean you. But I can help, surely? It was to me that she came, after all. I have her trust, all that kind of thing.’

‘We’ll have to speak to Henry. But meanwhile, can you ring Sylv?’

Maxwell crept into his room and picked up the phone, dialling the Sick Room’s number by rote. He stood looking at Lindsey Summers while the phone rang in an empty room, then put down the receiver. ‘Not there,’ he mouthed at his wife, who gestured to him to come nearer.

‘In that case, Max, I’m going to have to call the team. And an ambulance. This poor woman needs some proper care.’

‘I wonder where Sylv is, though? She doesn’t usually leave until everyone else has gone. I expect she’ll be even worse now Guy is working at his new school – she was telling me last night, his hours are ridiculous.’

‘Tried Thingee? Oh… is there a Thingee on this afternoon?’

‘Yes, Thingee One is covering. She’s become Thingee All The Time. I’ll try her.’ He tiptoed back to the phone and dialled zero. This time, the phone answered at once.

‘Yes, Mr Maxwell?’

He was always a touch startled when they knew who was calling but he rallied. ‘Thingee, old thing, I was wondering if you knew where Mrs Matthews might be. We could do with her up here, if she’s within hail. Oh, and there will be an ambulance arriving shortly – can you point the nice people in green in the direction of my office, please?’

‘Ambulance? Is everyone all right?’

Maxwell paused as he always did when a cliché was offered him on a plate, but decided to leave it be. Why should there be an ambulance arriving, after all, if everyone was all right? ‘Mrs Summers isn’t feeling too good,’ he said. ‘Nothing serious. But… Mrs Matthews?’

‘She was going to the gym,’ the girl said. ‘She wanted to see if she could catch Mr Baines.’ Maxwell couldn’t see the expression on her face, but her voice was quite a giveaway.

‘I see.’ He could get the details from Sylv shortly. ‘Do you know, Thingee, I have absolutely no idea if there is a phone in the gym.’

‘There’s one in the office,’ she said. ‘They hardly ever answer it, though. It drives us mad.’

‘Can you do me a favour, dear one?’ he smarmed. ‘Can you nip
along there and see if she’s still in the building? If she is, we really would appreciate it if she could come up to my office.’

‘No problem, Mr Maxwell. I’ll ring from there when I find out what’s going on.’ The girl pulled off her headset and went into the corridor. When all this was sorted, she really had to try and swap shifts with Charlotte. Afternoons were
so
much more exciting than mornings!

Thingee ambled along the corridor to the gym and pushed open the door carefully. There was a probably inaccurate but nevertheless amusing story about Mr Diamond once walking in to the gym unannounced and getting a basketball right in the face and although it was droll to have it happen to someone else, Sarah had places to be that evening which would not be enhanced by a couple of black eyes and a fat lip.

‘Hello! Cooee!’ The girl walked in a few steps through that old indefinable smell of ropes, sweat and liniment, then remembered the no-heels rule and hopped first on one leg, then the other to remove her shoes. ‘Mr Baines! Mrs Matthews!’ All she got was an echo mocking her from the wall bars, benches and other paraphernalia that she had been more than glad to see the back of when she left school. ‘Is anyone here? It’s Sarah. Mr Maxwell needs Mrs Matthews urgently upstairs.’ She played her final sentence back and added, ‘In his office.’ She listened again and,
opening the door, turned back for a final shout. ‘Cooee?’ There was clearly no one there. She put her shoes back on and went back along the corridor towards reception. Only another half hour and she could go home. The days were long now she was covering for Charlotte, but she would have a nice fat payslip next month, so she kept her eyes on the prize. She was just passing the mouth of Hell, aka the SLT corridor, when a voice stopped her.

‘Sarah! I thought you were only here in the morning.’

She turned. Oh bugger. When Bernard Ryan called you by name it was never going to end well. ‘Mr Ryan,’ she said. ‘I’m covering for Charlotte while she’s not well.’

‘I see. Can you type?’

Sarah was surprised that not everyone could type. She sometimes thought she had been born at a keyboard. ‘Yes.’

‘Could you come and do a couple of letters for me. I’m… a bit behind.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said, adding in the privacy of her head, I bet you are. Being arrested and suspended will do that for a person. ‘Can I just…’ she gestured towards reception.

‘It won’t take a minute. It
is
rather urgent.’

‘Okay.’ Afternoons were a lot more interesting and this one became doubly so as the doors to the foyer crashed back and three paramedics trotted in. Raising her voice, she called, ‘Up the stairs. Mezzanine.
They’re waiting for you.’

‘My word, Sarah,’ the new improved Bernard Ryan said. ‘That’s a nice bit of multitasking there. Anything I should know about?’

‘A visitor, apparently,’ Sarah said, taking care not to mention Peter Maxwell by name, ‘taken poorly. Just a precaution.’

And she followed him down the corridor, all thoughts of Sylvia Matthews forgotten.

Maxwell and Jacquie followed the men in green down the stairs and watched from the foyer as they loaded an uncomprehending and uncaring Lindsey Matthews into the ambulance. She was walking, which disappointed them; they had just taken delivery of a new chair which could do stairs and they were dying to try it out, but never mind; there was always another crisis just around the corner. Maxwell felt he should wave or make some other social gesture, but in the end settled for putting his arm around Jacquie’s shoulders.

‘I wonder what happened to young Thingee?’ Maxwell asked as they turned away.

They looked through the glass partition into reception and saw that the desk was empty.

‘She can’t still be scouring the gym, surely?’ Maxwell said.

‘How big is it?’ Jacquie asked.

Maxwell looked at her. ‘You do know who I am, do you?’ he asked. ‘I have quite literally no idea. In the good old days I invigilated exams in there, proceeding in a Westerly direction at two and a half miles an hour. But since the Exams Office Posse have taken all that over, I never set foot. Old men forget, but I wouldn’t have thought it is that hard to find a fully grown adult in there. Never mind, crisis averted. I suppose you’ll be off to the Nick now, starting the search for April.’

‘That’s right,’ Jacquie said. ‘And you can go home and get some shuteye. You look like rubbish.’

Maxwell bowed. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s nice when a marriage keeps the magic, don’t you think?’

She glanced around and, seeing no kids, kissed him briefly on the lips. ‘I always feel a bit naughty doing that here,’ she said.

‘We could always pop out to the bike sheds if you would feel more comfortable,’ he said. He held up his hand. ‘But, time is short! I couldn’t do myself justice. Anyway, there’s probably a queue. Off you go, find April and come back and tell me all about it. I’ll go home – if I drop off, Surrey knows the way – and you’re right, I could do with a snooze.’ With another slightly puzzled glance at the empty reception desk, Maxwell fished in his pockets for his cycle clips and gallantly opened the door for his wife. Two days down; only another million or so to go.

Thingee, released from Bernard Ryan’s boring clutches and shaking herself free of letters to the multi-use playing field Stasi, half walked, half ran back to reception and immediately punched in Maxwell’s extension number. It rang and rang and eventually she put down the receiver. He couldn’t have wanted to know where Mrs Matthews was that much if he had gone home. She glanced at the clock. And now she could go home. Hurrah! She reached under the desk for her bag, snatched up her coat from the back of the chair and was out in the car park before you could say knife. Leighford High belonged to Mrs B and the cleaners now.

Maxwell reached home without needing to resort to White Surrey’s homing instinct, but only just. He had hardly dismounted when Mrs Troubridge’s door opened and the woman herself was approaching.

‘Mrs Troubridge,’ Maxwell said, hoping this might be something quick. ‘How lovely.’

‘I’m cut to the quick, Mr Maxwell,’ she said. ‘To the quick.’

‘I can only apologise for the Count,’ Maxwell said, automatically. ‘We’ve tried to tell him about the vole innards. It’s because he loves you… this isn’t about vole innards, is it?’ He had read her expression, which
was beyond bulldog chewing a wasp and was verging on the Les Dawson with his teeth out.

‘I was standing in my front window last night,’ she hissed, ‘as one does, and I saw a Man arrive. He rang the bell and very shortly afterwards, DI Carpenter-Maxwell left.’

Alarm bells were ringing. When Mrs Troubridge called Jacquie anything so formal, things were bad. ‘Indeed. She was called in to…’

‘
You
,’ she said, poking him in the stomach with a bony finger, ‘were out. With that Nurse from the school.’

‘That’s right, we…’

‘I don’t want to know about your private life,’ the old woman sniffed. ‘What you do behind closed doors is all the same to me. But to leave Nolan, that Dear, Innocent Child,’ and the capital letters were enunciated with a snap of her chelonian jaws, ‘in the care of a Stranger, well, that is beyond the pale, Mr Maxwell. I feel I should call someone in authority.’

‘Mrs Troubridge,’ Maxwell prepared to pour oil on troubridged waters. ‘Firstly, Mrs Matthews and I were on a mission of mercy to a colleague in Leighford General. Secondly, the man you saw arriving was not a stranger, he was a very trusted colleague of my wife. In other words,’ – he toyed briefly with his impeccable Sly Stallone, then thought better of it – ‘he
was
the law. And thirdly… what
were
you doing at your window? It was quite late. That’s why Jacquie didn’t want to worry
you.’

‘Didn’t want to worry me?’ Mrs Troubridge drew herself up and still barely reached Surrey’s handlebars. ‘Didn’t want to worry me? I have been worried all night and all day, wondering what might have happened to that Dear, Innocent Child.’

Maxwell found himself mouthing the words. Mrs Troubridge loved every hair on his son’s head, of that he was sure. He only hoped that the lad would never disappoint the old trout by showing his feet of clay. ‘Nolan was very well looked after. In fact, he didn’t even wake up. He got two bowls of Cocoa Pops out of the deal, so he went to school happy.’

‘I’m just saying.’ Mrs Troubridge barred his way and the only method of getting into the house was to lift her bodily and move her aside. Unless…

‘Mrs Troubridge,’ Maxwell ingratiated. ‘Nolan is with Plocker this afternoon. How would it be if I ring Mrs Plocker and ask her to drop him off at your house? He’ll have eaten, but you can play Scrabble. He’ll like that.’ And the odd thing was, Maxwell thought as he formulated the plan, the kid would actually like it. He had found a way under the old bat’s shell and had her firmly in the palm of his hand, mixing metaphors as if there was no tomorrow.

‘I really wouldn’t want to push myself forward where I’m not wanted,’ she said, but they both knew this was just going through the motions.

‘If you just budge over a second so I can get by,’ he smiled, ‘I’ll make the call now.’

She stepped back onto her own path and he pushed Surrey up to the garage door and let himself in. ‘You’ll ring her now?’

‘This minute. Bring him back when you’ve had enough.’

‘Oh, Mr Maxwell,’ she trilled, happy again. ‘Don’t say that or I might
never
bring him back. Oh,’ and she skipped back to her door, ‘I might just have time to make him some of his favourite brownies…’ and with that, she was gone.

Maxwell stowed his bike, picked up the post, went up the stairs and was about to crash on the sofa when he remembered the night before. Instead, he went on up to his bedroom and sank gratefully onto his bed, still smiling. Brownies, indeed. Why that child wasn’t the size of a house, he would never know. His mother’s metabolism, that must be the answer. He quickly picked up the bedside phone and made his call. Mrs Plocker was an accommodating woman who had met Mrs Troubridge on numerous occasions. How the Maxwells could leave their lovely son with her, she had never really understood, but hers not to reason why. Maxwell was still smiling as his head hit the pillow and sleep came up to meet him with outstretched arms.

Downstairs in the sitting room, the phone’s little red light flashed unheeded. ‘You have two new messages’ the sign marqueed across its base station. ‘You have two new messages.’

The Incident Team had been working all day on various tasks and had got precisely nowhere, which was why they were looking so enthusiastic as they gathered yet again for a briefing. Jacquie was again in the chair and filled them in quickly on what she had managed to glean from Lindsey Summers and Maxwell. That she could now do this without mentioning her husband at all bore testimony to the number of times she had done it. The old stagers could tell that he was in the background; one mention of Leighford High School and ears were pricked and hackles raised before the sentence was done. However, a missing girl was a missing girl and the door to door and street interviews began as soon as they could all gather their coats and hats. As the room emptied, Henry Hall stood behind Jacquie and leaned forward to whisper in her ear.