Maxwell's Chain (22 page)

‘Because of the snow, I expect,’ Maxwell said.

‘Max.’ Jacquie threw her head back in exasperation. ‘It isn’t snowing. It isn’t going to snow. It’s February.’

‘As you say. But we’ll see. Anyway, to get back to these murders.’

‘Yes. Where were we?’

‘Links.’ He crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured her something or other left over from Christmas. Southern Comfort he only kept for special people. ‘How are they linked? We suspect a link between Lara and Darren and it will be easy to check on whether Kevin has her number on his phone. We need a link between Lara, Darren and Dierdre.’

‘Or just Darren and Dierdre.’

‘Sorry?’ Maxwell looked puzzled, cut off in mid stream.

‘Well, you said they are like links. Links only attach to the next one along, not to all of them. If
that was how it worked, you wouldn’t get a chain, just random tangles.’

He sat up straight, slopping his drink on Metternich who had curled up on the pouffe at the side of his chair. ‘Sorry, Count,’ Maxwell said absently. All in all, the cat was used to it. ‘That’s it! We should be looking at a link from Dierdre for the next murder. It might be just as tenuous as that she taught Darren at school.’

‘That means it could have been any one of sixty or so people, then. I don’t suppose she was his only teacher. It might have been you, anyone.’

‘No, not me,’ he told her. ‘Darren chose sciences, before he gave up on everything that is.’ He subsided back into his chair. ‘Rats! Sorry, Count,’ he said again, on a reflex. They usually spelt out rodent-related words to avoid over-exciting the great black and white animal. But Metternich was intent on licking Southern Comfort out of his fur and might not be coherent for the rest of the evening. ‘That’s not it, then.’ He sat, pulling thoughtfully at his lower lip.

‘If it was simply that Lara and Darren met somewhere, could that not be the link between Darren and Dierdre. You did say she preferred…’

Maxwell sprang to the dead woman’s defence. ‘No, no. Don’t misunderstand me. She preferred men
younger than her, not boys. I mean,
I
came into the younger than her category. Though, I admit, only just. Thirties, even forties, were her choice. Just a bit less…’ he patted his midriff regretfully, thinking of the doughnuts and grease he had packed into it that day, ‘…spongy, than the men in her generation.’ He looked up and smiled, the boy peeping through the age-old eyes.

‘I didn’t mean to insult her,’ Jacquie said, recognising the tactic, deflecting the serious with the comic. ‘I just wondered. Perhaps they might have just…I don’t know, chatted in a bar, or something.’

‘That’s certainly possible,’ Maxwell said. ‘Where, though? And when? And who saw them? It would have to be someone who knew who Dierdre was, wouldn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily. She was quite memorable, I suppose.’

‘Yes. She certainly had a rather unique lizard-like quality not often seen in the urban setting. Third eyelid and so on – the basilisk stare.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And she did like a little drinkie, so I’m told.’

‘Like at the 1989 Christmas party?’

‘Very like that,’ he agreed, raising his drink in honour of Jacquie’s CID memory. ‘So, we need to find out where Darren liked to drink and see if it
was Dierdre’s kind of stamping ground. I don’t think she was much of a slummer.’

‘But, if she was meeting people…younger men, Mike Crown perhaps, then she wouldn’t go to her normal haunts, would she? What if she met someone she knew? You’re always warning people about shitting on their own doorsteps, but then, you know some funny people.’

‘True. Oh, round in circles again. You know, Supreme Being, I almost begin to hope for another murder. It’s hard to see a pattern with only three.’

‘Max! That’s terrible!’

‘Agreed. And, to save having to wait for someone else to die, why don’t you check for anything
before
Lara Kent. See if that fits the pattern.’

‘And how do you suggest I do that?’

‘Nip in to work and look on your Differencing Machine. Print it off and bring it back here, to the nerve centre, the giant brain. The Count and I will watch the boy and await your return with bated breath.’

‘No. I won’t do it. Henry would go mad. Everyone will have gone home. It’s Friday, after all, and the investigation into Dierdre still belongs to Chichester.’

‘Yes, and “when I’ve had a coupla drinks on a Saturday,” as the old song goes, “Glasgae belongs tae me.” So they will all have gone home. Smashing. You won’t be disturbed, then.’

‘Max, I just won’t do it. And that’s final.’ She reached over and took a swig of her drink. ‘There! I can’t go, now. I’ve had a drink. I can’t drive.’

‘You had one mouthful of Tia Maria on top of pie and chips and a doughnut. I think you’re still all right to drive.’ He closed his eyes and began to whistle soundlessly. After a minute he opened his eyes. ‘Are you still here? Oh, wait! What’s that sound. I don’t…no, I’ve worked it out. It’s the sound of someone being strangled, bludgeoned or otherwise being done away with. Oh, good. That’s something else to help us catch the killer of three… oh, no…four people.’ He closed his eyes again and this time, hummed a tune, in a very Maxwellian – in other words, tuneless – way. It sounded vaguely Stravinsky.

She stared at his impassive face for a moment and then suddenly stood up. ‘If I get found out, Peter Maxwell, you are going to be
so
sorry.’

‘Yes, indeedy. But you won’t be found out, will you?’ He opened his eyes and smiled. ‘Hurry back. Or you might get snowed in.’

‘Snow, be buggered,’ she muttered and then threw a cushion at him before storming off down the stairs.

He heard the door slam. ‘Right, Count,’ he said. ‘Let’s get that brain of yours working. We need to
have more or less solved this one before she gets back. Or no more pilchards for you.’

The cat twisted his head round to fix Maxwell with his golden eyes.

‘I said
no more
pilchards. The Bobsey twins spoilt you, but I won’t.’ He met the amber gaze implacably. ‘I won’t.’ Metternich extended a lazy paw, velvet wrapped around iron-tipped claws. They flexed into the sensitive bit just inside Maxwell’s knee. ‘The hell I won’t.’ John Wayne had never moved so fast as Maxwell as he leapt to his feet. It was also unlikely, or at least had never appeared in any biography, official or unofficial, that John Wayne had ever opened a tin of pilchards. But if he had, it would not have been with as much panache as did Peter Maxwell.

Jacquie drove to the nick, her brain almost steaming with mixed feelings of annoyance and excitement. Looking back was something that almost always happened automatically when a murder was detected. But the speed with which the three in this group had happened had somehow interrupted the flow and, as far as she knew, no check had been made into similar crimes in the recent past. And of course, as bloody always, Mad Max was right. Like everything else in life, killing took practice. You learnt as you went. The time, the place, the target. Nothing was certain, nothing could be left to chance. But the first time was always going to be trial and error. There was no blueprint, no murder simulation room with mock-up victim and a Murder For Dummies lying on the table. If this was a serial killer, the chances were that Lara Kent was
his second victim, not his first.

The good news was that there was only one car in the CID area of the car park. The bad news was, it was Alan Kavanagh’s. Still, she thought as she made her way up the back stairs, he was not likely to be in the office. He was probably just in the canteen, prior to going home. She pushed open the fire door at the end of the corridor and saw, with sinking heart, that a light was on in the incident room. Never mind, just brazen it out.

‘Hello, Alan.’ Breezy, workmanlike, that would suit the situation best.

He looked up and his face lit from within. ‘Jacquie! What brings you here?’ He checked his watch.

She had the urge to say, ‘Not you,’ but decided against it. In fact, suddenly, she felt it necessary to give him the accurate, unadorned truth. ‘Max and I were talking and he had an idea. So, I’m here to check it out.’

‘A bit of freelancing, eh?’ Kavanagh said in what he imagined was a roguish way, trying to remember if he’d combed his hair that day. ‘Can I help?’

Again, she considered her options and decided on the simplest. ‘Why not?’ She needn’t tell him much. And, as not exactly the brightest copper in the small change he wouldn’t add much of his own,
but as another pair of eyes, another scrolling finger, he might serve. ‘I need to look back to see if there are any recent murders that might have a link to Lara Kent.’

‘What sort of link?’

‘That’s the problem. I don’t know. I think if we start with really recent, such as in the last…what do you think, three months? Murders, of course, but assaults too. Anything with a youngish victim for starters.’

Asked for an opinion, he was rather stuck, so settled for a simple, ‘That should do it.’

‘And South Coast based. Let’s not go into London, that would be too wide.’

‘OK.’

‘So, Alan, let’s get this clear. November, December, January. South Coast, certainly no further north than Reading. No further west than… let’s say Bournemouth. Don’t bother with Kent – excuse the pun – I think that’s too far. Don’t worry about category for now. So, any age, either sex. And, Alan?’

‘Yes?’

‘Unsolveds only, obviously.’

‘Obviously. Er, why only unsolved?’

She sighed. This might take longer with two, when the two included Alan Kavanagh. ‘Because,
Alan, if the crime has been solved, then that person cannot have committed our crimes, hmm?’

‘He can if the person they got didn’t do it. No crimes committed in the last three months have come to trial yet. So, they might have the wrong man. Or woman.’

Jacquie was stunned. She did a quick reappraisal of Alan Kavanagh. ‘True. Well spotted, Alan. All right, solved and unsolved.’ She bent to her screen as her computer ground into life. Blimey! What a dark horse. Then, her preconceptions were replaced, intact.

‘How are we going to do this, Jacquie?’

‘Pardon?’

‘How are we going to look these things up?’

‘Using HOLMES, Alan. How else?’

‘But, don’t we need DCI Hall’s say so before we log on to HOLMES?’

‘Yes. As a rule. But we’re doing a bit of personal work here, Alan. That’s what it’s all about – thinking outside the box.’

He put his hands in his lap, like a sulky child. ‘I’m not comfortable with this, then, Jacquie,’ he almost whined.

She used her best Nolan-controlling voice. ‘Alan. For goodness’ sake. We are helping in this case. We will save valuable hours. We may even,’ she lowered
her voice so he had to lean closer, ‘save a life.’

His eyes were like saucers. Jacquie was encouraged. She was obviously getting better at this. She had never managed to make it work on Nolan before. ‘Whose?’

‘Whose what?’

‘Whose life?’

‘Well, if we knew that, Alan, we wouldn’t be doing this, would we? We could just put a police guard on them and then they would be all right. It’s because we don’t know who the next victim is that we are looking for clues in past cases.’ She looked across him as he sat in front of his computer and saw total confusion. She sighed. ‘Just log on, Alan, would you, and look for murders in the parameters I just set.’ She thought through her last sentence. ‘Look for murders where I told you, for those months.’ Her screen was active and she finally logged on. ‘Let’s go.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Come on, Alan. Don’t be shy. DCI Hall will be chuffed and it will be one in the eye for the others when you come out with the info.’

‘You’d let me tell him?’ Kavanagh was ecstatic. She must fancy him after all!

Jacquie saw a window from which she could leap to escape the undoubted fire of Henry Hall’s anger. ‘Why not,’ she said, with faux magnanimity. ‘I can
see that sergeant’s job for you, after all. After this you could name your price.’

‘Cool!’ Kavanagh bent to his task and soon his fingers were blurs. But, sadly, his printer remained silent, as did Jacquie’s. Nothing seemed to fit and their initial enthusiasm began to dim. The room was filled with the tap of keys and the odd exclamation of delight, followed by the groan of disappointment. Whose idea was this, anyway?

Jacquie broke the silence. Without pausing in her tapping, she said, ‘By the way, Alan, how did it go?’

He
did
pause. Multi-tasking was not his forté. ‘How did what go?’

‘Finding Gregory Adair. You know, the chap from Leighford High? The one we think may have been involved with Dierdre Lessing?’

Blank incomprehension.

‘Alan? Do you work here? Are you
from
here? As in Earth?’ She realised the extent of his confusion and made her question plainer. ‘Alan. Did you do as I believe DCI Hall asked and try to find Gregory Adair?’

His reply was virtually inaudible, but she could read lips well enough.

‘You forgot? Alan, I don’t believe it. He only asked you to do one thing. How could you forget?’

He was distraught. ‘I came out of the interview
room and…and DS Davies asked me to go and get a file. It took ages and, well, when I came back to the room, he’d gone and then…well, I forgot.’ He looked close to tears. He’d never be a DCI now. From where he was, even human being seemed to be in the dizzying heights above.

‘OK, Alan, let’s think this through. It might be all right. DCI Hall and my…Peter Maxwell had a bit more of a chat after he sent you to find Gregory Adair. They may be on another tack, so try not to worry. But I think, in the morning, it might be an idea if you try and find him.’

‘But tomorrow’s Saturday,’ he whined.

‘Indeed it is, Alan. It is the day when DCs who can’t find their arse with both hands catch up on the messes they created Monday to Friday. Meanwhile, get looking. There must be
something
that matches what we want.’ And to show him how, she bent her head to her screen again and let her fingers do the walking.

Maxwell Junior had woken up. The chocolate on his cheeks was traced with the lines of angry tears. He was confused. One minute he was at some kind of mad running about place, with chocolate falling from the sky and the kid with one eyebrow who darkened everybody’s life, like the scythesman at
his elbow. The next, he was hot and grumpy in a dark room. No people. No light. No chocolate and, worst of all, no mother! What was happening to his world? Why was he sticky? Where was everybody? Even the kid with one eyebrow seemed to have vanished. There was one quick way to answer all his questions and that was to yell. So he yelled.

Downstairs, deep in thought, Maxwell Senior nearly died of shock. The room had been so quiet, with just the slight static hum of the baby monitor and the pilchardy snoring of Metternich to break the silence. The sudden scream was so disorienting it took Maxwell a microsecond to remember that it came from his ex-sleeping son. He was up the stairs in double quick time, Metternich on his heels, although what the cat thought he could do being minus opposable thumbs, Maxwell was at a loss to guess. Perhaps the old black and white bugger intended to sink his fangs into Nolan’s scruff and see how it went.

‘Sshhh, Nole. It’s all all right, old son. Daddy’s here. Look at you, all chocolaty.’ Maxwell looked down into the cot. ‘Just like your bedsheets.’ He held him further away. ‘Oh, and your jamas. And daddy’s shirt. How lovely. Mummy made a bit of a duff decision there, I think. Let’s get you changed and washed and see how you feel then, shall we?
Count, pass me a clean pair of jamas, would you? You can’t? Oh, well, come and tickle Nole with your whiskers. You’re good at that. Look, Noley, Metternich.’

The cat obligingly jumped up onto the edge of the changing mat and played ‘Catch Metternich’s Whiskers Without Getting Maimed’ – Nolan’s favourite game and one which he always won, thanks to the unexpected good humour of the most feared quadruped in Leighford. When you got to Metternich’s age, you didn’t get mad, you got mellow.

Maxwell, grateful for the help, changed, wiped, re-pyjamaed and soothed the little boy, but, after all the attention, he was awake and wanting more. More Daddy. More chocolate. More of something, which he sensed wasn’t forthcoming. His lip trembled as Maxwell laid him back in his cot.

‘Hmmm. What do you want, my little one?’ Memory came to help him. ‘A new toy? Would you like something new, Nolan? Bad lad, but still, we all have our off days, eh?’ He picked him up and put him over his shoulder, as he had since the boy was one minute old. ‘Let’s go and see what we can find, shall we?’

‘T’nick. Dada.’

‘You’ve arrived,’ Maxwell said to the cat, over his
free shoulder. ‘You are higher in the pecking order than me. Clever boy,’ he said to his son. ‘I’ll assume that in fact you were after starting a conversation about the late, great Chancellor of Austria, rather than calling the cat. Come on, let’s see where Daddy put the toy.’

Nolan had woken up totally now and was leaning over Maxwell’s shoulder, grabbing air in the direction of the cat who, in his own quiet way, was chuffed to death that his Boy knew his name. A vole would go free tonight, in honour of this momentous day. It would be called Nolan’s Day and it would be remembered for ever.

Going into the sitting room, Maxwell cast around in search of the lurid bag that Rebecca had handed him earlier. A small corner was sticking up from under a sofa cushion. One day, Maxwell promised himself, I will go through this furniture and become a multi-millionaire in small change. Meanwhile, he rummaged one-handed in the bag and finally brought out a small soft toy in the shape of a giraffe.

‘Look, Nole. A giraffe. What shall we call it?’

‘’Raffe.’

‘That seems fair enough. Though George would have been funnier. George Raffe. Get it? Surly film actor of yesteryear. Did that thing with a coin
between his fingers. Oh, never mind. Shall we take the giraffe to bed? He looks tired.’

Nolan looked at the giraffe and then at his father. Was the old duffer daft or what? It was a stuffed giraffe and not very convincing at that. How could the thing look tired with its eyes stitched open? Hadn’t his dad
seen A Clockwork Orange
? He stole a glance at Metternich, who winked one eye, imperceptibly. Nolan got the message and yawned extravagantly, as did the cat.

‘Yes. That’s it. You
and
the giraffe are tired. Up to bed we go.’ Maxwell hoisted the boy aloft again and took him upstairs. To Nolan’s astonishment, he was, in fact, shattered. It had been a hard day, what with socialising and such. He was asleep almost before his head hit his still chocolaty pillow.

Maxwell crept from the room and back downstairs. He was sorry now that he had sent Jacquie out into the night. Not only was it cold out there, but he needed to crystallise his thoughts. Still, he had Metternich. He wasn’t great on ideas, but he was logical enough and a great listener. As sounding boards go, he made a good mouser. Maxwell threw himself down on the sofa and leapt up again almost as quickly. He had sat on the bag that had once contained Nolan’s giraffe and now just contained his door plaque.

He sat down again, more carefully, and examined the piece of wood. It was rather well made, rectangular and, inevitably, painted blue. The child’s name was in the middle in a rather fanciful script, which the teacher in Maxwell thought rather unhelpful to the boy, should he be searching for his own room and relying on the label. However, in the scheme of things, it was probably a little more landing-enhancing than a straight lower case n-o-l-a-n. Around the edge, there was a repeating pattern that seemed random at first. Then, as his eyes focused on it better, it resolved itself into Nolan’s name, in the same letters, but joined together so that it ran together, on and on, until it joined up with itself to make an unbroken frieze. It then further developed as he looked harder, so that he could see that it still read, with a little imagination, the name upside down as well. How clever. Although his Light Brigade were to a man works of art, Maxwell wasn’t artistic in the accepted sense. But, rather like Pope Thing XVI, he knew what he liked. And he liked this. He knew what it was called, as well. He had dipped into the
da Vinci Code
DVD at school; it was useful on so many levels in cover lessons. SRS, pondering the meaning of Christianity; History, learning fascinating facts about da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope; Maths, er…you had to be able to learn
something
from Maths. You could even use it, he had discovered, to
put whole classes to sleep. This thing was called a… what was it, now, a chain ambigram? You couldn’t do it with all names, just ones with a repeating letter or close to a repeat. Nolan wasn’t perfect, but the ‘o’ could look like an ‘a’ if you added a little tail. Some names were impossible. Peter, for instance, unless your p’s were very unusual; Jacquie; Henry. He started going through all the names he could think of as an idea began to form in his mind. Alan, as in Kavanagh. Possible, in fact really good, as the ‘a’s could intertwine. This also worked for Lara. Darren would need work. Maxwell pulled a piece of paper towards him. Yes, that would work, with the ‘n’ given an extra curl and the ‘e’ upside down looking like a Times New Roman ‘a’. He scribbled faster. Dierdre was a gift. He hardly had to fuss with that at all. He rubbed his hand through his hair. What else? Oh God, what else? Emma. That worked. Greg. He reached for the phone and jabbed the speed dial for Jacquie’s mobile.