Maxwell's Crossing (25 page)

‘Henry?' Jacquie asked. ‘Why does that weaselly bloke keep staring at you like that? It looks as though he's coming over. Do you know him?'

Hall screwed round in his chair. ‘Oh, no,' he said. ‘That's Mark Chambers.' He looked at Maxwell and decided to continue anyway. ‘You know, one of the card
players. I interviewed him yesterday. Have you read his statement?'

‘Glanced,' Jacquie said. ‘Flicked, you know how it is.'

‘Nothing in there of note,' Henry quickly concluded. ‘He's a bit of a police groupie, that's all.' The man was now alongside.

‘Hello, DCI Hall.' He looked expectantly at the Maxwells. ‘May I join you?'

‘Of course,' said Jacquie pleasantly. ‘I am Detective Inspector Carpenter Maxwell and this is my husband, Max. How are you?'

The man pulled out a chair and leant towards her. ‘How do you mean, how am I?' he said, earnestly.

She was taken aback. She almost expected him to get out a notebook and jot down her reply. ‘Well, nothing, really. I just thought you might be feeling a little shocked. After Sarah Gregson's death; she was a friend of yours, wasn't she?'

‘Not a friend, really, no,' Mark Chambers said, pushing his glasses up his nose, right on cue. ‘An acquaintance, I should say.' He smiled ingratiatingly at Hall.

The others looked at him. He had met this woman, admittedly in the company of others, twice a week for months. Only that previous Saturday she had given him four hundred and fifty pounds, which she had won from him fair and square. She was now dead. And he was calling her an acquaintance. Jacquie and Maxwell, who knew Hall, could tell he was seething. But Chambers was not to know; as usual, there were no outward signs.

‘It's a shame, of course,' he said, compounding his
clichéd appearance with a hearty sniff, ‘but she was rather an unhappy woman, I always thought. Flawed. Like Sandra Bolton …' He looked around the room. ‘Is she here? Or is she suspended? I understand she—' Before he could carry on, Hall stood up, striking David a nasty denting blow with his elbow.

‘I must just go and speak to Bob before I go,' the DCI said, brusquely. ‘Margaret will be waiting with my supper. I'll see you tomorrow, Jacquie. Goodnight, Max. Love to Nolan.' And he was gone, elbowing through the now reasonably sized crowd.

Maxwell looked at Chambers with narrowed eyes. The man was not physically attractive, it was true, and he had the conversational style of a runaway rhinoceros. Perhaps some people were just born to be traffic wardens and their parents and teachers didn't bother to instil the social graces, knowing it would not be worthwhile. To fill the lengthening silence, he asked, ‘Have you lived in Leighford long, Mr Chambers?'

‘I don't actually live in Leighford,' Chambers said.

‘Oh.' Jacquie was surprised. Most people who worked in Leighford lived there. It seemed pointless not to; it was a pleasant enough town, if a little touristy in the season. The shops were OK, the facilities normal for a south-coast seaside town of its size. And she thought she remembered O'Malley saying that one of the men lived above a taxi firm. She was sure it was Chambers. ‘Where do you live?'

‘I may have given the wrong impression,' Chambers said, with a gap-toothed smile. ‘I mean that I do live in
Leighford, but I have a house out in one of the villages.' He saw their expressions and smiled more widely. ‘A “doer-upper”, I think they call it stateside. I don't live in it all the time. And of course, in this weather I haven't been able to get out there so much. It has no central heating at present, in this weather it is a bit of a no-go area.' He sipped his drink. ‘Where do you live?'

‘Out on the edge,' Maxwell said quickly. There was something about this man that made him not want to give his address. There was something of the stalker about him. He hadn't realised that traffic wardens were paid so well. Perhaps he was in the wrong job. ‘Two houses, Mark,' he said. ‘You are lucky. We've just got the one.'

Chambers laughed. ‘Not two houses, as such,' he said. ‘I live in a flat in Leighford, and the house is one my mother left me. She died last year, God rest her soul. We were very close. Even with my extra jobs I'm not sure I could manage two houses. Dear me, no.'

‘You live over a taxi firm, as I remember, don't you?' Jacquie said.

Chambers looked puzzled. ‘No,' he said. ‘A greengrocer's. Very quiet. Not too smelly either, unless the onions go off over a weekend. I was over a butcher's, once. That wasn't so nice. What made you think I lived over a taxi firm? That would be quite noisy, I should think.'

Jacquie shook her head and sipped her drink. ‘I don't know who mentioned it,' she said.

The silence lengthened again.

‘And then, there's the gambling,' Maxwell threw in.

‘Are you a policeman?' Chambers asked, frostily.

‘No. Not really,' Maxwell hedged.

‘Not really?'

‘Only by marriage. I'm a teacher. At Leighford High.'

‘How do you know so much, then?' Chambers said, rather snappily. ‘Shouldn't all this be confidential?' He looked at Jacquie as he spoke.

‘I know Rosemary Whatmough,' he said, for reasons he couldn't fathom.

‘Is Rosemary Whatmough a policeman?' Chambers was really on his guard now and on his dignity. Jacquie could smell trouble on the wind.

‘She's a teacher too,' she said. ‘She was Sarah Gregson's employer and she is our son's Headmistress. You know how people gossip.' She tried to lighten the mood and seemed to succeed.

Chambers relaxed and treated them to another smile. ‘Ah, gossip. Yes, my mother never liked to gossip. But we did like a nice game of cards. Whist drives, that kind of thing. I could never get the hang of bridge, but Mother was a demon.'

‘Racing demon.' Maxwell made a card game joke and it gave them all an opportunity to laugh nervously. ‘But, seriously, the gambling. It must have taken a chunk out of your wages, I suppose.'

Chambers stopped laughing. ‘It did, yes, but I never gambled with more than I could lose. And I didn't lose every time, not like the others. They were very unwise. They should have stopped coming if they couldn't
afford to lose. That's what I told them, but they thought they could win it back. Gamblers always do. I'm not a gambler, you see. I just like to play cards.'

The silence descended again and Jacquie got up. ‘I must just go and have a word with Bob, if you don't mind,' she said to Maxwell, but it was Chambers who answered.

‘No, off you go. I'll stay and chat to Max.'

Maxwell gave a rictus smile to Jacquie, who went off towards the bar.

‘What a lovely woman,' Chambers said. ‘You're a lucky man. I have never married. Never found the right girl. Ha ha.'

The right women could be very fleet of foot, it was true. Maxwell took refuge in his glass while he thought of something to say. ‘So, you know Jeff O'Malley?' he asked. ‘I know his son-in-law. We work together.'

‘I wouldn't say I know him,' Chambers said. ‘I just met him a few weeks ago at the game and I can't say we hit it off. He seemed rather a bully. He came back to my flat once, for a drink. A policeman, I gather, back home.'

‘Yes, indeed,' Maxwell agreed.

‘He told me all about his family. His daughter sounds a wonderful woman. Apparently, she has been in films. Living in LA I suppose you would get that kind of opportunity. I've never had any ambition in that direction. We were never a family to put ourselves forward like that, although I gather my grandfather used to do a humorous monologue sometimes at Christmas.
That would be before I was born, of course.'

There was something very soporific about the man's voice and Maxwell could suddenly see with awful clarity how easy it must be to be hypnotised. Perhaps Chambers lulled unguarded motorists into a stupor before he slapped a ticket on their windscreens. He could sense the room receding and Chambers' eyes seemed to glow behind his glasses. He shook himself awake and found that they had moved on from granddad amusing the family to how the present scion of the otherwise defunct Chambers family had had a few disappointments in his career, but was having an important interview with his new boss in the morning, of which he had high expectations.

‘I'm sure you'll do splendidly,' Maxwell said. ‘And of course, if you get a promotion, you can give up your extra sources of income and concentrate more on your doer-upper.'

Chambers was again on his dignity. ‘Who told you about my extra sources of income?' he snapped.

‘Um … you did, I'm sure,' Maxwell said. He had only been making polite conversation. ‘You said you had extra jobs.'

Chambers laughed unconvincingly. ‘So I did,' he said. ‘Sorry, I get a little defensive. For some reason, people don't like traffic wardens.'

‘How silly,' Maxwell said, clicking his teeth. ‘Just doing your job, after all. What are your extra jobs, if you don't mind my asking?'

‘Traffic warden,' Chambers said, as if clarifying everything.

‘No, your extra jobs.'

‘Traffic warden,' he said again, as though explaining to a child. ‘At weekends, I am a traffic warden, in private car parks. Cinemas. Out-of-town stores. That kind of thing.'

Maxwell was stuck for once for an answer. All of the stock ones – ‘that must make a change', ‘pleasant to be in the open air', ‘that must be very interesting', ‘at least there's no heavy lifting' – didn't seem to do the trick somehow.

‘I don't think I'll give them up, though,' the man said, glasses gleaming with enthusiasm. ‘I enjoy it. People should obey the rules and then they wouldn't get a ticket. All I'm doing is putting it right.'

Maxwell nodded and smiled. A vigilante traffic warden. Every town should have one.

Jacquie had been giving him covert glances for the last few minutes and had finally decided to take pity. She squeezed through the crowd and bent over to speak to Mark Chambers. ‘I'm going to have to tear Max away, I'm afraid. Babysitter problems, you know how it is.' As she said that, she realised how stupid that sounded. Of course he didn't know how it was. But he nodded anyway and leant back, as if giving Maxwell permission to leave.

They waited until they were outside before either spoke.

‘Is it me?' Maxwell asked.

‘No, it isn't. He is a bit of a nutcase. But … you know how these people get. Lives alone. Has an unpleasant job. Lost his dear old mum.'

‘I've lost my dear old mum, but I'm not strange.'

They walked on in silence for a few more steps.

‘There should be an answer, there, if you don't mind.'

She laughed and punched him lightly on the arm. ‘You're not strange, not really,' she said. ‘I do wish I'd met your mum, though. What was she like?'

To answer, he pulled his scarf over his head like a headsquare and tied it tight under his chin. He tucked his sideburns under it and teased a few curls out at the front. ‘Like that, more or less,' he said. ‘The only bit of my dad I have that's obvious is that funny knee I get in wet weather and a tendency to drool when I'm asleep.' He rearranged himself quickly; he had drawn a few odd glances from late shoppers in the Asda car park.

‘I'm sure I would have loved her,' Jacquie said.

‘Well, she would have loved you back,' he said, kissing her nose. ‘Where did that other chap work, the one in the card school?'

‘That was sneaky,' Jacquie said. Maxwell could change tack in a conversation for England. ‘Why do you want to know?'

He shrugged. He had forgotten that that was another thing he had inherited from his father; expressive shoulders. ‘Just wondered. A bent cop, a silly cop, a teacher, a traffic warden and a … just wondered, that was all. So I can do the old joke in the future. Just wondered.'

‘Well, you can wonder away, old-timer,' she said. ‘As a matter of fact, before the advent of Jeff O'Malley and his ways, the card school was busier by far. A couple of Leighford teachers, in fact. Whatsisface, Science Department – you know him, of course.'

‘Whatever would I know a scientist for? But as a matter of fact, he is one of my form tutors in the Sixth Form. Roger Philips. He doesn't strike me as a high roller.'

‘Well, he isn't. That's why he dropped out when O'Malley blew into town. Penny a point to five hundred a night was a bit much for him, I think. Don't let him know I told you, for heaven's sake.'

Maxwell smiled. ‘Don't worry about it. I don't think he has understood a word I've spoken in ten years. It was when they stopped wearing their white coats that the rot set in. So, what about the others? What did they do?'

She knew she would have no peace until she told him. ‘Two housewives; the landlord of the pub, from time to time; another policeman, who will no doubt have had his collar well and truly felt by Henry by now; a fitness instructor; a landscape gardener and a funeral director. Pick the bones out of that, Mr Clever.'

For a moment he toyed with inviting them all, Hercule Poirot-style, to a Denouement Meeting, the sort that could never actually happen because nobody would turn up. Didn't Agatha Christie know some strange people?

Jacquie was rummaging in her pocket. ‘Where the hell have I put my keys? Did I give them to you? These pockets aren't very deep.'

‘Did you drop them in the pub?' he asked, patting his clothes instinctively.

‘Oh, no, did I? Oh, rats. I'll go back.'

‘No, heart. Look, you pick up something nibbly for supper so we can have it quick. We never have much Nole time on a Tuesday, what with cooking and all. I'll pop back and see if I can track them down.'

She was still looking hopefully at her feet. ‘I'm really cross about that. Sorry, petal. Do you mind?'

‘Not at all. I'll catch up with you in there. Mwah,' and he was off at a careful trot. He remembered not to toss the keys triumphantly in the air until he was out of sight.

He scurried along the road and dived into Gino's, almost colliding with Mark Chambers in the doorway. Good timing. ‘Mark, I was hoping to bump into you. Jacquie was telling me about that other chap that played cards with you. Mrs Whatmough, Sarah's boss, you know, wanted to know who you all were. For the funeral. She's helping arrange it; she's a wonderful woman.'

‘Is she? Sarah never said.'

‘Well, she is. So,' Maxwell was hopping up and down with cold and shortage of time, ‘can you tell me his name? And where he works as well, if you know.'

‘Sandra Bolton knows him better than I do.'

‘Is she here?' Maxwell looked around wildly.

‘No. But your wife works with her. Why doesn't she ask her?'

‘Sandra is off at the moment,' Maxwell extemporised. ‘Stress.'

Mark Chambers looked at Maxwell for a couple of heartbeats. ‘Tim Moreton,' he said. ‘He works for
the council, but I'm not sure in what actual capacity. Something to do with health, I think.'

‘Excellent. I'm sure I can track him down,' Maxwell said. ‘Not that I have ever looked on it, but apparently there is some kind of database, and as a council employee myself, I'm sure I can find him. Moreton, you say?'

‘That's right. Tim.' The traffic warden was looking as though Maxwell had been parked in a loading bay for just a tad too long. ‘Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be getting along.'

‘Of course.' Maxwell let him by. ‘And good luck for tomorrow.'

‘Tomorrow? Oh, yes, thank you. You can only do your best.'

‘How true. Goodnight, then.' And Maxwell hotfooted it back to Asda; with luck he would be in time to add a few illicit treats to the trolley, for later.

As they pushed open the door of 38 Columbine, the Maxwells held their combined breaths, wondering why there was no noise of thundering feet. Nolan was not a difficult kid, taken by and large, but after a Troubridge Tuesday he was usually pretty hyper, partly from the E-number-laden sweets she plied him with, partly from the muscular effort it took not to knock over her many knick-knacks. But all was quiet. Maxwell felt Jacquie stiffen at his side and her wariness was catching. They prowled up the stairs with every sense alert.

The kitchen and sitting room were empty and there was no sign that either Nolan or Hector Gold had been
back in the house since that morning. Metternich's bowl was as empty as it had been when Jacquie had left the house; usually, there were a few random biscuity things lying in and around the bowl, where Nolan had been a little too generous filling it, but there was nothing, just a thread of morning tuna.

Staying together, glued by a nameless fear, they toured the house, and when they reached the attic with still no sign, it was Maxwell who spoke for them both. It was more of a croak than speech.

‘O'Malley?'

‘There must be an explanation,' Jacquie said.

‘It's too cold out to have gone for a walk,' Maxwell said.

‘The car's not there. Perhaps they went into town for pizza or chips. Perhaps they went to get a DVD from Blockbuster or something.'

Maxwell let out a rather unconvincing laugh. ‘I bet they're next door.' He was more of an ointment man, whereas Jacquie always noticed the fly first.

‘They would have heard us come in. And where's the car?' That missing car was what bothered her most. And where was the note? Where were the signs that they had come back here at all?
Where was her son?

Recognising the rising note that was all mother, the detective-inspector part of her having been beaten to the tape, he pulled at her sleeve. ‘Come on. Let's go and check next door. I bet they're there.' She didn't move. ‘Come on. Jacquie. You're overreacting.'

‘You wouldn't say that if you knew what he'd done,'
she flashed angrily. ‘I had his full rap sheet this morning in an email. He's violent when he thinks he has been wronged and who has wronged him more than us? As far as he can see, we've taken his family and he's not having that. He's in a strange country, away from his dodgy friends, with no one to protect him. What better way to pay me back than—Sshhh!' She suddenly covered Maxwell's mouth, as though it had been him talking and not her. ‘What was that?'

Down at street level, a door slammed and feet were thundering up the stairs. A distant voice was calling. ‘Mums! Dads! Where are you?'

‘Oh, God!' she breathed. ‘Nolan!'

To prevent a
Carry On
moment at the head of the stairs, Maxwell let her go first. Not only did it mean no one fell down and broke a limb, but also he got a few precious seconds to dry his eyes on his sleeve.

‘Up here, sweetie,' Jacquie called and met her son on the first landing. He leapt into her arms from a standing start and wrapped his legs around her and squeezed his face into her neck.

‘Are you all right, darling?' she muttered into his hair. ‘Where have you been?' She looked up and saw Hector Gold standing diffidently, still at the head of the stairs, as if too shy to come in further. In a film, he would have been wringing a cap in his hands and polishing the toecaps of his boots on the back of his trousers. ‘Hector. What's going on?'

‘Sorry, Jacquie. We didn't mean to scare you. It was Jeff. He was … Look, can we sort out Nolan first? He's
had a fright. I'll tell you later.' He dropped his voice so it was hardly audible and mouthed, ‘He doesn't know it all.'

Maxwell, standing behind Jacquie and stroking his son's curly head, nodded agreement. He leant in and kissed his son. ‘Come on, mate. Let go of Mums for a minute and let's get you a bit cleaned up. You're a bit teary. Come on, poppet. Let's have you for a minute. Poor Mums, you're strangling her.'

With an extra squeeze for luck, the little boy allowed himself to be transferred to his father and he nestled there with his face hidden, but calmer now.

‘It was Mr O'Malley,' he said. ‘He was at Mrs Troubridge's when I got home.' His voice dropped even lower, so Maxwell could hardly hear it. ‘He isn't a very nice man.'

Jacquie's inner detective inspector rose back up and pushed the mother to one side. ‘Did he touch you?'

Hector put a hand on her arm. ‘Don't put him through all that, Jacquie,' he counselled. ‘There's no need for him to know all that stuff. Jeff didn't hurt him. He's a bastard, but he's not that kind of bastard. It was Alana he was after. And me, for causing all this.'

‘You? Why you?' Maxwell thought he knew, but wanted to be sure.

‘I brought them all here, so it's my fault, by Jeff's reckoning. But anyway, Nolan's just frightened, that's all. He hasn't been hurt or even touched. Don't worry, Jacquie. Just get him cleaned up and into bed.' He swayed a little. ‘Can I sit down? I don't feel too good,' and he
slumped against the wall, one arm around his waist.

‘Hec?' Jacquie said, holding him up. ‘Are you all right? Are you hurt?'

‘Just a little of the O'Malley medicine,' he said. ‘He made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Alana or me. Even Jeff O'Malley baulked at a child and an old woman, and I baulked at seeing my mother-in-law beaten to a pulp. So I let him have a go at me. I'm just bruised. I'll be fine. Don't fuss; I just want to sit down for a spell.'

Jacquie was torn. She had a small child to soothe, she had an injured man to help, she had two women to question about a crime. Maxwell could recognise agony of indecision in anyone, but in his wife his senses were even more honed. He slid Nolan down to the floor and put his little hand in hers.

‘Take Mums upstairs, mate,' he said, ‘and let her put you to bed. Have a read and a cuddle and then send her back down when you're ready. But not a moment before you're ready. Is that a deal?'

Nolan nodded but put up his arms again to be carried. Babyhood was still nearer to the surface than any of them realised in normal circumstances and it was breaking through tonight.

Maxwell watched until the two were on the stairs and then he turned to Hector Gold. ‘Mrs Troubridge and Alana? Are they all right?'

‘Shocked. Mrs Troubridge was like a tiger. She came near to being hit, but O'Malley had me and it is better for his macho self-image to hit a man rather than a woman.'

‘But … he hits Alana?' Maxwell was in no doubt that O'Malley was a wife beater. He could see it in Alana's eyes.

‘Yes. But Alana is just a commodity. Tonight, though, he was apportioning blame, and so I got the lion's share. Nolan didn't see it, by the way. I got this when I helped Jeff to load the car.'

‘What with?'

‘Food, from Mrs Troubridge's. Bedding, lots of quilts and blankets. Torches; I never knew a woman with as many torches and batteries as Jessica.'

‘She likes to be prepared,' agreed Maxwell. ‘Founder member of the Girl Guides or League of German Maidens; I can't remember which.'

‘He's not going back to the house, that's clear,' Gold said. ‘He'll be holed up somewhere. Jeff's a master at disappearing.'

‘But he doesn't know the area. He can't even find a particular house for certain. How will he know where to hide?'

‘He'll find somewhere. Meanwhile, can I
please
sit down?'

‘My dear chap,' Maxwell remembered his duties as host, ‘come into the sitting room and we'll make you comfy. Do you want a drink? Painkiller? Or should we wait in case you need surgery or something.'

‘This isn't an episode of
Diagnosis Murder,
Max,' Gold reminded him. ‘It was just a few punches to the solar plexus. I'll live. I'm a lot tougher than I look.' He flopped down onto the sofa and lay back and closed his
eyes. ‘Which is probably just as well, you may well be thinking.' He shifted awkwardly and finally found a comfortable position.