Maxwell’s Curse (24 page)

‘Spreadeagled on the bed. I tell you, Jacquie,’ Brand’s solid face said it all, ‘I’ve seen some sights in my time, but Jesus Christ. Know what it reminded me of? The Sharon Tate murder.’

‘Charles Manson?’ she frowned. ‘Bit before my time, Kev.’

‘Yeah, but the blood on the wall. Manson’s family wrote “Kill the pigs”. Our boy wrote “Maleficarum”, whatever that is. There was a fuck of a lot of blood.’

‘And that’s not like him,’ Jacquie nodded.

‘What isn’t?’

‘The others – Pride, Walters, Thorn. All the wounds have been post mortem. No blood. But Darblay and Ruger,’ she shuddered inside at the memory of the red-daubed church, ‘enough to drown in. Why is that?’

‘Jacquie,’ Brand shifted uneasily, looking at the photograph of the dead journalist’s face, ‘you don’t think we’re talking about two killers, do you? What do the shrinks call it – folie a deux?’

‘I don’t know, Kev.’ She shook her head. But she knew a man who might.

The man who might slumped in a darkened corner of his classroom. He’d been listening to the collective wisdom of Year 13, attempting a seminar on Disraeli’s New Imperialism. About half past three he’d contemplated throwing himself through the window. At least the social ramifications of the defenestration of Maxwell would make a change from Dizzy. For the umpteenth time he pronounced the name Bartle Frere for the verbally challenged and then the bell saved his life.

He packed up his encyclopaedic historical knowledge and stumbled next door to his office. A young man sat there, with dark wavy hair and an earnest expression, made more so by the bruise on his jaw.

‘Mr Maxwell?’

‘Detective Sergeant Stone,’ the Head of Sixth Form said. It was only then he noticed the second man half hidden by the door.

‘This is Detective Constable Grimshaw.’ The second man flashed his warrant card.

Maxwell nodded briefly to him and took his seat behind his desk. ‘If you’re going to snoop into a man’s private life, sergeant,’ he said with a smile, ‘at least have the wit, if not the grace, to put his desk diary back straight.’ Stone’s jaw flexed and his eyes narrowed. He’d heard rumours about Maxwell. Down the nick he was legendary; for a pain in the arse, that is. Rumour had it he was slipping Jacquie Carpenter one, that he’d got something on the guv’nor, that he was an ex-Yard man put out to grass.

The question now was – was he the Devil himself?

‘I’d like to ask you about Janet Ruger,’ Stone said.

‘Journalist,’ said Maxwell. ‘Writes for the
Telegraph
. Sorry … wrote.’

‘You know what’s happened, then?’

Maxwell got up to close the door and noticed the constable scribbling in his notepad. ‘At four o six,’ he said, ‘Mr Maxwell rose and closed his office door, not as an admission of guilt, but simply because a conversation about a murder is hardly a suitable one for young ears. This is a school,’ he sat back down again. ‘Children everywhere!’

‘How did you find out about Ms Ruger’s death?’ Stone asked.

‘
Meridian News
,’ Maxwell told him. ‘That nice Sally Taylor. It did, I confess, come as a bit of a shock.’

‘Really?’ Stone crossed one leg casually over the other. ‘Why was that?’

‘I’d only talked to her the other night.’

‘Friday?’

‘That’s right. She came to my house at about nine, nine thirty.’

‘Oh?’ Stone’s expression hadn’t changed. ‘Why would that be?’

‘She wanted to pump me,’ Maxwell shrugged. ‘Find out what I know.’

‘And what do you know?’

‘In general terms?’ Maxwell asked. ‘Or specifically?’

Stone uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. ‘Specifically, Mr Maxwell, we’re getting jerked around by people like you. In case quantitative history isn’t your particular bag, five people have died in and around Leighford in the last month. And before you come out with Joe Public’s usual cry “What are you blokes doing about it?” the answer is pratting around with people like you. There is such a thing as wasting police time, you know.’

Maxwell nodded. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘And you’re doing most of it, Mr Stone. Impressive, though, about quantitative history. What board did you do?’

‘Cambridge …’ Stone was caught off guard by that one. ‘That’s hardly the point,’ he went on. ‘Specifically what did this Ruger woman want?’

‘She wanted to pick my brains,’ Maxwell told him. ‘I couldn’t help.’

Stone looked at the young DC who looked back at him. ‘See, what I find a little more than a coincidence,’ he said, ‘is that of those five deaths, two of them can be laid, if you’ll excuse the pun, at your door. Now that does strain credulity somewhat, doesn’t it? How well do you know the Brougham?’

‘The hotel? Not very,’ Maxwell said. ‘I’ve had the odd dinner there. Nothing special, I seem to remember. Quite nice uplit wall decorations, sort of Klimt meets Bauhaus.’

‘What time did Ms Ruger leave?’ Stone asked.

‘She didn’t stay long,’ Maxwell remembered. ‘Perhaps ten, a little after.’

‘She drove away?’

‘I didn’t notice.’

‘Did she tell you anything?’ Stone changed tack.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Think back. Did she give you any information?’

Maxwell sat upright in his chair. ‘As a matter of fact, she did,’ he said. ‘She gave me a press pass and invited me to Monday’s press conference – Dr Liebowitz.’

‘The shrink?’ Stone checked.

‘To put it in the vernacular, yes.’

‘Now that is interesting,’ nodded Stone as Grimshaw wrote furiously.

‘Is it?’ Maxwell was all innocence.

‘Oh, yes,’ Stone assured him. ‘It’s very interesting that a woman who was going to die a little more than forty-eight hours after she left you should think you’d be interested in the services of a shrink. You see, Mr Maxwell, you’re one of those fascinating people we police officers have a special place in our hearts for.’

‘Oh?’ Maxwell bit his tongue to stop himself from commenting on the prepositionary faux pas.

‘The person we call,’ Stone smiled, ‘the last person to see someone alive.’

‘You mean no one saw Janet Ruger for forty-eight hours? The entire weekend?’ Maxwell was incredulous.

‘No one, Mr Maxwell,’ Stone assured him. ‘No one at all.’

15

Mark Ruger arrived in Leighford that Wednesday. He wasn’t exactly the distraught husband. In fact he’d stopped being Janet’s husband eight years ago, after it was clear that she was more in love with her career than she was with him. He went through the motions, identified his ex-wife’s body for the record and talked to the police.

Jacquie Carpenter got the short straw, sifting through the remains of another person’s life. The dead woman had graduated from Essex University (well, somebody had to) and had worked on a whole variety of local papers before reaching Fleet Street. A spell on the
Guardian
had been the high-water mark in the early ’nineties and then, on a whim, she’d retired to rural Wiltshire with hubby to write the great British novel.

Instead, she’d drifted, dabbling here and there, freelancing as she went. She was never at home, Mark told Jacquie, never there for anybody but herself. Oh, she was a clever woman certainly, but there was no heart, no soul. Why would anyone want her dead? Well, that was a different question. Not Mark Ruger certainly. He’d taken the coward’s way out years ago with letters to solicitors and amicable settlements. They’d metaphorically divided the sofa and the bed in half. Janet had the PC and Mark the Sheltie – it seemed a fair deal.

And Jacquie was still typing up the report at Leighford nick when Jock Haswell announced a visitor. Zarina Liebowitz loomed larger in a confined space than she had at the press conference. Her earrings dangled onto her ample shoulders and the dress she was wearing seemed to be made of several miles of batik.

‘I was hoping for Henry Hall,’ she said in her Californian drawl.

‘Sorry,’ said Jacquie. ‘The DCI isn’t available at the moment. You’ve got me.’

‘DCI?’ Dr Liebowitz replied. ‘That’s a kind of lieutenant, isn’t it?’

‘Kind of.’ Jacquie shrugged. She really had no idea.

‘Is there somewhere where we can go, my dear?’

Jacquie drew herself up to her full five feet six. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, Dr Liebowitz. I am a Detective Constable. I’m not anybody’s dear.’

‘Oh, now,’ the psychotherapist said. ‘I find that very hard to believe. I was assured every co-operation by your Chief Constable.’

Jacquie Carpenter caught Jock Haswell’s eye across the corridor and the kindly desk man suddenly found something fascinating in the filing cabinet to check on. Jacquie led the way to Interview Room Two, with its desk, its chairs, its tape recorder.

‘Sorry this is a little … basic,’ she said.

‘This’ll do fine,’ Dr Liebowitz replied. ‘Murder is a pretty basic business, after all.’

‘Can I get you some coffee?’

‘No, thanks, honey – or aren’t you anybody’s honey either?’

‘Let’s get another thing straight,’ Jacquie offered the woman a seat and took the other one, across the desk from her. ‘The Chief Constable may have promised you every co-operation, but to be absolutely frank, I don’t know how helpful I can be.’

‘That’s all right,’ the doctor nodded, pulling out a packet of Marlborough. ‘Oh, do you mind?’

‘Be my guest,’ Jacquie said; she who hadn’t touched the weed this century.

‘Perhaps I can help you.’

‘Oh?’ Jacquie’s tone may have sounded hopeful but her face said it all.

‘The murder weapon,’ Dr Liebowitz said. ‘Can I see it?’

Jacquie shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. It’s at the lab undergoing tests.’

‘No matter,’ the psychotherapist lit up with the age-old skill of one who can puff on a cigarette while in full flow. ‘Let me tell you. The dagger that killed Janet Ruger has a double-edged blade, which is five or six inches long. The hilt is made of obsidian, probably with some kind of shamanistic motif. Am I right?’

Jacquie remembered to close her mouth. ‘How did you … ?’

‘I’ve been here before, DC Carpenter, not once, but many times. The dagger is called an athame. The hilt is black, the colour of death and it would have to be consecrated, like any sacred tool, before use.’

‘Consecrated?’

‘Sure, to remove any traces of negative or psychic energy. In the hands of a white witch, it can never be used to draw blood. It corresponds to the element of the Air.’

‘In the hands of a white witch?’ Jacquie repeated.

‘What you guys used to call a wise or cunning woman. Somebody who works for good. In the hands of a black witch now …’

‘And that’s what we have here?’ Jacquie asked. ‘Black witchcraft?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Dr Liebowitz nodded, staring hard at Jacquie.

‘Look,’ Jacquie twisted in her chair. ‘Can we get something else straight? I mean, this is the twenty-first century.’ She was trying to sound like the DCI.

‘So?’ Dr Liebowitz shrugged. ‘I won’t bore you with the pedigree of witchcraft. Endor, Pendle, Loudon, Salem – it goes back a long way. And it’s too late in the day to start debating whether the Dark One is for real or a dimension of our own psyche. The situation as I see it – the reality in Leighford today – is that there are folks round here for whom he’s real enough.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Jacquie asked, drifting, increasingly, in a sea of psychosis she didn’t understand. ‘Some kind of organization?’

‘A coven,’ Dr Liebowitz said. ‘Thirteen people, maybe more. They meet regularly in each other’s houses at esbats. On high days and holidays, it’s the sabbat – Halloween, Walpurgis. And it’s a lot more trick than treat, believe me.’

‘Nobody believes in this nonsense,’ Jacquie said, wishing Peter Maxwell was there to back her up.

‘Oh, but they do,’ Dr Liebowitz told her. ‘Janet Ruger, for one.’

Jacquie blinked. ‘Janet Ruger was a believer?’

‘If you mean did she dance skyclad, widdershins around a maypole, I’ve no idea. But I met this woman. Believe me, she’s involved.’

‘You met her where?’

‘Nottingham, ten years ago.’

‘Nottingham?’ Jacquie repeated.

‘A housing estate called Broxtowe.’

‘Had you met Crispin before?’ Jacquie asked.

‘Crispin Foulkes? No.’ Dr Liebowitz blew smoke rings to the ceiling. ‘He’s quite a dish, isn’t he? No, we kept missing each other at Broxtowe, though it’s because of him I’m here.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, him and the local social services. He knew my work, of course. I wrote my PhD on satanic abuse. It’s flattering he remembered.’

‘And Janet Ruger?’

‘Well,’ the good doctor became cosy, wriggling nearer on her plump elbows, ‘Janet came to see me on the night she died.’

‘She did? What time was this?’

‘This is the Sunday night. The day before my press conference. It would have been about half eleven.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Barlichway Estate.’

‘The Barlichway? What were you doing there?’

‘I wanted to see the place for myself. It’s on estates like that the trouble often starts. It did at Broxtowe, Rochdale

‘You were there alone, just the two of you?’

‘Sure. Listen, honey … er, detective, I was brought up on the West Coast and believe me, you ain’t seen nothing ’til you’ve sampled the delights of downtown LA.’

‘What did you do?’ Jacquie asked.

‘At the Barlichway?’ Dr Liebowitz leaned back as far as her proportions and the police furniture would allow. ‘Visited the spot where Albert Walters was found. Bad karma.’

‘And?’

‘And then I went back to my hotel and she to hers, I guess.’

‘What time was this?’

‘This would be soon after twelve. I had the press conference the next day and there were some notes I needed to check.’

‘Did Janet Ruger say she was meeting somebody else, back at the Brougham?’

‘No,’ Dr Liebowitz said. ‘I can’t say that she did.’ She looked at her watch, glittering gold on the chubby arm. ‘Jesus, look at the time. Sorry, Detective, I’ve got to run. Listen, we’ll talk again, huh?’

Jacquie was still in her chair as the big woman reached the door, ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we will.’

Metternich looked up at Maxwell with his usual ‘And where have you been?’ kind of stare. It was always the same. Regular as clockwork when the old bastard was out, that plastic thing in the corner of the lounge would ring and bleep and then start talking to him as if he was standing there. Then it would flash like an alien and every time Maxwell would press a button and the voice would come again, from nowhere.