Maxwell's Inspection (32 page)

‘Oh, but they do, Mrs Whiting,' Bathurst said. ‘Killing is a skill, just like any other. No, not like any other, because to do it several times and get away with it, well, that's damned near impossible.'

Pamela slid back her chair and sat down. The cat and mouse game had gone on for long enough. ‘It said in the papers – quoting your beloved Chief Inspector, if I remember rightly – that Alan, Paula Freeling and Craig Edwards were all killed by the same hand.'

‘We believe so,' Bathurst nodded.

She leaned back. ‘All right,' she said, smiling. ‘Let's suppose I go along with your idiocy that I engineered my husband's death. Did I also engineer that of
another 
Ofsted Inspector and a seaside photographer? And what little psychodrama from my girlhood would you conjure up to explain the slaughter of these particular innocents? Well, I'm waiting.'

Peter Maxwell had reached the rise overlooking the sea by a little after half ten. All the way down from the Dales he'd been wrestling with it and every minute since. Pamela Whiting was behind her husband's death – that much he knew. But she couldn't have done it herself. She wasn't the Boiler Man who had sneaked unobserved into Leighford and set the fire alarm before pinning Whiting to his chair. And although she was in Leighford by the time of the other two deaths, she hadn't popped unnoticed into the Cunliffe and abducted an Ofsted Inspector or rung a photographer's doorbell bright and early last Saturday morning. And if it wasn't Pamela Whiting, then …

‘Mr Maxwell?'

He turned at the sound of his name to see a white van growling at the grassy kerb next to him.

‘Hello, Iron,' he said. ‘I was wondering when you'd come calling.'

The drummer switched off his engine and got out of the van. There was a gleaming blade in his hand, long and tapering and he held it out horizontally, pricking the skin of Maxwell's neck.

‘Taking a bit of a risk, aren't you?' Maxwell asked. ‘Using the Hippos van? I'd have thought you'd have used your other one, which I assume is plain. Out for a late night barbecue?'

Iron Man shrugged. ‘I've been a bit sloppy on this one, Mr Maxwell,' he granted. ‘Now, you just walk ahead of
me, slowly and level, all right? It's just a
bit
too open up here for my liking.'

Maxwell obliged, taking each step one at a time,
knowing
that Iron Man's skewer could be through the back of his neck before he could break wind. The breeze from the sea ruffled his hair under the tweed cap and he looked out at that breathtaking view for perhaps the last time. The drummer was taking him steadily downwards, away from the road and into the gorse bushes, darker still against the dark pearl of the night sky.

‘Far enough,' Iron Man tapped his man on the
shoulder
with the skewer.

Slowly, Maxwell turned to face him. ‘Before you use that thing,' he said. ‘Can you fill me in a bit? I'm naturally curious, you see, can't help myself. I'd hate to die not knowing why.'

Iron Man looked at him. He was close enough so that if he extended his arm now, he'd kill the Head of Sixth Form. One swift, sudden thrust and the blood would spurt above the ludicrous bow tie as it had from the throat of Alan Whiting.

‘You're a clever bastard,' Iron Man said. ‘Why don't you tell me?'

‘All right,' Maxwell was already counting his
blessings
. He couldn't imagine the man giving Alan Whiting time to wheedle. And he was desperately playing for time. ‘I will. But first, you've got to tell me something, Iron. How did you … get into this in the first place? I mean, at school, when you were filling in those endless careers forms, what did you write? Professional
murderer
?'

‘It's a long story,' Iron Man smiled.

‘We've got all night,' Maxwell hoped.

‘No, we haven't,' the drummer corrected him. Maxwell noticed that his piercings were gone, those
obvious
metal dangly bits that drew people's attention to him. And his voice was not slurred and his sniff had gone. And he was a killer, just doing his job, as lethal and as focused as Metternich the cat. He'd be out on the night air now, scenting his prey on the wind, facing his luckless rodent as Iron Man faced Maxwell. ‘It just happened,' he said darkly. ‘I killed my first man when I was eighteen. That was in Bristol – a gang thing. He took the piss out of my drumming at a gig. So I kebabed him with my drum stick down an alley. By the time I was twenty, it was a nice little earner. ‘Course, the sticks was a bit of a giveaway, but a skewer…' He held it up to the light. ‘Untraceable.'

‘You were working for Pamela Whiting,' Maxwell said, hoping that while he was still actually talking the
drummer
wouldn't strike.

‘That's right,' Iron said. ‘Had a bit of husband trouble. She told me where he'd be – which school, which hotel.'

‘That was a hell of a risk,' Maxwell chuckled. ‘Killing him at Leighford High like that. I take my hat off to you,' and his hand came up.

‘Uh-huh.' The skewer glinted wickedly against Maxwell's throat. He felt the razor point nick the skin again and knew that he was bleeding.

‘You … got the layout of the place, of course, from Duggsy and Wal. What more natural than three old mates, nattering away nights after a gig, eh? Few bevvies, few joints, few reminiscences of where the fire alarms were and the security cameras, and how they'd no doubt dodged past them all in their day. They're great lads,
Duggsy and Wal, but they're not the brightest jewels in the crown, are they? You must have been a
bit
disconcerted
though when your target turned up at the Vine?'

‘A bit,' Iron conceded. ‘That's why I followed him
outside
, thinking to hit him there, in the pub car park. Instead I find that tart Sally Meninger screaming at the
photographer
. So I stuck with Plan A.'

‘Plan A.' Maxwell's eyes were swivelling frantically. The pair were totally alone. No passing car, no courting couples,
nothing
between him and a sudden, violent death. ‘You borrowed a boiler man's suit.'

‘Had one already,' Iron told him.

‘And … what? A baseball cap to hide the ponytail? Whipped out the old piercings so they wouldn't flash on any CCTV camera that might still accidentally catch you? That took some nerve, Iron.'

‘That's what it's all about,' the drummer said. ‘The risk, the thrill, if you like. It's what they call job fulfilment, ain't it? I couldn't do it just for the money. Whiting was about to get out of the room, you know, for the fire drill. I told him he didn't have to. Pretended I was the school's odd job man and I was on to it. Then I stuck him.'

‘Neat. So, tell me, Iron … this is rather a personal
question
, I know, but what do you charge for something like this? A murder, I mean.'

‘Got someone you want doing, Mr Maxwell?' Iron chuckled. ‘Bit late now, maybe. But no, it's not a personal question – as long, of course, as you keep it our little secret. I'd hate the Chancellor of the Exchequer to find out. Five large, Alan Whiting cost.'

‘You killed a man for five hundred pounds?' Maxwell was incredulous.

‘Five
thousand
,' the drummer corrected him. ‘I don't come cheap.'

‘How can you put a price on somebody's life like that?' Maxwell was in the twilight zone.

‘That first bloke in the alley I killed for nothing,' Iron reminded him.

‘A bit like Paula Freeling and Craig Edwards,' Maxwell said.

‘Like I say,' Iron Man clicked his teeth. ‘I been a bit sloppy. The one thing you learn in this game, Mr Maxwell, is split-second timing. It's a bit like drumming really. In, out, hit, move. And never,
ever
look back. That's what I did. I turned instinctively to see who'd just opened the door. It was that Freeling woman. I didn't have time to do anything about it just then, so I had to bide my time. Christ knows what she'd tell the police.'

‘Nothing,' Maxwell told him. ‘Paula Freeling was too traumatized to remember anything. Ironic, wasn't it? You were in the clear.'

‘Yeah,' Iron shrugged. ‘Ironic. I had to go to her hotel. The Filth were guarding the place and following them everywhere. Still, there's a back way into everywhere, ain't there? That stupid bastard on the front desk didn't notice as I clocked the old girl's room number.'

‘Why didn't you kill her there?' Maxwell asked. ‘You took a hell of a risk getting her out.'

‘I didn't want her screaming the place down and I needed to know what she'd seen, what she'd told Johnny Law. I took her to my garage.'

‘And that's where you killed her.'

‘Kept her in my bass drum case, Mr Maxwell. You've been sitting on it in the van for the last couple of days.'

‘But she couldn't stay there,' Maxwell said.

‘The Filth were searching garages, lock-ups, that sort of thing. It would have looked a bit suspicious if I'd refused them a shufty, wouldn't it?'

‘Hence the waterworks?'

‘I know a bloke who works for them,' the drummer said. ‘He told me they was filling in holes, ready to move on. Seemed the ideal choice. Guess he was wrong.'

‘Why Edwards?' Maxwell could feel the pressure of the skewer-point growing on his epiglottis. ‘Why the
photographer
?'

‘When he turned up for the gig at the Old Mill, I … well, I don't mind confessing it to you, Mr Maxwell – I was a bit rattled. I'd seen him in the Vine, in the car park. Had he seen me, prowling around the cars, carrying the pig-sticker here? And I didn't know what you knew either, how far you'd got. Bastard took a photo of us
playing
, didn't he? I wasn't having that. Couldn't take the chance. I wanted the film.'

‘But you couldn't get it that night?'

‘No, the wanker had gone by eleven and we was booked till twelve. Can't let ‘em down, can you, the kids? How do you do
School's Out
acoustic? You've just got to have drums, know what I mean?'

Maxwell did.

‘So I went a-calling bright and early next morning. Took every bit of film he had. Burnt the lot.'

‘And killed him.'

‘Yeah, that was unfortunate, but I sensed he wasn't going to be reasonable, so, wallop, really. And that was nearly my last loose end, so to speak.'

‘Until me.'

‘Yeah,' Iron Man chuckled. ‘Oh, I've always stayed one step ahead of the Filth, Mr Maxwell. Sure, they've got forensic and all that bollocks coming out of their ears, but deep down, they're Mr Plod, ain't they? Terminally
stupid
. But you … well, you're clever, Mr M. I got to hand it to you.
And
you're stubborn. Like a dog with a fucking bone. You'd have sussed me eventually. That's why the Hippos had to follow you everywhere. Take you around half the fucking country. I had to know what was going down; how close you were.'

‘Well, that's nice of you, Iron,' Maxwell said. His heart was pounding, his throat tight. The old flight or fight adrenalin was whirling through his bloodstream. Except that he was too slow for flight and as for fight …well, he'd seen Iron Man in action.

A roar shattered the night and a flash of white light illuminated the scene. Maxwell batted aside the skewer, feeling it lacerate his throat and struggled with the
drummer
on the ground. From nowhere, Harley Davidsons were hurtling over the ridge of the hill, snarling through the gorse bushes in a spray of soil and gravel.

‘Yawning Fucking Hippos!' one of the Bikers yelled, skidding his machine to a halt and hurling himself onto the nearest body. ‘I've been waiting for this.'

Maxwell rolled clear to find himself facing Death, the slob whose eyes he'd poked back in the Vine when he'd met Iron Man for the second time. ‘You!' the slob hissed, but Maxwell was faster this time. He brought his boot up smartly in between the Biker's legs and the thud brought tears to the man's eyes. Then he caught his hair and pulled savagely, so that Death squealed before stumbling backwards through the gorse.

To his left, Iron Man was kicking and gouging his way clear of three or four of them, his skewer gone, his fists crunching into leather and metal.

‘Kill the fucker!' came a screamed order and a circle of bikes snarled to a standstill, their headlights lighting the weird arena in which Iron Man and Maxwell stood alone. It was like Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas in Laurence Olivier's fatal circle at the end of
Spartacus
. One by one, the engines were switched off. Death and the Bikers
damaged
by Iron Man were spitting out teeth, re-arranging their hair, adjusting their leathers. Spanners came out of tool boxes, chains and knives as the circle drew tighter. Instinctively, Maxwell and Iron Man moved back to back, the only sound now the grating of their breath.

‘Any ideas, Iron?' the Head of Sixth Form hissed.

‘You could always tell them there's a reward on my head,' the drummer told him. ‘As long as we're both unmarked, of course. Or all bets are off.'

Then, they both heard it. A sound that to Peter Maxwell was the most welcome in the world. And Iron Man? Well, he had mixed feelings about it. It was the wail of a police siren and the flashing blue lights crested the hill, as the white squad cars screeched to rock at crazy angles in the gorse.

‘Fuck. It's the Filth,' and the Bikers revved up, twisting their cow-horn handlebars and kicking away into the night. Not all of them made it as Henry Hall's boys in blue launched into them with assorted rugby-tackles and
arm-locks
and some interesting moves very definitely not in the police handbook.

It was DI Bathurst who snapped the cuffs on Iron Man's wrist.