Maxwell’s Reunion (13 page)

‘It’s a double killing,’ Maxwell explained. ‘But I’d rather not discuss it on the doorstep.’

The young man let him in. There were tea chests and cardboard boxes everywhere, with piles of books and ranks of CDs.

‘You are … ?’

‘Paulo Escobar. I live here. With Georgie.’ He leaned against a door frame in the hall, folding his arms. ‘I already talk to the police. My papers are in order.’

‘You’re moving.’ The West Sussex CID would be proud of Maxwell’s powers of deduction.

‘There is nothing to stay for. I go back to Bilbao.’

‘How long have you known Mr Quentin?’

Escobar pushed himself away from the door frame and threw himself down in a spare armchair. He lit a cigarette. ‘Five years.’

‘How did you meet him?’

Escobar grinned. ‘On the Heath,’ he said. ‘He pick me up.’

‘For sex?’

‘For company.’

‘So he was lonely?’

Escobar shrugged.

‘Was he ever married?’ Maxwell asked, still trying to make sense of the man who was the boy he knew.

Escobar shook his head. ‘He never said. He liked boys.’

‘Boys?’

‘People of my age.’

‘When did you see him last?’

‘Friday. He left for work at seven-thirty.’

‘And where was he going after that?’

‘To some old friends. His school.’

‘Did he mention any names of these friends?’

‘One or two.’ Escobar blew smoke down his nostrils.

‘Could you tell me what they are?’ It was like pulling teeth.

‘Er … sure. There was Asheton. Er … Maxwall …’

‘Maxwell,’ Maxwell corrected him.

‘That is what I say,’ Escobar insisted. ‘Why you not write this down?’

‘Write it down?’ Maxwell didn’t follow.

‘When I have been arrested, the police they always write things down.’

‘Been arrested often, have you?’ Maxwell asked.

‘Si.’ Escobar shrugged. ‘Soliciting. GBH. That sort of thing.’

‘We know these names already,’ Maxwell said. ‘This is just confirmation. Tell me, Paulo, was George … was Mr Quentin excited about the weekend? I mean, he didn’t seem in any way upset or worried?’

Escobar shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember that. He have a telephone call on Thursday night.’

‘Call?’ Maxwell frowned. ‘Do you know who it was from?’

‘A woman.’ It was all coming back to Escobar now.

‘Did she give a name?’

‘No.’ Escobar shook his head. ‘I took the call. She say, “Is that Mr George Quentin’s residence?” I say, “Who is it wants to know?” She say, “An old friend.” I give the phone to Georgie. You know who killed him?’

Maxwell shook his head. ‘Not yet, Mr Escobar,’ he said. ‘We’re still working on it. Did Mr Quentin say anything when he put the phone down? Or do you remember any of the conversation from this end?’

Escobar thought for a moment, idling with the thick gold chain around his neck and considering his answer. ‘Georgie say, “Excellent idea. Very good. That will get the party going. Halliards it is, not the gravy.”’

‘What do you think he meant?’

Escobar shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Afterwards he just went to have a shower. He didn’t talk about the call.’

‘This woman’s voice. Would you know it again?’

‘No.’ Escobar was sure. ‘But it was a foreign voice.’

‘Foreign?’ Maxwell repeated.

‘St. Irish or Scottish. Something like that.’

Peter Maxwell couldn’t really see what all Vandeleur’s fuss had been about. Escobar was a little on the Iberian side, but he didn’t seem remotely aggressive; perhaps Keith Vandeleur had been confusing him with a whole other body of homosexual. Back in Sussex Gardens that night, Maxwell took stock. George Quentin had been looking forward to the Halliards reunion when a woman, arguably of the Celtic persuasion, had rung him with what may have been a change of plan. He was to go direct to Halliards and not to the Graveney. But why? And at whose instigation?

Maxwell idly flicked through the television channels.

Celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
flashed on to the screen.

‘I don’t, thanks, Chris,’ he said, and phoned a friend instead.

DCI Nadine Tyler had set up her incident room in the annexe behind Leamington nick, overlooking the leafy expanses of the Jephson Gardens. Her life was on hold at the moment, as it always was when a major enquiry was under way; come to think of it, that’s how her life usually was. The coffee in the machine didn’t taste any better, but it was Sunday and there’d been a corpse on Dr Nagapon’s slab now for eight days. A wise old copper had told her once, when she was a neurotic DS on the climb, that a murder that wasn’t solved in forty-eight hours wasn’t going to get solved. She’d spent the last fifteen years trying to prove him wrong.

‘Good morning,’ she addressed the team in front of her. There were the usual muttered responses. Hard-bitten coppers in rolled-sleeved shirts, pissed off because here was another Sunday away from home. Whole generations of kids had grown up without their dads, away in incident rooms. The DCI sat down. ‘I’ve had requests from all and sundry for another press conference,’ she said. ‘Have we anything new to give them?’

Nothing.

‘Ben?’

DI Thomas hated Nadine Tyler with every bone in his body. But then he felt much the same about everyone else. Mrs Thomas had realized that well over fourteen years ago and she had buggered off, taking the Aga, the telly and an insurance salesman with her. Thomas wasn’t bitter; he was positively poisonous.

‘We’ve no real leads on the car seen near Halliards on the Friday night,’ he told the team. ‘Of the old boys meeting for the reunion, Maxwell, Alphedge and Muir came by car; Bingham and Wensley by train. We presume the dead man caught a train too. The City police tell us it was most likely the six-thirty from Paddington, if he arrived in Leamington, but there is no record of a cheque payment or credit card.’

‘So he paid by cash?’ Tyler wanted it clear in her mind.

‘According to the City boys, Quentin left work at five-fifteen – enough time to get to the station, and that was the next available train. If he came in via Coventry, it would have been the five-fifty from Euston. After that we don’t know.’

‘Nothing on taxis, Dave?’

‘Nothing, ma’am.’ Dave had been ringing and trudging round all week, showing photographs, jogging memories.

‘London tell us there’s another little problem.’ The DCI had already given up on the coffee. ‘Because the Bingham enquiry is linked with this one, West Sussex CID have been following up leads, working, as we are, with the Met and City forces. We’re all anxious, of course, that nothing falls between the gaps, so to speak, but there seems to be somebody else nosing around, probably a PI, but nobody’s got a handle on him so far. He passed himself off as a West Sussex detective yesterday, interviewing Quentin’s boss and his lover.’

‘Any angle there, ma’am?’ DS Vernon wanted to know.

‘The City boys are checking the financial situation. We may have to bring in the Fraud Squad, because Quentin was quite a wheeler-dealer. There’s always a potential motive on the gay front, and his lover has a record against people who looked at George funny. There doesn’t seem to be any history of violence between the pair, though. West Sussex and the Met are keeping us informed. Who’s doing the follow-ups?’

‘I’m on the Alphedges,’ Vernon told her. ‘Going up tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ve got Asheton and his bit on the side,’ said DS Dempster. ‘Start in on that tomorrow.’

‘Good. Tim, you’re on John Wensley?’

‘It’s a hotel address in Brum,’ Tim Hanlon told his guv’nor. ‘I hope he’s still there.’

Nadine Tyler laughed her braying laugh. ‘You’ve got a thing about Wensley, haven’t you?’ she said.

‘Let’s just say I know an oddball when I see one, ma’am,’ Hanlon responded.

‘You’re on the Muirs, Greg?’

Greg Pines nodded. Ever the conversationalist was Greg.

‘Which leaves you, Ben …’

‘With Maxwell,’ DI Thomas said. ‘And his copper girlfriend.’

‘All right. Remember, everybody. We’re looking for inconsistencies, changes of story, however slight. Before you tackle these people again, be totally familiar with every word of their original statements. Any deviations from that, I want to know about it.’ The DCI stood up. ‘Ben, a word?’

The team sloped off to their VDU screens, past ghastly photographs of a dead man with his eyes bulging and a swollen tongue bursting from his mouth. Every time she passed them, Nadine Tyler tried not to look. But every time she had to, to remind herself why she was there.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Cut the crap.’ She turned to her grey-faced number two. Ben Thomas was overweight, his blue shirt cutting into his crimson neck. Cardiac arrest was likely to be his next collar. ‘Do you want to tell me what you’ve got against this Maxwell?’

‘Too clever by half, ma’am,’ was the DI’s considered opinion. ‘I didn’t appreciate his sidekick taking over like she did.’

‘DC Carpenter, wasn’t it?’ Nadine Tyler checked her notes. ‘What was she supposed to do, Ben? She was on the spot and she was a copper. She seems to have handled things pretty well, pressed the right buttons, kept everybody’s size elevens off most of the murder scene. If there’s a conflict of interests …’

‘I’ll just do my job,’ he all but barked at her. ‘You can count on that.’

She let the silence say it all. ‘When do you start?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘This Maxwell’s a teacher, isn’t he? Won’t it be half-term?’ Thomas shrugged. ‘Catch him at home. It’ll be nice. A day at the seaside.’

Like everybody else in the world, Ben Thomas had been to Leighford when he was a kid. They’d had donkey rides then, along Willow Bay and the Shingle, before the Save the Unborn Gay Quadruped lobby had gone into action and spoilt it all for ever. He remembered a freak show too, when a five-piece midget band had played requests for a couple of bob. Happy, different days.

There was no reply at number 38 Columbine, the address that Peter Maxwell had given; but there was always Mrs Troubridge, the neighbour, programmed as she was to appear on her front doorstep at the arrival of a strange car next door.

‘He’s not in, dear. Mrs B will be in to feed the cat later. Can I help?’ The old girl appeared to be some ghastly cross between Barbara Cartland and Barbara Castle.

‘CID.’ Thomas flashed his warrant card.

‘Oh dear, is he in trouble again?’

‘Again?’ Thomas didn’t like the sound of this. He’d more or less promised that stuck-up bitch he worked for that he’d go in open handed, with no baggage as it were. Now he wasn’t so sure.

‘Oh, like iron filings to a magnet with our Mr Maxwell.’ Mrs Troubridge smiled, waving the secateurs which were her flimsy excuse for being in the garden in the first place. ‘The police are always here. Are you local?’

‘No, madam,’ Thomas told her. ‘Warwickshire.’

‘Oh, that’s Shakespeare country, isn’t it? How delightful. Still, rather too many darkies these days for my liking, I expect.’

Agree with her though he did, Thomas thought it best to move on. ‘Do you know when Mr Maxwell will be back?’

‘Well, Mrs B – that’s his cleaner, illiterate and unconventional but a heart of gold – she told me he’s away for the week. It’s half-term, apparently. He’s a teacher, you see. Charming man and so very clever.’

‘Is he really?’ Thomas was unimpressed.

‘Oh, enormously. Apparently he was captain of his college’s team on the very first University Challenge, you know, with that nice Bamber Gascoigne; not that horrible Jeremy Paxton – he brings me out in spots.’

‘Tell me, Mrs … er …’

‘Troubridge,’ the old lady purred, adjusting her lariat of pearls.

‘What’s his relationship with DC Carpenter?’

‘Jacquie? Oh, you naughty man. What are you implying?’ And she caught him a nasty one on the arm with her secateurs, luckily closed.

‘I’m not implying anything, madam,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m merely asking questions. It’s my job.’

‘Well …’ Mrs Troubridge became confidential. ‘I’m not sure what he’s been up to in Warwickshire, but she does call at the oddest hours. Whether they actually sleep together, I don’t know. Is that a crime, by the way? I mean, I know it’s not for us civilians, but what about you policemen? I mean, you can’t vote, can you? Or appear on duty with a partially grown moustache? I merely wondered what the regulations were about sleeping around?’

‘Yes, madam, that’s an interesting question. I must go away and look it up.’

DI Thomas was the last person Jacquie Carpenter expected to see in the Tottingleigh incident room. All day, she’d been sifting through computer records, until she didn’t want to see another set of tyre tracks or a VDU screen again.

‘I was looking for Peter Maxwell.’ Thomas had been sent through by the desk man.

‘He doesn’t work here,’ Jacquie told him. ‘But I do and I’m busy.’

‘So am I,’ said Thomas loudly, staring the girl down. A couple of colleagues looked up.

‘Everything okay, Jacquie?’ one of them asked.

‘Fine, Tom.’ She didn’t take her eyes off the inspector. ‘I was just about to go and get a cup of coffee. Won’t you join me, Mr Thomas?’

He followed her to the drinks machine. ‘Is your stuff better than this?’ she asked, handing him a plastic cup with dubious brown liquid inside.

He tried it. ‘No,’ he said, and it seemed to break some ice. The DI actually smiled. Incident rooms were the same the world over.

‘How do you want to play this?’ she asked. ‘Am I a witness, suspect or colleague?’

‘At the moment,’ he told her, finding a seat in a corner, ‘you’re all three. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

She scraped back a chair from the wall so she was sitting opposite him. ‘Right here,’ she said.

Thomas got the message. Jacquie wasn’t going to be compromised and she was on her own turf. He’d have to play this one carefully.

‘I’m following up on everybody connected with Halliards the weekend before last. You gave two statements, one to me and DS Vernon at the school; a second at Leamington nick. Do you want to see a copy of these statements?’ He had his briefcase by his left foot.

She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’