Maxwell's Revenge (26 page)

Hall was on his knees, pulling the boffin off the barman, who was in a bad way, that was obvious. His colour was horrible, his eyes were rolled up, his breathing shallow. Blood trickled from glass cuts in his scalp. The DCI turned to Jacquie. ‘Mind the glass. Some of it is from their glasses; we’ll need that for analysis. And the peanuts, they’ll need collecting up as well. That’s for SOCO, though. Call the paramedics.’

She turned to face outwards from the bar, pulling out her phone as she did so. She dialled
and the seconds it took for the call to go through seemed endless.

‘Police, fire or ambulance?’ the disembodied voice said.

‘Ambulance and police, the Vine public house, Leighford High Street.’

‘Could you give me details, caller?’

‘They
are
the details. Just get them here, now,’ Jacquie snapped. ‘I am DS Jacquie Carpenter, Leighford CID, and this is an emergency.’

‘They’re on their way,’ replied the imperturbable voice. ‘Do you need further assistance?’

‘No,’ Jacquie sighed, and rang off. She turned back to where Hall had turned the barman on his back and was giving mouth-to-mouth, an unlovely task on many levels. Angus was groaning, doubled up on the floor. She reached down and touched his arm.

‘Angus? Angus, it’s Jacquie. Can you get up?’

He shook his head and retched again.

‘Come on, Angus. It’s more comfy on the other side of the bar. Let’s get you to a chair, or a nice bench or something. You’re in Mr Hall’s way. Come on,’ and she coaxed him, using all the skills honed on the North Face of Nolan at bedtime, to get him to stand, to walk and finally to sit down out in the lounge.

He sat with his head on his knees, moaning faintly and sometimes giving a half-hearted
heave, but he wasn’t sick again. Finally, she reached into her bag and brought out a bottle of water. ‘Come on, Angus. Take a sip of this.’

He backed away from it, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

‘No, come on, Angus, don’t be silly. You heard me break the seal. This water has been in my fridge for over a week and then in my bag. It hasn’t been poisoned, I promise you. Look,’ and she took a swig. ‘See?’

Reluctantly, he took the bottle from her and drank, sips at first and then great pulls until the bottle was empty. He gave it back to her and nodded his thanks. His voice was hoarse when he asked, ‘How’s Jeff?’

‘Not too good,’ Jacquie said. ‘Mr Hall is working on him.’

‘Hall?’ Angus was surprised. ‘Is he any good?’

‘The best,’ said Jacquie. ‘He’s in good hands, Angus.’ It seemed almost cruel, but she had to ask. ‘Was your beer from a bottle or a pump?’

‘A pump,’ Angus said. ‘But Jeff changed the barrel and washed the lines out. In fact, it improved the taste; hygiene isn’t much of a thing with old Jeff.’

‘Then?’

‘Then he pulled two pints.’ Angus was struggling to focus, to remember. ‘He drank his straight off and had another. I was feeling a bit fragile, in fact. I was working in the lab last
night, when I called you. I was just going home when they called about the shop, so I came straight over. That took ages; I’ve only had a few hours on a mate’s sofa, so I didn’t really feel much like beer, to be honest.’ He was getting into his stride. ‘He was knocking back the peanuts as well. I don’t eat peanuts in bars.’

‘Allergy?’

‘No. I did a dissertation on the number of different organisms in a typical pub plate of peanuts for my MSc.’

If Jacquie was amazed, she managed not to show it.

‘So, long story cut short, I don’t eat peanuts in bars.’

‘Fair comment,’ she said. ‘So, let’s get this right. Jeff had one whole pint and you had a half; in other words, what we saw in your glass was the leavings of your first glassful.

‘That’s right. But Jeff had had two; his empty glass was the second.’

‘Have there been any other drinkers in here today?’

‘I don’t think so. But you could ask the barman from the dining room side. He would know.’

Jacquie’s head came up, a deer at the waterhole. ‘There’s another barman? Where is he?’

‘I dunno. In the other bar.’

‘But, Angus,’ Jacquie tried to be gentle. ‘Surely, he would come round when he heard the commotion?’

‘Y’d think,’ said Angus, reverting to type. ‘Look, Jacquie, can I lie down? I really want to lie down.’ And he twisted himself round and lay awkwardly across two chairs and closed his eyes. Jacquie checked that he wouldn’t fall off and, satisfied, turned back to the bar. Hall was just rising into view, like the Kraken surfacing for the last time. He was still looking down at the horror he had been dealing with at his feet. He turned his head and looked Jacquie in the eyes. He shook his head slightly and turned to the flap. He was walking heavily, holding on to the bar. He slumped down on a stool.

Jacquie went over to him and righted Angus’s overturned seat. She sat down and faced her boss. It was time for some straight talking. ‘This isn’t our fault, guv,’ she said. ‘It was done before we got here.’

‘And you call that not our fault?’ Hall said, dully. He looked at his hands for a moment, then clapped them on his knees. ‘Come on, Jacquie,’ he said. They could hear the squeal of the squad car outside, probably one re-routed from Rob Illingworth’s back-up team. The paramedics would be with them. ‘Let’s get back to the nick, see what’s happening there. If we can, we’ll go in through smokers’ corner.’

They made their way to the door and almost collided with a stream of SOCOs and green-clad paramedics. Hall didn’t know the uniformed sergeant in charge. He gestured behind the bar. ‘One dead, I think,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to call it. One over there on those chairs. Arrest him. Read him his rights and take him to the hospital. Don’t leave him till I get there.’ He pushed past his puzzled men and went out into the fresh air. ‘In fact,’ he added for Jacquie’s ears only. ‘Don’t leave him even when I get there for his own safety.’

‘But, guv …’ Jacquie frowned.

‘No, Jacquie.’ He spun round to face her. ‘I know you like Angus. We all like Angus, in the sort of way that we like any strange and mildly ugly animal as invented by David Attenborough. But he’s our man, make no mistake.’

‘But, guv, what about the other barman?’

Hall stopped in his tracks. ‘Other barman? What other barman? I didn’t see another barman.’

‘That’s my point. There is another barman, through in the other bar. But he didn’t come round when he heard the noise. Surely, an innocent man would.’

Hall pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The seat dedicated to Jock was handy and he sat down on it gratefully. Finally, he said, ‘I still think Angus is our man.’

‘You may be right, guv,’ said Jacquie, placatingly. ‘But we must find the barman as well. He may have had a drink and be unconscious somewhere.’

Hall pushed himself back to his feet. Somewhere, the little fuel gauge that monitored his brain was saying empty. Any minute, the light would come on to warn him he would stop dead within the next hundred yards. But until that happened, he must soldier on. He walked back to the pub and put his head round the door. She heard him bark orders, but couldn’t hear what they were, then he was back with her and shepherding her along with a hand on the small of her back. ‘Nick,’ he said.

‘Right you are, guv,’ she said and in the same, companionable two and a half mile pace as they had arrived, they walked away. As they turned the corner towards the nick, her phone rang.

‘DS Carpenter,’ she said.

The town centre was still deserted, although that wouldn’t be the case for long. The curious ghouls who were attuned to such things would soon be out in force, herded behind the police tape, watching every come and go of the professionals inside. Word would be on the streets. There was another one at the Vine. The sun beat down, warm and lazy as syrup and gilded the statue of Councillor MacIllwain, looking out over his
Memorial Garden for eternity. Somewhere, high up above the shop fronts, a wisp of smoke rose into the air, a little hint of autumn, a warning that the year was turning. A swallow turned and dived and spiralled in the sky. A lark sang over the Dam.

And a murderer swaggered, unremarked, through the town centre of Leighford, his waiter’s apron slung casually across his shoulder.

Maxwell had to give Betty her due. Her turn of speed was unremarkable, but her stamina was amazing. She had fallen into the kind of dogged slog he had always imagined a Roman soldier had adopted. She tipped her weight slightly forward and let gravity do the work and he kept up with her with difficulty. He put a tick in the ‘pro’ box, to balance cons like budgie poo toast and ecru trims. Every little helps.

Every now and then, they would stop and listen for the flapping of their quarry. Eventually, they were close enough to hear him quite clearly, his slightly laboured breathing and the muttering under his breath. Then, they heard what they had been waiting for: the footsteps slow and stop. They looked at each other in triumph. They had him. They had worn him out. They slowed their pace to a walk and regained the power of, if not speech, then at least a kind of gasping whisper.

They came to a T-junction, where the narrow alley between the backs of shops gave way to a wider, paved walkway, where tubs of late geraniums, dusty with the lateness of the year and stunted by their diet of cigarette ends and wee, gave a brave splash of colour. They crept up to the corner and looked carefully round, one way, then the other.

‘Nothing!’ wheezed Maxwell. ‘Where has the old bugger gone?’

‘He must live in one of these houses,’ Betty said, forcing the words out with a breath. ‘You know him, I thought you said. Do you know which one?’

‘No,’ Maxwell said. ‘I knew him a year or so ago. He … well, he left Leighford under rather a cloud and I was amazed to find him back. This isn’t where Dierdre, that’s his niece, from school, lived. I can only assume he bought this recently, or is renting. But, hell and damnation, Betty. We were doing so well.’

‘Let’s face it,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to call Jacquie.’

Maxwell looked at her for the first time since their hunt was up. ‘I don’t like to say this, Betty, but she will go stark raving mad if she sees you like this.’

‘Like what?’ She tried to swivel her eyes round to see her own face; a good trick if successful but, yet again, she failed.

‘Bright red, sweating and bug-eyed, if I may borrow a phrase from Year Nine. She’ll think I have been mistreating you.’

‘Why would she assume that?’ she asked waspishly.

‘No reason,’ he said, innocently. ‘But anyhoo, let’s leave the call a while, shall we? He might still break cover.’

‘You make him sound like a fox or something.’

‘Rat, more likely. Let’s just get our breath and we can plan the next move.’

They leant against the wall while the cells in their furthermost reaches waited patiently for oxygen. They both heard the voice at once.

‘Mr Maxwell? Cooee.’

‘What the hell was that?’ Maxwell asked as they spun round trying to find the source of the call.

A gate creaked down the lane and an elderly head peeked out. ‘Hello,’ it called. ‘Down here.’

‘It’s a trap,’ Betty hissed. ‘Don’t go.’

‘You can’t kill with poison when the victim knows about it,’ Maxwell said. ‘Come on,’ and he trotted off towards the gate, which Lessing had left tantalisingly ajar.

The house beyond the fence was, like Maxwell’s, a tall town house, but older and very narrow. They were in the back garden, a neat little rectangle which owed much to Alan
Titchmarsh and his crew. A path wound up between banks of shrubs to a small gravelled area just by the patio doors. On the gravel, his back to the house, like an animal at bay, stood Oliver Lessing. On close inspection, he was no more attractive than their fleeting impressions had led them to think. He was scrawny, his head balanced on a neck too thin for it, poking out from the collar like a Galapagos tortoise at the end of its second century. His legs stuck from his wide shorts like celery, white despite a summer’s exposure whilst watching birds and anything else that took his fancy. His feet were encased in weathered Crocs, on which an incongruous bird had been buttoned. Altogether, an unappealing sight. He was wearing thick gardening gloves and appeared to be busying himself tidying up the borders around the gravel.

‘Hello, Mr Maxwell,’ he said. ‘Welcome to my home. And you must be …?’

‘Mrs Carpenter,’ Betty said, as though at a vicarage garden party.

He looked at her with his head on one side, looking for all the world like a puzzled emu. ‘I thought you’d be younger,’ he said. ‘Late baby all round, was he, the little chap?’

‘I’m his grandmother,’ Nolan’s grandmother said, grandly.

‘Oh, I see,’ the emu replied. ‘That explains a lot. Did he enjoy his lolly?’

‘You fiend,’ Betty screamed. ‘How dare you!’ Maxwell held her back. No need to rush this. He needed to be sure.

Lessing looked aggrieved. ‘It was only a lolly,’ he said. ‘Nothing to make a fuss about. Oh!’ He stopped, looking horrified. ‘He’s not one of these little chaps with allergies, is he? Peanuts, that sort of thing. Anaphylactic shock?’

‘No,’ Maxwell said, beginning to get the drift. ‘He’s fine in that respect, but a little finicky, I suppose you could say. Comes from being an only one, I suppose. We’re a little indulgent.’

‘You must have more,’ Lessing crowed. ‘It’s a terrible thing to become attached to just one child. I was the same with Dierdre. I know I was only her uncle, but … well, you know, Mr Maxwell, what a wonderful woman my Dierdre became.’

‘Um, yes, yes indeed,’ Maxwell gushed. ‘But, could we go back to the lolly?’

‘Yes, of course. Well, there the little chap was, in his buggy, looking a bit bored. I had a lovely organic aniseed lolly in my pocket and I gave it to him. No added colours or preservatives, Mr Maxwell. Nothing to hurt the little chap.’

Betty had subsided and was looking at Lessing as if she would like to shove his head up his rather unpleasant looking shorts. Maxwell put a hand on her arm to restrain her.

‘But, anyhow,’ Lessing was continuing,
breaking up sticks and putting them in an incinerator. ‘I don’t expect you chased me halfway across Leighford to hear about my little kindnesses.’

‘No,’ Maxwell agreed. ‘Not really.’

‘I expect you would like to know about the poisoned prawn cocktails.’ He looked at them, cocking his head again from side to side, as if sizing them up. His busy hands continued to break up the branches, adding screwed up paper every now and again, and a slurp of meths.

‘So it
was
the prawn cocktails,’ Maxwell said. ‘But what about Freda?’

‘Freda? Oh, the dinner lady. Yes, well, surely you had that one worked out. I gave her an untampered-with one. Really, Mr Maxwell, you used to be so bright.’ He strained as he broke a larger branch over his thigh. He added the bits to the bin and patted his pockets aimlessly. ‘Do you have a match?’

They shook their heads.

‘A lighter? Oh, no, hold on, here it is.’ And he fetched out a Zippo from the depths of a pocket at the back of his shorts. ‘Smoking is so bad for one, but I still like a little sneaky cigarette when I can get one,’ he said.

‘But why did you do it?’ Maxwell said.

‘Mr Maxwell, I am, again, shocked at you. To avenge my Dierdre, of course.’

‘But no one who was poisoned killed Dierdre,’
Maxwell said. ‘You know as well as I do who killed Dierdre. They’re serving life. Mel Forman, the woman who died, she probably hadn’t exchanged two words with her.’

‘They were
replacing
her,’ hissed Lessing, white spittle appearing at the corners of his mouth. ‘My Dierdre. Replaced by someone else. Sitting in her office. Her chair. My little Dierdre.’ As soon as the venom had started, so nice old Mr Lessing, purveyor of unpleasant lolly flavours, was back. ‘So, come here, why don’t you? Watch the bonfire.’ He held his lighter to the paper in the bin and flames flew up immediately, with plumes of smoke. He disappeared in a fragrant smog. ‘Come on,’ his voice said, through the fumes. ‘Come closer. Come closer and I’ll tell you how I did it.’

Maxwell took a step towards him. ‘You raving shit!’ he snapped. ‘I always had you down for a pervert, using your binoculars for anything other than birdwatching, but this …’

Betty suddenly pulled on the back of his jacket. ‘No, Max. Don’t go any nearer. Look!’ She pointed to a leaf, curling over the edge of the bin.

‘At what?’ Even in a crisis, Maxwell couldn’t be ungrammatical.

‘That leaf. It’s oleander he’s burning, Max. It’s poisonous.’

‘I remember,’ he said, backing away. ‘Even
the smoke is poisonous.’ He put his arm up over his nose and mouth and, turning, pushed Betty ahead of him and through the gate.

‘Come back, Mr Maxwell,’ they could hear him calling. ‘Come back and let me tell you all about it.’

‘Call Jacquie,’ Maxwell said. ‘Then an ambulance. Thing is, I’ve no idea where we are.’ He looked frantically around. This part of the town, dumb in the heat, was alien to him.

‘I’ll leave my phone open,’ she said. ‘They can do it by satellite.’

‘Excellent,’ said Maxwell. ‘And yet, how creepy.’

She moved a few doors down and turned around to get the best signal. She punched in Jacquie’s number. After a couple of rings, her daughter answered.

‘DS Carpenter.’

‘Darling, it’s Mum.’

‘Oh, hi, Mum. Good shopping trip? I can’t talk, we’re in a bit of a crisis right now. Can I call you back?’ And the phone went dead.

Betty Carpenter was not always a patient or a very nice woman and she would be the first to admit it, but she was resourceful. She rang the emergency services and decided to leave her daughter till later. But then, she would leave no stone unturned until that girl knew what guilt was. With swift efficiency she ordered an
ambulance and police back-up. She turned to tell Maxwell the news.

Where he had stood was a definitely
Maxwell-shaped
hole. The gate to Lessing’s garden was open and she could hear falsetto screams from the other side of the fence.

‘Max!’ she yelled. ‘Come out of there, for God’s sake.’

‘No need to shout,’ he said, calmly, walking through the gate with an unconscious Oliver Lessing over his shoulder. He dumped him casually to the ground and neither of them minded when they heard a double thump as his head bounced on the ground. ‘I wasn’t letting him take that way out.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be an easy way,’ she said, drily. ‘I believe bloody diarrhoea is one of the symptoms.’

‘There’s no need to blaspheme, Betty,’ he said.

‘I mean …’ but then she caught the glint in his eye. ‘Oh, I see. Well, if you will take my advice one more time, Max, I think you should strip off. The poison might be lingering in your clothes.’

He looked at her closely. Was she joking? She looked very serious, certainly, and it was better to be safe than sorry. He solemnly stripped off his jacket, trousers and shirt. His hat joined the pile and he was haggling with her over his underpants when the ambulance crew arrived.
It was only when they started laughing that he realised that his mother-in-law-to-be would take some very close watching in the years ahead.

Jacquie and Hall got to the nick without further incident, noting the back-up cars parked in alleyways, waiting for the word. The mob of outraged citizens was still there, outside the station’s frontage, but torn now, between giving interviews to various local news media, breaking down the doors of the nick because they had always wanted to and rushing off in search of the excitement as advertised by sirens going off all over town. The DC seemed to have it all in hand. The two police people crept in by the smokers’ stairs, crushing old dog ends underfoot and carrying the rank smell of old smoke with them up to the first landing.

Inside, a nervy-looking Incident Team had abandoned all pretence at following up the Incident. Instead, they were peering out of
blind-drawn
windows, psyching themselves up for whatever was to follow. There was glittering glass all over one end of the room where stones had crashed through windows.

‘That’s going to come out of the taxpayers’ pockets,’ Hall said and the mood lightened. ‘Rob.’ He shook the man’s hand. ‘Well done. Anything untoward?’

His DC smiled. ‘Let’s just say I’m glad I wore
my brown trousers today,’ he said. He gestured to the window. ‘They’re breaking up out there.’ He checked his watch. ‘Football’s on in half an hour.’

‘And there’s a new crime scene at the Vine. Get through to some of your cars. Three ought to do the trick. Get them over there. Chopper still up?’

‘Last time I looked,’ Illingworth said.

‘Keep it there for now. I want reports on crowd movements every ten minutes.’

‘Got it,’ and Illingworth swung into action, quietly grateful that the DCI was back. Then, he turned. ‘Jacquie,’ he said. ‘A bit of bad news, I’m afraid.’

Her heart contracted. Her family were out there. ‘Yes?’

‘Your mother’s car. In the car park, you know? Wrecked, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Jacquie, hardly able to look at Hall. It was true what they said; every crowd had a silver lining.

In Hall’s office, the argument that Hall and Jacquie had put on hold during their walk resumed. ‘It isn’t Angus,’ said Jacquie. ‘I can prove it if you want.’

‘Well, proof would be nice.’ Hall slumped into his chair.

‘He rang me and left a message. It was timed
at only minutes before Max was bopped on the head by a torch in Leighford.’

‘What does that prove?’ Hall was surly, a sure sign he was on dodgy ground.

‘Well, how could he have got from Chichester to here in only minutes?’

‘How do you know he was there? He could have been waiting inside the shop.’

‘No. He definitely rang from the lab. I could hear that mixing thing they always have going making a noise in the background.’

Hall thought for a moment. ‘He’s a clever bloke. He could have taped that and used it as a background.’

‘I’m sorry, guv. I don’t buy that. How would he know that he would need an alibi? And, another thing. Max said he smelt of tobacco, the bloke who hit him.’

‘Well, you’re arguing against yourself there, Jacquie,’ said Hall, pointing a triumphant finger. ‘Angus smokes like a trooper.’

Jacquie crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Guv, really!’ she said. ‘Angus is never far from a rollie, I’ll agree. But since when did you know him smoke anything other than something dodgy?’