Maxwell’s Ride (7 page)

‘Really?’

‘I’ve got an address in Portsmouth.’

‘Really? Mind if I tag along?’

‘Er … well, Mr Maxwell … um … Max, that’s a little awkward.’

‘Nonsense!’ Maxwell scolded, drinking his coffee without a qualm. ‘I know Portsmouth like the back of my hand. I’ll be your navigator, shall I? I say, Chris, could I use your phone?’

It had been bad enough in the sunshine, but now, as the rain drove hard on their capes and flat caps, a struggling line of policemen were combing the rocky outcrops on the banks of the Wild Water. They’d been quite a tourist attraction in their own right for the past two days and the waiting crowds had queued for hours longer than usual to ride the spray, telling themselves that the car they sat in was
the
car, awash with a dead man’s blood.

‘’Ere, our Trace,’ an Essex girl shrieked over the roaring surge, ‘This scratch ’ere – I’m sure it’s a bullet mark.’

‘Nah.’ Her Trace was not impressed. ‘That’ll be where his head exploded. Like that melon in that old film – what was it,
Day of the Jekyll
.’

The rain, it was true, had driven the punters away. That and the fact that this was Thursday. Half term was drawing inexorably to a close and parental holidays were over. For the kids, it was back to the Playstations and the Gameboys, copping a crafty feel in the grounds of the old Fort and a spot of shop-lifting in the precinct.

DS Bartholomew turned his collar up again and looked at DC Carpenter. ‘Shit a brick,’ he muttered. ‘Flaming June tomorrow. And here we are playing needles and haystacks. We’ll never find the bloody thing.’

‘Doc Astley’s pretty sure it went right through him, no damage to bone at all, just punctured the lung and the heart. It should be in good nick.’

‘A magic bullet in Magicworld,’ Bartholomew was stamping his feet. ‘Great.’ From nowhere a raw wind was whipping up the eddying water, sending spray high into the air to mingle with the slanted rain that drove like stair rods against his anorak hood. Jacquie looked pinched and tired, trying to work out the trajectory, the angle of death. She’d ridden a car yesterday, shortly after she’d pulled herself together after that stupid business with Maxwell. She’d ridden it alone, as Larry Warner had on the Day in Question, sliding from side to side on the sloping black seat, rolling as the water buffeted and barged, snarling and growling underneath her. As the polystyrene rocks and tall spurges reeled in her vision, she tried to judge it, where the marksman had to be sitting to get a clear shot. Where he’d miss the car in front, where the Gordon family screamed, and the car behind, where Maxwell was brazening it out with his nieces. He must have been sitting, surely, or lying down, perhaps. A standing man was too visible. Someone would have seen.

‘There’s one thing.’ Bartholomew must have been reading her mind. ‘Whoever he was, he was one fuck of a good shot.’

Jacquie nodded. The killer’s target was moving away from him, spinning round and round as well as bobbing up and down. This was no ordinary rifle club hit, with ear muffs and goggles and a ten foot stationary target. This was something special. And all they needed now, she scanned the sodden line of searching policemen again, was the tell-tale bullet.

The sun had come out again by the time Chris Logan’s Rover purred along the Hard. To his left, Maxwell saw the tall spars of the
Warrior
, the gilded ironclad riding the sluggish swell in Portsmouth Harbour.

‘State of the art in its day,’ he told Logan. ‘Thirty-six guns, its deck one hundred feet longer than any other ship afloat.’

‘Superb.’ Logan thought he’d better agree; he remembered Maxwell’s obsessions. Seemed to remember he was more of a landlubber though. Cavalry, wasn’t it? Horses?

‘Stop here,’ the Great Man commanded. Traffic up his arse and hemming him in on all sides, it was a difficult manoeuvre for Logan to carry out. Not that such niceties ever bothered Maxwell. With all the instincts of a cyclist, he did what the hell he liked on roads. As other motorists gave Logan their views on his hasty U-turn, his old Head of Sixth Form leapt out.

‘But this isn’t Queen’s Crescent,’ Logan called after him.

‘Right again, Horace Greely,’ Maxwell winked, ‘but they do a really mean chip at the bus station cafe. Join me?’

‘Housekeeper?’ Maxwell repeated, his hat still raised above his tangle of barbed wire hair.

‘Yes,’ the woman in front of him was the antithesis of Mrs B., manicured and hennaed to within an inch of her life, a positive lariat of pearls around her chelonian neck. ‘And you are?’

‘Relatively astonished,’ Maxwell confessed.

‘We didn’t all die out with Victoria, you know,’ she said. ‘Mr Warner was a very busy man and had no interest in the basics. Thursdays and Sundays are my days off. I don’t believe Mr Warner ate on those days.’

‘I hadn’t seen Cousin Larry for years,’ Maxwell ruminated. ‘Oh, forgive me, I’m Peter Warner. This is my son, Chris.’

A swift hack to the ankles reminded the newspaperman to close his mouth.

‘When is the funeral exactly?’ Maxwell asked.

‘Look, you’d better come in. We can’t discuss such things on the doorstep. I’m Juliette Pilgrim, by the way.’

‘Charmed,’ Maxwell all but kissed the woman’s hand as she took them through the vestibule. Clearly, Larry Warner had done all right for himself. The address in Queen’s Crescent was a large late Edwardian building with a tendency towards deco. The furnishings were tasteful, Heals at the very least.

‘Do I gather you and Mr Warner were not close?’ Mrs Pilgrim was making life easy for the Great Impersonator.

‘Ooh, it really must be … what, must be twenty years since I saw him. You only met him once, I think, Chris.’

‘Er … yes … er … Dad. I don’t really remember all that clearly.’

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Maxwell beamed.

She showed the pair into an airy, high-ceilinged lounge with a vast bay window overlooking the street.

‘And the funeral, Mrs Pilgrim?’

‘Oh, we don’t know.’ She invited them to sit. ‘The police won’t release his body just yet. It’s quite, quite awful.’

‘It is,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘The police have been here, I suppose?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she told him. ‘Whatever else they found, it wasn’t a speck of dust, I assure you.’

‘I’m sure not,’ Maxwell nodded sagely. ‘Er … whatever else did they find?’

She looked from one to the other, an intelligent woman with clear, grey eyes. ‘May I be frank?’ she asked.

You can be anybody you like, dear, Maxwell thought, as long as you give us some answers. ‘Of course.’

‘You knew your cousin was homosexual?’

‘Well, I … let’s just say, he was always into auntie’s dressing-up box in a big way.’

‘I won’t beat about the bush, Mr Warner, I was not overfond of your cousin. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but a string of male callers … well, it wasn’t healthy. I’m just a snob, I suppose, but it was the modern equivalent of Oscar Wilde’s telegraph boys. Students from the local tech doing something called NVQ – I don’t suppose it’s even legal.’

‘It shouldn’t be,’ Maxwell nodded grimly.

‘The police took away a quantity of clothing, his computer and several disks, I believe you call them.’

‘On the Net, was he?’ Logan asked.

‘If you mean, young man, that he surfed in search of electronic sex, I don’t really know. I was his housekeeper with the flat above. I was not his mistress.’

‘Quite,’ Maxwell cleared his throat at the very thought of it.

‘Was there any one young man?’ he asked, ‘Someone special who was here perhaps more than any other?’

‘That’s what the police asked,’ Mrs Pilgrim said. ‘You aren’t a policeman, are you?’

‘Good Lord, no,’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘I’ve got a degree. No, I’m a teacher.’

‘I knew it!’ She clapped her hands. ‘My late husband was a teacher, Mr Warner, of geography.’

‘Fascinating subject,’ Maxwell lied. ‘Er … the young man?’

‘Well, there was one, funnily enough. Michael Somebodyorother. Mr Warner called him Micky. He made my skin crawl, I’m afraid.’

‘Not your type?’ Logan asked. Clearly, several years at the Interface had failed to hone his subtlety skills.

‘And what do you do, Mr Warner?’ she narrowed her eyes at him.

‘Oh, I’m a rep …’ He caught Maxwell’s eyes burning into his soul, ‘Repair man. DIY. That sort of thing, you know.’

‘Charming,’ she smiled politely.

‘This Micky goes to the local tech?’ Maxwell checked.

‘I believe so.’

‘Do you remember when you saw him last?’

‘I don’t snoop, Mr Warner,’ she bridled, ‘but I believe it was nearly a week ago – Friday.’

‘He arrived at what time?’

‘Afternoon, I think. Mr Warner had just arrived home himself. I didn’t see the boy leave. Mr Warner, these questions …’

‘I know, I know,’ Maxwell sighed, holding up his hands in supplication, ‘I just can’t understand why someone should want to kill him.’

‘Oh, I can,’ Mrs Pilgrim stood up. ‘Anyone with habits like his. He was a predatory homosexual, Mr Warner. People like him make enemies.’ She suddenly shuddered. ‘He brought the whole building into disrepute. Queen’s Crescent, indeed. People have been very unkind.’

‘You, however, have not been, Mrs Pilgrim. On the contrary, you have been kindness itself.’ He shook her cold, limp hand. ‘We’ll see ourselves out. And at the funeral in the fullness of time, I have no doubt.’

She watched them go and they clambered into Logan’s car parked in the street. As she did so, she picked up Warner’s phone. ‘Hello, is that Leighford CID? Yes. Yes. Sergeant Bartholomew please. I’ll hold.’

In the car, Logan let his shoulders sag. ‘For fuck’s sake, Mr Maxwell … er … Max. I wish you’d told me you were going to do that.’

‘Do what?’ Maxwell was all innocence, strapping on his seat belt.

‘Claim bloody kin.’

‘Go with the flow, Chris, my boy. Learn a bit of sleuthing from the Master.’

‘But we didn’t have to do that. I’ve got my NUJ card.’

‘Yes, and she’d have told us precisely nothing. As it is, we know that the late Mr Warner was not as other chartered accountants and that he probably surfed the net for porn and his boyfriend was a local lad called Micky. I think that’s a pretty good haul for ten minutes work.’

‘What now then?’

‘Portsmouth Technical College, Christine. I’ll dream up some ploy or other as we go.’

‘Yes, Sergeant Bartholomew.’ Mrs Pilgrim had her man on the other end of the line. ‘Greying hair, silly shapeless hat, green coat. Said he was Mr Warner’s cousin, which is a lie. Mr Warner has no family since his mother died. And that he was a teacher, which is possible – he had a rather ‘Leftie’ persona, I thought. Quite nice looking though. Early fifties, I’d guess. The fellow with him, posing as his son, had rather carrotty hair and freckles. He’d be late twenties, claimed to be a repair man which is nonsense. How do I know? His hands. Never knocked a nail in in his life. They’ve just left, the younger of them driving a dark blue Rover, registration number K173 HMN. Well, you did say if anyone called to see Mr Warner … or for any other reason, I was to ring you. Oh, yes, I’ve just remembered. A silly thing, I know. The older man’s trousers, they were screwed up at the bottom, as though he’d got them wet and usually wore cycle clips or tucked them into his socks.’ Mrs Pilgrim laughed brittly. ‘I’m flattered, of course, Sergeant,’ she said, ‘but I think in all honesty I’m a little old for a job on the Force.’

6

What was it about Technical Colleges? They were like larvae longing for the day they’d grow into the butterflies that were Universities. Paint was peeling everywhere, black scuff marks etched the floors. There was an air of decay and a smell of squandered finances. Scraps of paper pinned by one corner only, because of cuts, gave a whole moving horde of Liam Gallagher wannabes the information that lectures were on hand that day for Hewing of Coal (Mr Bennet L23 10.00 a.m.) and Drawing of Water (Mr Webb L4A Mezzanine 11.30 a.m.). Everywhere else seemed to be Leisure and Tourism and Health Care. But then, Maxwell knew the hard way that life for everybody under twenty-two was one long round of leisure and tourism. And as for health, well, nobody cared anyway.

‘Yes, please, your NVQ lists for the current term.’

The girl on the reception desk looked a little confused. ‘Where did you say you were from?’

‘The DES,’ Maxwell lied. ‘Just a routine enquiry.’

‘Right,’ she flicked buttons on her keyboard and her VDU screen performed a series of Bill Gates miracles. ‘You’d want hard copy, I s’pose.’

‘The harder the better,’ Maxwell growled, winking at her.

‘I’ve got one somewhere,’ she assured him. ‘Only, it’s nearly going home time and it’ll take a while to print one out. P’raps our Mrs Winters has got one.’

‘Your Mrs Winters?’

‘Our Personnel and Student Liaison Officer.’

‘No, no,’ Maxwell fussed. ‘I wouldn’t dream of bothering her – as you say, at going home time. Haven’t you got one in a cupboard somewhere?’

‘Well … oh, hang on.’ She disappeared into an inner office while Maxwell looked suitably from the Ministry and Logan was shitting himself. Chris Logan was not really an investigative journalist; he hadn’t the fire for it, nor the brass neck. Subterfuge left him worried and jumpy.

‘Here you go,’ the girl was back in a rustle of her tight leather skirt.

‘Excellent,’ Maxwell slid the folder under his arm.

‘Can you just sign here … Mr … er … ?’

‘Woodhead,’ Maxwell beamed as he flourished with his Biro. ‘Chris Woodhead. Thank you, my dear, you’ve been most helpful.’

The Black Horse had taken a direct hit the night the Luftwaffe came calling. The snug had ended up in the cellar along with a lot of beer, some sawdust and enough broken glass to patch up the Crystal Palace had it still been standing. It had been the end of civilization for some people.

Thatcher’s children haunted it now, frittering away their student loans on nasty lager from Belgium. Maxwell and Logan had fought their way through the milling bodies to the far side of the circular bar which announced to a grateful generation that Murphy’s was permanently reduced. A bank of amusement machines winked and nudged each other in neon flashes in the corner, the one-armed banditti of yesteryear gone electronic. What they laughingly call Live Music was taking a merciful break in the recess where the payload of the Junkers 88 had once landed. And an ageing rocker was giving his picking hand a break by sliding it around the breasts of a girl half his age. Everywhere was leads and mikes, but not the Mike that Maxwell was hunting. He was sitting, or so the pair hoped, facing the door, like Wild Bill Hickok on one of his more sensible nights.