Maxwell's Chain (16 page)

‘That is your right, Mr Crown, of course,’ said Helen Marshall, brushing her hair back from her face. She smiled at him, nasty policewoman
becoming nice policewoman before his very eyes. ‘But if, as you contend, you have nothing to hide, then why not answer just a few more questions and then perhaps you could go home.’

‘Naughty,’ muttered Hall. ‘I’ll have to pretend I didn’t hear that.’ He knew as well as anyone how magic that word ‘home’ sounded to a man who might not see that particular place again for twenty years.

‘Inspired to send a woman,’ Jacquie said, as impressed as Hall by the DCI’s technique. ‘She’ll get more out of him than any man would.’

‘Not so much inspired as essential,’ Hall muttered to her. ‘She’s the guv’nor here. And she’s good. And attractive. And therefore, disliked by almost everyone in the station.’

It’s a shame Alan Kavanagh didn’t come after all, thought Jacquie. They would have that in common, at least.

Crown had lifted his head again. This was a woman, for Christ’s sake. Women were only good for one thing. He wasn’t going to let her browbeat him. He squared up to her. ‘Listen,’ he said, sharply. ‘I am not perfect and I suppose that we might just as well say here and now that you will uncover lots about me that isn’t very nice. I am married to a much older woman and I did it for the money. And
her pretty daughter, who actually turned out not to come with the package, but no matter, because the money was nice. I also have various mistresses scattered around the county; I won’t call them girlfriends because that would be silly, bearing in mind their ages. I put the one into one night stand and I’m not ashamed of any of it. And they aren’t local, because I don’t shit on my own doorstep. So, as I sit here, I am looking at the end of my marriage, because my wife is besotted but not that besotted. But what I am not looking at is going to prison for murder, because I
haven’t killed anybody
! I’ve got alibis from here to Land’s End, if you’ll let me have my diary.’

Helen Marshall sat back smiling and flicked a cheeky glance at the mirror on the wall.

Hall shook his head. ‘I hope you’re making notes, Jacquie,’ he said. The DS was rapidly going off the woman as he spoke.

‘Well,’ the DCI went on. ‘That’s a nice piece of character self-assassination, Mr Crown, but you see we’ve heard it all before. Paint a black picture of yourself, admit to being a slime-ball of the worst water and hope we’ll think “Wow, he’s an honest guy. He can’t possibly be guilty”. Because all your “confessions” don’t amount to a hill of beans, do they?’ She was leaning forward now, arms still folded,
face hard in the neon light. ‘Humping housewives isn’t a crime unless the housewives object. If being married to a shit like you keeps your wife happy, then, hey, who cares? Fancying her daughter isn’t a crime either…unless of course you tried it on, she wasn’t having any and you killed her.’

‘No,’ Crown shouted, thumping the table with his fist. The constable in the corner shifted, but a single hand gesture from Helen Marshall kept him in his place.

‘Alibis,’ she said, leaning back, calm as the ripples on Willow Bay in summer, her voice soft, her gentle alter ego in the driving seat. ‘Can’t you just give me your alibis?’

‘No,’ he admitted, backing off himself, sensing the heat evaporate from the moment, though the blood still pounded in his ears. ‘I need my diary to say where I was on each day.’

‘It wasn’t very long ago, Mr Crown,’ the woman prompted gently.

‘I know, but sometimes I…well, let’s say that it can get a bit hectic, sometimes. I mean, just as an example, I got home the other day and there were a couple of coppers from Leighford in the house. It was about Lara. I had completely forgotten they were coming and I’d got…tied up. That happens. Sorry.’ He looked at her and saw no response.
‘Look, I’ve got expensive tastes, OK. I have to make a bit extra where I can.’

‘He’s even worse than we thought, guv,’ Jacquie whispered. That was what Maxwell loved about her. Underneath the CID exterior, there was still a little girl who, if she could no longer be shocked by anything, could at least disapprove.

‘Guiltier,’ agreed Hall. ‘I’m not sure that “worse” would cover it. He is a piece of work, though. His tracks won’t be easy to follow. He’s probably got a Mrs Robinson in every town in the county.’

‘They’ll all give him an alibi, guv, you’re right,’ Jacquie sighed. ‘If he can get to them first, that is…’

‘Mike,’ Helen Marshall was saying; if it weren’t for political correctness, she’d be offering him a ciggie about now. ‘I am not trying to frame you on anything, pin something on you you didn’t do. But you can surely see our position. What we have here is a person – yourself – who has been involved in two murder enquiries in a very short space of time. You claim that you are only involved involuntarily, as it were. You were related by marriage to one and tripped over the other.’

He nodded sulkily. This cheeky tart was playing with him, having a smug joke at his expense. And he’d seen
Waking the Dead
too; who was watching
all this from the other side of the mirror?

‘But, you see, it goes deeper than that.’ Helen Marshall was tracing little patterns on the Formica with her index finger, as though she was trying to work her way through the latest Sudoku. We know that you have been in Leighford recently; your car was caught on CCTV in the town centre.’

Jacquie and Hall sat up straighter. This was progress.

‘It’s not far,’ he blustered. ‘I was shopping.’

‘Hmm, if you say so, of course. It’s a girly thing, I suppose, but I’d have thought Chichester, Arundel, even Littlehampton, had better shops. However, that leads us on to a few other things. A young man, Darren Blackwell, was murdered in Leighford earlier this week. At first we thought that had no links with your stepdaughter, but I have just received word from the Leighford forensic team and apparently, in tracking the numbers on Lara’s phone, they found that of Darren’s younger brother.’ She turned her head towards the mirror, as if asking apology from the two Leighford cops concealed behind it. She didn’t mean to steal their thunder, but it was too good a chance to miss. Helen Marshall was as much in awe of Henry Hall as he was of her. Stealing a march was the name of the game.

‘So what?’ Crown said. ‘Lara was a pretty girl.
She attracted the boys, always did. Got that from her mother.’

‘Yes,’ Helen agreed. ‘She certainly was a pretty girl, but she didn’t mix in the same crowd as Darren Blackwell and he and his brother didn’t socialise. A slight family problem, I understand.’

Oh yes, thought Jacquie. A slight problem when your brother is sleeping rough in a wood. Socialising is not perhaps quite the right word for it then.

‘Still don’t know the name Darren Blackwell,’ Crown told her. ‘I don’t usually take much notice of men, if you see what I mean.’

‘Then,’ she ignored him and carried on listing her suspicions, almost as though he wasn’t there, ‘the body over which you tripped,’ Maxwell would have applauded the grammar, thought Jacquie, ‘is, we think, a missing person from Leighford. So, as you see, Leighford keeps on cropping up. All roads seem to lead there, don’t they?’

‘So I see,’ said Crown, leaning forward. ‘But I don’t live there, do I? So I don’t see where I come in to this chain of events.’

‘It may be because of the woman you have been seeing in Leighford,’ the DCI said suddenly.

Crown leant back again. He mimed zipping his lip. ‘I’ll have my lawyer now, blondie, if you don’t mind,’ he said and stared resolutely at the ceiling.

‘Oh my word,’ breathed Hall. ‘He’s in trouble now!’

The DCI got up slowly and walked to the door. She turned before she went through it and looked straight through the mirror. The grin she gave to Henry Hall was a facsimile of the last thing the unluckiest wildebeest sees as it goes under for the last time, just short of the banks of the Zambezi.

Peter Maxwell didn’t need a lift back from Arundel, because he hadn’t gone. Henry Hall caught radio newsflashes too and anyway, Leighford nick was routinely apprised of school closures in the area, so he knew the current Head of Sixth Form would not be at the chalk-face. And he knew they’d found a potentially neighbourly body in Arundel, so Hall naturally assumed…but was not on the money there. What he did need was a sit down, a glass of water or a large Southern Comfort, whichever was the sooner and a whole heap of explanation. Opening his front door had been so easy. Just grab the knob, twist and fling. It was what was on his doorstep that was giving him trouble. There stood not one, but two Mrs Troubridges.

They were dressed differently, he admitted, but the general style was the same. Pudding basin hat, pulled low on the brow. Scarf, one pale pink, one
beige, tucked into a tweed collared coat, worn just long enough to top the ankles. Gloves, to match scarf. Fur topped boots, brushing the hem of the coat. This was February. The weather could be treacherous. But Maxwell knew, from very many years’ experience, that at least one of them would be wearing this selfsame ensemble until at least June, on the principle of cast ne’er a clout till May be out.

‘Mrs Troubridge?’ he almost whispered. Years of teaching had taught him to hide shock, horror, disgust in order to keep ahead of the little bastards who had caused it, like when he’d fallen down the stairs in the Tower Block or that nice Mr Vincent had been run over by the ambulance that time. He’d just dusted himself or Mr Vincent down and carried on as if nothing had happened. But this was beyond even his finely honed powers.

‘Yes,’ they chorused, shades of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Surely, Lewis Carroll at his maddest had foreseen this very moment and laid it down for posterity.

‘Which one of you is…my Mrs Troubridge?’ How else could he put it? The answer was immediate. The one who was giggling and poking him in the arm with one begloved hand.

‘Oh, Mr Maxwell,’ she tittered. ‘I am. And
this is my sister, Araminta. Technically, she is Miss Troubridge. As you know, I married our cousin – wags said it was so I didn’t have to have my handkerchiefs resewn. We’re twins,’ she added, somewhat superfluously, ‘although I am, technically speaking, the elder by seven minutes.’

‘Are you?’ he replied, recovering himself a little. ‘Yes, now I come to look more closely, indeed you are.’ He stepped to one side. ‘Do come in, ladies. I’ll make you some tea, or something. I…’ again he was lost for words. ‘I’m really glad to see you, Mrs Troubridge. And of course you, Miss Troubridge. And I’m so glad you came round to see me. Jacquie and I were afraid I had upset you in some way.’

‘Not at all. Don’t mention it,’ they spoke as one. It was as if they had bestowed an honour on him and he shook his head to dispel the feeling of being down the rabbit hole. Mrs Troubridge threw him a puzzled glance, but her brow soon lightened. Though she was an expert at grudge-holding, she had already forgotten the news of the sleeping man on his sofa, vouchsafed by that ghastly little woman with the cigarette who seemed to visit her neighbour rather often, for reasons on which she tried not to dwell.

He led them up the stairs and he heard behind him the twittering whisper of the Miss Troubridge
to the Mrs, ‘You’ve done so much more with yours, dear.’ And the answering murmur of, ‘Long years as a bachelor, dear. Bound to take its toll.’

Clenching his teeth, he turned to them with a smile as they trotted into the sitting room and sat disconcertingly at either end of the sofa. ‘Tea, is it then, ladies?’

They nodded.

‘And how do you take yours, Araminta?’

‘Just the same as I do,’ Mrs Troubridge replied.

That put Maxwell in a bit of a quandary. He couldn’t remember how she took hers either. Arsenic, was it? Old lace? Oh well, tray, pot and all the fixings it would have to be.

While the kettle boiled, he hovered in the kitchen doorway. The Troubridges had occupied the sofa like a couple of bookends. Maxwell was just grateful it was Metternich’s day off. He wasn’t sure a cat of his years could quite handle all this. Inevitably, the question had to be asked. ‘Where have you been, Mrs Troubridge?’ he said. ‘We all thought you had gone missing.’ Unasked, the question ricocheted round his head, ‘Who did Mike Crown fall over last night?’

‘Well,’ Araminta began. ‘It was all a bit of silliness, really.’

‘I went to meet Araminta off the bus…’

‘…but I arrived early, so…’

‘…she went off to get a little drinkie, and I arrived on time and found her not there.’

‘So she, silly girl,’ Araminta smiled fondly, ‘set off to look for me.’

‘So Araminta couldn’t find me and booked into a hotel…’

‘…and she went off to see if I was still at home, hurt or something. Fallen down the stairs or some similar accident. As if!’

‘But before I did, I reported her missing…’

‘Wait.’ Maxwell held up his hand and broke the chain. ‘So it was
Araminta
who was reported missing?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Mrs Troubridge said. ‘Dear me, Mr Maxwell. Don’t tell me you thought it was
me
!’ The pair of them laughed like two demented budgies.

‘Well, yes,’ he said, hardly able to keep the amazement out of his voice. ‘Of course we did, Mrs Troubridge. We didn’t know until recently that you had a sister, let alone a twin.’

‘Had I not mentioned it?’ Mrs Troubridge was puzzled and sat there, one finger to her chin, casting her mind back, where it was happiest. ‘Not when I mentioned the late Mr Troubridge even?’

‘Because,’ Araminta couldn’t help herself, ‘that’s when we stopped speaking, of course. When she
ran off with Mr Troubridge. You do know we were cousins?’ she asked, dropping her voice.

Since Mrs Troubridge had reminded him not four minutes ago as well as at regular intervals over the years, he clearly did, but he couldn’t help thinking that there had probably been a lot of that sort of thing in the Troubridge family. You got a lot of that sort of thing in Tottingleigh in the old days. He nodded, smiling weakly. Finally, he said, ‘So, let me get this right. When you, Mrs Troubridge,’ and he pointed to his neighbour, ‘married
Mr
Troubridge, more years ago than you care to remember, you stopped speaking to
you
, Miss Troubridge.’ And he pointed to her sister.