Authors: M.J. Trow
‘Jacquie.’ Hall as always sounded peremptory. ‘Don’t come back. Go to Leighford High. There seems to be a bit of a problem there. Let me know how it goes.’ No laughter. No Gielgud. Same old. Same old.
Her heart in her mouth for the second time in two days, she rammed the car into gear and broke every speed limit to get to Leighford High.
This time there was only one ambulance waiting outside on the drive, with a
bored-looking
paramedic sitting on the back step, flicking some desultory ash from the end of his cigarette. He looked up as she flung herself out of her car.
‘Hello again,’ he said. ‘We can’t keep meeting like this.’
She stood looking down at him as she skidded to a halt. ‘I assume,’ she said, somewhat haughtily, ‘that there is no actual emergency this time.’
He stood up, grinding out his dog-end with an ambulance-service issue boot. ‘Not as such.’ He blew out the final lungful of smoke and immediately popped a mint in to his mouth to replace it. ‘Some bloke ate something and it made him sick. Bit of overreaction in my opinion, but there we are. Better safe than sorry.’
‘So you weren’t needed, then?’ she asked, her heart slowing to normal speed.
‘Well, my mate’s just checking the geezer over. Just in case. For the record, you might say. But no, no real damage done. He was offered some snack thing by a kid and just went down as if he was poleaxed, by all accounts. The kids went mental and rushed off to get somebody. Well, they would, wouldn’t they, after yesterday? They called us. And you, by the looks. Anaphylactic shock, y’ask me.’
The long technical word from his mouth was so unexpected that Jacquie just nodded and went up the steps into the foyer. The other paramedic was there, talking to Maxwell who was in full Headmaster mode, thumbs in braces, bow tie perky, interested expression firmly pinned in place; no idea of education at all.
‘So, no harm done,’ he was saying as she got into earshot. ‘It was a mini sausage roll, apparently, that a child offered him. We’re thinking he may be allergic, but I gather you’ve kept the pack just in case. When the plods get here, could you hand it over?’
Maxwell looked aghast and then, seeing Jacquie from the corner of his eye, amused. He turned. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Plod, my dear.’ The paramedic looked momentarily confused, then blushed. ‘This gentleman was just talking about you. He has given into my care a pack of mini
sausage rolls, innocently proffered to Paul Moss by a grateful pupil this morning, just before break. To say it disagreed with him would be an understatement.’ He turned to the paramedic, who was trying to creep away. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’
‘Sick as a dog,’ the man agreed. ‘And I suspect he will then go on to shit like a racehorse, as it makes its way through … as we say in our business.’
‘What an entrancing picture,’ smiled Maxwell. ‘Don’t let us keep you.’ Then, to Jacquie, ‘It was Paul. Some perfectly nice child in his Year Nine class this morning gave him one of those evil pasteurised, keep-at-
room-temperature
-for-a-whole-lifetime-and-still-
not-catch
-botulism sausage rolls they sell in train stations and the like. You know, “Best Before the Great Exhibition” sort of thing. We can’t use the dining room until the tape comes down, so we had a delivery of a whole lot of processed stuff for keeping starvation at bay until we can get the parents mobilised on the packed lunch front. Most of them were ahead of us, in fact, but this little dear, at the centre of things when couch potatoes gather, had bought a few packs to keep the wolf from the door. She had so enjoyed her lesson on the dissolution of the monasteries that she shared her bounty with Paul. With the results that our friend in green conjured up so beautifully.’
‘Where is Paul?’ she asked. ‘And where is the pack of sausage rolls?’
‘Paul is in my office, my real office, I mean, the one with the dead spider plant and the film posters. What
is
that supposed to be, by the way?’ He was talking rhetorically, really, pointing to a particularly awful print that Mr Diamond thought was Art. ‘The sausage rolls are in a drawer in my desk. I didn’t want someone accidentally snacking on them.’
She patted his arm. ‘You make such a good policeman,’ she said.
‘Well, after that fiasco with the cocktail glasses yesterday, I thought I had better. And I can’t use my other office. Mr Bevell is in there.’
She stared at him. ‘Mr Bevell has turned up?’
‘Yes. Rather unpleasant individual, turned up this morning. Looks like a weasel in a wizened sort of way. Apparently, he intends to sue.’
‘Sue? Who?’
‘You sound like a huntsman. Or an owl. Us. The County. For as much as he can get. Dereliction of care, or so he says. He has the number of one of those buy-one-get-one-free solicitors.’
‘A what?’
‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean, no win, no fee.’
‘You mean he did that before he visited his wife?’
‘Don’t be silly, heart face. No, he did that
before he came here shouting the odds. He hasn’t been to see his wife yet.’
‘Aren’t people odd?’ she muttered, half to herself. ‘Look, Max, I’ve got to do a bit of serious multitasking here. Can you give me a hand?’
‘I’ll try. But I’m more comfortable with just tasking, if that’s all the same to you.’
‘Can you ring Henry and tell him what is going on, in broad terms? I need to see Paul, collect the sausage rolls in an evidence bag and get them to the lab, then see Mr Bevell.’
‘I’ll deal with Mr Bevell, sweetie,’ he said. ‘He’s not as bad as all that. I can cope with the nasty man.’
‘No, Max, you don’t understand. I’m going to have to take him with me to the station.’
‘And add wrongful arrest to his list? They’ll be living in tax exile if this goes on.’
‘I’ll explain later. Meanwhile, can you just give Henry a buzz? I’ll pop up and see Paul.’
‘I bow to your judgement, oh great and powerful Oz,’ Maxwell said, scrunching down to improve his Munchkin impersonation.
‘I should think so too,’ she said, making for the stairs. The Headmaster’s wife must, of course, be above suspicion.
Paul Moss was lying on Max’s LEA-issue corner unit and therefore probably looked rather worse
than he was, although doubled up seemed to be his position of choice. He was a pale green, not an unattractive shade in its own right, but not really designed to go on a face. He turned his head slightly when Jacquie crept in.
‘Hello, Jacquie.’ He was so quiet, it was almost as if he mimed the greeting.
‘Hello, Paul.’ Jacquie sat on the end of the seat, moving his feet slightly to do so. She preferred to keep away from the business end where vomit was concerned. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Better. I’ve been sick and … you know. But Sylvia gave me something and I think the worst is over.’
‘That’s good,’ she said, patting his knee. And I hope you’re right, she thought, bearing in mind where I’m sitting. She was glad, too, that Sylvia Matthews seemed to be back to her old self, but she didn’t say so. Paul was a little too preoccupied at the moment. ‘Can you tell me what happened? I’m sorry to bother you right now, but I need to know the child’s name and whether this kind of prank is in character.’
‘Prank?’ In his enfeebled way, Paul Moss was totally outraged. ‘Prank? A bit more than a prank, Jacquie, surely?’
‘Well,’ she looked down at him. She couldn’t describe the colour he was now. It was a kind of enraged purple with green highlights. There was
no easy way to say this. ‘Well, you’re not actually
dead
, are you, Paul? Or even close, as far as I can see. I think that this may just be one of those things. An unfortunate coincidence.’ She got up hurriedly as his colour deepened. ‘But I will take the offending rolls to the lab, and if you could just let Max know the kid’s name, that would be lovely.’
Paul Moss was beginning to scramble to his feet, a desperate look on his face. She moved so as not to be between him and the door as he made a dive in its direction.
‘I won’t keep you,’ she called after him, then, more quietly, ‘I suspect this may be more than man-diarrhoea, but you ain’t been poisoned to kill you, my dear.’ She riffled through the drawers in Maxwell’s erstwhile desk and found the sausage rolls in a large Manila envelope labelled ‘Sausage rolls. Please do not touch’ in an Acting-Headmasterly hand. She put the whole thing into an evidence bag and signed and dated the fold. Then she took herself back downstairs, before the racehorse returned to the couch to suffer some more.
Down in his temporary office, Maxwell was coping with Mr Bevell, although he was privately thinking that perhaps coping was rather an overstatement. He was as wizened as his wife was expansive, half her girth and nowhere
near her height, but in all other respects they were the same. The threats of their lawsuits, which Maxwell had inevitably named ‘sewage’, were multiplying to the point that the Acting Headmaster was hard-pressed to think of anything to say. So far, his commiserations had been threatened with a suit for emotional distress. His offer of a cup of coffee had been greeted with threats of suing for damage to life and lip because it was hot. The drips from the bottom of the cup had permanently damaged the man’s trousers. And these were Countryman’s, not any old rubbish.
When Jacquie tapped on the door, he jotted down a note of the time.
Maxwell was finally forced into speech. ‘Mr Bevell, the lady who has just entered is my
wife-to
-be. Why did you just write down the time?’
‘Just in case I should suffer post-traumatic stress some time in the future. A shock like a knock on the door in my condition could be serious.’
‘So the note is a kind of pre-traumatic stress insurance, is it?’ said Maxwell, a rather testy tone creeping in to his voice.
Jacquie hastened to interrupt. ‘Mr Bevell? May I offer my—’
‘No. You may not. If he accepts condolences or apologies, it may impact on any payout in the future. That’s according to Miss Grabbit from the
no win, no fee solicitors, Ambulance and Chaser,’ cut in Maxwell. ‘Did you say you wanted to take Mr Bevell down to the station, dear one? Let me get him his coat.’
Jacquie was quite silenced by this sudden desire of Maxwell’s to get the man off his property. She thought quickly. ‘I’ll have to call a car,’ she said. ‘Unless, of course, Mr Bevell is in his own vehicle?’
‘I came by train,’ he said. ‘My guaranteed seat was, of course, not available, but rest assured they will be hearing from my solicitors. A man in my situation …’
‘Yes, yes indeed,’ agreed Maxwell, appearing behind the man with a coat. ‘Very difficult for you. Policeperson Carpenter will call a squad car to take you in comfort to the police station. Don’t worry, they do that thing where they pat your head to make sure you don’t bump it accidentally on the roof. I will just take you out to our specially designed visitors’ waiting room, which has passed all tests, both Health and Safety, it also has a current fire certificate and no less than three fire extinguishers. You’ll be quite safe there,’ and he ushered the man out, beaming broadly, much as Legs Diamond used to do.
Jacquie stood waiting, looking down at her shoes as she rocked gently from heel to toe. She smiled gently to herself and hummed a little tune. When Maxwell came back in she gave him a
silent hug of comfort. ‘A difficult gentleman,’ she said, her voice deliberately without inflection.
Maxwell threw himself into the chair behind Diamond’s desk. ‘I can honestly say,’ he said, ‘that I have never met a man who made me want to kill him quite so much. Or so soon. Or so horribly. Slowly. Painfully. Enjoy him at the station, won’t you?’
‘Ooh!’ Jacquie reached for the phone. ‘I must call that car,’ and she quickly did so.
‘I assumed you would take him in yourself,’ Maxwell remarked.
‘What? And get sued for having a loose sweet wrapper in the car? He might get too hot. Or too cold. How can you live like that?’
‘Very comfortably, I would imagine. The reason we couldn’t reach him was that he was having a short break at a hotel. He was rather disappointed that he had to stay in an independent, but the Bevells are banned by all the chains, because they keep suing them. And, before you ask, he hasn’t got a mobile phone because there isn’t a provider who will deal with them. No car insurer will insure them either, and the trains are becoming a bit tricky. But it’s a living.’
‘You mean … that’s how they make their money? By suing people?’
‘Apparently. Although, it often doesn’t come to that, because lots of companies just pay
out to save the bother. They had to get a cat, because one of the deals was free cat food for life and they didn’t want to waste it. The man’s a menace.’
‘Do you think that
he
might have done the poisoning?’
Maxwell looked thoughtful, then regretful. ‘No matter how much I would like to say yes, I don’t think that he’d go that far. And not being local, there would be the logistics. No, he’s a nasty piece of work, but he didn’t do this.’
‘What about the attempt on his wife last night?’
‘Hmm, possibly. But still, I think, no.’ He suddenly banged the desk and sat up straight. ‘Damn it, Jacquie, this sue-everybody culture makes me angry. When I was young, you accepted that the aftermath would inevitably follow the math. It didn’t have to be anyone’s fault.’
She leant over and kissed his empurpling brow. ‘Calm down, darling. You’ll go off pop.’
He subsided, but ungraciously. ‘Well,’ he muttered. He looked like Nolan, with his lip stuck truculently out and she suddenly didn’t want to leave him. She wanted to stay tucked up in the office with him, while nasty things happened and other people picked up the pieces. But she knew it wasn’t possible.
She turned to the door, saying, ‘I’ve got to go,
Max. I’ll wait with the horrible sod while the car comes, then I’ll be off. See you tonight, but I’m not sure what time. Well done with the Coco Pops, by the way.’
‘What Coco Pops?’
‘At a guess, the friends of the one peeking out from behind your lapel. He always manages to hide one at the last moment, the little rascal. I interviewed a suspected burglar once with one in my eyebrow. It’s good for breaking the ice.’ She blew him a kiss and was gone.
Maxwell extricated the lurking cereal and balanced it on the end of his finger. ‘I wondered where you had gone,’ he said to it, before popping it into his mouth. He had decided to stick to food brought from home for the moment. He picked up the phone and buzzed for Thingee One.