Authors: M. J. Trow
‘Great.’
I’ll tell you what,’ Sylvia was already crossing Maxwell’s carpet, ‘while the Great Man is away, doing whatever he’s doing in Oxford, what say you and I make inroads into his drinks cabinet? Unless, of course, you’re on duty?’
‘Bollocks!’ snorted Jacquie. ‘You’re on!’
Elegant Georgian houses didn’t bother Peter Maxwell. The fact that his modest abode in Columbine Avenue could fit into Archie Godden’s place several times over didn’t discomfit him one jot. Not for Mad Max the politics of envy. He put the phone down on Jacquie, the one in Archie Godden’s hall, and dialled his next number, using this time the mobile that had been snuggling in his inside pocket.
‘You’ve reached me, but I’m not available at the moment.’ Amy Weston’s voice came back at him. ‘Please leave a message after the tone.’
He waited. ‘Amy, it’s Maxwell. I’m at Archie Godden’s. He’s kindly asked me to stay over. We’re going somewhere tomorrow, but I’m not sure where. I’ll keep you and Bob posted. Bye.’
‘Max!’ the great critic’s stentorian tones echoed through from the hall. ‘Nightcap?’
‘You’re spoiling me, Archie.’ All evening, Maxwell had found this bonhomie increasingly difficult. His natural inclinations were to wring the fat racist bastard’s neck.
‘Southern Comfort, I think you said.’
‘Oh,’ Maxwell took it. ‘Now this really is too much. Thank you again by the way for dinner. I didn’t really equate you with Thai food, but those butterfly duck breasts! Marvellous!’
Godden led him into the library, where wall-to-wall leather filled the eye and, via the music system piped throughout the house, Wagner filled the ear. ‘You mustn’t jump to conclusions,’ Godden said. ‘I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry one, but the Thais do a good line in cuisine, I’d be the first to admit. We’re not all roast beef and Yorkshire, you know.’
‘That’s funny.’ Maxwell paused by the Adam fireplace, catching his reflection in the huge, plain mirror over it.
‘What?’ Godden sprawled on the vast settee that a languid wolf hound had just vacated.
‘Accents. It’s a hobby of mine. Trying to place them. Now I’d say yours was Yorkshire. South Yorkshire, to be precise.’
Godden bellowed his mirthless laugh. ‘Well, there, I’m afraid, you’d be way off. Pain me to admit it though it does, my people are Irish originally. County Mayo.’
‘Irish,’ Maxwell tutted and shook his head. ‘Well, I never.’
‘Tomorrow.’ Godden sat up and leaned forward as his guest perched on the arm of the other settee. ‘Pastures new.’
‘Where away?’
‘I want you to meet Tony again.’
‘LeStrange?’
Godden nodded. ‘Remember the fly in the ointment?’ he asked.
Maxwell nodded.
‘There is a need in our business, Max, for trust. Total. Absolute. There can be no backsliding, no shilly-shallying. It’s all about faith too. You have it – or you don’t.’
‘Are you talking about the
Observer
, Archie?’ Maxwell raised an eyebrow.
A silence, then an explosion of mirth. ‘The
Observer
! What dear, kind souls. If only they knew. No. I’m talking about the other business. The cleansing business, if you get my drift. Larry Warner, now. Poor Larry I’m afraid was not of the order. Oh, he was homosexual of course, I think we all knew that. I even suspected him of being Jewish, but the reason he had to die was this trust thing. His professionalism kicked in, the poor, sad bastard. Ethics, I suppose. He discovered the true purpose of Charts, where the money was eventually going. He couldn’t be trusted. He had to be eliminated.’
‘Why are you telling me all this, Archie?’ Maxwell wanted to know.
‘I told you,’ Godden said. ‘Trust. As soon as I met you, I knew you were different,’ he looked him earnestly in the lace. ‘One of us, so to speak. Tell me I’m wrong …’
‘Well …’
Godden laughed. ‘Exactly.’ He stood up. ‘Tell me, Max. What’s your view on murder?’
‘On Murder As One of the Fine Arts?’ Maxwell checked.
‘Yes,’ Godden chuckled. ‘I’m not sure de Quincy was being quite upfront there, was he? No, I mean, personally. Could you kill someone? Would you? Given a cause?’
‘It depends,’ Maxwell said.
‘On the cause?’
‘Something like that.’
Godden closed to his man. ‘Our cause?’ he said.
‘What about you?’ Both men’s words had dropped almost to a whisper. ‘Did you kill Larry Warner?’
‘Me?’ Godden exploded with laughter. ‘My dear boy, my days of crawling through the undergrowth undetected by thousands of rubber-neckers are over, I can assure you. In fact, they never began. As for shooting, I can’t hit a barn door. But, as the old advertisement had it, I know a man who can.’
‘Who?’
‘Tony LeStrange.’
‘LeStrange? I thought he had an alibi …’
‘Really?’ It was Godden’s turn to raise an eyebrow. ‘Who told you that?’
Shit! Maxwell’s repartee had led him too far down Godden’s garden path and there was no way out now. ‘The police told me.’
‘The police?’ Was it the late evening light or had Archie Godden turned a little pale?
‘I was there,’ Maxwell told him. ‘Riding the Wild Water when Larry Warner was killed. That’s how I got caught up in all this in the first place. As a witness, the police obviously talked to me. And my nieces.’
‘How did LeStrange figure?’
‘He was questioned too. So were you, weren’t you? As a member of Charts, I mean?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Godden confirmed.
‘Don’t ask me how it all came out in conversation. I seemed to be at the station for bloody hours. I think I said, as a joke, really, it was probably done by magic. I think I said “I bet Anthony LeStrange could do it.” And the DCI said “No, he’s got an alibi” or something like that.’
Godden relaxed and laughed. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘More fool the DCI. Doesn’t he realize a magician can be in two places at once?’
Rummaging through other people’s fol-de-rols wasn’t Maxwell’s idea of a good time. Still, there were only so many places you could hide a five-foot-five-inch blonde girl who was fifteen, going on forty. He waited long enough for Archie Godden to reach the land of nod, then started on the ground floor. To his left was a cellar, like the one where Norman Bates occasionally kept his mother. There was nothing there, once Maxwell’s eyes became accustomed to the dark, but some rather upmarket wines, the dust of which he was careful not to disturb, and spiders as big as your head. And they were far too big to be disturbed by anything as insignificant as Peter Maxwell.
He’d already combed the kitchen, the sitting-room, the library, the usual offices on the ground floor. He’d quizzed Archie Godden over dinner on the history of the house. It wasn’t old enough for priest holes and it was too old for breeze blocks. He’d never believed in secret panels – they belonged to the spooky old house matinees usually starring Bob Hope or the ones in which Abbott and Costello meet Loaf. Which left the bedrooms and, if he could find the way up, the attic.
As he crept, Raffles-like, into each room in turn, grateful for the soft carpet and the fact that the dog slept outside in a kennel, he toyed with using Sylvia’s mobile again, this time to call the police or at least talk to Jacquie. But what, in the end, did he have? Archie Godden might be a reincarnation of Attila the Hun. He might even be a psychopath. But they didn’t put you away for either of those things in Tony Blair’s Britain. He could expect a few sucked-lemon lips from the Politically Correct lobby, perhaps even a letter from the Race Relations Board, but that was about as heavy as it would get. And the murder of Larry Warner? Well, that was Godden’s word against Maxwell’s, the one, a sophisticated bon viveur with an international reputation; the other a teacher in a third-rate comprehensive and one who had been in trouble with the police before. Even if they read
Nietzsche Now
as an example of Godden’s right-wing ideology, it was hardly evidence he was a murderer. After all, Adolf Hitler read Nietzsche, yet he never pulled a trigger at close quarters in his life, excluding a little thing called World War Two of course.
No, Maxwell’s best bet was to stick like glue to Archie Godden, waiting for a slip, the offer of some tangible evidence rather than the hot air the man spouted. Bugger and poo! The attic was empty, apart from tea chests various and a rocking chair under a drugget that glowed ghostly in the early morning clouds that broke through the skylight.
‘Christopher Logan.’ Maxwell had just demolished the most devilish kidneys he’d ever sampled.
‘Who?’ Godden was already on the toast.
‘Cub reporter on my local, the
Leighford Advertiser
.’’
‘What of him?’
‘He’s dead,’ Maxwell said. ‘Shot dead, in fact. Found under the Arches, near the Embankment.’
‘Hm. Fancy.’ Godden sank his teeth into a mound of marmalade.
‘Not the White Knights.’
‘The White Knights?’ Godden paused in mid-mouthful.
‘Your organization,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘The one I believe I’m on the brink of joining.’
‘How did you know we were called that?’
‘Er … didn’t you mention it?’
‘No,’ Godden shifted a little uneasily in his seal.
Maxwell couldn’t afford to blow it now. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, ‘it was Bob Hart.’
‘Bob?’ Godden’s mood lightened a little. Then he flicked his napkin up from his lap and wiped his mouth. ‘What did you make of him? And our Amy?’
‘Charming couple,’ Maxwell beamed, ‘assuming they are a couple?’
‘Oh, I expect so,’ he said. ‘Seem to be all over each other recently. I find that sort of thing rather sordid.’
‘You never … er … ?’
‘Married? Lord, no. Far too busy being who I am and what I am. They just get in the way, women. It’s just that that’s the problem. Oh, I think Bob is sound enough. And Hilary too, by his lights. It’s her … it’s Amy. Can be something of a renegade at times. One to watch, I think. Come on, finish your coffee. We’ve got places to be.’
Henry Hall was taking a calculated risk. Another one, that is. The first was telling Maxwell about the White Knights in the first place. Quite a departure, he kept reminding himself, for a man who’d always done things by the book. He switched off the tape recorder and sat back in his chair. He’d got used, over the past week, to sitting in this position facing Neil Hamlyn. Bartlett, the psychiatrist, had given his all. A schizoid psychosis was all he was prepared to say. The Crown Prosecution Service had pulled a rather wry face at what the police had to offer. There was no bullet from the corpse of Larry Warner, lying in frozen limbo in one of Jim Astley’s cold drawers. Scores of coppers had simply failed to find it. The wound was consistent with a missile fired from a gun that Neil Hamlyn did not possess. Yes, he could have thrown said gun into the sea, the nearest river, an adjacent wheelie bin. But why, if he’d actually killed the man, as he said he had, didn’t he admit to owning the gun? It made no sense. And the Crown Prosecution Service, anxious as ever to achieve a result, knew it didn’t. Mr Hamlyn’s counsel for the defence would have a field day.
‘I’m letting you go, Mr Hamlyn,’ Hall said.
The soldier blinked. ‘Why?’
‘Because you didn’t kill anybody,’ Hall sighed.
‘I killed Larry Warner,’ Hamlyn protested. ‘I’ve told you …’
‘Yes, you have,’ Hall nodded. ‘I’ve lost count of the times. But you see, Mr Hamlyn, we have this little thing called forensic science. A gentleman called Christopher Logan was killed with the same gun that killed Larry Warner – at the moment we are making the assumption by the same perpetrator. And you, Mr Hamlyn, have one of the best alibis I can think of for the murder of Mr Logan – you were with us, in police custody, at the time.’
‘Look,’ Hamlyn was leaning forward, into the pool of light from the table lamp, ‘I don’t understand this. Any of it. I’ve never heard of this Logan bloke. All I know is I killed Larry Warner. I don’t give a fuck about your forensics. I did it, okay?’
Frank Bartholomew bristled as the man’s voice grew louder, his tether shorter. He was half out of his chair when Hall defused the situation. ‘Whatever you say, Mr Hamlyn,’ he said, one hand in the air as a gesture of reconciliation. ‘But I must warn you that I am considering charging you with wasting police time. Let me sleep on that. In the meantime, Sergeant Bartholomew will take you to the front desk and see that your belongings are returned to you. All except the Ruger KM 77. That we’ll keep and it will be sawn up into two-inch sections, just in case temptation comes your way.’
For a moment, Hamlyn stood there, swaying, uncertain what to do. He didn’t understand this. Didn’t know what was happening to him. The whole thing was like a dream, a waking nightmare. Bartholomew crossed to the door and opened it, ushering the man out. Hall clicked the intercom on his desk. ‘Jacquie, a word please?’
‘Archie?’ Anthony LeStrange was sitting in front of a mirror in his dressing room at the Lyceum, the light of the two dozen bulbs shining in his eyes. ‘Not the best of times, I’m afraid.’
‘Sorry, Tony.’ Godden ushered Maxwell into the presence. ‘We have a slight problem.’
LeStrange paused in mid-application of his five and nine, staring at Maxwell in the mirror. ‘I spy strangers,’ he murmured.
‘I believe you two have met.’ Godden stood about, looking large and rather uncomfortable amidst the sequinned glitter of the stage green room.
‘More than once,’ LeStrange turned, rose and shook Maxwell’s hand in a deft movement.
‘He knows,’ Godden said.
LeStrange’s hand froze in Maxwell’s. ‘Knows what?’
‘About Larry Warner,’ Godden said.
‘Archie,’ LeStrange fumed. ‘I’m due on stage in ten minutes, for God’s sake. What’s the matter with you?’
‘Couldn’t be helped,’ Godden shrugged. ‘Mr Maxwell – Max – wants to join us.’
LeStrange looked at his man. ‘Mr Maxwell,’ he said. ‘You’ll forgive me if this sounds rude, but we are not the WI. Being a dab hand at whist and being able to sing “Jerusalem” cuts no ice here, you know.’
‘Give him some credit, Tony.’ Godden found a chair somewhere under a velvet cloak. ‘And me too, for that matter. Mr Maxwell’s been talking to Bob, Amy and Hilary. He’s sound.’