Maxwell's Mask (23 page)

‘Why indeed, Patrick,' Maxwell smiled. ‘Why would someone stretch a piece of wire across Martita Winchcombe's stairs? Why would someone carefully fray Dan Bartlett's wiring system?'

‘My God.' Collinson's eyes widened. ‘You think it's the Harrison girl, don't you?'

Maxwell looked at his man. ‘When she was eleven, she set fire to the toilets at Leighford High. She'd just celebrated her twelfth birthday when she threw a little boy called Oliver Wendell down some stairs.'

‘Good Lord.'

‘In your double life, Patrick, as Chartered Accountant and Theatre Secretary, have you come across many serial killers?'

‘Er…I should hope not,' the man chuckled.

‘Well, you probably have,' Maxwell said,
matter-of-factly
. ‘But they don't always stand out. It's well known among the psychiatrists who study them, that most of those who go on to serial slaughter exhibit three tendencies as children. They call them the Triad. The first is an obsession with fire. They love nothing better than to see things burn. The crackle of flames, the flare, the panic it causes – it excites them. Deena and the toilet block – sounds like one of JK Rowling's earlier, little-known efforts. The second is a compulsion to torture animals. Now, it's unprofessional of me, I know, but young Oliver Wendell could easily have been mistaken for an animal – and Deena threw him 
down the physics lab stairs, his head bouncing on all six; count them. The third tendency? Well, that's rather a delicate one, really. The third tendency is wetting the bed. Perhaps we should ask Ashley Wilkes?'

She lay in the darkness, listening to the dog barking somewhere to the west and the stray growl of a passing car. When she sat upright, her head against the cold metal of the bedstead, the room was bathed in light, bright, painful. Why didn't they switch it off? Why, even though she knew it was the wee, small hours, didn't they let her sleep?

She could see them looking at her through those holes in the walls, their eyes bright and leering. And she could hear them laughing, laughing at her pain, her torment. She, who had borne so much, must bear still more.

‘Mrs Sanders?' Fiona Elliot peered down the
red-lacquered
passageway. The place looked like a knocking shop in downtown Amsterdam. Not that Fiona Elliot had much experience of those.

‘Rowena,' the woman said, opening the door. ‘You're Fiona, aren't you?'

‘Yes. Is this a good time?'

‘It is always a good time in the spirit world, Fiona, you know that.'

‘Yes,' the large woman said. ‘Yes, I do. And that's a comfort.' 

Rowena Sanders was a little, bird-like woman with spiky, orange-tipped hair and a mass of cheap jewellery. Had Peter Maxwell been at her house in Acacia Grove, the one that had been the vicarage, he'd have assumed she was rehearsing for the Leighford Carnival. She led Fiona into a small room, its aggressive squareness softened with long, low, padded furniture, scatter cushions and throws. There was an indefinable smell in the air which would have had Henry Hall reaching for his truncheon and the tons of paperwork consistent with an arrest for possession of illegal substances.

‘Sit here, Fiona,' Rowena said. She had a soft sibilance that was soothing to a woman who had spent the last three weeks battering her head against the brick wall of police officialdom. Rowena held both her hands and sat cross-legged on the cushion opposite her. She closed her eyes. ‘Sadness,' she said. ‘I feel sadness. But at the same time, an anger.' She opened her eyes. ‘Someone close to you has passed over.'

‘Not all that close,' Fiona had to admit, although the anger was fair enough.

‘We all become close on the Other Side,' Rowena said, almost intoning. ‘You seek closure, don't you? An explanation. Answers.'

‘Yes, I do,' Fiona told her. ‘And I want to arrange a séance.'

Rowena let the woman's hands go. ‘A séance?' The voice was harder. 

‘A full séance,' Fiona went on. ‘As soon as you can arrange it. You
do
have the expertise?'

‘Oh, yes.' An odd look flitted across Rowena Sanders' face. ‘Yes, I have the expertise.'

‘Will it be here? In this room?' Fiona wanted to know.

‘No. Not here. Across the hall. I could show you.'

‘No.' Fiona shook her head. ‘Not now. There will be time enough.'

‘Well, obviously,' Jacquie was freshening Maxwell's coffee, passing him the sweeteners as he poured his own milk, ‘Patrick Collinson knows nothing. Martita Winchcombe's got no family, indeed! What about Fiona Elliot?'

‘What indeed?' Maxwell was dipping his digestive until it had just the right amount of dunk. ‘Who's Fiona Elliot?'

‘According to Jane…'

‘…and where would we be without her?' Maxwell raised his mug in salute.

‘Amen to that,' Jacquie agreed. ‘Fiona Elliot is the old girl's niece.'

‘Ah,' Maxwell mused. ‘Do I smell inheritance?'

‘You're just a crabby, suspicious old git,' she told him, in the nicest possible way.

‘Fill me in, my darling. My paternity leave ends today and Ten Aitch Three are yearning to hear my war stories.'

‘Oh?' Jacquie raised an eyebrow. ‘Which war is
that, then?'

‘Take your pick,' Maxwell shrugged. ‘Anything from Hannibal onwards, really. I remember 'em all. Don't get me started on them now. Fiona.'

‘Yes.' Jacquie leaned back gratefully in Maxwell's, now their, kitchen. She'd be the last to admit it, but getting around was getting harder these days, the rounder she got. And sitting in one position with a miniature David Beckham inside you was pure murder. Not that she used the analogy in front of Maxwell. To him, it was more likely to be Jonny Wilkinson. After all, he'd gone to a good school. ‘Well, Jane told me…'

‘That was last night's four-hour phone marathon?'

‘It was barely twenty minutes,' Jacquie corrected him. ‘But last night, certainly. Jane told me that Fiona Elliot is pretty rabid in the pushing things to a conclusion stakes. She's told Henry she wants action.'

‘Not unreasonable, I should have thought.'

‘But rumour has it she's calling in the Spook Squad.'

‘The what?'

‘The Spiritualist circle. There's one in Leighford apparently.'

‘Along with the synagogue, the mosque and the Church of Christ Skateboarder; yes, I know.'

‘Be serious, Max,' she scolded him. ‘They've been going for years, apparently.'

‘A hundred and forty-nine to be exact. They were 
founded by Jedediah Urwin, whose wife used to do manifestations.'

‘You what?'

‘Phantasms,' he explained, reaching for his last biscuit. ‘Ghosts. It's all in the Museum archives. Mrs Urwin'd go into a cubicle, draw the curtains; Mr Urwin'd ask if anyone was there and lo and behold, da-daa, a glowing mass of ectoplasm that looked extraordinarily like Mrs Urwin in a lump of cheesecloth.'

‘Fake, then?'

‘They all were,' Maxwell told her. ‘And the extraordinary thing was how readily everybody fell for all that, back in the good old days. Physicists like Sir William Crookes, philosophers like Henry Sidgwick, doctors like Arthur Conan Doyle – they all bought into the table-rapping bit hook, line and sinker. It was a more gullible age, the faking Fifties and beyond.'

‘Well, be that as it may, Jane says the rumour is that Fiona Elliot wants to set up a séance.'

‘In the hope that Aunt Martita will pop round for a go on the planchette?'

‘The what?'

‘Spirit writing. The medium sits with a slate on her lap – or used to in Victorian times, anyway – and the spirit would move in her, so to speak. Hey, presto, a text message from the Other Side.'

Jacquie leaned forward again as Sonny Jim caught her a sharp one in what felt like her chin. 
‘But this will be no ordinary gathering. She wants everyone connected with her aunt to be present – Ashley Wilkes and Patrick Collinson from the theatre. Magda Lupescu, whose work – and I quote from Jane – “she values highly”, the medium herself, Rowena Sanders and Deena Harrison.'

‘Deena?' Maxwell sat up. ‘I don't think, knowing what we do, that's a very good idea, do you?'

‘I don't think
any
of it is a good idea, Max,' Jacquie said. ‘I've seen too many kids go off the rails playing with Tarot cards and ouija boards.'

‘It's all in the mind, dear heart,' he smiled, shaking his head.

‘So's murder,' she reminded him. ‘And there's one other name on the list.'

‘Oh? Whose?'

‘Henry Hall's,' Jacquie said. And they both collapsed into fits of hysterics.

‘I'm going round and round on this one, guv,' Bill Robbins had to confess. It was a dull, wet Friday morning and he hadn't seen his family for three days. The bed in the Incident Room was not exactly his idea of home comforts, but as Gavin Henslow reminded him in one particularly bitter exchange, it was better than the station house any day of the week.

‘Talk to me, Bill.' The DCI lolled back, his jacket slung on the chair behind him, his hands behind his 
head, looking across the desk to his sergeant. ‘It can help sometimes.'

‘OK,' Robbins began. ‘We've identified five women who have been seen in the company of Dan Bartlett in the last six months. Two of them were one-night stands. Lorraine Cusiter from Tottingleigh – Bartlett picked her up at the Last Man Standing disco on Bayer Street at the end of August.'

‘Form?' Hall asked, although he'd read the reports himself and knew the answer.

‘Hardly, guv. Just left school. The disco was a celebration of her A-level results.'

‘One of Maxwell's Own, eh?' Hall was half talking to himself. ‘Better not tell him. I sense his nose up our collective arses as it is. Anything useful on the girl?'

‘Bartlett took her home and got into bed with her. She'd had a skinful and couldn't remember much of it.'

‘Not exactly Don Juan, then?' Hall commented.

‘She was a bit pissed off when he expected her to walk home the next morning. What with it pissing down and her in a thong and fuck-me shoes. And not knowing quite what she'd say to Mummy and Daddy.'

‘Life's a bitch,' Hall nodded. ‘Who's the other one-night stand?'

‘Andrea Reed.' Robbins checked his notes. ‘Works in Top Man in the High Street. Last Man 
Standing again. September 6. At least this time he gave her the taxi fare home.'

‘Is there no end to this man's largesse?' Hall wanted to know. ‘Either of them could have swiped his Sheridan, I suppose, the heirloom most coveted by the winsome Mrs Bartlett?'

‘They could,' Robbins agreed. ‘But I doubt whether either of them would know it was a book, let alone a valuable one. No, I'd put my money on one of the others.'

‘Ah,' Hall nodded, leaning forward and picking up his pen. ‘These are what you might call the
long-term
relationships?'

‘Well, it's all relative,' the Sergeant sniggered. ‘I think we can safely say when it comes to Mr Bartlett, the only person whose company he really liked was Mr Bartlett's. Relationship number one was Pearl Reilly.'

‘Pearl?' Hall frowned. He'd read the name too and couldn't really believe it. ‘Named after the harbour, do you think? I thought Carole Bartlett said he liked them young.'

‘She was only twenty-three, guv,' Robbins explained. ‘Just that her parents must have been a bit retro, that's all.'

‘Links with Bartlett?'

‘They met in a pizzeria. One of his weaknesses, apparently, pizza. And nothing posh and Italian, either. Just your bog-standard dough from the High Street. They went out a couple of times, or should I 
say stayed in, but according to Ms Reilly she's very adventurous in bed and dear old Dan didn't live up to expectations.'

‘I trust you had a WPC present when this interview took place, Sergeant Robbins.'

‘Better than that, guv,' Robbins winked. ‘I had
Mrs
Robbins with me. You can't be too careful.'

‘Long-term relationship two.'

‘Well, I saved a bit of leg work here, guv.
Long-term
relationship two quickly merged with
long-term
relationship three. Laura Pettingell, something in sales at Leighford Garden Centre, and Susan Ledbetter, a teller with HSBC. Mrs Pettingell was first – Bartlett was buying some garden furniture to make a “room”, whatever that is, by his pond. Nice girl, Laura…'

‘Oh?' Hall's left eyebrow appeared over the top of his glasses frame.

‘She remembers being a bit suspicious of Bartlett when they first met because his cheque bounced.'

‘Did it now? How much was it?'

‘Er…' Robbins checked his records. ‘Three hundred and forty-four pounds. There was a special deal on.'

‘When was this?'

‘July. Bartlett explained there was – and I quote Laura – “a silly mix-up at the bank”. And the bank in question…'

‘…was the HSBC.' Hall finished the sentence for him. 

‘Got it in one, guv,' Robbins smiled. And he and Hall went back far enough for the Sergeant to risk, ‘You should have been a copper.'

Hall, of course, wasn't laughing.

‘Bartlett seems to have been two-timing them throughout late July and August, but by the end of that month, they were having threesomes. “Theatre Artistic Director Gets His Leg Over – Twice” as the
Advertiser
might have said had they known.'

‘You very definitely had Mrs Robbins there for
that
interview,' Hall checked.

‘No, guv,' Robbins laughed. ‘I just keep playing the tape over, you know. Pick up a few pointers.'

‘Was all this still going on at the time of Bartlett's death?'

‘No.' Robbins was adamant. ‘First of all, Mr Pettingell got wind of it and threatened to put Bartlett's lights out. Bearing in mind he's a
body-builder
with more attitude than I've recorded juicy interviews, Bartlett got the message and dropped Laura like that proverbial hot potato. Susan – she's a nice girl, too – hung on in there, but the bank got wind of it. Now, there's no actual law against employees having it away with clients, but the manager there is a born-again Christian and he takes a dim view. So Susan backed off – a position I believe she often assumed when the ménage was at full throttle.'

‘So,' Hall was trying to tie in all the disparate 
ends. ‘Am I right in assuming that all these women's DNA, prints, whatever, have been found in Bartlett's bungalow?'

‘Yes, guv. Along with others, of course. We've had no luck tracing anybody else's yet. Of course, it's early days.'

‘No, it's not, Bill.' Hall shook his head. ‘The clock's ticking. And did you, in all your
over-zealously
close questioning of these young ladies, discover whether any of them was a dab hand with electrical wiring?'

There was no Deena Harrison at the Arquebus again that night, so Maxwell had put on his Trevor Nunn meets Kevin Spacey act and directed like there was no tomorrow.

‘Dentists are by definition unpleasant people, Andy,' he had to remind the
Shop of Horrors
psycho. ‘I want to feel the pain the first time you appear on stage. I want to hear that high-pitched whine, smell the acrid pungency of burning
nerve-endings
and feel the ghastly sense of drowning with that gurgling thing down my throat. Unless the audience feels that, you just won't convince. Now, from the top, just one more time!'

He sat down in the darkened auditorium and shook himself. All he had to do was put his hands on his hips and he'd actually
become
Deena Harrison. 

There was a deep stillness as Leighford approached the witching hour. Private William Pennington was all but complete now, sitting his bay charger in fifty-four millimetre splendour and waiting for the off. Peter Maxwell had no idea – nobody did – exactly in what position Pennington rode the Charge, so he placed him in B Troop, diagonally behind the impossibly petulant Lord Cardigan before the difficult old duffer decided to pull the 11th Hussars back into what would become the second line to ride down the Valley of Death. Maxwell had put a little book into the soldier's right hand as though he was rehearsing for a part on some stage – perhaps Leighford's all those years ago. It was artistic licence and the book wasn't likely, but if you can't take a few liberties with the subject that is your
raison d'être
, what can you do?

Maxwell smiled. Another one completed. He liked it when a plan came together. Then he turned to his other plans and topped up the level of his Southern Comfort in the lamplit shadows of his Inner Sanctum under the eaves. He eased himself down into his modelling chair and slowly and methodically cleaned his brushes.

‘A séance, Count?' He glanced at the black and white beast watching him from the top of the old linen basket. ‘I thought you'd never ask. Once upon a time there were two little girls, the Fox sisters, who lived in Hydesville, New York State. This was in 1848, when your Lord and Master was a mere 
stripling applying for his first teaching job, and the girls claimed to be able to communicate with the spirit of a dead drummer – that's travelling salesman to you and me – whose body had been stashed under the floorboards in their home many moons previously. Are you taking notes, by the way? I shall be asking questions later. All this not unnaturally caused a bit of a stir in Hydesville – I suppose it was a bit like Leighford without the slot machines. Folks came from far and wide and when the investigators held the knees of the girls – and we won't ask why it occurred to them to do that – the mysterious rappings by way of communication with the spirit world abruptly ceased.'

Maxwell took a languid sip of the amber nectar. ‘Well, it's obvious why, Count, if only you'd give it a moment's thought. Listen.' He pressed his toes against his shoe and produced a clicking sound. ‘One knock for yes and two for no,' he said. ‘I'm just doing that with my feet. The Fox sisters could apparently dislocate their knees at will to make a similar noise. I know – makes your eyes water, doesn't it? The point is that spiritism as it was called should have died the death there and then. Two silly little girls faking it to gain attention – how often have I seen similar ploys in my own legendary career, I hear you ask. Deena Harrison, for instance… Anyway, back in 1848, it was
au contraire
. The craze caught on and spread to France and England. It got more exotic –
table-rapping, 
essentially what the Fox girls did, became table-tilting, spirit writing with the planchette, levitation and finally, full-blown manifestation. There's barely a house in England that hasn't got some sort of ghost.'