Maxwell’s Match (26 page)

He threw the glasses down on the desk. ‘Comfort,’ he said softly. ‘A face I knew. And I do trust you, Jacquie. You know that.’

She looked at the arsehole, in his three-piece suit, emotions wrestling inside her.

‘You need a coffee,’ he said.

‘I need a Southern Comfort,’ she corrected him.

‘Ah,’ he paused as he reached for the kettle. ‘Mad Max.’

‘What did you mean,’ she asked him, ‘a minute ago, when you said “so the grapevine works”?’

‘Denise McGovern.’ Hall rattled among the coffee cups. ‘She came to see me the other day.’

It was a day of surprises for Jacquie Carpenter.

‘She gave me a forensic file, on Pardoe and Robinson. In exchange, I gave her a lot of garbage.’

‘The drugs connection?’

Hall nodded, clicking the sweeteners into his cup. I don’t know, any more than the Chief Super does, who we’re after. I just had instructions, once Pardoe died, to keep all the local boys out of Grimond’s. SOCO could come and go, West’s people could root around in the bike sheds and the boat-house to their hearts’ content. But only I – well, you and I – were to have access to the staff and kids. And I must say, it’s not working. Too big a job. After Love died …’

‘Love?’ Jacquie repeated. It sounded as though Hall were quoting a rather icky pop song from his youth, assuming he ever had a youth.

Hall looked at the girl, twisting in her chair look up at him. This wouldn’t be easy, either. ‘Andy Love. His name wasn’t Tim Robinson and he wasn’t a PE teacher. He was working undercover too, seconded from the Met.’

‘Jesus!’ Jacquie whistled through her teeth. ‘So Max was right.’

‘What?’

‘Peter Maxwell, sir …’

‘Now, Jacquie …’

‘I know.’ Her hands were in the air and she was out of the chair, twirling round the office. She been here before on account of Maxwell between the rock that was the man she loved a the hard place that was Henry Hall. ‘But I didn’t invite him here. That was just coincidence.’

‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Hall said.

She blinked at him, ‘You can’t think Max involved?’ she blurted out.

‘No, I don’t,’ Hall sighed. ‘Why was he right?’

‘What? Oh, he said Robinson … Love … was a sloppy marker.’

‘That accounts for about half Maxwell’s profession, doesn’t it?’

‘And not a very good fencer.’

‘Well, bearing in mind he’d only had a five weeks familiarisation, I think he did bloody well.’

Jacquie nodded. ‘How was it done?’ she asked.

Hall put their cups down on his desk. ‘The Chief Super got a tip off last November, anonymous phone call that said that a paedophile ring was operating in the area and that a teacher at Grimond’s was at the heart of it. There’s also a connection with his force, but he wouldn’t go into details. There was a vacancy for second in PE at Grimond’s – in fact, they were desperate, the last bloke having left in a hurry after a clash with Sheffield. Mason enlisted the aid of the Met, calling in a few favours and that’s where Love came in. He applied and his rivals were leaned on. Don’t ask me how Mason found out who they were, I don’t know, but I suspect it was over a few double brandies at the Country Club with Grimond’s Chair of Governors. That left Love as the new kid on the block. He was reporting directly to Mason.’

‘And what did he report?’

‘The bottom line is, not a lot. Clearly, Bill Pardoe was in the frame, but there was something about Tubbs. He’d only made two reports when Pardoe died.’

‘And you were called in?’

Hall nodded. ‘Mason didn’t want the local team at Grimond’s. Whoever the link is on the outside could have covered tracks, created new ones. I was originally just supposed to ferret about at operational level, but Pardoe’s death rather scotched that.’

‘So that’s why you weren’t very concerned about following up Robinson?’ It was dawning on Jacquie.

‘More than that, I wanted to play it down. I knew West’s people would find that his references were faked. They were all written on Met PCs.’

‘And when you went to his house … ?’

‘It was to collect his warrant card,’ Hall confessed. ‘I guessed he’d have it somewhere. It was in his wardrobe.’

‘So, other than Mason,’ Jacquie was still piecing it all together, ‘nobody knows Robinson’s re identity.’

‘His wife,’ Hall said soberly. ‘And maybe, in a couple of years when she’s old enough to understand, his little girl.’

‘Oh, God. What about the blokes who came see him?’

‘Blokes?’ This was new to Hall.

‘Sir … I went back to Rob … Love’s.’

‘Really?’ Hall sat back in his chair.

‘Look, I didn’t know,’ she explained. ‘You didn’t talk to neighbours or any of the routine stuff, didn’t understand why. If you’d only told me …’

‘Yes, all right, Jacquie. I’m not sure either of us has time for recriminations. What did you find out?’

‘Three men visited Love on a couple of nights at least. They appeared to the next door neighbours to be friends.’

‘Probably were,’ Hall shrugged. ‘Mates from the Met. It’s a lonely job working undercover. You look at people in a different light.’

‘Somebody looked at Love in a different light,’ Jacquie said. ‘But Pardoe was already dead then. Do you think somebody sussed Love? Discovered his cover?’

‘It’s possible,’ Hall said. ‘Love was careful. Nobody at Grimond’s, not even Sir Arthur Wilkins knew the real situation. He made no phone calls from school, cycled everywhere in case his car was seen and recognized. Apparently he was shadowing somebody.’

‘Outside Grimond’s?’

Hall nodded. ‘That was the gist of his last communication with Mason. Whoever he was tailing drove around the towns, possibly as far south as Portsmouth …’

‘Where Tubbs lives.’

‘Right.’

‘So,’ Jacquie cradled the cup in both hands, ‘Pardoe is the obvious link to the paedophile group.’

‘He’d have access to boys, young, potentially vulnerable, away from home and trusting him.’

‘He’d be their hero,’ Jacquie said, remembering.

‘Yes.’ Hall hadn’t quite looked at it like that. ‘Yes, I suppose he would.’

‘He recruited boys into the ring,’ Jacquie was thinking aloud, ‘introducing them to the others on the outside. But somebody had sussed him – the porn he had posted to Grimond’s. Someone found out about that and was … what? Blackmailing him?’

‘We’ve got no vibes about that … yet,’ Hall told her. ‘Unless I missed something in the rather long list of people we’ve spoken to in the last few days. You checked Pardoe’s bank account?’

Jacquie had. ‘He got his pay cheque here at the school, obviously. Banks with Lloyds in Petersfield. No large amounts going out. In fact, very little going out at all. He seems to have been the frugal type. West’s people are still checking, but they can’t find anything linking him to any sort of mail order company.’

‘But someone knew about the porn,’ Hall w reasoning. ‘Hence that tape left outside Maxwell’s door. Why would Pardoe need porn when he had access to the real thing?’

‘There’s another tape, sir.’

‘Jacquie?’

She crossed to the corner and pressed the pi button on the answerphone on the counter that ran the length of the room. A distorted voice scratched inside their ears, burning into their heads. ‘For your own safety and for God’s sake get out.’

‘What is that, Jacquie?’ Hall was next to h now, staring blankly at the machine.

‘It was a message left for Max this morning, sir,’ she told him. ‘About six-thirty.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Max thinks it’s Tubbs. He also thinks it’s same voice as on the tape left outside his door, the one implicating Pardoe.’

‘Sex, lies and sound tape,’ Hall murmured. ‘Right.’ He flicked out the tape with his biro. ‘Now, listen. You go now, before lunch, to Selborne. Report to West and take this tape with you. Tell him his forensic people need to dust and check it for voice patterns against the other one. You know the drill.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Jacquie reached for her bag.

‘And, Jacquie,’ Hall looked into the girl’s clear grey eyes. ‘You will not, I repeat not tell anybody outside this room about Robinson or the exact nature of the case we’re working on here. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly, sir. Does that go for Peter Maxwell.

‘It goes double for Peter Maxwell, Jacquie. I mean it. This is not a grapevine job. This is for real. I don’t want his great amateur feet trampling over this one. There’s too much at stake.’ She reached the door. ‘And Jacquie?’

‘Sir?’

‘As I seem to remember they used to say on Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there”.’

And for the first time in her life, Jacquie Carpenter actually saw Henry Hall wink.

‘I will, sir,’ she smiled. ‘Even though that programme was one my dear old mum told me about.’

‘How goes it, Michael?’

‘Max, won’t you join me?’ Michael Helmseley was mellow after a second helping of Mrs Oakes’ plum duff. Maxwell couldn’t believe anybody still made puddings that even Mrs Beeton found old hat. At Leighford, if it didn’t come with chips and pizza, it wasn’t on the menu. ‘Many thanks,’ and he took the proffered coffee cup.

Maggie Shaunessy was sitting in a huge armchair in the corner of the Senior Common Room, the midday sun filtering through the notices that covered the wall behind her.

Helmseley muttered under his breath, ‘I can remember when that was my chair.’ He looked at Maxwell, who tutted his sympathy and sat between them.

‘I understand you’re going to play in the match, Maxwell,’ the Head of Classics said, making the best of an altogether smaller seat nearby. ‘Is that strictly wise?’

‘Tony Graham did point out that you’re three men down, staff-wise,’ Maxwell said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Helmseley reached for his pipe, then caught Maggie’s disapproving look and thought better of it. ‘Well, with no disrespect to poor old Bill, two. He was way past the ruck and maul stuff. As, I suspect, are you.’

‘It has been quite a time,’ Maxwell confessed. ‘What position does Jeremy Tubbs play?’

‘Tubbsy?’ Helmseley frowned. ‘Good God, Max, you wouldn’t see Tubbsy anywhere near rugger pitch. Seemed quite keen on hockey, though.’ And he glanced up at the Head Austen House who studiously ignored him. ‘Oh Dave,’ and he waved to the Head of History who had just swept in.

‘I’m late for a meeting, Michael. Walk with me, will you?’

‘Scuse me, people,’ Helmseley struggled to his feet. ‘No rest for the wicked.’

‘What position does he play?’ Maxwell said, watching the man waddle off with Gallow.

‘Both ends against the middle,’ Maggie Shaunessy scowled. She caught Maxwell’s look. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Max. That was unprofessional.’

‘Ah, we all do it,’ Maxwell waved his hand, ‘I won’t bore you with my views on some of my colleagues.’

‘It’s just that … well, this merger was difficult enough as it was, without … To be frank, Michael Helmseley put the pig in chauvinist. I’m sitting, you may have gathered, in “his” chair. I probably ate my lunch off “his” plate and now I’m drink from “his” cup. I feel like bloody Goldilocks.’

Maxwell laughed. ‘Tell me about Tubbsy,’ he said.

‘Jeremy? What’s to tell?’

‘Well, where is he, for a start?’

Maggie shrugged. ‘Yes, that is rather a facer, isn’t it? I mean, colleagues don’t just wander off, do they?’

‘I’ve only known one,’ Maxwell said, ‘in three thousand years at the chalk face. Stress, of course. He was a geographer too, funnily enough. Just walked out one day, in the middle of a lesson. Halfway through plate tectonics, he was. Nobody saw him again – except, presumably, a team of nurses at the local psychiatric hospital, the keepers of the rubber rooms.’

‘How awful! I suppose it must be something like that with Tubbsy.’

‘Is he the type, do you think?’

‘What, to go mad?’ She sipped her coffee thoughtfully, frowning. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Gaynor Ames has him down for an oddball.’

Maggie looked at Maxwell. ‘Gaynor’s usually pretty shrewd on these matters.’

‘Says he hangs around the hockey pitches a little too often. I got the impression that Michael Helmseley was saying something similar a moment ago.’

‘You know my views on him,’ Maggie snorted. ‘Max, do you think Tubbsy’s involved in what’s going on? I mean … well, I don’t know how to put it.’

‘You mean, do I think he killed Bill Pardoe and Tim Robinson?’ Maxwell sensed a hush fall over the entire room, virtually empty though it was. ‘That’s possible,’ he said. ‘The police are certainly looking for him.’

‘But what would be his motive?’ Maggie asked him. ‘What would he have to gain?’

‘Perhaps he was covering something up,’ Maxwell suggested.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Maggie, you’ve been Head of Austen House since the merger, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And at St Hilda’s you were … ?’

‘Second Deputy. My two seniors, both rather elderly blue stockings, it has to be said, threw up their hands in horror when the merger was suggested. I mean, co-education? It smacked of corespondence for people of their generation. They retired – and probably not before time. That sort of left me in the hot seat. De facto Head, I suppose, although that didn’t last long.’ She was still glancing in the wake of the Head of Classics.

‘Ah,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘To some you were the tea girl.’

Maggie Shaunessy snorted with laughter. ‘Oh don’t get me wrong. Dr Sheffield, Mervyn Larson, Bill Pardoe, they were fine. But Helmseley and David Gallow … well, I might as well have been the Invisible Woman, except that those two would quickly point out there was no such person.’

‘So, in all your time here,’ Maxwell asked, ‘did you ever get wind of Jeremy Tubbs acting, shall we say, improperly?’

Maggie looked at him, trying to fathom those dark, haunted eyes, that full mouth with the ready smile. ‘Max,’ she said, both hands in the air. ‘You’re not from Grimond’s. I can’t …’

‘Precisely.’ He leaned forward. ‘And it’s just because I’m not from here that you can trust me. You see, Maggie, Bill Pardoe and Tim Robinson might only be the first two in what is becoming a series.’

‘God,’ she growled, looking from side to side. ‘And is Tubbsy the third?’

‘No, Maggie,’ Maxwell was shaking his head. ‘I am.’