Maxwell’s Flame Read Online Free PDF

she hadn’t said. There was no mention of a husband. No mention at all.
    ‘Thank you, Rachel,’ Gary piped up. ‘Thank you for your candour. Er … Peter, isn’t it?’
    ‘No.’ Maxwell stood up. ‘It’s Max to those I reckon,’ and he crossed purposefully to the podium while Rachel resumed her seat. When he’d got the circle’s attention he introduced himself. ‘I’m Peter Maxwell,’ he said, ‘and I’m an alcoholic’
    There were murmurs and an inrush of breath. Sally covered her face with her hands, but Rachel was giggling.
    ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Maxwell, clicking his fingers, ‘wrong conference. That must have been last week. Er … I’m the wrong side of fifty, Head of Sixth Form – I suppose that’s Years 12 and 13 to anybody under twenty-seven – and I have the privilege to teach at Leighford High. My ambition in life is to be better known than Godfrey Bliss …’
    In the pause that followed, Gary fell right into the trap. Sally should have called out a warning, but she didn’t until it was too late. ‘Er … who’s Godfrey Bliss, Peter?’ he asked.
    ‘At last!’ Maxwell clapped his hands in joy. ‘I’ve done it! I’ve made it! After all these years! Thank you, Gary, you’ve made an old man very happy. By the way, by an incredibly curious coincidence, I too like walking in fields near castles, with women who can be as strange as they like.’
    There was a chorus of ‘oohs’ that Maxwell didn’t hear. He was only looking into the smiling face of Rachel King. And she hadn’t heard it either. No mention of ‘wife’, ‘better half, ‘dearly beloved’. Could there really be no Mrs Maxwell?
    ‘Yes, well, thank you, Peter,’ Gary said. ‘Er … Andrew?’
    A slightly stooped man in glasses and corduroy jacket ambled nonchalantly on to the podium. ‘Andrew Moreton,’ he said.
    ‘Loved your book on the Royals,’ Maxwell shouted.
    Moreton scowled amid the laughter. ‘Dr Moreton,’ he continued, ‘Head of Science at John Bunyan School, Luton.’ And he sat down.
    ‘Oh. Um, Michael, I believe, penultimately.’ Gary Leonard was thrown by the man’s taciturnity.
    ‘Michael Wynn.’ The next speaker brushed past the returning Maxwell. ‘Deputy Principal of St Bede’s. I’m afraid you’ve all heard rather a lot of us this afternoon. The trouble is, mention a week of INSET in a plush conference centre on the coast and the queue among the staff goes half-way round the building. It’s a difficult decision to make, of course, but as the man who runs INSET, I want you to know it’s the merest coincidence that I am here today.’
    There were guffaws all round.
    ‘I have a wife, Gwendoline, two children and a dog. I like to fish, have an embarrassing golf handicap and I’m looking forward to working with you all this week.’
    There was applause as the big, bearded man sat down.
    ‘Did I detect a certain Welshness there?’ Sally asked Maxwell.
    ‘Hmm?’ Maxwell was whispering something to Rachel.
    ‘I said,’ what with her PMT and all, Sally’s patience was not as thick as it might have been, ‘do I detect a certain Welshness there?’
    ‘Geordie.’ Maxwell shook his head.
    Rachel leaned across him. ‘He’s from Newcastle.’
    ‘Told you,’ Maxwell nodded smugly. ‘Spender country. You know, Jimmy Nail on the telly. Tall bloke. Looks as though the midwife trod on his face.’
    ‘And last, but by no means least, I’m sure,’ Gary said, checking his clipboard, ‘Liz.’
    There was no one left. They’d been through the complete circle. All twenty-four of them. Maxwell looked at the space for the twenty-fifth.
    ‘“There will be”,’ he murmured, ‘“one vacant chair.”’
    ‘Don’t tell me,’ Sally said, ‘a line from Spender.’
    ‘No, a line from an American Civil War song,’ he told her. ‘Before your time, really.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Er … has anyone seen her? Liz Striker?’ Gary was still asking.
    ‘Well,’ Jordan was on his feet,