Maxwell’s House Read Online Free PDF Page A

know something. They’re just not talking yet. We need a break, to be honest.’
    Maxwell stood up too and nodded. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said.
    And they saw themselves out.
    On the turn of the stair, Chief Inspector Hall glanced at Detective Inspector Johnson. ‘What’s the matter, Dave? You look as though you’ve just met the Krays.’
    ‘Smug bastards,’ Johnson said, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. ‘Especially ones who wear pork pie hats – did you see it, hanging on his wall? And bow ties. What’s a teacher in a third-rate comprehensive school doing wearing a bow tie?’
    ‘I take it you didn’t altogether like Mr Maxwell, then?’ Hall grinned.
    ‘Let’s just say I think he’s about as straight as Jeffrey Dahmer. And there’s one other thing.’
    ‘Oh?’
    They reached the ground, where teachers stood talking in knots, carrying sheaves of papers, and a pale, pregnant woman scuttled past them.
    ‘There were bicycle clips on his desk,’ Johnson said. ‘Our Mr Maxwell rides a bike.’
    ‘We know he does. One of the constables we sent to his house reported seeing it in the holidays.’
    Johnson nodded. ‘I just like to have these things confirmed,’ he said.
    She’d had one of those things fitted, one of those fish-eye lenses in the door that make visitors look so horribly deformed. This visitor in particular looked more deformed than most, a bunch of chrysanths where his face ought to be.
    She clicked back the safety chain and let him in.
    ‘Well, y’all, Miss Martha,’ he drawled in his best Kentucky. ‘Ah declare, if’n you ain’t the purdiest little thing Ah ever did see.’
    ‘Thank you for these, Max,’ she said, taking the flowers from him. ‘I’d been meaning to cut them down myself. The wind plays havoc with my front.’
    ‘Not from where I am.’ Maxwell suddenly jack-knifed so that he was puffing an imaginary cigar, Groucho Marx style, at the level of her bosom. She tapped him playfully around the head so that his hat fell off.
    ‘Loosen your cycle clips,’ she chuckled. ‘I’ll find some water for these.’
    He joined his hat on the settee. ‘Any fear of a drink?’ he asked.
    He heard her clattering in the kitchen. ‘Help yourself,’ she called. He tugged off his clips and rolled on to his knees in front of the MFI cabinet. Pine, certainly. MFI nevertheless. Pernod. Vodka. Sherry. Ah, Southern Comfort.
    ‘Can I get you one?’ he shouted.
    ‘Got one.’ She was back in the lounge, a glass in her hand. ‘How was your day?’
    ‘“All Hell Day”, Nursie,’ he sighed. ‘I write it in my diary every year. I interviewed sixty-three little shits today, one by one, all of them, for reasons I can only guess at, wanting to join the sixth form. All of them clutching in their grubby little hands their results of the Greatest Cock-up Since the Eleven plus.’
    ‘I saw that toe-rag Henderson,’ she said, kicking off her shoes and stretching out on the settee. ‘Oh, sorry, Max, I’ve pinched your seat.’
    ‘Not often enough.’ He winked at her. ‘Yes, I didn’t interview Henderson. Alison did. One of the eighteen she had time for.’
    She caught his mood. ‘Now, Max,’ she scolded gently, ‘Alison is having rather a hard time at the moment. I thought she looked awful this afternoon.’
    ‘Yes,’ he nodded, sipping his drink, ‘you’re right. She did. Not as awful as Henderson though, I’ll wager.’
    ‘I thought you said he’d be back in the sixth form over your dead body?’
    Maxwell looked at his watch. ‘There are four more hours of the day to go yet, Nurse Matthews. Who’s to say by the time it’s over I won’t be twirling from your banisters?’
    ‘I am,’ she said, moving smartly into the kitchen at the sound of a hissing saucepan, ‘because in a flat on the fourth floor you’d be hard put to it to find any banisters. Ratatouille.’ She announced the menu as though she’d read his mind. ‘OK?’
    ‘Delicious,’ he