Maxwell’s House Read Online Free PDF

called back. ‘And knowing your culinary expertise, Sylvia darling, it’ll have just the right amount of rat. Talking of which, how is Roger Rabbit by the way?’
    He counted silently to himself with a rather silly grin on his face. In three seconds, well, a little less actually, she was framed in the doorway, a rather vicious-looking ladle in her hand. ‘If you are referring to the Deputy Headmaster,’ she said, ‘you know very well that was a ridiculous rumour put about by …’ Then she saw his face and snorted, returning to her pots and pans.
    ‘… me, I expect.’ He joined her in the steam.
    ‘There’s only one man in my life,’ she said, clattering again and straining things over the sink. Then she stopped, quite suddenly, and looked at him. ‘And that didn’t work out, did it?’ She swept past him, busying herself hurriedly. ‘Will you open the wine?’
    ‘Oh, God!’ He banged his head on the cupboard. ‘I would, Sylv, but it’s lying disconsolately in my fridge at home. What an arsehole. Oh, pardon my French.’
    ‘Never mind,’ she smiled. ‘There’s a bottle of something Australian in the rack. No. To your left. That’s it.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
    ‘Sit down. The corkscrew’s on the table. Oh, can you carry this through?’
    He took the dish of steaming goodies and attacked the cork.
    ‘Max.’ She was suddenly serious as she sat opposite him, holding up her glass for him to fill.
    ‘Hmm?’ He poured for them both.
    ‘Who killed her, Max? Who killed Jenny?’
    He put the bottle down. Sylvia Matthews was still a striking-looking woman with a mass of auburn hair and bright eyes in which the candlelight danced. She’d been the Matron at Leighford High for nearly six years, at once Florence Nightingale and Claire Rayner, though she’d never been known to carry a lamp or call anyone lovey. ‘It’s been going through my mind,’ he said, passing her the salt. ‘How long have we been doing this, Sylv, you and I?’
    ‘What? Having dinner on the day before the term starts?’ She smiled at him. ‘For ever.’
    ‘For ever,’ he smiled back. ‘And in all that time, in all those for evers, have you ever known me unable to give you an answer?’
    She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
    ‘Well, this time, I can’t.’ He took his first mouthful. ‘Nursie,’ he moaned, closing his eyes, ‘you’ve excelled yourself.’
    ‘Did the police talk to you?’ she asked. I heard they were at school.’
    He nodded. ‘Some Chief Inspector named after a ’30s band-leader and a noxious sidekick like something out of
The Sweeney
.’
    ‘What did they want to know?’
    He looked at her, sipping his wine, biding his time. ‘The same thing you do,’ he said, ‘except they were less direct. They asked me what my relationship was with Jenny.’
    ‘Relationship?’ she repeated. ‘You didn’t have one … did you?’
    He leaned back in his chair. ‘Good God, Sylvia, if I’d known your line of attack I’d have worn my body armour – or at least my mac and trousers cut off at the knee with nothing above them.’
    ‘Oh, Max.’ She tapped his knuckles with her fork. ‘You were Jenny’s Year Head, that’s all. I know that.’
    ‘That’s right,’ he nodded, suddenly distant, elsewhere. ‘And that wasn’t enough, was it?’
    ‘You’ve nothing to reproach yourself for.’ She tore into the baguette.
    ‘Haven’t I?’ he asked her. ‘A detective asked me today what I knew about a dead girl, a girl I’ve taught for three years, and I was stuck for an answer. She was my responsibility, Sylv. I should have been there. What is it the Americans say – “for her”. I wasn’t there for her.’
    ‘Oh,’ she threw her napkin down and topped up their glasses, ‘now you’re being daft, Max. She was seventeen …’
    ‘Seventeen and four months,’ he reminded her.
    ‘All right, then, seventeen and four months. She had a mind of her own, that one. And she had