Maxwell’s Curse Read Online Free Page B

Headmaster in a bad light – which, by the way, is the only way in which you can see our dear Headmaster?’
    ‘Er … his name is Chief Inspector Hall,’ Thingee answered. Maxwell nodded.
    ‘Close enough,’ he said. ‘Show him up, would you?’

3
    ‘Happy Millennium,’ Peter Maxwell shook the DCI’s hand. ‘Coffee?’
    ‘No, thanks.’ It had been a while since Henry Hall had stood in the office of the Head of Sixth Form. His youngest, Jeremy, was at Leighford now, in Year Nine, that luckless bunch of no-hopers picked on by all and sundry but mostly by the staff. He’d settled in surprisingly well, but he’d got to that age when he didn’t want people to know his dad was a copper and he’d declined Hall’s offer to drive him in that morning – ‘No, I’ll catch the bus, Dad; it’s okay.’
    ‘I understand you had something of a shock on New Year’s Eve,’ Hall took the proffered seat, easing the pile of exercise hooks to one side.
    ‘You might say that,’ Maxwell was brewing coffee on the low table near his desk.
    ‘We’ve found out who she was.’
    ‘Really?’ Maxwell sat down opposite his man. He’d crossed Henry Hall before. He was a bland bastard. If he’d been Chinese he’d have been inscrutable, hiding as he did behind the blank lenses of his rimless specs. Men like Peter Maxwell wore their hearts on their sleeves. Men like Henry Hall probably didn’t have a heart at all.
    ‘Elizabeth Pride. Mean anything to you?’
    Maxwell scowled, shaking his head. ‘Not a thing,’ he said. ‘Should it?’
    Hall raised his eyebrows. It was the gesture he used in lieu of a smile. ‘I can’t help wondering why anyone would dump a body on your doorstep, Mr Maxwell,’ he said.
    Maxwell smiled. ‘The thought had occurred to me, Mr Hall,’ he said. ‘What do you know about this Elizabeth Pride?’
    ‘I don’t answer questions, Mr Maxwell,’ Hall said. ‘I just ask them.’
    It was his best shot at avoiding cliché, but Maxwell wasn’t having any. ‘Humour me,’ he said.
    Hall hesitated. This was why he had come. He knew of old that Maxwell had his ways, his means of getting answers when the police could not. Against every rule in the book though it was, Maxwell had his uses. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘the press will have it all by tomorrow anyway, so why not? Elizabeth Pride was seventy-four. She lived alone near the Chanctonbury Ring – Myrtle Cottage.’
    ‘On the Downs?’
    Hall nodded. ‘She was a recluse. Lived with her cats and whatever memories she had. No known next of kin.’
    ‘A spinster lady?’
    ‘Widow, apparently. Husband died in the ’seventies. No children.’
    ‘And nobody missed her, I suppose.’
    ‘Exactly. She shopped in the local village, but had nothing delivered. Seems she was prone to wandering off from time to time anyway.’
    ‘Flotsam,’ Maxwell murmured.
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘Flotsam. The floating debris of this great country of ours. Nobody noticed she’d gone. We’re a long way from Jane Marple, Mr Hall.’
    ‘Local postmistress identified her. Jesus, what’s that?’
    Maxwell laughed over the wailing siren. ‘Well, it could be that ex-Comrade Putin has launched his nuclear strike, but I’d be prepared to bet it’s the start of Lesson One. Ten C Eight. Oh, joy. Today, we’re doing joined-up writing. You wouldn’t care to swap jobs, I suppose?’
    Hall was on his feet. ‘Oh, no, Mr Maxwell. After all, you do mine anyway, don’t you?’
    The look on Maxwell’s face said it all.
    It was the moment that teachers the world o’er savour – the magic hour of four of the clock, when the tide of battle in school corridors recedes and the barbarian hordes drift away to lick their wounds and plan tomorrow’s campaign. A few might do some homework.
    ‘Knock, knock!’ A curly head appeared around Maxwell’s office door.
    ‘Sylv!’ the Head of Sixth Form was on his feet, and he took his visitor in his arms. Sylvia Matthews was Leighford’s school