his watch. ‘Karate class.’
The rain was easing off as White Surrey wheezed up the long hill that ran north-west out of Leighford. But thewhite metal beast with gears with minds of their own wasn’t wheezing half so much as the man in the saddle. Peter Maxwell braced himself against the wind that cut cross-wise over the road as the old viaduct came into view. He toyed for a moment with cutting across country through the lower fields and Berryfold Copse, but it had been raining most of the night and he knew the mud in those dips too well. He stuck to the road, straining his back and driving his legs down to the tarmac.
Shit. He stopped on the ridge. Above him, in the grey distance, the line of ash trees along Staple Hill formed a wintry screen against the horizon and the grassland below it was a patchwork of holes and ditches, bright red and white markers littering the ground beyond the fluttering police tape in even brighter yellow. There was a police car there, white, gleaming with gadgetry, the logo of the West Wessex Constabulary crisp on its sides. But it wasn’t the presence of the car that bothered him as such; it was the grey-suited man leaning against it, talking over the radio.
But Peter Maxwell wasn’t the type to slink away. He who had faced the Cambridge History Tripos, sudden death at close hand, Eleven Zed Eight last thing on a Friday afternoon . He’d come this far, hoping to revisit the scene of the crime, and he wasn’t going to turn Surrey round and pedal homeward just yet. A man’s got his pride. Besides, he needed to talk to the man in the grey suit. Birds and stones. He slid out of the saddle at the makeshift gate and was hailed by a constable, cold and wet, who had been there, hopping from foot to foot, since the dawn. His thermos flask was empty and his relief was late. The gatling might as well have been jammed and the colonel dead and the regiment blinded with blood and smoke. Maxwell couldn’t really have consoled him, even had he been bothered, bytelling him that Mafeking wasn’t like this, in the good old days.
‘Chief Inspector.’
Henry Hall hadn’t heard the purr of his bike wheels on the heathland, hadn’t caught the conversation at the gate. He’d been touching base with Martin Toogood on his two way radio as he drove into Brighton, and engrossed as he was, the bad penny had caught him unawares.
‘Mr Maxwell.’ Henry Hall slipped the receiver back into the car, knowing the voice all too well. ‘This is a pleasant surprise.’
‘Mountains and Mohammed,’ Maxwell smiled, leaning Surrey against Hall’s paintwork. ‘I thought I’d save you the cliché of “What are you doing here?” That’s usually the last thing a victim says, isn’t it, before they get theirs in Morse , or Dalziel and Pascoe or Midsomer Murders ?’
‘Thank you for that.’ Hall had only smiled five times in eighteen years. He wasn’t about to add to the record. ‘I was going to send someone to see you on Monday.’
‘ Someone , Chief Inspector?’ Maxwell raised an eyebrow. ‘ Monday ? Tut, tut. I thought at very least I’d merit a DI. And isn’t four days after a murder a little on the leisurely side, bearing in mind result quotients and so on.’
Hall looked at the man in front of him. Come wind, come wrack, Peter Maxwell always wore the same battered tweed hat. Only on the warmest summer days would he shed his (Jesus, Cambridge) scarf and his bow tie. Only when he was not on the road would the famous cycle clips ping off into a pocket and his turn-ups flap to their furthest extent, eternally collecting fluff, bits of gravel and hayseeds . He’d known the man for years, ever since they’d found the body of one of Maxwell’s own sixth form in the Red House. Funny. Henry Hall couldn’t quite rememberwhere the Red House was now after all this time. He only knew they’d demolished it. Like Ian Huntley’s house at Soham, like Fred and Rosie’s place at Cromwell Street,
The rain was easing off as White Surrey wheezed up the long hill that ran north-west out of Leighford. But thewhite metal beast with gears with minds of their own wasn’t wheezing half so much as the man in the saddle. Peter Maxwell braced himself against the wind that cut cross-wise over the road as the old viaduct came into view. He toyed for a moment with cutting across country through the lower fields and Berryfold Copse, but it had been raining most of the night and he knew the mud in those dips too well. He stuck to the road, straining his back and driving his legs down to the tarmac.
Shit. He stopped on the ridge. Above him, in the grey distance, the line of ash trees along Staple Hill formed a wintry screen against the horizon and the grassland below it was a patchwork of holes and ditches, bright red and white markers littering the ground beyond the fluttering police tape in even brighter yellow. There was a police car there, white, gleaming with gadgetry, the logo of the West Wessex Constabulary crisp on its sides. But it wasn’t the presence of the car that bothered him as such; it was the grey-suited man leaning against it, talking over the radio.
But Peter Maxwell wasn’t the type to slink away. He who had faced the Cambridge History Tripos, sudden death at close hand, Eleven Zed Eight last thing on a Friday afternoon . He’d come this far, hoping to revisit the scene of the crime, and he wasn’t going to turn Surrey round and pedal homeward just yet. A man’s got his pride. Besides, he needed to talk to the man in the grey suit. Birds and stones. He slid out of the saddle at the makeshift gate and was hailed by a constable, cold and wet, who had been there, hopping from foot to foot, since the dawn. His thermos flask was empty and his relief was late. The gatling might as well have been jammed and the colonel dead and the regiment blinded with blood and smoke. Maxwell couldn’t really have consoled him, even had he been bothered, bytelling him that Mafeking wasn’t like this, in the good old days.
‘Chief Inspector.’
Henry Hall hadn’t heard the purr of his bike wheels on the heathland, hadn’t caught the conversation at the gate. He’d been touching base with Martin Toogood on his two way radio as he drove into Brighton, and engrossed as he was, the bad penny had caught him unawares.
‘Mr Maxwell.’ Henry Hall slipped the receiver back into the car, knowing the voice all too well. ‘This is a pleasant surprise.’
‘Mountains and Mohammed,’ Maxwell smiled, leaning Surrey against Hall’s paintwork. ‘I thought I’d save you the cliché of “What are you doing here?” That’s usually the last thing a victim says, isn’t it, before they get theirs in Morse , or Dalziel and Pascoe or Midsomer Murders ?’
‘Thank you for that.’ Hall had only smiled five times in eighteen years. He wasn’t about to add to the record. ‘I was going to send someone to see you on Monday.’
‘ Someone , Chief Inspector?’ Maxwell raised an eyebrow. ‘ Monday ? Tut, tut. I thought at very least I’d merit a DI. And isn’t four days after a murder a little on the leisurely side, bearing in mind result quotients and so on.’
Hall looked at the man in front of him. Come wind, come wrack, Peter Maxwell always wore the same battered tweed hat. Only on the warmest summer days would he shed his (Jesus, Cambridge) scarf and his bow tie. Only when he was not on the road would the famous cycle clips ping off into a pocket and his turn-ups flap to their furthest extent, eternally collecting fluff, bits of gravel and hayseeds . He’d known the man for years, ever since they’d found the body of one of Maxwell’s own sixth form in the Red House. Funny. Henry Hall couldn’t quite rememberwhere the Red House was now after all this time. He only knew they’d demolished it. Like Ian Huntley’s house at Soham, like Fred and Rosie’s place at Cromwell Street,
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