Read Online Maxwell's Mask by M.J. Trow - Free Book Online Page B

the ample chest of Nurse Matthews. A goodlypercentage of Leighford’s alumni had been there before him.
    Maxwell waited while she calmed him down, patting his distressing hair, passing him tissues and giving him strict, no-nonsense orders about blowing his nose. He sat down and waited until George had composed himself.
    â€˜We didn’t kill her, Mr Maxwell,’ the boy said, his lip quivering. ‘She was already dead. Bed reckoned she’d fallen downstairs.’
    â€˜I’m sure he’s right, George,’ Maxwell told him. ‘But we can’t just leave her there, can we? What if she’s got no friends? No family? We need to sort this out. Maybe then you can get some sleep.’
    â€˜But I don’t know where it is,’ George whined.
    Maxwell looked at Sylvia, acting, as he usually did, on impulse. ‘Can you take me there, George? You and Bed?’
    â€˜Not Bed,’ George shouted. ‘He’d fucking kill me…er…I mean he’d kill me. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
    â€˜No, George.’ Sylvia wrapped an arm around him. ‘You should have. It’s great that you have.’
    â€˜What’s your problem, George?’ Maxwell asked, matching her female softness with his macho masculinity. ‘You’d make three of Bed. You could sort him out easily.’
    â€˜It ain’t him,’ George explained. ‘It’s his brothers. They’re built like brick shithouses…er…toilets.’
    â€˜All right,’ Maxwell said. ‘Just you and me, then.’
    George looked at the man, blinking. He was…what? Eighty-three, eighty-four? Wearing that poncy bow tie and those tweedy old togs. What did he look like? And what would it do to George’s street cred to be seen with him? ‘I dunno,’ he said.
    Maxwell shrugged and leaned back with his head on the wall and his arms folded. ‘It’s the Old Bill then,’ and he reached across for the phone.
    â€˜OK, OK!’ George shouted. ‘But you ain’t coming round my house. I’ll never live it down.’
    Maxwell chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, George. I won’t lower the tone of the neighbourhood. What shall we say? Ten o’clock? The Old Spike?’
    George looked from one to the other – the kind, almost beautiful face of the School Nurse, her blue eyes smiling at him. And the lived-in, unfathomable face of the Head of Sixth Form. He was going out on a date with Mad Max. What, he wondered a little before his fifteenth birthday, was the world coming to?
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    â€˜This is not sensible, Max,’ Jacquie warned, sliding the salt across the kitchen table.
    â€˜A three-egg omelette? Oh, come on, heart of hearts. They still had rationing when I was a shaver. I was forty-two before the threat of nuclear war receded, give or take a Middle Eastern megalomaniac or two. Give me a break, will you? It’s one of my civil liberties to be able to takeresponsibility for my own cholesterol. Can I have survived all that and not cope with three eggs?’
    â€˜I am talking,’ she said archly, ‘as well you know, about your little escapade tonight. The implications don’t bear thinking about.’
    â€˜Ordinarily, no,’ Maxwell agreed, tucking in to the excellent little Spanish number Jacquie had rustled up. ‘But I know enough about kids to realise that we won’t get anything out of George Lemon beyond the time of day because he’s terrified of the Cypriot connection.’
    â€˜Have you spoken to Anthony Wetta?’
    â€˜Bed? No. I gave George my word. Besides, Bed’s an altogether tougher nut to crack. Oh, I could do it, of course, given Skeffington’s Gyves or the Duke of Exeter’s Daughter. But either of those little torture gadgets would play merry Hamlet with the concept of political correctness. And anyway, think of the mess… I’m not sure the rack would fit in my