Read Online Maxwell's Return by M. J. Trow - Free Book Online

said.
    ‘Thingie would tell me. Up at the school.
She
knows everything.’ He sounded terribly like Violet Elizabeth Bott.
    ‘Possibly. Yes, we did check his bank statements. He is very well off, thank you very much. Why aren’t you a deputy head? I could become a lady of leisure.’
    ‘I can see you doing that,’ he laughed, pulling the errant lock of hair gently. ‘So, he gets a big salary. That doesn’t mean he is comfortably off.’
    ‘It does, actually,’ she said. ‘He goes on holiday once a year, although to fairly fancy places. Usually at Christmas, somewhere hot. He has the occasional weekend away, again somewhere quite swish, but he can easily afford it. Plus the money he gets from tutoring. He puts it all in the bank, with a note to identify it. All above board.’
    ‘On
Law and Order
they have credit card slips.’
    ‘Come up to date, you old dinosaur,’ she said, reaching down and patting his leg, the most she dared do with Metternich poised on her chest. ‘It’s all done with swiping and heaven knows what. And it does look as if Bernard uses cash quite a lot, for shopping and whathaveyou.’
    ‘Something to hide!’ Maxwell said, triumphantly.
    ‘Prefers cash,’ she returned. ‘People still do.
You
for example.’
    ‘Does he have an alibi for the second girl?’
    ‘Who knows? We’re not sure when it would need to be for. And anyway, Max, can you really see Bernard as a serial killer? As a predator of young girls?’
    Maxwell pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling, whistling silently. Bernard Ryan had been a thorn in his side for years, handing out risk assessments, creating paperwork and forms to be filled in in triplicate for the slightest reason. Legs Diamond he could work with; even Dierdre Lessing, God rest her evil soul, had had her good points, but Bernard Ryan was not a nice man. He always saw the worst in people and Maxwell was a great believer in the theory that people who only saw the bad only had bad within themselves. But, a serial killer and predator of young girls…?
    ‘No. No, I can’t.’
    ‘Precisely. Neither can I. But he’ll have to come up with an alibi for the first murder if he is ever to get back to school. Or wait until we findthe real killer, of course, which could be never.’ She lay there for another moment or two and then asked, ‘Max? Can you do me a favour?’
    ‘Anything, dear one. What can I do to help, oh fount of my being?’
    ‘Can you move the cat? Quickly. I need to sneeze and he’ll have the skin off my chest if I take him by surprise like that.’
    Maxwell moved with stealth but precision and whipped the huge animal up in the air in the nick of time. Jacquie’s sneeze could have woken the dead and Metternich reacted as she knew he must, but it was Maxwell’s forearm that took the brunt. She was still applying tea tree ointment to the scratches when the phone rang.
    Jacquie got there first. ‘Hello? Oh, Jason. Hello.’ She raised an eyebrow at Maxwell who swirled his drink and tried to look as if he wasn’t there.
    ‘You have? Do you need me? Thanks. I appreciate that. I’ll see you tomorrow. ’Bye.’
    She put the phone down and stood there, screwing the top on the tea tree ointment slowly.
    ‘That was Jason.’
    ‘The Argonaut?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘The new sergeant.’
    ‘Yes. Well, not that new. New to me.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘They’ve not managed to isolate any DNA from the second girl yet, but they have a blood group. Apparently, our man was conveniently a secretor.’
    ‘Now there’s a phrase I haven’t heard in quite a while,’ Maxwell remarked.
    ‘No. I would imagine Angus had to get his text books out for this one. They are still trying to use various methods to get a useable amount of material, but for now we just have a blood group. And as it is quite unusual, they are going to pick up a suspect now.’
    Maxwell didn’t ask, he told. ‘Bernard Ryan.’
    Jacquie nodded. ‘Bernard Ryan. He’ll be on his way back