Free Maxwell’s Ride by M. J. Trow

assured him. ‘Only, it’s nearly going home time and it’ll take a while to print one out. P’raps our Mrs Winters has got one.’
    ‘Your Mrs Winters?’
    ‘Our Personnel and Student Liaison Officer.’
    ‘No, no,’ Maxwell fussed. ‘I wouldn’t dream of bothering her – as you say, at going home time. Haven’t you got one in a cupboard somewhere?’
    ‘Well … oh, hang on.’ She disappeared into an inner office while Maxwell looked suitably from the Ministry and Logan was shitting himself. Chris Logan was not really an investigative journalist; he hadn’t the fire for it, nor the brass neck. Subterfuge left him worried and jumpy.
    ‘Here you go,’ the girl was back in a rustle of her tight leather skirt.
    ‘Excellent,’ Maxwell slid the folder under his arm.
    ‘Can you just sign here … Mr … er … ?’
    ‘Woodhead,’ Maxwell beamed as he flourished with his Biro. ‘Chris Woodhead. Thank you, my dear, you’ve been most helpful.’
    The Black Horse had taken a direct hit the night the Luftwaffe came calling. The snug had ended up in the cellar along with a lot of beer, some sawdust and enough broken glass to patch up the Crystal Palace had it still been standing. It had been the end of civilization for some people.
    Thatcher’s children haunted it now, frittering away their student loans on nasty lager from Belgium. Maxwell and Logan had fought their way through the milling bodies to the far side of the circular bar which announced to a grateful generation that Murphy’s was permanently reduced. A bank of amusement machines winked and nudged each other in neon flashes in the corner, the one-armed banditti of yesteryear gone electronic. What they laughingly call Live Music was taking a merciful break in the recess where the payload of the Junkers 88 had once landed. And an ageing rocker was giving his picking hand a break by sliding it around the breasts of a girl half his age. Everywhere was leads and mikes, but not the Mike that Maxwell was hunting. He was sitting, or so the pair hoped, facing the door, like Wild Bill Hickok on one of his more sensible nights.
    Maxwell pulled a chair up and sat facing the lad. He was … what, nineteen, twenty perhaps, with hard, almost Nureyev features, high cheekbones and chiselled nostrils. Only his appalling woolly cap marked him out as a child of the ’nineties. That and the attitude.
    ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked.
    Logan still stood dithering at Maxwell’s elbow.
    ‘Press,’ Maxwell said. ‘Well, he is.’
    Logan thought he’d better join the conversation, so he took a spare chair from the corner and flashed his NUJ card.
    ‘What d’ya want?’
    ‘A story,’ Maxwell said. ‘That’s if your name is Michael Lloyd.’
    The lad looked at his mates, one on each side, like Horatius at the bridge. ‘It might be,’ he said.
    ‘Great,’ Maxwell beamed. ‘That’s just earned you a drink. Chris, what’s the man having?’
    ‘A whale of a time,’ Logan grunted, seeing the lit-up grins on the lads’ faces.
    ‘Fair enough,’ said Lloyd. ‘Three Stellas – pints.’
    ‘Is there any other measurement?’ Maxwell smiled and thrust a tenner into Logan’s hand. ‘I might run to another if the answer to my next question’s right.’
    ‘Oh yeah,’ Lloyd leaned back. ‘And what’s that?’
    ‘How well did you know Larry Warner?’
    ‘Who?’
    Now, Peter Maxwell had been around. He knew kids like the back of his blackboard, when they lied and when they told the truth. He watched the eyes first, that’s where the smart ones let themselves down. It was only slight, just a flicker really, but it gave the game away every time. It was one of Maxwell’s favourite films – My Friend Flicker . The not so smart ones mottled crimson from the neck or licked their lips or said ‘No’, in that belligerent nasal way that teenagers have. Micky Lloyd was a smart one. The eyes had it.
    ‘Chris,’ Maxwell caught Logan’s arm as he was making