Free Maxwell’s House by M. J. Trow

only here because you shot your mouth off to the Advertiser anyway.’ Here was one young, female member of staff who had no fear whatever of Mad Max Maxwell.
    Maxwell sucked in his breath, and smacked his left wrist. ‘Well, hush my puppies,’ he said. So it was all-girls-together-week, he realized as he saw the fire in Sally’s eyes. Twenty years ago, he’d have pulled her pigtails. Still, the rumour was correct. The old Leighford grapevine was working, well as ever.
    ‘What did you say?’ Moss wanted to know.
    ‘Nothing.’ Anthea was quick to defend herself. ‘Nothing much. I only taught her in Year 9. I just said she was bright, conscientious.’
    Maxwell inhaled sharply again. ‘Well, that’s it then,’ he said. ‘That’ll be banner headlines in the
Sun
tomorrow. And I don’t want to think what the
Daily Sport
will do with it.’
    ‘For God’s sake, Max!’ Sally hissed. ‘This isn’t easy for any of us, you know. It was bad enough when Jenny went missing.’
    Maxwell’s cup hit the saucer unexpectedly hard. ‘What?’ he said.
    ‘I said …’ Sally enunciated slowly. Obviously the march of time had caught up with one geriatric Head of Sixth Form.
    ‘That Jenny went missing. Yes, I heard that. When? Where?’
    ‘Where,’ she leaned back in her chair, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. When, at the end of last term … But surely you knew that?’
    ‘No.’ Maxwell felt the ground vanish beneath him, an alienation perhaps everybody starts to feel when they’re fifty-two. ‘No, I didn’t know that. How do you know it?’
    ‘Special Needs,’ Paul beamed. ‘They always pick up the scandal down there.’
    Sally laughed. ‘Usually, yes. But not this time. No, it was Janet Foster, Jenny’s form tutor. Apparently Jenny wasn’t in during the last week of term. Janet followed it up.’
    ‘Of course she did.’ Maxwell was nodding, frowning at the same time. ‘She would. She would. Damned good form tutor is Janet. Wonder why she didn’t tell me.’
    Sally shrugged. ‘Slipped her mind, I suppose. You know what the last week of term’s like. That quiet time when Years 11 and 13 have gone and we all have so many free periods.’
    ‘That quiet time,’ Moss took up the irony, ‘when the timetable for September doesn’t work even though three blokes and an entire computer network have been working on it all year?’
    ‘Anyway, weren’t you off yourself?’ Anthea remembered.
    ‘Er … from the Monday to Thursday, yes. My knee was playing me up. I had those physio appointments.’
    ‘Well there you are,’ Sally said, ever willing to defend the feminist right. ‘I expect Janet saw Alison about it.’
    ‘Alison?’
    The Special Needs teacher leaned forward, as though coping with one of her most special charges. ‘Alison Miller, your deputy. Are you all right, Max? Been a bit of a strain, has it, today?’
    ‘All right.’ Moss actually clapped his hands. ‘Let’s get back to some departmental business, shall we? Coursework for Year 10.’
    And they all let out the inevitable, universal groan.
    Bill Foster had left Janet nearly ten years ago. There wasn’t another woman or anything like that. They’d just been incompatible from the start. She was a sculptress of talent, had exhibitions from time to time. He was a couch potato in an engineering firm. God knew what had brought them together in the first place, but time had driven them apart. He’d gone off with the stereo, half the furniture and no regrets. She’d got the house, which she’d converted into an enormous studio overlooking the sea, and a geriatric dog and the other half of the furniture. Regrets? She had a few. The nights were cold in the winter and the plumbing, in the rambling Victorian house, was a bitch.
    ‘Max?’ Janet looked quite deathly without her make-up. Her mousy hair was wrapped in a pink towel that made her look vaguely like Hogarth.
    ‘I’m sorry, Janet.’ He swept off his shapeless hat. ‘I know