Free Maxwell's Grave by M.J. Trow Page A

on a weekend conference in Cambridge – that would have been…ooh…eighteen months ago.’
    ‘So, you’re not in his department at Wessex?’
    ‘Lord, no. I’m a geophysicist from Birmingham. We go all over the place. Have resistive equipment, will travel. I was on the Volga last year, looking for Viking settlement evidence.’
    ‘Any luck?’
    ‘Some. But this one is really exciting.’
    ‘Leighford? Why?’ To Peter Maxwell, the most exciting thing about Leighford was the road that led out of it.
    ‘Well, to begin with, no one had a clue about the Saxon cemetery. The records are peculiarly sparse for this part of Wessex.’
    Maxwell knew that.
    ‘With Winchester being so close, it sort of steals the show. The cathedral, the castle, Nunnaminster, Old and New Minsters.’
    Maxwell knew that too.
    ‘If it weren’t for the golf course…’
    ‘Yes, indeed,’ Maxwell nodded, wanting to know more about this; he had never knowingly hit a golf ball in his life. ‘So this is rescue archaeology, then? Three days to solve theriddle of the universe before the bunkers and club-house go in. And I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Tony Robinson.’
    ‘It’s never as desperate as that,’ Russell told him. ‘That’s all made up for the telly.’
    ‘A sort of “I’m a Botanoarchaeologist – Get Me Out Of Here”?’ Maxwell smiled.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Maxwell.’ Russell wasn’t smiling with him. ‘I’m finding it a little difficult to come to terms with all this.’
    ‘Of course,’ the Head of Sixth Form nodded. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been a huge shock. When did you see Dr Radley last – alive, I mean?’
    ‘Um, the day before…Wednesday. He had a phone call.’
    ‘At the site?’
    ‘Yes, on his mobile. Said he had to see someone.’
    ‘What time was that?’
    ‘Ooh, let me see. Mid-afternoon, I suppose. Said it wouldn’t take long and he’d be back here by evening.’
    ‘He was staying here too?’
    ‘Yes, Room 13, macabrely enough.’
    ‘But he didn’t show?’
    Russell leaned back, his pint barely touched on the table in front of him. ‘No. I assumed whatever had called him away had been more complicated than he thought.’
    ‘Did he have any enemies? Radley, I mean?’
    Russell was shaking his head. ‘Everybody had the highest regard for him. He’ll be a serious loss to archaeology. God knows who’ll get his chair at Wessex.’
     
    ‘So there you are, Count.’ Peter Maxwell was lolling back on the settee, the pile of exercise books lying beside him screaming in an unholy unison ‘Mark us! Mark us!’, but Peter Maxwell’s mind was on altogether higher things. ‘Isthat what this is all about?’
    The black and white beast was stretching on the pouffe opposite, his claws reaching out tantalizingly to threaten yet more furniture. He let his legs sag, displaying his lamentable lack of bollocks as a reminder to his Lord and Master of the appalling mutilation the man had subjected him to all those cat-years before. To let him know he wasn’t just going to roll over and take it.
    ‘Is it just professional jealousy?’ the Great Castrator was burbling on in the dim light of the lounge, a glass of Southern Comfort in his fist, the lamp’s rays sparkling on the crystal. ‘When they announce Radley’s successor to his chair at the university, will we have our man – or indeed woman? Yes, I know, Count,’ he caught the nuance of the ear-twitch, ‘but they have had the vote for rather a long time now and there has been a woman – allegedly – at Number Ten. It can’t be too long before they’re allowed university chairs too.’ He sipped the amber nectar. ‘I went to his room, you know; Radley’s, I mean. Number 13 – fancy that; what are the odds, eh? When I’d left Russell at the bar I pulled the old one about being a CID officer left out in the cold again. Left hand, right hand. Nobody-tells me-anything speech – you know the one.’
    Count Metternich did, but he wasn’t