Free Maxwell's Inspection by M.J. Trow Page B

dropped along with the takeaway bags. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’
    â€˜You’ve lost it,’ she said, looking at him sharply.
    â€˜Not so much lost as mislaid,’ he explained. ‘Mrs B …’
    Jacquie held up her hand. She knew Maxwell’s cleaning lady whom he held in common both at home and work. She wouldn’t hear a word spoken against her. ‘I know for a fact that Mrs B. wouldn’t move any of yourpersonal items. She’s left your truss out on the line for the past three months.’
    â€˜Some things just have to be properly aired,’ he said, ‘lest you reap the repercussions. This may be the warm south, but a damp gusset …’ his eyes crossed at the thought of it. ‘Don’t go there, Woman Policeman. Well, you can later.’
    â€˜Not tonight, Max,’ she sighed.
    â€˜That’s probably the worst Josephine de Beauharnais I’ve heard,’ he told her. ‘Soy?’
    â€˜Top shelf. Are you feeling brave enough for chopsticks ?’
    â€˜If it’s good enough for Russ Conway,’ Maxwell smiled. That was two people in quick succession that Jacquie Carpenter had never heard of. But she loved Peter Maxwell despite his madness.
    â€˜So?’ he said once they were hunkered down in her lounge and tucking into Numbers 16, 34, 73 and a double portion of 118.
    â€˜Scrummy,’ she said, wrestling with a king prawn and looking at him cheekily.
    â€˜There’s none so obtuse,’ he said, ‘as they who will not cough. If it’s not too much of a mixed metaphor over this particular meal, are you going to spill the beans?’
    She looked at him, the sad, dark eyes, always alive at moments like these, sensing the razor mind behind the boyish enthusiasm. He wasn’t so different from Geoff Baldock really, except for the brain. Oh, and the insanity.
    â€˜You know I can’t,’ they both intoned together.
    â€˜Yes,’ Maxwell continued alone. ‘Of course I do, but there’s a difference this time.’
    â€˜Oh?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why so?’
    â€˜Come on, Jacquie.’ He’d diced with other people’s deaths before. This conversation between them had become oddly routine. ‘A man died on school premises. My school, to be exact.’
    â€˜ Your school?’ She was playing with him along with her noodles. It was a losing battle really; only the noodles would go to the wall.
    â€˜Figuratively, metaphorically, morally, spiritually,’ he confirmed. ‘As of last December when old Bill Cater finally did the decent thing and shot himself, I am the oldest serving teacher at Leighford High. Legs Diamond was still working his way through the joined-up writing course at Luton Tech for the Maladjusted when I started there. Paul Moss was at kindergarten.’
    â€˜Yes, but it’s always different, isn’t it, Max?’ she reminded him. ‘One of your sixth form, an old school chum, the old girl on your doorstep. There’s always a reason to be involved.’
    â€˜That’s how it goes,’ he shrugged. ‘But this one really is different. I wonder what the stats are?’ Peter Maxwell had never really had any faith in statistics. Along with Disraeli, he’d rather take the lies and the damned lies any day. ‘I wonder how many murders are committed in schools?’
    â€˜Dunblane?’ She’d stopped chewing now. ‘Everyday occurrence in the States, I understand.’
    He nodded. ‘And I am involved already,’ he didn’t have to remind her.
    â€˜You are.’ She twisted up her face, sighing. ‘And that’s why I shouldn’t be talking to you now. God knows what would happen if …’
    â€˜If Henry found out?’ Maxwell chuckled. He andJacquie’s boss went back a fair way by now. He’d sparred with him before, but usually had his man on the