Free Maxwell’s Reunion by M. J. Trow

about. ‘He’s almost free from rigor now,’ he said, tilting the shattered head with the sawn-off cranium and feeling the jaw muscles soft under his gloved fingers. ‘My guess, and that is all it is at present, is that he died about two a.m.’
    ‘The early hours of Saturday.’ Thomas was tracing it back. ‘Right.’
    ‘There’s little more I can tell you, Inspector.’ Nagapon pinged off his gloves. ‘You have the rope that hanged him. The knot was to the left?’
    Thomas nodded. He still felt cold at the memory of the man dangling there in the half-light, his hands like talons, his eyes bulging under the dark matted blood of the hair. Memories like that never go away. You bury them for your family, your mates, if you’ve got any who aren’t coppers, but the night terrors bring them back, screaming through dreams without end.
    ‘Thirty minutes?’ Thomas frowned, working it all out, assessing the time it would have taken to strike, haul the man into position and perhaps wait until he died. ‘So, if that’s the case, the attack could have happened at – what? – one-forty, possibly a little earlier.’
    Nagapon glanced at the clock, taking a little leaf from the good inspector’s book of black humour. ‘If you will excuse me, Mr Thomas, I think I hear the muezzin calling me to prayer. Which way is Mecca?’
    ‘Now we are six,’ Maxwell murmured, looking around the room. Stenhouse Muir’s original plan for this Sunday was lunch at the Graveney, followed by a quick round on the hotel’s golf course. As it was, the old gang were sitting in a police waiting-room, waiting for the police.
    Asheton was the first to respond, sitting opposite Maxwell, frowning. ‘Is this what this is?’ he asked. ‘Some bloody replay of Ten Little Niggers ?’
    ‘Indians, please.’ Muir wagged a finger at him.
    ‘Native Americans, if we’re going down that road.’ Alphedge smirked. ‘PC is as PC does.’
    ‘Where did they take the ladies?’ Bingham asked.
    ‘Some WPC whisked them upstairs,’ Alphedge told him.
    ‘Divide and conquer.’ Bingham nodded. ‘They’ll get Thomas. We’ll get Tyler.’
    ‘Sexy policeperson, repulsive policeperson?’ Maxwell asked.
    ‘Something like that,’ Bingham said.
    The clock on the wall said ten to twelve. A pale sun was streaming in through the slats of the blinds, the trees of the carpark silhouetted like ghosts on the blankness of the wall, shifting in the morning breeze.
    ‘What do you know about this, Stenhouse?’ Asheton asked.
    The mock Scotsman looked at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘Well, this whole thing,’ Asheton said. ‘This reunion nonsense. It was your bloody idea.’
    ‘So, what are you saying?’ Muir was leaning forward in his chair, facing his man down. ‘That Quentin’s death is my fault?’ He knew Asheton was only putting into words what he’d said to himself a thousand times in the last twenty-four hours.
    ‘You had the key,’ Asheton said. ‘Who else could it have been?’
    ‘Look, come on, boys.’ Alphedge was on his feet, ever the mediator, the go-between.
    Then they were all shouting at once, except the Preacher, who sat beneath the clock, his face motionless, his eyes closed. He looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.
    The door flew open and a burly copper stood there in a blue jumper with sergeant’s chevrons glittering silver on his shoulder. ‘Mr Maxwell?’
    ‘Yes.’ Maxwell was glad of the moment. The six were falling apart. It was The Usual Suspects and only one of them knew who Keyser Söze was.
    ‘The DCI would like a word. Can I get the rest of you gentlemen a cup of tea?’
    Maxwell grabbed a baguette to keep body and soul together. He sat in the lounge of the Graveney, sunk in the leatherette of a massive armchair. He was on his second Southern Comfort when the man he wanted to talk to strode through the lobby.
    ‘Preacher?’
    John Wensley turned and half smiled. ‘Hello, Max,’ he said.
    Maxwell