Free Maxwell’s Movie by M. J. Trow Page B

last night. I don’t know what it is about you. You have a way of … I don’t know … You make people do the out-of-the-ordinary, the unexpected. But I can’t get involved. Not officially. I can do some snooping around, some digging into the files. But that’s all I can do. If my guv’nor says there’s nothing in it, then there’s nothing in it. Nobody likes a maverick in the police. It’s by the book or not at all.’
    ‘Why, Ma’am,’ Maxwell delivered a devastating James Garner, ‘Maverick’s ma middle name. Now, if we’re not going to have that steamy sex scene, let’s go over all this again.’
    Benny Pallister hadn’t had the job long. He’d drifted from one waste of time to another, achieving nothing in particular, except a dedicated sense of aversion to hard work. His idea of a perfect life was lying on his bed at home watching endless videos, the nastier the better. But eventually, his mum had snapped and told him to get off his backside and down the Jobcentre. So here he was that morning as May broke, gazing out over the wild sweep of forest that was the Devil’s Punchbowl. He saw the sun flash on the metal and glass of the traffic, already building up for the morning’s helter-skelter along the A3. For all it was nearly summer, on his slope of the hill the sun had not yet reached and it was still chilly. He pulled his jacket closer round him and hauled the rubbish for the last trek across the car park. The ground fell away sharply to his left. He was just glad he wasn’t still working for Sainsburys and having to wrestle with twenty trolleys at an angle like this. The green Mercedes was already there, parked under the patio where the braver diners downed their prawn cocktails and poire Helene of an evening. What a total shit Piers was, he thought again, as he did every time he saw the man or his car. Piers! What a poncy bloody name. And the bugger was mean. He toyed with slashing the bastard’s tyres, except that the windows of the Ladle looked out over the car park and you never knew who was watching.
    He stuffed the fag back in his mouth and whistled to himself as he reached the bins. Mechanically, he slid back the lid and emptied the black plastic bag.
    ‘Oh, fuckin’ hell,’ he muttered to nobody in particular. Some bastard had dumped a roll of lino under the hedge. That was the problem with having a transport cafe next door. At least it wasn’t used condoms or sanitary towels. Benny had had the lot in his three weeks working there. He glanced back at the French windows of the restaurant behind him.
    ‘Bollocks!’ he inhaled savagely. There he was, Piers the Bastard, staring out at him. Probably taking a break from counting his money. Piers didn’t smile. He never smiled at anybody who didn’t have a Range Rover or wasn’t a member of Rotary. He just glared at Benny and nodded.
    So it was that Benny Pallister stooped to manhandle the roll of lino. Then he stepped back. From the window, Piers Stewart saw the good-for-nothing reeling backwards as though he’d been shot. Worse, he saw him turn towards the green Mercedes and vomit explosively all over his tarmac. ‘Jesus Christ,’ the restaurateur muttered and stubbed his cigar out quickly in the nearest ashtray. That’s what came of letting Wendy hire the casual labour. Say one thing for his wife, she was a fool for anything in a T-shirt. But a man’s biceps did virtually nothing for Piers Stewart. This useless little shit Pallister would have to go. Chucking up all over the car park was just the last straw. He batted aside the French windows, dashed down the steps and crossed to the still-heaving labourer, leaning, pale and sweating against the oak step at the edge of the car park.
    ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ Piers demanded to know.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Stewart,’ Benny gasped, ‘It’s … it’s a woman.’
    ‘What?’ Piers looked at the shivering wreck in front of him. ‘What is? What are you talking