Maxwell's Grave (21 page)

‘You’re a liar!’ Wimble screamed, his face crimson, his eyes wild behind his glasses. ‘You’re a lying bastard!’

‘Well, yes and no,’ Maxwell hedged.

He ducked quickly as Wimble swung the bat. It hissed over Maxwell’s head and crunched into the plaster behind him. So far, so good, but Arthur Wimble’s back-hand was a blow too far and not only did he miss, but he stumbled badly and Maxwell wrenched the bat from his grip,
thrusting
the business end of his bicycle pump up under his chin with the other hand. Wimble cowered, half kneeling in the corner, his glasses dangling off his ears, his hands raised in supplication.

‘Please,’ he whispered, clearly terrified. ‘I haven’t been well.’

Chapter Fourteen

‘How are you feeling now?’ Maxwell sat opposite his man, watching him closely.

‘All right,’ Wimble said. He was still sniffing. ‘I don’t suppose you even know Tony Lyman, do you?’

‘The Museum man? As a matter of fact, I do,’ Maxwell said. ‘Tony and I go back more than a few years. Look, I’m sorry about the subterfuge.’

‘That’s all right.’ Wimble was still trying to retrieve the bit of his glasses that went behind his ear.

‘Tea all right?’ They were sitting at the Anorak’s rather nasty kitchen table, drinking from his Woolie’s cups.

‘Fine, ta.’

‘I’ve got to say, Arthur…you don’t mind if I call you Arthur?’

The man shook his head. Peter Maxwell had inveigled his way into the castle he called home, disarmed him in a vicious baseball bat attack, sat him down and made him a cup of tea. Arthur’s mum had believed you had to marry people if you had a relationship like that.

‘That’s all right,’ he said.

‘Well, I’ve got to say, going for me with that was a bit OTT, wasn’t it?’

The blunt instrument stood propped against the door jamb. If push came to shove, Maxwell reckoned he could reach it first. But there was no response.

‘Did you think I was a rent-collector or something? Prospective parliamentary candidate for the UK Independence Party?’

Wimble looked like frightened ferret behind the glasses. ‘I thought you were from them,’ he said, ‘I thought they’d tracked me down. They’ve got my number, you see.’

Everybody had. Reg James at the
Advertiser
had warned Maxwell about this one. Sudden, hysterical welcomes were his stock in trade. ‘Them?’ Maxwell asked. He knew the film, of course – black and white Fifties tosh about mutant ants on the rampage in Nevada; James Arness being lantern-jawed, a young Leonard Nimoy getting his first taste of something wicked from outer space. But somehow, Maxwell knew that Arthur Wimble wasn’t talking about those ‘them’. Wimble had paled noticeably and ripples were forming on the surface of the tea in his cup.

Maxwell pursued it from another direction. ‘A moment ago,’ he said, ‘when we were having a conversation through the door, you mentioned a society. I said I was joining.’

‘That wasn’t true, was it?’ Wimble’s lip was trembling.

‘Alas, no,’ Maxwell confessed. ‘But I had to say
something
to get to talk to you. What society were you talking about?’

‘The Metal Detectives’ Society,’ Wimble told him. ‘It was founded in 1995 in Littlehampton.’

‘Metal detectives?’ Maxwell frowned.

‘You’re not actually an archaeologist at all, are you?’ Wimble’s eyes narrowed as he peered at the man.

‘Technically, no,’ Maxwell said. ‘But I have got my knees brown recently.’

Wimble sighed. ‘I’m going to get up now,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling a little stronger.’

Maxwell steadied the man as he put his tea cup down and got shakily to his feet. ‘I don’t normally invite strangers into my bedroom,’ the metal detective said. Maxwell could believe that. ‘But, apart from all that unpleasant bruising, Mr Maxwell, you’ve a kind face. I suppose I ought to be more concerned about the man who gave you that face, shouldn’t I? So come on up.’

Maxwell followed the man up the creaking stairs with their single twist and their early Sixties carpet. If Arthur Wimble had ‘fallen downstairs’ in his previous bungalow, what
would
happen to him here? He led his night visitor into a box-room. It was full of boxes.

‘There!’ Wimble stood triumphant.

‘You collect cardboard?’ Maxwell wondered. It was
difficult
to take all this seriously.

Wimble tried to wither him with a stare, but he didn’t really have what it took and relented with a series of blinks. ‘In these boxes,’ he said, ‘are a lifetime of archaeological remains. Bones, potsherds, coins – they come from all over southern England.’

‘I see,’ Maxwell said. ‘Shouldn’t you have…?’

‘Handed them in? Oh, no,’ Wimble said quickly. ‘You see, the law is a highly complex beast. Most objects found belong to the landowner, except gold or silver. I’ve never yet met a farmer who wanted bits of bone or pot – in fact, they chuck ’em away with vandalistic regularity. Hence, my little collection.
I
prize them. But these…’ He opened a box to his right to show Maxwell a collection of coins, ‘are mine. I found them.’

‘I thought the law of Treasure Trove meant that the finder
might
be offered the
value
of the goods, not the goods themselves.’

Wimble closed the box quickly. ‘That’s a very narrow interpretation,’ he said. ‘Shall we go back down? I don’t have much of a head for heights.’

Maxwell descended, careful to keep his hand on the
banister
. Somehow he didn’t really like turning his back on Arthur Wimble.

‘Well, basically, Count,’ the Great Man was sipping a large Southern Comfort in the quiet of his lounge as Thursday ticked inexorably into Friday. ‘Arthur Wimble is as mad as a tree. But he
did
open a can of worms.’ He raised an
eyebrow
at the cat. ‘Not mixing too many metaphors for you, am I? I had the lecture of field archaeology versus
metal-detecting
and how it used to be a free for all and that many irresponsible metal detectives ruined important sites in their headlong, speedy rush for gold. That was the good old days, of course, California ’49 – get it? Gold rush? Oh, never mind. It was before satellite television and before Tony Robinson stopped being Baldrick and became an intelligent, if slightly irritating frontman. That’s why the Metal Detectives’ Society was formed.’ He lapsed into his best Mid-West, hand on heart in a presidential salute, ‘To do good for the sake of archaeology, to go hand in hand, professional and amateur, in a mutual quest to unearth the past…boldly.’

He took a swig. ‘Well, yes, of course it’s bollocks, but I suppose I approve. Of course,’ he wagged a conspiratorial forefinger at Metternich, ‘when Wimble mentioned society, I thought he was talking Sepulchres and Sussex. I tried him out with that. Nothing.’ Maxwell looked almost
disappointed
. ‘Either he’s up for a BAFTA or he’s never heard of it. Bitch, isn’t it?’

He reached across and poured himself a top-up. Metternich munched something tasty in his left armpit.

‘Anyway, to cut a long story short – yes, this is the
shortened
version, Count – friend Arthur knows every bit of Leighford and its environs like the back of his metal
detector
. Sorry, I did fall asleep during the technical stuff about which one he uses and why, I will admit. Anyhoo, one of the sites he was working on back in March was Staple Hill.
Oh, you know it, Count, where the dig is. In the good old days, the Leigh used to run that way before Squire Whatsisarse enclosed the place circa 1735. Well, Arthur was up there one night – he couldn’t precisely remember when, but it was a Tuesday, he assured me. He was feeling pretty pleased with himself because he’d just made a find – when he felt cold steel in his neck. Oh, not the cold steel you, Errol Flynn and I know, buckling our swashes through this wicked world, but the muzzle of a twelve-bore.’ He
moistened
his still-tender lips. ‘Precisely,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘And I’m glad you’re still following all this, Count. At the other end of said twelve-bore was a customer whose description sounds suspiciously like one of Anthony Cahill’s goons; Julian or Sandy or whatever. The men in black. What of it? I hear you cry.’ Maxwell sat up to engage the cat more closely. ‘Because of the different way said goons treated me and Arthur Wimble. I was nosing about at the dig too, if you remember, after dark and minding somebody else’s business. And whereas I was given a load of verbal and dragged before the beak, Mr Cahill himself, Arthur had his kneecaps removed. Well, not literally, but he did roll up his trouser-leg, mason-like, to show me the scars. Quite nasty, actually. They gave him a smacking. The hospital said he’d never walk without a pronounced limp.’ Maxwell looked the black and white beast straight in the smouldering green eye. ‘I set ’em up, you knock ’em down,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think this is a matter for levity, Count. Now,’ Maxwell lolled back again, staring at the
ceiling
in the warm lamp-glow, ‘why, you may ask, did Arthur get such different treatment from me? Was I just luckier? Julian suffering from a spot of PMT the night he caught Arthur red-handed? No, Count, I think not. You’ll
remember
, of course, that our metal-detecting friend had found
something else not far from the knife-blade? Now, Arthur’s a keen field walker and he knows torc from
butter
, but his Latin…well, Count, I’m afraid Arthur went to a bog standard Comprehensive school. He doesn’t
speaka-da-lingo.
All he could do was spell out the letters of his second find that night. And mighty interesting reading they make too. H-I-C-J-A-C-E-T-A-L-F-R-E-D-U-S-
R-E
-X. Exactly, Count,’ Maxwell winked at the animal. ‘And I’m glad you went to a good school, too.
Hic jacet Alfredus Rex
. Here lies King Alfred. Now there, companion of my mile, is a motive for murder.’

Freya’s day began with a fierce sun gilding Columbine from a cloudless sky. Great revision weather, Maxwell observed ruefully to himself; Goering’s economic policy in the Third Reich or flat out under the great, fiery ball on a glorious sandy, EU-approved beach? What a facer! He shovelled something brown and crunchy into Metternich’s bowl. The Great Beast never came down to breakfast. The freeloader that he was had several homes, each of them believing the well-nourished stray was theirs. He would stroll in for elevenses later.

Maxwell dressed for the fray – a tatty pair of gardening trousers, a loose shirt, a broad-brimmed straw hat not unlike Tam Fraser’s wideawake and all the other Indiana Jones headgear at the site, but rather more homespun. He grabbed a coffee and a piece of toast. Then he rang Jacquie. No answer. Damn. He must have missed her. He checked his watch and the kitchen clock. Eight thirty. She shouldn’t have left yet. Still, a policewoman’s lot was not a regular one and she
was
up to her eyes in murder. He’d catch her later.

He pedalled over the rise and turned right, skirting the
flyover to the west. The sea was a glittering, shimmering blue and the tiny dots that were sun-worshippers were already taking their positions on the white beach; the Germans were first, of course. Year Thirteen would drift in later, clutching a folder of notes on, appropriately, Bismarck’s foreign policy that would remain unopened, as the combination of sea, sand and sun worked a more
alluring
magic. Cycle-clips flashing, Maxwell straightened his legs and crouched low over the handlebars, driving every sinew as he took the gradient of Gravel Hill, making for the stand of ash trees.

He hadn’t intended to, but he found himself wheeling in to that sad, ominous gap in the fence where Martin Toogood’s doctored car had left the road. The council had put red ribbon across the gap to warn other motorists and the gorse bushes were ripped and flattened way down the hill. But other motorists had not had their brakes cut and had not fallen foul of a murderer. The twenty-first
century’s
symbols of public grief lay scattered on the verge – roses curling already in the heat. One in particular caught his eye – ‘Miss you, mate, love, Jacquie.’

Just another score to settle. He pedalled away.

There was the usual litter of paparazzi at the gate. They’d been banned by Tam Fraser, Anthony Cahill and his
heavies
and, fearful for their cameras, recorders and teeth, were dutifully staying their side of the wire. The police tape still fluttered there and a solitary copper, already sweating in his shirt sleeves and flat cap, wandered the lines of the
perimeter
. It was an uneasy truce arranged between the Professor and the DCI – one had a dig to finish; the other a murderer to catch. So the tape and the copper stayed, but the digging continued.

The paparazzi were fewer. Nobody is famous for more than fifteen minutes, not even murder victims. David Radley’s obit had already appeared in
The Times
, whose man was one of those long gone from the perimeter fence in search of stories new. As far as the Press knew, Sam Welland was officially a suicide and although the
Mail
had speculated on a plausible link between the two deaths, nothing had yet been established. The
Mail
, after all, had umpteen Spanish villas to give away and there were
priorities
.

Maxwell waved to them all as he arrived with a flourish of the hat. He hitched Surrey to a post, and because they were journalists, he’d brought his padlock along. ‘Mind my bike,’ he called to them, but no one was old enough to remember the reference, so he let it go.

‘You’re at it early, Helen,’ Maxwell’s feet crunched on the clay, baked hard in the June sun. There was no mistaking that backside, hemispheres of iron.

She turned, wiping the glow from her forehead with a gloved hand. ‘’Morning, Max. Kettle’s just boiled.’