Maxwell’s Ride by M. J. Trow Page B

call it, remember?’
    ‘Oh yes.’ Logan hadn’t understood the comment then and he didn’t understand it now. ‘Now then, Larry Warner.’
    ‘Right.’ Maxwell got down to business. ‘You covered the story.’
    ‘That’s right. It was my first murder for the Advertiser .’ He leaned forward, sotto voce, ‘Not exactly the cutting edge here, Max,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve actually been brought in as a sort of galvanizer …’
    ‘Really?’ Maxwell leaned back, impressed.
    ‘Kick a bit of arse, you know.’
    ‘Long overdue.’
    ‘Well, it’s all new marinas and chrysanthemum shows. Odd bit of lavatory cowboying is as risqué as it gets. Larry Warner was a godsend, really. I got in fast and networked it. The editor was well chuffed, I can tell you.’
    ‘I’m sure he was. So what else can you tell me?’
    Logan blinked. ‘What can I tell you ?’ He launched into a very bad Nazi ‘Ve vill ask ze qvestions’. And he brayed like a donkey.
    ‘Absolutely.’ Maxwell chuckled for old time’s sake. After all, it was he who had told Logan what a Nazi was. ‘But I have a special interest in the case.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Tut,’ Maxwell scolded. ‘There you go again!’
    ‘Ha,’ Logan giggled. ‘Sorry, Max, occupational hazard, I suppose.’
    ‘I was there.’
    ‘What? When it happened? Excellent.’ Logan reached for his notepad.
    ‘Uh-huh,’ Maxwell shook his head. ‘No exclusives just yet. I wasn’t alone.’
    ‘Oh,’ Logan’s eyes widened. ‘Anything Mrs Maxwell should know about?’ He couldn’t for the life of him remember whether there was a Mrs Maxwell or not.
    ‘Nothing like that,’ Maxwell said. ‘I had my nieces with me. I don’t want them involved any more.’
    ‘Ah, Mavis.’ The dim-looking woman popped her head around the door and brought in a tray with polystyrene cups and a single plastic spoon.
    ‘You’re spoiling me,’ Maxwell beamed.
    ‘Thank you, Mavis. Can you get the Warner file, please?’
    ‘Well, it’s nearly my lunch break,’ Mavis whinged.
    ‘It won’t take you a minute, Mavis,’ Logan insisted and she trudged off, wondering if she couldn’t take the matter to the NUJ.
    ‘I happened to be the first journalist on the scene. Oh fuck, that’s hot.’ Logan felt a rush to his head, not just with the pain of the coffee on his lips, but that he’d sworn in front of his old teacher. Funny how the old things still mattered.
    ‘Who did you talk to, in the police, I mean?’
    ‘DCI Hall. It’s his case, apparently.
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘Do you know him?’
    ‘We’ve crossed truncheons before,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘It’s always been … a pleasure.’
    ‘He wasn’t giving much away.’
    ‘No, that’s our Henry’s way,’ Maxwell commented.
    ‘I’m following up on Warner this afternoon, funnily enough.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘I’ve got an address in Portsmouth.’
    ‘Really? Mind if I tag along?’
    ‘Er … well, Mr Maxwell … um … Max, that’s a little awkward.’
    ‘Nonsense!’ Maxwell scolded, drinking his coffee without a qualm. ‘I know Portsmouth like the back of my hand. I’ll be your navigator, shall I? I say, Chris, could I use your phone?’
    It had been bad enough in the sunshine, but now, as the rain drove hard on their capes and flat caps, a struggling line of policemen were combing the rocky outcrops on the banks of the Wild Water. They’d been quite a tourist attraction in their own right for the past two days and the waiting crowds had queued for hours longer than usual to ride the spray, telling themselves that the car they sat in was the car, awash with a dead man’s blood.
    ‘’Ere, our Trace,’ an Essex girl shrieked over the roaring surge, ‘This scratch ’ere – I’m sure it’s a bullet mark.’
    ‘Nah.’ Her Trace was not impressed. ‘That’ll be where his head exploded. Like that melon in that old film – what was it, Day of the Jekyll .’
    The rain, it was true, had driven the punters away. That and the fact