Maxwell’s Ride, page 20
part #6 of Peter Maxwell Series
‘Archie Godden?’
Hart was warming to his theme now. ‘Think about it. Godden was at Oxford in the early ’sixties. They held a party on the day Kennedy was killed.’
‘Really?’
‘Sick, wasn’t it? They were celebrating the fall of a Good Guy. All right, so he wasn’t quite King Arthur, we know that now, but he had time and respect for the blacks, the underdog. There was a killing in Oxford the next day. A Jamaican was found beaten to death in an alley.’
‘Godden?’
Hart managed a laugh. ‘Oh, not personally, no. But he was there, organizing, planning, holding coats. The police interviewed him, but of course, got nowhere. That man could lie for England.’
‘And often has,’ Amy added. ‘We believe that since his Oxford days, Godden has been orchestrating every bit of mayhem he can. He despises the left, obviously, but he now also despises every government since the war. The only politician who made any sense to him, after Oswald Mosley, was Enoch Powell.’
‘Rivers of blood, hmm?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Of course.’ Hart got up to freshen his glass. Amy declined. ‘He’s moved with the times. He was never your front man. No dire warning speeches from him, not even irate, loony letters to The Times. Just quiet control of money and people.’
‘Money?’
‘Charts,’ Amy said. ‘As far as we can tell, it’s a front.’
‘A front?’
‘Money laundering.’ Hart winced as the gin hit his tonsils. ‘We don’t know the mechanics of it yet, but under the guise of a charity, backing worthy causes like your school, he’s stashing away a fortune for whatever the next little anti-social spree’s going to be. What would be your guess, Amy? The Millennium Dome? Jesus, the damage doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘And Warner?’ Maxwell wanted to know.
‘Ah,’ Hart raised a finger, ‘now that I can only guess at. The man’s a forensic auditor – was, sorry – and about the best in his field. We think he’d got a sniff of something, what Godden was up to with the money – really, that is. I’ll lay you odds the law haven’t got a clue about any of this.’
‘It’s the first place they’d look,’ Amy said. ‘An auditor dies suspiciously – you assume a financial motive. Except they haven’t, as far as we know, been able to find one.’
‘What about Neil Hamlyn?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Who?’
‘The man helping police with their inquiries and currently, I presume, in Leighford Nick. Ex-SAS I understand.’
Hart shrugged. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘Godden’s never the front man. He couldn’t shoot his way out of a paper bag. This Hamlyn is Rent-a-Mob. If he’s ex-SAS he’d have been drummed out for instability. Classic, isn’t it, the government trains a man to kill and then become alarmed when he does. Whatever happened to common sense in the world?’
‘Now, Bob,’ Amy scolded gently. ‘We aren’t here to sermonize.’
‘You’re right,’ Hart smiled at her and held her hand.
‘And Logan?’
‘Logan found something out,’ Amy said. ‘We don’t know what.’
‘About Godden?’
‘We don’t know.’ Hart shook his head. ‘But we know a man who might.’
‘Who?’
‘Hilary St John.’
‘The fashion photographer?’
Hart nodded. ‘He was at Oxford with Godden. They used to be close, but I gather there’s been something of a rift.’
‘Much more to the point, people,’ Maxwell said, ‘my niece.’
‘What?’ Hart asked.
Amy turned to him. ‘Mr Maxwell was telling me about it before you got here, darling. Someone’s kidnapped his niece … er … Tiffany.’
Maxwell nodded.
‘My God,’ Hart growled. ‘This is intolerable. Mr Maxwell, you must be beside yourself. What can we do?’
‘Find her,’ said Maxwell.
‘If Godden’s got her …’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, he lives in Oxford. Got a town house not far from the Radcliffe Camera. Look, I’ve got an idea.’
The others looked at Bob Hart. Even the Devon Rex seemed interested.
‘It’s going to take some nerve on your part, Mr Maxwell. Are you game?’
Maxwell leaned forward. ‘If it’ll get my niece back in one piece, Mr Hart,’ he said, ‘I’m a brace of pheasant.’
Working, Hilary St John looked even more dissolute than when relaxing at the Garrick. Leaving Amy near a phone, Hart had driven Maxwell up to town. It may have been mid-evening, but Fashion Photography in general and Hilary St John in particular took no notice of office hours.
St John was lying on the floor when Hart and Maxwell arrived, lights and white umbrellas in all directions, pointing a ludicrously expensive camera at a slim, naked girl gyrating in front of him.
‘That’s it, sweetheart.’ The camera whirred with a life of its own, ‘Give me more of that. Yes, pout. Excellent. Back. And again. Great. Just move …’ He suddenly saw them out of the corner of his trained eye. ‘Fuck!’
The mood was broken, the magic gone. The girl stood limply, then threw both hands on her hips in resignation. She was used to this. St John rolled upright and hung the second of two cameras around his neck. ‘I can’t say I like your timing, Bob,’ he growled, a tad gruffer than when Maxwell had met him last.
Maxwell, for all his sang-froid, found himself staring at the girl.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked, snatching up a cigarette packet. ‘Never seen a pair of tits before?’
Maxwell went into his coy routine. ‘Not since dear Mama’s,’ he said.
‘Weirdo!’ she muttered and stomped off to find a robe.
‘You’ll have to forgive Jessica,’ St John said. ‘It’s been a long session.’
‘What particular fashion are you photographing at the moment, Mr St John?’ Maxwell felt bound to ask.
‘Do I come into a classroom and tell you how to teach?’ the camera man asked.
‘Touché,’ Maxwell bowed.
‘We’ve got a problem, Hilary,’ Hart said. ‘I gather you remember Mr Maxwell.’
St John nodded sullenly while Maxwell began fiddling with a light gadget. Deftly, the photographer removed it from him.
‘Yes,’ he said pointedly, ‘I do.’
‘It’s Archie,’ Hart said.
St John looked at them both. ‘Is this something I’m going to need a drink for?’ he asked.
‘Better make that three,’ Hart suggested and found a low, soft chair out of the circle of lights.
‘That’s a wrap, Jess,’ St John called to a room beyond a curtain. ‘Same time tomorrow.’
The reply was a slammed door.
‘Tart!’ St John growled. ‘Now,’ he fussed with three Scotches. ‘What of Archie?’
‘Mr Maxwell thinks he’s involved with the murder of Larry Warner.’
St John stopped in mid soda squirt. ‘Does he, now?’
‘Not to mention Chris Logan,’ Maxwell added.
‘Bob,’ St John sat down on the little leather stool, perched, vulnerable. ‘Can I have a word?’
‘Hilary,’ Hart frowned, ‘anything you have to say to me you can say to Mr Maxwell.’
St John looked from one to the other, gnawing his lip, looking for space to manoeuvre. There wasn’t any. ‘Archie and I go a long way back,’ he said.
‘Hilary,’ Hart said. ‘You can’t hide behind old loyalties for ever. Two people are dead. And we think Archie’s got Mr Maxwell’s niece.’
‘What?’ the photographer gaped. ‘No, no,’ he chuckled, ‘that’s not Archie’s style. Why should he have your niece, Maxwell?’
‘To shut me out, shut me down. I was asking questions about Larry Warner. So was Chris Logan. I think that’s why he died.’
‘I’ve told Maxwell about Archie, Hilary,’ Hart explained. ‘It’s time. What do you know?’
‘Oh, God,’ St John sighed and drained his glass, feeling the searing on his tonsils. ‘When we were at Oxford, it was all a bit of a giggle. A laugh. There were Leftist groups and Rightist groups. All indulging in debate. Just average schoolboys – and girls – really. Intoxicated with the sound of our own voices. But Archie? Well, Archie took it all seriously. There was a black lad, not a student, a local. Archie paid some thugs to beat him up. He died.’
‘You were involved?’ Maxwell asked.
‘No,’ St John sighed. ‘No, I wasn’t, and I’ve often asked myself what I’d have done if I’d been there. Would I have tried to save the boy, waded in? Or would I have helped to kick the shit out of him.’ He reached across for another Scotch. ‘I’ll never know.’
‘And Godden?’
‘We went our different ways,’ St John said. ‘I took pictures. Good ones. I make an awful lot of money, Maxwell. Exhibitions from the Palace to as far as the eye can see. Archie . . Archie is more your philosopher.’
‘Philosopher?’ Maxwell echoed.
‘Oh, yes, here,’ and the photographer passed him a book. ‘Only the author’s name has been changed to protect the guilty.’
Maxwell read the title aloud. ‘Nietzsche Now.’
‘It’s a sort of brave new world,’ St John said, ‘in which the British Empire is restored, handed over with a generous helping of neo-Nazi race hate. Tony Blair is publicly burned, I believe and the letters t, u and c are removed from the alphabet.’
‘Really?’
St John laughed. ‘All right, I’m being flippant, Mr Maxwell. I’m being flippant because actually it’s all so bloody frightening. Archie’s not talking about some fantastic Never-Never, he’s talking about tomorrow. Christ, he’s talking about today.’
‘What about my niece?’ Maxwell closed to the man.
‘I don’t know,’ St John told him. ‘Maxwell, if I had any idea, I’d tell you. As I said, it’s not Archie’s style. He isn’t the muscle, he just buys it.’
‘Is that what he did?’ Maxwell asked. ‘Bought the muscle to hit Warner and Logan?’
‘That’s his style,’ St John nodded.
‘Tell him about the phone call,’ Hart said.
‘What phone call?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Archie and I only meet occasionally,’ St John told him. ‘Charts meetings, the odd media bash. Last week he rang me, out of the blue, asked me about the Warner business.’
‘Asked you what?’
‘Whether anyone had been snooping. He mentioned this Chris Logan.’
‘He did?’
St John nodded. ‘Archie liked to think I was still his, still loyal to the cause. I wasn’t. Christ knows I’d told him that often enough. He wouldn’t let it alone. He told me this journalist, this Logan, was pestering him, asking questions.’
‘The next we heard,’ Hart butted in, ‘Logan was dead. It was all over the Evening Standard and the local news. We put two and two together.’
‘But you’ve no proof?’ Maxwell asked.
‘I told you,’ St John said, ‘Godden’s style. He’ll have distanced himself. Alibis coming out of his arsehole. There’ll be nothing to link him with Logan at all.’
Something of a silence fell. ‘I rather think,’ Hart said, ‘that that’s going to be Mr Maxwell’s aim in life, establishing that link. Am I right, Mr Maxwell?’
Maxwell had been to the Bodleian before. Several times. But now, it was for research of a different kind. He sat in Duke Humphrey’s Library, the sun gilding the magnificent fan vaulting of the low ceiling. Learned tomes gathered dust in the rarefied air and assorted students, such culture wasted on their callow youth, were dotted around, poring over faded manuscripts. Maxwell was delighted to see there wasn’t a computer in sight.
It was nearly eleven before his target arrived and Maxwell had been up since shortly after dawn, having availed himself of Robert Hart’s spare room. The author had driven him up to town and he’d caught the seven forty-eight from Paddington. Archie Godden appeared to be wearing the same bow tie he’d worn at the Garrick, obviously a sort of uniform for the music critics’ society or that of the White Knights. Maxwell waited until the man had found a seat and had settled himself with a pile of volumes and a notepad.
‘Rattling good yarn,’ Maxwell whispered and placed another book on top of the pile.
Godden started. He read the title ‘Nietszche Now’ and the name of the author ‘Hans Welt’.
Maxwell sat down next to him. ‘Good morning, Mr Welt,’ he said. A frowsty old spinster, comatose and cobwebbed, rustled into life in the far corner. She looked as if she’d been here since Duke Humphrey bought his first book, waiting for someone to cast her as Miss Havisham. ‘Sshh,’ was her highly original contribution to the proceedings.
‘How did you find me?’ Godden ignored the warning.
‘How did I discover you were Hans Welt or how did I know you’d be here at this hour?’ Maxwell asked.
‘Either,’ Godden would settle for.
‘Bob Hart and Hilary St John,’ he told him.
‘Sshh,’ the old girl hissed louder.
Godden looked up, interested. ‘Let me buy you a cup of coffee, Mr Maxwell.’ And he swept out past the ancient reader. ‘If you can read that, madam,’ he growled at her, thank a man.’
Her mouth fell open.
‘And a teacher,’ Maxwell echoed. And they were gone.
Roger Garrett was First Deputy at Leighford High. Like all Deputy Heads his insecurity complex could more accurately be described as a conurbation. He also had a brown nose from all his years of being up somebody else’s bottom. ‘Well, where is he?’ he asked all and sundry. ‘It’s not like Max to be off. And there’s no answer from his answerphone.’
Sylvia Matthews swept past him, dithering in the Hall as he was, being roundly ignored by multitudes of children. It wasn’t like Sylvia Matthews, who was good and loyal and true. She’d given fifteen years of her life to Leighford High School, but suddenly, today, she’d had enough. ‘Roger,’ she said, ‘Get a life.’
Maxwell was mother in the Crypt Tearooms. He poured for them both as Godden eyed him suspiciously. He still didn’t like the man’s bow tie and without that charming lady Deirdre Lessing, he was afraid that Maxwell would probably be even more of an oaf. It came as something of a surprise to him that Maxwell didn’t actually drink coffee from his saucer or pick his nose with his elbow.
‘I must admit,’ Maxwell was saying, sparkling at his man, ‘I underestimated you.’
‘You did?’
‘Well, you’re not going to believe this, but I’d just bought Nietzsche Now when we met at the Garrick.’
‘Really?’
‘I was particularly interested in the Ethnic Cleansing section.’
‘Well, it seems to be in vogue, doesn’t it?’ Godden asked. ‘Africa, the Balkans. The bottom line is that coffee-coloured people won’t do.’
‘Well, quite,’ Maxwell sipped his Earl Grey. ‘I had a ticklish situation the other day. One of our brown brethren caught stealing from the School Tuck Shop.’
‘Well, there you are. Breeding will out, you see, Mr Maxwell. But I had no idea you were of … shall we say, like mind?’
‘Oh, my dear fellow. It all started when I was at Cambridge.’
‘Oh dear!’ Godden crowed. He sounded as if he’d swallowed an even bigger plum than usual.
‘I know,’ Maxwell chuckled. ‘But we’ll have to agree to differ on the Varsity front.’
‘Well, we’re white men all,’ Godden smiled at him.
‘We’re of an age, you and I. Good school. Good college.’ Maxwell felt the skin on his back crawling. He wasn’t sure how much more of this he could keep up. ‘Then, suddenly, I looked around my college and there were Americans and Jamaicans and Lord knows what else.’
‘Tell me about it, dear boy,’ Godden nodded. ‘I tell you, the day we lowered the Union Jack in India … well, that’s only the tip of the iceberg, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Maxwell nodded, attacking his Danish. ‘But what can be done?’
‘Done?’
‘About it all. The situation. I’m not just talking corner shops here, Mr Godden …’
‘Oh, Archie, please.’
‘Archie, I’m talking about politics, medicine, the media, for God’s sake.’
Godden leaned forward. ‘Queers and Jewboys,’ he said. ‘In the Beeb of course, it used to be Queers and Catholics. Give me your honest moronic nigger any day. At least they have a history of slavery – knowing their place.’
‘Well, quite.’
‘But the Yids, well – God’s chosen people!’ He almost spat his Genoa the length of the table. ‘The arrogance of it. The unadulterated nerve.’
‘Homosexuality.’ Maxwell shook his head despairingly. He thought that if he spread his arms it would look too Jewish.
‘Cabinet’s riddled with it,’ Godden assured him. ‘Riddled. And as for the Church, well …’
‘Oh, appalling,’ Maxwell concurred. ‘Absolutely appalling.’
‘So what can be done?’
‘I asked you that.’
‘Well,’ Godden sat back so that his stomach never parted company with the table rim. ‘One or two things, actually.’
‘I’m all ears.’
Godden looked at him, then glanced around, mostly, Maxwell noticed, to the right. ‘How well do you know Tony LeStrange?’
‘The magician? Not at all.’
‘Mm,’ Godden munched on his Genoa. Other than that, the silence was deafening. ‘There are things to be done, Mr Maxwell ‘Oh, Max, please.’
Godden smiled. ‘Max. But there’s a little fly in the ointment.’
‘A nigger in the woodpile?’ Maxwell twinkled.
For a second Godden was silent, then he roared with laughter, pounding the table with the flat of his hand. ‘Nietzsche Now is doing rather well,’ he said, suddenly quiet and sitting closer to his man. ‘You know how some books are world-shakers – the Bible, of course, Mein Kampf, John Hackett’s Third World War – there’s no doubt that the groundswell of opinion is changing. Stephen Lawrence is only the beginning.’
