Maxwell’s Flame by M. J. Trow Page A

easy chair by the desk. ‘What are you suggesting?’
    ‘That we solve this ourselves.’
    He looked at her, then shook his head.
    ‘Why not?’ She bounced forward on the bed so that her breasts jiggled.
    ‘It’s none of our business,’ he said.
    Sally Greenhow’s mouth flopped open. ‘Can you hear yourself?’ she asked. ‘Is this the same Mad Max who solved Jenny Hyde’s murder last year?’
    ‘That was different,’ Maxwell said. ‘Jenny was one of mine.’
    It was and she had been. Jenny Hyde was in the sixth form at Leighford High. When she was found, Maxwell had felt responsible. There were members of the West Sussex CID who felt he was responsible too. But it was a painful memory for Maxwell. He had no wish to be reminded of it.
    ‘Liz Striker was somebody’s,’ Sally argued. ‘Rachel King told me she was married. What’s her husband going through about now, I wonder?’
    ‘It’s not the same.’
    There was another knock on the door, more furtive, doubtful.
    ‘Well, well,’ Maxwell said, rising. ‘I am in demand today.’
    He opened the door to the hunched, rather unprepossessing figure of Jordan Gracewell. He was glancing nervously up and down the dimly lit corridor.
    ‘Selling the
War Cry
, padre?’ Maxwell asked.
    ‘Mr Maxwell,’ Gracewell blurted, ‘I was wondering if I might have a word?’
    ‘Be my guest.’ Maxwell threw the door open.
    ‘Oh!’ The chaplain caught sight of the long legs of Sally Greenhow across the bed and hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.’
    ‘No, no.’ Maxwell closed the door and ushered Gracewell into the room. ‘Not company, exactly. Just Mrs Greenhow. We were discussing the role of Intermediate Level GNVQ, weren’t we, Sally?’
    ‘Bollocks, Max!’ the girl snorted and rummaged in her bag for her ciggies.
    ‘Before she joined us,’ Maxwell explained, ‘Mrs Greenhow was at the Ernst Röhm School of Charm.’
    ‘I … shouldn’t really be here,’ Gracewell said. ‘I’d better go.’
    ‘Why?’ Maxwell stopped the man with the edge in his voice. ‘What have you got to hide, Mr Gracewell?’
    The chaplain looked so utterly vulnerable at that moment, so totally alone, that Sally wanted to pick him up and run with him.
    ‘Nothing,’ Gracewell said. Then he wandered into the corner of Maxwell’s room and stared out of the window, across Carnforth’s manicured lawns and rose-beds. ‘Everything.’
    Maxwell then took another sexist offensive step. Well, why not? He’d been taking them all his life. ‘Sally,’ he said, opening the door, ‘would you mind?’
    Sally Greenhow would and did. She sat there with a cigarette clinging to her lower lip and her lighter flickering in her left hand. ‘Maxie?’ was all she could manage.
    ‘If I were you,’ Maxwell took her arm and lifted her off his bed, ‘I’d concentrate on your strategic intent. I particularly like your concept of the exercise book – archaic, but somehow, in this day and age, innovative. Do keep in touch. Remember, synergize to maximize.’ And he slammed the door in her face.
    He waited for the furious knock. All he got was a strangled cry as Sally Greenhow dashed off down the corridor. Not a bad Greta Garbo, he mused as he turned to face the back of Jordan Gracewell.
    ‘Are you a drinking man, padre?’ he asked.
    ‘Er … no.’ Gracewell had not turned. Only his hands fluttered convulsively to his sides.
    ‘No.’ Maxwell raided the courtesy bar again, looking for Southern Comfort. ‘Unfortunately, I am. Running up quite a little bill here, one way or another. I’m sure County will accept eight Southern Comforts as necessary subsistence; what do you think?’
    There was a pause. ‘I think I know who killed Liz Striker, Mr Maxwell.’ The chaplain had turned to face his man. Jordan Gracewell was nearly thirty. He’d been a priest for three years, a teacher for two. The great love in his life was God. God and Elizabeth Striker.
    ‘Really?’