On a walk in Norbury Park, I told Max that evening. She was uncharacteristically unsympathetic. “Perhaps it’s a punishment,” she said. There was a kestrel hovering in the air above us and to our right; it was about fifty yards up and the only movements that it made were at the ends of its wings. Something was about to die.
“What for?”
“For killing his brother.”
“We don’t know he did.”
“Inspector Masson seemed to think he’s guilty. Anyway, nobody liked him.”
I sighed. “I have to say, I’m not sure that we can automatically assume any form of infallibility on the good Inspector’s part.” Still the kestrel hovered. It was a symbol of patience. “And unpopularity is not normally considered a firm foundation on which to bring a conviction.”
“No,” she conceded. “But he mistreated Mrs Kerry’s Georgie, and that’s a sure sign of an evil man.” I knew Max well enough to decipher this cryptogram at least partially. Georgie was a dog and Max would never forgive someone who mistreated an animal.
“It’s a long way from kicking a dog to murdering a man.”
“No, it’s not,” she replied at once, and I knew better than to argue. She said thoughtfully, “He’ll be stuck in hospital now…”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s going through your head, Max?”
She frowned for a moment, then smiled; it was a sweet smile, and all the more worrying because of it. “Nothing,” she said. A movement in the sky caught my eye, but I was too slow to see the kestrel dive and I never found out if it was successful.
Despite my constant questioning, Max would say nothing more.
The next evening I was on call but it was a relatively quiet night and so the following day I didn’t feel too bad, especially after a short afternoon nap. I was awake by six, had a sandwich and then called Max but got no answer. She was occasionally called out at night because of a veterinary emergency, although her practice did not have a formal on-call rota, so I wasn’t too concerned. I decided that I would spend the evening watching television and try her later; as it happened, I fell asleep to be awakened at eleven o’clock when the phone rang. Before I had a chance to speak, Max said, “Lance?”
“Oh, hi, Max.” I yawned.
“Are you busy?”
“Well…no…”
“Do you think you could come and fetch me?”
“Sure. Where are you?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “In Peter Carlton’s shop.”
Life with Max had never been boring and I would not have wanted it any other way, but her propensity for breaking into premises – or, for variety, inducing me to do it – did prove a trifle wearing at times. I was not, therefore, in the best of moods when I stopped the car at the end of Fairlands Avenue and walked to Peter Carlton’s shop. It was in darkness but she must have been watching out for me because the shop door opened a fraction as soon as I walked up to it. “Come in,” she hissed urgently, although I couldn’t see her. As I squeezed through, Max shut it at once, making barely a click. I could just make out the crouched form of my girlfriend.
“Max?”
“Come with me.”
She scurried off to the back of the shop, making a fairly good imitation of a chimpanzee as she did so. As a respected member of the community and feeling it unlikely that anyone could see me anyway, I chose to walk more normally. She led me into an office at the back of the shop, closed the door behind me and then switched on a lamp on the desk. “There,” she said, straightening up at last.
“Max, what the bloody hell are you doing?”
“Investigating.”
“That’s one word for it. Others would be breaking and entering.” She looked pained. “Surely not. I haven’t broken anything.”
“How did you get in, then?”
“I got the key from Mrs Kerry who lives next door. She cleans the shop for Peter Carlton and I’ve been treating her poodle. She’s ever so grateful to me.”
“What did you tell her?”
She had no shame. “I told them you had been to see Peter Carlton and you had asked me to collect a few things for him in hospital.”
I breathed very heavily, told myself that I loved her. “Listen, Max. Peter Carlton might be in hospital and likely to be there for quite a few weeks, but that doesn’t mean you can waltz into his shop and search through whatever takes your fancy.”
She looked outraged. “Lance, he’s a murderer.”
“Max, there are rules…”
She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t find anything.”
I said at once, “Exactly. There’s no point in charging in until you know what you’re charging into. What did you think you’d find? A confession signed in blood? A gun with one bullet missing?”
“You never know…”
“Life’s not that simple, Max.”
She nodded. “I see that now.” My mouth was open and I was about to continue my philosophizing when she said, “You’re absolutely right. There’s nothing here at all.” I was about to sound even more pompous when she said, “It’s all rather pathetic, really. Just lots of invoices for different types of wood and thngs.”
“As you’d expect.”
“Of course,” she said forlornly.
It took a few minutes but I led her after a while from the shop through the darkness and then out into the cooling air of Fairlands Avenue, Thornton Heath. Having pushed the key through Mrs Kerry’s letterbox, we hurried away, looking around us all the while, seeing no one. In the car on the way back, Max said, “He must have been very eccentric.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he bought lots of fluffy dice – the things that you hang in the car.”
It was a relatively new craze then, but I was taken aback by this news. “You’re sure?”
“I saw the receipt. He spent eighty pounds on them in May.”
“Eighty? He must have bought a hell of lot of them.” The picture I had of Peter Carlton was one of a desperately unhappy and driven man, but not a loony. I imagined that eighty pounds’ worth of fluffy dice would occupy an entire room and I could not for the life of me imagine why a dedicated and expert furniture-maker should start a sideline selling novelty gifts. “How peculiar,” I said.
“And he was branching out into his brother’s territory.”
“In what way?”
“He bought a consignment of barometers at the same time.” Which at least to me sounded less barmy than buying several crates of fluffy dice. She continued, “Maybe that’s the reason he killed Harvey – because they argued about selling barometers.”
“I would have thought that would be more reason for Harvey to kill Peter, not the other way round.”
These were mysteries for sure, but they weren’t of great import when compared with the central conundrum of who had killed Harvey and why.
Max and I were gardening when Dad came visiting that evening. I hate gardening but Max is quite enthusiastic, which makes me feel just guilty enough to show slightly willing and pull the odd weed. The familiar sound of Dad’s bright red Hillman Avenger – if you can imagine Chitty Chitty Bang Bang crossed with a Flying Fortress trundling down the runway, then you have some idea why it is not hard to identify my father’s presence in the neighbourhood – interrupted the serenity of a warm summer’s evening. Max led him through to the garden; he was carrying a battered brown suitcase and for a moment I thought that he was planning on staying for a while.