Maxwell's Mask by M.J. Trow

Jacquie was dozing beside him. He had watched her Jackie Collins drop towards her bump several times already.
    â€˜Qui bono?’ he repeated. ‘Dear old Marcus Tullius Cicero, the greatest advocate in Roman history. He was the first lawyer to pose the question in a murder trial. “Who gains?” Who gains from the deaths of Gordon Goodacre and Martita Winchcombe?’
    â€˜Max,’ Jacquie struggled out of her sleep. ‘Are you sure they’re linked? Come to think of it, are you sure they’re murders at all?’
    â€˜Come on, Jacquie. You and I have been around this kind of thing for all the time we’ve known each other. I’ve never trusted statistics in my life. Me and old Dizzy – you know, “Lies, damned lies and statistics”.’ Jacquie knew. She’d heard Maxwell quote the late Prime Minister often enough. ‘But when two people from the same theatre troupe die within a couple of days of each other, I smell skulduggery.’
    â€˜A falling ladder,’ Jacquie reminded him. ‘It can happen. I told you…’
    â€˜I know.’ He turned to her. ‘You can quote me the stats. But I told you, I don’t believe in them.’
    Jacquie sighed, sticking to logic, sticking to reality. ‘As far as we know, the old girl fell downstairs.’
    He propped himself up on one elbow, staring into her sleepy face, the little freckles peppering her ski-jump nose. ‘You…er…don’t fancy a visit to Leighford nick, do you? You know, just to say “hi” and show ’em your predicament.’
    â€˜And ask them the score on the death of Martita Winchcombe? No, I don’t. This isn’t just an interest of yours, is it, Max? It’s a bloody obsession.’
    â€˜Well, I just thought…’
    But Jacquie was already singing loudly, her pillow over her head.
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    â€˜There’s a Mrs Elliot to see you, guv.’ Dave Walters was the desk man that morning, a grumpy old gitwith dyspepsia and a martyr, on and off, to sciatica too. Who says you can’t have the lot? An Indian summer had settled on the south coast and the sun dazzled on the cars parked beyond the grimy glass. Leighford nick was one of the few still open in Tony Blair’s England and Sergeant Dave Walters one of that vanishing breed of men, a boy in blue. It wouldn’t be too long before Sir David Attenborough was discovering the shy woodland creature in some woodland somewhere and doing a survival special on them. He could even call it Blue Planet Two.
    â€˜Right.’ Walters unpressed the intercom. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Hall is on his way down, madam. If you’d take a seat.’
    She did. Around the walls of the waiting room, posters warned of rabies and wondered whether anyone had seen a particularly unprepossessing adolescent, last known in Southampton. It occurred to Fiona Elliot this was someone she’d rather not see, especially after dark. Still others asked, rather belatedly, whether you’d locked your car because there were thieves about. Of course there were; this was a police station. Dave Walters hadn’t left his Ginsters more than three feet from his elbow in ten years.
    â€˜Mrs Elliot?’ A tall man in a three-piece suit put his head around the door. ‘I’m DCI Hall. This is DC Blaisedell.’ He pointed to the short, dark-haired woman beside him. ‘Won’t you come through?’
    Fiona Elliot had never been in a police station before. It was cold, clinical, for all the sun sparkled outside. Spider plants reflected the woman’s touch and the woman walking with her now seemed pleasant enough. She was…late twenties, perhaps early thirties and her clothes looked too big for her. The DCI held the door open for them both. Then they were sitting in Interview Room Two. Fiona had seen this sort of place before, on the telly. There was always a two-way mirror along one wall,