Maxwell's Mask by M.J. Trow Page A

with either Trevor Eve or David Jason standing behind it. Come to think of it, Trevor Eve was always shouting at his oppos in ludicrously dark corners and David Jason was filling his face in the nick canteen. This place was nothing like that. The light was bright and artificial, the room without windows and every wall was painted an acidic green. The only gadget in the room appeared to be a tape recorder and that wasn’t switched on.
    â€˜First,’ Hall started the ball rolling, ‘can we say how very sorry we are about your aunt. And to thank you for coming in so promptly.’ When the moment called for it, Henry Hall could lie for England.
    â€˜Thank you,’ she said. Fiona Elliot was a bulky woman, utterly unlike the frail, bird-like corpse lying on one of Jim Astley’s slabs in a cold corner of Leighford morgue. She was attractive in a matter-of-fact sort of way, with a steady gaze that was quite compelling. ‘I’d like to see my aunt.’
    â€˜Of course,’ Hall nodded. ‘DC Blaisedell will arrange that. In the meantime, if I could just ask you some questions.’
    She nodded.
    â€˜We are making the assumption that your aunt lived alone?’
    â€˜That’s right. She had for years.’
    â€˜And had she always lived in Leighford?’
    â€˜She was born in that house, Chief Inspector. Rather fitting, in a way, that she died in it.’
    â€˜Indeed?’
    â€˜My aunt had a hatred of hospitals,’ Fiona told them. ‘She once told me she’d put an end to herself rather than go into one.’ She looked at them both, the skinny, pretty girl and the bland, expressionless DCI. ‘Is that what happened?’ she asked, unable to read the body language. ‘Suicide?’
    Jane Blaisedell looked at Hall. He was the guv’nor, in the hot seat. Questions like that she left to the top brass.
    â€˜Mrs Elliot,’ Hall leaned forward across his desk. ‘We think your aunt may have been the victim of foul play.’
    She blinked. This wasn’t happening. This was for other people. Crimewatch , news items, the Discovery Channel. ‘Do you mean murder?’ she asked.
    Hall nodded.
    â€˜My God.’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’
    Jane Blaisedell braced herself to react. For all she was only twenty-six, she’d been here before, too many times already. Some victims’ relatives fainted away like a lily at bedtime. Others, in insane denial, refused to accept it; the police were lying; it was all some ghastly mistake, a macabre joke. Was Beadle about? Others cried uncontrollably, sobbing as their bodies shook and reality dawned. Somebody’s mother. Somebody’s son. Still others were like Fiona Elliot.
    â€˜What are you doing about it?’ she wanted to know. She was calm, matter of fact, precise. But her voice was ice in the cool of that Interview Room.
    â€˜Making our inquiries,’ Hall assured her. ‘That’s why I need to ask you some questions.’
    But Fiona Elliot was on her feet. ‘Later, there are things that will need to be done,’ she said. ‘Now, I want to see my aunt.’
    Hall nodded at his DC. ‘Very well,’ he said, standing too. ‘I daresay it’ll wait.’
    After all, he told himself as the women left, Martita Winchcombe wasn’t going anywhere.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Jane Blaisedell had never intended becoming a copper. Her dad had been one, with the Met, but he’d been invalided out after a particularly insane night at Broadwater Farm, when mobs roamed the streets and petrol bombs exploded into the night. Jane had seen what that had cost the man – the nights when he paced the bedroom all night; the days he spent slumped in a chair. It wasn’t the surface wounds – they’d heal. It was the deep ones, the ones that scarred his soul.
    It had just happened, that was all – both because of her dad and in spite of him – and so here she was,