Maxwell’s Reunion Read Free Page A

lance taut on its housings, piercing the moonlit clouds. His days of verb-spotting were over. It was time to stop the ball.

2
    The weekend starts here. Peter Maxwell strode his narrow world like a colossus, barring the gate to the devious little herberts who consistently tried to sneak through the carpark. What bastard put the Head of Sixth Form on gate duty on a Friday afternoon? Peter Maxwell knew the answer – Bernard Ryan, destined to be a Deputy Head for ever. Maxwell knew. He was biding his time.
    ‘All right if I go through, Max?’ A bland, bespectacled face beamed at him above the half-lowered window. It had all the bonhomie of a basilisk.
    Maxwell nodded. ‘Only because it’s you, Headmaster.’
    James Diamond, BSc, MEd, was always flustered when his Head of Sixth Form called him Headmaster, and since Maxwell always did call him that, fluster was his usual state.
    ‘Charmless nerk,’ Maxwell muttered as the Head’s Peugot snarled out on to the road, only to have to screech to a halt a second later by order of Mrs Silliphant, the lollipop lady, she who had been thrown out of the SS for being too nasty.
    Maxwell chuckled. ‘Sterling work, Silli. Ah, Gazza. Third Friday running, unless my memory is totally shot to hell.’
    ‘But I’ll miss my bus, sir,’ Gazza whined, hauling his backpack off his shoulder. He hadn’t seen Maxwell lurking by the shrubbery and he’d fancied his chances. He should really have known better.
    ‘Indeed you will,’ Maxwell nodded, ‘because now you’ll have to go all the way round, the way everybody else goes. That’s probably an extra three, maybe four minutes. You’ll probably miss a couple of buses in that time and have to walk all the way home, like we did in olden times. Life’s a learning curve, isn’t it?’
    Gazza flounced off the way he’d come, longing to swear under his breath, but knowing better. Everybody knew that Mad Max had radar sensors for ears. Dave Bradshaw had called him a bastard once, from three hundred metres. They never saw him again.
    The sound of her horn brought Maxwell from his flower-bed and he peered in through the open window. ‘Electric windows, Woman Policeman? Whatever next? The vote, perhaps?’
    ‘Sorry I’m late, Max.’
    ‘Not at all.’ He hauled his holdall from its hiding place behind the japonica and clambered in. ‘Gave me a chance to catch a few miscreants guilty of malfeasance.’
    She reached across and kissed him on the cheek. ‘You say the most incomprehensible things,’ she said.
    He looked at her in the Friday afternoon light. Jacquie Carpenter, detective constable. Early thirties, clever, bright, loyal, the only woman in his life. Her auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders and her grey eyes sparkled as he buckled himself in. ‘Now, are you sure about this?’ he asked again, as he had countless times over the past few days.
    She slammed the Ka into gear. ‘Am I sure I want to spend my precious weekend with a crowd of boring old farts reminiscing about their pubescent stirrings in the dorm? No, I’m not. Am I sure I want to spend the weekend with you? Yes, I am. Besides, I’ve got a new frock.’
    ‘Ah, and by spending the weekend … you mean … ?’
    Her smile was like the Giaconda’s. ‘Let’s see how it goes, Max.’
    ‘The letter did say spouses welcome,’ he reminded her.
    ‘And friends?’
    ‘Ouch!’ He pulled his finger away from her frosty aura.
    She laughed, patting his leg. ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ she said. ‘Fill me in on them.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Your old buddies.’ Jacquie roared off through Leighford, past knots of Leighford Highenas making their way home, scattering chewing-gum wrappers in their wake and proving every known adage about the youth of today.
    ‘Gemma Hipcrest,’ Maxwell murmured, unwrapping his University scarf and settling himself down.
    Jacquie frowned. ‘I thought you went to a boys’ school.’
    ‘I did,’ Maxwell said, ‘but that doesn’t prevent