Maxwell's Return Read Online Free

movements of its claws. If no one found it soon, the hand, then the arm, then the whole body of the dead girl would be bone.
    ‘No alibi?’ Maxwell asked, raising an eyebrow. He turned to Sylvia. ‘Didn’t you say he went out on a long-standing appointment?’
    ‘Yes,’ Sylvia said. ‘But that’s only what he told me, what I’ve heard since.’ She looked across at Jacquie who had thrown herself down in the chair opposite. ‘You look fresh as a daisy,’ she said. ‘No jetlag?’
    ‘Yes,’ Jacquie smiled. ‘But I am trying very hard to rise above. How are you Sylv? Thanks for all the little reminders of home while we were away. Did Max tell you how much our neighbour loved the
Leighford Advertiser
?’
    ‘There certainly is no accounting for taste,’ the school nurse laughed.
    ‘He must have taken the one about Bernard. I can’t believe it went into detail, even so. Even the
Advertiser
has some scruples, surely.’
    ‘Not so much scruples as absolutely rubbish reporting,’ Sylvia said. ‘You may have missed it in any case, because they called him Ronald Ryan, but they did say he was a Deputy at Leighford High and so I’m sure, like everyone else, you would have put two and two together. They didn’t say it was in connection with the murder, either. Just said he had been suspended pending investigations into something that they were not allowed to report in detail.’
    ‘And since that could only be fingers in the till or fingers in the knickers,’ Maxwell continued, with an apologetic shrug at his two favourite women, ‘everyone made their own decisions as to what it might be.’
    ‘Well, it was a little worse than that,’ Sylvia said. ‘They put it on the same page as the body being found and said that a forty one year old man was helping police with their enquiries. They said she had been to visit her Business Studies tutor before she disappeared. Then in Bernard’s piece, they said he was a forty one year old Business Studies teacher and the damage was done.’
    Maxwell looked steadily at his wife. ‘And, dear heart, if I may say so, you seem to have a few extra details yourself. I thought you weren’t going back to work for another three weeks.’
    She met his gaze. This may be a case of who blinked first. ‘I’m glad Sylv’s here,’ she said, ‘because she can be my witness when I say that I am not going to tell you anything about this case and I don’t want you involved. Right, Sylv?’
    Sylvia Matthews nodded but knew she wouldn’t be called upon to ever stand up in even an unofficial Maxwell family court to swear to it. Max would get involved, of course. Jacquie would end up telling him everything and it might even end up that Bernard Ryan would yet be all right. Sylvia Matthews liked most people, but she didn’t like the deputy head who was often unfair and vengeful. There was no such thing in hisbook as water under the bridge and he could hold a grudge for England. But even so, she had seen the look on his face when the police came for him and her maternal instinct had made her want to run to him and hold him close. The little boy he once had been – that even he had once been – looked out from behind his geeky glasses and she could have cried for him. In fact, later, at home and safely in Guy’s arms, she had. But to Jacquie, she just said, ‘Right.’
    ‘Does this have anything at all to do with the three week thing?’ Maxwell asked mildly.
    ‘Not precisely, no,’ Jacquie said, shifting a little in her chair. Sylvia sighed. The DI had blinked first and the rest, very appropriately, would be history.
    ‘So you’ve spoken to Henry, then?’
    ‘You’ve spoken to Helen. Sylvia,’ Jacquie made a dramatic gesture with her arm and nearly knocked his mug out of his hand, ‘is actually here.’
    ‘So, what did Henry have to say?’
    ‘He’s well.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And the family, of course.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘And … well, he did mention that there are a lot of