Inspector McBride had missed Peter Maxwell who had in turn missed breakfast. At her door in the wee wee hours, Sally Greenhow had decided to tackle the Luton lot on what they knew. She’d start, over breakfast, with Alan Harper-Bennet. Maxwell would have a go at the St Bede’s contingent. It didn’t take Sally three guesses to ponder who he’d start with, or, to quote Maxwell, with whom he’d start. But John McBride pulled rank and got Gary Leonard to open Maxwell’s room, just to see if he’d really gone. He hadn’t. Despite the fact that Maxwell had been seen driving off into the morning with Mrs King, his bags were still there, and his underwear. And briefly, before an unhappy Gary Leonard relocked the door, Inspector McBride had noticed, on Maxwell’s wall, what for all the world looked like part of an incident room. Maxwell was trying to solve Liz Striker’s murder by himself. Sally Greenhow made two mistakes that morning. She tackled Alan Harper-Bennet first and when she finally escaped, some hours later, it was to collide with the mannish Valerie Marks somewhere in the labyrinth of corridors that led to the sauna.
