by Colin Dexter
taking an intense and instant dislike to the boy, who had made no attempt to
straighten his lounging sprawl, or to miss a single lyric from the latest rap
record until he saw Morse's lips speaking directly to him.
"Wha'?" Reluctantly Roy Holmes removed one of the ear- pieces.
"Why didn't you answer the door yourself, lad, and give your mum a break?"
The youth's eyes stared back with cold hostility.
"Couldn't 'ear it, could I? Not wi' this on."
No Brummy accent there; instead, the Oxfordshire burr with its curly vowels.
His mother began to explain.
"It's the police, Roy ' " Again? Bin there, 'aven't I. Made me statement.
What more do they want? Accident, won nit I didn't try to 'ide nuthin. What
the fuck? "
Morse responded quietly to the outburst.
"We appreciate your co-operation. But do you know what you've made of
yourself in life so far? Shall I tell you, lad? You're about the most
uncouth and loutish fourteen-year-old I've ever ' ' Fifteen-yenr-old,"
interposed Mrs Holmes, more anxious, it seemed, to correct her son's natal
credentials than to deny his innate crudity.
"Fifteen on March the 26th. Got it wrong in the papers, didn't they?"
"Well, well! Same birthday as Housman."
Silence.
"And' (Morse now spoke directly to the mother) 'he'll be able to smoke in a
year's time, and go to the pub for a pint a couple of years after that if you
give him some pocket- money, Mrs Holmes.
Because I can't see him earning any- thing much himself, not in his present
frame of mind. "
If Lewis had earlier noticed the tell-tale sign of drug dependency in the
boy's eyes, he now saw a wider blaze of hatred there; and was sure that Morse
was similarly and equally aware of both, as Mrs Holmes switched her wheel-
chair abruptly around and faced Morse aggressively: "It was an accident could
happen to anybody he didn't
mean no trouble like he said like he told you . . . That's right, isn't
it, Roy? "
"Leave me be!"
"Perhaps it wasn't you we came to Burford to see."
For a few seconds there was a look of bewilderment, of anxiety almost, on Roy
Holmes's face. Then, draining his can of beer, he got to his feet, and left
the room.
Seconds later the front door slammed behind him with potentially
glass-shattering force.
"What time will he be back?" asked Lewis.
She shrugged her narrow shoulders.
"You worry about him?"
"Everybody worries about him."
"How long's he been on drugs?"
"Year over a year."
"How does he pay for them?"
"You tell me."
"Not much of a son, is he?" said Morse.
She shook what once must have been a very pretty head with a gesture of
desperation.
"Does he get the money from you?"
"I've got nothing to give him. He's not stupid. He knows that."
"But. . .?" Morse pointed to the empty beer can; the empty packet of
cigarettes.
"I dunno."
Morse got to his feet. Lewis too.
"How long ...?" Morse nodded to the wheelchair.
"Six years."
Morse stopped in front of the one framed picture in the dingy hallway. Not a
picture, though. A diploma.
Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire Athletics Association This is to
certify that in the annual three-counties cross- country championships held
in Cutteslowe Park, Oxford, on the 19th July, 1974, the winner of the ladies
event from a field of seventy-two runners was:
ELIZABETH JANE THOMAS
Congratulations! Signed: Monty Hillier (Assn. Pres. ) For the second time
that day Lewis noticed a film of tears in a woman's eyes; and for the second
time that day Morse felt a shudder of excitement run along his shoulders.
Before they left, Morse turned to the erstwhile athlete.
"The gods haven't smiled on you much, have they?"
"Not that I've noticed."
"It's important for your son to do exactly what they've told him with his
Police Protection Order. You know that?"
"I suppose so."
"And if you want cheering up a bit, Mrs Holmes, I'll tell you a big secret: I
was about his age when I started drinking myself. A year younger, in fact."
But the confession appeared to bring little comfort to the woman maneuvering
her wheelchair to the front door.
Morse gave her his card.
"One last thing. If there's anything you've forgotten to tell me? Anything
you've not been willing to tell me . .
? "
As the two detectives walked along the litter-strewn path up to a wooden
front gate stripped of all but two of its vertical slats, Lewis's mind
puzzled itself over those last few words. But Morse seemed deep in thought;
and any questions for the moment, he knew, would be wholly inopportune.
chapter fifty-five Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every prejudice and error that
doth so easily beset us (St Paul, Hebrews, ch. XII, v. I) in his own way,
Lewis was not unhappy that Morse had failed to put in his usual,
comparatively early appearance the following morning. His own preferred
programme of alibi- confirmation had earlier (as we have seen) been endorsed
by Morse, albeit with muted enthusiasm; and Lewis was content to pursue such
a programme solo.
It now appeared that Morse's simplistic hypothesis that of casting Barren as
a double murderer was wholly discounted. It would have been convenient,
certainly, if it had been Ban-on; and if Barren in turn had been murdered by
whoever was behind . . . well, behind everything, really. Frank Harrison,
say. And why not Frank Harrison?
In Lewis's betting- book he was the one runner in the field with the
requisite bank balance to fork out the regular dollops of hush-money, But
with the potential collapse of global equity markets, such a bank balance
might soon not be looking so healthy. And one of the laws of economics, as
Lewis knew, was that people with pots of money could easily lose pots of
money, including the person who hitherto had seen it as a matter of
self-interest to divert some proportion of such monies to others: to Flynn,
to Repp, perhaps to Barron. Then, almost miraculously, two
of them had been crossed off the pay-roll; and if the third one . . .
Lewis could understand Morse's thinking perfectly well. But it had been
wrong, as the great man had (virtually) admitted the previous evening. There
had been that dramatic development in the case: Barren's death had been an
accident. And the coincidence of Barren being knocked off a ladder by
accident at virtually the same time someone else had planned to murder him by
criminal design had clearly struck even Morse (a confirmed believer in
coincidence) as quite extraordinarily improbable.
So what was needed now was a bit of old-fashioned procedure some immediate
phone calls; some speedy arrangements of interviews; some urgent checking of
alibis. And so fortunate was Lewis that by 9. 45 he had written down a firm
timetable: 10. 15 a. m. - interview with Si
mon Harrison (Jordan Hill) 11.
15 a. m. - interview with Frank Harrison (Randolph) 12. 15 p. m. -
interview with Sarah Harrison (Ratcliffe Infirmary) Back in HQjust after 2 p.
m. (still no news from Morse) Lewis looked down, not without some
satisfaction, at the notes he had made:
SIMON H
Friday 24 July: at his desk all a. m. - lunch in canteen back at his desk
till 4 p. m. when he took bus down to Summertown dentist (% hr).
Home c. 6 p. m. Plenty of witnesses on and off" all day, it seems.
Monday 3 Aug: (day off work) a. m. drove via M40 > Stokenchurch hoping for
siting of red kite there tried earlier in the year at Uandudno both trips
unsuccessful (keen bird-watcher). Back for lunch in White Hart (Wytham) -
witnesses would include landlord etc.
Impossible for him to have been in
on the Flynn/ Repp murders. Could have pushed Ban-on off the ladder, if we
wanted him for that, which we don't. Deafer than I thought and lip-reads a
lot. Names a big problem: Flynn OK, but Repp and Barron hard for him its
something to do with the labial consonents (so he says). Intelligent, bit
too intense, loner (? ).
FRANK H
Friday 24 July: meeting in London office 10-11. 45 a. m. with four
colleagues. (Check! ) Monday 3 Aug: at Randolph (booked in the day before).
Breakfast 7. 50-8. 40 a. m. (approx) with 'partner' (real honey ace. to
Ailish at the bar. ) Car apparently not moved from Resident's garage that
day.
As suspect? Same as SH (see above). Smart business exec. type, pleasant
enough, bit abrupt, not short of the pennies asked me to join him in glass of
champange ( 7 a go! ) Thinning on top, thickening in middle. Seems used to
getting what he wants in life.
SARAH H
Friday 24 July: at BDA Conference in Manchester with boss arr 12. 30 p. m.
ret 9. 50 p. m. - rail both ways. Forget her! Monday 3 Aug: consultant
duties at Diabetes Centre in Ratcliffe Inf. Saw ten patients. Lunch in
League of Fiends cafeteria. Forget her!
Attractive, clever, but perhaps hard st reek somewhere?
Yes! Lewis felt pleased with his morning's work; and even more pleased with
his afternoon's work, after he'd typed up the notes, correcting four of the
six mis-spellings and tidying up one or two of the punctuation al blemishes.
There remained quite a bit of checking to be done, but none of it would be
particularly onerous, and most of it probably unnecessary. The
general upshot was unambiguous. None of the Harrison clan had murdered Flynn
or Repp. Two of the three could have been on the scene when Ban-on was
killed but neither of them had murdered him, because no one had murdered him.
That was the only thing in the whole tragic business that now seemed wholly
incontrovertible.
chapter fifty-six Have I Got News For You! (TV programme tide) in nowise
was Lewis surprised to meet Dixon in the police canteen.
"Busy day?"
"Well, yes and no really. Morse rang me up early ' " He what^' spluttered
Lewis.
"Well, early for me. Wanted me to check out on a few things, didn't he?"
"Such as?"
"Well, names of those going to lip-reading classes these last few years."
"Simon Harrison, you mean?"
"Didn't say, did he? No problem, though. Just got the lists photocopied,
didn't I?"
"What else?"
"Well, funny really. He wanted me to find out who Flynn's dentist was ' " He
what? "
"Well, easy that. Then to find out something about that Mrs Holmes you know,
before she was married .. . before she had her accident."
Yes, Lewis could understand that.
"Then to ring that SOCO chap Andrews, the one who was out at Sutton
Courtenay. Ask him to get a bit of a move on
you know, give him a kick up the arse, like, about the fingerprints.
Morse got him to take Barron's, you knew that, didn't you? "
"Of course I knew that!" lied Lewis, euphoria fading fast.
"Well, there we are then. I suppose old Morse was just hoping, you know . .
."
Yes, Lewis knew exactly what Morse had been hoping.
"Has Andrews found anything?"
"Well, still working on it, isn't he? Messy old job, he said. Soon as he
had any news though ... Anyway I called round and stuck the stuff through the
door. He was there, I reckon. The telly was on ' " What? "
"Yeah, pretty certain of it. But he didn't come to the door. Odd sort of
chap, isn't he?"
But the introductory
"Well's and the inquisitorial clausulae, (hallmarks of every Dixon sentence)
had become too tiresome; and Lewis was glad when the canteen intercom cut
across the conversation: " Message for Chief Inspector Morse or Sergeant
Lewis: Please ring Northampton SO COs immediately. I repeat. Message for.
. . "
Where are you, Dixon, in the hierarchy here? I'll tell you, mate.
Nowhere no bloody where that's where!
Yet Lewis left such ungracious thoughts unspoken, jumping to his feet and
leaving Dixon where he was, cheeks now jammed once more with a doughnut.
Two minutes later Lewis was through to an exultant Andrews, who wasted no
time in breaking the dramatic news: there was a 'hit' - yip pee - a match of
fingerprints! In the car.
Two sets definite, distinct. The prints of J. Barren, Builder of Lower
Swinstead!
As he walked back to the canteen (Morse's phone still
engaged) Lewis
reflected on his brief exchange of views with Andrews.
Morse had asked for any news to be communicated to him direct, and if
necessary at his home number, though as both men knew there'd been little
chance of that. Yet the situation was now perfectly clear; and Lewis freely
conceded that Morse's early conviction that Barren had been involved in the
murders seemed wholly vindicated. No room for more than three people in the
cluttered stolen car, surely? And since neither Flynn nor Repp had stepped
out of that car alive, the discovery of that third set of prints, Barron's,
was of momentous significance: Barron himself had been in the car. The logic
sounded pretty childish when it was put like that but. .
Andrews's guess had been that Morse had suddenly fallen into some deep
slumber after well, after whatever; and Dixon's guess that he'd been watching
TV with the volume too high. But the latter explanation seemed unlikely.
Morse could (Lewis succumbed to his second unworthy thought that day) could
have purchased some pornographic video; but would he have been able to master
the operating instructions? Doubtful -especially having no children (better
still, grandchildren) to explain things to him. Morse seldom watched TV
anyway, or so he claimed. Just the news. Just occasionally.
Lewis finished his coffee, slowly coming to terms with the extraordinary news
he'd just received: that Barron was a murderer the second thing in the whole
tragic business that now seemed wholly incontrovertible.
He rang Morse once again. If the call wasn't answered, he would drive down
and see the situation for himself because he was getting a little worried.
The phone was ringing.
262
chapter fifty-seven Ah, could thy grave, at Carthage, be!
Care not for that, and lay me where I fall!
Everywhere heard will be the judgement-call: But at God's altar, oh!
remember me (Matthew Arnold) morse opened the front door.
"And there's me hoping for a rest day, like they tell me they have in the
middle of test matches."
But, in truth, he had not tried over hard to have much of a rest day. Early
that morning (as we have seen) he had rung Sergeant Dixon and given him a
list of duties.
At 10 a. m. he had received a middle-aged, palely intelligent gentleman
from Lloyds Bank, a guru on (inter alia) Wills, Dispositions, Codicils, and
Covenants.
"From what you tell me, Mr Morse, you're not exactly going to bequeath a
large fortune, are you? And with no relatives, no immediate depend ants no
