by Colin Dexter
Meanwhile in the Acum household the weeping wounds were at last beginning to heal; and with Valerie gone they had tried, for the first time since that dreadful night, to discuss their sorry situation with some degree of rationality and mutual understanding. He told her that he loved her, that he realized now how very much she meant to him, and how desperately he hoped that they would stay together. She had wept then, and said she knew how disappointed he must be that she could have no children of her own . . . And as the summer term drew towards its close they had decided – almost happily decided – that they would stay together, and try to patch their marriage up. In any case there had never been the slightest question of divorce: for his wife was a Roman Catholic.
So, continued Acum, they had moved together to North Wales, and life was happy enough now – or had been so until the whole thing had once more exploded in their faces with the murder of Reggie Baines, of which (he swore on his solemn honour) he was himself completely innocent. Blackmail? The whole idea was laughable. The only person who had any hold on him was Valerie Taylor, and of Valerie Taylor he had seen or heard nothing whatsoever since the day of her disappearance. Whether she were alive or whether she were dead, he had no idea – no idea at all.
There the interview had finished. Or almost finished. For it was Morse himself who had administered the coup de grâce which finally put his tortured and tortuous theory out of all its pain.
‘Does your wife drive a car?’
Acum looked at him with mild surprise. ‘No. She’s never driven a yard in her life. Why?’
Lewis relived the interview as he drove on steadily through the night. And as he recalled the facts that Acum had recounted, he felt a deepening sympathy with the sour, dejected, silent figure slumped beside him, smoking (unusually) cigarette after cigarette, and feeling (if the truth be told) unconscionably angry with himself . . .
Why had he gone wrong? Where had he gone wrong? The questions re-echoed in Morse’s mind as if repeated by some interminable interlocutor installed inside his brain. He thought back to his first analysis of the case – the one in which he had cast Mrs Taylor as the murderer not only of Reginald Baines but also of her daughter Valerie. How easy now to see why that was wrong! His reasoning had run aground upon the Rock Improbable and the Rock Impossible: the glaring improbability that Mrs Taylor had murdered her only daughter (mothers just didn’t do that sort of thing very often, did they?); and the plain impossibility that anyone had murdered Valerie on the day she disappeared, since three days later, alive and well, she had climbed into the back of a taxi outside a London abortion clinic. Yes, the first analysis had been brutally smashed to pieces by the facts, and now lay sunk without a trace beneath the sea. It was as simple as that.
And what of the second analysis? That had seemed on the face of it to answer all the facts, or nearly all of them. What had gone wrong with that? Again his logic had foundered upon the Reef of Unreason: the glaring improbability that Valerie Taylor had either sufficient motive or adequate opportunity to murder a man who seemed to pose little more than a peripheral threat to her future happiness; and the plain impossibility that the woman living with David Acum was Valerie Taylor. She wasn’t. She was Mrs Acum. And Analysis One lay side by side with Analysis Two – irrecoverable wrecks upon the ocean floor.
Almost frenetically Morse tried to wrench his thoughts away from it all. He tried to conjure up a dream of fair women; and failing this he essayed to project upon his mind a raw, uncensored film of rank eroticism; he tried so very hard . . . But still the wretched earth-bound realities of the Taylor case crowded his brain, forbade those flights of half-forbidden fancies, and jolted him back to his inescapable mood of gloom-ridden despondency. Facts, facts, facts! Facts that one by one he once again reviewed as they marched and counter-marched across his mind. If only he’d stuck to the facts! Ainley was dead – that was a fact. Somebody had written a letter the very day after he died – that was a fact. Valerie had been alive on the days immediately following her disappearance – that was a fact. Baines was dead – that was a fact. Mrs Acum was Mrs Acum – that was a fact. But where did he go from there? He began to realize how few the facts had been; how very, very few. A lot of possible facts; a fair helping of probable facts; but few that ranked as positive facts. And once again the facts remarshalled themselves and marched across the parade ground . . . He shook his head sharply and felt he must be going mad.
Lewis, he could see, was concentrating hard upon the road. Lewis! Huh! It had been Lewis who had asked him the one question, the only question, that had completely floored him: Why had Baines written the letter? Why? He had never grappled satisfactorily with that question, and now it worried away at his brain again. Why? Why? Why?
It was as they swept along the old Watling Street, past Wellington, that Morse in a flash conceived a possible answer to this importunate question; an answer of astonishing and devastating simplicity. And he nursed his new little discovery like a frightened mother sheltering her only child amid the ruin of an earthquake-stricken city . . . The merry-go-round was slowing now . . . the pubs were long shut and the chips were long cold . . . his mind was getting back to normal now . . . This was better! Methodically he began to undress Miss Yvonne Baker.
Lewis had the road virtually to himself now. It was past 1.00 a.m. and the two men had not exchanged a single word. Strangely, the silence had seemed progressively to reinforce itself, and conversation now would seem as sacrilegious as a breaking of the silence before the cenotaph.
As he drove the last part of the journey his mind roved back beyond the oddly unreal events of the last few hours, and dwelt again on the early days of the Valerie Taylor case. She’d just hopped it, of course – he’d said so right at the beginning: fed up with home and school, she’d yearned for the brighter lights, the excitement and the glamour of the big city. Got shot of the unwanted baby, and finished up in a groovy, swinging set. Contented enough; even happy, perhaps. The last thing she wanted was to go back home to her moody mother and her stolid step-father. We all felt like that occasionally. We’d all like a fresh start in a new life. Like being born again . . . He’d felt like running away from home when he was her age . . . Concentrate, Lewis! Oxford 30 miles. He glanced at the inspector and smiled quietly to himself. The old boy was fast asleep.
They were within ten miles of Oxford when Lewis became vaguely conscious of Morse’s mumbled words, muddled and indistinct; just words without coherent meaning. Yet gradually the words assumed a patterned sequence that Lewis almost understood: ‘Bloody photographs – wouldn’t recognize her – huh! – bloody things – huh!’
‘We’re here, sir.’ It was the first time he had spoken for more than five hours and his voice sounded unnaturally loud.
Morse shrugged himself awake and blinked around him. ‘I must have dozed off, Lewis. Not like me, is it?’
‘Would you like to drop in at my place for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat?’
‘No. But thanks all the same.’ He eased himself out of the car like a chronic arthritic, yawned mightily, and stretched his arms. ‘We’ll take tomorrow off, Lewis. Agreed? We’ve just about deserved it, I reckon.’
Lewis said he reckoned, too. He parked the police car, backed out his own and waved a weary farewell.
Morse entered Police HQ and made his way along the dimly lit corridor to his office, where he opened his filing cabinet and riffled through the early documents in the Valerie Taylor case. He found it almost immediately, and as he looked down at the so familiar letter, once more his mind was sliding easily along the shining grooves. It must be. It must be!
He wondered if Lewis would ever forgive him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
And then there were two.
Ten Little Nigger Boys
‘. . .not generally appreciated. We all normally assume that the sex instinct is so obviously overriding, so primitively predominant that it must . . .’ Morse, newly woken and surprisingly refreshed, switched o
ver to Radio Three; and thence to Radio Oxford. But none of the channels seemed anxious to inform him of the time of day, and he turned back to Radio Four. ‘ . . . and above all, of course, by Freud. Let us assume, for example, that we have been marooned on a desert island for three days without food, and ask ourselves which of the bodily instincts most craves its instant gratification.’ With sudden interest Morse turned up the volume: the voice was donnish, slightly effeminate. ‘Let us imagine that a beautiful blonde appears with a plate of succulent steak and chips . . .’ Leaning over to turn the volume higher still, Morse inadvertently nudged the tuning knob, and by the time he had recentred the station it was clear that the beautiful blonde had lost on points. ‘ . . . as we tuck into the steak and . . .’ Morse switched off. ‘Shert erp, you poncy twit!’ he said aloud, got out of bed, pulled on his clothes, walked downstairs and dialled the speaking clock. ‘At the first stroke it will be eleven – twenty-eight – and forty seconds.’ She sounded nice, and Morse wondered if she were a blonde. It was over twenty-four hours since he had eaten, but for the moment steak and chips was registering a poor third on the instinct index.
Without bothering to shave he walked round to the Fletchers’ Arms where he surveyed with suspicion a pile of ‘freshly cut’ ham sandwiches beneath their plastic cover and ordered a glass of bitter. By 12.45 p.m. he had consumed four pints, and felt a pleasing lassitude pervade his limbs. He walked slowly home and fell fully clothed into his bed. This was the life.
He felt lousy when he woke again at 5.20 p.m., and wondered if he were in the old age of youth or the youth of old age.
By 6.00 p.m. he was seated in his office, clearing up the litter from his desk. There were several messages lying there, and one by one he relegated them to an in-tray which never had been clear and never would be clear. There was one further message, on the telephone pad: ‘Ring 01-787 24392’. Morse flicked through the telephone book and found that 787 was the STD code for Stoke Newington. He rang the number.
‘Hello?’ The voice was heavy with sex.
‘Ah. Morse here. I got your message. Er, can I help?’
‘Oh, Inspector,’ purred the voice. ‘It was yesterday I tried to get you, but never mind. I’m so glad you rang.’ The words were slow and evenly spaced. ‘I just wondered if you wanted to see me again – you know, to make a statement or something? I wondered if you’d be coming down again . . . perhaps?’
‘That’s very kind of you, Miss – er, Yvonne. But I think Chief Inspector Rogers will be along to see you. We shall need a statement, though – you’re quite right about that.’
‘Is he as nice as you are, Inspector?’
‘Nowhere near,’ said Morse.
‘All right, whatever you say. But it would be so nice to see you again.’
‘It would, indeed,’ said Morse with some conviction in his voice.
‘Well, I’d better say goodbye then. You didn’t mind me ringing, did you?’
‘No, er no, of course I didn’t. It’s lovely to hear your voice again.’
‘Well, don’t forget if you’re ever this way you must call in to see me.’
‘Yes, I will,’ lied Morse.
‘I really would love to see you again.’
‘Same here.’
‘You’ve got my address, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, I’ve got it.’
‘And you’ll make a note of the phone number?’
‘Er, yes. Yes, I’ll do that.’
‘Goodbye, then, till we see each other again.’ From the tone of her voice Morse guessed she must be lying there, her hands sensuously sliding along those beautiful limbs; and all he had to do was to say, yes, he’d be there! London wasn’t very far away, and the night was still so young. He pictured her as she had been on the night that he had met her, the top button of the pyjama jacket already undone; and in his mind’s eye his fingers gently unfastened the other buttons, one by one, and slowly drew the sides apart. ‘Goodbye,’ he said sadly.
He walked to the canteen and ordered black coffee.
‘I thought you were taking the day off,’ said a voice behind him.
‘You must love this bloody place, Lewis!’
‘I rang up. They said you were here.’
‘Couldn’t you stick it at home?’
‘No. The missus says I get under her feet.’
They sat down together, and it was Lewis who put their thoughts into words. ‘Where do we go from here, sir?’
Morse shook his head dubiously. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you tell me one thing?’
‘If I can.’
‘Have you any idea at all about who killed Baines?’
Idly Morse stirred the strong black coffee. ‘Have you?’
‘The real trouble is we seem to be eliminating all the suspects. Not many left, are there?’
‘We’re not beaten yet,’ said Morse with a sudden and unexpected lift of spirits. ‘We got a bit lost in the winding mazes, and we still can’t see the end of the road, but . . .’ He broke off and stared through the window. In a sudden gust of wind a shower of leaves rained down from the thinning trees.
‘But what, sir?’
‘Somebody once said that the end is the beginning, Lewis.’
‘Not a particularly helpful thing to say, was it?’
‘Ah, but I think it was. You see, we know what the beginning was.’
‘Do we?’
‘Oh yes. We know that Phillipson met Valerie Taylor one night, and we know that when he was appointed headmaster he discovered that she was one of his own pupils. That was where it all began, and that’s where we’ve got to look now. There’s nowhere else to look.’
‘You mean . . . Phillipson?’
‘Or Mrs Phillipson.’
‘You don’t think—’
‘I don’t think it matters much which of them you go for. They had the same motive; they had the same opportunity.’
‘How do we set about it?’
‘How do you set about it, you mean. I’m leaving it to you, Lewis.’
‘Oh.’
‘Want a bit of advice?’ Morse smiled weakly. ‘Bit of a cheek, isn’t it, me giving you advice?’
‘Of course I want your advice,’ said Lewis quietly. ‘We both know that.’
‘All right. Here’s a riddle for you. You look for a leaf in the forest, and you look for a corpse on the battlefield. Right? Where do you look for a knife?’
‘An ironmonger’s shop?’
‘No, not a new knife. A knife that’s been used – used continuously; used so much that the blade is wearing away.’
‘A butcher’s shop?’
‘Warmer. But we haven’t got a butcher in the case, have we?’
‘A kitchen?’
‘Ah! Which kitchen?’
‘Phillipson’s kitchen?’
‘They’d only have one knife. It would be missed, wouldn’t it?’
‘Perhaps it was missed.’
‘I don’t think so, somehow, though you’ll have to check. No, we need to find a place where knives are in daily use; a lot of knives; a place where no one would notice the loss of a single knife; a place at the very heart of the case. Come on, Lewis! Lots of people cutting up spuds and carrots and meat and everything . . .’
‘The canteen at the Roger Bacon School,’ said Lewis slowly.
Morse nodded. ‘It’s an idea, isn’t it?’
‘Ye-es.’ Lewis pondered for a while and nodded his agreement. ‘But you say you want me to look into all this? What about you?’
‘I’m going to look into the only other angle we’ve got left.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’ve told you. The secret of this case is locked away in the beginning: Phillipson and Valerie Taylor. You’ve got one half; I’ve got the other.’
‘You mean . . .?’ Lewis had no idea what he meant.
Morse stood up. ‘Yep. You have a go at the Phillip-sons. I shall have to find Valerie.’ He looked down
at Lewis and grinned disarmingly. ‘Where do you suggest I ought to start looking?’
Lewis stood up, too. ‘I’ve always thought she was in London, sir. You know that. I think she just . . .’
But Morse was no longer listening. He felt the icy fingers running along his spine, and there was a sudden wild elation in the pale-grey eyes. ‘Why not, Lewis? Why not?’
He walked back to his office, and dialled the number immediately. After all, she had invited him, hadn’t she?
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The only way of catching a train I ever discovered is to miss the one before.
G. K. Chesterton
‘MUMMY?’ ALISON MANAGED a very important frown upon her pretty little face as her mother tucked her early into bed at 8 p.m.
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Will the policemen be coming to see Daddy again when he gets back?’
‘I don’t think so, darling. Don’t start worrying your little head about that.’
