by Colin Dexter
‘He’s not gone away to prison or anything like that, has he?’
‘Of course he hasn’t, you silly little thing! He’ll be back tonight, you know that, and I’ll tell him to come in and give you a big kiss – I promise.’
Alison was silent for a few moments. ‘Mummy, he’s not done anything wrong, has he?’
‘No, you silly little thing. Of course he hasn’t.’
Alison frowned again as she looked up into her mother’s eyes. ‘Even if he did do something wrong, he’d still be my daddy, wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes. He’d still be your daddy, whatever happened.’
‘And we’d forgive him, wouldn’t we?’
‘Yes, my darling . . . And you’d forgive Mummy, too, wouldn’t you, if she did something wrong? Especially if . . .’
‘Don’t worry, Mummy. God forgives everybody, doesn’t he? And my teacher says that we must all try to be like him.’
Mrs Phillipson walked slowly down the stairs, and her eyes were glazed with tears.
Morse left the Lancia at home and walked down from North Oxford to the railway station. It took him almost an hour and he wasn’t at all sure why he’d decided to do it; but his head felt clear now and the unaccustomed exercise had done him good. At twenty past eight he stood outside the station buffet and looked around him. It was dark, but just across the way the street lights shone on the first few houses in Kempis Street. So close! He hadn’t quite realized just how close to the railway station it was. A hundred yards? No more, certainly. Get off the train on Platform 2, cross over by the subway, hand your ticket in . . . For a second or two he stood stock-still and felt the old familiar thrill that coursed along his nerves. He was catching the 8.35 train – the same train that Phillipson could have caught that fateful night so long ago . . . Paddington about 9.40. Taxi. Let’s see . . . Yes, with a bit of luck he’d be there about 10.15.
He bought a first-class ticket and walked past the barrier on to Platform No 1, and almost immediately the loudspeaker intoned from somewhere in the station roof above: ‘The train now arriving at Platform I, is for Reading and Paddington only. Passengers for . . .’ But Morse wasn’t listening.
He sat back comfortably and closed his eyes. Idiot! Idiot! It was all so simple really. Lewis had found the pile of books in the store-room and had sworn there’d been no dust upon the top one; and all Morse had done had been to shout his faithful sergeant’s head off. Of course there had been no dust on the top book! Someone had taken a book from the top of the selfsame pile – a book that was doubtless thick with dust by then. Taken it recently, too. So very recently in fact that the book at the top of the remaining pile was virtually free from dust when Lewis had picked it up. Someone. Yes, a someone called Baines who had taken it home and studied it very hard. But not because he’d wished to forge a letter in Valerie Taylor’s hand. That had been one of Morse’s biggest mistakes. There was, as he had guessed the night before, a blindingly obvious answer to the question of why Baines had written the letter to Valerie’s parents. The answer was that he hadn’t. Mr and Mrs Taylor had received the letter on the Wednesday morning and had been in two minds about taking it to the police – George Taylor himself had told Morse exactly that. Why? Obviously because they couldn’t decide whether it had come from Valerie or not: it might just have been a hoax. It must surely have been Mrs Taylor who had taken it to Baines; and Baines had very sensibly taken an exercise book from the store-room and written out his own parallel version of the brief message, copying as accurately as he could the style and shape of Valerie’s own lettering as he found it in the Applied Science book. And then he’d compared the letter from Valerie with his own painstaking effort, and pronounced to Mrs Taylor that at least in his opinion the letter seemed completely genuine. That was how things must have happened. And there was something else, too. The logical corollary of all this was that Mr and Mrs Taylor had no idea at all about where Valerie was. For more than two years they had heard nothing whatsoever from her. And if both of them were genuinely puzzled about the letter, there seemed one further inescapable conclusion: the Taylors were completely in the clear. Go on, Morse! Keep going! With a smooth inevitability the pieces were falling into place. Keep going!
Well, if this hypothesis were correct, the overwhelming probability was that Valerie was alive and that she had written the letter herself. It was just as Peters said it was; just as Lewis said it was; just as Morse himself had said it wasn’t. Moreover, as he had learned the previous evening, there was a very interesting and suggestive piece of corroborative evidence. Acum had given it to him: Valerie was always using the expression ‘all right’, he’d said. And on his return Morse had checked the letter once again:
Just to let you know I’m alright so don’t worry.
Sorry I’ve not written before but I’m alright.
And Ainley (poor old Ainley!) had not only known that she was still alive; he’d actually found her – Morse felt sure of that now. Or, at the very least, he’d discovered where she could be found. Stolid, painstaking old Ainley! A bloody sight better cop than he himself would ever be. (Hadn’t Strange said the same thing – right at the beginning?) Valerie could never have guessed the full extent of the hullabaloo that her disappearance had caused. After all, hundreds of young girls went missing every year. Hundreds. But had she suddenly learned of it, so long after the event? Had Ainley actually met her and told her? It seemed entirely probable now, since the very next day she had sat down and written to her parents for the very first time. That was all. Just a brief scratty little letter! And that prize clown Morse had been called in. Big stuff. Christ! What a mess, what a terribly unholy mess he’d made of everything!
They were well into the outskirts of London now, and Morse walked out to the corridor and lit a cigarette. Only one thing worried him now: the thought that had flashed across his mind as he stood outside the station buffet and looked across at Kempis Street. But he’d know soon enough now; so very soon he’d know it all.
CHAPTER FORTY
For she and I were long acquainted
And I knew all her ways.
A. E. Housman, Last Poems
IT WAS JUST after ten-thirty when he paid and tipped the taxi driver: it cost him more than the return first-class fare to London. At the bottom of the building he found, as before, the lift for the even-numbered floors on his left and that for the odd on his right. He remembered the floor. Of course he did.
She was radiant. That was the best epithet for her, although there were many others. She wore a thin black sweater in which her full and bra-less breasts bobbed irresistibly; and a long black skirt, slit high along her leg and leaving a sublime uncertainty of what she wore below. Her mouth, just as he had seen it last, was stickily seductive, the lips moist and slightly parted, the teeth so gleaming white. O Lord, have mercy on our souls!
‘What would you like to drink, Inspector? Whisky? Gin?’
‘Whisky, please. Lovely.’
She disappeared into the kitchen, and Morse moved quickly over to a small shelf of books beside the deeply-leathered divan. Rapidly he flicked open the front covers of the books there, and as rapidly replaced them. Only one of them held his attention and that only for a few seconds, when the grey eyes momentarily flashed with a glint of satisfaction, if not surprise.
He was seated on the divan when she returned with a large whisky in a cut-glass tumbler and sat down beside him.
‘Aren’t you drinking?’
Her eyes met his and held them. ‘In a minute,’ she whispered, linking her arm through his, the tips of her fingers gently tracing slow designs along his wrist.
Softly he took her hand in his, and for a short sweet second the thrill was that of a sharp electric shock that shot along his veins, and a zig-zag current that sparked across his temples. He looked down at her delicately-fingered left hand, and saw across the bottom of the index finger the faint white line of an old scar – like the scar that was mentioned in the medical report
on Valerie Taylor, when she had cut herself with a carving knife – in Kidlington, when she was a pupil at the Roger Bacon School.
‘What shall I call you?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I can’t go on calling you “Inspector” all night, can I?’
‘It’s a funny thing,’ said Morse. ‘But no one ever calls me by my Christian name.’
Lightly she touched his cheek with her lips, and her hand moved slowly along his leg. ‘Never mind. If you don’t like your name, you can always change it, you know. There’s no law against that.’
‘No, there isn’t. I could always change it if I wanted to, I suppose. Just like you changed yours.’
Her body stiffened and she took her hand away. ‘And what on earth is that supposed to mean?’
‘You told me your name was Yvonne the last time I saw you. But that isn’t your real name, is it? Is it, Valerie?’
‘Valerie? You can’t possibly . . .’ But she was unable to articulate her thoughts beyond that point, and a look of profound perplexity appeared to cross her beautiful face. She stood up.
‘Look, Inspector, or whatever your name is, my name’s Yvonne Baker – you’d better get that straight before we go any further. If you don’t believe me you can ring the couple on the floor below. I was at school in Seven Sisters Road with Joyce—’
‘Go ahead,’ said Morse blandly. ‘Ring up your old school pal if you want to. Why not tell her to come up to see us?’
A look of anger flashed across her face and momentarily made it less than beautiful. She hesitated; then walked over to the phone and dialled a number.
Morse leaned back and sipped his whisky contentedly. Even from across the room he could hear the muted, metallic purrs with perfect clarity; he found himself mentally counting them . . . Finally she put down the phone and came back to sit beside him once more. He reached to the book-shelf, abstracted a small hardbound copy of Jane Eyre, and opened the front cover. Inside was the label of the Roger Bacon Comprehensive School, on which Valerie’s own name appeared, appended to those of her literary predecessors:
Angela Lowe
5C
Mary Ann Baldwin
5B
Valerie Taylor
5C
He passed it across to her. ‘Well?’
She shook her head in exasperation. ‘Well what?’
‘Is it yours?’
‘Of course it isn’t mine. It’s Valerie’s – you can see that. She gave it me to read in the clinic. It was one of her O-level set books, and she thought I’d enjoy reading it. But I never got round to it and I . . . I just forgot to give it her back, that’s all.’
‘And that’s your story?’
‘It isn’t a story. It’s the truth. I don’t know—’
‘What went wrong at home, Valerie? Did you—’
‘Oh God! What the hell are you on about? I’m not Valerie. It’s . . . I . . . I . . . I just don’t know where to start. Look, my parents live in Uxbridge – can you understand that? I can ring them. You can ring them. I—’
‘I know your parents, Valerie. You got so fed up with them that you left them. Left them without a word of explanation – at least until Ainley found you. And then at long last you did write home—’
‘What are you talking about? Ainley? Who’s he? I’ve . . . Oh, what’s the good!’ Her voice had grown shrill and harsh, but suddenly she subsided almost helplessly against the back of the divan. ‘All right, Inspector! Have it your way. You tell me what happened.’
‘You wrote home then,’ continued Morse. ‘You hadn’t realized what a terrible fuss you’d caused until Inspector Ainley saw you. But Ainley was killed. He was killed in a road accident on his way back to Oxford on the very same day he saw you.’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Inspector. But I thought I was Yvonne Baker. When did I suddenly change to Valerie Taylor?’ Her voice was quite calm now.
‘You met Yvonne in the abortion clinic. You were fed up with home, fed up with school; and Yvonne . . . well, probably, she put the idea into your head. For argument’s sake, let’s say she was a girl with lots of money, rich parents – probably going off to Switzerland or somewhere for a year’s holiday after it was all over. Why not take her name? Start a new life? You’ve nothing to lose, have you? You’d decided not to go back home, whatever happened. You hardly saw your mother anyway, except at lunchtimes, and her only real interests in life were booze and Bingo – and men, of course. And then there’s your step-father: not very bright, perhaps, but likeable enough, in an odd sort of way. That is until he started getting a bit too fond of his beautiful step-daughter. And your mother got to know about that, I think, and when you got yourself pregnant, she suspected a terrible thing. She suspected that he might well be the father, didn’t she? And she flew into an almighty rage about it, and for you this was the last straw. You just had to go; and you did go. But fortunately you had someone to help you; your headmaster. There’s no need to go into all that – but you know all about it as well as I do. You could count on him – always. He fixed up the clinic, and he gave you some money. You’d probably packed a case the night before and arranged to meet him somewhere to stow it away safely in the boot of his car. And then on the Tuesday he picked you up just after school had started for the afternoon and took you to the railway station. You only had a bag with you – no doubt with your clothes in it – and you changed on the train and arrived at the clinic. Shall I go on?’
‘Yes please. It’s quite fascinating!’
‘You just interrupt me if I go wrong, that’s all.’
‘But . . .’ She gave it up and sat there silently shaking her head.
‘I’m guessing now,’ continued Morse, ‘but I should think Yvonne put you on to a job – let’s say a job in a West End store. The school-leavers hadn’t crowded the market yet, and it was fairly easy for you. You’d need a testimonial or a reference, I realize that. But you rang Phillipson and told him the position, and he took care of that. It was your first job. No bother. No employment cards, or stamps or anything. So that was that.’
Morse turned and looked again at the chic, sophisticated creature beside him. They wouldn’t recognize her back in Kidlington now, would they? They’d remember only the young schoolgirl in her red socks and her white blouse. They would always attract the men, these two – mother and daughter alike. Somehow they shared the same intangible yet pervasive sensuality, and the Lord had fashioned them so very fair.
‘Is that the finish?’ she asked quietly.
Morse’s reply was brusque. ‘No, it’s not. Where were you last Monday night?’
‘Last Monday night? What’s that got to do with you?’
‘What train did you catch the night that Baines was killed?’
She looked at him in utter astonishment now. ‘What train are you talking about? I haven’t—’
‘Didn’t you go there that night?’
‘Go where?’
‘You know where. You probably caught the 8.15 from Paddington and arrived in Oxford at about 9.30.’
‘You must be mad! I was in Hammersmith last Monday night.’
‘Were you?’
‘Yes, I was. I always go to Hammersmith on Monday nights.’
‘Go on.’
‘You really want to know?’ Her eyes grew softer again, and she shook her head sadly. ‘If you must know there’s a sort of . . . sort of party we have there every Monday.’
‘What time?’
‘Starts about nine.’
‘And you were there last Monday?’
She nodded, almost fiercely.
‘You go every Monday, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why aren’t you there tonight?’
‘I . . . well, I just thought . . . when you rang . . .’ She looked at him with doleful eyes. ‘I didn’t think it was going to be like this.’
‘What time do these parties finish?’
‘They don’t.’
‘You stay all night, you mean.’<
br />
She nodded.
‘Sex parties?’
‘In a way.’
‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know. The usual sort of thing: films to start with . . .’
‘Blue films?’
Again she nodded.
‘And then?’
‘Oh God! Come off it. Are you trying to torture yourself, or something?’
She was far too near the truth, and Morse felt miserably embarrassed. He got to his feet and looked round fecklessly for his coat. ‘You’ll have to give me the address, you realize that.’
‘But I can’t. I’d—’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Morse wearily. ‘I shan’t pry any more than I have to.’
He looked once more around the expensive flat. She must earn a lot of money, somehow; and he wondered if it was all much compensation for the heartache and the jealousy that she must know as well as he. Or perhaps we weren’t all the same. Perhaps it wasn’t possible to live as she had done and keep alive the finer, tenderer compassions.
He looked across at her as she sat at a small bureau, writing something down: doubtless the address of the bawdy house in Hammersmith. He had to have that, whatever happened. But did it matter all that much? He knew instinctively that she was there that night, among the wealthy, lecherous old men who gloated over pornographic films, and pawed and fondled the figures of the high-class prostitutes who sat upon their knees unfastening their flies. So what? He was a lecherous old man too, wasn’t he? Very nearly, anyway. Just a sediment of sensitivity still. Just a little. Just a little.
She came over to him, and for a moment she was very beautiful again. ‘I’ve been very patient with you, Inspector, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose so, yes. Patient, if not particularly cooperative.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do you want to sleep with me tonight?’
