Part 11 (1/2)

'Well, there's always the possibility, but ... Look here, d.i.c.kson.' He swivelled round in his chair and faced the constable. 'You kill somebody, right? And you've got a body on your hands, right?

How do you get rid of it? Come on, tell me.'

'Well, there's a hundred and one ways.'

'Such as?'

'Well, for a start, there's the reservoir.'

'But that was dragged, you say.'

d.i.c.kson looked mildly contemptuous. ”Yes, but I mean. A b.l.o.o.d.y great reservoir like that. You'd need a bit of luck, wouldn't you, sarge.'

'What else?'

'There was that furnace in the school boiler room. Christ, you wouldn't find much trace if they stuck you in there.'

'The boiler room was kept locked.'

'Come off it! S'posed to have been, you mean. Anyway, somebody's got keys.'

”You're not much help, are you, d.i.c.kson?'

129.

'Could have been buried easy enough, couldn't she? It's what usually happens to dead bodies, eh, sarge?' He was inordinately amused by his own joke, and Lewis left him alone in his glory.

He returned to the office and sat down opposite the empty chair. Whatever he thought about Morse it wasn't much fun without him ...

He thought about Ainley. He hadn't known about the letters. If he had ... Lewis was puzzled. Why hadn't Morse worried more about the letters? Surely the two of them should be in London, not sitting on their backsides here in Kidlington. Morse was always saying they were a team, the two of them. But they didn't function as a team at all. Sometimes he got a pat on the back, but mosdy he just did what the chief told him to. Quite right and proper, too. But he would dearly love to try the London angle. He could always suggest it, of course. Why not? Why indeed not? And if he found Valerie and proved Morse wrong? Not that he wanted to prove him wrong really, but Morse was such an obstinate blighter. In Lewis's garden ambition was not a weed that sprouted freely.

He noted that Morse had obviously read the notes he had made, and felt mildly gratified. Morse must have come back to the office after seeing the Taylors; and Lewis wondered what wonderful edifice his superior officer had managed to erect on the basis of those two interviews.

The phone rang and he answered it. It was Peters.

'Tell Inspector Morse it's the same as before. Differ- 130.

ent pen, different paper, different envelope, different postmark. But the verdict's the same as before.'

'Valerie Taylor wrote it, you mean?'

Peters paused. 'I didn't say that, did I? I said the verdict's the same as before.'

'Same odds as before, then?'

He paused. 'The degree of probability is just about the same.'

Lewis thanked him and decided to communicate the information immediately. Morse had told him that if anything important came up, a message would always get through to him. Surely this was important enough? And while he was on the phone he would mention that idea of his.

Sometimes it was easier on the phone.

He learned that Morse was in the witness box, but that he should be finished soon. Morse would ring back, and did so an hour later.

'What do you want, Lewis? Have you found the corpse?'

'No, sir. But Peters rang.'

'Did he now?' A note of sudden interest crept into Morse's voice. 'And what did the old twerp have to say, this time?' Lewis told him and felt surprised at the mild reception given to this latest intelligence. 'Thanks for letting me know. Look, Lewis, I've finished here now and I'm thinking of taking the afternoon off. I had a b.l.o.o.d.y awful night's sleep and I think I'll go to bed. Look after my effects, won't you?'

To Lewis, he seemed to have lost interest completely. He'd tried his best to make a murder out of it; and now 131.

he'd learned he'd failed, he'd decided to go to bed! It was as good a time as any to mention that other little thing.

'I was just wondering, sir. Don't you think it might be a good idea if I went up to London. You know -make a few inquiries, have a look round-'

Morse interrupted him angrily from the other end of the line. 'What the h.e.l.l are you talking about, man? If you're going to work with me on this case, for G.o.d's sake get one thing into that thick skull of yours, d'you hear? Valerie Taylor isn't living in London or anywhere else. You got that? She's dead.' The line was dead, too.

Lewis walked out of the office and slammed the door behind him. d.i.c.kson was in the canteen; d.i.c.kson was always in the canteen.

'Solved the murder yet, sarge?'

'No I have not,' snarled Lewis. 'And nor has Inspector b.l.o.o.d.y Morse.'

He sat alone in the farthest corner and stirred his coffee with controlled fury.

132.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

'Tis a strange thing, Sam, that among us people can't agree the whole week because they go different ways upon Sundays.

George Farquhar THE BRIEF INTHANsummer, radiant and beneficent, was almost at an end. On Friday evening the forecast for the weekend was unsettled, changeable weather with the possibility of high winds and rain; and Sat.u.r.day was already appreciably cooler, with dark clouds from the west looming over North Oxfords.h.i.+re. Gloomily the late-night weatherman revealed to the nation a map of the British Isles almost obliterated by a series of close, concentric millibars with their epicentrum somewhere over Birmingham, and prophesied in minatory tones of weak fronts and a.s.sociated depressions. Sunday broke gusty and raw, and although the threatened rain storm held its hand, there was, at 9.00 a.m., a curiously deadened, almost dreamlike quality about the early morning streets, and the few people there were seemed to move as in a silent film.

From Carfax (at the centre of Oxford) Queen Street leads westwards, very soon changing its name to Park End Street; and off Park End Street on the left-hand side and just opposite the railway station, is Kempis 133.

Street, where stands a row of quietly senescent terraced houses. At five minutes past nine the door of one of these houses is opened, and a man walks to the end of the street, opens the faded-green doors of his garage and backs out his car. It is a dull black car, irresponsive, even in high summer, to any glancing sunbeams, and the chrome on the front and rear b.u.mpers is rusted to a dirty brown. It is time he bought a new car, and indeed he has more than enough money to do so. He drives to St Giles' and up the Woodstock Road. It would be slighdy quicker and certainly more direct to head straight up the Banbury Road; but he wishes to avoid the Banbury Road. At the top of the Woodstock Road he turns right along the ring-road for somethreeor four hundred yards and turns left at the Banbury Road roundabout. Here he increases his speed to a modest 45 m.p.h. and pa.s.ses out of Oxford and down the long, gende hill that leads to Kidlington. Here (inconspicuously, he hopes) he leaves his car in a side street which is only a few minutes' walk from the Roger Bacon Comprehensive School. It is a strange decision. It is more than that; it is an incomprehensible decision. He walks fairly quickly, pulling his trilby hat further over his eyes and hunching deeper into his thick, dark overcoat. He walks up the slight incline, pa.s.sing the prefabricated hut in which the Clerk of Works directs (and will direct) the perpetual and perennial alterations and extensions to the school, and as deviously as he can he penetrates the sprawling amalgam of outbuildings, permanent and temporary, wherein the pupils of secondary school age are initiated into the mysteries of the Sciences and the 134 Humanities. Guardedly his eyes glance hither and thither, but there is no one to be seen. Thence over the black tarmac of the central play area and towards the two-storeyed, flat-roofed central administrative block, newly built in yellow brick. The main door is locked; but he has a key. He enters quietly and unlocks the door. Within, there is a deathly silence about the familiar surroundings; his footsteps echo on the parquet flooring, and the smell of the floor polish takes him back to times of long ago. Again he looks around him and quickly mounts the stairs. The door to the secretary's office is locked; but he has a key, and enters and locks the door behind him. He walks over to the headmaster's study. The door is locked; but he has a key, and enters and feels a sudden fear. But there is no reason for the fear. He walks over to a large filing cabinet. It is locked; but he has a key, and opens it and takes out a file marked 'Staff Appointments'. He flicks through the thick file and replaces it; tries another; and another. At last he finds it. It is a sheet of paper he has never seen before; but it contains no surprises, for he has known its contents all along. In the office outside he turns on the electric switch of the copying machine. It takes only thirty seconds to make two copies (although he has been asked for only one). Carefully he replaces the original doc.u.ment in the filing cabinet, relocks the study door, unlocks and relocks the outer door, and makes his way down the stairs. Stealdiily he looks outside. It is five minutes to ten. There is no one in sight as he lets himself out, relocks the main door and leaves the school premises. He is lucky. No one has 135.

seen him and he retraces his steps. A man is standing on the pavement by the car, but moves on, guiltily tugging a small white dog along the pavement and momentarily deferring the imminent defecation.

This same Sunday morning Sheila Phillipson is picking up the windfalls under the apple trees. The gra.s.s needs cutting again, for in spite of the recent weeks of suns.h.i.+ne a few dark ridges of longish gra.s.s are sprouting in dark-green patches; and with rain apparendy imminent, she will mention it to Donald. Or will she? He has been touchy and withdrawn this last week - almost certainly because of that girl! It is unlike him, though. Hereto he has a.s.sumed the duties and responsibilities of the heads.h.i.+p with a verve and a confidence that have slighdy surprised her.