Part 25 (1/2)

'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 dial.'

'All right. Here's a riddle for you. You look for a leaf in the forest, and you look for a corpse on the battle-field. 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.'

'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. G.o.d 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-cla.s.s 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. Pa.s.sengers 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 dial 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.