Part 13 (2/2)

'Including Crowther's?'

'Of course.'

'Wouldn't it have been a bit easier ...'

'To fire straight at the bull's-eye? It would. But you said you wanted to do this in accordance with the great unprejudiced principles of English law, did you not? We haven't got a thing on Crowther.

He's probably as innocent as my Aunt Freda.'

Since Lewis had never seen or heard of the said Aunt Freda he refrained from direct comment. 'Do you think Crowther's our man, sir?'

Morse stuck his thumb in the corner of his mouth. 'I don't know, Lewis. I just don't know.'

'I had a bit of an idea today, sir,' said Lewis after a pause. 'I saw what I thought was a girl and when I got close and she turned round she wasn't a she, she was a he.'

'You explain yourself very succinctly, Sergeant.'

'But you know what I mean.'

”Yes, I do. When we were boys we tried to look like boys; if you looked like a girl you were a cissy.

Nowadays you've got young fellows with eye make-up and handbags. Makes you wonder.'

But Morse hadn't quite seen his point and Lewis filled in the picture. He was no ideas man, he'd always realized that, and felt great diffidence in putting his notion forward. 'You see, sir, I was just thinking. We know Mrs Jarman saw the two girls' (he needn't have gone on, but Morse held his peace) 'at the bus stop. She must have been right, surely. She actually spoke to one of them and the other one was Sylvia Kaye. All right. The next thing is that the lorry driver, Baker, saw the girls being picked up at the other side of the roundabout by a man in a red car. But it was getting dark. He said they were two girls. But he might have been wrong. I could have sworn I saw a girl this morning - but I was wrong.

Everybody has been dazzled by Sylvia - all the eyes were on her and no wonder. But what if the lorry driver had seen Sylvia and another person, and what if this other person looked like a girl but wasn't.

The other person could have been a man. Remember, sir, the other girl Mrs Jarman saw was wearing slacks, and the descriptions we had from Baker fitted so well we thought they must be the same two people. But what if the other girl decided in the end not to hitch-hike to Woodstock. What if she caught up with Sylvia, told her she wasn't going to bother to go to Woodstock after all, and what if Sylvia met up with some man, probably someone she knew anyway, who'd been waiting for a lift before she got there, and the two of them hitched together. I know you've probably thought of this anyway, sir'

(Morse gave no indication either way - he hadn't) 'but I thought I ought to mention it. We've been trying to find the man who did this and I just thought he might have been in the car with Sylvia all along.'

'We've got Crowther's evidence you know, Sergeant,' said Morse slowly.

'I know, sir. I'd like to see that again if I could. As I remember it he didn't have much to say about his second pa.s.senger, did he?'

'No, that's true,' admitted Morse. 'And I can't help thinking he knows more than he's told us anyway.' He walked over to the filing cabinet, took from his files the statement of Bernard Crowther, read the first sheet, pa.s.sed it over to Lewis, and read the second. When both men had finished, they looked at each other over the table.

'Well, sir?'

Morse read it out: ' ”The girl nearer to the road I saw clearly. She was an attractive girl with long fair hair, white blouse, short skirt and a coat over her arm. The other girl had walked on a few yards and had her back towards me; she seemed to be quite happy to leave the business of getting a lift to her companion. But she had darkish hair, I think, and if I remember correctly was a few inches taller than her friend ...” What do you think?'

'Not very definite is it, sir?'

Morse searched for the other relevant pa.s.sage: ' ”I think the girl sitting in the back spoke only once and that was to ask the time ...” You may have got something, you know,' said Morse.

Lewis warmed to his theory 'I've often heard, sir, that when a couple are hitching the girl shows a leg, as it were, and the man keeps out of the way. You know, suddenly shows himself when the car stops and it's too late for the driver to say no.'

'That didn't happen here though, Sergeant.”

'No. I know that, sir. But it fits a bit doesn't it: ”seemed quite happy to leave the business of getting a lift to her companion.” ' Lewis felt he should quote his evidence, too.

'Mm. But if you're right, what happened to the other girl?'

'She could have gone home, sir. Could have gone anywhere.'

'But she wanted to go to Woodstock very badly, didn't she, according to Mrs Jarman.'

'She could have got to the bus stop.'

'The conductor doesn't remember her.'

'But when we asked him we were thinking of two girls, not one.'

'Mm. Might be worth checking again.'

'And another thing, sir.' The tide was coming in inexorably and was lapping already at the sand- castles of Morse's Grand Design.

'Yes?'

'I hope you don't mind me mentioning it, sir, but Crowther says that the other girl was a few inches taller than Sylvia.' Morse groaned, but Lewis continued, remorseless as the tide. 'Now Sylvia Kaye was 5' 9”, if I remember it right. If the other girl was Jennifer Coleby she must have been wearing stilts, sir. She's only about 5' 6”, isn't she-'

'But don't you see, Lewis? That's the sort of thing he would lie about. He's trying to put us off. He wants to protect this other girl.'

'I'm only trying to go on the evidence we've got, sir.'

Morse nodded. He thought seriously that he should take up schoolteaching - primary school would be about his level; spelling, he thought, the safest bet. Why hadn't he thought about that height business before? But he knew why. In the Grand Design it was Crowther who had been the guilty man.

And now the waves were curling perilously close to the last of the sand-castles; had already filled the moat and breached the rampart. It was 6.00 p.m., and Lewis's second batch of chips was getting cold.

Morse limped out of the building with Lewis, and the two stood talking by the sergeant's car for several minutes. Lewis felt rather like a pupil in Morse's putative primary school who had caught his master out in the spelling of a simple word, and he hesitated to mention a little thing that had been on his mind for several days. Should he keep it for tomorrow? But he knew that Morse had a busy day in front of him at the courts. He plunged in.

'You know the letter, sir, addressed to Jennifer Coleby?'

Morse knew it by heart. What about it?'

'Could there have been some fingerprints on the original copy?'

Morse heard the question and stared blankly into the middle distance. At last he shook his head sadly. 'Too late now.'

The primary school became a distinctly firmer prospect as the minutes ticked by. The sand-castle lurched forward and prepared to topple headlong. It was time someone else took over; he would see the Commissioner.

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