Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

like the first page of an Agatha Christie novel.

Most conscientiously therefore (after Strange had spoken to him) Lewis had

read through as much of the archive material as he could profitably

assimilate; and as he drove along that bright summer's morning he had a

reasonably clear picture of the facts of the case, and of the hitherto

ineffectual glosses put upon those facts by the CID's former investigating

officers.

From the very start (as Lewis learned) several theories, including of course

burglary, had been entertained, although none of such theories had made

anywhere near complete sense.  There had been no observable signs of any

struggle, for example.  And although Yvonne Harrison was found naked,

handcuffed, and gagged, she had apparently not been raped or tortured.  In

addition, it appeared most unlikely that she had been forcibly stripped of

the clothes she'd been wearing, since the skimpy lace bra, the equally skimpy

lace knickers, the black blouse, and the minimal white skirt, were found

neatly folded beside her bed.

Had she been lying there completely unclothed when some intruder had

disturbed her?  Surely it was an unusually early hour for her to be a-bed;

and if she had been abed then, and if she had heard the front-door bell, or

heard something, it seemed quite improbable that she would have confronted

any burglar or (unknown?  ) caller without first putting something on to

cover a body fully acknowledged to be beautiful.  Such considerations had led

the police to speculate on the likelihood of the murderer being well known to

Mrs Harrison; and indeed to speculate on the possibility of the murderer

living in the immediate and very circumscribed vicinity, and of being rather

too well known to Mrs Harrison.  Her husband was away

from home a good deal, and few of the (strangely unco- operative?  )

villagers would have been too surprised, it seemed, if his wife conveniently

forgot her marriage vows occasionally.  In fact it had not been difficult to

guess that most of the villagers, though loth to be signatories to any

specific allegations, were fairly strongly in favour of some sort of 'lover-

theory'.  Yet although the Harrisons often appeared more than merely

geographically distanced, no evidence was found of likely divorce proceedings.

Once Mr Frank Harrison, with a very solid (if very unusual) alibi, had been

eliminated from the enquiries, painstakingly strenuous investigations had

produced (as one of the final reports admitted) no sustainable line of

positive enquiry .  As he pulled off right, into Thames Valley Police HQ,

Lewis was smiling quietly to himself.  Morse would very soon have established

some 'sustainable line of positive enquiry'.  Even if it was a wrong line.

So what?

Morse was very often wrong at the start.

So what?

Morse was almost always right at the finish.

53

chapter twelve Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect Some frail

memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture

deck'd, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh (Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in

a Country Churchyard) the following is an extract from The Times, Monday 20

July 1998:

A VILLAGE MURDER

Two psychics and a hypnotist have already been involved in the case.

It has caught the attention of the Still a Mystery series on ITV, although it

has yet to be promoted to the Premier Division of such classical unsolved

cases as the disappearance of Lord Lucan, the fate of the racehorse Shergar,

or the quest for the Holy Grail itself.

Although the murder of Yvonne Harrison has long been out of the immediate

headlines, we are led to believe that the box-files concerning the case,

stacked on the shelves at Thames Valley Police HQ, are definitely not

accumulating layer upon layer of undisturbed dust.  After all it is only just

over a year since the body of Mrs Harrison was discovered in the living room

of her Grade-II-listed Georgian house, set in four acres of wooded ground in

the Cotswold village of Lower Swinstead.  The home,

"The Windhovers', was sold for 350,000 fairly soon after the murder,

and the family have long since left the quiet leafy village all except

Yvonne, of course, who is buried in the small, neatly mown churchyard of St

Mary's, where, in the form of a Christian cross, a low, wooden stake is the

only memorial to the body reposing beneath it:

RIP.  YVONNE HARISON 1947-1997

Perhaps, when the ground is sufficiently settled, the murdered woman will

have some worthier monument.  But for the present the grave shows little if

any sign of tender loving care, and flowers no longer adorn this

semi-neglected spot.

Yvonne Harrison, a fully qualified nurse, had resumed work in Oxford after

her two children had left home, and on the evening of her murder had returned

to an empty house, her husband Frank, as normally during the week, spending

his time in his London apartment

"The Windhovers' had been broken into a few years earlier, when TV sets,

video-equipment, radios, a computer, and sundry electrical items had been