Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

stolen.  As a result, the Harrisons had installed a fairly sophisticated

burglar alarm, with 'panic-buttons' in the main bedroom and beside the main

entrance door; had enlisted in the local Neighbourhood Watch group; and had

acquired a Rottweiler puppy, christened Rodney, who had subsequently displayed a healthier taste for Walkers Crisps than for any unwelcome visitors,

and who had sadly been run over a few months previously.

With the smashed rear window, the burglary theory was at first the favourite,

although there was no apparent theft of several readily displayed items of

silverware and non-too-subtly concealed pieces of jewellery.  What was far

more obvious to those who 55

 entered the house later that night was a body

the body of Yvonne Harrison, lying on the bed in the main bedroom: naked,

hand- cuffed, and gagged.  And dead.

What immediately caught public interest was the fact that the man who

discovered the body was none other than the murdered woman's husband.

A somewhat delayed post-mortem established that Yvonne Harrison had probably

been murdered by some sort of 'tubular metal rod' two or three hours before

her body was discovered at 11.  20 p.  m.  " and fairly certainly not after

9.30 p.m.  Independent evidence corroborated the pathologist's findings.  A

local builder, Mr John Barren, had rung Mrs Harrison at 9 p.m.  - on the dot,

as instructed.  But he had heard only the 'engaged' signal.  At about 9.30

p.m.  he had rung again; but although he had persisted there had been no

reply.  The phone was quite certainly ringing at the other end.  Either the

Ansaphone had not been activated ... or else the lady of the house was not

alive to take the call.

Another call however had been made more successfully that evening.  An

extraordinarily puzzling call.  At just after 9 p.  m.  Yvonne's husband

picked up his phone in Pavilion Road, London, to hear a man's voice informing

him that his wife was in trouble and that he ought to get out there

immediately.  Normally he would have driven home post-haste in his BMW.  But

with the car in for repairs, he took a taxi to Paddington where he caught the

9.  48 train to Oxford, arriving at 10.  50, where he took another taxi for

the ten-mile journey out to Lower Swinstead.

Late-night traffic was thin, and when Mr Patrick Flynn braked his Radio Taxi

outside

"The Windhovers' at 11.20 p.m.  he saw a village mansion ablaze with lights

turned on in almost every room, and the burglar-alarm box emitting sharp blue

flashes and a con ting- uous ringing.  The front door stood open ... and the

rest is history.

Or it was history until a fortnight ago, when two anonymous phone calls were

received at Thames Valley Police HQ, where it is the view of Chief

Superintendent Strange that promising new lines of enquiry may soon be opened.

It is surely universally to be hoped that the identity of Yvonne Harrison's

murderer will finally be revealed; and that on some more permanent memorial

in St Mary's churchyard the name of the murdered woman will be spelt

correctly.

chapter thirteen Pmcltranda sunt testimmia, nm nwrncrania (All testimonies

aggregate Not by their number, but their weight) (Latin proverb) most of the

Thames Valley Police personnel were ever wont to pounce quickly upon any

newspaper clipping concerning their competence, or alleged lack of

competence.  And that morning Lewis had been almost immediately apprised of

the article in The Times which he'd read and assimilated swiftly; far more

swiftly (he suspected) than Morse would read it when he took it along at 8.

30 a.  m.  The Chief was a notoriously slow reader, except of crossword clues.

Lewis remembered the case well enough; certainly remembered the frustration

and disappointment that many of his CID colleagues had felt when lead after

lead had appeared to peter out.  Yes, he'd often experienced frustration

himself, but seldom any prolonged disappointment; for which he was grateful -

profoundly grateful to Morse.

Most usually (Lewis knew it well) a murder investigation revolved around

corroborated suspicion, A clue was pursued; a suspect targeted; an alibi

checked; a motive weighed in the balances; a response to questioning

interpreted as surly, cocky, devious, frightened .  It was all cumulative

that was the word!  - a series of pieces in the jigsaw that seemed to form a

coherent pattern sufficiently convincing for a formal charge to 57

 be

brought; for a dossier to be sent to the DPP; for a period of remand, further

questioning, sometimes further evidence, with nothing cropping up in the

interim to vitiate the central police hypothesis: that in all probability the

arrested suspect was guilty as hell.

That was the usual pattern.

Not with Morse though.

For some reason Morse often shunned the standard heap- of-evidence approach.

In fact Lewis had seldom if ever observed him, through distaste or idleness

perhaps, riffle through any heap of dutifully transcribed statements,

claiming (as Morse did) that since he could seldom remember what he'd been