Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

"I don't like dead bodies any more than you do, Morse."

"I know that, but.  .  ."

"But what?"

'.  .  .  but you ought to have a look at him.  " Morse spoke his words

slowly and quietly.

"You see, I think it's quite possible that you'11 recognize him."

Frequently afterwards, in the post-Morse years, would Sergeant Lewis recall

that afternoon at the fill-in site in Oxfordshire: when Chief Superintendent

Strange had looked at the bloodless face of a murdered man; and when his

erstwhile ruddy cheeks had paled to chalky white.

"Bloody 'ell!  I knew him, Morse.  I interviewed him twice in the Harrison

murder enquiry."

131

 When the top brass had finally dispersed, Eddie Andrews let himself

back into the now deserted office, turned on the TV, found Sport (Cricket) on

Ceefax and noted with quiet satisfaction that Northamptonshire were really

doing rather well that day.

chapter twenty-nine caliph: And now how shall we employ the time of waiting

for our deliverance?  jafar: I shall meditate upon the mutability of human

affairs masrur: And I shall sharpen my sword upon my thigh hassan: And I

shall study the pattern of this carpet caliph: Hassan, I will join thee: Thou

art a man of taste (James Eiroy Flecker, Hassan) most patiently no, most

impatiently had PC Kershaw been waiting for his passenger to emerge from the

closeted consultations.  Like some starry-eyed teenager he had been looking

forward so much to his first date with Susan Ho, a delightful, delicately

featured Chinese girl, a researcher at Oxford's Criminological Department;

and although he had been able to contact her after Morse's diktat, neither he

nor she had been particularly pleased.

He opened the passenger door as Morse approached.  "It's all right, Kershaw.

Sergeant Lewis'11 be taking me back to Oxford."

"You mean ?"   "I mean you can bugger off, yes."   "Couldn't you have told

me earlier, sir?   I've been ..   ."   But his voice trailed off as he found

Morse's blue eyes looking straight at him; uncomprehending, cold.

^S

 Lewis was grinning wryly as he pushed the police car into first gear.

'you never treated even me as bad as that.  "

"Cocky young sod!  University graduate.  God help us!"

"What's he doing with us?"

"Dunno.  Learning how to make a cup o' tea, I shouldn't wonder."

"Exactly where I started."

"I hope he's better than you were."

"Isn't it about time you told--' " I just don't believe this!  " said Morse

as he picked up the single cassette that lay in the tray beside the

gear-lever, inserted it into the player, and subsequently sank back into his

seat with the look of a man sublimely satisfied with life.

"Just find out who usually drives dlis car, Lewis.  He's a man after my own

heart.  I never realized we had such sensitivity in the Force.

There's not much of it out there, you know.  "

For a moment it seemed that Lewis was going to speak.  But clearly he thought

better of it; and as he drove way above the speed limit down the A34 to

Oxford, he listened, with considerable enjoyment himself, to the Prelude to

Wagner's Parsi- fal, convinced that Morse was soundly albeit unsnoringly

asleep.

"Turn off here, Lewis."

"Next exit's best, sir avoid the city traffic that way."

"Turn off here\' So Lewis turned off there, driving sedately now, up the

Abingdon Road, past Christ Church, straight over through Cornmarket and

Magdalen Street, where (as bidden) he turned left at the lights by the

Martyrs' Memorial and duly stopped (as bidden) on the double-yellows beneath

the canopy of the Randolph, above which the Union Jack and the flag of the EC

drooped languorously that late afternoon.

Lewis was still in brave mood.

"Like the Super said, don't you think you ought ' " Think'?  That's exactly

why I'm here to think!  I can't think unless I'm given the chance to think.

You don't imagine I drink just for the pleasure of it, do you?  "

Morse sat back with his pint of bitter and stared serenely at the Ashmolean

Museum just opposite in Beaumont Street.

"If there's a bar anywhere in Britain with a better view than this .  .."

Lewis hesitated awhile over his orange juice.

"You ready to tell me how you knew it was Paddy Flynn?"

"I didn't really know.  Just that I always wondered about him a bit.

Key witness, agreed?  Picked up Frank Harrison from the railway station, then

parked outside the house just when the burglar alarm was ringing.  "

Lewis nodded.

"Only person to give Harrison a convincing alibi."

It was Morse's turn to nod.

"That's why Strange interviewed him."

"Interviewed him twice."

"Suspicious mind, that man's got!"

"But you're still not telling me how you guessed it was him."

"Full of guesses, what we do, isn't it?  After the first couple of days, I

only read about the case at second hand ' " Like me.  "

' - but I remember thinking I'd have put an each-way bet on some of the

outsiders in the race: the builder he gave himself and several others an

alibi; the landlord at the Maiden's Arms he's got the testosterone level of a

randy billy-goat; and then there was the taxi driver .  .  .

"Why him, though?"