Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

sudden move.  Morse picked up the receiver, dialled 1471, and duly noted the

number given.

She had said nothing during this brief interlude, but now proceeded to give

her views on one of the most recent developments in telephonic technology:

"It'll soon be a tricky of thing conductin' some illicit liaison over the

phone."

Morse smiled, feeling delight and surprise in such elegant vocabulary.

"As I was saying, you'll stay here?"

She looked at him unblinking, eye to eye.

"You could always call occasionally to make sure.  Inspector."

For some little while they stood together on the inner side of the front door.

"You know ... It doesn't hit you for a start, does it?  You just don't take

it in.  But it's true, isn't it?  He's dead.  Harry's dead."

Morse nodded.

"You'll be all right, though.  Like you said, you can cope.  You're a tough

girl."

"Oh God!  He kept talkin' and talkin' about getting' in bed with me again.

Been a long time for him and for me."

"I understand."

"You really think you do?"

Her cheeks were dry now, un furrowed by a single tear.  Yet Morse knew that

she probably understood as much as he did about those Virgilian 'tears of

things'.  And for that moment he felt a deep compassion, as with the gentlest

touch he laid his right hand briefly on her shoulder, before walking slowly

161

 along that amateurishly concreted path that led towards the road.

Once in the car.  Morse turned to Sergeant Dixon: "Well?"

"Light went off upstairs soon as you rung the bell, sir."

"Sure of that?"

"Gospel."

"Anyone leave, do you think?"

"Must a' been out the back if they did."

"What about the cars parked here?"

"I took a list, like you said.  Mostly local residents.  I've checked with

HQ."

"Mostly?"

"There was an old Dreg Volvo parked at the far end there.  Not there any

longer though."

"Andr Dixon grinned as happily as if he were contemplating a plate of

doughnuts.

"Car owned by someone from Lower Swinstead.  You'll never guess who.

Landlord o' the Maiden's Arms!"

Morse, appearing to assimilate this new intelligence without undue surprise,

handed over the telephone number of the (hitherto) un traced caller who had

just rung Debbie Richard- son; and could hear each end of the conversation

perfectly clearly as Dixon spoke with HQ once more.

The call had been made from Lower Swinstead.

From the Maiden's Arms.

162

FR1;chapter thirty-five The trouble about always trying to preserve the

health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the

health of the mind (G.  K.  Chesterton) at 9.  20 a.  m.  on Monday, 27 July,

as he sat in the out- patients' lounge at the Oxford Diabetes Centre at the

Radcliffe Infirmary, Morse reflected on the uncoordinated hectic enquiries

which had occupied many of his colleagues for the whole of the previous day.

He had himself made no contribution whatsoever to the accumulating data thus

garnered, suffering as he was from one long horrendous hangover.  Because of

this, he had most solemnly abjured all alcohol for the rest of his life; and

indeed had made a splendid start to such long- term abstinence until early

evening, when his brain told him that he was never going to cope with the

present case without recourse, in moderate quantities, to his faithful

Glenfiddich.

Several key facts now seemed reasonably settled.  Paddy Flynn had been knifed

to death at around noon the previous Friday; Harry Repp had died in very

similar fashion about two or three hours later.  Flynn had probably died

instantaneously.  Repp had met a slower end, almost certainly dying from the

outpouring of blood that so copiously had covered the earlier blood in the

back of the car, and quite certainly had been dead when someone, somewhere,

had lugged the messy corpse into the boot of the same car.  No sign of any

weapon; only 163

 blood blood blood.  And, of course, prints galore far too

many of them sub imposed imposed, and superimposed everywhere.  The vehicle's

owner had allowed his second wife and his three step-children regular access

to his latest super- charged model, and fingerprint elimination was going to

be a lengthy business.  Even lengthier perhaps would be the analysis by

boffins back at Forensics of the hairs and threads collected on the sticky

strips the SO COs had taped over every square centimetre of the vehicle's

upholstery.

Yet in spite of so many potential leads.  Morse felt dubious (as did Dr

Hobson) about their actual value.  Too many cooks could spoil the broth, and

too many crooks could easily spoil an investigation.  For the moment, it was

a question of waiting.

As Morse was waiting in the waiting room now .  .  .

On the day before, the Sunday, Morse had woken up, literally and

metaphorically, to the fact that he should have been keeping an accurate

record of his blood-sugar levels for the previous month.

Thus it was that he had taken four such readings that day: 12.  2; 9.  9; 22.

6; 16.  4.  Although realizing that he could never hope for an average

anywhere near the 4 5 range normal for non-diabetic people, he was