Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

August.  By the youth's own admission he was showing off, expectorating

regularly, terrorizing any pedestrians, riding no-handed when he'd decided to

defy all superstition and ride beneath

the ladder he saw in front of him when he'd badly misjudged whatever he'd

misjudged when he'd collided sharply with the bottom of the ladder when the

whole thing had jerked sideways and when a man had toppled from the top of

the ladder and landed on the compacted pathway outside "Collingwood' ...

chapter forty-nine " Cod save thee, ancient Mariner!  From thejunds, that

plague thee thus!  -- Why look' st thou so?  " -- " With my cross-bow I shot

the Albatross.  "

(Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner') the following morning, Morse

had been early summoned to the presence, summoned to Caesar's tent.

"Won't do, will it, Morse.  Just won't do!  You tell us to go and bring

Ban-on in.  And why?  Because you say he's knifed Flynn and Repp.  Fine!

There's three of 'em, you say, originally involved in the cover-up over the

Harrison murder, three of 'em prepared to stick to their stories for a fee of

course.  Then suddenly we find two of 'em murdered, and somebody somebody.

Morse thinks this'll be as good an opportunity as any to finish off number

three.  So whoever this somebody is, he decided he's been forking out way

over the odds anyway, and he goes ahead with his plan.  He's been living with

three albatrosses round his neck, and suddenly he finds somebody else has cut

the strings off two of 'em.  Too good an opportunity to be missed.

All adds up, doesn't it?  Except, matey, for one thing: Barren's death turns

out to be a bloody accident.  Just some teenage lout.  .  "

Strange took a breather, gulped down the last of his coffee,

and stuck another chocolate biscuit in his mouth: "Fancy a coffee?"

"No."

"They'll be open in an hour, you mean?"

"Fifty minutes, actually."

Strange suddenly sounded extremely pleased with himself: "Did you actually

say " actually", Morse?"

Oh dear.

It was Strange who broke the ensuing silence.

"Where are we, in all this?"  he asked softly.

"I dunno.  I felt convinced that the same fellow Barron - had murdered both

of them, both Flynn and Repp.  I thought the motive was a pretty familiar one

money.  You know, there's nothing much worse in life than people doing the

same job and getting paid at different rates.  It happens in every office, in

every profession in the land.

Anger .  .  jealousy .  .  .  bitterness .  .  .  usually controllable but

potentially dynamite.  And I thought Barron had found out he wasn't doing

half so well as his partners in crime.  "

"And who exactly is this golden goose?"

"You know that as well as I do."

I do?  "

"Oh, yes," replied Morse quietly.

A knock at the door heralded PC Kershaw, the fast-track recruit with a First

in History from Keble who'd driven Morse out to Sutton Courtenay, and whose

duties for the present consisted mostly of supplying the Chief Superintendent

with regular coffee and chocolate biscuits.

"Anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Yes," growled Strange.

"Bugger off!"  Then, turning back to Morse: "Are you making any progress?"

"Early days.  We've not even had the final path reports yet.  Life's full of

surprises."

"And disappointments."

"That too, yes."

 "Well if it wasn't Ban-on .  .  ."

"Dunno.  But I'm sure the key figure in both cases is one and the same person

the man who was in bed with Yvonne Harrison the night she was murdered."

"You don't think it was Repp?"

"No.  As I see it.  Repp had been recce-ing the property, maybe for several

nights.  It was going to be a gift for any professional burglar like him.

And he knew pretty well all that went on that night ' " Knew the fellow who

was in bed with Yvonne?  "

"Yes.  But I don't think it was Repp or any other burglar who disturbed the

bondage session that evening.  I think that was somebody else.  And I think

it's most likely that our lover-boy knew that someone else."

"And in your book Barren was the lover-boy?"

"Well, he was doing a job for her hanging about the place quite a bit strong,

good-looking sort of fellow the husband away a good deal of the time ..  ."

"But I'll say it again what if it wasn't Ban-on?"

"Plenty of other candidates, surely?"

"Oh yes?"

Morse measured his words carefully.

"I think that anyone meeting Yvonne Harrison, if she turned things on a bit

anyone, including me - would have given a month's beer money' " A week's in

your case.  "

' - for an hour or two between the sheets, or between the bedposts, or

between anywhere else.  By, er, by all accounts she was a .  well, let's say

she had the same effect on men as they tell me Viagra has on the impotent, or

the victims of chronic erectile dysfunction, as they're known these days.  "

"Really!  So for all we know, this chap could have been a client from North

Wales or somewhere."

"More probably South Wales, sir."

"And much more probably, somebody local."

"Agreed."

"Any ideas?"

"Well, the only fellow I've met in that little community who's topped up with

surplus testosterone is the landlord of the Maiden's Arms."