Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

sister, he had a key to the front door, and he entered the house and

disturbed the copulating couple copulating in the most extraordinary

circumstances; and he would have been shocked and disgusted (like his sister)

but heartbroken, too, and disillusioned and betrayed.  His mother performing

those things with some plebeian local builder!

Where does all this lead us?  First and foremost to an early, long-overdue,

full-scale interview with Frank Harrison.  Not too early though.  Our

colleagues got nowhere with him and we, Lewis, are a pair of bloodhounds very

late on the scene, with the scent gone very cold.

Fifth, there's this business of the letter you found in the Harrison file.

As I told you, I take full responsibility for the fact that some items

originally discovered at the Harrison murder scene were subsequently, as they

say, found to be missing.  It was embarrassing for me to talk to you about

this and I know that you in turn found it equally embarrassing to-Morse laid

down his pen and answered the phone: "Lewis!  What do you want?"

 "You OK, sir?"   "Why shouldn't I be?"

"It's just that well, you know that animal charity shop on the corner of

South Parade and Middle Way .  .."

 "I am not wa animal-lover, Lewis."

"Well, people leave things there, by the door, things for the shop to sell

for charity ' " Get orawith it!  "

"Guess what one of the shop assistants found when she got to work this

morning?"

"Pair of handcuffs?"

"Pair of something, sir.  Pair of red trainers!  Almost brand new.  This

woman had read in the Oxford Mail about the Burford jogger and she thought.

.."

"You know something, Lewis?  That's very interesting.  Very interesting

indeed.  I'll be with you straightaway."

289

chapter sixty-three With much talk will they tempt thee, and smiling

upon thee will get out thy secrets (fcclesiasticus, ch.  XIII, vII "You know,

come to think of it, Lewis, we could do all of this now, couldn't we?  Just

the two of us."

"No Dixon?"

"No Dixon."

Lewis smiled outwardly and inwardly as he looked down at the action plan.  It

seemed to him a sensible and fair division of a good deal of labour.  For

example, he himself had spoken only very briefly with Sarah Harrison; Morse

had not as yet spoken at all with Simon Harrison.  Both matters now to be

dealt with.  And all leading up to the two of them, Morse and Lewis, meeting

Frank Harrison asap.

after these and a few other checks and visits had been made.

Harrison!  - 'the corner-stone, the kingpin, the pivot', as Morse had

asserted, before running out of synonyms.

"We've got plenty of time for all this well, no, perhaps we haven't.  So we

can be pretty direct, but not sharp.  Smile occasionally.  No aggressiveness,

no hostility, no belligerence," Morse had asserted, before running out of

synonyms again.

It all suited Lewis nicely.  If Morse's philosophy in life was to aim high

even if the target was altogether missed, he personally preferred to aim low

in the hope at least of hitting something.

The voluntary (mornings only) help at the Oxford Animal Sanctuary Shop (Gifts

Welcome) lived only a few hundred yards away in Osberton Road: a widow, a

cat-lover, an intelligent witness Mrs Gerrard.  It was just that, as every

weekday morning, she'd walked down to South Parade to buy the Daily Tekgraph,

about 8 o'clock before opening the shop, and she'd seen this "Yes?"  Lewis

smiled.

' - well, this youngish fellow smartly dressed, suit and tie and he put this

Sainsbury's plastic bag in the doorway there.  She couldn't describe him any

better than that really; but she remembered his car, parked for a few seconds

on the double- yellows alongside the shop.  She wouldn't have noticed that

either except that it was the same make as hers, a Toyota Carina, P-Reg, a

different colour though: hers was a turquoisy colour, his was silvery-grey.

The trainers she had put carefully aside, under the counter in the shop.

No one in North Oxford with a Toyota was likely to drive unnecessarily far

afield for any servicing and repairs, since there was a specialist garage in

Summertown itself; and it took Lewis only a few minutes to learn that the

owner of a silvery- grey P-Reg Carina was a regular and esteemed customer of

the company, a man named Simon Harrison.

Simultaneously Morse was driving himself in the Jaguar through the low range

of open hills that border Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

His old pathologist friend.  Max, had once told him that two pleasures grew

ever deeper with advancing age, the pleasures of the belly and the pleasures

of natural beauty.  And Morse found himself concurring with the latter

proposition as he turned right at the roundabout and drove down into Burfbrd.

Christine Coverley was clearly surprised to see him, and clearly not happy.

"It's all a bit untidy--' 291

 Morse smiled.

"Can I come in?"

"I haven't got long, I'm afraid."

"It won't take long, I promise."

"How can I.  .  .?"

"What were you doing last Monday morning?  Between, say, nine and eleven?"

"Not the faintest, have I?  Nobody could remember exactly ' " Did you go out