'A pint of bitter, please.'
Whether it was his upper-class accent, or the politeness of his request, or his somewhat youthful features, that caused the barmaid to glance at him-it made no difference. She pulled his pint, and the boy sauntered back to the main bar. Here, to his left, was a small dais, about one foot high and measuring some three yards by five, its dullish brown linoleum looking as if a group of Alpine mountaineers had walked across it in their crampons. Only a few chairs were set about the room, and clearly the clientele here was not the kind of sit quietly and discuss the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. And even had any wished to do so, such conversation would have been drowned instantly by the deafening blare of the jukebox. Edward sat on the edge of the dais, sipped his Worthington 'E', stared down at the red-and-black-patterned carpet-and waited. Most of the other men pulled fitfully and heavily upon their cigarettes, the smoke curling slowly to a ceiling already stained a deep tobacco-brown. These men were waiting, too.
Suddenly the blue and yellow spotlights were switched on, the jukebox switched off, and a buxom girl in a black cloak, who had hitherto been seated sipping gin in some dim alcove, stepped out on to the miniature stage. Like iron filings drawn towards a powerful magnet, fifty young men who a moment before had been lounging at the bar were now formed into a solid phalanx around the three sides of the dais.
At that second only one man in the room had his eyes on the large blackboard affixed to the whitewashed wall behind the dais-a blackboard whereon the management proudly proclaimed the programme for the week: go-go dancing every lunch time; live pop groups each evening; with 'Bar snacks always available' written in brackets at the bottom as an afterthought. But now a softer, more sensuous music filled the semi-subterranean vaults, and the girl billed as the 'Fabulous Fiona' was already unfastening the clasp at the top of her cloak. All eyes (without exception now) were riveted upon her as amateurishly but amiably enough she pranced about the floor, exhibiting a sequence of sequined garments, slowly divested and progressively piled on top of the cloak beneath the blackboard, until at last she was down to her panties and bra. A roar of approval greeted the doffing of this latter garment; but the former, its sequins glittering in the kaleidoscopic lights, remained staunchly in place, in spite of several quite unequivocal calls for its removal. She was a daring girl. With the palms of her hands supporting her weighty breasts, she paraded herself under the noses of several of the more proximate voyeurs-like a maiden holding up a pair of giant bowls in a ten-pin bowling alley. Then the record stopped, the synthetic smile was switched off, and with the cloak now covering all once more, the fabled girl retired to her alcove where she joined two bearded men whose functions in the proceedings had not been immediately apparent.
Most of the audience drifted back to the bar; some of them left; and one of them resumed his seat on the dais. In five minutes the girl would be repeating her routine, Edward was aware of that-as he was also aware of someone who had just sat down beside him.
'Fancy another pint?' asked Morse.
Edward looked as guilty as someone just accused of stealing from a supermarket; but he nodded: 'Yes, please.' Morse was a little surprised at this; and as he stood waiting for two further pints he wondered if the boy would take his chance to get away. Somehow, though, he knew he wouldn't. He just managed to beat the second lunge of bodies to the dais, where he managed a considerably closer view of a now more sinuously synchronized Fiona. The beer, too, was beginning to encourage a rather more positive reaction amongst the ringside viewers, for this time there was even a smattering of applause as she finally turned away to find her cloak.
'Do you come here often?' asked the boy.
'Not every lunch-time,' Morse said lightly. 'What about you?'
'I've been once or twice before.'
'Shouldn't you be at school?'
'I've got the afternoon off. What about you?'
Morse was beginning to like the boy. 'Me? I do what I want to do every afternoon: watch the girls, drink a pint or two-anything. You see, I'm over eighteen, like you, lad. You are over eighteen, aren't you? For those who aren't, you know, "the girls and pints are out of order"-if you see what I mean. It's an anagram. "Striplings"-that's the answer. You interested in crosswords?'
But Edward ignored the question. 'Why did you follow me here?'
'I wanted to know why you lied to me, that's all-'
'Lied?'
'-about the note Ms. Scott left for you.'
The boy took a deep breath. 'Hadn't we better sit somewhere else?'
For a start he was evasive; truculent even. But he had little chance against Morse. In some strange way (the boy felt) Morse's eyes were looking straight into his thoughts, alerted immediately to the slightest deviation from the truth. It was almost as if the man had known this truth before he'd asked, and was doing little more than note the lies. So, in the finish, he told Morse everything about Anne Scott: told him about his brother's boasts; about that week before she died when he'd seen her semi-naked and lusted after her; about the note he'd found on the door-mat; even about his own thoughts, so adolescently confused and troublous. And, progressively, he found himself liking Morse; found himself taking to a man who seemed humane and understanding-a man who listened carefully and who seemed so ready to forgive. Perhaps he was almost like a father… and Edward had never known his own.
Two things surprised Morse about his time with Edward Murdoch. The first was to discover what a pleasant and engaging lad he was, and to realise that others must have found this, too: his mother, his friends, his teachers-including Ms. Anne Scott… The second cause of Morse's surprise was a more immediately personal one: during the energetic gyrations of the fair Fiona, he had felt not the slightest twinge of mild eroticism-and what would Freud have made of that? On second thoughts, however, he didn't much care; he'd come round to the view that Freud would have been a far more valuable citizen if he'd stuck to his research on local anaesthetics. Yet it was a bit worrying, all the same. As a boy, the apogee of any voyeuristic thrill had been the static nude, demurely sitting sideways on, and found about two-thirds of the way through the barber's copy of Lilliput. But now? The nudes were everywhere: on calendars, on posters, in fashion adverts, in newspapers-even on the telly. And the truth seemed to be that the naked female body was losing its magic. Understandable, yes; but for Morse, most disappointing. After all, he was only just past his fiftieth birthday.
The boy had gone now, and Morse debated whether he should stay on for Act V of the stripper's scheduled stint. But even the anticipation had now grown as cold as the experienced reality. And he left.
Chapter Seventeen
Go on; I'll follow thee.
– Hamlet Act I, scene iv
At eight thirty that evening, George Jackson was crouching behind a hedge, his bicycle lying a few yards away in the dark undergrowth. He had carefully reconnoitred the area, and chosen a large house standing well back from the western side of the Woodstock Road. No lights had shown in the front of the house on his two previous visits, and there were none tonight. No dogs, either. The hedge was high and thick, but where it reached the adjoining property it grew more thin and bedraggled. Ideal-affording a perfect view of the entrance to Field House Drive about thirty yards to the right and the telephone kiosk about twenty yards to the left, both illuminated adequately by the street lamp immediately opposite. Occasionally a solitary person strolled by. Once a young couple, their arms round each other's waists. A few cyclists, and an intermittent flow of traffic either way.