“That’s it!” Strange sounded somewhat heartened. “All you’ve got to do is eliminate ninety-five percent of the dabs, and then you’ve got your man.”
“Unless he was wearing gloves,” suggested Lewis.
“It’s all tied up with that bloody Lower Swinstead business!” blurted out Strange.
“You’re probably right,” said Morse.
“And don’t forget the simplest answer is usually the correct answer! Spur o’ the moment stuff, most homicides. You know that.”
“Perhaps so,” admitted Morse, beckoning the landlord over. “Open all day?”
“All night too should you wish it, sorr.”
And yes, of course, the police could make use of one of the bars for the evening; of course the police could make use of whatever the Rosie O’Grady had to offer: telephone, washing and toilet facilities, bar facilities...
“And perhaps...?” The landlord pointed to the two empty glasses. “On the house — the pleasure’s all mine.”
“Well, perhaps, er...” said Strange.
“You’re twisting my arm,” said Morse.
“Make it three pints of Guinness,” said Lewis.
Morse glanced across at his sergeant with a look of astonishment; the landlord departed; and Strange got down to business.
“Logistics, Morse. Let’s talk logistics. How many men do you want?”
“If you gave me a hundred, I wouldn’t know what to do with one of them — not yet.”
“Now come off it, matey! Couldn’t you perhaps have a look at when and how and what and why your bloody corpses were doing? See their relatives, friends, enemies, wives, for God’s sake?”
“Flynn hadn’t got a wife,” interposed Lewis.
“Repp had!”
“No, sir,” corrected Lewis bravely. “He’d got a partner—”
“Well go and see her!” snapped Strange.
“No,” said Morse. “I’ll go to see her myself.”
“Why’s that?”
“I have my reasons.”
The landlord had returned with the drinks. “As I said — on the house, gentlemen!”
Morse thanked him and made a request: “You know this, er, music you’re playing here — this Irish music...?”
“Perhaps you’d like it...?”
“Yes. If you could turn it up just a bit?”
Lewis glanced across at the Chief Inspector with a look of astonishment; the landlord departed; and Strange leaned back with an expression of contentment. “You know, Morse, I’m glad you said that. The missus... we had a couple of days in Cork and we did a bit of Irish dancing together... me and the missus... or I suppose you’d say the missus and me.”
“The missus and I, sir.”
But further grammatical preferences were curtailed by the arrival of Dr. Laura Hobson.
“Everything all right, Doctor?” shouted Strange, above the background music that had suddenly lunged to the foreground.
“No, everything’s all wrong! I cannot cope with things as they are out there. I want the car moved out to the lab with the body kept in the boot. How on earth you think—?”
“Done!” Strange held up the great slab that was his right hand. “Lewis will arrange it immediately, once he’s finished his drink. Si’ down, Doctor. Just give me a minute or two.” He sat back in his chair, beaming like a benign old uncle.
“Takes you back, Morse, doesn’t it?”
“Remember the old poem, sir?
“Yes! Yes, I do,” said Strange gently.
And for a while Sergeant Lewis and Dr. Hobson remained silent, as if they knew they should be treading softly; as if they might be treading on other people’s dreams.
Chapter thirty-four
Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. (Always in life are there tears being shed for things, and human suffering ever touches the heart.)
(Virgil, Aeneid, I, I. 462)
As she opened the door, the recently reapplied blonde dye showed little or no trace of the hair’s brunette inheritance.
“Oh, hullo.” The greeting was less than enthusiastic.
“May I come in?” asked Morse.
Apart from the minimal towel held in front of her body, she was naked: “Just wait there a sec — I’ll just...”
She reclosed the door and Morse stood, as she had bidden, on the threshold. Stood there for a couple of minutes. And when she reopened the door and reappeared, it puzzled him that in such a comparatively long time she had done little other than to exchange the white towel for an equally minimal white dressing gown.
They sat opposite each other in the kitchen.
“Drink?” she ventured.
“No. I’ve had a busy day on the drink.”
“That good or bad?”
“Bit of both.”
“Mind if I have one?”
“Can you wait? Just a minute?”
“It’s about Harry, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“He’s been murdered,” said Morse flatly.
Debbie Richardson leaned forward on her elbows, the long fingers with their crimson nails vertically veiling her features. Then after a while she got to her feet and turned to the sink, where she molded her hands into a shallow receptacle under the cold tap.
As they had spoken at the kitchen table, Morse had observed (how otherwise?) that whatever else Debbie Richardson had done behind the closed front door she had certainly not been searching for a bra; and now, as she leaned forward and held her face in the water, he observed (how otherwise?) that she’d had no thought for any knickers either. A provocative prick-teaser, that was what she was. Morse knew it; had known it when they’d met that once before. But for the moment his mind was many furlongs from fornication...
He felt fairly sure that she’d been upstairs when he’d rung the bell, for the light had been on in the front bedroom with the night now drawing in. Yet she’d answered the door very quickly, almost immediately in fact. Whoever the caller was, had she wished to give the impression to someone that she’d been downstairs all the while? It seemed a bit odd. After all, he could well have been a Jehovah’s Witness or an equally dreaded member of the Mormons or a charity worker bearing an envelope. Quite certainly though she hadn’t rushed down the stairs from a bath, since about her was none of that freshly scented aura of a woman recently risen from her toilet. Rather perhaps (although Morse was no connoisseur in such matters) it was the musky odor of sex that lingered around her.
Whilst she had stood silently at the sink, he had strained his ears as acutely as any astronomer waiting for the faintest bleep from outer space. But of any other presence in the house there had been no sound at all; no sight at all either, except for the two unwashed wineglasses that stood on the draining board, a heel-tap of red in each of them. And Morse guessed that Debbie Richardson would never have taken the slightest risk of Claret and intercourse that day with anyone — unless it were with Harry Repp. And it couldn’t have been with Harry Repp... Yet she may well have been tempted, this flaunting, raunchy woman who now dried her face and turned back to Morse; could certainly have been tempted if one of her admirers had called that evening for whatever reason — and if she had already known that Harry Repp was dead.
Morse watched her almost disinterestedly as she returned to the table.
“Shall I pour you that drink now?” he asked.
“Only if you’ll join me.”
Quite extraordinarily, Morse gave the impression that he was quite extraordinarily sober; and he poured their drinks — gin (hers), whiskey (his) — with only a carefully camouflaged shake of the right hand.