Quietly, as gently as he could, he told her almost as much as he knew of what had happened that day; and of the help that immediately awaited her should she so need it: advice, comfort, counseling...
But she shook her head. She’d be better off with sleepin’ pills than with all that stuff. She needed nothin’ of that. She’d be copin’ OK, given a chance. Independent, see? Never wanted to share any worryin’ with anyone. Loner most of her life, she’d been, ever since she’d been a teenager...
A tear ran hurriedly down her right cheek, and Morse handed her a handkerchief he’d washed and ironed himself.
“We ought to ring your GP: it’s the usual thing.”
She blew her nose noisily and wiped the moisture from her eyes. “You go now. I’ll be fine.”
“We’ll need a statement from you soon.”
“Course.”
“You’ll stay here...?”
Before she could reply the phone rang, and she moved into the hallway to answer it.
“Hello?”
...
“You’ve got the wrong number.”
...
“You’ve got the wrong number.”
Had she replaced the receiver with needless haste? Morse didn’t know.
“Not one of those obscene calls?”
“No.”
“Best to be on the safe side, though.” Giving her no chance to obstruct his sudden move, Morse picked up the receiver, dialed 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 ol’ 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 gettin’ 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, unfurrowed 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 along that amateurishly concreted path that led toward 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 D-Reg. Volvo parked at the far end there. Not there any longer though.”
“And?”
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) untraced caller who had just rung Debbie Richardson; 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.
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.
At 9:20 A.M. on Monday, July 27, as he sat in the outpatients’ lounge at the Oxford Diabetes Centre at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Morse reflected on the uncoordinated, hectic inquiries 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 blood blood blood. And, of course, prints galore — far too many of them — subimposed, imposed, and superimposed everywhere. The vehicle’s owner had allowed his second wife and his three stepchildren regular access to his latest supercharged 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 SOCOs had taped over every square centimeter 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 nondia-betic people, he was nevertheless somewhat disturbed by his findings, and immediately halved that very high third reading to 11.3. Then he’d extrapolated backward as intelligently as he could for the previous six days, with the result that a reasonably satisfactory set of readings, neatly tabulated in his small handwriting, was now folded inside his blue appointment card.
He was ready.
He had finally managed to produce a “specimen,” although inaccuracy of aim had resulted in a puddle on the unisexloo’s floor; and the dreaded weighing-in was over.
And so was the waiting.
“Mr. Morse?”
The white-coated, slimly attractive brunette led the way to a consulting room, her name, black lettering on a white card, on the door: DR. SARAH HARRISON.
“You knew my mother a bit, I believe,” she said as she opened a buff-colored folder.
Morse nodded, but made no comment.
A quarter of an hour later the medical side of matters was over. Morse had not attempted to be overly clever. Just short and reasonably honest in his replies.