“Can’t you guess, Inspector?” Her eyes twinkled.
Morse frowned, about to suggest something wildly inappropriate when the undeterred Lewis intervened:
“Giraffe walking past a window?”
“You clever man.”
“No!” Lewis smiled deprecatingly. “I’d seen it before.”
He took a pencil and made an equally quick little drawing underneath:
“Aristocratic sardine in a tin!” she cried triumphantly.
“You clever woman!”
She shook her head. “I’d seen it before.”
Morse sounded wearily impatient. “I’m very sorry to interrupt the fun, Mrs. Bayley, but...”
“Of course. Forgive me!”
“Which way was your, er, giraffe walking? Left to right? Right to left?”
“Left to right — exactly like I’ve drawn it, Inspector.”
“So if the ladder fell across the window from left to right, the bottom of the ladder must have slipped from right to left — that is, from your point of view here in the house, Mrs. Bayley?”
“I’m not quite sure I follow you.”
“I mean, if someone had come along and given the ladder a hefty kick at the bottom, he’d probably have been coming from” (Morse pointed to the right) “the center of Burford, say, to” (Morse pointed vaguely to the left) “wherever this road leads to?”
“Bourton on the Water.”
“Thank you, Lewis!”
“But we know that, sir — about the ladder, I mean. They found him six or seven yards to the right of the front door. That’s from Mrs. Bayley’s point of view of course,” he added mischievously.
“Yes!” whispered the lady of the household, as so vividly she recalled that terrible sight, with the red Stanley knife lying there beside the shattered skull.
Morse was looking far from pleased. Even less so when a further cup of coffee was suggested. The room had become chillier, and he shivered slightly as he got to his feet. It was time for the clichés:
“If you do remember anything else — anything odd — anything unusual — anything at all...”
And suddenly she had remembered something. It was Morse’s involuntarily shivering shoulders that had jogged — yes, jogged — her memory.
The jogger.
“There was something a bit unusual. We don’t get many people jogging here — we’re all a bit too old. But there was one this morning, about a quarter-to-eight. He’d pulled the hood of his tracksuit over his head as if he was feeling the cold a bit.”
“Or wasn’t anxious to be recognized,” added Morse quietly.
“Perhaps you could recognize him though, Inspector. You see, he was wearing a very distinctive pair of training shoes. Red, they were.”
The two policemen left with appropriate expressions of gratitude; and with the two digestive biscuits still untouched on the circular tray, beside two cups, one of them full, of stone-cold coffee.
Chapter forty-three
For coping with even one quarter of that running course known as “Marathon” — for coping without frequent halts for refreshment or periodic bouts of vomiting — a man has to dedicate one half of his youthful years to quite intolerable training and endurance. Such dedication is not for me.
After Lewis had turned right at the junction of Sheep Street and High Street and slipped the marked police car into the queue up to the A40 roundabout, Morse pointed peremptorily to the right, to the Cotswold Gateway Hotel.
Seated at a wall-settle in the bar, Morse tasted his pint of cask-conditioned ale and proclaimed it “not so bad.” And Lewis, seated opposite, sipped his iced orange juice and said nothing.
Morse looked sourly out of sorts.
“Just nip and get me a packet of cigarettes, Lewis. Dunhill, if they’ve got them. I don’t seem to...” In time-honored fashion, he patted his trouser pockets with little prospect, as it seemed, of finding any funds therein.
“I thought you’d stopped,” ventured Lewis, as minutes later Morse peeled off the cellophane.
“First today!” said Morse as with obvious gratification he inhaled deeply.
In turn, Lewis took a deep breath himself:
“You mustn’t get cross with me if—”
“Certainly not.” Morse pushed his empty glass across the table.
Waiting at the bar, Lewis was rehearsing his carefully formulated sentence; was ready with it once he took his seat again.
“You mustn’t be cross with me, sir, but—”
“Someone’s been round to Mrs. Barron? You’ve seen to that?”
“Dixon, yes. With WPC Towle — she’s an experienced officer.”
“PC Towle, you mean. They’re all PCs now, whatever the sex. Stands for Politically Correct.”
For the umpteenth time in his working life with Morse, Lewis knew that any potentially favorable wind had suddenly stopped blowing for him; and that it would be Morse who would now be sailing serenely on, whatever the state of the weather. As he did now:
“Something worrying you, Lewis?”
“Yes. Something is. We started off with two murders and you said you knew who the murderer was. And now this murderer of yours gets murdered himself and...”
“And there’s not all that much point in sitting around in a pub all day just thinking about things. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes! Why don’t we sit back and look at what we’ve got — look at the evidence?”
“You’re talking to me in italics, Lewis.”
“All right! But don’t you think it is time — to start again — at the beginning?”
“No,” said Morse (no italics). “Let’s start with those red trainers.”
“All right. Good news that. There can’t be more than a dozen people in Oxfordshire who’ve got a pair like that. Give us a few days. We’ll find him. Guaranteed!”
“Let’s hope you’re right. Bit odd, though. Quarter to eight? And still running when Barron fell at ten past ten?”
“We’re not all as unfit as you.”
“What? I could have run a marathon in that time. Once.”
Lewis smiled quietly to himself as Morse continued: “You know, what worried me about the murders of Flynn and Repp was how anyone could have got away from that car without people noticing all the blood on his clothes. Then it struck me. Barron could have got away with it easily. His overalls were already covered in red — covered in the maroon paint from Debbie Richardson’s outhouse — before the murders. Nobody’s going to worry about what he looks like, not in Lower Swinstead anyway. It’s not exactly like spilling a bottle of Claret over your white tuxedo on the QE2. Is it now?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Being too clever, am I?”
“Perhaps.”
“You see, I thought he was clever, Barron. And in spite of what some of these criminologists say, some criminals are clever.”
Lewis agreed. “ Pretty clever of our murderer to knock him off his ladder: no weapon, no fingerprints...”