In the outer office of Radio Taxis were seated two young ladies, their telephones, keyboards, and VDUs in front of them, with maps of Oxford, Oxfordshire, and the UK pinned on the walls around. Morse was ushered through into the inner sanctum, where a six-foot, strongly built man of fifty or so, his short, dark hair greying at the temples, introduced himself:
“Jeff Measor, Company Secretary. How can I help?”
“Flynn, Paddy Flynn, he used to work for you — until you sacked him.”
Yes. Measor remembered him well enough. Flynn had worked for the company for just over a year. It was generally agreed that he’d been a competent driver, but he’d never fitted very happily into the team. There’d been several complaints from clients, including the reported “Just help me get these bitches out of here!” request to the doorman at The Randolph, where three giggly and slightly unstable young ladies were attempting to alight. And, yes, a few other complaints about his less-than-sympathetic rejoinders to clients when sometimes (quite inevitably so) traffic jams had caused his cab to be late. But Flynn had been a punctual man himself, invariably clocking in on time — one of those dedicated night drivers who far preferred the 6 P.M.-2:30 A.M. shift. He’d known Oxford City and the surrounding area well — a big factor in taxi work; and there’d been no suspicion of his driving innocent clients on some roundabout route just to jump up the fare.
“Could he have fiddled a few quid here and there?”
“Not so easy these days. Everything’s computerized in the cab. But I suppose...”
“How?”
“Well, let’s say if he’s cruising around the City Centre and gets a fare and doesn’t clock it in. Just takes the cash and then goes back to cruising round as if he’s been doing nothing else all the time...”
“Did he do that sort of thing?”
“Not that I know of.”
Morse was looking increasingly puzzled. “He seems to have been a reasonably satisfactory sort of cabbie, then.”
“Well...”
“So why did you sack him?”
“Two things, really. As I said, he wasn’t a good advertisement for the company. We always tell our drivers about the importance of friendliness and courtesy; but he wasn’t quite... he always seemed a bit surly, and I doubt he ever swapped a few cheerful words with any of his passengers. Man of few words, Paddy Flynn. Not always though, by all accounts.”
“No?”
“No. Seems he used to do the rounds of the pubs and clubs — Oxford, Reading, and so on — with a little group. Played the clarinet himself, and introduced things with a bit of Irish blarney. Quite popular for a while, I think, ‘specially in those pubs guaranteeing music being played as loud as possible.”
Morse looked pained as Measor continued: “Anyway, he just didn’t fit in here. No one really liked him much. Simple as that!”
“Two things though, you said?” prompted Morse gently.
For the first time the articulately forthright Company Secretary was somewhat hesitant:
“It’s a bit difficult to explain but... well, he never quite seemed up to coping with the radio side of the job. Still very important, the radio side is, in spite of all this latest technology. You know the sort of thing: we’ll be phoning from the office here and asking one of the drivers if he’s anywhere near Headington or Abingdon Road or wherever... Mind you, Inspector, the radio’s not all that easy: distortion, interference, crackle, feedback, traffic noise... You’ve certainly got to have your wits about you — and, well, he just couldn’t quite cope with it well enough.”
“It doesn’t seem all that much of a reason for sacking him, though.”
“It’s not exactly like that, Inspector. You see, I don’t myself employ drivers directly. They’re contracted out to me. And so if I say to any owner of a taxi, or a group of taxis, ‘Look, there’s no more work for you here’ — well, that’s it. It’s like sub-contracting work on a building site. If I want to sack one of my staff here though, in the office, I’ll have to give one verbal — recorded — and two written warnings.”
“No problems with Flynn, then?”
“Oh, no. And glad to see the back of him. Everybody was. One day he was here...”
“... and the next day he was gone,” added Morse slowly, as he thanked the Company Secretary — and felt that long familiar shiver of excitement along his shoulders.
Chapter fifty-three
At which period there were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.
For Morse, that early evening followed much the same old pattern: same sort of bundle of ideas abounding in his brain; same impatience to reach that final, wonderfully satisfying, penny-dropping moment of insight; same old pessimism about the future of mankind; same old craving for a dram of Scotch that could make the world, at least for a while, a kindlier and a happier place; same old chauffeur — Lewis.
It was just after 6:30 P.M. when they were shown up a spiral flight of rickety stairs to the small office immediately above the bar of the Maiden’s Arms. Around the walls, several framed diplomas paid tribute to the landlord’s expertise and the cleanliness of his kitchen, although the untidy piles of letters and forms that littered the desk suggested a less than methodical approach to the hostelry’s paperwork.
“Quick snifter, Inspector?”
“Later, perhaps.”
“Mind if I, er...?” Biffen reached behind him and poured out a liberal tot of Captain Morgan. “You make me feel nervous!” Knocking back the neat rum in a single swallow, he smacked his lips crudely: “Ahh!”
“Royal or Merchant?” asked Morse.
“Bit o’ both.” But Biffen seemed disinclined to discuss his earlier years at sea and came to the point immediately: “How can I help you, gentlemen?”
So Morse told him: for the moment the village seemed to be at the center of almost everything; and the pub was at the center of village life and gossip; and the landlord was always going to be at the center of the pub; so if...
For Lewis, Morse’s subsequent interrogation seemed (indeed, was) aimless and desultory.
But Biffen had little to tell.
Of course the villagers had talked — still talked — talked all the time except when that media lot or the police came round. No secret, though, that the locals knew enough about Mrs. H.’s occasional and more than occasional liaisons; no secret that they listened with prurient interest to the rumors, the wilder and whackier the better, concerning Mrs. H.’s sexual predilections.
It was left to Lewis to cover the crucial questions concerning alibis.
The day of Mrs. H.’s murder? Tuesday, that was. And Tuesday was always a special day — a sacrosanct sort of day. (He’d mentioned it earlier.) His one day off in the week when he refused to have anything at all to do with cellarage, bar-tending, pub meals — fuck ‘em all! Secretary of the Oxon Pike Anglers’ Association, he was. Had been for the past five years. Labor of love! And every Tuesday during the fishing season he was out all day, dawn to dusk. Back late, almost always, though he couldn’t say exactly when that day. No one had questioned him at the time. Why should they? He’d pretty certainly have met a few of his fellow anglers but... what the hell was all this about anyway? Was he suddenly on the suspect list? After all this time?
Thomas Biffen’s eyes had hardened; and looking across at the brawny tattooed arms, the ex-boxer Sergeant Lewis found himself none too anxious ever to confront the landlord in a cul-de-sac.