Chapter Ten

   The Reverend Keith Meiklejohn exuded a sort of holy enthusiasm as he stood at the door of the church hall. Obviously there was going to be a big audience, and in between the unctuous Good evenings, how nice of you to comes, he debated the wisdom of fetching some of the old chairs from the store-room. It was only 7.20 p.m., but already the hall was two-thirds full. He knew why, of course: it was the Sunday School infant classes' tap-dance troupe, with its gilt-edged guarantee of attracting all the mums and aunts and grandmas. 'Hello, Mrs Walsh-Atkins. How very nice of you to come. Just a few seats left near the front. . . . ' He despatched two reluctant choirboys for the extra chairs, and was ready with his beam of ecclesiastical bonhomie for the next arrival. 'Good evening, sir. How nice of you to come. Are you a visitor to Oxford or—?'
   'No, I live here.'
   The newcomer walked into the hall and sat down at the back, a slightly sour expression on his face. He gave five pence to the pretty pig-tailed girl who came up to him and stuck the programme in his pocket. What a day! Almost six hours from Keswick to the Evesham exit: single-lane traffic north of Stoke; a multiple pile-up just after Birmingham, with all lanes closed for almost an hour on the south-bound carriageway; flood warnings flashing for the last thirty miles and the juggernaut lorries churning up spray like speedboats. . . . And what a so-called holiday! On fine days (he had little doubt) the view from his bedroom at the Swiss Lodore would have been most beautiful; but the mist had driven down from the encircling hills, and it was as much as he could do to spot the grass on the lawn below his window, with its white chairs and tables - all deserted. Some of his fellow-guests had taken to their cars and driven (presumably) in search of some less-bedraggled scenery; but the majority had just sat around and read paperback thrillers, played cards, gone swimming in the heated indoor pool, eaten, drunk, talked intermittently, and generally managed to look rather less miserable than Morse did. He could find no passably attractive women over-anxious to escape their hovering husbands, and the few who sat unattended in the cocktail-lounge were either too plain or too old. In his bedroom Morse found a leaflet on which was printed Robert Southey's 'How the Waters Come Down at Lodore'; but he felt that even a poet laureate had seldom sunk to such banality. And anyway, after three days, Morse knew only too well how the waters came down at Lodore: they came down in bucketfuls, slanting incessantly in sharp lines from a leaden sky.
   On Friday (it was 7 April) The Times was brought into his room with his early-morning tea; and after looking at the week-end weather forecast he decided to leave immediately after breakfast. It was as he was taking out his cheque-book at the reception-desk that the folded white leaflet fluttered to the floor: he had pocketed it absentmindedly from the literature set out on the table at the entrance to St Frideswide's, but it was only now that he read it.

   CONCERT
   At the Church Hall, St Aldates
   Friday, April 7th, at 7.30 p.m.
   tap-dance troupe (Sunday School)
   GILBERT & SULLIVAN MEDLEY (Church Choir)
   A VICTORIAN MELODRAMA (Drama Group)
   Entrance Fee 20p. Programme Sp.
   ALL WELCOME (Proceeds in aid of the Tower Restoration Fund)

   It was that last line, pregnant with possibilities, that had monopolised Morse's thoughts as he drove the Jaguar south. Were the crenellations really crumbling after all? Had they crumbled, when Lawson looked his last over the familiar landmarks of the city? Whenever possible, juries were keen to steer away from 'suicide' verdicts, and if the tower had been at all unsafe the point would have been a crucial one. What Morse really needed was the coroner's report: it would all be there. And it was to the coroner's office that Morse had immediately driven when he finally reached Oxford at 4.30 p.m.
   The report, apart from the detailed descriptions of Lawson's multiple mutilations, was vaguer than Morse had hoped, with no mention whatsoever of the parapet from which Lawson had plummeted to earth. Yet there was one section of the report that firmly gripped his interest, and he read it through again. 'Mrs Emily Walsh-Atkins, after giving formal evidence of identification, said that she had remained alone for some minutes in the church after the service. She then waited for about five minutes outside the church, where she had arranged to be picked up by taxi: the service had finished slightly earlier than usual. At about 8.10 a.m. she heard a terrible thud in the churchyard and had looked round to find Lawson's body spread-eagled on the railings. Fortunately two police officers had soon appeared on the scene and Mr Morris' (Morris!) 'had taken her back inside, the church to sit down and recover. . . . ' Morse knew that he would have little mental rest until he had seen Mrs W.-A., and it was that lady who was the immediate cause of his attendance at the Church Concert. (Was she the only reason, Morse?) He had just missed her at the Home for Ageing Gentlefolk, but they knew where she had gone.
   Meiklejohn had finished his long-winded, oily introduction, the lights had been switched off, and now the stage-curtains were jerkily wound back to reveal the Tap-Dance Troupe in all its bizarre glory. For Morse the whole thing was embarrassingly amusing; and he was quite unprepared for the wild applause which greeted the final unsynchronised kneelings of the eleven little girls, plumed plastic headgear and all, who for three minutes or so had braved inadequate rehearsal, innate awkwardness, and the appallingly incompetent accompaniment of the pianist. To make matters worse, the troupe had started with a complement of twelve, but one small child had turned left instead of right at a crucial point in the choreography, and had promptly fled to the wings, her face collapsing in tearful misery. Yet still the audience clapped and clapped, and was not appeased until the appearance of the troupe's instructress, alias the piano-player, leading by the hand the unfortunate, but now shyly smiling, little deserter - the latter greeted by all as if she were a prima ballerina from the Sadler's Wells. '
   The Gilbert and Sullivan selections were excellently sung, and Morse realised that the St Frideswide's choir contained some first-rate talent. This time, fortunately, the piano was in the hands of an infinitely more able executant - Mr Sharpe, no less, former deputy to Mr Morris (that name again!). Morris... the man who had been on the scene when Josephs was murdered; had been on the scene, too, when Lawson was - when Lawson was found. Surely, surely, it shouldn't be at all difficult to trace him? Or to trace Mrs Brenda Josephs? They must be somewhere; must be earning some money; must have insurance numbers; must have a house.... With clinical precision the choir cut off the last chord from the finale of The Mikado, and their turn was complete - greeted by appreciative if comparatively short-lived applause.
   It took a good five minutes for the Victorian melodrama to materialise; minutes during which could be heard the squeaking and bumping of furniture, during which the curtains were twice prematurely half opened, and during which Morse once more looked through the coroner's digest on Lawson's death. There was this fellow Thomas's evidence, for example: 'He had just parked his car in St Giles' and was walking down towards Broad Street when he noticed someone on the tower of St Frideswide's. He could not recall seeing anyone standing there before, but it was not unusual to see people looking out over Oxford from St Mary's in the High, or from Carfax tower. He thought that the figure was dressed in black, looking down, his head leaning over the parapet.... ' That was all, really. Only later had he heard of the morning's tragedy and had reluctantly rung up the police — at his wife's suggestion. Not much there, but the man must have been the very last person (Morse supposed) to see Lawson alive. Or was he? He might just have been the first — no, the second — person to see Lawson dead. Morse found the key words again: 'looking down, his head leaning over the parapet. . . .' How high were those parapets? No more than three feet or so, surely. And why bring Lawson's head into it? Why not just 'leaning over the parapet'? And why 'looking down'? Was a man about to leap to his death likely to be all that worried about the place he was going to land? A minister, surely - more than most of his fellow-mortals - might be expected to seek a little consolation from more ethereal realms, whatever the depths of his despair. But if ... if Lawson had been dead already; if someone had—
   The melodrama was under way at last, and in Morse's view a more crudely amateurish production could seldom have merited a public presentation. The play appeared to have been chosen to embrace the largest possible cast, and to allow to all of it's participants the briefest possible exposure on the boards, in order to minimise their breathtaking incompetences. The bearded one-armed hero, who at least had learned his lines and spoke them audibly, clumped around in a pair of squeaky army boots, and at one point conducted a crucial telephone conversation by speaking into the ear-piece - of an incongruously modern-looking instrument at that; whilst one of the numerous housemaids was every other line reduced to referring to a copy of her part pasted on the underside of her dustpan. The only feature which prevented the whole thing from degenerating into a farcical shambles was the performance of the heroine herself, a young blonde who acted with a charm and sophistication hopelessly at variance with the pathetically inadequate crew around her. She appeared to know everyone else's part, and covered their lapses and stumbles with impressive aplomb. She even managed, at one stage, to prevent one of the butlers (blind fool! thought Morse) from tripping over an intervening chair as he carried in her ladyship's tea. Mercifully many of the lines (as originally written) must have been extremely amusing, and even voiced by these clowns could elicit a little polite laughter; and when the final curtain drew its veil over the proceedings there seemed to Morse not the slightest sign of embarrassed relief amongst the audience. Perhaps all church concerts were the same.
   The Vicar had earlier announced that tea would be served at the end of the entertainment, and Morse felt certain that Mrs W.-A. would not be leaving without a cup. All he had to do was find out which one she was. He looked around in vain for Miss Rawlinson, but it seemed clear that she'd given the evening a miss - enough of a penance, no doubt, her scrubbing the pews. But he felt a certain disappointment. . . . People were leaving the hall fairly quickly now, but Morse decided to wait a minute or two. He took out his programme and looked at it vaguely, but with no real purpose other than that of seeming not to be lonely.
   'I hope you'll have a cup of tea with us?' Even at this late stage Meiklejohn was not neglecting his pastoral duties.
   Tea? It had never occurred to Morse that he might be drinking tea at 9 p.m. 'Yes; thank you. I wonder if you happen to know a Mrs Walsh-Atkins. I want— '
   'Yes, yes. This way. Wonderful concert, wasn't it?'
   Morse mumbled inaudibly and followed his guide into the crowded vestibule where a stout lady was coaxing a dark-brown liquid from a formidable urn. Morse took his place in the queue and listened to the conversation of the two women in front of him.
   'You know, it's the fourth time now he's been in one of them. His dad would have been ever so proud of him.'
   'No one would ever suspect he was blind, would they? Coming on the way he does and all that.'
   'It's lots of rehearsal that does it, you know. You have to sort of picture where everything is— '
   'Yes. You really must be proud of him, Mrs Kinder.'
   'They've asked him to be in the next one, anyway, so he must be all right, mustn't he?'
   So the poor devil had been blind after all. And learning a part and stepping out on to the stage had probably been about as much of an ordeal as for a sighted person walking through a swamp of crocodiles. Morse suddenly felt very moved, and very humbled. When it came to his turn, he slipped a fifty-pence piece on to the tea-money plate, and hoped that nobody had noticed. He felt oddly out of place there. These were good people, who rejoiced in the simple ties of family and Christian fellowship; who thought of God as a father, and who never in a month of Sabbaths could begin to understand the aberrations of the new theology which thought of Him (if it thought of Him at all) as the present participle of the verb 'to be'. Morse sipped his tea self-consciously, and once more took out his programme and looked for the name of Her Ladyship's butler, whose mother (with what sweet justification!) was feeling so happy and proud. But once again he was interrupted. Meiklejohn was at his shoulder, and with him a diminutive old lady munching a digestive biscuit.
   'Mr - er?'
   'Morse.'
   'You said you wanted to meet Mrs Walsh-Atkins?'
   Morse stood above her, acutely conscious of her smallness, and suggested they should sit down back in the hall. He explained who he was, why he was there, and what he wanted to know; and she readily told him of her own part in that dreadful day's events when she'd found Lawson dashed to pieces from the tower, repeating virtually verbatim the words she had used at the inquest.
   Nothing! Morse had learned nothing. Yet he thanked her politely and asked if he could fetch her another cup of tea.
   'One's enough for me these days, Inspector. But I must have left my umbrella somewhere. If you would be kind enough to....'
   Morse felt his scalp tingling in the old familiar way. They were seated at a small table at the back of the hall, and there was the umbrella, large as life, lying diagonally across it. There could be little doubt about it: the old lady must be going blind.
   'Do you mind me asking how old you are, Mrs Walsh-Atkins?'
   'Can you keep a secret, Inspector?'
   'Yes.'
   'So can I,' she whispered.

   Whether Morse's decision to patronise the cocktail-lounge of the Randolph was determined by his thirst, or by some wayward wish to find out if Miss Rawlinson might be there, he didn't stop to think. But he recognised no one, left after only one pint, and caught a bus outside the Taylorian. Back home, he poured himself a large neat whisky and put on Vier Letzte Lieder. Marvellous. 'Melismatic', as it said on the sleeve. . . .
   It was time for an early night, and he hung up his jacket in the hallway. The programme stuck out of one of the pockets and, third time lucky, he opened it and read it.
   'Her Ladyship's Butler - Mr John Kinder.' And then his pulse raced as he looked at the top of the cast: 'Her Ladyship, the Hon. Amelia Barker-Barker - Miss Ruth Rawlinson.'

Chapter Eleven

   Mediums and clairvoyants claim enhanced scope for their talents if they can be physically present in a room where the absent ones - the missing or the plain dead - may have left a few stray emanations behind. Murderers, likewise, have the reputation of nursing an uncontrollable urge to revisit the scene of death, and on Sunday morning Morse found himself wondering whether the murderer of Josephs had ever set foot in St Frideswide's again since the day of his crime. He thought that the answer was probably 'yes', and it was one of the very few positive thoughts he had managed to generate since Friday evening. Somehow his mind had gone completely stale, and on the Saturday he had firmly resolved to abandon all idea of further investigation into a mysterious affair which was none of his business anyway. In the morning he had consulted the Sibyl once more, but had drawn the line at Inverness. In the afternoon he had wasted two idle hours in front of the television set watching the racing from Doncaster. He was restless and bored: there were so many books he could read, so many records he could play - and yet he could summon up no enthusiasm for anything. What did he want? His listless mood persisted through to Sunday morning, when not even the few erotic titbits in the News of the World could cheer him. He sprawled gloomily in his armchair, his eyes vaguely scanning the multi-coloured spines along the bookshelves. Baudelaire might match his mood, perhaps? What was that line about the prince in 'Les Fleurs du Mal'? 'Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux. . . . ' And quite suddenly Morse felt better. Bloody nonsense! He was neither impotent nor senile - far from it! It was time for action.
   He rang the number and she answered.
   'Hello?'
   'Miss Rawlinson?'
   'Speaking.'
   'You may not remember me. I - I met you in St Frideswide's last Monday.'
   'I remember.'
   'I was - er - thinking of going to church this morning— '
   'Our church, you mean?'
   'Yes.'
   'You'd better get a move on - it starts at half-past ten.'
   ‘Oh. I see. Well - er - thank you very much.'
   'You're very interested in us all of a sudden, Inspector.' There was a suggestion of friendly amusement in her voice, and Morse wanted to keep her on the phone.
   'Did you know I came to the social on Friday evening?'
   'Of course.' Morse felt a silly juvenile joy about that 'of course'. Keep going, lad! 'I - er - I didn't see you afterwards. In fact I didn't realize that it was you in the play.' 'Amazing what a blonde wig does, isn't it?' 'Who is it?' Someone called behind her voice. 'Pardon?' said Morse. 'It's all right. That was my mother - asking who you are.'
   'Oh, I see.'
   'Well, as I say, you'd better hurry up if you're going— '
   'Are you going? Perhaps I could give you— '
   'No, not this morning. Mother's had one of her asthma attacks, and I can't leave her.'
   'Oh.' Morse hid his disappointment beneath a cheerful farewell, and said 'Bugger it!' as he cradled the phone. He was going, though. It wasn't Ruth Rawlinson he wanted to see. He just wanted to get the feel of the place - to pick up a few of those stray emanations. He told himself that it didn't matter two hoots whether the Rawlinson woman was there or not.

   Looking back on his first church attendance for a decade, Morse decided that it was quite an experience. St Frideswide's must, he thought, be about as 'spikey ' as they come in the Anglican varieties. True, there was no Peter's Pence at the back of the church, no bulletin from the pulpit proclaiming the infallibility of his Holiness; but in other respects there seemed little that separated the church from the Roman fold. There'd been a sermon, all right, devoted to St Paul's humourless denunciation of the lusts of the flesh, but the whole service had really centred round the Mass. It had not started all that well for Morse who, two minutes late, had inadvertently seated himself in the pew reserved for the churchwarden, and this had necessitated an awkward, whispered exchange as the people knelt to confess their wrongdoings. Fortunately, from his vantage-point at the rear, Morse was able to sit and stand and kneel in concert with the rest, although many of the crossings and genuflections proved equally beyond his reflexes as his inclinations. What amazed him more than anything was the number of the cast assembled around the altar, each purposefully pursuing his part: the celebrant, the deacon, the sub-deacon, the incense-swinger and the boat-boy, the two acolytes and the four torch-bearers, and conducting them all a youngish, mournful-faced master of ceremonies, his hands sticking out horizontally before him in a posture of perpetual prayer. It was almost like a floor-show, with everyone so well trained: bowing, crossing, kneeling, rising, with a synchronised discipline which (as Morse saw it) could profitably have been emulated by the Tap-Dance Troupe. To these manoeuvres the equally well-disciplined congregation would match its own reactions, suddenly sitting, as suddenly on its feet again, and occasionally giving mouth to mournful responses. The woman seated next to Morse had soon spotted him for the greenhorn that he was, and was continually thrusting the appropriate page of the proceedings under his nose. She herself sang in a shrill soprano, and was so refined in her diction that the long 'o' vowels issued forth as bleating 'ew's: thus, all the 'O Lords' became 'You Lords', and three times at the start of the service, whilst Meikiejohn walked briskly up and down the aisles sprinkling everything in sight with holy water, she had implored the Almighty to wash her from her sins and make her waiter yea waiter than snew. But there was one thing in Morse's favour - he knew most of the hymns; and at one point he thought he almost managed to drown the 'Hewly Hewly Hewly' on his right. And he learned something, too. From Meiklejohn's notices for the week's forthcoming attractions, it was clear that this Mass business was rather more complicated than he'd imagined. There must be three types, it seemed -'low', 'high' and 'solemn'; and if, as Morse suspected, the low variety wasn't all that posh, if no choir was involved – no organist even? – then what in heaven's name was Morris doing in church when the unhappy Lawson dashed himself to pieces from the tower? People perhaps did sometimes go to church because they wanted to but. . . . Anyway, it might be worthwhile finding out a bit more about those different masses. And there was something else; something very suggestive indeed. With the exception of Morse himself, all the congregation partook of the blessed bread and the blessed wine, ushered quietly and firmly to the chancel-rails by that same churchwarden who had so nearly lost his seat, and who - doubtless by venerable tradition – was himself the very last to receive the sacrament. Josephs had been churchwarden. Josephs must have been the last to kneel at the chancel-rails on the evening of his death. Josephs had drunk some of the communion wine that same night. And Josephs – so the pathologist said – had finished up with some very queer things in his stomach. Was it possible? Was it possible that Josephs had been poisoned at the altar? From his observation of the final part of the ritual, it was clear to Morse that any celebrant with a chalice in his hands could wreak enormous havoc if he had the inclination to do so, for when he'd finished he could get rid of every scrap of evidence. Nor did he need any excuse for this, for it was part of the drill: rinse the cup and wipe it clean and stick it in the cupboard till the next time. Yes. It would be tricky, of course, with all those other stage-hands standing around, like they were now; but on the evening of Josephs' murder, the cast must surely have been very much smaller. Again, it was something worth looking into. There was another snag, though, wasn't there? It seemed that the celebrant himself was called upon to drain the dregs that were left in the chalice, and to do it in front of the whole congregation. But couldn't he just pretend to do that? Pour it down the piscina later? Or, again, there might have been nothing left in the chalice at all. . . .
   There were so very many possibilities . . . and Morse's fancies floated steeple-high as he walked out of the cool church into the sunlit reach of Cornmarket.

Chapter Twelve

   It was some relief for Morse to recognise the fair countenance of Reason once more, and she greeted him serenely when he woke, clear-headed, on Monday morning, and told him that it would be no bad idea to have a quiet look at the problem itself before galloping off towards a solution. Basically there were only two possibilities: either Lawson had killed Josephs, and thereafter committed suicide in a not surprising mood of remorse; or else some unknown hand had killed Josephs and then compounded his crime by adding Lawson to his list. Of these alternatives, the first was considerably the more probable; especially so if Josephs had in some way been a threat to Lawson, if the dagger found in Josephs' back had belonged to Lawson, and if Lawson himself had betrayed signs of anxiety or distress in the weeks preceding Josephs' death, as well as in the days that followed it. The trouble was that Morse had no one to talk to. Yet someone, he felt sure, knew a very great deal about his three 'ifs', and at 9.45 a.m. he found himself knocking rather hesitantly on the door of number 14 Manning Terrace. Such hesitancy was attributable to two causes: the first, his natural diffidence in seeming on the face of it to be so anxious to seek out the company of the fair Ruth Rawlinson; the second, the factual uncertainty that he was actually knocking on the right door, for there were two of them, side by side; the one to the left marked 14B, the other 14A. Clearly the house had been divided - fairly recently by the look of it - with one of the doors (Morse presumed) leading directly to the upper storey, the other to the ground floor.
   'It's open,' shouted a voice behind 14A. 'I can't get any farther.'
   For once, Sod's Law had been inoperative, and he had chosen right. Two steps led up to the narrow carpeted passage which served as a hallway (the staircase was immediately behind the boarded-up wall to the left, and the conversion had left little room for manoeuvre here), and at the top of these steps sat Mrs Alice Rawlinson in her wheelchair, a rubber-tipped walking-stick held firmly across her lap.
   'What d'you want?' Her keen eyes looked up at him sharply.
   'I'm sorry to bother you - Mrs Rawlinson, isn't it?'
   'I said what d'you want, Inspector.'
   Morse's face must have betrayed his astonishment, and the old lady read his thoughts for him. 'Ruthie told me all about you.'
   'Oh. I just wondered if— '
   'No, she's not. Come in!' She worked her chair round in an expertly economical two-point turn. 'Close the door behind you.'
   Morse obeyed quietly, and found himself pushed brusquely aside as he tried to help her through the door at the end of the passage. She waved him to an upright armchair in the neatly furnished sitting-room, and finally came to rest herself only about four feet in front of him. The preliminaries were now completed, and she launched into the attack immediately.
   'If you want to cart my daughter off for a dirty week-end, you can't! We'd better get that straight from the start.'
   But Mrs Raw— ' He was silenced by a dangerously close wave of the stick. (Belligerent old bitch! thought Morse.)
   'I disapprove of many aspects of the youth of today - young men like yourself, I mean - especially their intolerable lack of manners. But I think they're quite right about one thing. Do you know what that is?'
   'Look, Mrs Raw— ' The rubber ferule was no more than three inches from his nose, and his voice broke off in mid-sentence.
   'They've got enough sense to have a bit of sex together before they get married. You agree?'
   Morse nodded a feeble acquiescence.
   'If you're going to live with someone for fifty years— ' She shook her head at the prospect. 'Not that I was married for fifty years. . . . ' The sharp voice had drifted a few degrees towards a more wistful tone, but recovered immediately. 'As I say, though. You can't have her. I need her and she's my daughter. I have the prior call.'
   'I do assure you, Mrs Rawlinson, I hadn't the slightest intention of—'
   'She's had men before, you know.'
   'I'm not sur— '
   'She was a very lovely girl, was my Ruthie.' The words were more quietly spoken, but the eyes remained shrewd and calculating. 'She's not a spring chicken any more, though.'
   Morse decided it was wise to hold his peace. The old girl was going ga-ga.
   'You know what her trouble is?' For a distasteful moment Morse thought her mind must be delving into realms of haemorrhoids and body-odour; but she sat there glaring at him, expecting an answer.
   Yes, he knew full well what Ruth Rawlinson's trouble was. Too true, he did. Her trouble was that she had to look after this embittered old battle-axe, day in and day out.
   'No,' he said. 'You tell me.'
   Her lips curled harshly. 'You're lying to me, Inspector. You know her trouble as well as I do.'
   Morse nodded. 'You're right. I don't think I could stick you for very long.'
   Now her smile was perfectly genuine. 'You know, you're beginning to sound like the man Ruthie said you were.' (Perhaps, thought Morse, she's not so ga-ga after all?)
   'You're a bit formidable sometimes, aren't you?'
   'All the time.'
   'Would Ruth have married - but for you?'
   'She's had her chances - though I didn't think much of her choices.'
   'Real chances?'
   Her face grew more serious. 'Certainly one.'
   'Well.' Morse made as if to rise, but got no farther.
   'What was your mother like?'
   'Loving and kind. I often think of her.'
   'Ruthie would have made a good mother.'
   'Not too old now, is she?'
   'Forty-two tomorrow.'
   'Hope you'll bake her a cake,' muttered Morse.
   'What?' The eyes blazed now. 'You don't understand, either, do you? Bake? Cook? How can I do anything like that? I can't even get to the front door.'
   'Do you try?'
   'You're getting impertinent, Inspector. It's time you went.' But as Morse rose she relented. 'No, I'm sorry. Please sit down again. I don't get many visitors. Don't deserve 'em, do I?'
   'Does your daughter get many visitors?'
   'Why do you ask that?' The voice was sharp again.
   'Just trying to be pally, that's all.' Morse had had his fill of the old girl, but her answer riveted him to the chair.
   'You're thinking of Josephs, aren't you?'
   No, he wasn't thinking of Josephs. 'Yes, I was,' he said, as flatly as his excitement would allow.
   'He wasn't her sort.'
   'And he had a wife.'
   She snorted. 'What's that got to do with it? Just because you're a bachelor yourself— '
   'You know that?'
   'I know a lot of things.'
   'Do you know who killed Josephs?'
   She shook her head. 'I don't know who killed Lawson, either.'
   'I do, Mrs Rawlinson. He killed himself. You'll find the information in the coroner's report. It's just the same as cricket, you know: if the umpire says you're out, you're out, and you can check it up in the papers next morning.'
   'I don't like cricket.'
   'Did you like Josephs?'
   'No. And I didn't like Lawson, either. He was a homosexual you know.'
   'Really? I hadn't heard of any legal conviction.'
   'You're surely not as naïve as you sound, Inspector?'
   'No,' said Morse, 'I'm not.'
   'I hate homosexuals.' The stick lifted menacingly, gripped tight in hands grown strong from long years in a wheelchair. 'I'd willingly strangle the lot of 'em.'
   'And I'd willingly add you to the list of suspects, Mrs Rawlinson but I'm afraid I can't. You see, if someone killed Lawson, as you're suggesting, that someone must have gone up the church tower.'
   'Unless Lawson was killed in the church and someone else carried him up there.'
   It was an idea; and Morse nodded slowly, wondering why he hadn't thought of it himself.
   'I'm afraid I shall have to kick you out, Inspector. It's my bridge day, and I always spend the morning brushing up on a few practice hands.' She was winning every trick here, too, and Morse acknowledged the fact.
   Ruth was fixing the lock on her bicycle when she looked up to see Morse standing by the door and her mother sitting at the top of the steps behind him.
   'Hello,' said Morse. 'I'm sorry I missed you, but I've had a nice little chat with your mother. I really came to ask if you'd come out with me tomorrow night.' With her pale face and her untidy hair, she suddenly seemed very plain, and Morse found himself wondering why she'd been so much on his mind. 'It's your birthday, isn't it?'
   She nodded vaguely, her face puzzled and hesitant.
   'It's all right,' said Morse. 'Your mother says it'll do you good. In fact she's very pleased with the idea, aren't you, Mrs Rawlinson?' (One trick to Morse.)
   'Well, I - I'd love to but— '
   'No buts about it, Ruthie! As the Inspector says, I think it would do you the world of good.'
   'I'll pick you up about seven, then,' said Morse. Ruth gathered up her string shopping-bag, and stood beside Morse on the threshold. 'Thank you, Mother. That was kind of you. But' (turning to Morse) 'I'm sorry. I can't accept your invitation. I've already been asked out by - by someone else.'
   Life was a strange business. A few seconds ago she'd looked so ordinary; yet now she seemed a prize just snatched from his grasp, and for Morse the day ahead loomed blank and lonely. As it did, if only he had known, for Ruth.

Chapter Thirteen

   'What the 'ell do you want?' growled Chief Inspector Bell of the City Police. A fortnight in Malaga which had coincided with a strike of Spanish hotel staff had not brought him home in the sweetest of humours; and the jobs he had gladly left behind him had (as ever) not gone away. But he knew Morse well: they were old sparring partners.
   'The Spanish brothels still doing a roaring trade?'
   'Had the wife with me, didn't I?'
   'Tell me something about this Lawson business.'
   'Damned if I will. The case is closed - and it's got nothing to do with you.'
   'How're the kids?'
   'Ungrateful little buggers. Shan't take 'em again.'
   'And the Lawson case is closed?'
   'Locked and bolted.'
   'No harm in just— '
   'I've lost the key.'
   'All kids are ungrateful.'
   'Especially mine.'
   'Where's the file?'
   'What d'you want to know?'
   'Who killed Josephs, for a start.'
   'Lawson did.'
   Morse blinked in some surprise. 'You mean that?'
   Bell nodded. 'The knife that killed Josephs belonged to Lawson. The woman who charred for him had seen it several times on his desk in the vicarage.'
   'But Lawson was nowhere near Josephs when —' Morse stopped in his tracks, and Bell continued.
   'Josephs was just about dead when he was knifed: acute morphine poisoning, administered, as they say, at the altar of the Lord. What about that, Morse? Josephs was a churchwarden and he was always last at the altar-rail, and he finished up with some pretty queer things in his belly, right? It seems pretty obvious then, that. . . . ' It was a strange experience for Morse. Déjà vu. He found himself only half-listening to Bell's explanation — no, not Bell's, his own explanation. ' . . . rinse the utensils, wipe 'em clean, stick 'em in the cupboard till next time. Easy! Proof, though? No.'
   'But how did Lawson— '
   'He's standing in front of the altar, waiting for the last hymn to finish. He knows Josephs is counting tip the collection in the vestry as he always does, and Lawson's expecting him to be lying there unconscious; dead, probably, by now. But suddenly Josephs shouts for help, and Lawson comes swooping down the aisle in his batman outfit — '
   'Chasuble,' mumbled Morse.
   ' — and covers him up under his what's-it; he keeps the others — there aren't many of 'em, anyway — away from the vestry, sends for help, and then when he's alone he sticks his knife in Josephs' back - just to make sure.'
   'I thought the collection was pinched.'
   Bell nodded. 'There was one of those down-and-out fellows at the service: Lawson had helped him occasionally - put him up at the vicarage, given him his old suits - that sort of thing. In fact, this fellow had been kneeling next to Josephs at the communion-rail— '
   'So he could have put the stuff in the wine.'
   Bell shook his head. 'You should go to church occasionally, Morse. If he had done, Lawson would have been poisoned just like Josephs, because the minister has to finish off what's left of the wine. You know, I reckon your brain's getting addled in your old age.'
   'Someone still pinched the collection,' said Morse feebly.
   'Oh yes. And I'm sure it was this fellow — Swan, or something like that, his name was. He just saw the money in the vestry and — well, he just nicked it.'
   'I thought you said Lawson kept all the others outside.'
   'For a start, yes. He had to.'
   Morse looked far from convinced, but Bell sailed happily on. 'A reasonably well-educated fellow, by all accounts. We put out a description of him, of course, but. . . . They all look much of a muchness, those sort of fellows: none of 'em shave or get their hair cut. Anyway, he'd only be up for petty larceny if we found him. Two or three quid, at the outside - that's all he got. Funny, really. If he'd had a chance to go through Josephs' pockets, he'd have found nearly a hundred.'
   Morse whistled softly. 'That means that Lawson couldn't have gone through his pockets, either, doesn't it? They tell me the clergy aren't exactly overpaid these days, and Lawson couldn't have been rolling in— ' Bell smiled. 'Lawson was hellish lucky to get the chance to knife him - let alone go through his pockets. But that's neither here nor there. Lawson was rolling in it. Until a few weeks before he died, his deposit account at the bank stood at over £30,000.'
   This time Morse's whistle was loud and long. 'Until a few weeks . . . ?'
   'Yes. Then he took his money out. Almost all of it.'
   'Any idea— '
   'Not really.'
   'What did the bank manager have to tell you?'
   'He wasn't allowed to tell me anything.'
   'What did he tell you?'
   'That Lawson had told him he was going to make an anonymous donation to some charity, and that's why he wanted cash.'
   'Some bloody donation!'
   'Some people are more generous than others, Morse.'
   'Did he take out all this cash before, or after, Josephs was murdered?'
   For the first time Bell seemed slightly uneasy. 'Before, actually.'
   Morse was silent for a short while. The new pieces of evidence were not fitting at all neatly. 'What was Lawson's motive for killing Josephs?'
   'Blackmail, perhaps?'
   'Josephs had some hold over him?'
   'Something like that.'
   'Any ideas?'
   'There were a few rumours.'
   'Well?'
   'I prefer facts.'
   'Was Lawson buggering the choirboys?’
   'You always did put things so nicely.'
   'What facts, then?'
   'Lawson had made out a cheque for £250 to Josephs a couple of weeks earlier.'
   'I see,' said Morse slowly. 'What else?'
   'Nothing.'
   'Can I look through the files?'
   'Certainly not,'
   Morse spent the next hour in Bell's office looking through the files.
   Considering the limited number of personnel available, the investigations into the deaths of Josephs and Lawson had been reasonably thorough, although there were a few surprising omissions. It would have been interesting, for example, to read the evidence of every single member of the congregation present when Josephs died, but it seemed that several of them had been only casual visitors - two American tourists amongst them - and Lawson had quite innocently informed them that perhaps they needn't stay. Understandable, no doubt - but very careless and quite improper. Unless... unless, thought Morse, Lawson wasn't over-anxious for all of them to tell the police what they'd seen? It was sometimes just those little details, just those little inconsistencies.... Of the statements that were available, all cleanly set out, all neatly typed, only one arrested Morse's attention: the one, duly signed in the dithery hand of Mrs Emily Walsh-Atkins, attesting to the identification of Lawson.
   'Did you interview this old girl?' asked Morse, pushing the statement across the table. 'Not personally, no.'
   So far Bell had shown himself a jump or two ahead all round the course, but Morse thought he now saw himself coming through pretty fast on the rails. 'She's as blind as a bloody bat, did you know that? What sort of identification do you think this is? I met her the other night and— '
   Bell looked up slowly from the report he'd been reading. 'Are you suggesting that fellow we found draped over the railings wasn't Lawson?'
   'All I'm suggesting, Bell, is that you must have been pretty hard up for witnesses if you had to rely on her. As I say, she's—'
   'She's as blind as a bat - almost your own words, Morse; and if I remember rightly, exactly the words of my own Sergeant Davies. But don't be too hard on the old dear for wanting to get into the act - it was the most exciting thing that ever happened to her.'
   'But that doesn't mean—
   'Hold your horses, Morse! We only needed one identification for the coroner's court, so we only had one. Right? But we had another witness all ready, and I don't think he's as blind as a bat. If he is, he must have one helluva job when he plays the organ in six sharps.'
   'Oh, I see.' But Morse didn't see. What was Morris doing at St Frideswide's that morning? Ruth Rawlinson would know, of course. Ruth. . . . Huh! Her birthday today, and she would be all dolled up for a date with some lecherous lout. . . .
   'Why was Morris at church that morning?'
   'It's a free country, Morse. Perhaps he just wanted to go to church.'
   'Did you find out if he was playing the organ?'
   'As a matter of fact, I did, yes.' Bell was thoroughly enjoying himself again - something he'd seldom experienced in Morse's company before. 'He was playing the organ.'
   After Morse had gone, Bell stared out of his office window for several minutes. Morse was a clever beggar. One or two questions he'd asked had probed a bit deeper than was comfortable; but most cases had a few ragged ends here and there. He tried to switch his mind over to another channel, but he felt hot and sticky; felt he might be sickening for something.

   Ruth Rawlinson had lied to Morse — well, not exactly lied. She did have an assignation on the evening of her birthday; but it wouldn't last for long, thank goodness! And then? And then she could meet Morse - if he still wanted to take her out.
   At 3 p.m. she nervously flicked through the ms in the blue Oxford Area Telephone Directory, and found only one 'Morse' in north Oxford: Morse, E. She didn't know his Christian name, and she vaguely wondered what the 'E' stood for. Irrationally, as she heard the first few rings, she hoped that he wasn't in; and then, as they continued, she prayed that he was. But there was no answer.

Chapter Fourteen

   From the City Police H.Q. Morse walked up past Christ Church to Cornmarket. To his left he noticed that the door of Carfax tower stood open, and beside it a notice inviting tourists to ascend and enjoy a panoramic view of Oxford. At the top of the tower he could see four or five people standing against the sky-line and pointing to some of the local landmarks, and a teenage youth actually sitting on the edge, with one of his boots wedged against the next parapet. Morse, feeling a twinge of panic somewhere in his bowels, lowered his eyes and walked on. He joined the small bus-queue just outside Woolworth, thinking again of what he'd just been reading: the life-histories of Josephs and Lawson, the accounts of their deaths, the subsequent investigations. But for the moment the filters of his brain could separate out no new nugget of precious information, and he turned towards St Giles' and looked up at the tower of St Frideswide's. No one up there, of course. . . . Just a minute! Had anyone been up there - recently? Suddenly a curious thought came into his mind - but no, it must be wrong. There'd been something in Bell's file about it: 'Each November a group of volunteers go up to sweep the leaves.' It had just been a thought, that's all.
   A Banbury Road bus nudged into the queue, and Morse sat upstairs. As they passed St Frideswide's he looked up again at the tower and made a guess at its height: eighty, ninety feet? The trees ahead of him in St Giles' had that long-distance look of green about them as the leaves began to open; and the bus, as it pulled into the lay-by outside the Taylorian Institute, was scraping against some of their budded branches, when something clicked in Morse's mind. How tall were the trees here? Forty, fifty feet? Not much more, certainly. So how in the name of gravity did the autumnal leaves ever manage to dance their way to the top of St Frideswide's tower? Wasn't there perhaps a simple answer, though. They didn't. The November leaf-sweeping brigade had no need to go up to the main tower at all: they just cleared the lower roofs over the aisle and the Lady Chapel. That must be it. And so the curious thought grew curiouser still: since the time of Lawson's death, when doubtless Bell's minions had sieved every leaf and every fragment of stone, had anyone been up to the roof of the tower?
   The bell pinged for the bus to stop at the Summertown shops; and simultaneously another bell rang in Morse's mind, and he joined the exodus. In Bell's notes (it was all 'bells' now) there'd been a few tactful mentions of Josephs' weakness for gambling on the horses, and the intelligent early suggestion (before Bell's visit to Josephs' bank manager) that the £100 or so found in the dead man's wallet might have had a fairly simple provenance - the licensed betting-office in Summertown.
   Morse pushed open the door and immediately registered some surprise. It was more like a branch of Lloyds Bank than the traditional picture of a bookmaker's premises. A counter faced him along the far wall, with a low grille running the length of it, behind which two young women were taking money and stamping betting-slips. Round the three other walls the racing pages of the daily newspapers were pinned, and in front of them were placed black plastic chairs where clients could sit and study the form-guides and consider their own fancies or the tipsters' selections. There were about fifteen people there, all men - sitting or standing about, their minds keenly concentrated on the state of the going, the weights and the jockeys, their ears intent on the loudspeaker which every few minutes brought them the latest news of the betting direct from the courses. Morse sat down and stared vacantly at a page of the Sporting Chronicle. To his right, a smartly dressed Chinaman twisted the knob on a small machine affixed to the wall and tore off a betting-slip. And from the corner of his eye Morse could see exactly what he wrote: '3.35 Newmarket - £20 win - The Fiddler'. Phew! Surely most of the punters here had to be satisfied with a modest fifty pence or so each way? He turned his head and watched the Chinaman at the pay-in counter, four crisp fivers fanned out neatly in his right hand; watched the girl behind the grille, as she accepted the latest sacrifice with the bland indifference of a Buddhist deity. Two minutes later the loudspeaker woke up again, and without enthusiasm an impersonal voice announced, the 'off'; announced, after a period of silence, the order of the runners at the four-furlong marker; then the winner, the second the third - The Fiddler not amongst them. To Morse, who as a boy had listened to the frenetically exciting race-commentaries of Raymond Glendenning, the whole thing seemed extraordinarily flat, more like an auctioneer selling a Cézanne at Sotheby's.
   The Chinaman resumed his seat beside Morse, and began to tear up his small yellow slip with the exaggerated delicacy of one who practises the art of origami.
   'No luck?' ventured Morse.
   'No,' said the Chinaman, with a polite oriental inclination of the head.
   'You lucky sometimes?'
   'Sometime.' Again the half-smile, the gentle inclination of the head.
   'Come here often?'
   'Often.' And, as if to answer the query on Morse's face, 'Me pretty rich man, you think so?'
   Morse took the plunge. 'I used to know a fellow who came in here most days - fellow called Josephs. Used to wear a brown suit. About fifty.'
   'Here now?'
   'No. He died about six months ago - murdered, poor chap.'
   'Ah. You mean Harree. Yes. Poor Harree. I know heem. We often talk. He murdered, yes. Me verree soiree.'
   'He won quite a bit on the horses, I've heard. Still, some of us are luckier than others.'
   'You wrong. Harree verree unluckee man. Always just not there quite.'
   'He lost a lot of money, you mean?'
   The Chinaman shrugged. 'Perhaps he rich man.' His narrow eyes focused on the 4.00 card at Newmarket, his right hand reaching up automatically for the knob on the wail machine.
   Probably Josephs had been losing money pretty consistently, and not the sort of money he could hope to recoup from the unemployment exchange. Yet he'd got money from somewhere, by some means.
   Morse considered a little wager of his own on the Chinaman's next selection, but squint as he would he couldn't quite see the name, and he left and walked thoughtfully up the hill. It was a pity. A few minutes after Morse had let himself into his flat, the little Chinaman stood smiling a not particularly inscrutable smile at the the pay-out counter. He hadn't really got his English syntax sorted out yet, but perhaps he'd coined as fitting an epitaph for Harry Josephs as any with those five disjointed adverbs: 'Always just not there quite.

Chapter Fifteen

   'No, I'm sorry, Inspector - he isn't.' It was ten-past seven and Mrs Lewis regretted the interruption to The Archers: she hoped that Morse would either come in or go away. 'Oxford are playing tonight, and he's gone to watch them.'
   The rain had been falling steadily since tea-time, and still pattered the puddles in the Lewises' front drive. 'He must be mad,' said Morse.
   'It's working with you, Inspector. Are you coming in?'
   Morse shook his head and a raindrop dripped from his bare head on to his chin. 'I'll go and see if I can find him.'
   'You must be mad,' muttered Mrs Lewis.
   Morse drove carefully through the rain up to Headington, the windscreen-wipers sweeping back and forth in clean arcs across the spattered window. It was these damned holidays that upset him! Earlier this Tuesday evening he had sat in his armchair, once again in the grip of a numbing lethargy that minute by minute grew ever more paralysing. The Playhouse offered him a Joe Orton farce, hailed by the critics as a comedy classic. No. The Moulin Rouge announced that the torrid Sandra Bergson was leading a sexy, savage, insatiable all-girl gang in On the Game: an X trailer, no doubt, advertising a U film. No. Every prospect seemed displeasing, and even women, temporarily, seemed vile. Then he'd suddenly thought of Sergeant Lewis.
   It had been no problem parking the Jaguar in Sandfield Road, and Morse now pushed through the stiff turnstile into the Manor Road ground. Only a faithful sprinkling of bedraggled spectators was standing along the west-side terrace, their umbrellas streaked with rain; but the covered terrace at the London Road end was tightly packed with orange-and-black-scarved youngsters, their staccato 'Ox-ford - clap-clap-clap' intermittently echoing across the ground. One row of brilliant floodlights was suddenly switched on, and the wet grass twinkled in a thousand silvery gleams.
   A roar greeted the home team, yellow-shirted, blue-shorted leaning forward against the slanting rain, and kicking and flicking a series of white footballs across the sodden pitch until they shone like polished billiard balls. Behind him, as Morse turned, was the main stand, under cover and under-populated; and he walked back to the entrance and bought himself a transfer ticket.
   By half-time Oxford were two goals down, and in spite of repeated scrutinies of those around him, Morse had still not spotted Lewis. Throughout the first half, when the centre of the pitch and the two goal-mouths had churned up into areas of squelchy morass reminiscent of pictures of Passchendaele, Morse's thoughts had given him little rest. An improbable, illogical, intuitive notion was growing ever firmer in his mind - a mind now focused almost mesmerically on the tower of St Frideswide's, and the fact that he himself was quite unable to check his forebodings served only to reinforce their probability. He needed Lewis badly - there could be no doubt of that.
   Greeted by a cacophony of whistles and catcalls, his black top and shorts shining like a skin-diver's suit, the referee came out to inspect the pitch again, and Morse looked at the clock by the giant Scoreboard: 8.20 p.m. Was it really worth staying?
   A firm hand gripped his shoulder from behind. 'You must be mad, sir.' Lewis clambered over the back of the seat and sat himself down beside his chief.
   Morse felt indescribably happy. 'Listen, Lewis. I want your help. What about it?'
   'Any time, sir. You know me. But aren't you on— ?'
   'Any time?'
   A veil of slow disappointment clouded Lewis' eyes. 'You don't mean— ?' He knew exactly what Morse meant.
   'You've lost this one, anyway.'
   'Bit unlucky, weren't we, in the first half?'
   'What are you like on heights?' asked Morse.

   Like the streets around the football ground, St Giles' was comparatively empty, and the two cars easily found parking-spaces outside St John's College.
   'Fancy a beefburger, Lewis?'
   'Not for me, sir. The wife'll have the chips on.' Morse smiled contentedly. It was good to be back in harness again; good to be reminded of Mrs Lewis' chips. Even the rain had slackened, and Morse lifted his face and breathed deeply, ignoring Lewis' repeated questions about their nocturnal mission.
   The large west window of St Frideswide's glowed with a sombre, yellow light, and from inside could be heard the notes of the organ, muted and melancholy.
   'We going to church?' asked Lewis; and in reply Morse unlatched the north door and walked inside. Immediately on their left as they entered was a brightly-painted statue of the Virgin, illumined by circles of candles, some slim and waning rapidly, some stout and squat, clearly prepared to soldier on throughout the night; and all casting a flickering kaleidoscopic light across the serene features of the Blessed Mother of God.
   'Coleridge was very interested in candles,' said Morse. But before he could further enlighten Lewis on such enigmatic subject-matter a tall, shadowy figure emerged from the gloom, swathed in a black cassock.
   'I'm afraid the service is over, gentlemen.'
   'That's handy,' said Morse. 'We want to go up the tower.'
   'I beg your pardon.'
   'Who are you?' asked Morse brusquely.
   'I am the verger,' said the tall man, 'and I'm afraid there's no possibility whatsoever of your going up to the tower.'
   Ten minutes later with the verger's key, and the verger's torch, and the verger's warning that the whole thing was highly irregular, Morse found himself on the first few steps of the ascent - a narrow, steep, scalloped stairway that circled closely upwards to the tower above. With Lewis immediately behind he shone the torch ahead of him, and, increasingly breathless from exertion and apprehension, gritted his teeth and climbed. Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven. ... On the sixty-third step a small narrow window loomed on the left, and Morse shut his eyes, hugging the right-hand wall ever more closely; and ten steps higher, steps still religiously counted, he reached the inexorable conclusion that he would climb one step higher, make an immediate U-turn, descend to the bottom, and take Lewis for a pint in the Randolph. A cold sweat had broken out on his forehead, and the planes registering the vertical and horizontal realities were merging and sliding and slanting into a terrifying tilt. He craved only one thing now: to stand four-square on the solid ground outside this abominable tower and to watch the blessedly terrestrial traffic moving along St Giles'. To stand? No, to sit there; to lie there even, the members of his body seeking to embrace at every point the solid, fixed contours of the flat and comforting earth.
   'Here you are, Lewis. You take the torch. I'm - I'm right behind you.'
   Lewis set off ahead of him, easily, confidently, two steps at a time, upwards into the spiralling blackness; and Morse followed. Above the bell chamber, up and up, another window and another dizzying glimpse of the ground so far below - and Morse with a supreme effort of will thought only of one step upwards at a time, his whole being concentrating itself into the purely physical activity of lifting each leg alternately, like a victim of locomotor ataxia.
   'Here we are, then,' said Lewis brightly, shining the torch on a tow door just above them. "This must be the roof, I think.'
   The door was not locked and Lewis stepped through it, leaving Morse to sit down on the threshold, breathing heavily, his back tight against the door-jamb and his hands tight against his clammy forehead. When finally he dared to look about him, he saw the tessellated coping of the tower framed against the evening sky and then, almost fatally, he saw the dark clouds hurrying across the pale moon, saw the pale moon hurrying behind the dark clouds, saw the tower itself leaning and drifting against the sky, and his head reeled vertiginously, his gut contracted, and twice he retched emptily - and prayed that Lewis had not heard him.
   From the north side of the tower Lewis looked down and across the broad, tree-lined expanse of St Giles'. Immediately below him, some eighty or ninety feet, he guessed, he could just make out the spiked railing that surrounded the north porch, and beyond it the moonlit graves in the little churchyard. Nothing much of interest. He shone the torch across the tower itself. Each of the four sides was about ten or twelve yards in length, with a gully running alongside the outer walls, and a flat, narrow walk, about a yard in width, between these walls and the leaded roof which rose from each side in a shallow pyramid, its apex some eight or nine feet high, on which a wooden post supported a slightly crooked weather-vane.
   He walked back to the door. 'You all right, sir?'
   'Yes, fine. Just not so fit as you, that's all.'
   'You'll get a touch of the old Farmer Giles sitting there, sir.'
   'Find anything?'
   Lewis shook his head.
   'You looked all round?'
   'Not exactly, no. But why don't you tell me what we're supposed to be looking for?' Then, as Morse made no reply: 'You sure you're all right, sir?'
   'Go and - go and have a look all the way round, will you? I'll - er - I'll be all right in a minute.'
   'What's wrong, sir?'
   'I'm scared of bloody heights, you stupid sod!' snarled Morse.
   Lewis said nothing more. He'd worked with Morse many times before, and treated his outbursts rather as he had once treated the saddeningly bitchy bouts of temper from his own teenage daughters. Nevertheless, it still hurt a bit.
   He shone the torch along the southern side of the tower and slowly made his way along. Pigeon-droppings littered the narrow walk, and the gully on this side was blocked somewhere, for two or three inches of water had built up at the south-east corner. Lewis took hold of the outer fabric of the tower as he tried to peer round the east side, but the stonework was friable and insecure. Gingerly he leaned his weight against the slope of the central roofing, and shone the torch round. 'Oh Christ!' he said softly to himself.
   There, stretched parallel to the east wall, was the body of a man - although even then Lewis realised that the only evidence for supposing the body to be that of a man was the tattered, sodden suit in which the corpse was dressed, and the hair on the head which was not that of a woman. But the face itself had been picked almost clean to the hideous skull; and it was upon this non-face that Lewis forced himself to shine his torch again. Twice in all - but no more.

Chapter Sixteen

   At lunch-time on the following day, Morse sat alone in The Bulldog, just opposite Christ Church, and scanned an early copy of the Oxford Mail. Although the main headline and three full columns of the front page were given over to COMPONENTS STRIKE HITS COWLEY MEN, 'Body Found on Church Tower' had been dramatic enough news to find itself half-way down the left-hand column. But Morse didn't bother to read it. After all, he'd been sitting there in Bell's office a couple of hours previously when one of the Mail's correspondents had rung through and when Bell's replies had been guarded and strictly factual: 'No, we don't know who he is.' 'Yes, I did say a "he".' 'What? Quite a long time, yes. Quite a long time.' 'I can't say at the minute, no. They're holding the post-mortem this afternoon. Good headline for you, eh? P.M. THIS P.M.' 'No, I can't tell you who found him.' 'Could be a link-up, I suppose, yes.' 'No, that's the lot. Ring up tomorrow if you like. I might have a bit more for you then.' At the time Morse had felt that this last suggestion was a bit on the optimistic side, and he still felt so now. He turned to the back page and read the sports headline: UNITED COME UNSTUCK ON PITCH LIKE GLUE. But he didn't read that account, either. The truth was that he felt extremely puzzled, and needed time to think.
   Nothing had been found in the dead man's pockets, and the only information imparted by the dark-grey suit, the underclothing, and the light-blue tie was 'Burton', 'St Michael' and 'Munro Spun' respectively. Morse himself had declined to view what Bell had called 'a sticky, putrescent mess', and had envied the perky sang-froid of the police surgeon who reported that whoever he was he wasn't quite such a gruesome sight as some of the bodies they used to fish out of the water at Gravesend. One thing was clear. It was going to be a tricky job to identify the corpse: tricky for Bell, that was. And Bell had not been in the best of humours as he'd glared across the table at Morse and reminded him that he must have some idea who the fellow was. It was Morse who had taken Lewis to the exact spot, wasn't it? And if he was pretty sure he was going to find a corpse he must have got a jolly good idea whose corpse it was!
   But Morse hadn't - it was as simple as that. A peculiar combination of circumstances had concentrated his thoughts on to the tower of St Frideswide's, and all he'd done (whatever Bell suspected) was to obey a compelling instinct which had proved too strong even for his chronic acrophobia. But he'd not expected to find a corpse up there, had he? Or had he? When Lewis had shouted the grim discovery over the roof to him, Morse's mind had immediately jumped to the shadowy figure of the tramp and his miserably thin pickings from the collection-plate. All along he'd felt that it should have been comparatively easy for the police to pick up such a character. People like that had to depend almost entirely on charitable and welfare services of some kind, and were usually well known to the authorities wherever they went. Yet extensive enquiries had led nowhere, and might there not have been a very very simple reason for that?
   Morse bought himself another pint and watched the glass as the cloudy sedimentation slowly cleared; and when he sat down again his brain seemed to have cleared a little, too. No; it wasn't the tramp they'd found, Morse felt sure of that. It was the clothes, really - especially that light-blue tie. Light-blue . . . Cambridge . . . graduates . . . teachers . . . Morris. . . .

   Bell was still in his office.
   'What happened to Paul Morris?' asked Morse.
   'Beggered off with Josephs' wife, like as not.'
   'You don't know?'
   Bell shook his head. He looked tired and drawn. 'We tried, but—'
   'Did you find her?'
   Again Bell shook his head. 'We didn't push things too far. You know how it is. What with Morris teaching at the same school as his son and— '
   'His what? You didn't tell me Morris had a son!'
   Bell sighed deeply. 'Look, Morse. Whadya want from me? You find me another body last night, and I'm deeply grateful, aren't I? That'll be another half-dozen of my lads out of circulation. And I've just had a call to say somebody's been fished out of the river at Folly Bridge, and we've got more trouble with some squatters down in Jericho.' He took out a handkerchief and sneezed heavily. 'And I'm sickening for the flu, and you want me to go chasing after some fellow who was known to be seein' Josephs' missus pretty regularly long before— '
   'Really?' said Morse. 'Why didn't I read that in the report?'
   'Come off it!'
   'He could have killed Josephs. Jealousy! Best motive of the lot.'
   'He was sittin' - playin' the bleedin' organ - when— ' Bell sneezed noisily again.
   Morse settled back in his chair, for some unfathomable reason looking very pleased with himself. 'You still think it really was Lawson you found on the railings?'
   'I told you, Morse, we had two identifications.'
   'Oh yes, I remember. One from a blind woman and one from the man who ran away with Brenda Josephs, wasn't it?'
   'Why don't you go home?'
   'You know,' said Morse quietly, 'when you've finished with your squatters, you'd better get a squad of lads to dig up old Lawson's coffin, because I reckon - just reckon, mind - that you might not find old Lawson in it.' Morse's face beamed with a mischievous pleasure, and he got up to go.
   'That's a bloody fool's thing to say.'
   'Is it?'
   'Not all that easy, either,' It was Bell who was enjoying himself now.
   'No?'
   'No. You see, they cremated him.'
   The news appeared to occasion little surprise or disappointment on Morse's face. 'I knew a minister once— '
   'Well, well!' mumbled Bell.
   ' - who had one of his feet amputated in the First World War. He got it stuck in a tank, and they had to get him out quick because the thing was on fire. So they left his foot there.'
   'Very interesting.'
   'He was very old when I knew him,' continued Morse. 'One foot already in the grave.'
   Bell pushed his own chair back and got up. ’Tell me about it some other time.'
   'He was in a discussion one day about the respective merits of burial and cremation, and the old boy said he didn't mind two hoots what they did with him. He said he'd sort of got a foot in both camps.'
   Bell shook his head in slow bewilderment. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
   'By the way,' said Morse. 'What was the name of Paul Morris' son?'
   'Peter, I think. Why- ?' But Morse left without enlightening Bell on the point.

   P.M. THIS P.M., Bell had said; and as he drove the Jaguar up to Carfax the initials kept repeating themselves to his mind: postmortem, post meridiem, prime minister, Paul McCartney, Post Master, putrefying mess, Perry Mason, Provost Marshal, Peter Morris.... The lights were red at the end of Cornmarket, and as Morse sat waiting there for them to change he looked up yet again at the tower of St Frideswide's looming overhead, and at the great west window which only last night had glowed in the dark when he and Lewis.... On a sudden impulse he pulled round the corner into Beaumont Street and parked his car outside the Randolph. A uniformed young flunkey pounced upon him immediately.
   'You can't leave your car here.'
   'I can leave the bloody car where I like,' snapped Morse. 'And next time you speak to me, lad, just call me "sir", all right?'

   The north porch was locked, with a notice pinned to it: 'Due to several acts of wanton vandalism during the past few months, we regret that the church will now be closed to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.' Morse felt he would have liked to recast the whole sentence, but he satisfied himself by crossing through 'due' and writing 'owing'.

Chapter Seventeen

   Morse rapped briskly on the door marked 'Enquiries', put his head round the door, and nodded 'Hello' to a nice-looking school secretary.
   'Can I help you, sir?'
   'Headmaster in?'
   'Is he expecting you?'
   'Doubt it,' said Morse. He walked across the narrow office tapped once on the study door and entered.
   Phillipson, headmaster of the Roger Bacon School, was only too pleased to be of help.
   Paul Morris, it seemed, had been a music master of the first water. During his short stay at the school, he'd been popular both with his teaching colleagues and with his pupils, and his G.C.E. O-Level and A-Level results had been encouragingly good. Everyone had been mystified - for a start anyway – when he'd left so suddenly, without telling a soul; right in the middle of term, too, on (Phillipson consulted his previous year's diary) 26 October, a Wednesday. He had turned up for school perfectly normally in the morning and presumably gone off, as he often did on Wednesdays, to have lunch at home. And that was the last they'd seen of him. His son, Peter, had left the school just after lessons finished at a quarter to four, and that was the last they'd seen of him. The next day several members of staff had pointed out that both of them were absent from school, and no doubt someone would have gone round to the Morris residence if it hadn't been for a call from the Oxford City Police. It seemed that some anonymous neighbour had tipped them off that Morris and his son had left Kidlington and gone off to join a woman ('I suppose you know all about this, Inspector?') - a Mrs Josephs. Inspector Bell had called personally to see Phillipson and told him that a few enquiries had already been made, and that several of Morris' neighbours had seen a car answering the description of Mrs Josephs' Allegro parked somewhere nearby several times during the previous months. In fact, the police had learned from other sources that in all probability Morris and Mrs Josephs had been lovers for some time. Anyway, Bell had asked Phillipson to soft-pedal the whole thing; make up some story about Morris having to be away for the rest of the term - death of one of his parents - anything he liked. Which Phillipson had done. A temporary stand-in had taken over Morris' classes for the remainder of the autumn term, and a new woman appointed from January. The police had visited the house that Morris had rented furnished, and found that most of the personal effects had been taken away, although for some reason a fair number of books and expensive record-player had been left behind. And that was all, really. Phillipson had heard nothing more from that day to this. To the best of his knowledge no one had received any communication from Morris at all. He had not applied for a reference, and perhaps, in the circumstances, was unlikely to.
   Not once had Morse interrupted Phillipson, and when finally he did say something it was totally irrelevant. 'Any sherry in that cupboard, Headmaster?'
   Ten minutes later Morse left the headmaster's study and leaned over the young secretary's shoulder.
   'Making out a cheque for me, miss?'
   '"Mrs"; Mrs Clarke.' She wound the yellow cheque from the typewriter carriage, placed it face downwards on her desk, and glared at Morse defiantly. His lack of manners when he'd come in had been bad enough, but—
   'You look pretty when you're cross,' said Morse.
   Phillipson called her through to his study. 'I've got to go out, Mrs Clarke. Take Chief Inspector Morse along to the first-year-sixth music group, will you? And wash up these glasses when you get back, please.'
   Tight-lipped and red-cheeked, Mrs Clarke led the way along the corridors and up to the music-room door. 'In there,' she said.
   Morse turned to face her and laid his right hand very gently on her shoulder, his blue eyes looking straight into hers. 'Thank you, Mrs Clarke,' he said quietly. 'I'm awfully sorry if I made you angry. Please forgive me.'
   As she walked back down the steps, she felt suddenly and marvellously pleased with life. Why had she been so silly? She found herself wishing that he would call her back about something. And he did.
   'When do the staff get their cheques, Mrs Clarke?'
   ‘On the last Friday in the month. I always type them the day before.'
   'You weren't typing them just now, then?'
   'No. We're breaking up tomorrow, and I was just typing an expenses cheque for Mr Phillipson. He had a meeting in London yesterday.'
   'I hope he's not on the fiddle.'
   She smiled sweetly. 'No, Inspector. He's a very nice man.'
   'You're very nice, too, you know,' said Morse.
   She was blushing as she turned away, and Morse felt inordinately envious of Mr Clarke as he watched the secretary's legs disappearing down the stairs. Last Friday in the month, she'd said. That would have been 28 October, and Morris had left two days before his cheque was due. Very strange!
   Morse knocked on the music-room door and entered.
   Mrs Stewart stood up immediately and made as if to turn off the record-player; but Morse held up his right hand, waved it slightly, and sat down on a chair by the wall. The small class was listening to Fauré's Requiem; and with an almost instant ecstasy Morse closed his eyes and listened again to the ethereal sweep of the 'In Paradisum': aeternam habeas requiem . . . 'that thou mayest have eternal rest'..... Too quickly the last notes died away into the silence of the room, and it occurred to Morse that rather too many people had all too recently had a premature dose of that eternal rest thrust forcibly upon them. The score stood at three at the minute; but he had a grim foreboding that soon it might be four.
   He introduced himself and his purpose, and was soon surveying the seven girls and the three boys who were in the first year of their A-Level music course. He was making enquiries about Mr Morris; they'd all known Mr Morris; there were various business matters which had to be cleared up, and the police weren't sure where Mr Morris had gone to. Did any of them know anything at all about Mr Morris that might just possibly be of any help? The class shook their heads, and sat silent and unhelpful. So Morse asked them a lot more questions, and still they sat silent and unhelpful. But at least two or three of the girls were decidedly decorative - especially one real honey at the back whose eyes seemed to flash the inner secrets of her soul across the room at him. Morris must have looked at her lustfully just once in a while? Surely so....
   But he was getting nowhere slowly, that was obvious; and he changed his tactics abruptly. His target was a pallid-looking, long-haired youth in the front row. 'Did you know Mr Morris?'
   'Me?' The boy swallowed hard. 'He taught me for two years, sir.'
   'What did you call him?'
   'Well, I - I called him "Mr Morris".' The rest of the class smirked silently to each other, as if Morse must be a potential idiot.
   'Didn't you call him anything else?'
   'No.'
   'You never called him "sir"?'
   'Well, of course. But— '
   'You don't seem to realise the seriousness of this business, lad. So I'll have to ask you again, won't I? What else did you call him?'
   'I don't quite see what you mean.'
   'Didn't he have a nickname?'
   'Well, most of the teachers— '
   'What was his?'
   It was one of the other boys who came to the rescue. 'Some of us used to call him "Dapper".'
   Morse directed his gaze towards the new voice and nodded wisely. 'Yes. So I've heard. Why was it, do you think?'
   It was one of the girls now, a serious-looking soul with a large gap between her front teeth. 'He alwayth drethed very nithely, thir.' The other girls tittered and twittered amongst themselves, and nudged each other knowingly.
   'Any more contributions?'
   It was the third boy who took up the easy theme. 'He always wore a suit, you see, sir, and most of the staff - well' (more sniggering) 'well, you know, most of 'em have beards, the men, I mean' (a great guffaw from the class now) 'and wear jeans and sweaters and all that. But Mr Morris, he always wore a suit and looked - well, smart, like.'
   'What sort of suits did he wear?'
   'Well' (it was the same boy) 'sort of dark, you know. Party suits, sort of thing. So, well, we called him "Dapper" - like we said.'
   The bell rang for the end of the lesson, and several members of the class began to gather their books and file-cases together.
   'What about his ties?' persisted Morse. But the psychological moment had passed, and the colour of Morris' ties seemed to have faded from the collective memory.
   As he walked up the drive to his car, Morse wondered if he ought to talk to some of the staff; but he hadn't quite enough to go on yet, and decided it would be better to wait for the pathologist's report.
   He had just started the engine when a young girl appeared at the driving-window. 'Hello, beautiful,' he said. It was the girl from the back row, the girl with the radar eyes, who leaned forward and spoke. 'You know you were asking about ties? Well, I remember one tie, sir. He often wore it. It was a light-blue tie. It sort of went with the suits he used to wear.'
   Morse nodded understandingly. 'That's most helpful. Thank you very much for telling me.' He looked up at her and suddenly realised how tall she was. Strange how all of them looked about the same size when they were sitting down, as if height were determined not so much from the bottom to the shoulder as by the length of the legs - in this case by the length of some very beautiful legs.
   'Did you know Mr Morris well?'
   'Not really, no.'
   'What's your name?'
   'Carole - Carole Jones.'
   'Well, thank you, Carole. And good luck.'

   Carole walked thoughtfully back to the front entrance and made her way to the next lesson. She wondered why she so often felt so attracted to the older men. Men like this inspector fellow; men like Mr Morris…. Her mind went back to the time they'd sat in the car together; when his hand had lightly touched her breasts, and when her own left hand had gently pushed its way between the buttons of his white shirt - beneath the light-blue tie he'd worn that day; the time when he'd asked her to his house, when he'd answered the door and told her that an unexpected visitor had just arrived and that he'd get in touch with her again - very soon. But he never had.

Chapter Eighteen

   Morse was still asleep the next morning when his bedside phone rang. It was Superintendent Strange of the Thames Valley Police H.Q.
   'I've just had a call from the City Police, Morse. You still in bed?'
   'No, no,' said Morse. 'Decorating the lavatory, sir.'
   'I thought you were on holiday.'
   'A man's got to use his leisure hours profitably— '
   'Like clambering over church roofs at the dead of night, you mean.'
   'You heard?'
   'Heard something else, too, Morse. Bell's got flu. And since you seem to have taken over the case already I just wondered whether you'd like to sort of - take over the case. Officially, I mean.'
   Morse shot upright in bed. 'That's good news, sir. When— ?'
   'From now. It'll be better if you work from St Aldates. All the stuff's there, and you can work from Bell's office.'
   'Can I have Lewis?'
   'I thought you'd already got him.'
   Morse's face beamed with pleasure. 'Thank you, sir. I'll just slip a few clothes on and— '
   'Decorating in your pyjamas, Morse?'
   'No. You know me, sir. Up with the lark— '
   'And to bed with the Wren. Yes, I know. And it wouldn't be a bad thing for morale here if you got to the bottom of things, would it? So what about getting out of bed?'
   Five minutes later Morse got through to Lewis and reported the good news. 'What are you doing today, old friend?'
   'My day off, sir. I'm going to take the wife over to— '
   'Were you?' The change of tense was not lost on Lewis, and he listened cheerfully to his instructions. He'd been dreading another visit to his ancient mother-in-law.

   The Jaguar took only one and a half hours to cover the eighty-odd miles to Stamford in Lincolnshire, where the Lawson clan had lived for several generations. The speedometer had several times exceeded 85 m.p.h. as they drove along, up through Brackley, Silserstone and Towcester, then by-passing Northampton and twisting through Kettering before looking down from the top of Easton Hill on to the town of Stamford, its grey stone buildings matching the spires and towers of its many old churches. En route Morse had cheerfully sketched in the background of the St Frideswide's murders; but the sky had grown overcast and leaden, and the sight of thousands of dead elm-trees along the Northamptonshire roads seemed a sombre reminder of reality.
   'They say those trees commit suicide,' Lewis, had ventured at one point. 'They secrete a sort of fluid to try to— '
   'It's not always easy to tell suicide from murder,' muttered Morse.

   By late afternoon the two men had uncovered a fairly solid body of information about the late and (it seemed) little-lamented Lionel Lawson. There had been two Lawson brothers. Lionel Peter and Philip Edward, the latter some eighteen months the younger Both had won scholarships to a public school some ten miles distant, and both had been weekly boarders, spending their Saturday evenings and Sundays during term-time with their parents, who ran a small local business specialising in the restoration of ancient buildings. Academically (it appeared) the two boys were more than competent, with Philip potentially the abler - if also the lazier and less ambitious. After leaving school each of them had spent eighteen months on National Service; and it was during his time in the Army that Lionel, always the more serious-minded of the two, had met a particularly persuasive psalm-singing padre, and been led to the conviction that he was called to the ministry. After demobilisation, he had studied hard on his own for a year before gaining acceptance at Cambridge to read theology. During this period Philip had worked for his father for a few years, but seemingly with little enthusiasm; and finally he had drifted away from home, occasionally revisiting his parents, but with no firm purpose in life, no job, and with little prospect of discovering either. Five years ago Mr Lawson senior and his wife had been killed in the Zagreb air-crash whilst returning from a holiday in southern Yugoslavia, and the family business had been sold, with each of the two sons inheriting about £50,000 net from the estate.
   For most of the day Morse and Lewis had worked separately, each pursuing a different line of enquiry; and it was only on the last visit, to the ex-headmaster of the Lawson boys' public school, that they came together again.
   Doctor Meyer's speech was that of an old schoolmaster, deliberate, over-latinised, with an apparent dread of imprecision. 'He was a clever boy, young Philip. With a modicum of dedication and perseverance - who knows?'
   'You've no idea where he is now?'
   The old man shook his head. 'But Lionel, now. He worked like a Trojan - although exactly why the Trojans are proverbially accredited with a reputation for industriousness has always been a mystery to me. His ambition was always to win a scholarship to Oxford, but— ' He broke off suddenly as if his memory could take him no farther along that avenue of recollection. But Morse was clearly anxious to push him past a few more trees.
   'How long was Lionel in the sixth form?'
   'Three years, as I recall it. Yes, that's right. He took his Higher School Certificate at the end of his second year, and got it all right. He took the Oxford entrance examination just after that, in the Michaelmas term, but I had little real hope for him. His mind was not quite - not quite alpha potential. They wrote to me about him, of course. They said they were unable to offer him a place, but the boy's work had not been without merit. They advised him to stay on for a further year in the sixth and then to try again.'
   'Was he very disappointed?'
   The old man eyed Morse shrewdly and relit his pipe before replying. 'What do you think, Inspector?'
   Morse shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were barely of consequence. 'You said he was ambitious, that's all.'
   'Yes,' replied the old man slowly.
   'So he stayed on another year?'
   'Yes.'
   Lewis shuffled a little uncomfortably in his chair. At this rate of progress they wouldn't be home before midnight. It was as if Morse and Meyer were at the snooker table, each of them playing his safety shots. Your turn, Morse.
   'He took his Higher again?'
   Meyer nodded. 'He didn't do quite so well as in the previous year, if I remember rightly. But that is not unusual.'
   'You mean he was more worried about preparing for his Oxford entrance?'
   'That was probably the reason.'
   'But he didn't make it to Oxford?'
   'Er - no.'
   Something seemed to be puzzling Morse, Lewis could see that. Was he on to something? But it appeared not. Morse had got to his feet and was pulling on his coat. 'Nothing else you can tell me about him?'
   Meyer shook his head and prepared to see his visitors out. He was a short man, and now well over eighty; yet there was still an air of authority in his bearing, and Lewis could well understand (what he'd heard earlier in the day) that Meyer had ruled his school with a rod of iron, and that pupils and staff alike had trembled at his coming.
   'Nothing at all?' repeated Morse as they stood at the door.
   'There's nothing more I can tell you, no.'
   Was there slightly more emphasis on the 'can' than there need have been? Lewis wasn't sure. He was lost as usual anyway.

   For the first part of their return journey, Morse seemed rapt in thought; and when he finally did say something Lewis could only wonder what those thoughts had been.
   'What was the exact day when Lionel Lawson left school?'
   Lewis looked through his notebook. 'November the eighth.'
   'Mm.' Morse nodded slowly. 'Tell me when you spot a phone-box.'

   When, ten minutes later, Morse got back into the car, Lewis could see that he was very pleased with himself.
   'Are you letting me in on this one, sir?'
   'Of course!' Morse looked sideways at his sergeant in mild surprise. 'We're partners, aren't we? We do things together, you and me. Or "you and I", as I've no doubt old man Meyer would say. You see, young Lionel Lawson was an ambitious little swot, right? He's not been over-endowed by the Almighty with all that much up top, but he makes up for it by sheer hard work. More than anything else he wants to go up to Oxford. And why not? It's a fine ambition. Let's just recap on Master Lionel, then. He tries once - and he fails. But he's a sticker. He stays on for another year - another year of grind on his set books and the rest of it, and all the time he's being groomed by his masters for his entrance exam. I shouldn't think he's too bothered about not doing so well in his other exams that summer - he's set his sights on higher things. Remember he's already done three years in the sixth form, and he goes back in the autumn term because that's when the entrance exams are always taken. He's all ready for the final furlong - agreed?'
   'But he didn't make it.'
   'No, you're right. But he didn't fail to get in, Lewis - and that's the interesting point. Lawson, L., left school on November the eighth, you tell me. And I'll tell you something. That year the entrance papers were sat in the first week of December - I just rang up the Registry at Oxford - and Lawson, L., didn't sit the examination.'
   'Perhaps he changed his mind.'
   'And perhaps somebody changed it for him!'
   A light flickered dimly in the darkness of Lewis' mind. 'He was expelled, you mean?'
   'That's about it, I reckon. And that's why old man Meyer was so cagey. He knew a good deal more than he was prepared to tell us.'
   'But we have no real evidence—'
   'Evidence? No, we haven't. But you've got to use a bit of imagination in this job, Lewis, haven't you? So let's use a bit. Tell me. Why do boys usually get expelled from public schools?'
   'Drugs?'
   'They had no drugs in those days.'
   'I don't know, sir. I never went to a public school, did I? There was none of that Greek and Latin stuff for me. We had enough trouble with the three Rs.'
   'It's not the three Rs we're worried about now, Lewis. It's the three Bs: bullying, beating and buggery! And Lawson, L., from what we've learned of him, was a quietly behaved little chap, and I doubt he got expelled for bullying or beating. What do you think?'
   Lewis shook his head sadly: he'd heard this sort of thing before. 'You can't just - you can't just make up these things as you go along, sir. It's not fair!'
   'As you wish.' Morse shrugged his shoulders, and the needle on the speedometer touched 90 m.p.h. as the Jaguar skirted Northampton on the eastern by-pass.

Chapter Nineteen

   Back in Oxford at about 4.30 p.m. that same afternoon, two men were walking slowly down Queen Street from Carfax. The elder, and slightly the taller of the two, a growth of greyish stubble matting his long vacant face, was dressed in an old blue pin-striped suit which hung loosely on his narrow frame. In his right hand he carried a bull-necked flagon of Woodpecker cider. The younger man, bearded and unkempt, anywhere in age (it seemed) between his mid-forties and mid-fifties, wore a long army-issue greatcoat, buttoned up to the neck, its insignia long since stripped off or lost. He carried nothing.
   At Bonn Square they turned into the circle of grass that surrounds the stone cenotaph, and sat down on a green-painted bench beneath one of the great trees girdling the tiny park. Beside the bench was a wire waste-paper basket, from which the younger man pulled out a copy of the previous day's edition of the Oxford Mail. The elder man unscrewed the liquor with great deliberation and, having taken a short swig of its contents, wiped the neck of the bottle on his jacket sleeve before passing it over. 'Anything in the paper?'
   'Nah.'
   Shoppers continuously criss-crossed one another in the pedestrian precinct in front of the park, many of them making their way down the covered arcade between the light-beige brickwork of the Selfridges building and the duller municipal stone of the public library. A few casual glances swept the only two people seated on the park-benches - glances without pity, interest or concern. Lights suddenly blazed on in the multi-storeyed blocks around and the evening was ushered in.
   'Let's look at it when you've finished,' said the elder man, and immediately, without comment, the paper changed hands. The bottle, too, was passed over, almost rhythmically, between them, neither man drinking more than a mouthful at a time.
   'This is what they were talking about at the hostel.' The elder man pointed a thin grubby finger at an article on the front page, but his companion made no comment, staring down at the paving-stones.
   'They've found some fellow up the top of that tower, you know, just opposite— ' But he couldn't quite remember what it was opposite to, and his voice trailed off as he slowly finished the article. 'Poor sod!' he said finally.
   'We're all poor sods,' rejoined the other. He was seldom known to communicate his thoughts so fully, and he left it at that, hunching himself down into his greatcoat, taking a tin of shredded tobacco from one of its large pockets and beginning to roll himself a cigarette.
   'P'haps you weren't here then, but a fellow got hisself murdered there last - when was it now? - last. . . . Augh! Me memory's going. Anyway, a few days later the minister there, he chucks hisself off the bloody tower! Makes you think.'
   But it was not apparent that the younger man was given cause to think in any way. He licked the white cigarette-paper from left to right, repeated the process, and stuck the ill-fashioned cylinder between his lips.
   'What was his name? Christ! When you get older your memory. . . . What was his name?' He wiped the neck of the bottle again and passed it over. 'He knew the minister there. ... I wish I could think of. ... He was some sort of relation or something. Used to stay at the vicarage sometimes. What was his name? You don't remember him?'
   'Nah. Wasn't 'ere then, was I?'
   'He used to go to the services. Huh!' He shook his head as if refusing credence to such strange behaviour. 'You ever go to church?'
   'Me? Nah.'
   'Not even when you was a lad?'
   'Nah.'
   A smartly dressed man carrying a brief-case and umbrella walked past them on his way from the railway station.
   'Got a coupla bob for a cup o' tea, mister?' It was a long sentence for the younger man, but he could have saved his breath.
   'I've not seen him around at all recently,' continued the other. 'Come to think of it, I've not seen him since the minister chucked hisself. . . . Were you there when the police came round to the hostel?'
   'Nah.'
   The elder man coughed violently and from his loose, rattling chest spat out a gob of yellowish phlegm on to the paving. He felt tired and ill, and his mind wandered back to his home, and the hopes of his early years. . . .
   'Gizz the paper 'ere!' said his companion.
   Through thin purplish lips the elder man was now whistling softly the tune to 'The Old Folks at Home', lingering long over the melody like a man whose only precious pleasure now is the maudlin stage of drunkenness. 'Wa-a-ay down upon the— ' Suddenly he stopped. 'Swan-something. Swanpole - that was it! Funny sort of name. I remember we used to call him Swanny. Did you know him?'
   'Nah.' The younger man folded the Oxford Mail carefully and stuck it through the front of his coat. 'You oughta look after that cough o' yours,' he added, with a rare rush of words, as the elder man coughed up again - revoitingly - and got to his feet.
   'I think I'll be getting along. You coming?'
   'Nah.' The bottle was now empty, but the man who remained seated on the bench had money in his pockets, and there may have been a glint of mean gratification in his eyes. But those eyes were shielded from public view behind an incongruous pair of dark glasses, and seemed to be looking in the opposite direction as the elder man shuffled unsteadily away.
   It was colder now, but the man on the bench was gradually getting used to that. It was the first thing he'd discovered. After a time you learn to forget how cold you are: you accept it and the very acceptance forms an unexpected insulation. Except for the feet. Yes, except for the feet. He got up and walked across the grass to look at the inscriptions on the stone obelisk. Among the buglers and privates whose deeds were commemorated thereon, he noticed the odd surname of a young soldier killed by the mutineers in Uganda in 1897: the name was Death.