determined to retire and to take life a little more gently and sensibly.
We've tackled so many cases together, old friend, and I'm very happy and very
proud to have worked with you for so long.
That's it. The time is now 12. 45 a. m. " and suddenly I feel so very
weary.
All the manuscript notes were with Strange within the half- hour.
And Lewis had nothing further to do with the investigation.
365
chapter eighty I am retired. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am
already come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture,
perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled purpose. I walk about;
not to and from (Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia) it seemed there was
little to cloud the bright evening at the end of August, that same year, when
Strange held his retirement party. The Chief Constable (no less! ) had
toasted his farewell from the Force, paying a fulsome tribute to his
colleague's many years of disdngished service in the Thames Valley CID,
crowned, as it had been, with yet another significant triumph in the Yvonne
Harrison murder case.
For his part. Strange had spoken reasonably wittily and blessedly briefly,
and had included a personal tribute to Chief Inspector Morse: "I don't think
we're going to see his like again in a hurry, and people of lesser intellect
like me should be grateful for that. And it's good to have with us here his
faithful friend and, er, drinking-companion' (muted amusement) " Sergeant
Lewis' (Hear-Hear!
all round).
"Morse had no funeral service and no memorial service, just as he wished; but
I make no apology for remembering him here this evening because, quite
simply, he had the most brilliant mind I ever encountered in the whole of my
police career . .. Well now. All that remains for me is to thank you for
coming along to see me off; to say thank you for
the lawn-mower and the book' (he held aloft a copy of Sir David Attenbo
rough's The Life of Birds) 'and to remind you there's a splendid buffet next
door, including a special plate of doughnuts for one of our number. " (Much
laughter, and much subsequent applause.) Lewis had clapped as much as the
rest of them, but he had no wish to stay too long amid the back-slapping and
the reminiscences; and soon made his way upstairs to the deserted canteen
where he sat in a corner drinking an orange juice, wishing to be alone with
his thoughts for a while . . .
The conclusion to the Harrison case had proved pretty much, though far from
exactly, as Morse had predicted. Two hours after her father had been taken
to HQ for questioning, Sarah Harrison (refusing to see her father) had
presented herself voluntarily and made a full confession to the murder of her
mother, making absolutely no apology for anything except for causing her
father (she knew it! ) all that pain and agony of spirit. What would happen
to her now, she said, would not really amount to imprisonment at all; but, in
a curious sort of way, to a kind of liberation.
And perhaps it had been much the same, albeit rather later, for Frank
Harrison himself, who (less eloquently than his daughter) had by degrees
unburdened himself of his manifold sins and wickednesses, including the
subsequent murder of his wife's lover, John Barren . .
His actions, after receiving his daughter's frantic, frenetic phone call on
the night of Yvonne murder, had been straight- forward. Train to Oxford;
then taxi to Lower Swinstead, whence Barren had long since fled; and where
Repp, though still around, remained unseen. Harrison had paid off Flynn,
expecting him to drive away forthwith; thereafter very quickly dispatching
his distraught daughter home. Coolly and ruthlessly he'd taken over.
Confusion! - that was the only hope; 367
and the only plan. Yvonne was
already handcuffed, presumably for some bizarre bondage session, and what a
blessing that had been! He'd tied a gag lightly around her mouth; gone on to
the patio and smashed in the glass of the french window from the outside
before unlocking it; he'd turned the lights on, every one of them, and yanked
out the TV and the telephone leads, both upstairs and down; and finally, with
if no one heard it, it would be recorded (so he believed).
He'd done enough. Almost enough. Just the police now. He had to ring the
police, immediately; and suddenly he realized he couldn't ring them he'd just
made sure of that himself. But there was his mobile, the mobile on which
he'd already rung Sarah several times from the train and once from Flynn's
taxi. He could always lose it though: and the longer he waited to ring for
help, the better the chances for that confusion he'd tried so hard to effect.
In detective stories he'd often read of the difficulties pathologists
encountered in establishing the time parameters for any murder. Yes! He'd
just go up to the main road and walk (run! ) the half-mile or so to the next
house. Which indeed he was doing when he heard the voice at the gate that
led to the drive. He remembered Flynn's words exactly: "I t'ink you moight
be needin' a little help, sorr?" . . .
epilogue Certainly the gods are ironical: they always punish one for one's
virtues rather than for one's sins (Ernest Dowson, Letters) 'didn't you want
any food? "
"No thank you, sir. I've got a meal waiting at home."
"Ah yes. Of course."
"And I didn't particularly want to watch Dixon eating doughnuts."
"No, I understand." Strange lowered himself rather gingerly on to the
inappropriately small chair opposite.
"Talking of eadng, Lewis, what the hell's eating you, pray?"
As he'd requested (and as we have seen) Lewis had nothing further to do with
the Harrison case. He had tried, and with some considerable success, to
distance himself from the whole affair, even from thinking about it. There
was just that one persistent, niggling worry that tugged away at his mind
like some over-indulged infant tugging away at its mother's skirts in a
supermarket: the knowledge that Morse, on his own admission, and for the
first time in their collaboration, had acted dishonestly and dishonourably.
He looked up at Strange.
"What makes you think something's eadng me?"
"Come on, Lewis! I wasn't born yesterday."
So Lewis told him.
Told him of the unease he'd felt from the beginning of the
3G9
case: that Morse had known far too little about it, and then again far too
much; that Morse had originally voiced such vehement opposition to taking on
the case, and yet had spent the last days of his life doing little else than
trying to fathom its complexity.
"And that's all that's been bothering you?"
"And " Look! Tell me! What's the very worst thing you think he could have
done? There's this attractive nurse pulling him through a serious illness in
hospital a place where patients can get a bit low, and a bit vulnerable.
Nurses, too, for that matter. And she fell for him a bit ' "How do you know
that?"
"She told me so. She told me one night in hospital when she was looking
after me Morse fell for her a bit, too anybody would! and after he's
discharged he writes and asks her why she's not been in touch with him. But
she doesn't write back, although she keeps his letter. Know why, Lewis?
Because she doesn't really know how to cope with being in love herself."
"How do you know that?"
"Does it matter? When she was murdered well, you know the rest.
Morse was on another case at the time you were on it with him, for God's
sake! And he said it was too much for the pair of you to take on another. "
"Only after he'd found his own letter."
"Lewis!"
"Only after he'd recognized the handcuffs."
"Lewis! Listen! Nothing Morse did then nothing- affected that enquiry in
the slightest way. Yvonne had kept some letters from her men-friends, the
kinkies and the straights alike. She certainly didn't keep any from Ban-on.
Maybe because he never wrote any, I dunno. Maybe because she just didn't
want to."
"Just the ones from her favourite clients."
"You know that. You've seen them."
"Some of them," said Lewis slowly.
"Well I saw all the bloody letters!"
"Including the one from Morse."
"Not a crime you know, writing a letter. It was immaterial anyway, as I keep
trying to tell you." Strange looked exasperated.
"It's just that it would have been awkward, wouldn't it? Bloody awkward! I
wanted to protect the silly sod. You never thought he was a saint, did you?"
Lewis was silent for a while. No. He'd never thought of Morse as a possible
candidate for sanctification.
But there was something wrong about what he'd just heard.
"So you saw the letter before Morse saw it, is that what you're saying?"
"Morse never saw the letter, not till you showed him that page of it.
You see, Lewis, Ztook it not Morse. "
"And you didn't check ' " Couldn't have done, could I? It was a longish
letter. But I didn't read it, so I wouldn't have spotted if there was any
gap. "
"So it was you who kept some of the evidence separate?"
"Afraid so, yes. I was scared stiff one of my letters might be there, if you
want the truth. And as things turned out it just became impossible for me to
put that stuff back in the folder while the original enquiry was still going
on."
"So you got a new box-file when the case was re-opened . . ."
Strange nodded.
"Always felt guilty about it but ' " Why didn't Morse spot the page you'd
missed? "
"Perhaps he didn't look all that carefully. Not his way usually, was it?
Perhaps he wasn't too interested in the literary shortcomings of her other
admirers. Not very fond of spelling mistakes, now was he .
. ? or perhaps he just felt the letters were too private, like he'd hoped
his own letter would be. How do Jknow? What I do know is that he wasn't
looking for a list of lovers who might have been in bed with Yvonne that
night. Somehow he was convinced he knew' who the man was. He told me who it
was; and he told you who it was. And he was right. "
371
Lewis nodded.
But the supermarket-brat was giving a final tug.
"Plenty of letters and none of them any help, I agree, sir. But just the one
pair of handcuffs! And Morse realized there'd be no problem in tracing them,
so he destroyed the issue-list. And we both know why, don't we, sir?
Because they were his." | "Come off it, Lewis!
There's a hundred and one worse things in life than him giving some bloody
cuffs he'd never used once in his life to some woman who'd asked him for them
whatever the reason. "
Slowly shaking his head, Lewis stared down at the canteen carpet
disconsolately.
"It's just that he seems not quite the man . . ."
"And you can't forgive him for that."
"Course I can forgive him! Just a bit of a jolt, that's all. Can't you
understand that? After all those years we were together?"
"That's what's really eating you, isn't it? Be honest! It's just that you
don't think as much of old Morse as you used to."
"Not quite as much, no."
Strange struggled to his feet.
"Must be off. Good to talk. I'd better get back downstairs."
Lewis got to his feet.
"Mrs Lewis sends her very best wishes, sir."
The two policemen shook hands, and the interesting exchange was apparently
over.
But not so.
Halfway to the canteen exit. Strange suddenly turned round and came back to
the table.
"Do you remember those issue-lists for handcuffs, Lewis?"
"It's a long time ago ..."
"Well, they're just handwritten lists, kept up to date in a series of
columns: date, name, rank, serial number. Just like this." Strange took a
folded sheet ofA4 from an inside pocket. "But you remember the serial-number
on the pair you found in Morse's drawer?"
"Nine-two-two."
He handed the sheet to Lewis.
"You've got a good memory!"
"Where did you get this?"
"Someone took it from HQ, Lewis. Morse did!"
Lewis looked down at the list, but could find no mention of Morse's name.
Could see another name though at the seventh entry down, along with the other
details in the neatly ruled lines: 3 June '68 Strange
PC
734 922 "You mean. . .?"
"I mean, Lewis, that Morse knew I was having an affair with Yvonne Harrison.
I don't know how he knew, but he always tended to know things, didn't he? He
pinched that form, and he kept it till after the wife's funeral. Then he
gave it to me. Said it would be useless without the cuffs, which he said he
was going to keep anyway, just in case I ever did anything bloody stupid.
And he said exactly what I said to you a few minutes ago: nothing nothing
that happened then had affected the enquiry in the slightest way. Is that
clear, Lewis?"
Yes it was clear.
"You're saying that all Morse did was to save you .
. and save Mrs Strange . . . "
"It would have broken her to pieces," said Strange very quietly.
"And me. Would have broken both of us to pieces."
"She never knew?"
"Never had the faintest idea. Thanks to Morse."
Lewis was silent.
"Just like you, eh? About lots of things. You never had the faintest idea,
for example, that I re-opened the Harrison case on the basis of a couple of
bogus telephone calls, now did you?"
"You mean ?"
373
"I mean there were no telephone calls. I made 'em up myself. Both of
'em."
"I just didn't realize . . ."
"Nobody did, except Morse of course. He guessed straight- away. But I'd
like to bet he never told you! He just didn't want to let me down, that's
all."
"Why didn't he tell me all this though? It would have made such a lot of
difference ... at the end .. ."
"I dunno. Always an independent sod, wasn't he? And always had that great
big streak of loyalty and integrity somewhere deep inside him.
But you don't need me to tell you
that. So he was never worried too much
about what people thought of him. He certainly didn't give two monkeys what
I thought of him, at least most of the time. In fact the only person he did
want to think well of him was you, Lewis. So let me tell you something else.
It's one helluva job having to live with guilt, as I've done. Almost
everybody discovers the same, you know that. Frank Harrison did, didn't he?
Sarah Harrison, too. It's something I hope you'll never have to go through
yourself. Not that you ever will. Nor did Morse though. He once told me
that the guiltiest he ever felt in his life was when a couple of the lads saw
him flicking through a girlie magazine in the Summertown news agent
So . So just keep thinking well of him, Lewis that's all I ask. "
The former Chief Superintendent lumbered across the still- deserted canteen
to join the jollifications below.
But Lewis sat where he was.