Colin Dexter - The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn

Morse eyed him sharply. Had there been a tinge of irony — or even jealousy, perhaps — in Ogleby's reply? 'Is there never any malpractice?'

'Oh, I wouldn't say that. But that's a completely different question.'

'Is it?'

'You see if a candidate decided to cheat in the examination room, either by taking notes in with him or copying from someone else, then we've just got to rely on the invigilators keeping a very careful eye on things, and reporting anything suspicious directly to us.'

'That happens, does it?'

'Two or three times a year.'

'What do you do about it?'

'We disqualify the candidates concerned from every subject in the examinations.'

'I see.' Morse tried another angle. 'You send out the question papers before the examination, don't you?'

'Wouldn't be much good holding the examinations if we didn't, would it?'

Morse realized what a stupid question he'd asked, and continued rather hastily. 'No. I mean — if one of the teachers was dishonest, or something?'

'The question papers are sent out directly to examination departments, and then distributed to heads of centres — not to individual teachers.'

'But let's take a headmaster, then. If he was a crook — let's say he opened a particular package of question papers and showed them to his pupils—'

'It's as good a way as any for the headmaster to slit his throat.'

'You'd know, you mean?'

Ogleby smiled, 'Gracious, yes. We've got examiners and awarders who'd smell anything like that a mile away. You see we've got records going back over the years of percentage passes for all the subjects examined, and so we know the sort of pupils we're examining, the types of schools — all that sort of thing. But that's not really the point. Like all the examining Boards we inspect our centres regularly after they've been accepted, and they have to meet pretty high standards of integrity and administrative competence before they're recognized in the first place.'

'The schools are regularly inspected then?'

'Oh yes.'

'Is that the sort of job Mr. Bland does in Al-jamara?'

Morse watched Ogleby carefully, but the deputy sailed serenly on. 'Among other things, yes. He's in charge of the whole administrative setup there.'

Morse decided that he might as well tackle the problem from the other end, and he delicately tiptoed his way over the ice again.

'Would it be possible for an outsider, one of the cleaners, say, to get into the cabinets in this office? And get the papers he wanted?'

'Technically, I suppose, yes. If he had the keys, knew where to look, knew the complicated system of syllabus numbering, had the intelligence to understand the various amendments and printing symbols. Then he'd have to copy what he'd got, of course. Every page of proofs and revises is carefully numbered, and no one could get away with just pinching a page.'

'Mm. What about examiners? Let's say they put a high mark down for a particular candidate who's as thick as a plank.'

'Wouldn't work, I'm afraid. The arithmetic of every single script is checked against the marksheet.'

'Well, let's say an examiner gives high marks for all of the answers on the script — even if they're rubbish.'

'If an examiner did that, he would have been kicked out years ago. You see the examiners are themselves examined by a team of what we call "awarders", who report on all the members of the various panels after each examination.'

'But the awarders could. .' No, Morse, let it go. He began to see that it was all far more complex that he had imagined.

But Ogleby finished the thought for him. 'Oh, yes, Inspector. If one of the people at the top was crooked, it would be very easy. Very easy indeed. But why are you asking me all this?'

Morse pondered a while, and then told him. "We've got to find a motive for Quinn's murder, sir. There are a hundred and one possibilities, of course, but I was just wondering if — if perhaps he'd found some er some suggestion of jiggery-pokery, that's all. Anyway, you've been very helpful.'

Ogleby stood up to go, and Morse too rose from his chair. 'I've been asking the others what they were doing last Friday afternoon. I suppose I ought to ask you too. If you can remember, that is.'

'Oh, yes. That's easy enough. I went down to the Oxford University Press in the morning, had a pretty late lunch at the Berni place there with the chief printer, and got back here about, oh, about half past three, I should think.'

'And you spent the rest of the afternoon in the office here?'

'Yes.'

'Are you sure about that, sir?'

Ogleby looked at him with steady eyes. 'Quite sure.'

Morse hesitated, and debated whether to face it now or later.

'What is it, Inspector?'

'It's a bit awkward, sir. I understand from, er, from other sources that there was no one here in the latter part of Friday afternoon.'

'Well, your sources of information must be wrong.'

'You couldn't have slipped out for a while? Gone up to see the chief clerk or something?'

'I certainly didn't go out of the office. I might have gone upstairs, but I don't think so. And if I had, it would only have been for a minute or two, at the very outside.'

'What would you say, then, sir, if someone said there was no one here on Friday afternoon between a quarter past four and a quarter to five?'

'I'd say this someone was mistaken, Inspector.'

'But what if he insisted—?'

'He'd be a liar, then, wouldn't he?' Ogleby smiled serenly, and gently closed the door behind him.

Or you would, thought Morse, as he sat alone. And although you don't know it, my good friend Ogleby, there are two someones who say you weren't here. And if you weren't here, where the hell were you?

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE POLICE CAR, white with a broad, pale-blue stripe along its middle, stood parked by the pavement, and Constable Dickson knocked at the spruce detached bungalow in Old Marston. The door was immediately opened by a smartly-dressed, attractive woman.

'Miss Height?'

'Yes?'

'Is your daughter in?'

Miss Height's features crumpled into a girlish giggle. 'Don't be silly! 'I'm only sixteen!'

Dickson himself grinned oafishly, and accepted the young lady's invitation to step inside.

'It's about Mr. Quinn, isn't it? Ever so exciting. Coo. Just think. He worked in the same office as Mummy!'

'Did you ever meet him, miss?'

'No, worse luck.'

'He never came here?'

She giggled again. 'Not unless Mummy brought him here while I was slaving away at school!'

'She wouldn't do that, would she?'

She smiled happily. 'You don't know Mummy!'

'Why aren't you at school today, miss?'

'Oh, I'm taking some O-levels again. I took them in the summer but I'm afraid I didn't do too well in some of them.'

'What subjects are they?'

'Human Biology, French and Maths. Not that I've got much chance in Maths. We had Paper Two this morning — a real stinker. Would you like to see it?'

'Not now, miss. I er — I was just wondering why you weren't at school, that's all.' It wasn't very subtle.

'Oh, they let us off when we haven't got an exam. Great really. I've been off since lunchtime.'

'Do you always come home? When you're free, I mean?'

'Nothing else to do, is there?'

'You revise, I suppose?'

'A bit. But I usually watch telly. You know, the kiddies' programmes. Quite good, really. Sometimes I don't think I've grown up at all.'

Dickson felt he shouldn't argue. 'You've been here most days recently, then?'

'Most afternoons.' She looked at him innocently. 'I shall be here again tomorrow afternoon.'

Dickson coughed awkwardly. He'd done the bit of homework that Morse had told him to. 'I watched one of those kiddies' films, miss. About a dog. Last Friday afternoon, I think it was.'