Colin Dexter - The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn

Roope was staring through the window on to the concrete yard. He was watchful and tensed, but he said nothing.

The caretaker told you that he was going off for tea, and before long you were alone— or so you thought —on the ground floor of the Syndicate building. It was still only about half past four, and although I suspect you'd originally planned to wait until the whole office was empty, this was too good a chance to miss. Noakes, quite unwittingly, had given you some very interesting information, though you could very easily have found it out for yourself. The only car left in the rear car park was Quinn's . Well, what happened then was this, or something very like it. You went into Quinn's room once more. You took his anorak, and you put it on. You kept your gloves on, of course, and you folded up the plastic mac you'd been wearing. Then you saw that note once more, and you decided that you might as well pocket it. Certainly Quinn wouldn't have left it on the desk if he'd returned, and from this point on you had to think and act exactly as Quinn would have done. You walked out of the back door and found — as you knew you would — that Quinn's car keys were in his anorak pocket. No one was around, of course: the weather was still foul — though ideal for you. You got into the car and you drove away from the building. Noakes in fact saw you leave as he sat upstairs having a cup of tea. But he thought — why shouldn't he? — that it was Quinn. After all, he could only see the top of the car. So? That was that. The luck was on your side at this stage, and you made the most of it. The first part of the great deception was over, and you'd come through it with flying colours!'

Roope shuffled uneasily on his hard wooden chair, and his eyes looked dangerous; but again he said nothing.

'You drove the car to Kidlington and you parked it safely in Quinn's own garage in Pinewood Close, and here again you had a curious combination of good and bad luck. First the good luck. The rain was still pouring down and no one was likely to look too carefully at the man who got out of Quinn's car to unlock his own garage doors. It was dark, too, and the corner of Pinewood Close was even darker than usual because someone— someone , Roope, had seen to it that the street lamp outside the house had been recently and conveniently smashed. I make no specific charges on that point, but you must allow me to harbour my little suspicions. So, even if anyone did see you, hunched up in Quinn's green anorak, head down in the rain, I doubt whether any suspicions would have been aroused. You were very much the same build as Quinn, and like him you had a beard. But in another way the luck was very much against you. It so happened, and you couldn't help noticing the fact, that a woman was standing at the upstairs front window. She'd been waiting a long time, frightened that her baby was going to be born prematurely; she had rung her husband at Cowley several times, and she was impatiently expecting him at any minute. Now, as I say, this was not in itself a fatal occurrence. She'd seen you, of course, but it never occurred to her for a second that the person she saw was anyone but Quinn; and you yourself must have totted up the odds and worked on exactly that assumption. Nevertheless, she'd seen you go into the house , where you immediately discovered that Mrs. Evans — you must have had a complete dossier on all the domestic arrangements — as I say, Mrs. Evans, by a sheer fluke, had not finished the cleaning. What's more, she'd left a note to say she would be coming back! That was bad luck, all right, and yet you suddenly saw the chance of turning the tables completely. You read the note from Mrs. Evans, and you screwed it up and threw it into the wastepaper basket. You lit the gas fire, putting the match you used carefully back into your matchbox. You shouldn't have done that, Roope! But we all make mistakes, don't we? And then — the masterstroke! You had a note in your pocket — a note written by Quinn himself, a note which not only looked genuine; it was genuine. Any handwriting expert was going to confirm, almost at a glance, that the writing was Quinn's. Of course he'd confirm it. The writing was Quinn's. You were hellishly lucky, though, weren't you? The note was addressed to Margaret Freeman, Quinn's confidential secretary. But not by name. By initials. MF. You found a black thin-point biro in Quinn's anorak, and very carefully you changed the initials. Not too difficult, was it? A bit of a squiggle for "rs" after the M, and an additional bar at the bottom of the F, converting it into an E. The message was good enough — vague enough, anyway — to cover the deception. How you must have smiled as you placed the note carefully on the top of the cupboard. Yes, indeed! And then you went out again. You didn't want to take any risks, though; so you went via the back door, out into the back garden, through the gap in the fence and over the path across the field to the Quality supermarket. You had to get out of the house anyway, so why not carry through with the bluff? You bought some provisions, and even as you walked round the shelves your brain was working nonstop. Buy something that made it look as though Quinn was having someone in for a meal that evening! Why not? Another clever touch. Two steaks and all the rest of it. But you shouldn't have bought the butter, Roope! You got the wrong brand, and he had plenty in the fridge, anyway. As I say, it was clever. But you were getting a bit too clever.'

'Like you are, Inspector.' Roope bestirred himself at last. He took out a cigarette and lit it, putting the match carefully into the ashtray. 'I can't honestly think that you expect me to believe such convoluted nonsense.' He spoke carefully and rationally, and appeared much more at ease with himself. 'If you've nothing better to talk about than such boy-scout fancy-dress twaddle, I suggest you release me immediately. But if you want to persist with it, I shall have to call in my lawyer. I refused to do this when you told me of my rights earlier — I knew my rights, anyway, Inspector — but I thought I'd rather have my own innocence at my side than any pettifogging lawyer. But you're driving me a bit too far, you know. You've not the slightest shred of evidence for any of these fantastic allegations you've made against me. Not the slightest! And if you can't do any better than this I suggest that it may be in your own interests, not just mine, to pack in this ridiculous charade immediately.'

'You deny the charges then?'

'Charges? What charges? I'm not aware that you've made any charges.'

'You deny that the sequence of events—'

'Of course , I deny it! Why the hell should anyone go to all that trouble—?'

'Whoever murdered Quinn had to try to establish an alibi. And he did. A very clever alibi. You see all the. indications in this case seemed to point to Quinn being alive on Friday evening, certainly until the early evening, and it was vital—'

'You mean Quinn wasn't alive on Friday evening?'

'Oh no,' said Morse slowly. ' Quinn had been dead for several hours .'

There was a long silence in the small room, broken finally by Roope. 'Several hours, you say?'

Morse nodded. 'But I'm not quite sure exactly when Quinn was murdered. I rather hoped you might be able to tell me.'

Roope laughed aloud, and shook his head in bewilderment. 'And you think I killed Quinn?'

'That's why you're here, and that's why you're going to stay here — until you decide to tell me the truth.'

Roope's voice suddenly became high-pitched and exasperated. 'But — but I was in London that Friday. I told you that. I got back to Oxford at four-fifteen. Four-fifteen! Can't you believe that?'