Colin Dexter - Last Seen Wearing

Clocks! It reminded him. There was a good tale told in Oxford about the putting back of clocks. The church of St. Benedict had a clock which ran by electricity, and for many years the complexities of putting back this clock had exercised the wit and wisdom of clergy and laity alike. The clock adorned the north face of the tower and its large hands were manoeuvred round the square, blue-painted dial by means of an elaborate lever device, situated behind the clock-face and reached via a narrow spiral staircase leading to the tower roof. The problem had been this. No one manipulating the lever immediately behind the clock-face could observe the effects of his manipulations, and so thick were the walls of the church tower that not even with a megaphone could an accomplice, standing outside the church, communicate to the manipulator the aforementioned effects. Each year, therefore, one of the churchwardens had taken upon himself to mount the spiral staircase, to manipulate the lever in roughly the right direction, to descend the staircase, to walk out of the church, to look upwards at the clock, to ascend the staircase once more, to give the lever a few more turns before descending again and repeating the process, undl at last the clock was cajoled into a reluctant synchronization. Such a lengthy and physically daunting procedure had been in operation for several years, until a mild-looking thurifer, rumoured to be one of the best incense-swingers in the business, had with becoming diffidence suggested to the minister that to remove the fuse from the fuse-box and to replace it after exactly sixty minutes might not only prove more accurate but also spare the rather elderly churchwarden the prospect of a coronary thrombosis. This idea, discussed at considerable length and finally accepted by the church committee, had proved wonderfully effective, and was now a firmly established practice.

Someone had told Morse the story in a pub, and he recalled it now. It pleased him. Lewis, but for his illness, would even now be running up and down the spiral staircase looking at his alibis. But that was out — at least for several days. It was up to Morse himself now to take the fuse away and set the clock aright But not just for an hour — for much, much longer than that. In fact for two years, three months and more, to the day when Valerie Taylor had disappeared.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

For having considered God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

(Christopher Smart, My Cat Jeffrey)

DETECTIVE CONSTABLE DICKSON soon realized he was on to something and he felt as secretly excited as the poor woman was visibly nervous. It was the sixth house he had visited, a house on the opposite side of the street from Baines's and nearer the main road.

'You know, madam, that Mr. Baines across the way was murdered on Monday night?' Mrs. Thomas nodded quickly. 'Er, did you know Mr. Baines?'

'Yes, I did. He's lived in the street nearly as long as I have.'

'I'm, er. . we're, er, obviously anxious to find any witness who might have seen someone going into Baines's house that night — or coming out, of course.' Dickson left it at that and looked at her hopefully.

In her late sixties now, scraggy-necked and flat-chested, Mrs. Thomas was a widow who measured her own life's joy by the health and happiness of her white cat, which playfully and lovingly gyrated in undulating spirals around her lower leg as she stood on the threshold of her home. And as she stood there she was almost glad that this young police officer had called, for she had seen something; and several times the previous evening and again this Wednesday morning she had decided she ought to report it to someone. It would have been so easy in the first exciting hours when policemen had been everywhere; later, too, when they had come and placed their no-parking signs, like witches' hats, around the front of the house. Yet it was all so hazy in her mind. More than once she wondered if she could have imagined it, and she would die of shame if she were to put the police to any trouble for no cause. It had always been like that for Mrs. Thomas; she had hidden herself unobtrusively away in the corners of life and seldom ventured forth.

But, yes; she had seen something.

Her life was fairly orderly, if nothing else, and each evening of the week, between 9.30 and 10.00 p.m., she put out the two milk bottles and the two Co-op tokens on the front doorstep before bolting the door securely, making herself a cup of cocoa, watching the News at Ten, and going to bed. And on Monday evening she had seen something. If only at the time she had thought it might be important! Unusual, certainly, but only afterwards had she realized exactly how unusual it had been: for never had she seen a woman knocking at Baines's door before. Had the woman gone in? Mrs. Thomas didn't think so, but she vaguely remembered that the light was burning in Baines's front room behind the faded yellow curtains. The truth was that it had all become so very frightening to her. Had the woman she had seen been the one who. .? Had she actually seen the. . murderer? The very thought of it caused her to shiver throughout her narrow frame. Oh God, please not! Such a thing should never be allowed to happen to her — to her of all people. And as the panic rose within her, she again began to wonder if she'd dreamed it after all.

The whole thing was too frightening, especially since there was one thing that she knew might be very important. Very important indeed. 'You'd better come in, officer,' she said.

In the early afternoon she felt far less at ease than she had done with the constable. The man sitting opposite her in the black leather chair was pleasant enough, charming even; but his eyes were keen and hard, and there was a restless energy about his questions.

'Can you describe her, Mrs. Thomas? Anything special about her — anything at all?'

'It was just the coat I noticed — nothing else. I told the constable. .'

'Yes, I know you did; but tell me. Tell me, Mrs. Thomas.'

'Well, that's all really — it was pink, just like I told the constable.'

'You're quite sure about that?'

She swallowed hard. Once more she was assailed by doubts from every quarter. She thought she was sure; she was sure, really, but could she just conceivably be wrong?

'I'm — I'm fairly sure.'

'What sort of pink?'

'Well, sort of. .' The vision was fading rapidly now, had almost gone.

'Come on!' snapped Morse. 'You know what I mean. Fuchsia? Cyclamen? Er, lilac?' He was running out of shades of pink and received no help from Mrs. Thomas. 'Light pink? Dark pink?'

'It was a fairly bright sort of. .'

'Yes?'

It was no good, though; and Morse changed his tack and changed it again and again. Hair, height, dress, shoes, handbag — on and on. He kept it up for more than twenty minutes. But try as she might Mrs. Thomas was now quite incapable of raising any mental image whatsoever of Baines's late-night caller. Suddenly she knew that she was going to burst into tears, and she wanted desperately to go home. And just as suddenly it all changed.

'Tell me about your cat, Mrs. Thomas.'

How he knew she had a cat, she hadn't the faintest idea, but the tension drained away from her like the pus from an abscess lanced by the dentist. She told him happily about her blue-eyed cat.

'You know,' said Morse, 'one of the most significant physical facts about the cat is so obvious that we often tend to forget it. A cat's face is flat between the eyes and so the eyes can work together. Stereoscopic vision they call it. Now, this is very rare among animals. You just think. The majority of animals have. .' He went on for several minutes and Mrs. Thomas was enthralled. But more than that; she was excited. It was all so clear again and she interrupted his discourse on the facial structure of the dog and told him all about it. Cerise pink coat — it might have been a herring-bone pattern, no hat, medium height, brownish hair. About ten minutes to ten. She was pretty certain about the time because. .