Colin Dexter - Last Seen Wearing

Morse fished around in his pockets and finally found a crumpled apology for a paper handkerchief, and pushed it gently into her right hand.

'Don't cry,' he said softly. 'It won't do either of us any good.'

After a few minutes the tears dried up, and soon the snivelling subsided. 'What can do us any good, Inspector?'

'It's very easy, really,' said Morse in a brisk tone. 'You tell me the truth, Mrs. Phillipson. You'll find I probably know it anyway.'

But Morse was wrong — he was terribly wrong. Mrs. Phillipson could do little more than reiterate her strange little story. This time, however, with a startling addition — an addition which caught Morse, as he sat there nodding sceptically, like an uppercut to the jaw. She hadn't wanted to mention it because. . because, well, it seemed so much like trying to get herself out of a mess by pushing someone else into it. But she could only tell the truth, and if that's what Morse was after she thought she'd better tell it. As she had said, she ran along to the main street after leaving Baines's house and crossed over towards the Royal Oxford Hotel; and just before she reached the hotel she saw someone she knew — knew very well — come out of the lounge door and walk across the road to Kempis Street. She hesitated and her tearful eyes looked pleadingly and pathetically at Morse.

'Do you know who it was, Inspector? It was David Acum.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

For oily or spotty skin, first cleanse face and throat, then pat with a hot towel. Smooth on an even layer of luxurious 'Ladypak', avoiding the area immediately, around the eyes.

(Directions for applying a beauty mask)

AT 6.20 THE FOLLOWING morning Morse was on the road: it would take about five hours. He would have enjoyed the drive more with someone to talk to, especially Lewis, and he switched on the Lancia's radio for the 7.00 a.m. news. The world seemed strangely blighted: abroad there were rumours of war and famine, and at home more bankruptcies and unemployment — and a missing lord who had been dredged up from a lake in east Essex. But the morning was fresh and bright, the sky serene and cloudless, and Morse drove fast. He had left Evesham behind him and was well on the way to Kidderminster before he met any appreciable volume of traffic. The 8.00 a.m. news came and went, with no perceptible amelioration of the cosmic plight, and Morse switched over to Radio Three and listened lovingly to the Brandenburg Concerto № 5 in D. The journey was going well, and he was through Bridgnorth and driving rather too quickly round the Shrewsbury ring-road by 9.00 a.m. when he decided that a Schoenberg string quartet might be a little above his head, and switched off. He found himself vaguely pondering the lake in east Essex, and remembering the reservoir behind the Taylors' home, before switching that off, too, and concentrating with appropriate care and attention upon the perils of the busy A5. At Nesscliffe, some twelve miles north of Shrewsbury, he turned off left along the B4396 towards Bala. Wales now, and the pale green hills rose ever more steeply. He was making excellent time and he praised the gods that his journey was not being made on a dry Welsh Sunday. He was feeling thirsty already. But he was through Bala and swinging in the long left-handed loop around Llyn Tegid (reservoir again!) long before the pubs were open; and through the crowded streets of Porthmadog, festooned still with the multicoloured bunting of high summer, and past the Lloyd George Museum in Llanystumdwy, and still the hands of the fascia clock were some few minutes short of eleven. He might just as well drive on. At Four Crosses he turned right on to the Pwllheli-Caernarfon Road, and drove on into the Lleyn Peninsula, past the triple peaks of the Rivals and on to the coastal road, with the waters of Caernarfon Bay laughing and glittering in the sunshine to his left. He would stop at the next likely-looking hostelry. He had passed one in the last village, but the present tract of road afforded little for the thirsty traveller; and he was only two or three miles south of Caernarfon itself when he spotted the sign: BONT-NEWYDD. Surely the village where the Acums lived? He pulled in to the side of the road, and consulted the file in his brief-case. Yes, it was. 16 St. Beuno's Road. He inquired of an ageing passerby and learned that he was only a few 'undred yaards from St. Beuno's Road, and that The Prince of Wales was just around the corner. It was five niinutes past eleven.

As he sampled the local brew, he debated whether he should call at the Acums' home. Did the modern languages master come home for lunch? Morse's original plan had been to go direct to the City of Caernarfon School, preferably about lunchtime. But perhaps it would do no harm to have a little chat with Mrs. Acum first? Temporarily he shelved the decision, bought another pint, and considered the forthcoming interview. Acum had lied, of course, about not leaving the conference; for Mrs. Phillipson could not have had the faintest notion that Acum would be in Oxford on that Monday night. How could she? Unless. . but he dropped the fanciful line of thought. The beer was good, and at noon he was happily discussing with his host the sorry Sunday situation in the thirsty counties and the defacement of the Welsh road signs by the Nationalists. And ten minutes later, legs astraddle, he stood and contemplated the defacement of the landlord's lavatory walls by a person or persons unknown. Several of the graffiti were unintelligible to the non-Welsh-speaker; but one that was scrawled in his native tongue caught Morse's eye, and he smiled in approbation as his bladder achingly emptied itself:

'The penis mightier than the sword.'

It was now 12.15 p.m., and if Acum were coming home to lunch, there was an obvious danger of his passing Morse in the opposite direction. Well, there was one pretty certain way of finding out. He left the Lancia at The Prince of Wales and walked.

St. Beuno's Road led off right from the main road. The houses were small here, built of square, grey, granite blocks, and tiled with the purplish-blue Ffestiniog slate. The grass in the tiny front gardens was of a green two or three shades paler than the English variety, and the soil looked tired and undernourished. The front door was painted a Cambridge blue, with the black number 16 dextrously worked in the florid style of a Victorian theatre-bill. Morse knocked firmly, and after a brief interval the door opened; but opened only slightly, and then to reveal a strangely incongruous sight. A woman stood before him, her face little more than a white mask, with slits left open for the eyes and mouth, a blood-red towel swathed around the top of her head where (as, alas, with most blondes) the tell-tale roots of the hair betrayed its darker origins. It was curious to witness the lengths to which the ladies were prepared to go in order to improve upon the natural gifts their maker had endowed them with; and in the depths of Morse's mind there stirred the dim remembrance of the fair-haired woman with the spotty face in the staff photograph of the Roger Bacon Comprehensive School. He knew that this must be Mrs. Acum. Yet it was not the beauty pack, smeared though it doubtless was with a practised skill, that chiefly held the inspector's rapt attention. She was holding a meagre white towel to the top of her shoulders, and as she stood half hidden by the door, it was immediately apparent that behind the towel the woman was completely naked. Morse felt as lecherous as a billy-goat. A Welsh billy-goat, perhaps. It must have been the beer.

'I've called to see your husband. Er, it is Mrs. Acum, isn't it?'

The head nodded, and a hair-line fracture of the carefully assembled mask appeared at the corners of the white mouth. Was she laughing at him?

'Will he be back home for lunch?'