Colin Dexter - Last Seen Wearing

His whisky was finished and he looked around for the barmaid. No one. He was the only soul there, and the linen wiping-towels were draped across the beer pumps. There was little point in staying.

He walked down the stairs and out into the warm dusking street. A huge notice in red and black capitals covered the whole of the wall outside the theatre: ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA Mon. 1 Sept — Sat. 13 Sept. He felt a slight quiver of excitement along his spine. Monday the first of September. That was the day Dick Ainley had died. And the letter? Posted on Tuesday, the second of September. Could it be? He mustn't jump to conclusions though. But why the hell not? There was no eleventh commandment against jumping to conclusions, and so he jumped. Ainley had gone to London that Monday and something must have happened there. Had he perhaps found Valerie Taylor at last? It began to look a possibility. The very next day she had written home — after being away for more than two years. Yet there was something wrong. The Taylor case had been shelved, not closed, of course; but Ainley was working on something else, on that bomb business, in fact. So why? So why? Hold it a minute. Ainley had gone to London on his day off. Had he. .?

Morse walked back into the foyer, to be informed by a uniformed flunkey that the house was sold out and that the performance was half-way through anyway. Morse thanked him and stepped into the telephone kiosk by the door.

'I'm sorry, sir. That's for patrons only.' The flunkey was right behind him.

'I am a bloody patron,' said Morse. He took from his pocket the stub for Row J 26, stuck it under the flunkey's nose and ostentatiously and noisily closed the kiosk door behind him. A large telephone directory was stuck awkwardly in the metal pigeon-hole, and Morse opened it at the As. Addeley. . Allen. . back a bit. . Ainley. Only one Ainley, and in next year's directory even he would be gone. R. Ainley, 2 Wytham Close, Wolvercote.

Would she be in? It was already a quarter to nine. Irene or Eileen or whatever she was would probably be staying with friends. Mother or sister, most likely. Should he try? But what was he dithering about? He knew he would go anyway. He noted the address and walked briskly out past the flunkey.

'Goodnight, sir.'

As Morse walked to his car, parked in nearby St. Giles', he regretted his childish sneer of dismissal to this friendly valediction. The flunkey was only doing his job. Just as I am, said Morse to himself, as he drove without enthusiasm due north out of Oxford towards the village of Wolvercote.

CHAPTER THREE

A man is little use when his wife's a widow.

(Scottish proverb)

AT THE WOODSTOCK roundabout, on the northern ring-road perimeter of Oxford, Morse took the sharp left fork, and leaving the motel on his right drove over the railway bridge (where as a boy he had so often stood in wonder as the steam locomotives sped thunderously by) and down the hill into Wolvercote.

The small village consisted of little more than the square stone-built houses that lined its main street, and was familiar to Morse only because each of its two public houses boasted beer drawn straight from the wood. Without being too doctrinaire about what he was prepared to drink, Morse preferred a flat pint to the fizzy keg most breweries, misguidedly in his view, were now producing; and he seldom passed through the village without enjoying a jug of ale at the King Charles. He parked the Lancia in the yard, exchanged a few pleasantries with the landlady over his beer, and asked for Wytham Close.

He soon found it, a crescented cul-de-sac no more than a hundred yards back along the road on the right-hand side, containing ten three-storey terraced residences (pompously styled 'town houses'), set back from the adopted road, with steep concreted drives leading up to the built-in garages. Two street lamps threw a pale phosphorescence over the open-plan, well-tended grass, and a light shone from behind the orange curtains in the middle-storey window of № 2. The bell sounded harsh in the quiet of the darkened close.

A lower light was switched on in the entrance hall and a vaguely-lineated shadow loomed through the frosted glass of the front door.

'Yes?'

'I hope I'm not disturbing you,' began Morse.

'Oh. Hullo, Inspector.'

'I thought. .'

'Won't you come in?'

Morse's decision to refuse the offer of a drink was made with such obvious reluctance that he was speedily prevailed upon to reverse it; and sitting behind a glass of gin and tonic he did his best to say all the right things. On the whole, he thought, he was succeeding.

Mrs. Ainley was small, almost petite, with light-brown hair and delicate features. She looked well enough, although the darkness beneath her eyes bore witness to the recent tragedy.

'Will you stay on here?'

'Oh, I think so. I like it here.'

Indeed, Morse knew full well how attractive the situation was. He had almost bought a similar house here a year ago, and he remembered the view from the rear windows over the green expanse of Port Meadow across to the cluster of stately spires and the dignified dome of the Radcliffe Camera. Like an Ackerman print, only alive and real, just two or three miles away.

'Another drink?'

'I'd better not,' said Morse, looking appealingly towards his hostess.

'Sure?'

'Well, perhaps a small one.'

He took the plunge. 'Irene, isn't it?'

'Eileen.'

It was a bad moment. 'You're getting over it, Eileen?' He spoke the words in a kindly way.

'I think so.' She looked down sadly, and picked some non-existent object from the olive-green carpet. 'He was hardly marked, you know. You wouldn't really have thought. .' Tears were brimming, and Morse let them brim. She was quickly over it. 'I don't even know why Richard went to London. Monday was his day off, you know.' She blew her nose noisily, and Morse felt more at ease.

'Did he often go away like that?'

'Quite often, yes. He always seemed to be busy.' She began to look vulnerable again and Morse trod his way carefully. It had to be done.

'Do you think when he went to London he was, er. .'

'I don't know what he went for. He never told me much about his work. He always said he had enough of it at the office without talking about it again at home.'

'But he was worried about his work, wasn't he?' said Morse quietly.

'Yes. He always was a worrier, especially. .'

'Especially?'

'I don't know.'

'You mean he was more worried — recently?'

She nodded. 'I think I know what was worrying him. It was that Taylor girl.'

'Why do you say that?'

'I heard him talking on the phone to the headmaster.' She made the admission guiltily as if she really had no business to know of it.

'When was that?'

'About a fortnight, three weeks ago.'

'But the school's on holiday, isn't it?'

'He went to the headmaster's house.'

Morse began to wonder what else she knew. 'Was that on one of his days off. .?'

She nodded slowly and then looked up at Morse. 'You seem very interested.'

Morse sighed. 'I ought to have told you straight away. I'm taking over the Taylor case.'

'So Richard found something after all.' She sounded almost frightened.

'I don't know,' said Morse.

'And. . and that's why you came, I suppose.' Morse said nothing. Eileen Ainley got up from her chair and walked briskly over to a bureau beside the window. 'Most of his things have gone, but you might as well take this. He had it in the car with him.' She handed to Morse a Letts desk diary, black, about six inches by four. 'And there's a letter for the accountant at the station. Perhaps you could take it for me?'

'Of course.' Morse felt very hurt. But he often felt hurt — it was nothing new.