Colin Dexter - Last Seen Wearing

Lewis put the document back on the bedside table and Morse tapped him in congratulatory fashion upon the shoulder.

'I think it's time they made you up to inspector, my old friend.'

'You think I may be right then, sir?'

'Yes,' said Morse slowly, 'I do.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Incest is only relatively boring.

(Inscription on the lavatory wall of an Oxford pub)

LEWIS LEANED BACK into his pillows, and felt content. He would never make an inspector, he knew that, didn't even want to try. But to beat old Morse at his own game — my goodness, that was something!

'Got a drop of booze in the house?' asked Morse.

Ten minutes later he was sipping a liberal helping of whisky as Lewis dunked a chunk of bread into his Bovril.

'There are one or two things you could add to your admirable statement, you know, Lewis.' A slightly pained expression appeared on Lewis's face, but Morse quickly reassured him. 'Oh, that's pretty certainly how it happened, I'm sure of that. But there are just one or two points where we can be even more specific, I think, and one or two where we shall need a clearer picture not so much of what happened as of why it happened. Let's just go over a few of the things you say. Mrs. Taylor dresses up as Valerie. I agree. You mention the school uniform and you rightly stress how distinctive this uniform is. But there's surely another small point. Mrs. Taylor would not only wish in a positive way to be mistaken for her daughter, but in a negative sort of way not to be recognized facially as who she was — Valerie's mother. After all it's the face that most of us look at — not the clothes. And here I think her hair would be all-important. Their hair was the same colour, and Mrs. Taylor is still too young to have more than a few odd streaks of grey. When we saw her she wore her hair on the top of her head, but I'd like to bet that when she lets it down it gives her much the same sort of look that Valerie had; and with long shoulder-length hair, doubtless brushed forward over her face, I think the disguise would be more than adequate.'

Lewis nodded; but as the inspector said, it was only a small point.

'Now,' continued Morse, 'we surely come to the central point, and one that you gloss over rather too lightly, if I may say so.' Lewis looked stolidly at the counterpane, but made no interruption. 'It's this. What could possibly have been the motive that led Mrs. Taylor to murder Valerie? Valerie! Her only daughter! You say that Valerie was pregnant, and although it isn't firmly established, I think the overwhelming probability is that she was pregnant; perhaps she had told her mother about it. But there's another possibility, and one that makes the whole situation far more sinister and disturbing. It isn't easy, I should imagine, for a daughter to hide a pregnancy from her mother for too long, and I think on balance it may well have been Mrs. Taylor who accused Valerie of being pregnant — rather than Valerie who told her mother. But whichever way round it was, it surely can't add up to a sufficient motive for murdering the girl. It would be bad enough, I agree. The neighbours would gossip and everyone at school would have to know, and then there'd be the uncles and aunts and all the rest of 'em. But it's hardly a rare thing these days to have an unmarried mother in the family, is it? It could have happened as you say it did, but I get the feeling that Valerie's pregnancy had been known to Mrs. Taylor for several weeks before the day she was murdered. And I think that on that Tuesday lunchtime Mrs. Taylor tackled her daughter — she may have tackled her several times before — on a question which was infinitely more important to her than whether her daughter was pregnant or not. A question which was beginning to send her out of her mind; for she had her own dark and terrifying suspicions which would give her no rest, which poisoned her mind day and night, and which she had to settle one way or the other. And that question was this: who was the father of Valerie's baby? To begin with I automatically assumed that Valerie was a girl of pretty loose morals who would jump into bed at the slightest provocation with some of her randy boyfriends. But I think I was wrong. I ought to have seen through Maguire's sexual boastings straight away. He may have put his dirty fingers up her skirt once or twice, but I doubt that he or any of the other boys did much more. No. I should think that Valerie got an itch in her knickers as often — more often perhaps — than most young girls. But the indications all along the line were that her own particular weakness was for older men. Men about your age, Lewis.'

'And yours,' said Lewis. But the mood in the quiet bedroom was sombre, and neither man seemed much amused. Morse drained his whisky and smacked his lips.

'Well, Lewis? What do you think?'

'You mean Phillipson, I suppose, sir?'

'Could have been, but I doubt it. I think he'd learned his lesson.'

Lewis thought for a moment and frowned deeply. Was it possible? Would it tie in with the other business? 'Surely you don't mean Baines, do you, sir? She must have been willing to go to bed with anyone if she let Baines. .' He broke off. How sickening it all was!

Morse brooded a while, and stared through the bedroom window. 'I thought of it, of course. But I think you're right. At least I don't think she would have gone to bed willingly with Baines. And yet, you know, Lewis, it would explain a great many things if it was Baines.'

'I thought you had the idea that he was seeing Mrs. Taylor — not Valerie.'

'I think he was,' said Morse. 'But, as I say, I don't think it was Baines.' He was speaking more slowly now, almost as if he were working through some new equation which had suddenly flashed across his mind; some new problem that challenged to some extent the validity of the case he was presenting. But reluctandy he put it aside, and resumed the main thread of his argument. 'Try again, Lewis.'

It was like backing horses. Lewis had backed the favourite, Phillipson, and lost; he'd then chosen an outsider, an outsider at least with a bit of form behind him, and lost again. There weren't many other horses in the race. 'You've got the advantage over me, sir. You went to see Acum yesterday. Don't you think you ought to tell me about it?'

'Leave Acum out of it for the minute,' said Morse flatly.

So Lewis reviewed the field again. There was only one other possibility, and he was surely a non-starter. Surely. Morse couldn't seriously. . 'You don't mean. . you can't mean you think it was. . George Taylor?'

'I'm afraid I do, Lewis, and we'd both better get used to the grisly idea as quickly as we can. It's not pleasant, I know; but it's not so bad as it might be. After all, he's not her natural father, as far as we know, and so we're not fishing around in the murky waters of genuine incest or anything like that. Valerie would have known perfectly well that George wasn't her real father. They all lived together, and became as intimate as any other family. But intimate with one vital difference. Valerie grew into a young girl, and her looks and her figure developed, and she was not his daughter. I don't know what happened. What I do know is that we can begin to see one overwhelming motive for Mrs. Taylor murdering her own daughter: the suspicion, gradually edging into a terrible certainty, that her only daughter was expecting a baby and that the father of that baby was her own husband. I think that on that Tuesday Mrs. Taylor accused her daughter of precisely that.'

'It's a terrible thing,' said Lewis slowly, 'but perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on her.'

'I don't feel hard on anybody,' rejoined Morse. 'In fact, I feel some sympathy for the wretched woman. Who wouldn't? But if all this is true, you can see what the likely train of events is. When George Taylor arrives home he's caught up in it all. Like a fly in a spider's web. His wife knows. It's no good him trying to wash his hands of the whole affair: he's the cause of it all. So, he goes along with her. What else can he do? What's more, he's in a position, the remarkably fortunate position, of being able to dispose, without suspicion and without too much trouble, of virtually anything, including a body. And I don't mean in the reservoir. George works at a place where vast volumes of rubbish and waste are piled high every day, and the same day buried without trace below the ground. And don't forget that Taylor was a man who had worked on road construction— driving a bulldozer. If he arrives at work half an hour early, what's to stop him using the bulldozer that's standing all ready, with the keys invitingly hung up for him on a nail in the shack? Nothing. Who would know? Who would care? No, Lewis. I don't think they put her into the reservoir. I think she lies buried out there on the rubbish dump.' Morse stopped for a second or two, and visualized the course of events anew.