Colin Dexter - Last Seen Wearing

'Now,' said Morse. 'Give the missus a ring and tell her we should be back about er. .'

'Do you mind me mentioning something, sir?'

'What's worrying you?'

'If Valerie was in that nursing home—'

'She was,' interrupted Morse.

'—well, someone had to take her and fetch her and pay for her and everything.'

'The quack won't tell us. Not yet, anyway.'

'Isn't it fairly easy to guess, though?'

'Is it?' said Morse, with apparent interest.

'It's only a guess, sir. But if they were all in it together — you know, to cover things up. .'

'All?'

'Phillipson, the Taylors and Acum. When you come to think of it, it would kill a lot of birds with one stone, wouldn't it?'

'How do you mean?'

'Well, if you're right about Phillipson and Valerie, he'd have a bit of a guilt complex about her and feel morally bound to help out, wouldn't he? And then there's the Taylors. It would save them any scandal and stop Valerie mucking up her life completely. And then there's Acum. It would get him out of a dickens of a mess at the school and save his marriage into the bargain. They've all got a stake in it.'

Morse nodded and Lewis felt encouraged to continue. 'They could have cooked it all up between them: fixed up the clinic, arranged the transport, paid the bill, and found a job for Valerie to go to afterwards. They probably hadn't the faintest idea that her going off like that would create such a fuss, and once they started on it, well, they just had to go through with it. So they all stuck together. And told the same story.'

'You may well be right'

'If I am, sir, don't you think it would be a good idea to fetch Phillipson and the Taylors in? I mean, it would save us a lot of trouble.'

'Save us going all the way to Caernarfon, you mean?'

'Yes. If they spill the beans, we can get Acum brought down here.'

'What if they all stick to their story?'

'Then we'll have to go and get him.'

'I'm afraid it's not quite so easy as that,' said Morse.

'Why not?'

'I tried to get Phillipson first thing this morning. He went off to Brighton yesterday afternoon — to a headmasters' conference.'

'Oh.'

'And the Taylors left by car for Luton airport at 6.30 yesterday morning. They're spending a week on a package tour in the Channel Islands. So the neighbours say.'

'Oh.'

'And,' continued Morse, 'we're still trying to find out who killed Baines, remember?'

'That's why you've asked the Caernarfon police to pick him up?'

'Yep. And we'd better not keep him waiting too long. It's about four and a half hours — non-stop. So we'll allow five. We might want to give the car a little rest on the way.'

Outside a pub, thought Lewis, as he pulled on his overcoat. But Lewis thought wrong.

The traffic this Sunday morning was light and the police car made its way quickly up through Brackley and thence to Towcester where it turned left on to the A5. Neither man seemed particularly anxious to sustain much conversation, and a tacit silence soon prevailed between them, as if they waited tensely for the final wicket to fall in a test match. The traffic decelerated to a paralytic crawl at road works in Wellington, and suddenly Morse switched on full headlights and the blue roof-flasher, and wailing like a dalek in distress the car swept past the stationary column of cars and soon was speeding merrily along once more out on the open road. Morse turned to Lewis and winked almost happily.

Along the Shrewsbury ring-road, Lewis ventured a conversational gambit. 'Bit of luck about this Miss Baker, wasn't it?'

'Ye-es.' Lewis looked at the inspector curiously. 'Nice bit of stuff, sir?'

'She's a prick-teaser.'

'Oh.'

They drove on through Betws-y-coed: Caernarfon 25 miles.

'The real trouble,' said Morse suddenly, 'was that I thought she was dead.'

'And now you think she's still alive?'

'I very much hope so,' said Morse, with unwonted earnestness in his voice. 'I very much hope so.'

At five minutes to three they came to the outskirts of Caernarfon, where ignoring the sign directing traffic to the city centre Morse turned left on to the main Pwllheli Road.

'You know your way around here then, sir?'

'Not too well. But we're going to pay a brief visit before we meet Acum.' He drove south to the village of Bont-Newydd, turned left off the main road and stopped outside a house with the front door painted Cambridge blue.

'Wait here a minute.'

Lewis watched him as he walked up the narrow front path and knocked on the door; and knocked again. Clearly there was no one at home. But then of course David Acum wouldn't be there; he was three miles away, detained for questioning on the instructions of the Thames Valley Police. Morse came back to the car and got in. His face seemed inexplicably grave.

'No one in, sir?'

Morse appeared not to hear. He kept looking around him, occasionally glancing up into the driving mirror. But the quiet street lay preternaturally still in the sunny autumn afternoon.

'Shan't we be a bit late for Acum, sir?'

'Acum?' The inspector suddenly woke from his waking dreams. 'Don't worry about Acum. He'll be all right.'

'How long do you plan to wait here?'

'How the hell do I know!' snapped Morse.

'Well, if we're going to wait, I think I'll just—' He opened the nearside door and began to unfasten his safety-belt.

'Stay where you are.'There was a note of harsh authority in the voice, and Lewis shrugged his shoulders and closed the door again.

'If we're waiting for Mrs. Acum, don't you think she may have gone with him?'

Morse shook his head. 'I don't think so.'

The time ticked on inexorably, and it was Morse who finally broke the silence. 'Go and knock again, Lewis.'

But Lewis was no more successful than Morse had been; and he returned to the car and slammed the door with some impatience. It was already half-past three.

'We'll give her another quarter of an hour,' said Morse.

'But why are we waiting for her, sir? What's she got to do with it all? We hardly know anything about her, do we?'

Morse turned his light-grey eyes upon his sergeant and spoke with an almost fierce simplicity. That's where you're wrong, Lewis. We know more about her — far more about her — than about anyone else in the whole case. You see, the woman living here with David Acum is not his real wife at all — she's the person we've been looking for from the very beginning.' He paused and let his words sink in. 'Yes, Lewis. The woman who's been living here for the past two years as Acum's wife is not his wife at all— she's Valerie Taylor.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

'Now listen, you young limb,' whispered Sikes. 'Go softly up the steps straight afore you, and along the little hall, to the street doon unfasten it, and let us in.

(Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist)

LEWIS'S MOUTH GAPED in flabbergasted disbelief as this astonishing intelligence partially percolated through his consciousness. 'You can't mean. .'

'But I do mean. I mean exactly what I say. And that's why we're sitting here waiting, Lewis. We're waiting for Valerie Taylor to come home at last'

For the moment Lewis was quite incapable of any more intelligent comment than a half-formed whistle. 'Phew!'

'Worth waiting another few minutes for, isn't she? After all this time?'

Gradually the implications of what the inspector had just told him began to register more significantly in Lewis's mind. It meant. . it meant. . But his mental processes seemed now to be anaesthetized, and he gave up the unequal struggle. 'Don't you think you ought to put me in the picture, sir?'

'Where do you want me to start?' asked Morse, in a slightly brisker tone.