Colin Dexter - Last Seen Wearing

'She could have been wearing a padded bra. You just can't tell for certain, can you?'

'Can't you?' A gentle, wistful smile played momentarily about the inspector's mouth, and he enlightened the innocent Lewis no further. 'I ought to have guessed much earlier. Of course I should. They just don't have anything in common at all: Mrs. Acum — and Valerie Taylor. Huh! I don't think you'd ever find anyone less like a blue-stocking than Valerie. And I've spoken to her twice over the phone, Lewis! More than that, I've actually seen her!' He shook his head in self-reproach. 'Yes. I really should have guessed the truth a long, long time ago.'

'From what you said, though, sir, you didn't see much of her, did you? You said she had this beauty-pack—'

'No, not much of her, Lewis. Not much. .' His thoughts were very far away.

'What's all this got to do with the car-hire firms you're trying to check?' asked Lewis suddenly.

'Well, I've got to try to get some hard evidence against her, haven't I? I thought, funnily enough, of letting her give me the evidence herself, but. .'

Lewis was completely lost. 'I don't quite follow you.'

'Well, I thought of ringing her up this morning first thing and tricking her into giving herself away. It would have been very easy, really.'

'It would?'

'Yes. All I had to do was to speak to her in French. You see, the real Mrs. Acum is a graduate from Exeter, remember? But from what we know about poor Valerie's French, I doubt she can get very much further than bonjour.'

'But you can't speak French either can you, sir?'

'I have many hidden talents of which as yet you are quite unaware,' said Morse a trifle pompously.

'Oh.' But Lewis had a strong suspicion that Morse knew about as much (or as little) French as he did. And what's more, he'd had no answer to his question. 'Aren't you going to tell me why you'll be checking on the car-hire firms?'

'You've had enough shocks for one day.'

'I don't think one more'll make much difference,' replied Lewis.

'All right, I'll tell you. You see, we've not only found Valerie; we've also found the murderer of Baines.' Lewis opened and closed his mouth like a stranded goldfish, but no identifiable vocable emerged.

'You'll understand soon enough,' continued Morse. 'It's fairly obvious if you think about it. She has to get from Caernarfon to Oxford, right? Her husband's got the car. So, what does she do? Train? Bus? There aren't any services. And anyway, she's got to get there quickly, and there's only one thing she can do and that's to hire a car.'

'But we don't know yet that she did hire a car,' protested Lewis. 'We don't even know she can drive.'

'We shall know soon enough.'

The 'ifs' were forgotten now, and Morse spoke like a minor prophet enunciating necessary truths. And with gradually diminishing reluctance, Lewis was beginning to sense the inevitability of the course of events that Morse was sketching out for him, and the inexorable logic working through the inquiry they'd begun together. A young schoolgirl missing, and more than two years later a middle-aged schoolmaster murdered; and no satisfactory solution to either mystery. Just two insoluble problems. And suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, there were no longer two problems — no longer even one problem; for somehow each had magically solved the other.

'You think she drove from here that day?'

'And back,' said Morse.

'And it was Valerie who. . who killed Baines?'

'Yes. She must have got there about nine o'clock, as near as dammit.'

Lewis's mind ranged back to the night when Baines was murdered. 'So she could have been in Baines's house when Mrs. Phillipson and Acum called,' he said slowly.

Morse nodded. 'Could have been, yes.'

He stood up and walked along the narrow hallway. From the window in the front room he could see two small boys, standing at a respectful distance from the police car and trying with cautious curiosity to peer inside. But for the rest, nothing. No one left and no one came along the quiet street.

'Are you worried, sir?' asked Lewis quietly, when Morse sat down again.

'We'll give her a few more minutes,' replied Morse, looking at his watch for the twentieth time.

'I've been thinking, sir. She must be a brave girl.'

'Mm.'

'And he was a nasty piece of work, wasn't he?'

'He was a shithouse,' said Morse with savage conviction. 'But I don't think that Valerie would ever have killed Baines just for her own sake.'

'What was her motive then?'

It was a simple question and it deserved a simple answer, but Morse began with the guarded evasiveness of a senior partner in the Circumlocution Office.

'I'm a bit sceptical about the word "motive", you know, Lewis. It makes it sound as if there's just got to be one — one big, beautiful motive. But sometimes it doesn't work like that. You get a mother slapping her child across its face because it won't stop crying. Why does she do it? You can say she just wants to stop the kid from bawling its head off, but it's not really true, is it? The motive lies much deeper than that. It's all bound up with lots of other things: she's tired, she's got a headache, she's fed up, she's just plain disillusioned with the duties of motherhood. Anything you like. When once you ask yourself what lies in the murky depths below what Aristotle called the immediate cause. . You know anything about Aristotle, Lewis?'

'I've heard of him, sir. But you still haven't answered my question.'

'Ah, no. Well, let's just consider for a minute the position that Valerie found herself in that day. For the first time for over two years, I should think, she finds herself completely on her own. Since Acum came to join her, he's no doubt been pretty protective towards her, and for the first part of their time together here he's probably been anxious for Valerie not to be caught up in too much of a social whirl. She stays in. And she'd bleached her hair —probably right at the beginning. Surprising, isn't it, Lewis, how so many of us go to the trouble of making a gesture — however weak and meaningless. A sop to Cerberus, no doubt. As you know, Acum's real wife had long, blonde hair — that's the first thing anyone would notice about her; it's the first thing I noticed about her when I saw her photograph. Perhaps Acum asked her to do it; may have helped his conscience. Anyway, he must have been glad she did dye her hair. You remember the photograph of Valerie in the Colour Supplement? If he saw it, he must have been a very worried man. It wasn't a particularly clear photograph, I know. It had been taken over three years previously, and a young girl changes a good deal — especially between leaving school and becoming to all intents and purposes a married woman. But it still remained a photograph of Valerie and, as I say, I should think Acum was jolly glad about her hair. As far as we know, no one did spot the likeness.'

'Perhaps they don't read the Sunday Times in Caernarfon.'

For all his anti-Welsh prejudices, Morse let it go. 'She's on her own at last, then. She can do what she likes. She probably feels a wonderful sense of freedom, freedom to do something for herself — something that now, for the first time, can in fact be done.'

'I can see all that, sir. But why? That's what I want to know.'

'Lewis! Put yourself in the position Valerie and her mother and Acum and Phillipson and God knows who else must have found themselves. They've all got their individual and their collective secrets — big and little — and somebody else knows all about them. Baines knows. Somehow — well, we've got a jolly good idea how — he got to know things. Sitting all those years in that little office of his, with the telephone there and all the correspondence, he's been at the nerve-centre of a small community — the Roger Bacon School. He's second master there, and it's perfectly proper that he should know what's going on. All the time his ears are tuned in to the slightest rumours and suspicions. He's like a bug in the Watergate Hotel: he picks it all up and he puts it all together. And it gives to his sinister cast of character just the nourishment it craves for — the power over other people's lives. Think of Phillipson for a minute. Baines can put him out of a job any day he chooses — but he doesn't. You see, I don't think he gloried so much in the actual exercise of his power as—'