Colin Dexter - Last Seen Wearing

'Yes please. It's quite fascinating!'

'You just interrupt me if I go wrong, that's all.'

'But. .' She gave it up and sat there silently shaking her head.

'I'm guessing now,' continued Morse, 'but I should think Yvonne put you on to a job — let's say a job in a West End store. The school-leavers hadn't crowded the market yet, and it was fairly easy for you. You'd need a testimonial or a reference, I realize that. But you rang Phillipson and told him the position, and he took care of that. It was your first job. No bother. No employment cards, or stamps or anything. So that was that.'

Morse turned and looked again at the chic, sophisticated creature beside him. They wouldn't recognize her back in Kidlington now, would they? They'd remember only the young schoolgirl in her red socks and her white blouse. They would always attract the men, these two — mother and daughter alike. Somehow they shared the same intangible yet pervasive sensuality, and the Lord had fashioned them so very fair.

'Is that the finish?' she asked quietly.

Morse's reply was brusque. 'No, it's not. Where were you last Monday night?'

'Last Monday night? What's that got to do with you?'

'What train did you catch the night that Baines was killed?'

She looked at him in utter astonishment now. 'What train are you talking about? I haven't—'

'Didn't you go there that night?'

'Go where?'

'You know where. You probably caught the 8.15 from Paddington and arrived in Oxford at about 9.30.'

'You must be mad! I was in Hammersmith last Monday night.'

'Were you?'

'Yes, I was. I always go to Hammersmith on Monday nights.'

'Go on.'

'You really want to know?' Her eyes grew softer again, and she shook her head sadly. 'If you must know there's a sort of. . sort of party we have there every Monday.'

'What time?'

'Starts about nine.'

'And you were there last Monday?'

She nodded, almost fiercely.

'You go every Monday, you say?'

'Yes.'

'Why aren't you there tonight?'

'I. . well, I just thought. . when you rang. .' She looked at him with doleful eyes. 'I didn't think it was going to be like this.'

'What time do these parties finish?'

'They don't.'

'You stay all night, you mean.'

She nodded.

'Sex parties?'

'In a way.'

'What the hell's that supposed to mean?'

'You know. The usual sort of thing: films to start with. .'

'Blue films?'

Again she nodded.

'And then?'

'Oh God! Come off it. Are you trying to torture yourself, or something?'

She was far too near the truth, and Morse felt miserably embarrassed. He got to his feet and looked round fecklessly for his coat. 'You'll have to give me the address, you realize that.'

'But I can't. I'd—'

'Don't worry,' said Morse wearily. 'I shan't pry any more than I have to.'

He looked once more around the expensive flat. She must earn a lot of money, somehow; and he wondered if it was all much compensation for the heartache and the jealousy that she must know as well as he. Or perhaps we weren't all the same. Perhaps it wasn't possible to live as she had done and keep alive the finer, tenderer compassions.

He looked across at her as she sat at a small bureau, writing something down: doubtless the address of the bawdy house in Hammersmith. He had to have that, whatever happened. But did it matter all that much? He knew instinctively that she was there that night, among the wealthy, lecherous old men who gloated over pornographic films, and pawed and fondled the figures of the high-class prostitutes who sat upon their knees unfastening their flies. So what? He was a lecherous old man too, wasn't he? Very nearly, anyway. Just a sediment of sensitivity still. Just a little. Just a little.

She came over to him, and for a moment she was very beautiful again. 'I've been very patient with you, Inspector, don't you think?'

'I suppose so, yes. Patient, if not particularly cooperative.'

'Can I ask you a question?'

'Of course.'

'Do you want to sleep with me tonight?'

The back of Morse's throat felt suddenly very dry. 'No.'

'You really mean that?'

'Yes.'

'All right.' Her voice was brisker now. 'Let me be "co-operative" then, as you call it.' She handed him a sheet of notepaper on which she had written two telephone numbers.

The first one's my father's. You may have to drag him out of bed, but he's almost certainly home by now. The other one's the Wilsons, downstairs. As I told you, I was at school with Joyce. I'd like you to ring them both, please.'

Morse took the paper and said nothing.

Then there's this.' She handed him a passport. 'I know it's out of date, but I've only been abroad once. To Switzerland, three years ago last June.'

With a puzzled frown Morse opened the passport and the unmistakable face of Miss Yvonne Baker smiled up at him in gentle mockery from a Woolworth poly-foto. Three years last June. . whilst Valerie Taylor was still at school in Kidlington. Well before she. . before. .

Morse took off his coat and sat down once again on the divan. 'Will you ring your friends below, Yvonne? And if you're feeling very kind, can I please ask you to pour me another whisky? A stiff one.'

At Paddington he was informed that the last train to Oxford had departed half an hour earlier. He walked into the cheerless waiting room, put his feet up on the bench, and soon fell fast asleep.

At 3.30 a.m. a firm hand shook him by the shoulder, and he looked up into the face of a bearded constable,

'You can't sleep here, sir. I shall have to ask you to move on, I'm afraid.'

'You surely don't begrudge a man a bit of kip, do you, officer?'

'I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to move on, sir.'

Morse almost told him who he was. But simultaneously the other sleepers were being roused and he wondered why he should be treated any differently from his fellow men.

'All right, officer.' Huh! 'All right': that's what Valerie would have said. But he put the thought aside and walked wearily out of the station. Perhaps he'd have more luck at Marylebone. He needed a bit of luck somewhere.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

(John, xviii)

DONALD PHILLIPSON WAS a very worried man. The sergeant had been very proper, of course, and very polite: 'routine inquiries', that was all. But the police were getting uncomfortably close. A knife that might be missing from the school canteen — that was perfectly understandable: but from his own kitchen! And it was no great surprise that he himself should be suspected of murder: but Sheila! He couldn't talk to Sheila, and he wouldn't let her talk to him: the subject of Valerie Taylor and, later, the murder of Baines lay between them like a no-man's-land, isolated and defined, upon which neither dared to venture. How much did Sheila know? Had she learned that Baines was blackmailing him? Had she learned or half-guessed the shameful reason? Baines himself may have hinted at the truth to her. Baines! God rot his soul! But whatever Sheila had done or intended to do on the night that Baines was killed was utterly unimportant, and he wished to know nothing of it. Whichever way you looked at it, it was he, Donald Phillipson, who was guilty of murdering Baines.

The walls of the small study seemed gradually to be closing in around him. The cumulative pressures of the last three years had now become too strong, and the tangled web of falsehood and deceit had enmeshed his very soul. If he were to retain his sanity he had to do something; something to bring a period of peace to a conscience tortured to its breaking-point; something to atone for all the folly and the sin. Again he thought of Sheila and the children and he knew that he could hardly face them for much longer. And interminably his thoughts went dancing round and round his head and always settled to the same conclusion. Whichever way you looked at it, it was he and only he who was guilty of murdering Baines.