Colin Dexter - The Remorseful Day

“And the bed looked as if it had been slept in each night?” (Lewis tried to smile knowingly.)

“Oh yes, sir. Oh yes.”

Perhaps the restaurant manager was right. Perhaps Mr. Harrison’s stay in Oxford had been a busy and tiring one.

For one reason or another.

Before driving back to HQ, Morse called in at the Maiden’s Arms, in the hope of finding Alf and Bert, Lower Swinstead’s answer to “Bill and Ben.” The time was now just after 2:30 P.M.; and Morse expected that they would be gone by then. But he was lucky; or at least half-lucky.

Bert, it seemed, had “got the screws,” and Alf was sitting alone by the window, slowly sipping the last of his beer, and readily accepting Morse’s offer of “one for the road.”

“Lost his nerve!” confided Alf. “Lost the last five times we’ve a’been playing. Lost his nerve!”

“Like me to give you a quick game? Just the one?”

Morse had determined to lose the challenge in as swift and incompetent a manner as possible. But unfortunately the gods were smiling broadly on his hands; and very soon, malgré lui , he had won the single encounter by the proverbial street.

Unfortunately?

Oh no. For Alf appeared to recognize in his opponent a player of supreme skills; and instead of his wonted sullen silence on such occasions, he was soon speaking with unprecedented candor about life there in the village in general, and in particular about the Harrisons — with the result that after twenty minutes Morse had learned more than any other police officer before him from any of the locals in Lower Swinstead.

“Did Frank ever come in the pub here with other women?”

“Never. In Lon’on most of his time, weren’t he?”

“What about Simon?”

“He come in sometimes, but he never had no reg’lar girlfriend. Bit of a loner, Simon.”

“What about Sarah?”

“ Lovely, she were — not seen her though this last coupla years. In fact, last time I seen her was here in the pub — sort of guest appearance singing with a pop group. Nice voice, she had, young Sarah.”

“Did she come in with any boyfriends?”

“Did she? I’ll tell you summat — she did. Could’ve had anybody she wanted, I reckon.”

“Who did she want?”

Alf chuckled. “Didn’t want me — Bert neither! One or two was luckier though, mister.”

The light in Alf’s old eyes suddenly sparked, like the coals on a fire that were almost ready to sink back to an ashen grey; and he nodded his head — just as Bert, in his turn, would have nodded across the cribbage board.

Enviously.

With the consulting rooms all taken up with a series of interviews for diabetes students, Lewis sat with Sarah Harrison behind a curtain in the Blood-Testing Room.

“Did you see your father while he was staying at The Randolph last week?”

“I always see my father when he comes to Oxford. In fact, I had a meal with him one evening.”

“So you get on well with him?”

Lewis’s smile was not reciprocated, and she almost spat her reply at him: “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not sure really. It’s just that I’ve got a list of questions here from Chief Inspector Morse — by the way, I think you know him...?”

“I’ve met him once.”

“Well he’s asked me to ask you — not very well phrased, that—”

“What’s he want to know?”

“What the relationships were like in your family.”

“I can’t speak for Simon — you must ask him. If you mean did I have any preference? No. I loved Mum, and I loved, love , Dad. Some children love both their parents, you know.”

“You never felt that your mother loved Simon a bit more than she loved you — you know, because he was a bit handicapped, perhaps because he needed more affection than you did?”

There was a silence before Sarah answered the question; and as Lewis looked at her he realized how attractive she must have appeared to all the men and boys in the village; how attractive she was now, and would be for many years to come, in whatever place she found herself.

“You know I’ve never thought of it quite like that before, but yes... I suppose you could be right, Sergeant Lewis.”

After leaving the Maiden’s Arms, where the fruit machine had stood unwontedly and unprofitably silent, Morse called on Allen (sic) Thomas at his home in Lower Swinstead. Alf had told him where to go: the lad was sure to be there. He’d not be at work, because he’d never done a hand’s turn in his life.

And Alf was right.

The dingy room was untidy and undusted, with three empty cans on the top of the TV and a hugely piled ashtray on the arm of the single armchair. But Thomas (the facial resemblance between him and Roy Holmes so very obvious to him now) was a paragon of civility compared with the crudity of that sibling of his, and Morse found himself feeling more pro than anti the unshaven youth in front of him.

“How often do you keep in touch with your dad?” began Morse.

The cigarette that had been dangling from Thomas’s loose mouth fell to the carpet; and although it was swiftly retrieved the damage had been done. Thomas knew it. And Morse knew it. And fairly soon the truth, or what Morse took to be half of the truth, had started to surface.

Yes, Elizabeth Holmes was his natural mother.

Yes, Roy Holmes was his stepbrother — or his real brother — he’d never really known.

Yes, he kept in touch with his natural father, and his natural father kept in touch with him: Frank Harrison, yes — he’d always known that.

No. His father had never sent him what could loosely be called a fruit-machine allowance.

No. His father had never asked him to keep him regularly informed about any developments in the inquiries into Yvonne Harrison’s murder.

No. He’d had no contact whatever recently either with his father or his mother or his brother.

Morse was half-smiling to himself as finally he drove back to Oxford, knowing beyond any peradventure that the No No No was in reality a Yes Yes Yes.

In the semicoordinated strategy earlier agreed between the pair of them, Lewis’s last allotted task had been some further inquiries into the balances and business activities of Mr. Frank Harrison. Somewhat trickier than anticipated though. Yet far more exciting, as Lewis discovered after depositing (as agreed) the Sainsbury’s bag, with contents, in Morse’s office late that same afternoon, and ringing the London offices of the Swiss Helvetia Bank.

Reaching the senior manager surprisingly speedily.

Being informed that he, Lewis, ought really to get to London immediately and urgently.

Deciding to go.

Using the siren (one of Lewis’s greatest joys) if he found himself stuck, as he knew he would be, amid the capital’s inevitable gridlocks.

Morse took the red trainers from the bag and placed them on Simon Harrison’s desk.

“These yours?”

“Pardon? What shorts?”

The interview wasn’t going to be easy, Morse conceded that. Yet already the suspicion had crossed his mind that any deaf man, and especially a canny deaf man, might occasionally pretend to mishear in order to give himself a little more time to consider an awkward question.

“Your car, Mr. Harrison? Toyota, P-Reg.?”

“It ought to be what, Inspector?”

“Llandudno? Mean anything to you?”

“Did you know, you say? Didn’t know?”

“The time for playing games is over, lad,” said Morse quietly. “Let’s start at the beginning again, shall we?” He pointed to the trainers. “These yours?”

The truth, or what Morse took to be half of the truth, was fairly soon out.

The teenaged Simon had known Barron well enough because the builder had done a few things around the house, including a big structural job on the back patio. Frequently he’d found Barron in the kitchen having a mug of coffee with his mother, and he’d sensed that Barron fancied her. Jealous? Yes, he’d been jealous. Angry, too, because his mother had once confided in him that she found Barron a bit of a creep.