Colin Dexter - Morse’s Greatest Mystery and other stories

Behind them, in Crawford’s office, Sergeant Wilkins gave vent to his exasperation:

“A stuffed prick — that’s what he’s getting!”

“That’s unfair,” said Crawford quietly.

“But he doesn’t seem to understand. We’re not really planting evidence at all, are we? We’ve got the bloody evidence. It was all there.”

“Was all there,” agreed Crawford, dejectedly.

“How bloody unlucky can you get in life!”

Crawford was silent.

“You — you still going ahead with things, sir?”

“Look. I’ll never let Muldoon off the hook now. I’ll do anything to see that murderous sod behind bars!”

“Me, too. You know that.”

“It’s just that I’d have been happier in my own mind if Morse had been with us. He worries me, you see. ‘Cleverer ways’ he said...”

“Seems to me he’s more worried about keeping his nose clean than seeing justice done.”

“Got a pension to worry about, hasn’t he? He’s finishing with us soon.”

A sudden thought struck Sergeant Wilkins:

“He won’t... he wouldn’t say anything about it, would he?”

“Morse? Oh, no.”

“Some people blab a bit — especially when they’ve had a drop too much to drink.”

“Not Morse. He’s never had too much to drink, anyway — not as he sees things.”

“Not much help, though, is he?”

“No. And I’m disappointed about that, but...”

“But what, sir?”

Crawford took a deep breath. “It’s just that — well, I found it moving , what he said just now — you know, what he thought about what was valuable, what was important in life. The Super was saying exactly the same thing really, but... I dunno, compared with Morse he sounded sort of all big words and bull-shit—”

“Instead of all little words and horse-piss!”

“You’ve got him wrong, you know. He’s a funny bugger, I agree. But there’s a big streak of integrity somewhere in Morse.”

“Perhaps so. Perhaps I’m being very unfair.”

Crawford rose to his feet. “Not very unfair — don’t be too hard on yourself. Let’s just say he’s a stuffed shirt, shall we? That’d be a bit fairer than, er, than what you just called him.”

The sole trouble with Malt Whisky, Morse maintained, was that it left one feeling rather thirsty; and he insisted that if Lewis really wished to learn what had transpired in Crawford’s office, it would have to be over a glass of beer.

Thus it was that, ten minutes after being driven from Kidlington Police HQ, Morse sat drinking a Lewis-purchased pint at the King’s Arms in Banbury Road, and spelling out Crawford’s unhappy dilemma...

Following information received, a flat in Bannister Close had been under police surveillance for several weeks. Patience had been rewarded, gradatim; and a dossier of interesting, suggestive, and potentially incriminating evidence had been accumulated.

At intermittent periods the flat, it was believed, served in three separate capacities: first, as a meeting-house for members of a terrorist cell (suspected of being responsible for the two recent bombing incidents in Oxford); second, as a store-house for explosive and bomb-making equipment; third, as a safe-house for any other member of the group on the run from elsewhere in the UK.

For the police to rush in where hardened terrorists were so fearful of treading would have been to miss a golden opportunity of smashing an entire cell and of arresting its ring-leaders. But, perforce, this softly-softly policy had been rescinded on the specific orders of the Home Office, following hot intelligence that a big step-up in terrorist activity was scheduled for mainland Britain in the spring. “Damage limitation” — that was the buzz-phrase now. All very well waiting patiently to net some of the big fish — very laudable, too! — but no longer justifiable in terms of potential civilian casualties.

Hence the slightly precipitate actions taken: first the raiding of the flat, empty of people yet full enough of explosive materials, bombing equipment, and fingerprints; second, the arrest of Kieran Dominic Muldoon, the only one of the shadowed terrorists who had established himself as “of fixed address” in the City of Oxford.

Not the best of outcomes, certainly, since the other birds had by now abandoned their nests; as they would have done in any case, unless they had been cornered en bloc... or unless Kieran Muldoon could now be “persuaded” in some way — bribed, cajoled, decoyed, lured, trapped — into betraying the whereabouts of his fellow fanatics... For example, there were two other properties being watched: one in Jericho; one out on the Botley Road.

There had been some little disappointment about the contents of Muldoon’s own small living-quarters in the Cowley Road: a technical manual on bomb-making, though, and some dozens of addresses, code-names, telephone numbers: almost enough evidence there, and all duly impounded and documented and despatched for forensic tests and all the rest of it — and finally, of course, to be exhibited.

And — and — in addition to all this, two little solidly connecting links between Muldoon’s bed-sit and Bannister Close.

Two little beauties!

The first, a can of Beamish stout, found under a sofa in the flat at Bannister Close, with Muldoon’s fingerprints daubed all over it. The second, a photograph of Muldoon himself, climbing the outside iron staircase leading up to the balconied first floor there: an unequivocal, unambiguous photograph — both of the place, yes, and of the man — with the left side of his face in profile; and a splendid view of that unmistakable ear, a segment sliced so neatly from the top.

In addition the police had a taped interview with Muldoon, as well as a signed statement — the latter containing a firm denial of his ever having been at the Blackbird Leys Estate, let alone in Bannister Close.

Every procedure had been scrupulously followed from the start: a comprehensive register of exhibits had been typed out and checked; the key “continuity” in the handling of these exhibits had been meticulously maintained; and the Exhibits Officer appointed was an experienced man, fully conversant with his specific responsibilities.

“Everything hunky-dory, Lewis. Except...”

“Don’t tell me they’ve lost something?”

“Not ‘they’; ‘he’.”

“The photo?”

“And the can!”

“Bloody hell! Who was he? Who is he?”

“Watson. Detective Constable Watson.”

“Poor chap!”

Morse grinned feebly. “Perhaps he never should have been a detective — not with a name like that.”

“How did he come to lose—?”

“Ah! That’s the good news, Lewis. He’s not exactly lost them at all, so he says.”

“What’s the bad news, then?”

“The bad news is he can’t find them. Nor can half a dozen other people — who’ve been through everything umpteen times.”

Lewis, a man who swore very rarely, surprised his chief a second time:

“Bloody hell!”

“And Crawford, my colleague and former friend Crawford — you’ll never believe this! — is planning to put them both back on the Exhibits Register: the can and the photo.”

“How on earth does he think—?”