Last Seen Wearing (25 page)

   A constable, young, tall, confident, tapped sharply on the car window. 'Is this your car, sir?'

   Morse wound the window down and wearily identified himself.

   'Sorry, sir. I just thought . . .'

   'Of course you did.'

   'Can I be of any assistance, sir?'

   'Doubt it,' replied Morse. 'I'm looking for a young girl.'

   'She live round here, sir?'

   'I don't know,' said Morse. 'I don't even know if she lives in London. Not much hope for me, is there?'

   'But you mean she's been seen round here recently?'

   'No,' said Morse quietly. 'She's not been seen anywhere for over two years.'

   'Oh, I see, sir,' said the young man, seeing nothing. 'Well, perhaps I can't help much then. Good night, sir.' He touched his helmet, and walked off, uncomprehending, past the gaudy strip clubs and the pornographic bookshops.

   'No,' said Morse to himself, 'I don't think you can.'

   He started the engine and drove via Shepherd's Bush and the White City towards the M40. He was back in his office just before midnight.

It did not even occur to him to go straight home. He was fully aware, even if he could give no explanation for it, of the curious feet that his mind was never more resilient, never sharper, than when apparently it was beaten. On such occasions his brain would roam restlessly around his skull like a wild and vicious tiger immured within the confines of a narrow cage, ceaselessly circumambulating, snarling savagely—and lethal. During the whole of the drive back to Oxford he had been like a chess player, defeated only after a monumental struggle, who critically reviews and analyses the moves and the motives for the moves that have led to his defeat. And already a new and strange idea was spawning in the fertile depdis of his mind, and he was impatient to get back.

   At three minutes to midnight he was poring over the dossiers on the Taylor case with the frenetic concentration of a hastily summoned understudy who had only a few minutes in which to memorize a lengthy speech.

   At 2.30 a.m. the night sergeant, carrying a steaming cup of coffee on a tray, tapped lightly and opened the door. He saw Morse, his hands over his ears, his desk strewn with documents, and an expression of such profound intensity upon his face that he quickly and gently put down the tray, reclosed the door, and walked quickly away.

   He called again at 4.30 a.m. and carefully put down a second cup of coffee beside the first, which stood where he had left it, cold, ugly-brown, untouched. Morse was fast asleep now, his head leaning back against the top of the black leather chair, the neck of his white shirt unfastened, and an expression on his face as of a young child for whom the vivid terrors of the night were past . . .

  
It had been Lewis who had found her. She lay supine upon the bed, fully clothed, her left arm placed across the body, the wrist slashed cruelly deep. The white coverlet was a pool of scarlet, and blood had dripped its way through the mattress. Clutched in her right hand was a knife, a wooden-handled carving knife, 'Prestige, Made in England', some 35-36 centimetres long, the cutting blade honed along its entire edge to a razor-sharp ferocity.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many.

(Phaedrus)

L
EWIS REPORTED BACK
for duty at eight o'clock and found a freshly shaven Morse seated at his desk. He could scarcely hide his disappointment as Morse began to recount the previous day's events, and found himself quite unable to account for the inspector's sprightly tone. His spirits picked up, however, when Morse mentioned the crucial evidence given by Miss Baker, and after hearing the whole story, he evinced little surprise at the string of instructions that Morse proceeded to give him. There were several phone calls to make and he thought he began to understand the general tenor of the inspector's purpose.

   At 9.30 he had finished, and reported back to Morse.

   'Feel up to the drive then?'

   'I don't mind driving one way, sir, but—'

   'Settled then. I'll drive there, you drive back. Agreed?'

   'When were you thinking of going, sir?'

   '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.'