The Remorseful Day (12 page)

“How long's it take to fill one of these things?”

“Depends. Holidays and weekends? Pretty quick—only a day, sometimes. Usually though? Two, three days. Depends, like I said.”

“How many bins have gone today?”

“Two? No, three, I think.”

“You didn't, er, notice anything unusual about… about anything?”

“What sort o’ thing, mate?”

“Forget it, son! And, by the way, I wasn't aware I
was
one of your mates.”

“An’ I wasn't aware you was me fuckin’ father, neither!” spat the spotty-faced youth, as an outsmarted Morse walked unhappily away.

It had not been a particularly productive afternoon. Morse hadn't even had the nous to bring his little bag of grass cuttings along, to be tossed, with full official blessing, into the garden waste (green) depository.

Back in Cox's office Morse was (for him) comparatively generous with his gratitude for the help he'd been provided with. And before leaving, he took a last look at the month of May's lascivious self-offering to all who looked and longed and lusted after her. People like Stanley Cox; like Cox's fellow Waste Disposal Operatives; like Chief Inspector Morse, who stood in front of her again and thought she reminded him of another woman—a woman he'd met so very recently.

Reminded him of Debbie Richardson.

It was still only 2:30
P.M.
that same day when Lewis pulled into the small car park of the Maiden's Arms, a low-roofed building of Cotswold stone which was Lower Swinstead's only public house. A notice beside the entrance announced the opening hours for Friday as 12 noon-3
P.M.
, 6:30-11
P.M.

At a table by the sole window of the small bar sat two aged villagers drinking beer from straight pint glasses, smoking Woodbines, and playing cribbage. Only one
other customer: a pale-faced, ear-pierced, greasy-haired youth, who stood feeding coin after coin into an unresponsive fruit machine. When Lewis asked for the landlord, the man behind the bar introduced himself as no less a personage.

“What can I get you, sir?”

Lewis showed his ID. “Can we talk?”

Tom Biff en was a square of a man, small of stature and wide of body, his weather-beaten features framed with a grizzly beard, a pair of humorous eyes, and a single earring in the left lobe. A dark-blue T-shirt paraded “The Maidens Arms” across a deep chest.

Lewis came to the point without preamble: “You know a woman called Deborah—Deborah Richardson?”

“Debbie? Oh yeah. Everybody knows Debbie.” He spoke with a West Country burr, and clearly neither of the cardplayers was hard-of-hearing, for had Lewis had occasion to turn round at that moment he would have noted a half-smiling nod of agreement on each of their faces.

Lewis continued: “Her partner's been released from prison this morning. You know Harry Repp?”

“Harry? Oh yeah! Everybody knows Harry.” (The fingers of the cardplayers froze momentarily, and each had stopped smiling.)

“He's not been in this morning?”

“I'd've seen him if he had, wouldn't I?”

“It's just that he's not been home yet, that's all. And we want to make sure he's OK.”

“Having a noggin or two somewhere, I shouldn't wonder. That's what I'd be doing.”

“How long have you been landlord here?”

“Let's see now …”

“Seven year come September, Biff,” came an answer from behind.

“Thank you, Bert!” Biff turned his attention back to Lewis as he held a proprietorially polished glass up to the light like a radiographer examining an X ray. “You're going to ask me about the murder—I know that. There's been things in the papers, and we're all
interested. Can't pretend we're not. Biggest thing ever happened round here.”

“Lots of rumors, weren't there? You know, about Mrs. Harrison. Having a bit on the side, perhaps?”

“Well, it weren't me! And Alf and Bert here, they're both a bit past it now.”

(“Speak for yourself!—”—from one of the septuagenarians.)

“Did she ever come in here with any men?”

Biff shook his head indeterminately: “Simon, the boy? Only occasionally though. Deaf, see! I ‘spect it was a bit dull for him—not being able to hear the sparkling repartee of my regulars, like Alf and Bert here.”

(“Used to drink Coca-Cola—” from Alf, or was it Bert?)

“What about the daughter?”

“Sarah? Nice pair o’ legs, Sarah.”

(“Not the only nice pair o’ things!”—
sotto voce
from behind.)

“With a boyfriend in tow, was it?”

“Sometimes.”

“With her mum?”

“Nah! Wouldn't have wanted
her
around, would she?”

“Why not?”

“Well… attractive, wasn't she, Sarah? It was her mum had the real sex appeal, though. Could have had most fellahs round here, if they'd had a jar or two.”

(“Even if they hadn't!”—from Bert, or was it Alf?)

“Did you ever come up with any names?”

“Names? Nah! Like I said …”

“Must have been rumors though?”

“Never heard any meself.” Biff looked over Lewis's shoulder: “You ever hear any rumors, lads?”

“Not me,” said Bert.

“Nor me,” said Alf.

Lewis felt certain that all three of them were lying. And, according to the report, the police on the original inquiry had felt very much the same: that the villagers were quite willing to hint that Yvonne Harrison had not
exactly been the high priestess of marital fidelity; but that when it came to naming names, they'd decided to clamp up. En bloc.

“Drink on the house, sir?”

Lewis declined, and bade his farewell, nodding to the cardplayers as he walked to the door, where he stopped and turned back toward the landlord, pointing to the T-shirt:

“Shouldn't there be an apostrophe before the ‘s’?”

Biff grinned. “Funny you should say that. Fellow in here last night asked me exactly the same thing!”

Lewis walked slowly round to the car park, noting the plaque on the sidewall:

Need more than that, thought Lewis, to unclamp a small community which was so clearly still maintaining its conspiracy of silence.

But Lewis was wrong.

As he took out his car keys, he saw the youth who had just been feeding the fruits of his labors into the fruit machine. Waiting for him. Beside the car.

“Police, aincha?”

“Yes?”

“You was asking about things in there.”

“I'm always asking about things.”

“Just that somebody else was asking them same sort o’ questions, see? Couldn't help hearing, could I? And this fellah—he was asking
me
a few things. About Mrs. Harrison. About if I'd ever seen her with any fellah in the pub. But I couldn't quite remember. Not at the time.”

“You remember now, though?”

“Right on the nail, copper. Told me to give ‘im a buzz if I suddenly remembered something. Said, you know, it might be worthwhile like.”

“Why didn't you ring him?”

“That's just it, though. I'd seen her with the fellah that
asked
me, see? Same bleedin fellah!”

“You mean … it was
him
you'd seen with Mrs. Harrison?”

“Right on the nail, copper.”

“What did he look like, this fellow?”

“Well, sort of … I can't really …”

“He gave you his name?”

“No. Gave me ‘is phone number though, like I said.”

The youth produced a circular beer-mat from his pocket.

Lewis looked down at a telephone number written above the red
Bass
triangle, written in the small, neat hand he knew so well: the personal ex-directory telephone number of Chief Inspector Morse.

As he stood amid the wilderness of waste, a High Viz jacket over his summer shirt and a red safety helmet on his head, Chief Inspector Morse realized that he had miscalculated rather badly. But he'd had to check it up.

It had always been the same with him. Whenever as a young boy reading under his bedside lamp he'd come across an unfamiliar word, he'd known with certainty that he could never look forward to sleep until he'd traced the newcomer's credentials and etymology in
Chambers’ Dictionary
, the book that stood alongside
The Family Doctor
(1910),
A Pictorial History of the First World War
, and
The Life of Captain Cook
, on the single short shelf that comprised his parents’ library.

His father (sadly, almost tragically) had been a clandestine gambler. And Morse was fully aware that this time he himself had put his money on a rank outsider: the possibility that someone had murdered Harry Repp; had disposed of his body in the Redbridge Waste Disposal Centre; had disposed of this hypothetical body in a particular part of that Centre—specifically in one of the compactor bins perhaps: further, that the said and equally hypothetical bin had been, was being, or was about to be, driven out in a hypothetical black bag to Sutton Courtenay. And, above all, that somebody might have
observed
such a hypothetical deposit. Ridiculous! William Hill or Ladbrokes would probably have offered odds of 1,000,000-1 against any such eventuality.

On impulse Morse had driven down the A34, thence along the A4130, to the landfill site on the outskirts of Sutton Courtenay. Where, after a series of telephone calls from the temporary (permanent) Portakabins, the management had finally acknowledged the
bona fides
of their dubious visitor.

It was in a Landrover that (finally) Morse had been driven out to the tipping area, where virtually continuous convoys of lorries from the whole of Oxfordshire were raising the telescopic legs of container-cargoes to some 45 degrees as they began to tip their loads, moving forward in disjunctive jerks as they ensured the contents were fully discharged, and leaving behind a distinctive trail of their own particular type of rubbish. As a rather dispirited Morse watched these operations, he imagined that perhaps when viewed from some hovering helicopter each truck would seem like an artist's brush, with the trail of the gradually extending rubbish like a stroke of variegated paint being smeared across the canvas of the landscape. But Morse accepted the more prosaic truth of the situation immediately: the truck drivers themselves would very seldom, if ever,
have occasion to notice, let alone to examine, the contents of the loads they were emptying.

He voiced his thoughts. “If a driver dumped a body … well, he wouldn't really know much about it, would he?”

Colin Rice, the site manager, hesitated awhile before replying—not because he had the slightest doubt about the answer to this question, but because he felt reluctant immediately to disappoint his somewhat melancholic inquisitor.

“No.”

“How many of those compactor bins do you get from Redbridge every day?”

“Depends.”

“Today?”

“Four or five? I could check.”

“No. No need.”

Morse watched as the yellow-painted BOMAG tractors were once again setting about their dismal business, the metal teeth of their giant wheels compacting the recently deposited mounds; and then, with a fair-weather frontage reminiscent of a snowplow, pushing forward the leveled rubbish toward its burial ground.

For the moment Morse said nothing more, suddenly and strangely aware that, if he half-closed his eyes, the piles of refuse around him could almost appear like some wondrously woven multicolored quilt, black and white mostly, but interspersed with vivid little patches of blue and red and yellow.

It was Rice who spoke: “If anybody'd see anything it'd be those chaps on the levelers. They're looking forward at all the rubbish, see? Your normal truck driver, he's not even looking backward at it.”

“You wouldn't be able to pinpoint the place where any lorry loads from Redbridge… ?”

The site manager shook his head. “No chance.”

“If you had enough personnel though?”

“How many?”

“ Five or six?”

“Five or six hundred, you mean?”

Morse decided to quit the unequal struggle. He
kicked a hole in one of the black plastic bags at his feet, and briefly surveyed the nauseating mixture of spaghetti and tomatoes that oozed therefrom, like the innards of a road-squashed rabbit.

“If you'd like to stay?” suggested Rice, without enthusiasm. “You never know. We had a load of brand-new cameras dumped here once.”

“I've never had a camera myself,” admitted Morse. “I just hope you appropriated one for yourself.”

Rice smiled, forgivingly. “You don't really know much about the rules in a place like this, do you, sir?”

Morse lifted his eyes from the ground toward the giant cooling-towers of Didcot Power Station which stood sentinel on the immediate landscape, only a few hundred yards away.