“How did you come by this?” asked Lewis finally.
“Yours not to reason how.”
“He’s a blackmailer!”
Morse nodded. “We’ve found no evidential motive for Rachel’s murder, but...”
“… dozens of ’em for his.”
“About nine, Lewis — if we’re going to be accurate.”
Morse opened the file, and considered the contents once more. Unlike that of the obscenely fat child fondler, neither photograph of the leggy blonde stripper was genuinely pornographic — certainly not the wholly nude one, which seemed to Morse strangely unerotic; perhaps the one of her in the white dress, though... “Unbuttoning” had always appealed to Morse more than “unbuttoned”; “undressing” than “undressed”; “almost naked” to completely so. It was something to do with Plato’s idea of process; and as a young classical scholar Morse had spent so many hours with that philosopher.
“Quite a bit of legwork there, sir.”
“Yes. Lovely legs, aren’t they?”
“No! I meant there’s a lot of work to do there — research, going around.”
“You’ll need a bit of help, yes.”
“Sergeant Dixon — couple of his lads, too — that’d help.”
“Is Dixon still eating the canteen out of jam doughnuts?”
Lewis nodded. “And he’s still got his pet tortoise—”
“—always a step or two in front of him, I know.”
For half an hour the detectives discussed the file’s explosive material. Until just after noon, in fact.
“Coffee, sir?”
“Not for me. Let’s nip down to the King’s Arms in Summertown.”
“Not for me,” echoed Lewis. “I can’t afford the time.”
“As you wish.” Morse got to his feet.
“Do you think you should be going out quite so much — on the booze, I mean, sir?” Lewis took a deep breath and prepared for an approaching gale, force ten. “You’re getting worse, not better.”
Morse sat down again.
“Let me just tell you something, Lewis. I care quite a bit about what you think of me as a boss, as a colleague, as a detective — as a friend, yes! But I don’t give two bloody monkeys about what you think of me as a boozer, all right?”
“No, it’s not all right,” said Lewis quietly. “As a professional copper, as far as solving murders are concerned—”
“Is concerned!”
“—it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter to me at all.” Lewis’s voice grew sharper now. “You do your job — you spend all your time sorting things out — I’m not worried about that. And if the Chief Constable told me you weren’t doing your job, I’d resign myself. But he wouldn’t say that— never. What he’d say — what others would say — what others are saying — is that you’re ruining yourself. Not the Force, not the department, not the murder inquiries — nothing! — except yourself.”
“Just hold on a second, will you?” Morse’s eyes were blazing.
“No! No, I won’t. You talked about me as a friend, didn’t you, just now? Well, as a friend I’m telling you that you’re buggering up your health, your retirement, your life — everything!”
“Listen!” hissed Morse. “I’ve never myself tried to tell any other man how to live his life. And I will not be told, at my age, how I’m supposed to live mine. Even by you.”
After a prolonged silence, Lewis spoke again.
“Can I say something else?”
Morse shrugged indifferently.
“Perhaps it doesn’t matter much to most people whether you kill yourself or not. You’ve got no wife, no family, no relatives, except that aunt of yours in Alnwick—”
“She’s dead, too.”
“So, what the hell? What’s it matter? Who cares? Well, I care, sir. And the missus cares. And for all I know that girl Ellie Smith, she cares.”
Morse looked down at his desk. “Not any longer, no.”
“And you ought to care — care for yourself — just a bit.”
For some considerable while Morse refrained from making any answer, for he was affected by his sergeant’s words more deeply than he would ever be prepared to admit.
Then, finally:
“What about that coffee, Lewis?”
“And a sandwich?”
“And a sandwich.”
By early afternoon Morse had put most of his cards on the table, and he and Lewis had reached an agreed conclusion. No longer could either of them accept that Rachel James had been the intended victim: each of them now looked toward Geoffrey Owens as by far the likelier target. Pursuance of the abundant clues provided by the Owens file would necessarily involve a great deal of extra work; and fairly soon a strategy was devised, with Lewis and Dixon allocated virtually everything except the Soho slot.
“You know, I could probably fit that in fairly easily with the Wimbledon visit,” Lewis had volunteered.
But Morse was clearly unconvinced:
“The Soho angle’s the most important of the lot.”
“Do you honestly believe that?”
“Certainly. That’s why—”
The phone rang, answered by Morse.
Owens (he learned) had phoned HQ ten minutes earlier, just after 3 P.M., to report that his property had been burgled over the weekend, while he was away.
“And you’re dealing with it?... Good... Just the one item you say, as far as he knows?... I see... Thank you.”
Morse put down the phone; and Lewis picked up the file, looking quizzically across the desk.
But Morse shook his head. “Not the file, no.”
“What, then?”
“A valuable little ormolu clock from his living room.”
“Probably a professional, sir — one who knows his clocks.”
“Don’t ask me. I know nothing about clocks.”
Lewis grinned. “We both know somebody who does though, don’t we, sir?”
Chapter thirty
This world and the next — and after that all our troubles will be over.
No knock. The door opened. Strange entered.
“Haven’t they mentioned it yet, Morse? The pubs are open all day on Sundays now.”
As Strange carefully balanced his bulk on the chair opposite, Morse lauded his luck that Lewis had taken the Owens material down the corridor for photocopying.
“Just catching up on a bit of routine stuff, sir.”
“Really?”
“Why are you here?”
“It’s the wife,” confided Strange. “Sunday afternoons she always goes round the house dusting everything. Including me!”
Morse was smiling dutifully as Strange continued: “Making progress?”
“Following up a few things, yes.”
“Mm... Is your brain as bright as it used to be?”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“Mm... You don’t look quite so bright, either.”
“We’re all getting older.”
“Worse luck!”