“Your job’s to find out all you can. It doesn’t look all that promising, I know. Hardly blackmail stuff these days, is it? But Owens thinks it is. And that’s the point. We’re not really interested in how many times he’s been knocking on the doors of the knocking shops. It’s finding the nature of his connection with Owens.”
Learoyd nodded his understanding, albeit a little unhappily.
“Off you go, then.”
But Learoyd delayed. “Whereabouts do you think would be a good place to start, sir?”
Morse’s eyeballs turned ceilingward.
“What about looking up His Lordship in Debrett’s Peerage, mm? It might just tell you where he lives, don’t you think?”
“But where can I find a copy?”
“What about that big building in the center of Oxford — in Bonn Square. You’ve heard of it? It’s called the Central Library.”
Item 2 in the manila file, as Lewis had discovered earlier that morning, was OBE (Overtaken By Events, in Morse’s shorthand). The Cheltenham firm of solicitors had been disbanded in 1992, its clientele dispersed, to all intents and purposes now permanently incommunicado.
Item 3 was to be entrusted into the huge hands of DC Elton, who now made his entrance; and almost immediately his exit, since he passed no observations, and asked no questions, as he looked down at the paunchy pedophiliac from St. Albans.
“Leave it to me, sir.”
“And while you’re at it, see how the land lies here.” Morse handed over the documentation on Item 4 — the accounts sheets from the surgical appliances company in Croydon.
“Good man, that,” commented Lewis, as the door closed behind the massive frame of DC Elton.
“Give me Learoyd every time!” confided Morse. “At least he’s got the intelligence to ask a few half-witted questions.”
“I don’t quite follow you.”
“Wouldn’t you need a bit of advice if you called in at some place selling surgical appliances? With Elton’s great beer gut they’ll probably think he’s called in for a temporary truss.”
Lewis didn’t argue.
He knew better.
Also OBE, as Lewis had already discovered, was Item 5. The address Owens had written on the letter was — had been — that of a home for the mentally handicapped in Wimbledon. A Social Services inspection had uncovered gross and negligent malpractices; and the establishment had been closed down two years previously, its management and nursing staff redeployed or declared redundant. Yet no prosecutions had ensued.
“Forlorn hope,” Lewis had ventured.
And Morse had agreed. “Did you know that ‘forlorn hope’ has got nothing to do with ‘forlorn’ or ‘hope’? It’s all Dutch: ‘Verloren hoop’ — ‘lost troop.’ ”
“Very useful to know, sir.”
Seemingly oblivious to such sarcasm, Morse contemplated once more the four sets of initials that comprised Item 6:
with those small ticks in red Biro set against the first three of them.
“Any ideas?” asked Lewis.
“ ‘Jonathan Swift,’ obviously, for ‘JS.’ I was only talking about him to the Super yesterday.”
“Julian Storrs?”
Morse grinned. “Perhaps all of ’em are dons at Lonsdale.”
“I’ll check.”
“So that leaves Items seven and eight — both of which I leave in your capable hands, Lewis. And lastly my own little assignment in Soho, Item nine.”
“Coffee, sir?”
“Glass of iced orange juice!”
After Lewis had gone, Morse reread Ellie’s letter, deeply hurt, and wondering whether people in the ancient past had found it quite so difficult to cope with disappointments deep as his. But at least things were over; and in the long run that might make things much easier. He tore the letter in two, in four, in eight, in sixteen, and then in thirty-two — would have torn it in sixtyfour, had his fingers been strong enough — before dropping the little square pieces into his wastepaper basket.
“No ice in the canteen, sir. Machine’s gone kaput.”
Morse shrugged indifferently and Lewis, sensing that the time might be opportune, decided to say something which had been on his mind:
“Just one thing I’d like to ask...”
Morse looked up sharply. “You’re not going to ask me where Lonsdale is, I hope!”
“No. I’d just like to ask you not to be too hard on that new secretary of yours, that’s all.”
“And what the hell’s that got to do with you?”
“Nothing really, sir.”
“I agree. And when I want your bloody advice on how to handle my secretarial staff, I’ll come and ask for it. Clear?”
Morse’s eyes were blazing anew. And Lewis, his own temperature now rising rapidly, left his superior’s office without a further word.
Just before noon, Jane Edwards was finalizing an angry letter, spelling out her resignation, when she heard the message over the intercom: Morse wanted to see her in his office.
“Si’ down!”
She sat down, noticing immediately that he seemed tired, the whites of his eyes lightly veined with blood.
“I’m sorry I got so cross, Jane. That’s all I wanted to say.”
She remained where she was, almost mesmerized.
Very quietly he continued: “You will try to forgive me— please?”
She nodded helplessly, for she had no choice.
And Morse smiled at her sadly, almost gratefully, as she left.
Back in the typing pool Ms. Jane Edwards surreptitiously dabbed away the last of the slow-dropping tears, tore up her letter (so carefully composed) into sixty-four pieces; and suddenly felt, as if by some miracle of St. Anthony, most inexplicably happy.
Chapter thirty-three
A recent survey has revealed that 80.5 percent of Oxford dons seek out the likely pornographic potential on the Internet before making use of that facility for purposes connected with their own disciplines or research. The figure for students, in the same university, is 2 percent lower.
Until the age of twelve, Morse’s reading had comprised little beyond a weekly diet of the Dandy comic, and a monthly diet of the Meccano Magazine — the legacy of the latter proving considerably the richer, in that Morse had retained a lifelong delight in model train sets and in the railways themselves. Thus it was that as he stood on Platform One at Oxford Station, he was much looking forward to his journey. Usually, he promised himself a decent read of a decent book on a trip like this. But such potential pleasures seldom materialized; hadn’t materialized that afternoon either, when the punctual 2:15 P.M. from Oxford arrived fifty-nine minutes later at Paddington, where Morse immediately took a taxi to New Scotland Yard.
Although matters there had been prearranged, it was purely by chance that Morse happened to meet Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Commissioner, in the main entrance foyer.
“They’re ready for you, Morse. Can’t stay myself, I’m afraid. Press conference. It’s not just the ethnic minorities I’ve upset this time — it’s the ethnic majorities, too. All because I’ve published a few more official crime statistics.”
Morse nodded. He wanted to say something to his old friend: something about never climbing in vain when you’re going up the Mountain of Truth. But he only recalled the quotation after stepping out of the lift at the fourth floor, where Sergeant Rogers of the Porn Squad was awaiting him.