Morse smiled thinly as he looked directly across at his superior officer. “What you’re telling me is that the recording equipment packed up, and there’s no trace.”
“Anything mechanical packs up occasionally.”
“Both occasions?”
“Both occasions.”
“So all you’ve got to rely on is the duty sergeant.”
“Right.”
“Atkinson, was that?”
“Er, yes.”
“Isn’t he the one who’s been taken off active duties?”
“Er, yes.”
“Because he’s become half-deaf, I heard.”
“It’s not a joke, Morse! Terrible affliction, deafness.”
“Would you like me to have a word with him myself?” For some reason Morse’s smile was broader now.
“I’ve already, er...”
“Were you at home, sir, when this anonymous caller rang you?”
Strange shifted uncomfortably in the chair, finally nodding slowly.
“I thought you were ex-directory, sir.”
“You thought right.”
“How did he know your number then?”
“ ’ow the ’ell do I know!”
“The only people who’d know would be your close friends, family...?”
“And people at HQ,” added Strange.
“What are you suggesting?”
“Well, for starters... have you got my telephone number?”
Morse walked out into the entrance hall and returned with a white-plastic telephone index, on which he pressed the letter “S,” then pushed the list of names and numbers there under the half-lenses now perched on Strange’s nose.
“Not changed, has it?”
“Got an extra ‘five’ in front of it. But you’d know that, wouldn’t you?” The eyes over the top of the lenses looked shrewdly and steadily up at Morse.
“Yes. It’s just the same with my number.”
“Do you think I should get a tap on my phone?”
“Wouldn’t do any harm, if he rings again.”
“When he rings again.”
“Hoaxer! Sure to be.”
“Well-informed hoaxer, then.” Strange pointed to the paper still on the arm of Morse’s chair. “A bit in the know, wouldn’t you say? Someone on the inside, perhaps? You couldn’t have found one or two things referred to there in any of the press reports. Only the police’d know.”
“And the murderer,” added Morse.
“And the murderer,” repeated Strange.
Morse looked down once more at the notes Strange had made in his appropriately outsized, spidery handwriting:
Call One
That Lower Swinstead woman — nickers up and down like a yo-yo — a lot of paying clients and a few non-paying clients like me. Got nowhere much with the case did you — incompetant lot. For starters you wondered if it was one of the locals, didn’t you? Then for the main course you wasted most of your time with the husband. Then you didn’t have any sweet because you’d run out of money. Am I right? Idiots, the lot of you. No! Don’t interrupt! (Line suddenly dead.)
Call Two
Now don’t interrupt this time, see? Don’t say a dickybird! Like I said, that woman had more pricks than a secondhand dart-board, mine included, but it’s not me who had anything to do with it. Want a clue? There’s somebody coming out of the clammer in a fortnight — listen! He’s one of your locals, isn’t he? See what I mean? You cocked it all up before and you’re lucky bastards to have another chance. (Line suddenly dead.)
Morse looked up to find himself the object of Strange’s steady gaze.
“It’s incompetent, sir, with an ‘e’.”
“Thank you very much!”
“And most people put a ‘k’ on ‘knickers.’”
Strange smiled grimly. “And Yvonne Harrison put an embargo on knickers, however you spell ‘em!”
He struggled to his feet. “My office Monday morning — first thing!”
“Eight o’clock?”
“Nine-thirty?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Now get back to your Schubert — though I’m surprised you weren’t listening to Wagner. Just the job, The Ring, for a long holiday, you know. Especially the Solti recording.”
Morse watched his visitor waddling somewhat unsteadily toward the police car parked confidently in the “Resident’s Only” parking area. (Yes! Morse had mentioned the apostrophe to the Chairman of the Residents’ Welfare Committee.)
He closed the front door and for a few moments stood there motionless, acknowledging with a series of almost imperceptible nods the simple truth about the latest encounter between two men who knew each other well, both for good and ilclass="underline"
Game, Set, Match, to Strange.
Or was it?
For there was something about what he had just learned, something he had not yet even begun to analyze, that was perplexing him slightly.
The following Sunday was a pleasant summer’s day; and along with three-quarters of the population of Hampshire, Morse decided to go down to Bournemouth. It took him over an hour to park the Jaguar; and it was a further half-hour before he reached the seafront where carloads and busloads of formidable families were negotiating rights to a couple of square meters of Lebensraum. But moving away from the ice-cream emporia, Morse found progressively fewer and fewer day-trippers as he walked toward the further reaches of the shoreline. He’d always told himself he enjoyed the changing moods of Homer’s deep-sounding sea. And he did so now.
Soon, he found himself standing alongside the slowly lapping water, debating with himself whether the tide was just coming in or just going out, and staring down at the glasslike circular configuration of a jellyfish.
“Is it dead?”
Until she spoke, Morse had been unaware of the auburn-haired young woman who now stood beside him, almost wearing a bikini.
“I don’t know. But in the absence of anything better to do, I’m going to stand here till the tide comes in and find out.”
“But the tide’s going out, surely?”
Morse nodded somewhat wistfully. “You may be right.”
“Poor jellyfish!”
“Mm!” Morse looked down again at the apparently doomed, transparent creature at his feet: “How very sad to be a jellyfish!”
He’d sounded a comparatively interesting man, and the woman would have liked to stay there awhile. But she forced herself to forget the intensely blue eyes which momentarily had held her own and walked away without a further word, for she felt a sudden, slight suspicion concerning the sanity of the man who stood there staring at the ground.
Chapter five
In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.
It was on Tuesday the 14th, the day before Strange’s visit to Morse, that Lewis had presented himself at the Chief Superintendent’s office in Thames Valley Police HQ, in punctual obedience to the internal phone call.
“Something for you, Lewis. Remember the Lower Swinstead murder?”
“Well, vaguely, yes. And I’ve seen the bits in the paper, you know, about the calls. I was never really on the case myself though. We were on another—”
“Well, you’re on it now — from next Monday morning, that is — once Morse gets back from Bermuda.”
“He hasn’t left Oxford, has he?”
“Joke, Lewis.” Strange beamed with bonhomie, settling his chin into his others.
“The Chief Inspector’s agreed?”
“Not much option, had he? And you enjoy working with the old sod. I know you do.”
“Not always.”