Senior personnel from both the City and the County Forces were meeting at a time of considerable public disquiet – and criticism. Hitherto the impression had been abroad that known ringleaders were joy-riding and shop-ramming almost with impunity; and that the police were doing little to check the teenage tearaways who were terrifying many sections of the community on the Broadmoor Lea estate. There was little justification for such a view, since the police were continually finding themselves hamstrung by the refusal of the local inhabitants to come out and name names and co-operate in seeking to clean up their crime-ridden neighbourhood. But the death of Marion Bridewell had changed all that.
During this Sunday, 19 July, major decisions were taken, and their immediate implementation planned: a string of arrests would be made in a co-ordinated swoop the following morning, with special sittings of magistrates' courts scheduled for the following two evenings; council workmen would be sent in during the next few days to erect bollards and to construct sleeping-policeman humps across selected streets; police presence on the estate during the next week would be doubled; and a liaison committee of police officers, local head-teachers, social workers, and church ministers would be constituted forthwith.
It was a long and sometimes ill-humoured meeting; and Morse himself contributed little of any importance to the deliberations, for in truth his mind was distanced, and only once had his interest been fully engaged. It had been Strange's inveterate cynicism about committees which had occasioned the little contretemps:
'Give us a week or two at this rate,' he growled, 'and we'll have a standing committee, a steering committee, an ad hoc committee – every committee you can put a name to. What we should be doing is hitting 'em where it hurts. Fining 'em; fining their dads; docking it off their dads' wages. That's what I reckon!'
The Chief Constable had agreed quietly. 'Splendid idea – and the new legislation, I think, is going to be a big help to us. But there's just one snag, isn't there? You see, a good many of these young lads haven't got any fathers, Superintendent.'
Strange had looked disconcerted then.
And Morse had smiled his second smile of the day.
chapter thirty-four
The newly arrived resident in North Oxford is likely to find that although his next-door neighbour has a first-class degree from some prestigious university this man is not quite so clever as his wife
(Country Living, January 1992)
morse was on his own when finally, in mid-morning the following day, he drove down to Park Town, this time again slowly circling die two crescents on either side of the elliptical central garden, well stocked with trees and flowering shrubs. There were plenty of parking spaces, and after his second circuit he pulled in the Jaguar along the south side and walked past the fronts of the dozen Italianate properties which comprised the attractive stone-faced terrace. At the eastern end he turned down an alley-way, and then into the lane, about three yards wide, which ran behind the properties. To his right the continuous brick wall which protected the small back gardens was only about five feet in height, and he realized that it would not even be necessary to enter any of the gardens to find the one he was looking for. It was all childishly easy – no Holmesian intellect needed here; indeed a brief Watsonian reconnoitre would have established the spot almost immediately. Thus it was that after only a couple of minutes Morse found himself leaning over the curved coping-stones of the western-most property, and finding the details on his photographs so easily matchable here: the configuration of the black drain-pipes, the horizontal TV aerial, and then, crucially, the tree upon whose lower bough a child's red swing was now affixed. At the left of the garden, as Morse observed it, was a wooden garden seat, its slats disintegrating; and he felt thrillingly certain that it was from this scat, in this very garden, that someone – and most probably Karin Eriksson herself – had taken the two photographs of the fair-beaded, bracycephalic, slimly built… what else had Dr Hobson said? He couldn't remember. And it didn't matter. Not at all.
He walked to the imposing front door of the end property, designated 'Seckham Villa' by a small plaque on the right-hand wall of the porch; and below it, three bells: second floor Dr S. Levi; first floor Ms Jennifer Coombs; ground floor Dr Alasdair McBryde. An area clearly where D.Phils and Ph.Ds proliferated. He rang the bottom bell.
The door was opened by a tallish, heavily bearded man in his mid-thirties, who studied Morse's authorization cautiously before answering any questions. He was over from Ostrylia (he said) with his wife, to pursue some research project in micro-biology; they had been in the flat since the previous August, and would be returning home in two weeks' time; he'd learned of the property from a friend in Mansfield College who had been keeping an eye open for suitable accommodation the previous summer.
The previous August…
Was this to be Morse's lucky day?
'Did you know the people – did you meet the people who were here before you?'
'Fried not,' said the Australian.
'Can I – have a quick look inside?'
Rather unenthusiastically, as it seemed, McBryde led the way into the lounge, where Morse looked around the rather splendid, high-ceilinged room, and tried to attune his senses to the vaguest vibrations. Without success. It was only when he looked out through the french window at the sunlit patch of lawn that he felt a frisson of excitement: a dark-haired little girl in a pink dress was swinging idly to and fro beneath the tree, her white ankle-socked feet just reaching the ground.
'Your daughter, sir?'
'Yeah. You got any kids yourself, Inspector?'
Morse shook his head. 'Just one more thing, sir. Have you got your book, you know, your rent-book or whatever handy? It's important I get in touch with the, er, people who were here just before you last year…"
McBryde stepped over to an escritoire beside the french window and found his Property Payment book, the legend 'Finders Keepers' on the cover.
'I'm not in arrears,' said McBryde with the suggestion of his first smile.
'So I see. And I'm not a bailiff, sir,' said Morse, handing back the book.
The two men walked back towards the entrance, and McBryde knocked very gently on the door to his right, and put his ear to the panel.
'Darling? Darling?'
But there was no reply.
At the front door Morse asked his last question.
'Finders Keepers – that's the Banbury Road office, is it?'
'Yeah. You off there now?'
'I think I'll drop in straightaway, yes.'
'Is your car parked here?'
Morse pointed to the Jaguar.
'Well, I should leave it here, if I were you. Only five minutes' walk, if that – and you'll never park in North Parade.'
Morse nodded. Good idea. And the Rose and Crown was just along in North Parade.
Before leaving Park Town however, Morse strolled across into the central oval-shaped garden separating the Crescents, where he read the only notice he could find, fixed to the trunk of a cedar tree:
THIS GARDEN, LAID OUT CIRCA 1850, IS MAINTAINED BY THE RESIDENTS FOR PLEASURE AND PEACE.
PLEASE RESPECT ITS AMENITIES. NO DOGS, BICYCLES, BALL GAMES, OR TRANSISTORS.