Seventy-two

Unwontedly in a car, Morse was almost continuously talkative as they drove along: “Do you know that lovely line of Thomson's about villages ‘embosomed soft in trees’?”

“Don't even know Thomson,” mumbled Lewis.

“Remarkable things! Strange, intimate little places where there's more going on than anybody ever dreams of. You get illicit liaisons, hopeless love affairs, illegitimate offspring, wife-swapping, interbreeding, neighborly spite, class warfare—all that's for the insiders, though. If you're on the outside, they refuse to have anything to do with you. They clamp up. They present a united defensive front because they've got one thing in common, Lewis: the village itself. They're all members of the same football club. They may loathe each other's guts for most of the week, but come Saturday afternoon when they put on the same football shirts… Well, the next village better look out!”

“Except Lower Swinstead doesn't have a football team.”

“What are you talking about? They're all in the football team.”

Lewis drove down the Windrush Valley into Lower Swinstead.

“They don't all clamp up, anyway. Not to you, they don't. Compared with some of our lads you've squeezed a carton of juice out of ‘em already.”

“But there's more squeezing to do, Lewis—just a little.”

Unwontedly in a pub, Morse had already taken out his wallet at the bar, and Lewis raised no objection.

“Pint of bitter—whatever's in the best nick.”

“It's all in the best nick,” began Biffen.

“And … orange or grapefruit, Lewis?”

The fruit machine stood idle and the cribbage board was slotted away behind the bar. But the place was quite busy. Most of the customers were locals; most of them people who'd earlier been questioned about the Harrison murder; most of them members of the village team.

On the pub's noticeboard at the side of the bar, underneath “Live Music Every Saturday,” was an amateurishly printed yellow poster advertising the current week's entertainment:

“Popular?” asked Morse of the landlord.

“Packed out we are, every Sat'day.”

“Ever had Paddy Flynn and his group playing here?”

“Paddy who?”

“Flynn—the chap who was murdered.”

“Ah yes. Read about it, o'course. But I don't think he were ever here, Inspector. You know, fifty-odd groups a year and—how many years is it I've—”

“Forget it!” snapped Morse.

“The beer OK?”

“Fine. How's Bert, by the way? Any better?”

“Worse. Quack called to see him yesterday—just after we'd opened—told Bert's boy the old man oughta go in for a few days, like—but Bert told ‘em he wasn't going to die in no hospital.”

For someone who knew almost nothing about some things, Thomas Biffen seemed to know an awful lot about others.

“Where does he live?” asked Morse.

It was Bert's son, a man already in his late fifties, who showed Morse up the narrow steepish steps to the bedroom where Bert himself lay, propped up against pillows, the backs of his hands, purple-veined and deeply foxed, resting on the top of the sheet.

“Missing the cribbage, I bet!” volunteered Morse.

The old face, yellowish and gaunt, lit up a little. “Alf'll be glad of a rest. Hah!” He chuckled deeply in his throat. “Lost these last five times, he has.” “You're a bit under the weather, they tell me.”

“Still got me wits about me though. More'n Alf has sometimes.”

“Still got a good memory, you mean?”

“Allus had a good memory since I were at school.”

“Mind if I ask you a few things? About the village? You know … gossip, scandal… that sort of thing? I had a few words with Alf, but I reckon his memory's not as sharp as yours.”

“Never was, was it? Just you fire away, Inspector. Pleasure!”

Lewis, who had been left in the car, leaned across and opened the passenger door.

“Another member of the local football team?”

Morse smiled sadly and shook his head. “I think he's in for a transfer.”

“What exactly did he—?”

“Get me home, Lewis.”

On the speedy journey back to Oxford, the pair spoke only once, and then in a fairly brief exchange:

“Listen, Lewis! We know exactly where Frank Harrison is; who's with him; how long he's booked in at his hotel; when his return flight is. So. I want you to make sure he's met at Heathrow.”

“If he comes back.”

“He'll be back. I want you to meet him. Charge him with anything you like, complicity in the murder of his missus; complicity in the murder of Barron—please yourself. Anything! But bring him back to me, all right? I've seldom looked forward—”

Morse suddenly rubbed his chest vigorously.

“You OK, sir?”

Morse made no reply immediately. But after a few miles had perked up considerably.

“Just drop me at the Woodstock Arms!”

“Do you think—?”

“And present my apologies to Mrs. Lewis. As per usual.”

Lewis nodded as he turned right at the Woodstock Road roundabout.

As per usual.

In Paris, in the Ritz, later that same evening—a good deal later—Maxine Ridgway was finding it difficult to finish the lobster dish and almost impossible to drink another mouthful of the expensive white wine that looked to her exactly the color and gravity of urine. She was tired; she was more than a little tipsy; she was slightly less than breathlessly eager for another bout of sexual frolicking on their king-size bed. And Frank, too (she'd sensed it all evening), had been strangely reticent and surprisingly sober.

She braved the exchange: “You're not quite your usual self tonight, Frank.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It's that business at Heathrow, isn't it?”

Frank leaned across the table and placed his right hand on her arm. “I'll be OK soon, sweetheart. Don't worry! And I ought to tell you something: you're looking absolutely gorgeous!”

“You think so?”

“Why do you reckon all the waiters keep making detours round our table?”

“Tell me!”

“To have a look down the front of your dress.”

“Don't be silly!”

“You hadn't noticed?”

“Frank! It's been a long day—and I'm just so tired … so tired.”

“Not too tired, I hope? Nicht zu müder?”

“No, darling.”

“You don't want a sweet? A coffee?”

“No.”

“Well, you go up. I'll be with you soon. I've just got a couple of private phone calls to make. And I want to think for a little while—on my own, if you don't mind? And make sure you put that see-through thing on, all right? The one that'll send the garçon ga-ga when he brings our breakfast in the morning.”

“You've arranged that?”

Frank Harrison nodded; and watched the backs of her legs as she left the table.

Yes, he'd arranged for breakfast in their room.

He'd arranged everything.

Almost.