Morse’s Greatest Mystery and other stories

(i)

Chief Superintendent Strange took back the snapshot of Grandson Number One (two years, three months) and lovingly looked at the lad once more.

“Super little chap. You can leave him with anybody. As good as gold.”

He poured a little more of the Macallan into each of the glasses.

Birthdays were becoming increasingly important for Strange as the years passed by — fewer and ever fewer of them left, alas. And he thought he was enjoying the little early-evening celebration with a few of his fellow senior officers.

Only two of them remaining now, though.

Quite predictably remaining, one of the two.

Musing nostalgically, Strange elaborated on memories of childhood.

“Huh! One of the first things I ever remember as a kid, that. This woman was looking after me when my ol’ mum had to go out somewhere — and when she came back she asked her whether I’d been a good boy while she’d been away and she’d been looking after me — and she said she could leave me with her any time she liked because I’d been as good as gold. Those were the very words — ‘As good as gold.’ ”

There was a short silence, before he resumed, briefly.

“I’m not boring you by any chance, Morse?”

The white head across the desk jerked quickly to the vertical and shook itself emphatically. Seven — or was it eight? — “she”s. With one or two “her”s thrown in for good measure? Yet in spite of the bewildering proliferation of those personal pronouns (feminine), Morse had found himself able to follow the story adequately, feeling gently amused as he pictured the (now) grossly overweight Superintendent as a podgy but obviously pious little cherub happily burbling to his baby-sitter.

All a bit nauseating, but...

“Certainly not, sir,” he said.

“You know the origin of the phrase, of course?”

Oh dear. Just a minute...

But Strange was already a furlong ahead of him.

“All to do with the Gold Standard, wasn’t it? If you needed some gold — to buy something, say — well, it was going to be too heavy to cart around all the time — and there probably wasn’t enough in the bank anyway. So they gave you a note instead — a bit o’paper promising to “pay the bearer” and all that sort of thing — and that bit o’ paper was as good as gold. If you took that bit o’ paper to the Bank of England or somewhere, you could bet your bottom dollar — well, not “dollar” perhaps — you know what I mean, though — you could get your gold-bar — if you really wanted it. You could have all the confidence in the world in that bit o’ paper.”

Thank you, Mr. Strange.

Clearly, in terms of frequency, the “bit o’ paper” had usurped the personal pronouns (feminine). But Morse was apparently unconcerned, and nodded his head encouragingly as the bottle, now at a virtually horizontal level, hovered over his empty glass.

“You’re not driving yourself home, Morse, I hope?”

“Certainly not, sir.”

“Little more for you, Crawford?”

Strange turned to the only other person there in the room, seated at the desk beside Morse.

“No more for me, thank you, sir. I shall have to get back to the office.”

“Still some work to do — this time of day?”

“Just a bit, sir.”

“Ah — the Muldoon business! Yes. Going all right?”

Detective Inspector Crawford looked rather less confident than Strange’s putative bearer of the promissory bank-note.

“We’re making progress, sir.”

“Good! Fine piece of work that, Crawford. Aggregation, accumulation of evidence — that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? I know we’ve got a few smart alecs like Morse here who — you know, with all that top-of-the head stuff... but real police work’s just honest graft, isn’t it? And I mean honest. We’re winning back a lot of public support, that’s for sure. We’ve taken a few knocks recently, course we have. Bad apples — one or two in every barrel; in every profession. Not here though! Not in our patch, eh, Morse?”

“Certainly not, sir.”

“Above suspicion — that’s what we’ve got to be. Compromise on the slightest thing and you’re on the slope, aren’t you — on the slippery slope down to...”

Strange gulped back a last mouthful of Malt — clearly the name to be found at the bottom of the said slope temporarily eluding him. It was time to be off home. Almost.

“No, you can’t afford to start on that.”

“Certainly not,” agreed Morse with conviction, happily unaware that he was becoming almost as repetitive as Strange.

“It’s just like Caesar’s wife, isn’t it? ‘Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.’ You’ll remember that, Morse. You were a Classics man.”

Morse nodded.

“What was her name?” asked Strange.

Oh dear. Just a minute...

Morse dredged his memory — unproductively. What was her name? She’d been accused (he remembered) of some extra-marital escapade, and Caesar had divorced her on the spot; not because he thought she was necessarily guilty, but because he couldn’t afford to have a wife even suspected of double-dealing. Well, that’s what Caesar said... Like as not he was probably just fed up with her; had some woman on the side himself... What was her name?

“Pomponia,” supplied Crawford.

Mentally Morse kicked himself. Of course it was.

“You all right, Morse?” Strange looked anxiously over his half spectacles, like a schoolmaster disappointed in a star pupil. “Not had too much booze, have you?”

“Certainly not, sir.”

“You know,” Strange sat back expansively in his chair, fingers laced over his great paunch, “you’re a couple of good men, really. I know you may have cut a few corners here and there — by-passed a few procedures. Huh! But we’ve none of us ever lost sight of what it’s really all about, have we? The Police Force? Integrity, fairness... honesty...” — then, after a deep breath, an impressive heptasyllabic finale — “incorruptibility.”

The Super had sounded fully sober now, and had spoken with a quiet, impressive dignity.

He rose to his feet.

And his fellow officers did the same.

In the corridor outside, as they walked away from Strange’s office, Crawford was clearly agitated.

“Can I speak to you, Morse? It’s very urgent.”

(ii)

Oxford Prison, closed permanently a few years earlier, had recently been re-opened as a temporary measure. And with nothing in life quite so permanent as the temporary, the prison officers now temporarily posted there were fairly confidently expecting a permanent sojourn in Oxford.

On the evening of Strange’s birthday, a wretched man sat wretchedly on his bed in a cell on A-Wing. From what he had gathered so far, he feared that his own temporary accommodation there would very soon be exchanged for a far more permanent tenancy in one of Her Majesty’s top-security prisons somewhere else in the UK.

The man’s name was Kieran Dominic Muldoon.

The question at stake was not really one of innocence or guilt, since there was universal consensus in favour of the latter. Even at the age of sixteen, Muldoon had been flirting with terrorism; and now, twenty years later, she had long been his permanent mistress.

That much was known.

It was now only a question of evidence — of sufficient evidence to shore up a case for a prosecuting counsel.

So far he’d been lucky, Muldoon knew that. Both in Belfast and in Birmingham, when he’d been detained, incriminatory links between people and places and plans had proved too difficult to substantiate; and the authorities had released him.

Had been compelled to release him.

This time, though, he’d surely been a bit unlucky?

He’d been conscious of that when they’d arrested him three days earlier from his Cowley Road bed-sit and taken him to St. Aldate’s Police Station in the City Centre, when with conspicuous confidence they’d straightaway charged him, and when the Magistrates’ Court (immediately opposite) had granted a remand into custody without the slightest demur.

That, in turn, had been only a few hours after they’d discovered the explosive and the timers and the detonators out in the flat in Bannister Close on the Blackbird Leys Estate.

Jesus! What a mistake that had been to tell them he’d never been anywhere near the flat; didn’t even know where the bloody block of flats was.

Why had they smiled at him?

Thinking back on things, he had felt uneasy that late afternoon a week ago when he’d gone along there — the only time he’d even gone along there. He’d heard neither the clicks of any hidden camera nor the tell-tale whirr of a Camcorder; had seen no flashes; had spotted no suspicious unmarked van. No. It must have been someone in one of the council houses opposite — if they’d got some photographic evidence against him.

Because the police had got something.

So calm, this time. Especially that bugger Crawford.

So bloody cocky.

It couldn’t be fingerprints, surely? As ever, the three of them had been almost neurotically finicky on that score; and the dozen or so cans of booze had been put into a black plastic bag and duly consigned (Muldoon had no reason to doubt) to one of the skips at the local Waste Reception Area.

But could they have been careless, and left something.

Because the police had got something.

Still, he’d kept his cool pretty well when they d grilled him on names, addresses, train-journeys, stolen cars, money-transfers, weapons, explosives... For apart from a few regular protestations of ignorance and innocence, he’d answered little.

Or nothing.

It was at a somewhat lower level of anxiety that he worried about the ransacking of his bed-sit. They must have found them all by now.

The videos.

Ever since he could remember, Muldoon had been preoccupied with the female body, in which (as he well knew) he joined the vast majority of the human race, masculine, and some significant few of the human race, feminine. But in his own case the preoccupation was extraordinarily obsessive and intense; and intensifying as the years passed by — frequently satisfied (oh, yes!) yet ever feeding, as it were, upon its own satiety.

Only thirteen, he had been, when the hard-eyed woman had ushered him through into the darkened warmth of the cinema where, as he groped for a seat, his young eyes had immediately been transfixed upon the luridly pornographic exploits projected on the screen there, his whole being jerked into an incredible joy...

Since he’d been in Oxford — three months now — he’d learned that the boss of the Bodleian Library was entitled to receive a copy of every single book published in the UK. And in his own darkly erotic fancies, Muldoon’s idea of Heaven was easily conceived: to be appointed Curator of some Ethereal Emporium receiving a copy of every hard-porn video passed by some Celestial Film Censor as “Suitable Only For Advanced Voyeurs,” with crates of Irish whiskey and trays of stout and cartons of cigarettes stacked double-deep all round his penthouse walls...

Jesus!

How could he even begin to cope if they put him inside for five — ten — years? Longer?

Please, God — no!

He’d not started off wanting too desperately to change the world; indeed not too troubled, in those early days, even about changing the borders of a divided Ireland. Certainly never positively wanting to kill civilians... women and children.

But he had done so. Twice now.

Or his bombs had.

He rose from his bed, lit another cigarette, and with the aid of an elbow-crutch stomped miserably around the small cell.

Sixteen years ago the accident had been, in Newry — when he’d crashed a stolen car at 96.5 mph (according to police evidence). Somehow a piece of glass had cut a neat slice from the top of his left ear; and the paramedics had had little option but to leave his right leg behind in the concertina’ed Cortina. All right, they’d given him an artificial leg; patiently taught him how to use it. But he’d always preferred the elbow-crutch; indoors, anyway. And no choice in the matter now, since the leg was back there in the bed-sit — in a cupboard — along with the videos.

Yes, they must have found them all by now.

And a few other things.

According to the solicitor fellow, they were still going through his room with a tooth-comb; still going through the flat in Bannister Close, too.

Jesus!

If they found him guilty — even on the possession of firearms and explosives charge...

Would he talk? Would he grass — if the police suggested some... some arrangement?

Course not!

He had a right to silence; he had a duty to silence.

Say nothing!

Let them do the talking.

He wouldn’t.

Unless things became unbearable, perhaps...

Muldoon sat down on the side of his bed once more, conscious that just a tiny corner of his resolution was starting to crumble.

(iii)

Twenty minutes later, Sergeant Lewis was still waiting patiently in the corridor outside the office of Detective Inspector Crawford. He could hear the voices inside: Morse’s, Crawford’s, and a third — doubtless that of Detective Sergeant Wilkins; but the general drift of the conversation escaped him. Only when (at last!) the door partially opened did individual words become recognizable — and those, Morse’s:

“No!” (fortissimo) “No!” (forte) “And if you take my advice, you’ll have nothing to do with it yourself, either. There are better ways of doing things than that, believe me.” (mezzo piano) “Cleverer ways, too.”

Looking unusually perturbed, his pale cheeks flushed, Morse closed the door behind him; and the words “Christ Almighty!” (pianissimo) escaped his lips before he was aware of Lewis’s presence.

“What the ’ell are you doing here?”

“The Super rang me, sir. You told him I was running you back home.”

“So what?”

“Well, I wasn’t was I?”

“What’s that got to do with Strange?”

“He was just checking up, that’s all.”

“Suspicious bugger!”

“He didn’t think you should be driving yourself.”

“You get off home. I’m fine.”

“You’re not, sir. You know you’re not.”

About to expostulate, suddenly Morse decided to capitulate.

“What was all that about, then?” asked Lewis, as they walked along the endless corridors towards the car-park.

(iv)

Behind them, in Crawford’s office, Sergeant Wilkins gave vent to his exasperation:

“A stuffed prick — that’s what he’s getting!”

“That’s unfair,” said Crawford quietly.

“But he doesn’t seem to understand. We’re not really planting evidence at all, are we? We’ve got the bloody evidence. It was all there.”

“Was all there,” agreed Crawford, dejectedly.

“How bloody unlucky can you get in life!”

Crawford was silent.

“You — you still going ahead with things, sir?”

“Look. I’ll never let Muldoon off the hook now. I’ll do anything to see that murderous sod behind bars!”

“Me, too. You know that.”

“It’s just that I’d have been happier in my own mind if Morse had been with us. He worries me, you see. ‘Cleverer ways’ he said...”

“Seems to me he’s more worried about keeping his nose clean than seeing justice done.”

“Got a pension to worry about, hasn’t he? He’s finishing with us soon.”

A sudden thought struck Sergeant Wilkins:

“He won’t... he wouldn’t say anything about it, would he?”

“Morse? Oh, no.”

“Some people blab a bit — especially when they’ve had a drop too much to drink.”

“Not Morse. He’s never had too much to drink, anyway — not as he sees things.”

“Not much help, though, is he?”

“No. And I’m disappointed about that, but...”

“But what, sir?”

Crawford took a deep breath. “It’s just that — well, I found it moving, what he said just now — you know, what he thought about what was valuable, what was important in life. The Super was saying exactly the same thing really, but... I dunno, compared with Morse he sounded sort of all big words and bull-shit—”

“Instead of all little words and horse-piss!”

“You’ve got him wrong, you know. He’s a funny bugger, I agree. But there’s a big streak of integrity somewhere in Morse.”

“Perhaps so. Perhaps I’m being very unfair.”

Crawford rose to his feet. “Not very unfair — don’t be too hard on yourself. Let’s just say he’s a stuffed shirt, shall we? That’d be a bit fairer than, er, than what you just called him.”

(v)

The sole trouble with Malt Whisky, Morse maintained, was that it left one feeling rather thirsty; and he insisted that if Lewis really wished to learn what had transpired in Crawford’s office, it would have to be over a glass of beer.

Thus it was that, ten minutes after being driven from Kidlington Police HQ, Morse sat drinking a Lewis-purchased pint at the King’s Arms in Banbury Road, and spelling out Crawford’s unhappy dilemma...

Following information received, a flat in Bannister Close had been under police surveillance for several weeks. Patience had been rewarded, gradatim; and a dossier of interesting, suggestive, and potentially incriminating evidence had been accumulated.

At intermittent periods the flat, it was believed, served in three separate capacities: first, as a meeting-house for members of a terrorist cell (suspected of being responsible for the two recent bombing incidents in Oxford); second, as a store-house for explosive and bomb-making equipment; third, as a safe-house for any other member of the group on the run from elsewhere in the UK.

For the police to rush in where hardened terrorists were so fearful of treading would have been to miss a golden opportunity of smashing an entire cell and of arresting its ring-leaders. But, perforce, this softly-softly policy had been rescinded on the specific orders of the Home Office, following hot intelligence that a big step-up in terrorist activity was scheduled for mainland Britain in the spring. “Damage limitation” — that was the buzz-phrase now. All very well waiting patiently to net some of the big fish — very laudable, too! — but no longer justifiable in terms of potential civilian casualties.

Hence the slightly precipitate actions taken: first the raiding of the flat, empty of people yet full enough of explosive materials, bombing equipment, and fingerprints; second, the arrest of Kieran Dominic Muldoon, the only one of the shadowed terrorists who had established himself as “of fixed address” in the City of Oxford.

Not the best of outcomes, certainly, since the other birds had by now abandoned their nests; as they would have done in any case, unless they had been cornered en bloc... or unless Kieran Muldoon could now be “persuaded” in some way — bribed, cajoled, decoyed, lured, trapped — into betraying the whereabouts of his fellow fanatics... For example, there were two other properties being watched: one in Jericho; one out on the Botley Road.

There had been some little disappointment about the contents of Muldoon’s own small living-quarters in the Cowley Road: a technical manual on bomb-making, though, and some dozens of addresses, code-names, telephone numbers: almost enough evidence there, and all duly impounded and documented and despatched for forensic tests and all the rest of it — and finally, of course, to be exhibited.

And — and — in addition to all this, two little solidly connecting links between Muldoon’s bed-sit and Bannister Close.

Two little beauties!

The first, a can of Beamish stout, found under a sofa in the flat at Bannister Close, with Muldoon’s fingerprints daubed all over it. The second, a photograph of Muldoon himself, climbing the outside iron staircase leading up to the balconied first floor there: an unequivocal, unambiguous photograph — both of the place, yes, and of the man — with the left side of his face in profile; and a splendid view of that unmistakable ear, a segment sliced so neatly from the top.

In addition the police had a taped interview with Muldoon, as well as a signed statement — the latter containing a firm denial of his ever having been at the Blackbird Leys Estate, let alone in Bannister Close.

Every procedure had been scrupulously followed from the start: a comprehensive register of exhibits had been typed out and checked; the key “continuity” in the handling of these exhibits had been meticulously maintained; and the Exhibits Officer appointed was an experienced man, fully conversant with his specific responsibilities.

“Everything hunky-dory, Lewis. Except...”

“Don’t tell me they’ve lost something?”

“Not ‘they’; ‘he’.”

“The photo?”

“And the can!”

“Bloody hell! Who was he? Who is he?”

“Watson. Detective Constable Watson.”

“Poor chap!”

Morse grinned feebly. “Perhaps he never should have been a detective — not with a name like that.”

“How did he come to lose—?”

“Ah! That’s the good news, Lewis. He’s not exactly lost them at all, so he says.”

“What’s the bad news, then?”

“The bad news is he can’t find them. Nor can half a dozen other people — who’ve been through everything umpteen times.”

Lewis, a man who swore very rarely, surprised his chief a second time:

“Bloody hell!”

“And Crawford, my colleague and former friend Crawford — you’ll never believe this! — is planning to put them both back on the Exhibits Register: the can and the photo.”

“How on earth does he think—?”

“That’s where he thought I might come in.”

“Well, you can’t really blame him too much, perhaps.”

Morse looked up in amazement, his blue eyes penetratingly fierce upon those of his subordinate. He spoke in a chilling hiss:

“What — did — you — say?”

Lewis sought to stand his ground: “It’s not — I mean, it’s not as if he was fabricating the evidence, is it, sir?”

Morse exploded now, and several other customers turned round as they heard his furious rejoinder.

“What the hell is it, then — if it isn’t fabrication? Come on, man! For Christ’s sake tell me what you think it bloody well is!”

Lewis was badly taken aback. The blood had drained from his cheeks, and he could make no answer.

“Facilis descensus Averno,” mumbled Morse.

“Pardon, sir?”

“Forget it. And take me home!” Morse drained his beer and banged his glass down heavily on the table.

There was a supremely awkward silence between the two of them until the car pulled into Morse’s parking-space outside his North Oxford flat. Then it was Lewis who spoke:

“Inspector Crawford,” he said slowly and quietly, “was very kind to me when I first came to HQ — couple of years before I knew you. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t do anything that was basically unfair — I know that. So, if you will, sir, I want you to do me a big favour. I want you to go and see him, tell him that you told me about... things, and tell him that if I can do anything—”

But Morse cut him viciously short. “Look, my son! Don’t you start giving me bloody orders, all right?”

“I wasn’t really—”

“Shut up! And if you don’t forget all this bloody nonsense — now! — you stop being my sergeant, is that clear? And you won’t be anybody else’s bloody sergeant, either — not while I’m in the Force! You’ll be queuing up for your dole money, like plenty of other poor sods. Is that understood?”

Morse got out of the car and slammed the door shut with an almighty bang.

(vi)

Next morning, with extreme reluctance, with deep distaste — and with considerable embarrassment — Morse called into Crawford’s office, and did his sergeant’s bidding.

(vii)

He was being treated fairly well — better than he deserved or expected — Muldoon knew that Even Crawford had been pretty reasonable: distanced, unsmiling, yes — but not positively unpleasant. Told him about his rights: his right to receive a few visitors (he didn’t want any of them!); to wear his own clothes; to have food brought in to him — if he could afford it, if he wanted it; to share in the recreational facilities provided, including TV and snooker...

So tight, the supervision though — oppressive, constricting supervision. How he longed to be out somewhere: out in the streets, out in a car, out in a pub — out anywhere.

Oh, Jesus!

With naked lust he looked at a photograph of a naked model taken in the sun, in the Sun, when the door of his cell was unlocked and Crawford (again!) came in.

It was all about those houses (again!) — those other houses the police had been watching: the Jericho house — the “safe-house,” as Muldoon had always known it; and that (much dodgier) semi-detached, semi-derelict little property out on the Botley Road. Why did Crawford keep going on about those bloody houses?

Why?

“You stayed in either of them, Muldoon?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Any of your friends ever stayed there?”

“Stayed where?”

“Well, let’s talk about Jericho first, shall we?”

“Where?”

“Jericho.”

“I thought Jericho was near Jerusalem.”

“What about Botley Road?”

“Which road?”

“You know, just down past the station.”

“You mean the bus station?”

“No. The railway station.”

“Never bin down there. Don’t think so.”

“All right. So why not come out with us? Just to have a look, that’s all.”

“No chance.”

“Might jog the memory, you never know.”

“No memory to jog, is there?”

“You said you’d never been to Blackbird Leys.”

“So?”

“We’ve got a photo of you there.”

“So you say.”

“Why not come out and have a quick look at these other places, that’s all we ask.”

“No point, is there?”

Crawford half rose to his feet. “Pity, you know. We could have made life that little bit easier for you, one way or another.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“Look, Muldoon. We don’t expect you to shop your mates. All I’m saying is this: if you agree to come out and make a couple o’ statements — even if they’re a load of rubbish...”

Muldoon not only looked puzzled; he was puzzled.

“What’s it you’re after! How the hell’s it going to help you if—”

But Crawford, risen to his feet, now brusquely cut short Muldoon’s protestations.

“No! You’re right. It’s not going to help much at all, is it? It was just that...”

“Yeah? Just what?” Muldoon leaned forward, interested in spite of himself; and Crawford slowly sat down again on the hard, upright chair.

“Look, lad! Let me put my cards on the table. It’s going to be bloody difficult for you to stay out of prison — this time, I know that — you know that. And shall I tell you something else? It’s one helluva job — even for me — to get you out of this place, even for an hour or two; even to buy you a ride on one of the Tourist Buses. D’you know how many signatures I’d need for that — apart from the Governor’s?”

Jesus!

Muldoon looked down at the floor as Crawford continued.

“There’s only two ways we can give you any little outing. One’s if you get transferred somewhere — up to Bullingdon Prison, say. Not very likely that, though, for a few weeks yet. And the other’s if you’d agree to... But I’m wasting my breath. Pity though! As I say, we could have made it worth your while — well worth your while...”

Muldoon suddenly squared his mouth, and bared a set of ugly, deeply nicotined teeth.

“Come on! Spill it, Crawford. What’s in it for me?”

“Not much. We couldn’t afford to give you a season-ticket at the local knocking-shop, but...”

“But what?”

“Next best thing, perhaps?”

“Yeah? And what’s that s’posed to mean?”

Crawford sighed. “I can’t make any marvellous promises — you know that. But if you agreed to keep your mouth shut — like we would...”

“Go on!”

“Well, what do you want? Fags? Booze? Money? Sex-videos?...”

Muldoon shook his head, albeit indecisively.

“OK. Well, that settles it, then.” Crawford rose quickly to his feet now, this time with a purposiveness heralding an imminent departure.

But Muldoon was on his feet too.

“When d’you reckon — when could this have bin? With the videos, say?”

Crawford shrugged indifferently. ‘Tomorrow? Day after? Not quite sure, really. It’s just that we got some pretty hot stuff in last week — from Denmark — and one or two of the lads thought they ought just to give it, you know, give it the once-over.”

“How long would they be? Watching that stuff?”

“Dunno, really. Couple of hours? Bit longer? Till the booze runs out? Some of ’em tell me they get a little bit bored — after a while. But I don’t reckon they’re going to get bored too quickly with this little lot.”

Muldoon sat silent for a while.

Muldoon sat silent for a considerable while.

Finally he breathed in deeply, held his breath — and exhaled, noisily.

Then he lit yet another cigarette.

And another little corner of his resolution was collapsing. Had collapsed.

“Tomorrow, you say?”

Phew!

Outside the re-locked room, Inspector Crawford also exhaled, though silently. And to Sergeant Wilkins, standing at the far end of the corridor, he gave a faint smile, and raised his right fist to shoulder-level, the thumb upstandingly proud like some membrum virile blessed with a joyous erection.

(viii)

After returning from Inspector Crawford’s room late that same afternoon, Sergeant Lewis found Morse seated at his desk, The Times in front of him, looking grim — and smoking a cigarette. It seemed to Lewis, in view of the tight-lipped taciturnity hitherto observed between the pair of them throughout the day, that it was the latter activity which afforded the more promising ice-breaker.

“I thought you’d given up, sir?”

“I have — many times. In fact I’ve given up smoking more often than anyone else in the history of the habit. By rights I should have a paragraph all to myself in The Guinness Book of Records.”

The tone of Morse’s words was light enough, perhaps, but the underlying mood was sombre.

And Lewis, too, as he sat down, looked far from happy with himself.

“You told me off good and proper last night, didn’t you, sir? And I deserved it. You were right To be truthful, I wish I’d taken a bit more notice of you.”

“Why this sudden change of heart?”

“Well, it’s getting... it’s getting all a bit involved and underhand—”

“Dishonest.”

“Yes... and messy.”

The hard lines on Morse’s face relaxed somewhat. “You can hardly expect the sort of classical economy and purity of line you get when you’re working with me! Crawford’s a cretin — that’s common knowledge, isn’t it?”

“No he’s not! It’s just that — well, I don’t honestly think he’s all that bright.”

“Your judgement is reasserting itself, Sergeant.”

Lewis was silent.

“Come on. You know you’re dying to tell me all about it.”

“I thought you didn’t want anything to do with it.”

“How right you are!” snapped Morse bitterly.

He got up and took his mackintosh off its peg.

A persistent drizzle had stippled the window that looked out over the car-park — a window through which Lewis had so often seen Morse gazing as he grappled in his mind with the problems of a case.

Saw him so gazing now; but only for a few seconds, before he put on his mackintosh and walked to the door.

“Make sure you lock up! If there’s some crook around prepared to pinch an empty can of Beamish, what the hell’s he going to do with my Glenfiddich? Goo’ night!”

The door slammed, and Morse was gone.

But Lewis heard no footsteps along the corridor; and twenty seconds later the door re-opened slowly, and Morse stepped back into his office.

“It would help, Lewis, wouldn’t it, if you told me what’s worrying you.”

“Yes,” replied Lewis simply.

“You should have told me earlier.”

“You looked, well, pretty grim, sir.”

“What? Oh, that! That was just me — not you. Six minutes — to the second almost — with the crossword! Would have been just about the record — except for one clue: I couldn’t do 14 across. Still can’t do bloody 14 across.”

“Shall I have a look at it?”

“You? Fat lot o’ use that’d be!”

Lewis looked down at the threadbare patch of off-white carpet on his own side of Morse’s desk.

“If you could spare five minutes, sir — I’d feel a lot happier.”

Morse took off his mackintosh, replaced it on its peg, and resumed his seat in the black-leather armchair behind his desk.

(ix)

As Morse now began to see, Crawford’s scheme hardly matched the strategic genius of Napoleon at Austerlitz, or NASA in planning one of its moon missions...

At 20:30, an hour after lighting-up time, on Thursday, 31 March, Muldoon, handcuffed to a police officer, his head concealed from any inquisitive public or press intrusion beneath a grey prison blanket, would be taken from Oxford Prison in an unmarked police van. The outing had already been sanctioned (no problem) “in pursuance of corroborative or associative evidence.” No one had ever understood this long-winded phrase, yet it had the merit of sounding most impressive.

The prisoner would be taken first to Jericho, then to Botley; shown over the two properties in question; and invited, on each occasion, to make a brief statement. This, in truth, in the interests of verisimilitude only. Yet (as Crawford maintained) there was always just the possibility that Muldoon would say something of value. Prisoners had grassed in the past; prisoners would grass in the future.

Thereafter things would become a little more complicated.

Muldoon would then be informed that the reward for his co-operation lay some ten miles away, along the A40, in a police-house in Witney. In fact, the van would be driven out from Botley on to the western Ring Road; and, after a suitably convincing “ten-mile” detour, would land up in the Blackbird Leys Estate, on the eastern side of Oxford, beyond the Rover car-plant at Cowley.

At which point, Crawford’s careful, albeit clumsy, planning would enter its critical phase.

The outward appearance of Bannister Close might well be fairly familiar to Muldoon. Although he had visited the flat only once (as it appeared) there was the real possibility that he might recognize some aspect of the block — its architectural style, its black-painted balcony, the colours of its doors and windows — even in semi-darkness. And no risks could be taken.

Therefore...

Muldoon, still handcuffed, would be dropped off at the rear of the block, where a main road ran behind the back of the properties. In the interests of public safety a five-foot fence of vertical wooden slats had been erected to separate this road from Bannister Close. But as in so many parts of the Estate, vandals had been at work here too, and several irregular gaps had been kicked through the fencing; and (Crawford had done his homework) there was a most convenient opening, two or three feet wide, in the stretch almost immediately behind Number 14.

Easy.

And since a fairly steep grassy slope led down from the fence to the concreted path running beside the rear entrance to the flats, it seemed wholly unlikely that a man with only one leg was going to be too deeply engrossed in his environment.

The flat originally raided was on the first floor, with access only via an external stairway, one at each end of the block. But by a stroke of good fortune, the flat beneath it, on the ground floor, was empty; had been empty for several months — the For Sale notice stuck into the scratty patch of weedy waste which passed itself off in the property’s specification as “a small front garden.” And it was to be in the living-room of this flat (Crawford had decreed) that the scene was to be set: off screen, and on screen, as it were.

One of Crawford’s old colleagues, now a senior member of the Obscene Publications Squad — a man with the not inappropriate name of Cox — would be providing an outsize TV screen, together with a veritable feast of video-sex for the viewers. Only five viewers though: Cox himself, Crawford, Wilkins, Lewis — and Muldoon.

An inviting tray of Beamish stout would be available, and the four police officers would each nonchalantly help themselves from it, drinking straight from the cans — no glasses! And a man who had tasted no alcohol for a week — and an Irishman, to boot — would surely speedily succumb.

And if he didn’t? Well, no real worry.

Quite a few props would be required to set the stage and — wait for it! — behold now Crawford’s coup de grâce! A ridiculously oversized furniture-van had been hired to convey a carpet, four chairs, a settee, a table, a large TV set...

Wait!

... and this van would still be parked outside the property when, after the final curtain, Muldoon would emerge — through the front door. And there, bang in front of him, instead of a potentially recognizable prospect, would stand the great pantechnicon, blocking anything and everything — particularly the council houses opposite.

And now — O Napoleon! — mark a stroke of rare genius. Not only would the van serve to bring the props; not only would it conceal the view over that unlovely neighbourhood; it would also house the photographer, who would once more capture Muldoon on film outside the very place of which earlier he had so vehemently denied all knowledge. This time, though, from much closer quarters — from behind a grille (removed) in the side of the van, with a camera loaded with 1000 ASA film, and positioned on a tripod to prevent any shake.

And that would be that. A whole series of shots this time. And (Crawford had averred) if DC Watson or some other incompetent idiot lost those, then good luck to Muldoon and his co-criminals! The police wouldn’t deserve to catch, or the courts to convict them.

But that wouldn’t happen again.

For Muldoon it would be back to Oxford. Back to prison. And very soon, if there were any justice in life, back to prison for life. For whatever the dishonesty of the scheme devised against him, Muldoon was a cruel and murderous bastard.

There could be no mistake on that score.

(x)

Such was Lewis’s account — of Crawford’s account — itself, in turn, transmuted in Morse’s mind to the heightened version presented to the reader in the preceding paragraphs.

When it was finished, Morse looked almost as puzzled as (apparently) the prisoner himself had looked earlier.

“Has Muldoon got any idea that things have gone missing?”

“Seems not, sir.”

“He must be suspicious, though — about being offered something for nothing? It’s surely very improbable, isn’t it, that he’s going to spill any beans?”

“We do get informers, though. And they get paid.”

“Unusual currency — sex-videos.”

“Well, that’s his particular taste, according to Crawford. They found dozens of ’em in his room. Not natural, is it?”

“Not all that un-natural, would you say?”

“Have you seen some of these videos?”

“No, Lewis. Unlike you, I’ve lived a very sheltered life. I have tried to get invited along to one of these porno-parties, but everybody seems to think I’m above such things.”

“You wouldn’t enjoy ’em, sir. They make you feel — well, cheap, somehow.”

“Perhaps most of us are cheap.”

Lewis shook his head. “And goodness knows what the missus would say if she knew.”

“Need she know?”

“You’d understand better if you were married, sir.”

Morse was silent for a short while before continuing. “I’ll tell you one thing: I wish I could understand Crawford better. Why doesn’t he do things a bit more simply?”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Well, if he’s lost a beer-can, why doesn’t he just give the fellow another beer-can — and then stick it in the exhibits locker?”

“I’m not sure. But I think he feels it’ll salve his conscience a bit if it comes from Blackbird Leys, you know — not from the prison.”

“What’s the difference? It’s dishonest either way.”

“You’d have to ask Crawford that. I don’t know.”

“And why not just fiddle the photo? I know a Spanish chap — name of McSevich—”

“Spanish? With a name like that?”

“Like you, Lewis, I am not privy to some of the greater mysteries in life. All I know is that this chap’s a wizard with a camera. He can stick a ghost in the middle of a group-photograph — all that sort of fake stuff. He can probably let you have a snap of the Home Secretary outside a strip-club — in his jock-strap.”

“In the dark.”

Morse grinned. “No problem.”

“That would be even more dishonest, though.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I think — I think I understand why Crawford’s doing it this way.”

“You do? Well, tell me. Come on! Come on, Lewis! Try!”

Lewis took a deep breath. It was going to be difficult — but he would try.

“Look at it this way, sir. If I — let’s say I was being unfaithful to the missus and going off somewhere with a lady-friend. Let’s say I’d told the missus I was going by train — but I wasn’t really going by train at all, because this lady-friend was going to pick me up in her car somewhere, all right?”

“Lewis, I look at you in a completely new light!”

“It’s just that I’d rather have a taxi actually take me to the station, and get picked up there — rather than meet in St. Giles’ or somewhere. I know you wouldn’t understand something like that, but...”

“But I do,” said Morse quietly. “I know exactly what you mean.”

Lewis felt encouraged to add a gloss: “It’s as if Crawford’s only prepared to be dishonest in an honest sort of way.”

Morse recited the couplet that had been going through his mind:

“Who wrote that, sir?”

“Forget.”

Morse rose from his desk, a final thought striking him.

“You know, if your prisoner’s going to be handcuffed all the while, it’s bound to be a funny old photo, isn’t it? Won’t it give the game away?”

“No. He’s only got one leg. And he couldn’t scarper if he wanted to. Even you could catch him if he tried anything on, sir.”

“Thank you very much!”

Lewis too rose from his chair, reluctantly, unhappily — and made his decision.

“I’m going back to see Inspector Crawford. I’m not having anything to do with it. I’m letting him down, I know — after what I told him. But I — it’s just not on. I can’t do it. He’ll have to find somebody else.”

Morse came round the desk and placed a hand on Lewis’s shoulder.

“You get off home and see the missus. Leave all this to me. I’ll go along and see Crawford myself. Have no fears!”

“You’re sure, sir?”

“Absolutely. There’ll be no trouble finding somebody to take your place.”

After Lewis had gone, Morse walked over to the window, and spent several minutes gazing out across the car-park.

(xi)

When, after Muldoon, he had squeezed himself through the gap in the fencing, Morse stood beside his charge and unlocked the handcuffs — almost immediately to realize that the man with only one leg and an elbow-crutch was considerably more nimble than he in negotiating the grassy slope at the rear of the Bannister Close flats.

But Muldoon was patiently waiting for his escort, on the concreted path, when Morse finally effected his descent, the palm of his left hand ever reaching out for support to the side wall of a row of sheds in which the residents of the block doubtless stored bicycles, and old lawnmowers, and (inevitably) virtually empty pots of house-paint.

The ground here was liberally littered with crisp and cigarette packets and all the usual detritus of a run-down neighbourhood: a circumstance most grievous to Chief Inspector Morse. But the first part of the operation had been accomplished successfully, and sufficient light was thrown from the lace-curtained, white-painted windows there for Morse to see exactly where they were. Behind the kitchen window of Number 13, beside a carton of Persil washing-powder, was a “Vote Conservative” poster, propped upside-down against a broken pane.

Morse had done his homework too.

“Sh!”

Morse raised a finger to his lips, then pointed across to the right — towards the far end of the flats. He spoke very quietly:

“Let me know if you hear a whistle. That’ll be Sergeant Wilkins, giving us the all-clear.”

Muldoon nodded.

“Or if you hear anything else for that matter,” mumbled Morse, moving over to Muldoon’s right.

For half a minute or so, the two men stood there side by side, unmoving, silent.

No noise.

Then, all of a sudden, to the left, at some point at the side of the sheds, there was the sound of a metal dust-bin lid, as if blown off its base in a gust of wind and now rumbling in a decelerating circle.

Muldoon whipped himself round immediately to face the direction whence the rattle had originated, crouching down instinctively, and remaining frozen for several seconds — both he and Morse (the latter still facing the opposite way) experiencing a frisson of fear, though each for a different reason.

“Wha’s tha’?” whispered Muldoon.

But Morse made no answer, and the night, beneath the darkly overcast sky, was wholly still once more.

No more noise at all, in fact; and if there had been a low whistle from the far end of the block, it was heard by neither escort nor prisoner.

Instead, Inspector Crawford now appeared at the double-fronted glass doors slightly further along; and first Muldoon, then Morse, stepped over the threshold into the living-room of Number 13 Bannister Close.

(xii)

Although he had lost his religious faith many years since, Morse still retained a sort of residual religiosity; and two days after the bizarre incidents just described, he was seated, in mid-morning, in his North Oxford flat, listening with awesome reverence to the Fauré Requiem — when the door-bell rang.

“Can I come in, Morse?” Ill-at-ease, on the doorstep, stood Inspector Crawford.

“Look,” he began, seated a minute later opposite Morse in the lounge. “I just want to thank you for your help, that’s all. I know you didn’t approve of what I did, but...”

“What’s gone wrong?” asked Morse, reluctantly switching off the CD player.

Crawford shook his head sadly. “Every bloody thing — that’s what! You remember that Beamish we had—”

“Much appreciated!”

“—it was a new thing of theirs. ‘Cask Pour,’ they call it.”

Morse knew all about such things: “All the flavour from a can you’d normally expect from a barrel — that’s the idea.”

“Yes, but that particular product only came onto the market on the 28th March — last Monday — you couldn’t get it before then. Big launch on the telly, in the papers...”

“So... so the can with Muldoon’s fingerprints on it...?”

“Yes! Couldn’t possibly have come from the flat at the time we raided it.”

“Will anybody notice, though?”

“Watson noticed.”

“Not PC Watson?”

“PC Watson!”

Morse raised his eyebrows. “I see what you mean,” he said slowly. “Not exactly an Einstein, is he?”

“And if he? noticed it...”

“Ye-es.”

“All that palaver, Morse — and I go and act like a greenhorn.”

“Never mind. You’ve got your photographs.”

“No! They’re no bloody good either!”

“Don’t tell me your fellow forgot to put film in the camera?”

“Oh no. He took some fine photos. Marvellously clear — too bloody clear. You see, Muldoon almost never ventured out and about with his elbow-crutch — I’d forgotten that. And the original photo we took showed him with an artificial leg. Course it bloody did!”

“Oh dear! Did, er, did Watson spot that as well?”

“He did.”

“You know, if that fellow could only stop losing things, he’d probably make ‘inspector.’ ”

“He can have my job any time he likes!”

“Can’t you just cut the bottom off the photos?” suggested Morse.

“Trouble is, I’d cut off the flat numbers as well if I did that — the way they’ve turned out; then they might just as well have been taken in Timbuktu as in Bannister Close.”

“I take your point,” said Morse.

“Anyway, I didn’t come here to burden you with my troubles. As I say, I just wanted to thank you — in person. I didn’t want to say anything over the blower — can’t be too careful. So — if we can... if we can just, well, draw a veil over things? And I’m sorry I’ve been such a cretin.”

Morse got to his feet and stood in front of Crawford.

“Don’t say that.” He spoke in a kindly fashion, oblivious (it appeared) that this was the self-same word he’d used so recently himself to describe his fellow officer. “You could do with a drink.”

“I could do with two,” corrected Crawford.

Morse went to his drinks-cabinet and took out the Glenfiddich, at the same time switching on again, albeit softly, the “In Paradisum” from the Fauré Requiem.

(xiii)

Four days later, on Wednesday 6 April, an oblong buff envelope (“Please Do Not Bend”) arrived by Registered Delivery at the Thames Valley Police HQ, addressed to Chief Inspector Morse.

Inside the envelope, together with two very glossy black-and-white photographs, was an invoice — and a letter:

Morse looked at the two photographs; and like the Almighty surveying one of his acts of Creation, he saw that they were good.

He reached for the phone and rang Inspector Crawford to tell him of his eleventh-hour reprieve — soon learning from Sergeant Wilkins that Crawford had just been called in to see Strange. He’d pass the message on, though.

(xiv)

When, half an hour later, Crawford came in, Morse reached into a drawer for the envelope. But it was Crawford, looking preternaturally pleased with himself, who immediately seized the initiative.

“I was just going to call you. You’ll never guess what’s happened.”

“Watson’s unearthed his lost exhibits?”

“Better than that.”

“They’ve just appointed PC Watson Chief Constable?”

Crawford blurted it out: “Muldoon! He’s changed his plea — through his lawyer. He’s pleading guilty as charged on all counts. And he’s come clean on the Jericho and Botley places. Very interesting what he’s told us about them. Complete change of heart, that’s what he’s had, Muldoon — with the, er, encouragement of some, you know — one or two little privileges.”

“Well done!” said Morse, quietly slipping the envelope back into its drawer.

“And Strange? He’s over the moon.”

“Everybody’ll be pleased.”

“Lucky though, wasn’t I?” said Crawford reflectively.

“We all deserve a little bit of luck now and then,” said Morse.

After Crawford had gone, Morse once more took the photographs from their envelope, and looked at them briefly again — especially at that neatly sliced left ear — before slowly tearing them up and dropping the pieces into his waste-paper basket.

Then he wrote out a cheque, and addressed an envelope to Manuel McSevich, Esquire, The Studio, High St., Abingdon, Oxon. It seemed to Morse a quite disproportionate sum to pay; yet, perhaps, not totally exorbitant — considering the nature of the entertainment which that most unusual of evenings had provided.

(xv)

Only very occasionally did Superintendent Strange patronize the canteen at HQ. But that lunchtime, as the solitary Morse sat at the corner table, his back to his colleagues, rather dejectedly sipping a bowl of luke-warm leek soup, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Can I join you?”

Morse nodded a supererogatory “yes,” as Strange unloaded from his tray a vast plateful of steak-and-kidney pie, two bread rolls, and a substantial wodge of treacle-tart covered — nay smothered — with custard.

“You heard about Muldoon, Morse?”

“Inspector Crawford told me the good news.”

Strange rubbed his hands gleefully. “Excellent, isn’t it? Excellent! Not the slightest suspicion of any undue police pressure either — you know that!”

“So I understand, sir.”

“Above suspicion, eh? Like Caesar’s wife.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“You couldn’t remember her name, could you?”

“No.”

“Crawford could, though.”

Morse nodded. Crawford was clearly the flavour of the month. So be it.

“You’re not eating much?” queried Strange, forking another great gobbet of meat into his mouth.

“I’m not very hungry today.”

“It’s a wonder you’re not in the pub, then. You’re usually thirsty enough.”

The reminder did little to lighten Morse’s mood; and in sycophantic fashion he quickly sought to change the drift of the conversation.

“How’s that little grandson of yours, sir?”

“Fine. Absolutely fine! Did I show you his latest photo?”

Morse nodded, hurriedly. “Still behaving himself?”

For a few seconds, Strange looked slightly uneasy — before leaning over the almost empty plate of treacle-tart, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“To tell you the truth, Morse, his mother rang us only last night. Seems she left him with a baby-sitter when she went to church for Easter-morning service. And d’you know what the little bugger did? He went and bit the bloody baby-sitter’s hand!”

“Just a temporary lapse,” suggested Morse.

“Course it was! We can’t be good all the time, can we? None of us can.”

Morse nodded slowly. “No, sir. We all have the occasional moment when we’re not — we’re not particularly proud of ourselves.”

Strange appeared gratified by this latter sentiment; and after spooning up his last mouthful of custard he sat back, replete and relaxed. Taking out his wallet, he extracted, just as he had done a week earlier, the latest snapshot of Grandson Number One (two years, three months).

“Super little chap, Morse. You can leave him with anybody — well, almost anybody! As good as gold, almost.”

As if with mutual understanding, the two policemen looked at each other then.

And smiled.