Last Seen Wearing im-2

by Colin Dexter

  'At the end Ainley was beginning to get the feeling that she'd never left Kidlington at all.'

  Morse looked up sharply. 'Now I wonder why he should think that?' He spoke the words slowly, and he felt his nerve-endings tingling. It was the old familiar sensation. For a while he even forgot Die Walküre.

  'As I told you, Ainley was worried about the case.'

  'You know why?'

  'You've got the files.'

  Murder? That was more up Morse's alley. When Strange had first introduced the matter he thought he was being invited to undertake one of those thankless, inconclusive, interminable, needle-in-a-haystack searches: panders, pimps and prostitutes, shady rackets and shady racketeers, grimy streets and one-night cheap hotels in London, Liverpool, Birmingham. Ugh! Procedure. Check. Recheck. Blank. Start again. Ad infinitum. But now he began to brighten visibly. And, anyway, Strange would have his way in the end, whatever happened. Just a minute, though. Why now? Why Friday, 12 September — two years, three months and two days (wasn't it?), after Valerie Taylor had left home to return to afternoon school? He frowned. 'Something's turned up, I suppose.'

  Strange nodded. 'Yes.'

  That was better news. Watch out you miserable sinner, whoever you are, who did poor Valerie in! He'd ask for Sergeant Lewis again. He liked Lewis.

  'And I'm sure,' continued Strange, 'that you're the right man for the job.'

  'Nice of you to say so.'

  Strange stood up. 'You didn't seem all that pleased a few minutes ago.'

  'To tell you the truth, sir, I thought you were going to give me one of those miserable missing-person cases.'

  'And that's exactly what I am going to do.' Strange's voice had acquired a sudden hard authority. 'And I'm not asking you to do it — I'm telling you.'

  'But you said. .'

  'You said. I didn't. Ainley was wrong. He was wrong because Valerie Taylor is very much alive.' He walked over to a filing cabinet, unlocked it, took out a small rectangular sheet of cheap writing paper, clipped to an equally cheap brown envelope, and handed both to Morse. 'You can touch it all right — no fingerprints. She's written home at last.'

  Morse looked down miserably at the three short lines of drab, uncultured scrawl:

  Dear Mum and Dad,

  Just to let you know I'm alright so don't worry. Sorry I've not written before, but I'm alright. Love Valerie.'

  There was no address on the letter.

  Morse slipped the envelope from the clip. It was postmarked Tuesday, 2 September, London, EC4.

  CHAPTER TWO

  We'll get excited with Ring seat (10).

  (Clue from a Ximenes crossword puzzle)

  ON THE LEFT-HAND side sat a man of vast proportions, who had come in with only a couple of minutes to spare. He had wheezed his way slowly along Row J like a very heavy vehicle negotiating a very narrow bridge, mumbling a series of breathless 'thank yous' as each of the seated patrons blocking his progress arose and pressed hard back against the tilted seats. When he had finally deposited his bulk in the seat next to Morse, the sweat stood out on his massive brow, and he panted awhile like a stranded whale.

  On the other side sat a demure, bespectacled young lady in a long purple dress, holding a bulky opera score upon her knee. Morse had nodded a polite 'good evening' when he took his seat, but only momentarily had the lips creased before reassuming their wonted, thin frigidity. Mona Lisa with the guts ache, thought Morse. He had been in more exhilarating company.

  But there was the magnificent opera to relish once again. He thought of the supremely beautiful love duet in Act 1, and he hoped that this evening's Siegmund would be able to cope adequately with that noble tenor passage — one of the most beautiful (and demanding) in all grand opera. The conductor strode along the orchestra pit, mounted the rostrum, and suavely received the plaudits of the audience. The lights were dimmed, and Morse settled back in his seat with delicious anticipation. The coughing gradually sputtered to a halt and the conductor raised his baton. Die Walküre was under way.

  After only two minutes, Morse was conscious of some distracting movement on his right, and a quick glance revealed that the bespectacled Mona Lisa had extricated a torch from somewhere about her person and was playing the light laterally along the orchestrated score. The pages crinkled and crackled as she turned them, and for some reason the winking of the flashlight reminded Morse of a revolving lighthouse. Forget it. She would probably pack it up as soon as the curtain went up. Still, it was a little annoying. And it was hot in the New Theatre. He wondered if he should take his jacket off, and almost immediately became aware that one other member of the audience had already come to a firm decision on the same point. The mountain on his left began to quiver, and very soon Morse was a helpless observer as the fat man set about removing his jacket, which he effected with infinitely more difficulty than an ageing Houdini would have experienced in escaping from a straitjacket. Amid mounting shushes and clicking of tongues the fat man finally brought his monumental toils to a successful climax and rose ponderously to remove the offending garment from beneath him. The seat twanged noisily against the back rest, was restored to its horizontal position, and groaned heavily as it sank once more beneath the mighty load. More shushes, more clickings — and finally a blissful suspension of hostilities in Row J, disturbed only for Morse's sensitive soul by the lighthouse flashings of the Lady with the Lamp. Wagnerites were a funny lot!

  Morse closed his eyes and the well-known chords at last engulfed him. Exquisite. .

  For a second Morse thought that the dig in his left rib betokened a vital communication, but the gigantic frame beside him was merely fighting to free his handkerchief from the vast recesses of his trouser pocket. In the ensuing struggle the flap of Morse's own jacket managed to get itself entrapped, and his feeble efforts to free himself from the entanglement were greeted by a bleak and barren glare from Florence Nightingale.

  By the end of Act 1, Morse's morale was at a low ebb. Siegmund had clearly developed a croaking throat, Sieglinde was sweating profusely, and a young philistine immediately behind him was regularly rustling a packet of sweets. During the first interval he retreated to the bar, ordered a whisky, and another. The bell sounded for the start of Act 2, and he ordered a third. And the young girl who had been seated behind Morse's shoulders during Act 1 had a gloriously unimpeded view of Act 2; and of Act 3, by which time her second bag of Maltesers had joined the first in a crumpled heap upon the floor.

  The truth was that Morse could never have surrendered himself quite freely to unadulterated enjoyment that night, however propitious the circumstances might have been. At every other minute his mind was reverting to his earlier interview with Strange — and then to Ainley. Above all to Chief Inspector Ainley. He had not known him at all well, really. Quiet sort of fellow. Friendly enough, without ever being a friend. A loner. Not, as Morse remembered him, a particularly interesting man at all. Restrained, cautious, legalistic. Married, but no family. And now he would never have a family, for Ainley was dead. According to the eye-witness it was largely his own fault — pulling out to overtake and failing to notice the fast-closing Jaguar looming in the outside lane of the M40 by High Wycombe. Miraculously no one else was badly hurt. Only Ainley, and Ainley had been killed. It wasn't like Ainley, that. He must have been thinking of something else. . He had gone to London in his own car and in his own free time, just eleven days ago. It was frightening really — the way other people went on living. Great shock — oh yes — but there were no particular friends to mourn too bitterly. Except his wife. . Morse had met her only once, at a police concert the previous year. Quite young, much younger than he was; pretty enough, but nothing to set the heart a-beating. Irene, or something like that? Eileen? Irene, he thought.

  His whisky was finished and he looked around for the barmaid. No one. He was the only soul there, and the linen wiping-towels were draped across the beer pumps. There was little point in staying.

  He walked down the stairs
and out into the warm dusking street. A huge notice in red and black capitals covered the whole of the wall outside the theatre: ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA Mon. 1 Sept — Sat. 13 Sept. He felt a slight quiver of excitement along his spine. Monday the first of September. That was the day Dick Ainley had died. And the letter? Posted on Tuesday, the second of September. Could it be? He mustn't jump to conclusions though. But why the hell not? There was no eleventh commandment against jumping to conclusions, and so he jumped. Ainley had gone to London that Monday and something must have happened there. Had he perhaps found Valerie Taylor at last? It began to look a possibility. The very next day she had written home — after being away for more than two years. Yet there was something wrong. The Taylor case had been shelved, not closed, of course; but Ainley was working on something else, on that bomb business, in fact. So why? So why? Hold it a minute. Ainley had gone to London on his day off. Had he. .?

  Morse walked back into the foyer, to be informed by a uniformed flunkey that the house was sold out and that the performance was half-way through anyway. Morse thanked him and stepped into the telephone kiosk by the door.

  'I'm sorry, sir. That's for patrons only.' The flunkey was right behind him.

  'I am a bloody patron,' said Morse. He took from his pocket the stub for Row J 26, stuck it under the flunkey's nose and ostentatiously and noisily closed the kiosk door behind him. A large telephone directory was stuck awkwardly in the metal pigeon-hole, and Morse opened it at the As. Addeley. . Allen. . back a bit. . Ainley. Only one Ainley, and in next year's directory even he would be gone. R. Ainley, 2 Wytham Close, Wolvercote.

  Would she be in? It was already a quarter to nine. Irene or Eileen or whatever she was would probably be staying with friends. Mother or sister, most likely. Should he try? But what was he dithering about? He knew he would go anyway. He noted the address and walked briskly out past the flunkey.

  'Goodnight, sir.'

  As Morse walked to his car, parked in nearby St. Giles', he regretted his childish sneer of dismissal to this friendly valediction. The flunkey was only doing his job. Just as I am, said Morse to himself, as he drove without enthusiasm due north out of Oxford towards the village of Wolvercote.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A man is little use when his wife's a widow.

  (Scottish proverb)

  AT THE WOODSTOCK roundabout, on the northern ring-road perimeter of Oxford, Morse took the sharp left fork, and leaving the motel on his right drove over the railway bridge (where as a boy he had so often stood in wonder as the steam locomotives sped thunderously by) and down the hill into Wolvercote.

  The small village consisted of little more than the square stone-built houses that lined its main street, and was familiar to Morse only because each of its two public houses boasted beer drawn straight from the wood. Without being too doctrinaire about what he was prepared to drink, Morse preferred a flat pint to the fizzy keg most breweries, misguidedly in his view, were now producing; and he seldom passed through the village without enjoying a jug of ale at the King Charles. He parked the Lancia in the yard, exchanged a few pleasantries with the landlady over his beer, and asked for Wytham Close.

  He soon found it, a crescented cul-de-sac no more than a hundred yards back along the road on the right-hand side, containing ten three-storey terraced residences (pompously styled 'town houses'), set back from the adopted road, with steep concreted drives leading up to the built-in garages. Two street lamps threw a pale phosphorescence over the open-plan, well-tended grass, and a light shone from behind the orange curtains in the middle-storey window of № 2. The bell sounded harsh in the quiet of the darkened close.

  A lower light was switched on in the entrance hall and a vaguely-lineated shadow loomed through the frosted glass of the front door.

  'Yes?'

  'I hope I'm not disturbing you,' began Morse.

  'Oh. Hullo, Inspector.'

  'I thought. .'

  'Won't you come in?'

  Morse's decision to refuse the offer of a drink was made with such obvious reluctance that he was speedily prevailed upon to reverse it; and sitting behind a glass of gin and tonic he did his best to say all the right things. On the whole, he thought, he was succeeding.

  Mrs. Ainley was small, almost petite, with light-brown hair and delicate features. She looked well enough, although the darkness beneath her eyes bore witness to the recent tragedy.

  'Will you stay on here?'

  'Oh, I think so. I like it here.'

  Indeed, Morse knew full well how attractive the situation was. He had almost bought a similar house here a year ago, and he remembered the view from the rear windows over the green expanse of Port Meadow across to the cluster of stately spires and the dignified dome of the Radcliffe Camera. Like an Ackerman print, only alive and real, just two or three miles away.

  'Another drink?'

  'I'd better not,' said Morse, looking appealingly towards his hostess.

  'Sure?'

  'Well, perhaps a small one.'

  He took the plunge. 'Irene, isn't it?'

  'Eileen.'

  It was a bad moment. 'You're getting over it, Eileen?' He spoke the words in a kindly way.

  'I think so.' She looked down sadly, and picked some non-existent object from the olive-green carpet. 'He was hardly marked, you know. You wouldn't really have thought. .' Tears were brimming, and Morse let them brim. She was quickly over it. 'I don't even know why Richard went to London. Monday was his day off, you know.' She blew her nose noisily, and Morse felt more at ease.

  'Did he often go away like that?'

  'Quite often, yes. He always seemed to be busy.' She began to look vulnerable again and Morse trod his way carefully. It had to be done.

  'Do you think when he went to London he was, er. .'

  'I don't know what he went for. He never told me much about his work. He always said he had enough of it at the office without talking about it again at home.'

  'But he was worried about his work, wasn't he?' said Morse quietly.

  'Yes. He always was a worrier, especially. .'

  'Especially?'

  'I don't know.'

  'You mean he was more worried — recently?'

  She nodded. 'I think I know what was worrying him. It was that Taylor girl.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'I heard him talking on the phone to the headmaster.' She made the admission guiltily as if she really had no business to know of it.

  'When was that?'

  'About a fortnight, three weeks ago.'

  'But the school's on holiday, isn't it?'

  'He went to the headmaster's house.'

  Morse began to wonder what else she knew. 'Was that on one of his days off. .?'

  She nodded slowly and then looked up at Morse. 'You seem very interested.'

  Morse sighed. 'I ought to have told you straight away. I'm taking over the Taylor case.'

  'So Richard found something after all.' She sounded almost frightened.

  'I don't know,' said Morse.

  'And. . and that's why you came, I suppose.' Morse said nothing. Eileen Ainley got up from her chair and walked briskly over to a bureau beside the window. 'Most of his things have gone, but you might as well take this. He had it in the car with him.' She handed to Morse a Letts desk diary, black, about six inches by four. 'And there's a letter for the accountant at the station. Perhaps you could take it for me?'

  'Of course.' Morse felt very hurt. But he often felt hurt — it was nothing new.

  Eileen left the room to fetch the envelope and Morse quickly opened the diary and found Monday, 1 September. There was one entry, written in neatly-formed, minuscule letters: 42 Southampton Terrace. That was all. The blood tingled, and with a flash of utter certitude Morse knew that he hardly needed to look up the postal district of 42 Southampton Terrace. He would check it, naturally; he would look it up immediately he got home. But without the slightest shadow of doubt he knew it already. It. would be EC4.

 
; He was back in his North Oxford bachelor home by a quarter to eleven, and finally discovered the street map of London, tucked neatly away behind The Collected Works of Swinburne and Extracts from Victorian Pornography. (He must put that book somewhere less conspicuous.) Impatiently he consulted the alphabetical index and frowned as he found Southampton Terrace. His frown deepened as he traced the given coordinates and studied the grid square. Southampton Terrace was one of the many side-streets off the Upper Richmond Road, south of the river, beyond Putney Bridge. The postal district was SW12. He suddenly decided he had done enough for one day.

  He left the map and the diary on top of the bookshelf, made himself a cup of instant coffee and selected from his precious Wagner shelf the Solti recording of Die Walküre. No fat man, no thin-lipped woman, no raucous tenor, no sweaty soprano distracted his mind as Siegmund and Sieglinde poured forth their souls in an ecstasy of recognition. The coffee remained untouched and gradually grew cold.