'What's wrong with Phillotson?' Lewis had asked as they'd driven down to North Oxford.
'Nothing wrong with him--except incompetence. It's his wife. She's had something go wrong with an operation, so they say. Some, you know, some internal trouble.., wom-an's trouble.'
'The womb, you mean, sir?'
'I don't know, do I, Lewis? I didn't ask. I'm not even quite sure exactly where the womb is. And, come to think of it, I don't even like the word.'
'I only asked.'
'And I only answered! His wife'll be fine, you'll see. It's him. He's just chickening out.'
'And the Super... didn't think he could cope with the case?'
'Well, he couldn't, could he? He's not exactly perched on the topmost twig of the Thames Valley intelligentsia, now is he?'
Lewis had glanced across at the man seated beside him in the passenger seat, noting the supercilious, almost arro-gant, cast of the harsh blue eyes, and the complacent-looking smile about the lips. It was the sort of conceit which Lewis found the least endearing quality of his chief: worse even than his meanness with money and his almost total lack of gratitude. And suddenly he felt a shudder of distaste.
Yet only briefly. For Morse's face had become serious again as he'd pointed to the right; pointed to Daventry Av-enue; and amplified his answer as the car braked to a halt outside a block of fiats: 'You see, we take a bit of beating, don't we, Lewis? Don't you reckon? Me and you? Morse and Lewis? Not too many twigs up there above us, are there?'
But as Morse unfastened his safety-belt, there now ap peared a hint of diffidence upon his face.
'Nous vieillissons, ri'est-ce pas?'
'Pardon, sir?'
'We're all getting older--that's what I said. And that's the only thing that's worrying me about this case, old friend.'
But then the smile again.
And Lewis saw the smile, and smiled himself; for at that moment he felt quite preternaturally content with life.
The constable designated to oversee the murder-premises volunteered to lead the way upstairs; but Morse shook his head, his response needlessly brusque: 'Just give me the key, lad.'
Only two short flights, of eight steps each, led up to the first floor; yet Morse was a little out of breath as Lewis opened the main door of the maisonette.
'Yes'--Morse's mind was still on Phillotson--'I reckon he'd'ye been about as competent in this case as a dyslexic proof-reader.'
'I like that, sir. That's good. Original, is it?'
Morse granted. In fact it had been Strange's own ap-praisal of Phillotson's potential; but, as ever, Morse was perfectly happy to take full credit for the bons mots of oth-ers.
Anyway, Strange himself had probably read it some-where, hadn't he? Shrewd enough, was Strange: but hardly perched up there on the roof of Canary Wharf.
Smoothly the door swung open The door swung open on another case.
And as Lewis stepped through the small entrance-hall, and thence into the murder room, he found himself wonde ing how things would turn out here.
Certainly it hadn't sounded all that extraordinary a ca when, two hours earlier, Detective Chief Inspector Phillo son had given them an hour-long briefing on the murder Dr. Felix Mc Clure, former Student--late Student--c Wolsey College, Oxford...
Bizarre and bewildering--that's what so many cases the past had proved to be; and despite Phillotson's briefi the present case would probably be no different.
In this respect, at least, Lewis was correct in his thinkin What he could not have known--what, in fact, he never r ally came to know--was what unprecedented anguish th present case would cause to Morse's soul.
Chapter Three
Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same Door as in I went (EDWAID FITZGERALD, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)
Daventry Court (Phillotson had begun), comprising eig1 'luxurious apartments' built in Daventry Avenue in 198t had been difficult to sell. House prices had tumbled dufin the ever-deepening recession of the early nineties, an Mc Clure had bought in the spring of 1993 when he'd co vinced himself (rightly) that even in the continuing buyer market Flat 6 was a bit of a snip at 99,500 pounds pence Mc Clure l-fimself was almost sixty-seven years old at fi J time of his murder, knifed (as Morse would be able to see for himself) in quite horrendous fashion. The knife, according to pathological findings, was unusually broad-bladed, and at least five inches in length. Of such a weapon, however, no trace whatsoever had been found. Blood, though? Oh, yes, Blood almost everywhere. Blood on almost everything. Blood on the murderer, too? Surely so.
Blood certainly on his shoes (trainers?), with footprints-especially of the right foot---clearly traceable from the mur-der scene to the staircase, to the main entrance; but thence virtually lost, soon completely lost, on the gravelled fore-court outside. Successive scufflings by other residents had obviously obliterated all further traces of blood. Or had the murderer left by a car parked close to the main door? Or left on a bicycle chained to the nearest drainpipe? (Or taken his shoes off, Lewis thought.) But intensive search of the forecourt area had revealed nothing. No clues from the sides of the block either. No clues from the rear. No clues at all outside. (Or perhaps just the one clue, Morse had thought: the clue that there were no clues at all?)
Inside? Well, again, Morse would be able to see for him-self.
