'Td say 1 probably wrote it in a pub, knowing Morse.'
'Does it matter where he wrote it, sir.'?'
'Course not. But I can't imagine him being much com-fort to anybody. He's a pagan, you know that. Got no time for the Church and... Hope and Faith and ail that stuff.
Doesn't even believe in God, let alone in any sort of life af-ter death.'
'Bit like some of our Bishops,' said Phillotson sadly. 'Like some Theology dons in Oxford, too.'
'I was still glad to get his letter.'
'What did he say?'
'Said what you just said really, sir; said he'd got no faith in the Almighty; said I just ought to forget ail this mumbo-jumbo about meeting... meeting up again in some future life; told me just to accept the troth of it all that she's gone for good and I'll never see her again; told me I'd probably never get over it, and not to take any notice of people who gave you ail this stuff about time healing--'
Phillotson suddenly checked himself, realising what he'd just said.
'Doesn't sound much help to me.'
'Do you know, though, in an odd sort of way it was. It was sort of honest. He just said that he was sad, when he heard, and he was thinking of me.... At the end, he said it was always a jolly sight easier in life to face up to the truths than the haif-truths. I'm not quite sure what he meant... but, well, somehow it helps, when I remember what he said.'
Phillotson could trust himself to say no more, and he rose to leave.
At the door he turned back. 'Did you say Morse went to Leicester this morning?'
'hat's where he said he was going.'
'Funny! Odds are I'd have been in Leicester myself. I bet he's gone to see the parents of that lad who killed him-self in Wolsey a year or so ago.'
'What's that got to do with things?'
'There were a few newspaper articles, that's all, about the lad, among Mcelum's papers. And a letter from mother. She started it off 'Dear Felix'--as if they'd knov each other pretty well, if you sce what I mean.' Strange granted.
'Do you think I should mention it to Morse, sir?'
'No. For Christ's sake don't do that. He's got far many ideas already, you can be sure of that.'
Chapter Fifteen
Say, for what were hop-yards meant
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man
(A. E. HOUSM^N, A Shropshire Lad, LXII)
The Turf Tavern, nestling beneath the old walls of N{ College, Oxford, may be approached from Holywell Stre immediately opposite Holywell Music Room, via a narrc irregularly cobbled lane of mediaeval aspect.
A notice above the entrance advises all patrons (althou: Morse is not a particularly tall man) to mind their hca (DUC OR GROUSe) and inside the rough-stoned, blac beamed rooms the tree connoisseur of beers can seat hi self at one of the small wooden tables and enjoy a fin{ cask-conditioned pint; and it is in order to drink and to and to think that patrons frequent this elusively situated em in a blessedly music--Muzak--free environment.
The landlord of this splendid hostelry, a stoutly compa middle-aged ex-Royal Navy man, with a grizzled beard and a gold ring in his left ear, was anticipatorily pulling a pint of real ale on seeing Morse enter, followed by the dutiful Lewis, at 1:50 The latter, in fact, was feeling quite pleased with himself. Only sixty-five minutes from Leicester. A bit over the speed-limit all the way along (agreed); but fast-diving was one of his very few vices, and the jazzy-looking maroon Jaguar had been in a wonderfully slick and silky mood as it sped down the M40 on the last stretch of the journey from Banbury to Oxford.
Morse had resisted several pubs which, en route, had pa-raded their credentialsmat Lutterworth, Rugby, Banbury. But, as Lewis knew, the time of drinking, and of thinking, was surely soon at hand.
In North Oxford, Morse had asked to be dropped off briefly at his flat: 'I ought to call in at the bank, Lewis.'
And this news had further cheered Lewis, since (on half the salary) it was invariably he who bought about three-quarters of the drinks consumed between the pair of them. Only temporarily cheered, however, since he had wholly misun-derstood the mission: five minutes later it was he himself who was pushing a variety of old soldiers through their ap-propriate holes (White, Green, Brown) in the Summertown Bottle Bank.
Thence, straight down the Banbury Road to the Martyrs' Memorial, where turning left (as instructed) he had driven to the far end of Broad Street. Here, as ever, there appeared no immediate prospect of leaving a car legitimately, and Morse had insisted that he park the Jaguar on the cobble-stone area outside the Old Clarendon building, just opposite Blackwell's.
'Don't worry, Lewis. All the Waffic wardens know my car. They'll think I'm on duty.'
'Which you are, sir.'
