Lewis smiled sadly. 'Next Michaelmas, isn't it?,, 'I could stay on another couple of years after tl but...'
'Won't you miss things?'
'Course I bloody won't. I've been very lucky-at le in that respect. But I don't want to push the luck to fa mean, we might get put on to a case we can't crck.,, 'Not this one, I hope?'
'Oh no, Lewis, not this one.'
'What's the programme---?'
But Morse interrupted him: 'You just asked the if ] miss things and I shan't, no. Only one thing, I Sttlpose shall miss you, old friend, that's all.'
He had spoken simply, almost awkwardly, and fqr a lil while Lewis hardly trusted himself to look up. SOhewh behind his eyes he felt a slight prickling; anti son where in his heart, perhaps--he felt a sadness he cot barely comprehend.
'Not getting very far sitting here, Lewis, are we? Wha the programme?
'°That's what I just asked you.'
'Well, there's this fellow from Bedford, you say?'
'Former undergraduate, sir.'
'Yes, well--is he at home?'
'Dunno. I can soon find out.'
'Do that, then. See hira.'
'When--T' 'What's wrong with now? The way you drive you'll be back by teatime.'
'Don't you want to see him?'
Morse hesitated. 'No. There's something much more im portant for me to do this afternoon.'
'Go to bed, you mean?'
Slowly, resignedly, Morse nodded. 'And try to fix some-thing up with Brooks. Time we paid him a little visit, isn't it T'
'Monday?'
'What's wrong with tomorrow? That'll be exactly a week after he murdered Mc Clure, won't it?'
Chapter Twenty-six
Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead (BEJ^N Brenda Brooks was in a state of considerable agitation when she went through into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
But at least she was relieved to he home before him; to have time for a cup of tea; to try to stop shaking. The an-guish, the sheer misery of it ail, were as strong as ever; with only her growing fear a new element in the trag After the fkst inevitable bewilderment---after the uncom-prehending questions and the incomprehensible ansvers-- her immediate reaction had been to wash the bloodstained clothing--shirt, trousers, cardigan; but instead, she had fol-lowed the fierce instructions given from the invalid's bed that the clothes be carted off to the rubbish dump, ad that the affair never be referred to again.
Yet there the event stood--whatever had happened, what-ever it all meant--forming that terrible and terrifying secret between them, between husband and wife. No loger a proper secret, though, for she had shared that secret... those secrets; or would it not be more honest to say that she had betrayed them? Particularly, therefore, did her fear cen-tre on his return now: the fear that when he came in he would only have to look at her--to know. And as she squeezed the tea-bag with the tongs, she could do nothing to stop the constant trembling in her hands.
Automatically almost, between sips of tea, she wiped the tongs clean of any tannin stain and replaced them in the drawer to the right of the sink, in the compamnent ext to the set of beautifully crafted knives which her sister Beryl had given her for her first wedding--knives of many shapes and sizes, some small and slim, some with much longer and broader blades, which lay there before her in shining and sharpened array.
The phone rang at 2:45 P.M.: the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The phone rang again just before 3 P.M.: 1Vlrs. Stevens. 'Is he home yet?'
'No.'
'Good. Now listen!'
The front door slammed at 3:20 P.M., when, miraculously as it seemed to Brenda, the shaking in her hands had ceased.
Almost invariably, whenever he came in, she would use those same three words: '°Ilaat you, Ted?' That afternoon, however, there was a change, subconscious perhaps, yet still significant.
'That you?' she asked in a firm voice. Just the two words now--as if the query had become depersonalised, as if she could be asking the information of anyone; dehuman-ized, as if she could be speaking to a dog.
As yet, still holding out on the battle-field, was a small fortress. It was likely to collapse very soon, of course; but there was the possibility that it might hold out for some lit-tle time, since it had been recently reinforced. And when the door had slammed shut she had been suddenly conscious--yes!--of. just a little power. 'That you?' she repeated. 'Who do you think it is?'
'Cup o' tea?'
'You can get me a can o' beer.'
'The museum just rang. The lady wanted to know how you were. Kind of her, wasn't it T'
