pupil.
'He took the knife home with him.'
'No chance. We're talking about instinctive behaviour here. You don't stab somebody--and then just go back home and wash your knife up in Co~op detergent with the rest of the cutlery--and put it back in the kitchen drawer.'
'There'd be a knife missing, though--from a set, per-haps.'
'So what? Knives get lost, broken.... '
'So Mrs. Brooks would probably know?'
'But she's not going to tell us, is she.'?'
Morse seemed to relax as he leaned back against the wall-seat, and looked around him.
'You sure it was Brooks?' asked Lewis quietly.
'Woo many coincidences, Lewis. All right, they play a far bigger part in life than most of us are prepared to admit. But not in this case. Just think! Brooks left Wolsey, for good, on exactly the same day as the man who was murdered Mc Clure. Not only that, the pair of them had been on the same staircase together---exactly the same staircase for several years. Then, a year later, Brooks has a heart attack on exactly the same day as Mc Clure gets murdered. Just add all that up---go on, Lewis!'
'Like I say, though, you've always believed in coinci-dences.'
'Look! I could stomach two, perhaps--but not three.'
Lewis, who'd believed that Morse could easily stomach at least four, was not particularly impressed; and now, looking around him, he saw that he and Morse were the only clients left in the Marsh Harder.
It was 3:10 P.M.
'We'd better be off, sir.'
'Nonsense! My mm, isn't it T' 'It's way past closing time.'
'Nonsense!'
But the landlord, after explaining that serving further drinks after 3?.m. on Sundays was wholly against the law, was distinctly unimpressed by Morse's assertion that he, the latter, was the law. And a minute or so later it was a slightly embarrassed Lewis who was unlocking the passen ger door of the Jaguar--before making his way back to North Oxford.
Chapter Thirty-two
These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man. Simpler, direct and much more neat is to see he is living somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century, and leave him them (EDw It BROCK, Five Ways to Kill a Man)
Perpetually, on the drive back to North Oxford, Morse had been wiping the perspiration from his forehead; and Lewis was growing increasingly worried, especially when, once back home, Morse immediately poured himself a can of beer.
'Just to replace the moisture,' Morse had averred.
'Yon ought to get the doc in, you know that. And you ought not to be drinking any more, with all those pills.'
'Lewis!' Morse's voice was vicious. 'I appreciate your concern for my health. But never again---never!--lecture me about what I drink. Or if I drink. Or when I drink. that--clear?'
In a flush of anger, Lewis rose to his feet. 'Tll be getting back--'
'Siddown!'
Morse took out a cigarette, and then looked up at the still-standing Lewis. 'You don't think I ought to smoke, ei-ther?'
'It's your life, sir. If you're determined to dig yourself an early grave...'
'I don't want to die, not just yet,' said Morse quietly.
And suddenly, as if by some strange alchemy, Lewis felt his anger evaporating; and, as bidden, he sat down.
Morse put the cigarette back in its packet. 'I'm sorry--sorry I got so cross. Forgive me. It's just that I've always valued my independence so much--too much, perhaps. I just don't like being told what to do, all right?'
'All right.'
'Well, talk to me. Tell me what you thought about Brooks.'
'No, sir. You're the thinker--that's why you get a bigger pay-packet than me. You tell me.'
'Well, I think exacdy the same as I did before. After young Rodway's suicide, Mc Clure found out about the availability of drags on the staircase there---cannabis, am-phetamines, cocaine, crack, ecstasy, LSD, heroin, what- ever--and he also found out that it was Brooks who was supplying them, and making a pretty penny for himself in the process. Then, at some point, Mc Clure told Brooks he'd got two options: either he packed up his job as a scout and left; or else he'd be reported to the University authorities--and probably the police--and faced with criminal proceedings.
So Brooks had just about enough nous to read the writing on the wall: he resigned, and got another job, with a reluctant Mc Clure providing a luke-warm testimonial to the Pitt Rivers Museum. But there were too many links with his former clients--and not just on the old staircase; and he kept up his lucrative little sideline after he'd left Wolsey--until Mc Clure somehow got wind of the situation--and confronted him--and told him that this time it wasn't just an empty threat. I suspect Brooks must have had some sort of hold on Mc Clure, I don't know. But Brooks said
