'No. I want to see you tonight. Now. Right now.'
'I'm sorry, I can't see you tonight--'
'Why not?'
'Well, to tell you the truth, I'm in the bath.'
'Wiggle the water a bit so I can hear.'
'I can't do that--I'd get the phone wet.'
'So you didn't really mean what you said at all.'
'Yes, I did. I'll be only too glad to help. What's the trou-ble?'
'It's no good--not over the phone.'
'Why on earth not?'
'You'll see.'
'I don't follow you.'
'I'm just going out to catch a bus to the City Centre.
With a bit of luck I'll be there in twenty minutes--outside Marks and Sparks that's where it stops, and then I'm going to walk up St. Giles's, and I'm goin' in the Old Par-sonage for a drink. I'll stay there half an hour. And if you've not turned up by then, I'll just take a taxi up to your place---OK with you?'
'No, it's not. You don't know where I live anyway--'
'Nice fellah, Sergeant Lewis. I could fall for 'im.'
'He's never told you my address!'
'Why don't you ring and ask 'im?'
Morse looked at his wristwatch: almost half-past eight. 'Give me half an hour.'
'Won't you need a bit longer?'
'Why's that?'
'Well, you've got to get yourself dried and then get dressed and then make sure you can find your wallet and then catch a bus '
'Make it three-quarters of an hour, then,' said Morse, wondering, in fact, where his wallet was, for he seldom used it when Lewis was around.
Lewis himself rang again that evening, about ten minute:. after Morse had left. The path lab had confirmed that ttc blood found on the recovered bicycle was Mc Clure's; m, d on his way home (a little disappointed) he pushed a note tc, that effect through the front door of Morse's bachelor flat-together with the newspaper cutting from the previot:: week's Oxford Times received from one of his St. Aldate -colleagues: THIFNES PUT SPOKE IN THINGS An optimistic scheme to provide free bicycles was scrapped yesterday by the Billingdon Rural District Council.
The cycles, painted green, and repaired by young of-fenders on community service, were put into specially constructed stands outside the church for villagers to use and then return.
However within thirty-six hours of the scheme being launched, all twelve cycles, purchased at a cost of 1100, pounds had disappeared.
The chair of the Council, Mrs. Jean Ashton, strongly defended the initiative. 'Whe bikes are still somewhere on the road,' she maintained.
DC Watson of the Thames Valley Police agreed: 'Most of them probably in Oxford or Banbury, resprayed a bright red.'
Ashley Davies also had repeatedly rung an Oxford number that Saturday evening, but with similar lack of suc- cess; and he (like Sergeant Lewis) felt some disappointment.
Ellie had told him that she would be out all day, but suggested that he gave her a ring in the evening. His news could walt--well, it wasn't really 'news,' at all. He just wanted her to know how efficient he'd been.
He'd visited the plush, recendy opened Register Office in New Road, where he'd been treated with courtesy and com-petence.
In the circumstances 'Notice by Certificate' (he'd been informed) would be the best procedure--with Satur-day, October 15 a possible, probable, marriage date, giving ample time for the requisite notices to be posted both at Bedford and at Oxford. He'd agreed to ring the Registrar the following Monday with final confu-mation.
A few 'family' to witness the ceremony would have been nice. But, as Ashley was sadly aware, his own mother and father had long since distanced themselves from 'that tart'; and although Ellie's mum could definitely be counted upon, no invitation would ever be sent to her step-father-- and that not just because he had left no forwarding address, but because Ellie would never allow even the mention of his name.
Only one wedding guest so far then. But it would be easy to find a few others; and anyway the legal requirement (Ellie, oddly enough, had known all about this) was only for two.
Ashley rang her number again at 10 P.M. Still no answer. And for more than a few minutes he felt a surge of jealousy as he wondered where she was, and with whom she was spending the evening.
Chapter Fifty
There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress: within my own memory I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees (JOSEPH ADDISON, The Spectator)
She was nowhere to be seen in the area known as the Par-sonage Bar, which (as we know) served as a
