'With Davies?'
'Has Davies got a red BMWT'
'Not unless he's changed his car.'
'I wonder if it's that randy so O from Reading. Whea his card?'
'The traffic boys'll be able to tell us in a couple ticks.'
'Can't wait that long.'
He found the card, the number--and dialled, informi the woman who answered that he was ringing from pol HQ about a stolen car, a red BMW, and he was just che lng to make sure...
Mr. Williamson was out, Morse learned. But there v no need to worry. He did have a red BMW all right, bu hadn't been stolen. In fact, she'd seen him get into it earl that afternoon. Going to Oxford, he'd said.
Half an hour later, in Princess Street, it became clear tt Ellie Smith had decamped in considerable haste. In bed-sit-cum-bathroom there had been little enough acco mooation for many possessions anyway; yet much had be left behind: the bigger items (perforce)--f-ridge, TV, tecc player, microwave; a selection of clothing and shoes, ran ing from the sedate to the sensational; pictures and post by the score, including a life-sized technicolour photogra of Madlyn Monroe, a framed painting by Paul Klee, a (also framed) a fading Diploma from East Oxford Sero School, Prize for Art, awarded to Kay Eleanor Brook signed by C. P. Taylor (Head), and dated July 1983.
'Not much here in the drawers, sir. An Appointme Book, though, stuck at the back.'
'Which I am not particularly anxious to see,' sa Morse, sitting himself down on the bed.
'You know if you don't mind me saying so, sk---it w a bit cruel, wasn't it? Her leaving her mum for all tho years and not really getting in touch with her again until--He broke off.
'Sir?
Morse looked up.
'There's a telephone number here for that Tuesday the sixth, with something written after it: 'GL'--and what looks like the figure '.''
Morse got up, and went to look over Lewis's shoulder.
'It could be a lower-case letter '1.''
'Shall I give the number a go?'
Morse shrugged his shoulders disinterestedly. 'Please yourself.'
Lewis dialled the number, and a pleasing, clear Welsh voice answered, with an obviously well-practised formula: 'Gareth Llewellyn-Jones. Can I 'elp you?
'Sergeant Lewis, Thames Valley Police, sir. We're inves-tigating a murder, and think you might be able to help us confirm one or two things.'
'My goodness me! Well, I can't really, not for the moment, like. I'm in the middle of a tutorial, see?'
'Can you give me a time when you will be free, sir?'
'Could be important,' said Lewis, after putting down the phone. 'If she was... out all night--'
'Don't you mean 'in' all night?' said Morse bitterly. 'In bed with some cock-happy client of hers--that's what you mean, isn't it? So stop being so bloody mealy-mouthed, Lewis counted up to seven. 'Well, if she was, she couldn't have had too much of a hand in things with Brooks.'
'Of course she did!' snapped Morse. 'I don't believe her though when she says she murdered him--she's just trying to shield her mother, that's ail because it was her mother who murdered him.'
'Isn't it usually the other way round, though?'
'What do you mean?'
'Isn't it usually mums who try to shield their kids?'
The word 'kid' did to Morse what 'scenario' did to Ellie Smith; and he was about to remonstrate--when sud- denly he clapped a cupped right hand hard over his fore-head.
'What year did the Brookses marry?'
'Can't remember exactly. Twelve years ago, was it? We can soon check.'
'What time are you seeing Armstrong-Jones?'
'Llewellyn-Jones, sir. Haft-past eight. After he's had din-ner in Hall.'
'Good. I'm glad you're not letting our own enquiries in terfere with his college routine.'
'It wasn't like that--'
'Come on, Lewis!' Morse pointed to the Diploma. 'When you said Ellie Smith must have been a bit creel to mn away from her mother, you were right, in a way. But she didn't mn away from her mother at all, Lewis. She ran away from her father, her natural father.'
'But she could just have changed her name, surely?'
'Nonsense!'
Morse consulted the directory lying beside the phone: only one C. P. Taylor, with an Abingdon Road address. He rang the number, and learned, yes indeed, that he was speaking to the Former Head of East Oxford Senior School, who would willingly help if he could. That same evening? Why not?
