'Ah! You're prepared to guess about
'Pardon?'
'So why not have a guess about the tie? Come on!'
'I dunno.'
'Nor do 7 bloody know. That's exacdy why we've got to guess, man.'
Lewis stood by the door now. It was high time he went.
'I haven't got a clue about all those posh ties you see in the posh shops in the High. For all I know he probably got it off the tie-rack in Marks and Spencer's.'
'No. I don't think so.'
COLIN DEXTER
'Couldn't we just cut a few corners? Perhaps we ought to put the photo in the
Morse considered the possibility anew.
'Ye-es ... and if we find he's got nothing to do with the murder...'
'We can eliminate him from enquiries.' - Tfe-es. Eliminate his marriage, too -'
' - if he's married - '
' - and ruin his children -'
' - if he's got any.'
'You just get off to the railway station, Lewis.'
Morse had had enough.
84
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It is die very temple of discomfort (John Ruskin,
AT 9.45 A.M. LEWIS was seated strategically at one of the small round tables in the refreshment area adjacent to Platform One. Intermittently an echoing loudspeaker announced arrivals or apologies for delays; and, at 9.58, recited a splendid litany of all the stops on the slow train to Reading: Radley, Culham, Appleford, Didcot Parkway, Cholsey, Goring and Streatley...
Cholsey, yes.
Mrs Lewis was a big fan of Agatha Christie, and he'd often promised to take her to Cholsey churchyard where the great crime novelist was buried. But one way or another he'd never got round to it.
The complex was busy, with passengers constantly leaving the station through the two automatic doors to Lewis's right, to walk down the steps outside to the taxi-rank and buses for the city centre; passengers constantly entering through those same doors, making for the ticket-windows, the telephones, the Rail Information office; passengers
COLIN DEXTER
turning left, past Lewis, in order to buy newspapers, sweets, paperbacks, from the Menzies shop - or sandwiches, cakes, coffee, from the Quick Snack counter alongside.
From where he sat, Lewis could just read one of the display screens: the 10.15 train to Paddington, it appeared, would be leaving on time - no minutes late. But he had seen no one remotely resembling the man whose photograph he'd tucked inside his copy of the
At 10.10 a.m. the train drew in to Platform One, and passengers were now getting on. But still there was no one to engage Lewis's attention; no one standing around impatiendy as if waiting for a partner; no one sitting anxiously consulting a wristwatch every few seconds, or walking back and forth to the exit doors and scanning the occupants of incoming taxis.
No one.
Lewis got to his feet and went out on to the platform, walking quickly along the four coaches which comprised the Turbo Express for Paddington, memorizing as best he could the face he'd so earnestly been studying that morning. But, again, he could find no one resembling the man who had once sat beside the murdered woman in a photographic booth.
No one.
It was then, at the last minute (quite literally so), that the idea occurred to him,
A young-looking ticket-collector was leaning out of one of the rear windows whilst a clinking refreshment-trolley was being lifted awkwardly aboard. Lewis showed him his ID; showed him the photograph.
86
DEATH IS NOW MY NEIGHBOUR
'Have you ever seen either of these two on the Paddington train? Or any other train?'
The acne-faced youth examined the ID card as if suspecting, perchance, that it might be a faulty ticket; then, equally carefully, looked down at the photograph before looking up at Lewis.
Someone blew a whistle.
