himself.
A confession here.
Quite a few times I've found myself looking at the faces of people concerned
with this case and thinking I'd seen them somewhere before.
I thought it might be the result of inter- breeding in a small community no
wonder some of the villagers are pretty tight-lipped!
And I was right. That fruit- machine addict, for example: Alien Thomas.
That's how you spell his name by the way, Lewis. I found it in the village-
school records: Alien Alfred Thomas. Unusual these days, that spelling of
'Alien'. And
'Alfred' belongs more to the first half of the century, doesn't it? I also
found out (well, Dixon found out) that the Christian names of Elizabeth Jane
Thomas's father were
'Harold Alfred'; and that someone else in the village had a father with the
Christian names
'Joseph Alien'. That someone else was Frank Harrison. And (believe me!) he
was the father of the lad, and Elizabeth decided to give him a couple of
Christian names that, at least for herself, could confer some little pretence
of legitimacy of her illegitimate son. (I wonder if his father gives him a
fruit-machine allowance?) Let's turn to the Harrison children.
Either of them could have murdered their mother. What would be the motive,
though? I just can't see Sarah suddenly turning to murder because she finds
her mother abed with one of her many lovers. What does it really matter to
her that her mother enjoys a bit of biting and bondage occasionally? Shocked
and disgusted? Yes, she'd certainly have been both. But driven to murder?
No. There's something about her, though something that tells me that she's
up to her very smooth neck in things.
What about Simon Harrison? As we know he's always been 287
a bit of a
mummy's darling: a boy disadvantaged because of early deafness; a boy always
needing extra understanding and extra love, and who found it (hardly
surprisingly) from his mother. I'd guess myself that for Simon this
relationship had always been very precious. Sacrosanct almost. I'd also
guess that he had no notion whatsoever of his mother's idiosyncratic tastes
in sexual gratification. Then one night, the night of the murder, he'd
driven out to see her. And why not? Just to say hello, perhaps? Like his
sister, he had a key to the front door, and he entered the house and
disturbed the copulating couple copulating in the most extraordinary
circumstances; and he would have been shocked and disgusted (like his sister)
but heartbroken, too, and disillusioned and betrayed. His mother performing
those things with some plebeian local builder!
Where does all this lead us? First and foremost to an early, long-overdue,
full-scale interview with Frank Harrison. Not too early though. Our
colleagues got nowhere with him and we, Lewis, are a pair of bloodhounds very
late on the scene, with the scent gone very cold.
Fifth, there's this business of the letter you found in the Harrison file.
As I told you, I take full responsibility for the fact that some items
originally discovered at the Harrison murder scene were subsequently, as they
say, found to be missing. It was embarrassing for me to talk to you about
this and I know that you in turn found it equally embarrassing to-Morse laid
down his pen and answered the phone: 'Lewis! What do you want?'
'You OK, sir?' 'Why shouldn't I be?'
'It's just that well, you know that animal charity shop on the corner of
South Parade and Middle Way . ..'
'I am not wa animal-lover, Lewis.'
'Well, people leave things there, by the door, things for the shop to sell
for charity ' ' Get orawith it! '
'Guess what one of the shop assistants found when she got to work this
morning?'
'Pair of handcuffs?'
'Pair of something, sir. Pair of red trainers! Almost brand new. This
woman had read in the Oxford Mail about the Burford jogger and she thought.
