..'
'You know something, Lewis? That's very interesting. Very interesting
indeed. I'll be with you straightaway.'
289
chapter sixty-three With much talk will they tempt thee, and smiling
upon thee will get out thy secrets (fcclesiasticus, ch. XIII, vII 'You know,
come to think of it, Lewis, we could do all of this now, couldn't we? Just
the two of us.'
'No Dixon?'
'No Dixon.'
Lewis smiled outwardly and inwardly as he looked down at the action plan. It
seemed to him a sensible and fair division of a good deal of labour. For
example, he himself had spoken only very briefly with Sarah Harrison; Morse
had not as yet spoken at all with Simon Harrison. Both matters now to be
dealt with. And all leading up to the two of them, Morse and Lewis, meeting
Frank Harrison asap.
after these and a few other checks and visits had been made.
Harrison! - 'the corner-stone, the kingpin, the pivot', as Morse had
asserted, before running out of synonyms.
'We've got plenty of time for all this well, no, perhaps we haven't. So we
can be pretty direct, but not sharp. Smile occasionally. No aggressiveness,
no hostility, no belligerence,' Morse had asserted, before running out of
synonyms again.
It all suited Lewis nicely. If Morse's philosophy in life was to aim high
even if the target was altogether missed, he personally preferred to aim low
in the hope at least of hitting something.
The voluntary (mornings only) help at the Oxford Animal Sanctuary Shop (Gifts
Welcome) lived only a few hundred yards away in Osberton Road: a widow, a
cat-lover, an intelligent witness Mrs Gerrard. It was just that, as every
weekday morning, she'd walked down to South Parade to buy the Daily Tekgraph,
about 8 o'clock before opening the shop, and she'd seen this 'Yes?' Lewis
smiled.
' - well, this youngish fellow smartly dressed, suit and tie and he put this
Sainsbury's plastic bag in the doorway there. She couldn't describe him any
better than that really; but she remembered his car, parked for a few seconds
on the double- yellows alongside the shop. She wouldn't have noticed that
either except that it was the same make as hers, a Toyota Carina, P-Reg, a
different colour though: hers was a turquoisy colour, his was silvery-grey.
The trainers she had put carefully aside, under the counter in the shop.
No one in North Oxford with a Toyota was likely to drive unnecessarily far
afield for any servicing and repairs, since there was a specialist garage in
Summertown itself; and it took Lewis only a few minutes to learn that the
owner of a silvery- grey P-Reg Carina was a regular and esteemed customer of
the company, a man named Simon Harrison.
Simultaneously Morse was driving himself in the Jaguar through the low range
of open hills that border Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
His old pathologist friend. Max, had once told him that two pleasures grew
ever deeper with advancing age, the pleasures of the belly and the pleasures
of natural beauty. And Morse found himself concurring with the latter
proposition as he turned right at the roundabout and drove down into Burfbrd.
Christine Coverley was clearly surprised to see him, and clearly not happy.
'It's all a bit untidy--' 291
Morse smiled.
'Can I come in?'
'I haven't got long, I'm afraid.'
'It won't take long, I promise.'
'How can I. . .?'
'What were you doing last Monday morning? Between, say, nine and eleven?'
'Not the faintest, have I? Nobody could remember exactly ' ' Did you go out
for a newspaper, shopping, seeing someone? '
'I don't know. Like I say ' ' Can you have a look in your diary for me? '
'That wouldn't help.'
'What would help?'
'I don't know what you're getting at. Look, Inspector.' She glanced down at
her wristwatch with what appeared incipient panic.
'Could we talk some other time, please:' You see I've got ' But it was too
late.
There was the scratch of a key in the Yale lock and the front door was
quickly opened and as quickly closed, and a youth entered from the narrow
hallway to stand in the doorway of the single bed-sit room.
With staring eyes he looked
