first at Morse and then at Christine Coverley:
'What the fuck?'
'You haven't increased your word-power much since we last began Morse. But
Roy Holmes had disappeared even more rapidly than he'd appeared.
In the stillness that followed the crash of the front door closing.
Morse sat down in one of the armchairs, and gestured the speechless
schoolmistress to seat herself in the other.
'Please tell me all about it,' he said, with no hint of aggressiveness or any
of its synonyms.
'If you don't, I'm sorry but I shall have to take you down to Police
HQ. '
After his twinkling Trish eyes had scrutinized Lewis's ID, Mr Tony Marrinan,
the manager of The Randolph, was wholly cooperative; and very soon the
outline of Frank Harrison's recent stay was revealed.
Double-room booked with, as staff recalled her, a sultrily attractive if less
than attractively mannered partner late twenties, perhaps; meals taken
together quite regularly in the Spires Restaurant details available, if
Sergeant Lewis wanted to see them.
As Sergeant Lewis did.
The pair had breakfasted together on each morning except the Monday, and
Lewis was fairly soon looking at that day's Good Morning Breakfast chit, its
details having been transferred immediately to the hotel's computer before
being placed on a spike and then at the end of the day transferred to the
accounts department upstairs for a limited period, as a check if any guest
should query an entry on the final bill.
Interesting! Especially the bottom half of the chit: Continental |7f Full n
Date ^/S/^ Time -g. 2-0 Table No. -7 Covers | Room No. 2-)o Waiter c. <^.
Room Charge 0 Other
D
Guest Name: HA^^iSo^ Signature: 'Covers', as Lewis learned, signified how
many had been at the table: on the other chits it had the figure '2' beside
it. But on the Monday morning just the one of them, and the restaurant
manager remembered which one of them: Tt was the lady. I think Mr Harrison
may have been feeling a little tired.'
Before he left the hotel, Lewis had a word with the chamber- maid who had
looked after Room 210, discovering that for 293
much of the time over the
period in question the do not disturb notice had hung over the outside
door-knob.
'And the bed looked as if it had been slept in each night?' (Lewis tried to
smile knowingly. ) 'Oh yes, sir. Oh yes.'
Perhaps the restaurant manager was right. Perhaps Mr Harrison's stay in
Oxford had been a busy and tiring one.
For one reason or another.
Before driving back to HQ, Morse called in at the Maiden's Arms, in the hope
of finding Alf and Bert, Lower Swinstead's answer to
'Bill and Ben'. The time was now just after 2.30 p.m.; and Morse expected
that they would be gone by then. But he was lucky; or at least half-lucky.
Bert, it seemed, had 'got the screws', and Alf was sitting alone by the
window, slowly sipping the last of his beer, and readily accepting Morse's
offer of 'one for the road'.
'Lost his nerve!' confided Alf.
'Lost the last five times we've a' been playing. Lost his nerve!'
'Like me to give you a quick game? Just the one?'
Morse had determined to lose the challenge in as swift and incompetent a
manner as possible. But unfortunately the gods were smiling broadly on his
hands; and very soon, malgre lui, he had won the single encounter by the
proverbial street.
Unfortunately
Oh no. For Alf appeared to recognize in his opponent a player of supreme
skills; and instead of his wonted sullen silence on such occasions, he was
soon speaking with unprecedented candour about life there in the village in
general, and in particular about the Harrisons -with the result that after
twenty minutes Morse had learned more than any other police officer before
him from any of the locals in Lower Swinstead.
'Did Frank ever come in the pub here with other women?'
'Never. In London most of his time, weren't he?'
'What about Simon?'
'He come in sometimes, but he never had no reg'lar girl- friend. Bit of a
