loner, Simon.'
'What about Sarah?'
'Lovely, she were not seen her though this last coupla years. In fact, last
time I seen her was here in the pub sort of guest appearance singing with a
pop group. Nice voice, she had, young Sarah.'
'Did she come in with any boyfriends?'
'Did she? I'll tell you sum mat - she did. Could've had anybody she wanted,
I reckon.'
'Who did she want?'
Alf chuckled.
'Didn't want me Bert neither! One or two was luckier though, mister.'
The light in Alf's old eyes suddenly sparked, like the coals on a fire that
were almost ready to sink back to an ashen-grey; and he nodded his head -just
as Bert, in his turn, would have nodded across the cribbage-board.
Enviously.
With the consulting rooms all taken up with a series of interviews for
diabetes students, Lewis sat with Sarah Harrison behind a curtain in the
Blood-Testing Room.
'Did you see your father while he was staying at the Randolph last week?'
'I always see my father when he comes to Oxford. In fact, I had a meal with
him one evening.'
'So you get on well with him?'
Lewis's smile was not reciprocated, and she almost spat her reply at him:
'WTiat the hell's that supposed to mean?'
'I'm not sure really. It's just that I've got a list of questions here from
Chief Inspector Morse by the way, I think you know him .
. ? '
295
'I've met him once.'
'Well he's asked me to ask you not very well phrased, that- ' ' What's he
want to know? '
'What the relationships were like in your family.'
'I can't speak for Simon you must ask him. If you mean did I have any
preference? No. I loved Mum, and I loved, love, Dad. Some children love
both their parents, you know.'
'You never felt that your mother loved Simon a bit more than she loved you
you know, because he was a bit handing- capped, perhaps because he needed
more affection than you did?'
There was a silence before Sarah answered the question; and as Lewis looked
at her he realized how attractive she must have appeared to all the men and
boys in the village; how attractive she was now, and would be for many years
to come, in whatever place she found herself.
'You know I've never thought of it quite like that before, but yes ... I
suppose you could be right. Sergeant Lewis.'
After leaving the Maiden's Arms, where the fruit machine had stood unwontedly
and unprofitably silent, Morse called on Alien (sic) Thomas at his home in
Lower Swinstead. Alf had told him where to go: the lad was sure to be there.
He'd not be at work, because he'd never done a hand's turn in his life.
And Alf was right.
The dingy room was untidy and un dusted with three empty cans on the top of
the TV and a hugely piled ash-tray on the arm of the single armchair. But
Thomas (the facial resemblance between him and Roy Holmes so very obvious to
him now) was a paragon of civility compared with the crudity of that sibling
of his, and Morse found himself feeling more pro than and the unshaven youth
in front of him.
'How often do you keep in touch with your dad?' began Morse.
The cigarette that had been dangling from Thomas's loose mouth fell to the
carpet; and although it was swiftly retrieved the damage had been done.
Thomas knew it. And Morse knew it. And fairly soon the truth, or what Morse
took to be half of the truth, had started to surface.
Yes, Elizabeth Holmes was his natural mother.
Yes, Roy Holmes was his stepbrother or his real brother he'd never really
known.
Yes, he kept in touch with his natural father, and his natural father kept in
touch with him: Frank Harrison, yes he'd always known that.
No. His father had never sent him what could loosely be called a
fruit-machine allowance.
No. His father had never asked him to keep him regularly informed about any
developments in the enquiries into Yvonne Harrison's murder.
No. He'd had no contact whatever recently either with his father or his
mother or his brother.
Morse was half-smiling to himself as finally he drove back to Oxford, knowing
beyond any peradventure that the No No No was in reality a Yes Yes Yes.
In the
