know where. And if it was of any interest to the police, she didn't care
didn't bloody well care.
There was no reply to PC Kershaw's importunate ringing and knocking.
But at last he was able to locate the mildly disgruntled middle-aged woman
who looked after the two 'lets'; and who accompanied him back to the
ground-floor flat. She appeared to have little affection for either of the
two lessees, although when she opened the door she must have felt a horrified
shock of sympathy with one of them.
Christine Coverley lay supine on a sheepskin rug in front of an unlit
electric-fire. She was wearing a summery, sleeveless, salmon-pink dress, her
arms very white, hands palm-upwards, with each of her wrists slashed deeply
and neatly across. A black-handled kitchen-knife lay beside her left
shoulder.
Young Kershaw was unused to such horrors; and over the next few days the
visual image was to refigure repeatedly in his nightmares. Two patches on
the rug were deeply steeped in blood; and Kershaw was reminded of the Welsh
hill-farm where he'd once stayed and where the backs of each of the owner's
sheep had been daubed with a dye of the deepest crimson.
No note was found by Kershaw; indeed no note was found by anyone afterwards.
It was as if Christine had left this world with a despair she'd found
incommunicable to anyone: even to her parents; even to the uncouth lout who
penetrated her so pleasurably now, though at first against her will; even to
the rather nice police inspector who'd seemed to her to under- stand so much
about her. Far too much. .
including (she'd known it! ) the fact that she had lied. Roy could never
have been cycling along Sheep Street when Barron fell to his death because at
that very moment he had been in bed with her . . .
316
chapter sixty-eight It is not the criminal things which are hardest to
confess, but the ridiculous and the shameful (Rousseau, Confessions) lewis
had not been surprised no, certainly not that. But disappointed? Yes. Oh
yes! And Morse had been aware of his reaction, clearly anticipating it, yet
saying nothing to lessen the impact of the revelation. The relationship
between them would never be quite the same again, Lewis realized that. It
wasn't at all the fact that Morse had driven out one evening (two evenings?
ten evenings? ) to meet a seductively attractive woman. Lewis had seen the
sharply focused photographs other body stretched out on the bed that night;
and it could be no great wonder that many a man, young and old alike, had
lusted after a woman such as that. No, it was something else.
Itwas the out-of- character, under-hand way that Morse had allowed the
dishonest subterfuge to linger on and on from the beginning of the case.
Indeed Morse had been less than wholly forthcoming in his confession even
now, Lewis was fairly sure of it. Yes, Morse agreed, he had gained access to
the file containing the intimate correspondence addressed to Y H. Yes, he
had 'appropriated' the handcuffs, police handcuffs, with a number stamped on
them that could easily be traced back to the officer issued with them, in
this case to Morse himself.
And yes (he readily admitted it) he had 'withdrawn' the relevant sheet of the
issue-numbers kept at HQ. As far as the partial letter was concerned (Morse
31?
accepted immediately that it was in his own hand) Lewis had hoped, in an
old-fashioned sort of way, that Morse had in fact never been invited to Lower
Swinstead, in spite of his own plea for some communication from her; in spite
of that almost school boyish business about looking through his mail every
morning in the hope of finding something from her. And that was about it.
Morse had wanted to cover up something of which he was rather ashamed and
very embarrassed; just wanted his own name, previously his own good name,
