..'
'He'll be back for the day of reckoning.'
'You think so?'
'I know so.'
'And in the interim?'
'He'll be having a beano kisses, wine, roses.
'But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire . . .' You know the
Dowson poem, sir? '
'Course I bloody do!'
'Well, I don't think he'll ever be really happy with any of these other women
of his.'
'This one sounds like a bit of all right though.'
'I'd still like to bet he wakes up in the small hours sometimes and thinks
back on the woman he loved more than any of them, feeling a bit desolate ' '
- and sick of an old passion.'
'Exactly.'
'Yvonne, you mean?'
'No, not Yvonne, sir. Elizabeth Elizabeth Jane Thomas.'
chapter seventy-one What more pleasant setting than the cinema for sweetly
deodorized bodies to meet, unzip, and commune?
(Malcolm Muggeridge, The Most of Malcolm Mu^eridy) sylvia marsden (nee
prentice) was temporarily living with her mother in a pleasantly appointed
semi on a housing estate at Witney. And it was her mother (Lewis had phoned
earlier) who had answered the door and shown the two detectives into the
lounge where the buxom Sylvia, blouse open, was breast-feeding a very new
baby not in the slightest degree disconcerted to be thus interrupted in her
maternal ministrations, one hand splayed across an engorged nipple, the
fingers of the other playing lovingly around the lips of the suckling infant.
An awkwardly embarrassed Morse moved slowly round the room, simulating deep
interest in the tasteless bric-a-brac that cluttered every surface and shelf
in the brightly decorated room; whilst Lewis stood above the mother and
child, smiling quasi-paternally and drawing the back of his right
index-finger lightly across the cherubic cheek: 'Little treasure, isn't he?
What's his name?'
'She's a she, actually aren't you, Susie?'
'Ah yes, of course!'
Morse temporarily declined to take a seat but accepted, strangely enough, the
offer of coffee, and began his questioning whilst looking through the
window on to the neatly kept back garden.
'We're just having to make one or two further enquiries, Mrs Marsden ' ' Call
me Sylvia! '
'It's about one of your former boyfriends ' ' Simon, yes, I know. That
Sergeant Dixon told me. Nice man, isn't he?
He got on ever so well with Mum. '
Morse nodded, aware of the probable reason.
'It's a long time ago now, I realize . . .'
'Not really. Not for me it isn't. The night Simon's mum was murdered?
Can't forget something like that, can you? '
'That's good news, Sylvia. Now that night, that evening, the 9th ' ' Oh no!
You've got it wrong. It was the 8th - the night Mrs Harrison was murdered.
I'm quite sure of that. My birthday, wasn't it? Simon took me to the ABC in
Oxford. Super film! All about these male strippers ' 'Did the police ever
ask you about it?'
'No. Why should they?'
Sylvia rebuttoned her blouse, and as Morse turned at last to face her, Lewis
could see the disappointment on his face.
Mrs Prentice (nee Jones) who had clearly been listening keenly from the
adjacent kitchen, now brought in two cups of coffee.
'I can remember that,' she volunteered.
'Like she says, that was your birthday, wasn't it, Sylv?'
'How did you find Simon, Mrs Prentice?' asked Lewis.
'I liked him. He used to come in sometimes but I think he felt a bit... you
know, with his hearing.'
'He didn't come in that night?'
'No. I remember it well. Like Sylv says well, not something you forget, is
it? I saw him though, after he'd brought her back. And I heard the pair of
'em whispering on the doorstep. Nice boy, really.
Could have done worse, couldn't you, Sylv? '
'I did better. Mum, OE>' 333
Clearly there was less than complete family
agreement on the merits of baby Susie's official father and Morse swallowed
his coffee quickly and, as ever, Lewis followed his chief's lead dutifully.
In the car outside they sat for some time in silence.
'You knew it was the 8th, sir. Why ?'
'Just to test her memory.'
There was another long silence.
'Looks as if we've been wrong, sir.'
'Looks as if I've been wrong.'
'Alibis don't come much better than that.'
'No.'
'You know when Mrs Whatshername said she heard the pair of 'em whispering
outside, she probably heard more of the conversation than Simon ever did!'
Morse
