nodded with a wry grin. 'you don't think there's any chance that
somebody bribed our Sylvia and Sylvia's mum . . . ? '
'Not the remotest. Do you?'
'No.'
'Where do we go from here, sir?'
'You can drop me off at the Woodstock Arms or . . .'
'No. I meant with the case, sir.'
'. . . or perhaps the Maiden's Arms. '
It seemed that Morse was hardly listening.
'I know you're disappointed, sir, but ' ' Disappointed? Nonsense! '
Some light-footed mouse had just scuttled across his scapu- lae; and when
Lewis turned to look at him, it seemed as if someone had switched the
electric current on behind his eyes.
'Yes, Lewis. Just drive me out to Lower Swinstead.'
334
chapter seventy-two Below me, there is tie village, and looks how quiet
and small! And yet buhbks o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite
(Tennyson, Maua) unwontedly in a car. Morse was almost continuously
talkative as they drove along: 'Do you know that lovely line of Thomson's
about villages ' embosomed soft in trees'?'
'Don't even know Thomson,'
mumbled Lewis. 'Remarkable things! Strange, intimate little places where
there's more going on than anybody ever dreams of. You get illicit liaisons,
hopeless love affairs, illegitimate offspring, wife swopping interbreeding,
neighbourly spite, class warfare all that's for the insiders, though. If
you're on the outside, they refuse to have anything to do with you. They
clamp up. They present a united defensive front because they've got one
thing in common, Lewis: the village itself. They're all members of the same
football club. They may loathe each other's guts for most of the week, but
come Saturday afternoon when they put on the same football shirts . .
Well, the next village better look out! '
'Except Lower Swinstead doesn't have a football team.'
'What are you talking about? They're all in the football team.'
Lewis drove down the Windrush Valley into Lower Swinstead.
'They don't all clamp up, anyway. Not to you, they don't.
Compared with some of our lads you've squeezed a carton of juice out of 'em
already. '
'But there's more squeezing to do, Lewis -just a little.'
Unwontedly in a pub. Morse had already taken out his wallet at the bar, and
Lewis raised no objection.
'Pint of bitter whatever's in the best nick.'
'It's all in the best nick,' began BifF en
'And . . . orange or grapefruit, Lewis?'
The fruit machine stood idle and the cribbage-board was slotted away behind
the bar. But the place was quite busy. Most of the customers were locals;
most of them people who'd earlier been questioned about the Harrison murder;
most of them members of the village team.
On the pub's notice board at the side of the bar, underneath 'Live Music Every
Saturday', was an amateurishly printed yellow poster advertising the current
week's entertainment:
8. 30-11. 30 P. M.
DON'T MISS IT
The widely acclaimed folk-singer
CYNDICOOK
with the ever popular 3R's Randy, Ray, Rick 'Popular?' asked Morse of the
landlord.
'Packed out we are, every Sat'day.'
'Ever had Paddy Flynn and his group playing here?'
'Paddy who?'
'Flynn the chap who was murdered.'
'Ah yes. Read about it, o'course. But I don't think he were
ever here, Inspector. You know, fifty-odd groups a year and how many years
is it I've ' 'Forget it!' snapped Morse.
The beer OK? '
'Fine. How's Bert, by the way? Any better?'
'Worse. Quack called to see him yesterday -just after we'd opened told
Bert's boy the old man oughta go in for a few days, like but Bert told 'em he
wasn't going to die in no hospital.'
For someone who knew almost nothing about some things, Thomas Biffen seemed
to know an awful lot about others.
'Where does he live?' asked Morse.
It was Bert's son, a man already in his late fifties, who showed Morse up the
narrow steepish steps to the bedroom where Bert himself lay, propped up
against pillows, the backs of his hands, purple-veined and deeply foxed,
resting on the top of the sheet.
'Missing the cribbage, I bet!' volunteered Morse. The old face, yellowish
and gaunt, lit up a little.
'Alf'll be glad of a rest.
Hah! ' He chuckled deeply in his throat.
'Lost these last five times, he has.'
'You're a bit under the weather, they tell me.'
'Sdll got me wits about me though. More'nAlfhas sometimes.' 'Still got a
good memory, you mean?' 'Allus had a good memory since I were at school.'
'Mind if I ask you a few things? About the village? You know . ..
