them
together, both at the Three Pigeons in Witney and at the White Hart in
Wolvercote, when he was playing away in the cribbage-league. I've little
doubt that others in Lower Swinstead knew about it too, but they all kept
their mouths shut. On that fateful evening, Sarah called home unexpectedly,
and found her secret lover in bed with her mother God help us! She was
already known to Repp, as well as to Barren, of course. But where does that
opportunistic fellow Flynn fit into the picture this time? There is now
ample proof that he knew Sarah fairly well, because in the years before the
murder the pair of them had performed in a pop group together in several pubs
and clubs in West Oxfordshire (some details are known) although never as it
happens at the Maiden's Arms.
And that's almost it, Lewis.
There remains just the one final matter to settle. The murder weapon was
never found. But the path-report, as you'll recall, gave some indication of
the type of weapon used. There were perhaps two blows only to Yvonne's head.
The first rendered the right cheek-bone shattered and the bridge of the nose
broken. The second, the more vicious and it seems the fatal blow, crashed
across the base of the skull, doubtless as Yvonne tried to turn her head away
in desperate self-defence. The suggestion made was that some sort of
'tubular metal rod' was in all probability the cause of such injuries.
An arm-crutch!
How do I know this? I don't. But I shall be inordinately surprised if I am
not very close indeed to the truth. And how many times this has happened? -
it was you, Lewis, who did the trick for me again!
Remember? You were reining back some fanciful notions of mine about Sarah
tearing down to the cinema to buy a ticket, and you said that she wasn't
going to be tearing about anywhere that night, because she'd sprained her
ankle rather badly; and that if she were doing
anything it would be hobbling about. Yes. Hobbling about on one of those
metal arm-crutches they'd probably issued her with from the Physiotherapy
Department. (Will you find out, Lewis, if and when the arm-crutch was
returned? ) I realize that it won't be easy to establish Sarah's guilt, but
we've got the long-awaited interview with her father to look forward to.
He'll be a worthy opponent, I know that, but I'm beginning to suspect that
even he has almost had enough by now. If I'm over-optimistic about such an
outcome, there'll still be Sarah herself. It will be a surprise if the pair
of them haven't been in close touch in recent days and weeks, and I've got a
feeling that like her father she's almost ready herself to emerge from the
hell she must have been going through for so long. Quite apart from judicial
convictions and punishments, guilt brings its own moral retribution. We all
know that.
One thing is certain. This will be has been my last case. I am now
determined to retire and to take life a little more gently and sensibly.
We've tackled so many cases together, old friend, and I'm very happy and very
proud to have worked with you for so long.
That's it. The time is now 12. 45 a. m. ' and suddenly I feel so very
weary.
All the manuscript notes were with Strange within the half- hour.
And Lewis had nothing further to do with the investigation.
365
chapter eighty I am retired. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am
already come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture,
perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled purpose. I walk about;
not to and from (Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia) it seemed there was
little to cloud the bright evening at the end of August, that same year, when
Strange held his retirement party. The Chief Constable (no less! ) had
toasted his farewell from the Force, paying a fulsome tribute to his
colleague's many years of disdngished service in the Thames Valley CID,
