like to bet he never told you! He just didn't want to let me down, that's
all.'
'Why didn't he tell me all this though? It would have made such a lot of
difference ... at the end .. .'
'I dunno. Always an independent sod, wasn't he? And always had that great
big streak of loyalty and integrity somewhere deep inside him.
But you don't need me to tell you that. So he was never worried too much
about what people thought of him. He certainly didn't give two monkeys what
I thought of him, at least most of the time. In fact the only person he did
want to think well of him was you, Lewis. So let me tell you something else.
It's one helluva job having to live with guilt, as I've done. Almost
everybody discovers the same, you know that. Frank Harrison did, didn't he?
Sarah Harrison, too. It's something I hope you'll never have to go through
yourself. Not that you ever will. Nor did Morse though. He once told me
that the guiltiest he ever felt in his life was when a couple of the lads saw
him flicking through a girlie magazine in the Summertown news agent
So . So just keep thinking well of him, Lewis that's all I ask. '
The former Chief Superintendent lumbered across the still- deserted canteen
to join the jollifications below.
But Lewis sat where he was.
Apart from the middle-aged woman at the counter reading the Sun, there seemed
no one else there. And after looking around him as guiltily as Morse must
have done in the Summertown news agent for a little while, in his
desolation, he wept silently.
