getting in some under-employed graphologist to estimate the correspondent's
potential criminality? To seek possible signs of his (? ) childhood
neglect, parental abuse, sexual perversion, drugs . . .
Forget it?
Forget it!
The typewriter? God! How many typewriters were there to be found in
Oxfordshire? In any case. Strange held the view that in the early years of
the new millennium the streets of the UK's major cities would be lined with
past-sell-by-date typewriters and VDUs and computers and the rest. And how
was he to find an obviously ancient typewriter for God's sake, one with a
dred and overworked ribbon of red and black?
49
He might as well try to trace the animal-inventory from the Ark.
Forget it?
Forget it!
What Strange needed now was new ideas.
What Strange needed now was Morse to be around.
chapter eleven Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast, For you have seen
him open 't. Read o'er this; And after, this: and then to breakfast with
What appetite you have (Shakespeare, Henry VUT) detective sergeant lewis of
the Thames Valley CID kept himself pretty fit very fit, really in spite of a
diet clogged daily with cholesterol. Quite simply, he had long held the view
that some things went with other things. He had often heard, for example,
that caviare was best washed down with iced champagne, although in truth his
personal experience had occurred somewhat lower down the culinary ladder with
fried eggs necessarily complemented with chips and HP sauce; and (at
breakfast time) with bacon, buttered mushrooms, well- grilled tomatoes, and
soft fried bread. And, indeed, such was the breakfast that Mrs Lewis had
prepared at 7. 15 a. m. on Monday, 20 July 1998.
It will be of no surprise therefore for the reader to learn that Sergeant
Lewis felt pleasingly replete when, just before 8 a. m. ' he drove from
Headington down the Ring Road to the Cutteslowe roundabout, where he turned
north up to Police HQ, at Kidlington. No problems. All the traffic was
going the other way, down to Oxford City.
He was looking forward to the day.
He'd known that working with Morse was never going to be 51
easy, but he
couldn't disguise the fact that his own service in the CID had been enriched
immeasurably because of his close association, over so many years now, with
his curmudgeonly, miserly, oddly vulnerable chief.
And now? There was the prospect of another case: a big, fat, juicy puzzle
like the first page of an Agatha Christie novel.
Most conscientiously therefore (after Strange had spoken to him) Lewis had
read through as much of the archive material as he could profitably
assimilate; and as he drove along that bright summer's morning he had a
reasonably clear picture of the facts of the case, and of the hitherto
ineffectual glosses put upon those facts by the CID's former investigating
officers.
From the very start (as Lewis learned) several theories, including of course
burglary, had been entertained, although none of such theories had made
anywhere near complete sense. There had been no observable signs of any
struggle, for example. And although Yvonne Harrison was found naked,
handcuffed, and gagged, she had apparently not been raped or tortured. In
addition, it appeared most unlikely that she had been forcibly stripped of
the clothes she'd been wearing, since the skimpy lace bra, the equally skimpy
lace knickers, the black blouse, and the minimal white skirt, were found
neatly folded beside her bed.
Had she been lying there completely unclothed when some intruder had
disturbed her? Surely it was an unusually early hour for her to be a-bed;
and if she had been abed then, and if she had heard the front-door bell, or
heard something, it seemed quite improbable that she would have confronted
