locked. Probably called out on some trouble some- where. Saturday!
Football yobos and all that. '
'But it's not the football season,' protested Lewis.
'What's that got to do with it?'
'You straight off home?'
'Well, yes. It's getting late. If I can do anything to help an
old mucker though . . . What's the trouble? '
Lewis told him; and the two men walked down the steps and across to the
station car park.
It had been more than a year since Lewis had visited the station complex; and
he was immediately surprised to find that the previously fairly extensive
car-parking space had been drastically reduced: the northern section had been
taken over by
'Another Prestigious Development' - a series of Victorian- style town- houses,
built in attractive terra-cotta bricks, with white stuccoed lower storeys;
'spacious and luxurious' as the site-board guaranteed.
'Year or two back,' volunteered Evans, Td've parked up there if I'd wanted to
keep out of sight for a while. Used to be a bit dark and creepy late at
night, if you got back late from Paddington on the milk float. '
Lewis nodded, but without comment. Late-night returns from concerts and
operas in the capital had never figured large in the lifestyle of the
Lewises. But now, in sunny daylight, the area seemed wholly benign, and
still almost packed with cars marshalled there in semi-legitimate rows.
'What if you come,' asked Lewis, 'and you just can't find a space? '
'Not easy, is it? You can always try Gloucester Green' (Evans pointed
vaguely across towards Hythe Bridge Street) 'or one of the side roads.'
The two sergeants walked together to the northern area of the park, away from
the main road where, with any choice in the matter, any murderous villain (as
well as Sergeant Evans) would surely have headed with an incriminating car.
But things had changed. Parading the site, tall stanchions now stood there,
topped with video-cameras and floodlights. No guarantee of complete security
perhaps, but a sufficient deterrent for casual car thieves.
'You could still squeeze one or two more cars in?' suggested Lewis (himself
a wizard at vehicular maneuvering) pointing to
^S
a few square me tres amid heaps of sand and piles of jagged half-bricks and
broken tiles.
'Not if you're worried about your suspension.'
'Which he wasn't, Dick.'
'No sign of it though, is there?'
They walked systematically through the lines of cars down to the southern end
of the car park, bounded by the Botley Road.
Again, nothing.
And the questions that had already worried Morse were worrying his sergeant
now. Was there any sign of criminal activity here? Were they on some
profidess pursuit of a questionable quarry?
Morse!
Top-of- the-head Morse!
Things just didn't happen like that.
At bottom, any police investigation was a matter of pretty firm facts; of
accumulating such facts; and of aggregating them into a hard core of
evidence, on which suspicion could be progressively corroborated, until an
arrest could be made, a charge brought, a prosecution formulated, and finally
a case heard in a court of law.
That's how things happened.
A dispirited Lewis stood with Evans for only a few seconds longer before
walking up to the exit-booth, where a red-and- white striped barrier was
being intermittently raised as a few patrons returning early to Oxford
inserted their parking- tokens, and where a uniformed Transport Policeman,
clearly not at the peak of physical condition, came running towards them:
'What the 'ell are you doing here, Dick?'
Just back from Reading, Bob. And what the 'ell's up with you? You know
Sergeant Lewis here from HQ? '
Mitchell had regained some of his breath.
'HQ? Huh! That's exactly what's up. Chap who said he was from HQ. Rang
about a car said it was parked here at the station . ..'
Evans finished the sentence for him.
'But it wasn't.'
'No. But I thought I'd look around a bit. This chap'd sounded pretty
positive, like. So I went over to Gloucester Green and Bingo! Just behind
the Trish pub there.'
'You've got this chap's number?' asked Lewis.
'In the office, yes. He said he couldn't get here himself. Said he was
tired. Huh!'
'He must have given his name?'
' 'Moss' , I think
