exactly mine, either, as you know. But it was my responsibility, that's all.
Still is.'
'What's all this got to do with me?'
Strange further expanded his Gargantuan girth as he further expounded: i3
'I thought, you know, with the wife . . . and all that ... I thought it'd
help to stay in the Force another year. But. . .'
Morse nodded sympathetically. Strange's wife had died very suddenly a year
previously, victim of a coronary thrombosis which should surely never have
afflicted one so slim, so cautious, so physically fit.
She'd been an unlovely woman, Mrs Strange outwardly timid and inwardly
bullying; yet a woman to whom by all accounts Strange had been deeply
attached. Friends had spoken of a 'tight' marriage; and most agreed that the
widower would have been wholly lost on his own, at least for some while, had
he jacked things in (as he'd intended) the previous September. And in the
end he'd been persuaded to reconsider his position and to continue for a
further year. But he'd been uneasy back at HQ: a sort of supernumerary
Super, feeling like a retired schoolmaster returning to a Com- mon Room. A
mistake.
Morse knew it. Strange knew it.
'I still don't see what it's got to do with me, sir.'
'I want the case re-opened not that it's ever been closed, of course. It
worries me, you see. We should have got further than we did.'
I still 'I'd like you to look at the case again. If anyone can crack it, you
can. Know why? Because you're just plain bloody lucky, Morse, that's why!
And I want this case solved.'
chapter three Which of you shall have a friend and shall go unto him at
midnight and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves. And Jiejrom within
shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now shut; I cannot rise and
give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him, because he
is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as
many as he needeth (5( Luke, ch. XI, w. 5-8) lucky?
Morse had always believed that luck played a bigger part in life than was
acknowledged by many people certainly by those distinguished personages who
saw their personal merit as the only cause of their appropriate eminence.
Yet as he looked back over his own life and career Morse had never considered
his own lot a particularly lucky one, not at least in what folk referred to
as the affairs of the heart. Strange may have had a point though, for
without doubt his record with the Thames Valley CID was the envy of most of
his colleagues his success- rate the result, as Morse analysed the matter, of
all sorts of factors: a curious combination of hard thinking, hard drinking
(the two, for Morse, being synonymous), hard work (usually undertaken by
Sergeant Lewis), and, yes, a sprinkling here and there of good fortune. The
Romans had poured their libations not only to Jupiter and Venus and their
associate deities in the Pantheon; but also to Fortuna, the goddess of good
luck.
i5
Lucky, then?
Well, a bit.
It was high time Morse said something: 'Why the Lower Swinstead murder?
What's wrong with the Hampton Poyle murder, the Cowley murder . . . ?'
'Nothing to do with me, either of 'em.'
'That's the only reason then? Just to leave a clean slate behind you?'
For a few moments Strange appeared uncomfortable: 'It's partly that, yes,
but. ..'
'The Chief Constable wouldn't look at any new investigation - not a serious
investigation.'
'Not unless we had some new evidence.'
'Which in our case, as the poet said, we have not got.'
'This fellow that rang ' ' No end of people ring. We both know that, sir. '
' - rang twice. He knows something. I'm sure of it. '
'Did you speak to him yourself?'
'No. He spoke to the girl on the switchboard. Didn't want to be put through
to anybody, he said. Just wanted to leave a message.'
'For you?'
'Yes.'
'A ' he', you say?'
'Not much doubt about that.'
'Surely from the recordings . .. ?'
'We can't record every crazy sod who rings up and asks what the bloody time
is, you know that!'
'Not much to go on.'
'Twice, Morse? The
