the sort of thing commonly used in DIY household jobs, carpentry, building,
that sort of thing.
Morse suddenly stopped reading, sat back in his chair, and placed his hands
on his head, fingers inter linked as he'd done so often at his teacher's
bequest in his infant class. And what had been a faraway look in his eyes
now gradually focused into an intense gaze as he considered the implications
of the extraordinary idea which had suddenly occurred to him . . .
Very soon he was re-reading the whole report from Forensics where almost all
the earlier findings had been confirmed, although there remained much
checking to be done. Prints of Flynn; prints of Repp; prints of the
car-owner; and several other prints as yet to be identified. Doubtless some
of these latter would turn out to be those of the car-owner's family. But
(Morse read the last sentence of the report again): 'One set of
fingerprints, repeated and fairly firm, may well prove to be of considerable
interest'.
He leaned back again in his chair, pleasingly weary and really quite pleased
with himself, because he knew whose fingerprints they were.
Oh yes!
188
chapter forty Odd instances of strange coincidence are really not all
that odd perhaps (Queen Caroline's advocate, speaking in the House of Lords)
morse jerked awake as Lewis entered the office just before 8 a. m. ,
wondering where he was, what time it was, what day it was. Yet it had been a
wonderful little sleep, the deep and dreamless sleep that Socrates
anticipated after swallowing the hemlock.
'No crossword this morning, sir?'
'Shop wasn't open.' 'Why don't you pay a paper-boy?' 'Because, Lewis, a
little occasional exercise .. .'
Lewis sat down.
'Do you mind if I ask you something?' Morse pointed to the reports laid out
on the desk. 'You've read these? '
Lewis nodded.
'But, like I say, I've got something to ask you.'
'And I've got something to tell you. Is that all right, Lewis?' The voice
was suddenly harsh.
'You'll remember from all our times together how coincidence occurs in life
far more frequently than anyone except me is prepared to accept. Coincidence
isn't unusual at all. It's the norm. Just like those consecutive numbers
cropping up in the National Lottery every week. But in this case the
coincidence is even odder than usual.'
(Lewis raised his eyebrows a little. ) 'Let's go back to Yvonne Harrison's
murder. She was a woman with exceptional sex-drive; but she certainly wasn't
just the deaf-and-dumb nymphomaniac with a bedroom just above the public bar
that many a man has fantasized about. Oh, no. She was highly intelligent,
highly desirable, like the woman in the Larkin poem with the 'lash-wide
stare', who in turn was attracted by a variety of men.
A lot of men. So many men that over the years she inevitably came across a
few paying clients with kinky preferences. I doubt she ever went in for S
and M, but it looks very likely that a bit of bondage was on her list of
services, probably with a hefty surcharge. It's well known that some men
only find sexual satisfaction with women who put on a show of being utterly
submissive and powerless. It gives these men the only sense of real power
they're ever likely to experience in life, because the object of their desire
is lying there de fenceless un struggling sometimes un speaking too. Not
uncommon, that, Lewis. And you can read all about it in Kraft-Ebing's
case-studies . . . '
(Lewis's eyebrows rose significantly. ) '. . . although, as you know, I'm
no great expert in such matters. In fact, come to think of it, I can't even
remember whether he's got one or two 'b's in his name. But it means there's
a pretty obvious explanation of two of the items that puzzled our previous
colleagues: a pair of handcuffs, and a gag not all that tightly tied. The
