woman offering such a specialist service is never going to answer back, never
going to scratch your eyes out and Yvonne Harrison had just about the longest
fingernails . . . '
(Lewis's eyebrows rose a lot. ) 'On the night of the murder she had a client
in bed with her, and if ever there was a locus classic us for what they call
coitus interrupt us this was it, because someone interrupted the proceedings.
Or at the very least, someone saw them there in bed together. '
'Harry Repp?'
'Repp was certainly there at some point. But I think he kept his cool and
kept his distance that night. I think he realized there could well be
something in it for himself. He was right, too. Because what he saw that
night what he later kept from the police was going to prove very profitable,
as you discovered, Lewis. Five hundred pounds a month from someone just
for exercising his professional skills as a burglar in staying well out of
sight and keeping his eyes wide open.
Exactly what he saw, we shall't know, shall we? Unless he told Debbie
Richardson, which I doubt. '
'What do you think he saw?'
'Pretty obvious, isn't it?'
'You mean he saw who murdered Mrs Harrison?'
Morse nodded.
'And you think you know who . . . ?'
Morse nodded.
But Lewis shook his head.
'It's all so wishy-washy, what you've just said. I don't know where to
start. When was she murdered? Who rang her husband? Who set off the
burglar alarm? Who- ?'
'Lewis! We, remember, are investigating something else. But if any study of
the first case facilitates the solving of the second? So be it! And it
does, as you'll agree.'
'I will?'
Morse nodded again.
'Three people were coincidentally involved in a clever and profitable
deception that night, each of them able and willing to throw his individual
spanner into any reconstruction the CID could reasonably come up with.
First, there was Flynn, our corpus primum, who told as many lies as anybody:
both about the time he picked Frank Harrison up from Oxford Station, and
about what he noticed or more probably the person he saw when he got to Lower
Swinstead. Second, there was Repp, our corpus secundum, who told us no lies
at all, but only because he told us nothing at all. Third . .
'
Morse hesitated, and Lewis looked across the desk expectantly.
'There's this third man of ours, and a man most unlikely to become our corpus
tertium. Once Repp was out of jail, the three of them Repp himself, Flynn,
and this third man they all arranged to meet together. They'd done pretty
well so far out of their conspiracy of silence, and they were all keen on
continuing to squeeze the milch-cow even drier. So they did meet a meeting
where things went tragically wrong. Greed . .. jealousy . . . personal
antipathies . .
whatever! Two of them had an almighty row in the car in which they were
travelling together. And one of them, probably in a lay-by somewhere, knifed
one of the others: one of them knifed Flynn. And the remaining two disposed
of the body neatly enough at Redbridge the rubbish bags proving very handy, I
should think. So any profits no longer needed to be split three ways. And
now the talk between the two of them must have been all about a fifty-fifty
share-out of the spoils, and how it could be effected. But somewhere in the
discussion there was one further almighty row; and this time it was Repp who
had his innards ripped open. '
'You know who this ' third' man was, you're saying?'
'So do you. We mentioned him when you produced that admirable schema of
yours for the night of Yvonne murder.'
'You're saying there was somebody else there that night?'
'There was always somebody else, Lewis, wasn't there? The man in bed with
Yvonne Harrison.'
'If you say so, sir.'
'You see, the major problem our lads had was the timing of the murder. Her
body wasn't examined until several hours later, and all the pathological
