were almost happy ones. Yet she knew that she was not the stuff that
teachers are made of, and her resignation was received with relief by the
headmaster. For the time being she decided to stay on in Burfbrd, renewing
the let on her ground-floor bed sit for a further two months.
The bell rang at 11. 15 p. m. and Roy Holmes, somewhat the worse for drink
or drugs or both, stood at the door when she opened it. His words were the
words she had used to him, almost exactly so: 'I just want some help. And
there's someone who can help me, if she wants to. You!'
It wasn't a lot he had to say; not a lot she had to say to the duty-sergeant,
half an hour later, when she rang Burfbrd Police Station; and not a lot when
he, in turn, rang Thames Valley HQ, almost immediately put through to the
home number of the man in charge of the enquiry into the death ofJ. Barren,
Builder.
Roy Holmes, a pupil of Burfbrd Secondary School, aged fifteen, living at 29A
Witney Street, had been riding his mountain bike along the footway on the
southern side of Sheep Street at approximately 10 a. m. that Monday, 3
August. By the youth's own admission he was showing off, expectorating
regularly, terrorizing any pedestrians, riding no-handed when he'd decided to
defy all superstition and ride beneath
the ladder he saw in front of him when he'd badly misjudged whatever he'd
misjudged when he'd collided sharply with the bottom of the ladder when the
whole thing had jerked sideways and when a man had toppled from the top of
the ladder and landed on the compacted pathway outside 'Collingwood' ...
chapter forty-nine ' Cod save thee, ancient Mariner! From thejunds, that
plague thee thus! -- Why look' st thou so? ' -- ' With my cross-bow I shot
the Albatross. '
(Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner') the following morning, Morse
had been early summoned to the presence, summoned to Caesar's tent.
'Won't do, will it, Morse. Just won't do! You tell us to go and bring
Ban-on in. And why? Because you say he's knifed Flynn and Repp. Fine!
There's three of 'em, you say, originally involved in the cover-up over the
Harrison murder, three of 'em prepared to stick to their stories for a fee of
course. Then suddenly we find two of 'em murdered, and somebody somebody.
Morse thinks this'll be as good an opportunity as any to finish off number
three. So whoever this somebody is, he decided he's been forking out way
over the odds anyway, and he goes ahead with his plan. He's been living with
three albatrosses round his neck, and suddenly he finds somebody else has cut
the strings off two of 'em. Too good an opportunity to be missed.
All adds up, doesn't it? Except, matey, for one thing: Barren's death turns
out to be a bloody accident. Just some teenage lout. . '
Strange took a breather, gulped down the last of his coffee,
and stuck another chocolate biscuit in his mouth: 'Fancy a coffee?'
'No.'
'They'll be open in an hour, you mean?'
'Fifty minutes, actually.'
Strange suddenly sounded extremely pleased with himself: 'Did you actually
say ' actually', Morse?'
Oh dear.
It was Strange who broke the ensuing silence.
'Where are we, in all this?' he asked softly.
'I dunno. I felt convinced that the same fellow Barron - had murdered both
of them, both Flynn and Repp. I thought the motive was a pretty familiar one
money. You know, there's nothing much worse in life than people doing the
same job and getting paid at different rates. It happens in every office, in
every profession in the land.
Anger . . jealousy . . . bitterness . . . usually controllable but
potentially dynamite. And I thought Barron had found out he wasn't doing
half so well as his partners in crime. '
'And who exactly is this golden goose?'
'You know that as well as I do.'
I do? '
'Oh, yes,' replied Morse quietly.
A knock at the door heralded PC Kershaw, the fast-track recruit with a First
