in History from Keble who'd driven Morse out to Sutton Courtenay, and whose
duties for the present consisted mostly of supplying the Chief Superintendent
with regular coffee and chocolate biscuits.
'Anything I can do for you, sir?'
'Yes,' growled Strange.
'Bugger off!' Then, turning back to Morse: 'Are you making any progress?'
'Early days. We've not even had the final path reports yet. Life's full of
surprises.'
'And disappointments.'
'That too, yes.'
'Well if it wasn't Ban-on . . .'
'Dunno. But I'm sure the key figure in both cases is one and the same person
the man who was in bed with Yvonne Harrison the night she was murdered.'
'You don't think it was Repp?'
'No. As I see it. Repp had been recce-ing the property, maybe for several
nights. It was going to be a gift for any professional burglar like him.
And he knew pretty well all that went on that night ' ' Knew the fellow who
was in bed with Yvonne? '
'Yes. But I don't think it was Repp or any other burglar who disturbed the
bondage session that evening. I think that was somebody else. And I think
it's most likely that our lover-boy knew that someone else.'
'And in your book Barren was the lover-boy?'
'Well, he was doing a job for her hanging about the place quite a bit strong,
good-looking sort of fellow the husband away a good deal of the time .. .'
'But I'll say it again what if it wasn't Ban-on?'
'Plenty of other candidates, surely?'
'Oh yes?'
Morse measured his words carefully.
'I think that anyone meeting Yvonne Harrison, if she turned things on a bit
anyone, including me - would have given a month's beer money' ' A week's in
your case. '
' - for an hour or two between the sheets, or between the bedposts, or
between anywhere else. By, er, by all accounts she was a . well, let's say
she had the same effect on men as they tell me Viagra has on the impotent, or
the victims of chronic erectile dysfunction, as they're known these days. '
'Really! So for all we know, this chap could have been a client from North
Wales or somewhere.'
'More probably South Wales, sir.'
'And much more probably, somebody local.'
'Agreed.'
'Any ideas?'
'Well, the only fellow I've met in that little community who's topped up with
surplus testosterone is the landlord of the Maiden's Arms.'
'You've interviewed him?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Because I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't
Ban-on. You see I still think he's the key to all this ridiculously complex
business. But complex only because those involved deliberately made it
complex.'
'Barren's phone calls, you mean? No luck there?'
'No. Change of BT office, change of procedure, change of monitoring, files
re-classified ... no hope! Wouldn't help anyway. All Barren said was that
he'd rung her and the number was engaged; and then rung her again and the
call wasn't answered. Neat, wasn't it? No record of anything.'
'He was lying, you think?'
'Yes.'
'What about the burglar alarm?'
'Thunderstorm, possibly that sets 'em off.'
'There wasn't a thunderstorm that night.'
'No? Probably a cat then they set 'em off too.'
'They hadn't got a cat.'
'Oh.'
Strange lumbered to his feet.
'Look! You surely don't still think Barren's your man, do you?'
Morse smiled.
'Don't I?'
chapter fifty I can't tell a lie not even when I hear one (John Bangs,
I862-I922) in the world of detective fiction, alibis are frequently concocted
in order to mystify the reader. In what is called the 'real' world they
usually provide an invaluable method of eliminating a few runners in an
already limited field, thereby affording the police a better prospect of
backing the likely winner. For (except in Morse's mind) an alibi is an
alibi: if someone is seen in one place at one particular time, it seems
highly improbable that this same someone may be seen in some other place at
the same time. Yet it is sometimes difficult adequately to corroborate an
alibi viz, that plea of the criminal to have been in another place at the
material time; and alibis may well be doubted, closely checked, and indeed,
on occasion, be spectacularly broken.
This in various ways.
It is highly unlikely, for example, that a well-focused video camera will be
in operation in that first particular place; and even if it is, some smart
