she'd buggered off with when they'd broken up.
'Whose fault was that?' asked Morse quietly.
Biffen shrugged.
'Bit o' both, usually, in nit
'She'd been seeing someone else?'
Biffen nodded.
'Had you been seeing someone else?'
Biffen nodded.
'Someone local.'
'What's that got to do with it?'
It was Morse's turn to shrug.
'Well . .. Chap's got to get his oats occasionally. Inspector.'
'Mrs Harrison?'
Biffen shook his head.
'Wouldna minded, though!'
'Mrs Barron?'
'Linda? Huh! Not much chance there with him around? SAS man, he was.
Probably slice your prick off if he copped you mucking around with his
missus.'
Lewis found himself recalling the photograph of the confident-looking young
militiaman.
'Debbie Richardson?' suggested Morse.
'Most people've had a bit on the side with her.'
'You called yourself occasionally? While Harry was inside?'
'Once or twice.'
'Including the day after he was murdered.'
'Only to take a bottle I told you that.'
'You fancied her?'
'Who wouldn't? Once she's got the hots on . . .'
Morse appeared to have lost his way, and it was Lewis who completed the
questioning: 'Where were you earlier on the Friday when Flynn and Repp were
murdered?'
'In the morning? Went into Oxford shopping. Not much luck, though.
Tried to get a couple of birthday presents. You'd hardly credit it, but both
o' my kids were born the same day 3rd o' September. '
'Real coincidence.'
'Depends which way you look at it, Sergeant. Others'd call it precision
screwing, wouldn't they?'
It was a crude remark, and Morse's face was a study in distaste as Biffen
continued: 'Couldn't find anything in the shops though, could I? So I sent
their mum a cheque instead.'
Downstairs, it was far too early for any brisk activity; but three of the
regulars were already forgathered there, to each of whom Biffen proffered a
customary greeting.
'Evening, Mr Bagshaw! Evening, Mr Blewitt!'
One of the warring partners allowed himself a perfunctory nod, but the other
was happily intoning a favourite passage from the cribbage litany:
'Fifteen-two; fifteen-four; two's six; three's nine; and three's twelve!'
With an
'Evening, Mr Thomas!' the landlord had completed his salutations.
In response, the youth pressed the start-button yet again, his eyes keenly
registering the latest alignment of the symbols on the fruit machine.
'Now! What's it to be, gentlemen? On the house, of course.'
'Pint of bitter,' said Morse, 'and an orange juice. Want some ice in it,
Lewis? '
A bored-looking barmaid folded up the Mirror, and pulled the hand-pump on the
Burton Ale.
chapter fifty-four The time you won your town the race We chaired you
through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought
you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set
you at your threshoU down, Townsman of a stiller town (A. E. Housman, A
Shropshire Lad, XIX) it was just after 7. 30 p. m. that same evening in
the car park of the Maiden's Arms that Morse, after admitting to a very
strange lapse of memory in missing The Archers, suddenly decided on a new
line of enquiry that seemed to Lewis (if possible) even stranger: 'Drive me
round to Holmes's place in Burford.'
'Why ?' began a weary Lewis.
'Get orawith it!'
The ensuing conversation was brief.
'What did you make of Biffen, sir?'
'He decided to enlist in the ranks of the liars, like the rest of'em.'
'Well, yes . .. if Mrs Barren was telling me the truth.'
'Probably not important anyway.'
Lewis waited a while.
'What is important, sir?'
'Barren! That's what's important. I'm still not absolutely sure I was on
the wrong track but. . .'
'. . . but it looks as if you were. '
Morse nodded.
'What did you make of?'
'Concentrate on the driving, Lewis! They're not used to Formula-One fanatics
round here.'
A blurred shape slowly formed through the frosted glass of the front door,
its green paint peeling or already peeled, which was finally opened by a
pale-faced, wispily haired woman of some fifty-plus summers.
Lewis paraded his ID.
'Mrs Holmes?'
With hardly a glance at the documentation, the woman neatly reversed her
wheelchair and led her visitors through the narrow, bare-floored, virtually
bare-walled passageway for indeed there was just the one framed memento of
