children at home that day; as there had been when Lewis had called. The
elder of the two, Alice, was away somewhere. That much, though very little
else, Lewis himself had been able to learn from the Barrens' GP the previous
day. Morse thought he knew why, and another piece of the jigsaw had slipped
into place.
'Hello! Chief Inspector Morse, isn't it? My daughter tells me she saw you
recently. But perhaps you don't know me.'
'Let's say we've never been officially introduced, Mr Harrison.'
'Ah! You do know me. I know you, of course, and Sergeant Lewis has been to
see me. You probably sent him.'
'As a matter of fact I did.'
'I realize you weren't yourself involved in my wife's murder case but, er .
. .'
Harrison was by some three inches or so the taller of the two, and Morse felt
slightly uncomfortable as a pair of pale- grey eyes, hard and unsmiling,
looked slightly down on him.
'. . . but I'd heard about you. Yvonne spoke about you several times.
She'd looked after you once when you were in hospital. Remember? '
Morse nodded.
'Quite taken by you, she was.
'A sensitive soul' - I think that's what she called you; said you were
interesting to talk to and had a nice voice. Told me she was going to invite
you out to one of her, er, soirees. When I was away, of course. '
'I should hope so. Wouldn't have wanted any competition, would I?'
'Did you have any competition?'
'The only time I ever met Yvonne again was in the Maiden's Arms,'
said Morse gently, unblinking blue eyes now looking slightly upward into the
strong, clean-shaven face of Harrison senior.
As Strange struggled to squeeze his bulk between seat and steering wheel.
Morse looked back and saw that the funeral guests were almost all departed.
But Linda Barren stood there still, in close conversation with Frank Harrison
both of them now stepping aside a little as another black Daimler moved
smoothly into place outside the chapel, with another light
brown, lily-bedecked coffin lying length ways inside, the polished handles
glinting in the sun.
Morse found himself pondering on the funeral.
'I wonder why he put in an appearance.'
'Who? Frank Harrison? Why shouldn't he? Lived in the same village had him
in to do those house repairs ' Knew his wife had been in bed with him. ' '
Fasten your seat-belt. Morse! ' ' Er, before we drive off, there's
something 'Fasten your seat-belt! Know what that's an anagram of, by the way?
'Truss neatly to be safe.' Clever, eh?
Somebody told me that once. You probably. '
For a few seconds Morse looked slightly puzzled. 'Couldn't have been me.
It's got to be ' belts'. Otherwise there's one ' s' short.'
'Just put the bloody thing on!'
But Morse left the bloody thing off as he looked directly ahead of him and
completed his earlier sentence: 'Just before we drive off, sir, there's
something I ought to mention. It's about Lewis. I'm fairly sure he's
beginning to get some odd ideas about my being involved in some way with
Yvonne Harrison.'
It was Strange's turn to look directly ahead of him. 'And you think I wasn't
aware of that?' he asked quietly.
chapter sixty Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the
earth are full of the habitations of cruelty (Psalm 74, v. 20) once in
charlton kings, a suburb on the eastern side of Cheltenham, Sergeant Lewis
had followed the map directions carefully (he loved that sort of thing),
turning right from the A40 through a maze of residential streets, and finally
driving the unmarked police car past the sign on the white-washed wall beside
the gateway 'Sisters of the Covenant: Preparatory Boarding School for Girls'
- and along the short gravel led drive that led to a large, detached Georgian
house.
Destination reached; and purpose, shortly afterwards, fulfilled. With a few
extra suggestions from Morse, Lewis had found it comparatively easy to fill
in most of the picture. The Barrons' GP had professional and wholly proper
reasons for his guarded reticence. But other sources had been considerably
less cautious with their help and information: the Burford Social Services,
