Barren had agreed.
Yes . The big moments in the case were over; and he rang Mrs Lewis and asked
her to have the chip-pan ready half an hour earlier than usual.
Yes . In a strange kind of way, his confidence in himself had grown steadily
throughout the present case, in spite of a few irritations like Dixon! And
there was that one thing that had been interesting him and troubling him, in
equal measure, for some considerable time now. Very soon he'd have to face
up to telling Morse of his suspicions. But not just yet. He'd need to know
a bit more about the Harrison murder first; especially about the contents of
that fourth green box-file which had mysteriously added itself to the
documents in the case, and which now sat alongside the other three on a shelf
in Morse's office. Perhaps a bit later that afternoon, since Morse was
unlikely to return.
What if he did, anyway?
Yes . Lewis sat back after typing his report, his thoughts dwelling on the
case that to all intents and purposes had now closed. He was right, wasn't
he? But there were just one or two tiny items he hadn't as yet checked; and
he knew that his conscience would be niggling him about them. No time like
the present.
But not much luck. Still, those alibis for the Monday morning didn't much
matter any longer. Or rather non-alibis, since neither Harrison Senior nor
Harrison Junior had any alibi at
all. And whilst Sarah Harrison did have an alibi, it still remained
unchecked.
He rang the Diabetes Centre in the Radcliffe Infirmary, with almost immediate
if unexpected success, since Professor Turner (clearly not a Monday-Friday
medic) now confirmed everything that Miss Harrison herself had affirmed: 'In
fact, Sergeant, she had to take over some of my patients mid- morning when I
was summoned by my superiors ' ' Do you have any superiors, sir? '
On reflection, Lewis was more than a little pleased with that last question:
just the sort of thing Morse would have asked. Was he, Lewis, just a little
after all this time moving gradually nearer to Morsean wavelength?
At a quarter-past four he walked along the corridor to Morse's office, to
cast a fresh eye (so he promised himself) on that bizarre, that puzzling,
that haunting evening of Yvonne Ham- son's murder the source of so much
trouble and tragedy.
Very soon he was virtually certain that he had seen none of the contents of
that fourth box-file before; and had convinced himself that this was not
merely a matter of some redistribution of the case-documents. The file
contained the sort of personal items that many women, and doubtless many men,
keep in one of the locked drawers of their desks or bureaux, often with some
sense of guilt.
There were all the usual things that from experience Lewis had known so well:
letters, many of them in their original envelopes, some from women, most of
them from men; photo- graphs, many of them of Yvonne herself (one topless)
with a variety of men-friends; postcards from many a quarter of the globe,
but mostly from Greece and Switzerland; three slim (unopened) bottles of
perfume; various receipts for the purchase of ultra-expensive clothes and
shoes. But for all the variety of material there, the box was scarcely
half-full, and
Lewis took his time. He looked at the photographs
reasonably quickly (not quite so quickly at one of them, perhaps), before
reading slowly (though not as slowly as Morse would have done) through the
letters.
Then he saw it: that they would prefer to be ill in hospital and nursed by
you than to be in full health and never see you again. I join them. You
have monopolized my thoughts these last few days, ever since you promised -
