Last Seen Wearing

through the front window, but could see little more than a large, red settee and a diagonal line of ducks winging their inevitable way towards the ceiling. The two men walked away, carefully closing the gate behind them.

'If I remember rightly, Lewis, there's a pub just around the corner.'

They ordered a cheese cob and a pint apiece and Morse handed to Lewis the Colour Supplement of 24 August.

'Have a quick look at that.'

Ten minutes later, with Morse's glass empty and Lewis's barely touched, it was clear that the quick look was becoming a rather long look, and Morse replenished his own glass with some impatience.

'Well? What's troubling you?'

'They haven't got it quite right, though, have they?'

Morse looked at him sharply. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Well. It says here that she was never seen again after leaving the house.'

'She wasn't.'

'What about the lollipop man?'

'The what?'

'The lollipop man. It was in the file.'

'Oh, was it?'

'You did seem a bit tired, I thought, sir.'

'Tired? Nonsense. You need another pint.' He drained what was left in his own glass, picked up Lewis's and walked across to the bar.

An elegantly dressed woman with a full figure and pleasingly slim legs had just bought a double whisky and was pouring a modicum of water into it, the heavy diamond rings on the fingers of her left hand sparkling wickedly and bright.

'Oh, and Bert, twenty Embassy, please.' The landlord reached behind him, handed over the cigarettes, squinted his eyes as he calculated the tariff, gave her the change, said 'Ta, luv,' and turned his attention to Morse.

'Same again, sir?'

As the woman turned from the counter, Morse felt sure he had seen her somewhere before. He seldom forgot a face. Still, if she lived in Kidlington, he could have seen her anywhere. But he kept looking at her; so much so that Lewis began to suspect the inspector's intentions. She was all right — quite nice, in fact. Mid-thirties, perhaps, nice face. But the old boy must be hard up if. .

Two dusty-looking builders came in, bought their ale and sat down to play dominoes. As they walked to the table one of them called over to the woman: 'Hallo, Grace. All right?' Morse showed little surprise. Hell of a sight better-looking than her photograph suggested, though.

At 1.20 Morse decided it was time to go. They walked back the way they had come, past the Taylors' house and down to the main road, busy at this time with a virtually continuous stream of traffic either way. Here they turned right and came up to the Belisha crossing.

'Do you think that's our lollipop man?' asked Morse. In the middle of the road stood a white-coated attendant in a peak cap, wielding the sceptre of his authority like an arthritic bishop with a crook. Several pupils of the Roger Bacon School were crossing under the aegis of the standard-bearer, the girls in white blouses, grey skirts and red knee-length socks, the boys (it seemed to Morse) in assorted combinations of any old garments. When the attendant returned from mid-stream, Morse spoke to him in what he liked to think of as his intimate, avuncular manner.

'Been doing this long?'

'Just over a year.' He was a small, red-faced man with gnarled hands.

'Know the chap who did it before?'

'You mean old Joe. 'Course I did. 'E did it for — oh, five or six year.'

'Retired now, has he?'

'Ah. S'pose you could say so. Poor old Joe. Got knocked ower — feller on a motorbike. Mind you, old Joe were gettin' a bit slow. Seventy-two he were when he were knocked ower. Broke 'is 'ip. Poor old Joe.'

'Not still in hospital, I hope?' Morse fervently prayed that poor old Joe was still limping along somewhere in the land of the living.

'No. Not 'im. Down at the old folkses place at Cowley.'

'Well, you be careful,' said Morse, as he and Lewis crossed over with another group of schoolchildren, and stood and watched them as they dawdled past the line of shops and the public lavatories, and reluctantiy turned into the main drive leading to the school.

Back in the office Morse read aloud the relevant part of the testimony of Mr. Joseph Godberry, Oxford Road, Kidlington:

I almost always saw Valerie Taylor at dinner times, and I saw her on 10 June. She didn't cross by my Belisha because when I saw her she was on the other side of the road. She was running fairly quickly as if she was in a dickens of a hurry to meet somebody. But I remember she waved to me. I am quite sure it was Valerie. She would often stop and have a quick word with me. 'Joe' she called me, like most of them. She was a very nice girl and always cheery. I don't know what she did after I saw her. I thought she was going back to school.

Morse looked thoughtful. 'I wonder, now,' he said.