Last Seen Wearing

He picked up the phone and dialled the lab, and from the slight pause at the other end of the line he knew he must be speaking to the computer itself.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

All women become like their mothers.

That is their tragedy.

(Oscar Wilde)

FOR THE SECOND time within twenty-four hours Morse found himself studying a photograph with more than usual interest. Lewis he had left in the office to make a variety of telephone calls, and he himself stood, arms akimbo, staring fixedly at the young girl who stared back at him, equally fixedly, from the wall of the lounge. Slim, with dark-brown hair and eyes that almost asked if you'd dare and a figure that clearly promised it would be wonderful if you found the daring. She was a very attractive girl and, like the elders in Troy who looked for the first time upon Helen, Morse felt no real surprise that she had been the cause of so much trouble.

'Lovely-looking girl, your daughter.'

Mrs. Taylor smiled diffidently at the photograph. 'It's not Valerie,' she said, 'it's me.'

Morse turned with undisguised astonishment in his eyes. 'Really? I didn't realize you were so much alike. I didn't mean to er. .'

'I used to be nice-looking, I suppose, in those days. I was seventeen when that was taken — over twenty years ago. It seems a long time.'

Morse watched her as she spoke. Her figure was a good deal thicker round the hips now, and her legs, though still slim, were faintly lined with varicose veins. But it was her face that had changed the most: a few wisps of greying hair trailed over the worn features, the teeth yellowing, the flesh around the throat no longer quite so firm. But she was still. . Men were luckier, he thought; they seemed to age much less perceptibly than women. On a low cupboard against the right-hand wall behind her stood an elegant, delicately proportioned porcelain vase. Somehow it seemed to Morse so incongruously tasteful and expensive in this drably furnished room, and he found himself staring at it with a slightly puzzled frown.

They talked for half an hour or so, mostly about Valerie; but there was nothing she could add to what she had told so many people so many times before. She recalled the events of that far-off day like a nervous well-rehearsed pupil in a history examination. But that was no surprise to Morse. After all, as Phillipson had reminded him the previous evening, it was rather an important day. He asked her about herself and learned she had recently taken a job, just mornings, at the Cash and Carry stores — stocking up the shelves mostly; tiring, on her feet most of the time, but it was better than staying at home all day, and nice to have some money of her own. Morse refrained from asking how much she spent on drink and cigarettes but there was something that he had to ask.

'You won't be upset, Mrs. Taylor, if I ask you one or two rather personal questions, will you?'

'I shouldn't think so.'

She leaned back on the crimson settee and lit another cigarette, her hand shaking slightly. Morse felt he ought to have realized it before. He could see it in the way she sat, legs slightly parted, the eyes still throwing a distant, muted invitation. There was an overt if faded sensuality about the woman. It was almost tangible. He took a deep breath.

'Did you know that Valerie was pregnant when she disappeared?'

Her eyes grew almost dangerous. 'She wasn't pregnant. I'm her mother, remember? Whoever told you that was a bloody liar.' The voice was harsher now, and cheaper. The facade was beginning to crack, and Morse found himself wondering about her. Husband away; long, lonely days and daughter home only at lunchtimes — and that only during Valerie's last year at school.

He hadn't meant to ask his next question. It was one of those things that wasn't really anyone else's business. It had struck him, of course, the first time he had glanced at the Colour Supplement: the cards for the eighteenth wedding anniversary, and Valerie at the time almost twenty — or would have been, had she still been alive. He took another deep breath.

'Was Valerie your husband's child, Mrs. Taylor?'

The question struck home and she looked away. 'No. I had her before I knew George.'

'I see,' said Morse gently.

At the door she turned towards him. 'Are you going to see him?' Morse nodded. 'I don't mind what you ask him but. . but please don't mention anything about. . about what you just asked me. He was like a father to her always but he. . he used to get teased a lot about Valerie when we were first married especially. . especially since we didn't have any kids ourselves. You know what I mean. It hurt him, I know it did, and. . and I don't want him hurt, Inspector. He's been a good man to me; he's always been a good man to me.'

She spoke with a surprising warmth of feeling and as she spoke Morse could see the lineaments of an erstwhile beauty in her face. He heard himself promise that he wouldn't. Yet he found himself wondering who Valerie's real father had been, and if it might be important for him to find out. If he could find out. If anyone knew — including Valerie's mother.

As he walked slowly away he wondered something else, too. There had been something, albeit hardly perceptible, something slightly off-key about Mrs. Taylor's nervousness; just a little more than the natural nervousness of meeting a strange man — even a strange policeman. It was more like the look he had several times witnessed on his secretary's face when he had burst unexpectedly into her office and found her hastily and guiltily covering up some personal little thing that she hoped he hadn't seen. Had there been someone else in the house during his interview with Mrs. Taylor? He thought so. In an instant he turned on his heel and spun round to face the house he had just left — and he saw it. The right-hand curtain of an upstairs window twitched slightly and a vague silhouette glided back against the wall. It was over in a flash. The curtain was still; all sign of life was gone. A cabbage-white butterfly stitched its way along the privet hedge — and then that, too, was gone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Even the dustbin lid is raised mechanically

At the very last moment