Last Seen Wearing

and half-remembered something Maguire had said that didn't quite ring true. But he couldn't quite get hold of it and the memory slipped away again like a bar of soap in the bath.

Educashin. Most people were more interesting for a bit of education. More interesting to women. . some of these young girls must soon get tired of the drib-drab, wishy-washy drivel that sometimes passed for conversation. Some of them liked older men for just that reason; interesting men with some show of pretence for cultured pursuits, with a smattering of knowledge — with something more in mind than fiddling for their bra-straps after a couple of whiskies.

What was Valerie like? Had she gone for the older men? Phillipson? Baines? But surely not Baines. Some of her teachers, perhaps? Acum? He couldn't remember the other names. And then he suddenly caught the bar of soap. He'd asked Maguire how many times he'd been to bed with Valerie, and Maguire had said a dozen or so. And Morse had told him to come off it and tell him the truth, fully expecting a considerably increased count of casual copulations. But no. Maguire had come down, hadn't he? 'Well, three or four,' he'd said. Something like that. Probably hadn't slept with her at all? Morse sat up and considered. Why, ah why, hadn't he pressed this point with Maguire when he had seen him yesterday? Was she really pregnant after all? He had assumed so, and Maguire had seemingly confirmed his suspicions. But was she? It made sense if she was. But made sense of what? Of the preconceived pattern that Morse was building up, and into which, willy-nilly, the pieces were being forced into their places.

If only he knew what the problem was. Then he wouldn't be quite so restless, even if it proved beyond his powers. Problem! He remembered his old Latin master. Hm! Whenever he was confronted with an insoluble difficulty — a crux in the text, an absurdly complex chunk of syntax — he would turn to his class with a serious mien: 'Gentlemen, having looked this problem boldly in the face, we must now, I think, pass on.' Morse smiled at the recollection. . It was getting very late. A crux in the Oxford Classical Text, marked by daggers. . the daggered text. . He was falling asleep. Texts, manuscripts, and a donkey in the middle braying and bellyaching, not knowing which way to turn. . like Morse, like himself. . His head fell to the right and his ear strained no more for the incomprehensible nocturnal clues. He fell asleep, the light still burning and Kipling's stories still held loosely in his hand.

Earlier the same evening Baines had opened his front door to find an unexpected visitor.

'Well, well! This is a surprise. Come in, won't you? Shall I take your coat?'

'No. I'll keep it on.'

'Well, at least you'll have a drop of something to cheer you up, eh? Can I offer you a glass of something? Nothing much in, though, I'm afraid.'

'If you like.'

His visitor following behind, Baines walked through to the small kitchen, opened the fridge, and looked inside. 'Beer? Lager?'

Baines squatted on his haunches and reached inside. His left hand lay on the top of the fridge, the fingernails slightly dirty; his right hand reached far in as he bent forward. There were two bald patches on the top of his head, with a greying tuft of hair between them, temporarily thwarting the impending merger. He wore no tie, and the collar of his light-blue shirt was grubbily lined. He would have changed it the next day.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill.

(Thomas Gray,

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard)

FULL MORNING ASSEMBLY at the Roger Bacon Comprehensive School began at 8.50. The staff stood at the back of the main hall, wearing (at least those authorized to do so) the insignia of their respective universities; it was something the head insisted on. Punctual to the second, and flanked at some short distance in the rear by the second master and the senior mistress, Phillipson, begowned and behooded, walked from the back of the hall, and the pupils rose to their feet as the procession made its way down the central gangway, climbed the short flight of steps at the side and mounted on to the stage itself. The routine seldom varied: a hymn sung, a prayer intoned, a passage read from Holy Writ — and paid for one more day were the proper respects to the Almighty. The last unsynchronized 'Amen' marked the end of morning devotions, and gave the cue to the second master to recall the attention of the assembled host to more terrestrial things. Each morning he announced, in clear, unhurried tones, any changes in the day's procedure necessitated by staff absences, house activities, the times and places of society meetings, and the results of the sports teams. And, always, reserved until the end, he read with doomsday gravity a list of names; the names of pupils who would report outside the staff room immediately after the assembly was finished: the recalcitrants, the anarchists, the obstructionists, the truants, the skivers, and the defectors in general from the rules that governed the corporate life of the establishment.

As the procession walked up the central aisle on Tuesday morning, and as the school rose en bloc from their seats, several heads turned towards each other and many whispered voices asked where Baines could be; not even the oldest pupils could remember him being away for a single day before. The senior mistress looked lopsided and lost: it was like the dissolution of the Trinity. Phillipson himself read the notices, referring in no way to the absence of his adjutant. The girls' hockey team had achieved a rare and decisive victory, and the school greeted the news with unwonted enthusiasm. The chess club would meet in the physics lab and 4C (for unspecified criminality) would be staying in after school. The following pupils, etc., etc. Phillipson turned away from the rostrum and walked out through the wings. The school chattered noisily and prepared to go to their classrooms.

At lunchtime Phillipson spoke to his secretary.

'No word from Mr. Baines yet?'

'Nothing. Do you think we should give him a ring?' Phillipson considered for a moment. 'Perhaps we should. What do you think?'

'Not like him to be away, is it?'

'No, it isn't. Give him a ring now.'

Mrs. Webb rang Baines's Oxford number and the distant burring seemed to echo in a vaulted, ominous silence.

'There's no answer,' she said.

At 2.15 p.m. a middle-aged woman took from her handbag the key to Baines's house; she cleaned for him three afternoons a week. Oddly, the door was unlocked and she pushed it open and walked in. The curtains were