Last Seen Wearing

Cerise. Morse got up and consulted the OED. 'A light, bright, clear red, like the colour of cherries.' Yes, that was it. For the next five minutes he stared vacantly through the window in the pose of Rodin's Aristotle; and at the end of that time he lifted his eyebrows slightly and nodded slowly to himself. It was time to get moving. He knew a coat like that, although he'd only seen it once — the colour of bright-pink cherries in the summer time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller

Knocking on the moonlit door.

(Walter de la Mare, The Listeners)

WITHIN THE PHILLIPSON family the financial arrangements were a matter of clear demarcation. Mrs. Phillipson herself had a small private income accruing from interest received on her late mother's estate. This account she kept strictly separate from all other monies; and although her husband had known the value of the original capital inheritance, he had no more idea of his wife's annual income than she did of her husband's private means. For Phillipson himself also had a private account, in which he accumulated a not negligible annual sum from his examining duties with one of the national boards, from royalties on a moderately successful textbook, written five years previously, on nineteenth-century Britain, and from various incidental perks associated with his headship. In addition to these incomes there was, of course, Phillipson's monthly salary as a headmaster, and this was administered in a joint account on which both drew cash and wrote cheques for the normal items of household expenditure. The system worked admirably, and since by any standards the family was well-to-do, financial bickering had never blighted the Phillipsons' marriage; in fact financial matters had never caused the slightest concern to either party. Or had not done so until recently.

Phillipson kept his cheque book, his bank statements and all his financial correspondence in the top drawer of the bureau in the lounge, and he kept it locked. And in normal circumstances Mrs. Phillipson would no more have dreamed of looking through this drawer than of opening the private and confidential letters which came through the letter-box week after week from the examination board. It was none of her business, and she was perfectly happy to keep it that way — in normal circumstances. But circumstances had been far from normal these last two weeks, and she had not lived with Donald for over twelve years without coming to know his moods and his anxieties. For she slept beside him every night and he was her husband, and she knew him. She knew with virtual certainty that whatever had lain so heavily upon his mind these last few days was neither the school, nor the inspector whose visit had been so strangely upsetting, nor even the ghost of Valerie Taylor that flitted perpetually across the twilit zone of his subconscious fears. It was a man. A man she had come to think of as wholly evil and wholly malignant. It was Baines.

No specific incident had led her to open her husband's drawer and to examine the papers within; it was more an aggregation of many minor incidents which had driven her lively imagination to the terminus — a terminus which the facts themselves may never have reached, but towards which (as she fearfully foresaw their implications) they seemed inevitably to be heading. Did he know that she had her own key to the drawer? Surely not. For otherwise, if there was something he was anxious to hide, he would have kept the guilty evidence at school and not at home. And she had looked — only last week, and many things were now so frighteningly clear. Assuredly she had heard the warning voices, and yet had looked and now could guess the truth: her husband was being blackmailed. And strangely enough she found that she could face the truth: it mattered less to her than she had dared to hope. But one thing was utterly certain. Never would she tell a living soul — never, never, never! She was his wife and she loved him, and would go on loving him. And if possible she would protect him; to the last ounce of her energy, to the last drop of her blood. She might even be able to do something. Yes, she might even be able to do something. .

She seemed neither surprised nor dismayed to see him, for she had learned a great deal about herself the past few days. Not only was it better to face up to life's problems than to run away from them or desperately to pretend they didn't exist; it seemed far easier, too.

'Can we talk?' asked Morse.

She took his coat and hung it on the hall-stand behind the front door, beside an expensive-looking winter coat, the colour of ripening cherries.

They sat in the lounge, and Morse again noticed the photograph above the heavy mahogany bureau.

'Well, Inspector? How can I help you?'

'Don't you know?' replied Morse quietly.

'I'm afraid not.' She gave a little laugh and the hint of a smile played at the corners of her mouth. She spoke carefully, almost like a self-conscious teacher of elocution, the 'd' and the 't' articulated separately and distinctly.

'I think you do, Mrs. Phillipson, and it's going to be easier for both of us if you're honest with me from the start because believe me, my love, you're going to be honest with me before we've finished.'

The niceties were gone already, the words direct and challenging, the easy familiarity almost frightening. As if she were looking in on herself from the outside, she wondered what her chances were against him. It depended, of course, on what he knew. But surely there was nothing he could know?

'What am I supposed to be honest about?'

'Can't we keep this between ourselves, Mrs. Phillipson? That's why I've called now, you see, while your husband's still at school.'

He noted the first glint of anxiety in the light-brown eyes; but she remained silent, and he continued. 'If you're in the clear, Mrs. Phillipson—' He had repeated her name with almost every question, and she felt uncomfortable. It was like the repeated blows of a battering ram against a beleaguered city.

'In the clear? What are you talking about?'

'I think you called at Mr. Baines's house on Monday night, Mrs. Phillipson.' The tone of his voice was ominously calm, but she only shook her head in semi-humorous disbelief.

'You can't really be serious, can you, Inspector?'

'I'm always serious when I'm investigating murder.'

You don't think — you can't think that I had anything to do with that? On Monday night? Why, I hardly knew the man.'