Last Seen Wearing

'IT'S A MISTAKE, I tell you. It's some clown of a sergeant who's ballsed the whole thing up.' His voice was strident, exasperated. He was prepared to forgive a certain degree of inadequacy, but never incompetence of this order. The voice at the other end of the line sounded firm and assured, like a kindly parent seeking to assuage a petulant child.

'There's no mistake, I'm afraid. I've checked it myself. And for heaven's sake calm down a bit, Morse my old friend. You asked me to do something for you, and I've done it. If it comes as a bit of a shock—'

'A bit of a shock! Christ Almighty, it's not just a bit of a shock, believe me; it's sheer bloody lunacy!'

There was a short delay at the other end. 'Look, old boy, I think you'd better come up and see for yourself, don't you? If you still think it's a mistake — well, that's up to you.'

'Don't keep saying 'if' it's a mistake. It is a mistake — you can put your shirt and your underpants on that, believe me!' He calmed himself down as far as he could and resumed the conversation in a tone more befitting his station. 'Trouble is I've got a damned inquest today.'

'Shouldn't let that worry you. Anybody can do that for you. Unless you've arrested somebody, of course.'

'No, no,' muttered Morse, 'nothing like that It would have been adjourned anyway.'

'You sound a bit fed up one way or another.'

'I bloody am fed up,' snapped Morse, 'and who wouldn't be? I've got the case all ready for bed and you send me a scratty little note that's blown the top off the whole f— thing! How would you feel?'

'You didn't expect us to find anything — is that it?'

'No,' said Morse, 'I didn't. Not a load of cock like that, anyway.'

'Well, as I say, you'll be able to see for yourself. I suppose it could have been somebody else with the same name, but it's a whacking big coincidence if that's the case. Same name, same dates. No, I don't think so. You'd be pushing your luck, I reckon.'

'And I'm going on pushing it,' rejoined Morse, 'pushing it like hell, have no fear. Coincidences do happen, don't they?' It sounded more like a plea to the gods than a statement of empirical truth.

'Perhaps they do, sometimes. It's my fault, though. I should have got hold of you yesterday. I did try a couple of times in the afternoon, but. .'

'You weren't to know. As far as you were concerned it was just one more routine inquiry.'

'And it wasn't?' said the voice softly.

'And it wasn't,' echoed Morse. 'Anyway, I'll get there as soon as I can.'

'Good. I'll get the stuff ready for you.'

Chief Inspector Rogers of New Scotland Yard put down the phone and wondered why the letter he had dictated and signed the previous afternoon had blown up with such obvious devastation in Morse's face. The carbon copy, he noticed, was still lying in his out-tray, and he picked it up and read it through again. It still seemed pretty harmless.

CONFIDENTIAL

For the attention of Det, Chief Inspector Morse,

Thames Valley Police HQ,

Kidlington, Oxon,

Dear Morse,

You asked for a check on the abortion clinics for the missing person, Valerie Taylor. Sorry to have taken so long about it, but it proved difficult. The trouble is all these semi-registered places where abortions still get done unofficially — no doubt for a whacking private fee. Anyway, we've traced her. She was at the East Chelsea Nursing Home on the dates you gave us. Arrived 4.15 p.m. Tuesday, under her own name, and left some time Friday a.m. by taxi. About three months pregnant. No complications. Description fits all along the line, but we could check further. She had a room-mate who might not be too difficult to trace. We await your further instructions.

Yours sincerely,

P.S. Don't forget to call when you're this way again. The beer at the Westminster is drinkable — just!

Chief Inspector Rogers shrugged his shoulders and put the carbon back in the out-tray. Morse! He always had been a funny old bird.

Morse himself sat back in his black leather chair and felt like a man who had just been authoritatively informed that the moon really was made of green cheese after all. Scotland Yard! They must have buggered it all up — must have done! But whatever they'd done, it was little use pretending he could go ahead with his intended schedule. What was the good of bringing two people in for questioning about the murder of a young girl if on the very day she was supposed to be lying dead in the boot of a car she had walked as large as life into some shabby nursing home in East Chelsea — of all places? For a few seconds Morse almost considered the possibility of taking the new information seriously. But he couldn't quite manage it. It just couldn't be right, and there was a fairly easy way of proving that it wasn't right. Central London lay no more than sixty miles away.

He went in to see Strange, and the superintendent, reluctantly, agreed to stand in for him at the inquest.

He rang Lewis, and told him he had to go off to London — he mentioned nothing more — and learned that Lewis would be reporting for duty again the next morning. That is, if he was needed. And Morse said, in a rather weak voice, that he thought he probably would be.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE