Last Seen Wearing

quite a lass really, you know.'

'Who was it?'

'She said something about one of her teachers. I remember that because I was a bit surprised to learn she was still a schoolgirl. She looked much older than that. She seemed much more. . much more knowing somehow. She was nobody's fool, I can tell you that.'

'This teacher,' said Morse. 'Did she say anything else about him?'

'She didn't mention his name, I don't think. But she said he'd got a little beard and it tickled her every time he. . every time. . you know.'

Morse took his eyes from her and stared sadly down at the thick-piled, dark-green carpet It had been a crazy sort of day.

'She didn't say what he taught? What subject?'

She thought a moment. 'Do you know, I. . I rather think she did. I think she said he was a French teacher or something.'

He drove her into the West End, tried to forget that she was off to an open-ended orgy dressed only in the pyjamas he had eyed so lovingly in her flat, and decided that life had passed him by.

He dropped her in Mayfair, where she thanked him, a little sadly, and turned towards him and kissed him fully on the lips with her soft, open mouth. And when she was gone, he looked after her, the flared pale-green bottoms of her pyjamas showing below the sleek fur coat. There had been many bad moments that day, but as he sat there in the Lancia slowly wiping the gooey, deep-orange lipstick from his mouth, he decided that this was just about the worst.

Morse drove back to Soho and parked his car on the double yellow lines immediately in front of the Penthouse Club. It was 9.00 p.m. At a glance he could see that the man seated at the receipt of custom was not Maguire, as he hoped it would be. But he was almost past caring as he walked into the foyer.

'Fraid you can't leave your car there, mate.'

'Perhaps you don't know who I am,' said Morse, with the arrogant authority of a Julius Caesar or an Alexander walking among the troops.

'I don't care who you are, mate,' said the young man, rising to his feet, 'you just can't. .'

'I'll tell you who I am, sonny. My name's Morse. M-O-R-S-E. Got that? And if anyone comes along and asks you whose car it is tell 'em it's mine. And if they don't believe you, just refer 'em to me, sonny boy — sharpish!' He walked past the desk and through the latticed doorway.

'But. .' Morse heard no more. The Maltese dwarf sat dutifully at his post, and in a perverse sort of way Morse was glad to see him.

'You remember me?'

It was clear that the little man did. 'No need for ticket, sir. You go in. Ticket on me.' He smiled weakly, but Morse ignored the offer.

'I want to talk to you. My car's outside.' There was no argument, and they sat side by side in the front

'Where's Maguire?'

'He gone. He just gone. I do' know where.'

'When did he leave?'

'Two day, three day.'

'Did he have a girlfriend here?'

'Lots of girls. Some of the girls here, some of the girls there. Who know?'

'There was a girl here recently — she wore a mask. I think her name was Valerie, perhaps.'

The little man thought he saw the light and visibly relaxed. 'Valerie? No. You mean Vera. Oh yeah. Boys oh boys!' He was beginning to feel more confident now and his dirty hands expressively traced the undulating contours of her beautiful body.

'Is she here tonight?'

'She gone, too.'

'I might have known it,' muttered Morse. 'She's buggered off with Maguire, I suppose.'

The little man smiled, revealed a mouthful of large, brilliantly white teeth, and shrugged his oversized shoulders. Morse repressed his strong desire to smash his fist into the leering face, and asked one further question.

'Did you ever take her out, you filthy little bastard?'

'Sometimes. Who know?' He shrugged his shoulders again and spread out his hands, palms uppermost, in a typically Mediterranean gesture.

'Get out.'

'You want to come in, mister policeman? See pretty girls, no?'

'Get out,' snarled Morse.

For a while Morse sat on silently in his car and pondered many things. Life was down to its dregs, and he had seldom felt so desolate and defeated. He recalled his first interview with Strange at the very beginning of the case, and the distaste he had felt then at the prospect of trying to find a young girl in the midst of this corrupt and corrupting city. And now, again, he had to presume that she was alive. For all his wayward unpredictability, there was at the centre of his being an inner furnace of passion for truth, for logical analysis; and inexorably now the