Last Seen Wearing

'Ah, no. Well, let's just consider for a minute the position that Valerie found herself in that day. For the first time for over two years, I should think, she finds herself completely on her own. Since Acum came to join her, he's no doubt been pretty protective towards her, and for the first part of their time together here he's probably been anxious for Valerie not to be caught up in too much of a social whirl. She stays in. And she'd bleached her hair—probably right at the beginning. Surprising, isn't it, Lewis, how so many of us go to the trouble of making a gesture — however weak and meaningless. A sop to Cerberus, no doubt. As you know, Acum's real wife had long, blonde hair — that's the first thing anyone would notice about her; it's the first thing I noticed about her when I saw her photograph. Perhaps Acum asked her to do it; may have helped his conscience. Anyway, he must have been glad she did dye her hair. You remember the photograph of Valerie in the Colour Supplement? If he saw it, he must have been a very worried man. It wasn't a particularly clear photograph, I know. It had been taken over three years previously, and a young girl changes a good deal — especially between leaving school and becoming to all intents and purposes a married woman. But it still remained a photograph of Valerie and, as I say, I should think Acum was jolly glad about her hair. As far as we know, no one did spot the likeness.'

'Perhaps they don't read the Sunday Times in Caernarfon.'

For all his anti-Welsh prejudices, Morse let it go. 'She's on her own at last, then. She can do what she likes. She probably feels a wonderful sense of freedom, freedom to do something for herself — something that now, for the first time, can in fact be done.'

'I can see all that, sir. But why? That's what I want to know.'

'Lewis! Put yourself in the position Valerie and her mother and Acum and Phillipson and God knows who else must have found themselves. They've all got their individual and their collective secrets — big and little — and somebody else knows all about them. Baines knows. Somehow — well, we've got a jolly good idea how — he got to know things. Sitting all those years in that little office of his, with the telephone there and all the correspondence, he's been at the nerve-centre of a small community — the Roger Bacon School. He's second master there, and it's perfectly proper that he should know what's going on. All the time his ears are tuned in to the slightest rumours and suspicions. He's like a bug in the Watergate Hotel: he picks it all up and he puts it all together. And it gives to his sinister cast of character just the nourishment it craves for — the power over other people's lives. Think of Phillipson for a minute. Baines can put him out of a job any day he chooses — but he doesn't. You see, I don't think he gloried so much in the actual exercise of his power as—'

'He did actually blackmail Phillipson, though, didn't he?'

'I think so, yes. But even blackmail wouldn't be as sweet for a louse like Baines as the thought that he could blackmail — whenever he wanted to.'

'I see,' said the blind man.

'And Mrs. Taylor. Think what he knows about her: about the arrangements for her daughter's abortion, about her elaborate lies to the police, about her heavy drinking, about her money troubles, about her anxiety that George Taylor — the only man who's ever treated her with any decency — should be kept in the dark about some of her wilder excesses.'

'But surely everybody must have known she went to Bingo most nights and had a drop of drink now and then?'

'Do you know how much she spent on Bingo and fruit machines? Even according to George it was a pound a night, and she's hardly likely to tell him the truth, is she? And she drinks like a fish — you know she does. Lunch times as well.'

'So do you, sir.'

'Yes, but. . well, I only drink in moderation, you know that. Anyway, that's only the half of it. You've seen the way she dresses. Expensive clothes, shoes, accessories — the lot. And jewellery. You noticed the diamonds on her fingers? God knows what they're worth. And do you know what her husband is? He's a dustman! No, Lewis. She's been living way, way beyond her means — you must have realized that'

'All right, sir. Perhaps that's a good enough motive for Mrs. Taylor, but—'

'I know. Where does Valerie fit in? Well, I should think Mrs. Taylor probably kept in touch with her daughter by phone — letters would be far too dangerous — and Valerie must have had a pretty good idea of what was going on: that her mother was getting hopelessly mixed up with Baines — that she was getting like a drug addict, loathing the whole thing in her saner moments but just not being able to do without it. Valerie must have realized that one way or another her mother's life was becoming one long misery, and she probably guessed how it was all likely to end. Perhaps her mother had hinted that she was coming to the end of her tether and couldn't face up to things much longer. I don't know.

'And then just think of Valerie herself. Baines knows all about her, too: her promiscuous background, her night with Phillipson, her affair with Acum — and all its consequences. He knows the lot. And at any time he can ruin everything. Above all he can ruin David Acum, because once it gets widely known that he's likely to start fiddling around with some of the girls he's supposed to be teaching, he'll have one hell of a job getting a post in any school, even in these permissive days. And I suspect, Lewis, that in a strange sort of way Valerie has gradually grown to love Acum more than anyone or anything she's ever wanted. I think they're happy together — or as happy as anyone could hope to be under the circumstances. Do you see what I mean, then? Not only was her mother's happiness threatened at every turn by that bastard Baines, but equally the happiness of David Acum. And one day she suddenly found herself with the opportunity of doing something about it all: at one swift, uncomplicated swoop to solve all the problems, and she could do that by getting rid of Baines.'

Lewis pondered a while. 'Didn't she ever think that Acum might be suspected, though? He was in Oxford, too — she knew that.'

'No, I don't suppose she gave it a thought. I mean, the chance that Acum himself would go along to Baines's place at the very same time as she did — well, it's a thousand to one against, isn't it?'

'Odd coincidence, though.'

'It's an odd coincidence, Lewis, that the 46th word from the beginning and the 46th word from the end of the 46th Psalm in the Authorized Version should spell 'Shakespear'.'

Aristotle, Shakespeare and the Book of Psalms. It was all a bit too much for Lewis, and he sat in silence deciding that he'd missed out somewhere along the educational line. He'd asked his questions and he'd got his answers. They hadn't been the best answers in the world, perhaps, but they just about added up. It was, one could say, satisfactory.

Morse stood up and went over to the kitchen window. The view was magnificent, and for some time he