The Secret of Annexe 3

'You play in a pop group?'

'A jazz group — I play tenor sax.'

'So what?'

'Look, Sergeant. You say you're not with me: I'm not with you, either.'

'You were at the Haworth Hotel on New Year's Eve. What time did you get there?'

'I was at the Friar up in North Oxford on New Year's Eve!'

'Really?'

'Yes, really!'

'Can you prove it?'

'Not offhand, I suppose, but—'

'Would the landlord remember you there?'

'Course he would! He paid us, didn't he?'

'The group you're in — was playing there?'

'Yes.'

'And you were there all the evening?'

'Till about two o'clock the next morning.'

'How many others in the group?'

'Four.'

'And how many people were there at the Friar that night?'

'Sixty? — seventy? on and off.'

'Which bar were you in?'

'Lounge bar.'

'And you didn't leave the bar all night?'

'Well, we had steak and chips in the back room at about — half-past nine, I suppose it was.'

'With the rest of the group?'

'And the landlord—and the landlady.'

'This is New Year's Eve you're talking about?'

'Look, Sergeant, I've been here a long time already tonight, haven't I? Can you please ring up the Friar and get someone here straight away? Or ring up any of the group? I'm getting awfully tired — and it's been one hell of an evening for me — you can understand that, can't you?'

There was a silence in the room — a silence that seemed to Phillips to take on an almost palpable tautness, as the import of Wilkins's claim slowly sank into the minds of the detectives there.

'What does your group call itself, Mr. Wilkins?' It was Morse himself who quietly asked the final question.

'The 'Oxford Blues',' said Wilkins, his face hard and unamused.

Charlie Freeman ('Fingers' Freeman to his musical colleagues) was surprised to find a uniformed constable standing on his Kidlington doorstep that evening. Yes, the 'Oxford Blues' had played the Friar on New Year's Eve; yes, he'd played there that night, with Ted Wilkins, for about five or six hours; yes, he'd be more than willing to go along to Police HQ immediately and make a statement to that effect. No great hardship for him, was it? After all, it was only a couple of minutes' walk away.

By 9.30 p.m. Mr. Edward Wilkins had been driven back to his home in Diamond Close; Phillips, at long last, had been given permission to call it a day; and Lewis, tired and dejected, sat in Morse's office, wondering where they had all gone so sadly wrong. Perhaps he might have suspected — and he'd actually said so — that Morse's ideas had all been a bit too bizarre: a man murdered in fancy- dress outfit; and then another man spending the night of the party pretending he was the murdered man and dressed in a virtually identical outfit. Surely, surely, the simple truth was that Thomas Bowman had been the man at the party, as well as the man who'd been murdered! There would be (as Lewis knew) lots of difficulties in substantiating such a view; but none of them were anywhere near as insurmountable as trying to break Wilkins's alibi — an alibi which could be vouched for by sixty or seventy wholly disinterested witnesses. Gently, quietly, Lewis mentioned his thoughts to Morse — the latter sitting silent and morose in the old black leather armchair. 'You could be right, Lewis.' Morse rubbed his left hand across his eyes. 'Anyway, it's no good worrying about it tonight. My judgement's gone! I need a drink. You coming?'

'No. I'll get straight home, if you don't mind, sir. It's been a long day, and I should think the missus'll have something cooking for me.'

'I should be surprised if she hasn't.'

'You're looking tired, sir. Do you want me to give you a lift?'

Morse nodded wearily. 'Just drop me at the Friar, if you will.'

As he walked up to the entrance, Morse stopped. Red, blue, green and orange lights were flashing through the lounge windows, and the place was athrob with the live music of what sounded like some Caribbean delirium at the Oval greeting a test century from Vivian Richards. Morse checked his step and walked round to the public bar, where in comparative peace he sat and drank two pints of Morrell's bitter and watched a couple of incompetent