Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (3 page)

Every procedure had been scrupulously followed from the start: a comprehensive register of exhibits had been typed out and checked; the key “continuity” in the handling of these exhibits had been meticulously maintained; and the Exhibits Officer appointed was an experienced man, fully conversant with his specific responsibilities.

“Everything hunky-dory, Lewis. Except …”

“Don’t tell me they’ve lost something?”

“Not ‘they’; ‘he’.”

“The photo?”

“And the
can!”

“Bloody hell! Who was he? Who
is
he?”

“Watson. Detective Constable Watson.”

“Poor chap!”

Morse grinned feebly. “Perhaps he never
should
have been a detective—not with a name like that.”

“How did he come to lose—?”

“Ah! That’s the good news, Lewis. He’s not exactly lost them at all, so he says.”

“What’s the bad news, then?”

“The bad news is he can’t find them. Nor can half a dozen other people—who’ve been through everything umpteen times.”

Lewis, a man who swore very rarely, surprised his chief a second time:

“Bloody hell!”

“And Crawford, my colleague and
former
friend Crawford—you’ll never believe this!—is planning
to put them both back
on the Exhibits Register: the can and the photo.”

“How on earth does he think—?”

“That’s where he thought I might come in.”

“Well, you can’t really blame him too much, perhaps.”

Morse looked up in amazement, his blue eyes penetratingly fierce upon those of his subordinate. He spoke in a chilling hiss:

“What—did—you—say?”

Lewis sought to stand his ground: “It’s not—I mean, it’s not as if he was
fabricating
the evidence, is it, sir?”

Morse exploded now, and several other customers turned round as they heard his furious rejoinder.

“What the hell
is
it, then—if it isn’t fabrication? Come on, man! For Christ’s sake tell me what
you
think it bloody well is!”

Lewis was badly taken aback. The blood had drained from his cheeks, and he could make no answer.

“Facilis descensus Averno,”
mumbled Morse.

“Pardon, sir?”

“Forget it. And take me home!” Morse drained his beer and banged his glass down heavily on the table.

There was a supremely awkward silence between the two of them until the car pulled into Morse’s parking-space
outside his North Oxford flat. Then it was Lewis who spoke:

“Inspector Crawford,” he said slowly and quietly, “was very kind to me when I first came to HQ—couple of years before I knew you. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t do
anything
that was basically unfair—I know that. So, if you will, sir, I want you to do me a big favour. I want you to go and see him, tell him that you told
me
about … things, and tell him that if I can do anything—”

But Morse cut him viciously short. “Look, my son! Don’t you start giving
me
bloody orders, all right?”

“I wasn’t really—”

“Shut up!
And if you don’t forget all this bloody nonsense—now!—you stop being my sergeant, is that clear? And you won’t be anybody else’s bloody sergeant, either—not while I’m in the Force! You’ll be queuing up for your dole money, like plenty of other poor sods. Is that understood?”

Morse got out of the car and slammed the door shut with an almighty bang.

Next morning, with extreme reluctance, with deep distaste—and with considerable embarrassment—Morse
called into Crawford’s office, and did his sergeant’s bidding.

He was being treated fairly well—better than he deserved or expected—Muldoon knew that Even Crawford had been pretty reasonable: distanced, unsmiling, yes—but not
positively
unpleasant. Told him about his rights: his right to receive a few visitors (he didn’t want any of
them
!)
;
to wear his own clothes; to have food brought in to him—if he could afford it, if he wanted it; to share in the recreational facilities provided, including TV and snooker …

So tight, the supervision though—oppressive, constricting supervision. How he longed to be
out
somewhere: out in the streets, out in a car, out in a pub—out anywhere.

Oh, Jesus!

With naked lust he looked at a photograph of a naked model taken in the sun, in the
Sun
, when the door of his cell was unlocked and Crawford (again!) came in.

It was all about those houses (again!)—those other houses the police had been watching: the Jericho house—the “safe-house,” as Muldoon had always known it; and that (much dodgier) semi-detached, semi-derelict little property out on the Botley Road. Why did Crawford keep going on about those bloody houses?

Why?

“You stayed in either of them, Muldoon?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Any of your friends ever stayed there?”

“Stayed where?”

“Well, let’s talk about Jericho first, shall we?”

“Where?”

“Jericho.”

“I thought Jericho was near Jerusalem.”

“What about Botley Road?”

“Which road?”

“You know, just down past the station.”

“You mean the bus station?”

“No. The railway station.”

“Never bin down there. Don’t think so.”

“All right. So why not come out with us? Just to have a look, that’s all.”

“No chance.”

“Might jog the memory, you never know.”

“No memory to jog, is there?”

“You
said
you’d never been to Blackbird Leys.”

“So?”

“We’ve got a photo of you there.”

“So you say.”

“Why not come out and have a quick look at these other places, that’s all we ask.”

“No point, is there?”

Crawford half rose to his feet. “Pity, you know. We could have made life that little bit easier for you, one way or another.”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“Look, Muldoon. We don’t expect you to shop your mates. All I’m saying is this: if you agree to come out and make a couple o’ statements—even if they’re a load of rubbish …”

Muldoon not only looked puzzled; he
was
puzzled.

“What’s it you’re
after!
How the hell’s it going to help you if—”

But Crawford, risen to his feet, now brusquely cut short Muldoon’s protestations.

“No! You’re right. It’s not going to help much at all, is it? It was just that …”

“Yeah? Just
what?”
Muldoon leaned forward, interested in spite of himself; and Crawford slowly sat down again on the hard, upright chair.

“Look, lad! Let me put my cards on the table. It’s going to be bloody difficult for you to stay out of prison—this time,
I
know that—
you
know that. And shall I tell you something else? It’s one helluva job—even for
me
—to get you out of this place, even for an hour or two; even to buy you a ride on one of the Tourist Buses. D’you know how many signatures I’d need for that—apart from the Governor’s?”

Jesus!

Muldoon looked down at the floor as Crawford continued.

“There’s only two ways we can give you any little outing. One’s if you get transferred somewhere—up to Bullingdon Prison, say. Not very likely that, though, for a few weeks yet. And the other’s if you’d agree to … But I’m wasting my breath. Pity though! As I say, we could have made it worth your while—
well
worth your while …”

Muldoon suddenly squared his mouth, and bared a set of ugly, deeply nicotined teeth.

“Come on! Spill it, Crawford. What’s in it for
me?
”

“Not much. We couldn’t afford to give you a season-ticket at the local knocking-shop, but …”

“But
what
?”

“Next best thing, perhaps?”

“Yeah? And what’s that s’posed to mean?”

Crawford sighed. “I can’t make any marvellous promises—you know that. But if you agreed to keep your mouth shut—like
we
would …”

“Go on!”

“Well, what do you want? Fags? Booze? Money? Sex-videos? …”

Muldoon shook his head, albeit indecisively.

“OK. Well, that settles it, then.” Crawford rose quickly to his feet now, this time with a purposiveness heralding an imminent departure.

But Muldoon was on his feet too.

“When d’you reckon—when could this have bin? With the videos, say?”

Crawford shrugged indifferently. ‘Tomorrow? Day after? Not quite sure, really. It’s just that we got some pretty hot stuff in last week—from Denmark—and one or two of the lads thought they ought just to give it, you know, give it the once-over.”

“How long would they be? Watching that stuff?”

“Dunno, really. Couple of hours? Bit longer? Till the booze runs out? Some of ’em tell me they get a little bit bored—after a while. But I don’t reckon they’re going to get bored too quickly with this little lot.”

Muldoon sat silent for a while.

Muldoon sat silent for a considerable while.

Finally he breathed in deeply, held his breath—and exhaled, noisily.

Then he lit yet another cigarette.

And another little corner of his resolution was collapsing. Had collapsed.

“Tomorrow, you say?”

Phew!

Outside the re-locked room, Inspector Crawford also exhaled, though silently. And to Sergeant Wilkins, standing at the far end of the corridor, he gave a faint smile, and raised his right fist to shoulder-level, the thumb upstandingly proud like some
membrum virile
blessed with a joyous erection.

After returning from Inspector Crawford’s room late that same afternoon, Sergeant Lewis found Morse seated at his desk,
The Times
in front of him, looking grim—and smoking a cigarette. It seemed to Lewis, in view of the tight-lipped taciturnity hitherto observed between the pair of them throughout the day, that it was the latter activity which afforded the more promising ice-breaker.

“I thought you’d given up, sir?”

“I have—many times. In fact I’ve given up smoking more often than anyone else in the history of the habit.
By rights I should have a paragraph all to myself in
The Guinness Book of Records.”

The tone of Morse’s words was light enough, perhaps, but the underlying mood was sombre.

And Lewis, too, as he sat down, looked far from happy with himself.

“You told me off good and proper last night, didn’t you, sir?
And
I deserved it. You were right To be truthful, I wish I’d taken a bit more notice of you.”

“Why this sudden change of heart?”

“Well, it’s getting … it’s getting all a bit involved and underhand—”

“Dishonest.”

“Yes … and
messy.”

The hard lines on Morse’s face relaxed somewhat. “You can hardly expect the sort of classical economy and purity of line you get when you’re working with me! Crawford’s a cretin—that’s common knowledge, isn’t it?”

“No he’s not! It’s just that—well, I don’t honestly think he’s
all that
bright.”

“Your judgement is reasserting itself, Sergeant.”

Lewis was silent.

“Come on. You know you’re dying to tell me all about it.”

“I thought you didn’t want anything to do with it.”

“How right you are!” snapped Morse bitterly.

He got up and took his mackintosh off its peg.

A persistent drizzle had stippled the window that looked out over the car-park—a window through which Lewis had so often seen Morse gazing as he grappled in his mind with the problems of a case.

Saw him so gazing now; but only for a few seconds, before he put on his mackintosh and walked to the door.

“Make sure you lock up! If there’s some crook around prepared to pinch an empty can of Beamish, what the hell’s he going to do with my Glenfiddich? Goo’ night!”

The door slammed, and Morse was gone.

But Lewis heard no footsteps along the corridor; and twenty seconds later the door re-opened slowly, and Morse stepped back into his office.

“It
would
help, Lewis, wouldn’t it, if you told me what’s worrying you.”

“Yes,” replied Lewis simply.

“You should have told me earlier.”

“You looked, well, pretty grim, sir.”

“What? Oh, that! That was just
me
—not you. Six minutes—to the second almost—with the crossword! Would have been just about the record—except for one clue: I couldn’t do 14 across.
Still
can’t do bloody 14 across.”

“Shall
I
have a look at it?”

“You? Fat lot o’ use that’d be!”

Lewis looked down at the threadbare patch of off-white carpet on his own side of Morse’s desk.

“If you
could
spare five minutes, sir—I’d feel a lot happier.”

Morse took off his mackintosh, replaced it on its peg, and resumed his seat in the black-leather armchair behind his desk.

As Morse now began to see, Crawford’s scheme hardly matched the strategic genius of Napoleon at Austerlitz, or NASA in planning one of its moon missions …

At 20:30, an hour after lighting-up time, on Thursday, 31 March, Muldoon, handcuffed to a police officer, his head concealed from any inquisitive public or press intrusion beneath a grey prison blanket, would be taken from Oxford Prison in an unmarked police van. The outing had already been sanctioned (no problem) “in pursuance of corroborative or associative evidence.” No one had ever understood this long-winded phrase, yet it had the merit of sounding most impressive.