The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (30 page)

cleaning woman and got some shopping in; he's heard on the phone about ten past

five; certainly no one except Mrs. Evans comes to see him before six-thirty or so,

because Mrs. Greenaway is keeping an eagle eye on the drive. So? So Quinn must

have been murdered later that evening, or even on the following morning. The medical

report didn't help us much either way, and we had little option but to follow our noses

—which we did. But when you come to add all the evidence up, no one actually
saw

Quinn after midday on Friday. Take the phone call to Bradford. If you're a

schoolmaster—and all of the staff at the Syndicate had taught at one point—you know

that 12.20 is just about the worst time in the whole day to try to get a member of staff.

School lessons may finish earlier in a few schools but the vast majority don't. In other

words that call 1was made with not the least expectation that its purpose would be

successful. That is, unless the purpose was to mislead
me
—in which case I'm afraid it was highly successful. Now, take the note Quinn left. We know that Bartlett is a bit of a tartar about most aspects of office routine; and one of his rules is that his assistant

secretaries must leave a note when they go out. Now, Quinn had been with the

Syndicate for three months, and being a keen young fellow and anxious to please his

boss, he must have left dozens of little notes during that time; and anyone, if he or she was so minded, could have taken one, especially if that someone needed one of the

notes to further an alibi. And someone did. Then there's the phone call Mrs.

Greenaway heard. But note once again that
she
didn't actually see him making it.

She's nervous and anxious: she thinks the baby's due, and the very last thing she

wants to indulge in is a bit of eavesdropping. All she wants is the line to be free! When she hears voices she doesn't want to listen to them—she wants them to
finish
. And if the other person—the one she thinks Quinn is ringing—is doing most of the talking at

that point . . . You see what I was getting at with Roope, Lewis? If
Roope
were talking

—putting in just the occasional "yes" and "no" and so on—Mrs. Greenaway, who says she doesn't hear too well anyway, would automatically assume it was
Quinn
. Both

Quinn and Roope came from Bradford, and both spoke with a pretty broad northern

accent, and all Mrs. Greenaway remembers clearly is that
one
of the voices was a bit cultured and donnish. Now, that doesn't take us much further, I agree. At the most it

tells us that the telephone conversation wasn't between Quinn and Roope. But I knew

that, Lewis, because I knew that Quinn must have been dead for several hours when

someone spoke from Quinn's front room.'

'It was a bit of luck for him that Mrs. Greenaway didn't—'

Morse was nodding. 'Yes. But the luck wasn't all on his side. Remember that Mrs.

Evans—'

'You've explained how that could have happened, sir. It's just this Studio 2 business I

can't follow.'

'I'm not surprised. We had everybody telling us lies about it. But let me give you one or two clues. Martin and Monica Height had decided to go to the pictures on Friday

afternoon, and yet they stupidly tried to change their alibi—change a good alibi for a

lousy alibi. Just ask yourself
why
, Lewis. The only sensible answer that I could think of was that they had
seen
something—or one of them had seen something—which they

weren't prepared to talk about. Now, I think that Monica, at least on this point, was

prepared to tell me the truth—the literal truth. I asked her whether she had seen

someone else going
in
; and she said no.' Morse smiled slowly: 'Do you see what I

mean now?'

'No, sir.'

'Keep at it, Lewis! You see, whatever happened in the early afternoon of that Friday,

Martin and Monica stayed to see the film
. Do you understand that? Whatever upset

them—or, as I say, upset one of them—it didn't result in their leaving the cinema. Need

I go on?'

Need he go on! Huh! Lewis was more lost than ever, but his curiosity would give him

no peace. 'What about Ogleby, then?'

'Ah. Now we're coming to it. Ogleby lied to me, Lewis. He told me one or two lies of the

first water.
But the great majority of the things Ogleby said mere true
. You were there when I questioned him, Lewis, and if you want
some
of the truth, just look back to your notes. You'll find he said some very interesting things. You'll find, for example, th1at

he said he was in the office that Friday afternoon.'

'And you think he was?'

'I know he was. He just
had
to be, you see.'

'Oh,' said Lewis, unseeing. 'And he went to Studio 2 as well, I suppose?'

Morse nodded. 'Later on, yes. And remember that he'd made a careful sketch of

another ticket—the ticket that was found in Quinn's pocket. Now. There's a nice little

poser for you, Lewis: when and why did Ogleby do that? Well?'

'I don't know, sir. I just get more confused the more I think about it.'

Morse got up and walked across the room. 'It's easy when you think about it, Lewis.

Ask yourself just one question: Why didn't he just
take
the ticket? He must have seen it; must have had it in his hands. There's only one answer, isn't there?'

Lewis nodded hopefully and Morse (praise be!) continued.

'Yes. Ogleby wasn't meant to find the ticket. But he did; and he knew that it had been

placed wherever it was for a vital purpose, Lewis,
and he knew that he had to leave it
exactly where he'd found it.
'

The phone rang and Morse answered it, saying he'd be there straightaway. 'You'd

better come along, Lewis. His lawyer's arrived.' As they walked together down to the

cellblock, Morse asked Lewis if he had any idea where the Islets of Langerhans were.

'Sounds vaguely familiar, sir. Baltic Sea, is it?

'No, it's not. It's in the pancreas—if you know where that is.'

'As a matter of fact, I do, sir. It's a large gland discharging into the duodenum.'

Morse raised his eyebrows in admiration. One up to Lewis.

AS MORSE LOOKED at the Thursday-evening class with their hearing aids, private or

NHS, plugged into their ears, he reminded himself that during the previous weeks of

the term Quinn had sat there amongst his fellow-students, sharing the mysteries and

the silent manifestations. There were eight of them, sitting in a single row in front of

their teacher, and at the back of the room Morse felt that he was watching a TV screen

with the sound turned off. The teacher was talking, for her lips moved and she made

the natural gestures of speech. But no sound. When Morse had managed to rid

himself of the suspicion that he had suddenly been struck deaf, he watched the

teacher's lips more closely, and tried as hard as he could to read the words.

Occasionally one or other of the class would raise a hand and voice a silent question,

and then the teacher would write up a word on the blackboard. Frequently, it

appeared, the difficult words—the words that the class were puzzled by—began with

'p', or 'b', or 'm'; and to a lesser extent with 't', 'd', or 'n. Lip-reading was clearly a most sophisticated skill.

At the end of the class, Morse thanked the teacher for allowing him to observe, and

spoke to her about Quinn. Here, too, he had been the star pupil, it seemed, and all the

class had been deeply upset at the news of his death. Yes, he really had been very

deaf indee1d—but one wouldn't have guessed; unless, that is, one had experience of

these things.

A bell sounded throughout the building. It was 9 p.m. and time for everyone to leave

the premises.

'Would he have been able to hear that?' asked Morse.

But the teacher had temporarily turned away to mark the register. The bell was still

ringing. 'Would Quinn have been able to hear that?' repeated Morse.

But she still didn't hear him and, belatedly, Morse guessed the truth. When finally she

looked up again, he repeated his question once more. 'Could Quinn hear the bell?'

'Could Quinn hear them all, did you say? I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch—'

'H-ear th-e b-e-ll,' mouthed Morse, with ridiculous exaggeration.

'Oh, the
bell
. Is it ringing? I'm afraid that none of us could ever hear that,'

Thursday was guest night at Lonsdale College, but after a couple of post-prandial

ports the Dean of the Syndicate decided he'd better get back to his rooms. He was

decidedly displeased at having to rearrange his Friday morning programme, since one

of the few duties he positively enjoyed was that of interviewing prospective entrants.

As he walked along the quad he wondered morosely how long the Syndicate meeting

would last, and why exactly Tom Bartlett had been so insistent. It was all getting out of hand, anyway. He was getting too old for the post, and he looked forward to his

retirement in a year's time. One thing was certain: he just couldn't cope with events

like those of the past fortnight.

He looked through the pile of UCCA forms on his desk and read the fulsome praises

heaped upon the heads of their pupils by headmasters and headmistresses, so

desperately anxious to lift their schools a few places up the table in the Oxbridge

League. If only such heads would realise that all their blabber was, if anything,

counter-productive! On the first form he read some headmistress's report on a young

girl anxious to take up one of the few places at Lonsdale reserved for women. The girl

was (naturally!) the most brilliant scholar of her year and had won a whole cupboardful

of prizes; and the Dean read the headmistress's comments in the 'Personality' column:

'Not unattractive and certainly a very vivacious girl, with a puckish sense of humour

and a piquant wit.' The Dean smiled slowly. What a sentence! Over the years he had

compiled his own little book of synonyms:

'not unattractive' = 'hideous to behold'

'vivacious' = 'usually drunk'

'puckish' = 'batty'

'piquant' = 'plain rude'

Ah well. Perhaps she wasn't such a bad prospect after all! But he wouldn't be

interviewing her himself. Blast the Syndicate! It would have been interesting to test his little theory once more. So often people tried to create the impression of being

completely different from their true selves, and it wasn't all that difficult. A smiling face, and a heart as hard as a flintstone! The opposite, too: a face set as hard as a flint and .

. . A vague memory stirred in the Dean's mind. Chief Inspector Morse had mentioned

something similar, hadn't he? But the Dean couldn't quite get hold of it. Never mind. It

couldn't be very important

Bartlett had received the call from Mrs. Martin at eight o'clock. Did he kno1w where

Donald was? Had he got a meeting? She knew he had to work late some nights, but

he had never been away as long as this. Bartlett tried to make the right noises; said

not to worry; said he would ring her back; said there must be some easy explanation.

'Oh Christ!' he said, after putting the receiver down.

'What's the matter, Tom?' Mrs. Bartlett had come through into the hall and was looking

at him anxiously.

He put his hand gently on hers, and smiled wearily. 'How many times have I told you?

You mustn't listen in to my telephone calls. You've got enough—'

'I never do. You know that, Tom. But—'