small community which was so clearly still maintaining its conspiracy of silence.
But Lewis was wrong.
As he took out his car keys, he saw the youth who had just been feeding the fruits of his labors into the fruit machine. Waiting for him. Beside the car.
“Police, aincha?”
“Yes?”
“You was asking about things in there.”
“I'm always asking about things.”
“Just that somebody else was asking them same sort o’ questions, see? Couldn't help hearing, could I? And this fellah—he was asking
me
a few things. About Mrs. Harrison. About if I'd ever seen her with any fellah in the pub. But I couldn't quite remember. Not at the time.”
“You remember now, though?”
“Right on the nail, copper. Told me to give ‘im a buzz if I suddenly remembered something. Said, you know, it might be worthwhile like.”
“Why didn't you ring him?”
“That's just it, though. I'd seen her with the fellah that
asked
me, see? Same bleedin fellah!”
“You mean … it was
him
you'd seen with Mrs. Harrison?”
“Right on the nail, copper.”
“What did he look like, this fellow?”
“Well, sort of … I can't really …”
“He gave you his name?”
“No. Gave me ‘is phone number though, like I said.”
The youth produced a circular beer-mat from his pocket.
Lewis looked down at a telephone number written above the red
Bass
triangle, written in the small, neat hand he knew so well: the personal ex-directory telephone number of Chief Inspector Morse.
Twenty-four
In many an Oxfordshire Ale-house the horseshoe is hung upside-down, in the form that is of an Arch or an Omega. This age-old custom (I have been convincingly informed) is not to allow the Luck to run out but to prevent the Devil building up a nest therein.
(D. Small,
A Most Complete Guide to the Hostelries of the Cotswolds
)
As he stood amid the wilderness of waste, a High Viz jacket over his summer shirt and a red safety helmet on his head, Chief Inspector Morse realized that he had miscalculated rather badly. But he'd had to check it up.
It had always been the same with him. Whenever as a young boy reading under his bedside lamp he'd come across an unfamiliar word, he'd known with certainty that he could never look forward to sleep until he'd traced the newcomer's credentials and etymology in
Chambers’ Dictionary
, the book that stood alongside
The Family Doctor
(1910),
A Pictorial History of the First World War
, and
The Life of Captain Cook
, on the single short shelf that comprised his parents’ library.
His father (sadly, almost tragically) had been a clandestine gambler. And Morse was fully aware that this time he himself had put his money on a rank outsider: the possibility that someone had murdered Harry Repp; had disposed of his body in the Redbridge Waste Disposal Centre; had disposed of this hypothetical body in a particular part of that Centre—specifically in one of the compactor bins perhaps: further, that the said and equally hypothetical bin had been, was being, or was about to be, driven out in a hypothetical black bag to Sutton Courtenay. And, above all, that somebody might have
observed
such a hypothetical deposit. Ridiculous! William Hill or Ladbrokes would probably have offered odds of 1,000,000-1 against any such eventuality.
On impulse Morse had driven down the A34, thence along the A4130, to the landfill site on the outskirts of Sutton Courtenay. Where, after a series of telephone calls from the temporary (permanent) Portakabins, the management had finally acknowledged the
bona fides
of their dubious visitor.
It was in a Landrover that (finally) Morse had been driven out to the tipping area, where virtually continuous convoys of lorries from the whole of Oxfordshire were raising the telescopic legs of container-cargoes to some 45 degrees as they began to tip their loads, moving forward in disjunctive jerks as they ensured the contents were fully discharged, and leaving behind a distinctive trail of their own
But Lewis was wrong.
As he took out his car keys, he saw the youth who had just been feeding the fruits of his labors into the fruit machine. Waiting for him. Beside the car.
“Police, aincha?”
“Yes?”
“You was asking about things in there.”
“I'm always asking about things.”
“Just that somebody else was asking them same sort o’ questions, see? Couldn't help hearing, could I? And this fellah—he was asking
me
a few things. About Mrs. Harrison. About if I'd ever seen her with any fellah in the pub. But I couldn't quite remember. Not at the time.”
“You remember now, though?”
“Right on the nail, copper. Told me to give ‘im a buzz if I suddenly remembered something. Said, you know, it might be worthwhile like.”
“Why didn't you ring him?”
“That's just it, though. I'd seen her with the fellah that
asked
me, see? Same bleedin fellah!”
“You mean … it was
him
you'd seen with Mrs. Harrison?”
“Right on the nail, copper.”
“What did he look like, this fellow?”
“Well, sort of … I can't really …”
“He gave you his name?”
“No. Gave me ‘is phone number though, like I said.”
The youth produced a circular beer-mat from his pocket.
Lewis looked down at a telephone number written above the red
Bass
triangle, written in the small, neat hand he knew so well: the personal ex-directory telephone number of Chief Inspector Morse.
Twenty-four
In many an Oxfordshire Ale-house the horseshoe is hung upside-down, in the form that is of an Arch or an Omega. This age-old custom (I have been convincingly informed) is not to allow the Luck to run out but to prevent the Devil building up a nest therein.
(D. Small,
A Most Complete Guide to the Hostelries of the Cotswolds
)
As he stood amid the wilderness of waste, a High Viz jacket over his summer shirt and a red safety helmet on his head, Chief Inspector Morse realized that he had miscalculated rather badly. But he'd had to check it up.
It had always been the same with him. Whenever as a young boy reading under his bedside lamp he'd come across an unfamiliar word, he'd known with certainty that he could never look forward to sleep until he'd traced the newcomer's credentials and etymology in
Chambers’ Dictionary
, the book that stood alongside
The Family Doctor
(1910),
A Pictorial History of the First World War
, and
The Life of Captain Cook
, on the single short shelf that comprised his parents’ library.
His father (sadly, almost tragically) had been a clandestine gambler. And Morse was fully aware that this time he himself had put his money on a rank outsider: the possibility that someone had murdered Harry Repp; had disposed of his body in the Redbridge Waste Disposal Centre; had disposed of this hypothetical body in a particular part of that Centre—specifically in one of the compactor bins perhaps: further, that the said and equally hypothetical bin had been, was being, or was about to be, driven out in a hypothetical black bag to Sutton Courtenay. And, above all, that somebody might have
observed
such a hypothetical deposit. Ridiculous! William Hill or Ladbrokes would probably have offered odds of 1,000,000-1 against any such eventuality.
On impulse Morse had driven down the A34, thence along the A4130, to the landfill site on the outskirts of Sutton Courtenay. Where, after a series of telephone calls from the temporary (permanent) Portakabins, the management had finally acknowledged the
bona fides
of their dubious visitor.
It was in a Landrover that (finally) Morse had been driven out to the tipping area, where virtually continuous convoys of lorries from the whole of Oxfordshire were raising the telescopic legs of container-cargoes to some 45 degrees as they began to tip their loads, moving forward in disjunctive jerks as they ensured the contents were fully discharged, and leaving behind a distinctive trail of their own
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