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Fred Thursday closed the dusty blinds over his door and windows, took a seat in one of the low padded chairs set aside for meetings with family members, leaned back and closed his eyes.
It had been more than 24 hours since he last slept; missing persons cases rarely involved such intensive investigations, but 15 year-old girls with steady natures from caring families rarely disappeared without a trace. He propped his feet up on the table and sighed, taking a small measure of comfort in the temporary pause from his frantic pace.
He hadn’t expected much of the men borrowed from Carshall Newton, and his expectations had been well and truly met. Hard workers all, but not a brain among them. Even the DC they’d sent over seemed to have no original ideas in his head, and fell immediately under Lott’s thumb.
There was little help from the public, either. There had, of course, been the usual landslide of calls and notes following his television and radio appeals for information. But, equally as per spec, it had all been gossip, hearsay, mistake, misrepresentation and plain untruths. In the main, the calls had been from diligent elderly ladies trying to be helpful, while sending police resources across the county with vague reports of girls whose description they thought matched Mary Tremlett’s when in fact there was no feature in common.
On his desk the phone rang, the sudden shrill ring causing him to start, and then to curse. Thursday pulled himself up wearily, reached across, and unhooked the receiver. “Thursday.” He leant back against the chair, neck cradled by the top of its soft back.
“DI Thursday?” asked a low, male voice.
“That’s right.”
“I may have information about the missing girl. Mary Tremlett?” It was a well-spoken voice, nearly an Oxford accent with just a trace of something else beneath it. There was no self-importance or familiarity in it, either: not one to immediately discount.
“Yes, sir? What would that be?” Thursday didn’t open his eyes.
“I believe she was in a relationship with an older man. A don, at the university.”
Thursday’s eyes did open now, narrowing as he frowned. There were always stones thrown in the public calls, puritans eager to insist that a missing girl meant impurity, sex, scandal. “What makes you think that, sir?”
“Something I overheard. A conversation between the don’s wife and a man who seemed to be the girl’s boyfriend. But I may be mistaken,” the caller admitted, cautiously.
“What’s your name, please?” Thursday stood, crossing to his desk and uncapping his pen.
“Morse.”
“I’d like to speak to you, sir. In person, I mean,” he clarified. There was a hesitation from the other end. “We can’t act on information like this without more to go on,” continued Thursday, when the silence stretched.
“Very well. When?”
“As soon as you can please. If you could come to the station…”
“No, I’d rather not. The towpath just north of Hythe Bridge; I can meet you there. On the eastern side – there’s a few benches across from Worcester college. Half an hour?”
Thursday checked his watch. 4:15. “Alright.”
There was a click, and the line went dead. Thursday spent a couple of minutes writing out some notes, then gathered up his notebook, pen and hat, and set off.
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Although late in the afternoon the weather was balmy, sunshine bright and the water sparkling. This part of the towpath, less popular than others, was mostly deserted. As Morse had said on the call, there were a few benches with coats of industrial green paint across the way from the back of Worcester college. A figure in a light fawn coat was sitting on one of them watching the water.
He was in his late twenties, Thursday judged as he approached, his face thin-boned with high cheekbones just on the attractive side of awkward, and curling red-gold hair. Even with the light coat it was easy to tell he was thin as a lath, shoulders narrow and back straight. He looked over as Thursday approached and slowed, his expression tentative. “Inspector Thursday?”
“Yes. Mr Morse?” He shook Morse’s outstretched hand, and then sat down beside him. The young man looked back to the river.
“What did you want to ask me?”
“I’d like to hear more about your statement. What you saw, and why you think Mary Tremlett is the girl involved.”
Morse pursed his lips, eyes narrowed as he considered. “I sing in a choir,” he began at last, slowly. “The Oxford Scholars’ Choral Association. We meet regularly, and one gets to know the members. There are also a few people who come in and help out as advisors, rather than members. One of them is Rosalind Stromming, née Calloway,” he said, as if it should mean something. When Thursday didn’t comment, he went on. “There are also quite a few students who join while they’re up, and then leave when they finish their degrees. One of them is Miles Percival. About a month ago after the choir had been dismissed for the evening, I overheard him stop Mrs Stromming in the foyer. I was the last to leave, and stopped … I didn’t want to disturb them, and I couldn’t get out without going past. It was obvious they were both quite upset.” He paused, clasping his hands and rubbing his thumbs together.
“Go on.”
“Percival told Mrs Stromming he suspected her husband of having an affair with his girlfriend, a young woman called Mary. He didn’t give her last name – so I can’t be sure it was Mary Tremlett. But I had heard him speaking of her to a friend in the choir before – she’s younger than him, I know. A schoolgirl, I thought.”
“I see. And that’s all?” For all the young man seemed entirely earnest it was thin. Very thin.
Morse licked his lips, silent for a moment. Then: “Yes. Yes, that’s all.
“You’re sure?”
Morse turned towards him. His eyes were very blue, cutting like ice. They held absolutely steady. “Yes. That’s all.”
It wasn’t. He may have had a stare to rival a serpent’s, but he was a poor liar all the same. Still, there was nothing more Thursday could do; not without more evidence.
“Very well. Can I have your contact information, sir? In case I need to speak with you again?”
Morse shrugged, and gave a phone number and an address near the cheap student buildings.
“Thank you for your time,” finished Thursday, and stood. Morse turned back to the river. When Thursday reached the road he was still sitting there, staring out over the slow-moving water.
Thursday brought his notes back to the office, spent a few minutes writing them up more fully, then turned out the lights on a long day.
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Miles Percival was found early the next morning near Thrupp. Dead with a bullet in his brain
Lott went around to his flatmate and found from him that he had indeed been seeing Mary Tremlett, but their relationship hadn’t been physical – and that it had ended some time ago.
Thursday himself went around to see Mrs Stromming; for one thing, she was the wife of a well-respected don, and for another he had the sense Morse held her in some mysterious regard.
Mrs Stromming was a beautiful woman with beautiful manners, living in a beautiful house. She had been, Thursday learned with less tact than curiosity, a famous opera singer. It was all very pretty and very perfect, and that made him suspicious. She claimed to have no notion of infidelity on her husband’s part. Morse’s claim about the conversation in the church foyer she denied entirely – a mistake, surely, another woman, another husband.
Thursday visited Dr Stromming and heard another story: a young pupil tutored for a bet, an innocent if not completely selfless act that could only better the child’s prospects. Any impropriety he denied utterly. Stromming sat behind his oak desk surrounded by expensive marble and old leather, giving a loveable scoundrel’s smile, and Thursday thought only: liar.
It was mid-afternoon by the time got back to his office to find a note on his desk. Call from a Morse; says you have his number. – Lott
Thursday took a seat, staring at the note for a moment. Then he picked up the receiver and dialed the number the young man had given him the day before. It was answered by a young woman: “Oxford Resources for the Blind.”
Thursday blinked; clearly this was a work number. “I’m looking for Mr Morse. My name’s Thursday.”
“Just a minute, please.”
There was a knock as the receiver was put down, and then the distant sound of voices. Finally the receiver was picked up again, and Morse’s low husky voice came on the line. “Hello?”
“Mr Morse? It’s Inspector Thursday.”
“Hello sir.” A pause. And then, “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you everything yesterday.” He sounded apologetic, but still upright and unflustered.
Thursday gave a little, sharp smile. “Perhaps you’d better come to speak to me.”
“Could we meet by –”
“I think you had better come here, sir,” interrupted Thursday, straightforwardly. “Cowley station, do you know the address?”
There was a longer pause, then a sigh. “Alright. Yes, I can find it.”
“Good. The desk sergeant can direct you to my office; it’s upstairs. Can you be here in twenty minutes?”
“Closer to thirty.”
“Alright.” Thursday hung up.
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It was nearer to forty by the time Thursday heard a knock on his door. He looked up, expecting to see the young man from yesterday. What he saw instead was the duty sergeant. And then, as he stepped into the room, Morse, hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. In the young man’s other hand was a white cane.
Thursday blinked. And then, nonplussed, stood in confusion.
“Thank you,” said Morse curtly, having been led to a chair, and seated himself. The desk sergeant nodded to Thursday, then saw himself out and closed the door behind him.
“I didn’t realise,” began Thursday, slowly, and then stopped. There was no polite way of ending the sentence.
“Thank you,” said Morse, apparently taking it as a compliment. “Many people don’t, the first time. Or so they tell me.” He gave a little smile.
Thursday seated himself, trying to regain his composure. “So you didn’t see the conversation between Miles Percival and Mrs Stromming,” he said, trying not to sound as if speaking the obvious.
“I never said I did; I said I heard it.”
“Could you have been mistaken?”
Morse frowned. “No. Percival had been in the choir for more than a year; I knew him well enough. And Mrs Stromming…” he shook his head, a hint of pain slipping into his expression. “No.”
“You said you weren’t truthful yesterday.”
“I said I didn’t tell you everything,” corrected Morse firmly, for the second time. Thursday raised his eyebrows; the man was sharp, certainly. “I heard you found Miles Percival this morning; it was on the radio. Possible suicide, they said.”
“Possibly,” said Thursday, expressionlessly. Morse looked up at him, his eyes very steady. Steady, Thursday realised, because they had no cause to move or refocus.
“But it might not have been. You see, I think it’s possible… I didn’t tell you yesterday because it’s entirely supposition. But I think it’s possible Dr Stromming killed Mary Tremlett. And, if he didn’t kill himself, Miles Percival.” The words poured out fast and hot like burning coals, as though he had no choice but to spit them out.
Thursday wove his fingers together and rested his hands on his blotter. “Why would you think that?” he asked, softly.
“I work at a resource office for the blind, proofing the braille. Generally there’s someone about to read the crossword to me – it’s one of the few things I haven’t found a way around or given up on. And I’ve noticed that every Saturday the crossword set by Dr Stromming has two similarities. A clue to a location in or around Oxford, and a number. A place and time, I thought.”
Thursday stared at the young man, uncertain whether to be impressed or dismayed. Either this was too cunning to be cracked by most coppers, or it was entirely delusion.
“You think Dr Stromming was making elicit rendezvouses with Mary Tremlett through the crossword,” he said, slowly.
“I think it’s possible.”
“And how do you know Dr Stromming is the crossword setter? They don’t use their real names, do they?”
Morse cocked his head, impressed. “No, they don’t. Dr Stromming goes by Oz. I know because his wife mentioned it once; she was embarrassed to have done so – as you say, it’s supposed to be a secret. But she knows I like crosswords, and she’s… kind.” He let the word slip softly into the conversation, a little pink coming into his pale cheeks.
“Say you’re right. What makes you think Dr Stromming killed Mary?”
“Because she disappeared Saturday night,” said Morse immediately, practically. “The rendezvous are presumably for Saturday; that’s the day the crossword comes out, and as a schoolgirl she couldn’t be out late on school nights.”
Thursday nodded slowly. For all its implausibility, it did have some potential. A clean, academic kind of potential, far out of the way of most coppering. “So what was last Saturday’s clue, then?”
“I don’t know. The coordinator at the office is new and she threw out the weekend papers instead of keeping them for me. I haven’t done that one.”
Thursday got up, striding past Morse and to the door. “Arthur,” he barked, and saw his sergeant look up from his tea. “Fetch us a copy of Saturday’s Mail, would you?”
He closed the door before he could see Lott’s confused look. Morse had turned his head slightly, but not all the way; he looked back around as Thursday re-took his seat. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Thursday asked casually. Morse shook his head. Was there a catch to the movement? It was harder to tell now; his eyes gave nothing away.
“If you’re right about all this, you’ll have to be a witness in the trial,” Thursday told him, waiting for Lott to find the back edition. “I’ll never be able to explain it all.”
Morse’s lips twisted upwards. “Witness is rather inappropriate,” he said. “But yes, I suppose so. I can only imagine he must have done it to hide his guilt. She was only 15, after all. And he a don.”
Lott turned up with the Saturday edition scrounged from a waste-paper bin, and Thursday turned to the crossword. “Do you know what the clues are?”
“The place is usually pretty early in the across clues, a quote from poetry.”
Thursday glanced down the list while remembering Mary Tremlett’s room – the books of poetry on her desk. “‘The cat who’ – no… ‘A sure way to’ – no… ‘Where the Gypsies pitch their smoked tents.’ That it?”
Morse’s lips moved silently. Then: “Bagley wood. ‘The Scholar Gypsie,’ Matthew Arnold.”
Thursday jotted it down, heart beating a little harder.
“The time is usually at the bottom of the down clues. Things like ‘Six geese a laying’ or ‘Seven swans a swimming.’”
Thursday skimmed though the clues; this one was easier to spot. “The milking maids,” he said, then hummed briefly to find the tune. “Eight, isn’t it?”
The lad nodded. “Yes, that’s right. We did it at last year’s Christmas recital,” he added, seeming slightly offended that it had been put to such purposes by the husband of the choir assistant.
“Well, we can look into it, certainly. Although whether it could really be true…”
Morse shivered suddenly, just a quick shake. “I hope not. I really do.”
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Forty minutes later, they found Mary Tremlett’s body beneath the trees in Bagley wood.
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They found the next day that the only trouble with Morse’s whole fragile, brilliant theory was that Stromming had an alibi. He’d spent the evening in Hinksey, waiting for Mary Tremlett to show up, owing to a mix-up in the puzzles posted to the Mail.
And so like a house of cards the theory collapsed in on itself, leaving them no further forward. The investigation had been elevated to a murder enquiry, and in the intense light cast by that beast all their promising leads had turned to dust.
Thursday set Lott the task of breaking Stromming’s alibi – not by any means iron-clad – and himself re-interviewed Mrs Stromming. With the news of two young deaths she was appropriately subdued, and politely helpful. But she provided no helpful information and had been at choir practice the evening of Mary’s death, followed by a punctured tyre.
Somehow, Thursday believed, Morse was the key to all this. There was something still that he was keeping back. Like a Greek oracle, he gave out only enough information to draw the curtains back part-way on the picture and waited for fate to reveal the rest.
Fate, or Fred Thursday.
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Oxford Resources for the Blind was on the second floor of a tenement on George Street near the coach station. The staircase leading up was narrow but the edge of each step had been marked with bright white tape, and the railing was strongly affixed to the wall. There was an open door at the top of the stairs. Beyond it was an open office area with several desks occupied mostly by young women, backing onto some closed offices. There was, in one corner, a low table surrounded by chairs, with bookcases on either side filled with both books and pamphlets. One desk near the door acted as the reception desk; an older woman was seated at it, her hair severely and rather unfashionably permed and coloured. “May I help you?”
Thursday glanced around the office. “I’m looking for Mr Morse,” he said, failing to see his quarry.
The receptionist gave a little frown. “I’m afraid he didn’t come in today. Said he wasn’t feeling well.” She emphasised the said very slightly, but enough to make her views known. “Can I take a message?”
“No, thank you. That’s all.” Thursday turned and left.
Thursday went back down the stairs, digging out his notebook. As he stepped out onto the pavement he was flipping through the pages, and had found Morse’s address before he was back at the car.
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Morse’s flat was also in a tenement, but a much less impressive one than his office. Newer, more cheaply-built and not as well maintained, the paint was chipping from the exterior walls and the iron railing acting as a fence had become rusty and crooked over the years. Thursday walked up the cracked cement stairs and found beside the door a set of bells. The top-most was marked Morse, and he buzzed it.
It was nearly a minute before the door opened to produce Morse in a blue jumper and slacks, looking entirely healthy but rather strained. He didn’t have his cane. “Yes?”
“It’s Thursday,” said Thursday, and saw fear war with relief. Neither won, and he settled into a kind of suspicious reluctance.
“Yes?” he repeated, hand shrinking back on the door. He held firm otherwise, not giving in the face of Thursday’s sudden appearance.
“I think we need to talk. May I come in?”
Morse’s sightless eyes stared at him, and for a moment Thursday saw a kind of pained helplessness there – a profound loss. He looked for the first time vulnerable, and Thursday set his jaw against the sympathy that started to well up.
“Fine.” Morse seemed to come to his conclusion abruptly, turning and starting to make his way up the stairs. He didn’t hold the rail, climbing with assurance and stepping off easily onto the landing to turn up onto the next flight.
He lived on the top floor, a corner flat that was only slightly more than a bed-sit. It was meticulously tidy, but also very sparse; no decorations, no unnecessary furniture or conveniences. The one thing that caught Thursday’s eye was a turntable on a low set of shelves; they were entirely filled with records. But then, he was in a choir – it stood to reason he liked music.
“I’m sure you’ve heard by now that we found Mary Tremlett’s body where you suggested, in Bagley wood.”
Morse inclined his head, eyes downcast.
“I think I should ask where you were on Saturday night, after seven thirty.”
The young man looked up, staring that sharp, sightless stare. “You think I did it?”
“Just answer, please.”
“I was at choir practice ‘til 7:30, then I went home. I didn’t speak to anyone after I left. I suppose it’s possible I could have done the crossword and lied about it, but that would be easily verified. So would whoever brought me there – bus or taxi, I think either would remember me.” He let out his breath slowly, face hardening. “But you don’t think I did it.”
“No,” agreed Thursday. “I don’t. But I think you know who did.”
Morse’s hands tensed, fingers digging into the arms of his chair. The muscles in his jaw worked, a slow, intense frown drawing across his face. Finally he spoke, low and angry. “I’ve told you everything you need to know. All the evidence I have.”
“But not everything you suspect,” said Thursday, gently. “And so far, your suspicions have been spot on.”
His face was flushing, scowl growing. “My thoughts are mine to keep.”
“A girl is dead,” snapped Thursday. “A fifteen year-old girl, beaten savagely and strangled. And a young man – shot in the head. That’s not forgivable, and neither is hiding the truth of whatever happened.”
Morse stood abruptly, turning and walking to the window. Sun was shining in and he stepped into its rays, stopping there with his back to Thursday. His hands grasped the window frame, white and stiff. “Isn’t it? Even if that person had saved a life? Perhaps more than one?”
“You can’t bargain lives for lives, good deeds for murder. It just doesn’t work.”
Morse turned, leaning against the windowsill. His face was tight with pain. “You sound so sure.”
“I’ve seen a lot of both in my time, lad.”
He stood stilly for a moment, his hair a fiery halo in the sunshine. Then he dropped his head into his hands, rubbing at his face. “They were lovers,” he said, voice muffled.
“Who’s that?”
Morse slowly dropped his hands away, folded them across his chest as if to comfort himself. “Percival and Mrs Stromming. Since that night when he told her about her husband, they had been strange with each other. And then… their conversation, their manner, it all changed. People don’t watch themselves around me, tend to forget I’m there. It was obvious enough. But while he worshipped her, she was just putting up with him. She did it very well, but I could hear it in her voice when she wasn’t guarding herself: tiredness, irritation. She was using him. She could easily have shot him and made it look like suicide. And… she’s singing Un Bel Di at the performance,” he said, as though it were damning. “She gave me a ticket,” he added, voice choked.
“I think I’m missing something,” put in Thursday slowly.
Morse ran a hand through his hair. “It’s the major aria from Madame Butterfly. The story, basically, is that of an American who comes to Japan just before the turn of the century and takes a Japanese geisha for a kind of Dutch wife. She believes his affections to be honest, and falls deeply in love with him, while he intends her to be nothing more than local comfort. When he leaves, she waits faithfully for his return for years while she falls into poverty, desperate to see him again. But when that day finally comes he brings an American wife with him. She realises she was a fool to think him in love with her, and kills herself. Un Bel Di encapsulates all her feelings for him, how desperately she is in love with him, how she’ll wait unceasingly for him. If she did know about his affair and wanted to try to rekindle his affections, there would be no better way.”
Thursday shook his head. “I don’t really see it myself, but I’ll take your word for it. They’ll still be proof to find.”
“If it’s there, I’m sure you will,” said Morse, hollowly, shrinking back in on himself.
“Morse –”
Morse turned to face the window once more, his profile very clean-cut in the bright light. He stared straight into it without wincing. “I have nothing else to offer you.”
Thursday knew when not to push. He shifted, falling out of his stiff interrogation posture. “Alright. Thank you.”
He saw himself out, the door clicking shut behind him. From the other side there was nothing but silence. And then, faintly, the sound of a woman singing.
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It was the clothes that did her in – an attempt to create a false time of death to secure an alibi. If Mary Tremlett had truly been killed in the evening, someone else must have posed as her the following morning, and there would somewhere be a shop that had sold the dress. All it took was McLeash’s footwork to track it down. The young lady he eventually turned up remembered Mrs Stromming very well – the beautiful woman with the diamond earrings.
Thursday and McLeash slipped into the back of the theatre easily enough with their warrant cards, just in time to hear Mrs Stromming’s last aria. In face of the bright stage lights Thursday couldn’t see Morse in the crowd as they walked out to arrest her, and he was glad.
Two hours later, Mrs Stromming killed herself in her cell.
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Thursday stood in the dim hallway of Morse’s building staring at the young man’s door for a moment before knocking; a departing woman let him in, allowing him to ascend this far without meeting Morse – without having to share his news in the foyer.
Something about the lad’s words – Even if that person had saved a life? preyed on his mind. Rosalind Stromming had never been a anything other than a performer, had no war service nor outstanding incidents of personal bravery in her past. But he was sure whatever incident Morse was speaking of had happened, and that it had been personal.
Finally he knocked on the door; it was nearly a minute before it was answered by Morse, wearing a boiled shirt and black trousers. The collar was open, tie missing, and his hair was mussed as if he had been sleeping. But his eyes were wide and his face tight with apprehension; Thursday doubted he had woken him.
“It’s Inspector Thursday.”
Morse tensed. And then, fingers slipping against the doorframe: “She confessed.”
“Yes,” admitted Thursday. “But that’s not why I’m here. I thought you should hear it from me first. Mrs Stromming killed herself in the cells a little while ago. I’m sorry – I know you…”
He was expecting shock, anger, grief. What he wasn’t expecting was for Morse to sway heavily to one side, blood draining from his face, and then to collapse in a heap like a puppet with its strings cut.
Thursday had seen more than a few witnesses pretend to faint, either to buy time or to cast a false appearance of grief. They mostly fell forwards and curled as they went to land without hurting themselves. Morse went straight down, knees cracking on the wood floor, and crumpled to the side. Heart slamming into his ribs, Thursday dodged forward and caught him, easing him down gently, his hands trembling with the sudden rush of adrenaline.
It occurred to him that he had no idea what had caused the lad’s blindness, if perhaps it were a symptom of some more dangerous illness – there were cancers that caused blindness, and surely other malevolent diseases. He slipped a hand under Morse’s collar to check his pulse: quick but steady, and slowing with every second. His skin was warm to the touch, but not clammy or feverish.
Thursday pulled him to lie straight inside the flat, closed the door, and fetched a blanket off the single bed to drape over him.
It was only a couple of minutes before the lad came to, his breathing deepening as consciousness returned. His eyes flickered open and he tried to reach out, arm caught in the blanket.
“It’s alright, you’re alright,” said Thursday softly, resting a hand on his shoulder. Morse jack-knifed away, pulling free from Thursday, and tried to sit up.
“What – I –”
Thursday caught his shoulder and pushed him gently down again. “You fainted. Just lie there for a minute, you’re fine.”
Morse drew his hands up to his chest, staring blindly at the wall behind Thursday. “Why, what…” his eyes widened and he sat up, too quick for Thursday this time, and swept out a hand until his searching fingers grasped Thursday’s arm. “Rosalind Calloway. What happened, you said… you said…” he gave a shiver and slid back down, face an ugly grey colour. His fingers slid free of Thursday’s sleeve and drew into a weak fist. Thursday tucked the blanket in more tightly around him as he curled up, shivering convulsively. “Is she really…?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
He watched the tears well up in the young man’s eyes and begin to trickle down his cheeks. Morse turned away, covering his face with his hand. “You should leave. Please.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, lad. Come on, let’s get you to your bed. I’ll make you some tea.” Thursday fended off Morse’s protests and helped him to his feet, holding him up as they crossed the room and putting him down on his bed. Morse was giving short, choked sobs, his sleeve already soaked, and Thursday produced a handkerchief for him. He left Morse there to compose himself and passed into the kitchen.
The kettle was sitting by the cooker, and he filled it and put it on; the cooker’s dials had raised lines indicating heat intensity. Although tiny, the kitchen was almost neater than his own, with cups, plates, pans and utensils all carefully put away in their homes. He found a pair of mugs easily – the cupboards held only a couple of sets of crockery – and then rooted out some tea in a tin. By the time he had assembled the tea, milk and sugar the kettle was beginning to boil and he poured out, spooning out extra sugar into Morse’s.
When he got back with the mugs Morse was sitting on the edge of the bed where he’d left him, but his face was mostly dry and his pale complexion had begun to return. He tracked Thursday crossing the room with his head, and reached out to receive his mug. “Smells good. Thank you.” He took it carefully, resting it on his knee. Thursday fetched a chair from the dining area and brought it in, sitting down opposite Morse.
“If I ask you how she killed herself, will you tell me?” enquired Morse carefully, sitting very still.
“You don’t need to know,” answered Thursday, watching him – the drawn skin under his eyes, his tense hands. He had stopped shivering, but only Thursday suspected because he was holding himself so stiffly. “You told me before she had saved a life. Yours?”
Morse slipped a finger into the edge of the mug to gauge the height of the tea, then raised it slowly and took a sip. He made a little prissy kind of face – doubtless he didn’t usually make it so sweet. But he sighed and took another longer drink, eyes slipping shut. “Yes. Mine.”
“How was that?” pushed Thursday, when he said no more.
Morse lowered the mug back to his knee carefully, eyes sliding open again. “My parents divorced when I was young, and my mother died a few years after that. After her death I went to live with my father and my step-mother; it wasn’t a happy house: he was an alcoholic and she couldn’t stand me. The only peace I had was what I made for myself, and I found it mostly in literature; poetry, mainly.
“That would have been bad enough, but when I was fifteen my vision began to fail; the doctors said I would be completely blind by my early twenties at the latest. It felt like the end of my world. Going into libraries or bookstores was like entering cemeteries full of old friends I would never see again, and new ones whose company I would never know. I had nothing to live for – nothing but blackness ahead. So I made a selfish, foolish decision. And it was only Rosalind Calloway who stopped me carrying it out; I heard her voice and I realised for the first time that there was something more out there, something beautiful that I could still love. It was enough…” he stopped, voice faltering.
He looked up, staring right at Thursday, face etched with sorrow. “I killed her. I did.” He said it with absolute conviction. Thursday felt his heart aching for the lad – his pain, his guilt.
“Rosalind Calloway died some time ago, lad. Whatever was good of her. You did no more than stop her killing again. She would have – the ones like her who are so blind to everything but their dreams that they can kill for them – they can’t stop. It would probably have been Dr Stromming, the next time she caught him out.”
Morse twisted his head away, not far enough to hide the horror and disgust. But he didn’t dispute it, either.
“I know you didn’t want this to happen, Morse, but you’ve been more help on this investigation than men who are trained to the task.”
Morse gave a little gruff laugh, expression unchanged.
“It’s true. That work with the crossword? And you have a knack with guesswork.”
“I just have a lot of time to think,” said Morse, bitterly.
Thursday put his mug down on the ground and leant forward, voice steady. “Doesn’t matter why, only matters that you did it. Not many ordinary people are mixed up in one murder in their life, never mind more than one. But if you ever have information to offer again, you can come to me. Anytime.”
Morse turned back to him. “You sound as if you mean it,” he said, surprised.
“I do.”
Morse rested a hand over the top of his mug to warm it, a shy shadow of a smile coming to his lips. “Then – thank you. If I can help you…” he shrugged. “Ask.”
END