Inspector Morse 11 The Daughters of Cain

Again she looked at him curiously. "It's as if yot been putting your.., well, your faith in something, isn'

And I feel I've let you down."

"I lost all my faith a long time ago, I'm afraid."

"Much better to have evidence, in our job."

Morse nodded; and followed Laura Hobson's sba[ legs into a side-room, where she gestured to a table by window.

'Tll leave you to it, Chief Inspector."

Morse sat down and first looked through the official Possession Property" form, listing the items found Brooks's person.

The wallet which had been removed at the river-sid establish identity (and which Morse had already 1oo through, anyway) was among the items, and he quickly amined its few (now dry) contents once more: one: note; one 5 pounds note; a Lloyds Bank plastic card; an ID c for the Pitt Rivers Museum; a card showing official mc bership of the East Oxford Conservative Club. Noth else. No photographs; no letters.

Nor were the other items listed and laid out there small transparent bags of any obvious interest: a comb; a white handkerchief; 2 pounds 74 pencein assorted coina what had once been a half-packet of now melted indig tion tablets; and a bunch of seven keys. It was this latter item only which appeared to Morse worthy of some brief consideration.

The biggest key, some 3 inches in length, was grimy dark-brown in colour, and looked like a door-key; as per-haps did the two Yale keys, one a khaki colour, the other shinily metallic. The other four keys were (possibly?) tbr things like a garden shed or a bicycle-lock or a briefcase or a box or... But Morse's brain was suddenly engaged now: the fourth small key, a sturdy, silvery key, had the number "X10" stamped upon it; and Morse gazed through the win-dow, and wondered. Was it one of a set of keys? A key to what? A key to where? Would it help to spend a few hours sorting out these seven keys and matching them to their locks? Probably not. Probably a waste of time. But he ought to do it, he knew that. So he would do it. Or rather he'd get Lewis to do it.

From the dead man's clothing Morse quickly decided that nothing could be gleaned which could further the in-vestigation one whit; and he was standing up now, preparing to leave, when Laura came back into the small room.

Phone-call for Morse. Sergeant Lewis. In her office.

Lewis was ringing from the Head's office of the Proctor Memorial School. Mrs. Julia Stevens had been granted temporary leave from her duties. Well, indefinite leave really---but the terminological inexactitude had avoided any difficult embarrassment all round. She would not be returning to school, ever; she had only a few months to live; and a supply teacher had already taken over her classes. Soon everyone would have to know, of course; but not yet. She wasn't at home, though; she'd gone away on a brief holiday, abroad the Head had known that, too. Gone off with a friend, destination unknown.

"Do we know who the friend is?" asked Morse. "Well, you do, don't you?"

"I could make a guess."

"Makes you wonder if they're guilty after all, doesn't it?"

"Or innocent," suggested Morse slowly.

The condition of Kevin Costyn was markedly improved.

With no surgery now deemed necessary, he had been re-moved from the ICU the previous lunchtime; and already the police had been given permission to interview him--at least about the accident.

Very soon he would be interviewed about other matters, too. But although he was reluctantly willing to talk about ram-raiding and stolen vehicles, he would say nothing whatsoever about the murder of Edward Brooks. He may have lied and cheated his way through life, but there was one promise, now, that he was never going to break.

Seated in the sunshine outside a small but fairly expensive hotel overlooking La Place de la Concorde, Julia reached out and clinked her friend's glass with her own; and both women smiled.

"How would you like to live here, Brenda?"

"Lordy me! Lovely. Lovely, isn't it, Mrs. Stevens?"

"Anywhere you'd rather be T'

"Oh no. This is the very best place in the whole world--apart from Oxford, of course."

Since she'd arrived, Julia had felt so very tired; but so very happy, too.

Chapter Fifty-nine

St. Anthony of Egypt (c .251-356 AD): hermit and founder of Christian monasticism. An ascetic who freely admitted to being sorely beset by virtually every temptation, and most especially by sexual temptation. Tradition has it that he fre-quently invited a nightly succession of naked women to pa-rade themselves in front of him as he lay, hands manacled behind his back, in appropriately transparent yet not wholly claustrophobic sacking (SIMON SM^LL, An Irreverent Survey of the Saints)