Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

year ago.  murdered and mutilated a sucResidents of the small hamlet cession

of prostitutes in the East of Lower Swinstead in Oxford- End of London in the

1870s?  As shire are bracing themselves for it is, his ideality remains un-

Cy/ further statements and a fresh known, just like that of Yvonne's ^

upsurge of media interest in the murderer.

^L ghastl^y murder of their former The villagers themselves are '~q/

neighbour;' less than forthcoming, and seem Tom Biffen, landlord of the

dubious about any new break- Maidens Arms, remains phi lo through in the

case.

"Let's just sophical however

"You can't wish the police a bit better luck blame people, can you?  Exactly

this time round," says Mrs May the same as Jack the Ripper.  Kennedy, who

runs the surpris- Nobody knows who he was.  ingly well-stocked village shop.

That's why he's so interesting.  And so say all of us.  All of us, Same with

who done Mrs Harri- that is, except the murderer.

Chief Inspector Morse had not as yet encountered Simon Harrison; but he would

have been reasonably impressed by the proof-reader's competence.  Only

reasonably, of course, since he himself was a man who somewhere, somehow, had

acquired the aforementioned dimension of 'tedious pedandcism', and would have

made three further amendments.

And, of course, would have corrected that gross anachronism, since historical

accuracy had engaged him from the age of ten, when he had taken it upon

himself to memorize the sequence of the American presidents, and the dates

of the kings and queens of England.

37

chapter eight Bankers an just like anybody else, Except richer (Ogden

Nash, I'm a Stranger Here Myself) the london offices of the Swiss Helvetia

Bank are tucked away discreetly just behind Sloane Square.  The brass plaque

pin-pointing visitors to these premises, albeit highly polished, is perhaps

disproportionately small.  Yet in truth the Bank has little need to impress

its potential clients.  On the contrary.  Such clients have every need to

impress the Bank.

Just after 4 p.  m.  on Friday, 17 July, a smartly suited man in his late

forties waved farewell to the uniformed guard at the security desk and walked

out into the sunshine of a glorious summer's day.

Traffic was already heavy; but that was of no concern to Frank Harrison, one

of six Portfolio and Investment Managers of SHB (London).  His company flat

was only a few minutes' walk away in Pavilion Road.

Earlier in the day he'd been very much what they paid him so handsomely for

being shrewd, superior, trustworthy when his secretary had poured coffee for

a small, grey-haired man and for his larger, much younger, cosmetically

exquisite wife.

"You realize that SHB deals principally with portfolio investments of, well,

let's say, over a million dollars?  Is that, er .  ..?"

The self-made citizen from South Carolina nodded.  I think

you can feel assured, sir, that we shall be able to meet that figure ah!

fairly easily, shall't we, honey?  "

He'd taken his wife's heavily diamonded left hand in his own and smiled,

smiled rather sweetly, as Harrison thought.

And he himself had smiled, too rather sweetly, as he hoped as mentally he

calculated the likely commission from his latest client.

Almost managed a smile again now, as he stopped outside Sloane Square

Underground Station and bought a copy of the Evening Standard, flicking

through the sheets, almost immedi- lately finding the only item that appeared

to interest him, then swiftly scanning the brief article before depositing

the paper in the nearest litter bin.  Had he been at all interested in horse-

racing, he might have noticed that Carolina Cutie was running in the 4.  30

at Kempton Park.  But it had been many years since he had placed a bet with

any bookie instead now spending many hours of each working day studying on

his office's computer-screens the odds displayed from the London, New York,

and Tokyo stock exchanges.

Considerably safer.

And recently he'd been rather lucky in the management of his clients'

investments.

And the bonuses were good.

He let himself into his flat, tapped in the numbers on the burglar alarm, and

walked into the kitchen, where he poured himself a large gin with a good deal

of ice and very little tonic.  But he'd never had any drinking problem

himself.  Unlike his wife.  His murdered wife.

Lauren had promised to be along about 6 p.  m.  " and she'd never been late.

He would call a taxi ..  .  well, perhaps they'd spend an hour or so between

the sheets first, although (if truth were told) he was not quite so keenly

aware of her sexual magnetism as he had been a few months earlier.  Passion

was coming off the boil.  It usually happened.

On both sides, too.  It had happened with Yvonne, with whom he'd scaled the

39

 heights of sexual ecstasy, especially in the first few months of their

marriage.  Yet even during those kingfisher days he had been intermittently

unfaithful to her; had woken with heart- aching guilt in the small hours of

so many worryful nights until, that is, he had discovered what he had