Et lux perpetua luceat eis

And may everlasting light shine on them

(Introit, Requiem Mass.)

It can't be.

Variations on this refutation engulf Morse's inner ear, the major section suddenly veering into minor mode and emerging rather jauntily, with sloppy rhythmic and tonal bulge. That discordant theme echoes with an increasing certainty, blocking every other thought.

How could it be? It must be a fake, it's a fake.

He knows as he knows his own name that if it is indeed Mozart's missing autograph, the repercussions will be tremendous.

And he'll be taken off the case, that much is sure. His name as the addressee. His house. His fiancée.

There's no way Mr. Bright will let him—or Thursday, either—investigate the mystery. As the certainty invades him in a wave of blinding light, his shoulders tense and muscles tighten.

Morse raises his eyes from his obstinate focus on the slip of paper that can't be Mozart's penultimate tracing on any score and meets Thursday's watchful ones. Has his thoughts travelled a parallel road?

'I have to be sure,' he says half to himself, and leaping off his chair, he strides into the living room without any warning.

When father and daughter catch up with him, Morse is already moving crates around feverishly, muttering angrily when his hasty exploration doesn't yield what he wants. After a while, Morse pulls a crate out from under others, and tears up the cardboard flaps in his haste to get to the contents. There are books inside—as in most of the other crates—and Morse inwardly curses his lack of care when labelling them. His hands plunge inside, piling up books haphazardly on the floor, until, finally, his quest is rewarded by a book whose cover sports a portrait of Mozart.

The illustration section includes a black and white photograph of the autograph score of Mozart's Requiem: the folio is featured in its undamaged glory, with an enlargement of the lower right staves on the opposite page, details which are of primary interest to Morse.

Leaving the mess behind, he goes back to the kitchen and places the photograph and the manuscript side by side.

The Thursdays peer at the conclusive evidence—if such a flimsy corroboration can be taken as evidence.

'Could be it,' Fred Thursday says after a moment.

The enlarged photograph shows five staves filled with notes—their flight like hasty flaps of wings—with words indicated underneath.

'"fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam",' Morse quotes, translating the Latin words immediately for the Thursdays' benefit. '"Allow them, O Lord, to cross from death into (eternal) life." Then the "Offertorium" goes on with the "Quam olim" fugue, "which once Thou didst promise to Abraham and his seed."' As Morse repeats the words, his mouth can't help narrowing with a faint derisive curve.

He doesn't really need to scrutinize the photograph to note that Mozart's margin annotation is repeated twice. One in front of the alto stave, the other indication placed between the tenor and bass staves. Both presently torn out of the autograph score, with two distinct attempts, as if the perpetrator had hesitated between tearing up one or both. When the lower one proclaimed 'quam olim d: C,' the upper one was more eloquent with 'quam olim da capo.'

'Look,' Morse says, turning the page of the book. Spread over opposite pages, there's a colour photograph showing the last state of the autograph, bereft of Mozart's alleged last penned words. It now shows two roundish tears, one of which even spills over the lines of a stave.

The very same horizontal lines show up at the left border of the scrap of paper Morse peruses again fixedly.

'Alright.' Thursday's voice shatters Morse's bubble of fascination. 'Morse, pack a suitcase. You're coming with us.'

'Huh?' Morse replies absently, his mind blatantly focused on a decade-old heist and a centuries-long musicological mystery.

'Pack a suitcase, you're not staying the night here,' Thursday repeats. 'Joan, go up with him.'

His tone brooks no argument and none is offered. Morse's head goes sharply up, and, as slow realisation fills his eyes, he nods, takes Joan's hand, and propels her hastily before him as they go upstairs.

When they come back from their errand, Thursday has closed all the windows on the ground floor. Given at last all latitude to have its own way, fresh paint smell begins to invade slowly the neighbouring rooms, and Morse's nose quivers with disgust as he closes and locks the backdoor on their exit.

If Mrs. Thursday is startled to see her daughter and future son-in-law invite themselves for the night, she hides her surprise well and promptly gets busy to welcome them.

'The benefit of being a copper's wife,' Morse thinks thankfully. 'And of myriad emergencies along the years.'

'Will Joan take after her mother and deal as practically with all what life will throw at us?' he also wonders. Only time will tell.

Morse will bunk in Sam's old room, no trouble at all, Thursday explains. Therefore, Morse climbs up the stairs and deposits his carry-all at the foot of the bed.

The bed is made up with fresh linen smelling of lavender, and suddenly, the fragrance takes Morse back to his childhood and that glorious treat of slipping inside newly cleaned sheets. Old memories like the smell of freshly cut grass and the first bite into a vanilla ice cream are feelings never gone far from adult minds, and they still carry with them safety and warmth.

Now, if they could also help to soothe Joan…

When Morse goes back downstairs, his fiancée is already sitting on the couch, a cup of tea before her, her father filling his customary pipe in the opposite armchair, while Win Thursday is hastily putting together a late tea for her unexpected guests. The curtains are drawn up, with barely a slit to let in a world made more spectral with the sudden appearance of the celebrated ghost of an Austrian composer and the freshly-minted one of a young man resembling a panicked owl. In a corner, Win's sewing machine is still buried under the yards of cloth deemed necessary to sew new curtains, their deep green indicative that they're meant to be hung in Morse's den.

'I phoned Strange while you were upstairs,' Thursday says. 'Constable Wilkins will stay through the night before the house. Just in case.'

Joan's head snaps up, a suddenly worried flicker in her eyes. 'No, not because of you,' Thursday hastens to say. 'From the angle of the shot, there's no way the killer could have seen you. Bloke jammed the doorway while standing. But if Morse's right…'

'Is Morse in any danger?' Joan asks, her eyes widening, and deep down, somewhere, Morse notes that she's more worried about him than about her own safety. Despite the grimness of the situation, it makes him glad, in a way. He's selfish, he knows that, but having someone care is somehow still new and unexpected. And relished.

Wordlessly, he takes her hand as he sits near her. Joan snuggles closer, looking up at him, a question in his eyes that he hastens to appease. 'Even if the idea was to give it to me, there is no certainty that I have it. It could still be in the man's pocket, or at the Station, in an evidence bag.'

The mortuary would more accurate, but there's no way he's going to point that out to Joan.

Joan doesn't seem quite convinced. 'So why…?'

'—is Morse here? Better safe than sorry,' interposes Fred Thursday.

Silently, Win Thursday carries a tray into the living room. Morse half rises, protesting, 'Mrs. Th—Win, please don't—,' but she hushes him with a nod.

'No bother, dear. It's not much, pot-luck offering. Leak, bacon, and potato soup. Lemon cake, next.'

She gets busy handling out bowls, spoons and cloth napkins, then goes back to the kitchen, carrying back glasses, a pitcher of water and beer bottles.

For a while, the only noise heard in the room is the sound of soup spoons going back and forth between mouths and bowls. The hot food does a lot of good to Joan, bringing up a slight deepening of rosy colour on her cheeks, and the eerie look of wraith-like paleness finally ebbs from her face.

She gives a last lick on her spoon, her tongue carefully revolving around it, and, for once, the ages-old mischievous gesture doesn't get her any reprimand. 'Thanks, Mum, I needed that.'

Win looks at her critically. 'Joan, are you eating enough? You're too thin…'

'Mummy! I'm alright, really.'

Despite her assertion, Joan twists her hands nervously, looking distractedly at the way her ring catches the light, anchoring herself in another tangible reminder of the man sitting close to her, whose body warmth helps dispel her fit of the dismals. It absorbs her for a while, while her parents and fiancé hold their breaths. When she returns their gazes, a forced smile—more painful to watch than a grimace—graces her mouth.

'Really, I am. It's—different from—' Despite Joan's inner resolution, her voice catches in her throat.

Indeed, it's entirely different—and not quite—from Ronnie Gidderton's death; and from Fred Thursday's tightening of his jaws, it seems that he's feeling the same powerless anger than Morse feels coursing through him, right now. But there's nothing they can do to shield her from life. Joan will have to process it on her own, as she did before.

But now she has the sad benefit of experience, Morse thinks with bitterness, and there's nothing he can really do to help her. Again, the sheer awfulness of his powerlessness comes creeping back. Even love is utterly ineffective. He is worthless.

'Hey,' Joan says, her hand coming to rest lightly on his arm, shattering his misery with a mere touch. 'Come back here! Don't be a stranger!'

His eyes recover some light as he looks back at her. 'Never,' he replies, hastening to change the subject, so Joan doesn't dwell on it more than necessary. 'So, a falling out among thieves? What do you think of it, sir?' His tone holds a perfect balance between keen interest and professional enquiry.

'Could be. Or not,' Thursday ponders, puffing on his pipe.

'Why not?' asks Joan, perking up.

'You don't imagine that I hobnob with those sorts of crooks?' Morse butts in rhetorically.

'If so, you'd be a single man in possession of a good fortune, and some lucky girl would have snatched you up before I did!' retorts Joan, with a flash of her old spirit.

Morse's mouth curls up. 'Thus proving that unassailable truth!' His head tilts as he wonders aloud, frowning quizzically, 'Since when do you throw around Austen quotations?'

'Since we got engaged! That's when.'

But their banter falls short as Joan goes back to her current obsession. 'He can't be a crook. He seemed so… nice. Just kept looking over my shoulder as if you were going to appear on the spot… He didn't look at all like a thief.' Yet she immediately amends her statement, with a shrug. 'Well, I'm not the best expert on robbers, anyway. Didn't even see what Marlock was like…'

Before Joan sinks again in that well of self-incrimination, Morse deflects it again, probing at the puzzle lurking in the room like a whole symphonic orchestra squeezed in a bedsit. 'Crook or not, why me?'

'He wanted to give it back?' asks Win hopefully.

'Anonymous dispatching would have been best. And why in England, anyway?' Thursday answers. 'Besides, in all my years as a copper, never saw any attack of conscience worth millions.'

'Millions?' From the tone of his wife's voice, it never really occurred to her.

'Morse?'

'You're right, sir. It's literally priceless.' Morse utters a short, harsh sound that might, if it were less nervous, pass for a laugh. His hands flex as if they were remembering the smoothness of the autograph score under his fingertips, the contrast of the faded browned ink over the cream-coloured thick paper. 'If it's indeed genuine.'

'That much?'

'The last jotting down of one of the only incontrovertible geniuses of humanity? Probably. It could even be worth more than Cardenio or Inventio Fortunata, if they are ever recovered.'

'Cardenio?'

He's lost Win, but Joan slips in quickly, 'One of Shakespeare's lost plays, Mum,' and again Morse wonders about Joan's newfound knowledge in literature. Surely, she didn't seem so well-versed, a few months ago?

His glass of beer goes suddenly still in his long fingers. Morse casts a dark look inside it as if the remaining froth could suddenly yield the secrets of the immediate past, and begins in a low tone, his voice filled with the same reverence his mother used when telling him a bedtime story, 'Apart from its intrinsic musical value, Mozart's "Mass for the Dead" is filled with symbolism and mystery. Take the commission, for instance. Constanze Mozart, the composer's widow, said afterwards that Mozart received it from a mysterious "Man in Grey" who did not reveal the commissioner's identity. While the commissioner was a Count Walsegg who wanted to commemorate the anniversary of his wife's death on the following February.'

Morse sees Win's rapt face, and adds with a faint smile, 'February 1792, that is.'

'Anyway,' he goes on, 'Mozart may—or may not—have known his identity. He was a bit of a musical swindler, Walsegg, having the nasty habit to pass off others' works for his own composing…'

'And Mozart put up with it?' Joan asks quietly, trying not to shatter the mood.

'Did he have any choice?' Morse says with some bitterness. 'He badly needed the money. So, Mozart began to work on it, but, as chance would have it, he received operas commissions at the same time. He put the Requiem on the back burner and went to Prague, then worked on The Magic Flute in Vienna. Then he fell seriously ill…'

The last adverb echoes ominously in the cosy living room. Instinctively, Joan comes closer to Morse as he resumes his narration.

'Mozart died on December 1791 after a short illness. At that point, Constanze Mozart was frantic. She was left alone with two young children and no money. She couldn't give back the advance payment, so she had to find someone to complete the work, and make it seem as if Mozart had composed it.'

'A touch of larceny, then,' Win pips in.

'You could say that,' says Morse with a quick flash of a smile. 'When Mozart died, only the first two movements were completed. As for the "Sequentia" and "Offertorium," they existed merely in the briefest of outlines, with vocal parts and continuo—the bass line—but the "Lacrimosa" segment breaks off after the first eight bars. In the autograph score, Mozart notated some details for the prominent orchestral parts, probably as memento; but on it, most were empty staves. In these, the orchestral parts had yet to be written and so had the inner harmonies. As for the rest, it was a blank.'

'And?' Joan asks, captivated by the story. 'What did Constanze Mozart do?'

Morse's hands dance through the air, punctuating his words, as if drawing through space and time the score forever consigned unheard in Mozart's head.

'Well, Mozart left some sketches. Scraps of papers with tentative themes, the beginning of an Amen fugue, things like that. So, at least, there was something to lean on. Constanze Mozart moved heaven and earth to find someone who could complete the work. She first settled on a friend of Mozart, Joseph Eybler, but he merely worked on it for a bit before returning the score to her. A fellow called Franz Xaver Süssmayr was less shy and finished the completion, but as he tended to exaggerate his input over the years, no one really does know what Mozart really instructed him to do while on his deathbed, or if he used the little scraps of papers found on Mozart's desk after his death… As most of them were thrown away, anyway, the mystery remains. Specialists are still biting their heads off around that one.'

There is a short pause, broken by Thursday's carefully neutral remark. 'You're awfully fluent on the topic for a man who didn't know what awaited him on his doorstep.'

Joan's eyes throw reproachful fire at him, but Morse doesn't really mind.

'Just did my homework, sir,' he says quietly. 'We're rehearsing it—the Requiem—with TOSCA. Concert's due next June. We had our first public rehearsal four days ago. A few academics from my old College even attended.' His empty glass revolves between his fingers before he bends and deposits it on the coffee table in front of him.

'The Oxford Scholars Choral Association. The choir that Morse sings with,' Joan elaborates for the benefit of her mother. 'I wanted to surprise you with tickets, but now…'

She shudders suddenly as if someone really was walking on her grave, and Morse puts an arm around her, enclosing her shoulders in a close, comforting grip. With a sigh, Joan turns around and hides her face against him. His embrace tightens, tethering her back to the world, until he feels her curving against him, relaxing in that already familiar way that feels so natural.

Morse darts a quick glance at her parents, but he sees only understanding in his future mother-in-law's face, and in his Governor's the stoic realisation that comes an age in any daughter's life when her lover's shoulder is first choice rather than her father's.

The older couple exchange a glance, and Win gets up, muttering something about the late hour. Fred Thursday goes next. In passing, he briefly puts his hand over Morse's shoulder in a blessing of sorts, and caresses as fleetingly his daughter's hair. Her only answer is a soft sniff against Morse's jacket.

'Half an hour,' Thursday's gruff tone imports. 'Then bed for you, Joan.'

But more than half an hour fly by before Joan and Endeavour go up the stairs in their turn.

The latest developments don't make Mr. Bright happy at all. As it happens, it would be closer to the truth to say that's he's downright furious. Tense back, clipped words and a slighter emphasis on the sibilants are but some of the outward exhibitions of his discontentment.

Morse stands before him as stiffly erect, as the dressing down drones on—but Reginald Bright would call it a 'reprimand'—, a few words emerging sharply from that outpouring of irritability: 'irresponsible behaviour', 'should have gone back with it to the Station immediately,' 'expected better from you,' this one directed towards Thursday.

'In for a penny, in for a pound,' Morse thinks, and he dives into the fray. 'Miss Thursday forgot about it! In my book, that's no crime!'

'No,' agrees Bright, 'but an officer who keeps a piece of evidence overnight can be at least taxed for sloppy procedure. And given your situation…'

Morse's brow furrows in bewilderment. 'I wasn't aware I had one, sir.'

'As an officer, you don't. But as the long and distinguished history of Oxford City Police is about to be terminated…'

'Sir?' The word issues forth with less firmness than Morse would like. At his side, he feels Thursday snapping to tighter attention.

'The official announcement will be done this afternoon. As for now, Division hasn't issued any information about the extent of this…reorganisation.' Bright focuses intently on Morse. 'Two Detective Sergeants would, ordinarily, be surplus in a Station of this size. But they have other present concerns. Just don't feed up their eventual prejudices.'

'Prejudices, sir?' Morse flings back, underlying Bright's directness. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Thursday flinch at his flippant tone.

Bright's face works over a sentence, finally left unsaid. What he does say, after a moment of deliberation, is, 'You're a good officer, Morse. I thought you'd be pleased to have some more time before you to think about your future.'

'A reprieve's not a pardon. As you know, I just bought a house. I just can't wait months for the other shoe to drop. And…'

'And he's getting married in a few weeks,' adds Thursday, when he sees the precision isn't forthcoming. 'To my daughter, sir.'

'Good, good,' nods Bright. 'Marriage is a lovely time in the life of a young lady… but this takes us farther than I intended.'

He focuses back on the Mozartian scrap of paper and the envelope, now enclosed in an evidence bag and properly labelled. 'No prints, except yours, Morse, that unfortunate young man's and another's. Miss Thursday, probably.'

'She's coming by the nick to have them taken, sir,' says Thursday.

'Good. Take that detail out of the way, then we'll see what the door-to-door reports.'

Morse draws up a cautious breath, and ventures, 'Sir, did you consider that it could be some sort of sophisticated hoax? An elaborate April's Fool game?'

'Like Gull's, you mean?'

Morse scowls at the mention of the name, and Thursday frowns uneasily. 'Gull's secured in the loony bin, sir.'

'I didn't mean Gull,' interferes Morse, 'but… carrying such a—relic so casually? In one's pocket?' A contraction in his mouth expresses better than words what he thinks of such criminal carelessness. 'Before alerting all and sundry, can't we at least ascertain what it is we're dealing with?'

'Not you, Morse. Strange,' Bright reminds him with as much delicacy as he can.

'Oh! I know I can't put my hands on the case, sir! But at least…'

At least, let me know the Alpha and Omega of this bit of paper thrown so murderously in my way, Morse wants to plead.

But it's not the flare of passionate entreaty surging in his eyes that moves his superior officer, it's the sheer expediency of the case. Strange hasn't—never had—the kind of touch needed to bridge easily between Town and Gown, and in this case, especially in this case, he wouldn't know what questions to ask.

If no indisputable Mozart authority is immediately at hand in Oxford, Bright finds out, the next best thing—a great authority on Haydn's life and works—should do the trick. 'Joseph Haydn, the Austrian composer, Mozart's inspiration and friend, the "Father of the Symphony." He dominated German music and guided it from Baroque to Classicism, defining and shoring up the rules which would dominate European music for decades, especially instrumental music,' Morse enlightens. At the very least, the don should impart an informed opinion on the eventual eighteenth-century authenticity of the tantalizing bit of score.

So, it's settled. This morning—'but only then,' cautions Bright—, Morse and Thursday will partner Strange as he goes to Lonsdale to probe Dr. Emery on the genuineness of the manuscript. Morse provides the name, readily enough, but there's a tell-tale twitch on his upper lip betraying his unease.

'Does it come from the knowledge that he's about to stride back into his old College, with new suspicions clinging to his now ambiguous reputation? Or is it something deeper than prickly pride or unsatisfied curiosity?' Bright wonders, as the two men leave his office.

Only time will tell.

NOTES

For the real story behind the stolen 'Quam olim da capo,' see the Wikipedia article, 'Requiem_(Mozart)' and especially the section 'Autograph at the 1958 World's Fair'. In our reality, only one 'Quam olim da Capo' was torn off, not two! Photographs of the missing piece can also be seen on Wikipedia.

Morse's supposed lecture on Haydn was inspired by an online source… but I don't remember exactly where I found it! Ouch. Well, at least, you know I didn't write such a pompous sentence all by myself. You may find Haydn's biography on Wikipedia.

So, what did you think of these developments?

I hope it wasn't too much of a Mozartian infodump! Sorry about that, but it was necessary as I don't know how familiar you are with the Requiem history... Hopefully, the characters' interactions made up for it.

This second chapter was shorter than the first one, but it's the shorter of the whole fic! Sorry. It will get better, I promise!

As always, comments and kudos are gratefully accepted.

NEXT: In which our Hero takes a trip down Memory Lane.