CHAPTER 24 -Something's Threatening

Part 1

When Morse arrived at the Thursday house on Monday morning at eight-thirty sharp, he was surprised to find that his boss was ready to leave as soon as Win opened the front door and invited him in. There was to be no waiting in the dining room that morning, clearly. Thursday had his hat and coat on and his bag of sandwiches in his hand before Morse had barely got into the house. He greeted Morse with a cheery 'Morning, Morse', followed by a brief 'See you later, Win' to his wife and went swiftly through the front door, pursued by a bemused Morse who detected that Thursday had a very strong sense of purpose and a firm plan in his mind for the morning's activities.

Morse said nothing until both men were sat in the car but before he turned on the ignition, Morse looked across at Thursday with raised eyebrows. 'Where to, Sir?' he asked, noting his guvnor's steely eyes and expression of grim determination.

'Ronald Fraser's place,' he replied. 'I know we've already had a nose around but this time I want to tear the place apart with a fine tooth comb. There might be an outside chance Fraser made a copy of that letter of his and hid it somewhere for safe keeping. If it's in there, I want us to find it.'

Morse nodded and set the car in motion. They drove along in silence for a minute or two before Thursday broke the silence. 'How did the party go after we left? Did you stay long?'

'Oh, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves from what I could see. The music was turned up, of course and there was lots of dancing and drinking.'

Thursday smiled to himself. He suspected that the party would have become considerably livelier once he and Win had departed the scene. There was nothing quite like the unwelcome presence of a senior police officer to dampen the spirits and ambitions of a bunch of young party-goers. 'But nothing untoward took place, did it? Joan was OK, was she?'

'Oh, yes, she was fine. She seemed to be having a wonderful time. I mean, obviously she felt able to let her hair down a little after you left. Dancing and singing and so forth. She might have been a little tipsy when Strange and I left but nothing for you to worry about, I'm sure.'

Thursday nodded in quiet satisfaction. Morse's account sounded genuine and honest enough. He would have been more suspicious if he had said she had hardly had a drink all night and just sat in the background watching everyone else have a whale of a time. 'Good. I'm glad she was able to relax and have some fun. She could do with a bit of happiness in her life right now.'

Morse remained silent, merely grunting in agreement with Thursday's remarks about Joan. Ten minutes later the car pulled up outside Ronald Fraser's cottage and the two coppers got out, walked through the neat front garden and up to the front door where Thursday put the key in the lock and opened the door. As soon as they set foot inside they immediately sensed that someone was already in the cottage. They could hear the sounds of rustling and scraping coming from the direction of the living room. They looked at each other in silence briefly before moving quickly yet noiselessly towards the door of the lounge which was slightly ajar. Thursday pushed the door open and crept into the room with Morse right behind him.

An elderly grey-haired woman was sitting at the writing bureau in the corner of the room, going through some papers and at the sound of Morse and Thursday entering the room she looked up from her work and greeted the two detectives without any hint of surprise or concern.

'Good morning, gentlemen,' she said with a pleasant smile, but without rising to her feet.

'Good morning, Ms Cooper, replied Thursday who recognised Ronald Fraser's aunt immediately. 'We weren't expecting to find anyone here today.'

'Well, I wanted to have a good sort out of Ronald's things before I fly back home. See what needs to be got rid of, take possession of a few bits and pieces that I know Ronald promised he would leave to me, have a good clear out, you know the sort of thing, Chief Inspector, I'm sure.'

'Indeed, Ms Cooper,' said Thursday with a cursory nod. 'We were planning to have another good look round ourselves, as a matter of fact.'

'Oh, well, be my guest. I promise I'll keep out of your way. In fact I could always take myself off for a walk, if you'd rather be alone. It's so lovely taking a stroll along the riverbank, isn't it?'

'You haven't come across a letter by any chance, have you?' asked Thursday on the off chance. He suspected that if Fraser had hidden a copy of this letter, he was unlikely to have left it so that it could be easily found without a thorough search of the cottage. Thursday envisaged pulling up floorboards, looking behind cupboards and cabinets, rummaging through sock drawers. He doubted it would have been neatly tucked away in a bureau or left lying on a table for anyone to come across.

'There's plenty of letters in Ronald's bureau, Chief Inspector. Is that what you mean? What sort of letter? Who's it from, this letter you're obviously so anxious to find?'

'We don't know, Ms Cooper,' said Morse. 'That's why we want to locate it. But it was clearly an important letter for Mr Fraser so that's why we need to find it. It might shed some light on his murder.'

'Well, I haven't come across anything of particular significance so far. Just the usual correspondence one might expect to find, mostly bills, circulars and bank statements. I'm sorry, Sergeant.'

'No matter, Ms Cooper,' said Thursday. 'We'll carry out a thorough search of the cottage. If it is here, I'm confident we'll find it. If you do want to go for that walk, that's fine by us.'

Ms Cooper stared hard at DCI Thursday for a moment or two as if she hadn't really intended her offer to leave them alone and go off for a walk to be taken seriously and was waiting for him to change his mind. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to, she got up slowly from her chair, bade the two coppers a cursory farewell and closed the living room door softly behind her.

Morse looked over towards Thursday and made a telling observation. 'She didn't seem very happy to leave us alone, did she? Do you think she knows about this letter but she's not letting on?'

'She's keeping something back from us, I'm certain of that. Whether it's to do with this blooming letter, I don't know. Let's worry about that later. We need to start turning this place upside down.' Morse nodded and both men set about ransacking the cottage in a desperate hunt for this letter that could hold the key to Ronald Fraser's murder, if only they could lay their hands on it.

Part 2

When George Fancy reported for duty that morning at Cowley station, he knew he would be confined to office desk duties as a condition of his return to work as prescribed by the doctor. CS Bright had given word that Fancy should report to his office the minute he arrived so as soon as the message had been passed on to Fancy, the detective constable made his way over to Mr Bright's office with more than a hint of trepidation. For a few seconds he had a sudden panic that word of the incident on the river the day before had somehow got back to the Chief Super who was intent on giving him a right old dressing down in private. But then he told himself not to be so stupid. How could Mr Bright have possibly heard about the accident? No-one else witnessed it and Fancy was certain neither Morse nor Trewlove would have done the dirty on him and squealed to the Chief Super. He dismissed this ridiculous thought from his mind and had calmed down by the time he knocked on Mr Bright's door and waited to be summoned to enter the room.

'Ah, Fancy, come in,' said CS Bright who rose out of his chair behind his imposing desk and motioned to Fancy to take a seat at one of the chairs on the other side of his desk, which Fancy did in silence.

'So, how are you feeling now? Glad to be back at work, I would imagine?'

'Yes, sir,' said Fancy nodding furiously as he judged he would be wise to do. 'I'm much better, thank you for asking, Sir. Looking forward to getting stuck into the job again, Sir.'

'Excellent. That's the spirit, Constable. Get straight back into the saddle, eh?'

Fancy nodded although he didn't see what horse riding had to do with anything. 'Although I am on light duties only. At least for a few days, anyway.'

'Well, it's better to be safe than sorry, Fancy. If that's what the doctor advises, then we would be foolish to ignore his advice.'

'Yes, Sir.' Fancy had relaxed, confident that this appearance before the beak was nothing more than a courtesy call, to welcome him back after his enforced absence and to give him a few encouraging words to soldier on, putting his best foot forward, in Mr Bright's inimitable, old school manner.

'Well, I'm sure you have plenty to do, Fancy. Cases to catch up on, progress reports and so forth. I won't detain you any further. Carry on.'

Fancy took his obvious cue and rose from his seat, thanked CS Bright once again for his concern and left the room promptly, leaving the Chief Super to follow him out with his eyes, a kindly expression on his face. The constable had the good fortune to run almost headlong into WPC Trewlove on his way back to his desk and took the opportunity to speak to her briefly about the events of the previous day.

'You promise you won't mention a word of this to anyone, will you, Shirley? I really don't want DCI Thursday or, God forbid, Mr Bright, hearing even a whisper about what happened. Otherwise my career in the police force could be finished.'

'It feels like I'm having to keep a lot of secrets about you lately, George,' said Trewlove with an imposing stare at the clearly worried young copper. 'When are you going to start doing a few favours for me, I wonder? This all seems to be one way traffic at the moment.'

Fancy took a sharp intake of breath and babbled a hasty response. 'I…I'll do anything, Shirl. Whatever you want me to do, just …. just say the word. I know I owe you one.'

'One?!' Trewlove glared at George in disbelief. 'Your maths isn't very good, is it, George? By my calculations, that's at least two huge favours I've done for you so far. Two big secrets I'm keeping quiet about for your sake. I'm thinking of keeping a record of them all in a little black book. God knows how many more there's going to be.'

'None, I promise you, Shirl. I won't be putting a foot wrong from now on. I've learnt my lesson, honest.'

Trewlove smiled pitifully at Fancy and decided that was enough ribbing and tormenting for one morning. Besides, she had to get on or else she would be late for her beat patrol shift.

'We'll see, George. Catch you later,' she said waving a hand in his direction as she turned on her heels and walked calmly away as Fancy watched her go with an anxious expression and gloomy eyes.

'If you're ready to make a start, George, I've got plenty for you to be going on with,' said Strange who had suddenly turned up at Fancy's side. He caught sight of Fancy's guilty, sad face and was immediately curious and suspicious. 'What was that about with Shirley?'

'Nothing,' said Fancy rather too quickly for Strange's liking. 'I mean, nothing important. I was just seeing if she fancied meeting up for lunch, that's all.'

Normally he was a pretty poor liar, but he seemed to have convinced Strange that was all there was to their conversation as the sergeant quickly changed the subject back to work. 'Come on then, George. Look lively. I've got some background research on the Simmons mob I need you to get stuck into.'

Fancy followed Strange into the office, glad to have some police work he could get his teeth into to take his mind off the disaster that his private life was rapidly becoming, even if the work was only light desk duties, far removed from the action on the front line.

Part 3

After a good hour and a half of painstaking, thorough searching of Ronald Fraser's cottage, during which time the two detectives had looked into every nook and cranny, turned up carpets and floorboards, thumbed through every book and magazine, and examined the inside of every ornament and receptacle on show, Morse and Thursday had uncovered nothing that proved to be of any potential significance to the murder.

Morse had rummaged around in the bureau where Fraser's aunt had been sitting and discovered that her description of the contents of the bureau had been entirely accurate. There was nothing remotely interesting to be found therein and Morse closed shut the lid of the bureau with a sigh of frustration. Thursday was upstairs rummaging around in Fraser's bedroom, going through all the drawers, cabinets and wardrobes, even rifling through the pockets of Fraser's trousers, coats and jackets in case the letter had been absent-mindedly left in one of them although the DCI knew that was extremely unlikely. Fraser didn't strike him as having been a particularly careless man and he was sure that he probably wouldn't have let such an important letter out of his sight for any longer than he had to.

Having finished his thorough search of all the upstairs rooms, Thursday joined Morse downstairs for a final conflab before deciding what to do next. 'Nothing. Not a sausage,' moaned Thursday to Morse who looked back at his guvnor with a shared irritation. 'Me too,' he said gloomily. 'I don't think it's here. I reckon he found somewhere else to hide it…. that's if he did even make a copy.'

'It would have been easy for him to take a copy of it, surely? Plenty of machines at the Mail which he could have used to make one.'

Morse stared past Thursday, his eyes suddenly bulging and his mouth half open. 'Yes, you're right, Sir. He would have made a copy of the letter at work, wouldn't he? So, that's where he would have most likely hidden it, surely? After all, according to Ms Frazil, he probably spent more time at the Mail than he did at home. He would have slept easier knowing it was under his nose most of the time while he was at work.'

'Good thinking, Morse. Why didn't I think of that before? We've been wasting our time turning this place upside down. We should have been ransacking the Oxford Mail.'

'Do you think that might be why Ms Frazil had an intruder in her office that Saturday morning?'

Thursday's eyes narrowed as he pondered Morse's suggestion. 'Could be,' he said. 'Maybe our killer had come to the same conclusion. But he took a hell of a risk, didn't he, breaking in on that Saturday morning while Ms Frazil was working there?'

'Unless he wasn't expecting her to be there, of course. Maybe he, or she, assumed the Mail would be empty on a Saturday morning. Most offices are, after all.'

'Come on. Let's get over there and speak to Ms Frazil. We'll need to call for uniform to help us go over the place inch by inch. We're not turning the Mail over on our own.'

They were just on the point of leaving the cottage when Fraser's aunt reappeared from her walk along the river. 'Did you have any luck finding your letter, Chief Inspector?' she asked casually as she took off her coat and hung it up neatly on the coat stand in the hall.

'Unfortunately not,' replied Thursday. 'Are you sure you're not holding anything back from us, Ms Cooper?'

Vera Cooper stared back at DCI Thursday, her eyes wide open in surprise but she didn't appear shaken or disturbed by the accusation. 'I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Chief Inspector. I've answered all your questions, told you everything I know about poor Ronald. I don't know what more I can do to help you.'

'And you know nothing about a letter that obviously meant a great deal to Mr Fraser?' said Morse who began to eye up Fraser's aunt with more than a little suspicion.

'But who was this letter from, Sergeant, that you're so keen to track down? If I knew that, then possibly, just possibly I might be able to help you.'

'We don't know, that's the problem. Possibly from a friend or a distant relative, maybe someone he met through work. It could be anyone.'

'Ronald had very few friends or acquaintances outside of work, that much I do know. He wasn't a particularly sociable kind of guy. The occasional drink after work with one or two colleagues, that was as far as his social life went, I believe. As for relatives, well he had none…apart from myself, of course and we had lost touch over the last ten years or so, apart from exchanging Christmas and birthday cards, of course.'

'How much longer will you be in the UK, Ms Cooper?' asked Thursday who was eager to make a move over to the Oxford Mail and leave behind this cottage which had proved so much of a bitter disappointment to them that morning.

'I shall be flying back in a couple of days, Chief Inspector, as soon as the funeral is over and done with.'

'Please don't leave the country without letting us know first, will you, Ms Cooper?'

'Really, Chief Inspector! You're treating me like I'm a suspect, for Goodness sake. I had nothing whatsoever to do with poor Ronald's death. I wasn't even in the country when he was killed. I can prove it to you if you absolutely insist!'

'We're not accusing you of killing your nephew, Ms Cooper. But somebody wanted him dead and I have more than a suspicion that you know far more than you've told us so far. Might I remind you that withholding information in a murder investigation is a very serious offence. You be sure to think on that, Ms Cooper.'

Morse glanced across at his boss whom he could see was struggling to keep his temper in check. It wasn't often that Thursday lost his rag when questioning a suspect or a witness. As a rule he was the epitome of calm and composure, a model of strategy and tactics when it came to trying to squeeze vital information out of someone whom he thought was holding things back from them but it seemed as if Ms Cooper had managed to wind him up ever so slightly, possibly without even realising it. Fraser's aunt frowned and returned Thursday's steely gaze with an equally impassive expression of her own. From where Morse was standing, it looked for all the world like the titanic collision of the irresistible force meeting the immoveable object. Ms Cooper chose not to respond to DCI Thursday's words of advice but turned her back on the two coppers and went back into the living room, presumably to continue with her search through her nephew's possessions, leaving a disgruntled Thursday chewing his lip in irritation.

'Come on, Sir,' said Morse, dragging his guvnor back into the real world from his temporary fog of frustration and annoyance.

'You're right, Morse. Let's get the hell out of here. We'll get more blood out of a stone than we will out of that one, I can tell you.'

A couple of minutes later the two detectives were pulling away from Fraser's cottage, with Morse still a little concerned about his guvnor's state of mind. 'You were a bit… hard on her, weren't you?' he said, hesitantly.

'She's holding something back, Morse. I know she is. And I'm damned certain it's important.'

'Maybe we'll find the answer at the Mail,' Morse ventured, trying to be optimistic and put his boss in slightly better humour.

'Let's hope so or else I'll be wanting another little chat with Ms Cooper and next time it will be down at the nick, not in the comfort of her nephew's cottage.'

Part 4

Fancy's first morning back at work on light desk duties had been fairly dull and tedious compared to his normal working day, out on the streets of Oxford looking to catch villains in the act by keeping tabs on them on 'obs duties' or attending a crime scene, conducting house to house interviews and taking witness statements. He was compiling a comprehensive list of all known associates of Simmons senior and junior, including known addresses, relatives and friends. It was painstaking work requiring much concentration and diligence but it did have the merit of being important police work and was ten times better than thumbing through a newspaper or a magazine and listening to day time radio programmes which was what he had been reduced to doing at Strange and Morse's place when he was off sick the previous week.

However as the morning wore on, he gradually became aware of an undercurrent of murmuring and stifled laughter all around him. He had looked up from his work on a number of occasions and glanced around the office to see if he could locate the source of these vague, imprecise mutterings but without success. His colleagues in CID merely looked back at him blankly or gave him a nod or a half smile and carried on with their work, giving him no clue as to whether he might have been imagining it or not. But as the minutes and the hours passed by, Fancy became more and more convinced that an 'atmosphere' was building amongst his colleagues, steadily and stealthily by degrees and he had the unshakeable conviction that for some unknown reason he was at the very centre of this attention.

The collective singing began as nothing more than a hushed whisper at first. The words were unintelligible to Fancy from where he was sitting, however hard he strained his ears to hear them better and he didn't recognise the tune at all so, to begin with, he was very much in the dark as to what was going on around him. Gradually over the course of the next half an hour, he started to pick out a few isolated words here and there as the song was being sung over and over again, seemingly by all and sundry within earshot of him, each successive rendition being sung just a fraction louder than the previous one. Eventually Fancy was finally able to piece together the gist of the song and once he had done so, he froze in horror and his heart almost stopped beating as the full meaning of the song being sung by his CID colleagues became all too clear to him.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream,
Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the brook,
If you catch a little fish
Please let it off the hook

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the creek,
If you see a little mouse
Listen to it squeak

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the river,
If the river gets you wet
Don't forget to shiver

Row, row, row the boat
Gently to the shore,
If you see a lyin' bear
Don't forget to roar

Row, row, row your boat
Watch the water flow,
Rowing's fun but rowing's hard
That is what I know

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the lake,
Don't stand up and rock the boat
That's a big mistake!

He looked across at the colleagues sitting nearest to him, his face blushing furiously with embarrassment, and challenged them to explain themselves.

'What the hell are you all singing for?'

'Oh, sorry, George,' replied one of the other detective constables with a wry grin, 'We thought you liked a good singalong. Especially that song. Isn't it one of your favourites?'

Fancy stared back at the guy and tried not to show he had understood exactly what the song was about and how painfully it related to his most recent embarrassing escapade.

'I don't know what you're talking about, Clive. I'm trying to concentrate here. Fat chance of that happening with all you lot singing some stupid children's nursery rhyme.'

'Oh, so you do recognise the song, then, George,' cried another one of his colleagues who was sitting opposite Clive. 'I wonder why it's so familiar to you?' The whole group of CID colleagues suddenly burst out laughing, all pretence of innocence having been abandoned as they all burst into the first couple of verses again, leaving Fancy shaking with a mixture of rage and shame. He got up from his desk and, with a stern face and lips pressed tightly shut to avoid saying something he might regret later, he stormed out of the office without even glancing at his colleagues who were killing themselves laughing and singing the verses even louder as Fancy disappeared from the room.

The red-faced young detective immediately ran for cover in the gents' toilets where he took refuge in a cubicle, after first checking that nobody else was in any of the other cubicles. He sat down heavily on the toilet seat and took a few deep breaths to try to compose himself. One thought was racing through his scrambled mind. Who could have betrayed him? It had to be Morse or Shirley. He didn't see how Morse's woman friend Veronica could have been the guilty party. She only knew Morse from the station, and he didn't see how she would have had the opportunity to spill the beans to any of the others in the short time available. No, he had to face up to the painful fact that it had to be one of his two friends, either Shirley which he didn't even want to contemplate as a possibility or, more likely, Morse. But why would Morse do that? Unless…. And now his mind began to run wild with all manner of theories, some ludicrous, others more grounded in probability.

What if Morse had discovered that he had been rummaging about in his room and had decided to get his own back in the most cruel way imaginable? Was Morse really capable of playing such a heartless trick on him like that? He wouldn't have thought so before but now he wasn't quite so sure. He would have to have a really long think about this before he took any course of action. He didn't want to be wrong and make things even worse for himself. First things first – he had to speak with Shirley and see what she thought. He resolved to track her down at the earliest opportunity.

Part 5

About fifteen minutes after Thursday and Morse had left Ronald Fraser's cottage, the telephone rang, causing Vera Cooper to let out a sigh of irritation. She had just started going through all of her nephew's outstanding household bills, putting them into date order with a view to paying off the oldest ones first and now this interruption came to break her concentration. She got up slowly from the desk and went out into the hall to pick up the phone before it stopped ringing.

'Hello?' she said confidently. 'Ronald Fraser's residence. Vera Cooper speaking.'

There was the slightest of pauses before the caller returned Ms Cooper's greeting. On hearing the caller's voice, Vera Cooper gave a start and breathed heavily, her heart beating a little faster than before. ''Oh, it's you,' she said almost in a whisper. 'I thought you might get in touch. What do you want?'

She listened intently and with considerable anxiety to the response and her expression hardened as the caller spoke at some length before pausing for Vera to consider what had been said.

'Why should I meet up with you? What would be the point of that?' Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips as she bravely stood up to the caller's obviously insistent demands to arrange a time and a place for a secret rendezvous.

The caller spoke further in a raised and angry voice, indicating that saying no to the suggestion of a meeting would not be tolerated under any circumstances. The caller finished their latest rant with a pointed question as Ms Cooper caught her breath again before she answered with great reluctance.

'Yes, I've still got it. Why? What do you want with it?' The caller replied immediately, almost cutting Ms Cooper off before she had finished speaking. The voice on the other end of the line was raised even louder, becoming almost a terrifying cry of anger before eventually calming down and returning to a more composed and controlled level, which paradoxically came across to Vera as even more threatening and disturbing than when the caller was almost shouting at her.

'Don't you threaten me,' she said with grim determination and not a little admirable courage. 'If you carry on doing that, I will go to the police.'

The caller continued to speak with chillingly composed tones and finally said something terribly convincing and frightening that made Ms Cooper change her mind abruptly about involving the police.

'Alright, then. I'll meet up with you. But I'm not meeting you down by the river. I'm not stupid, you know. If you want to meet up with me, then you can bloody well come here.'

This suggestion seemed to have met with the caller's approval as a time was hastily agreed upon and the caller rang off, seemingly satisfied with the arrangements that had been concluded. Ms Cooper replaced the receiver and stood in the hall for several moments, thinking long and hard. She had a few hours to prepare properly and wisely for this meeting which she had been desperate to avoid but which she could sadly no longer resist. The caller's final threat had been too dangerous for her to ignore and she had a couple of things to do first to protect her safety and that of her loved ones. She had hoped she would have been able to fly back home without having to see this person at all, but those plans had been thwarted because of this unwelcome conversation and now she would have to face up to this unpleasant confrontation that had been conveniently ignored, indeed deeply hidden at the back of her mind her for many, many years.

Author's Notes

I shall probably be taking a little time off to try to catch up with this story. I normally like to be 'ahead of the game' by being two or three chapters in front of the chapters I publish (e.g. written 10 chapters but only published 7) but I have now sadly lost that advantage.

I shall spend the next 7-10 days writing two or three new chapters before I publish the next one so I hope those of you who have been following the story all the way will be patient with me. The next instalments will follow soon as soon as I have got ahead of the game again!