CHAPTER 26 -Something's collaborative

Part 1

'Thank you, Jim. That was very kind of you. I enjoyed that.' said Joan Thursday, wiping the corners of her mouth with her napkin and washing down the last mouthful of her shepherds pie with a sip of lemonade.

'My pleasure Joan,' said Strange with a shy smile. 'One good turn, after all. You bought me Sunday lunch, remember.'

'But that was to thank you for helping me clear up the flat. So now, I still owe you one!'

Joan shook her head in amusement at Jim's generosity which for her went way beyond the call of duty. She had the weirdest feeling that Jim was determined for her to be forever in his debt to some extent. His recent attentions had taken her considerably by surprise. She liked him a lot, of course, who wouldn't? But he had only even been, in her uncomplicated eyes, one of Dad's men and nothing more. She had got to know him a little over the years through him popping round to the house to see Dad on work matters or occasionally running into him during the day, again mostly on police business if she ever happened to become involved in a case even to a very minor degree.

She had even once been in an interview room with him down at the nick briefly when she had got caught up unintentionally in a public protest incident which had got out of control and spilled into regrettable violence. She had been rounded up with a whole load of other peaceful protesters and bundled into a police van and taken down to Cowley Station. That had been one of the most frightening experiences of her life, sitting alone in a cold, soulless interview room waiting for a copper to interview her about her part in the incident and not knowing if she would be charged or not. The thought of what her father would have said if she had been charged with causing a public affray or some such similar charge didn't bear contemplating. She wasn't sure if she would ever live down the shame of having let down not just her DCI father but her poor, law-abiding Mum as well who would have been heartbroken to see her daughter saddled with a criminal record, however minor the offence.

But much to her relief it had been Jim Strange who had come to see her in the interview room, not her father or Morse or anyone else. It had been Jim who somehow or other had manged to pull the necessary strings to get the paperwork put together which saw her released almost immediately without any charges or indeed any record to prove she had even been in the police station at all. She knew she owed Jim a debt of gratitude for that, even if it was a year or so ago. Not that she carried the memory of that incident around in her head the whole time, far from it. But for some reason it did pop into her head right then as she sat opposite him in the café having a light lunch together at his expense and insistence.

'Who's counting, Joanie? It's not a competition to see who can rack up the most favours, is it?'

'Isn't it?' asked Joan, eyebrows raised, and a huge smile spread right across her face. 'I feel like you're smothering me with all these kind thoughts and good deeds, Jim. And I 'm not really sure what I've done to deserve them.'

Strange fell silent for a while, unsure as to whether Joan was having a little bit of a go at him or was merely embarrassed at the various kindnesses he had been plying her with recently.

'I never meant to upset you or embarrass you, Joan. I'm sorry if that's what's happened.'

'Oh Jim, you couldn't upset me if you tried.' Joan suddenly felt awful that she might have led Jim to believe he might have upset her in some way. 'You're too nice a guy to do anything that might upset a girl. Honestly, nothing could have been further from my mind.'

'I'm relieved to hear you say that, Joan. I'd have hated to have upset you in any way. I've probably just been guilty of…I don't know…maybe trying too hard.. to be nice, that is.'

'You should never apologise for being nice, Jim. There aren't enough of your type around as it is.'

Jim Strange smiled again and looked down at the ground, unable to return Joan's smiling eyes. 'Oh, I don't know about that, Joan.'

'I do,' said Joan, leaning across and laying a hand softly on his arm. 'I've met enough of the wrong types of men not to recognise a good man when I see him.'

It was Jim Strange's turn now to have the feeling of being smothered with kindness and he blushed openly and licked his lips to stop them from completely drying up on him.

'Are you lonely, Jim? I think what you need is a nice girl for you to take care of.'

Jim looked up, despite his shyness and nervousness, at Joan's very direct and personal question. 'Maybe,' he nodded a little reluctantly. 'I wouldn't say no if someone nice walked into my life, I guess. But I've never been the kind of guy that happens to. I always seem to be somewhere else when she turns up.'

Joan giggled. She loved his self-deprecating sense of humour and so, she thought, would plenty of other girls if he could only find the right one. 'Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that,' she said confidently. 'You leave that with me. I'll have a bit of a think and see what I can come up with. Is that a deal?'

Strange threw his head back and laughed in amusement at Joan's resolute determination and quiet self-confidence that she could be the path to his success on the romantic front. 'It's a deal, Joanie. I'll put myself in your capable hands. But please, promise me one thing.'

'What's that, Jim?' asked Joan, intrigued by what Jim's one stipulation might be as regards her match-making aspirations.

'No blind dates, please! If you think you've found someone suitable, please at least let's make it a foursome. Then if it all goes pear-shaped, she'll have someone else to talk to for the rest of the evening!'

Part 2

DCI Thursday had called a team meeting for 4.30 p.m. back in the office to review the case from scratch. Before then he asked Morse to set up a white board and write down on it all the basic facts of the case so that everyone could have a good look at it and try to get a feel for where the investigation had got to and what was needed to bring it to a swift conclusion.

Morse was, as ever, extremely diligent and had set about the task with relish, knowing how important it could be to get everything they knew about the case on full display. Where available, photographs of the major persons of interest had been stuck up on the board and their basic details inked next to the photo, including name, age, occupation, relationship to the deceased, alibi for the time of the murder and so forth. Possible motives for the murder had been listed along the side of the board, as they had occurred to Morse with the likely perpetrators for each motive. These potential motives included revenge for perceived wrongdoing or sleights, money, blackmail, love/hate (always a favourite with Morse) and even pure psychopathic frenzy by a complete stranger, an unlikely motive, Morse was forced to admit but nonetheless one that had to be included for reasons of completeness if nothing else.

Mention had been made by Morse in a corner of the board of this mysterious letter which had so far escaped the clutches of the CID team, but which was considered central to the investigation, at least until evidence came to light which disproved that theory. A time line had been drawn up by Morse which set out the known movements of the victim from the last time he had been seen by anyone at the Oxford Mail up until the last sighting by the landlord in the pub where he drank before he died. Brief details of the post-mortem were also written down on the board stating the confirmed cause of death, the approximate time of death and the likely murder weapon, still as yet unfound.

Morse stood back from the board to review his handiwork with a keen eye, anxious to check that nothing important by way of evidence had been omitted in error. He glanced at his watch and noted that it was twenty-past four. Ten minutes remained until Thursday would call the progress meeting to order. He puffed out his cheeks and wiped his forehead with the back of his shirt sleeve. It was getting quite warm in the office and even though someone had switched on a couple of fans to blow some welcome cool air into the room, Morse was still sweating profusely. Thinking was always heavy work and Morse had been doing a lot of thinking in the last hour or so. He could have murdered a pint of bitter to ease the strain on his brainbox but sadly that wasn't going to be possible. There was a strict 'no drinking alcohol' policy in the office although Morse had never seen the point of that. Surely whatever helped the little grey cells to flourish and prosper should have been positively encouraged, to his way of thinking but sadly not everyone, or possibly anyone, saw it the same way as he did. Besides, he and Thursday had from time to time rewarded themselves with a swift whisky at the end of a long, hard day in the privacy of Thursday's office, with the shutters pulled well down to keep out any prying eyes.

Ten minutes later Thursday appeared with CS Bright in tow. The Chief Super had obviously been informed by Thursday that a meeting had been called to carry out a thorough review of the Fraser murder enquiry and Mr Bright had decided that it would be appropriate for him to attend this meeting to observe his troops in action and to suggest any operational courses of direction that came to his mind. The presence of the Chief Super caused a slight intake of breath around the office as belts were tightened, ties were straightened, and all traces of humour and light-heartedness were summarily thrown out of the window at the sight of the big boss entering the room.

'Right, pay attention everyone,' cried Thursday as a deathly hush descended upon the room and everyone made sure they had pens and notebooks at the ready. The whole CID team was present including Strange, Fancy and Trewlove who had been called in from her beat to attend the general pow-wow. Within seconds the room was silent, so much so you could have heard a pin drop and all eyes were turned on DCI Thursday and the Chief Super standing beside him in full uniform, immaculately dressed and coiffured as usual.

'Our victim is Ronald Fraser, 52 years old, deputy editor at the Oxford Mail. He was stabbed to death sometime between 11 o'clock and midnight on the Friday evening before last. The body was found down by the canal by a dog walker early the following morning. Victim had multiple stab wounds, eight in total, although only two of them were serious enough to have killed him. The brutal nature of the multiple stabbings has not been made public for the moment so keep that to yourselves.'

Morse took his cue to take over the next section of the case review.

'Ronald Fraser was last seen at work on Thursday evening around five o'clock when he clocked out. He was supposed to be taking the Friday off as holiday to go on a solo fishing weekend up North. Mr Fraser was a keen angler and often went off on a long weekend's fishing expedition, always alone. However it would appear that either he changed his mind about the fishing trip, or he never intended going away at all and this fishing trip was just a cover story for some other purpose which he wanted to keep secret.'

'Fraser lived alone,' continued Thursday,' He was a widower. His wife died many years ago, suicide. He came home one night to find her with her head stuck in the oven. No note left at the scene, no easy explanation as to why she killed herself. Fraser couldn't offer any explanation other than to say she had seemed a bit down in recent months but nothing specific. A search of his cottage revealed nothing of any great significance except possibly one photograph.' Thursday paused to point to the small, passport-sized picture of the young child of about three years old that Morse had found on the cork board in Fraser's kitchen and which he had stuck onto the white board in the office.

'A little girl aged three years old called, it would appear, Carla,' said Morse. 'Photo found pinned up on a corkboard in the victim's kitchen. So, it would appear that this photo and the child in the photo meant something to Fraser otherwise why would it be pinned there?'

'Nobody we've spoken to so far has mentioned any child that Fraser might have had. Fraser and his wife definitely didn't have any children. Word is that they couldn't have kids for medical reasons. No-one is certain on whose side the problem lay but when we spoke to Fraser's only living close relative, his aunt, a Ms Vera Cooper, she told us that her nephew didn't like to talk about it much but she got the impression that the problem was on his side. But we've got no evidence to support that, it's just supposition.'

Thursday stepped in again now to start issuing some directions. 'So let's try to get hold of Fraser's medical records. Find out who his GP was and speak to him. If Fraser and his wife had been told they couldn't have kids, then they must have been referred to a doctor and had tests done. Find out who they saw, what the result of the tests were and which of them couldn't have kids. If this little girl is Fraser's child, we need to know. She could be the key to this whole murder investigation. Strange, you look into that. You've got time on your hands now, haven't you?'

Jim Strange nodded. His enquiries into the local spate of robberies had run into a brick wall with the lack of hard evidence against the Simmons family so he had informed Thursday earlier that afternoon that he was available to help out on the canal murder if he was needed. Thursday quickly decided he did need Strange and his methodical, painstaking approach to routine enquiries.

'When we spoke to Fraser's aunt,' continued Morse, 'she said she had never seen the picture before and had no idea who the young child was.'

'But we think she's holding something back. She might not be lying about the picture of the little girl but she's definitely not telling us the whole story about her nephew. I'll stake my reputation on that,' claimed Thursday boldly and defiantly.

'Careful, Thursday,' interjected CS Bright. 'Many a man's fallen foul of his reputation. It doesn't always do to be too confident about anything until we have actual proof.'

Thursday turned towards Mr Bright and smiled. He appreciated his Chief Super's concern for him but on this occasion he saw no need to be coy or reticent in speaking his mind in front of all the troops.

'Don't worry, Sir. If I'm wrong about the aunt, then I'll happily eat my hat in front of all of you, and that's a promise.'

A ripple of laughter broke out amongst the assembled officers and Shirley Trewlove looked across at George Fancy and smiled broadly. That would be a sight to behold, she thought. I must remember to bring my camera along if it should ever happen. I could sell tickets for a ringside seat for that, thought Fancy, ever an eye for the big chance.

Part 3

At around the same time as Thursday and Morse were holding a captive audience spellbound down at Cowley nick with their presentation on the Fraser murder enquiry, Win Thursday was back at the Thursday house talking on the phone to Joan.

'I don't know why you're so nervous, Mum,' said Joan. 'You've practiced your routine at least a hundred times, you told me so yourself. You're step perfect. You'll knock the opposition for six!'

'Oh, you know me, love. I just get so terrified on the big day. God knows how we won last time out. I was shaking like a leaf so much I could barely put one foot in front of another. I thought I was going to fall over at one point.'

It was less than a week to go to the County quarter-finals and Win was in danger of getting herself all of a flutter. She so wanted to go further in the Tango competition than they had ever been before that her desire and ambition were eating away at her to such an extent that she could barely eat. What only served to accentuate her nervousness was the fact that Fred didn't seem the least bit worried about the upcoming big night. He had complete confidence in the pair of them and the whole quarter-final big night out event was like water off a duck's back to him. But all his words of comfort and well-meaning attempts to instil some quiet confidence in Win had fallen on stony ground. Win was a bag of nerves and would doubtless remain so right up until they heard their music play and they stepped forward to take up their opening positions for the most important tango routine of their entire lives.

'You'll be fine, Mum, trust me. You always get the collywobbles like this and then you go out there and take the whole ballroom by storm.' Joan rolled her eyes in frustration, safe in the knowledge that her Mum couldn't see her.

'Oh, I do hope you're right, love. I just don't want to let your Dad down, that's all. I know he always plays it down and pretends it's no big deal to him, but I know that's just for show. He would love to win the competition just as much as me.'

'Let Dad down? When have you ever done that? You've bent over backwards most of the time for his sake. All the times he's had to work late, all the scrapes he's got himself into because of work. And when you have complained? When have you so much as uttered a word of disapproval or expressed your disappointment at coming a poor second to work day after day?'

'That's just the way it is, Joan. He's a copper and I'm a copper's wife. No more to be said, really. It comes with the job. I always knew that from the minute we got married. He never tried to pull the wool over my eyes. I knew exactly what I was letting myself in for, so I've never had any right to complain. But this is different. This isn't work. This is something we both enjoy together outside of work and I don't want to disappoint him and let him down on Saturday night.'

'You won't, Mum. You'll knock them all dead, I know you will. Besides, I'll be there in the crowd cheering you on like last time. So will Sam. We're both coming again. We wouldn't miss it for the world. We'll be your good luck charms.'

Win broke out into a huge smile and almost burst into tears. The last round was the first time the kids had ever come to watch Fred and her perform live and they had been so incredibly proud of what they had achieved that evening, with a first ever place in the County quarter-finals, that it had been one of the most memorable moments of her life. She hoped Joan and Sam would bring them good luck second time around.

'I do hope so, dear. I can't thank you enough for coming to support us. You know that means the world to your Dad. And to me too.'

'Well, we won't be coming if you don't stop worrying yourself sick about it, will we. Mum? Just try and stay calm, get plenty of sleep all week and keep up the practice in the evenings. Oh, and don't forget to eat!'

'Right you are, dear. I promise.'

Joan breathed a sigh of relief that she had finally appeared to have talked some sense into her mother. Her Dad should have been the one to be doing this but in her short experience of life she had found that men were utterly useless at some things. Allaying pre-match nerves and tension, finding the right words to say which would calm down a nervous wife and boost her fragile self-confidence were not high up on the list of strengths of most men she had ever come across and her work-obsessed father was certainly no exception. Joan resolved to give her Mum a final call on the night before the competition just to give her one last calm, composed and focussed pep talk.

Part 4

'Possible suspects,' said Thursday as he and Morse continued with their case summary team talk. He pointed to a list of names on the board that Morse had carefully compiled and began to go through them one by one.

'First up, Peter Barnes. Senior Features Reporter at the Oxford Mail. Had a major bust up with our victim some years ago. Barnes went for Ronald Fraser and gave him a black eye and a bloody nose all because Fraser more or less re-wrote one of his pieces which wasn't up to scratch. Barnes tried to play down the seriousness of the attack and claimed it was just a difference of opinion and that it was all in the past. But I'm not convinced. He seemed the type to hold a grudge to me. Now that bust-up, for which he received an official written warning, may not have actually ruined his career, but it certainly stalled it for a good while. So, I reckon there's motive enough there to want to get his own back on Fraser.'

'On the night of the murder,' said Morse, taking up the reins again, 'Barnes claims to have been at home all evening, alone. The only corroboration he has provided for that is a long telephone call he claims to have had with his elderly mother sometime between eleven o'clock and midnight.'

'That's convenient,' remarked DS Strange, with an accompanying snort of derision.

'Yes, it is. When we spoke to his mother she confirmed she did speak to her son on the phone around that time, but she couldn't be one hundred per cent sure it was the Friday night.'

'Is she a bit…. you know?' Strange left his question hanging in the air, as if too polite and respectful of his elders to actually utter the offending words out loud in front of everyone.

'Gaga?' said Morse, coming to Strange's rescue and sparing his blushes. 'No, I don't think so but certainly a little forgetful, at the very least. She seems to recall incidents and conversations, whether face to face or over the telephone quite clearly. She's not just totally reliable as regards precisely when they took place. Barnes could have spoken with her the night before or the night after, for all we know.'

'The GPO have confirmed there was a call made to Barnes' telephone just after eleven o'clock on Friday night,' said Thursday. 'But it only lasted about half an hour, not the hour that Barnes claimed it did.'

'So, his alibi for the time of the murder is a bit dodgy, at best,' surmised DC Fancy. 'He could have gone out after speaking with his mother, killed Fraser and got back home.'

'It's possible,' said Thursday, nodding in appreciation that Fancy had been paying close attention to what he and Morse had been saying. 'It would have been a tight call but, yes, he could have done it.'

'But I thought the photo in Barnes's place was of a little girl, not a boy,' said Strange frowning at his two superiors.

'Point taken, Sergeant. But we don't know for sure that the killer is this little girl, now all grown up. Barnes's motive for killing Fraser could have been purely work-related, nothing to do with being Fraser's illegitimate child.'

'Next possible suspect,' announced Morse, 'is Catherine Jarvis,' as he pointed back to the board at the photo of Miss Jarvis that they had extracted from her employment file at the Oxford Mail. 'Assistant Producer on the paper's Crime Desk.'

'She could easily be Carla,' proclaimed Strange with an air of quiet confidence. 'The photo of her as a three year old is a dead ringer for her now.'

A few murmurs went around the room as everyone started comparing the two photos whose likeness was really quite noticeable.

'Indeed she could,' said Thursday with an imperceptible nod of his head. 'But her beef with Fraser is also work-related. She filed an official complaint against Fraser a few months ago for bullying. Now, the complaint was thrown out in the end for insufficient evidence. Management said Fraser was just being tough on her so she would learn the ropes quickly, appreciate it was a tough industry she was working in and that she would thank him one day for not being soft on her and giving her an easy time.'

'But she still seemed to harbour some resentment at the way her complaint was treated even though she claimed to have put it behind her and moved on.'

Morse and Thursday were doing a splendid job dovetailing with each other as they communicated in turn to the assembled troops the salient facts of the investigation. Not for the first time Trewlove was full of admiration for the easy manner in which the two detectives worked together, each seemingly feeding off the other with an instinctive sense of timing. There was never an uncomfortably long silence as could have happened if two colleagues who were still trying to get used to each other had been unable to read the signs, pick up the cues or anticipate one another with consummate ease.

'Like Peter Barnes, she claimed initially to have been at home with her mother all evening. Subsequently she remembered, after her mother had told us first, that she had 'popped out briefly' in her words, to take the family dog for a walk.'

'She said she didn't go anywhere near the canal,' added Thursday with a grimace,' but we've only got her word for that. No witnesses have come forward to confirm they saw her at any stage while she was out walking the dog so she could have done it as well.'

'Could a woman really have carried out such a violent murder?' wondered CS Bright out loud.

'Oh, yes, Sir,' said Thursday with a telling nod. 'Women are just as capable of brutal murder as men. If they have a good enough reason, in their mind.'

'Ms Jarvis wasn't high on our list of suspects initially…until we found the photo of the young girl at Fraser's cottage, that is,' said Morse.

'The theory being, what? Fraser has an illegitimate child with another woman, this Carla, who hated her father for having abandoned her. She tracks him down years later and kills him in revenge?' Strange looked across at Thursday with raised eyebrows for confirmation that this was a plausible theory for the murder.

'It's a possibility, don't you think, Sergeant?' said Thursday, adding,' Fraser's wife committed suicide some twenty years ago, remember. She could have found out about the affair and killed herself in a fit of severe depression. It could all fit.'

'But why would this child wait so long to take her revenge on the father who turned his back on her?' Fancy had been listening and thinking hard during the whole presentation of the case and this single thought had struck him right between the eyes the more he considered the facts as they were given to him. 'Why kill him now? Surely she would have done it years ago, as soon as she was old enough to learn the truth about him and track him down?'

'That's a very good question, Fancy,' said Thursday with an encouraging nod of approval. 'And one for which we don't have an answer as yet.' Fancy made an effort to suppress a huge smile of satisfaction at having been praised by the DCI in front of all his mates for having asked such an intelligent question.

'Other persons of interest unconnected with the Oxford Mail,' said Morse who was anxious to try to wind the meeting down as quickly as possible. 'Mr Samuel Carmichael, local councillor in the Planning Department at the Town Hall. He had a couple of very raucous, heated spats with Fraser who was hounding him over a possible case of bribery and corruption over the sale and development of some land a year ago. Got very agitated and defensive when we questioned him about Fraser. He denied that he had threatened Fraser with physical violence but there's no doubt there was little love lost between the two men.'

'He claims he worked at the Town Hall until about ten o'clock, confirmed by his PA, then was at home the rest of the evening with his wife,' added Thursday. 'Admitted he did go out about half past eleven for half an hour to walk the dog…' but before Thursday could continue, he was interrupted by a general ripple of sniggers and barely stifled laughter as most of the room reacted in predictable fashion to this latest nugget of detail.

'Bloody pooches have got a lot to answer for, haven't they?' exclaimed DS Strange with a mighty guffaw. 'If you want an alibi, go get yourself a dog.'

'Well, they can't contradict your story, can they?' said Fancy with a smirk on his face. 'The perfect witness. Who takes the dog out with them if he's got murder on his mind?'

'That's as may be,' replied Thursday. 'Nonetheless Carmichael's still very much in the frame, dog or no dog. He only lived about ten minutes away from where Fraser was found so he certainly had the opportunity. Question is – did he really have a good motive? We need to dig deeper into this bribery and corruption case that Fraser was looking into. Fancy, you try and find out as much as you can on that.'

Fancy nodded enthusiastically, thrilled to be brought into the enquiry and be given something meaty to get his teeth into, even if it was to be from the relative safety of the station to begin with.

'Lastly, there's the victim's closest living relative, his aunt, Ms Vera Cooper,' said Morse. 'Now we don't seriously have her in the frame for Fraser's murder. She lives in Canada and only flew over to the UK a few days ago after we contacted her with the news of her nephew's death. However, she was very close to Fraser in the early years. She raised him after his parents died in a car crash when he was still a young boy so she knew him better than anyone, we can assume. As we mentioned earlier, DCI Thursday and I are pretty sure she's holding back something from us.'

'We don't know what, exactly,' said Thursday, 'but she's not telling us the whole truth.'

'Do you think she knows who killed Fraser?' asked Strange.

'Can't be sure,' replied Thursday. 'Maybe, maybe not. But she knows something about Fraser that she's not telling us. Strange, see if you can dig into her past a bit more. She studied then lectured here in Oxford before she moved to Canada and made a huge name for herself there. Find out why she left Oxford. Did she leave under a bit of a cloud? Was there any suggestion of a scandal involving her? You know the sort of thing.'

Strange nodded and made a few cursory notes in his pocketbook.

'OK, let's wrap this up for now,' cried Thursday with a slightly weary tone. 'We've got enquiries to make, questions to ask, lives to dig deep into, starting from tomorrow morning. Go home all of you and get a good night's sleep. You're going to be flat out over the next day or two so you'll need all the rest you can get now!'

Following those rousing final words of encouragement from DCI Thursday, accompanied by a stiff nod of approval from CS Bright, the meeting broke up as the officers all went their separate ways, filing out of the main office in groups of twos and threes, each heading to their desks to collect their stuff and shuffle off home for a good night's rest as the DCI had instructed.

'Fancy a pint, Morse?' asked Thursday once the office had been completely cleared of coppers save for Morse, Strange, Fancy and Trewlove.

'Maybe,' replied Morse, a trifle hesitantly. 'I just need to make a quick phone call first.' On saying that he dashed out of the room in search of a telephone where he could make a quick call in private, away from eavesdropping ears.

'How about you three? A quick drink before heading home. My round.'

Strange glanced at Fancy and Trewlove who smiled back at the sergeant eagerly. The offer of a drink after work with the boss paying wasn't normally something that should ever be turned down without a very good reason and none of them could come up with one right there and then.

'Thank you, Sir,' said Strange before either of the other two needed to pluck up the courage to accept Thursday's kind invitation. 'I think that's just what the doctor ordered after this afternoon. I think we could all do with a bit of a wind down and a chance to think some things through over a pint.'

While the others were all chatting away, Morse had found a desk tucked away in a corner of an adjoining room and had quickly called Veronica to see if she had got home already. When she answered the phone, Morse could immediately tell that something was amiss.

'Hi, it's me,' he said to which Veronica replied in somewhat muffled and stifled tones and sounding to Morse like she was a bit down in the dumps.

'Oh, hi Morse,' she said in a thick, heavy voice. 'How are you?'

'I'm fine,' he replied cautiously 'But you don't sound too good'.

'No, I'm not, I'm afraid. I think I've come down with a cold,' she said before she let out a sneeze, followed by a sharp blowing of her nose and neatly rounded off with a few choice, loud sniffles. 'I'm sorry, you really don't need all the sound effects, do you?'

Morse let out a chuckle as he conveyed his sympathies to the poor girl.

'I think the impromptu dip in the river yesterday has brought this on,' said Veronica with an audible sigh of frustration. 'I took the day off today as I felt a bit rubbish when I woke up this morning, but I can't say as I'm feeling much better now. What did you want?'

'Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter.'

'No, go on, what was it you wanted? Were you planning to sweep me off my feet and take me out somewhere wonderful?'

'The thought did cross my mind,' admitted Morse. He hadn't formulated any concrete plans in his head for the evening but that wouldn't have been a million miles away from his vague intentions.

'That would have been lovely but, to be honest, all I feel like doing right now is forcing some hot soup down me and then toddling off to bed. I didn't get much sleep last night so I could do with catching up. Besides, I don't think I'd be much company tonight.'

'You do just that, Veronica,' said Morse with a little smile to himself. It would of course leave him free to go to the pub with the others, so he wasn't going to miss out on a few drinks in any case.

'Will you call me tomorrow morning? If I feel a lot better, I might go back to work, and then we could meet up for lunch somewhere.'

'Sounds like a good plan,' said Morse, as he made a gesture to Thursday who had come into the room with the other three in tow right behind him. 'I'll speak to you tomorrow. Sleep well. Night.'

He put the phone down just as Thursday was within earshot of their final words and jumped up from his chair.

'You got other plans tonight, then?' Thursday raised his eyebrows and looked at Morse quizzically.

'Not any more,' replied Morse and he joined the others as they prepared to leave the station, bound for a thirst-quenching pint or two at their favourite pub along with a good old chin-wag.

Author's Message

I'm sorry that chapter was a bit long - I didn't intend for that to happen! The last section just seemed to go on way longer than I meant it to but I hope the length of the chapter hasn't put anyone off. I will try to limit future chapters to no more than 5500 - 6000 words. Please leave a review if you feel like it - i would love to hear how you think the story is going and where you think it may end up.