CHAPTER 34 -Something's tragic
Part 1
'So, what do you make of that?' Thursday turned an enquiring eye on his colleague who had remained silent while Strange related the details of his evening with Claudine.
'I'm not sure, Sir,' said Morse, wondering if he should come clean and admit that he had met Claudine with Jim and the others the previous evening in the pub.
'I take it this is the French girl you were telling me about, the one Jim had a date with when he borrowed your French vocab book?'
Morse nodded and decided there wasn't a good reason to hold back on anything. 'I actually met her, briefly, last night. She and Jim came in to the pub where a friend and I were having a drink. They were with Joan and a chap called Paul that Joan knew. We all had a couple of drinks together before last orders.'
'So, Jim and this Claudine were on a double date with Joan and this Paul fellow?'
Morse nodded in silence again and waited for Thursday to drill down into some further questions which he assumed he would, especially now that his daughter had crept into the conversation.
'What did you think of this French girl?'
'I thought she seemed pleasant enough. I mean, we were only together as a group for forty minutes or so. Hardly enough time to form a definitive judgement about a complete stranger, I would have thought.'
Morse didn't intend to sound quite so defensive in his response but it came out that way before he could do anything to correct it.
'No, I realise that, Morse. No need to be quite so touchy. I'm not going to hold you to an accurate character assessment on the girl from one brief meeting.'
Thursday wondered what was bugging Morse so much that he had responded in such an unusually defensive manner. It was most unlike him to be so vague and unhelpful unless he was holding anything back about Joan.
'So, she's a friend of Joan's, is she, this Claudine?'
'So I gather,' said Morse, cautiously to begin with. But he didn't know much about their friendship so it wasn't as if he had any great knowledge to hold back. 'I think they meet up every now and then but I don't think Claudine's her best friend or anything like that. Just casual acquaintances, I believe.'
'No obvious connection to the case, then?' Thursday was beginning to think this was all a bit something and nothing but he was reluctant to rule out any possible lead or even a tenuous connection just yet until they had satisfied themselves that it was a complete dead end.
Morse shook his head emphatically. 'Not as far as I can see but I'll have a look into the girl, if you want, this afternoon.'
'OK,' agreed Thursday. 'But don't go via Joan, for God's sake or she'll have my guts for garters.'
The two men decided it was time to get back to the station so they finished their drinks and made their way out of the pub and back to Cowley nick. When they arrived in the main CID office DC Fancy was waiting for them with some urgent news.
'I've just heard back from a woman who works over in the Town Hall, Sir. She wasn't there when I dropped by the other day but she's got in touch with me now.'
'And?' asked Thursday, taking off his hat and hanging it up on the coat stand in his room while Morse hung about to see if Fancy had anything interesting to report which he doubted very much.
'Well, apparently Ronald Fraser popped in to the Planning Department to speak to Mr Carmichael on the Friday afternoon, just a few hours before he was murdered.'
'What?' thundered Thursday, his face the epitome of fury and disbelief. 'How come we didn't know about this earlier?'
'It seems he turned up during lunchtime when hardly anyone was about. Practically nobody even knew he had turned up except…' here Fancy consulted his notebook before continuing,…'Mr Carmichael's PA, Ms Veronica Roberts and the woman who phoned me just now, Mrs Jane Stephens.'
Fancy was unable to stop himself throwing a quick surreptitious glance in Morse's direction after mentioning Veronica's name but he remained silent, not wishing to dump Morse in it.
'Go on,' added Thursday encouragingly, accepting that it probably wasn't anyone's fault after all.
'According to Mrs Stephens, who was getting herself a drink from the kitchen just around the corner from the reception desk, Mr Fraser had a very brief and heated conversation with Ms Roberts before storming out.'
'Did Mrs Stephens hear any of what was said?' asked Morse who was beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable hearing Veronica's name being brought up in the conversation. He couldn't help wondering why she hadn't mentioned anything about Fraser's brief appearance at the Town Hall before.
'Apparently not. She was too far away to hear anything clearly. All she could tell me was that it was quite an animated conversation even though it didn't last long and that she caught a glimpse of Fraser when he was leaving and it looked like he was shaking with anger.'
'I'll speak to Ms Roberts, if you like, Sir,' suggested Morse quickly. 'I've come across her a few times recently so I know her a little bit. I'm sure she'll give me the full story if I ask her.'
Thursday stared across at Morse with a vague sense of unease, the reason for which he couldn't quite put his finger on. 'OK,' he nodded. 'You get over there now and find out what went on. But don't take any waffle from her. We want the full gen on what was said between the two of them. This could be important.'
Morse nodded and made immediate tracks for the Town Hall while Fancy exited Thursday's office on an appreciative nod from the Chief Inspector, leaving Thursday to ruminate in his chair for a while on why he had suddenly had a dreadful gut feeling that something unpleasant and unwelcome may have already happened.
Part 2
It didn't take Morse long to hurry over to the Town Hall, trot up the central marble staircase and find his way to the Planning Department reception where he waited impatiently for Veronica to finish a telephone call before he could speak with her.
'Morse!' she cried with a beaming smile on putting down the phone. 'What brings you here?' Her face momentarily turned panic-stricken as she stared up at Morse with big, wide eyes. 'Oh my God! I haven't forgotten a lunch arrangement, have I? I don't remember us making one for today.'
Morse shook his head and reassured her that she hadn't forgotten anything of the sort.
'So, to what do I owe the pleasure? You're a bit late if you've come to take me out for lunch anyway. I've already eaten.'
'I need to have a word with you in private, urgently. Can you get someone to take over from you for a while?'
Veronica looked up at Morse with a bewildered, yet unruffled expression. 'Um. Yes, I suppose so. I could get Nathalie to cover for me for a while. Why? What's up? Is this work or something else?'
'I'm afraid it's work. I need to ask you a few more questions about the day our murder victim, Ronald Fraser, died. That was two weeks ago last Friday, if you recall.'
'Hang on a minute, Morse,' said Veronica and she called up her colleague on the internal phone and asked her to come over to the reception desk and cover for her for a short period which she duly did within a minute or so. Veronica came out from behind her desk and led Morse over to a seating area some twenty feet away where the two of them sat down opposite each other. Veronica looked at Morse with curiosity and keen anticipation to find out what this was all about.
'We've just learnt that Ronald Fraser turned up here in the early afternoon that Friday and that you spoke to him. You never mentioned that fact before. Why not?'
His face was impassive as he asked the question and he closely watched Veronica's face for signs of a startled or guilty reaction but her face was the picture of astonishment and bewilderment.
'I don't understand,' she replied. 'The last time I saw him was a few months ago when he had that right old ding-dong with Mr Carmichael. I told you about that.'
'So, he definitely didn't show up a couple of Fridays ago, then? Are you saying the information we've been given is false? Please, Veronica, think hard. The afternoon of Friday 13th, around lunchtime,'
The young woman concentrated hard in silence for a few moments before her face exploded with a sudden jolt to her memory. Her eyes opened out wide and she put her hand to her mouth which had likewise gaped open wide in astonishment. 'Oh my God, you're right! He did turn up! How on earth did I forget that?'
Morse looked at her a little incredulously but was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt until she had finished her explanation.
'But he was barely here any time at all,' she hastened to add by way of an excuse. 'He was here less than a couple of minutes. That's why I must have forgotten all about it. He was here and gone in a flash.'
'What did he want?'
'The same as he always wanted,' Veronica scoffed openly. 'To see Mr Carmichael, of course.'
'What did he say to you?'
'He had another cock and bull story about having found some new evidence implicating Mr Carmichael in bribery and corruption. He demanded to see Mr Carmichael immediately. He was quite insistent, as usual.'
'And what did you say to that?'
'If I recall, I told him something like… Mr Carmichael was out at lunch, that he wouldn't be coming back that afternoon and that he should make an appointment with me to arrange a meeting with him the following week.'
'How did he react to that?' asked Morse, furiously scribbling down the details of this conversation in his notebook. Veronica screwed up her eyes in an effort to recall Fraser's exact words but was forced to concede defeat on this occasion.
'I don't recall precisely what he said. But I do remember he swore at me, twice I think and then stormed off in a huff. Like I said, it was all over in a flash, really. I thought no more of it after he left.'
'Did he mention anything else while he was here? Did he seem agitated or preoccupied with some other matter that you might remember?'
Veronica shook her head and looked back at Morse blankly. 'Not that I remember. To be honest, I've always thought of him as a bit of a bluffer and a blusterer. You know, the kind of man who's all talk and no action. I imagine he likes to turn up at all sorts of places, have a bit of a rant, throw his toys out of the pram, ruffle a few feathers and then storm off without actually achieving anything.'
Morse had come across quite a few people in his time who neatly fitted that description but he wasn't convinced that Ronald Fraser was one of them. He thought Veronica might be doing him a little bit of an injustice but that was hardly the point. He finished making his comprehensive notes and looked up at Veronica a little more kindly than he had done when they had first sat down.
'Well, thanks for that,' he said meekly as Veronica smiled cheerily back at him. 'I don't think I need to trouble you any further. I'll let you get back to work.'
'I'm really sorry I didn't mention it before,' said Veronica, her face the epitome of apology and regret. 'It completely escaped my mind. I guess he's not the sort of guy who lives long in your memory, poor sod.'
Morse smiled and stood up, preparing to take his leave.
'Are you around tonight?' she asked him cautiously, not knowing if this was such a good time to bring up the subject of extra-curricular activities.
'I don't know. Maybe. I'll see how the rest of the day goes. I'll call you if I'm free.'
Veronica nodded sympathetically and they exchanged awkward goodbyes, Morse making his exit from the Department and Veronica, deep in thought, watching him leave as she returned to her desk.
Part 3
'Was there anything in it?' asked Thursday when Morse arrived back at the station and immediately reported to Thursday's office.
'No, not really,' replied Morse. 'She had completely forgotten about Fraser turning up on Friday afternoon because he was barely there more than a minute or two. She said he demanded to see Mr Carmichael immediately but when she told him he was out and wouldn't be coming back in the afternoon, Fraser just went into a bit of a rant, swore at her and just stormed off in a huff.'
'What did Fraser want to see Carmichael about?'
'Apparently he claimed he had more evidence of bribery and corruption in the Planning Department but wouldn't specify what this new evidence was.'
Thursday looked at Morse keenly but couldn't detect any clear sign of discomfort or unease in his sergeant so he decided to let the matter pass. For his part, Morse returned to the main office and sat down at his desk, pulled out his notebook and re-read the notes he had made of his conversation with Veronica. Not for the first time recently he had the strangest feeling that there was something important in what she had said that but he couldn't for the life of him figure out exactly what it was.
Having gone over his notes again he still couldn't identify what it was that was troubling him at the back of his mind. Her account of the brief conversation she had had with Fraser was clear and unambiguous, there was nothing in what she had said that could be open to different interpretations or the veracity of which could be questioned. Her account of what had taken place was wholly consistent with the evidence given to them by her colleague Mrs Stephens so why did he still feel uneasy that he was missing something crucial? He let out a sigh and put his notebook away, deciding to return to the matter later on in the day when he was alone and had peace and quiet to give it some more thought, perhaps with some opera in the background to inspire him.
He turned his attention elsewhere, focusing on trying to dig up as much information on Strange's French acquaintance, Claudine, as he could find. He was able to find out where she worked and lived relatively easily by meticulously and painstakingly interrogating the central police records so, armed with this basic information, he thought he might take a trip to the Bodleian Library to dig around a little more into this new, albeit to his mind unlikely suspect. At least he hoped, for Jim Strange's sake, that she turned out to have no connection whatsoever with anyone involved in their case. But there was something about this True Image book title that was bugging him. This was the most curious and incongruous of the three books that Vera Cooper had with her before she died and therefore the one he felt he should fix his attention and efforts on the most assiduously.
DCI Thursday had spent a good five minutes deep in considered thought, every so often drumming his fingers nervously on the desk in his office, before he finally decided to stop pussy-footing around and take some decisive action instead of putting the moment off. He picked up his hat and coat, passed through the main office, telling the others he was just 'popping out for a while', and left the station. He jumped into a public telephone box at the first opportunity, made a quick call and on receiving a positive answer made his way slowly to a little café he often frequented, situated not far away from Cowley nick, when he was in dire need of a nice cup of tea and a piece of moist sponge cake. He sat at a table and waited for the waitress to come over and take his order. Not more than five minutes later, when he was only halfway through his cup of tea, Joan entered the café and made her way over to join him at his table.
'What's all this about, Dad?' she asked as she sat down opposite him and placed her handbag on the seat next to her. 'You sounded very mysterious on the phone.'
'Can I not see my own daughter when I want to, then? What's mysterious about that?' He affected a tone of disappointment, even mild outrage at the suggestion that he had to have an ulterior motive for meeting up with her, but Joan was not easily fooled.
'Oh, come on! You phone up out of the blue in the middle of the afternoon, ask if we can meet, won't say what it's about and expect me not to think something's up? I wasn't born yesterday, Dad. I'm no fool. I can tell you want something from me. What is it?'
'Well, I'd like to finish my tea first. What are you having?'
'Oh, just a cup of tea for me.'
Thursday raised his right hand and made a sign to the waitress who was standing behind the counter blankly surveying the dining area. She acknowledged his signal and plodded over towards him in no great hurry whereupon Thursday asked her for another cup of tea. 'They do a nice piece of Victoria Sponge, you know. Are you sure you won't have a piece?' he looked encouragingly at Joan who shook her head suspiciously.
'Dad! There's no point trying to get round me or butter me up with cake. I can see through all your old tricks. I can spot them a mile off. If you want something, just ask me… without all this flannel.'
'Is it that obvious?' he smiled at Joan with a rueful look which conveyed his disappointment that he had been so easily rumbled. He didn't realise that he was so transparent and easy to figure out.
Joan nodded. 'Afraid so, Dad. Now, will you just come out with it, please? What's all this palaver in aid of?'
Thursday hesitated for a moment, wondering at this late stage whether he was doing the right thing but decided that, seeing as he had come this far, he may as well go through with it and to hell with the consequences. 'Do you know a French girl called Claudine?'
Joan stared at her father in astonishment before answering calmly. 'Yes. Why?'
'It's just that her name has come up in one of the cases I'm working on. Nothing to worry about.' He did his best to sound reassuring, not wishing to alarm his daughter unduly but he obviously failed miserably on that score.
'What case? How has her name come up?' Joan snapped out a response that betrayed her growing concern at where this conversation was going.
'You don't need to know about the case, Joan. I just wanted to ask you how much you knew about her. I mean, is she a close friend or what?'
'Dad! You're alarming me now. Stop being so obtuse. What case are we talking about and how might she be involved? Is she a suspect?' Her eyes widened in disbelief and she began to wonder if her father had completely lost the plot in his old age.
'No, we don't have any reason to believe she's a suspect. Look, love, when we're working on a case, we come across all sorts of people in the course of our enquiries. Most of them can be eliminated fairly quickly once we have enough information about them. I just wanted to get a few details about her so I can completely rule her out.'
Joan stared hard at her father and then suddenly something clicked. 'Is this the murder by the canal you're talking about? The one that was in the papers a few weeks ago, the newspaper journalist?'
Thursday remained silent even though he knew Joan would take his silence as confirmation that she was right.
'Dad, you can't possibly think Claudine had anything to do with that! Have you even met her? She's a lovely, kind, sweet girl who wouldn't harm a fly.'
'Look, Joan, I told you she's not a suspect. Her name just cropped up and I'm keen to eliminate her as quickly as possible so we can concentrate on finding the real murderer.'
'So, what's her connection to the case? There must be some reason why she came to your attention. I presume you didn't just pick her name out of the phone book.'
'You met up with her the other night, didn't you? You and Jim Strange and some chap called Paul?'
Joan wondered briefly how her father knew that but then guessed that Jim must have told him, for what reason she couldn't fathom at all and she was momentarily angry with Jim for bringing her private life to the attention of her father. 'Yes. So what?'
'I gather she's a photographer. Takes pictures of war zones, protests, demonstrations, that kind of thing. Pretty heavy stuff, by all accounts. Dangerous work, sometimes, I would assume.'
'What's your point, Dad?' Joan was becoming increasingly irritated and bewildered by her father's bizarre and obscure line of questioning.
'Jim asked her why she loved her job so much, given how dangerous it must be and she told him she loved the opportunity it gave her to take pictures that portrayed the True Image of life in all its horror and ugliness. She said she preferred that to the easy option of taking pictures only of beautiful, aesthetically pleasing things all the time.'
'So, what does all that have to do with your case?' Joan was still mystified as to how Claudine and her love of her work fitted in to a grisly murder down by the canal in Oxford.
'The expression True Image has featured quite significantly in our investigation. In fact it can be placed right at the heart of another related murder scene.'
Joan stared at her father in disbelief. 'Blimey, Dad! That's a tenuous connection if ever I heard one! So you're looking at Claudine as a possible suspect on the basis of something as vague and feeble as that?'
Thursday understood his daughter's irritation but he didn't dare go into any more detail and risk compromising the case. He had possibly said too much already. 'Like I said, I don't seriously think she's involved any more than you do. But we have to follow up all leads, however odd and unlikely they might appear.'
Joan fell silent for a while as she pondered what her Dad had said before reluctantly giving in to his request. 'What do you want to know about her?' she sighed heavily as she finished her cup of tea.
'Everything you know,' he replied as he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that he had managed to prevent her from losing her rag as he had been afraid she might. Joan proceeded to tell him all the details she knew about Claudine and he listened intently, taking everything in without resorting to writing it down in a notebook which he suspected would not have gone down well with Joan.
'So, she was definitely born in Paris, was she? And she's only twenty-two years old?'
Joan nodded and Thursday felt relieved. If those facts were true, then that would seem to eliminate Claudine from their enquiries. Fraser's daughter would have been born in or around Oxford, of that much they were sure and she would have been a bit older than twenty-two also.
'Satisfied now? asked Joan with a face like thunder and angry, staring eyes.
'Thanks, love,' said her father with a guilty, rueful smile. 'Please keep this to yourself, will you? There's no need to upset your friend by mentioning it. Like I said, I never really suspected her in the first place. We just needed to be thorough and check out a few facts, that's all.'
'Next time you want me to snitch on one of my friends, don't call me, will you? That wasn't very fair…or particularly pleasant, you know?'
Thursday nodded sympathetically and tried to change the subject but Joan wasn't in the mood for any more conversation and she made her excuses and left rapidly without even kissing him goodbye. He knew he had upset her and would have to think of something to make up for the uncomfortable half hour he had just inflicted on her if he was ever to be able to call on her help again, should he need it.
Part 4
Before he left at the end of the day, Strange came over to Morse at his desk when nobody else was about and had a quiet word with him about a matter that had been preying on his mind all afternoon.
'I hope I didn't land you in it with the old man, matey,' he said anxiously. 'You know, mentioning you and your bird Vera.'
'Veronica,' Morse corrected Strange, a tad irritably. 'And she's not my bird, as you so delightfully put it. At least I don't think she is.'
'Sorry, matey. I'm hopeless with names sometimes. No offence meant.'
Morse forced out a tired smile. 'None taken, Jim. No, you didn't land me in it. It's OK. I told Thursday we all bumped into each other by accident in the pub and had a couple of drinks together. He was fine with it.'
Strange nodded, greatly relieved that Morse didn't hold anything against him on that score. 'Are you up for a swift one before going home?'
'Yes, why not?' he replied with a sigh. 'I think I need a bit of lubrication to oil the wheels of my intellect and find some inspiration. It seems to be sadly lacking today.'
'You still got something nagging away at the back of your mind, then? Maybe you can run a few ideas past me in the pub. You never know, fresh pair of eyes and ears. I might stumble on to something by accident, in the dark, as it were.'
'Worth a try,' agreed Morse. He was beginning to get desperate and he would take a flash of inspiration from anyone right now, even dull, safe, reliable old Jim Strange.
'Let's make a move, then,' said Strange, motioning his head towards the door and the two detectives quickly packed all their stuff away, said cheerio to Thursday and made their way out of the station and into the cool, early evening air. Ten minutes later they were sitting at a table, each with a pint of beer in front of them, grateful that the pub was less than half full so they had some peace and quiet to chat away with little or no fear of being disturbed or overheard.
'So, come on then,' exhorted Strange as he took his first sip from his glass. 'These bizarre clues you think Ms Cooper left behind for us to pick up on. What should we concentrate on first, do you reckon?'
Morse took out from his jacket pocket the newspaper crossword with Vera Cooper's seemingly random jottings all over the page, followed by a separate piece of paper on which he had written down the names of the three books and their authors. He placed both items on the table in front of them and invited Strange to contemplate them with a fresh eye and no pre-conceived notions. 'Maybe try the three books first. What do they mean to you, Jim?'
Strange stared at the short list of book titles for a good while, his face screwed up in concentration before looking back at Morse with a puzzled expression on his face. Clearly the intense effort of focussing on the books had not produced instant results.
'Not a clue, matey. I mean, they appear utterly random, don't they? None of them seem to bear any relation to the other two.'
'What have we actually got, then?' mused Morse, half to himself, half for Strange's benefit. 'A Jane Austen novel, Persuasion. What does that choice of book suggest? That Vera was trying to persuade us about something? Trying to nudge us in a particular direction that we might otherwise have not even thought of going in?'
'And why Jane Austen rather than any other novelist?' Strange was beginning to warm to their task of trying to throw some light onto the dark mystery that was staring up at them.' Is it because she's a female writer? Or is that a red herring? We know Ms. Cooper was a Jane Austen expert so surely it isn't that surprising she had a Jane Austen book by her side. Or is that too simplistic?'
Morse shook his head. 'Maybe, maybe not. But I'm more intrigued by the Racine tragedy. That seems really odd in comparison. That book positively screams out, look at me! I'm here for a reason! Think about me!'
'What do you know about this book and this guy Racine?'
'Not a lot. He was one of the three great French writers of the seventeenth century, along with Corneille and Moliere. He wrote a number of tragedies, based largely on the stories from classical Greek tragedy.'
'Well, you would know all about that, wouldn't you, matey? You studied Greek when you were up here, didn't you?'
Strange was unable to be of any help to Morse here. He knew nothing about seventeenth century French tragedy, never mind this particular writer. He felt way out of his intellectual depth, not for the first time when he was around Morse.
Morse nodded, a touch embarrassed, thought Strange. 'Yes, but I'm not familiar with this particular play. I'll have to look it up. Maybe I'll pop over to the library later and see what I can dig up on it.'
'I could always ask Claudine, if you like,' said Strange, eager to help out and do his bit. If he couldn't contribute on the intellectual side personally, then at least he would try to find someone who might be able to fill in the vast gaps in his knowledge.
Morse stared at Strange, puzzled and bemused. 'Why would she be able to help?'
'Well, she must have studied French when she was at school in France, surely? I mean, even I read English books at school. She must have studied some of the classic French writers. Who knows, she might have read one or two of this guy Racine's plays, possibly even this one, Bearniece. It's got to be worth a try, isn't it?'
Morse smiled weakly at Strange's awful French pronunciation but let it go. 'Ok. Thanks, Jim. Give it a whirl. You never know, we might strike lucky. But I'm still going to have a look around in the library and see what I can turn up.'
'Fair enough,' said Strange with a nod. 'What about these crossword clues, then? Do they make any sense at all to you?'
They both turned their attention to the crossword page of the newspaper and studied Vera Cooper's scribblings with keen eyes and inquisitive minds for a minute or two. 'There doesn't appear to be any connection between the various scribblings, does there?' remarked Strange, breaking the prolonged silence. 'You've got a list of American actresses here,' he said, pointing at one list of names, 'another list here which are, what did you say, American poets, was it?' Morse confirmed with a silent nod of the head. 'Then over here,' Strange pointed to a third random list on a different part of the page,' she's written down a list of English novelists. Even I've heard of some of these names – Charles Dickens, he wrote A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist, didn't he? Robert Louis Stevenson, didn't he write Treasure Island?'
'That's right,' replied Morse. 'But these lists don't seem to have anything in common with each other. They look completely random. American actresses, American poets, English authors. What's the connection? And where does this quote from the bible fit in?'
'Maybe it's not the lists themselves that are connected,' ventured Strange, forcing himself to be a little imaginative for once. 'Maybe it's particular items within each list.'
Morse looked at Strange for a moment and considered in thoughtful silence this suggestion of Strange's that came right out of the blue. 'OK,' he said. 'Let's run with that idea for a moment. So, what could we be looking at?'
'Well, none of the surnames are connected to the case so what about the first names?' Strange turned his attention to the list of famous actresses as he prided himself on being a bit of a film buff and this was one area of knowledge where he imagined he had the edge over Morse. 'We've got Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Betty Grable, lovely Rita Hayworth, Vera Lake, the gorgeous Marilyn of course, and Barbara Stanwyck. Well, none of those names tie up with any of our suspects, do they?'
Morse shook his head. 'Let's try the other lists. Assuming we're looking for a woman, Ronald Fraser's illegitimate daughter, then who have we got? The only female poet in the list is Sylvia Plath. The only female Victorian author is George Eliot.'
'You what?' said Strange, a bewildered expression breaking out all over his face.
'George Eliot was a woman. Her real name was Mary Ann Evans but she wrote under the male pseudonym of George Eliot.'
'Why would she do that?' Strange was completely taken aback by Morse's explanation which sounded beyond weird to him.
'Most women authors tended to write light-hearted romantic fiction back in those days. She wanted to avoid being stereotyped and dismissed as just another writer of insubstantial, romantic novels.'
'Oh, right,' said Strange, without sounding overly convinced of the necessity for such a dramatic course of action. 'Even so, Sylvia, Mary or even George, none of them seem to have any link to our murders, do they?'
'No,' said Morse tersely. He was starting to get frustrated beyond measure at his inability to solve the puzzle and spot the connection. 'Robert Louis Stevenson is underlined, though, as is the poet Robert Frost and the word 'hope'.'
'How does that help us?' Strange reluctantly pointed out. 'We're looking for a woman, aren't we? Besides, there's nobody called Robert in our investigation.'
Morse let out a sigh of despair and decided to have one more pint rather than head off to the library. He would go there in the morning, he thought, when his mind was a little clearer and his body not quite so exhausted. Strange quickly agreed to join him so Morse toddled over to the bar while Strange continued to look at the clues in front of him on the table with an increasing feeling of hopelessness and utter bewilderment. He resolved to speak to Claudine at the earliest opportunity. Maybe she could throw some light on proceedings where hitherto all they could see was darkness, shrouded in mystery and clouded in gloom.
Author's Message
For those of you wondering whether this story will ever end, I can tell you that there will be at most two more chapters to go, possibly only one! It has gone on a bit longer than I originally intended but the end is very much in sight with the denouement literally a week or so away. I hope some of you will stick with it to the final chapter, even if some of you have, understandably perhaps, lost patience with it. Mea culpa!
