Certainties and Sure Knowledge

But, Lewis was not quietly fomenting revenge. He was thinking instead about how little his sergeant could truly know him if he believed for even a second that he'd tear into that interview room in a fit of rage and assault a man, any man, even this man. They'd been working together for two years, and, in that time, he would have thought Hathaway would have grown to know him better than that. Would have trusted him more than that. But, then, it wasn't so hard to understand why the lad hadn't. In the years since Val had…died, there were times he'd barely known himself. Little wonder his sergeant didn't know what Lewis would do when he was faced with such news.

But, Lewis knew what he wouldn't do. And not just because Hathaway would stop it.

For one thing, he hadn't the stomach for it. Oh, Morse, was the one who'd sicked up at the sight of a dead body even after years and years at the job. Lewis though…he'd seen some sights in his time with the force. Some horrible, terrifying sights that had never left him. Sometimes they still came to him in his dreams. (Morse had said Lewis had seen too many pulled out of Isis Lock to have nightmares, but Morse hadn't always known him as well as he might have either.) Even so, to Lewis the gruesome sights of the job had always been some poor soul lost and maimed, someone to mourn, not toss up over. He could deal with dead bodies all right.

But, physically attacking another man…slapping or punching or kicking another man—no. Lewis had never had the stomach for that. It had hurt him on the football field, kept him from earning a spot on the first team. And it had proven a liability to men like Chief Inspector Johnson who thought a bit of physical intimidation was not uncalled for in the interview room. Lewis was fast and he'd never had a problem with a flying tackle to bring a suspect down in the heat of pursuit, and that had been enough for Morse. He'd never asked or expected his sergeant to throw in a kick for good measure once his opponent was down. Which was just as well, for it wouldn't have happened.

There were lines Lewis would straddle and a few he would even cross, but this was one that he'd firmly drawn into the ground and would not pass. Maybe it was inborn, just part of his makeup. Or maybe it came from hitting his growth spurt early and being half a foot taller and quite a bit broader than his brothers and sister for a few years there, and having to learn to be careful or he'd accidentally knock one of them into the wall or down the stairs. Or maybe it was the neighborhood he'd grown up in, with too many of the men coming home from the pub and taking a fist to the wife or kiddies and the sound of the yells and blows that carried into the streets where Lewis and his schoolmates played cricket. It might have been those early years on the force, seeing just what harm one man could do to another and the devastation and sorrow that followed in its wake. Whatever it was, Lewis knew he would not be storming down on Simon Monkford and beating the living daylights out of him.

He'd found that out the hard way; he'd been here before. He'd already lived out this scenario, and he'd already had to face just what he was and was not capable of doing. Ridiculous to expect his sergeant to know that though; he'd certainly never discussed it with him. And Chief Superintendent Strange had made sure nothing went on record about what had happened that day in the much more barren, much colder interview room of the old station the day Susan Fallon died.

Back then he'd been the worried sergeant—no, not worried, terrified. Not for himself, not for the man down in that interview room waiting, just as Monkford was now, to face the man he'd hurt in the worst possible way…no, but for Morse himself. Lewis had been terrified that the chief inspector's rage would destroy not only a brilliant career but also, the man himself.

Morse, for all his bluster and self-absorbed ways, was a sensitive man who loved art and music and felt deeply. Lewis was certain that if Morse had his way with the man he believed somehow responsible for his old girlfriend's death it would ruin him. The chief inspector was already subject to fits of depression…if he knew himself capable of destroying another man—what would that do to him?

But Lewis also knew that Morse, despite all of his sensitivities and deep feelings, was a man capable of stepping over every line down there in that room. If he weren't stopped, he wouldn't stop himself. And Lewis, who knew with a horrible certainty that Morse was wrong, dreadfully wrong, also knew he wasn't the man to stop him.

He should have been. He trusted Morse's instincts and he felt it, too; Dr. Marriot was somehow involved…involved, but responsible? Not for Henry Fallon's death and most likely not for his wife's either. Lewis had the tape to prove it in his jacket pocket. He should have been the one to stop Morse.

But, to do so, he would have had to destroy something precious in the chief inspector. His memories and belief in the woman he would have married all those years ago, the woman Lewis was sure he still loved. It hadn't been long at all since the chief inspector had asked him, "If someone you loved had been charged with murder, would you want to believe it?" No, he wouldn't have. And he didn't want Morse to have to face it either. For if Susan Fallon's death had so devastated Morse, what would the knowledge she'd killed her own husband do to him?

Devastated. That was the word Lewis would always think of when he remembered the way Morse had looked upon finding Susan Fallon dead. Morse had been as pale as the woman lying dead on the sofa before him. His face had been empty as though he, too, had left his earthly body.

That look of devastation had been quickly replaced by something else though. Something hard and determined and frightening. "I want that man picked up, Lewis," Morse had said in a brittle, angry voice. "I want it done now."

And Lewis had stood there knowing Morse was wrong, knowing he had the means to prove it in his pocket. The means but not the will. Not if it meant destroying the newfound happiness and peace Susan Fallon had brought into Morse's life like the fresh air Morse had let into the office with that surprisingly open window. Lewis had been unable to bring himself to take that from him before, and now…if he couldn't before, how could he now? "Sir," he'd started to say, "You're not thinking strai—"

"For God's sake, Lewis!" Morse had interrupted him. "Please…" and there was nothing Lewis could say or do against the pain in the inspector's voice. Slowly, he had nodded his head and turned to make the call. It wasn't what he should have done, but it was all he could do.

The ride back to the station had been torturous. He would have liked to offer some words of comfort but his sympathetic, "I'm sorry, Sir," had been met with nothing but silence. And he'd been too afraid to try again. Afraid Morse wouldn't survive losing Susan for the second time. And afraid if he opened his mouth, the horrible truth would come rushing out. And to his shame, afraid that truth would irrevocably and permanently destroy what he had with Morse. That tape in his pocket was damning enough if his only concern had been the man beside him, but he couldn't deny to himself that he had his own best interests at heart as well as the chief inspector's.

So, he had swallowed down the truth and instead told Morse that he had made the call and uniforms were picking up the doctor. Morse had turned to him with his piercing blue eyes narrowed and hard to say, "I want him, Lewis. I want him!"

It had been in the face of that vehemence and all it threatened to bring with it that Lewis' fear had turned to terror. Not a screaming terror. Something deeper, something more dreadful. A gnawing, enduring terror. An understanding that either he allowed Morse to go after an innocent man (and by the law Marriot, for all his yet-to-be proven involvement, was innocent. Lewis was certain of that. The man had been fishing in Scotland just as he had claimed.). Either Lewis turned his back on everything on which he'd built his life: justice and law and order. Or. Or he stuck a knife in Morse's heart.

Lewis had tried then to be the man he'd always thought he was. To be the man he'd always meant to be. A man who wouldn't stand by and let an injustice happen, regardless of the cost. He had tried to say what needed said, to reason with Morse before he faced Marriott and did who-knew-what sort of damage to the both of them. But, Morse…he'd been in such a state, he'd simply refused to hear him, hadn't even let him begin to choke the damning words out. When Lewis had persisted, Morse had said, "Leave it, Sergeant! I will deal with Marriot! You needn't be there if you haven't the stomach for it.

Lewis hadn't. He'd finished the drive back to the station with his heart in his throat and his guts twisting. He'd known Morse had to be stopped, and he'd known he wasn't the man to do it. As soon as they'd arrived in the car park, Morse had been off striding purposefully away from Lewis. Looking after him, Lewis had hesitated a moment before running to catch up with the older man as a little boy after his long-legged father. Morse had not acknowledged his presence; only marched silently on towards the duty sergeant to order Marriot brought to the interview room.

And then, Lewis had done the only thing he had known to do. He'd rushed through the hallways feeling as though everyone he passed must be able to see in his face that something dreadful was about to happen. He could have called and maybe he should have, but it hadn't occurred to him. He had been helpless to stop Morse, to stand between him and the destruction he had been calling down on himself. Lewis' only thought had been to get someone who could do what he couldn't.

And so the mad rush down the halls. Not running because…why hadn't he run? Fear others would see the truth, and his efforts to protect the chief inspector and his reputation would be too little, too late? Or just the terrible weight of what was happening? He couldn't say. All he knew was that when he had thrown open that door to Strange's office without even stopping to knock, he had been as frightened as he had ever been.

He'd answered Strange's startled exclamation simply with, "You better get down to the interview room, Sir." And something in his face or voice must have said all that needed said because the chief superintendent had been out of his chair and off down the hall like a lumbering bullet. Lewis had followed at his heels, and they'd met Morse in the hall outside the interview room. For one instant, Lewis had thought the chief superintendent's presence would be enough to derail the disaster he foresaw happening in that room. But Morse had hardly even acknowledged Strange's arrival.

Things had only gotten worse from there. Morse had already tried and convicted Dr. Marriot before he'd ever opened that door. Lewis had stood helplessly by, with the awful knowledge that he was allowing a man to be badgered when he had the crucial evidence that would put an end to his torment in his pocket. Morse wouldn't listen, but…why hadn't he given the tape to the chief superintendent? Why hadn't he reported the results of his fateful 'day's leave' in London? Strange would have heard, he would have acted to officially, and if necessarily, forcefully stop the miscarriage of justice happening in that interview room.

Lewis had looked back on that day a thousand times, and he'd never been able to understand his silence. But, regardless of the reason, without Lewis' report, Strange had had no way of knowing what was going on wasn't an interview just this side of out-of-hand but an out-and-out travesty of the law they were all there to uphold. With his hands tied by Lewis' failure to hand over that tape, Strange had been no more able to stop Morse than Lewis himself. And up until things went farther, he had been even less willing. Morse had told him that Susan Fallon was dead and that he believed the doctor was somehow involved. As long as Morse didn't cross too far over the line, the chief inspector had been willing to let the interview play out.

Of course, things had gone farther, much farther. And Strange's 'that'll do, Morse' and warning scowls had barely registered on the chief inspector's enraged mind. They hadn't stopped Morse. He'd been beyond that, out of control, out for the kill.

And the doctor hadn't seemed to understand the danger. "Can you prove that, Chief Inspector?" he had thrown those words in Morse's face as though he thought proof would save him. It should have. But, in the face of Morse's grief and rage…how couldn't Marriot have seen his peril when Morse had loomed over him, his face full of certainty and menace? How could he have not trembled before such wrath?

And how, when Morse had come to the one question that was the only one that had really mattered in that interview room, had the man answered without even a shred of self-preservation?

"What about Susan?" That was what that whole travesty of an interview had been about. And, if Lewis was honest he had to admit, whatever words would have come out of the doctor's mouth would have condemned him in Morse's eyes. They really hadn't mattered, they really weren't what had sent Morse flying at him with hate and murder in his face. It had been loss and sorrow and helplessness in the face of the finality of death…

Lewis shook his head and then nodded it. Loss and sorrow and helplessness in the face of the finality of death. That was what had been behind Morse's murderous rage that day in the old interview room, and it was what was behind Hathaway's delay in telling him about Monkford. The lad should have known he wasn't Morse. Should have known he didn't have it in him…and maybe that was why he'd been so upset about Hathaway's keeping back the truth from him. Maybe…he thought, for Val, for his wife, he should have had it in him.

Even with all of his self-knowledge, there had been times when he'd been afraid that maybe…maybe he did. So. Why shouldn't the lad have had the same doubts?