She died just after midnight.

chapter thirty-two

‘How are you, old friend?' asked Morse with spurious cheerfulness.

‘Dying.'

'You once told me that we're all moving towards death – at the standard rate of twenty-four hours per diem.'

‘I was always accurate, Morse. Not very imaginative, agreed; at always accurate.'

‘You've still not told me how-'

'Somebody said… somebody said, "Nothing matters very much… and in the end nothing really matters at all’

‘Lord Balfour.'

'You always were a knowledgeable sod.' 'Dr Hobson rang-'

'Ah! The fair Laura. Don't know how men ever keep their hands off her.'

'Perhaps they don't.'

‘I was just thinnking of her just now… Still have any erotic day-dreams yourself, Morse?' "Most of the time.'

‘Be nice – be nice if she was thinking of me…’

‘You never know.'

Max smiled his awkward, melancholy smile, but his face looked and ashen-grey. 'You're right. Life's full of uncertainties, have I ever told you that before?'

'Many a time.'

‘I’ve always… I've always been interested in death, you know, of hobby of mine, really. Even when I was a lad…'

'I know. Look, Max, they said they'd only let me in to see you if-'

'No knickers – you know that?'

'Pardon? Pardon, Max?'

‘The bones, Morse!'

'What about the bones?'

'Do you believe in God?'

'Huh! Most of the bishops don't believe in God.'

'And you used to accuse me of never answering questions!'

Morse hesitated. Then he looked down at his old friend and answered him: 'No.'

Paradoxically perhaps, the police surgeon appeared comforted by the sincerity of the firm monosyllable; but his thoughts were now stuttering their way around a discontinuous circuit.

'You surprised, Morse?'

‘Pardon?'

'You were, weren't you? Admit it!'

'Surprised?'

'The bones! Not a woman's bones, were they?'

Morse felt his heart pounding insistently somewhere – everywhere – in his body; felt the blood sinking down from his shoulders, past his heart, past his loins. Not a woman's bones – is that what Max had just said?

It had taken the hump-backed surgeon some considerable time to say his say; and feeling a tap on his shoulder, Morse turned to find Nurse Shelick standing behind him. 'Please!' her lips mouthed, as she looked anxiously down at the tired and intermittently closing eyes.

But before he left Morse leaned forward and whispered in the dying man's ear: 'I'll bring us a bottle of malt in the morning, Max, and we'll have a wee drop together, my old friend. So keep a hold on things – please keep a hold on things!… Just for me!'

It would have been a joy for Morse had he seen the transient gleam in Max's eyes. But the surgeon's face had turned away from him, towards the recently painted, pale-green wall of the GCU. And he seemed to be asleep.

Maximilian Theodore Siegfried de Bryn (his middle names a surprise even to his few friends) surrendered to an almost totally welcome weariness two hours after Chief Inspector Morse had left; and finally loosed his grip on the hooks just after three o'clock that morning. He had bequeathed his mortal remains to the Medical Research Foundation at the JRa. He had earnestly wished it so. And it would be done.

Many had known Max, even if few had understood his strange ways. And many were to feel a fleeting sadness at his death. But he had (as we have seen) a few friends only. And there was only one man who had wept silently when the call had been received in his office in Thames Valley Police HQ at Kidlington at 9 a.m. on Sunday, 19 July 1992.

chapter thirty-three

sunday is not a good day on which to do business. Or to expect others to be at work – or even to be out of bed. But Dr Laura Hobson was out of bed fairly early that morning, and awaiting Morse at the (deserted) William Dunn School of Pathology building at 9.30. a.m.

'Hello.’

'Hello.'

'You're Inspector Morse?'

'Chief Inspector Morse.'

'Sorry!'

'And you're Dr Hobson?'

'I am she.'

Morse smiled wanly. 'I applaud your grammar, my dear.'

'I am not your "dear". You must forgive me for being so blunt: but I'm no one's "luv" or "dear" or "darling" or "sweetheart". I've got a name. If I'm at work I prefer to be called Dr Hobson; and if I let my hair down over a drink I have a Christian name: Laura. That's my little speech, Chief Inspector! You're not the only one who's heard it.' She was smiling sufficiently as she spoke though, showing small, very white teeth – a woman in her early thirties, fair-complexioned, with a pair of disproportionately large spectacles on her pretty nose; a smallish woman, about 5 foot 4 inches. But it was her voice which interested Morse: the broad north-country vowels in "luv" and "blunt"; the pleasing nairm she had – and perhaps the not unpleasant prospect of meeting her sometime orver a drink with her hair doon…

They sat on a pair of high stools in a room that reminded Morse of his hated physics lab at school, and she told him of the simple yet quite extraordinary findings. The report on which Max had been working, though incomplete, was incontestable: the bones discovered in Wytham Woods were those of an adult male, Caucasian, about 5 foot 6 inches in height, slimly built, brachycephalic, fair-haired…

But Morse's mind had already leaped many furlongs ahead of the field. He'd been sure that the bones had been those of Karin Eriksson. All right, he'd been wrong. But now he knew whose bones they were – for the face of the- man in the photograph was staring back at him, unmistakably. He asked only for a photocopy of Dr Hobson's brief, preliminary report, and rose to go.

The pair of them walked to the locked outer door in silence, for the death of Max was heavy on her mind too.

'You knew him well, didn't you?'

Morse nodded.

'I feel so sad,' she said simply.

Morse nodded again. ' "The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is at its end." '

She watched him, the slightly balding grey-haired man, as he stood for a few seconds beside his Jaguar. He held the photocopied report in his left hand, and raised it a few inches in farewell. She relocked the door, and walked thoughtfully back to the lab.

Morse wondered about driving up to the JR2, but decided against it. There was little time anyway. An urgent meeting of senior police officers had been summoned for 11 a.m. at the HQ building, and in any case there was nothing he could do. He drove along Parks Read, past Keble College, and then turned right into the Banbury Road. He had a few minutes to spare, and he took the second next turn now, and drove on slowly into Park Town, driving clockwise along the North Crescent, and along the South Crescent… There would be little chance of doing much that day though, and in any case it would be better to postpone things for twenty-four hours or so.