‘Are you making some of it up, sir?’

‘Of course I bloody am! But it fits the clues, doesn’t it? And what the hell else can I do? They’re all dead, these johnnies. I’m just using what we know to fill in what we don’t know. You don’t object, do you? I’m just trying, Lewis, to match up the facts with the psychology of the four men involved. What do you think happened?’

Morse always got cross (as Lewis knew) when he wasn’t sure of himself, especially when ‘psychology’ was involved-a subject Morse affected to despise; and Lewis regretted his interruption. But one thing worried him sorely: ‘Do you really think Browne-Smith would have had the belly for all that business?’

‘He wasn’t a congenital murderer, if that’s what you mean. But the one real mystery in this case is that one man-Browne-Smith-actually did so many inexplicable things. And there’s more to come! What we’ve got to do, Lewis, is not to explain behaviour but to consider facts. And there’s a very sad but also a very simple factual explanation of all this, as you know. I rang up a fellow in the Medical Library to learn something about brain-tumours, and he was telling me about the completely irrational behaviour that can sometimes result… Yes… I wonder just what Olive Mainwearing of Manchester actually did…’

‘Pardon, sir?’

‘You see, Lewis, we’re not worried about his belly-we’re worried about his mind. Because he acted with such a weird combination of envy, cunning, remorse, and just plain ambivalence, that I can’t begin to fathom his motives.’ Morse shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, Lewis. I’m just beginning to realize what a fine thing it is to have a mind like mine that’s mainly motivated by thoughts of booze and sex- infinitely healthier! But let’s go on. Just one more point about the body. Murderers aren’t usually quite as subtle as people think; and you were absolutely right, as you know, when you mentioned that pleasure-cruiser off the Bahamas or somewhere. In Max’s first report he said the legs were sheared off far more neatly than the other bits-and it’s now clear that a boat propeller hit the body and lopped the legs off. Well done!’

Lewis remained silent, deciding not to raise the subject of the corpse’s socks.

‘Back to Browne-Smith. His actions that next week are even stranger in some ways. Abyssus humanae conscientiael’

Again, even more praiseworthily, Lewis remained silent.

‘On the Monday his conscience was crucifying him, and he writes me-me-a long letter. I just don’t know why we had the devious delivery through the bank… unless he thought he’d be giving himself a few days’ grace in which he could cancel his confession. Because that’s what it was. But it was something else, too. If you read the letter carefully, it contains a much more subtle message: in spite of vilifying Westerby throughout, it completely and deliberately exonerates him! And make no mistake; it was certainly Browne-Smith himself who wrote that letter. I knew him, and no one else could have caught that dry, exact, pernickity style. It’s almost as though with one half of his fevered brain he wanted us – wanted me, one of his old pupils – to find out the whole truth; and yet at the same time the other half of his brain was trying to stop us all the time with those messages and cards… I dunno, Lewis.’

‘I think the psychologists have a word for that sort of thing,’ ventured Lewis.

‘Well we won’t bother about that, will we!’

The phone rang in the ensuing silence.

‘That’s good… Well done!’ said Morse.

‘Can you describe them a bit?’ asked Morse.

‘Yes, I thought so,’ said Morse.

‘No. Not the nicest job in the world, I agree. It’ll be all right if I send my sergeant?’ asked Morse.

‘Fine. Tomorrow, then. And I’m grateful to you for ringing. It’ll put a sort of finishing touch to things,’ said Morse.

‘Who was that, sir?’

‘Do you know, there’ve been some thousands of occasions in my life when I’ve looked forward to a third pint of beer, but I can’t ever recollect looking forward to a third cup of coffee before!’

He held out the plastic cup, and once more Lewis walked away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Morse almost completes his narrative of the main events – with a little help from his imaginative faculties.

Only recently had Morse encountered the use of the word; “faction” in the sense of a combination of fact and fiction. Yet such a combination was all he could claim in any convincing reconstruction of the final events of the present case. While Lewis was away, therefore, he reminded himself of the few awkward facts remaining that had to be fitted somehow into the puzzle: the fact that he had been forcibly (significantly?) detained for an extra half-hour after his interrogation of the manager of the topless bar; that the door of Number 29, Cambridge Way had (for what reason?) been finally opened to him; that the head of Gerardus Mercator had been prominently (accusingly?) displayed on the mantelpiece of Westerby’s living-room; that an affluent Arab, doubtless a resident in the property, had looked round at him with such puzzlement (and suspicion?); and that somehow (via Browne-Smith?) Bert Gilbert had discovered Westerby’s address in London, and (via the fire-escape?) managed to enter Westerby’s room. Thus it was that when Lewis returned Morse was ready with his eschatology.

‘The manager of the Flamenco, Lewis, has a wife, called “Racquet”. When I got there, he tipped her the wink that something was seriously askew, and she made an urgent phone-call to’ ‘Mr Sullivan” – alias Alfred Gilbert – who in turn told her that whatever happened they’d got to keep me in the place for a while. Why? Clearly because there was something that had to be done quickly, something that could be done quickly, before I turned up in Cambridge Way. The Gilberts, you see, were already collecting their pickings from Browne-Smith, but not as yet from Westerby. And so to remind Westerby that he was still up to his neck in hot water, too, they’d decided on a most appropriate niche for a corpse’s head-that space in one of Westerby’s crates where another head had originally nestled. It was imperative, therefore, that one of the Gilberts – Alfred, as it turned out-should go and clear away the damning evidence waiting in Westerby’s flat. But late that same morning Westerby himself decided that it was reasonably safe now for him to return to his flat, and the first thing he saw there was the head of Mercator on the mantelpiece, and he suspected the grim truth immediately. Which is more than I did, Lewis! When Alfred

Gilbert let himself in, Westerby was probably just opening the fateful crate; and somehow Westerby killed him-’

‘Sir! That’s not good enough. How did he do it? And why should he need to do it? They were both accomplices, surely?’

Morse nodded. ‘Yes, they were. But just think a minute, Lewis, and try to picture things. Alfred Gilbert is in a frenetic rush to reach Cambridge Way. He doesn’t know why the police have got on to Cambridge Way, but he does know what they’ll find if they visit Westerby’s flat. They’ll find what he himself and his brother have left there, almost certainly with the intention of some future blackmail. And, as I say, that evidence has got to be removed with the utmost urgency. So he lets himself into the flat, never expecting to find Westerby there, and never, I suspect, actually seeing him anyway. Westerby’s got his hearing-aid plugged in, although, as your own notes say, Lewis, he’s only slightly deaf; and when he hears the scrape of the key in the lock, he beats a panic-stricken retreat into the bathroom, where he watches the intruder through the hinged gap of the partially open door.