Last Seen Wearing Part 7

'Did she tell anyone else?'

Maguire shrugged his shoulders. 'She was a real s.e.xy kid - everyone was after her.'

'How often did you go to bed with her?'

Ten - dozen times, I suppose.'

'The truth, please, lad.'

'Well, three or four times, maybe. I don't know.'

'Where was this?'

'My place.'

'Your parents know?'

'No. They were out working.'

'And she said you were the father?'

'No. She wasn't like that. Said I could have been, of course.'

'Did you feel jealous?' Morse had a suspicion that he did, but Maguire made no answer. 'Was she very upset?'

'Just scared.'

'What of? Scandal?'

'More scared of her mum, I think.'

'Not her dad?'

'She didn't say so.'

'Did she talk about running away?'

'Not to me.'

'Who else might she have spoken to?' Maguire hesitated. 'She had another boyfriend, didn't she,'

persisted Morse, 'apart from you?'

'Pete?' Maguire could relax again. 'He didn't even touch her.'

'But she might have spoken to him?' Maguire was amused, and Morse felt that his questioning had lost its impetus. 'What about her form tutor?

She might have gone to her, perhaps?'

Maguire laughed openly. *You don't understand.' But suddenly Morse realized that he was beginning to understand, and as the dawn was slowly breaking in his mind, he leaned forward and fixed Maguire with grey eyes, hard and unblinking.

'She could have gone to the headmaster, though.' He spoke the words with quiet, taut emphasis, and the impact upon Maguire was dramatic. Morse saw the sudden flash of burning jealousy and knew that gradually, inch by inch, he was moving nearer to the truth about Valerie Taylor.

Morse took a taxi to Southampton Terrace where he found a patient Lewis awaiting him. The car was ready and they were soon heading out along the M40 towards Oxford. Morse's mind was simultaneously veering in every direction, and he lapsed into uncommunicative introversion. It wasn't until they left the three-lane motorway that he broke the long silence. 'Sony you had such a long wait, Lewis.' 'That's all right, sir. You had a long wait, too.' "Yes,' said Morse. He made no mention of his return to the Penthouse. He must have gone down a good deal already in his sergeant's estimation; he had certainly sunk quite low enough in his own.

It was five miles outside Oxford that Lewis exploded the minor bombsh.e.l.l.

'I was having a talk with Mrs Gibbs, sir, while you were with Mr Maguire.'

'Well?'

'I asked her why he'd been such a nuisance.'

'What did she say?'

'She told me that until recently he'd had a girl in the flat.'

'She what?

'Yes, sir. Almost a month, she said.'

'But why the h.e.l.l didn't you tell me before, man? You surely realize ...?' He glared at Lewis, incredulous and exasperated, and sank back in despair behind his safety belt.

His stubborn conviction that Valerie was no longer alive would (one had thought) have been sorely tested when he looked back into his office at 8.00 p.m. Awaiting him was a report from the forensic laboratory, short and to the point.

'Sufficient similarities to warrant positive identification. Suggest that investigation proceed on firm a.s.sumption that letter was written by signatory, Miss Valerie Taylor. Please contact if detailed verification required.'

But Morse seemed far from impressed. In fact, he looked up from the report and smiled serenely. Reaching for the telephone directory, he looked up Phillipson, D. There was only one Phillipson: 'The Firs', Banbury Road, Oxford.

CHAPTER NINE.

We hear, for instance, of a comprehensive school in Connecticut where teachers have three pads of coloured paper, pink, blue and green, which are handed out to pupils as authority to visit respectively the headmaster, the office or the lavatory.

Robin Davis, The Grammar School SHEILA PHILLIPSON WAS absolutely delighted with her Oxford home, a four-bedroomed detached house, just below the Banbury Road roundabout. Three fully grown fir trees screened the s.p.a.cious front garden from the busy main road, and the back garden, with its two old apple trees and its goldfish pond, its beautifully conditioned lawn and its neatly tended borders, was an unfailing joy. With unimaginative predictability she had christened it 'The Firs'.

Donald would be late home from school; he had a staff meeting. But it was only a cold salad, and the children had already eaten. She could relax. At a quarter to six she was sitting in a deck-chair in the back garden, her eyes closed contentedly. The evening air was warm and still... She felt so proud of Donald; and of the children, Andrew and Alison, now contentedly watching the television. They were both doing so well at their primary school. And, of course, if they didn't really get the chances they deserved, they could always go to private schools; and Donald would probably send them there - in spite of what he'd told the parents at the last speech day. The Dragon, New College School, Oxford High, Headington - one heard such good reports. But that was all in the future. For the moment everything in the garden was lovely. She lifted her face to catch the last rays of the sloping sun and breathed in the scent of thyme and honeysuckle.

Lovely. Almost too lovely, perhaps. At half-past six she heard the crunch of Donald's Rover on the drive.

Later in the evening Sheila did not recognize the man at the door, a slimly built man with a clean, sensitive mouth and wide light-grey eyes. He had a nice voice, she thought, for a police inspector.

In spite of Morse's protests that Tom and Jerry ranked as his very favourite TV programme, the children were immediately sent upstairs to bed. She was cross with herself for not having packed them off half an hour ago: toys littered the floor, and she fussily and apologetically gathered together the offending objects and took them out. On her return she found her visitor gazing with deep interest at a framed photograph of herself and her husband.

'Press photograph, isn't it?'

"Yes. We had a big party in Donald's, er, in my husband's first term here. All the staff, husbands and wives - you know the sort of thing. The Oxford Mail took that. Took a lot of photographs, in fact'

'Have you got the other photographs?'

'Yes. I think so. Would you like to look at them? My husband won't be long. He's just finishing his bath.'

She rummaged about in a drawer of the bureau, and handed to Morse five glossy, black-and-white photographs. One of them, a group photograph, held his keen attention: the men in dinner jackets and black bow ties, the ladies in long dresses. Most of them looked happy enough.

'Do you know some of the staff?' she asked.

'Some of them.'

He looked again at the group. 'Beautifully clear photograph.'

'Very good, isn't it?'

'Is Ac.u.m here?'

'Ac.u.m? Oh yes, I think so. Mr Ac.u.m left two years ago. But I remember him quite well - and his wife.' She pointed them out on the photograph; a young man with a lively, intelligent face and a small goatee beard; and, her arm linked through his, a slim, boyish-figured girl, with shoulder-length blonde hair, not unattractive perhaps, but with a face (at least on this evidence) a little severe and more than a little spotty.

"You knew his wife, you say?' asked Morse.

Sheila heard the gurgling death-rattle of the bath upstairs, and for some inexplicable reason felt a cold shudder creeping along her spine. She felt just as she did as a young girl when she had once answered the phone for her father. She recalled the strange, almost frightening questions A shiningly-fresh Phillipson came in. He apologized for keeping Morse waiting, and in turn Morse apologized for his own unheralded intrusion. Sheila breathed an inward sigh of relief, and asked if they'd prefer tea or coffee. With livelier brews apparently out of the question, Morse opted for coffee and, like a good host, the headmaster concurred.

'I've come to ask about Ac.u.m,' said Morse, with brisk honesty. 'What can you tell me about him?'

'Ac.u.m? Not much really. He left at the end of my first year here. Taught French. Well-qualified chap. Exeter - took a second if I remember rightly.'

'What about his wife?'

'She had a degree in Modern Languages, too. They met at Exeter University, I think. In fact she taught with us for a term when one of the staff was ill. Not too successfully, I'm afraid.'

'Why was that?'

'Bit of a tough cla.s.s - you know how it is. She wasn't really up to it.'

'They gave her a rough ride, you mean?'

'They nearly took her pants down, I'm afraid.'

You're speaking metaphorically, I hope?'

T hope so, too. I heard some hair-raising rumours, though. Still, it was my fault for taking her on.

Too much of a blue-stocking for that sort of job.'

'What did you do?'

Phillipson shrugged. 'I had to get rid of her.'

'What about Ac.u.m himself? Where did he go?'

'One of the schools in Caernarfon.'

'He got promotion, did he?'

'Well no, not really. He'd only been teaching the one year, but they could promise him some sixth-form work. I couldn't.'

'Is he still there?'

'As far as I know.'

'He taught Valerie Taylor - you know that?'

'Inspector, wouldn't it be fairer if you told me why you're so interested in him? I might be able to help more if I knew what you were getting at.'

Morse pondered the question. 'Trouble is, I don't really know myself.'

Whether he believed him or not, Phillipson left it at that. 'Well, I know he taught Valerie, yes. Not one of his brightest pupils, I don't think.'

'Did he ever talk to you about her?'

'No. Never.'

'No rumours? No gossip?'

Phillipson took a deep breath, but managed to control his mounting irritation. 'No.'

Morse changed his tack. 'Have you got a good memory, sir?'

'Good enough, I suppose.'

'Good enough to remember what you were doing on Tuesday 2nd September this year?'

Phillipson cheated and consulted his diary. 'I was at a headmasters' conference in London.'

'Whereabouts in London?'

'It was at the Cafe Royal. And if you must know the conference started at..."

'All right. All right.' Morse held up his right hand like a priest p.r.o.nouncing the benediction, as a flush of anger rose in the headmaster's cheeks.

'Why did you ask me that?'

Morse smiled benignly. 'That was the day Valerie wrote to her parents."

'What the h.e.l.l are you getting at, Inspector?'