Last Seen Wearing (5 page)

   When I interviewed them this week both Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were reluctant (and understandably so) to talk about the agonies they suffered that night. Throughout the long vigil it was Grace Taylor who feared the worst and suffered the most, for her husband felt sure that Valerie had gone off with some boyfriend and would be back the next morning. At 4.00 a.m. he managed to persuade his wife to take two sleeping tablets and he took her upstairs to bed.

   She was sleeping when he left the house at 7.30 a.m., leaving a note saying that he would be back at lunch-time, and that if Valerie still had not returned they would have to call the police. In fact the police were notified earlier than that. Mrs. Taylor had awoken at about nine and, in a distraught state, had rung them from a neighbour's telephone.

   Detective Chief Inspector Ainley of the Thames Valley Police was put in charge of the case, and intensive inquiries were immediately begun. During the course of the next week the whole of the area in the vicinity of Valerie's home and the area of woodland behind the school were searched with painstaking care and patience; the river and the reservoir were dragged . . . But no trace was found of Valerie Taylor.

   Inspector Ainley himself was frankly critical of the delay. At least twelve hours had been lost; fifteen, if the police had been notified as soon as the Taylors' anxiety had begun to deepen into genuine alarm.

   Such delay is a common feature of the cases assembled here. Vital time lost; perhaps vital clues thrown to the wind—and all because parents think they will be wasting the time of the police and would seem to look foolish if the wayward off-spring should suddenly turn up whilst the police were busy taking statements. It is a common human weakness, and it is only too easy to blame parents like the Taylors. But would we ourselves have acted all that differently? I knew exactly what Mrs. taylor meant when she said to me, 'I felt all the time that if we called the police something dreadful must have happened.' Illogical, you may say, but so very understandable.

   Mr. and Mrs. Taylor still live on the council estate in Hatfield Way. For over two years now they have waited and prayed for their daughter to return. as in the five other cases discussed here, the police files remain open. 'No,' said Inspector Ainley, 'we shan't be closing them until we find her.'

Not bad reporting, thought Morse. There were several things in the article that puzzled him slightly, but he deliberately suppressed the fanciful notions that began to flood his mind. He had been right earlier. When Ainley had got the hard facts down on paper, he had spotted something that for over two years had lurked in the darkness and eluded his grasp. Some clue or other which had monopolized his attention and filled his spare time, and eventually, if indirectly, led to his death.

   Just stick to the facts, Morse, stick to the facts! It would be difficult, but he would try. And tomorrow he and Lewis would start on the files wherein lay the facts as Ainley had gleaned them. Anyway, Christine was back in Kidderminster and, like as not, Valerie would be back in Kidlington before the end of the month. The naughty girls were all coming home and would soon be having the same sort of rows they'd had with mum and dad before they left. Life, alas, was like that.

   Over his third pint of beer Morse could stem the flood of fancy no longer. He read the article through quickly once again. Yes, there was something wrong here. Only a small thing, but he wondered if it was the same small thing that had set Ainley on a new track . . . And the strangest notion began to formulate in the mind so recently dedicated to the pursuit of unembellished fact.

CHAPTER SIX

He certainly has a great deal of fancy, and a very good memory; but, with a perverse ingenuity, he employs these qualities as no other person does.

(Richard Brinsley Sheridan)

A
S HE KNOCKED
at the door of Morse's office Sergeant Lewis, who had thoroughly enjoyed the police routine of the previous week, wondered just what was in store for him now. He had worked with the unpredictable inspector before and got on fairly well with him; but he had his reservations.

   Morse was seated in his black leather chair and before him on his untidy desk lay a green box-file.

   'Ah. Come in, Lewis. I didn't want to start without you. Wouldn't be fair, would it?' He patted the box-file with a gesture of deep affection. 'It's all there, Lewis, my boy. All the facts. Ainley was a fact man—no daydreaming theorist was Ainley. And we shall follow where the great man trod. What do you say?' And without giving his sergeant the slightest opportunity to say anything, he emptied the contents of the file face downwards upon the desk. 'Shall we start at the top or the bottom?'

   'Might be a good idea to start at the beginning, don't you think, sir?'

   'I think we could make out a good case for starting at either end—but we shall do as you say.' With some difficulty Morse turned the bulky sheaf of papers the right way up.

   'What exactly are we going to do?' asked Lewis blankly.

   Morse proceeded to recount his interview with Strange, and then passed across to Lewis the letter received from Valerie Taylor. 'And we're taking over, Lewis—you happy about that?' Lewis nodded halfheartedly. 'Did you remember the
Sunday Mirror?'

   Lewis dutifully took the paper from his coat pocket and handed it to Morse, who took out his wallet, found his football coupon and with high seriousness began to check his entry. Lewis watched him as his eyes alternately lit up and switched off, before the coupon was comprehensively shredded and hurled in the general direction of the waste-paper basket.

   'I shan't be spending next week in the Bahamas, Lewis. What about you?'

   'Nor me, sir.'

   'Do you ever win anything?'

   'Few quid last year, sir. But it's a million to one chance—getting a big win.'

   'Like this bloody business,' mumbled Morse, distastefully surveying the fruits of Ainley's labours.

   For the next two and a half hours they sat over the Taylor documents, occasionally conferring over an obscure or an interesting point—but for the most part in silence. It would have been clear to an independent witness of these proceedings that Morse read approximately five times as quickly as his sergeant; but whether he remembered five times as much of what he read would have been a much more questionable inference. For Morse found it difficult to concentrate his mind upon the documents before him. As he saw it, the facts, the bare unadulterated facts, boiled down to little more than he had read in the pub the previous day. The statements before him, checked and signed, appeared merely to confirm the bald, simple truth; after leaving home to return to school Valerie Taylor had completely vanished. If Morse wanted a fact, well, he'd got one. Parents, neighbours, teachers, classmates—all had been questioned at length. And amidst all their well-meaning verbosity they all had the same thing to say—nothing. Next, reports of Ainley's own interviews with Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, with the headmaster, with Valerie's form tutor, with her games mistress and with two of her boyfriends. (Ainley had clearly liked the headmaster, and equally clearly had disapproved of one of the boyfriends.) All nicely, neatly written in the small, rounded hand that Morse had already seen. But—nothing. Next, reports of general police inquiries and searches, and reports of the missing girl being spotted in Birmingham, Clacton, London, Reading, Southend, and a remote village in Moray. All wild-goose chases. All false alarms. Next, personal and medical reports on Valerie herself. She did not appear academically gifted in any way; or if she was, she had so far successfully concealed her scholastic potential from her teachers. School reports suggested a failure, except in practical subjects, to make the best of her limited abilities (familiar phrases!), but she seemed a personable enough young lady, well liked (Morse drew his own conclusions) by her fellow pupils of either sex. On the day of her disappearance she was attested by school records to be seventeen years and five months old, and five feet six inches in height. In her previous academic year she had taken four CSE subjects, without signal success, and she was at that time sitting three GCE O-level subjects—English, French and Applied Science. From the medical report it appeared that Valerie was quite remarkably healthy. There were no entries on her National Health medical card for the last three years, and before that only measles and a bad cut on the index finger of her left hand. Next, a report over which Ainley had obviously (and properly) taken considerable pains, on the possibility of any trouble on the domestic front which may have caused friction between Valerie and her parents, and led to her running away from home. On this most important point Ainley had gone to the trouble of writing out two sheets of foolscap in his own fair hand; but the conclusions were negative. On the evidence of Valerie's form tutor (among whose manifold duties something designated 'pastoral care' appeared a high priority), on the evidence of the parents themselves, of the neighbours and of Valerie's own friends, there seemed little reason to assume anything but the perfectly normal ups-and-downs in the relationship between the members of the Taylor clan. Rows, of course. Valerie had been home very late once or twice from dances and discos, and Mrs. Taylor could use a sharp tongue. (Who couldn't?) Ainley's own conclusion was that he could find no immediate cause within the family circle to account for a minor squabble—let alone the inexplicable departure of an only daughter. In short—nothing. Morse thought of the old Latin proverb.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Out of nothing you'll get nothing. Not that it helped in any way.

   Apart from the typed and handwritten documents, there were three maps: an ordnance-survey map of the Oxford district showing the areas covered by the search parties; a larger map of the Oxfordshire region on which the major road and rail routes were marked with cryptic symbols; and finally a sketch-map of the streets between the Roger Bacon School and the Taylors' house, with Valerie's route to and from her school carefully and neatly drawn in in red biro by the late chief inspector. Whilst Lewis was plodding along, several miles behind his master, the master himself appeared to be finding something of extraordinary interest in this last item: his right hand shaded his forehead and he seemed to Lewis in the diroes of the deepest contemplation.

   'Found something, sir?'

   'Uh? What?' Morse's head jerked back and the idle daydream was over.

   'The sketch-map, sir.'

   'Ah, yes. The map. Very interesting. Yes.' He looked at it again, decided that he was unable to recapture whatever interest may have previously lain therein and picked up the
Sunday Mirror
once more. He read his horoscope: 'You're doing better than you realize, so there could be a major breakthrough as far as romance is concerned. This week will certainly blossom if you spend it with someone witty and bright.'

   He looked glumly across at Lewis, who for the moment at least appeared neither very witty nor very bright

   'Well, Lewis. What do you think?'

   'I've not quite finished yet, sir.'

   'But you must have some ideas, surely.'

   'Not yet.'

   'Oh, come on. What do you think happened to her?'

   Lewis thought hard, and finally gave expression to a conviction which had grown steadily stronger the more he had read. 'I think she got a lift and ended up in London. That's where they all end up.'

   'You think she's still alive, then?'

   Lewis looked at his chief in some surprise. 'Don't you?'

   'Let's go for a drink,' said Morse.

They walked out of the Thames Valley HQ and at the Belisha crossing negotiated the busy main road that linked Oxford with Banbury.

   'Where are we going, sir?'

   Morse took Ainley's hand-drawn map from his pocket. 'I thought we ought to take a gentle stroll over the ground, Lewis. You never know.'

   The council estate was situated off the main road, to their left as they walked away from Oxford, and very soon they stood in Hatfield Way.

   'We going to call?'

   'Got to make a start somewhere, I suppose,' said Morse.

   The house was a neat, well-built property, with a circular rose-bed cut into the centre of the well-tended front lawn. Morse rang the bell, and rang again. It seemed that Mrs. Taylor was out. Inquisitively Morse peered through the front window, but could see little more than a large, red settee and a diagonal line of ducks winging their inevitable way towards the ceiling. The two men walked away, carefully closing the gate behind them.

   'If I remember rightly, Lewis, there's a pub just around the corner.'

   They ordered a cheese cob and a pint apiece and Morse handed to Lewis the Colour Supplement of 24 August.

   'Have a quick look at that.'

   Ten minutes later, with Morse's glass empty and Lewis's barely touched, it was clear that the quick look was becoming a rather long look, and Morse replenished his own glass with some impatience.

   'Well? What's troubling you?'

   'They haven't got it quite right, though, have they?'

   Morse looked at him sharply. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

   'Well. It says here that she was never seen again after leaving the house.'

   'She wasn't.'

   'What about the lollipop man?'

   'The
what?'

   'The lollipop man. It was in the file.'

   'Oh, was it?'

   'You did seem a bit tired, I thought, sir.'

   'Tired? Nonsense. You need another pint.' He drained what was left in his own glass, picked up Lewis's and walked across to the bar.

   An elegantly dressed woman with a full figure and pleasingly slim legs had just bought a double whisky and was pouring a modicum of water into it, the heavy diamond rings on the fingers of her left hand sparkling wickedly and bright.

   'Oh, and Bert, twenty Embassy, please.' The landlord reached behind him, handed over the cigarettes, squinted his eyes as he calculated the tariff, gave her the change, said 'Ta, luv,' and turned his attention to Morse.

   'Same again, sir?'

   As the woman turned from the counter, Morse felt sure he had seen her somewhere before. He seldom forgot a face. Still, if she lived in Kidlington, he could have seen her anywhere. But he kept looking at her; so much so that Lewis began to suspect the inspector's intentions. She was all right—quite nice, in fact. Mid-thirties, perhaps, nice face. But the old boy must be hard up if . . .

   Two dusty-looking builders came in, bought their ale and sat down to play dominoes. As they walked to the table one of them called over to the woman: 'Hallo, Grace. All right?' Morse showed little surprise. Hell of a sight better-looking than her photograph suggested, though.