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before reaching her sixtieth year.
     
    When the man had fastened up her buttons, she had felt belittled and cheap-on the wrong side of the habitual transaction. But she also felt deeply interested.
    ‘Yes, it’s safe,’ she said, finally answering his question.
    ‘No microphones? No two-way mirrors?’
    She shook her head. ‘About my father-’
    ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
    She looked at him: a man over sixty, perhaps; fairly well-preserved by the look of him; head balding, teeth nicotined, jowls blue, chin somewhat sagging, but the mouth still firm and not without some sensitivity. No, she couldn’t remember him.
    ‘I called at your house once, but that was a long time ago. You were, I don’t know, fifteen or sixteen-still at school, anyway, because your mother asked you to go and do your homework in the kitchen. It was the year after the war was over, and I’d known your father – we were in the same mob together. In fact, I was with him when he died.’
    ‘What do you want?’ she asked abruptly.
    ‘I want you to do something for me – something you’ll be paid for doing-paid very well.’
    ‘What-?’
    But he held up his hand. ‘Not now! You’re living at 23A Colebourne Road-is that right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’d like to come and see you, if I may.’
    He had come the next evening, and talked whilst she listened. And, when she’d expressed her willingness to do what he asked, a deal was done, a partial payment made. And now, this very day, she had acted the role that he had asked of her, and the final payment had been made. A lot of easy money for a little easy work, and yet…
    Yes, it was that little ‘and yet’ that caused her mind to fill with nagging doubts as she sat and sipped her China tea. She knew enough, of course-she’d insisted on that. But perhaps she should have insisted on knowing more, especially about the sequel to her own performance in the drama. They couldn’t -they wouldn’t, surely-have… killed him?
    Her lips felt dry, and she reached for her handbag, opened the flap, and delved around for a few seconds before unscrewing a circular container-for the second time that day.

CHAPTER SIX
Wednesday, 16th July
     
    In which the Master ofLonsdale is somewhat indiscreet to a police inspector, and discusses his concern for one of his colleagues, and for the niceties of English grammar.
     
    On the fifth morning after the events described in the preceding chapter, Detective Chief Inspector Morse, of the Thames Valley Constabulary, was seated in his office at Kidlington, Oxon. One half of him was semi-satisfied with the vagaries of his present existence; the other half was semi-depressed. Earlier that very morning he had sworn himself a solemn vow that the day ahead would be quite different. His recent consumption of food, tobacco, and alcohol had varied only within the higher degrees of addictive excess; and now, at the age of fifty-two, he had once again decided that a few days of virtually total abstinence was urgently demanded by stomach, lungs, and liver alike. He had arrived at his office, therefore, unbreakfasted, having already thrown away a half-full packet of cigarettes, and having left his half-empty wallet on the bedside-table. Get thou behind me, Satan! And, indeed, things had gone surprisingly well until about 11.30 a.m., when the Master of Lonsdale had rung through to HQ and invited Morse down to lunch with him.
    ‘Half-past twelve-in my rooms-all right? We can have a couple of snifters first.’
    ‘I’d like that,’ Morse heard himself saying.
    As he walked towards the Master’s rooms in the first quad, Morse passed two young female students chattering to each other like a pair of monkeys.
    ‘But surely Rosemary’s expecting a first, isn’t she? If she doesn’t get one-’
    ‘No. She told me that she’d made a terrible mess of the General Paper.’
    ‘So did I.’
    ‘And me!’
    ‘She’ll be awfully disappointed, though…’
    Yes, life was