The silent world of Nicholas Quinn (24 page)

prime minister? Who composed the Trout Quartet? By what name was the Black

Prince known when he became king?
The questions were all non-questions.
Georgie

W. wasn't assassinated, and K.N. Bill wasn't
anybody
; he was a Bill before the

Senate. The same with all of them. They were questions which couldn't be answered,

because they were questions which couldn't be asked. Morse had become besotted

with trying to find out who had been at Studio 2, when they had been there, why they

had been there. But what if they were all non-questions? What if
no one
had been in Studio 2? Everything in the case had been designed to mislead him into thinking that

they had been there. Some of them—all of them, perhaps—
wanted
him to think so.

And he had blindly stumbled along the gangway down the darkened cinema, groping

his way like a blind man, and trying to see (O fool of a fool!) who was sitting there. But perhaps there was no one, Morse. No one!

'Who did you see going into Studio 2, Miss Height?'

'Why don't you call me "Monica"?'

The nurse put her head through the curtains, and told Morse that he really ought to

1leave now; he'd already gone way over his time. He stood up and looked down at her

once more, and kissed the top of her head gently.

'You didn't see anyone going in to Studio 2, did you, Monica?'

For a second there was hesitation in her eyes, and then she looked at him earnestly.

'No. I didn't. You must believe that.'

She took Morse's hand and squeezed it gently against her soft breast. 'Come again,

won't you? And try to look after me.' Her eyes sought his and he realized once more

how desperately desirable she would always be to lonely men—to men like him. But

there was something else in her eyes: the look of the hunted fleeing from the hunter;

the haunted look of fear. 'I'm frightened, Inspector. I'm so very frightened.'

Morse was thoughtful as he walked the long corridors before finally emerging through

the flappy celluloid doors into the entrance road by the side of the Radcliffe, where the Lancia stood parked on an 'Ambulance Only' plot. He started up the engine and was

slowly steering through the twisting alleys that led down into Walton Street when he

saw a familiar figure striding up towards the hospital. He stopped the car and wound

down the window.

'I'm glad to see you, Mr. Martin. In fact I was just coming along to see you. Jump in.'

'Sorry. Not now. I'm going to see—'

'You're not.'

'Who says?'

'No one's going in to see her until I say so.'

'But when—?'

'Jump in.'

'Do I have to?'

Morse shrugged his shoulders. 'Not really, no. You please yourself. At least, you

please yourself until I decide to take you in.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'What it says, sir. Until I decide to take you in and charge you—'

'
Charge
me? What with?'

'Oh, I could think up something pretty quickly, sir.'

The dull eyes stared at Morse in anxious bewilderment. 'You must be joking.'

'Of course I am, sir.' He leaned across and opened the Lancia's nearside door, and

Donald Martin sullenly eased his long body into the passenger seat.

The traffic was heavy as they drove up the narrow street, and Morse decided to turn

right and cut straight across to Woodstock Road. As he stopped at yet another Pelican

crossing, he realized just how close the Syndicate building was to Studio 2. And as

the lights turned to flashing amber, he held the car on half-clutch as a late pedestrian

galloped his way across: a bearded young man. He was in too much of a rush to

recognize Morse; but Morse recognized
him
, and the last words that Monica had

spoken re-echoed in his mind. In his rear mirror he could see that the man was

walking briskly down the right-hand side of Woodstock Road towards the Radcliffe

Infirmary, and he swung the Lancia sharp left at the next turning, furiously cursing the

crawling stream of cars. He parked on the double yellow lines at the back of the

Radcliffe, told Martin to stay where he was, and ran like a crippled stag to the accident ward. She was still there: still sitting up prettily amid the pillows as he peeped behind the screens. Phew! He rang up HQ from1 the Sister's office, told Dickson he was to get

there immediately, and stood there breathing heavily.

'You all right, Inspector?'

'Just about, thank you, Sister. But listen. I don't want anyone to talk to Miss Height or to get anywhere near her. All right? And if anyone
does
try to visit her, I want to know who it is. One of my men will be here in ten minutes.'

He paced impatiently up and down the corridor waiting for Dickson's arrival. Like

Pilgrim he seemed to be making but sluggish progress—up the hill of difficulty and

down into the slough of despond. But there was no sign whatsoever of Richard

Bartlett. Perhaps Morse was imagining things.

THREE-QUARTERS OF an hour later, with the office clock showing half past two, Morse's

irritation with the young philanderer was mounting towards open animosity. What a

flabby character Donald Martin was! He admitted most things, albeit with some

reluctance. His relationship with Monica had sputtered into sporadic passion, followed

by the usual remorse and the futile promises that the affair had got to finish. Certainly it was he who had always tried to force the pace; yet when they were actually making

love together (Morse drew the blinds across his imagination) he knew that she was

glad
. She could surrender herself so completely to physical love; it was wonderful, and he had known nothing like it before. But when the passion was spent, she would

always retreat into indifference—callousness, almost. Never had she made any

pretence about her reasons for letting him take her: it was purely physical. Never had

she spoken of love, or even of deep affection . . . His wife (he was sure of it) had no

suspicions of his unfaithfulness, although she must have sensed (of course she must!)

that the careless rapture of their early married days had gone—perhaps for ever.

How despicable the man was! His dark, lank hair, his horn-rimmed glasses, his long,

almost effeminate fingers. Ugh! Nor was Morse's dark displeasure dissipated as

Martin repeated what he had already told Lewis about his whereabouts the previous

evening. He'd been lucky to find a parking space in the Broad, and he'd gone to the

King's Arms first, where he thought the barmaid would probably remember him. Then

to the White Horse, where he didn't know anyone. Another pint. Then down to the Turl

Bar. Another pint. No he didn't often go out for a binge: very rarely in fact. But the last few days had been a nightmarish time. He'd found he couldn't sleep at all well, and

beer had helped a bit; it usually did. But why did Morse keep on and on at him about

it? He'd gone nowhere near Ogleby's! Why should he? What, for heaven's sake, could

he have had to do with Ogleby's murder? He'd not even known him very well. He

doubted if anybody in the office knew him very well.

Morse said nothing to enlighten him. 'Let's come back to last Friday afternoon.'

'Not again, surely! I've told you what happened. All right, I lied for a start, but—'

'You're lying now! And if you're not carefuf you'll be down in the cells until you
do
tell me the truth.'

'But I'm
not
lying.' He shook his head miserably. 'Why can't you believe me?'

1 'Why did you say you spent the afternoon at Miss Height's house?'

'I don't know, really. Monica thought . .' His voice trailed off.

'Yes. She's told me.'

'Has she?' His eyes seemed suddenly relieved.

'Yes,' lied Morse. 'But if you don't want to tell me yourself, we can always wait, sir. I'm in no great rush myself.'

Martin looked down at the carpet. 'I don't know why she didn't want to say we'd been to

the pictures. I don't—honestly! But I didn't think it mattered all that much, so I agreed to what she said.'

'It's a bit odd to say you'd been to bed when all you'd done was sit together in the

cinema!'

Martin seemed to recognize the obvious truth of the assertion, and he nodded. 'But it's

the truth, Inspector. It's the honest truth! We stayed in the cinema till about a quarter to four. You've got to believe that! I had nothing at all—nothing!—to do with Nick's death.

Nor did Monica.
We were together
—all the afternoon.'

'Tell me something about the film.'

So Martin told him, and Morse knew that he could hardly be fabricating such entirely

gratuitous obscenities. Martin
had
seen the film; seen it sometime, anyway. Not

necessarily that Friday, not necessarily with Monica, but . . .

Martin was convincing him, he knew that. Assume he
was
there that Friday afternoon.

With Monica? Yes, assume that too. Sit them down there on the back row of the rear

lounge, Morse. Martin had been waiting for her, and she'd come in. Yes, keep going!

She'd come in and . . . and they had stayed after all! Who, if anyone, had they seen?

No. Go back a bit. Who had Martin seen going in? No. Who had Monica seen? Going

in? Or . . .? Yes.Yes!

Think of it the other way for a minute. Ogleby had gone into the cinema at about

quarter to five, say. But he must have known all about Quinn's ticket, mustn't he? In

fact he must have seen it. When? Where? Why had he made a careful freehand

drawing of that ticket? Ogleby must have known, or at least suspected, that the ticket

was vitally important. All right. Agree that Monica and Martin had seen the film

together. But had
Quinn
gone? Or had someone just wished to make everyone else

think
that he'd gone? Who? Who knew of the ticket? Who had drawn it? Where had he found it, Morse? My God, yes! What a stupid blind fool he'd been!

Martin had stopped talking minutes before, and was looking curiously at the man in

the black-leather chair, sitting there smiling serenely to himself. It had all happened, as it always seemed to do with Morse, in the twinkling of an eye. Yes, as he sat there,

oblivious to everything about him,
Morse felt he knew when Nicholas Quinn had met

his death.

HOW?