Read Online Inspector Morse 4 - Service Of All The Dead by Colin Dexter - Free Book Online Page A

gripped his interest, and he read it through again. 'Mrs. Emily Walsh-Atkins, after giving formal evidence of identification, said that she had remained alone for some minutes in the church after the service. She then waited for about five minutes outside the church, where she had arranged to be picked up by taxi: the service had finished slightly earlier than usual. At about 8.10 a.m. she heard a terrible thud in the churchyard and had looked round to find Lawson's body spread-eagled on the railings. Fortunately two police officers had soon appeared on the scene and Mr. Morris' (Morris!) 'had taken her back inside, the church to sit down and recover . . .' Morse knew that he would have little mental rest until he had seen Mrs. W.-A., and it was that lady who was the immediate cause of his attendance at the Church Concert. (Was she the only reason, Morse?) He had just missed her at the Home for Ageing Gentlefolk, but they knew where she had gone.
    Meiklejohn had finished his long-winded, oily introduction, the lights had been switched off, and now the stage-curtains were jerkily wound back to reveal the Tap-Dance Troupe in all its bizarre glory. For Morse the whole thing was embarrassingly amusing; and he was quite unprepared for the wild applause which greeted the final unsynchronised kneelings of the eleven little girls, plumed plastic headgear and all, who for three minutes or so had braved inadequate rehearsal, innate awkwardness, and the appallingly incompetent accompaniment of the pianist. To make matters worse, the troupe had started with a complement of twelve, but one small child had turned left instead of right at a crucial point in the choreography, and had promptly fled to the wings, her face collapsing in tearful misery. Yet still the audience clapped and clapped, and was not appeased until the appearance of the troupe's instructress, alias the piano-player, leading by the hand the unfortunate, but now shyly smiling, little deserter—the latter greeted by all as if she were a prima ballerina from the Sadler's Wells. 
    The Gilbert and Sullivan selections were excellently sung, and Morse realised that the St. Frideswide's choir contained some first-rate talent. This time, fortunately, the piano was in the hands of an infinitely more able executant—Mr. Sharpe, no less, former deputy to Mr. Morris (that name again!). Morris . . . the man who had been on the scene when Josephs was murdered; had been on the scene, too, when Lawson was—when Lawson was found. Surely, surely, it shouldn't be at all difficult to trace him? Or to trace Mrs. Brenda Josephs? They must be somewhere; must be earning some money; must have insurance numbers; must have a house . . . With clinical precision the choir cut off the last chord from the finale of The Mikado , and their turn was complete—greeted by appreciative if comparatively short-lived applause.
    It took a good five minutes for the Victorian melodrama to materialise; minutes during which could be heard the squeaking and bumping of furniture, during which the curtains were twice prematurely half opened, and during which Morse once more looked through the coroner's digest on Lawson's death. There was this fellow Thomas's evidence, for example: 'He had just parked his car in St Giles' and was walking down towards Broad Street when he noticed someone on the tower of St. Frideswide's. He could not recall seeing anyone standing there before, but it was not unusual to see people looking out over Oxford from St Mary's in the High, or from Carfax tower. He thought that the figure was dressed in black, looking down, his head leaning over the parapet . . .' That was all, really. Only later had he heard of the morning's tragedy and had reluctantly rung up the police—at his wife's suggestion. Not much there, but the man must have been the very last person (Morse supposed) to see Lawson alive. Or was he? He might just have been the first—no, the second—person to see Lawson dead .