Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories by Colin Dexter Read Free Book Online Page A

he? I don’t want to know his criminal record or anything like that, but—”
    “No. There’s no record of violence. Quite a pleasant sort of chap, they tell me. Bit of a card, really. One of the stars at the Christmas concert. Imitations, you know the sort of thing: Mike Yarwood stuff. No, he’s just a congenital kleptomaniac, that’s all.” The Governor was tempted to add something else, but he thought better of it. He’d look after
that
particular side of things himself.
    “Presumably,” said the Secretary, “you can arrange a room where—”
    “No problem. He’s in a cell on his own. If you’ve no objections, he can sit the exam in there.”
    “That’s fine.”
    “And we could easily get one of the parsons from St. Mary Mags to invigilate, if that’s—”
    “Fine, yes. They seem to have a helluva lot of parsons there, don’t they?” The two men chuckled good-naturedly, and the Secretary had a final thought. “At least there’s one thing. You shouldn’t have much trouble keeping him
incommunicado
, should you?”
    The Governor chuckled politely once more, reiterated his thanks, and slowly cradled the phone.
    Evans!
    “Evans the Break” as the prison officers called him. Three times he’d escaped from prison, and but for the recent wave of unrest in the maximum-security establishments up north, he wouldn’t now be gracing the Governor’s premises in Oxford; and the Governor was going to make absolutely certain that he wouldn’t be
dis
gracing them. Not that Evans was a
real
burden: just a persistent, nagging presence. He’d be all right in Oxford, though: the Governor would see to that—would see to it personally. And besides, there was just a possibility that Evans was genuinely interested in O-level German. Just a slight possibility. Just a very slight possibility.
    At 8:30 P.M. on Monday 7 June, Evans’s German teacher shook him by the hand in the heavily guarded Recreational Block, just across from D Wing.
    “Guten Glück
, Herr Evans.”
    “Pardon?”
    “I said, ‘Good luck.’ Good luck for tomorrow.”
    “Oh. Thanks, er, I mean, er,
Danke schön.”
    “You haven’t a cat in hell’s chance of getting through, of course, but—”
    “I may surprise everybody,” said Evans.
    At 8:30 the following morning, Evans had a visitor. Two visitors, in fact. He tucked his grubby string-vest into his equally grubby trousers, and stood up from his bunk, smiling cheerfully. “Mornin’, Mr. Jackson. This is indeed an honour.”
    Jackson was the senior prison officer on D Wing, and he and Evans had already become warm enemies. At Jackson’s side stood Officer Stephens, a burly, surly-looking man, only recently recruited to the profession.
    Jackson nodded curtly. “And how’s our little Einstein this morning, then?”
    “Wasn’t ’e a mathematician, Mr. Jackson?”
    “He was a bloody Kraut,” snapped Jackson. Evans’s quiet voice always riled him, and Evans’s present insight into his own vast ignorance riled him even more.
    “I think ’e was a Jew, Mr. Jackson.”
    “I don’t give a monkey’s fuck what he was, you scruffy sod.”
    “Scruffy” was, perhaps, the right word. Evans’s face was unshaven, and he wore a filthy-looking red-and-white bobble hat upon his head. “Give me a
chance
, Mr. Jackson. I was just goin’ to shave when you bust in.”
    “Which reminds me.” Jackson turned his eyes on Stephens. “Make sure you take his razor out of the cell when he’s finished scraping that ugly mug of his. Clear? One of these days he’ll do us all a favour and cut his bloody throat.”
    For a few seconds Evans looked thoughtfully at the man standing ramrod straight in front of him, a string of Second World War medals proudly paraded over his left breast-pocket. “Mr. Jackson? Was it
you
who took me nail-scissors away?” Evans had always worried about his hands.
    “And
your nail-file, you poney twit.”
    “Look!” For a moment Evans’s eyes smouldered dangerously,