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

but Jackson was ready for him.
    “Orders of the Governor, Evans.” He leaned forward and leered, his voice dropping to a harsh, contemptuous whisper. “You want to
complain
?”
    Evans shrugged his shoulders lightly. The crisis was over.
    “You’ve got half an hour to smarten yourself up, Evans—and take that bloody hat off!”
    “Me ’at? Huh!” Evans put his right hand lovingly on top of the filthy woollen, and smiled sadly. “D’you know, Mr. Jackson, it’s the only thing that’s ever brought me any sort o’ luck in life. Kind o’ lucky charm, if you know what I mean. And today I thought—well, with me exam and all that …”
    Buried somewhere in Jackson, beneath all the blusterand the bull-shit, was a tiny core of compassion; and Evans knew it.
    “Just this once, then, Shirley Temple.” (If there was one thing that Jackson genuinely loathed about Evans it was his long, wavy hair.) “And get bloody shaving!”
    At 8:45 the same morning the Reverend Stuart McLeery left his bachelor flat in Broad Street and stepped out briskly towards Carfax. The weatherman reported temperatures considerably below the normal for early June, and a long black overcoat and a shallow-crowned clerical hat provided welcome protection from the steady drizzle which had set in half an hour earlier and which now spattered the thick lenses of his spectacles. In his right hand he was carrying a small brown suitcase, which contained all that he would need for his morning duties, including a sealed question-paper envelope, a yellow invigilation form, a special “authentication” card from the Examinations Board, a paper-knife, a Bible (he was to speak to the Women’s Guild that afternoon on the book of Ruth), and a current copy of
The Church Times
.
    The two-hour examination was scheduled to start at 9:15 A.M.
    Evans was lathering his face vigorously when Stephens brought in two small square tables, and set them opposite each other in the narrow space between the bunk on the one side and on the other the distempered stone; wall, plastered at eye-level with a proud row of naked women, vast-breasted and voluptuous. Next, Stephens brought in two hard chairs, the slightly less battered of which he placed in front of the table which stood nearer the ceil door.
    Jackson put in a brief final appearance. “Behave yourself, laddy!”
    Evans turned and nodded.
    “And these” (Jackson pointed to the pin-ups) “off!”
    Evans turned and nodded again. “I was goin’ to take ’em down anyway. A minister, isn’t ’e? The chap comin’ to sit in, I mean.”
    “And how did you know that?” asked Jackson quietly.
    “Well, I ’ad to sign some forms, didn’t I? And I couldn’t ’elp—”
    “You sneaky little bastard.”
    Evans drew the razor carefully down his left cheek, and left a neat swath in the white lather. “Can I ask you something, Mr. Jackson? Why did they ’ave to bug me bloody cell?” He nodded his head vaguely to a point above the door.
    “Not a very neat job,” conceded Jackson.
    “They’re not—they don’t honestly think I’m goin’ to try to—”
    “They’re taking no chances, Evans. Nobody in his bloody senses would take any chances with
you
.”
    “Who’s goin’ to listen in?”
    “I’ll tell you who’s going to listen in, laddy. It’s the Governor himself, see? He don’t trust you a bloody inch—and nor do I. I’ll be watching you like a bleedin’ hawk, Evans, so keep your nose clean. Clear?” He walked towards the door. “And while we’re on the subject of your nose, Evans, it’s about time you changed that filthy snot-rag dangling from your arse pocket. Clear?”
    Evans nodded. He’d already thought of that, and Number Two Handkerchief was lying ready on the bunk—a neatly folded square of off-white linen.
    “Just one more thing, Einstein.”
    “Ya? Wha’s’ at?”
    “Good luck, old son.”
    In the little lodge just inside the prison’s main gates, the Reverend S. McLeery