The Dead of Jericho

It was Lewis who spoke first. 'This means that Celia Richards never paid the fine at all, doesn't it, sir? This is Conrad Richards' address.'

Morse nodded agreement. 'That's about it. And I drove past the wretched place myself when…' His voice trailed off, and in his mind at that very moment it was as if a colossal flash of lightning had suddenly illuminated the landscape for a pilot flying lost and blind in the blackest night.

Morse's eyes were still shining as he stood up. 'Calls for a little celebration, don't you think?'

'No, sir. Before we do anything else, I want to know about all those other things in the reports where-'

'Forget 'em! Trivialities, Lewis! Minimal blemishes on some otherwise excellent documentation.' He walked round the table and his right hand gripped Lewis's shoulder. 'We're a team, we are-you realise that, don't you? You and me, when we work together-Christ! We're bloody near invincible! Get your coat!'

Lewis rose reluctantly from his seat. He couldn't really understand why Morse should invariably win, but he supposed it would always be so. 'You reckon you've puzzled it all out, sir?'

'Reckon? Know, more like. I'll tell you all about it over a pint.'

'I'd rather you told me now.'

'All right, Lewis. The fact of the matter is that we now not only know who killed A

So Morse gave the two different names. The first one left Lewis utterly perplexed, since it was completely unknown to him; the second left him open-mouthed and flabbergasted.

BOOK FOUR

Chapter Thirty-Three

What shall be the maiden's fate?

Who shall be the maiden's mate?

– Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel

'There are three basic views about human life,' began Morse. 'One of 'em says that everything happens by pure chance, like atoms falling through space, colliding with each other occasionally and ca

'What do you believe, sir?'

'Me? Well, I certainly don’t go for all this "fate" lark-it's a load of nonsense. I reckon I come somewhere in the middle of the other two. But that's neither here nor there. What is important is what A

'I think I'm getting a bit lost, sir.'

'All right. Listen! Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time-a long, long time ago, in fact-a handsome young prince came to a city and quite naturally he was entertained at the palace, where he met the queen of that city. Soon these two found themselves in each other's company quite a bit, and the prince fell in love with the beautiful and lonely queen; and she, in turn, fell in love with the young prince. And things were easy for 'em. The prince was a bachelor and he found out that the queen was a widow-her husband had recently been killed on a journey by road to one of the neighbouring cities. So they confessed their love-and then they got married. Had quite a few kids, too. And it would've been nice if they'd lived happily ever after, wouldn't it? But I'm afraid they didn't. In fact, the story of what happened to the pair of 'em after that is one of the most chilling and terrifying myths in the whole of Greek literature. You know what happened then, of course?'

Lewis looked down at his beer and reflected sadly upon his lack of any literary education. 'I'm sorry, I don't, sir. We didn't have any of that Greek and Latin stuff when I was at school.'

Morse knew again at that moment exactly why he always wanted Lewis around. The man was so wholesome, somehow: honest, unpretentious, humble, almost, in his experience of philosophy and life. A lovable man; a good man. And Morse continued in a gentler, less arrogant tone.

'It's a tragic story. The prince had plenty of time on his hands and one day he decided to find out, if he could, how the queen's former husband had died. He spent years digging out eyewitnesses of what had happened, and he finally discovered that the king hadn't died in an accident after all: he'd been murdered. And he kept working away at the case, Lewis, and d'you know what he found? He found that the murderer had been-' (the fingers of Morse's left hand which had been gesticulating haphazardly in front of him, suddenly tautened and turned dramatically to point to his own chest) '-that the murderer had been himself. And he learned something else, too. He learned that the man he'd murdered had been-his own father. And in a blinding, terrifying flash of insight, Lewis, he realised the full enormity of what he'd done. You see, not only had he murdered his own father-but he'd married his own mother, and had a family by her! And the truth had to come out-all of it. And when it did, the queen went and hanged herself. And the prince, when he heard what she'd done, he-he blinded himself. That's it. That's the myth of Oedipus.'

Morse had finished, and Lewis felt himself strangely moved by the story and the way his chief had told it. He thought that if only his own schoolteachers had been able to tell him about such top-of-the-head stuff in the way Morse had just done, he would never have felt so distanced from that intimidating crew who were listed in the index of his encyclopaedia under 'Tragedians'. He saw, too, how the legend Morse had just expounded linked up at so many points with the present case; and he would indeed have been able to work it all out for himself had not Morse anticipated his activated musings.

'You can appreciate, Lewis, how A