'Whoever killed him was pretty obviously looking for something, don't you think, Bell? And not just the address of some deaf-and-dumb nymphomaniac, or the results of the latest pike-angling competition.'

'You think he found what he was looking for?'

'I dunno,' said Morse.

'Well, I'll tell you one thing. We've been over the house with a nit-comb, and-nothing! Nothing that's going to help us. Fishing tackle galore, tools, drills, saws-you name it, he's got it in the do-it-yourself line. So what, though? He goes fishing most days, and he does a few handyman jobs round the streets. Good luck to him!'

'Did you find a trowel?' asked Morse quietly.

'Trowel? What's that got to-'

'He mended the Scott woman's wall-did you know that?'

Bell looked up sharply. 'Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. And if I may say so, Morse. I'm beginning to wonder-'

'What about bird watching?'

'What the 'ell's-'

'There was a pair of binoculars in the bedroom, you knew that.'

'All right. He went fishing, and he occasionally had a look at the kingfishers.'

'Why keep 'em in the bedroom, though?'

'You tell me!'

'I reckon he used to have a look at the bird across the way every now and then.'

'You mean, he-'

'No curtains, were there?'

'The dirty little sod!'

'Come off it! I'd have done the same myself.'

'Funny, isn't it? The way you just happened to be in Jericho. Both times, too.'

'Coincidence. Life's full of coincidences.'

'Do you appreciate, Morse, what the statistical chances are of you-'

'Phooey! Let me tell you something, Bell. Statistically, a woman should have her first baby at the age of nineteen, did you know that? But she shouldn't really start copulating before the age of twenty-six!'

Bell let it go, and his shoulders sagged as he sat at his desk. 'It's going to be one helluva job getting to the bottom of this latest business, you know. Nothing to go on, really. No one saw anybody go into the house-no one! It's that bloody boatyard, you see. All of 'em there just get used to seeing people drifting in and out all the time. Augh! I don't know!'

'You interviewed the people who saw Jackson in the pub that night?'

'Most of 'em. The landlord sets his clock about five minutes fast, but you can take it from me that Jackson was there until about twenty past eight.'

Morse pursed his lips. Charles Richards certainly seemed to have provided himself with a krugerrand alibi, for he-Morse himself-had been sitting in the audience listening to the beggar, from about five past eight to way gone half past nine. It was absolutely and literally impossible for Richards to have murdered Jackson! Shouldn't he accept that indisputable fact? But Morse enjoyed standing face-to-face with the impossible, and his brain kept telling him he could-and must-begin to undermine that impregnable-looking alibi. It was the second telephone call that worried him: someone had been anxious for the police to have a very definite idea indeed of the time when Jackson had died-a time that put Charles Richards completely in the clear. And who was it who had made that call? It couldn't, quite definitely, have been Jackson this time. But, just a minute. Could it just conceivably have been Jackson? What if…?

Bell's thoughts had clearly been following along a parallel track. 'Who do you think phoned us about it, Morse? Do you think it was the same person who rang us about the Scott woman?'

'I don't think so, somehow.'

'Morse! Have you got any ideas about this whole business?'

Morse sat silently for a while, and then decided to tell Bell everything he knew, starting with the evening when he'd met Anne Scott, and finishing with his telephone call to Jennifer Hills. He even told Bell about the illicit fiver handed over to the Jericho locksmith. And, in fact (could the two men but have realised it) several of the colours in the pattern were already painted in, although the general picture seemed obstinately determined not to reveal itself.

'If you can help me in any way,' said Bell quietly, 'I'll be grateful-you know that, don't you.'

'Yes, I know that, my old friend,' said Morse. 'And I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll try to think a bit more. Because there's something, somewhere, that we're all missing. God knows what it is, though-I don't.'

Sunday-working was nothing particularly unusual for Bell, but as he sat in his office the following afternoon he knew that he would have been more gainfully employed if he had stayed at home to rake the autumn leaves from his neglected lawn. Reports were still filtering through to him, but there seemed little prospect of any immediate break in the case. After the initial spurt of blood and splurge of publicity, the murder of George Jackson was stirring no ripples of any cosmic concern. Apart from a few far-flung cousins, the man had left behind him neither any immediate family nor any traceable wake of affection. To those who had known him vaguely, he had been a mean and unloved little man, and to the police the manner of his death had hardly risen to the heights of inglorious wickedness. Yet several facts were fairly clear to Bell. Someone had managed to get into number 10 between half-past eight and nine that Friday evening, had probably argued with Jackson in a comparatively pacific way, then threatened and physically intimidated the man, and finally-accidentally or deliberately-cracked his thinly boned skull against the bedpost in his bedroom. The evidence strongly suggested, too, that Jackson's visitor had been looking for something specific, since the contents of all the drawers and cupboards in the house had been methodically and neatly examined; only in the bedroom were there the signs of frenetic haste and agitation. But of the identity of this visitor, or of the object of his quest, the police as yet had no real ideas at all. No one in the Reach or in the neighbouring streets appeared either to have seen or heard anything or anyone suspicious, and the truth was that only the sudden and disastrous blowing of a TV valve would have caused the majority of Jackson's fellow-citizens to look out into the darkened streets that night: for from 8.30 to 10.30 p.m. that evening, viewing all over Britain was monopolised by the Miss World Competition. Poor Jackson, alas, had missed the final adjudication, and faced instead the final judgement.

Walters called in at the office in mid-afternoon, after yet another fruitless search for the smallest nugget of gold. He was fairly sure in his own mind that they were trying to drive a motorway through a cul-de-sac, and that the solution to Jackson's murder was never going to be discovered in isolation from the death of Ms. Scott. He told Bell so, too, but the answer he received was callous and unkind.

'You don't need to be a bloody genius to come to that conclusion, lad.'

Bell was weary and dejected, Walters could see that, and there seemed little point in staying. But there was one further point he thought he might mention: 'Did you know, sir, that there wasn't a single book in Jackson's house?'

'Wasn't there?' said Bell absently.

Mr. Parkes felt happy that Sunday afternoon. One of the social workers from the Ferry Centre had brought a cake for him, and there were tears of gratitude in his old eyes as he asked the young lady inside and poured two glasses of dry sherry. It had been several years since anyone had remembered his birthday. After his visitor had left, he poured himself a second glass and savoured his little happiness. How had she known it was his birthday? And suddenly something clicked-birthdays! That's what they'd been talking about when Gwendola had laid on her little treat with the sherry. Talk of the Bridge Club's anniversary must have led on to birthdays, he was sure of it now-although it seemed a trivial remembrance. Yet the police had asked him to let them know if he could recall anything about that night, and he rang up St. Aldates immediately.