'Yes you have, Charles! You've been lying all your life. You've lied to me for years about everything-we both know it. The odd thing is that now you're lying to try to save me! But it's no good, is it?' The woman who had been seated behind the table in the office outside now walked into the room and sat on the edge of the desk. She turned to Morse: 'I'm Celia Richards, the wife of that so-called "husband" behind the desk there. He told me-but he'd no option really-that you were coming here today, and he didn't want Josephine, his normal secretary-and for all I know yet another of his conquests,' she added bitterly, 'he didn't want her to know about the police, and so he got me to sit out there. You needn't worry: it was all perfectly amicable. We had it all worked out. He'd told me you'd be asking about Jericho, and we decided that he'd try to bluff his way through. But if he didn't quite manage it-you did pretty well, you know, Charles!-then I agreed to come in. You see, Inspector, he left the intercom on all the time you've been speaking, and I've listened to every word that's been said. But it's no good any longer-is it, Charles?'

Richards said nothing: he looked an utterly defeated man.

'Have you got a cigarette, Inspector?' asked Celia as she unfolded her elegant legs and walked over to stand behind the desk. 'My turn, I think, Charles.' Richards got up and stood rather awkwardly beside her as she took her seat on the executive chair, and drew deeply on one of Morse's cigarettes.

'I don't want to dwell on the point unduly, Inspector, but poor Charles here isn't the only accomplished liar in the room, is he? I think, if I may say so, that it was a pretty cheap and underhand little trick of yours to go on about those coats like you did. Mackintoshes and duffle coats, my foot! You see, Inspector, it was me who went to see Anne Scott that afternoon, and I was wearing a brown leather jacket lined with sheep-wool. It's in the cupboard next door, by the way.' For a moment her voice was vibrant with vindictiveness: 'Would you like to see it, Inspector Morse?'

As he drove back to Oxford that lunchtime, Morse thought about Celia Richards. She had told her tale with a courageous honesty and Morse had no doubt whatsoever that it was true. During her husband's earlier liaisons with Anne Scott, Celia had no shred of evidence to corroborate her suspicions, although there had been (she knew) much whispered rumour in the company. She could have been mistaken-or so she'd told herself repeatedly; and when Anne left she had felt gradually more reassured. At the very least, whatever there might have been between the pair of them had gone for good now-surely! Until, that is, that terrible day only a few weeks earlier when, with Charles confined to bed with 'flu, she had gone into the office to see Conrad, Charles's younger brother and co-partner, who worked on the floor above him. On Charles's desk, beneath a heavy glass paperweight, lay a letter, a letter written in a hand that was known to her, a letter marked 'Strictly Personal and Private'. And even at that very moment she had known, deep inside herself, the hurtful, heart-piercing truth of it all, and she had taken the letter and opened it in her car outside. It was immediately clear that Charles had already seen Anne Scott several times since the move to Abingdon, and the letter begged him to go to see her again-quickly, urgently. Anne was in some desperate sort of trouble and he, Charles, was the only person she could turn to. Money was involved-and this was stated quite explicitly; but above all she had to see him again. She had kept (she claimed) all the letters he had written to her, and suggested that if he didn't do as she wished she might have (as far as Celia could recall the exact words) 'to do something off her own bat which would hurt him'. She hated herself for doing it, but if threats were the only way, then threats it had to be. Celia had destroyed the letter-and taken her decision immediately: she herself would go to visit her husband's former lover. And she had done so. On Wednesday, 3^rd October, Charles said he had a meeting and had taken the Mini to work, telling her not to expect him home before about 6.30 p.m. The Rolls had been almost impossible to park-even the double yellow lines were taken up; but finally she had found a space and had walked up Canal Reach, up to number 9, where she found the door unlocked. ('Yes, Inspector, I'm absolutely sure. I had no key-and how else could I have got in?') Inside, there was no one. She had shouted. No one. Upstairs she had found the study immediately, and within a few minutes found, too, a pile of letters tied together in one of the drawers-all written to Anne by Charles. Somehow, up until that point, she had felt an aggression and a purpose which had swamped all fears of discovery. But now she felt suddenly frightened-and then, oh God! the next two minutes were an unbearable nightmare. For someone had come in; had shouted Anne's name; had even stood at the foot of the stairs! Never in the whole of her life had she felt so petrified with fear. And then, it was all over. Whoever it was, had gone as suddenly as he had come; and after a little wait she herself, too, had gone. The parking ticket seemed an utter triviality, and she had paid the fine the next day-by a cheque drawn on her own account. ('"C" for "Celia" Inspector!') So, that was that, and she had burned all the letters without reading a single word. It was only later, when she read of Anne's suicide, that the terrible truth hit her: she had been in the house where Anne was hanging dead and as yet undiscovered. She became so fluttery with panic that she just had to speak to someone. At first she thought she would unbosom herself to her brother-in-law, Conrad-always a kind and loyal friend to her. But she'd realised that in the end there could be only one answer: to tell her husband everything. Which she had done. And it was Charles who had insisted that he should, and would, shoulder whatever troubles his own ridiculous escapades had brought upon her. It all seemed (Celia confessed) too stupid and melodramatic now: their amateurish attempts at collusion; those lies of Charles; and then his pathetic attempts to tiptoe a way through the minefield of Morse's explosive questions.

Throughout Celia's story, Richards himself had sat silently; and after she had finished, Celia herself lapsed into a similar, almost abject, silence. How the pair would react-how they did react-after his departure, Morse could only guess. They had refused his offer of a drink at the White Swan, and Morse himself stoically decided that he would wait for a pint until he got back to Kidlington. For a couple of minutes he was held up along Oxford Avenue by temporary traffic lights along a short stretch of road repairs, and by chance he found himself noticing the number of the house on the gate-post to his left: 204. He remembered that it must be very close indeed to the Richards' residence, and as he passed he looked carefully at number 216-set back some thirty yards, with a gravelled path leading up to the garage. Not all that palatial? Certainly there were other properties aplenty near by that could more appropriately have housed a successful businessman and his wife; and it suddenly occurred to Morse that perhaps Charles Richards was not quite so affluent as he might wish others to believe. It was a thought, certainly, but Morse could see little point in pursuing it. In fact, however, it would have repaid him handsomely at that point to have turned the Lancia round immediately and visited the Abingdon Branch of Lloyds Bank to try to seek some confidential insight into the accounts of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Richards, although not (it must be said) for the reason he had just considered. For the moment a mystery had been cleared up, and that, for a morning's work, seemed fair enough. He drove steadily on, passing a turning on his right which was sign-posted 'Radley'. Wasn't that where Jennifer Something, Charles Richards' latest bedfellow, was dispensing her grace and favours? It was; but even that little loose end was now safely tucked away-if Celia Richards was telling the truth…