'I'll just be off and see about these prints, sir. Keep your fingers crossed for me. What's the betting?'

'I thought you weren't a gambling man, Lewis? And if you were, I shouldn't put more than a coupla bob on it.'

Lewis shrugged his shoulders, and left his chief staring glumly down at the muddy-brown tea-as yet untouched. He'd frequently seen Morse in this sort of mood, and it worried him no more. Just because one of the chief's fanciful notions took a hefty knock now and then! A bit of bread-and-butter investigation was worth a good deal more than some of that top-of-the-head stuff, and the truth was that they'd found-he'd found!-the blackmail letter. Morse might be a brilliant fellow but… Well, it hardly called for much brilliance, this case, did it? With the prints confirmed, everything would be all tied up, and Lewis was already thinking of a nationwide alert at the airports, because Conrad Richards couldn't have got very far yet, surely. Luton? Heathrow? Gatwick? Wherever it was, there'd be plenty of time.

Half an hour later Lewis was to discover that between the excellent facsimiles of the fingerprints lifted from Jackson's bedroom and those taken only that afternoon from Conrad Richards, there was not a single line or whorl of correspondence anywhere.

Edward Murdoch felt ill-tempered and sweaty as he cycled homewards late that Wednesday afternoon. Much against his will, he had been roped into making up the number for his house rugby team, and his own ineffectualness and incompetence had been at least partly to blame for their narrow defeat. He was almost always free on Wednesday afternoons, and here was one afternoon he could have used profitably to get on with those two essays to be handed in the next morning. The traffic in Summertown was its usual bloody self, too, with cars seeking to pull into the precious parking bays, their nearside blinkers flashing as they waited for other cars to back out. Twice he had to swerve dangerously as motorists, seemingly oblivious to the rights of any cyclist, cut over in front of him. It was always the same, of course; but today everything seemed to be going wrong, and he felt increasingly irritated. He came to the conclusion that his biorhythms were heterodyning. The two words were very new to him, and he rather liked them both. He was getting hungry, too, and he just hoped that his mother had got something decent in the oven-for a change! The last ten days or so, meals had been pretty skimpy: it had been mince, stew, and baked beans in a dreary cyclical trio, and he longed for roast potatoes and thinly sliced beef. Not, he knew, that he ought to blame his mother too much-considering all that she'd been going through. Yet somehow his own selfish interests seemed almost invariably to triumph over his daily resolutions to try to help, even fractionally, during these tragic and traumatic days in the life of the Murdoch family.

He pushed his bike roughly into the garden shed, ignored the tin of nails which spilt on to the floor as his handlebars knocked it over, unfastened his briefcase from the rack over the back wheel, and slammed the shed door noisily to.

His mother was in the kitchen ironing one of his white shirts.

'What's for tea?' His tone of voice suggested that whatever it was it would be viewed with truculent disfavour.

'I've got a nice bit of stew on, with some-'

'Oh Christ! Not stew again!'

Then something happened which took the boy completely by surprise. He saw his mother put down the iron; saw, simultaneously, her shoulders heave and the backs of her two forefingers go up to her tight mouth; and he saw in her eyes a look that was utterly helpless and hopeless, and then the tears soon streaming down her cheeks. A second later she was sitting at the kitchen table, her breath catching itself in short gasps as she fought to stave off the misery that threatened to swamp her. Edward had never for a second seen his mother like this, and the knowledge that she-she, his own solid and ever-dependable mother-was liable, just like anyone else, to be engulfed by waves of desperation, was a deeply felt shock for him. His own troubles vanished immediately, and he was conscious of a long-forgotten love for her.

'Don't be upset, mum! Please don't! I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't mean…'

Mrs. Murdoch shook her head vigorously, and wiped her handkerchief across her eyes. 'It's not-' But she couldn't go on, and Edward put a hand on her shoulder, and stood there, awkward and silent.

'I've not helped much, have I, mum?' he said quietly.

'It's not that. It's-it's just that I can't cope. I just can't! Everything seems to be falling to bits and I-I-' She shook her head once more, and the tears were rolling freely again. 'I just don't know what to do! I've tried so hard to-' She put her own hand up on to her son's, and tried to steady her quivering voice. 'Don't worry about me. I'm just being silly, that's all.' She stood up and blew her nose noisily into the paper handkerchief. 'You have a good day?'

'It's Michael-isn't it, mum?'

Mrs. Murdoch nodded. 'I went to see him again this afternoon. He's lost one eye completely and-and they don't really know-they don't really know…'

'You don't mean-he'll be blind?'

Mrs. Murdoch picked up the iron again and seemed to hold it in front of her like some puny shield. 'They're doing the best they can but…'

'Don't let's lose hope, mum! I know I'm not much of a one for church and all that, but hope is one of the Christian virtues, isn't it?'

If Mrs. Murdoch had followed her instincts at that moment, she would have thrown her arms around her son and blessed him for the words he'd just spoken. But she didn't. Somehow she'd never felt able to express her feelings with any loving freedom, either with Michael or with Edward, and something restrained her even now. She turned off the iron and put two plates under the grill to warm. Where had she gone wrong? Where? If only her husband hadn't died… If only they'd never decided to… Oh God! Surely, surely, things could never get much worse than this? And yet she knew in her heart that they could; and as she put on the oven-glove to take out the stew-pot, she guiltily clutched her little secret even closer to herself: the knowledge that she would never be able to love Michael as she had always loved the boy who was now setting the table in the dining-room.

Later that evening the senior ophthalmic surgeon lifted, with infinite care, the bandage round Michael Murdoch's head. Then he took off his wristwatch and held it about six inches in front of his patient's left eye.

'How are you, Michael?'

'All right. I feel tired, though-ever so tired.'

'Hungry?'

'No, not really. I've had something to eat.'

'That was a little while ago, though, and you've been asleep since then. Have you any idea of the time now?' He still held the watch steadily in front of the boy's remaining eye.

'Must be about tea time, is it? About five?'

The wristwatch said 8.45, and still the surgeon held it out. But the boy's horridly blood-shot eye stared past the watch, unseeing still, and as the surgeon replaced the bandage he shook his head sadly at the nurse who was standing anxiously beside him.

On his way back from the Friar Bacon at ten minutes to eleven that night, Morse chanced to meet Mrs. Murdoch, her Labrador straining mightily from her; and for the first time he learned of the tragic fate of her elder boy. He listened dutifully and compassionately, but somehow he couldn't seem to find the appropriate words of comfort, mumbling only the occasional 'Oh dear!', the occasional 'I am sorry', as he stood staring blankly at the grass verge. Fortunately the dog came to his rescue, and Morse felt relieved as the sandy-coloured beast finally wrenched his mistress off to pastures new.