"Dexter, Colin - Inspector Morse 01 - Last Bus to Woodstock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dexter Colin)

pretentious he may have had would for Morse be for ever unknown. Several items of underwear draped
the table and chair which, with a whitewood wardrobe, substantively comprised the only other
furniture. Morse gingerly picked up a flimsy black bra lying on the chair. His mind flashed back to that
first glimpse of Sylvia Kaye, rested there a few seconds and slowly returned through the tortuous
byways of the last unpleasant hours. A pile of women's magazines was awkwardly stacked on the
window-sill, and Morse cursorily flicked his way through make-up hints, personal problems and
horoscopes. Not even a paragraph of pornography. He opened the wardrobe door and with perceptibly
deeper interest examined the array of skirts, blouses, slacks and dresses. Clean and untidy. Mounds of
shoes, ultra-modern, wedged, ugly: she wasn't short of money. On the table Morse saw a travel
brochure for package trips to Greece, Yugoslavia and Cyprus, white hotels, azure seas and small print
about insurance liability and smallpox regulations; a letter from Sylvia's employer explaining the
complexities of VAT, and a diary, the latter revealing nothing but a single entry for 2 January: 'Cold.
Went to see Ryan's Daughter.'
Lewis tapped on the bedroom door and entered. 'Find anything, sir?' Morse looked at his cheerful
sergeant distastefully, and said nothing. 'Can I?' asked Lewis his hand hovering above the diary. ,
'Go ahead,' said Morse.
Lewis examined the diary, turning carefully through the days of September. Finding nothing, he
worked meticulously through every page. 'Only one day filled in, sir.'
'I don't even get that far,' said Morse.
'Do you think "cold" means it was a cold day or she had a cold?'
'How do I know,' snapped Morse, 'and what the hell does it matter?'
"We could find out where Ryan's Daughter was on in the first week of January,' suggested Lewis.
'Yes, we could. And how much the diary cost and who gave it to her and where she buys her biros
from Sergeant! We're running a murder inquiry not a stationery shop!'
'Sorry.'
'You may be right though,' added Morse.
'I'm afraid Mr Kaye hadn't got much to tell me, either, sir. Did you want to see him?'
'No. Leave the poor fellow alone.'
"We're not making very rapid progress then.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said Morse. 'Miss Kaye was wearing a white blouse, wasn't she?'
'Yes.'
'What colour bra would your wife wear under a white blouse?'
'A lightish-coloured one, I suppose.'
'She wouldn't wear a black one?'
'It would show through.'
'Mm. By the way, Lewis, do you know when lighting-up time was yesterday evening?'
'Fraid I don't, off hand,' replied Lewis, 'but I can soon find out for you.'
'No need for that,' said Morse. 'According to the diary you just inspected, yesterday, 29 September,
was St Michael and All Angels' day and lighting-up time was 6.40 p.m.'
Lewis followed his superior officer down the narrow stairs, and wondered what was coming next.
Before they reached the front door, Morse half turned his head: 'What do you think of Women's Lib,
Lewis?'

At 11.00 a.m. Sergeant Lewis interviewed the manager of the Town and Gown Assurance Company,
situated on the second and third storeys above a flourishing tobacconist's shop in the High. Sylvia had
worked there - her first job - for just over a year. She was a copy-typist, having failed to satisfy the
secretarial college at which she had studied for two years after leaving school that the ungainly and
frequently undecipherable scrawls in her shorthand note-book bore sufficient relationship to the
missives originally dictated. But her typing was reasonably accurate and clean, and the company, the
manager assured Lewis, had no complaints about its late employee. She had been punctual and