Transcript of Tape-Recorded Interview conducted at St Aldates Police Station on Sunday 1st November 1998. Present: DCI E. Morse, Sgt S. Blackbird, Mrs K. Buckland.
EM: I am sorry to have asked you to come to the station on the Sabbath, Mrs Buckland, but I felt it was necessary to see if there had been any progress on this case.
KB: That’s absolutely fine, Chief Inspector, but surely you people should be the ones to know if there has been any news.
EM: In many ways, you are correct, Mrs Buckland. Many have come to bear faithful witness.
SB: We were wondering, madam, if your husband has been in contact with you?
KB: I have not seen or heard from my husband at all! I would have told you if I had!
EM: I have been thinking recently on your husband’s choice of research: death and rebirth, cyclical patterns of devastation. Rather Buddhist, or maybe even Hindu, do you not think, for a Christian?
KB: I don’t… I’m not sure that has anything to do with it! Gideon has never quite shared my beliefs, as I’m sure you are aware. What relevance does my faith have in my husband’s vanishing?
EM: Perhaps nothing. We should rest those thoughts for a little season.
KB: Are you deliberately speaking in riddles?
EM: I ask you, as you have been asked many times so far – is there any reason why anyone should wish to harm your husband or for your husband to vanish, or kill himself?
KB: How many more times? NO!
EM: Very well. It seems there are no further lines of investigation into this case. None of the four have come forward with any further information and I have therefore drawn my conclusion. Unless anything else were to come to light, I think we may declare this investigation closed.
KB: But you can’t do that! Where is he? What’s happened to him?
SB: As DCI Morse has said, madam, there is nothing more to go on. If you are hiding something, you have to tell us.
KB: And what, Sergeant, would I be hiding?
EM: Anything that may have led us to this position. Dishonesty and doubt. Yours, perhaps?
KB: I… There isn’t…
EM: Movements unaccounted for on the night of the disappearance?
KB: Who? Don’t accuse me of…
SB: Phil Harcourt, perhaps?
KB: Oh, Sergeant, don’t be so ridiculous!
EM: Hmm… The Sergeant does have his way of blurting things out without thinking. But, notwithstanding, this case is now closed. I think you should go home, Mrs Buckland. Or, perhaps, to Church?
(Sounds of chairs scraping)
KB: But please! Mr Morse! You have to tell me! Is my husband dead?
EM: Who can tell, my dear lady, if he is among the living creatures?
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