Thomas Ellice

8^th March 1988

The daughter of a wealthy businessman has been missing for 6 months. During the course of his investigation, someone linked to the missing girl is murdered

This is Morse at his grumpiest – the story suggests he's become more dependent on alcohol than usual, or is suffering from depression. Whatever the cause, he's very angry and bitter with Lewis for most of the story, resents being given the case, and does his best to piss off everyone he meets.

Trying to convince Lewis the girl is dead " They put me onto these things when they can smell a corpse"

On private education "Cream of the country – rich and thick"

On how having a rich family helps the missing girl "The ordinary missing person gets about a week"

On being offered canned beer by Lewis as a peace offering "For me ? Undrinkable. That's not real beer you see. That's nothing to do with beer

When Lewis suggests a suspect seemed like a nice bloke "Kiss of death, saying that to me, Lewis. Makes me very suspicious"

Lewis struggles to keep his temper with Morse in such a bad mood, until he finally snaps about half way through.

" The thing with you is, if somebody tells you you can't do something, you go right on and do it"

"Well, you got your body, sir. You were so keen to have a murder. You should be happy"

Think about the names of everything, and how the easiest way to hide something is in plain sight.

Glyn "Professor Watson" Houston is the only canon-DW face to appear, somewhat surprisingly.

Suzanne Bertish (Baines) is recognisable to Red Dwarf fans as the female version of Rimmer, while Philip Bretherton (Acum) is probably best known for his long role in "As Time Goes By".

There are two famous faces amongst the 'School Gals' . Julia Sawalha is instantly recognisable in an almost Saffy role, but Liz Hurley is almost unrecognisable as Julia, until you spot her complete inability to act.

Special mention has to go to the first appearance of James Grout as Superintendent Strange – a luckless role to play, but one which over the years developed brilliantly as another foil for John Thaw to play against.

Mr Dexter is dressed up as an academic leaving as Morse arrives to continue his interviews.

The book has Valerie missing for a lot longer, and the deputy head is a man. Much of the rest is the same except for, somewhat surprisingly, the murderer – especially considering the rest of the plot remains pretty unchanged.

Another first in this story – the first appearance of music by Wagner (the book version of Morse's favourite composer). It's the tried and tested Ride of the Valkyries, but it is a start. Many don't like Wagner's music because of its associations with Nazi Germany. In fact they'd do better not to like Wagner in his own right as he was a nasty little Ayrian type in his own right. The problem, of course, is that he also wrote some damn fine music (if a little long !)

There's a horrible bit of twangy jazz type stuff which Baines is listening to at home – I'd guess its nothing famous but rather something knocked up by Barrington himself (I'll run for cover from the Jazz fans if it turns out not to be the case)

The book isn't bad, but something goes missing when its transferred to the screen . There seem to be a lot of earnest conversations which don't really add anything, and although there's some attempt to link all the characters together it doesn't really work. There is quite a lot of pleasure in watching John Thaw play Morse as such a miserable bastard though.

Just a few odds and sods – as it were – in this episode; “You’re on my case, you bastards!” and “Stupid bitch!” being the only examples of bad language on offer.

The only other insulting display occurs when Chief Superintendent Strange tells Morse, “You can be a prat, can’t you?”