- Chief Inspector Morse: Have you ever thought about the person who designed the sports skirt? Somebody sat down and drew a fantasy and made it compulsory uniform. I can never watch Wimbledon without thanking that man.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Thing with you is if somebody tells you you can't do something, you go right on and do it, don't you?
- Chief Inspector Morse: I make it a rule!
- George Craven: [meeting Morse for the first time] Morse? Are you the drinker?
- Chief Inspector Morse: I don't know. Are you the tyrant?
- Chief Superintendent Strange: You can be a prat, can't ya?
- Chief Inspector Morse: I expect so.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: What's this about forging a letter?
- Chief Inspector Morse: I forged a letter from the Craven girl.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Brilliant.
- Chief Inspector Morse: I was trying to make something happen..
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Well, something has happened. And what about the girl, anything?
- [Morse shrugs]
- Chief Superintendent Strange: I say to you, "Don't bother the Craven family." The first thing you do is bother the Craven family. You sit at Oxford, forging letters and boozing when the girl was last seen in London. You enter a flat without a warrant. And now the deputy head of the school has been bumped off. It's a bit of a shambles, really Morse, isn't it? And do you know who did it?
- Chief Inspector Morse: No.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: No. Don't let me hear any more dirt on you, mate. Do I have to ask you to report to my desk every morning and breathe in my face?
- Chief Inspector Morse: No, sir.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Find the girl. Find who did this and don't prat about.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Who told you... about the letter?
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Look, I'm the Chief Super. If somebody asks for whiskey in a coffee mug, I know about it even before he's drunk it. That's my job. You do yours.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Well, *I* thought Acum was a nice bloke...
- Chief Inspector Morse: Kiss of death, saying that to me, Lewis; makes me very suspicious. He goes straight to the top of my list!
- Chief Inspector Morse: I've spent the last week around all this money. All these beautiful places, things. People who tell me how happy they are, that they've got everything they want. Everyone is very polite, smiles at me. And I'm not convinced. I don't believe it.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Lewis?
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Sir?
- Chief Inspector Morse: When did she go missing?
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: About six monthe ago.
- Chief Inspector Morse: [Annoyed] Yes, yes, the date.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: I don't know wxactly. I'd have to check in the file
- Chief Inspector Morse: What's all this about flu, Lewis?
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Dunno, sir.
- Chief Inspector Morse: [Imitating hin] Dunno sir.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Anything else?
- Chief Inspector Morse: I'm sorry to disappoint you, Lewis, but she's dead.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: How'dja know?
- Chief Inspector Morse: Well, they put me on these things when they smell a corpse. One file... anyone. Two files... Ainly or McKay. I'm the three file man... No, she's dead.
- Max: Just because the girl is from a well-off family doesn't make the pain any less for her parents.
- Chief Inspector Morse: No, but if her dad wasn't on the Police Committee, we wouldn't know anything about it, would we?
- Max: Only a man with no children could talk the way you do. You know, imagine you lost your only copy of the Ring Cycle, and try and think some things hurt even worse.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Yes, but I've got it on cassette as well.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Was she happy, would you say?
- Cheryl Baines: Yes, I think so, Inspector. Slice teenagers in half and there's a great deal of melancholy, and angst, and rage.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: They don't know, do they? Acum, the Cravens. They don't know about Valerie and the clinic.
- Chief Inspector Morse: No, that's why she went to Maguire. The mother, Acum, both Catholics. She had to go somewhere, and so she went to Maguire.
- Detective Sergeant Lewis: Are we gonna tell them?
- Chief Inspector Morse: No. Nothing to do with us. It's a missing persons case. And we found her.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: [First lines]
- [Morse knocks at Superintendent Strange's door]
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Come in.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Sir?
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Flu?
- Chief Inspector Morse: Sir?
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Lewis said you were having a touch of... uh... the flu.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Right.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: When I was wondering where you were.
- Chief Inspector Morse: Right.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Not having a depression, are we?
- Chief Inspector Morse: No, we're not.
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Every time I drive past your neck of the woods, there seems to be another off-license. And I think to myself, 'Bees around the honeypot.' Good.
- [hands Morse a photo]
- Chief Superintendent Strange: Know who this is?