Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

by Colin Dexter

  Monday morning would have been disappointed, since he had put in no

  appearance by lunchtime. Yet he was not idle during those morning hours; and

  any visitor to the bachelor flat would have found him seated at his desk for

  much of the time; and for a fair proportion of that time found him writing

  quite busily and (as we have seen) very neatly. His old typewriter (with its

  defective 'e' and 't's) sat at his elbow; but he had never mastered the

  keyboard-skills with any real confidence, and he wrote now in long-hand with

  a medium-blue Biro.

  For Priority Consideration Several things have happened these last few days

  which have prompted me to put down in writing my own thoughts on the present

  state of play.

  First, I've been waking up every day recently, after some nightmarish nights,

  with a premonition that some disaster is imminent. Whether death comes into

  such a category, I'm not sure. I can't agree with Socrates, though, that

  death is a blessing devoutly to be wished, even if it is (as I hope it is, as

  I believe it is) one long completely dreamless sleep. For the very fact of

  being alive is surely the best thing that's happened to (almost) all of us.

  Second, the last murder case entrusted to the pair of us has been (one or two

  loose ends though) satisfactorily resolved. Repp and Flynn were murdered by

  Ban-on, and the murderer himself is now dead.

  So any further insight into the original Harrison murder from their angles is

  wholly precluded.

  Third, I'm certain that Frank Harrison has been the pay- master. It's high

  time we brought him into HQ for intensive questioning, either directly about

  the murder of his wife, or at the very least about some culpable complicity

  of her murder.

  Fourth, I'm also convinced that Yvonne H was murdered by one of her own

  family. Nothing else makes any sense at all, not to me anyway.

  That murder was not premeditated: few of them are. It was committed

  spontaneously, viciously, involuntarily perhaps, by whichever of the three it

  was who found Yvonne Harrison in a situation that was utterly unexpected

  kinkiness, perversion, degradation, all rolled up into one.

  On the face of it, the husband is the outsider of the three, so you will

  appreciate, Lewis, that in my book he's the favourite. It's the 'why' that

  worries me, though. He wasn't and isn't anybody's fool, and he must have

  known more than

  enough about his wife's tastes in bondage and possibly masochism. So I just

  can't see blazing jealousy as his motive, especially since, as I strongly

  suspect, he regularly experienced the (reported) joys of extra-marital sex

  himself.

  A confession here.

  Quite a few times I've found myself looking at the faces of people concerned

  with this case and thinking I'd seen them somewhere before.

  I thought it might be the result of inter- breeding in a small community no

  wonder some of the villagers are pretty tight-lipped!

  And I was right. That fruit- machine addict, for example: Alien Thomas.

  That's how you spell his name by the way, Lewis. I found it in the village-

  school records: Alien Alfred Thomas. Unusual these days, that spelling of

  "Alien'. And

  "Alfred' belongs more to the first half of the century, doesn't it? I also

  found out (well, Dixon found out) that the Christian names of Elizabeth Jane

  Thomas's father were

  "Harold Alfred'; and that someone else in the village had a father with the

  Christian names

  "Joseph Alien'. That someone else was Frank Harrison. And (believe me!) he

  was the father of the lad, and Elizabeth decided to give him a couple of

  Christian names that, at least for herself, could confer some little pretence

  of legitimacy of her illegitimate son. (I wonder if his father gives him a

  fruit-machine allowance?) Let's turn to the Harrison children.

  Either of them could have murdered their mother. What would be the motive,

  though? I just can't see Sarah suddenly turning to murder because she finds

  her mother abed with one of her many lovers. What does it really matter to

  her that her mother enjoys a bit of biting and bondage occasionally? Shocked

  and disgusted? Yes, she'd certainly have been both. But driven to murder?

  No. There's something about her, though something that tells me that she's

  up to her very smooth neck in things.

  What about Simon Harrison? As we know he's always been 287

  a bit of a

  mummy's darling: a boy disadvantaged because of early deafness; a boy always

  needing extra understanding and extra love, and who found it (hardly

  surprisingly) from his mother. I'd guess myself that for Simon this

  relationship had always been very precious. Sacrosanct almost. I'd also

  guess that he had no notion whatsoever of his mother's idiosyncratic tastes

  in sexual gratification. Then one night, the night of the murder, he'd

  driven out to see her. And why not? Just to say hello, perhaps? Like his

  sister, he had a key to the front door, and he entered the house and

  disturbed the copulating couple copulating in the most extraordinary

  circumstances; and he would have been shocked and disgusted (like his sister)

  but heartbroken, too, and disillusioned and betrayed. His mother performing

  those things with some plebeian local builder!

  Where does all this lead us? First and foremost to an early, long-overdue,

  full-scale interview with Frank Harrison. Not too early though. Our

  colleagues got nowhere with him and we, Lewis, are a pair of bloodhounds very

  late on the scene, with the scent gone very cold.

  Fifth, there's this business of the letter you found in the Harrison file.

  As I told you, I take full responsibility for the fact that some items

  originally discovered at the Harrison murder scene were subsequently, as they

  say, found to be missing. It was embarrassing for me to talk to you about

  this and I know that you in turn found it equally embarrassing to-Morse laid

  down his pen and answered the phone: "Lewis! What do you want?"

  "You OK, sir?" "Why shouldn't I be?"

  "It's just that well, you know that animal charity shop on the corner of

  South Parade and Middle Way . .."

  "I am not wa animal-lover, Lewis."

  "Well, people leave things there, by the door, things for the shop to sell

  for charity ' " Get orawith it! "

  "Guess what one of the shop assistants found when she got to work this

  morning?"

  "Pair of handcuffs?"

  "Pair of something, sir. Pair of red trainers! Almost brand new. This

  woman had read in the Oxford Mail about the Burford jogger and she thought.

  .."

  "You know something, Lewis? That's very interesting. Very interesting

  indeed. I'll be with you straightaway."

  289

  chapter sixty-three With much talk will they tempt thee, and smiling

  upon thee will get out thy secrets (fcclesiasticus, ch. XIII, vII "You know,

  come to think of it, Lewis, we could do all of this now, couldn't we? Just

  the two of us."

  "No Dixon?"

  "No Dixon."

  Lewis smiled outwardly and inwardly as he looked down at the action plan. It

  seem
ed to him a sensible and fair division of a good deal of labour. For

  example, he himself had spoken only very briefly with Sarah Harrison; Morse

  had not as yet spoken at all with Simon Harrison. Both matters now to be

  dealt with. And all leading up to the two of them, Morse and Lewis, meeting

  Frank Harrison asap.

  after these and a few other checks and visits had been made.

  Harrison! - 'the corner-stone, the kingpin, the pivot', as Morse had

  asserted, before running out of synonyms.

  "We've got plenty of time for all this well, no, perhaps we haven't. So we

  can be pretty direct, but not sharp. Smile occasionally. No aggressiveness,

  no hostility, no belligerence," Morse had asserted, before running out of

  synonyms again.

  It all suited Lewis nicely. If Morse's philosophy in life was to aim high

  even if the target was altogether missed, he personally preferred to aim low

  in the hope at least of hitting something.

  The voluntary (mornings only) help at the Oxford Animal Sanctuary Shop (Gifts

  Welcome) lived only a few hundred yards away in Osberton Road: a widow, a

  cat-lover, an intelligent witness Mrs Gerrard. It was just that, as every

  weekday morning, she'd walked down to South Parade to buy the Daily Tekgraph,

  about 8 o'clock before opening the shop, and she'd seen this "Yes?" Lewis

  smiled.

  ' - well, this youngish fellow smartly dressed, suit and tie and he put this

  Sainsbury's plastic bag in the doorway there. She couldn't describe him any

  better than that really; but she remembered his car, parked for a few seconds

  on the double- yellows alongside the shop. She wouldn't have noticed that

  either except that it was the same make as hers, a Toyota Carina, P-Reg, a

  different colour though: hers was a turquoisy colour, his was silvery-grey.

  The trainers she had put carefully aside, under the counter in the shop.

  No one in North Oxford with a Toyota was likely to drive unnecessarily far

  afield for any servicing and repairs, since there was a specialist garage in

  Summertown itself; and it took Lewis only a few minutes to learn that the

  owner of a silvery- grey P-Reg Carina was a regular and esteemed customer of

  the company, a man named Simon Harrison.

  Simultaneously Morse was driving himself in the Jaguar through the low range

  of open hills that border Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

  His old pathologist friend. Max, had once told him that two pleasures grew

  ever deeper with advancing age, the pleasures of the belly and the pleasures

  of natural beauty. And Morse found himself concurring with the latter

  proposition as he turned right at the roundabout and drove down into Burfbrd.

  Christine Coverley was clearly surprised to see him, and clearly not happy.

  "It's all a bit untidy--' 291

  Morse smiled.

  "Can I come in?"

  "I haven't got long, I'm afraid."

  "It won't take long, I promise."

  "How can I. . .?"

  "What were you doing last Monday morning? Between, say, nine and eleven?"

  "Not the faintest, have I? Nobody could remember exactly ' " Did you go out

  for a newspaper, shopping, seeing someone? "

  "I don't know. Like I say ' " Can you have a look in your diary for me? "

  "That wouldn't help."

  "What would help?"

  "I don't know what you're getting at. Look, Inspector." She glanced down at

  her wristwatch with what appeared incipient panic.

  "Could we talk some other time, please:' You see I've got ' But it was too

  late.

  There was the scratch of a key in the Yale lock and the front door was

  quickly opened and as quickly closed, and a youth entered from the narrow

  hallway to stand in the doorway of the single bed-sit room.

  With staring eyes he looked first at Morse and then at Christine Coverley:

  "What the fuck?"

  "You haven't increased your word-power much since we last began Morse. But

  Roy Holmes had disappeared even more rapidly than he'd appeared.

  In the stillness that followed the crash of the front door closing.

  Morse sat down in one of the armchairs, and gestured the speechless

  schoolmistress to seat herself in the other.

  "Please tell me all about it," he said, with no hint of aggressiveness or any

  of its synonyms.

  "If you don't, I'm sorry but I shall have to take you down to Police

  HQ. "

  After his twinkling Trish eyes had scrutinized Lewis's ID, Mr Tony Marrinan,

  the manager of The Randolph, was wholly cooperative; and very soon the

  outline of Frank Harrison's recent stay was revealed.

  Double-room booked with, as staff recalled her, a sultrily attractive if less

  than attractively mannered partner late twenties, perhaps; meals taken

  together quite regularly in the Spires Restaurant details available, if

  Sergeant Lewis wanted to see them.

  As Sergeant Lewis did.

  The pair had breakfasted together on each morning except the Monday, and

  Lewis was fairly soon looking at that day's Good Morning Breakfast chit, its

  details having been transferred immediately to the hotel's computer before

  being placed on a spike and then at the end of the day transferred to the

  accounts department upstairs for a limited period, as a check if any guest

  should query an entry on the final bill.

  Interesting! Especially the bottom half of the chit: Continental |7f Full n

  Date ^/S/^ Time -g. 2-0 Table No. -7 Covers | Room No. 2-)o Waiter c. <^.

  Room Charge 0 Other

  D

  Guest Name: HA^^iSo^ Signature: "Covers', as Lewis learned, signified how

  many had been at the table: on the other chits it had the figure '2' beside

  it. But on the Monday morning just the one of them, and the restaurant

  manager remembered which one of them: Tt was the lady. I think Mr Harrison

  may have been feeling a little tired."

  Before he left the hotel, Lewis had a word with the chamber- maid who had

  looked after Room 210, discovering that for 293

  much of the time over the

  period in question the do not disturb notice had hung over the outside

  door-knob.

  "And the bed looked as if it had been slept in each night?" (Lewis tried to

  smile knowingly. ) "Oh yes, sir. Oh yes."

  Perhaps the restaurant manager was right. Perhaps Mr Harrison's stay in

  Oxford had been a busy and tiring one.

  For one reason or another.

  Before driving back to HQ, Morse called in at the Maiden's Arms, in the hope

  of finding Alf and Bert, Lower Swinstead's answer to

  "Bill and Ben'. The time was now just after 2.30 p.m.; and Morse expected

  that they would be gone by then. But he was lucky; or at least half-lucky.

  Bert, it seemed, had 'got the screws', and Alf was sitting alone by the

  window, slowly sipping the last of his beer, and readily accepting Morse's

  offer of 'one for the road'.

  "Lost his nerve!" confided Alf.

  "Lost the last five times we've a' been playing. Lost his nerve!"

  "Like me to give you a quick game? Just the one?"

  Morse had determined to lose the challenge in as swift and incompetent a

  manner as possible. But unfortunately the gods were smiling broadly on his

  hands; and very soon, malgre
lui, he had won the single encounter by the

  proverbial street.

  Unfortunately

  Oh no. For Alf appeared to recognize in his opponent a player of supreme

  skills; and instead of his wonted sullen silence on such occasions, he was

  soon speaking with unprecedented candour about life there in the village in

  general, and in particular about the Harrisons -with the result that after

  twenty minutes Morse had learned more than any other police officer before

  him from any of the locals in Lower Swinstead.

  "Did Frank ever come in the pub here with other women?"

  "Never. In London most of his time, weren't he?"

  "What about Simon?"

  "He come in sometimes, but he never had no reg'lar girl- friend. Bit of a

  loner, Simon."

  "What about Sarah?"

  "Lovely, she were not seen her though this last coupla years. In fact, last

  time I seen her was here in the pub sort of guest appearance singing with a

  pop group. Nice voice, she had, young Sarah."

  "Did she come in with any boyfriends?"

  "Did she? I'll tell you sum mat - she did. Could've had anybody she wanted,