Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

by Colin Dexter

  determined to retire and to take life a little more gently and sensibly.

  We've tackled so many cases together, old friend, and I'm very happy and very

  proud to have worked with you for so long.

  That's it. The time is now 12. 45 a. m. " and suddenly I feel so very

  weary.

  All the manuscript notes were with Strange within the half- hour.

  And Lewis had nothing further to do with the investigation.

  365

  chapter eighty I am retired. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am

  already come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture,

  perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled purpose. I walk about;

  not to and from (Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia) it seemed there was

  little to cloud the bright evening at the end of August, that same year, when

  Strange held his retirement party. The Chief Constable (no less! ) had

  toasted his farewell from the Force, paying a fulsome tribute to his

  colleague's many years of disdngished service in the Thames Valley CID,

  crowned, as it had been, with yet another significant triumph in the Yvonne

  Harrison murder case.

  For his part. Strange had spoken reasonably wittily and blessedly briefly,

  and had included a personal tribute to Chief Inspector Morse: "I don't think

  we're going to see his like again in a hurry, and people of lesser intellect

  like me should be grateful for that. And it's good to have with us here his

  faithful friend and, er, drinking-companion' (muted amusement) " Sergeant

  Lewis' (Hear-Hear!

  all round).

  "Morse had no funeral service and no memorial service, just as he wished; but

  I make no apology for remembering him here this evening because, quite

  simply, he had the most brilliant mind I ever encountered in the whole of my

  police career . .. Well now. All that remains for me is to thank you for

  coming along to see me off; to say thank you for

  the lawn-mower and the book' (he held aloft a copy of Sir David Attenbo

  rough's The Life of Birds) 'and to remind you there's a splendid buffet next

  door, including a special plate of doughnuts for one of our number. " (Much

  laughter, and much subsequent applause.) Lewis had clapped as much as the

  rest of them, but he had no wish to stay too long amid the back-slapping and

  the reminiscences; and soon made his way upstairs to the deserted canteen

  where he sat in a corner drinking an orange juice, wishing to be alone with

  his thoughts for a while . . .

  The conclusion to the Harrison case had proved pretty much, though far from

  exactly, as Morse had predicted. Two hours after her father had been taken

  to HQ for questioning, Sarah Harrison (refusing to see her father) had

  presented herself voluntarily and made a full confession to the murder of her

  mother, making absolutely no apology for anything except for causing her

  father (she knew it! ) all that pain and agony of spirit. What would happen

  to her now, she said, would not really amount to imprisonment at all; but, in

  a curious sort of way, to a kind of liberation.

  And perhaps it had been much the same, albeit rather later, for Frank

  Harrison himself, who (less eloquently than his daughter) had by degrees

  unburdened himself of his manifold sins and wickednesses, including the

  subsequent murder of his wife's lover, John Barren . .

  His actions, after receiving his daughter's frantic, frenetic phone call on

  the night of Yvonne murder, had been straight- forward. Train to Oxford;

  then taxi to Lower Swinstead, whence Barren had long since fled; and where

  Repp, though still around, remained unseen. Harrison had paid off Flynn,

  expecting him to drive away forthwith; thereafter very quickly dispatching

  his distraught daughter home. Coolly and ruthlessly he'd taken over.

  Confusion! - that was the only hope; 367

  and the only plan. Yvonne was

  already handcuffed, presumably for some bizarre bondage session, and what a

  blessing that had been! He'd tied a gag lightly around her mouth; gone on to

  the patio and smashed in the glass of the french window from the outside

  before unlocking it; he'd turned the lights on, every one of them, and yanked

  out the TV and the telephone leads, both upstairs and down; and finally, with

  illogical desperation; he'd decided to activate the burglar alarm, since even

  if no one heard it, it would be recorded (so he believed).

  He'd done enough. Almost enough. Just the police now. He had to ring the

  police, immediately; and suddenly he realized he couldn't ring them he'd just

  made sure of that himself. But there was his mobile, the mobile on which

  he'd already rung Sarah several times from the train and once from Flynn's

  taxi. He could always lose it though: and the longer he waited to ring for

  help, the better the chances for that confusion he'd tried so hard to effect.

  In detective stories he'd often read of the difficulties pathologists

  encountered in establishing the time parameters for any murder. Yes! He'd

  just go up to the main road and walk (run! ) the half-mile or so to the next

  house. Which indeed he was doing when he heard the voice at the gate that

  led to the drive. He remembered Flynn's words exactly: "I t'ink you moight

  be needin' a little help, sorr?" . . .

  epilogue Certainly the gods are ironical: they always punish one for one's

  virtues rather than for one's sins (Ernest Dowson, Letters) 'didn't you want

  any food? "

  "No thank you, sir. I've got a meal waiting at home."

  "Ah yes. Of course."

  "And I didn't particularly want to watch Dixon eating doughnuts."

  "No, I understand." Strange lowered himself rather gingerly on to the

  inappropriately small chair opposite.

  "Talking of eadng, Lewis, what the hell's eating you, pray?"

  As he'd requested (and as we have seen) Lewis had nothing further to do with

  the Harrison case. He had tried, and with some considerable success, to

  distance himself from the whole affair, even from thinking about it. There

  was just that one persistent, niggling worry that tugged away at his mind

  like some over-indulged infant tugging away at its mother's skirts in a

  supermarket: the knowledge that Morse, on his own admission, and for the

  first time in their collaboration, had acted dishonestly and dishonourably.

  He looked up at Strange.

  "What makes you think something's eadng me?"

  "Come on, Lewis! I wasn't born yesterday."

  So Lewis told him.

  Told him of the unease he'd felt from the beginning of the

  3G9

  case: that Morse had known far too little about it, and then again far too

  much; that Morse had originally voiced such vehement opposition to taking on

  the case, and yet had spent the last days of his life doing little else than

  trying to fathom its complexity.

  "And that's all that's been bothering you?"

  "And " Look! Tell me! What's the very worst thing you think he could have

  done? There's this attractive nurse pulling him through a serious illness in

  hospital a place where patients can get a bit low, and a bit vulnerable.

  Nurses, too, for that matter. And she fell for him a bit ' "How do you know

  that?"
/>
  "She told me so. She told me one night in hospital when she was looking

  after me Morse fell for her a bit, too anybody would! and after he's

  discharged he writes and asks her why she's not been in touch with him. But

  she doesn't write back, although she keeps his letter. Know why, Lewis?

  Because she doesn't really know how to cope with being in love herself."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Does it matter? When she was murdered well, you know the rest.

  Morse was on another case at the time you were on it with him, for God's

  sake! And he said it was too much for the pair of you to take on another. "

  "Only after he'd found his own letter."

  "Lewis!"

  "Only after he'd recognized the handcuffs."

  "Lewis! Listen! Nothing Morse did then nothing- affected that enquiry in

  the slightest way. Yvonne had kept some letters from her men-friends, the

  kinkies and the straights alike. She certainly didn't keep any from Ban-on.

  Maybe because he never wrote any, I dunno. Maybe because she just didn't

  want to."

  "Just the ones from her favourite clients."

  "You know that. You've seen them."

  "Some of them," said Lewis slowly.

  "Well I saw all the bloody letters!"

  "Including the one from Morse."

  "Not a crime you know, writing a letter. It was immaterial anyway, as I keep

  trying to tell you." Strange looked exasperated.

  "It's just that it would have been awkward, wouldn't it? Bloody awkward! I

  wanted to protect the silly sod. You never thought he was a saint, did you?"

  Lewis was silent for a while. No. He'd never thought of Morse as a possible

  candidate for sanctification.

  But there was something wrong about what he'd just heard.

  "So you saw the letter before Morse saw it, is that what you're saying?"

  "Morse never saw the letter, not till you showed him that page of it.

  You see, Lewis, Ztook it not Morse. "

  "And you didn't check ' " Couldn't have done, could I? It was a longish

  letter. But I didn't read it, so I wouldn't have spotted if there was any

  gap. "

  "So it was you who kept some of the evidence separate?"

  "Afraid so, yes. I was scared stiff one of my letters might be there, if you

  want the truth. And as things turned out it just became impossible for me to

  put that stuff back in the folder while the original enquiry was still going

  on."

  "So you got a new box-file when the case was re-opened . . ."

  Strange nodded.

  "Always felt guilty about it but ' " Why didn't Morse spot the page you'd

  missed? "

  "Perhaps he didn't look all that carefully. Not his way usually, was it?

  Perhaps he wasn't too interested in the literary shortcomings of her other

  admirers. Not very fond of spelling mistakes, now was he .

  . ? or perhaps he just felt the letters were too private, like he'd hoped

  his own letter would be. How do Jknow? What I do know is that he wasn't

  looking for a list of lovers who might have been in bed with Yvonne that

  night. Somehow he was convinced he knew' who the man was. He told me who it

  was; and he told you who it was. And he was right. "

  371

  Lewis nodded.

  But the supermarket-brat was giving a final tug.

  "Plenty of letters and none of them any help, I agree, sir. But just the one

  pair of handcuffs! And Morse realized there'd be no problem in tracing them,

  so he destroyed the issue-list. And we both know why, don't we, sir?

  Because they were his." | "Come off it, Lewis!

  There's a hundred and one worse things in life than him giving some bloody

  cuffs he'd never used once in his life to some woman who'd asked him for them

  whatever the reason. "

  Slowly shaking his head, Lewis stared down at the canteen carpet

  disconsolately.

  "It's just that he seems not quite the man . . ."

  "And you can't forgive him for that."

  "Course I can forgive him! Just a bit of a jolt, that's all. Can't you

  understand that? After all those years we were together?"

  "That's what's really eating you, isn't it? Be honest! It's just that you

  don't think as much of old Morse as you used to."

  "Not quite as much, no."

  Strange struggled to his feet.

  "Must be off. Good to talk. I'd better get back downstairs."

  Lewis got to his feet.

  "Mrs Lewis sends her very best wishes, sir."

  The two policemen shook hands, and the interesting exchange was apparently

  over.

  But not so.

  Halfway to the canteen exit. Strange suddenly turned round and came back to

  the table.

  "Do you remember those issue-lists for handcuffs, Lewis?"

  "It's a long time ago ..."

  "Well, they're just handwritten lists, kept up to date in a series of

  columns: date, name, rank, serial number. Just like this." Strange took a

  folded sheet ofA4 from an inside pocket. "But you remember the serial-number

  on the pair you found in Morse's drawer?"

  "Nine-two-two."

  He handed the sheet to Lewis.

  "You've got a good memory!"

  "Where did you get this?"

  "Someone took it from HQ, Lewis. Morse did!"

  Lewis looked down at the list, but could find no mention of Morse's name.

  Could see another name though at the seventh entry down, along with the other

  details in the neatly ruled lines: 3 June '68 Strange

  PC

  734 922 "You mean. . .?"

  "I mean, Lewis, that Morse knew I was having an affair with Yvonne Harrison.

  I don't know how he knew, but he always tended to know things, didn't he? He

  pinched that form, and he kept it till after the wife's funeral. Then he

  gave it to me. Said it would be useless without the cuffs, which he said he

  was going to keep anyway, just in case I ever did anything bloody stupid.

  And he said exactly what I said to you a few minutes ago: nothing nothing

  that happened then had affected the enquiry in the slightest way. Is that

  clear, Lewis?"

  Yes it was clear.

  "You're saying that all Morse did was to save you .

  . and save Mrs Strange . . . "

  "It would have broken her to pieces," said Strange very quietly.

  "And me. Would have broken both of us to pieces."

  "She never knew?"

  "Never had the faintest idea. Thanks to Morse."

  Lewis was silent.

  "Just like you, eh? About lots of things. You never had the faintest idea,

  for example, that I re-opened the Harrison case on the basis of a couple of

  bogus telephone calls, now did you?"

  "You mean ?"

  373

  "I mean there were no telephone calls. I made 'em up myself. Both of

  'em."

  "I just didn't realize . . ."

  "Nobody did, except Morse of course. He guessed straight- away. But I'd

  like to bet he never told you! He just didn't want to let me down, that's

  all."

  "Why didn't he tell me all this though? It would have made such a lot of

  difference ... at the end .. ."

  "I dunno. Always an independent sod, wasn't he? And always had that great

  big streak of loyalty and integrity somewhere deep inside him.

  But you don't need me to tell you
that. So he was never worried too much

  about what people thought of him. He certainly didn't give two monkeys what

  I thought of him, at least most of the time. In fact the only person he did

  want to think well of him was you, Lewis. So let me tell you something else.

  It's one helluva job having to live with guilt, as I've done. Almost

  everybody discovers the same, you know that. Frank Harrison did, didn't he?

  Sarah Harrison, too. It's something I hope you'll never have to go through

  yourself. Not that you ever will. Nor did Morse though. He once told me

  that the guiltiest he ever felt in his life was when a couple of the lads saw

  him flicking through a girlie magazine in the Summertown news agent

  So . So just keep thinking well of him, Lewis that's all I ask. "

  The former Chief Superintendent lumbered across the still- deserted canteen

  to join the jollifications below.

  But Lewis sat where he was.