by Colin Dexter
She looked through 5C’s English results. Very much as she’d expected. Then looked a little more closely at the results of the only pupil in the class whose name had begun with 'C'. Costyn, K: Religious Education, 'Unclassified'; English, 'D'; Maths, 'Unclassified'; Geography, 'Unclassified'; Metalwork, 'Unclassified'. Well at least he’d got something—after twelve years of schooling . . . thirty-six terms. But it was difficult to imagine him getting much further than the Job Centre. Nowhere else for him to go, was there—except to jail, perhaps?
How she wished that 'D' had been a 'C', though.
At 10.30 a.m. she hurried fairly quickly away from the school premises and made her way on foot to the Churchill Hospital where her appointment at the clinic was for 11 a.m.; and where a few minutes ahead of schedule she was seated in the upstairs waiting-room, no longer thinking of Kevin Costyn and his former classmates—but of herself.
'How are you feeling?' asked Basil Shepstone, a large, balding, slightly stooping South African.
'You want me to undress?'
'I’d love you to undrress,' he said with that characteristic rolling of the 'r'. 'No need today, though. Next time, I’ll insist.'
His friendly brown eyes were suddenly sad, and he reached across to place his right hand on her shoulder.
'You want the good news first? Or the bad news?' he asked quietly.
'The good news.'
'Well, your condition’s fairly stable. And that’s good—that’s very good news.'
Julia found herself swallowing hard. 'And the bad news?'
'Well, it’s not exactly bad news. Shall I read it?'
Julia could see the Oxfordshire Health Authority heading on the letter, but no more. She closed her eyes.
'It says . . . blah, blah, blah . . . "In the event of any deterioration, however, we regret to have to inform Mrs. Stevens that her condition is inoperable." '
'They can't operate if it gets worse, they mean?'
Shepstone put down the letter. 'I prrefer your English to theirs.'
She sighed deeply; then opened her eyes and looked at him, knowing that she loved him for everything he'd tried to do for her. He had always been so gentle, so kindly, so professional; and now, watching him, she could understand why his eyes remained downcast as his Biro hatched the 'O' of 'Oxfordshire.'
'How long?' she asked simply.
He shook his head. 'Anyone who prredicts something like that—he's a fool.'
'A year?'
'Could be.'
'Six months?'
He looked defeated as he shrugged his broad shoulders.
'Less?'
'As I say—'
'Would you give up work if you were me?'
'Fairly soon, I think, yes.'
'Would you tell anyone?'
He hesitated. 'Only if it were someone you loved.'
She smiled, and got to her feet. 'There are not many people I love. You, of course—and my cleaning-lady—with whom incidentally'—she consulted her wristwatch—'in exactly one hour's time, I have a slap-up lunch engagement at the Old Parsonage.'
'You're not inviting me?'
She shook her head. 'We've got some very private things to discuss, I'm afraid.'
After Mrs. Stevens had left, the consultant took a handkerchief from his pocket and quickly wiped his eyes. What the dickens was he supposed to say? Because it never really did much good to lie. Or so he believed. He blamed himself, for example, for lying so blatantly to the woman who'd died only two days previously—lying to Mrs. Phillotson.
Not much difference in the case-histories.
No hope in either.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour
(Ecclesiastes, ch .10, v. 1)
MORSE NOW REALISED that he would have few, if any, further cases of murder to solve during his career with Thames Valley CID. All right, orchestral conductors and High Court judges could pursue their professions into their twilight years, regardless—indeed sometimes completely oblivious—of their inevitably deteriorating talents. But more often than not policemen finished long before any incipient senility; and Morse himself was now within a couple of years of normal retirement.
For many persons it was difficult to tell where the dividing line came between latish middle-age and advisable pensionability. Perhaps it had something to do with the point at which nostalgia took over from hope; or perhaps with a sad realisation that it was no longer possible to fall in love again; or, certainly in Morse's case, the time when, as now, he had to sit down on the side of the bed in order to pull his trousers on.
Such and similar thoughts were circulating in Morse's mind as on Saturday, September 3, the morning after his visit with Lewis to Wolsey (and he statement made, immediately thereafter, by Mrs. Ewers), he sat in the Summertown Health Centre.
A mild cold had, as usual with Morse, developed into a fit of intermittently barking bronchitis; but he comforted himself with the thought that very shortly, after a sermon on the stupidity of cigarette-smoking, he would emerge from the Centre with a slip of paper happily prescribing a dose of powerful antibiotics.
Clutching his prescription, Morse was about to leave when he remembered The Times, left in his erstwhile seat in the waiting-room. Returning, he found that his earlier companions—the anorexic git and the spotty-faced, over-weight youth—had now been joined by a slatternly looking, slackly dressed young woman, with rings in her nostrils; a woman to whom Morse took an immediate and intense dislike.
Predictably so.
From the chair next to the newcomer he picked up his newspaper, without a word; though not without a hurried glance into the woman's dull-green eyes, the colour of the Oxford Canal along by Wolvercote. And if Morse had waited there only a few seconds longer, he would have heard someone call her name: 'Eleanor Smith?'
But Morse had gone.
She'd already got the address of an abortion clinic; but one of her friends, an authority in the field, had informed her that it was now closed. Sol So she'd have to find some other place. And the quack ought to be able to point her somewhere not too far away, surely? That's exactly the sort of thing quacks were there for.
In a marked police car, standing on a Strictly Doctors Only lot in the Center's very restricted parking-area, Lewis sat thinking and waiting; waiting in fact, quite patiently, since the case appeared to be developing in a reasonably satisfactory way.
When, the previous afternoon, Susan Ewers had made (and signed) her statement, many things already adumbrated by Morse had dawned at last on Lewis's understanding.
Suspicion, prima facie, could and should now be levelled against Mr. Edward Brooks, the man who had been Mrs. Ewers's immediate predecessor as scout on Staircase G in Drinkwater Quad. Why? Morse's unusually simple and unspectacular hypothesis had been stated as follows:
It should be assumed, in all probability, that Brooks had played a key role, albeit an intermediary one, in supplying a substantial quantity of drugs to the young people living on his staircase—including Matthew Rodway; that Rodway's suicide had necessarily resulted in some thorough investigation by the college authorities into the goings-on on the staircase; that McClure, already living on the same staircase anyway, had become deeply involved—indeed had probably been the prime mover in seeing that Brooks was 'removed' from his post (coincidentally at the same time as McClure's retirement); that, as Mrs. Ewers had now testified, the former scout had continued his trafficking in drugs, and that this information had somehow reached McClure's ears; that McClure had threatened Brooks with exposure, disgrace, criminal prosecution, and almost certain imprisonment; that finally, at a showdown in Daventry Court, Brooks had murdered McClure.
Such a hypothesis had the merit of fitting all the known facts; and if it could be corroborated by the new facts which would doubtless emerge from the meeting arranged for that afternoon at the Pitt Ri
vers Museum . . .
Yes.
But there was the 'one potential fly in the oinmaent,' as Lewis had expressed himself half an hour earlier.
And Morse had winced at the phrase. 'The cliché's bad enough in itself, Lewis—but what's a 'potential fly' look like when it's on the window-pane?'
'Dunno, sir. But if Brooks was ambulanced off that Sunday with a heart attack—'
'Wouldn't you be likely to have a heart attack if you'd just killed somebody?'
'We can check up straightaway at the hospital.'
'All in good time,' Morse had said. 'You'll have me in hospital if you don't get me down to the Health Centre . . .'
Still thinking and still waiting, Lewis looked again at the brief supplementary report from the police pathologist, which had been left on Morse's desk that morning.
Attn. Det. C. I. Morse.
No more re time of McClure's death—but confirmafion re probable 'within which': 8 a.m.-12 a.m. Aug 28. Little more on knife/knife-thrust: blade unusually (?) broad, 4-5 cms and about 14-15 cms in length/penetration. Straight through everything with massive internal and external bleeding (as reported). Blade not really sharp, judging by ugly lacerations round immediate entry-area. Forceful thrust. Man rather than woman? Perhaps woman with good wrist/arm (or angry heart?). Certainly one or two of our weaker (!) sex I met a year ago on a martial arts course.
Full details available if required.
All very technical—but possibly helpful?
Laura Hobson
'At least she understands the full-stop,' Morse had said.
Never having really mastered the full-stop himself, Lewis had refrained from any comment.
Yet they both realised the importance of finding the knife. Few murder prosecutions were likely to get off on the right foot without the finding of a weapon. But they hadn't found a weapon. A fairly perfunctory search had earlier been made by Phillotson and his team; and Lewis himself had instigated a very detailed search of the area surrounding Daventry Court and the gardens of the adjacent properties. But still without success.
Anyway, Morse was never the man to hunt through a haystack for a needle. Much rather he'd always seek to intensify (as he saw it) the magnetic field of his mind and trust that the missing needle would suddenly appear under his nose. Not much intensification as yet, though; the only thing under Morse's nose lately—and that under a towel—had been a bowl of steaming Friar's Balsam.
But here came Morse at last (10:40 a.m.), cum prescription. And Lewis could predict the imminent conversation:
'Chemist just around the corner, Lewis. If you'd just nip along and . . . I'd be grateful. Only problem'—searching pockets—'I seem . . .'
Lewis was half fight anyway.
'There's a chemist's just round the corner. If you'd be so good? I don't know how much these wretched Tories charge these days but'—searching pockets 'here's a tenner.'
Lewis left him there on the reserved parking lot, just starting The Times crossword; and walked happily up to Boots in Lower Summertown.
What was happening to Morse?
The third item appearing on Julia Stevens's agenda the previous day had been postponed. On her arrival at the Old Parsonage Hotel, a telephone message was handed to her: Mrs. Brooks would not be able to make the lunch; she was sorry; she would ring later if she could, and explain; please not to ring her.
Understandably, perhaps, Julia had not felt unduly disappointed, for her mind was full of other thoughts, especially of herself. And she enjoyed the solitude of her glass of Bruno Paillard Brut Premier Cru (daring!) seated on a high stool at the Parsonage Bar, before walking down to the taxi-rank by the Martyrs' Memorial and thence being driven home in style and in a taxi gaudily advertising the Old Orleans Restaurant and Cocktail Bar.
It was not until later that evening that her brain began to weave its curious fancies about what exactly could have caused the problem . . .
Brenda Brooks rang (in a hurry, she'd said) just before the Nine O'Clock News on BBC1. Could they make it the next day, Saturday? A bit earlier? Twelve—twelve noon, say?
After she had put down the phone, Julia sat siiently for a while, stating at nothing. A little bit odd, that—Brenda ringing (almost certainly) from a telephone-box when she had a phone of her own in the house. It would be something—everything—to do with that utterly despicable husband of hers. For from the very earliest days of their marriage, Ted Brooks had been a repulsive fly in the nuptial ointment; an ointment which had, over the thirteen increasingly unhappy and sometimes desperate years (as Julia had learned), regularly sent forth its stinking savour.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife
(CYRIL CONNOLLY)
AS BRENDA BROOKS waited at the bus-stop that Saturday morning, then again as she made her bus-journey down to Carfax, a series of videos, as it were, flashed in a nightmare of repeats across her mind; and her mood was an amalgam of anticipation and anxiety.
It had been three days earlier, Wednesday, August 31, that she'd been seen at the Orthopaedic Clinic . . .
'At least it's not made your fracture.'
'Pardon, Doctor?' So nervous had she been that so many of his words made little or no sense to her.
'I said, it's not a major fracture, Mrs. Brooks. But it is a fracture.'
'Oh deary me.'
But she'd finally realised it was something more than a sprain—that's why she'd eventually gone to her GP, who in turn had referred her to a specialist. And now she was hearing all about it: about the meta-something between the wrist and the fingers. She'd try to look it up in that big dark-blue Gray's Anatomy she'd often dusted on one of Mrs. Stevens' bookshelves. Not too difficult to remember: she'd just have to think of 'met a couple'—that's what it sounded like.
'And you'll be very sensible, if you can, to stop using your fight hand completely. No housework. Rest! That's what it needs. The big thing for the time being is to give it a bit of support. So before you leave, the nurse here'll let you have one of those "Tubigrips"—fits over your hand like a glove. And, as I say, we'll get you in just as soon as, er . . . are you a member of BUPA, by the wa),?'
'Pardon?'
'Doesn't matter. We'll get you in just as soon as we can. Only twenty-four hours, with a bit of luck. Just a little op to set the bone and plaster you up for a week or two.'
'It's not quite so easy as that, Doctor. My husband's been in hospital for a few days. He's had a bit of a heart attack and he's only just home this morning, so . . .'
'We can put you in touch with a home-help.'
'I can do a little bit of housework, can't I?'
'Not if you're sensible. Can't you get a cleaning-lady in for a couple of days a week?'
'I am a cleaning-lady,' she replied, at last feeling that she'd rediscovered her bearings; re-established her identity in life.
She'd hurried home that morning, inserting and turning the Yale key with her left hand, since it was becoming too painful to perform such an operation with her right.
'I'm back, Ted!'
Walking straight through into the living-room, she found her husband, fully dressed, lounging in front of the TV, his fingers on the black control-panel.
'Christ! Where the 'ell a' you bin, woman?'
Brenda bit her lip. 'There was an emergency—just before my turn. It held everything up.'
'I thought you were the bloody emergency from all the fuss you've bin making.'
'Baked beans all right for lunch?'
'Baked beans?'
'I've got something nice in for tea.'
A few minutes later she took a tin of baked beans from a pantry shelf; and holding it in her right hand beneath a tin-opener fixed beside the kitchen door, she slowly turned the handle with her left. Slowly—yes, very slowly, like the worm that was finally turning . . .
And why?
If ever Brenda Brooks could begin to contemplate the murder of her husband, she wo
uld surely acknowledge as her primary, her abiding motive, the ways in which mentally and verbally he had so cruelly abused her for so long.
But no!
Belittlement had been her regular lot in life; and on that score he was, in reality, robbing her at most of a dignity that she had never known.
Would the underlying motive then be found in the knowledge of her husband's sexual abuse of an adolescent and increasingly attractive step-daughter?
Perhaps.
But it was all so much simpler than that. One thing there had been in her life—just the one thing—in which she could rejoice, in which until so very recently she had rejoiced: the skills she had acquired with her hands. And Edward Brooks had robbed her of them; had robbed her even of the little that she had, which was her all.
And for that she could never forgive him.
Brenda decided she needn't replay all that last bit to Mrs. Stevens; but she did need to explain what had gone wrong the day before. Not that there was much to say, really. What was it he'd said when she'd told him she'd been invited out to lunch with Mrs. S?
'Well if you think you're going to leave me this lunch-time, you bloody ain't, see? Not while I'm feeling groggy like this.'
Why had she ever married the man?
She'd known it was a mistake even before that ghastly wedding—as she'd prayed for God to boom down some unanswerable objection from the hammer-beam roof when the vicar had invited any just cause or impediment. But the Voice had been silent; and the invited guests were seated quietly on each side of the nave; and the son of Brenda's only sister (a sub-postmistress in Inverness), a spotty but mellifluous young soprano, was all rehearsed to render the 'Pie Jesu' from the Fauré Requiem.