Death Is Now My Neighbor

by Colin Dexter

  If the “this” were spoken with a hint of some audial semi-italicization, it was of no moment, for no one appeared to notice it.

  “Any leads? Any new leads?”

  “To the murder of Rachel James, you mean?”

  “Who else?”

  “No. No new leads at all, really … Well, perhaps one.”

  On which cryptic note, Morse raised his right hand to forestall the universal pleas for clarification, and with a genial—perhaps genuine?—smile, he turned away.

  “Drive me round the block a couple of times, Lewis. I’d rather all these people buggered off, and I don’t think they’re going to stay much longer if they see us go.”

  Nor did they.

  Ten minutes later the detectives returned to find the Drive virtually deserted.

  “How many houses are there here, Lewis?”

  “Not sure.” From Number 17 Lewis looked along to the end of the row: two other houses—presumably Numbers 19 and 21, although the figures from the front gate of the latter had been removed. Then he looked across to the other side of the street where the last even-numbered house was 20. The answer, therefore, appeared to be reasonably obvious.

  “Twenty-one.”

  “That’s an odd number, isn’t it?”

  Lewis frowned. “Did you think I thought it was an even number?”

  Morse smiled. “I didn’t mean ‘odd’ as opposed to ‘even’; I meant ‘odd’ as opposed to ‘normal.’ ”

  “Oh!”

  “Lew-is! You don’t build a street of terraced houses with one side having ten and the other side having eleven, now do you? You get a bit of symmetry into things; a bit of regularity.”

  “If you say so.”

  “And I do say so!” snapped Morse, with the conviction of a fundamentalist preacher asserting the divine authority of Holy Writ.

  “No need to be so sharp, sir.”

  “I should have spotted it from day one! From those political stickers, Lewis! Let’s count, okay?”

  The two men walked along the odd-numbered side of Bloxham Drive. And Lewis nodded: six Labor; two Tory; two don’t-knows.

  Ten.

  “You see, Lewis, we’ve perhaps been a little misled by these minor acts of vandalism here. We’ve got several houses minus the numbers originally screwed into their front gates—and their back gates. So we were understandably confused.”

  Lewis agreed. “I still am, sir.”

  “How many odd numbers are there between one and twenty-one—inclusive?”

  “I reckon it’s ten, sir. So I suppose there must be eleven.”

  Morse grinned. “Write ’em down!”

  So Lewis did, in his notebook: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21. Then counted them.

  “I was right, sir. Eleven.”

  “But only ten houses, Lewis.”

  “I don’t quite follow.”

  “Of course you do. It happens quite often in hotel floors and hotel room numbers … and street numbers. They leave one of them out.”

  Enlightenment dawned on Lewis’s honest features.

  “Number thirteen!”

  “Exactly! Do you know there used to be people in France called ‘fourteeners’ who made a living by going along to dinner parties where the number of guests was thirteen?”

  “Where do you find all these bits and pieces?”

  “Do you know, I think I saw that on the back of a matchbox in a pub in Grimsby. I’ve learned quite a lot in life from the back of matchboxes.”

  “What’s it all got to do with the case, though?”

  Morse reached for Lewis’s notebook, and put brackets round the seventh number. Then, underneath the first few numbers, he wrote in an arrow, →, pointing from left to right.

  “Lewis! If you were walking along the back of the houses, starting from Number 1—she must be feeling a bit sore about the election, by the way … Well, let’s just go along there.”

  The two men walked to the rear of the terrace, where (as we have seen) several of the back gates had been sadly, if not too seriously, vandalized.

  “Get your list, Lewis, and as we go along, just put a ring round those gates where we haven’t got a number, all right?”

  At the end of the row, Lewis’s original list, with its successive emendations, appeared as follows:

  “You see,” said Morse, “the vandalism gets worse the further you get into the Close, doesn’t it? As it gets further from the main road.”

  “Yes.”

  “So just picture things. You’ve got a revolver and you walk along the back here in the half-light. You know the number you want. You know the morning routine, too: breakfast at about seven. All you’ve got to do is knock on the kitchen window, wait till you see the silhouette behind the thin blind, the silhouette of a face with one distinctive feature—a ponytail. You walk along the back; you see Number 11; you move along to the next house—Number 13—you think! And so the house after that must be Number 15. And to confirm things, there’s the ponytailed silhouette. You press the trigger—and there you have it, Lewis! The Horseman passes by. But you’ve got it wrong, haven’t you? Your intended victim is living at Number 15, not Number 17!”

  “So,” said Lewis slowly, “whoever stood at the kitchen window thought he—or she—was firing …”

  Morse nodded somberly. “Yes. Not at Rachel James, but Geoffrey Owens.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Men entitled to bleat BA after their names.

  —D. S. MACCOLL

  The Senior Common Room at Lonsdale is comparatively small, and for this reason has a rather more intimate air about it than some of the spacious SCRs in the larger Oxford Colleges. Light-colored, beautifully grained oak-paneling encloses the room on all sides, its coloring complemented by the light-brown leather sofas and armchairs there. Copies of almost all the national dailies, including the Sun and the Mirror, are to be found on the glass-topped coffee tables; and indeed it is usually these tabloids which are flipped through first—sometimes intently studied—by the majority of the dons.

  Forgathered here on the evening of Friday, February 23 (7:00 for 7:30), was a rather overcrowded throng of dons, accompanied by wives, partners, and friends, to enjoy a Guest Night—an occasion celebrated by the College four times per term. A white-coated scout stood by the door with a silver tray holding thinly fluted glasses of sherry: either the pale amber “dry” variety or the darker brown “medium,” for it was a basic assumption in such a setting that no one could ever wish for the deeply umbered “sweet.”

  A gowned Jasper Bradley took a glass of dry, drained it at a swallow, put the glass back onto the tray, and took another. He was particularly pleased with himself that day; and with the Classical Quarterly, whose review of Greek Moods and Tenses (J. J. Bradley, 204 pp., £45.50, Classical Press) contained the wonderful lines that Bradley had known by heart:

  A small volume, but one which plumbs the unfathomed mysteries of the aorist subjunctive with imaginative insights into the very origins of language.

  Yes. He felt decidedly chuffed.

  “How’s tricks?” he asked, looking up at Donald Franks, a very tall astrophysicist, recently head-hunted from Cambridge, whose dark, lugubrious features suggested that for his part he’d managed few imaginative insights that week into the origins of the universe.

  “So-so.”

  “Who d’you fancy then?”

  “What—of the women here?”

  “For the Master’s job.”

  “Dunno.”

  “Who’ll you vote for?”

  “Secret ballot, innit?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Denis Cornford now came in, each taking a glass of the medium sherry. Shelly looked extremely attractive and perhaps a little skimpily dressed for such a chilly evening. She wore a lightweight white two-piece suit; and as she bent down to pick up a cheese nibble her low-cut, bottle-green blouse gaped open to reveal a splendid glimpse of her beautiful breasts.

  “Je-sus!” muttered Bradl
ey.

  “She certainly flouts her tits a bit,” mumbled the melancholy Franks.

  “You mean ‘flaunts’ ’em, I think.”

  “If you say so,” said Franks, slightly wounded.

  Bradley moved to the far end of the room where Angela Storrs stood talking to a small priest, clothed all in black, with buckled shoes and leggings.

  “Ah, Jasper! Come and meet Father Dooley from Sligo.”

  Clearly Angela Storrs had decided she had now done her duty; for soon she drifted away—tall, long-legged, wearing a dark gray trouser-suit with a white high-necked jumper. There was about her an almost patrician mien, her face high-cheekboned and pale, with the hair swept back above her ears and fastened in a bun behind. It was obvious to all that she had been a very attractive woman. But she was aging a little too quickly perhaps; and the fact that over the last two or three years she had almost invariably worn trousers did little to discourage the belief that her legs had succumbed to an unsightly cordage of varicose veins. If she were on sale in an Arab wife market (in the cruel words of one of the younger dons) she would have passed her “best before” date several years earlier.

  “I knew the Master many years ago—and his poor wife. Yes … that was long ago,” mused the little priest.

  Bradley was ready with the appropriate response of scholarly compassion.

  “Times change, yes. Tempora mutantur: et nos mutamur in illis.”

  “I think,” said the priest, “that the line should read: Tempora mutantur: nos et mutamur in illis. Otherwise the hexameter won’t scan, will it?”

  “Of course it won’t, sorry.”

  The scout now politely requested dons—wives—partners—guests—to proceed to the Hall. And Jasper Bradley, eminent authority on the aorist subjunctive in Classical Greek, walked out of the SCR more than slightly wounded.

  Sir Clixby Bream brought up the rear as the room emptied, and lightly touched the bottom of Angela Storrs standing just in front of him.

  Sotto voce he lied into her ear: “You’re looking ravishing tonight. And I’ll tell you something else—I’d far rather be in bed with you now than face another bloody Guest Night.”

  “So would I!” she lied, in a whisper. “And I’ve got a big favor to ask of you, too.”

  “We’ll have a word about it after the port.”

  “Before the port, Clixby! You’re usually blotto after it.”

  * * *

  Sir Clixby banged his gavel, mumbled Benedictus benedicat, and the assembled company seated themselves, the table plan having positioned Julian Storrs and Denis Cornford at diagonally opposite ends of the thick oak table, with their wives virtually opposite each other in the middle.

  “I love your suit!” lied Shelly Cornford, in a not unpleasing Yankee twang.

  “You look very nice, too,” lied Angela Storrs, smiling widely and showing such white and well-aligned teeth that no one could be in much doubt that her upper plate had been disproportionately expensive.

  After which preliminary skirmish, each side observed a dignified truce, with neither a further word nor a further glance between them during the rest of the dinner.

  At the head of the table, the little priest sat on the Master’s right.

  “Just the two candidates, I hear?” he said quietly.

  “Just the two: Julian Storrs and Denis Cornford.”

  “The usual shenanigans, I assume? The usual horsetrading? Clandestine cabals?”

  “Oh no, nothing like that. We’re all very civilized here.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, you’ve only got to hear what people say—the way they say it.”

  The little priest pushed away his half-eaten guinea fowl.

  “You know, Clixby, I once read that speech often gets in the way of genuine communication.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Saturday, February 24

  There never was a scandalous tale without some foundation.

  —RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, The School for Scandal

  While the Guest Night was still in progress, while still the port and Madeira were circulating in their time-honored directions, an overwearied Morse had decided to retire comparatively early to bed, where almost unprecedentedly he enjoyed a deep, unbroken slumber until 7:15 the following morning, when gladly would he have turned over and gone back to sleep. But he had much to do that day. He drank two cups of instant coffee (which he preferred to the genuine article); then another cup, this time with one slice of brown toast heavily spread with butter and Frank Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade.

  By 8:45 he was in his office at Kidlington HQ, where he found a note on his desk:

  Please see Chief Sup. Strange A S A P

  The meeting, almost until the end, was an amiable enough affair, and Morse received a virtually uninterrupted hearing as he explained his latest thinking on the murder of Rachel James.

  “Mm!” grunted Strange, resting his great jowls on his palms when Morse had finished. “So it could be a contract killing that went cockeyed, you think? The victim gets pinpointed a bit too vaguely, and the killer shoots at the wrong pigtail—”

  “Ponytail, sir.”

  “Yes—through the wrong window. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the motive? The key to this sort of mess is almost always the motive, you know that.”

  “You sound just like Sergeant Lewis, sir.”

  Strange looked dubiously across the desk, as if a little uncertain as to whether he wanted to sound just like Sergeant Lewis.

  “Well?”

  “I agree with you. That’s one of the reasons it could have been a case of misidentity. We couldn’t really find any satisfactory motive for Rachel’s murder anywhere. But if somebody wanted Owens out of the way—well, I can think of a dozen possible motives.”

  “Because he’s a newshound, you mean?”

  Morse nodded. “Plenty of people in highish places who’ve got some sort of skeleton in the sideboard—”

  “Cupboard.”

  “Who’d go quite a long way to keep the, er, cupboard firmly locked.”

  “Observed openly masturbating on the M40, you mean? Weekend away with the PA? By the way, you’ve got a pretty little lass for a secretary, I see. Don’t you ever lust after her?”

  “I seem to have lost most of my lust recently, sir.”

  “We all do. It’s called getting old.”

  Strange lifted his large head, and eyed Morse over his half-lenses.

  “Now about the case. It won’t be easy, will it? You’ve no reason to think he’s got a lot of stuff stashed under his mattress?”

  “No … no, I haven’t.”

  “You’d no real reason for thinking he’d killed Rachel?”

  “No … no, I hadn’t.”

  “So he’s definitely out of the frame?”

  Morse considered the question awhile. “ ’Fraid so, yes. I wish he weren’t.”

  “So?”

  “So I’ll—we’ll think of some way of approaching things.”

  “Nothing irregular! You promise me that! We’re just about getting over one or two unsavory incidents in the Force, aren’t we? And we’re not going to start anything here. Is that clear, Morse?”

  “To be fair, sir, I usually do go by the book.”

  Strange pointed a thick finger.

  “Well, usually’s not bloody good enough for me! You—go—by—the book, matey! Understood?”

  Morse walked heavily back to his office, where a refreshed-looking Lewis awaited him.

  “Everything all right with the Super?”

  “Oh, yes. I just told him about our latest thinking—”

  “Your latest thinking.”

  “He understands the difficulties. He just doesn’t want us to bend the rules of engagement too far, that’s all.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Just nip and get me a drink first, will you?”

  “Coffee?”


  Morse pondered. “I think I’ll have a pint of natural, lead-free orange juice. Iced.”

  “So what’s the plan?” repeated Lewis, five minutes later.

  “Not quite sure, really. But if I’m right, if it was something like a contract killing, it must have been arranged because Owens was threatening to expose somebody. And if he was—”

  “Lot of ‘if’s,’ sir.”

  “If he was, Lewis, he must have some evidence tucked away somewhere: vital evidence, damning evidence. It could be in the form of newspaper cuttings or letters or photographs—anything. And he must have been pretty sure about his facts if he’s been trying to extort some money or some favors or whatever from any disclosures. Now, as I see it, he must have come across most of his evidence in the course of his career as a journalist. Wouldn’t you think so? Sex scandals, that sort of thing.”

  “Like as not, I suppose.”

  “So the plan’s this. I want you, once you get the chance, to go and see the big white chief at the newspaper offices and get a look at all the confidential stuff on Owens. They’re sure to have it in his appointment file or somewhere: previous jobs, references, testimonials, CV, internal appraisals, comments—”

  “Gossip?”

  “Anything!”

  “Is that what you mean by not bending the rules too much?”

  “We’re not bending the rules—not too much. We’re on a murder case, Lewis, remember that! Every member of the public’s got a duty to help us in our inquiries.”

  “I just hope the editor agrees with you, that’s all.”

  “He does,” said Morse, a little shamefacedly. “I rang him while you went to the canteen. He just wants us to do it privately, that’s all, and confidentially. Owens only works alternate Saturdays, and this is one of his days off.”

  “You don’t want to do it yourself?”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. But you’re so much better at that sort of thing than I am.”

  A semimollified Lewis elaborated: “Then, if anything sticks out as important … just follow it up … and let you know?”