Death Is Now My Neighbor

by Colin Dexter

  “Flattery will get you exactly halfway between nowhere and everywhere.”

  “I’ll settle for that.”

  “You’re dining tonight?”

  “Yep.”

  “Would you like to come along afterward and cheer up a lonely old lady.”

  “Julian away?”

  “Some Brains Trust at Reading University.”

  “Shall I bring a bottle?”

  “Plenty of bottles here.”

  “Marvelous.”

  “Nine-ish?”

  “About then. Er … Angela? Is it something you want to talk about or is it just …?”

  “Why not both?”

  “You want to know how things seem to be going with the election?”

  “I’m making no secret of that.”

  “You do realize I don’t know anything definite at all?”

  “I don’t expect you to. But I’d like to talk. You can understand how I feel, can’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’ve been speaking to Julian. There are one or two little preferments perhaps in the offing, if he’s elected.”

  “Really?”

  “But like you, Roy, I don’t know anything definite.”

  “I understand. But it’ll be good to be together again.”

  “Oh, yes. Have a drink or two together.”

  “Or three?”

  “Or four?” suggested Angela Storrs, her voice growing huskier still.

  The phone rang at 7:05 P.M.

  “Shelly?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re on your own?”

  “You know I am.”

  “Denis gone?”

  “Left fifteen minutes ago.”

  “One or two things to tell you, if we could meet?”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Nothing definite. But there’s talk about a potential benefaction from the States, and one of the trustees met Denis—met you, I gather, too—and, well, I can tell you all about it when we meet.”

  “All about it?”

  “It’s a biggish thing, and I think we may be slightly more likely to pull it off, perhaps, if Denis …”

  “And you’ll be doing your best?”

  “I can’t promise anything.”

  “I know that.”

  “So?”

  “So?”

  “So you’re free and I’m free.”

  “On a night like this? Far too dangerous. Me coming to the Master’s Lodge? No chance.”

  “I agree. But, you see, one of my old colleagues is off to Greece—he’s left me his key—just up Banbury Road—lovely comfy double bed—crisp clean sheets—central heating—en suite facilities—mini bar. Tariff? No pounds, no shillings, no pence.”

  “You remember predecimalization?”

  “I’m not too old, though, am I? And I’d just love to be with you now, at this minute. More than anything in the world.”

  “You ought to find a new variation on the theme, you know! It’s getting a bit of a cliché.”

  “Cleesháy,” she’d said; but however she’d pronounced it, the barb had found its mark; and Sir Clixby’s voice was softer, more serious as he answered her.

  “I need you, Shelly. Please come out with me. I’ll get a taxi round to you in ten minutes’ time, if that’s all right?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Shelly?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will that be all right?”

  “No,” she replied quietly. “No it won’t. I’m sorry.”

  The line was dead.

  * * *

  Just before nine o’clock, Cornford rang home from St. Peter’s:

  “Shelly? Denis. Look, darling, I’ve just noticed in my diary … You’ve not had a call tonight, have you?”

  Shelly’s heart registered a sudden, sharp stab of panic.

  “No, why?”

  “It’s just that the New York publishers said they might be ringing. So, if they do, please make a note of the number and tell ’em I’ll ring them back. All right?”

  “Fine. Yes.”

  “You having a nice evening?”

  “Mm. It’s lovely to sit and watch TV for a change. No engagements. No problems.”

  “See you soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  Shelly put down the phone slowly. “I’ve just noticed in my diary,” he’d said. But he hadn’t, she knew that. She’d looked in his diary earlier that day, to make sure of the time of the St. Peter’s do. That had been the only entry on the page for 2–26–96.

  Just before ten o’clock, Julian Storrs rang his wife from Reading; rang three times.

  The number was engaged.

  He rang five minutes later.

  The number was still engaged.

  He rang again, after a further five minutes.

  She answered.

  “Angie? I’ve been trying to get you these last twenty minutes.”

  “I’ve only been talking to Mom, for Christ’s sake!”

  “It’s just that I shan’t be home till after midnight, that’s all. So I’ll get a taxi. Don’t worry about meeting me.”

  “Okay.”

  After she had hung up, Angela Storrs took a Thames Trains timetable from her handbag and saw that Julian could easily be catching an earlier train: the 22:40 from Reading, arriving Oxford 23:20. Not that it mattered. Perhaps he was having a few drinks with his hosts? Or perhaps—the chilling thought struck her—he was checking up on her?

  Hurriedly she rang her mother in South Kensington. And kept on talking. The call would be duly registered on the itemized BT lists and suddenly she felt considerably easier in her mind.

  Morse had caught the 23:48 from Paddington that night, and at 01:00 sat unhearing as the Senior Conductor made his lugubrious pronouncement: “Oxford, Oxford. This train has now terminated. Please be sure to take all your personal possessions with you. Thank you.”

  From a deeply delicious cataleptic state, Morse was finally prodded into consciousness by no less a personage than the Senior Conductor himself.

  “All right, sir?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  But in truth things were not all right, since Morse had been deeply disappointed by his evening’s sojourn in London. And as he walked down the station steps to the taxi rank, he reminded himself of what he’d always known—that life was full of disappointments: of which the most immediate was that not a single taxi was in sight.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Tuesday, February 27

  Initium est dimidium facti

  (Once you’ve started, you’re halfway there).

  —Latin proverb

  An unshaven Morse was still dressed in his mauve and Cambridge blue pajamas when Lewis arrived at 10 o’clock the following morning. Over the phone half an hour earlier he had learned that Morse was feeling “rough as a bear’s arse”—whatever that was supposed to mean.

  For some time the two detectives exchanged information about their previous day’s activities; and fairly soon the obvious truth could be simply stated: Owens was a blackmailer. Specifically, as far as investigations had thus far progressed, with the Storrs’ household being the principal victims: he, for his current infidelity; she, for her past as a shop-soiled Soho tart. One thing seemed certain: that any disclosure was likely to be damaging, probably fatally damaging, to Julian Storrs’ chances of election to the Mastership of Lonsdale.

  Morse considered for a while.

  “It still gives us a wonderful motive for one of them murdering Owens—not much of a one for murdering Rachel.”

  “Unless Mrs. Storrs was just plain jealous, sir?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Or perhaps Rachel got to know something, and was doing a bit of blackmailing herself? She needed the money all right.”

  “Yes.” Morse stroked his bristly jaw and sighed wearily. “There’s such a lot we’ve still got to check on, isn’t there? Perhaps y
ou ought to get round to Rachel’s bank manager this morning.”

  “Not this morning, sir—or this afternoon. I’m seeing his lordship, Sir Clixby Bream, at a quarter to twelve; then I’m going to find out who’s got access to the photocopier and whatever at the Harvey Clinic.”

  “Waste o’ time,” mumbled Morse.

  “I dunno, sir. I’ve got a feeling it may all tie in together somehow.”

  “What with?”

  “I’ll know more after I’ve been to Lonsdale. You see, I’ve already learned one or two things about the situation there. The present Master’s going to retire soon, as you know, and the new man’s going to be taking up the reins at the start of the summer term—”

  “Trinity term.”

  “—and they’ve narrowed it down to two candidates: Julian Storrs and a fellow called Cornford, Denis Cornford—he’s a Lonsdale man, too. And they say the odds are fairly even.”

  “Who’s this ‘they’ you keep talking about?”

  “One of the porters there. We used to play cricket together.”

  “Ridiculous game!”

  “What’s your program today, sir?”

  Put Morse appeared not to hear his sergeant’s question.

  “Cup o’ tea, Lewis?”

  “Wouldn’t say no.”

  Morse returned a couple of minutes later, with a cup of tea for Lewis and a pint glass of iced water for himself. He sat down and looked at his wristwatch: twenty-five past ten.

  “What’s your program today?” repeated Lewis.

  “I’ve got a meeting at eleven-thirty this morning. Nothing else much. Perhaps I’ll do a bit of thinking—it’s high time I caught up with you.”

  As Lewis drank his tea, talking of this and that, he was aware that Morse seemed distanced—seemed almost in a world of his own. Was he listening at all?

  “Am I boring you, sir?”

  “What? No, no! Keep talking! That’s always the secret, you know, if you want to start anything—start thinking, say. All you’ve got to do is listen to somebody talking a load of nonsense, and somehow, suddenly, something emerges.”

  “I wasn’t talking nonsense, sir. And if I was, you wouldn’t have known. You weren’t listening.”

  Nor did it appear that Morse was listening even now—as he continued: “I wonder what time the postman comes to Polstead Road. Storrs usually caught the ten-fifteen train from Oxford, you say? … So he’d leave the house about a quarter to ten—bit earlier, perhaps? He’s got to get to the station, park his car, buy a ticket—buy two tickets.… So if the postman called about then … perhaps Storrs met him as he left the house and took his letters with him, and read them as he waited for Rachel, then stuffed ’em in his jacket pocket.”

  “So?”

  “So if … What do most couples do after they’ve had sex together?”

  “Depends, I suppose.” Lewis looked uneasily at his superior. “Go to sleep?”

  Morse smiled waywardly. “It’s as tiring as that, is it?”

  “Well, if they did it more than once.”

  “Then she—she, Lewis—stays awake and goes quietly through his pockets and finds the blackmail letter. By the way, did you ask him when he received it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, find out! She sees the letter and she knows she can blackmail him. Not about the affair they’re having, perhaps—they’re both in that together—but about something else she discovered from the letter.… You know, I suspect that our Ms. James was getting a bit of a handful for our Mr. Storrs. What do you think?” (But Lewis was given no time at all to think.) “What were the last couple of dates they went to London together?”

  “That’s something else I shall have to check, sir.”

  “Well, check it! You see, we’ve been coming round to the idea that somebody was trying to murder Owens, haven’t we? And murdered Rachel by mistake. But perhaps we’re wrong, Lewis. Perhaps we’re wrong.”

  Morse looked flushed and excited as he drained his iced water and got to his feet.

  “I’d better have a quick shave.”

  “What else have you got on your program—?”

  “As I say, you see what happens when you start talking nonsense! You’re indispensable, old friend. Absolutely indispensable!”

  Lewis, who had begun to feel considerable irritation at Morse’s earlier brusque demands, was now completely mollified.

  “I’ll be off then, sir.”

  “No you won’t! I shan’t be more than a few minutes. You can run me down to Summertown.”

  (Almost completely mollified.)

  “You still haven’t told me what—” began Lewis as he waited at the traffic lights by South Parade.

  But a clean-shaven Morse had suddenly stiffened in his safety belt beside him.

  “What did you say the name of that other fellow was, Lewis? The chap who’s standing against Storrs?”

  “Cornford, Denis Cornford. Married to an American girl.”

  “ ‘DC,’ Lewis! Do you remember in the manila file? Those four sets of initials?”

  Lewis nodded, for in his mind’s eye he could see that piece of paper as clearly as Morse:

  “There they are,” continued Morse, “side-by-side in the middle—Denis Cornford and Julian Storrs, flanked on either side by Angela Martin—I’ve little doubt!—and—might it be?—Sir Clixby Bream.”

  “So you think Owens might have got something on all—?”

  “Slow down!” interrupted Morse. “Just round the corner here.”

  Lewis turned left at the traffic lights onto Marston Ferry Road and stopped immediately outside the Summertown Health Center.

  “Wish me well,” said Morse as he alighted.

  PART THREE

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Tuesday, February 27

  The land of Idd was a happy one. Well, almost. There was one teeny problem. The King had sleepless nights about it and the villagers were very scared. The problem was a dragon called Diabetes. He lived in a cave on top of a hill. Every day he would roar loudly. He never came down the hill but everyone was still very scared just in case he did.

  —VICTORIA LEE, The Dragon of Idd

  From the waiting room on the first floor, Morse heard his name called.

  “How can I help?” asked Dr. Paul Roblin, a man Morse had sought so earnestly to avoid over the years, unless things were bordering on the desperate.

  As they were now.

  “I think I’ve got diabetes.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I’ve got a book. It mentions some of the symptoms.”

  “Which are?”

  “Loss of weight, tiredness, a longing for drink.”

  “You’ve had the last one quite a while though, haven’t you?”

  Morse nodded wearily. “I’ve lost weight; I could sleep all the time; and I drink a gallon of tap water a day.”

  “As well as the beer?”

  Morse was silent, as Roblin jabbed a lancet into the little finger of his left hand, squeezed the skin until a domed globule appeared, then smeared the blood onto a test strip. After thirty seconds, he looked down at the reading. And for a while sat motionless, saying nothing. “How did you get here, Mr. Morse?”

  “Car.”

  “Is your car here?”

  “No, I had a lift. Why?”

  “Well, I’m afraid I couldn’t let you drive a car now.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s serious. Your blood sugar level’s completely off the end of the chart. We shall have to get you to the Radcliffe Infirmary as soon as we can.”

  “What are you telling me?”

  “You should have seen me way before this. Your pancreas has packed in completely. You’ll probably be on three or four injections of insulin a day for the rest of your life. You may well have done God-knows-what damage to your eyes and your kidneys—we shall have to find out. The important thing is to get you in a hospital immediately.”

&nb
sp; He reached for the phone.

  “I only live just up the road,” protested Morse.

  Roblin put his hand over the mouthpiece. “They’ll have a spare pair of pajamas and a toothbrush. Don’t worry!”

  “You don’t realize—” began Morse.

  “Hello? Hello! Can you get an ambulance here—Summertown Health Center—straightaway, please? … The Radcliffe Infirmary … Thank you.”

  “You don’t realize I’m in the middle of a murder inquiry.”

  But Roblin had dialed a second number, and was already speaking to someone else.

  “David? Ah, glad you’re there! Have you got a bed available? … Bit of an emergency, yes … He’ll need an insulin drip, I should think. But you’ll know … Yes … Er, Mr. Morse—initial ‘E.’ He’s a chief inspector in the Thames Valley CID.”

  Half an hour later—weight (almost thirteen stone), blood pressure (alarmingly high), blood sugar level (still off the scale), details of maternal and paternal grandparents’ deaths (ill-remembered), all of these duly recorded—Morse found himself lying supine, in a pair of red-striped pajamas, in the Geoffrey Harris Ward in the Radcliffe Infirmary, just north of St. Giles’, at the bottom of Woodstock Road. A tube from the insulin drip suspended at the side of his bed was attached to his right arm by a Cellotaped needle stuck into him just above the inner wrist, allowing little, if any, lateral movement without the sharpest reminder of physical agony.

  It was this tube that Morse was glumly considering when the Senior Consultant from the Diabetes Center came round: Dr. David Matthews, a tall, slim, Mephistophelian figure, with darkly ascetic, angular features.

  “As I’ve told you all, I’m in the middle of a murder inquiry,” reiterated Morse, as Matthews sat on the side of the bed.

  “And can I tell you something? You’re going to forget all about that, unless you want to kill yourself. With a little bit of luck you may be all right, do you understand? So far you don’t seem to have done yourself all that much harm. Enough, though! But you’re going to have to forget everything about work—everything—if you’re going to come through this business without too much damage. You do know what I mean, don’t you?”

  Morse didn’t. But he nodded helplessly.

  “Only here four or five days, if you do as we tell you.”