by Colin Dexter
The poem in full reads as follows:
Find me, find the Swedish daughter—
Thaw my frosted tegument!
Dry the azured skylit water,
Sky my everlasting tent.
Who spied, who spied that awful spot?
O find me! Find the woodman’s daughter!
Ask the stream: “Why tell’st me not
The truth thou know’st—the tragic slaughter?”
Ask the tiger, ask the sun
Whither riding, what my plight?
Till the given day be run,
Till the burning of the night.
Thyme, I saw Thyme flow’ring here
A creature white trapped in a gin,
Panting like a hunted deer
Licking still the bloodied skin.
With clues surveyed so wondrous laden,
Hunt the ground beneath thy feet!
Find me, find me now, thy maiden,
I will kiss thee when we meet.
A. Austin
(1853–87)
The lines were typed on a fairly old-fashioned machine, and police are hopeful that forensic tests may throw up further clues. The only immediately observable idiosyncracies of the typewriter used are the worn top segment of the lower-case “e”, and the slight curtailment of the cross-bar in the lowercase “t”.
“To be truthful,” admitted Chief Inspector Johnson, “not many of my colleagues here are all that hot on poetry, and that’s why we thought The Times might help. It would be a sort of poetic justice if it could.” Final word with Mr. Phillipson: “It might be a cruel hoax, and the link with the earlier case does appear rather tenuous, perhaps. But the police certainly seem to think they are on to something. So do I!”
Morse read the article at his own pace; then again, rather more quickly. After which, for several minutes, he sat where he was, his eyes still, his expression quite emotionless—before turning to the back page and reading the clue he hadn’t quite been able to see the evening before:
“Work without hope draws nectar in a—” (Coleridge) (5).
Huh! If the poem was a “riddle”, so was the answer! A quotation from Coleridge, too! Half smiling, he sat back in his chair and marvelled once more at the frequency of that extraordinarily common phenomenon called “coincidence”.
Had he but known it, however, a far greater coincidence had already occurred the previous evening when (purely by chance, surely?) he had been ushered into the dining room to share a table with the delectable occupant of Room 14. But as yet he couldn’t know such a thing; and taking from his pocket his silver Parker pen, he wrote “I” and “V” in the empty squares which she had left in S-E-E—before reaching for the telephone again.
“No, sir—Superintendent Strange is still not answering. Can anyone else help?”
“Yes, perhaps so,” said Morse. “Put me through to Traffic Control, will you?”
Chapter Eight
Extract from a diary dated 2 July 1992 (one day before Morse had found himself in Lyme Regis)
I must write a chapter on “Gradualism” in my definitive opus on pornography, for it is the gradual nature of the erotic process that is all important, as even that old fascist Plato had the nous to see. Yet this is a factor increasingly forgotten by the writers and the film-directors and the video-makers. If they ever knew it. “Process” is what it should be all about. The process typified in the lifting of a full-length skirt to a point just above the ankle, or the first unfastening of a button on a blouse! Do I make things clear? Without the skirt, what man will glory in the ankle? Without the blouse, what man will find himself aroused by the mere button? Nudity itself is nothing: it is the intent of nudity which guarantees the glorious engagement. Never did nudity in itself mean very much to me, even when I was a young boy. Never did I have any interest in all those Italian paintings of naked women. Likewise it seems to me that few of our licentious and promiscuous youth take overmuch notice of the women who flaunt their bodies daily in the tabloid press. Such young men are more interested in back-page soccer stories. Is there a moral here?
I’ve just read through all that shit I’ve just written and it makes me sound almost sane. Almost as if I’d laugh outright at any quack who suggested that I ought to go along and see somebody. But in truth there’s not much to laugh about considering the wreck I’ve now become—I’ve always been perhaps. These others are bloody lucky. Christ, how lucky they are! They have their erotic fancies and imaginings and get their fixes from their filthy mags and porno flicks and casual sex. But me? Ha! I study those articles in the quality press about the effects of pornography on the sex-crime statistics. That’s what the civilized sex maniacs do. Does then pornography have the effect that is claimed? I doubt it. Yet I wish it did. Yes! Then almost everyone would be committing some dreadful sex-offence each day. I know—of course I do!—that such a state of affairs wouldn’t be all that bloody marvellous for the goody-goody girls who’ve been guarding their virginity. But at least I would be normal! I would be normal.
Come on Time! Hurry along there! It is tomorrow that I see her and I can hardly wait to watch the hours go by. Why do I wait? Because although I have never really loved my wife (or my children all that much) I would sacrifice almost everything in my life if by so doing I could spare her the despairing humiliation of learning about my own shame.
(Later) I picked up The Guardian in the SCR and read about a Jap who murdered a young model and feasted off her flesh for a fortnight. They didn’t keep him in jail very long because he was manifestly crackers. But when they transferred him to a loony asylum he kicked up such a fuss that they didn’t keep him there long either. Why? Because the authorities became convinced that he was normal. After they’d let him go he said to a newspaper reporter: “My time in the mental ward was like Hell. Everyone else in there was real crazy, but the doctors saw that I wasn’t like the rest of them. They saw I was normal. So they let me go.” I wasn’t too upset about what this weirdo said. What really upset me was what the reporter said. He said the most distressing aspect of this strange and solitary cannibal was the fact that he really believed himself to be normal! Don’t you see what I’m saying?
Chapter Nine
And I wonder how they should have been together!
(T. S. Eliot, La Figlia Che Piange)
He made his way from the dining room to the bar. The meal had been a lonely affair; but Morse was never too worried about periods of loneliness, and felt himself unable to appreciate the distinction that some folk made between solitude and loneliness. In any case, he’d enjoyed the meal. Venison, no less! He now ordered a pint of Best Bitter and sat down, his back to the sea, with the current issue of The Times. He looked at his wrist-watch, wrote the time (8:21) in the small rectangle of space beside the crossword, and began.
At 8:35, as he struggled a little over the last two clues, he heard her voice:
“Not finished it yet?”
Morse felt a sudden rush of happiness.
“Mind if I join you?” She sat down beside him, to his right, on the wall-seat. “I’ve ordered some coffee. Are you having any?”
“Er, no. Coffee’s never figured all that prominently in my life.”
“Water neither, by the look of things.”
Morse turned towards her and saw she was smiling at him. “Water’s all right,” he admitted “—in moderation.”
“Not original!”
“No. Mark Twain.”
A young bow-tied waiter had brought the coffee, and she poured an almost full cup before adding a little very thick cream; and Morse looked down at those slim fingers as she circled the spoon in a slow-motion, almost sensual stir.
“You got the paper?”
Morse nodded his gratitude. “Yes.”
“Let me tell you something—I’m not even going to ask why you wanted it so badly.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, you told me in your note.”
“And for
another?”
She hesitated now, and turned to look at him. “Why don’t you offer me a cigarette?”
Morse’s new-found happiness scaled yet another peak.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Morse. They, er, call me Morse.”
“Odd name! What’s your surname?”
“That is my surname.”
“As well? Your name’s Morse Morse? Like that man in Catch 22, isn’t it? Major Major Major.”
“Didn’t he have four Majors?”
“You read a lot?”
“Enough.”
“Did you know the Coleridge quotation? I could see you looking at the crossword last night.”
“Hadn’t you got the paper twixt thee and me?”
“I’ve got X-ray eyes.”
Morse looked at her eyes, and for a few seconds looked deeply into her eyes—and saw a hazel-green concoloration there, with no sign now of any bloodshot webbing. “I just happened to know the quote, yes.”
“Which was?”
“The answer was ‘sieve’.”
“And the line goes?”
“Two lines actually, to make any sense of things:
“ ’Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live.’ ”
“You do read a lot.”
“What’s your name?”
“Louisa.”
“And what do you do, Louisa?”
“I work for a model agency. No, that’s wrong. I am a model agency.”
“Where are you from?”
“From a little village just south of Salisbury, along the Chalke Valley.”
Morse nodded vaguely. “I’ve driven through that part once or twice. Combe Bissett? Near there, is it?”
“Quite near, yes. But what about you? What do you do?”
“I’m a sort of glorified clerk, really. I work in an office—nine-to-five man.”
“Whereabouts is that?”
“Oxford.”
“Lovely city!”
“You know Oxford?”
“Why don’t you buy me a large brandy?” she asked softly in his ear.
Morse put the drinks on his room-bill and returned with one large brandy and one large malt Scotch. Several other couples were enjoying their liqueurs in that happily appointed bar, and Morse looked out from the window at the constantly whitening waves before placing the drinks side by side on the table.
“Cheers!”
“Cheers!”
“You’re a liar,” she said.
The three words hit Morse like an uppercut, and he had no time to regain his balance before she continued, mercilessly:
“You’re a copper. You’re a chief inspector. And judging from the amount of alcohol you get through you’re probably never in your office much after opening time.”
“Is it that obvious—I’m a copper, I mean?”
“Oh no! Not obvious at all. I just saw your name and address in the register and my husband—well, he happens to have heard of you. He says you’re supposed to be a bit of a whizz-kid in the crime world. That’s all.”
“Do I know your husband?”
“I very much doubt it.”
“He’s not here—”
“What are you doing in Lyme?”
“Me? I dunno. Perhaps I’m looking for some lovely, lonely lady who wouldn’t call me a liar even if she thought I was.”
“You deny it? You deny you’re a copper?”
Morse shook his head. “No. It’s just that when you’re on holiday, well, sometimes you want to get away from the work you do—and sometimes you tell a few lies, I suppose. Everyone tells a few lies occasionally.”
“They do?”
“Oh yes.”
“Everyone?”
Morse nodded. “Including you.” He turned towards her again, but found himself unable to construe the confusing messages he read there in her eyes.
“Go on,” she said quietly.
“I think you’re a divorced woman having an affair with a married man who lives in Oxford. I think the pair of you occasionally get the opportunity of a weekend together. I think that when you do, you need an accommodation address and that you use your own address, which is not in the Chalke Valley but in the Cathedral Close at Salisbury. I think you came here by coach on Friday afternoon and that your partner, who was probably at some conference or other in the area, was scheduled to get here at the same time as you. But he didn’t show up. And since you’d already booked your double room you registered and took your stuff up to your room, including a suitcase with the initials ‘C S O’ on it. You suspected something had gone sadly wrong, but as yet you daren’t use the phone to find out. You had no option but to wait. I think a call did come through eventually, explaining the situation; and you were deeply disappointed and upset—upset enough to shed a tear or two. This morning you hired a taxi to take you to meet this fellow who had let you down, and I think you’ve spent the day together somewhere. You’re back here now because you’d booked the weekend break anyway, and your partner probably gave you a cheque to cover the bill. You’ll be leaving in the morning, hoping for better luck next time.”
Morse had finished—and there was a long silence between them, during which he drained his whisky, she her brandy.
“Another?” asked Morse.
“Yes. But I’ll get them. The cheque he gave me was more than generous.” The voice was matter-of-fact, harder now, and Morse knew that the wonderful magic had faded. When she returned with the drinks, she changed her place and sat primly opposite him.
“Would you believe me if I said the suitcase I brought with me belongs to my mother, whose name is Cassandra Samantha Osborne?”
“No,” said Morse. For a few seconds he thought he saw a sign of a gentle amusement in her eyes, but it was soon gone.
“What about this—this ‘married man who lives in Oxford’?”
“Oh, I know all about him.”
“You what?” Involuntarily her voice had risen to a falsetto squeak, and two or three heads had turned in her direction.
“I rang up the Thames Valley Police. If you put any car number through the computer there—”
“—you get the name and address of the owner in about ten seconds.”
“About two seconds,” amended Morse.
“And you did that?”
“I did that.”
“God! You’re a regular shit, aren’t you?” Her eyes blazed with anger now.
“S’ funny, though,” said Morse, ignoring the hurt. “I know his name—but I still don’t know yours.”
“Louisa, I told you.”
“No. I think not. Once you’d got to play the part of Mrs. Something Hardinge, you liked the idea of ‘Louisa’. Why not? You may not know all that much about Coleridge. But about Hardy? That’s different. You remembered that when Hardy was a youth he fell in love with a girl who was a bit above him in class and wealth and privilege, and so he tried to forget her. In fact he spent all the rest of his life trying to forget her.”
She was looking down at the table as Morse went gently on: “Hardy never really spoke to her. But when he was an old man he used to go and stand over her unmarked grave in Stinsford churchyard.”
It was Morse’s turn now to look down at the table.
“Would you like some more coffee, madame?” The waiter smiled politely and sounded a pleasant young chap. But “madame” shook her head, stood up, and prepared to leave.
“Claire—Claire Osborne—that’s my name.”
“Well, thanks again—for the paper, Claire.”
“That’s all right.” Her voice was trembling slightly and her eyes were suddenly moist with tears.
“Shall I see you for breakfast?” asked Morse.
“No. I’m leaving early.”
“Like this morning.”
“Like this morning.”
“I see,” said Morse.
“Perhaps you see too much.”
“Goodnight—Morse.”
“Goodnight. Goodnight, Claire.”
When an hour and several drinks later Morse finally decided to retire, he found it difficult to concentrate on anything else except taking one slightly swaying stair at a time. On the second floor, Room 14 faced him at the landing; and if only a line of light had shown itself at the foot of that door, he told himself that he might have knocked gently and faced the prospect of the wrath to come.
But there was no light.
Claire Osborne herself lay awake into the small hours, the duvet kicked aside, her hands behind her head, seeking to settle her restless eyes; seeking to fix them on some putative point about six inches in front of her nose. Half her thoughts were still with the conceited, civilized, ruthless, gentle, boozy, sensitive man with whom she had spent the earlier hours of that evening; the other half were with Alan Hardinge, Dr. Alan Hardinge, fellow of Lonsdale College, Oxford, whose young daughter, Sarah, had been killed by an articulated lorry as she had cycled down Cumnor Hill on her way to school the previous morning.
Chapter Ten
Mrs. Kidgerbury was the oldest inhabitant of Kentish Town, I believe, who went out charing, but was too feeble to execute her conceptions of that art
(Charles Dickens, David Copperfield)
With a sort of expectorant “phoo”, followed by a cushioned “phlop”, Chief Superintendent Strange sat his large self down opposite Chief Inspector Harold Johnson. It was certainly not that he enjoyed walking up the stairs, for he had no pronounced adaptability for such exertions; it was just that he had promised his very slim and very solicitous wife that he would try to get in a bit of exercise at the office wherever possible. The trouble lay in the fact that he was usually too feeble in both body and spirit to translate such resolve into execution. But not on the morning of Tuesday, 30 June 1992, four days before Morse had booked into the Bay Hotel …