by Colin Dexter
“Very good for the waist-line,” commented the good-humoured Swede. “And no sugar in this either. Guaranteed genuine!” he added, pouring two glasses of chilled orange juice.
Morse escaped from Montague Place as soon as good manners allowed, professing profuse gratitude but refusing further offers of cottage-cheese, low-fat yoghurt, or fresh fruit, and was quite soon to be heard complimenting the landlord of a Holborn pub on keeping his Ruddles County Bitter in such good nick.
Seldom had tea as a meal, never had tea as a beverage, assumed any great importance in Morse’s life. Although relieved therefore not to be faced with the choice of China or Indian, he could well have done without the large plastic cup of weak-looking luke-warm tea which he poured for himself from the communal urn in the virtually deserted canteen of the YWCA premises. For a while they chatted amiably, if aimlessly: Morse discovering that Mrs. Audrey Morris had married a Welshman, was still married to the same Welshman, had no children, just the one sister—the one in Oxford—and, well, that was that. She’d been trained as a social worker in the East End, and taken the job of superintendent of the YWCA four years since. She enjoyed the job well enough, but the situation in London was getting desperate. All right, the hostel might be two rungs up from the cardboard-box brigade, but all the old categories were gradually merging now into a sort of communal misery: women whose homes had been repossessed; wives who had been battered; youngish girls who were unemployed or improvident or penniless—or usually all three; birds of passage; and druggies, and potential suicides, and of course quite frequently foreign students who’d miscalculated their monies—students like Miss Karin Eriksson.
Morse went through the main points of the statement she had made the previous summer, but there was, it seemed, nothing further she could add. Like her younger sister she was considerably overweight, with a plump, attractive face in which her smile, as she spoke, appeared guileless and cooperative. So Morse decided he was wasting his time, and sought answers to some other questions: questions about what Karin was like, how she behaved, how she’d got on with the others there.
Was it that Morse had expected a litany of seductive charms—the charms of a young lady with full breasts ever bouncing beneath her low-cut blouse, with an almost indecently short skirt tight-fitting over her bottom, and her long, bronzed legs crossed provocatively as she sat sipping a Diet Coke … or a Cognac? Only half expected though, for his knowledge of Karin Eriksson was slowly growing all the time; was growing now as Mrs. Morris rather gently recalled a girl who was always going to catch men’s eyes, who was certainly aware of her attraction, and who clearly enjoyed the attention which it always brought. But whether she was the sort of young woman whose legs would swiftly—or even slowly—ease apart upon the application of a little pressure, well, Audrey Morris was much more doubtful. She’d given the impression of being able to keep herself, and others, pretty much under control. Oh yes!
“But she—she might lead men on a bit, perhaps?” asked Morse.
“Yes.”
“But maybe”—Morse was having some difficulty—“not go much further?”
“Much further than what?”
“What I’m saying is, well, we used to have a word for girls like that—when I was at school, I mean.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“ ‘Prick-teaser’? Is that the word you’re looking for?”
“Something like that,” said Morse, smiling in some embarrassment as he stood up and prepared to leave; just as Karin Eriksson must have stood up to take her leave from these very premises, with ten pounds in her purse and the firm resolve (if Mrs. Morris could be believed) of hitchhiking her way not only to Oxford, but very much further out along the A40—to Llandovery, the home of the red kite.
Audrey Morris saw him out, watching his back as he walked briskly towards the underground station at King’s Cross, before returning to her office and phoning her sister in Oxford.
“I’ve just had your inspector here!”
“No problems, I hope?”
“No! Quite dishy though, isn’t he?”
“Is he?”
“Come off it! You said he was.”
“Did you give him a glass of that malt?”
“What?”
“You didn’t give him a drink?”
“It’s only just gone four now.”
“A-u-d-r-e-y!”
“How was I to know?”
“Didn’t you smell his breath?”
“Wasn’t near enough, was I?”
“You didn’t manage things at all well, did you, sis!”
“Don’t laugh but—I gave him a cup of tea.”
In spite of the injunction, the senior partner of Elite Booking Services laughed long and loud at the other end of the line.
Morse arrived back in Oxford at 6:25 P.M., and as he crossed over the bridge from Platform 2 he found himself quietly humming one of the best-known songs from The Mikado:
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time
To let the punishment fit the crime,
The punishment fit the crime …
Chapter Forty-eight
Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs
(Samuel Johnson, The Life of Samuel Johnson)
For several persons either closely or loosely connected with the case being reported in these pages, the evening of Thursday, 30 July, was of considerable importance, although few of the persons involved were aware at the time that the tide of events was now approaching its flood.
7:25 P.M.
One of the three little maids peered out from one side of the tatty, ill-running stage-curtain and saw that the hall was already packed, 112 of them, the maximum number stipulated by the fire regulations; saw her husband David—bless him!—there on the back row. He had insisted on buying himself a ticket for each of the three performances, and that had made her very happy. Did he look just a little forlorn though, contributing nothing to the animated hum of conversation all around? He’d be fine though; and she—she felt shining and excited, as she stepped back from the curtain and rejoined her fellow performers. All right, there were only a few square yards “backstage”; such a little stage too; such an inadequate, amateurish orchestra; such a pathetic apology for lighting and effects. And yet … and yet the magic was all around, somehow: some competent singers; excellent make-up, especially for the ladies; lovely costumes; super support from the village and the neighbourhood; and a brilliant young pianist, an undergraduate from Keble, who wore a large earring, who could sing the counter-tenor parts from the Handel operas like an angel, and who spent most of his free time on lonely nocturnal vigils watching badgers in the nearby woods.
Yes, for Cathy Michaels the adrenaline was flowing freely, and any worries her husband might be harbouring for her—or she for him!—were wholly forgotten as with a few sharp taps of the conductor’s baton there fell a hush upon the hall; and with the first few bars of the overture, The Mikado had begun. Quickly she looked again in one of the mirrors there at the white-faced, black-haired, pillarbox-red-lipped Japanese lady who was herself; and knew why David found her so attractive. David … a good deal older than she was, of course, and with a past of which she knew so very little. But she loved him, and would do anything for him.
7:50 P.M.
The four youths, aged twelve, fourteen, seventeen, and seventeen, were still being held in police custody in St. Aldate’s. Whereas collectively on the East Oxford estates they had, by all accounts, appeared a most intimidating bunch, individually they now looked unremarkable. Quite quickly after their arrest had the bravado of this particular quartet disintegrated, and as Sergeant Joseph Rawlinson now looked again at one of the seventeen-year-olds, he saw only a nervous, surly, not particularly articulate lad. Gone was the bluster and aggression displayed in the back of the police car when they had picked him up from home—and now
they were taking him back.
“These things all you had on you, son?”
“S’pose so, yeah.”
Rawlinson picked them up carefully, one by one, and handed them across. “Fiver, £1, £1, 50p, 10p, 5p, 5p, 5p, 2p, 2p, 1p, OK? Comb; Marlboro cigarettes; disposable lighter; packet of condoms, Featherlite—only one left; half a packet of Polos; two bus tickets; one blue Biro. OK?”
The youth stared sullenly, but said nothing.
“And this!” Rawlinson picked up a red-covered diary and flicked quickly through the narrow-ruled pages before putting it in his own jacket pocket. “We’re going to keep this, son. Now I want you to sign there.” He handed over a typed sheet and pointed to the bottom of it.
Ten minutes later Philip Daley was once more in the back of a police car, this time heading out to his home in Begbroke, Oxon.
“Makes you wonder, Sarge!” ventured one of the constables as Rawlinson ordered a coffee in the canteen.
“Mm.” Joe Rawlinson was unhappy about committing himself too strongly on the point: his own lad, aged fifteen, had become so bolshie these last six months that his mum was getting very worried about him.
“Still, with this—what’s it?—Aggravated Vehicle-taking Bill. Unlimited fines! Might make ’em think a bit harder.”
“Got sod-all to start with though, some of ’em.”
“You’re not going soft, Sarge?”
“Oh no! I think I’m getting harder,” said Rawlinson quietly, as he picked up his coffee, and walked over to an empty table at the far corner of the canteen.
He hadn’t recognized the lad. But he’d recognized the name immediately—from that time the previous summer when he’d been working under Chief Inspector Johnson out at Blenheim. It could, of course, have just been one of those minor coincidences that were always cropping up in life—had it not been for the diary: a bit disturbing, some of the things written in that. In fact he’d almost expected to meet his old chief Johnson out on the estates at the weekend, amid the half-bricks and the broken bottles. But someone had said he was off on holiday—lucky bugger! Still, Rawlinson decided to get in touch if he could; try to ring him up tomorrow.
* * *
8:15 P.M.
Anders Fastén, a very junior official at the Swedish Embassy, had at last found what he was looking for. It had been a long search, and he realized that if only the files had been kept in a more systematized fashion he would have saved himself many, many hours. He would mention this fact to his boss; and—who knows?—the next tricky passport query might be answered in minutes. But he was pleased to have found it: it was important, he’d been informed. In any case, his boss would be pleased. And he much wanted to please his boss, for she was very beautiful.
9 P.M.
Sergeant Lewis had arrived home from HQ half an hour earlier, had a meal of eggs (two), sausages (six), and chips (legion), and now sat back in his favourite chair, turned on the BBC news, and reviewed his day with considerable satisfaction …
Especially, of course, had Morse been delighted with the photograph of Alasdair McBryde; and even more delighted with the fact that, on his own initiative, Lewis had given instructions for police leaflets to be printed, and for adverts to be placed in the following day’s Oxford Mail, Friday’s edition of The Oxford Times—and the Evening Standard.
“Masterstroke, that is!” Morse had exclaimed. “What made you think of the Evening Standard?”
“You said you were sure he’d gone to London, sir.”
“Ah!”
“Didn’t meet him by any chance?” Lewis had asked happily …
After the weather forecast—another fine sunny day, with temperatures ranging from 22 degrees Celsius in the south—Lewis put out the regular two milk-tokens, locked and bolted the front door, and decided on an early night. He heard his wife humming some Welsh melody as she washed up the plates and he went through to the kitchen and put his arms round her.
“I’m off to bed—bit weary.”
“ ’appy too, by the sound of you. ’ad a good day?”
“Pretty good.”
“That because bloody Morse beggared off and left you on your own?”
“No! Not really.”
She dried her hands and turned to him. “You enjoy workin’ for ’im, don’t you?”
“Sometimes,” agreed her husband. “It’s just that he sort of—lifts me a bit, if you know what I mean.”
Mrs. Lewis nodded, and draped the dish-cloth over the tap. “Yes, I do,” she replied.
10:30 P.M.
It was half an hour since Dr. Alan Hardinge had decided it was time to walk along to St. Giles’ and take a taxi out to his home on Cumnor Hill. But still he sat sipping Scotch in the White Horse, the narrow pub separating the two wings of Blackwell’s bookshop in the Broad. The second of his two lectures had not been an unqualified success, and he was aware that his subject-matter had been somewhat under-rehearsed, his delivery little more than perfunctory. And only one glass of wine to accompany a mediocre menu!
Still, £100 was £100 …
He was finding that however hard he tried, it was becoming progressively more difficult for him to get drunk. He hadn’t read any decent literature for months, yet Kipling had been a hero in his youth and vaguely he recalled some words in one of the short stories: something about knowing the truth of being in hell “where the liquor no longer takes hold, and the soul of a man is rotten within him”. He knew though that he was becoming increasingly maudlin, and he opened his wallet to look again at the young girl … He remembered the agonies of anxiety they had both experienced, he and his wife, the first time she was really late back home; and then that terrible night when she had not come back at all; and now the almost unbearable emptiness ahead of him when she would never come home again, never again …
He took out too the photograph of Claire Osborne from amongst his membership and credit cards: a small passport photograph, she staring po-faced at the wall of a kiosk somewhere—not a good photograph, but not a bad likeness. He put it away and drained his glass; it was ridiculous going on with the affair really. But how could he help himself? He was in love with the woman, and he was lately re-acquainted with all the symptoms of love; could so easily spot it in others too—or rather the lack of it. He knew perfectly well, for example, that his wife was no longer in love with him, but that she would never let him go; knew too that Claire had never been in love with him, and would end their relationship tomorrow if it suited her.
One other thing was worrying him that night—had been worrying him increasingly since the visit of Chief Inspector Morse. He wouldn’t do anything immediately, but he was fairly sure that before long he would be compelled to disclose the truth about what had occurred a year ago …
10:30 P.M.
After watching the weather forecast, Claire Osborne turned off the ITN News at Ten—another half-hour of death, destruction, disease, and disaster. She was almost getting anaesthetized to it, she felt, as she poured herself a gin and dry Martini, and studied one of the typed sheets that Morse had sent her:
MOZART: Requiem (K626)
Helmuth Rilling (Master Works)
H. von Karajan (Deutsche Grammophon)
Schmidt-Gaden (Pro Arte)
Victor de Sabata (Everest)
Karl Richter (Telefunken)
In two days’ time she would have her fortieth birthday and she was going to buy a tape or a record of the Requiem. All Morse’s versions, he’d said, were records: “But they’re not going to be pressing any more records soon, and some of these are museum-pieces anyway.” Yet for some reason she wanted to buy one of the ones he’d got, although she realized it would probably be far more sensible to invest in a CD player. Herbert von Karajan was the only one of the five conductors she’d heard of, and “Deutsche Grammophon” looked and sounded so impressive … Yes, she’d try to get that one. Again she looked down at the sheet, trying to get the correct spelling of that awkward word “Deutsche” into her he
ad, with its tricky “t”, “s”, “c”, “h”, “e” sequence.
Ten minutes later she had finished her drink, and put down the empty glass. She felt very lonely. And thought of Morse. And poured herself another drink, this time putting a little more ice in it.
“God Almighty!” she whispered to herself.
4:30 A.M.
Morse woke in the soundless dark. From his youth he had been no stranger to a few semi-erotic day-dreams, yet seldom at night did he find himself actually dreaming of beautiful women. But just now—oddly!—he dreamed a very vivid dream. It had not been of any of the beautiful women he’d so far met in the case—not of Claire Osborne, nor of the curly-headed dietitian, nor of Laura Hobson—but of Margaret Daley, the woman with those blondish-grey streaks in her hair; hair which had prompted Lewis to ask his cardinal question: “Why do you think people want to make themselves look older than they are, sir? Seems all the wrong way round to me.” But Margaret Daley had appeared quite young in Morse’s dream. And there had been a letter somewhere in that dream: “I thought of you so much after you were gone. I think of you still and ask you to think of me occasionally—perhaps even come to visit me again. In the hope that I don’t upset you, I send you my love …” But there was no letter of course; just the words that someone had spoken in his mind. He got up and made himself a cup of instant coffee, noting on the kitchen calendar that the sun would be rising at 05:19. So he went back to bed and lay on his back, his hands behind his head, and waited patiently for the dawn.
Chapter Forty-nine
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town-meeting or a vestry
(Thomas Jefferson, Letters)
Dr. Laura Hobson, one of those who had not been invited across the threshold of Morse’s dreams, entered his office the following morning just before nine o’clock, where after being introduced to Sergeant Lewis she took a seat and said her say.