by Colin Dexter
Back in Radcliffe Square, Hardinge parked on double yellow lines in Catte Street, and went straight up to his rooms in Lonsdale. He knew her number off by heart. Of course he did.
“Claire? It’s me, Alan.”
“I know it’s you. Nothing wrong with my ears.”
“I was just wondering … just hoping …”
“No! And we’re not going to go over all that again.”
“You mean you’re not even going to see me again?”
“That’s it!”
“Not ever?” His throat was suddenly very dry.
“You know for a university don, you don’t pick some things up very quickly, do you?”
For a while Hardinge said nothing. He could hear music playing in the background; he knew the piece well.
“If you’d told me you enjoyed Mozart—”
“Look—for the last time!—it’s finished. Please accept that! Finished!”
“Have you got someone else?”
“What?” He heard her bitter laughter. “My life’s been full of ‘someone elses’. You always knew that.”
“But what if I divorced—”
“For Christ’s sake! Won’t you ever understand? It’s over!”
The line was dead, and Hardinge found himself looking down at the receiver as if someone had given him a frozen fillet of fish for which for the moment he could find no convenient receptacle.
Claire Osborne sat by the phone for several minutes after she had rung off, the wonderful trombone passage from the Tuba Mirum Spargens Sonum registering only vaguely in her mind. Had she been too cruel to Alan? But sometimes it was necessary to be cruel to be kind—wasn’t that what they said? Or was that just a meaningless cliché like the rest of them? “Someone else?” Alan had asked. Huh!
The poorly typed letter (no salutation, no subscription) she had received with the cassette that morning was lying on the coffee table, and already she’d read it twenty-odd times:
I enjoyed so much our foreshortened time together, you and the music. One day of the great lost days, one face of all the faces (Ernest Dowson—not me!). A memento herewith. The Recordare is my favourite bit—if I’m pushed to a choice. “Recordare” by the way is the 2nd person singular of the present imperative of the verb “recordor”: it means “Remember!”
Chapter Sixty-one
A reasonable probability is the only certainty
(Edgar Watson Howe, Country Town Sayings)
“You’re sure about all this, Morse?” Strange’s voice was sharp with an edge of scepticism to it.
“Completely sure.”
“You said that about Michaels.”
“No! I only said I was ninety per cent sure on that.”
“OK.” Strange shrugged his shoulders, tilted his head, and opened his palms in a gesture of acquiescence. “There are just one or two little things—”
But the phone went on Strange’s desk: “Ah! Ah! Yes! Want to speak to him?”
He handed the phone over to Morse: Dr. Hobson. Quite certainly, she said, Michaels’ rifle hadn’t been fired for weeks. That was all.
Strange had heard the pathologist, just. “Looks as if you’re right about that, anyway. We’ll give that Met a call. Certain to have scarpered to the capital, don’t you reckon, the lad?”
“Ninety per cent sure, sir—and we’ve already given the Met his description.”
“Oh!”
Morse rose to go, but Strange was not quite finished: “What first put you on to it?”
For a few moments Morse paused dubiously. “Several things, I suppose. For example, I once heard someone claim that all three types of British woodpeckers could be found in Wytham Woods. I think I heard it in a pub. Or perhaps I just read it on a beer mat.”
“Useful things, pubs!”
“Then”—Morse ignored the sarcasm—“I thought if Johnson had opted for Blenheim, it’d pretty certainly turn out to be Wytham.”
“That’s grossly unfair.”
“I agree.” Morse got up and walked to the door. “You know, it’s a bit surprising no one ever noticed her accent, isn’t it? She must have a bit of an accent. I bet you I’ll notice it!”
“You’re a lucky bugger to hear as well as you do. The wife says I’m getting deafer all the time.”
“Get a hearing aid, sir. They probably wouldn’t let you stay in the force, and they’d have to give you a few years’ enhancement on the pension.”
“You think so? Really?”
“Ninety per cent sure,” said Morse closing the door behind him and walking thoughtfully back through the maze of corridors to his office.
He’d omitted to acquaint Strange with the biggest clue of all, but it would have taken a little while to explain and it was all a bit nebulous—especially for a man of such matter-of-fact hard-headedness as Strange. But it had formed, for him, Morse, the focal point of all the mystery. The normal murderer (if such a person may be posited) would seek to cover up all traces of his victim. And if his victim were someone like Karin Eriksson, he would burn the clothes, chuck her jewellery and trinkets into the canal, dispose of the body—sink it in some bottomless ocean or cut it up in little bits and take it to the nearest waste-disposal site; even pack it up in those black plastic bags for the dustmen to cart off, since in Morse’s experience the only things they wouldn’t take were bags containing garden waste. So! So if our murderer wanted to rid the earth of every trace of his victim, why, why, had he been so anxious for the rucksack and associated possessions to be found? All right, it hadn’t worked out all that well, with accidental factors, as almost always, playing their part. But the rucksack was found, very soon; the police were informed, very soon; the hunt for Karin’s murderer was under way, very soon. Now if a young Swedish student goes missing sans everything, then there is always less than certitude that she is dead: thousands of young persons from all parts of Europe, all parts of the world, disappear regularly; get listed as “missing persons”. But if a young girl goes missing, and at the same time her possessions are discovered in a hedgerow somewhere nearby, then the implications are all too painfully obvious, the conclusions all too readily drawn: the conclusions that Johnson and almost every other policeman in the Thames Valley had drawn a year ago.
Though not Morse.
Perhaps he could, on reflexion, have explained his thinking to Strange without too much difficulty? After all, the key question could be posed very simply, really: why was the murderer so anxious for the police to pursue a murder enquiry? To that strange question Morse now knew the answer; of that he was quite sure. Well, ninety-nine per cent sure: because the police would be looking for a body, not for someone who was still alive.
Ten minutes later, Lewis was ready for him, and together the two detectives drove out to Wytham Woods once more.
Chapter Sixty-two
The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties
(Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray)
There were four of them in the living room of the low-ceilinged cottage: Morse and Lewis seated side by side on the leather settee, Mrs. Michaels opposite them in an armchair, and the small attractive figure of the uniformed WPC Wright standing by the door.
“Why haven’t you brought David?” asked Mrs. Michaels.
“Isn’t he still making a statement, Sergeant?” Morse’s eyebrows rose quizzically as if the matter were of minor import.
“What are you here for then?” She lifted her eyes and cocked her head slightly to Morse as if she were owed some immediate and convincing explanation.
“We’re here about your marriage. There’s something slightly, ah, irregular about it.”
“Really? You’ll have to check that up with the Registry Office, not me.”
“Register Office, Mrs. Michaels. It’s important to be accurate about things. So let me be accurate. David Michaels discovered that the District Office for anyone living in Wytham was at Abingdon, and he went th
ere and answered all the usual questions about when and where you wanted to marry, how old you both were, where you were both born, whether either of you had been married before, whether you were related. And that was that. Two days later you were married.”
“So?”
“Well, everything is really based on trust in things like that. If you want to, you can tell a pack of lies. There’s one Registrar in Oxford who married the same fellow three times in the same year—one in Reading who managed to marry a couple of sailors!”
Morse looked across at her as if expecting a dutiful smile, but Mrs. Michaels sat perfectly still, her mouth tight, her hair framing the clear-skinned features in a semi-circle of the darkest black, the blonde roots so very recently re-dyed.
“Take any reasonably fluent liar—even a fairly clumsy liar,” continued Morse, “and he’ll get away with murder—if you see what I mean, Mrs. Michaels. For example, some proof of age is required for anyone under twenty-three, did you know that? But if your fiancé says you’re twenty-four? Well, he’ll almost certainly get away with it. And if you’ve been married before? Well, if you say you haven’t, it’s going to be virtually impossible to prove, then and there, that you have. Oh yes! It’s easy to get married by licence if you’re willing to abuse the system.”
“You are saying that I—that we, David and I—we abused the system?”
“You know most English people would have settled for ‘me and David’, Mrs. Michaels.” (WPC Wright was aware of that nuance of stress on the word “English”.)
“I asked you—”
But Morse interrupted her brusquely: “There was only one thing that couldn’t be fiddled in your case: date of birth. You see, some documentation is statutory in that respect—if the person concerned is a foreign national.”
A silence now hung over the small room; a palpably tense silence, during which a strange, indefinable look flitted across Mrs. Michaels’ features as she crossed one leg over the other and clasped her hands round her left knee.
“What’s that got to do with me?” she asked.
“You’re a foreign national,” said Morse simply, looking across unblinkingly at the lovely girl seated opposite him.
“Do you realize how absurd all this is, Inspector?”
“Did you have to show your passport to the Registrar at Abingdon?”
“There was no need for that: I’m not a foreign national!”
“No?”
“No! My name is—was Catharine Adams. I was born in Uppingham, in Rutland—what used to be Rutland; I’m twenty-four years old—”
“Can I see your passport?” asked Morse quietly.
“As a matter of fact you can’t. It’s in the post to Swansea—it needs renewing. We are going—me and David!—to Italy in September.” (Lewis could pick up the hint of the accent now, in that word “Eetaly”.)
“Don’t worry! We’ve already got a copy, you see. The Swedish Embassy sent us one.”
For several moments she looked down at the carpet, the one expensive item in the rather mundane living room in which she’d spent so many hours of her days: a small, rectangular oriental carpet, woven perhaps in some obscure tent in Turkestan. Then, rising, she took a few steps over to a desk, took out her passport, and handed it to Morse.
But Morse knew it all anyway; had already studied the details carefully: the headings, printed in both Swedish and English; the details required, handwritten in Swedish. Underneath the photograph, he read again:
Surname………………………
Christian name(s)……………
Height in cms (without shoes)…
Sex…………………………
Date of birth…………………
Place of birth………………
Civic Reg. No…………………
Date issued…………………
How long valid………………
Signature…………………….
Remarks………………………
Katarina Adams (it appeared), height 168 cms in her stockinged feet, of the female sex, had been born on the 29 September 1968, in Uppsala, Sweden.
“Clever touch that, Uppingham for Úppsala,” commented Morse.
“Uppsála—if we must be accurate, Inspector.”
“ ‘Adams’ was your married name—your first married name. And when your husband was killed in a car crash, you kept it. Why not? So …”
“So, what else do you want from me?” she asked quietly.
“Just tell me the truth, please! We shall get there in the end, you know.”
She took a deep breath, and spoke quickly and briefly. “When my sister Karin was murdered, I was in Spain—in Barcelona, as it happened. I got here as soon as I could—my mother had rung me from Sweden. But I could do nothing, I soon realized that, I met David. We fell in love. We were married. I was frightened about work permits and visas and that sort of thing, and David said it would be better if I lied—if he lied—about my earlier marriage. Easier and quicker. So? For a start I only went out of the house here a very few times. I wore glasses and I had my hair cut fairly short and dyed black. That’s why they asked me to sing in the opera, yes? I looked like the part before they started the auditions.”
Lewis glanced briefly sideways, and thought he saw a look of slight puzzlement on Morse’s face.
“Didn’t the Registrar tell you—tell your husband—that it was all above board anyway?”
“No, I’m sure he didn’t. You see we said nothing about this … you know. Can’t you understand? It was all very strange—all very unsettling and sort of, sort of nervy, somehow. David understood, though—”
“Did you enjoy your holiday in Spain?”
“Very much. Why—?”
“Which airport did you fly from to England?”
“Barcelona.”
“Lots of muggings, they tell me, at Barcelona airport.”
“What’s that got to do—?”
“Ever lost your handbag? You know, with your keys and passport and credit cards?”
“No. I’m glad to say I haven’t.”
“What would you do if you lost your passport, say?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d apply to the Swedish Embassy, I suppose. They’d probably give me a temporary document … or something …”
“But do you think it would be possible to fiddle things, Mrs. Michaels? Like it’s possible to fiddle a marriage licence?”
“I wish you’d tell me exactly what you’re getting at.”
“All right. Let me ask you a simple question. Would it be possible for anyone to apply for someone else’s passport?”
“Almost impossible, surely? There are all sorts of checks in Sweden: Civic Registration Number—that’s what we use in Sweden instead of a birth certificate—details of all the information on the passport that would have to be checked—photograph? No! I don’t think it would.”
“I agree with you, I think. Almost impossible—though not quite; not for a very clever woman.”
“But I’m not a very clever woman, Inspector.”
“No! Again I agree with you.” (Lewis wondered if he’d spotted the slightest trace of disappointment in her eyes.) “But let’s agree it is impossible, right. There is another way, though, a very much easier way of acquiring a passport. A childishly easy way. Someone gives you one, Mrs. Michaels. Someone sends you one through the post.”
“You are leaving me many miles behind, Inspector.”
“No, I’m not,” replied Morse, with a quiet factuality that brooked no argument. “No one—no one—lost any passport at Barcelona, or anywhere else. But you and your elder sister are very much alike, aren’t you? My sergeant here brought me a photograph of the three of you from Stockholm. You’re all blonde and blue-eyed and high-cheekboned and long-legged and everything else people here expect from the Nordic type. Even your younger sister—the shortest of the three of you—she looks very much like Karin too, at least from
her photograph.”
Forcibly she interrupted him: “Listen! Just one moment, please! Have you ever felt completely confused—like I feel now?”
“Oh, yes! Quite frequently, believe me. But not now. Not now, Mrs. Michaels. And you’re not confused either. Because that passport there isn’t yours. It belongs to your sister Katarina—Katarina Adams. Your sister who still lives in Uppsála. Your sister who told the Swedish authorities that she’d had her passport stolen, and then applied for another. Simple! You see, your name isn’t Katarina Adams at all, is it, Mrs. Michaels? It’s Karin Eriksson.”
Her shoulders suddenly sagged, as if she felt that, in spite of any innocent protestations she might make, she was not going to be believed by anyone; as if on that score at least she would perhaps be well advised to leave her case to the testimony of others.
But Morse was pressing home his advantage; and WPC Wright (though not Lewis) found his further questioning embarrassing and tasteless.
“You’ve got beautiful legs—would you agree?”
“What?” Instinctively she sought to pull the hem of her knee-length skirt an inch or two lower over her elegant legs; but with little effect.
“You know,” continued Morse, “when I was talking just now about the Nordic type, I was thinking of the films we used to see of all those sexy Swedish starlets. I used to go to the pictures a lot in those days—”
“Do you want me to do a streep-tease for you?”
“You see, my sergeant here and me—and I—we’ve got quite a big advantage really, because we’ve had a chance to study your passport—if it is yours—”
She was almost at the end of her tether. “What is it?” she shrieked. “Please! Please tell me! What are you accusing me of? All of you?”
Resignedly Morse gestured with his right hand to Lewis; and Lewis, in a flat and melancholy voice, intoned the charge:
“Mrs. Karin Michaels—Miss Karin Eriksson—I have to inform you that you are under police arrest on suspicion of murdering one James Myton, on the afternoon of Sunday, July seventh, 1991. It is my duty to warn you that anything you may now say in the presence of the three police officers here may be used in evidence in any future proceedings.”