The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

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The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn Page 10

by Colin Dexter


  ‘But what if he insisted—?’

  ‘He’d be a liar, then, wouldn’t he?’ Ogleby smiled serenely, and gently closed the door behind him.

  Or you would, thought Morse, as he sat alone. And although you don’t know it, my good friend Ogleby, there are two someones who say you weren’t here. And if you weren’t here, where the hell were you?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE POLICE CAR, white with a broad, pale blue stripe along its middle, stood parked by the pavement, and Constable Dickson knocked at the spruce detached bungalow in Old Marston. The door was immediately opened by a smartly dressed, attractive woman.

  ‘Miss Height?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is your daughter in?’

  Miss Height’s features crumpled into a girlish giggle. ‘Don’t be silly! I’m only sixteen!’

  Dickson himself grinned oafishly, and accepted the young lady’s invitation to step inside.

  ‘It’s about Mr Quinn, isn’t it? Ever so exciting. Coo. Just think. He worked in the same office as Mummy!’

  ‘Did you ever meet him, miss?’

  ‘No, worse luck.’

  ‘He never came here.’

  She giggled again. ‘Not unless Mummy brought him here while I was slaving away at school!’

  ‘She wouldn’t do that, would she?’

  She smiled happily. ‘You don’t know Mummy!’

  ‘Why aren’t you at school today, miss?’

  ‘Oh, I’m taking some O-levels again. I took them in the summer but I’m afraid I didn’t do too well in some of them.’

  ‘What subjects are they?’

  ‘Human Biology, French and Maths. Not that I’ve got much chance in Maths. We had Paper Two this morning – a real stinker. Would you like to see it?’

  ‘Not now, miss. I er – I was just wondering why you weren’t at school, that’s all.’ It wasn’t very subtle.

  ‘Oh, they let us off when we haven’t got an exam. Great really, I’ve been off since lunchtime.’

  ‘Do you always come home? When you’re free, I mean?’

  ‘Nothing else to do, is there?’

  ‘You revise, I suppose?’

  ‘A bit. But I usually watch telly. You know, the kiddies’ programmes. Quite good, really. Sometimes I don’t think I’ve grown up at all.’

  Dickson felt he shouldn’t argue. ‘You’ve been here most days recently, then?’

  ‘Most afternoons.’ She looked at him innocently. ‘I shall be here again tomorrow afternoon.’

  Dickson coughed awkwardly. He’d done the bit of homework that Morse had told him to. ‘I watched one of those kiddies’ films, miss. About a dog. Last Friday afternoon, I think it was.’

  ‘Oh yes. I watched that. I cried nearly all the way through. Did it make you cry?’

  ‘Bit of a tearjerker, I agree, miss. But I mustn’t keep you from your revising. As I say, it was your mother I really wanted to see.’

  ‘But you said – you said you wanted to see me!’

  ‘I got it a bit muddled, miss, I’m afraid. I sort of thought—’ He gave it up and got to his feet. He hadn’t done too badly at all really, and he thought the Chief Inspector would be pleased with him.

  At 7 p.m. the same evening Morse sat alone in his office. A single tube of white strip-lighting threw a harsh unfriendly glare across the silent room, and a single yellow lamp in the yard outside the uncurtained window did little more than emphasize the blackness of the night. Occasionally, especially at times like this, Morse wished he had a home to welcome him, with a wife to have his slippers warmed and ready. It was at times like this, too, that murder seemed a crude and terrifying thing . . . Dickson had reported on his visit to Sally Height, and the silhouettes on the furthest walls of the darkened cave were now assuming a firmer delineation. Monica had lied to him. Martin had lied to him. It was odds-on that Ogleby had lied to him. Had Bartlett lied as well? Stocky, cautious little Bartlett, meticulous as a metronome. If he had murdered Nicholas Quinn . . .

  For half an hour he let his thoughts run wild and free, like randy rabbits in orgiastic intercourse. And then he put a stop to it. He needed a few more facts; and facts were facing him, here and now, in the dark blue plastic bag containing the items found in Quinn’s pockets, in Quinn’s green anorak, and in Lewis’s inventories. Morse cleared the top of his desk and set to work. Quinn’s pockets had thrown up little of surprise or interest: a wallet, a grubby handkerchief, half a packet of Polos, a diary (with not a single entry), 43½p, a pink comb, one half of a cinema ticket, two black biros, a strip of tired-looking Green Shield stamps, and a statement from Lloyds Bank (Summertown branch), showing a current account balance of £114.40. That was the lot, and Morse arranged each item neatly before him and sat surveying them for minutes, before finally taking a sheet of notepaper and listing each item carefully. Ye-es. The thought had flashed across his mind a few minutes earlier. Decidedly odd . . . Next he picked up the anorak and took a further selection of objects from each side pocket: another grubby handkerchief, car keys, a black key case, two ancient raffle tickets, a further 23p, and an empty white envelope addressed to Quinn, with the word ‘Bollox’ written on the flap in pencil. ‘Well, well,’ mumbled Morse to himself. His randy rabbits could have a field day with that, but he decided to give them no chance. Again he listed each item with great precision and again sat back. It was just as he had thought, but it was too late to go back to the lonely rooms in Pinewood Close that night. A bit too creepy, anyway.

  Having completed a synoptic review of the evidence before him, Morse systematically tackled each item severally. The wallet first: a driving licence, RAC membership card, Lloyds Bank cheque card, an outdated NHS prescription for Otosporin, the previous month’s pay-slip, a blue outpatients’ appointment card for the ENT department at the Radcliffe Infirmary, one five-pound note, three one-pound notes, and a Syndicate acknowledgement card on which were written two telephone numbers. Morse picked up the phone and dialled the first, but his ears were greeted only by a continuous high-pitched monotone. He dialled the second.

  ‘Hello? Monica Height here.’

  Morse hastily put down the receiver. It was naughty of him, he knew, but he had the feeling that Monica would not be very happy with him for the moment. Or with Constable Dickson. Yet it made him wonder exactly what the pattern of cross-relationships in the Syndicate had been.

  It was the buff-coloured right-hand half of the cinema ticket which next attracted Morse’s attention. Across the top were the numbers 102, beneath them the words ‘Rear Lounge’, and along the right edge, running down, the numbers 93550. On the back of the ticket was the design of a pentagram. Sombody must know which cinema it was, he supposed. Job for Lewis, perhaps . . . And then it struck him. Fool of a fool! It wasn’t 102 across the top at all. There was just the slightest gap between the o and the 2 and Morse saw the name of the cinema staring up at him: STUDIO 2. He knew the place – in Walton Street. Morse had bought a copy of the previous day’s Oxford Mail (wherein the Quinn murder had been briefly reported) and he turned the pages and found that Tuesday was the critics’ day for reporting to the citizens of Oxford on the quality of the entertainments currently available. Yes, there it was:

  It is all too easy to see why The Nymphomaniac has been retained for a further week at Studio 2. The afficionados have been flocking to see the Swedish sexpot, Inga Nielsson, dutifully exposing her 40" bosom at the slightest provocation. Flock on.

  Morse read the review with mixed feelings. Clearly, the critics hadn’t yet gone metric, and this particular aficionado couldn’t even spell the word. Yet big Inga seemed to Morse a most inviting prospect; and doubtless to many another like him. Especially perhaps when the boss was away one Friday afternoon . . .? He flicked through the telephone directory, found the number, and asked to speak to the manager who surprisingly turned out to be the manageress.

  ‘Oh yes, sir. All our tickets are traceable. Buff, you say? Rear lounge? Oh yes. We should be
able to help you. You see all the blocks of tickets are numbered and a record is kept at the start of each matinée, and then at six o’clock, and then at ten o’clock. Have you got the number?’

  Morse read out the number and felt curiously excited.

  ‘Just one minute, sir.’ It turned into three or four, and Morse fiddled nervously with the directory. ‘Are you there, sir? Yes, that’s right. Last Friday. It’s one of the first tickets issued. The doors opened at 1.15 and the programme started at 1.30. The first rear lounge number is 93543, so it must have been issued in the first five or ten minutes, I should think. There’s usually half a dozen or so waiting for the doors to open.’

  ‘You quite sure about this?’

  ‘Quite sure, sir. You could come down and check if you wanted to.’ She sounded young and pretty.

  ‘Perhaps I will. What film have you got on?’ He thought it sounded innocent enough.

  ‘Not quite your cup of tea, I don’t think, Inspector.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that, miss.’

  ‘Mrs. But if you do come, ask for me and I’ll see you get a free seat.’

  Morse wondered sadly how many more gift horses he’d be looking in the mouth. But it wasn’t that at all really. He was just frightened of being seen. Now if she’d said . . .

  But she said something else, and Morse jolted upright in his chair. ‘I think I ought to mention, Inspector, that someone else asked me the very same sort of thing last week and . . .’

  ‘What?’ He almost screamed down the phone, but then his voice became very quiet. ‘Say that again, will you, please?’

  ‘I said someone else had—’

  ‘When was this, do you remember?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure; sometime – let’s see, now. I ought to remember. It’s not very often—’

  ‘Was it Friday?’ Morse was excited and impatient.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to remember. It was in the afternoon, I remember that, because I was doing a stint in the ticket office when the phone rang, and I answered it myself.’

  ‘Beginning of the afternoon?’

  ‘No, it was much later than that. Just a minute. I think it was . . . Just a minute.’ Morse heard some chattering in the background, and then the manageress’s voice spoke in his ear once more. ‘Inspector, I think it was in the late afternoon, sometime. About five, perhaps. I’m sorry I can’t—’

  ‘Could have been Friday, you think?’

  ‘Ye-es. Or Saturday, perhaps. I just—’

  ‘A man, was it?’

  ‘Yes. He had a nice sort of voice. Educated – you know what I mean.’

  ‘What did he ask you?’

  ‘Well, it was funny really. He said he was a detective story writer and he wanted to check up on some details.’

  ‘What details?’

  ‘Well, I remember he said he’d got to put some numbers on a ticket his detective had found, and he wanted to know how many figures there were – that sort of thing.’

  ‘And you told him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I told him he could come round to see me, if he liked: but I felt a bit – well, you know, you can’t be too careful these days.’

  Morse breathed heavily down the phone. ‘I see. Well, thank you very much. You’ve been extremely kind, I think, as I say, I shall probably have to bother you again—’

  ‘No bother, Inspector.’

  Morse put down the phone, and whistled softly to himself. Whew! Had someone else found Quinn’s body and the cinema ticket before Tuesday morning? Long before? Saturday; the manageress had said it might have been Saturday. And it couldn’t have been Friday, could it? About five, she’d said. Morse looked quickly again at the Oxford Mail and saw the times: The Nymphomaniac. 1.30 to 3.20 p.m. Until twenty past three on Friday Quinn had been feasting his eyes on Inga Nielsson’s mighty bosom and few things, surely, would have dragged him out of Studio 2 before the film had finished. Unless, of course . . . At long last it struck him: the pretty strong probability that Quinn had not been sitting alone in Studio 2 that Friday afternoon.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AS MORSE STOOD with Lewis in Pinewood Close at 2 p.m. on the following afternoon, awaiting the arrival of Mrs Jardine, he tried with little success to draw a veil over the harrowing events of the morning. Mr and Mrs Quinn had trained down from Huddersfield, and somewhere amid the wreckage of their lives, somewhere amid the tears and the heartbreak, they had managed to find reserves of quiet dignity and courage. Morse had accompanied Mr Quinn senior to the mortuary for the formal identification of his son, and then spent over an hour with them both in his office, unable to tell them much, unable to offer anything except the usual futile words of sympathy. And as Morse had watched the tragic couple climb into the police car for Oxford, he felt great admiration – and even greater relief. The whole interview had upset him, and apart from a few brief minutes with a reporter from the Oxford Mail, he had not been in the mood to grapple with the perpetually multiplying clues to the last hours lived by Nicholas Quinn.

  Two men were repairing the street lamp in front of No 1, and Morse strolled over to them. ‘How long before they come and smash it up again?’

  ‘You never know, sir. But, to be truthful, we don’t get too much vandalism round ’ere, do we, Jack?’

  But Morse had no chance of hearing Jack’s views on the local yahoos, for Mrs Jardine drew up in her car and the three of them disappeared into the house, where for half an hour they sat together in the front room. Mrs Jardine told them as much as she knew about her former tenant: about his coming to see her in mid-August; about her chat with Bartlett (Quinn’s choice as referee); about his tidy habits and his punctuality in paying his rent; about his usual weekend routine; and about any and every thing Morse could think of asking her that might add to his picture of Mr Quinn alive. But he learned nothing. Quinn had been a model tenant, it seemed. Quiet, orderly, and no gramophone. Girlfriends? Not that she knew of. She couldn’t stop that sort of thing, of course, but it was much better if her tenants – well, you know, behaved themselves. The others – upstairs? Oh, they got along well with Mr Quinn, she thought, though she couldn’t really know, could she? What a good job Mrs Greenaway hadn’t been there on Tuesday, though! You could never tell – with the shock. Yes, that had been a real blessing.

  It was another chilly afternoon, and Morse got up to light the fire, turning the automatic switch on the side as far as he could. But nothing happened.

  ‘You’ll have to use a match, Inspector. Those things never seem to work. How the manufacturers get away with it—’

  Morse struck a match and the fire exploded into an orange glow.

  ‘Do you make any extra charge for gas and electricity?’

  ‘No. It’s included in the rent,’ replied Mrs Jardine. But as if to dispel any possible suspicion of excessive generosity, she hastily added that the tenants had to share the telephone bill, of course.

  Morse was puzzled. ‘I don’t quite follow you.’

  ‘Well, there’s a shared line between them, you see. There’s a phone upstairs in the Greenaways’ bedroom and one here in this room.’

  ‘I see,’ said Morse quietly.

  After the landlady had left them, Morse and Lewis went into the room where Quinn had been found. Although the curtains were now drawn back, it seemed no less sombre than when they were in it last; and certainly colder. Morse bent down and tried turning the switch on the gas fire. He tried again; and again. But nothing.

  ‘Probably no batteries in it, sir.’ Lewis unfastened the side panel, and produced two stumpy Ever Ready batteries, now covered with a slimy, mildewed discharge.

  The same Thursday morning Joyce Greenaway had been moved from the Intensive Care Unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital; and when one of her old schoolfriends came to see her at 2.30 p.m. she was in a pleasant ward, two storeys below, in the company of three other recently delivered mothers. Conversation was babies, babies, babies, and Joyce felt buoyant.
She should be out in a few days, and she felt a strangely satisfying surge of maternal emotions developing deep within herself. How she loved her darling little boy! He was going to be fine – there was no doubt of that now. But the problem of what to call him remained unresolved. Frank had decided that he didn’t really like ‘Nicholas’ all that much, and Joyce wanted him to make the choice. She herself wasn’t all that smitten with the name, anyway. It had been awfully naughty of her to mention the name in the first place. But she’d just had to see if Frank had suspected anything, and despite her earlier fears she now felt convinced that he hadn’t. Not that there was much to suspect.

  It had started just after Nicholas had come, at the beginning of September, when he’d always seemed to be running out of matches, or sugar, or milk tokens; and he’d been so grateful, and so attentive towards her – and she over six months gone! Then that Saturday morning when she had been out of milk, with Frank on one of his everlasting shifts, and she had gone down in her nightie and housecoat, and they had sat for a long time drinking coffee together in the kitchen, and she had longed for him to kiss her. And he had, standing beside her with his hands on her shoulders, and then, after delicately unfastening her housecoat, putting his right hand deep inside her nightie and gently fondling her small firm breasts. It had happened three times after that, and she’d felt a deep tenderness towards him, for he made no other demands upon her body than to pass the tips of his fingers silkily over her legs and over her swollen belly. And just that once she had done more than passively lean back and surrender herself to the exquisite thrill that his hands could bring to her. Just the once – when so diffidently and so lightly, her outstretched fingers had caressed him. Oh yes, so very, very lightly! She had felt an enormous inner joy as he had finally buried his head on her shoulder, and the things she’d whispered to him then were now the focus of her conscience-stricken thoughts. But Frank would never know, and she promised herself that never, never again would she . . . would she . . .

 

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