The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn

by Colin Dexter

  ‘Skip it,’ said Morse.

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘Is Miss Height still—?’

  ‘You can’t see her till lunchtime. Doc’s orders.’

  ‘Still in the Radcliffe?’

  ‘Yep. And you’ll be the second person to see her, I promise.’

  A young nurse put her head round the screens curtaining the bed on the women’s accident ward. ‘You’ve got another visitor.’

  Monica appeared drawn and nervous as Morse looked down at her, sitting up against the pillow, her ample hospital nightie softening the contours of her lovely body. ‘Tell me about it,’ said Morse simply.

  Her voice was quiet but firm: ‘There’s not much to tell, really. I called to see him about half-past eight. He was just lying—’

  ‘You had a key?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’ Her eyes seemed suddenly very sad, and Morse pressed the point no further. Whether Philip Ogleby had been to see The Nymphomaniac was a question still in doubt; but it was perfectly clear that the nymphomaniac had been to see him – at fairly regular intervals.

  ‘He was lying there—?’

  She nodded. ‘I thought he must have had a heart attack or something. I wasn’t frightened, or anything like that. I knelt down and touched his shoulder – and his – his head was – was almost in the fireplace, and I saw the blood—’ She shook her head, as though to rid herself of that horrific sight. ‘And I got blood and – and stuff, over my hands – and I didn’t know what to do. I just couldn’t stay in that terrible room. I knew there was a phone there but – but I went out into the street and rang the police from the phone box. I don’t remember any more. I must have stepped out of the box and just – fainted. The next thing I remember was being in the ambulance.’

  ‘Why did you go to see him?’ (He had to ask it.)

  ‘I – I hadn’t really had any chance to talk to him about – about Nick and—’ (Lying again!)

  ‘You think he knew something about Quinn’s murder?’

  She smiled sadly and wearily. ‘He was a very clever man, Inspector.’

  ‘You didn’t see anyone else?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Could there have been anyone else – in the house?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  Should he believe her? She’d told so many lies already. But there must have been some cause for the lies; and Morse was convinced that if only he could discover that cause he would make the biggest leap forward in the case so far . . . It was the Studio 2 business that worried him most. Why, he repeated to himself, why had Monica and Donald Martin lied so clumsily about it? And as he wrestled with the problem once again, he began to convince himself that all four of them – Monica, Martin, Ogleby, and Quinn – must have had some collective reason for being in Studio 2 that Friday afternoon, for he just could not bring himself to believe that their several paths had converged for purely fortuitous reasons. Even Morse, who accepted the majority of improbable coincidences with a curiously credulous gullibility, was not prepared to swallow that! Something – something must have happened at Studio 2 that afternoon. What? Think of anything, Morse, anything – it wouldn’t matter. Quinn had got there early, just after the doors opened. Then Martin had come in, sneaking into the back row and waiting and looking nervously around. Had he seen Quinn? Had Quinn seen him? The lights must have been dim; but not so dim as all that, especially as the eyes slowly accustomed themselves to the gloom. Then, what? Monica had come in, and Martin saw her, and they sat there together, and Martin told her that he had seen Quinn. What would they do? They’d leave. Pronto! Go on, Morse. If Martin had seen Quinn – and Quinn had not seen him – he would have left the cinema immediately, waited outside for Monica, told her that they couldn’t stay there, and suggested somewhere else . . . Yes. But where had Ogleby fitted in? The number on his ticket, some forty-odd numbers after Quinn’s, suggested (if the manageress had done her sums right) that Ogleby had not appeared in Studio 2 until about four or five o’clock. How did that fit into the pattern, though? Augh! It didn’t fit. Try again, Morse. Something must have frightened Monica off, perhaps. Yes. That was a slightly more promising hypothesis. Had she seen something? Someone? The cause of all the lies? After learning that Quinn had been in Studio 2, she had told another lie, and . . . Oh Christ! What a muddle his mind was in! The pictures flickered fitfully upon the wall, the faces fading and changing, and fading again . . .

  ‘You’ve been a long way away, Inspector.’

  ‘Mm? Oh, sorry. Just daydreaming.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘Among others.’

  On the table beside the bed was a copy of The Times, folded at the crossword page; but only three or four words were written into the diagram, and Morse found himself wondering and wandering off again. Wondering if Monica knew where the Islets of Langerhans were situated . . . Well, if she didn’t, the nurse could soon— Just a minute! His thinning hair seemed to be standing on end, and his scalp suddenly tingled with a thousand tiny prickles. Oh yes! It was a beautiful idea, and the old questions flooded his brain. In what sea are the Islets of Langerhans? When was George Washington assassinated? Who was Kansas-Nebraska Bill? In what year did R. A. Butler become prime minister? Who composed the Trout Quartet? By what name was the Black Prince known when he became king? The questions were all non-questions. George W. wasn’t assassinated, and K.-N. Bill wasn’t anybody; he was a Bill before the Senate. The same with all of them. They were questions which couldn’t be answered, because they were questions which couldn’t be asked. Morse had become besotted with trying to find out who had been at Studio 2, when they had been there, why they had been there. But what if they were all non-questions. What if no one had been in Studio 2? Everything in the case had been designed to mislead him into thinking that they had been there. Some of them – all of them, perhaps – wanted him to think so. And he had blindly stumbled along the gangway down the darkened cinema, groping his way like a blind man, and trying to see (O fool of a fool!) who was sitting there. But perhaps there was no one, Morse. No one!

  ‘Who did you see going into Studio 2, Miss Height?’

  ‘Why don’t you call me “Monica”?’

  The nurse put her head through the curtains, and told Morse that he really ought to leave now; he’d already gone way over his time. He stood up and looked down at her once more, and kissed the top of her head gently.

  ‘You didn’t see anyone going in to Studio 2, did you, Monica?’

  For a second there was hesitation in her eyes, and then she looked at him earnestly. ‘No. I didn’t. You must believe that.’

  She took Morse’s hand and squeezed it gently against her soft breast. ‘Come again, won’t you? And try to look after me.’ Her eyes sought his and he realized once more how desperately desirable she would always be to lonely men – to men like him. But there was something else in her eyes: the look of the hunted fleeing from the hunter; the haunted look of fear. ‘I’m frightened, Inspector. I’m so very frightened.’

  Morse was thoughtful as he walked the long corridors before finally emerging through the flappy celluloid doors into the entrance road by the side of the Radcliffe, where the Lancia stood parked on an ‘Ambulance Only’ plot. He started up the engine and was slowly steering through the twisting alleys that led down into Walton Street when he saw a familiar figure striding up towards the hospital. He stopped the car and wound down the window.

  ‘I’m glad to see you, Mr Martin. In fact I was just coming along to see you. Jump in.’

  ‘Sorry. Not now. I’m going to see—’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘No one’s going in to see her until I say so.’

  ‘But when—?’

  ‘Jump in.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  Morse shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not really, no. You please yourself. At least, you please yourself until I decide to take you in.’

>   ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘What it says, sir. Until I decide to take you in and charge you—’

  ‘Charge me? What with?’

  ‘Oh, I could think up something pretty quickly, sir.’

  The dull eyes stared at Morse in anxious bewilderment. ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘Of course I am, sir.’ He leaned across and opened the Lancia’s nearside door, and Donald Martin sullenly eased his long body into the passenger seat.

  The traffic was heavy as they drove up the narrow street, and Morse decided to turn right and cut straight across to Woodstock Road. As he stopped at yet another Pelican crossing, he realized just how close the Syndicate building was to Studio 2. And as the lights turned to flashing amber, he held the car on half-clutch as a late pedestrian galloped his way across: a bearded young man. He was in too much of a rush to recognize Morse; but Morse recognized him, and the last words that Monica had spoken re-echoed in his mind. In his rear mirror he could see that the man was walking briskly down the right-hand side of Woodstock Road towards the Radcliffe Infirmary, and he swung the Lancia sharp left at the next turning, furiously cursing the crawling stream of cars. He parked on the double yellow lines at the back of the Radcliffe, told Martin to stay where he was, and ran like a crippled stag to the accident ward. She was still there: still sitting up prettily amid the pillows as he peeped behind the screens. Phew! He rang up HQ from the Sister’s office, told Dickson he was to get there immediately, and stood there breathing heavily.

  ‘You all right, Inspector.’

  ‘Just about, thank you, Sister. But listen. I don’t want anyone to talk to Miss Height or to get anywhere near her. All right? And if anyone does try to visit her, I want to know who it is. One of my men will be here in ten minutes.’

  He paced impatiently up and down the corridor waiting for Dickson’s arrival. Like Pilgrim he seemed to be making but sluggish progress – up the hill of difficulty and down into the slough of despond. But there was no sign of whatsoever of Richard Bartlett. Perhaps Morse was imagining things.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THREE-QUARTERS OF an hour later, with the office clock showing half-past two, Morse’s irritation with the young philanderer was mounting towards open animosity. What a flabby character Donald Martin was! He admitted most things, albeit with some reluctance. His relationship with Monica had sputtered into sporadic passion, followed by the usual remorse and the futile promises that the affair had got to finish. Certainly it was he who had always tried to force the pace; yet when they were actually making love together (Morse drew the blinds across his imagination) he knew that she was glad. She could surrender herself so completely to physical love; it was wonderful, and he had known nothing like it before. But when the passion was spent, she would always retreat into indifference – callousness, almost. Never had she made any pretence about her reasons for letting him take her: it was purely physical. Never had she spoken of love, or even of deep affection . . . His wife (he was sure of it) had no suspicions of his unfaithfulness, although she must have sensed (of course she must!) that the careless rapture of their early married days had gone – perhaps for ever.

  How despicable the man was! His dark, lank hair, his horn-rimmed glasses, his long, almost effeminate fingers. Ugh! Nor was Morse’s dark displeasure dissipated as Martin repeated what he had already told Lewis about his whereabouts the previous evening. He’d been lucky to find a parking space in the Broad, and he’d gone to the King’s Arms first, where he thought the barmaid would probably remember him. Then to the White Horse, where he didn’t know anyone. Another pint. Then down to the Turl Bar. Another pint. No he didn’t often go out for a binge: very rarely in fact. But the last few days had been a nightmarish time. He’d found he couldn’t sleep at all well, and beer had helped a bit; it usually did. But why did Morse keep on and on at him about it? He’d gone nowhere near Ogleby’s! Why should he? What, for heaven’s sake, could he have had to do with Ogleby’s murder? He’d not even known him very well. He doubted if anybody in the office knew him very well.

  Morse said nothing to enlighten him. ‘Let’s come back to last Friday afternoon.’

  ‘Not again, surely! I’ve told you what happened. All right, I lied for a start, but—’

  ‘You’re lying now! And if you’re not careful you’ll be down in the cells until you do tell me the truth.’

  ‘But I’m not lying.’ He shook his head miserably. ‘Why can’t you believe me?’

  ‘Why did you say you spent the afternoon at Miss Height’s house?’

  ‘I don’t know, really. Monica thought . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Yes. She’s told me.’

  ‘Has she?’ His eyes seemed suddenly relieved.

  ‘Yes,’ lied Morse. ‘But if you don’t want to tell me yourself, we can always wait, sir. I’m in no great rush myself.’

  Martin looked down at the carpet. ‘I don’t know why she didn’t want to say we’d been to the pictures. I don’t – honestly! But I didn’t think it mattered all that much, so I agreed to what she said.’

  ‘It’s a bit odd to say you’d been to bed when all you’d done was sit together in the cinema!’

  Martin seemed to recognize the obvious truth of the assertion, and he nodded. ‘But it’s the truth, Inspector. It’s the honest truth! We stayed in the cinema till about quarter to four. You’ve got to believe that! I had nothing at all – nothing! – to do with Nick’s death. Nor did Monica. We were together – all the afternoon.’

  ‘Tell me something about the film.’

  So Martin told him, and Morse knew that he could hardly be fabricating such entirely gratuitous obscenities. Martin had seen the film; seen it some time, anyway. Not necessarily that Friday, not necessarily with Monica, but . . .

  Martin was convincing him, he knew that. Assume he was there that Friday afternoon. With Monica? Yes, assume that too. Sit them down there on the back row of the rear lounge, Morse. Martin had been waiting for her, and she’d come in. Yes, keep going! She’d come in and . . . and they had stayed after all! Who, if anyone, had they seen? No. Go back a bit. Who had Martin seen going in? No. Who had Monica seen? Going in? Or . . . ? Yes. Yes!

  Think of it the other way for a minute. Ogleby had gone into the cinema at about quarter to five, say. But he must have known all about Quinn’s ticket, mustn’t he? In fact he must have seen it. When? Where? Why had he made a careful freehand drawing of that ticket? Ogleby must have known, or at least suspected, that the ticket was vitally important. All right. Agree that Monica and Martin had seen the film together. But had Quinn gone? Or had someone just wished to make everyone else think that he’d gone? Who? Who knew of the ticket? Who had drawn it? Where had he found it, Morse? My God, yes! What a stupid blind fool he’d been!

  Martin had stopped talking minutes before, and was looking curiously at the man in the black leather chair, sitting there smiling serenely to himself. It had all happened, as it always seemed to do with Morse, in the twinkling of an eye. Yes, as he sat there, oblivious to everything about him, Morse felt he knew when Nicholas Quinn had met his death.

  HOW?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EARLY ON SATURDAY evening Mr Nigel Denniston decided to begin. He found that the majority of his Olevel English Language scripts had been delivered, and he began his usual preliminary task of putting the large buff-coloured envelopes into alphabetical order, and of checking them against his allocated schedule. The examiners’ meeting was to be held in two days’ time, and before then he had to look at about twenty or so scripts, mark them provisionally in pencil, and present them for scrutiny to the senior examiner, who would be interviewing each of his panel after the main meeting. Al-jamara was the first school on his list, and he slit open the carefully sealed envelope and took out the contents. The attendance sheet was placed on top of the scripts, and Denniston’s eyes travelled automatically and hopefully down to the ‘Absentee’ column. It was always a cause
of enormous joy to him if one or two of his candidates had been smitten with some oriental malady; but Al-jamara was a disappointment. According to the attendance sheet there were five candidates entered, and all five were duly registered as ‘present’ by the distant invigilator. Never mind. There was always the chance of finding one or two of those delightful children who knew nothing and who wrote nothing; children for whom the wells of inspiration ran dry after only a couple of laboured sentences. But no. No luck there, either. None of the five candidates had prematurely given up the ghost. Instead, it was the usual business: page after page of ill-written, unidiomatic, irrelevant twaddle, which it was his assignment to plough through (and almost certainly to plough), marking in red ink the myriad errors of grammar, syntax, construction, spelling and punctuation. It was a tedious chore, and he didn’t really know why year after year he took it on. Yet he did know. It was a bit of extra cash; and if he didn’t mark, he would only be sitting in front of the TV, forever arguing with the family about which of the channels they should watch . . . He flicked through the first few sheets. Oh dear! These foreigners might be all right at Mathematics or Economics or that sort of thing. But they couldn’t write English – that was a fact. Still, it wasn’t really surprising. English was their second language, poor kids; and he felt a little less jaundiced as he took out his pencil and started.

  An hour later he had finished the first four scripts. The candidates had tried – of course they had. But he felt quite unjustified in awarding the sort of marks that could bring them anywhere near the pass range. Tentatively he had written his own provisional percentages at the top right-hand corner of each script: 27%, 34%, 35%, 19%. He decided to finish off the last one before supper.

  This was a better script. My goodness, it was! And as he read on he realized that it was very good indeed. He put aside his pencil and read through the essay with genuine interest, bordering on delight. Whoever the boy was, he’d written beautifully. There were a few awkward sentences, and a sprinkling of minor errors; but Denniston doubted whether he himself could have written a better essay under examination conditions. He had known the same sort of thing before, though. Sometimes a candidate would memorize a whole essay and trot it out: beautiful stuff, lifted lock, stock and paragraph from one of the great English prose stylists; but almost invariably in such cases, the subject matter was so wildly divorced from the strict terms of the question set as to be completely irrelevant. But not here. Either the lad was quite exceptionally able, or else he had been extraordinarily fortunate. That wasn’t for Denniston to decide, though; his job was to reward what was on the script. He pencilled in 90%; and then wondered why he hadn’t given it 95%, or even 99%. But like almost all examiners, he was always frightened of using the full range of marks. The lad would fly through, anyway. Wonderful lad! Perfunctorily Denniston looked at the name: Dubal. It meant nothing to him at all.