The Secret of Annexe 3

by Colin Dexter

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not all that time, surely?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Didn’t you have any summer holiday?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sorry. I was off a fortnight.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Late July.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Up to the north of England.’

  ‘Whereabouts exactly?’

  ‘The Lake District.’

  ‘And where in the Lake District?’

  ‘Derwentwater.’

  ‘Did you send any postcards from there?’

  ‘A few. Yes.’

  ‘To some of your friends here – in Oxford?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Mr Wilkins. If I’d known I wouldn’t have asked, would I?’

  It was the first moment of tension in the interview, and Lewis (as Morse had instructed him) left things there for a while, saying nothing; and for a little while the silence hung heavily over the bare, rather chilly room at the rear of Police HQ in Kidlington.

  From the doorway Sergeant Phillips, who had never previously been present at such an interrogation, watched events with a touch of embarrassment. The prolonged period of silence seemed (as Phillips saw things) particularly to affect Wilkins, whose hands twice twitched at his hip pocket as if seeking the solace of a cigarette, but whose will-power appeared for the minute in adequate control. He was a large-boned, fairish-haired, pleasantly spoken man who seemed to Phillips about the last person in the world who would suddenly display any symptoms of homicidal ferocity. Yet Phillips was also aware that the two men in charge of the case, Morse and Lewis, had great experience in these affairs, and he listened to Lewis’s further questions with absorbed fascination.

  ‘When did you first meet Mrs Margaret Bowman?’

  ‘You know all about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I met her when I was working at the Locals. We had the use of the canteen and some of us used to have a meal there and that’s when I met her.’

  ‘When did you first meet her outside working hours?’

  ‘She had a night-school class, and I used to meet her for a drink afterwards.’

  ‘Quite regularly, you did this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you invited her back to your house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you made love to each other?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then she got a bit fed up with you and wanted the affair to stop – is that right, Mr Wilkins?’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘You were in love with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You still in love with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she in love with you?’ (Morse was delighted with such a beautifully modulated question.)

  ‘I didn’t force her along, did I?’ (For the first time a little hesitancy – and a little coarseness – had crept into Wilkins’s manner.)

  ‘Did you write this?’ Lewis handed over a Xeroxed copy of the letter found in Bowman’s jacket.

  ‘I wrote it, yes,’ said Wilkins.

  ‘And you still say you weren’t forcing her along a bit?’

  ‘I just wanted to see her again, that’s all.’

  ‘To make love to her again, you mean?’

  ‘Not just that, no.’

  ‘Did you actually see her that day – in South Parade?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you took her to your house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was anyone following you – in a car?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Mr Bowman knew all about you – we found that copy of the letter in one of his jackets.’

  Wilkins shook his head, as if with regret. ‘I didn’t know that – honestly, I didn’t. I always said to Margaret that whatever happened I never wanted to – well, to hurt anybody else.’

  ‘You didn’t know that Mr Bowman knew all about you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No. I stopped seeing her after that day I met her in South Parade. She said she couldn’t cope with the strain and everything, and that she’d decided to stay with him. It was a bit hard to take, but I tried to accept it. I hadn’t got much option, had I?’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  For the first time in the interview, Wilkins allowed himself a ghost of a smile, showing regular though nicotine-stained teeth. ‘I saw her,’ he looked at his wrist-watch, ‘just over an hour ago. She was in the house when you called to bring me here.’

  Morse closed his eyes momentarily in what looked like a twinge of intolerable pain; and Lewis began ‘You mean . . .?’

  ‘She came about a quarter to six. She just said she didn’t know what to do – she wanted help.’

  ‘Did she want money?’

  ‘No. Well, she didn’t mention it. Not much good asking me for money, in any case – and she knew that.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’

  ‘Not really, but I think she’d been in touch with her sister.’

  ‘She lives where?’

  ‘Near Newcastle, I think.’

  ‘You didn’t tell her she could stay with you?’

  ‘That would have been a mad thing to do, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Do you think she’s still in your house?’

  ‘She’d be out of there like a bat out of hell immediately we’d gone.’

  (Morse gestured to Sergeant Phillips, spoke a few words in his ear and dismissed him.)

  ‘So you think she’s off north somewhere?’ continued Lewis.

  ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I advised her to get on a boat or something and sail off to the continent – away from everything.’

  ‘But she didn’t take your advice?’

  ‘No. She couldn’t. She hadn’t got a passport, and she was frightened of applying for one because she knew everybody was trying to find her.’

  ‘Did she know that everybody was trying to find you, as well?’

  ‘Of course she didn’t! I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I’m sure you know why we’ve brought you here,’ said Lewis, looking directly across into Wilkins’s eyes.

  ‘Really? I’m afraid you’re wrong there.’

  ‘Well she did know that everybody was looking for you. You see, Mr Wilkins, she went back to her own house in Chipping Norton, at considerable risk to herself, to remove any incriminating evidence that she thought might be lying around. For example, she took the postcard you wrote to her from the Lake District.’

  There was a sudden dramatic silence in the interview room, as though everybody there had taken a sharp intake of breath – and was holding it.

  ‘It’s my duty as a police officer,’ continued Lewis, ‘to tell you formally that you are under arrest for the murder of Thomas Bowman.’

  Wilkins slumped back in his chair, his face ashen-pale and his upper lip trembling. ‘You’re making the most terrible mistake,’ he said very quietly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Tuesday, January 7th: p.m.

  When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.

  (MARK TWAIN)

  ‘AM I DOING all right?’ asked a slightly subdued Lewis as, five minutes after this preliminary interview, he sat in the canteen drinking coffee with Morse.

  ‘Very good – very good,’ said Morse. ‘But we’ve got to tread a bit carefully from now on because we’re getting to the point where we’re not quite sure of the ground – by which I mean it’s going to be difficult to prove one or two things. So let’s just recap a minute. Let’s go back to the beginning of things – Plan One, let’s call it. Bowman follows his wife up to Diamond Close that day, and later he confronts her with the evidence. She’s getting desperate anyway, and she goes along with the quite extraordinary plan he’s concocted. As we’ve seen he fixes up the phoney address and books a Ne
w-Year-Package-for-Two at the Haworth Hotel. She tells Wilkins that her husband’s gone off on a course and that they can spend all that time together; and he jumps at the chance. Once she’s safely in her room, she rings Wilkins – we still haven’t checked on that, Lewis – to give him the room number and soon she’s giving him the happy hour between the sheets. Then they both get ready for the fancy dress – which she’s already told Wilkins about, and which he’s already agreed to. If he hadn’t, Lewis, the plan couldn’t have worked. At about seven o’clock she makes some excuse to go out, when she gives the key to Bowman himself, who’s waiting somewhere near the annexe, and who’s dressed up in exactly the same sort of garb as Wilkins. Now Wilkins is a stronger man, I suspect, than Bowman ever was, and I should think that Bowman wouldn’t have taken any chance about letting the whole thing develop into a brawl – he’s probably got a knife or a revolver or something. Then the deed is done, and the next part of the deception begins. They could disappear from the scene straight away, but they agree that’s far too risky. Somebody’s going to find the body immediately if they do, because the “Ballards” as they called themselves won’t be there for the party. There’s virtually no risk in their being recognized anyway: they’re both in fancy dress for the rest of the evening – he’s got his face blacked, she’s wearing a veil; and the only time a busy receptionist had seen Margaret Bowman was when she’d been muffled up in a scarf and hood – with a pair of dark skiing glasses on, for all we know.’

  Lewis nodded.

  ‘That was the original plan – and it must have been very much as I’ve described it, Lewis; otherwise it’s impossible to account for several facts in the case – for instance, the fact that Bowman wrote a letter to his wife that would give them both a reasonable alibi – if the worse came to the worst. It wasn’t a bad plan, either – except in one vital respect. Bowman was beginning to know quite a bit about Wilkins, but he never quite knew enough. Above all, he didn’t know that Wilkins was beginning to dominate his wife in an ever increasing way, and that she’d become so sexually and emotionally dependent on him that she came to realize, at some point, that it was her husband, Tom Bowman, she wanted out of her life for good – not her lover. Maybe Bowman had become so obsessed with this revenge idea of his that she saw, perhaps for the first time, what a crudely devious man he really was. But for whatever reason, we can know one thing for certain: she told Wilkins what they were planning. Now you don’t need to be a genius – and I don’t think Wilkins is a genius – to spot an almost incredible opportunity here: the plan can go ahead as Bowman had devised it – exactly so! – but only up to the point when Bowman would let himself into the room. This time it would be Wilkins who’s waiting behind the door for Bowman with a bottle of whatever it was to smash down on the back of his head.’

  ‘Front, sir,’ murmured Lewis if only, for conscience’ sake, to put the unofficial record straight.

  ‘So that’s what happened, Lewis; and it’s Plan Two that’s now in operation. After murdering Bowman, Wilkins is all ready to go along to the party in exactly the same outlandish clothes as the murdered man would be found in. The two men were roughly the same height and everybody is going to assume that the man in the Rastafarian rig-out at the party is the same as the man in the Rastafarian rig-out later found dead on the bed in Annexe 3. Almost certainly – and this is in fact what happened – the corpse isn’t going to be found until pretty late the next day; and if the heating is turned off – as it was – and if the window’s left half-open – as it was – then any cautious clown like Max is going to be even cagier than usual about giving any categorical ruling on the time of death, because of the unusual room temperature. I’m not sure, myself, that it wouldn’t have been far more sensible to turn the radiator on full and close all the windows. But, be that as it may, Wilkins clearly wanted to give the impression that the murder had taken place as late as possible. Agreed?’

  ‘I can’t quite see why though, sir.’

  ‘You will do, in due course. Have faith!’

  Lewis, however, looked rather less than full of faith. ‘It’s getting a bit too complicated for my brain, sir. I keep forgetting who’s dressed up for what and who’s planning to kill who—’

  ‘“Whom”, Lewis. Your grammar’s as bad as Miss Jonstone’s.’

  ‘You’re sure he is the murderer? – Wilkins?’

  ‘My son, the case is over! There are bound to be one or two details—’

  ‘Do you mind if we just go over one or two things again?’

  ‘I can’t spell things out much more simply, you know.’

  ‘You say Wilkins wanted the murder to look as if it took place as late as possible. But I don’t see the point of that. It doesn’t give him an alibi, does it? I mean, whether Bowman’s murdered at seven o’clock or after midnight – what does it matter? Wilkins and Margaret Bowman were there all the time, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes! But who said they’d got an alibi? I didn’t mention an alibi. All I’m saying is that Wilkins had a reason for wanting to mislead everyone into believing that the murder was committed after the party was over. That’s obvious enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘But going back a minute, don’t you think that in Bowman’s original plan – Plan One, as you call it – it would have been far more sensible to have committed the murder – murder Wilkins, that is – and then to get out of the place double quick? With any luck, no one’s going to suspect a married couple from Chipping Norton – even if the body’s found very soon afterwards.’

  Morse nodded, but with obvious frustration.

  ‘I agree with you. But somehow or other we’ve got to explain how it came about that Bowman was found dressed up in identically the same sort of outfit as Wilkins was wearing at the party. Don’t you see that, Lewis? We’ve got to explain the facts! And I refuse to believe that anyone could have dressed up Bowman in all that stuff after he’d been murdered.’

  ‘There’s one other thing, sir. You know from Max’s report it says that Bowman could have been eating some of the things they had at the party?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well – was it just coincidence he’d been eating the same sort of meal?’

  ‘No. Margaret Bowman must have known – she must have found out – what the menu was and then cooked her husband some of it. Then all Wilkins had to do was just eat a bit of the same stuff—’

  ‘But how did Margaret Bowman know?’

  ‘How the hell do I know, Lewis? But it happened, didn’t it? I’m not making up this bloody corpse you know! I’m not making up all these people in their fancy dress! You do realize that, don’t you?’

  ‘No need to get cross, sir!’

  ‘I’m not bloody cross! If somebody decides to make some elaborate plan to rub out one side of the semi-eternal triangle – we’ve got to have some equally elaborate explanation! Surely you can see that?’

  Lewis nodded. ‘I agree. But just let me make my main point once again, sir – and then we’ll forget it. It’s this business of staying on after the murder that worries me: it must have been a dreadfully nerve-racking time for the two of them; it was very complicated; and it was a bit chancy. And all I say is that I can’t really see the whole point of it. It just keeps the pair of them on the hotel premises the whole of the evening, and whatever time the murder was committed they haven’t got any chance of an alibi—’

  ‘There you go again, Lewis! For Christ’s sake, come off it! Nobody’s got a bloody alibi.’

  The two men were silent for several minutes.

  ‘Cup more coffee, sir?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘Augh! I’m sorry, Lewis. You just take the wind out of my sails, that’s all.’

  ‘We’ve got him, sir. That’s the only thing that matters.’

  Morse nodded.

  ‘And you’re absolutely sure that we’ve got the right man?’

  ‘It’s a big word – “absolutely” – isn’t it?’ said Morse.

  CHAPTER FORTY<
br />
  Tuesday, January 7th: p.m.

  Alibi (n.) – the plea in a criminal charge of having been elsewhere at the material time.

  (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary)

  IT WAS, IN all, to be an hour or so before the interrogation of Wilkins was resumed. Morse had telephoned Max, but had learned only that if he, Morse, continued to supply the lab with corpses about twenty-four hours old, he, Max, was not going to make too many fanciful speculations: he was a forensic scientist, not a fortune teller. Lewis had contacted the Haworth Hotel to discover that one local call had in fact been made – untraceable, though – from Annexe 3 on New Year’s Eve. Phillips, who had returned from Diamond Close with the not unexpected news that Margaret Bowman (if she had been there) had flown, now resumed his duties in the interview room, standing by the door, his feet aching a good deal, his eyes idly scanning the bare room once again: the wooden trestle-table, on which stood two white polystyrene cups (empty now) and an ash-tray (rapidly filling); and behind the table, the fairish-haired, fresh-complexioned man accused of a terrible murder, who seemed to Phillips to look perhaps rather less dramatically perturbed than should have been expected.

  ‘What time did you get to the Haworth Hotel on New Year’s Eve?’

  ‘Say that again?’

  ‘What time did you get to the hotel?’

  ‘I didn’t go to any hotel that night—’

  ‘You were at the Haworth Hotel and you got there at—’

  ‘I’ve never played there.’

  ‘Never played what?’

  ‘Never played there!’

  ‘I’m not quite with you, Mr Wilkins.’

  ‘We go round the pubs – the group – we don’t often go to hotels.’

  ‘You play in a pop group?’

  ‘A jazz group – I play tenor sax.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Look, Sergeant. You say you’re not with me: I’m not with you, either.’

  ‘You were at the Haworth Hotel on New Year’s Eve. What time did you get there?’

  ‘I was at the Friar up in North Oxford on New Year’s Eve!’