The Complete Inspector Morse

by David Bishop

  Morse thinks he will go insane if he ever hears ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ or Mozart’s ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ again in his lifetime.

  The inspector sends away for two free CDs as part of an introductory offer run by a music club. He requests Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, recorded by Simon Rattle, and Strauss’ Four Last Songs, as sung by Jessye Norman. Morse already has other recordings of the songs by other sopranos.

  He occasionally sings along to Morning Service on Radio 4 in a bleating, uncertain baritone.

  Morse appreciates Owens’ taste in music. The dead man owned many Mahler CDs and had Das Lied von der Erde loaded into his player.

  The inspector turns on Classic FM but switches it off again when he recognises the Brandenburg Concerto No 2. Morse says he sometimes gets a little bored, even in the company of Bach.

  He recognises a tune Storrs hums as one of Strauss’ Four Last Songs.

  QUOTE-UNQUOTE: Morse obtains a first-class stamp from Lewis without paying before making a personal complaint: ‘You never really get something for nothing in this life. I never seem to, anyway.’

  Chief Superintendent Strange tries to acquaint Morse with the reality of modern policing: ‘This isn’t just a murder, Morse. This is a PR exercise.’

  The inspector leaves Lewis incredulous with these words: ‘Let’s stick to official procedure. I’ve always been in favour of rules and regulations.’

  Lewis orders egg and chips at an upper class hotel. Morse remonstrates, saying it’s a cordon bleu establishment. ‘Should taste good then,’ Lewis replies.

  SURVEILLANCE REPORT: This book gained much publicity for finally revealing Morse’s first name. Dexter had kept the secret for 21 years. There was speculation this would be the final Morse novel.

  Morse had flown only once in the decade preceding this book. The novel suggests he has never owned a camera in his life – contradicting comments in The Way Through the Woods. Morse gets his whodunit at Shepherd and Woodward. The works of Thomas Hardy always make him feel sad. Aristotle Lane is the inspector’s favourite Oxford street name. Morse is adamant that Kipling’s ‘Love O’ Women’ is the greatest short story in the English language. The inspector doesn’t believe in life after death.

  Morse is old friends with Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner for London. Isambard Kingdom Brunel is one of Morse’s heroes. Like Mrs Lewis, the inspector enjoys reading Agatha Christie. He collects first editions of pessimistic poet A E Housman.

  Lewis’ school never had a tie. The sergeant used to play cricket with one of the porters at Lonsdale. Lewis is, apparently, the only person with a key to Morse’s flat – so how does Mrs Green, his cleaner, get in twice a week?

  Strange says he will probably be retiring in a few months. For the second book running he seeks Morse’s help with the paperwork.

  In a poll of Inspector Morse Society members, Death is Now my Neighbour tied with two other novels as the third best book in the series.

  THE VERDICT: Death is Now My Neighbour is the penultimate novel in Dexter’s 13-book series, continuing a strong run of stories with its mixture of Town and Gown intrigue and assassination. Of course, this novel will always be remembered as the one that finally revealed Morse’s first name, but that shouldn’t obscure the merits of the story.

  The most worrying trend is the continued deterioration in the inspector’s health. In a previous novel a doctor predicted Morse would probably die of a heart attack within a few years. And that prophecy is soon to come true...

  THE REMORSEFUL DAY

  ‘We were always near the end.’ An old murder case is revived but Morse seems strangely reluctant to get involved. But three more murders force the ailing inspector into action, so that he can solve his final case.

  FIRST PUBLISHED: 1999

  STORYLINE: Morse flirts with 48-year-old nurse Yvonne Harrison while in hospital. She enjoys being the submissive partner in bondage sex games.

  A year later, the inspector is on sick leave. Strange visits Morse at home and gives him a newspaper clipping. An anonymous caller has twice contacted the police about the unsolved murder of Yvonne. She was found handcuffed and battered to death 12 months ago at her home in the village of Lower Swinstead. A ground-floor window had been smashed, suggesting burglary. At the time of the murder, Yvonne’s husband Frank was at his flat in London. Like Morse, Strange was a patient at the Radcliffe in years past. Strange says that the caller mentioned a man due for release from prison. The superintendent insists the case be re-opened. He planned to retire but stayed on after the sudden death of his wife.

  Strange receives a letter linking the case to a prisoner soon to leave Bullingdon Prison. The letter was posted in Lower Swinstead. Lewis reviews the case notes. Yvonne was not raped or tortured. She was murdered by blows from a tubular metal rod. Her clothes were neatly folded beside the bed. Nothing was stolen.

  A local builder, John Barron, said he twice tried to phone Yvonne on the night of the murder. At first the phone line was engaged. Thirty minutes later there was no reply. Frank had said that a man phoned him in London to say Yvonne was in trouble at home. Harrison’s car was being repaired so the investment manager got a train to Oxford that arrived at 10.50 pm and then got a taxi to Lower Swinstead. The driver, Patrick ‘Paddy’ Flynn, said all the lights in the house were on when they arrived, as was the burglar alarm.

  Morse returns to work. But he refuses to take on the investigation.

  Harry Repp leaves prison after serving time for receiving and selling stolen goods. The suspected burglar catches a bus to Bicester, followed by Lewis in an unmarked car. Repp gets into an express bus bound for Oxford, waiting at Bicester. Lewis runs to a shop to buy a newspaper before the bus leaves. When it arrives at Oxford, Repp is not on board.

  Lewis tells Morse about losing sight of Repp. Morse admits he too was following Repp – and Lewis. The detectives recall a car interposing itself between Lewis and the bus. The vehicle was full of black rubbish bags. Morse took a note of the car’s registration number, but failed to see Repp leave the bus. The car was reported missing two days earlier.

  The sergeant interviews Repp’s common-law wife, Debbie Richardson. She admits posting the anonymous letter for Harry. Morse has already questioned her; he has also been to the local pub asking questions. Pursuing a theory about Repp’s body being dumped at a tip, Morse goes to a landfill near Sutton Courtenay but decides against a search. Lewis finds himself one step behind the inspector but authorises the search.

  Morse wonders why the burglar alarm was sounding two hours after the murder, when it should have cut out after 20 minutes. The handcuffs and a file of personal letters went missing during the original investigation.

  A corpse is discovered at the landfill. It is taxi driver Paddy Flynn.

  The stolen car is found. The back seat is covered in blood and Repp’s body is in the boot. Forensic tests show Flynn died around noon on the day Repp was released from prison. Repp died two or three hours later. The murder weapon was probably a Stanley knife, a device commonly used by builders.

  The police find nearly £17,500 in cash hidden at Flynn’s flat. More than £14,000 is in a building society held by Repp’s partner Debbie. Morse believes a man was with Yvonne on the night of her murder; Repp was nearby and witnessed the events. Repp and Flynn were being paid for their silence. He believes the man in bed with Yvonne was Barron. Morse thinks the trio met after Repp’s release. The conspirators argued and Flynn was killed. Later Repp was murdered too. Barron is responsible for both slayings.

  The builder is working on a high ladder in Burford. The owner, Mrs Bayley, sees a jogger in red trainers pass by. Barron’s ladder tips sideways and the builder falls to his death. A secondary school pupil, Roy Holmes, says he accidentally kicked the ladder out from under Barron while riding a bicycle.

  Sarah Harris, it transpires, was at home with a sprained ankle the night Yvonne died. Barron’s fingerprints, meanwhile, are found in the stolen
car.

  Morse and Lewis learn Frank sired two illegitimate sons with Elizabeth Holmes when she lived at Lower Swinstead. One of them is Roy Holmes.

  At Barron’s funeral the builder’s wife talks to Frank. Lewis learns one of her children attends an expensive school. The fees are paid in cash. Some of the missing evidence from Yvonne’s murder is then returned to the police files. It includes part of a letter written by Morse.

  The inspector believes Frank was the conspiracy’s paymaster. A discarded pair of red trainers are traced to Simon. He admits being the jogger but denies killing Barron. Morse thinks Frank murdered the builder.

  Holmes’ lover and former school teacher Christine Coverley commits suicide. She was in bed with Roy when Barron died. Morse tells Lewis the evidence removed during the first murder case was taken by him. He admits removing a list of numbers proving to whom the police handcuffs were originally issued.

  Morse has a heart attack. He is taken to hospital but dies later that day. His will leaves his body to medical research and splits his estate of £150,000 between the British Diabetic Association, his former lover Sister Janet McQueen, and Sergeant Lewis. Strange takes over the murder investigation.

  Lewis finds a pair of police handcuffs at the inspector’s home. He also finds a final note from Morse, solving the murder of Yvonne. Sarah killed her mother with an arm-crutch. She voluntarily surrenders to the police. She caught her mother in bed with Barron and killed Yvonne. Sarah phoned her father in London for help and the conspiracy began. Frank admits murdering Barron.

  Strange retires. On his last day the superintendent says he removed the letter Morse wrote to Yvonne from the files, but missed a page. The handcuffs belonged to Strange. He was having an affair with Yvonne. Everything Morse did was to protect Strange. The superintendent admits faking the anonymous phone calls to get the case re-opened.

  UNLUCKY IN LOVE: Morse gets a phone message from Janet McQueen. She hopes to be back in Oxford soon and wonders if the inspector will take her to bed. She is away for a month tending her mother in Carlisle.

  Lewis finds keepsakes of Morse’s lost loves at the inspector’s home. There is a studio portrait of a young woman with a message on the reverse, signed ‘W’; a photograph of Sue Widdowson (from Last Bus to Woodstock) before she was arrested; a holiday photo and message from Ellie Smith (The Daughters of Cain); and a photograph and letter from Janet.

  DRINK UP, LEWIS: Morse drinks Glenfiddich as the novel opens. Strange arrives and they drink several more measures of whisky.

  After Repp disappears Morse and Lewis visit the Woodstock Arms. The sergeant buys the first round, getting a pint of Morrell’s Best Bitter for Morse and an orange juice for himself. Morse pays for the second round – but this consists of just a pint for himself. Lewis buys the third round.

  The inspector drinks three pints of Morrell’s Bitter at the Woodstock Arms. At home Morse has whisky and water.

  The detectives stop at the Randolph after seeing Flynn’s body. Morse has a pint of bitter while Lewis sips orange juice. The inspector asks whose turn it is to buy the next round. Discovering it is his, he berates Lewis for not reminding him to go home and take an insulin injection.

  The detectives visit an Irish theme pub after the discovery of Repp’s corpse. Morse drinks Guinness, saying it’s just the stuff to take away the taste of vomit. Lewis has orange juice. Strange arrives and bullies the sergeant into buying him a pint of Guinness. Later the landlord offers them free refills. Lewis breaks tradition and orders a pint of Guinness, astonishing Morse.

  The inspector abstains from alcohol for nearly an entire Sunday before having some Glenfiddich.

  Morse and Lewis go to the Cotswold Gateway Hotel after Barron’s death. The inspector proclaims his pint of cask-conditioned ale not bad. The sergeant drinks orange juice. He has to buy Morse’s second pint.

  The inspector invites Debbie to his home. He drinks one glass of chilled champagne while she has three.

  The detectives get drinks on the house after interviewing the landlord of the Maiden’s Arms. Morse orders a pint of Burton Ale for himself and orange juice for Lewis.

  The inspector has two pints of bitter at the Randolph and Glenfiddich at home afterwards. Lewis visits and they drink whisky.

  Morse abstains from drink for an entire day but cannot sleep that night and pours himself several glasses of single malt.

  As the case draws to a close, the detectives go to a pub where – wonder of wonders – Morse pays for the drinks. He has a pint of bitter while Lewis has fruit juice. On the way home the inspector gets dropped off at the Woodstock Arms. He walks home pleasingly over-beered and pours some Glenfiddich.

  When Lewis visits Morse in hospital, he takes the inspector miniatures of Glenfiddich. Morse sips them with water.

  After the inspector dies, Lewis drinks a toast to him using the last half-inch of Glenfiddich in a bottle at Morse’s home.

  ONE FOR THE MORGUE: Yvonne Harrison is beaten to death with a metal arm-crutch by her daughter Sarah. Paddy Flynn is stabbed to death by John Barron. Harry Repp is also stabbed to death by Barron. Barron falls to his death after having a high ladder pulled out from under him by Frank Harrison. Christine Coverley commits suicide by slashing her wrists. Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse dies after a massive heart attack.

  MURDERS: four. BODY COUNT: six.

  INCREASE YOUR VOCABULARY: A ringing telephone stops Morse speaking in tetchy stichomythia (alternate metrical lines). The inspector suggests someone calling themselves The Ringer could be a campanologist (bell-ringer). Lamp-posts outside a prison lean towards the building like guardsmen inclining their heads around a catafalque (a temporary stage for the coffin during a state funeral service). Morse turns his volume to maximum for the Act I anagnorisis (denouement) of a Wagner opera. The inspector is described as a reluctant hagiolater (worshipper of saints) after lighting two candles to St Anthony. Morse always delighted in sesquipedalian (many-syllabled) terminology.

  THE MANY LUSTS OF MORSE: The inspector dreams about Debbie Richardson wearing cheap black stockings, crossing her legs provocatively. Morse later invites her to his home, making specific requests about what she should wear – a brown and white vertically striped mini-dress, black stockings and no bra or panties. Morse says he wants to get his fill of lusting after her.

  CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS: Morse tackles the Times crossword when he returns to work. The final clue is ‘Stiff examination (7)’ – the answer is ‘autopsy’. The inspector completes the puzzle in ten and a half minutes, but says the crossword is usually easier on a Monday.

  As the end approaches, Morse sets a new personal best, completing the Times crossword in just six and a half minutes.

  YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, LEWIS: The sergeant helps Morse make one last breakthrough by reminding him about Sarah’s sprained ankle. The inspector notes this in a letter: ‘How many times has this happened? It was you, Lewis, who did the trick for me again!’

  MORSE DECODED: As a boy Morse dreamed of roaming the sands round Samarkand. At the age of ten he committed to memory the sequence of American presidents and the dates of England’s kings and queens. His mother left him a set of six cut-glass tumblers – the inspector only has three left after Strange breaks one.

  As a youth Morse read The Ringer by Edgar Wallace. The inspector’s parents possessed only a few books – a dictionary, a home health guide, a history of the First World War and The Life of Captain Cook. Whenever the young Morse found an unfamiliar word he could never sleep until he traced its meaning and origins in The Chambers Dictionary.

  Heartburn is a Morse family affliction. His mother never spoke of dying. She called it ‘crossing the river’. Morse sat beside his father when the latter died. The inspector’s father recited the Lord’s Prayer as if it were some sort of insurance policy.

  PORN TO BE WILD: The guiltiest Morse ever felt in his life was after a couple of police colleagues saw him flicking through a girlie magazine at a newsagent.

/>   SOPHOCLES DID DO IT: Morse speculates that Sarah bought a cinema ticket to provide an alibi for her brother. The inspector believes Simon killed his own mother after finding her in bed with Barron.

  LEWIS’ KITH AND KIN: The sergeant tries to help his son with some French language homework. Mrs Lewis is immersed in a soap opera on television. She bullies her husband into taking a Vitamin C tablet every breakfast.

  SOUNDTRACK: Schubert is one of the few composers who can bring Morse to tears, along with Wagner and Mozart’s works for clarinet. The inspector listens to a Lieder recital by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf on Radio 3 at the beginning of the novel. Strange tells Morse the Solti recording of Wagner’s Ring cycle is just the job for a long holiday.

  The inspector listens to Mahler’s Eighth while following Repp and Lewis.

  Morse savours the slow movement of Bruckner’s Seventh after his first visit to Sutton Courtenay.

  He selects Bruno Walter’s early recording of Die Walküre featuring singers Lauritz Melchior and Lotte Lehmann while Lewis goes to the landfill.

  The inspector is shocked to find a cassette of Wagner’s opera Parsifal in an unmarked police car. Lewis listens to it with considerable enjoyment as they drive back to Oxford. Morse borrows the cassette but his sergeant wants it back. Lewis has started listening to Wagner! He bought the Knappertsbusch recording from Blackwell’s, but doesn’t know how to say the conductor’s name.

  After Barron’s death Morse longs for music, but does not want to hear Mozart’s ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’, Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons or ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Vaughan Williams.

  Morse had originally chosen the hymn ‘O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go’ for his funeral before deciding to donate his remains to medical research.

  The inspector snorts derisively at a puzzle that suggests Puccini’s opera Tosca was composed by Verdi.

  QUOTE-UNQUOTE: Strange gives encouragement to the long-suffering sergeant: ‘Don’t you underestimate yourself, Lewis! Let others do it for you.’