by Colin Dexter
CHAPTER TWO
ALTHOUGH HE PRETENDED still to be asleep, Harry Josephs had heard his wife get up just before seven, and he was able to guess her movements exactly. She had put on her dressing-gown over her nightdress, walked down to the kitchen, filled the kettle, and then sat at the table smoking her first cigarette. It was only during the past two or three months that Brenda had started smoking again, and he was far from happy about it. Her breath smelt stale, and the sight of an ash-tray full of stubs he found quite nauseating. People smoked a lot when they were worried and tense, didn't they? It was just a drug really, like a slug of aspirin, or a bottle of booze, or a flutter on the horses . . . He turned his head into the pillow, and his own anxieties once more flooded through his mind.
‘Tea.’ She nudged his shoulder gently and put the mug down on the small table that separated their twin beds.
Josephs nodded, grunted, and turned on to his back, watching his wife as she stood in front of the dressing-table and slipped the nightdress over her head. She was thickening a little round the hips now, but she was still leggily elegant and her breasts were full and firm. Yet Josephs did not look at her directly as she stood momentarily naked before the mirror. Over the past few months he had felt increasingly embarrassed about gazing at her body, as if somehow he were intruding into a privacy he was no longer openly invited to share.
He sat up and sipped his tea as she drew up the zip at the side of her dark-brown skirt. 'Paper come?'
'I'd have brought it up.' She bent forward from the waist and applied a series of cosmetic preparations to her face. Josephs himself had never followed the sequence with any real interest.
'Lot of rain in the night.'
'Still raining,' she said.
'Do the garden good.'
'Mm.'
'Had any breakfast?'
She shook her head. There's plenty of bacon, though, if you—' (she applied a thin film of light pink to her pouting lips) '—and there's a few mushrooms left.'
Josephs finished his tea and lay back on the bed. It was twenty-five past seven and Brenda would be off in five minutes. She worked mornings only at the Radcliffe Infirmary, at the bottom of the Woodstock Road, where two years ago she had taken up her nursing career once again. Two years ago! That was just after . . .
She came across to his bedside, lightly touched her lips to his forehead, picked up his mug, and walked out of the room. But almost immediately she was back again. 'Oh, Harry. I nearly forgot. I shan't be back for lunch today. Can you get yourself something all right? I really must go and do some shopping in town. Not that I'll be late—three-ish at the latest, I should think. I'll try to get something nice for tea.'
Josephs nodded and said nothing, but she was lingering by the door. 'Anything you want—from town, I mean?'
'No.' For a few minutes he lay quite still listening to her movements below.
'By-ee!'
'Goodbye.' The front door clicked to behind her. 'Goodbye, Brenda.'
He turned the bedclothes diagonally back, got up, and peered round the side of the curtained window. The Allegro was being backed out carefully into the quiet, wet street and then, with a sudden puff of blue exhaust-smoke, was gone. To the Radcliffe was exactly 2.8 miles: Josephs knew that. For three years he had made the identical journey himself, to the block of offices just below the Radcliffe where he had worked as a civil servant after his twenty years' service in the forces. But two years ago the staff had been axed following the latest public-expenditure cuts, and three of the seven of them had been declared redundant, including himself. And how it still rankled! He wasn't the oldest and he wasn't the least experienced. But he was the least experienced of the older men and the oldest of the less experienced. A little silver handshake, a little farewell party, and just a little hope of finding another job. No, that was wrong: almost no hope of finding another job. He had been forty-eight then. Young enough, perhaps, by some standards. But the sad truth had slowly seeped into his soul: no one really wanted him any longer. After more than a year of dispiriting idleness, he had, in fact, worked in a chemist's shop in Summertown, but the branch had recently closed down and he had almost welcomed the inevitable termination of his contract. He—a man who had risen to the rank of captain in the Royal Marine Commandos, a man who had seen active service against the terrorists in the Malayan jungles—standing politely behind the counter handing over prescriptions to some skinny, pale-faced youth or other who wouldn't have lasted five seconds on one of the commando assault-courses! And, as the manager had insisted, saying 'Thank you, sir,' into the bargain!
He shut the thought away, and drew the curtains open.
Just up the road a line of people queued at the bus-stop, their umbrellas raised against the steady rain which filtered down on the straw-coloured fields and lawns. Lines he had learned at school drifted back into his mind, serving his mood and seeming to fit the dismal prospect before him:
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
He caught the 10.30 a.m. bus into Summertown, where he walked into the licensed betting-office and studied the card at Lingfield Park. He noticed that by some strange coincidence The Organist was running in the two-thirty, and Poor Old Harry in the four o'clock. He wasn't usually over-influenced by names, but when he recalled his lack of success through undue reliance on the form-book he suspected that it might have been more profitable if he had been. In the ante-post betting odds, The Organist was one of the co-favourites, and Poor Old Harry wasn't even quoted. Josephs walked along the series of daily newspapers affixed to the walls of the office: The Organist was napped in a couple of them; Poor Old Harry seemed to have no support whatsoever. Josephs allowed himself a rueful grin: probably neither of them was destined to be first past the post, but . . . why not? Take a chance, Harry boy! He filled in a square white betting-slip and pushed it over the counter with his money:
Lingfield Park: 4 p.m.
£2 win: Poor Old Harry.
A year or so previously, after purchasing two tins of baked beans from a supermarket, he had been given change for one pound instead of for the five-pound note he knew he had handed over. His protestations on that occasion had necessitated a full till-check and a nervy half-hour wait before the final justification of his claim; and since that time he had been more careful, always memorising the last three numbers of any five-pound note he tendered. He did so now, and repeated them to himself as he waited for his change: 546 . . . 546 . . . 546 . . .
The drizzle had virtually stopped when at 11.20 a.m. he walked unhurriedly down the Woodstock Road. Twenty-five minutes later he was standing in one of the private car-parks at the Radcliffe where he spotted the car almost immediately. Threading his way through the closely parked vehicles, he soon stood beside it and looked through the off-side window. The milometer read 25,622. That tallied: it had read 619 before she left. And if she now followed the normal routine of any sensible person she would walk down into Oxford from here, and when she got home the milometer would read 625 - 626 at the most. Finding a suitable vantage-point behind a moribund elm-tree he looked at his watch. And waited.
At two minutes past twelve the celluloid doors leading to E.N.T. Outpatients flapped open and Brenda Josephs appeared and walked briskly to the car. He could see her very clearly. She unlocked the door and sat for a few seconds leaning forward and viewing herself in the driving-mirror, before taking a small scent-bottle from her handbag and applying it to her neck, first to one side, then to the other. Her safety-belt remained unfastened as she backed none too expertly out of the narrow space; then the right blinker on as she drove out of the car-park and up to the Woodstock Road; then the orange blinker flashing left (left!) as she edged into the traffic departing north and away from the city centre.
He knew her next moves. Up to the Northern Ring Road roundabout, there cutting through Five Mile Drive, and then out on to the Kidlington Road. He knew his own move, too.
&nbs
p; The telephone-kiosk was free and, although the local directory had long since been stolen, he knew the number and dialled it.
'Hello?' (A woman's voice.) 'Roger Bacon School, Kidlington. Can I help you?'
'I was wondering if I could speak to Mr. Morris, Mr. Paul Morris, please. I believe he's one of your music teachers.'
'Yes, he is. Just a minute. I'll just have a look at the time-table to see if . . . just a minute . . . No. He's got a free period. I'll just see if he's in the staff-room. Who shall I say?'
'Er, Mr. Jones.'
She was back on the line within half a minute. 'No, I'm afraid he doesn't seem to be on the school premises, Mr. Jones. Can I take a message?'
'No, it doesn't really matter. Can you tell me whether he's likely to be at school during the lunch-hour?'
'Just, a minute.' (Josephs heard the rustling of some papers. She needn't have bothered, though, he knew that.) 'No. He's not on the list for lunches today. He usually stays but—'
'Don't worry. Sorry to have been a nuisance.'
He felt his heart pounding as he rang another number—another Kidlington number. He'd give the bloody pair a fright! If only he could drive a car! The phone rang and rang and he was just beginning to wonder . . . when it was answered.
'Hello?' (Just that. No more. Was the voice a little strained?)
'Mr. Morris?' (It was no difficulty for him to lapse into the broad Yorkshire dialect of his youth.)
'Ye-es?'
'Electricity Board 'ere, sir. Is it convenient for us to come along, sir? We've—'
'Today, you mean?'
'Aye. This lunch-taime, sir.'
'Er—er—no, I'm afraid not. I've just called in home for a second to get a—er—book. It's lucky you caught me, really. But I'm due back at school—er—straightaway. What's the trouble, anyway?'
Josephs slowly cradled the phone. That would give the sod something to think about!
When Brenda arrived home at ten minutes to three, he was clipping the privet-hedge with dedicated precision. 'Hello, love. Have a good day?'
'Oh. Usual, you know. I've brought something nice for tea, though.'
'That's good news.'
'Have any lunch?'
'Mouthful of bread and cheese.'
She knew he was telling a lie, for there was no cheese in the house. Unless, of course, he'd been out again . . . ? She felt a sudden surge of panic as she hurried inside with her shopping-bags.
Josephs continued his meticulous clippings along the tall hedge that separated them from next door. He was in no hurry, and only when he was immediately alongside the off-side front door of the car did he casually glance at the fascia dials. The milometer read 25,633.
As he always did, he washed up after their evening meal by himself, but he postponed one small piece of investigation until later, for he knew that as surely as night follows day his wife would make some excuse for retiring early to bed. Yet, strange as it seemed, he felt almost glad: it was he who was now in control of things. (Or, at least, that is what he thought.)
She was on cue, all right—just after the news headlines on BBC1: 'I think I'll have a bath and an early night, Harry. I—I feel a bit tired.'
He nodded understandingy. 'Like me to bring you a cup of Ovaltine?'
'No, thanks. I shall be asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. But thanks anyway.' She put her hand on his shoulder and gave it the slightest squeeze, and for a few seconds her face was haunted by the twin spectres of self-recrimination and regret.
When the water had finished running in the bathroom, Josephs went back into the kitchen and looked in the waste-bin. There, screwed up into small balls and pushed right to the bottom of the debris, he found four white paper-bags. Careless, Brenda! Careless! He had checked the bin himself that same morning, and now there were four newcomers, four white paper-bags, all of them carrying the name of the Quality supermarket at Kidlington.
After Brenda had left the next morning, he made himself some coffee and toast, and sat down with the Daily Express. Heavy overnight rain at Lingfieid Park had upset a good many of the favourites, and there were no congratulatory columns to the wildly inaccurate prognostications of the racing tipsters. With malicious glee he noticed that The Organist had come seventh out of eight runners; and Poor Old Harry—had won! At sixteen to one! Whew! It hadn't been such a blank day after all.
CHAPTER THREE
THE LAST LESSON of the week could hardly have provided a more satisfactory envoi. There were only five of them in the O-Level music group, all reasonably anxious to work hard and to succeed, all girls; and as they sat forward awkwardly and earnestly, their musical scores of Piano Sonata Opus 90 on their knees, Paul Morris vaguely reminded himself how exquisitely Gilels could play Beethoven. But his aesthetic sense was only minimally engaged, and not for the first time during the past few weeks he found himself wondering whether he was really cut out for teaching. Doubtless, these particular pupils would all get decent O-Level grades, for he had sedulously drilled the set works into them—their themes, their developments and recapitulations. But there was, he knew, little real radiance either in his own exposition of the works or in his pupils' appreciation of them; and the sad truth was that what until so recently had been an all-consuming passion was now becoming little more than pleasurable background listening. From Music to Muzac—in three short months.
Morris had moved from his previous post (it was almost three years ago now) primarily to try to forget that terrible day when the young police constable had come to tell him that his wife had been killed in a car accident; when he had gone along to the primary school to collect Peter and watched the silent, tragic tears that sprang from the boy's eyes; and when he had wrestled with that helpless, baffled anger against the perversity and cruelty of the Fates which had taken his young wife from him—an anger which over those next few dazed and despairing weeks had finally settled into a firm resolve at all costs to protect his only child whenever and wherever he could. The boy was something—the only thing—that he could cling to. Gradually, too, Morris had become convinced that he had to get away, and his determination to move—to move anywhere—had grown into an obsession as weekly the Posts Vacant columns in The Times Educational Supplement reminded him of new streets, new colleagues, a new school—perhaps even a new life. And so finally he had moved to the Roger Bacon Comprehensive School on the outskirts of Oxford, where his breezy interview had lasted but fifteen minutes, where he'd immediately found a quiet little semi-detached to rent, where everyone was very kind to him—but where his life proved very much the same as before. At least, until he met Brenda Josephs.
It was through Peter that he had established contact with St. Frideswide's. One of Peter's friends was a keen member of the choir, and before long Peter had joined, too. And when the aged choirmaster had finally retired it was common knowledge that Peter's father was an organist, and the invitation asking him to take over was accepted without hesitation.
Gilels was lingering pianissimo over the last few bars when the bell sounded the end of the week's schooling. One of the class, a leggy, large-boned, dark-haired girl, remained behind to ask if she could borrow the record for the week-end. She was slightly taller than Morris, and as he looked into her black-pencilled, languidly amorous eyes he once more sensed a power within himself which until a few months previously he could never have suspected. Carefully he lifted the record from the turntable and slipped it smoothly into its sleeve.
'Thank you,' she said softly.
'Have a nice week-end, Carole.'
'You, too, sir.'
He watched her as she walked down the steps from the stage and clattered her way across the main hall in her high wedge-heeled shoes. How would the melancholy Carole be spending her week-end? he wondered. He wondered, too, about his own.
Brenda had happened just three months ago. He had seen her on many occasions before, of course, for she always stayed behind after the Sunday morning service to take her husband home. But tha
t particular morning had not been just another occasion. She had seated herself, not as usual in one of the pews at the back of the church, but directly behind him in the choir-stalls; and as he played he'd watched her with interest in the organ-mirror, her head slightly to one side, her face set in a wistful, half-contented smile. As the deep notes died away around the empty church, he had turned towards her.
'Did you like it?'
She had nodded quietly and lifted her eyes towards him.
'Would you like me to play it again?'
'Have you got time?'
'For you I have.' Their eyes had held then, and for that moment they were the only two beings alive in the world.
'Thank you,' she whispered.
Remembrance of that first brief time together was even now a source of radiant light that shone in Morris's heart. Standing by his side she had turned over the sheet-music for him, and more than once her arm had lightly brushed his own . . .
That was how it had begun, and how, he told himself, it had to end. But that couldn't be. Her face haunted his dreams that Sunday night, and again through the following nights she would give his sleeping thoughts no rest. On the Friday of the same week he had rung her at the hospital. A bold, irrevocable move. Quite simply he had asked her if he could see her some time—that was all; and just as simply she had answered 'Yes, of course you can'—words that re-echoed round his brain like the joyous refrain of the Seraphim.
In the weeks that followed, the frightening truth had gradually dawned on him: he would do almost anything to have this woman for his own. It was not that he bore any malice against Harry Josephs. How could he? Just a burning, irrational jealousy, which no words from Brenda, none of her pathetic pleas of reassurance could assuage. He wished Josephs out of the way—of course he did! But only recently had his conscious mind accepted the stark reality of his position. Not only did he wish Josephs out of the way: he would be positively happy to see him dead.