Death is now my neighbour - Morse 12

by Colin Dexter

  'No drugs or pornography in the boot?'

  'No. Just a wheel-brace and a Labour Party poster.'

  Lewis looked at his watch: 8.35 p.m. It had been a long day, and he felt very tired. And so, by the look of him, did his chief. He got to his feet.

  'Oh, and two cassettes: Ella Fitzigerald and a Mozart thing.'

  ' Thing?’

  'Clarinet thing, yes.' 'Concerto or Quintet, was it?'

  Blessedly, before Lewis could answer (for he had no answer), the phone rang.

  Chief Superintendent Strange.

  'Morse? In your office? I almost rang the Red Lion.'

  'How can I help, sir?' asked Morse wearily.

  "TV - that's how you can help. BBC want you for the Nine O'clock News and ITV for News at Ten. One of the crews is here now.'

  'I've already told 'em all we know.'

  'Well, you'd better think of something else, hadn't you? This isn't just a murder, Morse. This is a PR exercise.'

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Thursday, 22 February

  For example, in such enumerations as 'French, German, Italian and Spanish', the two commas take the place of 'ands'; there is no comma after 'Italian', because, with 'and', it would be otiose. There are, however, some who favour putting one there, arguing that, since it may sometimes be needed to avoid any ambiguity, it may as well be used always for the sake of uniformity

  (Fowler, Modern English Usage)

  JUST AFTER LUNCHTIME on Thursday, Morse found himself once again wandering aimlessly around Number 17 Bloxham Drive, a vague, niggling instinct suggesting to him that earlier he'd missed something of importance there.

  But he was beginning to doubt it.

  In the (now-cleared) kitchen, he switched on the wireless, finding it attuned to Radio 4. Had it been on when the police had first arrived? Had she been listening to the Today programme when just for a second, perhaps, she'd looked down at the gush of blood that had spurted over the front of her night-clothes?

  So what if she had been? - Morse asked himself, conscious that he was getting nowhere.

  In the front living-room, he looked again along the single shelf of paperbacks. Women novelists, mostly: Jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, Danielle Steel, Sue Town-send ... He read four or five of the authors' opening sentences, without once being instantly hooked, and was about to leave when he noticed Craig Raine's A Choice of Kipling's Prose - its white spine completely uncreased, as if it had been a very recent purchase. Or a gift? Morse withdrew the book and flicked through some of the short stories that once had meant - still meant - so very much to him. 'They' was there, although Morse confessed to himself that he had never really understood its meaning. But genius? Christ, ah! And 'On Greenhow Hill'; and 'Love-o'-Women' - the latter (Morse was adamant about it) the greatest short story in the English language. He looked at the title page: no words to anyone; from anyone. Then, remembering a book he'd once received from a lovely, lost girl, he turned to the inside of the back cover: and there, in the bottom right-hand corner, he saw the pencilled capitals: FOR R FROM J - RML.

  'Remember My Love.'

  It could have been anyone though - so many names beginning with 'J': Jack, James, Jason, Jasper, Jeremy, John, Joseph, Julian ...

  So what?

  Anyway, these days, Morse, it could have been a woman, could it not?

  *

  Upstairs, in the front bedroom, he looked down at the double-bed that almost monopolized the room, and noted again the two indented pillows, one atop the other, in their Oxford blue pillowcases, whereon for the very last time Rachel James had laid her pretty head. The winter duvet, in matching blue, was still turned back as she had left it, the under-sheet only lightly creased. Nor was it a bed (of this Morse felt certain) wherein the murdered woman had spent the last night of her life in passionate lovemaking. Better, perhaps, if she had ...

  Standing on the bedside table was a glass of stale-looking water, beside which lay a pair of bluish earrings whose stones (Morse suspected) had never been fashioned from earth's more precious store.

  But the Chief Inspector was forming something of a picture, so he thought.

  Picture ... Pictures ...

  Two framed pictures only on the bedroom walls: the statutory Monet; and one of Gustav Klimt's gold-patterned compositions. Plenty of posters and suckers, though: and deer-hunting; and export of live animals; and French nuclear tests; pro the NHS; pro the whales; pro legalized abortion. About par for the course at her age, thought Morse. Or at his age, come to think of it.

  He pulled the side of the curtains slightly away from the wall, and briefly surveyed the scene below. An almost reverent hush now seemed to have settled upon Rachel's side of the street. One uniformed policeman stood at the front gate - but only the one - talking to a representative of the Press - but only the one: the one who had lived next-door to the murdered woman, at Number 15; the one with the pony-tail; the one whom Morse would have to interview so very soon; the one he ought already to have interviewed.

  Then, from the window, he saw his colleague, Sergeant Lewis, getting out of a marked police car; and thoughtfully he walked down the stairs. Odd - very odd, really - that with all those stickers around the bedroom, the one for the party the more likely (surely?) to further those advertised causes had been left in the boot of her car, where earlier Lewis had found it. Why hadn't she put it up, as so many other householders in the terrace had done, in one of her upper or lower windows?

  Aware that whatever had been worrying him had still not been identified, Morse turned the Yale lock to admit Lewis, the latter carrying the lunchtime edition of the Oxford Mail

  'I reckon it's about time we interviewed him,' began Lewis, pointing through the closed door.

  'All in good time,' agreed Morse, taking the newspaper where, as on the previous two days, the murder still figured on page one, although no longer as the lead story.

  POLICE PUZZLED BY KIDLINGTON KILLING

  THE BRUTAL murder of the physiotherapist Rachel James, which has caused such a stir in the local community, has left the police baffled, according to Inspector Morse of the Thames Valley CID.

  The murdered woman was seen as a quietly unobtrusive member of the community

  with no obvious enemies, and as yet the police have been unable to find any plausible motive for her murder.

  Neighbours have been swift to pay their tributes. Mrs Emily Jacobs, who waved a greeting just before Rachel was murdered, said she was a friendly, pleasant resident who would be sadly missed.

  Similar tributes were paid by other local inhabitants who are finding it difficult to come to terms with their neighbourhood being the scene of such a terrible murder and a centre of interest for the national media.

  For the present, however, Bloxham Drive has been sealed off to everyone except local residents, official reporters and a team of police officers carefully searching the environs of No. 17.

  But it seems inevitable that the street will soon be a magnet for sightseers, drawn by a ghoulish if natural curiosity, once police activity is scaled down and restrictions are lifted.

  A grim-faced Sergeant Lewis, after once again examining the white Mini still parked outside the property, would make no comment other than confirming that various leads were being followed.

  Rachel's parents, who live in Devon, have identified the body as that of their daughter, and a bouquet of white lilies bearing the simple inscription 'To our darling daughter' lies in cellophaned wrapping beside the front gate of No. 17.

  The tragedy has cast a dark cloud over the voting taking place today for the election of a councillor to replace Terry Burgess who died late last year following a heart attack.

  'Nicely written,' conceded Morse. 'Bit pretentious, perhaps ... and I do wish they'd all stop demoting me!' 'No mistakes?'

  Morse eyed his sergeant sharply. 'Have I missed something?'

  Lewis said nothing, smiling inexplicably, as Morse read through the article again.

  'Well
, I'd've put a comma after "reporters" myself. Incidentally, do you know what such a comma's called?'

  'Remind me.'

  'The "Oxford Comma".'

  'Of course.'

  'Why are you grinning?'

  'That's just it, sir. It's that "grim-faced". Should be "grin-faced", shouldn't it? You see, the missus rang me up half an hour ago: she's won fifty pounds on the Premium Bonds. Bond, really. She's only got one of 'em.'

  'Congratulations!'

  'Thank you, sir.'

  For a final time Morse looked through the article, wondering whether the seventeenth word from the beginning and the seventeenth word from the end had anything to do with the number of the house in which Rachel James had been murdered. Probably not. (Morse's life was bestrewn with coincidences.)

  'Is that pony-tailed ponce still out there?' he asked suddenly.

  Lewis looked out of the front window.

  'No, sir. He's gone.'

  'Let's hope he's gone to one of those new barbers' shops you were telling me about?' (Morse's views were beset with prejudices.)

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  She is disturbed

  When the phone rings at 5 a.m.

  And with such urgency

  Aware that one of these calls

  Will summon her to witness another death

  Commanding more words than she

  The outside observer can provide — and yet

  Note-pad poised and ready

  She picks up the receiver

  (Helen Peacocke, Ace Reporter)

  AT 2.25 P.M. THAT same day, Morse got into the maroon Jaguar and after looking at his wristwatch drove off. First, down to the Cutteslowe Roundabout, thence straight over and along the Banbury Road to the Martyrs' Memorial, where he turned right into Beaumont Street, along Park End Street, and out under the railway bridge into Botley Road, where just beyond the river bridge he turned left into the Osney Industrial Estate.

  There was, in fact, one vacant space in the limited parking-lots beside the main reception area to Oxford City and County Newspapers; but Morse pretended not

  to notice it. Instead he asked the girl at the reception desk for the open-sesame to the large staff car-park, and was soon watching the black-and-white barrier lift as he inserted a white plastic card into some electronic contraption there. Back in reception, the same young girl retrieved the precious ticket before giving Morse a VISITOR badge, and directing him down a corridor alongside, on his left, a vast open-plan complex, where hundreds of newspaper personnel appeared too preoccupied to notice the 'Visitor'.

  Owens (as Morse discovered) was one of the few employees granted some independent square-footage there, his small office hived off by wood-and-glass partitions.

  'You live, er, she lived next-door, I'm told,' began Morse awkwardly. Owens nodded.

  'Bit of luck, I suppose, in a way - for a reporter, I mean?'

  'For me, yes. Not much luck for her, though, was it?'

  'How did you first hear about it? You seem to have been on the scene pretty quickly, sir.'

  'Delia rang me. She lives in the Drive - Number 1. She'd seen me leave for work.'

  'What time was that?'

  'Must have been ... ten to seven, five to seven?' "You usually leave about then?'

  'I do now, yes. For the past year or so we've been working a fair amount of flexi-time and, well, the earlier I leave home the quicker I'm here. Especially in term-time when—' Owens looked shrewdly across his desk at

  Morse. 'But you know as much as I do about the morning traffic from Kidlington to Oxford.'

  'Not really. I'm normally going the other way - North Oxford to Kidlington.'

  'Much more sensible.'

  Yes...'

  Clearly Owens was going to be more of a heavyweight than he'd expected, and Morse paused awhile to take his bearings. He'd made a note only a few minutes since of exactly how long the same distance had taken him, from Bloxham Drive to Osney Mead. And even with quite a lot of early afternoon traffic about - even with a couple of lights against him - he'd done the journey in fourteen and a half minutes.

  'So you'd get here at about ... about when, Mr Owens?'

  The reporter shrugged his shoulders. 'Quarter past? Twenty past? Usually about then.'

  A nucleus of suspicion was beginning to form in Morse's brain as he sensed that Owens was perhaps exaggerating the length of time it had taken him to reach work that Monday morning. If he had left at, say, ten minutes to seven, he could well have been in the car park at - what? - seven o'clock? With a bit of luck? So why ... why had Owens suggested quarter past - even twenty past?

  You can't be more precise?'

  Again Morse felt the man's shrewd eyes upon him. You mean the later I got here the less likely I am to be a suspect?'

  You realize how important times are, Mr Owens - a sequence of times - in any murder enquiry like this?'

  'Oh yes, I know it as well as you do, Inspector. I've covered quite a few murders in my time ... So ... so why don't you ask Delia what time she saw me leave? Delia Cecil, that is, at Number 1. She'll probably remember better than me. And as for getting here ... well, that'll be fairly easy to check. Did you know that?'

  Owens took a small white rectangular card from his wallet, with a number printed across the top - 008 14922 - and continued: 'I push that in the thing there and the whatsit goes up and something somewhere records the time I get into the car park.'

  Clearly the broad-faced, heavy-jowled reporter had about as much specialist knowledge of voodoo-technology as Morse, and the latter switched the thrust of his questions.

  'This woman who saw you leave, I shall have to see her - you realize that?'

  You wouldn't be doing your job if you didn't. Cigarette, Inspector?'

  'Er, no, no thanks. Well, er, perhaps I will, yes. Thank you. This woman, as I say, do you know her well?'

  'Only twenty houses in the Drive, Inspector. You get to know most people, after a while.'

  You never became, you know, more friendly? Took her out? Drink? Meal?'

  'Why do you ask that?'

  'I've just got to find out as much as I can about everybody there, that's all. Otherwise, as you say, I wouldn't be doing my job, would I, Mr Owens?'

  'We've had a few dates, yes - usually at the local.'

  'Which is?'

  'The Bull and Swan.'

  'Ah, "Brakspear", "Bass", "Bishop's Finger" ...'

  ‘I wouldn't know. I'm a lager man myself.'

  ‘I see,' said a sour-faced Morse. Then, after a pause, 'What about Rachel James? Did you know her well?'

  'She lived next-door, dammit! Course I knew her fairly well.'

  'Did you ever go inside her house?'

  Owens appeared to consider the question carefully. 'Just the twice, if I've got it right. Once when I had a few people in for a meal and I couldn't find a corkscrew and I knocked on her back door and she asked me in, because it was pissing the proverbials, while she looked around for hers. The other time was one hot day last summer when I was mowing the grass at the back and she was hanging out her smalls and I asked her if she wanted me to do her patch and she said she'd be grateful, and when I'd done it she asked me if I'd like a glass of something and we had a drink together in the kitchen there.'

  'Lager, I suppose.'

  'Orangeade.'

  Orangeade, like water, had never played any significant role in Morse's dietary, but he suddenly realized that at that moment he would have willingly drunk a pint of anything, so long as it was ice-cold.

  Even lager.

  'It was a hot day, you say?' 'Boiling.'

  'What was she wearing?' 'Not much.'

  'She was an attractive girl, wasn't she?'

  'To me? I'm always going to be attracted to a woman with not much on. And, as I remember, most of what she'd got on that day was mostly off, if you follow me.'

  'So she'd have a lot of boyfriends?'

  'She was the sort of woman men would lust after, yes.'r />
  'Did you?'

  'Let's put it this way, Inspector. If she'd invited me to bed that afternoon, I'd've sprinted up the stairs.' 'But she didn't invite you?' 'No.'

  'Did she invite other men?'

  'I doubt it. Not in Bloxham Drive, anyway. We don't just have Neighbourhood Watch here; we've got a continuous Nosey-Parker Surveillance Scheme.'

  'Even in the early morning?'

  'As I told you, somebody saw me go to work on Monday morning.'

  'You think others may have done?' 'Bloody sure they did!'

  Morse switched tack again. "You wouldn't remember - recognize - any of her occasional boyfriends?' 'No.'

  'Have you heard of a man called Julian Storrs?' Yes.'

  You know him?'

  'Not really, no. But he's from Lonsdale, and I interviewed him for the Oxford Mail last year - December, I think it was - when he gave the annual Pitt Rivers Lecture. On Captain Cook, as I recall. I'd never realized how much the natives hated that fellow's guts — you know, in the Sandwich Islands or somewhere.'

  ‘I forget,' said Morse, as if at some point in his life he had known ...

  At his local grammar school, the young Morse had been presented with a choice of the 3 Gs: Greek, Geography, or German. And since Morse had joined the Greek option, his knowledge of geography had ever been fatally flawed. Indeed, it was only in his late twenties that he had discovered that the Balkan States and the Baltic States were not synonymous. Yet about Captain Cook's voyages Morse should (as we shall see) have known at least a little - did know a little - since his father had adopted that renowned British navigator, explorer, and cartographer as his greatest hero in life - unlike (it seemed) the natives of those 'Sandwich Islands or somewhere'.. .

  ‘You never saw Mr Storrs in Bloxham Drive?'

  In their sockets, Owens' eyes shot from bottom left to top right, like those of a deer that has suddenly sniffed a predator.

  'Never. Why?'

  'Because' (Morse leaned forward a few inches as he summoned up all his powers of creative ingenuity) 'because someone in the Drive - this is absolutely confidential, sir! - says that he was seen, fairly recently, going into, er, another house there.'

  'Which house?' Owens' voice was suddenly sharp.

  Morse held up his right hand and got to his feet. 'Just a piece of gossip, like as not. But we've got to check out every lead, you know that.'