Inspector Morse 13 The Remorseful Day

by Colin Dexter

  the bed."

  "Couldn't the murderer have folded them? Doesn't take me long to fold a pair

  of pyjamas."

  Lewis shook his head slowly.

  "Naked, gagged, hand- cuffed .. ."

  "Yes," agreed Morse.

  "Don't forget the handcuffs."

  "Not much good remembering them, either."

  "No. I recall they were, er, not to be found later on."

  "But all the proper procedures were gone through. Left on her wrists till

  the PM, and the path people did all the usual checks blood, fib res hairs.

  Couldn't come up with anything though, could they? And they checked them for

  prints job they'd normally leave to the SO COs Bit of a muddle, by the sound

  of it. Probably that's how they came to be lost."

  "Temporarily misplaced, Lewis."

  "Not the only things that went missing, were they? There was a file of

  personal letters . .."

  "I doubt they'd ever have been much help."

  "We still didn't do a very good job."

  "Bloody awful job."

  "If only we knew who rang Frank Harrison in London that night!"

  "One of his children, the builder, the burglar, the lover, the

  candlestick-maker? I'm like you: I don't know. But unlike you I'm not

  concerned with the case."

  Lewis looked shrewdly into Morse's face. You're interested though, I think.

  "

  Morse got to his feet.

  "Just give me a lift down to Oddbins. I'm out of Glenfiddich."

  The phone rang as they were leaving.

  "Morse?" (Strange's unmistakable voice. ) "Sir?"

  "Listen to this!"

  "Not me, sir. It just so happens that Sergeant Lewis ' 'morse! But the

  receiver had already been transferred; and although aware of the explosions

  at the other end of the line, Morse walked out into the corridor and along to

  the Gentle- men's loo.

  On his return, the telephone conversation had concluded.

  "They've found a body. Out at Sutton Courtenay."

  Just like I said. "

  "No, sir. Not just like you said. You told the people there not to worry

  any more. It was me who told them to keep looking."

  "Well done! You were right and I was wrong. I thought Repp was due for his

  comeuppance and probably he thought so too. But I just didn't follow it

  through. That letter he wrote from prison was a cry for help in a way,

  asking us to keep a protective eye on him. Which we did, of course. Or

  rather which we didn't."

  Suddenly he gave his chest a vigorous massage with his right hand.

  "OK, sir?"

  "Bit of indigestion."

  "You sure?"

  "They've found the body, you say?"

  "Half an hour ago."

  "You'd better get off then."

  "Will you come along?"

  "Certainly not. I'm not worried about him any longer. He was a cheap crook,

  a part-time burglar, a nasty piece of work should have been rumbled years

  ago. Good riddance. Harry Repp!"

  121

  chapter twenty-seven In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it

  seemed always afternoon, All round the coast the languid air did swoon,

  Breathing like one that hath a weary dream (Tennyson, The Lotus-eaters) after

  an excited, if somewhat dispirited, Lewis had dropped him off at Oddbins,

  Morse picked up two bottles of single-malt Glenfiddich (' 4 Off When Two Are

  Purchased'); then walked further down the Summertown shops to Boots, where he

  bought two large boxes of Alka-Seltzer (sixty tablets in all) and two packets

  of extra-strength BiSoDoL (sixty tablets in all), reckoning that such

  additional medicaments might keep him comparatively fit for a further

  fortnight. But in truth his acid-indigestion and heartburn were getting even

  worse. All right, it was a family affliction; but it gave little comfort to

  know that father and paternal grandfather had both endured agonies from

  hiatus hernia a condition not desperately serious perhaps, but certainly far

  more painful than it sounded. The cure so simple! had been repeatedly

  advocated by his GP: "Just pack up the booze!" And indeed Morse had

  occasionally followed such advice for a couple of days or so; only to assume,

  upon the temporary disappearance of the symptoms, that a permanent cure had

  been effected; and that a resumption of his erstwhile modus vi vendi was

  thenceforth justified.

  He would try again soon.

  Not today, though.

  He walked down South Parade to the Woodstock Road, turned right, and soon

  found himself at the Woodstock Arms, where the landlord rightly prided

  himself on a particularly fine pint of Morrell's Bitter of which Morse took

  liberal advantage that early Saturday lunchtime. The printed menu and the

  chalked-up specials on the board were strong temptations to many a man. But

  not to Morse. These past two decades he had almost invariably taken his

  lunchtime calories in liquid form; and he did so now. Most of the habitues

  he knew by sight, if not by name; but after a few perfunctory nods he settled

  himself in a corner of the wall-seating, and thought of many things . . .

  Instinctively (or so he told himself) he'd known that Harry Repp was doomed

  to die from the moment he'd left Bulling- don. Harry had known too much.

  Harry had been a bit-player - a bit more than a bit-player in the drama that

  had been enacted on the evening Yvonne Harrison was murdered. But Harry had

  decided to remain silent. And the reason for such silence was probably the

  reason for many a silence money.

  Someone had ensured that Harry's discreet silence had been profitably

  rewarded. On his release Harry had probably decided that the goose could

  soon be persuaded to change the golden eggs from medium to large. But he'd

  miscalculated: something had happened probably there'd been some

  communication during the last few weeks of his imprisonment that had cast a

  cloud of fear over his impending release; justifiable fear, since he now lay

  stiff and cold amidst the trash and the filth of Sutton Courtenay.

  It seemed a predictable outcome though far from an in- evitable one, and

  Morse felt no real cause for any self- recrimination. Lewis would go along

  there was probably there already; would join the SO COs and supervise the

  necessary procedures; would draw a few tentative, temporary 123

  conclusions; would report to Strange; and all in all would probably do as

  good a job as any other member of the Thames Valley CID in seeking the motive

  for Repp's murder.

  He ordered himself a third pint, conscious that the world seemed a

  considerably kindlier place than heretofore. He even found himself listening

  to the topics of conversation around him: darts, bar-billiards, Aunt Sally,

  push-penny . . and perhaps (he thought) his own life might have been

  marginally enriched by such innocent divertissements.

  Perhaps not, though.

  Leaving the Woodstock Arms, he slowly walked the few hundred yards north to

  Squitchey Lane, where he turned right towards his bachelor flat.

  No messages on the Ansafone; no letters or notes pushed through the

  letter-box. A free afternoon! - for which, in his believing days, he would

  have given thanks to the Almighty. His dark-blue Oxford Univers
ity diary was

  beside the phone, and he looked through the following week's engagements.

  Not much there either, really: just that diabetes review at the Radcliffe

  Infirmary at 9 a. m. on Monday morning. Only an hour or so that; but the

  imminent appointment disturbed him slightly. He had promised his consultant,

  and promised him- self, that he would present a faithful record of his

  blood-sugar measurements over the previous fortnight. But he had failed to

  do so, and there was little he could now do to remedy the situation except to

  take half a dozen such measurements in the remaining interval of thirty-six

  hours and to extrapolate backwards therefrom, in order to present a neatly

  tabulated series of satisfactory readings. He'd done it before and he would

  do it again.

  Kem Problem.

  He half-filled a tumbler with Glenfiddich, then topped it up with

  commensurate tap-water. Such dilution (a recent innovation) would, as Morse

  knew, mark him out in the eyes of many

  a Scot as a sacrilegious Sassenach. But according to his GP, the liver

  preferred things that way; and Morse's liver (according to the same source)

  was in need of a bit of tender loving care, along with his heart, kidneys,

  stomach, pancreas, lungs.

  Lungs. Well, at least he'd finally managed to pack up smoking, a filthy

  habit, as he now recognized; but one which had given him almost as much

  pleasure as any other vice in life. And he knew that were he privy to the

  date and time of an early Judgement Day (the following Monday, say) he would

  set off immediately to the nearest news agent to buy in a store of

  cigarettes. And he almost did so now, as if he could already hear the

  trumpets sounding on the other side.

  In the living room, he selected Bruno Walter's early recording of the

  Walkiire, with Lauritz Melchior and Lotte Lehmann singing the roles of

  Siegmund and Sieglinde. Wonderful! So Morse turned the volume-control to

  maximum as he listened to the anagnorisis at the end of Act I, and heard

  neither of the telephone calls made to his ex-directory number that

  afternoon, conscious only that he was falling deliciously asleep as the

  benighted brother and sister rushed off into the forest to beget Siegfried .

  It was coming up to 2. 45 p. m. when Morse jerked abruptly awake,

  disappointed that his semi-erotic dream was prematurely terminated: a dream

  of a woman seated intimately close to him a dream of Debbie Richardson, with

  legs provocatively crossed, the texture of the cheap black stockings tautly

  stretched along her upper thighs.

  Wonderful!

  But even as she'd leaned towards him, he'd voiced his deep anxiety: "Aren't

  you frightened someone will come in?"

  "No one'll come in. Harry won't be comin' back. Ever. I'll get you another

  drink. Just stay where you are."

  So Morse had stayed where he was, awaiting her return with

  ^S

  impatience, and with an empty glass beside him. And when he awoke, he was

  still sitting there alone, awaiting her return with impatience, and with an

  empty glass beside him.

  Wagner had long since run his course, and finally Morse got to his feet and

  turned off the CD player. He felt tired, hot, thirsty and a sharp pain in

  his chest betokened another bout of indigestion. In the bathroom, he cleaned

  his teeth and dropped three Alka-Seltzer tablets into a glass of water; then

  he filled up the wash-basin and thrice dipped his head into the cold water.

  The tablets had fizzed and dissolved and he downed the dosage at a single

  draught. Thence to his bed- room, where he took his blood-sugar level: 24.

  8 - almost off the scale. His own fault, since he'd forgotten to inject

  himself at lunchtime ~ making up for it now, though, with an extra four units

  ofActrapid insulin. Just to be on the safe side. Back in the bathroom, he

  drank two further glasses of cold water, acknowledging how surprisingly

  pleasing was its taste, since water had seldom figured prominently in his

  drinking habits. Finally he decided that a couple of Paracetamol would be

  appropriate. So he shook out the tablets on to his palm; shook out three in

  fact and decided to take the three. Just to be on the safe side.

  Suddenly he was feeling much better, his faith in this curious combination of

  assorted medicaments seemingly justified once more.

  Suddenly, too, he decided to follow his consultant's somewhat despairing

  exhortation to take a bit of exercise occasionally. Why not? It was a warm

  and gentle summer's day.

  In the small entrance hall, he noticed the figure '2' on the window of his

  Ansafone. Pressing

  "Play' he listened to the first message: Morse? Janet! Ten-fast one

  Saturday afternoon. Good news! I hope to be back in Oxford on the 14th. So

  you'll be able to take me somewhere? To bed perhaps? Give me a ring soon.

  Bye!

  Any semi-remembrance of Debbie Richardson was lingering no longer, and Morse

  smiled happily to himself. He would ring immediately. But the second

  message had followed with- out a pause, and he was destined not to ring

  Sister McQueen that afternoon.

  Instead he dialled HQ and finally got through to the young PC who had driven

  him out to Bullingdon the previous morning in an unmarked police car.

  "Get the same car, Kershaw - nice, comfy seats and pick me up from home quam

  ceterrime."

  "Pardon?"

  "Smartish!"

  "Sir, I was just going off duty when you rang and I've ' " Make it five

  minutes! "

  Deeply puzzled. Morse walked back into the sitting-room where he sat in the

  black-leather armchair; and where his right hand reached for whisky once more

  as mentally he rehearsed that second, quite extraordinary message on the

  Ansafone: Sir? Lewis here half-fast one, nearly I'm out at Sutton Courtenay.

  Please come along as soon as you can -for my sake if nobody else's. I think

  you should get here before we move the body. You see, sir, it isn't the body

  of Harry Repp.

  127

  chapter twenty-eight Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio

  (Shakespeare, HamUf) it was just after 4 p. m. that same Saturday afternoon

  when Morse and Lewis finally sat down together in the requisitioned office of

  the site manager.

  "Straightaway I knew it wasn't him, sir, when I saw his arms. Harry Repp had

  this tattoo: all twisted chains and anchors, you know a sort of. . ."

  Lewis undulated his hands vertically, as if tracing a woman's willowy figure.

  "Convoluted involvement," suggested Morse gently.

  "Well, this fellow's not got any, has he? Anyway he's much smaller, only

  what? - five-four, five-five. Doesn't weigh much either eight, nine stone?

  No more."

  Morse nodded.

  "And he's got different coloured hair, and he's got a port-wine stain on his

  neck, and he's not wearing Repp's clothes, and his shoes are three sizes

  smaller ' " All right. I wasn't expecting the Queen's Medal! "

  At which Eddie Andrews, the 2i/c senior SOCO, knocked on the door and entered

  the office, at once uncertain whether to address himself to Morse or to

  Lewis. He decided on the former: "Safe, I
reckon, to move him now? Dr

  Hobson says there's not much else she can do here."

  Morse shrugged.

  "You'd better ask Sergeant Lewis. He's in charge."

  And Lewis rose to the occasion.

  "Yes, move him. Thank you."

  As he was about to leave, Andrews noticed the TV set. "Mind if I just see

  how Northants are getting on in the cricket?"

  "Important to you, is it?" queried Morse mildly. Andrews was digitally

  discovering Sport (Cricket) on Ceefax when the office door burst open to

  admit a florid-faced Chief Superintendent Strange, an officer resolutely

  determined to retain the appellation

  "Chief, whatever most of his collateral colleagues in the Force were doing.

  "You've ruined my afternoon's golf, Lewis! You know that?"

  Surprisingly, the words were spoken with little sign of animus. But before

  Lewis could respond in any way, Strange was addressing Morse in considerably

  sharper tones: "And how exactly do you come to be here?"

  "Same as you really, sir.

  Ruined my day, too. I was just indulging in a little Egyptian PT - ' "After