Inspector Morse 12 Death is Now My Neighbour

by Colin Dexter

  'I don't know,' admitted Morse.

  'All right. Angela's car's there waiting for me, yes? How did I get out of the hotel? There's only the one exit, so I must have slipped unnoticed past a sleeping night-porter-' He stopped. 'Have you checked up whether the front doors are locked after midnight?'

  Yes, we've checked.'

  'And are they?'

  They are.'

  'So?' Again Storrs appeared puzzled.

  'So the only explanation is that you weren't in the hotel that night at all,' said Morse slowly.

  'Really? And who signed the bloody bill on Sunday -what - ten o'clock? Quarter past?'

  'Twenty past. We've tried to check everything. You signed the bill, sir, using your own Lloyds Visa Card.'

  Suddenly Storrs turned his back and stared out of the rain-flecked window once more:

  'Look! You must forgive me. I've been leading you up the garden padi, I'm afraid. But it was extremely interesting hearing your story. Outside, just to the left - we can't quite see it from here - is what the splendid brochure calls its "outdoor heated exercise plunge pool". I was there that morning. I was there just after breakfast -about half past eight. Not just me, either. There was a rich American couple who were staying in the Beau Nash

  suite. They came from North Carolina, as I recall, and we must have been there together for twenty minutes or so. Want to know what we were talking about? Bosnia. Bloody Bosnia! Are you satisfied? You say you've tried to check everything. Well, just - check - that! And now, if you don't mind, my dear wife appears to be back. I just hope she's not spent- Good God! She's bought herself anothercoal'

  Lewis, who had himself remained silent throughout the interview, walked across to the rain-flecked window, and saw Mrs Storrs standing beneath the porchway across die garden, wearing a headscarf, dark glasses, and a long expensive-looking white mackintosh. She appeared to be having some litde difficulty unfurling one of die large gaudy umbrellas which the benevolent management left in clumps around the buildings for guests to use when needed - needed as now, for die rain had come on more heavily.

  Morse, too, got to his feet and joined Lewis at the window, where Storrs was quiedy humming diat tune again.

  Der Garten trauert...

  The garden is mourning...

  'Would you and your good lady like to join me for a drink, sir? In die bar downstairs?'

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  Hypoglycaemia (n): abnormal reduction of sugar content of the blood - for Diabetes sufferers a condition more difficult to spell than to spot

  (Small's Enlarged English Dictionary, lyth Edition)

  'WHAT DO YOU think they're talking about up there, sir?'

  'He's probably telling her what to say.'

  Morse and Lewis were seated side-by-side in the Dower House lounge - this time with their backs turned on Lord Ellmore, since two dark-suited men sat drinking coffee in front of the fireplace.

  Julian Storrs and a black-tied waiter appeared almost simultaneously.

  'Angela'll be down in a minute. Just changing. Got a bit wet shopping.'

  'Beforeshe bought the coat, I hope, sir,' said Lewis.

  Storrs gave a wry smile, and the waiter took their order.

  'Large Glenfiddich for me,' said Storrs. 'Two pieces of ice.'

  Morse clearly approved. 'Same for me. What'H you have, Lewis?'

  'Does the budget run to an orange juice?'

  'And' (Morse turned to Storrs) 'what can we get for your wife?'

  'Large gin and slim-line tonic. And put 'em all on my bill, waiter. Room thirty-six.'

  Morse made no protestation; and Lewis smiled quietly to himself. It was his lucky day.

  'Ah! "Slim-line tonic",' repeated Morse. 'Cuts out the sugar, I believe.'

  Storrs made no comment, and Morse continued:

  'I know your wife's diabetic, sir. We checked up. We even checked up on what you both had to eat last weekend.'

  'Well done!'

  'Only one thing puzzles me really: your wife's breakfast on Sunday morning.' He gestured to Lewis, the latter now reading from his notebook:

  'Ricicles - that's sort of sugar-frosted toasted rice - my kids used to love 'em, sir - toast and honey, a fruit cocktail, orange juice, and then some hot chocolate."

  'Not, perhaps,' added Morse, 'the kind of breakfast a diabetic would normally order, is it? All that sugar? Everything else she ate here was out of the latest diabetic cook-book.'

  'Do you know anything about diabetes, Chief Inspector?'

  It was a new voice, sharp and rather harsh - for Angela Storrs, dressed in the inevitable trouser-suit (lime-green, this time), but most unusually minus the

  dark glasses, had obviously caught some (most5) of the previous conversation:

  'Not much,' admitted Morse as he sought to rise from his deep, low chair. 'I've only been diagnosed a week."

  'Please don't get up!' It sounded more an order tfian a request.

  She took a seat next to her husband on the sofa. 'I've had diabetes for ten years myself. But you'll learn soon enough. You see, one of the biggest dangers for insulin-dependent diabetics is not, as you might expect, excessively high levels of blood sugar, but excessively low levels: hypoglycaemia, it's called. Are you on insulin yourself?'

  "Yes, and tfiey did try to tell me something about-'

  "You're asking about last weekend. Let me tell you. On Saturday evening my blood sugar was low - very low; and when Julian asked me about breakfast I decided to play things safe. I did have some glucose with me; but I was still low on Sunday morning. And if it's of any interest, I thoroughly enjoyed my sugary breakfast. A rare treat!'

  The drinks had arrived.

  'Look!' she continued, once the waiter had asked for her husband's signature on die bill. 'Let me be honest widi you. Julian has just told me why you're here. He'd already told me about everything else anyway: about his ridiculous affair with that young Rachel woman; about that slimy specimen Owens.'

  'Did you hate him enough to murder him?'

  '/ did,' interrupted Storrs vehemently. 'God rot his soul!'

  'And about this Mastership business?' Morse looked from one to the other. *You were in that together?'

  It was Julian Storrs who answered. 'Yes, we were. I told Angela the truth immediately, about my illness, and we agreed to cover it all up. You see' (suddenly he was looking very tired) 'I wanted it so much. I wanted it more than anything - didn't I, Angela?'

  She smiled, and gently laid her own hand over his. 'And /did too, Julian.'

  Morse drained his whisky, and thirsted for another.

  'Mrs Storrs, I'm going to ask you a very blunt question - and you must forgive me, because that's my job. What would you say if I told you that you didn't sleep with your husband last Saturday night - that you slept with another man?'

  She smiled again; and for a few moments the angularity of her face had softened into the lineaments of a much younger woman.

  'I'd just hope he was a good lover.'

  'But you'd deny it?'

  'A childish accusation like that? It's hardly worth denying!'

  Morse turned to Storrs. 'And you, sir? What would you say if I told you that you didn't sleep with your wife last Saturday night - that you slept with another woman?'

  'I'd just hope shevfas a good lover, I suppose.'

  'But you'd deny it, too?'

  'Of course.'

  'Anything elseyou want to check?' asked Angela Storrs.

  'Well, just the one thing really, because I'm still not quite sure that I've got it right.' Morse took a deep

  breath, and exhaled rather noisily. You say you came here with your husband in his BMW, latish last Saturday afternoon - stayed here together overnight - then drove straight back to Oxford together the next morning. Is that right, Mrs Storrs?'

  'Not quite, no. We drove back via Cirencester and Burford. In fact, we had a bite of lunch at a pub in Burford and we had a look in two or three antiques shops there. I nearly bought a si
lver toast-rack, but Julian thought it was grossly overpriced.'

  'I see ... I see ... In that case, it's about time we told you something else,' said Morse slowly. 'Don't you think so, Sergeant Lewis?'

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Is this a question?' (from an Oxford entrance examination)

  If it is, this could be an answer.' (one candidate's reply)

  APART FROM themselves and the two men still drinking coffee, the large lounge was now empty.

  'Perhaps we could all do with another drink?' It was Morse's suggestion.

  'Not for me,' said Angela Storrs.

  'I'm all right, thank you,' said Julian Storrs.

  'Still finishing this one,' said Lewis.

  Morse felt for the cellophaned packet; and almost fell. He stared for a while out of the windows: heavy rain now, through which a hotel guest occasionally scuttled across to the Dower House, head and face wholly indistinguishable beneath one of die gay umbrellas. How easy it was to hide when it was raining!

  Almost reluctantly, it seemed, Morse made the penultimate revelation:

  'There was someone else staying here last Saturday

  night, someone I think both of you know. She was staying - yes, it was a woman! - in the main part of the hotel, across there in Room fifteen. That woman was Dawn Charles, the receptionist at the Harvey Clinic in Banbury Road.'

  Storrs turned to his wife. 'Good heavensl Did you realize that, darling?'

  'Don't be silly! I don't even know the woman.'

  'It's an extraordinarily odd coincidence, though,' persisted Morse. 'Don't you think so?'

  'Of course it's odd,' replied Angela Storrs. 'All coincidences are odd - by definition! But life's full of coincidences.'

  (Lewis smiled inwardly. How often had he heard those selfsame words from Morse.)

  'But this wasn't a coincidence, Mrs Storrs.'

  It was Julian Storrs who broke the awkward, ominous silence that had fallen on die group.

  'I don't know what that's supposed to mean. All I'm saying is that /didn't see her. Perhaps she's a Faure fan herself and came for the Abbey concert like we did. You'll have to ask her, surely?'

  'If we do,' said Morse simply, confidently, 'it won't be long before we learn the trudi. She's not such a competent liar as you are, sir - as the pair of you are!'

  The atmosphere had become almost dangerously tense as Storrs got to his feet 'I am not going to sit here one minute longer and listen-'

  'Sit down!' said his wife, with an authority so assertive that one of die cofFee-drinkers turned his head briefly in her direction as Morse continued:

  "You both deny seeing Miss Charles whilst she was here?'

  Tes.'

  'Yes.'

  'Thank you. Sergeant? Please?'

  Lewis re-opened his notebook, and addressed Mrs Storrs directly:

  'So it couldn't possibly have been you, madam, who filled a car with petrol at Burford on that Saturday afternoon?'

  'Last Saturday? Certainly not!' She almost spat the words at her new interlocutor.

  But Lewis appeared completely unabashed. 'Have you lost your credit card recently?'

  'Why do you ask that?'

  'Because someone made a good job of signing your name, that's all. For twelve pounds of Unleaded Premium at the Burford Garage on the A4O at about three o'clock last Saturday.'

  'What exactly are you suggesting?' The voice sounded menacingly calm.

  'I'm suggesting that you drove here to Bath that day in your own car, madam-'

  But she had risen to her feet herself now.

  "You were right, Julian. We are not going to sit here a second longer. Come along!'

  But she got no further than the exit, where two men stood barring her way: two dark-suited men who had been sitting for so long beneath the portrait of the bland Lord Ellmore.

  She turned round, her nostrils flaring, her wide naked

  eyes now blazing with fury, and perhaps (as Morse saw them) with hatred, too, and despair.

  But she said nothing further, as Lewis walked quietly towards her.

  'Angela Miriam Storrs, it is my duty as a police officer to arrest you on the charge of murder. The murder of Geoffrey Gordon Owens, on Sunday, the third of March 1996. It is also my duty to warn you that anything you now say may be taken down in writing and used in evidence at any future hearing.'

  She stood where she was; and still said nothing.

  Chief Inspector Morse, too, stood where he was, wondering whether his sergeant had got the wording quite right, as Detective Inspector Briggs and Detective Constable Bott, both of the Avon CID, led Angela Miriam Storrs away.

  PART SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Twas the first and last time that I'd iver known women to use the pistol. They fear the shot as a rule, but Di'monds-an'-Pearls she did not - she did not

  (Rudyard Kipling, Love-o'-Womtn)

  (BEING THE tape-recorded statement made by Angela Storrs at Thames Valley Police HQ, Kidlington, Oxon, on the morning of 11 March, 1996; transcribed by Detective Sergeant Lewis; and subsequently amended - for minor orthographic and punctuational vagaries - by Detective Chief Inspector Morse.)

  I murdered both of them, Rachel James and Geoffrey Owens. I'm a bit sorry about Rachel.

  I was seventeen when I first started working as a stripper in Soho and then as a prostitute and in some porno flicks. Julian Starrs came along several times to the club where I was performing seven or eight times a night, and he arranged to see me, and we had sex a few times in the West End. He was a selfish sod as I knew from the start, especially in those early days, as far as I was concerned. Which was fine by

  me. He was obsessively jealous about other men and this was something I wasn't used to. He wanted me body and soul, he said, and soon he asked me to marry him. Which was fine by me too.

  I came from no family at all to speak of, but Julian came from a posh family and he had plenty of money. And he was a don at Oxford University and my mum was proud of me. She just wanted me to be somebody important like she'd never been.

  I was unfaithful a few times after a few years, especially with some of the other dons who were about as pathetic as the old boys in the Soho basement who used to stick the odd fiver up your panties.

  I enjoyed life at Oxford. But nobody took to me all that much. I wasn't quite in the same bracket as the others and I used to feel awkward when they asked me about where I'd been to university and all that jazz, because I couldn't even pretend I was one of them. I wanted to be one of them, though - God knows why! Ours wasn't a tight marriage even from the start. It wasn't too long before Julian was off with other women, and soon, as I say, I was off with other men. Including the Master. He needs his sheets changing every day, that man, like they do in the posh hotels. But he was going at last and that started things really, or is it finished things? Julian desperately wanted to be Master and only one person wanted that more than he did. Me!

  In London I'd lived a dodgy, dangerous sort of life

  TT .GO. *

  like any woman on the sex-circuit does. I'd been mauled about quite a few times, and raped twice, once by a white and once by a black, so I can't be accused of racial prejudice. One of the other girls had a water-pistol that fired gentian-blue dye over anybody trying it on. I don't know why it was that colour but I always remember it from the paint-box I had when I was a little girl, next to burnt Siena and crimson Lake. But Julian had something far better than that. He'd kept a pistol from his Army days and after I had a bit of trouble late one Saturday night in Cornmarket with some football thugs, he said he didn't mind me carrying it around sometimes if it made me feel better. Which it did. I had a new-found sense of confidence, and one weekend Julian took me with some of his TA friends out to the shooting-range on Otmoor and for the first time ever I actually fired a pistol. I was surprised how difficult it was, with the way it jerked back and upwards, but I managed it and I loved it. After that I got used to carrying it around with me - lo
aded! - when I was out alone late at night. I felt a great sense of power when I held it.

  Then came our big opportunity. Julian was always going to be a good bet for the Master's job, and we only had Cornford to beat. I always quite liked Denis but he never liked me, and to make up for it I detested his American wife. But this one thing that stood in the way suddenly became two things, because we learned that Julian would probably be

  dead within a year or so although we agreed never to say anything about it to anyone. Then there was that third thing - that bloody man Owens.

  He'd written to Julian not to me, and he'd done his homework properly. He knew I'd been a call-girl (sounds better, doesn't it?). He knew about Julian's latest floozie. And he knew about Julian's illness and guessed he was hiding it from the College. He said he'd be ringing and he did, and they met in the Chapters' Bar at The Randolph. All Owens wanted was money, it seems, and Julian's never been short of that. But Julian played it cool and he went back to the bar later on and had a bit of luck because one of the barmaids knew who Owens was because he'd covered quite a few functions there for the newspapers. We didn't need to hire a detective to find his address because it was in the phone-book!

  I knew what I was doing that morning because I'd already driven round the area twice and I'd done my homework too. I parked on the main road above the terrace and got through a gap in the fence down to the back. I don't think I meant to shoot him but just frighten him to death if I could and let him know that he'd never be able to feel safe in life again if he kept on with his blackmail. Then I saw him behind the kitchen blind, and I suddenly realized how ridiculously easy it would be to solve all our problems. It wouldn't take more than a single second. I knew he lived alone, and I knew this must be him. His head was only a couple of feet away and I saw the pony-tail that Julian had told me about. I'd

  planned to knock on the door and go in and sort things out. But I didn't. I just fired point-blank and that was that. There was a huge thud and a splintering noise and lots of smoke, but only for a second it seemed. Next thing I remember I was sitting in the car trembling all over and expecting to see people rushing around and police sirens and all that. But there was nothing. A few cars drove by and a paper-boy rode past on his bicycle.