by Colin Dexter
And there was a great calm.
(iii)
As I heard the tread of pupils coming up my ancient creaking stairs, I felt like a tired tart awaiting her clients
(A. L. ROWSE, On Life as an Oxford Don)
'It's only me,' he'd spoken into the rusted, serrated Entryphone beside the front door.
He'd heard a brief, distant whirring; then a click; then her voice: 'It's open.'
He walked up the three flights of shabbily carpeted stairs, his mind wholly on the young woman who lived on the top floor. The bone structure of her face looked gaunt below the pallid cheeks; her eyes (for all McClure knew) might once have sparkled like those of glaucopis Athene, but now were dull—a sludgy shade of green, like the waters of the Oxford canal; her nose—tip-tilted in slightly concave fashion, like the contour of a nursery ski-slope—was disfigured (as he saw things) by two cheap-looking silver rings, one drilled through either nostril; her lips, marginally on the thin side of the Aristotelian mean, were ever thickly daubed with a shade of bright orange—a shade that would have been permanently banned from her mouth by any mildly competent beautician, a shade which clashed horribly with the amateurishly applied deep-scarlet dye that streaked her longish, dark-brown hair.
But why such details of her face? Her hair? The mind of this young woman's second client that day, Wednesday, May 25, was firmly fixed on other things as a little breathlessly he ascended the last few narrow, squeaking stairs that led to the top of the Victorian property.
The young woman turned back the grubby top-sheet on the narrow bed, kicked a pair of knickers out of sight behind the shabby settee, poured out two glasses of red wine (£2.99 pence from Oddbins), and was sitting on the bed, swallowing the last mouthful of a Mars bar, when the first knock sounded softly on the door.
She was wearing a creased lime-green blouse, buttoned up completely down the front, black nylon stockings—whose tops came only to mid-thigh, held by a white suspender-belt—and red high-heeled shoes. Nothing more. That's how he wanted her; that's how she was. Beggars were proverbially precluded from overmuch choice and (perforce) 'beggar' she had become, with a triple burden of liabilities: negative equity on her 'studio fiat,' bought five years earlier at the height of the property boom; redundancy (involuntary) from the sales office of a local engineering firm; and a steadily increasing consumption of alcohol. So she had soon taken on a . . . well, a new 'job' really.
To say that in the course of her new employment she was experiencing any degree of what her previous employer called 'job satisfaction' would be an exaggeration. On the other hand, it was certainly the easiest work she'd ever undertaken, as well as being by far the best paid—and (as she knew) she was quite good at it. As soon as she'd settled her bigger debts, though, she'd pack it all in. She was quite definite about that. The sooner the quicker.
The only thing that sometimes worried her was the possibility of her mother finding out that she was earning her living as a cheap tart. Well, no, that wasn't true. An expensive tart, as her current client would soon be discovering yet again. Yes, fairly expensive; but that didn't stop her feeling very cheap.
At the second knock, she rose from the bed, straightened her left stocking, and was now opening the door. Within only a couple of minutes opening her legs, too, as she lay back on the constricted width of the bed, her mascara'ed eyes focusing on a discoloured patch of damp almost immediately above her head.
Almost immediately above his head, too.
It was all pretty simple, really. The trouble was it had never been satisfying, for she had rarely felt more than a minimal physical attraction towards any of her clients. In a curious way she wished she could so feel. But no. Not so far. There was occasionally a sort of wayward fondness, yes. And in fact she was fonder of this particular fellow than any of the others. Indeed, she had once surprised herself by wondering if when he died—well, he was nearly sixty-seven—she might manage to squeeze out a dutiful tear.
It had not occurred to her at the time that there are other ways of departing this earthly life; had not occurred to her, for example, that her present client, Dr. Felix McClure, former Ancient History don of Wolsey College, Oxford, might fairly soon be murdered.
(iv)
A highly geological home-made cake
(CHARLES DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit)
Only one communication, it appeared, was awaiting Julia Stevens that same day when she returned home just after 5 p.m.: a brown envelope (containing a gas bill) propped against the table-lamp just inside her small entrance-hall.
The white envelope, unsealed, lay on the table in the living-room; and beside it was a glacé-iced cake, the legend 'Happy Birthday, Mrs. Stevens' piped in purple on a white background, with an iced floral arrangement in violet and green, the leaves intricately, painstakingly crafted, and clearly the work of an expert in the skill.
Although Brenda Brooks had been Julia's cleaning-lady for almost four years now, she had never addressed her employer as anything but 'Mrs. Stevens'; addressed her so again now, just as on the cake, in the letter folded inside the (NSPCC) birthday card.
Dear Mrs. S,
Just a short note to wish you a very happy birthday & I hope you will enjoy your surprise. Don't look at it too closely as I had a little 'accident' & the icing isn't perfect. When I'd made the flowers & when they were drying a basin fell out of the cupboard & smashed the lot. After saying something like 'oh bother' I had to start again. Never mind I got there in the end.
Regarding my 'accident' I will tell you what really happened. My husband decided to pick a fight a few weeks ago & my doctor thinks he could have broken a bone in my hand & so I can't squeeze the bag very well. I was due to start another icing course next week but he has saved me £38.00!
Have a lovely day & I will see you in the morning—can't wait.
Love & best wishes,
Brenda (Brooks)
After re-reading the letter, Julia looked down lovingly at the cake again, and suddenly felt very moved—and very angry. Brenda (she knew) had hugely enjoyed the cake-decorating classes at the Tech. and had become proudly proficient in the icer's art. All right, the injury was hardly of cosmic proportions, Julia realized that; yet in its own little-world way the whole thing was so terribly sad. And as she looked at the cake again, Julia could now see what Brenda had meant. On closer inspection, the 'Mrs.' was really a bit of a mess; and the loops in each of the 'y's in 'Happy Birthday' were rather uncertain—decidedly wobbly, in fact—as if formulated with tremulous fingers. 'Lacks her usual Daedalian deftness' was Julia the Pedagogue's cool appraisal; yet something warmer, something deeper inside herself, prompted her to immediate action. She fetched her broadest, sharpest kitchen knife and carefully cut a substantial segment of the cake, in such a way as to include most of the mis-handled 'Mrs.'; and ate it all, straightaway.
The sponge-cake was in four layers, striated with cream, strawberry jam, and lemon-butter icing. Absolutely delicious; and she found herself wishing she could share it with someone.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang.
'I didn't say nuffin' in class, Miss, but I want to say 'appy birfday.
'Where are you phoning from, Kevin?'
'Jus' down the road—near the bus-shelter.'
'Would you like to come along and have a piece of birthday cake with me? I mean, it's your birthday, too, isn't it?
'Jus' try stoppin' me, Miss!'
The phone went dead. And thoughtfully, a slight smile around her full lips, Julia retraced her steps to the living-room, where she cut two more segments of cake, the second of which sliced through the middle of the more obviously malformed 'y'; cut them with the same knife—the broadest, sharpest knife she had in all her kitchen armoury.
(v)
After working for two weeks on a hard crossword puzzle, Lumberjack Hafey, a teacher in Mandan, became a raving maniac when unable to fill in the last word. When found, he was in the alcove of the old homestead sitting on the floor, pulling hi
s hair and shrieking unintelligible things
(Illinois Chronicle, October 3, 1993)
Much earlier that same day, Detective Sergeant Lewis had found his chief sitting well forward in the black-leather chair, shaking his head sadly over The Times crossword puzzle.
'Not finished it yet, sir?'
Morse looked up briefly with ill-disguised disdain. 'There is, as doubtless you observe, Lewis, one clue an one clue only remaining to be entered in the grid. The rest I finished in six minutes flat; and, if you must know, without your untimely interruption—'
'Sorry!'
Morse shook his head slowly. 'No. I've been sitting here looking at the bloody thing for ten minutes.'
'Can I help?'
'Extremely improbable!'
'Don't you want to try me?'
Reluctantly Morse handed over the crossword, and Lewis contemplated the troublesome clue: 'Kick in the pants?' (3-5). Three of the eight letters were entered: – I – – L – S –.
A short while later Lewis handed the crossword back across the desk. He'd tried so hard, so very hard, to make some intelligent suggestion; to score some Brownie points. But nothing had come to mind.
'If it's OK with you, sir, I'd like to spend some time down at St. Aldate's this morning—see if we can find some link between all these burglaries in North Oxford.'
'Why not? And good luck. Don't give 'em my address though, will you?'
After Lewis had gone, Morse stared down at the crossword again. Seldom was it that he failed to finish things off, and that within a pretty smartish time, too. All he needed was a large Scotch . . . and the answer (he knew) would hit him straight between the eyes. But it was only 8:35 a.m. and—
It hit him.
Scotch!
As he swiftly filled in the five remaining blank squares, he was smiling beatifically, wishing only that Lewis had been there to appreciate the coup de grace.
But Lewis wasn't.
And it was only many months later that Lewis was to learn—and then purely by accident—the answer to that clue in The Times crossword for May 25, 1994, a day (as would appear in retrospect) on which so many things of fateful consequence were destined to occur.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Pension: generally understood to mean monies grudgingly bestowed on aging hirelings after a lifetime of occasional devotion to duty
(Small Enlarged English Dictionary, 12th Edition)
JUST AFTER NOON on Wednesday, August 31, 1994, Chief Inspector Morse was seated at his desk in the Thames Valley Police HQ building at Kidlington, Oxon—when the phone rang.
'Morse? You're there, are you? I thought you'd probably be in the pub by now.'
Morse forbore the sarcasm, and assured Chief Superintendent Strange—he had recognised the voice—that indeed he was there.
'Two things, Morse—but I'll come along to your office.'
'You wouldn't prefer me—?'
'I need the exercise, so the wife says.'
Not only the wife, mumbled Morse, as he cradled the phone, beginning now to clear the cluttered papers from the immediate desk-space in front of him.
Strange lumbered in five minutes later and sat down heavily on the chair opposite the desk.
'You may have to get that name-plate changed.'
Strange and Morse had never really been friends, but never really been enemies either; and some good-natured bantering had been the order of the day following the recommendation of the Sheehy Report six months earlier that the rank of Chief Inspector should be abolished. Mutual bantering, since Chief Superintendents, too, were also likely to descend a rung on the ladder.
It was a disgruntled Strange who now sat wheezing methodically and shaking his head slowly. 'It's like losing your stripes in the Army, isn't it? It's . . . it's . . .'
'Belittling,' suggested Morse.
Strange looked up keenly. ''Demeaning'—that's what I was going to say. Much better word, eh? So don't start trying to teach me the bloody English language.'
Fair point, thought Morse, as he reminded himself (as he'd often done before) that he and his fellow police-officers should never underestimate the formidable Chief Superintendent Strange.
'How can I help, sir? Two things, you said.'
'Ah! Well, yes. That's one, isn't it? What we've just been talking about. You see, I'm jacking the job in next year, as you've probably heard?'
Morse nodded cautiously.
'Well, that's it. It's the, er, pension I'm thinking about.'
'It won't affect the pension.'
'You think not?'
'Sure it won't. It's just a question of getting all the paperwork right. That's why they're sending all these forms around—'
'How do you know?' Strange's eyes shot up again, sharply focused, and it was Morse's turn to hesitate.
'I—I'm thinking of, er, jacking in the job myself, sir.'
'Don't be so bloody stupid, man! This place can't afford to lose me and you.'
'I shall only be going on for a couple of years, whatever happens.'
'And . . . and you've had the forms, you say?'
Morse nodded.
'And . . . and you've actually filled 'em in?' Strange's voice sounded incredulous.
'Not yet, no. Forms always give me a terrible headache. I've got a phobia about form-filling.'
No words from Morse could have been more pleasing, and Strange's moon-face positively beamed. 'You know, that's exactly what I said to the wife—about headaches and all that.'
'Why doesn't she help you?'
'Says it gives her a headache, too.'
The two men chuckled amiably.
'You'd like me to help?' asked Morse tentatively.
'Would you? Be a huge relief all round, I can tell you. We could go for a pint together next week, couldn't we? And if I go and buy a bottle of aspirin—'
'Make it two pints.'
'I'll make it two bottles, then.'
'You're on, sir.'
'Good. That's settled then.'
Strange was silent awhile, as if considering some matter of great moment. Then he spoke.
'Now, let's come to the second thing I want to talk about—far more important.'
Morse raised his eyebrows. 'Far more important than pensions?'
'Well, a bit more important perhaps.'
'Murder?'
'Murder.'
'Not another one?'
'Same one. The one near you. The McClure murder.'
'Phillotson's on it.'
'Phillotson's off it.'
'But—'
'His wife's ill. Very ill. I want you to take over.'
'But—'
'You see, you haven't got a wife who's very ill, have you? You haven't got a wife at all.'
'No,' replied Morse quietly. No good arguing with that.
'Happy to take over?'
'Is Lewis—?'
'I've just had a quick word with him in the canteen. Once he's finished his egg and chips . . .'
'Oh!'
'And'—Strange lifted his large frame laboriously from the chair—'I've got this gut-feeling that Phillotson wouldn't have got very far with it anyway.'
'Gut-feeling?'
'What's wrong with that?' snapped Strange. 'Don't you ever get a gut-feeling?'
'Occasionally . . .'
'After too much booze!'
'Or mixing things, sir. You know what I mean: few pints of beer and a bottle of wine.'
'Yes . . .' Strange nodded. 'We'll probably both have a gut-feeling soon, eh? After a few pints of beer and a bottle of aspirin.'
He opened the door and looked at the name-plate again. 'Perhaps we shan't need to change them after all, Morse.'
CHAPTER TWO
Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
A-top on the topmost twig—which the pluckers forgot somehow—
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now
(D. G. ROSSETTI
, Translations from Sappho)
IT WAS TO BE only the second time that Morse had ever taken over a murder enquiry after the preliminary—invariably dramatic—trappings were done with: the discovery of the deed, the importunate attention of the media, the immediate scene-of-crime investigation, and the final removal of the body.
Lewis, perceptively, had commented that it was all a bit like getting into a football match twenty-five minutes late, and asking a fellow spectator what the score was. But Morse had been unimpressed by the simile, since his life would not have been significantly impoverished had the game of football never been invented.
Indeed, there was a sense in which Morse was happier to have avoided any in situ inspection of the corpse, since the liquid contents of his stomach almost inevitably curdled at the sight of violent death. And he knew that the death there had been violent—very violent indeed. Much blood had been spilt, albeit now caked and dirty-brown—blood that would still (he supposed) be much in evidence around the chalk-lined contours of the spot on the saturated beige carpet where a man had been found with an horrific knife-wound in his lower belly.
'What's wrong with Phillotson?' Lewis had asked as they'd driven down to North Oxford.
'Nothing wrong with him—except incompetence. It's his wife. She's had something go wrong with an operation, so they say. Some, you know, some internal trouble . . . woman's trouble.'
